“1. It aims to destroy
2. It isolates its members from the world
3. It claims special knowledge and morality
4. It demands strict obedience
5. It applies brainwashing
6. It replaces one’s world view
7. It has an auto-referential philosophy
8. It creates its own language, incomprehensible to outsiders”
This is a widely held definition of what constitutes a cult. It applies to many things: some religions, consumerism, and even modern architecture, as the author of these rules argues. The essence of a cult is the worship of a promise of unrealistic returns, reinforced by a system of petty instant gratification. In religion, this usually means the promise of an incredible afterlife, in consumerism it usually means the promise of a perfect present life, and in architecture it means the promise of creative genius. Realistically, the afterlife is unproven, perfection is unattainable, and it takes decades to learn how to actually build buildings.
