anything goes with emma chamberlain - cultish, a talk with amanda montell [video]

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

[video available on spotify] today i present to you, amanda montell: a writer, linguist, and fellow podcast host. amanda has written three books. one of them, the age of magical overthinking, is about to come out. today i want to zoom in on one of our many common interests. she wrote an entire book about cults, the language used in cults, and cult-like behavior, and i'm excited to discuss how we participate in cult-like behavior on a day-to-day basis without even realizing it. she's really investigated the line between what is a cult and what is just cult-like behavior. and this is something I am curious to explore because I think it's a little bit more relevant than we even realize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, I present to you Amanda Montel, a writer, a linguist, a fellow podcast host. We're going to podcast together so hard. It's going to be scary for all of you at home. Two podcasters together and now that's dangerous. So buckle your seatbelt. Amanda has written three books. One of them is about to come out. It's called The Age of Magical Overthinking. Obviously we're all going to be reading it when it comes out. But today I want to zoom in on one of our many common interests.

She wrote a book called Cultish. She wrote an entire book about cults. The language used in cults, cult-like behavior. I'm excited to talk to her about cults as a whole, but more than anything But more than anything, discuss how we participate in cult-like behavior on a day-to-day basis without even realizing it. And she's really investigated the line between what is a cult and what is just cult-like behavior, what makes it healthy and what makes it dangerous. And this is something I am curious to explore because I think it's a little bit more relevant than we even realize. At public mobile, we do things differently.

From our subscription phone plans to throwing a big sale right now when no one else is. Well, maybe they are, but who cares? mobile, we do things differently. It's the perfect deal for anyone who could use some savings right now. Subscribe today at publicmobile.ca. Different is calling. This episode is brought to you by Lego Duplo. Take your toddler and their most exciting learning adventure yet, with Lego Duplo sets of everyday life. From the excitement of the dream playground to the fun filled, three-in-one treehouse, little ones can dive into a world of imagination and explore, learn, and grow along the way. Make playtime a memorable journey filled with

wonder and discovery. Lego Duplo sets! Everyday life is their big adventure to learn and grow. Lego is a trademark of the Lego group. What got you interested in cults? Like when did that become a fascination for you? The seed was really planted by my dad. My dad spent his teenage years against his will in a cult called synonym. It was an extremely exploitative, classic 70s cult. And it was stationed in the Bay area when my dad was there in the late 60s and early 70s.

It started out as an alternative drug rehabilitation center that grew to accommodate so-called lifestyleers or people who were just interested in the counter-cultural movement of the era. And my dad's dad was one of those people who was kind of bored of nuclear family life and wanted in on this experimental lifestyle. So he forced my dad, who was 14 at the time, to move to this compound where children lived separately from their parents and these dismal barracks, and people weren't allowed to work,

or go to school on the outside, although my dad did lay low and hitched a ride into San Francisco every day, so he could go to a normal school. And yeah, so it was really oppressive. Everybody wore similar clothes, but the life in Sinanon was defined by this one core activity, which was a mandatory, nightly ritual called the game,

which was framed as a form of group therapy, but really it was a means of social control where everyone was divided into groups. They would gather in a circle and be subjected to hours of vicious interpersonal criticism. So they would call some out and say, Emma, I'm not going to insult you, but by the way, you can't. I'm not a sensitive person. I can fucking to actually, I'm so sensitive, but I can take it. Oh my God. I would, I don't know if I would be good at the synonym game, I would like to try it. I would be terrible.

I'd be like, you're super, you're really gorgeous. You're like really too gorgeous. Giving hot. Yes, so sweet. I don't think either of us would be good at this. I think I would be. So that was sort of the centerpiece of life in Sinanon. So my dad escaped as soon as he could at the age of 17

went on to become a research scientist, my mom's a scientist too, and I grew up on these stories of Sinanon. And as I came of age, I couldn't help but notice that the techniques of influence that my dad described on the compound showed up in everyday life, like my high school theater program and, you know, yes, yes.

And like the startup where I worked in my early 20s and certainly once I moved to LA, the ways that everyone would talk about fitness, soul cycle, wellness, goob, you know. I was like, cultishness is everywhere. And I studied linguistics in college, languages, my passion. It's like the lens through which I'm sorry, Ernest. Yeah.

