The Tranhumanist Cult Test

Transhumanism is put through the 8-point test to determine if it is a cult.

In trying to have a few conversations about transhumanism, over the last few months, I’ve found myself attacked online by people who see themselves as its defenders. I’ve been mobbed, trolled, name-called, and several tech-protectors even suggested that I should kill myself. No big deal, but this struck me as more intense than everyday trolling on X, and much more like cult behaviour. I am by no means the first to observe that transhumanists do seem to have created a tightly-weaved neo-religion, and that it displays signs of cult mindset.

I’ve done much research into the mechanisms of group-think for my last three books, and so I decided to run a test to see if transhumanism maps onto the accepted model for cult identification. The authoritative test is “Lifton’s Eight Criteria”, formulated by renowned psychiatrist, scholar and National Book Award winner Robert J.Lifton, author of “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism" and “Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism." Lifton defines cults as groups that employ “coercive persuasion” or “thought reform” to control their members, and he has proven how cults evolve from “Neo religions” and unorthodox political groups.

Notable examples of groups that have been identified as cults through using Lifton's framework have included The People’s Temple (Jonestown), Heaven’s Gate (UFO suicide cult) the Branch Davidians, the Scientologists, and Aum Shinrikyo – who were responsible for the Tokyo sarin gas attack of 1995. More recently, NXIVM, the self-help, pseudo-science, sex-cult which exploited women, was legally designated as a cult by using Lifton’s schema.

Of course, I am not claiming that the respected intellectuals, scientists, industrialists of transhumanism and their many followers, are in any way connected to the violent enterprises of such cults, but there may be elements within the tranhumanist belief system that encourage the growth of cult-like behaviours.

Before we go through Lifton’s eight points, lets clarify what Transhumanism is and what cults are.

Transhumanism(s)

Transhumanism is a diverse international movement with numbers of followers that are incalculable, as dedication to its core values spreads out into sympathisers and supporters who likely extend into the millions. It has organizations like Humanity+ (formerly the World Transhumanist Association) with a core group of 10,000–20,000 actively engaged transhumanists, while subreddits like r/Transhumanism have around 100,000 subscribers. There is even a political Transhumanist Party in the U.S with 880 registered members.

Transhumanism first emerged in Silicon Valley in the 1990s, where its advocates were pioneers in the internet, artificial intelligence, and robotics industries. One of the earliest notable gatherings occurred in 1994 when a group called the Extropians hosted their first meeting in Sunnyvale, California. This event focused on futuristic, science-fiction inspired, ideas like cryopreservation and uploading human consciousness to digital formats.

Through “visionaries” and tech gurus working within these well-funded (and indeed DARPA funded) research fields, with peaks and troughs in investment over the last three decades, transhumanists have deepened their belief in a fated future in which the human species will achieve “augmented” evolution through fusing with machines, leading to the emergence of an artificial superintelligence that will far outstrip all human knowledge and achieve God-like powers (The Singularity). This digital deity will lead us to a new era, in which all human biological limitations will be transcended; bringing about end to sickness, suffering and even death, and leading us to colonise the cosmos.

This potent array of intertwined beliefs has grown from a niche philosophical schema into a popular global movement through its visionary leaders - Minsky, Kurzweil, Bostrom, More, de Gray and Pearce; while several of its thought leaders and allies have become well known tech billionaires - Page, Musk, Andreessen, Theil.

The movement has gained footholds in mainstream culture in no small part due to the expansion of the internet, with its podcasts, blogs, vlogs and thousands of niche chatrooms. It has developed through the parallel and mutually reinforcing beliefs of Effective Accelerationism (E/acc), Tech Optimism and Tech Utopianism and through vast venture capital investment in bio tech, AI, CRISPR, nanotech and future technologies since 2000, that has been worth trillions of dollars. Transhumanist ideas have begun to permeate governmental and policy discussions, through the influence of high-profile figures like Musk and Thiel.

Define “cult”

Some may claim that a cult is just a fledgeling religion or belief system that hasn’t reached wide acceptance yet. So, from this perspective, a cult is really just a newborn religion, or a heretical breakaway group from an established religion or dominant belief system. Therefore, we could cite that cults can, and have, become accepted as religions over time - after all didn’t Christianity begin as cultic faction of Judaism? Didn’t Buddhism begin as a cult-like splinter group of Hinduism? So, from this angle, all that differentiates a religion from a cult - or a political cult from a dominant political system - are questions of scale, tradition and widescale acceptance over time. So the extremist Workers' Institute of Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought commune in Lambeth London, with its eight members was a cult, while, the Maoist movement it was based on is not. If the Lambeth collective had twenty million followers and had lasted for seventy years already, it would no longer have been designated as cult.

There is also the complication that certain religions tend to incubate factions, heresies and cults as a by-product of their inherent belief structures. Christianity has likely spawned as many as a thousand of these since its origins. So again, the line is blurred.

