Cult Classics?

From Rocky Horror to Mother Teresa

I stood by the sink in my friend’s kitchen and asked myself, “Is Doug a cult leader?” This question, helped me identify the 18-year cultic thrall I had just ended, launching me into a path of study, healing, and eventually, a career in cult education and recovery.

Seven years later, on May 20, 2021, The New York Times published an article with the title, Was Mother Teresa a Cult Leader? reminding me of a childhood fantasy of helping the poor and the early days of my indoctrination process.

I recall having seen two movies before I was twenty: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the drive-in theatre when I was 6 years old, decked out in my pink and white pinstripe bloomers and more than a decade later, the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Roxy in Hempstead NY, wearing white painter’s pants with a blue floral blouse that I loved, but in this setting, made me feel prudish. Walking into the theatre at midnight with my culture-savvy cousins, my jaw went slack, taking in the scene: transvestites in full regalia, carrying bags of provisions that included newspaper, rice and squirt bottles. I was a country bumpkin, raised with little to no TV — a trend that continued into adulthood. Except for a few of my childhood years, I have never lived with a TV, making me an innocent oddity in the wild west of American movie culture.