As crises escalate, so does our fascination with cults

Asian American Research Center faculty affiliate Poulomi Saha was featured on an episode of the Berkeley Voices podcast to discuss their research into cult fascination and their course, Cults in Popular Culture. Saha and their students explore the history of cults, the transformative power of these groups and the conditions that give rise to our collective fascination. Saha situates cults within in a countercultural movement that emerged in the U.S. in the 1960s after World War II, as young people began to push against society’s demands for conformity and normativity of the 1950s. Defining a cult not as a pathology but as a system of belief that is incredibly powerful to those who believe it, Saha says our growing interest in cults is important to study because it tells us something about the unmet needs in Americans’ lives.