Cult or Counterculture? A thin line between Abuse and Abundance.
Trying to be better than the Mainstream is one thing, but at what point is a safe-space community endangering their followers? Let’s see what could go wrong. Looking at similar problems within Yoga-Culture and EDM-Music.
As if the Covid-19 situation wasn’t already enough, it seems like the world has gone crazy. Some are already worried about “Cancel Culture” and others are seeing a chance for real change. I guess it depends on what side you are on and how much you were affected by whatever started which sh*tstorm.
Most people are members of the third group: “The Neutral Ones”.
They are good people, it’s just that they don’t like confrontation and prefer environments of like minded people. Many of them are traumatised by past life experiences or just fed up with being critised by society for who they are. Why not join a group that follows this one rule of kindness?
“I don’t question you and you don’t question me.”
All we need is an activity that we enjoy doing together. It could be a Yoga retreat, but it could also be going to music festivals and getting really f**ked up. As long as we can escape the troubling reality of our daily lives, we are in.
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness are backing up our desire to have a good time and not be bothered by anyone interrupting our pleasure. Nothing wrong with that, we all need a break sometimes. Meeting up with a group of people to do yoga or enjoy some live music is a great way to spend our free time. Once we start seperating ourselves from friends and family in order to exclusively hang out with folks that share our new passion, things might become a little sketchy.
When doing yoga or going to a festival become the only things we can truly enjoy, we are at risk of crossing the line to cult-ish behavior. If the other people in our yoga community or music festival family are the only ones we feel safe around and we start avoiding people that don’t share our passion — that’s where it gets really sketchy.
At that point we can only hope that nobody is trying to take advantage of that.
Look at yoga teacher trainings promising that 200-hours of training will enable you to quit your lousy job and live the life of your dreams. Check out promising job offers at music festivals that will allow you to spend all summer seeing your favorite music acts.
Tapping into that world can be fun, trying to get out of it not so much.
Once you quit your regular job for a yoga teacher training in most cases there is no way back. Your fate is in the hands of your teachers guiding you towards a new life of abundance and joy. Some might get disappointed when they realise that making a living as a yoga teacher is not easy at all and find out that their almighty teacher is just a normal human being that doesn’t have all the answers to your questions.
After that fight with your parents and deciding to spend your summer on tour with your favorite music act, you can’t wait to get away from all the debbie-downers and enjoy your life. Unfortunately that job that was promised to be “easy going” turns out to be pretty exhausting and there is not much time to actually enjoy any of the concerts. Even more disappointing it will be to find out that the musicians and their entourage aren’t always as kind as you thought. Probably they are not even paying you that well, because people are just thankful to be part of the “festival family” and so are you.
That can be all devastating and a good lesson at the same time, but some folks don’t like lessons and take all of that many, many steps further. How far can you go?
Ask those that decided to live in a remote jungle, doing Ayuahuasca weekly and rejecting any form of civilisation. Check in with those that stay awake for three days dancing their ass off while intoxicating their bodies.
Those people often feel lost at some point. Going down the rabbit hole of their passion leaves them behind with a feeling of loneliness. Not caring about others comes with the price of nobody caring for us. That feeling of emptiness sets the stage for the community leader.
All he needs to do is finding a narrative that everyone can agree on. Mostly this is achieved by very vague rules that could be interpreted in many different ways. Religion has done that throughout history, but counterculture has also discovered this form of manipulation to built communities and make money of them, while exploiting its members.
“Love” is usually the one thing everyone can agree on.
Ok, great start, let’s say it is all about love.
What’s next? Nobody likes violence, let’s put that on the list: “no violence”.
We all feel lonely what can we do? Let’s make it a rule to support each other.
What are we doing when someone is ruining our good vibes? Let’s try to bring them back on track by loving them as they are.
What if they continue being divisive and even attack our beloved leader? Well, then we have no choice, let’s get them out of here. It is their fault. We need to protect our community, it is all we have.
That is basically the mindset of a cult. Once the tribe is the most important thing in your life, you will do anything to protect it. Nothing is perfect in this world and you won’t let anyone ruin the moments of bliss you had and the unforgettable moments you shared with others. The community is your safe space in a messed up world that you escaped because of rules and problems you were not able to deal with. There is no going back.
We are woke (or wook) — We are love, we are family.
What can go wrong?
In case the leader of the movement is a human being, there is a lot that could go wrong. What if the charismatic person leading the cult has his own problems? What happens if he is not perfect at all? Will his followers even notice that or is he good at hiding it? Does he have an inner circle that knows and protects a side of him that most people don’t know?
