Primed to be Cultish

Cults and Cultishness in life and fiction, library book challenge news

As we passed this truck on the freeway, my husband pointed out that “Cactus are Cool” isn’t grammatically correct. But yes. Very cool.

Cults

I wrote a YA novel, debuting in late 2025, about a fictional cult that combines practices from both real cults and strict mainstream Christian religions. The book is about teens hoping to escape a polygamist commune, so I looked to practices from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as well as those of other cults.¹

And because the society in my novel is paternalistic, I used some of my own experience in the 20th-century Catholic Church. Cult or not, things go wrong when people don’t question their leaders. (Think of the widespread sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts. And so many others.)

The first book I read on the FLDS cult was Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith. I picked it up because I liked his Into the Wild as well as Into Thin Air. (Links are to my reviews of each.) I didn’t review Under the Banner back when I read it (I have no idea why, can’t remember. I did later also review his Missoula, so I’m clearly a fan). Here’s the publisher’s summary:

Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God; some 40,000 people still practice polygamy in these communities.

At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

This led me to read other books about the FLDS cult. We can look at those in future posts.

I can’t stop thinking about cults and cultish behaviors because it seems that a significant minority of the US population is primed to believe their practices and conduct are okay. If people are primed by their spiritual leaders for unquestioning obedience, those people can carry this attitude of unwavering loyalty to any other area of their lives. They’re PT Barnum’s suckers. But even people who do not learn such loyalty in a religious practice can learn it elsewhere.

Amanda Montell

wrote about this in her book Cultish. 

Cultish

Montell shows how language (special vocabulary, jargon, secret code, etc.) is used to rope in cult and not-quite-cult members, making them feel special or chosen. I used to take Kundalini yoga classes, which I really liked. We always chanted with a special vocabulary. This made it feel like a special club. And it was okay—no one was trying to remove anyone from their support systems. (That’s the difference between a true cult and cultish organizations.) Still, some of what passed for healthy behavior felt weird to me. The teachers wore white for protection. They didn’t use antiperspirant because they believed it caused cancer. Adherents felt the alignment of their chakras would alter the universe. My own experience tells me I don’t have that kind of power, and no spiritual practice is going to give it to me. 

Writing on special language, Montell discusses ‘speaking in tongues’ as a cultish way for people to feel special or chosen. Wikipedia defines speaking in tongues as “an activity or practice in which people utter words or speech-like sounds, often thought by believers to be languages unknown to the speaker. One definition used by linguists is the fluid vocalizing of speech-like syllables that lack any readily comprehended meaning. In some cases, as part of religious practice, some believe it to be a divine language unknown to the speaker.”

Lord have mercy

As a teen, I attended a few Catholic retreats at a local convent. At one, the leaders, who were evangelical laymen, had us speaking in tongues. This was WAY outside the typical Catholic box. I never told my parents. What would they have made of that nonsense? Told to hang on to my ‘special words,’ I had two and would repeat them over and over as a part of my nightly prayers. Yeah, it was pretty much chanting. Although I thought I was using my own words, a few years later, it occurred to me that they were suspiciously akin to ‘Kyrie eleison,’ a transliteration of the ancient Greek ‘Lord have mercy.’ “Lord have mercy” is a phrase I had repeated every Sunday of my life. So—not my personal language. 

There were a few other strange things I came home with besides words. One was some sort of religious newspaper propaganda. I remember one story because it was a personal essay by a woman who said she had fallen under the spell of a false religion and believed at that time that God was telling her to rewrite the Bible. She was so excited by the work and the prospect of being a prophet that she lay in bed that night next to her husband having an orgasm. In the article, I believe she said Satan had caused this (not sure—it was long ago). It was all part of a diabolical plan to overthrow Jesus. While it was bizarre, it did introduce me to the concept of orgasm.

Multilevel Marketing

I also loved Cultish’s “Do You Want to be a #BossBabe?” This chapter is about Multilevel Marketing (The article I’ve linked separates MLM from pyramid schemes, but—it is so much like a pyramid scheme that you can think ‘pyramid scheme,’ and you’ll have a pretty good understanding). I’ve noticed that people who ascribe to magical thinking (new age crystals/herbs/cards/whatever, Christian evangelical literalism,  Joseph Smith’s golden tablets, etc.) are the people who have tried to get me involved in these schemes. Having to say no is such a pain in the ass. I’m always afraid of offending the MLMer and losing a relationship. 

So—I loved the #BossBabe chapter because it’s so much fun when nonfiction elucidates a truth I’ve woven into my fiction.

