INTERVIEW — Aug 13, starting 13:42
Interviewee: 35 years old, female, main language Arabic, speaking in English, lives in Berlin, Germany, Syrian nationality.
--- Interviewer: Perfect. Okay, so, first and main question — when you hear the word cult, what comes to your mind?
Interviewee: Sometimes it comes to me that, you know, kind of privileged people — that they have the privilege to, geographically, choose what to believe in. Because I believe that some places in the world, especially — if I'm talking from the perspective of the Sunna aka the Middle East — you have the religion aspect, whatever it is; I'm not talking about Muslims, even Christians or Jews — the beliefs of the regional religion are dominant over your own beliefs. But when you go more to the West, especially Western culture, you realize that people tend to choose an alternative belief to follow. Yeah, but in general, when we say "cult," I think it's a privilege to choose to be in a cult.
Interviewer: Do you have specific examples, then, of cults — I mean, given this notion of privilege?
Interviewee: For instance, I watched once a documentary about a cult called Raëlism. Have you heard of it? It's pretty crazy, nonsense shit, to be honest. But, you know, here's where I see the privilege — I believe, in some areas of the world you are dominated by the conditions around you, the daily struggles in life, where people have to be in fight-or-flight mode, so they don't have the privilege to think or rethink their beliefs and say "oh, this doesn't fit me, I'd like to follow this cult or that belief" — while in some areas of the world, especially in war zones, when people are very close to death, I believe they'd rather stick to what they were raised on, because they believe this is the remedy, or this is what gives them the better life they'll have after. So, from that point of view, I see it as a privilege — when people are safe, when they have the freedom of choice and opinion and all of that, they have the privilege to say "no, I want to be out of this religious system, and I would like to follow an alternative belief, or cult, or whatsoever." And that doesn't necessarily mean the cult is the better choice — it can be — but at least you have the privilege, the freedom, to say "I want to go out of a certain system."
Interviewee: I watched once a documentary on Netflix called "How to Become a Cult Leader," because — it's like a joke I make with my friends — that in my retirement I would like to create a cult for me and my friends, that believes in nothing, and we'd have this space where we believe in nothing together, you know. But it's very interesting how people can adopt, or follow, a certain — I don't know — ideology, just because they can, you know.
Interviewer: Yeah, so you're using both the words "ideology" and "belief" — so, do you feel like cults can be tied to either, or both?
Interviewee: Not necessarily, but it can be — it can be both, and it can be neither. But most of the time, to convince people to be part of something, you need a certain ideology that resonates with people on a certain level. Like, if we're talking about Raëlism, for instance — for people who were feeling alienated, or not fitting in — that's also very interesting about cults: that they look at the weaknesses in people's psychology and try to use that to their benefit. Like for Raëlism, where they started convincing people, "if you're feeling alienated, that's not out of nowhere — that's because we are actually created by aliens," you know? So, yeah, psychologically, it's very interesting how cults work — that they try to find the weakest spot in your brain and play around it to convince you that, no, it's something special.
Interviewer: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, cool — it's cool, I think that's enough. Yeah, thank you.
Interviewee: I'm just going to talk a little bit about the different sects of Muslims. For instance, Sunnis are prohibited from drinking alcohol, but the Alawites, for instance, don't see that as prohibited — they drink alcohol. And this is where I see the difference between a sect and a cult: sects still fall under a higher umbrella of rules, or a belief that says "this is the core belief," and the way you practice that belief can vary from one sect to another. Whereas in a cult, you don't need that — you can create the umbrella you want.
Interviewer: But — can a sect be a cult?
Interviewee: I mean, theoretically, yes, I think — or a sect would be a cult under a religious umbrella, probably. But then, I don't know what makes a cult — for me, in my understanding, a cult isn't necessarily linked to a religion, but a sect is always tied to fall under a certain religion.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Interviewee: But, for instance, there's also the Druze in the Palestine area, which we still don't know whether to call a sect or a cult, because the Druze have their own beliefs, but at the same time, one of their rules is that — depending on where they are geographically — they blend with the majority religion there. So, for example, the Druze in Syria — they're in the south of Syria, and the majority there are Muslim, so the Druze consider themselves Muslim in that context. While the Druze in Lebanon — they're in an area where the majority is Christian, so they practice and do some religious acts as Christians. But they would still call themselves Druze, not Christian, and not Muslim. So Druze, I think, could be more a cult than a sect. But Catholic or Shia is still a sect, under Muslims or Christians.
Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewee: I was — I don't know, like the Freemasons, actually — but still, I would see them as a cult, you know, because there's this kind of rules and regulations to be part of it, but you don't necessarily have to believe in one religion — you can be Muslim and a part of the Masons, but you can also be Christian and part of the Masons.
Interviewer: So, on which aspect, then, are the Masons a cult?
Interviewee: I'm not — I don't have a lot of knowledge about what their mission is, or what their core goal is. There was this... what was it called? What was the name of this guy who got in a scandal, for scamming people — Gomez. Gomez, the guy who loved doing Botox. Yeah, this guy [showing a picture on her phone].
Interviewer: So, can you tell me more?
Interviewee: Uh, like — ah, the Buddhafield cult — it was also about, you know, trying to bring spirituality, meditation, and enlightenment into, you know, reaching a higher spiritual space, or place. But actually, what was the scandal about, with this guy: he had, like, a really large following — I don't know, 100,000 followers — really, a lot of people, and he made this cult, even with Hollywood celebrities. And in his practices, one of the rituals they did — they sat in a dark room and meditated — and they were interviewing one of his ex-followers, and he was saying that during the meditation, Gomez would go around the room and put his thumb between people's eyes, and then people would start to see light. And then, this guy — once, he opened his eyes during the ceremony, and he realized that Gomez had an LED light on his tongue that he could turn on immediately when he touched them. So it was crazy how people who didn't know that would totally buy it, you know, and blindly believe it — it's just like the placebo effect: when you convince people so hard that this is reality, they take it. And I don't know if it comes from a highly convincing people, or because the human mind is just so fragile to be influenced.
Interviewer: So this one in particular, you'd say is a cult because of this influence — this lie, trying to influence people?
Interviewee: Yeah, and I think what makes the difference between cult and religion — I mean, I'm not a religious person, so I also can't be very sure whether prophets were there or not — but at least there is a historical record about religions. But with cults, it's not — it's just a person who wakes up one day and says "hey, I found this," and builds a whole movement around it, you know. But — as see on Wikipedia, it says it's a religious movement. Yeah, "Holy Hell" [the name of the documentary]. Yeah, but there was also a scandal about this guy, that he was using his followers because he was a Botox and plastic-surgery addict — followers, from the girls, of course — he used to convince them to try the surgeries on their bodies. So there's a lot of brainwashing and abuse allegations.