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This cult and its predecessor, the I AM, are cornerstones of American fascism. It’s a deep dive worth doing. I AM toward its end even perpetuated stories remarkably similar to Qanon, in the 1930s.

A fun fact too: General Nathan Flynn recited a very strange prayer at one of his gatherings. Turns out it’s a prayer from the Church Universal and Triumphant, this woman’s fascist cult. So there may be surviving ideological links today, or Flynn may be in a cult himself, or maybe whoever wrote it for him is.

https://x.com/PiperK/status/1445663165186904065

A lot of this stuff goes even further back to William Dudley Pelley and the Silver Shirts, an American fascist movement. Pelley and Edna Ballard, one of the founders of I AM, were associated.

Wouldn’t be the first time cults tried to use rich or powerful followers to gain money or power for themselves. Look into Scientology.

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> General Nathan Flynn recited a very strange prayer at one of his gatherings. Turns out it’s a prayer from the Church Universal and Triumphant

This is in the article.

As an aside, your repeated use of the word "cult" and the word "fascist" detracts from your comment. Both words have been diluted past all meaning, and using them together so frequently in just a few paragraphs induces a lot of cringing from anyone who is moderately familiar with either religious studies or political science. They're essentially just expletives at this point and don't add much meaning beyond intense disapproval.

The Silver Shirts were straight-up fascists. The other movements you refer to were right-wing nationalist movements but I see no evidence of most of the characteristics of fascism except that you try to paint them with the same brush by referring to a vague association between founders.

They're only diluted if you let them be.

I assume the objection above was to avoid them being diluted, here. I'm also trying to figure out if you're trying to say that if we just react to the words as if they were being properly applied no matter what, that will prevent them from being diluted. Because that's not good.

Pray someone doesn't come along and take all of your magical words away some day.

> the word "cult" ... have been diluted past all meaning

Another interpretation is that Cult has been somewhat disarmed from it's modern, weaponized usage.

Historically, Cult was as a neutralish term.

In discussing religious groups, Cult helped clarify that the group in focus was a subset of a larger group. It was also used as a catchall reference to small religions.

In the latter 20th century, Evangelical authors/lecturers (eg:Walter Martin) strongly associated Cult with evil and used it to help introduce+nurture animosity toward smaller, unliked Christian faiths.

If Cult hadn't been so loaded with sinister vibes, it might not have become the term we use to reference cloistering, manipulative groups.

Eh, when paired with "fascist" it's pretty clear that OP is using "cult" in much the same way that Evangelical Christians use it. Both words are essentially a label that identifies a movement as something that you should be opposed to if you're not either evil or naive.

> [cult is] essentially a label that identifies a movement as something that you should be opposed to if you're not either evil or naive.

I don't disagree with your assessment here.

I am okay, however, with Cult becoming defanged.

Cult's negative connotations sprung from the worst of intentions - to divide Christians by demonizing other, smaller Christian faiths. Turning a vulnerable group into an (punishable) enemy is a classic fascist tactic.

I argue that the negative associations with 'Cult' were originally a product of fascist methods.

The further we are from all of that, the better I'll feel.

Trying to language police the use of the word fascism to describe right-wing authoritarians is a waste of time and for me raises a bright red flag for the person doing the language policing. Instead of trying to get people to stop using a term of common parlance to describe the emerging and growing spread of right-wing authoritarianism, perhaps you might want to consider doing some constructive instead, or just coping with the fact that with the current rise of right-wing authoritarian extremism that mirrors prior rises of the same, some people are going to use a word you don't like to describe it.

> the use of the word fascism to describe right-wing authoritarians is a waste of time

Sort of adjacent to your point. I think the label 'Fascist' best serves us when we apply it to fascist behaviors.

I'm not saying Fascist isn't a reasonable label for people who embrace fascist behaviors. It is.

But 1) understanding and identifying fascist behaviors - this is how we know when to apply the label and

2) the behaviors are the mechanism for harm; they deserve our greater focus and

3) People are multiple things and things change. Behavior is what it is.

What characteristics did you test against?

A few of them [0]:

> a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and/or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

Our vocabulary in the US around politics (left and right) gives the false impression that politics is a 2D spectrum. It's not, and very few right-wing groups today have many shared beliefs with fascists at all. This includes the nutjobs who think they're Nazi sympathizers.

According to Orwell the word was already a mostly meaningless insult by 1944 [1], and it's still a mostly meaningless insult:

> Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.

> ... All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

[1] https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/tribune...

Elizabeth Prophet didn't dictate her organisation? It wasn't obsessed with nuclear weapons? Their view of initiation doesn't signal a belief in a natural social hierarchy? They didn't sign over their personal assets in service of this ultra-nationalist organisation?

I don't think you've tried to determine their politics at all, you just want to say that the dominant ideology of the US is not allowed to be named.

Michael Flynn?

Yes. My mistake.

I’m surprised people are low key defending these groups, even people on the right. This isn’t conservatism. It’s totalitarianism backed by new age woo.

I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised. Totalitarianism is back in fashion lately. Feels like we want to LARP the early 20th century.

> even people on the right.

Since I'm assuming that I'm one target of this as the only person to contradict you in this subthread, I just want to be clear: I'm not on the right. As far as the conservatives in my (very red) state are concerned I'm a flaming liberal.

As for how I'd describe myself, I'm basically in the "we desperately need to reverse the trend of everyone assuming that anyone who disagrees with them is evil" camp, which is why I strongly object to casual comparisons to fascism. Using that word or the word "cult" to label someone immediately frees you from any obligation to engage with them as a person, and I'm not okay with that tendency from either wing of modern politics.

I agree broadly with the last part but I’m talking about the I AM cult and Qanon here not sane things.

We need to stop handling psychotic totalitarian lunacy the same way we handle people we don’t agree with about the use of pronouns or tax policy.

Historically, I find that what's politically in fashion tends to be aligned with Russia's interests. One giveaway are those "polarizing figures" whose polarity suspiciously changed over time in alignment with Russia's magnetic field: Gingrich, Berlusconi, Dick Morris, just to pick on some whose mention won't start a flamewar. Coincidence is a thing but this ain't it.

Some are contrarians with the opposite polarity, such as Arianna Huffington. Kudos, maybe.

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