The Curse of Cults

It's mid-afternoon already on a Sunday, when everyone is having this sinking feeling that the weekend is coming to an end already, and soon we'd be back in our daily grind. I'd wanted to blog yesterday but some family chores swallowed up all my time. 

Today, I managed to steal sometime to come here to Cyberjaya to check on my apartment. The sky is dark and cloudy outside as I type these words. I'm not going to linger here long, but hopefully long enough for me to finish writing this blog post, which is going to touch on the topic of...religion (again!).

I reread one of the many articles I've written on this subject, one entitled The Fire of Religion and find myself nodding in agreement with what I wrote in 2019. Do I have anything new to add? Probably not. But since this is my own blog, I make all editorial decisions and religion it is!

Religion is sensitive because it is something a believer holds deeply in the heart, it is its refuge in times of difficulty and it promises salvation in a life which could prove difficult and challenging, not to mention the truth about our mortality, which confronts every one of us. If we ridicule someone's belief, people feel it like a gut punch--being hit at one's most vulnerable spot. 

Religion is couched in rituals and doctrines because these are great intuition pumps (to borrow Daniel Dennett's term). We need drama and stories to induce a particular state of mind in an individual and also a community. I admire religion for its ability to bind communities together and make them embrace a larger purpose. When we have this going as part of human civilisation, we call it culture; when it is systematised and enhanced with a dose of metaphysics, it becomes religion. But when religion is taken more seriously than it should be, we veer into the region of cultism.

There's a certain allure in being a member of a cult, that sense of belonging to a higher cause. And the follower feels 'fortunate' that he or she has been accepted into this 'privileged' group. They feel protected and blessed under the embrace of a cult leader who is charismatic and seemingly wiser than everyone else. Whatever the leader says is taken to be the undisputable truth.  

Cultism is like mob behaviour.  The mob doesn't think--it only acts, sometimes violently, when stirred into a frenzy. When you surround yourself with people who are fanatical about some cause, it is easy to be caught up in the excitement and romance of it all.  Sports fans supporting their favourite team are like that too. As loyal supporters of football clubs like Liverpool or Manchester United, we willingly submit ourselves to a cult, all in the name of good fun. Hopefully that's as far as it'll go.

The Communist parties in every country during and after the WWII were also religious cults. They all had charismatic leaders and members who blindly follow the doctrines of the cult to disastrous consequences. Cults like to think that they are saving themselves and the world from an impending doom. It is us against the ignorant masses and we are privileged enough to see the light. Workers of the world unite!

Cults, led by these self-styled saviour-leaders,  are driven by visions utopia--The Rapture, a Classless Society, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth! It plays on our sense of drama and our love for epic myths. As I've said before, only stories can stir us because our brains are wired that way. Our susceptibility to cults is something that we have to be wary of. It is simply religion veering woefully off-course.