Seth Skorkowsky's latest video is an in-depth look at cults in tabletop role-playing games. In most campaigns, they're just mooks dressed in funny robes motivated solely by a desire to be EVIL!!!111!!! That's not how real cults work, and Mr. Skorkowsky provides some great examples of what really drives someone to become part of one. He also has a lot of praise for the Netflix series "Archive 81" for...reasons that are a bit spoilery. Let's just say I have a reason to renew my Netflix subscription.
1 comment:
Oh dear me. I have had something of an interest in cults for a while too, for a number of reasons, one of which being that I have a step-niece who no longer sees her family at all, except on the very rare occasions she gets very brief permissions from the [Christian] group she's in. And an aunt who took some levels in Scientology, well, she at least got to be with family afterward. I've posted some reading lists on Usenet over the years for those interested --- and engaged in online debates with "C**** J****", the pseudonymous nutcase who later [under her own name of D**** N******] stalked/threatened both Steven Spielberg and Jennifer Love-Hewitt — claiming a satanic cult had implanted a microchip called "soulcatcher" in her brain, among even more fantastic ideas. Yes, she wound up in a state mental hospital, which would make her a Lovecraftian heroine, right? In this case, anything but. Her "torments" were entirely self-started, and she tried to impose torments on others.
Here's the relevant part of the book list I posted in 1998:
Books on Psychological Manipulation ("brainwashing", "cult mind control"):
Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman,
SNAPPING: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change
(second edition, 1995, Stillpoint Press)
Steven Hassan,
COMBATTING CULT MIND CONTROL
(1988, reprinted 1990, Inner Traditions International Ltd)
Robert Jay Lifton,
THOUGHT REFORM AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TOTALISM
(1961, reprinted 1989, University of North Carolina Press)
Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Lalich,
CULTS IN OUR MIDST
(1995, Jossey-Bass)
(For related topics, see link above.)
Post a Comment