Anyone can get lured into joining a cult, but I was especially vulnerable. Like many, I grew up feeling that if I didn’t meet my parents’ expectations, I wouldn’t be loved. In that condition, anyone who says, “I love you” is going to become the center of my world.
A boyfriend or girlfriend will say “I love you”, but one person only has so much power to pull you in and keep you. A group of people has a lot more power to pull you in and hold you there for as long as they need you. That is what a cult does.
In the scientific community, people hear “I love you” when they’re invited to speak at conferences or when their papers are accepted by major journals. For some people, this sort of love is enough to build their life around.
For me, there hadn’t been much of a choice. I needed a job after I graduated from college and a science lab hired me. They put me to work on rotating shifts which gave me chronic sleep deprivation and made it hard to meet people outside of the lab. I tried dating non-lab people but I was so drained that I felt like a zombie. Perhaps it is no wonder that I ended up marrying a co-worker and further isolating myself by moving across the world to work in a new lab.
Like other scientists, I chased after the sort of love doled out in the form of certificates, promotions, awards, publications, and conference invitations, but it quickly lost its allure when I saw how politics and gender influenced how it was distributed. I became hostile towards the system when I saw that my husband would always be more addicted to love from the laboratory than he was to love from me. He would even show his loyalty to the lab by supporting my competition in the workplace.
Nevertheless, I understood why he thinks the way he does, and I forgave him with the knowledge that the scientific community conditions people to crave status and it is hard to change after so many years of academic indoctrination. This craving is what causes people to disregard their health and happiness and do whatever they can to serve the lab.
When I broke out of this science cult, I felt disoriented and frightened. The parts of my mind which had previously been spinning in service of the cult were now free to look at other things and what they saw was terrifying. Did you know that we are on a rock hurtling through space and that the systems which hold our civilization together are extremely fragile? This is terrifying!
Eventually, I calmed back down and spent some time writing stories which helped me explore how I felt about the twenty years I had invested in the cult.
At this point, I became vulnerable to the lure of a new cult. I wanted someone to hear my stories. I wanted to chase after love in the same way I had always done. I joined quora and worshipped the algorithm. I joined a writers’ group and worshipped the publishing industry. My children kept me from exclusively relying on these sources of “love”.
We all try to give our love to worthy endeavors and sometimes this takes the form of a cult. In fact, many industries train their workers in the way I was trained: medicine, law, military, etc. and that may not be a bad solution for everyone. But I think we can all agree that kids are a worthy endeavor and should never be neglected in the service of a cult.
For the sake of personal happiness, we should also stay aware of how cults are capable of exploiting people – taking all of their money or their energy. That is why people turn to more holistic, older, trustworthy religions. As Morrissey sang: There is a light that will never go out.
To end on a light note:
This post first appeared on quora.com. I develop these themes in my novels and recommend them to anyone who has a child that is drawn to the flame of science and technology. I was burned by that flame and have a story to tell.
Kirsten Hacker 
An interesting post but I think labelling a career as a cult is perhaps going too far , especially when we know just how restrictive some cults are.
Grant you a career can become an obsession and wreck family life and mixing with all types but so can alcoholism or gambling life is fraught with stumbling blocks.
There are quite a few on the edge religious movements like Scientology and fundamentalism that can be quite dangerous as we all know from the media. The Mormons are family orientated but you must at least tow the line and pretend to be a believer.
I watched the film but I’m not sure detox from a strong mind set is so easy to overcome , certainly there have been some significant and serious failures with ISIS members in
the UK.
The desire to be recognised and applauded is strong and to imprint your personality on others so they love you. The other great fear is to be forgotten forevermore.
‘I’m a Nobody ! Who are You?
Are you– Nobody — too?
Then there’s a pair of us !
Don’t tell! they’d advertise- — you know!
How dreary to be Somebody!
How public — like a Frog–
To tell one’s name the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!
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Were alchemy and witchcraft cult careers? In ancient times careers always seemed to have cult elements. According to my understanding of socio-religio-cultural life in India, at least up until recently, there are sometimes deities and rituals associated with certain occupations. Guilds in the Middle Ages. Priests, priestesses, medical practitioners, even prostitutes throughout history. Wherever there are groups there must be in-group/out-group dichotomies. Organizational reproduction?
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