The rare success of a cult leader

In what feels like a million years ago, I blogged wondering whether we should think about the money that is donated as philanthropy.  Was the money earned through justifiable means?  Or, is it the case that most people simply do not care about the stink of the money.

In that post, I quoted the late Christopher Hitchens, who wrote about "Mother" Teresa, whom he referred to as MT:

MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan.

She was a friend of poverty.  I loved the way Hitchens phrased it.

Back then, there were two frequent commenters.  One was from the right side of the political spectrum here in the US, and another came from the right side of the political spectrum in the old country.  And, of course, true to their political ideology, they commented that money has no stink and that MT did nothing but good to the poor.

Ten days ago, Michelle Goldberg asked in her NY Times column if MT was "a cult leader."

I wonder if the right-wing commenters of the past read that column.  Perhaps not.

Goldberg writes about Mary Johnson, who spent 20 years in Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity:

“The Missionaries of Charity, very much, in so many ways, carried the characteristics of those groups that we easily recognize as cults,” Johnson told me. “But because it comes out of the Catholic Church and is so strongly identified with the Catholic Church, which on the whole is a religion and not a cult, people tend immediately to assume that ‘cult’ doesn’t apply here.”

Goldberg continues:

The former sisters describe an obsession with chastity so intense that any physical human contact or friendship was prohibited; according to Johnson, Mother Teresa even told them not to touch the babies they cared for more than necessary. They were expected to flog themselves regularly — a practice called “the discipline” — and were allowed to leave to visit their families only once every 10 years. 

A former Missionaries of Charity nun named Colette Livermore recalled being denied permission to visit her brother in the hospital, even though he was thought to be dying. “I wanted to go home, but you see, I had no money, and my hair was completely shaved — not that that would have stopped me. I didn’t have any regular clothes,” she said. “It’s just strange how completely cut off you are from your family.” Speaking of her experience, she used the term “brainwashing.”

Cult leaders maintain a tight grip over their flock.  It is difficult to flee from the leader.

Meanwhile, MT has been recognized by the Pope as as saint.

And you thought cult leaders always end up in trouble!

Finding meaning in meaninglessness

tRump is a RINO.  No, not that one.  But, this: He is religious in name only.

The "Two Corinthians" man is far from being a true Christian, as much as he is far from being a patriot when he makes out with the American flag.  Not for a moment does any sane person ever imagine tRump getting high on religion, like some of the uber-religious do.  In a marvelous autobiographical essay, the author writes: "I have confused religion with drugs, drugs with music, music with religion. I can’t tell whether my inclination toward ecstasy is a sign that I still believe in God, or if it was only because of that ecstatic tendency that I ever believed at all."  Maybe if tRump had tasted alcohol, his life--and ours--would have been different.  But then we also had a disastrous Republican President who had not only binged on alcohol but had even done cocaine, but found god after all that!

Anyway, the demagogue knows that bringing Jesus into political rhetoric is important in this country that was founded by fanatics who fled England: "the impulse to purify the group through separation from mainstream society, now regarded as the signature of a cult, could not be more fundamental to the nation’s history.”

And here I am, an atheist, who has never been anywhere near even pot, and I have no idea how the more potent drugs are.  Alcohol is rarer in my life than animal protein is.  I don't need religion or drugs to be ecstatic about life!

God and religion are not going to die anytime soon.  At a dinner a month ago at a meeting, an older man engaged me in a conversation about yoga and more.  The more included woo-woo talk. And then he made the mistake of asking me for my opinions.  I told him, in a matter of fact tone, that all our angst seems to be because we humans can't seem to figure out how to deal with two definitive aspects: We are here because our parents had sex, and we are going to die.  I suppose now he knows better to avoid me the next time he sees me ;)

With time, I have come to understand that life is what it is.  And life ends. Dogs die. Trees die. We humans also die.  Perhaps we are the only living beings who are fully aware that death awaits us, and I am thankful for that:  "we need death, as a blessing; eternity is at best incoherent or meaningless, and at worst terrifying; and we should trust in ourselves rather than put our faith in some kind of transcendent rescue from the joy and pain of life."

