Build a better beast

Designs for life, leaving, staying, coming back, moving on, beating control freaks, taking a break, getting yourself "over the rainbow" without tears.



impossible songs

The idiots guide to starting your own cult.

First be wise, charismatic but flawed in a likeable way.
Have a warm house with lots of tea and plain biscuits on the go.
Have a pretty wife.
Have very strong views and refuse to compromise them.
Call other people idiots, but not to their faces.
Develop difficult belief systems that appeal to people.
Make people think it’s tough to join and stay.
Befriend odd balls and weirdos and misfits.
Ask them for money to help the cause.
Ask them for more money to help the cause.
Tell people that the outside world is corrupt but you can escape from it here.
Make up flyers and leaflets that tease people and provoke enquiries.
Always use emotional blackmail in your dealings with people.
Have secret knowledge but hold it back.
Tell half the story.
Tell kids that their parents are beyond help.
Quote from a worthy book of quotations.
Make it seem exclusive (because it is).
Run meetings where only you get to speak.
Control, control, control…

The idiots guide to joining a cult.

Follow your friends who have already joined.
Don’t have any ideas of your own.
Have ideas of your own but you don’t feel sure about them.
Take pride in thinking that you are open to anything.
Be on the lookout for answers and certainty.
Be lonely.
Be easily led.
Be fed up with your life.
Be on a downer.
Wander into a meeting drunk and broke.
Join so that you can gather material and write a book exposing them.
Do it for a laugh, but then the laugh never comes along.
Have a desire to change the world but don’t know how to.
Fancy somebody who already goes…

The idiots guide to leaving a cult.

Fall out with the leader(s).
Get your own ideas.
Fall out with the members.
Do something absolutely unspeakable.
Steal from them.
Run very fast in the opposite direction and change your name.
Move house.
Publish an expose.
Stop fancying the person you fancied.
Run and when they come after you foam at the mouth.
Run and when they come after you just smile.
Start a whispering campaign.
Tell everybody that you have a big knife.
Tell them that you want the money you gave them back.
Join a martial arts club.
Become a heretic, a witch or an intellectual.
Get them to leave you.
Join a rival cult.
Start your own cult…. (Oops).