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Comment by mlinhares | Hacker News Reader

> One is Black Lotus, a Burning Man camp led by alleged rapist Brent Dill, which developed a metaphysical system based on the tabletop roleplaying game Mage the Ascension.

What the actual f. This is such an insane thing to read and understand what it means that i might need to go and sit in silence for the rest of the day.

How did we get to this place with people going completely nuts like this?

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Came to ask a similar question, but also has it always been like this? The difference is now these people/groups on the fringe had no visibility before the internet?

It's nuts.

It’s always been like this, have you read the Bible? Or the Koran? It’s insane. Ours is just our flavor of crazy. Every generation has some. When you dig at it, there’s always a religion.

Mage is a game for teenagers, it doesn't try to be anything else other than a game where you roll dice do to stuff.

tbf Helter Skelter was a song about a fairground ride that didn't really pretend to be much more than an excuse for Paul McCartney to write something loud, but that didn't stop a sufficiently manipulative individual turning it into a reason why the Family should murder people. And he didn't even need the internet to help him find followers.

Mage yea, but the cult? Where do you roll for crazy? Is it a save against perception? Constitution? Or intelligence check?

I know the church of Scientology wants you to crit that roll of tithing.

> I know the church of Scientology wants you to crit that roll of tithing.

I shouldn't LOL at this but I must. We're all gonna die in these terrible times but at least we'll LOL at the madness and stupidity of it all.

Like all tragedies, there’s comedy there somewhere. Sometimes you have to be it.

yeah, people should understand, what is Scientology based on? The E-Meter which is some kind of cheap shit radio shack lie detector thing. I'm quite sure LLMs would do very well if given the task to spit out new cult doctrines and I would gather we are less than years away from cults based on LLM generated content (if not already).

Terry Davis, a cult of one, believed God spoke to him through his computer's RNG. So... yeah.

If only he installed Dwarf Fortress where he could become one.

Without speaking for religions I'm not familiar with, I grew up Catholic, and one of the most important Catholic beliefs is that during Mass, the bread (i.e. "communion" wafers) and wine quite literally transform into the body and blood of Jesus, and that eating and drinking it is a necessary ritual to get into heaven[1], which was a source of controversy even back as far as the Protestant Reformation, with some sects retaining that doctrine and others abandoning it. In a lot of ways, what's considered "normal" or "crazy" in a religion comes to what you're familiar with.

For those not familiar with the bible enough to know what to look for to find the wild stuff, look up the story of Elisha summoning bears out of the first to maul children for calling him bald, or the last two chapters of Daniel (which I think are only in the Catholic bible) where he literally blows up a dragon by feeding it a cake.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_presence_of_Christ_in_the...

The "bears" story reads a lot more sensibly if you translated it correctly as "a gang of thugs tries to bully Elisha into killing himself." Still reliant on the supernatural, but what do you expect from such a book?

Where do you see that in the text? I am looking at the Hebrew script, and the text only reads that as Elisha went up a path, young lads left the city and mocked him by saying "get up baldy", and he turned to them and cursed them to be killed by two she bears. I don't think saying "get up baldy" to a guy walking up a hill constitutes bullying him into killing himself.

It's called context. The beginning of the chapter is Elijah (Elisha's master) being removed from Earth and going up (using the exact same Hebrew word) to Heaven. Considering that the thugs are clearly not pious people, "remove yourself from the world, like your master did" has only one viable interpretation.

As for my choice of the word "thugs" ("mob" would be another good word), that is necessary to preserve the connotation. Remember, there were 42 of them punished, possibly more escaped - this is a threatening crowd size (remember the duck/horse meme?). Their claimed youth does imply "not an established veteran of the major annual wars", but that's not the same as "not acquainted with violence".

Interesting! In the story itself, the word "go up" exists multiple times in that verse before the youths mock him, writing that Elisha goes up to Beit El and goes up the road, so I wouldn't go back to the beginning of the chapter to search for context that is found right there in those verses, but I like the connection you're making.

As for mob or thugs, the literal translation will be "little teenagers", so mob or thugs will be stretching it a bit; more likely that the Arabic contemporary use of "Shabab" for troublesome youth is the best translation. Religious scholars have been criticizing Elisha for generations after for his sending bears at babies, so I think it's safe to assume the story meant actual kids and not organized crime.

Never underestimate the power of words. Kids have unalived themselves over it.