In my transition from a believer, I thought I had to beat up on religion, on faith.  I wanted to argue that there is no god.  But, I care not anymore.  Have not cared about those for a long while.  My atheism does not depend on beating up on god or religion.  Like the review essay notes, such a framework also "releases atheism from its ancient curse: its sticky intimacy with theism."

Instead, religious practice could be seen as valuable and even cherishable, once it is understood to be a natural human quest for meaning. Everything flows from the double assumption that only finitude makes for ultimate meaning and that most religious values are unconsciously secular. We are meaning-haunted creatures.

We are meaning-haunted creatures.  What a lovely phrasing!

Some day in the future, I hope, we will have a political system in which politicians do not have to fake their ways with religion and god.

We still haven’t seen that system, and it’s hard to imagine it, but someone went up the mountain and looked out, and saw the promised land. And that land is in this life, not in another one.

In search of happiness, fulfillment and meaning

A month short of two years ago, I blogged about the difference between a religion and a cult, in which I referred to the old joke:

Question: What's the difference between a religion and a cult?
Answer: 200 years

As I quoted there,

Cults don’t come out of nowhere; they fill a vacuum, for individuals and, as we’ve seen, for society at large. Even Christianity itself proliferated most widely as a result of a similar vacuum: the relative decline of state religious observance, and political hegemony, in the Roman Empire.

Yep, when it began, Christianity was a cult.

A middle-aged writer, who grew up in a cult when she was a kid, writes in The New Yorker about her experiences that point out how complicated it is to understand cults, and why people are drawn to them.  She writes there:

But, to be fair, the notion that U.F.O.s are going to take you to live on Venus is not obviously crazier than the Christian idea of Heaven and Hell, not to mention the unscientific beliefs put forth by other mainstream religions. Sheer popularity and longevity can do a lot to render odd convictions reassuringly familiar.

A longevity of 200 years can easily mainstream a cult into a religion.

She writes, "There will always be people in search of what cults have to offer—structure, solidarity, a kind of hope."

Such a search leads people to all kinds of cults and leaders.  Like Rajneesh.

Or, like this latest one, which sounds way bizarre:

It was called “collateral” — nude photos and other embarrassing material that female members of an upstate New York self-improvement group turned over to their “masters” to ensure obedience, silence and sexual fealty to the organization’s spiritual leader, Keith Raniere.
Now some former members of the group, NXIVM, are poised to break their vow of silence for the first time by testifying against Raniere, who has been compared to a cult leader.

These included educated, professional, women.  "The women are instead described as “independent, smart, curious adults” in search of “happiness, fulfillment and meaning.”

I suspect that we will witness the rise of cults along with a diminishing status of mainstream religions.  People know well about religions for them to submit to religious leaders en masse as we humans once did.  However, as technological challenges, in particular, make us angst-filled beings who are compelled to worry about our existence, cults will step up to provide "structure, solidarity, a kind of hope."

I suppose we have a choice: Understand our mortality and deal with it in our daily lives, or follow the orders from a cult or a religious leader, who claims to know the truth but does not.  A long time ago, I decided to understand my creation and death on my own terms, however difficult the task is.  To quote the Nobelist Steven Weinberg, again:

Living without God isn’t easy. But its very difficulty offers one other consolation—that there is a certain honor, or perhaps just a grim satisfaction, in facing up to our condition without despair and without wishful thinking—with good humor, but without God

Wait for ... 200 years!

Even as I read the tweet that linked to an essay, I knew that I would tweet about that myself.  Which I then did.

Question: What's the difference between a #religion and a #cult?
Answer: 200 years
;)@aeonmag: https://t.co/WONl8kpj1l

— sriram khe (@congoboy) June 7, 2017

As an atheist, I am always amused when the religious folks make fun of "cults."  The other day, a born-again Christian neighbor was having jokes at the expense of Adventists.  Believers of practically every kind routinely make fun of Scientologists.  To me, ahem, I wish I could make fun of the older established cults of all kinds.