But it's like the lens through which I see the world. And so I see cultishness, but more so I hear it. And so the ways that we speak every day are really reflective of our various degrees of cult-ish influence. Do you think growing up around these heavier stories about synonym was helpful for you in some ways? Do you feel like it made you more keen

about the ways that you can be manipulated? Do you feel like you were less gullible about the ways that you can be manipulated. Like do you feel like you were less goalable because you were exposed to that? It's as a young age. I would like to think so. Interesting, because, okay, yes. Yeah, well, when I set out to write cultish,

I kind of fell a little smug about myself as a lot of us do, we watch cult documentaries and we hear these stories and we think, I'd never fall for a group like that. Doomsday Preppers, you know, the Heaven's Gate Types. How could they ever believe this, you know, Poppycock totally. So obviously untrue or I would like to think I'm not so amenable to this type of group. But indeed, I was humbled by the research process because I would speak to members of cult-ish groups along this wide spectrum.

And I saw myself in them. Like they were not the sort of desperate, you know, intellectually deficient stereotype that tends to be portrayed by the media coverage of so many of these cult tragedies. They were, if nothing else, optimistic, extremely so. I think of myself as a super optimistic person. They were service-oriented. They were really interested in actively finding their life purpose. They were not interested in mainstream institutions, mainstream healthcare system, government, traditional religion, they were sort of counter-cultural, and these groups tend to flourish during times of broader sociopolitical tumult like

now. I really saw myself in a lot of them. So it's been fascinating to take everything I believed about cults. Like, oh, I know what a cult is. You know it when you see it, you know? There are so many quotes that sort of reflect that prevailing wisdom. Like a cult is a group where the leader thinks he can talk to God. A religion is a group where that leader is dead.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. to define actually objectively. It's so sensationalist, it's so alarmist, and there's something about them that's not all bad. That's why they're alluring. That's why people end up in them. Totally. They are aesthetic.

Yes. They do provide a sense of community and belonging and ritual and meaning these things that we all want. And up until a certain point, they're great. I did research about what a cult was, and it was interesting because every result was a little bit different.

I think a misconception I had about cults was that they're all religious. Like they're all very, very spiritual, and there's always a God. That's what I assumed. That's actually not the definition. The definition is more about there being a set of rules in a really strong leader,

and it usually ends badly. Like that's kind of how I've seen it. Well, like what's so wild is that like, there are plenty of cult-like groups that actually don't have one singular leader with a face I mean, QAnon. Who's the leader? And that's part of the mystique

and that's part of what makes it so insidious. Yeah. But I feel you because I grew up with these scientists parents, you know, one of them was a cult survivor. I was sort of conditioned to think cult must have some element of the metaphysical or the supernatural, but synonym didn't. It wasn't a religious group.

So the whole experience of writing this book and seeing cultishness in everyday society has really like invited me and I hope others too to look more at our own cultish affiliations and to have more empathy toward people who it would be so easy to say like, oh, they're in a cold-air brainwash. Yeah. Being somebody who has a way with words, you. What is your definition of a cold in your head? I wish I had something super succinct like a sound by doing, you know, to do it to deliver in every interview,

but genuinely like, there is such a continuum of this type of influence. So whenever I'm talking about these groups, I tend to either get really, really specific with my language, and if I'm talking about a 90s era Millenarian Doomsday sect, that's what I'll say, but that's a mouthful. Yeah. So what I will often opt to say instead is a sort of hedge. I'll say well, that group is cult-ish, which doesn't necessarily have to be super destructive.

Honestly, the bounds separating, cult from religion, from culture, from celebrity worship, a cult leader can be a politician meets business leader, meets celebrity. Like these boundaries are so blurry. And I think we're all, you know, we're all a member of a group like that, but we might not all be comfortable describing it as a full-blown cult. So we can at the very least say, okay, yeah, the group is cult-ish. Sometimes I'll be cheeky about it,

but I go line dancing every week. Oh, that's so cute. Have you heard about the line dancing in LA? No. I don't even wanna shout it out because I think I'm just gonna go for it. I'm just gonna keep the line dancing. Is it so fun?

It's the bad, we'll offline about it. Oh, yes. I need something like that. Something pure and real. It is that. Something pure and real. It is, it's pure and real. That's gorgeous. It's, it's delish and it, it, it, it, I mean, listen, it comes with a language, a culture, an aesthetic,

rituals and I am all in. It does have a leader. I would do anything for you. That's why I feel about my hot Pilates instructor. Yep, this guy is like to me, like he is totally, he kind of has a coltie following it. Yeah.

