New religious movements and cults in popular culture
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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New religious movements and cults can appear as themes or subjects in literature and popular culture, while notable representatives of such groups have produced, for their own part, a large body of literary works.
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Literature
Ancient
Alexander the False Prophet, a deeply hostile satire by Lucian of Samosata, allows this 2nd-century-AD writer to describe Alexander of Abonoteichus, an oracle who built a following in parts of the Roman Empire, and who (according to Lucian) swindled many people and engaged, through his followers, in various forms of thuggery.
The strength of Lucian's venom against Alexander is attributed to Alexander's hate of the Epicureans (Lucian admired the works of Epicurus, a eulogy of which concludes the piece). Whether or not Alexander epitomized fraud and deceit as portrayed by Lucian; he may not have differed greatly from other oracles of the age, in which a great deal of dishonest exploitation occurred in some shrines.
Sociologist Stephen A. Kent, in a study of the text, compares Lucian's Alexander to malignant narcissism in modern psychiatric theory, and suggests that the "behaviors" described by Lucian "have parallels with several modern cult leaders."
Ian Freckelton has noted at least a surface similarity between Alexander and the leader of a contemporary religious group, the Children of God.
Other scholars have described Alexander as an oracle who perpetrated a hoax to deceive gullible citizens, or as a false prophet and charlatan who played on the hopes of simple people, who "made predictions, discovered fugitive slaves, detected thieves and robbers, caused treasures to be dug up, healed the sick, and in some cases actually raised the dead" (ch. 24). Alexander did more than combine healing instructions with the oracle (not uncommon at the time); he also instituted mysteries. His main opposition came from Epicureans and Christians.
Lucian also wrote a satire called The Passing of Peregrinus, in which the lead character, Proteus, described by Lucian as a charlatan, takes advantage of the generosity and gullibility of Christians.
- The Golden Ass
In the last chapter of Apuleius' The Golden Ass, Lucius, the hero, eager for his initiation into the mystery cult of Isis, abstains from forbidden foods, bathes and purifies himself. Then the secrets of the cult's books are explained to him, and further secrets revealed before he goes through the process of initiation, which involves a trial by the elements in a journey to the underworld. Lucius is then asked to seek initiation into the cult of Osiris in Rome, and eventually is initiated into the pastophoroi — a group of priests that serves Isis and Osiris.
Renaissance
Even apart from the religious Reformation, the Renaissance era exhibited experimental belief-systems and resultant arguments about their merits. Shakespeare noted ca. 1595 in a passing comparison the phenomenon of the apostate: "the heresies that men do leave / Are hated most of those they did deceive" A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 2, Scene 2).
Early twentieth century
Mark Twain wrote a highly critical book (1907) about Christian Science. Willa Cather, a newspaper and magazine journalist and editor before turning to full-time fiction-writing, co-authored a detailed muckraking book (1909) on the same religious movement.
Zane Grey, in his Riders of the Purple Sage (1912), a Western novel that would have a major influence on Hollywood, lambasts the Mormons and has his gunslinger hero rescue a wealthy young woman in the early 1870s from the clutches of elderly polygamists via exceedingly bloody gunfights. The novel contains a portrayal of the psychological conflicts of the young woman, raised a Mormon but gradually coming to the realization that she wants a supposedly less constricted life. (The Mormon misdeeds depicted in the story take place on the southern frontier of Utah, and Grey makes no suggestion of the involvement of Mormon leaders in Salt Lake City.) The harassment of the young woman reflects a popular literary theme in Queen Victoria's England.
In Dashiell Hammett's The Dain Curse (1929), much of the mystery puzzle revolves around the Temple of the Holy Grail, a fictitious California circle that Hammett's characters repeatedly describe as a "cult". Hammett depicts it as starting as a scam, although the putative leader begins to believe in his own fraudulent claims.
A.E.W. Mason, in The Prisoner in the Opal (1928), one of his Inspector Hanaud mysteries, describes the unmasking of a Satanist cult.
The Italian novelist Sibilla Aleramo, in Amo, dunque sono (I Love, Therefore I Am) (1927) depicted Julius Evola's UR Group, a hermetical circle and intellectual movement — strongly influenced by Anthroposophy — that attempted to provide a spiritual direction to Benito Mussolini's fascism.
Aleramo described the character based on her former lover Evola as "inhuman, an icy architect of acrobatic theories, vain, vicious, perverse." Aleramo based her hero on Giulio Parise, who would unsuccessfully attempt to oust the pro-Fascist Evola as the circle's leader in 1928, resulting in an announcement by Evola that he would thenceforth exert "an absolute unity of direction" over the circle's publications.