Some of my short fiction in Acts of Contrition is about religious magical thinking. As a former Catholic, I have some fun with the Church and my former beliefs. But one story, “Solvent,” takes on the panoply. Not just the Mormon and Jehovah’s Witness missionaries afoot, but the MLM neighbor who always has some new sales scheme, which she combines with her current spiritual regimen. One of my reviewers, Executive Director of the Inlandia Institute

Cati Porter

, sums this story up:

A reformed Evangelical Christian turned New-agey-vegan-spiritual pyramid scheme saleswoman demonstrates the effectiveness of a caustic cleaning product over an heirloom dining table to a pair of tipsy Mormon missionaries and a mother-daughter team of Jehovah’s Witnesses. (What could go wrong?)

Good stuff

I’m excited about

Molly Saint-James

’ new Substack. This past week, she had a personal essay on Salon about how Taylor Swift’s music connected her husband to her girls and also helped her grieve him after his death. Read it here. 

I don’t post on Twitter (X) these days, but I did see there that John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down will premiere on MAX on May 2. I read and enjoyed it when it came out, and am excited about watching the film iteration. I didn’t review the book, I think because I had just left my career as teacher-librarian at that time. I gave my copy to a high school English teacher friend who was good at getting books into the right student hands. 

Libraries and book challenges

Here’s my weekly library book challenge news. As usual, this is not all the news. I always curate what I read. I hope you find these articles useful.

Last week a reader wondered about whether partisans on both sides had caused the book ban mess in Florida to be so much worse. It’s reasonable to ask whether educators (read: liberals, although that’s a generalization) were overreacting to book challenges. I think the first two articles here give some background on why educators reacted as they did.

Why is Florida No. 1 in book bans?

The same week PEN America released its report, Gov. Ron DeSantis called the concerning levels of censorship “performative” and “political,” blaming “activists.” 

And just a few days later, at the Florida Board of Education meeting on April 17, it was time to blame the educators. After Board members Christie Grazie and Kelly Garcia accused Florida’s educators of engaging in political stunts when they covered their classroom libraries, Chair Ben Gibson stated, “whether they were stunts, whether they were people not understanding — call it what it is.” 

So, let’s call it what it is (because they definitely didn’t): These are red herrings. The state is well aware that the objections overwhelming school districts are from those who are serious about removing the books from schools. 

While it’s true that some of the censorship is coming from scared educators, “erring on the side of caution,” it’s the result of chilling-effect legislation state leaders have put in place. Educators, like in Escambia County, set aside countless hours they didn’t have to review books no one was objecting to — believing the laws and rules forced them to limit student access in their libraries until full compliance was verified. 

(NB: It’s worth reading the entire article to see why educators believed the law required this.) 

Confusing DOE memo led to wholesale school book banning in Collier County and elsewhere

On October 13, 2023, Chancellor Paul Burns of the DOE, who oversees K-12 public schools, sent a memo to school superintendents. It was meant to guide book curation for libraries, but unfortunately it conflated the criteria for objection and discussion with the criteria for removal from a collection. School staffers erroneously believed that all library materials should be free of any sexual conduct.

Stephana Farrell of the Florida Freedom to Read Project says this is where some of the problems started.

"It’s this interpretation of the law that caused Escambia County to pull things like dictionaries, and why Collier County is pulling Hemingway and Tolstoy and Zora Neale Hurston. We’re seeing so many classics now getting removed. They are just interpreting the law the way that the memo and the guidance from the Florida DOE would have them believe it must be interpreted,” Farrell said.

Williams: How do you define hypocrisy? Ask Hanover, which just censored a Girl Scout

After the Hanover County School Board banned 19 books last June, Kate Lindley launched “Free to Read,” her Girl Scout Gold Award project. 

Lindley, who’d competed as a Reading Olympian as a Hanover student, was appalled at the censorship and determined to combat it. She coded a “Free to Read” app with information about the misbegotten ban and the books affected. And after the board banned more than 70 additional books in November, she set up Banned Book Nooks at two Hanover businesses: Morr Donuts in Mechanicsville and We Think In Ink in Ashland.

At its April 10 meeting, the Hanover Board of Supervisors honored Lindley and several other Girl Scouts from Troop 789 in Hanover who’d earned their Gold Awards, the highest award granted by Girl Scouts of the USA.

But like their counterparts on the county School Board, the Board of Supervisors could not resist the temptation to censor. Cold Harbor Supervisor Michael Herzberg stripped Lindley’s proclamation of its context by removing mention of the School Board book bans that spurred her to action in the first place.

