The new-religious-movement canon — Scientology, NXIVM, Peoples Temple. The wish is to belong to a community organized around someone with special knowledge — to live inside a framework that explains your life and reveals what to do next. The counterfeit closes the framework against external feedback ("the experts are part of the problem"), excuses the leader's behavior as evidence of their elevation, and keeps members locked in through purity discipline and the cost of having already given everything.
Anchor works
Dianetics (Hubbard/Scientology — canonical text); Going Clear (Wright — journalist-outside on Scientology); Scarred (Edmondson — former-member-reckoning outside on NXIVM); Captive (Oxenberg — outer-participant-rescuer outside on NXIVM); Raven (Reiterman/Jacobs — journalist-outside on Peoples Temple); NXIVM (compound w/ self-help + MLM); Peoples Temple/Jonestown (compound w/ protected-world)
Catalog detail — status & engines ↓
Status
Slot-proven across three specimen-instances and four kinds of outside-critique (Dianetics + Going Clear on Scientology; Scarred + Captive on NXIVM; Raven on Peoples Temple, 2026-06-01); two specimen-level compound-cluster types confirmed (cult ∩ self-help ∩ MLM via NXIVM; cult ∩ protected-world via Jonestown); three structurally distinct outside-critique sub-modes documented (journalist-distance, former-member-reckoning, outer-participant-rescuer)
Engines
apotheosis + mastery + order/legibility + impunity (four legs verbatim-anchored) + belonging + redemption (six legs, op. extension) + purity/contamination (Jonestown compound, seven legs)