How to De-Program Yourself from a Doomsday Cult (In an Easy, Half-Dozen-ish Steps)
True believers seem great at first, but they're really just soul-less bots looking for a place to sacrifice themselves.
(A follow-up to my story, “How to Build a Doomsday Cult.”)
I loved this place. This dirty, little bar with the great jukebox. It was my safe haven. I’d slide onto a stool at the bar and order a shot and a beer. I’d toast to Jack or Nick or Barb. Listen to Sinatra. Mourn my day.
But I’d eavesdropped. Heard the guys complaining how high prices were, how they didn’t recognize anyone in the neighborhood anymore, how Joe Bob’s dog was missing. It was impossible to get ahead. And it was our leaders fault. They were un-American. Those U.N.-leaning, no-gun toting, uni-sex bastards that spent all their time tearing down our statues.
And all those commies. Thinking they were better than us just because they went to some ivy-infested school they’d slipped into while Mommy-n-Daddy drank tea with the Dean and dropped 6-figure checks for a new lacrosse field.
It wasn’t fair. We needed a reset. One day. Some day. Someone would rise up, and tell-it-like-it-really-is, or was, and fix things.
If only I hadn’t started sketching out a plan to change everything. I didn’t think about it. I was still mad because the new girl at work had mocked my presentation. Called it misogynistic. Called it doomed to fail. Called it anachronistic. Had to look that word up but still it hurt. It was her tone. My plans had always worked in the past. Cut labor cost. Pay more for salesmen and managers to become more efficient.
That shit always worked.
But they’d all laughed.
How could they all side with some newcomer that stood up and spoke about hope and growth. She didn’t have a clue about the real world, what we accomplished, how good things were before people like her came into our orbit. Not a clue. Go back home.
So I was mad and angry and my ego was banging around inside my head, shooting out sparks, and bile, and images of vengeance. I left. Just got up and walked out and went for a drink at a place where everyone would get me.
Then I heard the guys talking, I started scribbling, and we had the beginnings of our doomsday cult. We had an end-of-the-world date and a cause based upon just a touch of pseudo-science. We took the power. We used information. We pushed misinformation. And disinformation. We flooded and pounded and algorithm’ed the hell out of social media.
And we started to make a difference. People were listening. They became invested. They began to fight our battles for us. We just sat back and cranked out merch and made a killing.
Until the morning of 03.01.2028, the day after the world was suppose to have collapsed. The world wasn’t shaken to bits and we weren’t crushed from the weight of the magnetic waves. The pole shifts didn’t happen.
We woke up.
Now it’s in flames. All of it. My jukebox. My barstool. My Sinatra tunes.
It’s time to take a fresh look at everything that happened. How’d we get here? How can we recover? Can we recover? I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. It just started with a little white lie. Ok, maybe there was nothing white about it. But still it’s not all my fault. You followed. You wore our red hats with the rainbow’ed magnetic waves. You wore our ‘Shift Happens’ t-shirts and drank our NFT-branded double the caffeine energy drinks, and stuck our Doomsday signs in your yards.
There’s no power in stupid ideas. There’s power in stupid ideas that gain followers.
Stop the riots. Stop burning shit down. I know you’re good people. You’re our people. I’m not advocating violence - advocating, that means for it - towards the group. I didn’t want you to burn down my favorite bar.
I know we were suppose to be all dead today. But, c’mon, did you really think I meant anything I said. Did you really believe I would or could roll back the price of a candy bar to 10¢? C’mon now.
But let me help you. If you feel duped. Or manipulated. Or even brainwashed now that everything around us is burning, here’s a simple breakdown of how you can get your mind right. This will help you put down the molotov cocktails and grab an All-American milkshake.
Trust me. I’m here for you. I hear you.
Step 1 - Acknowledge You’ve Been Screwed (and Not Gently Like All Those Years Before, But With a Snarl, and a Bot, and a Blurb)
This is not a reflection of your IQ. You’re very smart and this could have happened to anyone. It’s difficult today to discern (see or identify) the truth. The truth is not simple. It’s complicated and layered and takes reading, studying, and thought. We tried to break everything down into it’s simplest form. This way you can understand without having to delve any further. We gave you little talking points you could spit out to your friends and family. They sounded great. They were easy to understand. And sometimes they rhymed.
