Cult

Whenever I contemplate L. Ron Hubbard, Joseph Smith, Sun Myung Moon, "Bill" Cooper, Alex Jones or other cult leaders, one question dominates my thoughts: Do these people really believe what they're saying?

Years ago, a guy who knew Hubbard told me that, when separated from his followers, Ron would sneer at the suckers who bought into Dianetics. At least, that was the mask he wore when speaking to his fellow science fiction writers. Other evidence suggests that Hubbard sincerely bought into his own rap -- Xenu, the volcanoes, thetans, clams, all of it.

Proposition: Let us consider Trumpism as a cult.

Question: Does DJT believe in the weird conspiracy theories that he tweets about?

I've gone back and forth on that poser. Now we have evidence: Yep. He's a sucker for his own bunk. He's a Music Man who has convinced himself that the Think System actually works.

“I think Hillary is getting killed now with Russia. The real Russia story is Hillary and collusion,” Trump can be heard saying on the tape before arguing that the Clinton campaign made an illegal campaign finance violation by allegedly spending $9 million on a report to prove he had colluded with Russia. After getting affirmation on that claim from Hope Hicks, he adds, “So the whole Russia thing I think seems to have turned around, what do you think, Sarah?”

“Absolutely,” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders replies, dutifully.

What shocks me is not the fact that the underlings all say "Yes, boss. Right, boss. Seven in one blow if you say so, boss." Obsequiousness is what underlings are for.

What shocks me is that Trump seems genuinely convinced that there is some hidden skullduggery linking Hillary and Russia. That claim is pure projection, pure propaganda. Nothing backs this theory except for casuistry offered by desperate people hiding behind feigned arrogance. Yet Trump makes this absurd claim not just on Twitter, not just in speeches, but behind the scenes.

He's a Hubbard who thinks that Xenu really is out to get him.

Speaking about cults. I must respond to this article, which references -- yet again -- Leon Festinger's overly-familiar When Prophecy Fails. For some reason, people keep presuming that I've never read that book. Hell, if I had a dollar for everyone I've met who made that presumption, I could order steak tonight. Well, maybe a first-rank burger.

Yes, I've read it. Not only that: I know the truth about "Marion Keech," the cult leader whose group was infiltrated. Her real name was Dorothy Martin, a.k.a. Sister Thedra, and she became the behind-the-scenes leader of the Association of Sananda and Sanat Kumara (ASSK), the group that gave us Ramtha.

(Remember Ramtha? Blonde chick who imitated Yul Brynner while offering mystical guff and fake prophecies? "He" was big in the 1990s. Most people ignored "his" conspiracy theories about the Rothschilds, but I notice such things.)

Here's a message for all you folks who think that you can take me to school just because you've read Festinger's book: I've spoken directly to someone who got screwed over by Keech/Martin/Thedra.

After the events outlined by Festinger, she joined up with a con artist/cult leader named George Hunt Williamson, a.k.a. Brother Philip. (His real name may or may not have been Michael d'Obrenovic; no-one really knows.) Williamson became notorious for introducing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories into the subculture of post-war mysticism. Standard fare nowadays, but shocking at the time. 

In the late 1950s, Williamson and Martin gave lectures about a secretive conclave of adepts nestled in the Andes -- the Brotherhood of the Seven Rays, supposedly a kind of Shangri-La in Peru. He wrote about this group in a 1961 book called Secret of the Andes.

(That "Seven Rays" bit was lifted from Theosophy and actually refers to a deeply racist theory of human development. Rays = Race.)

Shortly before the publication of that book, Williamson and Martin announced that they were mounting an expedition to visit the Brotherhood. Dozens of naive young Americans forked over a lot of dough to join the trek. The rubes were taken to a small Peruvian town (I forget the name) at the foot of the Andes, where they holed up in a truly horrible hotel. After they had spent a few days there in mystic preparation, Williamson and Martin assured the group that, in the morning, they would all begin the final leg of the journey. They were going to join the Brotherhood.
  
Dawn came. You guessed it: Williamson and Martin had flown the coop -- taking all the money with them.

How do I know this? Because I spoke at length to one of the victims.

Like all of the other young rubes, he had no choice but to send a message to his family begging for emergency money. Although the Peruvian expedition proved very humiliating, it awakened an interest in actual anthropology -- at least, such was the case with my informant; I don't know about the others. He later became a scientist attached to a prestigious institution, and he made me swear that I would never reveal his name in connection with this tale.

I mention all of this by way of countering Festinger.

That book is founded on the premise that "Marion Keech" was a sincere would-be prophetess, when in fact she was just a money-grubbing con artist. Festinger made the same mistake that several other sociologists have made, particularly J. Gordon Melton and Massimo Introvigne: They insist on presuming that all cult leaders operate in good faith. In fact, many fringe religious movements are headed by liars and dangerous criminals.

As for Festinger's theory that followers "double down" on their beliefs when a leader proves fallible -- well, my informant didn't react that way. He doubled down on science and logic. When you awaken in the middle of nowhere and suddenly realize that you've been robbed, you tend to wise up very quickly.

The Trump cultists need a morning like that. Nothing else will snap 'em out of it.

We come back to our original question: Do cult leaders really believe their own bullshit? On some level, Martin and Williamson did betray a kind of sincerity. Their commitment to certain Theosophical ideas -- and to racism -- was probably genuine. Yet they also were in it for the dough.

What of Trump?