/lit/ - Literature

>>10525011
>read Revelations
>it's a hack ripoff of the Apocalypse of St. John

>>7408876
Are we talking about cults in the "obviously bullshit made up by a charismatic leader to extract profit from rubes" sense and not the "hurr hurr every religion is a cult aren't I witty XD" sense?

Social Justice is a currently thriving leaderless cult. It does however have incredibly wealthy businessmen like George Soros propping it up.

Scientology and Mormonism are both cults, but they both have cultures backing them up. They also have large amounts of capital supporting their operations (Mormons have huge swathes of Utah, Scientology has a small fleet, etc).

What Social Justice, Scientology, and Mormonism have in common is lots of money. Money means you can stop thinking small and start thinking big. Heaven's Gate only had 39 people kill themselves at 20 years of operations (Although at least one member did not kill themselves in order to keep the website up and running). The Order of the Solar Temple likewise took 20 years to get 74 people to kill themselves.

But keep in mind that there are 16 million Jews out there, some 25,000 Scientologists, and 15+ million Mormons (only 6.1 million of which are American). 74 deaths is fucking peanuts. Jonestown managed to get 918 by virtue of having capital (the titular Jonestown). Peoples Temple (The Jonestown group) had a maximum membership of 5,000 people.

So yes, a cult is entirely possible in this day and age. You either need to be wealthy and cast your nets wide, or very devoted and focus on bringing in individuals.

>>6980674
No.

Maybe you can think about it as a model much like in the philosophy of mathematics or physics.
Like for instance, lines and circles in the plane are just a model for the idea of euclidean geometry.

The real world is a model for the ideas in your mind.

>be immortal
>time passes
>and passes
>and passes
>finally, some disaster happens
>end up under piles and piles of earth, rock, rubble or something
>no one to dig you out
>stay stuck there indefinitely
>over time forget that there ever was a different way of existing
>start endlessly hallucinating, or whatev
>first it's very vague, lights start flashing in the darkness, like when you close your eyes
>then more consistent figures start appearing, maybe a landscape or something
>water, air, earth
>over time the vision grows, and you start experiencing autonomous beings
>remember that you're probably stuck there for infinity, so it's reasonable to assume that the visions would grow more and more consistent over time
>still, it's just a vision so things are not perfectly consistent and thus contradictions happen
>apparently random shit happens from time to time
>but over time (remember, practically infinite) the vision gets more and more consistent, the contradictions get resolved, and yet new ones appear
>finally, other fully conscious beings appear
>start interacting with them
>become self-conscious about one's place in the vision
>it keeps evolving
>eventually the point of view transcends the singular beings
>it observes them operating in a hivemind
>finally realize that those very beings are plotting out the nature of your vision
>one day, they finally make it
>they've figured it out
>your point of view is high enough to be able to grasp it at once
>the beings have created a mirror for you
>finally you see yourself
>you now remember that you're stuck under a pile of rubble
>'back to reality, op there goes gravity'
>no daydreaming any more
>back to darkness
>but over time it starts happening again
>first the lights
>then all that follows

>>6247639
I like you too!

>>6243998
Good post.

>>5328290
>reading over 4,000 pages literal and intellectual diarrhea

for the amount of time it would take you to read all of ASOIF so far; you for example could: get a Middle English dictionary and read every significant poem in Middle English like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Confessio Amantis, Piers Plowman or The Canterbury tales

or

read the entire Bible + Paradise lost

or learn Latin and read The Aeneid