tbh nothing prepared me better for 2020 than the ~2 years I spent periodically evading psychological capture by various new age cults due to my proximity to another high-dollar target

HBO & Starz *both* have new series on the NXIVM cult, and I recommend watching either of them and periodically reminding yourself that this would've still been going on at a healthy clip if nobody had had the bright idea to start hot-iron branding women

A lot of the same themes and ideas recur in successful spiritual and philosophical cults, because they're generally useful concepts and they speak to confusing and aversive desires that a lot of people feel unable to explore on their own. That's not the problem

The problem is that people experiencing novel insights and breakthroughs are very vulnerable to becoming hooked on that fix, associating it with a single person or small hierarchy, and becoming rapidly uninterested in finding meaning or purpose elsewhere

I don't think this requires brilliant master-planning; it crops up organically amongst people who are living in a perpetual state of low-level panic and uncertainty, who lack achievable cultural milestones and are beholden to norms that make them feel bad about what they want

IMO, 2020 is the year that the *political* cult really metastasized as an organizing force in American life, though it was developing for years prior. All the same elements: gurufication of leadership, separation of friends and families, doctrine above discussion

To be clear, I never got super deep into any particular cult or cult-like org. At one point I began training to become a sort of psychological mapping coach for one lesser-known group, but I dropped off in the second week.

Most of the groups I was involved in were very small and to this day have no real name recognition outside of very niche Californian techie/burner circles. They varied widely wrt the degree to which I felt they were harmless (sometimes even beneficial) or actively manipulative

I don't think people really understand how many little groups like this exist or their mechanisms for growth. The leaders who are successful tend to target the moneyed-but-meaningless, B/C-list celebrities and "social butterfly" nodes in well-connected networks

One thing I want to highlight is that they *do* tend to give people some degree of self-empowerment, and they generally do let people self-select into high-commitment and potentially more manipulative roles. It's not the "brainwashing" a lot of people have come to expect.

People choose for themselves whether or not they will tie their own identity, sense of purpose and economic/romantic opportunities into an all-consuming hierarchy. It doesn't make sense to try to "force" any free individual into that; it makes sense to capture it when it arises.

The people who wind up most harmed by cults tend to be (1) the people whose commitments cause them to be complicit in perpetuating the harm, and (2) partners and children who must remain in good standing with the leadership in order to maintain their most important relationships

If there is any single belief that can act as a strong antibody to cult indoctrination, it's probably the belief that the people closest to you can be good — morally sound, wise and deeply loving — even if they fundamentally disagree with you about how the world works.

I say "the people closest to you" because these are the people you know. You have evidence about whether they're kind and thoughtful. You don't have to adopt a belief about the universal goodness of humanity, you just have to trust your own judgment and not delegate it away.