As crises escalate, so does our fascination with cults

Summary of Main Arguments and Analysis

• Cults are driven by narrative, not just belief. UC Berkeley professor Palomi Saha argues that the “cult story” often starts when people are searching for something meaningful—sometimes finding it through a charismatic leader and a group that offers an intense shared experience. Over time, members feel changed in ways outsiders can’t understand, creating a “wall” between inside and outside. For Saha, this gap is what makes the group feel like a “cult,” not merely its doctrine.

• Why documentary cult stories felt personally relevant during COVID. Saha explains that watching cult docuseries (e.g., Jonestown, People’s Temple, Wild Wild Country, Scientology) triggered recognition. Rather than focusing only on fear or skepticism, she felt motivated to understand the underlying needs and appeals—eventually leading to an academic project grounded in student research.

• Berkeley course uses cult/media to study transformation and emotional insight. In 2022, Saha launched “Cults in Popular Culture,” a course where students analyze episodic media about cults and related movements. A central claim is that Berkeley undergraduates combine intellectual vulnerability with emotional intelligence, enabling them to consider how feelings such as loneliness and isolation can increase receptivity to groups offering belonging and social care—while still questioning how someone differs from them.

• Shift from “cult” as a label to studying “intentional communities.” Saha says the class moves away from the term “cult” after early weeks, because it can become all-encompassing and block more interesting questions about what people want—and how harms develop.

• Cult appeal is “reverse-engineered” from unmet needs—and can be dangerous. Students learn that group mechanisms often work by building around what’s missing in members’ lives (for example, structure, belonging, and emotional/social support). Student-designed “intentional communities” can mirror real group features—from supportive, tightly scheduled lifestyles to dark apocalyptic scenarios—showing how compelling these systems can be, and how scaling harm turns them into threats.

• A historical frame: fascination with cults reflects broader social change. Saha connects today’s interest to a renewed countercultural impulse similar to the 1960s, when uneven prosperity and rejection of suburban conformity left space for alternate visions. She also argues that during ideological conflict—such as the Cold War—mainstream society often tries to limit alternatives (including communal living), making radical life feel “unthinkable.”

• Government/legal power shapes what gets labeled “cult.” In the U.S., Saha notes, “cult” is not purely theological—it is also entangled with how groups are classified for tax purposes. She highlights the IRS role in determining tax-exempt status for churches, and uses Scientology to illustrate her point: she argues that belief content is not the main issue so much as practices (insularity and potential harm). She also points out that the group’s resources can help it sustain church status through legal challenges.

• Current revival: late capitalism and crisis create conditions for radical alternatives. Saha suggests the resurgence of cult fascination relates to limited economic prospects and widespread anxiety (including student debt, wage stagnation, climate concerns, and war). In this view, capitalism’s promises feel broken. She frames this as a possible “tipping point,” where students may feel less constrained by mainstream promises and more open to imagining radical alternatives—not necessarily joining groups, but becoming receptive to new models of meaning and life.

• “Yoga” as a controversial comparison: mainstream does not automatically mean harmless. Saha notes that mainstream obsession with yoga can exhibit cult-like patterns: total life reorganization, intense commitment, social meaning, and a lucrative industry. The comparison is controversial because it challenges the assumption that “cult-like” organization automatically signals pathology. Her emphasis is on harm—especially when groups become secretive or led by powerful figures who can enable unchecked abuse.

• The real challenge: translation during transformation. When loved ones adopt an insular worldview (she references “The Cult of Trump”), families often describe a recognizable pattern: loyalty deepens, immersion increases, shared beliefs form, and then the person returns “enlightened” but triggers shock and rejection. Saha argues outsiders may fail to recognize transformation as meaningful to the person—this mismatch generates crisis.

• A call to unlearn simple narratives and listen to transformation accounts. Saha concludes that better responses require giving up the assumption that outsiders know the “correct” interpretation of someone else’s change. Instead of demanding agreement, she argues for listening to the person’s experience of transformation, even when outsiders disagree with the beliefs that follow—while building more complex, less binary understandings of what is happening.

Presenters or Contributors

• Palomi Saha — UC Berkeley professor of English; co-director, Program in Critical Theory
• Anne Bryce — presenter; Berkeley Voices / UC Berkeley News