How to Become a Cult Leader

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?)

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.

I have been interested in cults and brainwashing for a while. Good show but agree that it missed out one of the most famous cults - the Branch Davidians. Probably because Netflix has a dedicated show about Waco which is excellent. I think it should have also focussed more on how people managed to get sucked in by these charlatans. I think the animations work really well too. The episode on the Moonies was interesting also. It would be interesting if the looked at why so many cults originate in the USA and Japan. I believe this may be due to the prevalence of spirituality and religion in these countries.

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.

It shows a very partial picture of things. Includes some supposed cults (because easy targets, visually, e.g. Osho) while leaves out some real and active cults (e.g. Scientology) out of fear and general opportunism. Just easy or obvious targets without goung deep into why cults exist and how come people nees them in this consuneristic world. Shallow overall and kind of an exact copy of what Explained had already done (still shallow). To give it intelletual depth they should have shown more points of view and not only people piling up with such an absolute predetermined and similar outlook on things. The creators act with the same absolutism of cults themselves!