cult

The Inevitable Cult of Wealth

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A lot of wealthy people seem to be in cults, and I’m not just talking your standard Right Wing Christian Crap. As I write this in October 2026 we’re getting reporting on strange cults of Artificial Intelligence, rationalism, Antichrist obsessives, and more. People are looking at billionaires and going “what the hell did they say” and “what drugs are they on” (Ketamine of course, but also my guess is plenty of psychedelics). There’s surprise at this cultic behavior, and honestly there really shouldn’t be.

Imagine you’re wealthy for whatever reason. You can shape your entire experience to be whatever you want. People will do whatever you want because you have money (and possibly fame and power). You can exist the exact way you want with little to no pushback.

Oh you may think you’re not living an illusion, but unless you’re very careful, you will. If you can change the world with a transaction, people will like to you, suck up to you, or worse assume you’re right as you have money. Even if you’re careful, you’ll have to work hard not to delude yourself because others will help you do just that.

Being rich and powerful leads to an echo chamber and eventually a kind of cognitive impairment. Ever seen a Really Rich person just freak out at a random social media post? Someone living in a self-imposed bubble will loose their shit over something posted by some anonymous person with a handle like BannanaCannon420.

Now such environments will lead to cultic behavior – even if it’s a cult of one. You’re in your own self-created bubble. You’re creating a feedback loop. You’ve got people willing to tell you what you want to hear (often for money). That’s a cult.

But also think of these echo chambers these people live in. If a cultic behavior or set of ideas are introduced there’s a good chance it won’t leave and will be amplified. It just takes one doofus with the right (or wrong) idea, one self-published manifesto, to get into the sphere of some rich person and then the bad idea stays and grows. They may even share it with their friends, who are also wealthy and honestly probably kind of bonkers.

So yes, some of the uber-wealthy act like they’re in cults – they are. They exist in self-created echo chambers. Bad ideas don’t get flushed out. They talk to other people like them. And that’s not counting important questions like “is the economy structured so utter assholes easily take control.”

Honestly, once you add the asshole factor it gets worse. I’m being kind.

So maybe in our current state we need to consider the rich and powerful to be in some kind of cult by default until proven otherwise. And it’s another reminder of why consolidation of power of any kind is a problem – because culty behavior follows almost inevitably, even with the most charitable viewpoint.

–Xenofact

The Tenth Picture

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A lot of spiritual experiences give you a high. This isn’t a bad thing at all, but too often the sign gets mistaken for the destination

I’m not only talking the high from drugs some people take for spiritual or faux-spiritual reasons. It’s obvious that appropriately used substances, employed by informed people under proper tutelage, can lead to deep spiritual insights. It’s also obvious you can have such deep experiences from breathing, visualization, energy work, etc. These are deep, strange, powerful and also can get you high as hell for that moment.

And that high is not necessarily a bad thing. That is a sign that you’ve gotten something going on. You feel that high of your body relaxing in Quigong, the self-yet-not moment of cyclical breathing, or the psychedelic top-of-your-head-blows off of a drug or visualization trip. Something happened, and you have a powerful experience and often see and feel life differently.

However, I think a lot of people see the high as the goal. They want the sign of enlightenment, of achievement, of spiritual fulfillment – and to them that’s the rush of the therapeutic relaxation or some stunning vision. They want to own it by owning an experience.

I think this is why we see so many people falling under the spells of gurus, grifters, endless substance experiments, and shifting trends. They’re chasing the high or looking for a new one so they can once again “hold” that sense of spiritual enlightenment. But it’s just a senstion.

Spiritual highs are just roadsigns you’re onto something (and, in some cases, just on something even if it’s your own neurotransmitters). Something in your head and personality just shifted, got blown apart, or made connections. But the question is what you do next.

Plenty of seekers’ next step should be to ask if they just deluded themselves. But for many they had some authentic insight and that’s a chance to grow, not just find a new way to get high again.

What did you learn? How can you apply it? Does it help you understand yourself, others, and your teachers better. Where does the spiritual experience send you next? I mean even if you go to conventional therapy, good job, you learned something.

Spiritual experience should help you grow, not become a junkie.

I’m reminded of the famous Ten Ox-Herding pictures of Zen. They’re a lovely metaphor for meditation and spiritual practice based around seeking and taming a recalcitrant bovine. Eventually the trainer – the seeker – returns to society after many insights, helping others. He doesn’t leave the world or stay in his seeking, but returns a better person.

If your spiritual highs don’t help you become better, if they don’t someday lead you back to the bustling marketplace and busy town, then pause and take stock of yourself.

-Xenofact