And I'm totally buying it. And I, but it's so positive for me. Yeah. Like I think we're both right now talking about, you know, a part of our weekly routines that has a cult like feeling to it, Yeah. Like I think we're both right now talking about, you know, a part of our weekly routines that that has a cult like feeling to it, but that's actually kind of healthy. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So maybe let me articulate it this way. The something could be cult-ish, but net positive when it fulfills our inherently human cravings for ritual because we have that. We like to engage in sort of these like traditional practices that signal something important is happening. They satisfy our cravings for meaning. They give us an identity template. It's like we're living in the 21st century. There are nearly infinite

options for directions that our life can go in or at least the illusion of those infinite options we see them online every day. And a cult or a cult-ish group, even a positive one, shows you, like, this is what someone in this group does. This is how they dress, honestly, I don't buy clothes anymore that I can't wear to line dancing. Yeah. I'm obsessed with you and your line dancing.

This is amazing. If there's not Western trim, get it out of my face. No, it's not, it's not being out of your car. I'm like, don't even think about it. Straight up, not on the board. It so it gives you that very comforting identity template. And it infuses your life with purpose and meaning. Those things are good.

But it's when a group becomes too dogmatic about them. It doesn't make any room for questioning. It doesn't give you any dignified exit strategy. That's when it starts to cross the line. That's an interesting distinction that I've never thought of prior to now. Cultish behavior is one thing. Things can be cultish without being a cult.

The line is so blurred. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable how blurred the line is. It's hard to navigate when you know like we all know cults are bad, right? Or we think cults are bad. Yeah, we think it. We think cults are bad. But are they not necessarily?

Yeah. We'll see. We'll get into that. But it's hard. I think it's so, this is why we're all. None of us are safe because there is no manual to navigating. None of us are safe. Okay.

Any of us could like fully like we could avoid a behavior that feels cold-tish because we're like, oh, you know, this is unhealthy. I shouldn't be doing something like this. But meanwhile, that's actually a really healthy human behavior. You totally, yeah. It's very hard to navigate. It's funny that you say that because I was concerned when I set out to write this book

that becoming so hyper aware of how cultishness manifests in the way that I speak and the way that others speak would turn me into like a cynical, misanthrope, you know? And by contrast, it actually made me appreciate our inherent communalism and dreaminess as a species even more. And it made me want to teeter up closer to that very blurry

line. I talk about it differently, and we're talking about it in a way that can seem really paranoid. Like nobody's safe. But genuinely, my message is not necessarily to defect from any group or behavior that could be considered cultish. It's more to lean into that critical thinking and to always have that skeptical twinkle in your eye that suggests that there's always some amount of make believe here. And our identities are more complex

than anyone given group guru or glossary. So maybe the answer is to become a member of multiple different cults. Yeah. So like, yes, diversify your sociospiratory portfolio. Yeah, but also the awareness, like I think it comes down to awareness in a way. You just don't want to lose control. Yeah.

It's when you lose control that things get a little spooky. You don't want to lose too much control. And here's that's the wild thing, right? Because I think part of why people love SoulCycle, and maybe you feel this way. I lost SoulCycle. Total code for you. For you? Yeah, absolutely.

And I'm still, I'm the workout class cult member to a tee. I'm always addicted to one of the other. Funny. Well, actually, I mean, I came across studies that the Harvard Divinity School did. Like this is a top institution that was, you know, finding that people were saying Protestantism is out, church is out. So cycle CrossFit, this is my new religion. People saying CrossFit is my religion.

And when you compare the groups, it's like there is a charismatic leader who has these incredible oratory stylings. But speaking of the sort of like losing control, when I'm a deland, I'm saying. And we love this. This is my reference point, but I'm sure everyone has one that they can think of

from their own life. But I do appreciate a certain feeling of surrender that I feel during that four-hour period, four hours listening to me, it's sometimes even longer. It's amazing. Okay, I'm loving this. We have to talk about Lionel. We get into it.

