Day 2 of YACHT‘s guest blogging commences. Yesterday, YACHT’s Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evens treated us to an insider look into Freemason Fashion Week. Today, Jona and Claire have prepared a roundup of cults you didn’t know were cults.

MENSA
First rule of a secret society: exclusivity. You can’t institute a New World Order if you spend all your time handling new recruits, let alone mediocre ones. To maximize secrecy and success, only the best and the brightest can be involved. What’s more exclusive than the most intelligent top two percent of the population? Think about it.

Apple, Inc. (Formerly Apple Computer, Inc.)
Recently, we visited the Apple Campus, which was a boyhood dream for me, Jona. I can’t imagine getting as excited about visiting Dell, HP, or even Microsoft, and I’m not the only one with such deep emotional feelings for a corporation — countless daily blogs, fan sites, rumor mills, and insignia-tattooed (Mark of the Beast?) self-proclaimed Mac “evangelists” keep tabs on the company’s every move, even the imagineered ones fans wish were real. In any case, while we were at the Apple cafeteria, we saw Steve Jobs was eating lunch by himself, and not a single soul was bothering him. Everyone was pretending he wasn’t there. At the same time, everyone was talking excitedly about his appearance (“Did you see the Big Man?”), as though their greatest joy was to see their wise leader in the flesh. No cult is successful without a leader with this level of psychic cachet.

Men
The patriarchy is very much a cult. They want to control everything, members adhere blindly to the accepted rules of the group, and they share a rapport with one another that cannot be extended to the “better half” of humanity.

Jay-Z
Allegedly, Jay-Z is the figurehead of an entire cadre of pseudo-Masonic pop star Illuminatus. The symbolism employed by this organization is legion and amply documented by 1,000 online conspiracy websites and YouTube pastiche videos: all-seeing eyes, hoodies emblazoned with Ordo Templis Orientis dictums (“Do What Thou Wilt”), and Jay-Z’s signature “left eye inside of a triangle” Rocafella hand sign. You know what they say about becoming a Freemason — to be one, ask one. So, Jay, what do you say?

Christianity
Christianity is both a cult and a secret society. It’s an exclusive secret society for the powerful few at the top of the hierarchy, and a soul-sucking cult for everyone beneath them. The masses go through all the tribulations of cult-dom before being accepted: “love bombing,” cutting off contact with nonbelievers, not to mention essentially practicing all of the rituals and surface mythologies of the ancient mystery cults, without any of the mysticism.

Bonus secret cults worth further research: The Major Record Labels (known as The Big Four), Trekkies/Trekkers, Nike employees, the customer service representatives at Zappos.com, and, almost most-importantly, Juggalos/Juggalettes.

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