Cult Following

July 8, 2024
“Joining a cult is one of the most human things a person can do,” according to this lively survey. In 30 short, easily digestible chapters, travel writer Ocker (Cursed Objects) emphasizes that “nobody actually joins a cult.” Instead, they join what feels to them like a “community,” making the hallmark of a cult—its slowly building isolation and control—difficult for adherents to detect. He groups his chapters in sections classifying each cult by the human needs they fulfilled for members. These include “protection” (like that offered to the runaway youths of the Manson Family) and “purpose” (such as that promised by Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo cult—whose followers perpetrated the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attacks—which offered burned-out young professionals a sense of spiritual well-being that was later channeled into a desire to bring about the end of the society that had overworked them and repressed them spiritually). Punchily written (“Always be suspicious when an organization rebrands” is one of Ocker’s quippy but also salient pieces of advice), this survey is nevertheless quite rigorous, going surprisingly in-depth and avoiding prurient rubbernecking. Ocker provides lots of fascinating historical detail, like how the idea of “cognitive dissonance” was first named in the 1950s by sociologists studying the Seekers, the first UFO cult. It’s a must-read for those with a taste for cult narratives.