As a new cult member you don’t even notice being in one, until you hear about something that bothers you. Once you address the problem and everyone tells you to shut up or leave, you know that something might be off.
Especially when you are a woman that had a love affair with the cult leader you are about to go through the worst nightmare you could think of.
You should have known better!
Why did you think you were special to him?
Don’t hold him accountable for your feelings.
Be nice to him, it was your choice.
Don’t hurt him, he is such a great person.
You might find out that you were somehow manipulated into this. If you are lucky, you are able to speak to other people that escaped the cult and had a similar experience like you. As you are a good person, you decide to warn others and try to prevent them from making the same mistake you made.
After creating a “call out xxx” website and publishing information to expose your former leader and lover, a feeling of release is slowly setting in.
The next morning you wake up and find an email that informs you that the leader of your beloved cult wants to sue you for libel. He is sad about what he calls toxic behaviour and shames you for speaking up, endangering the community and ruining his reputation. At the same time your social media accounts get spammed with hate-mails by other cult members that threaten you and call you a traitor.
What can you do in this situation?
The answer is short: Not much. In most cases your cult leader saw that coming from far away and is well prepared. There will be a cover up story, other members viciously defending him and making you responsible for everything.
Most probably they will ruin your reputation, as you probably shared some of your weaknesses with him. It could be drug abuse, deviant sexual behavior or traumas — anything that you might have shared with him that will make you look like an insane person. He will use that against you.
If the cult was the only safe space where you felt understood and accepted as you are, it will be hard to find the same type of support from people outside of it. The more troubled your life was before joining the cult, the unlikelier it will be that you will receive support getting out of it. Lack of support might have been the reason why you joined the cult in the first place. You might have an issue with codependency, maybe the cult leader knew that and picked you for that reason?
Let’s switch perpectives and think about what one would do to start a cult?
Probably it would be a good idea to gather people that are looking for guidance. In order to avoid being questioned, one would approach people desperately looking for support and make sure that they don’t have anyone holding them back from fully surrendering to the cult. One makes them believe that negative people are just jealous of what the cult-family has to offer. Everyone that is not with the cult is just scared to join, because they are not cool or woke enough.
When one talks them into things that are outside of the legal area, he can refer to a higher purpose. The leader might create a story that laws are holding people back from fulfilling their life purpose and establish the narrative that he knows better and in order to be happy everyone just needs to trust him.
If he is intelligent, he will make sure that nobody will ever be able to sue him if something illegal surfaces. He destroys all evidence and leaves no marks. Letting his followers know that he is untouchable because of his position and the inner circle backing him up. Examples might be shared with followers that let people know what happened with traitors in the past that endangered the groups integrity.
Most importantly, you will tell them that you might cause a little suffering here and there, but also let them know that things are even worse outside of the cult.
It’s either accepting his way or getting run over on the highway.
If someone falls in love or has sex with the leader, he makes sure that he is in control of the narrative. Therefore he does not sleep with people that are more intelligent or experienced than he is. Always making sure that his followers will take his side and not believe gossip about him. Establishing the narrative that gossip is a bad thing is a common tool to silence victims. That’s were the idea of “Cancel Culture” comes from.
I know this all sounds very far-fetched and most people can’t believe that people get away with things like that. If you think that this could never happen to you, think again. Imagine yourself in a situation of feeling lonely, just having survived a traumatising event or having unresolved childhood trauma. It is happening everywhere, not always in the textbook version that I described, but it comes in many different shades and intensities.
Look at the Bikram yoga story, check out what is apparently going on in the EDM community. Until accusations are brought to trial, we can’t say what happened for sure. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. People have been accused of things they didn’t do in the past. Yes to all of that, but let’s keep one thing in mind:
Coming forward is not easy, especially when you call out a cult leader. They might have better lawyers than you can afford. The community might threaten or try to break you. In some cases they even try to make you feel bad for holding them accountable.
As an outsider it is always easy to tell someone to speak up, we don’t know what they have been through, but they deserve being able to make their case.
That might include trying to reach other victims with a public statement and join forces against the offender. Especially when he is a far more powerful individual than all the victims combined.
We don’t have to believe every single word these women say, but we have to listen to what they want to share with us.
Of course, we will also have to allow the alleged offender to make his case. It goes both ways. Given the power disparity in these situations, we don’t need to worry much about the offender, he will find his way and have the resources for that.
Once we heard both sides, we can find truth. Holding space for that is all we can do and all we should do for now.
Nothing more, but nothing less.