I think the true meaning has been lost to time. The Hebrew text has been translated and rewritten so many times it’s a children’s book. The original texts of the Dead Sea scrolls are bits and pieces of that long lost story. All we have left are the transliterations of transliterations.

Yeah "Transubstantiation" is another technical term people might want to look at in this topic. The art piece "An Oak Tree" is a comment on these ideas. It's a glass of water. But, the artist's notes for this work insist it is an oak tree.

Someone else who knows "An Oak Tree"! It is one of my favorite pieces because it wants not reality itself to be the primary way to see the world, but the belief of what reality could be.

Interesting you bring art into the discussion. Often thought that some "artists" have a lot in common with cult leaders. My definition of art would be that is immediately understood, zero explanation needed.

I definitely can't get behind that definition. The one I've used for a good while is: The unnecessary done on purpose.

Take Barbara Hepworth's "Two Figures" a sculpture which is just sat there on the campus where I studied for many years (and where I also happen to work today). What's going on there? I'm not sure.

Sculpture of ideals I get. Liberty, stood on her island, Justice (with or without her blindfold, but always carrying not only the scales but also a sword†). I used to spend a lot of time in the hall where "The Meeting Place" is. They're not specific people, they're an idea, they're the spirit of the purpose of this place (a railway station, in fact a major international terminus). That's immediately understood, yeah.

But I did not receive an immediate understanding of "Two figures". It's an interesting piece. I still occasionally stop and look at it as I walk across the campus, but I couldn't summarise it in a sentence even now.

† when you look at that cartoon of the GOP operatives with their hands over Justice's mouth, keep in mind that out of shot she has a sword. Nobody gets out of here alive.

I've recently started attending an Episcopal church. We have some people who lean heavy on transubstantiation, but our priest says, "look, something holy happens during communion, exactly what, we don't know."

"Belief in the real presence does not imply a claim to know how Christ is present in the eucharistic elements. Belief in the real presence does not imply belief that the consecrated eucharistic elements cease to be bread and wine."

Same could be said for bowel movements too though.

There’s a fine line between suspension of disbelief and righteousness. All it takes is for one to believe their own delusion.

To be fair, the description of the dragon incident is pretty mundane, and all he does is prove that the large reptile they had previously been feeding (& worshiping) could be killed:

"Then Daniel took pitch, and fat, and hair, and did seethe them together, and made lumps thereof: this he put in the dragon's mouth, and so the dragon burst in sunder: and Daniel said, Lo, these are the gods ye worship."

I don't think it's mundane to cause something to "burst in sunder" by putting some pitch, fat, and hair in its mouth.

The story is pretty clearly meant to indicate that the Babylonians were worshiping an animal though. The theology of the book of Daniel emphasises that the Gods of the Babylonians don't exist, this story happens around the same time Daniel proves the priests had a secret passage they were using to get the food offered to Bel and eat it at night while pretending that Bel was eating it. Or when Daniel talks to King Belshazzar and says "You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose power is your very breath and to whom belong all your ways, you have not honored". This is not to argue for the historical accuracy of the stories, just that the point is that Daniel is acting as a debunker of the Babylonian beliefs in these stories while asserting the supremacy of the Israelite beliefs.

Yes, Catholicism has definitely accumulated some cruft :)

It is used ti be always religion. But now downsides are well understood. And alternatives that can fill the same need (social activities) - like gathering with your neighbors, singing, performing arts, clubs, parks and paries are available and great.

Religions have multitudes of problems but suicide rates amongst atheists is higher than you'd think it would be. It seems like for many, rejection of organized religion leads to adoption of ad hoc quasi-religions with no mooring to them, leaving the person who is seeking a solid belief system drifting until they find a cult, give in to madness that causes self-harm, or adopt their own system of belief that they then need to vigorously protect from other beliefs.

Some percentage of the population has a lesser need for a belief system (supernatural, ad hoc, or anything else) but in general, most humans appear to be hardcoded for this need and the overlap doesn't align strictly with atheism. For the atheist with a deep need for something to believe in, the results can be ugly. Though far from perfect, organized religions tend to weed out their most destructive beliefs or end up getting squashed by adherents of other belief systems that are less internally destructive.

Nothing to do with religion and everything to do with support networks that Churches and those Groups provide. Synagogue, Church, Camp, Retreat, a place of belonging.

Atheists tend to not have those consistently and must build their own.

I can see that. There’s definitely a reason they keep pumping out Call of Duty’s and Madden’s.

