If I Were a Cult Leader

If I were a cult leader

I would warn everyone about “The World.” I would make outsiders feel like enemies by claiming their differences were threats to our way of life. I would emphasize their deficiencies, their failures, their sadnesses, to contrast that to the “Good Life” I promised. I would warn them that others wouldn’t understand because they were “of the World,” so if anyone dared dissent they would be written off as “the ones they warned us about.”