Thread by @xuenay

How Not To Become a Guru (Tucker Peck & @OortCloudAtlas )

An insight this helped crystallize for me:

We tend to think of a "cult leader" as someone who *intentionally* sets out to create a cult. But most cult-like things probably *don't* form like that.

teachingmeditation.buzzsprout.com/1660645/762090…

A lot of people feel a strong innate *desire* to be in a cult. Michael suggests it's rooted in an infant's need to attach to a caregiver, and to treat them as a fully dependable authority to fix all problems - a desire which doesn't necessarily ever go fully away.

Once someone becomes a teacher of some sort, even if they had absolutely no desire to create a cult, they will regardless attract people who *want* to be their cultists.

There are people who want to find a fully dependable authority figure to look up to, and are just looking for someone who feels like a good fit for the role. (I should note that I have definitely not been immune to feeling this yearning myself.)

To avoid having cultists, "not intending to create a cult" isn't enough; you have to _actively fight against_ people's tendency to idealize you, by doing things that force them to confront the fact that you are actually just a human.

I'm reminded of something I recall @ESYudkowsky once saying: "if you tell your doting followers not to form a cult, they will go around saying 'We Must Not Form A Cult, Great Leader Mundo Said So'."

And furthermore, once people _do_ start pulling you towards a cult leader role, it's going to feel very appealing.

What it feels like from the inside is "all of these people like me and say that I've done a lot of good for them, so clearly I must be doing things right, and since they also listen to me, I can use my position to help them out even more".

It's not just that the cultists are getting "brainwashed" by their leader; it's also that the leader is getting brainwashed _by their cultists_ to take the role that they want the leader to take.

Cults are said to use "love bombing" to attract new recruits, but in at least some cases, it probably also happens that the cult _leader_ is getting love bombed by their followers.

And the temptation to take on that role is powerful not only because it feels nice personally, but also because it _does_ allow you to use your power for good.

One definition for a hypnotic trance that I've heard is that it's a state in which a person's critical faculty is bypassed, which allows the hypnotist to directly make changes in the mind of the person being hypnotized.

And you _can_ do a lot of good that way, such as by implanting suggestions that help people overcome their addictions or phobias.

Being someone's cultist (in this sense) is kind of like them having you in a hypnotic trance. It *is* possible for to use that power in a way that's beneficial, because the critical faculty that might normally reject or modulate the leader's suggestions gets partially bypassed.

But that same power makes it extremely dangerous, since people are not going to think critically about what you say, and may take your words far more literally than you intended, when you didn't think of adding the obvious-to-you caveats about how it *shouldn't* be interpreted.

I'm reminded here again of @Morphenius 's essay on of how people tend to take the kinds of roles that their social environment recognizes and rewards...

lesswrong.com/posts/AqbWna2S…

...and how people try to tug *others* into the kinds of roles that they can recognize and know how to interact with, and the collective power of everyone doing this causes the social web as a whole to try to pull people into recognizable roles - including "charismatic leader".

(Here we come back to Taft's suggestion that many people have an instinctive desire to get someone into a role that they recognize as a "trustworthy caretaker" one, because the "child" role is one that feels very easy to play - just surrender your judgment to the other person.)

I've been feeling this myself. I've written various things that people like. And I've been having a definite sense of some of my social environment trying to tug me more towards a role as a teacher and as an authority, getting the sense that some people are idealizing me.

(And again, yes, there have been several times when I've had the cult follower energy myself, too - both towards online writers and in some of my romantic relationships.)

And I'm also reminded of siderea's analysis of kingship in Watership Down ( siderea.livejournal.com/1212664.html ), and of how Hazel never thought of himself as a leader originally in the novel, until the characters around him started treating him as one:

> If you demonstrate a concern for the wellbeing of the people in your people, they will start seeing their wellbeing as your concern. Start taking responsibility for how things go in a group, and people will start seeing you as responsible for how things go in a group.

(the relevant discussion in the linked podcast starts at about 32 minutes)