It's no more crazy than a virgin conception. And yet, here we are. A good chunk of the planet believes that drivel, but they'd throw their own daughters out of the house if they made the same claim.

> Came to ask a similar question, but also has it always been like this?

Crazy people have always existed (especially cults), but I'd argue recruitment numbers are through the roof thanks to technology and a failing economic environment (instability makes people rationalize crazy behavior).

It's not that those groups didn't have visibility before, it's just easier for the people who share the same...interests...to cloister together on an international scale.

Have you heard of Heavens Gate? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(religious_g...].

There are at least a dozen I can think of, including the ‘drink the koolaid’ Jonestown massacre.

People be crazy, yo.

Of course, Jim Jones and L Ron Hubbard, David Kersh. I realize there have always been people that are coocoo for cocoa puffs. But so many as there appear to be now?

Internet made possible to know global news all the time. I think that there have always been a lot of people with very crazy and extremist views, but we only knew about the ones closer to us. Now it's possible to know about crazy people from the other side of the planet, so it looks like there's a lot more of them than before.

Yup. Like previously, westerners could have gone their whole lives with no clue the Hindutva existed [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva] - Hindu Nazis, basically. Which if you know Hinduism at all, is a bit like saying Buddhist Nazis. Say what?

Which actually kinda exised/exists too? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichirenism], right down to an attempted coup and a bunch of assassinations [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Blood_Incident].

Now you know. People be whack.

Just a note that the Heaven's Gate website is still up. It's a wonderful snapshot of 90s web design. https://www.heavensgate.com/

I was curious who's keeping that website alive, and allegedly it's two former members of the cult: Mark and Sarah King

https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-suicide-cults-surviving-me...

what a wild set of SEO keywords

> Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming angels angels angels angels angels angels angels angels angels angels end end times times end times end times end times end times end times end times end times end times end times Key Words: (for search engines) 144,000, Abductees, Agnostic, Alien, Allah, Alternative, Angels, Antichrist, Apocalypse, Armageddon, Ascension, Atheist, Awakening, Away Team, Beyond Human, Blasphemy, Boddhisattva, Book of Revelation, Buddha, Channeling, Children of God, Christ, Christ's Teachings, Consciousness, Contactees, Corruption, Creation, Death, Discarnate, Discarnates, Disciple, Disciples, Disinformation, Dying, Ecumenical, End of the Age, End of the World, Eternal Life, Eunuch, Evolution, Evolutionary, Extraterrestrial, Freedom, Fulfilling Prophecy, Genderless, Glorified Body, God, God's Children, God's Chosen, God's Heaven, God's Laws, God's Son, Guru, Harvest Time, He's Back, Heaven, Heaven's Gate, Heavenly Kingdom, Higher Consciousness, His Church, Human Metamorphosis, Human Spirit, Implant, Incarnation, Interfaith, Jesus, Jesus' Return, Jesus' Teaching, Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven, Krishna Consciousness, Lamb of God, Last Days, Level Above Human, Life After Death, Luciferian, Luciferians, Meditation, Members of the Next Level, Messiah, Metamorphosis, Metaphysical, Millennium, Misinformation, Mothership, Mystic, Next Level, Non Perishable, Non Temporal, Older Member, Our Lords Return, Out of Body Experience, Overcomers, Overcoming, Past Lives, Prophecy, Prophecy Fulfillment, Rapture, Reactive Mind, Recycling the Planet, Reincarnation, Religion, Resurrection, Revelations, Saved, Second Coming, Soul, Space Alien, Spacecraft, Spirit, Spirit Filled, Spirit Guide, Spiritual, Spiritual Awakening, Star People, Super Natural, Telepathy, The Remnant, The Two, Theosophy, Ti and Do, Truth, Two Witnesses, UFO, Virginity, Walk-ins, Yahweh, Yeshua, Yoda, Yoga,

It’s the aliens to yoga ratio that really gets me. Yogis got really shortchanged here.

I mean, cults have constantly shown up for all of recorded human history. Read a history of Scientology and you'll see a lot of commonalities, say. Rationalism is probably the first major cult/new religion to emerge in the internet era (Objectivism may be a marginal case, as its rise overlapped with USENET a bit), which does make it especially visible.

I personally (for better or worse) became familiar with Ayn Rand as a teenager, and I think Objectivism as a kind of extended Ayn Rand social circle and set of organizations has faced the charge of cultish-ness, and that dates back to, I want to say, the 70s and 80s at least. I know Rand wrote much earlier than that, but I think the social and organizational dynamics unfolded rather late in her career.