‘Maus’ author Art Spiegelman: Book bans show ‘yearning’ for authoritarianism

Here’s Art Spiegelman’s interview with Greg Sargent of the Washington Post. I gifted the article, so you should be able to read it in its entirety.

As more schools target ‘Maus,’ Art Spiegelman’s fears are deepening

(to be clear, the nude woman portrayed in the book is drawn as a mouse)

School districts await statewide book ban list as Utah plans to retroactively enforce new law

The problem: All those previous book ban decisions were based on statewide guidance outlined in the 2022 law. The new book ban law introduces brand new guidance, which must be adhered to in order for books to be banned statewide.

And that statewide ban only happens if at least three school districts (or at least two school districts and five charter schools) decide to ban a title based on the new guidance.

Determining whether or not past book ban decisions jive with the new statewide guidance is no easy task. USBE is still in the early stages of formulating the process — an initial plan was drafted this week.

But once it’s finalized, USBE expects to disclose a list of all retroactively banned books to districts and charters as early as August.

Americans who want to protect democracy need to stand up for public libraries 

Includes a bit of the history of public libraries in the United States 

Minnesota and other Democratic-led states lead pushback on censorship. They're banning the book ban

Conservative parents and activists argue that the books are too sexually explicit or otherwise controversial, and are inappropriate, especially for younger readers. National groups such as Moms for Liberty say parents are entitled to more control over books available to their children.

But pushback is emerging. According to EveryLibrary, a political action committee for libraries, several states are considering varying degrees of prohibitions on book bans. A sampling includes California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont, though some in conservative states appear unlikely to pass. One has also died in New Mexico this year.

New Maryland law to prevent book banning signed by Gov. Wes Moore

Book Ban Fight in Nevada Would Create LGBTQ+ Section of Libraries

“So, for example, there's a book called And Tango Makes Three. It's about two male penguins who adopt a baby penguin and they have a little family… it's a children's book,” Ratliff explained.

Under the proposal, this book would be taken out the children’s section and would be moved into a specific section titled “LGBTQ+.” “If people were trying to learn about LGBT things or read books with LGBT characters, they'd have to go to the section with a big sign over this is LGBT, and really sort of out themselves,” they said.

How to Fight Book Bans in 2024: Book Censorship News, April 26, 2024

No, you won’t find “read the books” here. That’s a nice thing to do. It doesn’t end book bans unless you’re on the review committee deciding the fate of that book. You won’t find “create a banned book library” or “buy books for the kids” on this list. Again, fine and good things to do, but 1. they’re engaging in capitalism and not anti-censorship work, 2. they only help some kids who likely already have the means to be helped, and 3. too often, those focus back too much on the good people behind them and not the reality of who is hurt with book bans.

If you read this very basic list of what to do and feel frustrated, that’s worth sitting with. This is not a short-term project. Again, the first “how to” guide here was published in fall 2021. It’s now spring 2024. Change only happens when you take action to make change and change is extremely slow. Realistically, the folks behind book bans and the groups and actions being taken to rip away access to books, libraries, and public education, more broadly, have been a work in progress from the far-right and religious extremists for decades now.

Ruby Bridges: civil rights pioneer rejects claim book makes white children uncomfortable

US activist, 69, speaks to NBC amid growing effort to prevent I Am Ruby Bridges and other works being available to school students

“That’s just an excuse not to share the truth, to cover up history,” Bridges said. “But I believe that history is sacred – that none of us should have the right to change or alter history in any way.”

Bridges was six years old in November 1960 when US deputy marshals escorted her past jeering crowds into New Orleans’ William Frantz elementary school.

With her white sweater, matching hair bow, black patent leather shoes and a small satchel in her right hand that day, she became the first Black child to desegregate an all-white elementary school in New Orleans – a scene immortalized in the 1963 Norman Rockwell painting named The Problem We All Live With.

Bridges grew up to start an eponymous foundation dedicated to promoting tolerance and change through academic education. Meanwhile, the Akili Academy now occupying the school which Bridges integrated has a majority Black student population and is a stop on Louisiana’s Civil Rights Trail.

I’m reading

The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez

I’m watching

A Gentleman in Moscow

The Sympathizer

Thanks for being here with me

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1. FLDS, to be clear, is not mainstream LDS/Mormonism. The US branch, once led by Warren Jeffs largely came apart with his arrest for child sexual assault. He’s serving a life sentence.