My Life As A Cult Leader File

And the scariest part? I think I’ve started to believe it.

Then came the donations. Brenda sold her son’s stamp collection. “For the cause,” she said, her eyes glittering. My stomach did a funny little flip—part guilt, part electric thrill. I told myself I was providing purpose. A study from the University of Bern would later confirm what I already knew: that belonging is a drug, and I had become a dealer. My Life as a Cult Leader

We moved to a ramshackle farm in upstate New York. I grew a beard. I wore flowing linen that smelled faintly of mildew. I stopped calling them “followers” and started calling them “Echoes.” We had a chant: “The map is not the road; the road is the walking.” It meant nothing. It meant everything. And the scariest part