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/366635-there-are-two-novels...

Her books were very popular with the gifted kids I hung out with in the late 80s. Cool kids would carry around hardback copies of Atlas Shrugged, impressive by the sheer physical size and art deco cover. How did that trend begin?

By setting up the misfits in a revenge of the nerds scenario?

Ira Levin did a much better job of it and showed what it would lead to but his 'This Perfect Day' did not - predictably - get the same kind of reception as Atlas Shrugged did.

People reading the book and being into it and telling other people.

It’s also a hard book to read so it may be smart kids trying to signal being smart.

The only thing that makes it hard to read is the incessant soap-boxing by random characters. I have a rule that if I start a book I finish it but that one had me tempted.

I’m convinced that even Rand’s editor didn’t finish the book. That is why Galt’s soliloquy is ninety friggin’ pages long. (When in reality, three minutes in and people would be unplugging their radios.)

It’s hard to read because it’s tedious not because you need to be smart though.

tbf you have to have read it to know that!

I can't help but think it's probably the "favourite book" of a lot of people who haven't finished it though, possibly to a greater extent than any other secular tome (at least LOTR's lightweight fans watched the movies!).

I mean, if you've only read the blurb on the back it's the perfect book to signal your belief in free markets, conservative values and the American Dream: what could be more a more strident defence of your views than a book about capitalists going on strike to prove how much the world really needs them?! If you read the first few pages, it's satisfyingly pro-industry and contemptuous of liberal archetypes. If you trudge through the whole thing, it's not only tedious and odd but contains whole subplots devoted to dumping on core conservative values (religion bad, military bad, marriage vows not that important really, and a rather jaded take on actually extant capitalism) in between the philosopher pirates and jarring absence of private transport, and the resolution is an odd combination of a handful of geniuses running away to form a commune and the world being saved by a multi-hour speech about philosophy which has surprisingly little to say on market economics...

at least LOTR's lightweight fans watched the movies!

Oh, there’s movies for lazy Rand fans, too.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/

More of a Fountainhead fan, are you? Do ya like Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041386/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

> Oh, there’s movies for lazy Rand fans, too.

tbf that comment was about 50% a joke about their poor performance at the box office :D

Rereading your comment, that’s my woosh moment for the day, I guess. :-)

Though a Gary Cooper The Fountainhead does tempt me on occasion. (Unlike Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead wasn’t horrible, but still some pretty poor writing.)

Fountainhead is written at the 7th grade reading level. Its Lexile level is 780L. It's long and that's about it. By comparison, 1984 is 1090L.

This gives strong Dead Poets Society vibes.

What's funny is that Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shear already took the piss out of Ayn Rand in Illuminatus! (1969-1971).

Albert Ellis wrote a book, "Is Objectivism a Religion" as far back as 1968. Murray Rothbard wrote "Mozart Was a Red", a play satirizing Rand's circle, in the early 60's. Ayn Rand was calling her own circle of friends, in "jest", "The Collective" in the 50's. The dynamics were there from almost the beginning.

I think it's pretty similar dynamics. It's unquestioned premises (dogma) which are supposed to be accepted simply because this is "objectivism" or "rationalism".

Very similar to my childhood religion. "We have figured everything out and everyone else is wrong for not figuring things out".

Rationalism seems like a giant castle built on sand. They just keep accruing premises without ever going backwards to see if those premises make sense. A good example of this is their notions of "information hazards".

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2002/09/murray-n-rothbard/unders...

I've always been under the impression that M:tA's rules of How Magic Works are inspired by actual mystical beliefs that people have practiced for centuries. It's probably about as much of a magical for mystical development as the GURPS Cyberpunk rulebook was for cybercrime but it's pointing at something that already exists and saying "this is a thing we are going to tell an exaggerated story about".

See for example "Reality Distortion Field": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field

I don't know how you can call yourself a "rationalist" and base your worldview on a fantasy game.

I my experience, religious people are perfectly fine with contradicted worldview.

Like christians are very flexible in following 10 commandments, always been.

That example isn’t a contradictory worldview though, just “people being people, and therefore failing to be as good as the ideal they claim to strive for.”

Being fine with cognitive dissonance would be a prerequisite for holding religious beliefs i'd say.

Most "rationalists" throughout history have been very deeply religious people. Secular enlightenment-era rationalism is not the only direction you can go with it. It depends very much, as others have said, on what your axioms are.

