Do Cultists Dream of Sanity?

... The Collector's hands moved, dancing as he spoke, "On top of that, how does one determine insanity? I mean how can you prove to me that anything is real?"
Cash spoke up, all too ready to give the response, "Perception. This rock is real. I can feel it. I can see it and so can you."
The man looked as serious and as sure of himself as he could possibly be when he replied,"What rock?" The silence was unbearable. Both stared intently at the other. Cash with rage and the man with smug satisfaction that his point was well taken.
"Of course, I can see the rock." The Collector said. "You get my point, though. It's perceptive. You all know monsters exist, and yet, if you walked up to anyone who does not know, and told them, they would call you insane. How in the hell could I amass such a movement if I spent my days in a corner with the lights off cackling maniacally? How could we maintain secrecy for all this time?"

— from Vacancy

Before you continue I'd like to draw your attention for a moment. This article is both world building for The Web and meta. I'll try to limit weaving between the two, but it's inevitable that I will fail. I will discuss the finer details of what Cults are, how they work and why they appear, as well as their place in The Web as a world. I also included a little piece on the meta of cults, sanity, and cosmic horror as a whole.
Alright… let's talk about cults.

Cults are everywhere in The Web. The Alexandrian University keeps a task force specifically designed to observe, study, and if need be, oppose the many alternative religious movements that exist. The Commonwealth of Alternative Religion was established to better relations between The Web and the Cults that exist in the world. How successful it's been depends on who you are, but one thing is clear: Cults are much better understood than they used to be.
The term "cult" is a good place to start. When most people hear the word, they picture one of two things: Cults as they are used in literature such as Cosmic horror, or a cult of personality such as the FLDS, Heaven's Gate, and other such groups. It's crucial to understand that cults in The Web are closer to the Greek mystery Cults than the likes of Wako and Jonestown we see in the modern day.
These groups are religiously focused, and they wear the term "cult" with pride. They know they are cultists, but their definition is so different, most individuals fail to understand the meaning. This is one of the major things that the Commonwealth did: establish a proper definition so that both sides can actually discuss the subject with less awkward silences.

Cults: A Counter Culture

Those who are not religious tend to have the hardest time joining The Web. The things that occurr in The Web are so counter-intuitive to the way they perceive the world, that The Candlelight is much harder to spark. The Web is a complete breakdown of the foundations holding up this person's belief system. Agnostics, on the other hand, have the easiest time joining due to the fact there's not much of a foundation for belief in the first place.
Most members of these various cults were agnostics. They bore witness to evidence of an individual's religion being true, maybe even seeing the god they worship emerge from an interdimensional portal. Cults are problematic because they blend the truth of science with the belief of religion. They classify what a god would be scientifically, and when they find a being of such a high dimension, it only makes sense. They have found what they are looking for.
These cults represent a counter culture to religion and ethics. If they make human sacrifices accepted by this all-powerful being who demands it, and that being does exist, are they still in the wrong? Most of these cults do not engage in that particular activity, but they occupy a moral gray area. This is saying something because The Web is already a morally ambiguous place. A better way of explaining what cults do and why they foster so much animosity is to say they challenge the view of the people in The Web being the good guys. Cults are the ones that others in The Web point to when they say "Yeah, but at least I'm not that bad."

A Hint of Irony

Many people in the world consider cults to be the bad guys, or at least not the good guys. They are actually very agreeable people. That's because their members are actual people. They empathize and understand. They feel just as much as everyone else guys. The only thing that isn't normal about a cultist is their religion.
Some work regular jobs, and characters in The Web will walk by them on the street without even knowing. The ones who want to end the world rarely live long enough to accomplish their ambition. The cults of personality are best left to standard authorities. The cults of The Commonwealth never resort to brainwashing. They don't have too. Imagine seeing the god these people worship in all their eldritch glory. Imagine that entity speaking to you and giving you gifts. Would you not even be tempted to know such truths?
Cultists tend to be very intelligent, and are eager to engage in theological debate. They love finding arguments against their religion. They love when someone pokes holes in their beliefs. These holes are later filled by information they are able to find in their studies. The most dangerous thing about a cult is not what they worship or the monsters they command. The most dangerous thing about a cult in The Web is they may actually be on to something.

Do Cultists Dream Of Sanity?

