Le Parcours des gourous

I had no idea Peter Dinklage was such a beautiful narrator. His voice is silky smooth, and execution is well timed and witty.

The show appeals to a certain audience by presenting as a "how to" manual which degrades the content in my opinion. It could have stood on its own without the sales pitch, and without a lot of the kitschy animated sequences.

Cults are fascinating so I don't regret watching the series, but I believe the format presented as a lost opportunity for a less dumbed down version of the content.

Content is 8/10, delivery 5/10, animations 2/10 and narration 10/10.

Watch and enjoy. Don't become a cult leader.

Over sensationalized, inaccurate, and containing dangerous generalizations. Cults are a fascinating topic but there are countless better documentaries and podcasts out there. The problems start before the opening credits are finished. An "expert" stated that most cults end in bloodshed and death which is a both blatantly false and harmful. The presenters, not the cult survivors, tell there tales with glee. They almost seem to admire what cult leaders have accomplished and have a total lack of sensitivity to the people affected. I can only hope they weren't in the same space as the survivors that were interviewed.

This is a great idea for a tv show. It is very interesting and I am learning a lot. I will try to use this stuff when I try to set up my own cult. My favourite thing about the show is that it is literally a step by step guide for how to start a cult which is brilliant. There are some good animated sequences which tell the story of these creepy cult leaders. Peter Dinklage is great as the narrator and he produced it too. As long as you don't take it too seriously this is a fun and entertaining show. The best way to view it would actually be to study how these cult leaders manipulate people so you can start to identify when people are manipulating you. Sadly the world is full of psychopaths and so it is good to know what you are up against.

Title: Make your cult a religion

All of these episodes and just about every (if not all..) chapters fully apply to the big religions we know today.

A few examples i wrote down during the show.

• Build on your own piece of land (uhm like maybe the vatican?, maybe even Israel?)

-Uniformity, no one stands out (except the leader offcourse), so wear the same clothes (nuns, priests, imams, bisshops, monks, etc, etc)

• Wipe all doubts with standard frases (like "God works in mysterious ways" ?)
• The end of time (apocalypse, every religion has them)
• Although (a bit) saver now, overall agression is or has been used by all big religions, either to non believers or as punishments
• Go and multiply, 8 billion people on this world, killing the world by breeding more and more, believers like this one i guess
• Biblecamp
• Successionplan (Like the pope?)

As a fan of cult documentaries, movies and podcasts (e.g. The Vow, Martha Marcy May Marlene), I was excited to dive into this series. To say that I was disappointed with HTBACL would be an understatement. I didn't make it past the first episode, in which viewers are bombarded with various examples of cult leader strategies in a sensationalistic and sarcastic tone. The tone is basically: look at all these silly and quirky cult leaders who manipulated and harmed their followerz, LMAO; and like OMG some peeplz died; isn't that, like, so crazy?

I appreciated the interviews of former cult followers describing their experiences and current perspectives, but we receive these interviews as brief clips in a piecemeal fashion that doesn't allow us meaningfully connect with them and their subjective experiences.

The pace of the first episode was intolerable for me, as were the narrative and editing choices. I understand that HTBACL's focus is on identifying and communicating the tactics used by cult leaders, but I would have appreciated a more slowed-down and focused approach. In one episode, you'll hear examples from 15+ cults, offered to you at a frantic pace alongside random video footage, photos, as well as illustrated reinactments. The result (in my opinion): a superficial, meandering, emotionally bereft docuseries from which I learned absolutely nothing of significance.