Next episode's all about lion dancing. I need to know everything. Oh God. But yeah, but a certain amount of surrender actually feels really good. But I like what this one scholar named Gary Eberl said, he defined something as ritual time. There needs to be a period when you engage

in these cultish behaviors, and maybe there's a ritual to signify that that period has begun. And then there needs to be a ritual to signify that that ritual time has ended, whether it's taking off your cowboy boots or blowing out a candle or taking off your shoes or whatever it is. The word sacred literally means to set aside. And so I think that some of these more transcendent surrendering experiences need to be set aside from our more complex nuanced life in order to protect ourselves.

Maybe that is the difference between a healthy situation and an unhealthy situation. When your entire life becomes about this and fatigue off the line dancing floor. Yes, does it follow you all? Clearly yes. But also like, but can you, like, is there,

do you have a life outside of it? Cause like, and I think you do with line dancing and I think I do with my hot Pilates class. You know what I mean? Like I think we have, we have, it's honestly boundaries. Does it come down to boundaries? Like maybe that's it.

It's like having a healthy space where it's like you can surrender in like a safe environment. Yeah. You can surrender and you know, sort of lose control and let somebody else guide you in a way for a little while, knowing that you will be going back to you at some point that day. So here's the trouble.

And there's always like a counter perspective to like everything. We're like, oh, maybe it's this, maybe it's that. It's like, yeah, maybe. Well, listen to this. Right, right. So like a lot of coldish groups are really effective at making you feel like this is a safe space and making

you feel like there's room to push back. But actually you and your gut know that there's something amiss even though they're saying all the right things. And this is why this book is about cult language because I genuinely believe that that is a cult leader's most powerful tool because it's invisible. It's seemingly commitment free. But every clue that this group is maybe too cultish for comfort can be heard in the way that they use language and the way that they encourage their followers to.

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to draw people in. Like, what does that look like? At its most benign and across the board, all cultish groups will have a vocabulary of specialized buzzwords that will carry some amount of emotional charge. We all have this sort of in-group mentality that can be constructed with language and in certain corporate environments that might involve using language. We need to get aligned on this holistic organic initiatives. What know, it's like this sort of, like, what does that even mean? Like, it doesn't really mean anything, or not anything that can't be said in plain English,

or maybe truly nothing at all, but it does signal that you're a part of this in group. And when you, when you use it, you are filled with a sort of a sense of superiority. It's like, I'm on the inside of this group that knows how to use these buzzwords. And just using them alone is a signal that I'm in. And there's an us versus them dichotomy that may or may not be super destructive. But when it starts to become a little bit more of a red flag is when you hear techniques like the thought-terminating cliche, this is like my favorite element of cul-dish language to discuss because once you know what it is, you won't be able to unhure it. It's a sort of stock expression that's easily memorized, easily

repeated and aimed at shutting down independent thinking or questioning. Every cult leader needs a roster of thought-terminating cliches in their arsenal. So thought-terminating cliché might sound like something along the lines of, you know, in a new age group. Well, that's just a limiting belief. Or in, you know, like a pyramid age group, well, that's just a limiting belief. Or in, you know, like a pyramid scheme environment, they might say, well, if you're not making, you know, the money that you were promised, well, that's a victim mindset. Yeah.

And then you can just repeat victim mindset, victim mindset, I can't have a victim mindset, I can't have those limiting beliefs. And thought-terminating cliches also show up in our everyday lives. In the former phrases like, oh, boys will be boys. Or it's all in God's plan. Yeah. Everything happens for a reason. And they're really effective because they put your cognitive

dissonance to bed. You know, when you feel that sickening internal skirmish where you're like this group that I've invested in for so long, you know, it should be great. And I want it to be everything it was promised to be. But actually, I have this intuition that something is Hypocritical or something is a miss a thought terminating cliche can be delivered to you to put that cognitive dissonance right to bed And that will allow those in power to remain in power for a little bit longer. It's eerie how

A lot of us I think even use that type of terminology because we've heard it from probably somebody who was without even probably realizing it at times trying to sort of control your beliefs in a way. And I think a lot of us have adopted that mindset to a point where now we're spreading that, we're using those tactics, thinking that we're doing the right thing, but we're actually adding to something that's really, really unhealthy. Yeah, so like the most destructive version of a thought-terminating cliche might be,

I don't know, if there are any like, tried and true cult girlies watching, you'll know like Warren Jeffs, the former and now imprisoned abusive leader of the fundamentalist Latter-day Saints, he had this phrase keep sweet. He was all about perfection and obedience. The fundamentalist Mormons were like this. Very contained physically isolated group

on the border of Utah, Arizona. And he took many wives. He had like 80 wives. Some of them were underage. And they were all instructed at every turn to keep sweet, which was this very haunting spooky, almost like nursery rhyme sounding phrase that meant like, you cannot question me.

