[DISCLAIMER: This article is for entertainment purposes only. We here at the Shield do not endorse or condone any illegal or unethical activities. We (Dylan and Minghui) do, however, find it hilarious.]
Have you ever wished to have loyal followers who will listen to your every command? Do you want a community of people who share your thoughts? Are you charismatic and want to lead people with absolute control?
If you answered “yes” to any one of those questions, you might have a problem—but that also means you might be interested in starting a cult!
What defines a cult?
This is a really good question, and I will answer that good question with a very good answer.
According to . . . me (a very credible source—trust me, bro), a cult is a group of people who all follow/worship a certain thing or person, and sometimes that worshipped individual is the leader. The leader has a lot of control over their followers because of the respect their followers give them.
The practices that cults perform are usually unorthodox compared to what is seen as the “norm.” Depending on what the leader chooses to do, their cult could be just for fun—or more diabolical means. Depending on what you choose, your cult will either be among your friends, worshipping something stupid. Or you can take it seriously, and followers will worship you as their glorious leader of the world.
Now, how can you start a cult—sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it? That’s because it is, so here’s five steps you can do to create the cult.
Step 1: What makes you different?
The first step would be finding something that makes you stand out. This means identifying something that you think others will like and agree with you upon. Appeal to audiences that are sad and dissatisfied. Give them meaning to their lives, and give them a reason to glorify you, or the thing you want them to glorify. This will build loyalty among you and your followers.
You can honestly use anything to be different. Examples would be music, science, art, health, aliens, you, etc.
For my serious example, find people who are dissatisfied with their mundane life, and tell them, “join my cult and good things will happen. Trust me.” Offer them something new to do. Help people exit their comfort zone. Tell them that your cult will help them live luxurious and exotic lifestyles—and make sure to exaggerate it if you don’t have the financial means.
You need to make sure your message sounds compelling, something people would care about. So exaggerate about as many things as possible to get as many people to join you. You can make those exaggerated things come true once you have enough members.
Or, if you want to have some fun, glorify something stupid—like the pencil that has been left out in the hallway for several days. “That pencil goes so hard. Feel free to glorify it with me.”
Step 2: Create your persona as leader
For your followers to respect you, certain traits are necessary for your followers to deem you worthy of respect. You need to be confident and charismatic.
Confidence and charisma come from assertive body language and showing no weaknesses.
Give yourself a distinct voice that your followers can recognize you by. Put on a funny voice, put on a louder speaking voice, or maybe make up your own language.
You can also wear distinct clothing that makes you easily identifiable even when in a mosh pit of your followers. Maybe wear blue when all of them wear red.
For the fun of it, why don’t you claim to have some supernatural ability? You can instate respect through fear. “I will smite you down with lightning if you do not worship me, because I have that power—okay?”
Step 3: Get some followers
Invite people through online forums, social media, social events, friends and family, public venues, and advertisements.
Through advertising, you can have fun by saying silly things like “This pencil is pretty cool, don’t you agree?” Therefore, people can join you through that knowing that is is a joke.
Or, for a serious approach offer incentives such as money, land, and power. This will interest people to join because humans have an innate desire to have control over others by having great power through respect.
Another approach, which we do not endorse whatsoever [Ed. Note—that is, even less than we endorse the rest of this article], is to force people to join your cult by doing mean things. Make them scared of you and have their reason for joining you be because they wanted to be safe and not be in danger of you and your cult’s actions.
Step 4: Make rules for your cult
Establish your rules. You need to have rules and rituals that govern the behavior of your cult. You should make your rules easy to follow, consistent, and mandatory. You should endorse them with rewards for obeying them, and punishments for disobeying or failing to follow them.
Make those rules engaging by giving people activities to do.
Some examples of rules and rituals are:
- Dress codes
- Daily prayers
- Scheduled group meetings
- Initiation rituals that make someone a member
- Sacred symbols
For a fun example, the pencil cult members can wear whatever they want, but they must write more than or equal to one word every day using a pencil. To join the pencil cult, you have to bring two pencils to a certain location and stack them on top of each other in whatever ways they think fit the criteria.
The sacred symbol is a comically large pencil.
Step 5: Isolation
Don’t let others interfere with your cult. They might contradict what you’re trying to preach. I recommend physically moving your cult to a remote location to practice your shenanigans.
You should also isolate their access to other sources of information. Make sure to isolate them emotionally, so that their friends and family can’t coerce them into not joining your cult. Make sure your members are dependent on you alone, meaning you should remove their free will.
This means to emotionally isolate them, convince your followers that they need you in order to be happy. That they have to live the life you tell them to.
These are five crucial steps that you can do in order to create a cult. Now, go forth and create one—in a game, of course.