NMR ISSUE 49

Astrological Forecast 49
Blessing the Self
Calafia
Chaos: A New Approach to Magick
Common Elements of Ceremonial Initiation
Cults! Confessions of an Outsider
Editorial 49
Esoteric Symbology of the Tarot
Etymological
Fundamental Wiccan Rites
Getting More Magick Out of Your Meditations
Hail to the Hunter
Heathens Idolize School Prayer
Home Protection Amulets
Imbolc Ritual
Legend
On the Path of Destiny
Other Editorial 49
Prairie Dog, Octopus & Praying Mantis
Sarava! Afro-Brazilian Magic Carol l. Dow
Sistrum Sisters
Tarot Looking Glass
The Magick of Franz Bardon
The Sacred Home
The Truth about Sex Magick,
Working with the Sun and its Properties
Working with Your Inner Child
Yule

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CULTS! Confessions of an Outsider

By Antero Alli

Many years ago, I lost several friends to completely different cults on utterly diverse missions. Each embarked upon an era in their personal histories to pursue their new religion, rather than develop their previous friendships with myself. In fact, all of them cut their ties with my life to follow their respective callings and I admit to acting selfishly around their decisions. You see, I wanted to share more time with them all and losing their friendships triggered some difficult emotions. I vented my anger by ridiculing their cult's gurus or dogmas and, often (quite thoughtlessly) to their faces. I hid my feelings of helplessness by acting aloof and by sounding more knowledgeable about cults than I actually was; I am no cult expert. My feigned indifference was also a mask for an intrigue for the buzz surrounding their secret new lives. Had they found their true-life purpose, or the very meaning of life itself? I really wanted to know and then, I really didn't. If they had found the answer, would I have to join their cult, too? If they had been tricked, would I attempt to rescue them? After all, these were friends of mine.

Many years later. Not only are these friends still alive, each one lives apart from their previous cult groups. Yet, in differing ways, every one of them continues depending on their past cult experiences as important references to check the validity of their current lives. It's as if their cult experience provided them with a kind of separate reality, or self-reference, to help maintain their autonomy while living and working in the dominator mainstream culture they dropped out of in the first place. Like mystics of old who left village life to pursue their visions on mountaintops, only to return to their people with stories of the gods, my friends are back in my life with new light in their eyes. Don't get me wrong. I could never condone joining a cult myself because I have never had that experience nor the desire. Over the years I have learned something, however, about my unchecked prejudiced intolerance for beliefs differing from my own. I never knew how biased my reactions to cults were until now; a misunderstanding I attribute to a much larger process of socialization. More on this later.

The word cult carries so much emotional charge these days, it's easy to forget how common they are. After a cursory study of the subject matter, it becomes obvious that cults come in many different sizes and colors and within each hue, numerous gradations. Films attracting a devoted core of repeat viewers become cult classics. Couples romantically obsessed with each other become a cult of two (or in pop psychology lingo, codependents). When someone uses their charisma to sway an audience to their favor, a cult of personality develops; an audience is charmed by a dazzling persona, over what that person stands for or has actually accomplished.

Every single day cults of all kinds develop and multiply. Cults form around professional sports teams, pin-up models, actors & actresses, automobiles, books, computers, one's pets, antique shows and pretty much anything or anyone acting as a medium for a personal or collective obsession. Cults show us where and how a society, group or individual concentrates most of its energies. Obsessions, as I'm using the word here, express where and how one is in direct open-ended contact with life energies; it's where all your energy is. As a result, our obsessions also give expression to our intuition.

No matter what its nature, it seems that each and every cult revolves around its own unique obsession, or point of worship, that drives that cult's mission. Its point of worship energizes the cult and generates its power for influencing others. Religious cults seem to emerge as either rebellious reactions to traditional mainstream religions, or from that type of fanatical fringe mysticism so far removed from socially sanctioned worship that it cannot hope to be understood by the laws and mores of mainstream culture; consider the suicidal Heaven's Gate cult. A society often makes scapegoats out of its cults, as can be witnessed by researching the Branch Davidian tragedy in Waco, Texas. Every society establishes and enforces its own rules and inbred moralities. In an attempt to minimize anarchy, it implements programs for increasing social control. I think the more socially-conditioned a person, the greater their potential for perceiving any cult's competing moralities and ideologies as a threat to their own prefabricated social values. This very scapegoat ritual naturally continues with every Us vs. Them game normal children play everyday out on the schoolyards. Red rover, red rover, send _________ on over.

The following CULT EVALUATION GUIDELINES are excerpted from my book ANGEL TECH: A Modern Shaman's Guide to Reality Selection (Falcon Press, 1986), which is not a book about cults and whose author is not a cult expert. These guidelines are presented here to test your own judgment around cult consciousness. As I have discovered, cults are almost everywhere and all of them are not necessarily bad or evil. Some make people happy; some don't. Apply the guidelines accordingly. Remember: cults can form around almost anything or anyone that folks find worthy of obsessing on.

One additional note: Many people who have joined cults may deny that they're in one. No blame. A certain