You need to abide by our standards of femininity and subservience and deference. And if you don't, there will be terrifying consequences. You could be excommunicated. You could be punished in various ways. But it was all under the guise of this catchy tagline, keep sweet. Ew. Ew, is right. Yeah. Can this language ever be used in a way that's beneficial? Like I'm not, you think so. Yeah. No, I think this language can be positive because there's nothing inherently sinister about feeling a part of something about rallying around a collective mission my best friend works for a nonprofit and I hear culture language non-profit and nonprofits can be insidiously culty but you know ultimately this is a nonprofit that I support. I think that they're doing amazing work.

And it can be hard to drum up the motivation to continue to fundraise and support a cause where a lot is working against you. And so to have these sort of like ra ra phrases mantra's, if you will, that everyone can lean on for inspiration. I think that can be beautiful. There is something actually, like, physiologically transcendent that happens

when we engage in a group mantra, or a group dance. Like, it really bonds us. And that can be a beautiful thing, but it's when we're in that state of vulnerability that someone uses that to come in and influence us in an insidious way that it's a double-edged sword. Do you think that any cult-like behavior is rooted in vulnerability?

Yeah, I would say vulnerability plus seeking, right? Because like, if you don't have any hope that there is something that can fill that void or that can satisfy that need for belonging and connection, then you're probably not going to seek it out and you're not going to fall into a cult, a good one or a bad one. So it needs to be like a little bit more active. Sometimes I joke that like being super, super skeptical could sure prevent you from the allure of a destructive group, but you'll die alone. Yeah, totally, totally. It's like, that because the whole point of life is these other people, totally. So it's like you're kind of, you're bound to fall into something. Yeah. And you can't, and you can't, whether it's like bad or good, yeah, it's kind of an inevitable thing. Yeah, if you're doing it right, you know? Like who, show me someone who's gone their whole life

without joining something cultish? And I'll probably see someone pretty lonely, you know? So lonely. Yeah, such a good point. Like my dad is so happy and he's a surfer. He is listening. No, that is a cult. That's a cult.

That is a full cult. My dad would be the first guy to say, he'd be like, no, 100%. He's so cool. You kidding me? He's like, he's obsessed. And he's like, and there is. There's the mantras.

There's the, you know, there's the mindset. There's the people. There's the, there's the word. There's the thing keeping. There's the territory. There's the like, you know, there's earning this and earning that. Totally.

It is so, he is gonna LOL when he has me bringing that up. Oh, but here it is. It's like we were just joking just now. We were like, it's totally a cult. Oh my God. Yeah. I'm like blow hardening about how like I only hedge my language. Yeah.

But here's the thing too is that we as conversationalists are so inherently good at being able to pick up on the intentions and the context and the stakes of whatever we're discussing in a conversation like this, that you kind of can use the word cold in this lighthearted of a capacity. And we all know that we're not actually talking about the stakes of heaven's gate. I had this sort of epiphany I had this sort of epiphany recently about religion, like traditional religion. It's not the backbone of society that it used to be, especially in the United States, right? The numbers are going down. A lot of people who even are religious are starting to branch off and form their own individual, spiritual, whatever. And so I

love to analyze these things in my free time. I'm laying in bed and I'm like, what's going to happen with this? Because for so long, traditional religion was the backbone of society. It's how everybody got through challenging times. It's how everyone decided to structure their lives. It was so key and we're losing that. And on top of that, we're in a very confusing unsettling moment where there's just this lack of structure, I think. And I don't necessarily think that that's bad because I think that that just means we're evolving

and we're making changes based on our new circumstances. We're doing what we have to do this, right? I have had this hunch that there's going to be this like resurgence of the 60s and 70s where there's all these cults because history Mirrors itself sometimes it does and are we gonna have a rerun of the 60s and 70s or Are we already experiencing the modern cult? It's just different and it's just not religious.

I think the latter. Me too. And here's what's interesting. Yeah, because as tricky as it is to define the word cult, it's actually even trickier. And religious studies scholars have been arguing for even longer about how to define a religion. Does it need to involve God?

