Establishing Supreme Authority

Cult doctrine will only be swallowed if you first establish authority. This is most effectively accomplished by framing your religion around an extant faith instead of creating a new one ex nihilo. Christianity is the easiest religion to expand upon: it’s vague and protean, but more importantly, grounded upon the bogus notion of Absolute Truth. The Bible is "inerrant," its laws "immutable," its god "ineffable," and its spokesperson, Christ, is "perfect." These hermeneutics can be used to establish your own credibility. As an added bonus, the overwhelming majority of Americans are taught the infallibility of the Christian faith since birth and are trained to respond to Christian iconography like Pavlov’s dogs. This can always be exploited by innovative cults.

If a Christian framework is too unaesthetic for your tastes, you can achieve immediate authority by declaring that your religion is a direct and authentic descendant of an ancient tradition. Claiming to "rediscover" the "sacred truths" of the Druids, Romans, Celts, Amerindians, Egyptians, Sumerians, Vikings, or Yogis lends instant credibility to your creed. The actual historicity of your reconstruction is irrelevant. Any historian who critiques your flawed mythology will be ignored by your followers as an old fogey who just doesn’t truly appreciate the ancient culture. As proof, witness the New Age response to harsh rebukes from professional Egyptologists.

Never be afraid of practices or beliefs that seem too loony to ever possibly work. The con-men who pioneered snake handling, Ufology, and the Hollow Earth Theory probably had the same initial reservations. Sometimes absurdity itself can be attractive - the cults with the most bizarre means of dress, speech, and behavior are often the most popular. People like to try new and exotic things and, when convinced that they are better, now feel superior to everyone in the day-to-day world. There is also the additional conviction that these ideas surely must be right, for otherwise I’ve been the biggest fool by following them. Cults still thrive in the 21st Century even after rejecting the cosmologies of Darwin and Copernicus.