But, fwiw, that particular role-playing game was very much based on trendy at the time occult beliefs in things like chaos magic, so it's not completely off the wall.

Mage is an interesting game though: it's fantasy, but not "swords and dragons" fantasy. It's set in the real world, and the "magic" is just the "mage" shifting probabilities so that unlikely (but possible) things occur.

Such a setting would seem like the perfect backdrop for a cult that claims "we have the power to subtly influence reality and make improbable things (ie. "magic") occur".

Rationalizing the fantasy. Like LARPing. Only you lack weapons, armor, magic missiles…

They all do this, only most prefer to name the fantasy they play with something a little more grounded like "mathematics" or "statistics" or "longtermism" or "rationality."

> I don't know how you can call yourself a "rationalist" and base your worldview on a fantasy game.

Most rationalists wouldn't know either, except for the five members of the cult.

"Rationalist" in this context does not mean "rational person," but rather "person who rationalizes."

I mean, is it a really good game?

I’ve never played, but now I’m kind of interesting.

It's reportedly alright - the resolution mechanic seems a little fiddly with varying pools of dice for everything. The lore is pretty interesting though and I think a lot of the point of that series of games was reading up on that.

I ran a long running campaign, it is pretty fun. The game books were obviously written by artists and no mathematician was involved, some of the rules are very broken (may have been fixed in later revisions).

The magic system is very fun and gives players complete freedom to come up with spells on the fly. The tl;dr is there aren't pre-made spells, you have spheres you have learned, and you can combine those spheres of magic however you want. So if someone has matter and life, reaching into someone's chest and pulling out their still beating heart would be a perfectly fine thing for a brand new character to be able to do. (Of course magic has downsides, reality doesn't like being bent and it will snap back with violent force is coerced too hard!)

The books are laid out horribly, there isn't a single set of tables to refer to, you have to post it note bookmark everything. Picking up and playing the rules are really simple, the number of dots you have in attributes + skill is how many d10 dice you get to roll for a check. 8+ is a success, and you can reroll 10s. 90% of the game is as simple as that, but then there are like 5 pages of rules for grappling including basically a complete breakdown of wrestling moves and gaining position, but feel free to just ignore those.

I mean see also the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. You can't really take what groups call themselves too seriously.

From false premises, you can logically and rationally reach really wrong conclusions. If you have too much pride in your rationality, you may not be willing to say "I seem to have reached a really insane conclusion, maybe my premises are wrong". That is, the more you pride yourself on your rationalism, the more prone you may be to accepting a bogus conclusion if it is bogus because the premises are wrong.

Then again, most people tend to form really bogus beliefs without bothering to establish any premises. They may not even be internally consistent or align meaningfully with reality. I imagine having premises and thinking it through has a better track record of reaching conclusions consistent with reality.

> I imagine having premises and thinking it through has a better track record of reaching conclusions consistent with reality.

You only need to make one mistake in the entire chain of reasoning to get a wrong result.

Mathematically speaking, if your total probability of making even one mistake somewhere in the chain is 50% or greater, the result is still a coinflip.

Success is a combination of reducing your error rate, keeping your chains of reasoning short, and verifying the intermediate results empirically.

> I imagine having premises and thinking it through has a better track record of reaching conclusions consistent with reality.

Why do you imagine that? Have you tested it?

Cult leaders tend to be narcissists.

Narcissists tend to believe that they are always right, no mater what the topic is, or how knowledgeable they are. This makes them speak with confidence and conviction.

Some people are very drawn to confident people.

If the cult leader has other mental health issues, it can/will seep into their rhetoric. Combine that with unwavering support from loyal followers that will take everything they say as gospel...

That's about it.

If what you say is true, we're very lucky no one like that with a massive following has ever gotten into politics in the United States. It would be an ongoing disaster!

That's pretty much it. The beliefs are just a cover story.

Outside of those, the cult dynamics are cut-paste, and always involve an entitled narcissistic cult leader acquiring as much attention/praise, sex, money, and power as possible from the abuse and exploitation of followers.

Most religion works like this. Most alternative spirituality works like this Most finance works like this. Most corporate culture works like this. Most politics works like this.

Most science works like this. (It shouldn't, but the number of abused and exploited PhD students and post-docs is very much not zero.)

The only variables are the differing proportions of attention/praise, sex, money, and power available to leaders, and the amount of abuse that can be delivered to those lower down and/or outside the hierarchy.

The hierarchy and the realities of exploitation and abuse are a constant.

If you removed this dynamic from contemporary culture there wouldn't be a lot left.

