Le Parcours des gourous

As a fan of cult documentaries, movies and podcasts (e.g. The Vow, Martha Marcy May Marlene), I was excited to dive into this series. To say that I was disappointed with HTBACL would be an understatement. I didn't make it past the first episode, in which viewers are bombarded with various examples of cult leader strategies in a sensationalistic and sarcastic tone. The tone is basically: look at all these silly and quirky cult leaders who manipulated and harmed their followerz, LMAO; and like OMG some peeplz died; isn't that, like, so crazy?

I appreciated the interviews of former cult followers describing their experiences and current perspectives, but we receive these interviews as brief clips in a piecemeal fashion that doesn't allow us meaningfully connect with them and their subjective experiences.

The pace of the first episode was intolerable for me, as were the narrative and editing choices. I understand that HTBACL's focus is on identifying and communicating the tactics used by cult leaders, but I would have appreciated a more slowed-down and focused approach. In one episode, you'll hear examples from 15+ cults, offered to you at a frantic pace alongside random video footage, photos, as well as illustrated reinactments. The result (in my opinion): a superficial, meandering, emotionally bereft docuseries from which I learned absolutely nothing of significance.

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?)

The series is not original but still entertaining. It starts strong and the best episodes to me were the first trio. The narrative is great because the characters are quite interesting if you're into psicology or love series like Mindhunter. But it is far to be a masterpiece.

First, it can become monotone after watching the fourth episode. To add, the last cult leaders are not interesting or intriguing.

Second, last episode is terrible. And the ending is as important as the start. A big flawn. The series sinks by itself because it follows the same pattern all the time. Kind of boring.

Anyway, it is overall watchable but not great. If you want to maximize the time, skip the last episode.

This is a great idea for a tv show. It is very interesting and I am learning a lot. I will try to use this stuff when I try to set up my own cult. My favourite thing about the show is that it is literally a step by step guide for how to start a cult which is brilliant. There are some good animated sequences which tell the story of these creepy cult leaders. Peter Dinklage is great as the narrator and he produced it too. As long as you don't take it too seriously this is a fun and entertaining show. The best way to view it would actually be to study how these cult leaders manipulate people so you can start to identify when people are manipulating you. Sadly the world is full of psychopaths and so it is good to know what you are up against.

Witty, striking narration! I don't think that there is a better way to explain the 'boring' cults.

But I want to draw attention to the last part of the series. Look at people's lives! When you ask them, they will tell you: 'Of course we hate the cults that blindly follow a leader.' I am sure that they use at least three different social media platform. They have their own Cult leaders (social media celebrities). Their speech and photos are not different from a cult leader. People are worshipping them in modern ways (like buttons/ comments). If you don't believe me, just check the million-followers fan pages.

All in all, This not just a story of some 'devotee's' but it is a story of human nature, our need to aggrandize leaders whom we believe more glorious than us.

As the playbook says: 'Just remember, in this world, you are either the predator or the prey.'