Maybe not necessarily. But you are correct and it's spot on and a living example of it, Gen Z women are actually the population who is rejecting religion faster than anyone else. It was true for a long time like Pew Research data reflected for a very long time that women were actually more religious than anyone else. And very recent Pew data has reflected that I think 49% of Gen Z women identify as religious nuns not identifying with any religious community whatsoever, but our desire for all of these things, you know, connection and something to believe in doesn't go away.

Like we as humans have always been like lovers of fiction. We don't know why we're fucking here. Yeah, yeah. We don't know what the point of all of this is. So we have to make it up. And like even if we are you know obsessed with physics and empirical facts, it still doesn't fulfill this sort of emotional psychological need to answer the question of why? Why? How do we spend our time meaningfully? How do we experience awe? How do we connect with others most effectively and meaningfully?

It's like, it's a confounding existence that I think you're right. And a way is only becoming more confounding as we become more globalized, as we at the same time become lonelier and more disconnected, but there's the illusion of connectedness through social media. We compare despair when we look online. And we've lost touch a little bit with that sense of, you know, tight knit tribalism that our species was built on. So yeah, there's a lot going on.

But at the same time, you know, our cultishness is going to look different than it did in the 60s and 70s, despite being motivated by similar things, because our culture looks different, and the language is going to sound different. But yeah, like in the 60s and 70s, we think of that as a peak cult moment because, you know, we had the Vietnam war and the civil rights movement and the Kennedy assassinations, there were like so many things that caused the average person to lose trust in the church and in the government and healthcare system like now. And that's when we saw so many sort of like

a cultic movements start, you know, the sort of like a mid-Samar-esque vibe. The Mansons and such. And now cults are largely online. This episode is brought to you by Priscilla, And now, cults are largely online. I don't like Elvis Presley. Of course. Who doesn't? And starring Kaylee Spani as Priscilla and Jacob Allordie as Elvis. He's not like you imagined. Priscilla, only in theaters November 3rd. Get tickets at Priscillamovie.com.

At Salesforce, we're all about asking more of AI. Questions like, where's the data going? Is it secure? Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure? Get answers you can trust from Salesforce at AskMoreVi.com. It's interesting because I'm realizing now, like analyzing the time that we're in. It's very clear that we are in a moment that breeds cult-like behavior.

We are in that moment. But because we are in it, to me, I'm like, but where really is it? Like at first when I was thinking about this, I was like, I don't really, it's not really happening yet because I was imagining an exact replica of what was happening in the 60s and 70s because I guess I don't know any different. It's almost like, we don't know what our cult era of now really is yet.

We're too close to it. We're too close to it and we're gonna find out later. Yeah. Like to me, the online forums, because there are so many, and that's a huge thing that I sort of turn a blind eye to if that makes sense, because it makes me uncomfortable. And there's so many.

Like it's on Reddit, it's everywhere. there's so many like it's on Reddit. It's everywhere. It's even, but it's in corners of the internet that I'm not in. So I choose to turn a blind eye to that. Me turning a blind eye to that is completely ignoring what might be our cult of today. You're not a discord girl. I'm not a, my God. No, I love me.

That is like not my thing. Like my my cult behavior shows up in other areas. You're like, can you be a traditionalist? I bow down to my bloody sister. I and he is, well, I mean, that man, he is never not spoken truth to me. I'll tell you that. So if he started to discord, you would not be joining. I would not be joining because that is a little, that's a little bit too much internet for me. Yes. You know what I mean? I already know in 50 years when we look back at right now, we're going to be like, that

was the cold era. Yes. Look at the cups. We're in it. We're in it. We're like, where is it? What really is it? And we don't feel like it's as big and bad as like when we look back at the 60s and 70s.

I'm just, I'm so excited and a sick and twisted way to like look back at now. Yeah. You know, hindsight is 20s when I just can't wait to see it. I also think beyond, you know, online forums and things like that. There's, I, we have to touch on the cult of public figures. Do you think that public figures are unintentional cult leaders?

Because I don't think a lot of public figures go into becoming a public figure for power or control. A lot of people, there's a creative element. There's an art element. There's a story that they wanna tell. And it's about helping society, right? Ideally. But do you think public figures are cold leaders in a way?

They certainly can be. So you think they can be. Yeah. Well, it's just so weird when you're a creative person, you're success and how well you're known are so intrinsically linked. When I think of some of the most insidious cult leaders in our culture today, secular cult leaders, they're not visible.