Fortunately quite a lot of good things happen in spite of it. But a lot more would happen if it wasn't foundational.

Yes. The cult's "beliefs" really boil down to one belief: the infallibility of the leader. Much of the attraction is in the simplicity.

> How did we get to this place with people going completely nuts like this?

Ayahuasca?

Nah I did Ayahuasca and I'm an empathetic person who most would consider normal or at least well-adjusted. If it's drug related it would most definitely be something else.

I’m inclined to believe your upbringing plays a much larger role.

People are wired to worship, and want somebody in charge telling them what to do.

I'm a staunch atheist and I feel the pull all the time.

I slowly deconverted from being raised evangelical / fundamentalist into being an atheist in my late 40s. I still "pray" at times just to (mentally) shout my frustration at the sorry state of the world at SOMETHING (even nothing) rather than constantly yelling my frustration at my family.

I may have actually been less anxious about the state of the world back then, and may have remained so, if I'd just continued to ignore all those little contradictions that I just couldn't ignore anymore...... But I feel SO MUCH less personal guilt about being "human".

I'm entertaining sending my kiddo to a Waldorf School, because it genuinely seems pretty good.

But looking into the underlying Western Esoteric Spirit Science, 'Anthroposophy' (because Theosophy wouldn't let him get weird enough) by Rudolph Steiner, has been quite a ride. The point being that.. humans have a pretty endless capacity to go ALL IN on REALLY WEIRD shit, as long as it promises to fix their lives if they do everything they're told. Naturally if their lives aren't fixed, then they did it wrong or have karmic debt to pay down, so YMMV.

In any case, I'm considering the latent woo-cult atmosphere as a test of the skeptical inoculation that I've tried to raise my child with.

I went to a Waldorf school and I’d recommend being really wary. The woo is sort of background noise, and if you’ve raised your kid well they’ll be fine. But the quality of the academics may not be good at all. For example, when I was ready for calculus my school didn’t have anyone who knew how to teach it so they stuck me and the other bright kid in a classroom with a textbook and told us to figure it out. As a side effect of not being challenged, I didn’t have good study habits going into college, which hurt me a lot.

If you’re talking about grade school, interview whoever is gonna be your kids teacher for the next X years and make sure they seem sane. If you’re talking about high school, give a really critical look at the class schedule.

Waldorf schools can vary a lot in this regard so you may not encounter the same problems I did, but it’s good to be cautious.

Don't do it. It's a place that enables child abuse with its culture. These people are serious wackos and you should not give your kid into their hands. A lot of people come out of that Steiner Shitbox traumatized for decades if not for life. They should not be allowed to run schools to begin with. Checking a lot of boxes from antivax to whatever the fuck their lore has to offer starting with a z.

>How did we get to this place with people going completely nuts like this?

God died and it's been rough going since then.

It's been like this a while. Have you heard the tale of the Final Fantasy House?: http://www.demon-sushi.com/warning/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-tale-of-the-final-fantas...

Who the fuck bases a Black Lotus cult on Mage: the Ascension rather than Magic: the Gathering? Is this just a mistake by the journalist?

i regret that i have but one upvote to give

Mage: The Ascension is basically a delusions of grandeur simulator, so I can see how an already unstable personality might get attached to it and become more unstable.

The magic system is amazing though, best I've played in any game. Easy to use, role play heavy, and it lets players go wild with ideas, but still reins in their crazier impulses.

Mage: The Awakening is a minor rules revision to the magic system, but the lore is super boring in comparison IMHO. It is too wishy washy.

Ascension has tons of cool source material, and White Wolf ended up tying all their properties together into one grand finale story line. That said it is all very 90s cringe in retrospect, but if you are willing to embrace the 90s retro feel, it is still fun.

Awakening's lore never drew me in, the grand battle just isn't there. So many shades of grey is is damn near technicolor.

I don't know, i'd understand something like Wraith (which I did see people developing issues, the shadow mechanic is such a terrible thing) but Mage is so, like, straightforward?

Use your mind to control reality, reality fights back with paradox, its cool for a teenager but you read a bit more fantasy and you'll definitely find cooler stuff. But i guess for you to join a cult your mind must stay a teen mind forever.

I didn't originally write this, but can't find the original place I read it anymore. I think it makes a lot of sense to repost it here:

All of the World Of Darkness and Chronicles Of Darkness games are basically about coming of age/puberty. Like X-Men but for Goth-Nerds instead of Geek-Nerds.