However, there are some factors that make cults differ from religions. The first is that cults tend to isolate themselves from the outside world, whereas religions generally seek converts from a wide range of demographics. The second is the question of control and secrecy, with cults having guarded language and rituals and a defensive and antagonistic relationship to the dominant culture, while religions work towards legitimation and integration within the larger society, very often compromising elements of their doctrine in the attempt to accommodate entrenched, localised and older beliefs.

A third element is that the focus on apocalypse and impending destruction is more tightly focused within cults than in mainstream religions and political ideologies. There is a life or death urgency in cults, usually tied to prophesised dates of doom given by charismatic leaders, whereas religions tend to remain deliberately vague about such beliefs, and avoid alloting timescales within our lifetimes to them.

So, when I say that the diverse and decentralised transhumanist movement with an estimated one million followers is like a "technological religious sect" or a "cult for our times", what I mean is that this a new belief system that has affinities with religious structures, but that it gravitates towards the kind of closed and defensive mindset we see in cults. That is - factional, secretive, and with a focus on impending apocalypse and salvation on a short timeline, with tight control of ideas and language among followers.

The Uncanny Religious Symbolism

Some may protest against my characterisation of transhumanism but when we make a list of all of the beliefs that transhumanists expound, we discover something surprising. These beliefs include:

The singularity – the moment of technological convergence, the arrival of the superintelligent digital deity.

Transcending the body - brain chips, augmentation & uploaded consciousness.

Living forever - Life extension, mind mapping, digital immortality, cyborgs.

Becoming one with the universe - Space X Mars colonisation, Posthumans designed to thrive on other planets after the death of our own planet.

Ending all suffering - Bio tech accelerationism. Genetic redesign and augmentation of all species.

Put together, these five core beliefs reveal themselves as unquestionably religious in their lineage. In fact, they are modelled - either subconsciously or through historical “contamination” - on the core beliefs of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

For here we find: the second coming, the ascension and the raising of the dead, universal brotherhood and human salvation, post-millenarianism, apocalyptic redemption, the omniscient God, the promised land, and the heaven among the stars.

We also find strong parallels with the Christian heretics, such as the Gnostics and Cathars, with their dualist polarisation between the vile, mortal body and the eternal human soul. We also find the Pelagian Heresy – the belief that paradise or Utopia can be constructed on earth by human effort. On top of this is Hermeticism, with its belief that humans are co-creators with God, capable of unlocking cosmic secrets.

One common element in nearly all modern neo-religions and cults is that they take elements of established religion and fuse them with a second belief system to make a new hybrid. Jim Jones fused Marxism with evangelical Christianity; Pol Pot fused Marxism with Buddhism in his regime of “purification”; Osho fused Tantric Buddhism and Hindu mysticism with sexual liberation; Charles Manson fused Abrahamic apocalypticism with beliefs in a fated race war; The Heaven’s Gate UFO cult fused the eschatological belief in Christian Rapture with science fiction ideas about space travel; the Scientologists fused Christianity with their own version of science.

We might think that Transhumanism is really no more than a benign technological version of New Ageism; a surrogate replacement for religion in an age in which technology appears to be amassing greater ‘powers’. And perhaps it does its followers no harm at all to believe that they can one day live forever among the stars through leaving their bodies and fusing with an immaterial, all-powerful AI God? But with its fusion of Abrahamic beliefs, technology and science fiction, Transhumanism bears a family resemblance to the cults listed above and so we should ask, if this modern-secular-faith-hybrid, is in danger of becoming a cult or of spawning cult factions. And if so, does it then pose any threats to its own followers and indeed to wider society?

In the name of caution, let’s go through R.J Lifton’s eight criteria for identifying cults and see how well transhumanism fits his diagnostic model. These are:

Milieu Control

Mystical Manipulation

Demand for Purity

Cult of Confession

Sacred Science

Loading the Language

Doctrine Over Person

Dispensing of Existence

1. Milieu Control

According to Lifton, this is the isolation of group members from all outside perspectives. This “cutting off from the outside world” is usually reinforced through geographical isolation, whereby cult recruits “come to the centre” and “leave the world behind”. So, there is a tendency towards re-settling in remote locations – be this a break-away settlement, a remote, isolated compound, or a closed city-based collective, as with the cults cited above.

Within this controlled centre an information monopoly is created that limits external contacts with outsiders. Converts then become entirely dependent on the group for understanding the world, and do so only through its “truth” or dogma.

It would seem at first that Transhumanism does not fit this description, as it exists across the internet in many nations and so it is impossible to contain its devotees within one geographical milleu. There is no Transhumanist version of Jonestown in the jungles of Guyana, or of Osho’s New Age Utopia in the Oregon desert, and so, in this respect, Transhumanism appears to fail the first of Lifton’s test criteria.

