Cults Like Us: Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America

by Jane Borden

Fueling but also complicating the enlightenment rush was the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. When Lyndon Johnson abolished national-origins quotas, Indians immigrated in droves, particularly to the West Coast. “They brought spiritual ideas a lot of Americans were not yet exposed to,” Lane explains. This influx met a generation of young adults who desired the order, comfort, and safety of spiritual salvation, but were too disillusioned by the previous generation’s actions to remain brand loyal to religions of their youth. Eastern philosophies surrounding reincarnation, meditation, and consciousness, though not new to the country, suddenly went viral. Enter scam artists looking to ride the guru wave, to exploit a new camouflage, in order to make a buck and, at worst, secure the kind of absolute power only divinity provides.