What follows is a bit of an essay on The Meta of The Web and of cosmic horror as a whole. Feel free to skip it, but I do explain a lot of my reasons on the subject that you're reading about in this article

You know the cliche: Dark gods beyond time and space and the mad people who worship them. It's a pervasive part of weird fiction, particularly cosmic horror. Frankly, I find it ridiculous, outrageously unrealistic, and in some cases, lazy.

Now don't get it twisted, this trope is tried and true. It's been a staple for ages and will continue for ages, even in my own work. However, The Web is a very different place. Cults aren't always the bad guys. There are no bad guys. Their members are not always crazy, as crazy doesn't actually exist.
I explained why cults happen in The Web and what cults are. Now I will touch on the members, hopefully putting the readers in the right mindset for the subject, and giving more than enough reason for why I deviate from the trope.

What the hell is sanity?

Let's go back to our racist great granddaddy of cosmic horror, himself. Lovecraft had a very interesting way of demonstrating madness and sanity in his stories. This is to say he had a bad way of doing it. Granted this is a time when psychology as a science was starting to make a name for itself, but we in the modern day have no excuse.
Lovecraft's concept of Sanity was far less about mental dysfunction and more about a spiritual or societal corruption. When his characters "went mad," they did so because they suddenly realized they weren't at the top of the food chain. They were not special God-fearing Americans, nor did their superior breeding offer any benefit in the grand scheme of things. It's actually kind of funny how this racist individual wrote stories about people suddenly realizing their racism, ideology, and even their religion was unfounded.
On the psychological side, insanity would be the complete inability to distinguish fact from fiction to such a degree, it inhibits the ability of one to function in an everyday environment. It's surprising how insanity and death are such common endings in this genre when there aren't many protagonists who end up dead by the end of the story, in lovecraft's work.

• Example: In The Temple, the characters undergo what is far closer to a manic episode than anything else. The protagonist of At The Mountains of Madness has some really bad anxiety or possibly depression.

Cult Leaders

My approach to Cults began as I started to have less and less fun in the Call of Cthulhu rpg. I went to college for psychology and it kind of ruined things. In numerous scenarios, characters would have to investigate disappearances, or murders which turn into a who-done-it mysteries if the leader isn't made clear. This is not as prevalent in modern stories, but it does still exist. It's a problem.

If you are the leader of a cult and also insane, how in the hell are you able to attract followers and maintain an organization? You can't. If you are completely unable to determine fact from fiction in a way that prevents you from living a normal life, you can't fake living a normal life as it immediately assumes you know what a normal life is as opposed to your own. It's a problem.
Insanity is perceptive. Insanity is a term used by those who are normal to justify the actions of those they deem are not normal. This is why I call using the term "insanity" lazy. With a quick Google search you can easily find information and first-hand accounts of what it's like to have every possible disorder imaginable. If no other argument sticks, Insanity is telling when you should be showing. The closest thing to Insanity as shown in Cosmic horror is an individual having an acute mental breakdown. This is slow, treatable, and can be recovered from, but good luck running a cult while suffering from it.

The Consequences of Survival

While it goes against the way I understand psychology, these are not the main reasons why I eliminate the struggle of sanity from my cosmic horror. In The Web, characters don't go insane or die often. These events occur when it matters, if it all, and not a moment before.

Cosmic horror for me is always about a jumping Point as opposed to an ending. There's a moment when the character realizes something, and then the story ends. In stories where the character survives, its better to continue. Now they have to go back to a 9 to 5 job and live the rest of their days in a normal life knowing what happened but likely not fully understanding it. They have to explain to the authorities, or (god forbid) someone's spouses and children what happened. That's the cosmic horror of the modern day. It's the moment when the family who went through this horrifying experience has to go around living like it never happened. For me, consmic horror is all about the consequences of survival. Maybe no one would believe them, or maybe they just want to forget. That struggle is paramount for me.
The best part of cosmic horror is how it's always one step away from becoming another story. Part two of a story could be a family drama or a psychological thriller. If the story ends in death, or madness, the character gets a reprieve, a way out. In death, their traumas have no significance, in madness, they can't tell what's real and what's not. They are safer. I firmly believe that there should always be survivors in a cosmic horror story, and they should always end the story sane, if a bit traumatized. I'll leave you with arguably my favorite quote of mine from the collector. I apologize if it seems pretentious, but it condenses what you just read perfectly into a single sentence.

"Tell me, did you know that the term insanity is never used in a formal and official way, save for the legal system?"