In Vampire, your body is going through weird changes and you are starting to develop, physically and/or mentally, while realising that the world is run by a bunch of old, evil fools who still expect you to toe the line and stay in your place, but you are starting to wonder if the world wouldn't be better if your generation overthrew them and took over running the world, doing it the right way. And there are all these bad elements trying to convince you that you should do just that, but for the sake of mindless violence and raucous partying. Teenager - the rpg.

In Werewolf, your body is going through weird changes and you are starting to develop, physically and mentally, while realising that you are not a part of the "normal" crowd that the rest of Humanity belongs to. You are different and they just can't handle that whenever it gets revealed. Luckily, there are small communities of people like you out there who take you in and show you how use the power of your "true" self. Of course, even among this community, there are different types of other. LGBT Teenager - the RPG

In Mage, you have begun to take an interest in the real world, and you think you know what the world is really like. The people all around you are just sleep-walking through life, because they don't really get it. This understanding sets you against the people who run the world: the governments and the corporations, trying to stop these sleeper from waking up to the truth and rejecting their comforting lies. You have found some other people who saw through them, and you think they've got a lot of things wrong, but at least they're awake to the lies! Rebellious Teenager - the RPG

“ The people all around you are just sleep-walking through life, because they don't really get it.”

Twist: we’re sleepwalking through life because we really DO get it.

(Source: I’m 56)

The same is probably also the case for most superhero comics. They are made for teenage boys going through puberty. Boys with a changing body that now is much stronger than the younger kids. The stories try to give guidance: You have to restrain your new power and use it for good. Some aspects of your transformation you should keep to yourself. There are other kids undergoing these changes too who use it to bully their weaker peers. Those are the bad guys. There are also bad girls who abuse their new powers (which are not defined by muscle strength) to entice and manipulate other people.

This tracks, but I'd say Werewolf goes beyond LGBT folks, the violence there also fits the boy's aggressive play and the saving the world theme resonated a lot with the basic "i want to be important/hero" thing. Its my favorite of all world of darkness books, i regret not getting the kickstarter edition :(

Yeah, I would say Werewolf is more like Social Activist: The Rage simulator than LGBT teenager

I think I read it too, it’s called Twilight. /s

I had friends who were into Vampire growing up. I hadn’t heard of Werewolf until after the aforementioned book came out and people started going nuts for it. I mentioned to my wife at the time that there was this game called “Vampire” and told her about it and she just laughed, pointed to the book, and said “this is so much better”. :shrug:

Rewind back and there were the Star Wars kids. Fast forward and there are the Harry Potter kids/adults. Each generation has their own “thing”. During that time, it was Quake MSDOS and Vampire. Oh and we started Senior Assassinations. 90s super soakers were the real deal.

How many adults actually abandon juvenalia as they age? Not the majority in my observation, and it's not always a bad thing when it's only applied to subjects like pop culture. Applied juvenalia in response to serious subjects is a more serious issue.

There has to be a cult of people that believe they’re vampires, respecting the masquerade and serving some antedeluvian somewhere, vampire was much more mainstream than mage.

Running a cult is a somewhat reliable source of narcissistic supply. The internet tells you how to do it. So an increasing number of people do it.

Makes me think of that saying that great artists steal, so repurposed for cult founders: "Good cult founders copy, great cult founders steal"

I do not think this cult dogma is any more out there than other cult dogma I have heard, but the above quote makes me think it is easier to found cults in modern day in someways since you can steal other complex world building from numerous sources rather building yourself and keeping everything straight.

I've met a fair share of people in the burner community, the vast majority I met are lovely folks who really enjoy the process of bringing some weird big idea into reality, working hard on the builds, learning stuff, and having a good time with others for months to showcase their creations at some event.

On the other hand, there's a whole other side of a few nutjobs who really behave like cult leaders, they believe their own bullshit and over time manage to find in this community a lot of "followers", since one of the foundational aspects is radical acceptance it becomes very easy to be nutty and not questioned (unless you do something egregious).

I came to comments first. Thank you for sharing this quote. Gave me a solid chuckle.

I think people are going nuts because we've drifted from the dock of a stable civilization. Institutions are a mess. Economy is a mess. Combine all of that together with the advent of social media making the creation of echo chambers (and the inevitable narcissism of "leaders" in those echo chambers) effortless and ~15 years later, we have this.

People have been going nuts all throughout recorded history, that's really nothing new.