This helped us to create connections between people. The good people. People like you and me that built this country and fought for this country and drank beer for this country. Everyone wants to belong. We need to belong. We need a purpose. So we gave you one and you joined.
It’s time to admit you’ve been duped. Don’t cling. We need to move on and to do that we need to understand it’s all been a charade to make me feel better. Sorry. It’s obvious. I told you the world would be destroyed yesterday. It wasn’t. We’re all still here. It’s okay. This was a wide spread movement. You’re not the only one.
Realize this: You’re going to have to find your own purpose. You’re going to have to think, and study, and read.
Talk to your friends about something other than the end of the world. Turn off the media. Turn off your social feeds. Read a book. Help someone out.
If it’ll help, I’ll set up a recovery group. We can do it together. We’ll be focused on recovery.
Step 2 - Strip Away the Bright and the Shiny (No More Red Wavy Hats, No More T-shirts, It’s Time to Kill the Brand)
I’ve been through a few rough breakups. Women don’t always get me. And the first thing I do is burn all the pictures we took together. It’s cathartic (makes me feel better). We’re going to have to do that now.
Don’t donate any of our stuff. I don’t want to see our hats, or wave-crystal necklaces, or t-shirts floating around disfiguring the homeless or hanging in Goodwill stores. We need to cleanse. Burn it. Burn it all.
Why? Well, we made the stuff to bond us all together. It’s merch that could help unite us and shows our loyalty. If you saw our hats anywhere, you knew you were amongst friends. It helped us create a larger and larger network. If you saw someone wearing our red crystal necklace you knew how they thought, and behaved, and how they were prepping for the end of the world. You felt safe. Seen.
No more. We need to break all links between our members. You need to separate. We loved the stuff - mostly because we made a pretty penny selling the junk - but it’s time has come and gone.
Burn it. Torch it. Create a little ceremony, roll it up and smoke it. Just destroy it so it can’t creep back into the world.
Step 3 - Clip the Connections (No More Group Think, I Know Scary But Essential)
You’ll have to disconnect in other ways than destroying merch. Unfollow and sever your digital ties. Unsubscribe from our newsletter that connected millions of you. It re-enforces our teachings through thought-less pieces, memes, selected advertisers, and of course more merch.
Rid your mind of our buzzwords. This is not as easy as it sounds. Words are important. The nature of words and sayings can impact the very way we think and relate to others. We crafted these words to create an urgency. Secret words and phrases known only to us - and of course anyone seeing our t-shirts or hats - emphasized the exclusivity of our group. Purge them from your mind. No more “magnetizing”, or “pole flips”, or “Stage 4 Donator” and especially no more “Make Apocalypses Great Again.”
Do not continue on with our Dance Training videos. Yes, they got you in shape so you could look good for the end of the world, but they were also brain washing vehicles. The music played at 384hz. This made you susceptible to suggestions. Music such as this when combined with catchy lyrics practically lobotomized you. It flooded your brain with serotonin. You felt good. You became a ride or die supporter and devotee.
Honestly (I’m about to lie to you), it gets tiresome when everyone around me is always agreeing with me. Sure, I can scribble on a napkin or two but that doesn’t mean I’m a genius across the board. Just because you heard me on the Joe Rogan podcast doesn’t means I know what I’m talking about or I always tell the truth or I don’t have a secret agenda. Joe’s a friend and been seen wearing our shirts but that doesn’t mean everything was rigged in our favor. De-Celebritize (not a word but should be).
Buck up and take responsibility for yourself. Why do I have to do everything? It’s never been my fault, this group collapse. Stop feeding off me.
Cleanse your mind. Breathe deep. Maybe try some commie yoga or something.
Step 4 - Reintroduce Yourself to Reality (Secret of Secrets, It Was Always Nicer Than You Remember)
You know. The world hasn’t ended. We thought, and preached, it’d be our group to re-shape our post-apocalyptic world. It’d be us and only us that could stop the earth from being bombarded by magnetic waves. We’d be the ones to establish a new-world order our forefather’s would recognize and be proud of with PTA meetings, and cookie bake-offs, and Little League teams that only gave trophies to the champions.
But nature betrayed us and the magnetic waves never came. Might as well go outside. Look up at the sky and smile. Pick up the hose and water the front yard. You’ll probably notice no one is really freaking out. There’s no more cataclysmic (world ending) hype about doomsday. Take a drink from the hose. It won’t kill you. They’re no hordes of magnetized, brain damaged zombies pushing into your neighborhood from lands afar.
