I said to my kid recently that I’m pretty much immune to cults. “Why is that?” they said, humoring me.

“Because I belong to a cult already, and it’s one that does it right. None of the others can measure up.” My kid thought that was funny and true. They grew up the child of two cult members, my husband and me, so they knew what I was saying.

According to Wikipedia, “Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals.”

My cult qualifies, but has no particularly requirements for membership except for a vaguely stated desire to be part of the cult. It doesn’t have any enforced rules. It doesn’t collect or accumulate money, and there are no dues. There are no leaders, just people who take on jobs for a little while and then give them up. Any particular group in the organization can be wildly different from any other group, and members are free to believe what they want, and say what they want. Groups do reserve the right to kick people out of they’re violent or if they harass people, but those people can then go join another group in the cult. And it has no opinions about much of anything.

But it’s a successful, world-wide cult.

And anyone who talks publicly about my cult should be amiably disbelieved. Including me. If you read about some movie star, politician, or sports figure talking about my cult, they’e doing it on their own and you can discount a lot of what they say. People who refuse to join will often form other organizations dedicated to similar goals, and that’s fine too. Usually those other, newer organizations fail pretty soon, often because they charge admission, they depend on an individual for guidance, or they are either too specific or too nonspecific in their aims.

Oh, there is a culture in my cult, and there are customs and rituals. You can’t have a human gathering of any sort and not develop traditions. There are certainly people in the organization who will tell new members what they have to believe, and areas of the country where the vague traditions have coalesced into rigid rules.

But as I often say when people start complaining about the rules, “There are actually no rules, and all you need to form a new meeting is a resentment and a coffeepot.” I didn’t make up that saying myself, mind you. And you don’t actually need a resentment or a coffeepot. It just makes people laugh in recognition.

I go to two meetings of my cult a week, I have belonged for over 50 years, it saved my life, and I find it hilarious. It’s just an extra added benefit that it seems to have made me very cynical about cults in general.