i am sparticus: How To Establish a Cult, Step Two: Beliefs

How To Establish a Cult, Step Two: Beliefs

Step Two: What you're going to believe

So you've got a name for your fantastic new religion, but you're still struggling with what to actually make all those people you're going to brainwash believe. Don't worry though, suprisingly enough it's not that hard, as long as you adhere to these 3 timeless principles.

Principal one

 Making anything orginal these days is nigh on impossible, all the good ideas have been stolen. I mean, look at the internet, I dreamt up the internet way back in 1993, only to find out someone had beaten me too it. Of course as someone famous used to probably say "use your problems to work for you", so in our case we'll just take some already invented belief systems and modify them to suit our cult. It's probably best to take an already existing belief system, and then claim it's the precursor to your new fangled and much better system. Like our not so good friend, Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Using his Unification Church as an excellent example, I'll show you how to alter the religion of your choice to meet your own ends ^(disclaimer). So bare with me...

• Take a major religion, that most people think they know reasonable amounts about, but in reality know very little. Christianity is a good one in the western world (Rev. Moon agrees).
• Claim that the religion wasn't actually completed properly and that you alone are the completion of this religion. Cite a few out of context bible (or Koran or Torah or whatever religion you choose to alter) verse's to prove how right you are. Rev. Moon cites Exodus 20:5 as a key verse explaining hereditary sin and Matthew 5:48 as a verse explaining why we can all become God incarnate.
• Remember that you'll come across people who point out verses from the same holy book, contradicting you. This is because that version of the Holy book is wrong, and only the new true holy book you've created is the true one! The quickest way to do this is get the bible in some text format and do a search and replace on it. Replace Jesus/Mohammed/Abraham/Siddhartha Gautama with your name, replace Sin/Wrong Doing/Karma with the name of your worst enemy, and replace "World" with "sparticusville".

Principal 2

The second principal is a lot simpler. Simply find some popular issue (one that's popular with rich people especially) and offer a unique perspective on it. And when I say unique, I mean exactly the same as what they already think, but seemingly subtly different. The best way to find out what rich people think is spy on them in dinner parties. When they start to debate politics, and all come to a general consensus on an issue, then use that issue as a base for your teaching. eg. "hey, aren't you really annoyed about gas (they're always American) prices?" "yeah the suck, my SUV costs like soooo much more to fill up now". "Hey, I'm into this new belief system, one of our basic tenants is that gas price increases are wrong". Simple eh? Okay so if you want to go for more popular appeal you may have to go for other hot topics. Homosexuality is a good one. It doesn't matter whether you are a for or against it, talk about Homosexuality and people pay you attention.

Principal 3

The final point is an important one. You're religion has to seem as if it's perfectly normal and sane. However once you get people successfully converted and discipled (read brainwashed by hypnotic monkeys), you can have as crazy as religion as you like! So while your religion may seem to the uninitiated to be about love for all, and how you, the wonderful leader will bring about world peace, underneath it all, it's about how you are the son of an alien and a dinosaur clone, who has come to start/end/divide the world. The important thing to remember is that you have to slowly bring your followers to believe the higher truths. It's easy to persuade someone that peace lies in love, so that's a good starting point. When however, they are suitably "ready" then it's time to unleash all your hidden science fiction potential.

So that's how to create your standard cult belief system, but remember you don't want a standard cult belief system, you want a much better one! We'll look into adding bells and whistles later, but for now all I can say is plagarize! I'm sure we all know brainwashed cult members who especially like one specific aspect of their beliefs. Well find out what this is, and then steal it! And the more things you steal from, the better!

Disclaimer

I'm not saying that the relgion of Reverend Sun Myung Moon is a cult here okay? It may well be, but I have no proof of that. What I am saying is that it's based on another religion and quotes another religion's holy book. I think that it's wrong in doing this because it takes it out of context and goes against the principles that christianity stands for. But I'm not saying it's a cult unless someone can give me some evidence that this so.

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