Which is also one of the reasons I liked Harari's description that I blogged about a month ago:

 What is a religion if not a big virtual reality game played by millions of people together? Religions such as Islam and Christianity invent imaginary laws, such as “don’t eat pork”, “repeat the same prayers a set number of times each day”, “don’t have sex with somebody from your own gender” and so forth. These laws exist only in the human imagination. No natural law requires the repetition of magical formulas, and no natural law forbids homosexuality or eating pork. Muslims and Christians go through life trying to gain points in their favorite virtual reality game. If you pray every day, you get points. If you forget to pray, you lose points. If by the end of your life you gain enough points, then after you die you go to the next level of the game (aka heaven).

A cult makes up bizarre rules to play the game as much as any religion has bizarre rules.

The historian J Gordon Melton of Baylor University in Texas says that the word ‘cult’ is meaningless: it merely assumes a normative framework that legitimises some exertions of religious power – those associated with mainstream organisations – while condemning others. Groups that have approved, ‘orthodox’ beliefs are considered legitimate, while groups whose interpretation of a sacred text differs from established norms are delegitimised on that basis alone. Such definitions also depend on who is doing the defining.

It is a power play.

Of course, the uncomfortable truth here is that even true church (large, established, tradition-claiming church) and cult aren’t so far apart – at least when it comes to counting up red flags. The presence of a charismatic leader? What was John Calvin? (Heck, what was Jesus Christ?) A tradition of secrecy around specialised texts or practices divulged only to select initiates? Just look at the practitioners of the Eleusinian mysteries in Ancient Greece, or contemporary mystics in a variety of spiritual traditions, from the Jewish Kabbalah to the Vajrayāna Buddhist tradition. Isolated living on a compound? Consider contemporary convents or monasteries. A financial obligation? Christianity, Judaism and Islam all promote regular tithing back into the religious community. A toxic relationship of abuse between spiritual leaders and their flock? The instances are too numerous and obvious to list.
If we refuse any neat separation between cult and religion, aren’t we therefore obligated to condemn both?

I have no hassles condemning both )

One of the earliest benefits of my decision to bolt out of India came in the form of my friendship with Shahab.  It was from listening to his personal, family, stories, and about their fleeing the Ayatollahized Iran, that I came to know about the religion that they had traditionally practiced--in secret for the most part--for centuries: Mithraism.

The way he broached that topic I remember all too well--because he was terribly disappointed that I had never even heard of Mithraism.  I hadn't.  Why do I bring up Mithraism in this context?  Because, back when the religion of Jesus was a new thing in Rome, Mithraism was rapidly spreading among Romans.  Christianity was a new cult, and Mithraism was an older cult.  They were competing for followers.  Mithraism lost out.  Christianity grew from a cult to a religion.  As kings converted to this new religion, so did their subjects and the people in the conquered territories.

Cults don’t come out of nowhere; they fill a vacuum, for individuals and, as we’ve seen, for society at large. Even Christianity itself proliferated most widely as a result of a similar vacuum: the relative decline of state religious observance, and political hegemony, in the Roman Empire

In the US, we have plenty of new cults: professional football. golf, ... and we pay plenty of taxes to support these cults ;)

What is the difference between a religion and a cult?

About two hundred years!

That was the punchline that a friend in California had whenever he asked that question. And he did ask that question a lot, given his zealous atheist beliefs :)

His other favorite:

In a library, where would you find copies of the religious books?
In the science fiction category, of course!

Was reminded of these with NPR reporting on the brouhaha over Mormons being called a cult, at a gathering of the GOP "faithful."

This flap is evidence, yet again, that to true believers, those who follow religions other than theirs are in a way atheists too.  This is a line of argument that Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens have explored all too well.