
It's Sunday morning, and I’ve just finished the final episode of Netflix's How To Be A Cult Leader. It’s been torrential all weekend, perfect for an unfettered, guilt-free binge. I can't tell if the buzz I have is from the three cups of coffee I’ve downed or the explosive final line of the series: “There has never been a better time to start a cult”.
I grew up in the infamous Children of God sex cult. When I turned 30, myself and my cinematographer friend Sofi bought a truck and drove around America joining cults, from soap-making armageddonists to a cult that channels aliens in the desert. The plan was to try and understand why people join, what makes them stay, and why they would risk raising kids (like me) in extreme experiments.
So, a show that takes you into the mind-bending aspects of how to become a cult leader? Right up my street. It's fast-paced, bite-sized, full of archive footage, and animations. It's narrated by Peter Dinklage, with a tongue-in-cheekness that I found refreshing. In some cases, documentaries about cults take things a bit too seriously. Of course, cults are deeply damaging, but ask us kids who were raised to believe we would have Marvel-style superpowers, who read about our leaders' bowel movements, who starred in clown performances (yes, Bobo and Coco) that depicted the end of the world coming and you will learn that there are elements of cults that, on reflection, are actually quite funny.
The Netflix series reveals a tongue-in-cheek "playbook" that anyone can use to start their own cult. It's a lighthearted but insightful device that dismantles the mystique of egomaniac leaders and the lengths they will go to leave their mark, and serious consequences, on the world. From how to build your following, create your image, formulate beliefs, and even how to deal with the press.
Through the Playbook, the series deftly bounces through the cult leader hall of fame: Manson, May Sun Moon, Jaime Gomez, Jim Jones, Aum Shinrikyo to name just a few. However, in the episodes, only a few women are named, most of whom are in the supporting roles. And Anne Hamilton-Byrne, the only out-and-out female cult leader featured, the Australian leader of The Family doomsday cult (1960s-1990s) was only briefly on screen.
This Netflix show got me thinking about a surprising question I am often asked: Do women have what it takes to start a cult? As if the glass ceiling exists within the cult world. As if this is another ladder that we have yet to climb. In the words of her holiness Sheryl Sandberg, how could we Lean In to the Cult world? So with the same irreverence as the TV show, here is my guide to how to be a female cult leader.
When you look at the psychological makeup of most cult leaders, two things in abundance are: narcissism and megalomania, but only 25% of people with narcissistic personality disorder are women, so already the odds are against you.
But that's only the first issue you will encounter. We are starting to write the TV adaptation of my memoir Cult Following (starring Dakota Jonson and Riley Keough) and one of the ideas that has been floated is for the first cult leader that our road-tripping characters meet to be female. I love a bit of dramatic liberty, but something feels wrong. Inauthentic. The bones of cults are patriarchal, the structure needs someone (usually women) to be vulnerable (and in service). That's the second issue.
How to Be a Cult Leader dives into bonkers and destructive rituals; bandage swallowing, enforced sex, no sex, self-mutilation, castration, and even mandated plastic surgery. My self-proclaimed un-shockability was stunned. Did you know that Jim Jones (Peoples Temple 1955-1978) would have followers swallow chicken giblets to fake coughing up cancerous tumours as if he was performing miracles? Raw Giblets FFS! But no matter what the ritual, the reality of these dramatic practices, is they are grounded in coercive control. And that's one of the main struggles on a woman's path to cultic success.
Because as women, we are at the most risk of coercive control, in fact, the majority of women, up to 90%, who report abuse, experience it. It is not as interesting as levitating, or being saved by a UFO in the end days, it comes down to controlling women’s finances, communication, freedom, mobility and time. Strip it back, and it is coercive control that is what really makes a cult. Without it, it's just beliefs.
I am not saying I haven't seen a woman climb the cult corporate ladder. Unfortunately, I have. When I was a kid, Mary Malaysia dominated the group I was born into, The Children of God. She designed programmes called Teen Camps, implementing public beatings, starvation, and isolation for kids as young as ten, which is the age I was when she put me in one. The year I spent in the camp I was not allowed to speak, make eye contact or communicate with anyone but her. Mary's exceptional ruthlessness propelled her to become a global leader. However she was still just a tool.
So can we as women be cult leaders? Yes. But it's a steep climb. It will take all the flair and phases they suggest in the Playbook, plus a fundamental shift in not just your social context, but value systems, and psychological makeup. So I say, enjoy the show, but burn the Playbook after reading. (Please, We do not need more cult leaders.)
How to Be a Cult Leader is on Netflix now.
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