I have a fascination for cults. It has nothing to do with a cult itself, but what it can teach us about society. You see, I am convinced that by looking at the extremes of a subject, we can better identify what is normal.
Society seems such a complex subject. Foibles and fads come and go and there seems no rhyme or reason to the process. This is because it is mostly innocuous and quite mild. But look at a society in the extreme and patterns quickly emerge.
Take, for instance, the guru who begins a cult. He can come from various cultural forms, but a study of the guru usually reveals a standard life pattern. He will have been a loner who approached a crisis, and from this crisis he gains determination to follow a path. This turns him into a charismatic, and people become putty in his hands.
This process apes the ‘hero’ of mythology, and even the life pattern of Jesus Christ. It is entrenched in the human psyche. But if you dilute the process, what you actually have is a typical life pattern of the average person. It narrates the confusion of adolescence, the difficulty of choice in early adulthood and the actual career path to success.
It is the same with the disciple who joins a cult. Usually of above average intelligence, he is searching for something. The guru hooks him and shows him a cause, and the person falls in line with the new culture.
This is Mr Average within society. He will fix himself to many ‘cultures’ throughout his life, from following fashion to being an obedient worker. But only by looking at him in the extreme can we see order in the social processes involved.
In effect the cult highlights the leaders and the workers of society, and shows how they interact. When things go wrong, a cult can approach self-annihilation, and in its watered down form, this is the process of social change in society, throwing away an old system and adopting the new.
I watch cults because the abnormal is the extreme of the normal. A cult is a mirror on society itself.

© Anthony North, Mar 2007