Talk to your neighbor. Call an old friend. Apologize. Let them know that you’ve learned to recognize pablum (bullshit) from science. You’ve learned to double-check your sources. You’ve learned that marketing and catchy-blurbs - no matter how angrily we spit them out - are not the same as verified facts.
Yes, connect with ‘real’ people. But connect as friends. Look for people that share knowledge and wisdom not prophecies. Look for mentors and not messiahs.
You’ll have to do the work yourself.
Step 5 - Start With Yourself (Laugh, Heal, Stop Wasting Money, and Create Your Own Non-Doomy Purpose)
You’ve acknowledged you were screwed and mislead. You’ve cut off your ties to the Make Apocalypses Great Again set. You’ve reconnected with family and friends. You’ve learned to read a book once in awhile. You’ve learned to be thoughtful and respectful, and responsible. It’s time to forgive yourself.
You’ll have a few more bucks in your pocket, now that you’re not buying all our merch or sending us money so we can fight everyone that hasn’t agreed with us. You aren’t sending us your nickels and dimes. Invest in yourself. Start a savings account. Start a business. Give someone a helping hand. Be fruitful.
Ask a shitload of questions especially when someone tells you they have all the answers. They don’t. Think. Question. Think. And question again.
Do something positive. Join a bowling league. Plant a garden. Get a rescue cat or dog. Care for something other than yourself.
Humans are capable of greatness. Search for it. Be inspired by it.
Step 6 - Handling Leftover True Believers (You’re Never Truly Recovered. Power Tends to Consolidate If You Let it)
There will be some wanna-be despots popping up to fill the void we’ve left behind. They’ll twist our words a little and exaggerate and change the history of the events we all witnessed. Maybe they say the magnetic waves did hit but they weren’t quite as strong as we predicted. They’ll say that it was just a precursor and we must now be more diligent than ever. They’ll say it wasn’t us that attacked anything but some crazies that were ultra-sensitive to magnetic waves and were already feeling the effects.
They’ll try to change laws. They’ll create weird little nursery rhymes to influence children. They’ll poster classrooms and bathrooms with anti-science.
It’ll be, “Don’t Wash Your Hands. Germs Heal.”
We’ve moved on. We cannot let others drag us back down. The apocalypse is not delayed. It’s not happening unless we create it ourselves.
These new crack pots will be convincing. They’ll roll up to microphones and spout their vile. They’ll wear lifts in their shoes, and brightly colored plumage, to stand out. They’ll cloak their message in fear, and uncertainty, and nostalgia. They’ll create someone or something to hate. It’ll always evolve into an “us-against-them.”
They won’t have solutions. They’ll just have requirements. We must resist.
Read. Learn. Speak up. Be factual. Every time. I know we promised you’d never have to think again. We promised we had all the answers. We lied. Get over it.
And Finally, 4 Ways to Keep Calm and Combat a Apocalypse Relapse (Recognize Your Triggers)
No more counting - Counting leads to countdowns which leads to doomsday predictions. Ignore things that are simplified into 3 steps, or 5 steps, or 10 steps. Steps are a sneaky form of counting. Life isn’t that easy. 6-ish steps are always okay, though.
Don’t make plans at the bar - Yeah, I like a good happy hour but shots and truths do not go together. Realize the truth is not simple. Seek solutions first. And if someone is yelling it across the bar you should probably fact-check it.
Don’t join groups that promise salvation - the world is complicated. We live in a messy, chaotic place. It’s okay. Choose the truth over order.
Avoid napkins - If you can scribble it on a napkin it’s not well thought out. Napkins lead to bullet points which lead to steps which lead to counting. See above.
Don’t trust slogans or groups supported by merch -yes, matching mugs, t-shirts, crystal necklaces, and NFT-splattered underwear are cute but they’re soul sucking. Don’t trust the money grabs.
That’s it. Hope this plan has brought you a level of peace and serenity that our destruction of the universe was unable to do. If you need further assistance in your recovery, please send me a check for $49.99. I’ll personalize a de-programming plan specifically for you. I’ll probably use AI. I hear that shit’s gonna save us all.
Read. Smile. Question. Learn. Write. And read some more.
Coming next week is Part 2 to my Information series - The God Complex—Do Information Networks Always Centralize Power?