“I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don't have as many people who believe it.”

• George Carlin.

Cults are built on the power of belief and the more people who believe in a movement the more powerful it becomes.

If ten thousand cult worshipers claimed their leader walked on water, how would you go about convincing them otherwise, even if you had proof.

Look at Islam or Christianity or Judaism, they influence the world but they're all only built on the power of belief.

And you can equate religions and cults because the only difference between the two is time.

Well you see I expend all of my powers holding the darkness at bay. Notice how it gets dark when I get tired and fall asleep?

I think that is undercutting the prime requirement to be in a cult... too dumb to question shit like that.

A good deal of the miracles happen conveniently off-screen, and mostly become “true” because the whole group tends to unanimously trust the mythos.

There is a fun Netflix documentary where a guy creates his own cult: Kumare.

In the end he feels bad for taking advantage of peoples’ trust particularly when vulnerable and has a semi-sincere apology for including them in his project.

So the first requirement is you need to be a bit of a sociopath or a true believer (aka a bit crazy)

Easy, join the cult of linux and bow to the power of the cult leaders: "doing math very fast". BEHOLD.

They have social and political powers

Yup. The requirement of "faith" is a sure sign of charlatanism.

It's a funny thing, when you think about it. If you were truly God, you wouldn't need to prove it; you could just make it so everyone believes you.

False prophets will arrive and mislead many

This is why claiming to be a "prophet" (by any of a multitude of definitions) is so popular for cult leaders.

You can say you have information from a deity, one way or another, or even that you get special treatment from a deity. No special powers needed. If people believe in the deity and they believe you were chosen by that deity, to counteract that would mean counteracting the belief in the deity itself.

Extremely relevant video of Derren Brown, British illusionist: Miracles for Sale - It's very easy to pretend you have some sort of miracle healing powers.

Coincidentally watched The Man Who Would Be King for the first time last night. 😆

Still trying to decide if Huston (or Kipling for that matter) intended the anti-colonialism or if that's just my reading.

All this hullabaloo about a guy who never existed. Jesus buttfucking Christ.