Culty cults
“The Runaway Child”
I first came across this poetic essay by the controversial anarchist philosopher Peter Lamborn Wilson – more widely known as Hakim Bey, author of the TAZ theory among many other provocative ideas – sometime in the early ’90s. I lost track of it over the years and only recently rediscovered the text, which (faint bell) … Read more“The Runaway Child”
“Girls Gone Greek”: The Bacchic Underpinnings of “Yellowjackets”
Sakhi Thirani writes for JSTOR on the Maenadic/Bacchic themes underpinning the TV series Yellowjackets: Forget the hype likening Showtime’s Yellowjackets to Lord of the Flies. Pungent, witty, and downright disgusting, the hit series about a high school soccer team whose plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness is far more than a rigid gender swap. Yellowjackets, set to launch its second … Read more“Girls Gone Greek”: The Bacchic Underpinnings of “Yellowjackets”
Religions of Oz
Gregory Maguire’s Wicked series of novels deepens L. Frank Baum’s classic Oz mythos by expanding their psychological, cultural, political and religious themes. In Baum’s stories, the only religious impulse even alluded to is a faith in Lurline the Fairy Queen, who was in a sense the creatrix of Oz in that she was responsible for … Read moreReligions of Oz
American Gods
Speculations on the future of American religion in a post-United States: The fragmented, multipolar political landscape of future America will tend over time towards something like a feudal or tribal condition. As above, so below—polytheistic paganism will appeal in this cultural habitat in a way that it doesn’t under a more centralized and hierarchical social … Read moreAmerican Gods
“Renew! Renew!” The Cult of Carrousel in Logan’s Run (1976)
In the futuristic world of Logan’s Run (1976), humanity – or at least that portion of humanity that the movie is concerned with – is sequestered away from the unknown “world outside”, living and dying inside vast Xanadu-like pleasure domes. Their lives and deaths are supervised by an AI who ensures that they want for … Read more“Renew! Renew!” The Cult of Carrousel in Logan’s Run (1976)
“The Cult of Midsommar”
Mark Winegust interviews Martin Karlqvist & Patrik Andersson, who designed the elaborate rituals of the Hårga cult in the modern folk-horror classic movie Midsommar: MARTIN: It’s of course a lot of backwards engineering, because we knew what we had at an early stage, but it’s also highly influenced by my psychology studies,and the writings of … Read more“The Cult of Midsommar”
“How to avoid getting drawn into a cult” (BBC Ideas)
Richard Turner, a former cult member who is now a recovery therapist, explores how social groups that establish coercive control often don’t fit the “cult” stereotypes, and don’t need to, in order to pose a threat.