The Cult Barometer

In my travels, I have generally felt a positive charge from wisdom teachings I have encountered, so much so that I did not at first recognize it as a polarity at all. When I have felt negative charges from spiritual teachings, they have been wrapped in whole cultural packages that were even more obviously not for me, so there was never any risk of harming myself with them.

As I waded deeper into the sea of what’s out there, though, I began to encounter teachings — as well as nonaligned individuals with their OWN messages — that had negative charges for me, and it became quite a distinct and recognizable sensation. One of the most common features of negatively charged teachings was a reliance on RECRUITMENT. Let’s call this “cultiness,” for short.

What was striking is that obvious cults — Scientology, NXIVM, even less harmful things like Hare Krishna — delivered the identical pit-of-the-stomach negative charge sensation as more obscure things I would run into at, say, drug festivals. I’ve come to find this sensation downright familiar, and I can use it as a sort of barometer.