They're like the politicians and tech CEOs whose faces we don't recognize. But yes, I think we also live in this very strange time of personal branding and extreme individualism that creates a scenario where like, I am my own cult leader at this point. It's like, I'm not like a novelist, right? Like I write nonfiction and I talk about nonfiction in public. And this person that I'm not to be like totally naval gazing, but for arguments sake, like this person talking to you right now is a version of me.

And yet it's not wholly me. Of course. The version of me that's talking about cults, but this is the version that people see and wanna see, so I lean into that more. And so you sort of like disconnect from a sense of self. And so then you're like following your own personal branding journey, you're like chasing that.

And so in a sense like, yeah, because of this culture of extreme individualism and micro-leverities and such, like I sometimes feel like I am cult following this version of me. I can't believe I've never thought of this before, but it's so true. You can almost become your own cult leader as a public figure because you're imprisoned

by this identity that you didn't even create because in a weird way, at times it can feel like your audience is your cult leader. For sure. Because they're like, where's that version of yes? Which is like, by the way, when you're a public figure, you have to have a thick skin. Yeah, you can't listen to that. You can't listen to that.

But it's hard not to. But if you do, then you kind of fall into this place where like, you're stuck, you feel stuck. It's interesting because it's like, fame in general gives the illusion that someone is almost God-like. When we look at our favorite celebrities, we look at them as almost gods. Like, they're deities to us. We sometimes worship them. We sometimes see them as non-human. It's just interesting that it seems like on both sides, there's a very culty element. Like, definitely. For the celebrity, for the public

figure, and for the audience. Yeah. Do you think that the celebrity fan, parocial relationship can ever be healthy because there is a really culty situation happening. And as we know now, that can be positive or negative. Do you think it can be healthy? Because I have like an existential crisis about this all the time because I am in the, I am a public figure myself. And I'm like, am I contributing to something that is actually unhealthy for society? I don't know. And that's a moral dilemma I face constantly. You know, this is the very subject

that I also took away from cold dishes like the most fascinating. It's something that I wasn't like really, really able to address in that book. So this is something I've been thinking about nonstop. There is a cognitive bias called the halo effect that I think is underlying a lot of celebrity worship in addition to all these societal factors.

There's something intrinsic in us that causes us to worship role models that maybe were once our parents or our community leaders. And now that it's hard to tell who even is in our social circle anymore, like, is it celebrities? Is it my co-workers? Celebrities, these larger than life godlike figures can become the new subjects of our worship, our new role models.

And that bias is deep within us. And it can be a double edged sword and very destructive in this time and society because to deify someone is to dehumanize them. And I think that's why we see such extreme cycles of celebrity worship and dethronement because the halo effect causes us to think that because we like one thing in a person, because we like their music or we like their fashion sense, then they must be perfect overall. And when they don't live up to that standard,

we punish them that Halo is doused in ice water. I think like communities surrounding certain celebrities can be really beautiful and offer solace. And you know, again, all those like positive cultish things. To, you know, marginalized communities as well. It's like female pop stars often serve as like a mouthpiece for queer community. And that can be like a really beautiful thing. Totally.

But there is copious research demonstrating that a certain extreme amount of like deleterious parosocial delusional worship has serious mental health repercussions including narcissistic tendencies, a propensity for suicidal thoughts, excessive self-focus, severe body image issues, and so I've been thinking about it a lot because certain celebrity communities, celebrity stand dynamics, I should say, are more extreme now and growing more extreme than I've ever seen before?

It's interesting because I'm thinking about it now too. It's not particularly new to use celebrities as gods almost. Yeah. I feel like that, I don't know when that started, but I can imagine the second that we had the technology to have celebrities. Yeah. This started. I think so.

But I think that's new. Yeah. Like that's actually somewhat new. And like, it's only getting deeper, for sure. There's a reporter, New York Times op-ed writer named Jessica Gross, who wrote a really interesting piece a few years ago, titled Something Like I'm Gonna Botch It, but it's like, when did celebrities start to matter? I mean, in modern history, we can look at Biddlemania, right?