Mid and late twentieth century
Science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein wrote two novels that deal with fictitious cult-like groups. A leading figure in his early "Future History" series (see If This Goes On--, a short novel published in Revolt in 2100), Nehemiah Scudder, a religious "prophet", becomes dictator of the United States. By his own admission in an afterword, Heinlein poured into this book his distrust of all forms of religious fundamentalism, the Ku Klux Klan, the Communist Party and other movements that he regarded as authoritarian. Heinlein also stated in the afterword that he had worked out the plot of other books about Scudder, but had decided not to write them — in part because he found Scudder so unpleasant. Heinlein's novel Stranger in a Strange Land features two cults: the "Dionysian Church of the New Revelation, Fosterite", and the protagonist Valentine Michael Smith's own "Church of All Worlds". Heinlein treats of the motives and methods of religious leaders in some detail.
Fictitious cults also feature in science fantasy and in horror novels. In That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis describes the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments, or "NICE", a quasi-governmental front concealing a kind of doomsday cult that worships a disembodied head kept alive by scientific means. Some commentators have interpreted this head, who/which plots to turn the Earth into a dead world like the Moon, as a symbol of secularism and materialism. Lewis' novel is notable for its elaboration of his 1944 address "The Inner Ring." The latter work criticizes the lust to "belong" to a powerful clique — a common human failing that Lewis believed was the basis for people being seduced into power-hungry and spiritually twisted movements.
In William Campbell Gault's Sweet Wild Wench, L.A. private eye Joe Puma investigates the "Children of Proton", a fictional cult that has attracted the support of the daughter of a wealthy businessman.
In Elizabeth Hand's Waking the Moon, the heroine battles against a Goddess-worshipping cult led by a radical feminist with supernatural powers and a penchant for human sacrifice.
Gore Vidal's Messiah depicts the rise of a cult leader, while Vidal's Kalki, a science-fiction novel, recounts how a small but scientifically adept fictitious cult kills off the entire human race by means of germ warfare.
Chuck Palahniuk's Survivor presents Tender Branson as the last surviving member of the fictional Creedish Church/cult. He starts off as a loyal servant for a rich couple, sent out of his community to service and improve the outside world, as well as to earn money for the church. Once identified as the last survivor, he becomes a media messiah and religious celebrity.
Margaret Peterson Haddix's "Leaving Fishers" is a young adult fiction book that follows teenager Dorry as she joins a cult and then has to figure out what she actually believes and how she wants to live her life. Published in 1997, Haddix's novel is an eerily believable portrayal of how an impressionable person can be pulled into such a manipulative and controlling organization, and could help young adults recognize signs of cults and help them figure out their own ideas about religion and faith.
Twenty-first century
Popular French author Michel Houellebecq's 2005 science-fiction novel, The Possibility of an Island, describes a cloning group that resembles the Raëlians.
Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code (2003), portrays a hero and heroine in flight from an assassin who belongs to the Catholic organization Opus Dei. (Opus Dei has disputed the accuracy of the portrayal, as has much of the media. For example, The Da Vinci Code portrays its villain as a monk, but the real Opus Dei includes no monks.
Paul Malmont's The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril (2006) portrays a young L. Ron Hubbard as one of three 1930s pulp-fiction writers who fight the forces of evil in a novel that nostalgically mimics the pulps. Although Malmont portrays the young Hubbard and future Scientology-founder as having a tendency to pad his résumé (a charge also made by some biographers of the real Hubbard), Malmont's Hubbard appears in most respects as a sympathetic character as well as a hero of the action.
Mike Doogan's detective thriller Lost Angel (2006) takes place at a fictional Christian commune in Alaska called "Rejoiced". In the opening pages, Doogan's novel appears to present a stereotypical cult, but it soon emerges that many of the members show independence of mind and routinely (if quietly) disobey the commune's founder and nominal leader.
Robert Muchamore has written a book for teenagers, Divine Madness, about a religious cult that has a vast number of members: the main characters of the book must infiltrate the cult to discover a sinister plot.
The primary antagonists of Brad Fear's A Macabre Myth of a Moth-Man (2008) are an organization of super-enhanced fanatics called 'The Swarm'. The cult's beliefs seem focused on the flaws of man as a species; their motivations based on ushering in an age of superior, gene-spliced hybrids. They conceal their 'imperfect' human forms beneath gas masks and body armour (with the exception of the cult-leader, Dante Eclipse, who wears a porcelain theatre mask and robes).
The novel Godless centers around a teenager who forms a religious cult that worships his hometown's watertower.
The Novel Seeds of Rapture (2011) by DC Ryder is a thriller about a young woman who infiltrates a religious cult as part of a deal with the FBI.
Suzanne McConnell's The Still Before Dawn ISBN: 978-1625070005 Believed to be the story that inspired John Grisham's "A Time to Kill"; This fictionalized autobiography is centered around a true life rape victim's story heard in a Mississippi court room. It centers on The Move, an active cult with farms around the world.