The only scary thing is that they have ever more power to change the world and influence others without being forced to grapple with that responsibility...

> I think people are going nuts because we've drifted from the dock of a stable civilization.

When was stable period, exactly? I'm 40; the only semi-stable bit I can think of in my lifetime was a few years in the 90s (referred to, sometimes unironically, as "the end of history" at the time, before history decided to come out of retirement).

Everything's always been unstable, people sometimes just take a slightly rose-tinted view of the past.

> Everything's always been unstable, people sometimes just take a slightly rose-tinted view of the past.

No. For the most of history people could look decades into the past and be quite confident that things would be the same decades in the future. The only aspects that mostly changed were local leaders and maybe some fashions. A farmer was a farmer and a carpenter was a carpenter and their sons and grandsons likely too.

Ever changing times with regards to technology and professions is a rather modern thing.

astronauts_meme.jpg

Humans are compelled to find agency and narrative in chaos. Evolution favored those who assumed the rustle was a predator, not the wind. In a post-Enlightenment world where traditional religion often fails (or is rejected), this drive doesn't vanish. We don't stop seeking meaning. We seek new frameworks. Our survival depended on group cohesion. Ostracism meant death. Cults exploit this primal terror. Burning Man's temporary city intensifies this: extreme environment, sensory overload, forced vulnerability. A camp like Black Lotus offers immediate, intense belonging. A tribe with shared secrets (the "Ascension" framework), rituals, and an "us vs. the sleepers" mentality. This isn't just social; it's neurochemical. Oxytocin (bonding) and cortisol (stress from the environment) flood the system, creating powerful, addictive bonds that override critical thought.

Human brains are lazy Bayesian engines. In uncertainty, we grasp for simple, all-explaining models (heuristics). Mage provides this: a complete ontology where magic equals psychology/quantum woo, reality is malleable, and the camp leaders are the enlightened "tradition." This offers relief from the exhausting ambiguity of real life. Dill didn't invent this; he plugged into the ancient human craving for a map that makes the world feel navigable and controllable. The "rationalist" veneer is pure camouflage. It feels like critical thinking but is actually pseudo-intellectual cargo culting. This isn't Burning Man's fault. It's the latest step of a 2,500-year-old playbook. The Gnostics and the Hermeticists provided ancient frameworks where secret knowledge ("gnosis") granted power over reality, accessible only through a guru. Mage directly borrows from this lineage (The Technocracy, The Traditions). Dill positioned himself as the modern "Ascended Master" dispensing this gnosis.

The 20th century cults Synanon, EST, Moonies, NXIVM all followed similar patterns, starting with isolation. Burning Man's temporary city is the perfect isolation chamber. It's physically remote, temporally bounded (a "liminal space"), fostering dependence on the camp. Initial overwhelming acceptance and belonging (the "Burning Man hug"), then slowly increasing demands (time, money, emotional disclosure, sexual access), framed as "spiritual growth" or "breaking through barriers" (directly lifted from Mage's "Paradigm Shifts" and "Quintessence"). Control language ("sleeper," "muggle," "Awakened"), redefining reality ("that rape wasn't really rape, it was a necessary 'Paradox' to break your illusions"), demanding confession of "sins" (past traumas, doubts), creating dependency on the leader for "truth."

Burning Man attracts people seeking transformation, often carrying unresolved pain. Cults prey on this vulnerability. Dill allegedly targeted individuals with trauma histories. Trauma creates cognitive dissonance and a desperate need for resolution. The cult's narrative (Mage's framework + Dill's interpretation) offers a simple explanation for their pain ("you're unAwakened," "you have Paradox blocking you") and a path out ("submit to me, undergo these rituals"). This isn't therapy; it's trauma bonding weaponized. The alleged rape wasn't an aberration; it was likely part of the control mechanism. It's a "shock" to induce dependency and reframe the victim's reality ("this pain is necessary enlightenment"). People are adrift in ontological insecurity (fear about the fundamental nature of reality and self). Mage offers a new grand narrative with clear heroes (Awakened), villains (sleepers, Technocracy), and a path (Ascension).

Gnosticism... generating dumb cults that seem smart on the outside for 2+ thousand years. Likely to keep it up for 2k more.

Paraphrasing someone I don't recall - when people believe in nothing, they'll believe anything.

And therefore you should believe in me and my low low 10% tithe! That's the only way to not get tricked into believing something wrong so don't delay!

That's not an endorsement of a particular religion.

It is though. In practice it's always used to promote a particular religion.

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