The fundamental prerequisite for starting a cult is being high on the psychopathy scale. You need to have an unshakeable belief in your own importance, an instinctive understanding of how to spot the vulnerabilities of people and push their buttons, an unquenchable need to control others, and a willingness to use people for your own ends without any qualms. Most importantly, you need to have heaps of superficial charm, since that will allow you to worm your way into the heads of your victims in the first place.
The particularly BS you're selling isn't as important as how you brand and package it and yourself, but you need to identify something that's lacking in the lives of a significant portion of the population and come up with a superficially plausible product that will fill that need. You also need to figure out how you're going to monetise your product. There's no point in starting a cult if you haven't figured out a way to shear your flock and keep the sheep hanging around to give you more.
I'm not really planning on specifically starting a cult, more like founding a religion for lack of better explanation
I mainly say founding a cult in the ask and in a few comments here due to how it would likely be perceived by the general populous and what the definition of a cult has become colloquially
Though in sure if I actually had the desire to and put my mind tonight I could found a honest to the gods good old fashioned cult, though I have no particular desire to
Historically, "cult" was just a negative term used for non-conforming groups by those who had signed up to one of the mainstream religions. Christianity was seen as a Jewish cult in its early days, but at some point it became too strong to dismiss as just a bunch of Jewish wingnuts who believed the Messiah had already arrived.
These days, "cult" is usually applied to small organisations which often have a charismatic leader and a non-mainstream belief system combined with policies which exploit the members, deliberately separate them from their previous social and family networks and limit the ability of members to detach from the organisation.
Yeah that's how one would be described nowadays, but at least where I'm from the colloquial definition is a lot less sinister and is mainly for a tight knit religious order that believes in non-mainstream ideals and practices
Televangelism might work out well for you. Practice public speaking like the most magnonomous shyster you can think of, and tell loser people they will be great if they give 10% of their income to you. This donation is a material sign of their commitment to God's divine cause, so they can feel good about it.
Thanks for the advice, I'll keep it in mind. My great grandfather one my father's side was a televangelist according to my dad. We both aren't too fond of the fact but can't deny the cash it brought in
IIN to want to start a religion or cult?
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The fundamental prerequisite for starting a cult is being high on the psychopathy scale. You need to have an unshakeable belief in your own importance, an instinctive understanding of how to spot the vulnerabilities of people and push their buttons, an unquenchable need to control others, and a willingness to use people for your own ends without any qualms. Most importantly, you need to have heaps of superficial charm, since that will allow you to worm your way into the heads of your victims in the first place.
The particularly BS you're selling isn't as important as how you brand and package it and yourself, but you need to identify something that's lacking in the lives of a significant portion of the population and come up with a superficially plausible product that will fill that need. You also need to figure out how you're going to monetise your product. There's no point in starting a cult if you haven't figured out a way to shear your flock and keep the sheep hanging around to give you more.
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A_Snek
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I'm not really planning on specifically starting a cult, more like founding a religion for lack of better explanation
I mainly say founding a cult in the ask and in a few comments here due to how it would likely be perceived by the general populous and what the definition of a cult has become colloquially
Though in sure if I actually had the desire to and put my mind tonight I could found a honest to the gods good old fashioned cult, though I have no particular desire to
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Boojum
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NoLifer
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Historically, "cult" was just a negative term used for non-conforming groups by those who had signed up to one of the mainstream religions. Christianity was seen as a Jewish cult in its early days, but at some point it became too strong to dismiss as just a bunch of Jewish wingnuts who believed the Messiah had already arrived.
These days, "cult" is usually applied to small organisations which often have a charismatic leader and a non-mainstream belief system combined with policies which exploit the members, deliberately separate them from their previous social and family networks and limit the ability of members to detach from the organisation.
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A_Snek
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Yeah that's how one would be described nowadays, but at least where I'm from the colloquial definition is a lot less sinister and is mainly for a tight knit religious order that believes in non-mainstream ideals and practices
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Televangelism might work out well for you. Practice public speaking like the most magnonomous shyster you can think of, and tell loser people they will be great if they give 10% of their income to you. This donation is a material sign of their commitment to God's divine cause, so they can feel good about it.
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A_Snek
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Thanks for the advice, I'll keep it in mind. My great grandfather one my father's side was a televangelist according to my dad. We both aren't too fond of the fact but can't deny the cash it brought in
By definition a cult is a religion once it gets a good number of people.