Long before I’d ever written a book or blog, before I’d ever taught a workshop or given a keynote, my beloved mentor Rachel Naomi Remen sat me down and lectured me on how to avoid joining a cult and how to avoid ever becoming a cult leader. This was important to her because she’d been in two cults, and she’d seen how destructive they can be. As someone who saw her as my mentor, she was careful to call out times when she thought I might be giving too much of my power away to her. And then when I started writing books and becoming a group facilitator, she wanted to make damn sure I never became a cult leader.
Rachel always told stories, and one story she told me was the story of the old fashioned ship gimbal. Back when ships had no electricity, they relied on candle flames for light, but since ships were also made of wood, it would be disastrous if the candle fell over and set the boat on fire. So all good captains knew the candle needed a gimbal, something that held the candle upright, no matter how much the waves tossed the ship about.
The structures of the communities we create, she said, must be like that gimbal, able to ride the waves without burning down the ship.
A few years ago, I decided to begin my in person workshops with a conversation about how to cult proof our communities. I started doing this while teaching at Esalen, when I was responsible for leading a month long program, and the longer a leader is responsible for a group of people, the more important it becomes to cult proof our communities. That same week, I met Anke Richter, a cult journalist and author of Cult Trip, who was next to me in a hot springs under a starry sky. I made a casual comment to Jeff about how we were actively trying to cult proof our community, when Anke asked if I would be willing to go on the record to say how we did that, so I thought I’d try to share some of the steps we took to create a safe enough container.
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First and foremost, leaders must acknowledge when they have been put in a position of authority, and invite students to challenge their authority, give negative feedback if need be, and speak up if the leader does or says anything that triggers them. They might confront the leader privately or in the presence of the group, but they need to feel free to hold leaders accountable for anything they might say or do that feels unsafe or out of balance to them. It’s a leader’s responsibility to respond to feedback without defensiveness, judgment, denial, minimizing, criticism, abandonment, exile from the group, or spiritual bypassing. Leaders need to understand that students may need to test the leader, to find out if they’re trustworthy and capable of ownership, accountability, and repair, to make sure they mean it. Leaders must prove that we can navigate that territory with delicacy if need be, in case anyone has a history of trauma when challenging authority figures.
A healthy community should explicitly communicate that students are not only allowed to disagree with the leader; they are encouraged to do so, understanding that questioning a leader’s teachings is not a sign of being undercommitted. It’s a sign of health. Students need to be clearly told that they do not have to adopt the leader’s worldview, that leaving the community is always permitted, without punishment or shunning, that former members are allowed to criticize the community, and that the leader is fallible and human and can be downright wrong sometimes.
One particularly powerful practice is to regularly invite challenge or disagreement, rather than merely tolerating it. This tests not only whether people are allowed to disagree, but whether disagreement will cost students belonging.
In healthy communities, leaders offer ideas, and communities evaluate, challenge, question, contemplate, and sometimes accept and sometimes reject those ideas. A leader who can say “I don't know,” “I was wrong,” “I used to think this but now I’m not sure,” or “I changed my mind” is a green flag.
If your community are the Hogwarts magicians and everyone else are the Muggles, you’re on your way to a cult like dynamic. Humans are humans. Humans are all equal at the spiritual level, even if we have preferences for some behaviors of some humans and aversions to other behaviors. In our spiritual hearts, nobody is “better than” or “less than.” As Paul Farmer, MD said, “The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.”
Cults break up humans into "good and special” and “bad outsiders.” If you find yourself judging some people as “spiritual” and others are “not spiritual,” or “doing their work" and “not doing their work,” you’re splitting, which is common in cult like dynamics. We have to catch ourselves as leaders to make sure we don’t pass this splitting along to those who might influence.
Of course, we all have our judgments, and that’s normal. I admit to judging Trump-loving MAGA people and preferring liberal Democrats, and I can get smug and self-righteous about why I feel that way. But you don’t have to agree with me to be in this community, as long as you follow the stated guidelines and don’t promote dangerous misinformation. I prefer people who care about social justice and aren’t overtly racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, or otherwise practice and promoting hate. But I also know that people who are all those things are still human, and at the spiritual level, they are equal to everyone else.
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We just covered this topic in this week’s The Writer’s Calling, about how to make sure, as writers, we cult proof our communities. If you’re interested in writing classes, conversations about publishing, and discussions about accountability and support as a writer, please feel to join The Writer’s Calling.
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