That was like incredibly fanatical, religious worship. Like people thought Paul McCartney was their husband. And God. God and husband. And so that was an era that felt similar, like a predecessor to what we're seeing now. But what Jessica Gross wrote about was how in the Reagan era, that's when we started to perceive celebrities

as not just entertainers, but spiritual guides people we should look to for politics because Reagan was an actor who then became the president. So it was like, okay, now the lines are really starting to blur celebrities aren't just, you know, famous singers and actors, they're people we should look to for moral guidance, they're people that we should quote unquote worship, and ever since then, and that coinc- I mean, the Reagan era came on the heels of the cult era

of the 60s and 70s. There's a historical cultural path that you can follow and it makes sense. So it will be interesting in 20 years to make sense of this. Yeah, like it's, because it's, oh my God, it's so interesting. And it's really scary because I think if you're someone who is aware enough to know that we're all capable

of all the things that we deem to be bad, we can all be evil, we can all be gullible. You know what I mean? Like we can all do things that violate what we think is our like chorus, chorus, that's of self. You will, you have to, like I've seen this so many times, written in various places, just about how important it is to know that like you are no different from other humans.

Every, like we're all capable of anything. Good, bad. So like don't think that you're different. You know what I mean? Everybody has to keep their eyes peeled. My love, we all have to keep it. We just have to be like aware of the fact that we could fall into some shit.

You know what I mean? That's especially during a time right now where we're all very vulnerable. And a lot of us are very confused and a lot of us are lacking foundation because there's no foundation to just be handed to us right now. Totally. Like there was in the past. Yeah, we feel like ex-essentially unmoored.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. I think, you know, beyond like celebrities, I've noticed that there's a lot of cultiness around vanity, like skincare, plastic surgery, you know, what else did I write down on my clipboard? It's workout classes, it's diet culture, it's, there's a cultiness around appearance too. Yes. That's a huge section of this debacle.

Yeah, I think, well, obviously, social media has exacerbated this. We're sort of all expected to present ourselves like celebrities in a way. And our standards for perfection have increased as the technology to attain those standards has increased. But I actually think that those phenomena, our obsession with skincare and plastic surgery and such and working out,

is still connected to the religious origin story of the United States, because this is fundamentally like a Protestant capitalist nation, you know, and we have these standards of perfection, and obedience, and self-improvement baked into who we are as a society. And wherever the culture is at any given moment, we'll determine what

the aesthetic looks like. You know, at a certain time, it was, you know, going to church and, you know, doing the rituals of Protestantism. And now the new Protestantism in a way is working out, having a perfect body, having a perfect face. It's still achieving those deep rooted standards of perfection and obedience and self-improvement and ambition, you know, all these things that define the American dream, but in the aesthetic of the sort of like extremely individualist image-centric social media era. Colts are everywhere. Yeah. There's like cult-like behaviors. There's cult-like. I just think being aware of it is so healthy because it allows you to use it in a way that's positive, totally. Whether it's not involving yourself in something that's unhealthy,

or it's involving yourself in something that's unhealthy, or it's involving yourself in something that's really communal and special. Yeah, I think the more aware we are of it, the better we can navigate our own lives and sort of deal with that inevitable piece of being human. Yeah, it's all we can do because again, it's like, what, so we're supposed to avoid anything vaguely culty

boring We literally can't we can't we have to go to Pilates. We have to go to line dancing Obvious and you know what if we end up going and doing a retreat for three weeks with a group that has kind of like you know It seems like they have good intentions Maybe we do that too. Yeah, I think my concluding question is, do you think that there's any way a religious cult can be healthy? And this is an opinion question.

This is not, you don't have to know the answers to the universe. I'm just curious about your perspective with careful words. A group that has qualities that could be considered cultish, like ritual and us versus them attitudes and such. And also metaphysical and spiritual beliefs can be healthy as long as there is room for pushback, a dignified exit strategy, a way to say, this might not be for me anymore, or actually I would like to keep just one foot out the door. And it and there needs to be room for you to confer with outsiders, right? Because we consult with our loved ones and our friends who don't belong to

every single group that we are a part of or don't have a relationship with everyone that we do to get their perspective. Yeah. And if these boxes are checked off, like, yeah, no, you actually have to fully invest in this group. And, you know, the further you're in, the harder it's going to be to get out, and your friends and family on the outside don't like it actually come to think that you don't have any friends and family on the outside.

Yeah. Those are some of the characteristics that signal to cultish for comfort. That's the perfectly standard. To cultish for comfort. Thank you for coming on. Oh, it was my honor. It was phenomenal.