September 10, 2024 — I have a new nonfiction book out as of today, this very day. It’s called Cult Following: The Extreme Sects that Capture Our Imaginations—and Take Over Our Lives. In some ways, it’s my usual shenanigans: essays about all the weirdest, most macabre things in our world. In other ways, it’s a step deeper into the void. In my previous nonfiction book, I merely had to deal with bigfoots and rougarou. Here, it’s Branch Davidians and Raelists. This book is all about victims and violence, strange ideas and abusive acts, the elasticity of belief and the mundaneness of revelation. It should come with both a caution about its contents and a command to read it. The thing is a ride. Hopefully less for you than it was for me. Or vice versa. But don’t worry. There are jokes throughout. Anyway, here are ten things about the book that you won’t learn by reading the book:
1.
As a result of this project, I now think that
joining a cult is the most human thing we can do. I mean, unite in a common
cause behind an impressive leader? That’s literally everything we do in life,
from family to politics. Fall prey to the abuses of those in power over us? Every.
Single. Day. It’s so human that it’s
terrifying.
2.
I spent the first 25 years of my existence as an
Independent Baptist. Religion appalls and appeals to me. I will never blame
anybody for being in one, although I will poke fun at them for it.
3.
I call the cult leader on the cover of the book “Peppermint
Face.”
4.
This book was the first writing assignment in my
life that I missed the deadline for. That miss had nothing to do with the book
itself. As to what it did have to do with, I’ll just say that there’s a reason
why the acknowledgement section of this book is the longest acknowledgement
section of all my books and most other books ever printed.
5.
The book debuted at the Spookstastic Book Fair
in Framingham, Massachusetts, a week before today’s street date, so I’ve
already had the chance to sign copies for readers. I hadn’t thought about what
I’d write in this book yet, so I scribbled “Cults are Cool” in most of them. And
I think I mean it?
6.
This book forms a loose “C-Word” trilogy with my
previous two books about cryptids and cursed objects for Quirk Books. If you
get one, you need to get them all. Not my rule, folks. Sorry. Take it up with
the IRS.
7.
Cults were already an OTIS interest for me, and I’d
over the years visited such cult sites as the mass Jonestown grave in Oakland,
CA; Koreshan State Historical Park in Estero, FL; and the Mapparium of the
Christian Scientists in Boston, MA.
8.
My favorite moment in the entire book is when a small
cult in Chicago stands outside on a cold Christmas night singing carols and waiting
for UFOs to pick them while a secret cadre of academic researchers who had secretly
infiltrated and enlarged their ranks sing right beside them.
9.
The book represents the first time that legal
kiboshed content in one of my books (fortunately at the proposal stage), since “cult”
could be considered a libelous appellation under certain circumstances.
10. I
wrote the first few entries of this book from the attic of a farmhouse on the southeast
coast of England, recovering from life.
That’s it. Maybe TMI. Especially the Peppermint Face one. But
I hope you pick up Cult Following wherever you do such things. And if you want to
maximize author support, nab it from my bookshop.org page here. I hope you all find what
you’re looking for.
