Last year, I had a high level of satisfaction exploring serial killers in fiction. There was a lot I learned about serial killers in the public imagination and the discourse around serial killers over time. This year (2026, as there’s only a week left in 2025) I’m shifting gears and moving to a new “obsession” of cults in fiction. You can see the full list of books I plan to (maybe) read here.

I realize these “deep-dives” are more for me than for “building an audience”, but I have found diving deep into a subject allows my brain to marinate in a way I’ve missed since I finished my formal education years ago. I didn’t take many literature classes in university, so I have to formal literary critique skills. All I have is an “oh, that’s interesting,” and “now I’ve seen the same thing five times” kinda thing going on. It’s enough for me, and hopefully a few people will also enjoy reading my series.

Going into this, I can already tell things are going to be a lot different this year. Last year, I struggled to find serial killer books I wanted to read. Part of this is because I crossed the meat-and-potatoes of serial killer fiction (the police procedural) off my list. Sorry, not sorry. Books that feature cults abound in all genres of literature, though. I think I’m going to have a more difficult time narrowing down my list this year.

Preconceptions

Of course, I’m coming into this reading with some preconceptions about what cults are in the public imagination and how they can be used in a story. I also have some topics and “moments of conflict” I’m more interested in than others. I figure it’s good to explore that from the beginning.

What is a cult?

Let’s start with the most simple preconception: the definition of a cult. Honestly, I wouldn’t have thought this was up for debate. We all know what a cult is, right? But apparently definitions vary widely. Can a country be a cult? Can a single family? Are they always religious?

Merriam-Webster defines cult as “a group (as an organization or religious sect) with tenets and practices regarded as coercive, insular, or dangerous” and Oxford Languages goes with “a relatively small group of people having beliefs or practices, especially relating to religion, that are regarded by others as strange or sinister or as imposing excessive control over members.”

But I feel like that can mean different things to different people, but most of the definitions of a cult include power centralized in an authoritarian leader, isolation, and coercion/harm of the members. Cult Education Institute gives these ten warning signs of a potentially unsafe group/leader:

1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.
2. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.
3. No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement.
4. Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.
5. There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.
6. Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.
7. There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader.
8. Followers feel they can never be “good enough”.
9. The group/leader is always right.
10. The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

In my quest for cults, I’m boiling that down to:

1. Authoritarian leadership without external or internal accountability.
2. No tolerance for questions or criticism.
3. Secrets.
4. Isolation.
5. No way out.

Simplified? Maybe. But it seems like a good place to start.

Cults and Religion

So many cults are religious in one way or another. Many in the US are founded on forms of Christianity or other Abrahamic religions, although there are also many formed on a mash-up of various Eastern religious ideas. Not to get too personal, I grew up moving from town to town (military family) with the one constant our churches all being Four Square or Rhema Bible Institute churches — always somewhat fringe Pentecostal churches. Neither Four Square nor Rhema meet the requirements for a cult, but individual churches can have a lot of similarities. Instead, what I had was a highly religious upbringing where I attended various types of service 2-5 days a week (depending on the church) with limited access to secular friends or media.

Because of my upbringing, you might think that abrahamic cults are my favorite, but I tend to avoid them. I’m much more interested in non-religious cults or cults of spiritualism than cults that branch off of christian beliefs. Probably because I buried that section of my life as deeply as my given name. Reading about pentecostal church services brings up an uncomfortable mix of boredom, fear, and existentialism in me that I’m not sure I want to face on a daily basis.

A lot of the books out there focus on religious cults, especially on conservative Christian cults. I will definitely read a few, but I hope I can find others.

Can cults be a good thing?

One of the pieces of media that started this new interest was the Netflix show, Wayward. Having friends who worked in wilderness therapy and almost going down that road myself, I am fascinated by outdoor therapy and therapeutical boarding schools. I think the most poignant part for me was at the end when Leila, the one who had fought hardest against the school, decided to stay. Yes, she will be crushed into something that is not herself… but what about the people who crave that? What if you’ve gone through enough pain in your life that you want to surrender control and be remade? Is that so bad?

Honestly, it’s something that I can relate to — and I think most psychonauts have dived deep into that space of ego dissolution while searching for something similar. Now, we know that there are gross aspects of control going on. Personal wealth and power corrupting the institution. But it seems like a lot of cults start from good intentions and good ideas. There are often years blurring communal/alternative living with cult until the power imbalance becomes so pronounced that it tips into two types of harmful:

1. Harmful to all members.
2. You can’t stay without harming others.

Either way, probably not a good thing. I am especially interested in exploring this tipping point.

Tropes I’m Already Seeing

I spent part of today building a list of potential books to read. In just half-an-hour, these are the things I’ve seen pop up again and again:

• Child grew up in the cult (usually a girl) and is slotted to marry an older man. She’s willing and/or considers herself lucky or special until an outside person her age (usually a boy) introduces her to the secular world and makes her ask questions. There seem to be a LOT of these ones. It makes sense, as this can be a very concerning aspect of cults and the abuse of children is immediately horrifying.
• TBC.