However, one of the foundational beliefs of transhumanism is that digital technology provides a new un-corrupted space to build a utopia, separate from this world. As one of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation - John Perry Barlow, formerly of The Grateful Dead - announced in the Declaration of The Independence of Cyberspace (1996):

“Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather… I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.”

This belief that a near-utopia can be created by what happens in the purity of cyberspace has more recently been propounded by Marc Andreessen in his The Techno-Optimist Manifesto of 2023, in which he talks of “Slouching towards Utopia”.

While not geographically centralized, the transhumanist movement does create a echo-chamber which is, in many ways, walled-in defensively against the everyday world.

Online transhumanist communities, such as those on Reddit, LessWrong and increasingly X, exhibit strong in-group dynamics and the secretive other world of transhumanist online discourse is seen as a sanctuary that must be strictly guarded from outsiders with false or dangerous ideas. Members reinforce their shared beliefs and use their attacks and retaliations against dissenters and sceptics as bonding experiences. As transhumanist Zoltan Istvan – author of the work of fiction, The Transhumanist Wager (2013), has said:

“The bold code of the transhumanist will rise…we are the future like it or not. And it needs to be molded, guided and handled correctly by the strength and wisdom of transhumanist scientists.”

Transhumanist groups, strive to exist in insulated in-group online environments, that need to guarded and fed by selected visionary leaders, such as the e/cc community on X headed by “Adrian Dittmann” - who may or may not be Elon Musk. These online spaces serve as feedback loops in which followers become increasingly detached from mainstream perspectives, isolated from the outside world. This becomes a closed and controlled milieu.

2. Mystical Manipulation

Accoridng to Lifton, this involves the manipulation of experiences and events to give them a special, often spiritual or providential significance, making members of the movement’s in-group feel they are part of a grand plan or destiny of mythic proportions.

Events, whether they are successes or failures, are interpreted in a way that supports the group's narrative of the leader's divine mission and foresight. Through orchestration of dramatic spectacles, emotional experiences are heightened, often leading to feelings of awe, transcendence, or being chosen for a special purpose – all of which binds members more tightly. The past, both personal and collective, is reinterpreted to fit the group's narrative, making it seem as if all events were leading to this moment or this group's existence. Furthermore, a cult offers seekers-of - meaning one big answer to all of life’s questions and a sense of belonging, which are compounded by these spectacles of manipulated meaning.

Transhumanism often employs futuristic, almost mystical language about its projects to achieve immortality, uploading consciousness, and creating superintelligent AI. These ideas inspire awe and devotion among devotees, akin to religious prophesies of salvation.

Ray Kurzweil has claimed in “The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology”(2005): "The Singularity will represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality."

This prophetic vision is presented as an inevitable, fated future. The concept of the "Singularity" is often described in quasi-religious terms, with Kurzweil calling it "the most important event in human history."

Kurzweil’s singularity has also been described as a “digital deity”. While a former Google executive, Mo Gawdat, has claimed that “with artificial intelligence, we are making God”. Elon Musk recently commented - on his recent construction of a supercomputer data centre in Memphis, the capital of ancient Egypt - that: “perhaps that’s where our new God will come from.”

More recently through Space X, Musk has created vast, awe-inspiring spectacles involving rocket technology re-landing and “capture”, and this is coupled with Abrahamic sounding pronouncements about saving humanity from impending apocalypse and extinction.

As cited in The Wall Street Journal, Musk has said: “Either we spread Earth to other planets, or we risk going extinct. An extinction event is inevitable and we’re increasingly doing ourselves in. The goal is to improve rocket technology and space technology until we can send people to Mars and establish life on Mars.”

In Lifton’s terms, this is mystic manipulation – a promise of human salvation, that leads to profound devotion among followers who then align their life's purpose through the lens provided by their guru, at the cost of their individual critical thinking.

Whether Musk’s project to colonise Mars, or Kurzweil’s belief in the coming of the God-like Singularity are ever achieved, these bold futurist narratives have mythic status and such prediction, or prophecies, are tied to specific dates for their materialisation. Kurzweil has announced across several books, and in many talks, that his singularity will arrive by 2045. Musk has predicted in 2021, “If AI power grows by 10x every 18-24 months, we could have digital superintelligence by 2025-2027."

In 2020, he also made the prediction that "I think we could land on Mars in about five years, maybe four years if we really pushed it. And then I think we could have a self-sustaining city on Mars in about 10, maybe 12 years."

This summons strong parallels to religious and cult leaders who make prediction about The Second Coming, only for those date to come and pass, at which point the gurus offer new dates for their followers, so that followers do not lose faith.

There are many predictions by Kurzweil, that fall into this category of mythic manipulation, as when he stated. " By 2019, we will largely overcome the major diseases that kill 95 percent of us in the developed world, and we will be dramatically slowing and reversing the dozen or so processes that underlie aging."

Unless you believe in the practicability of ending aging and death; colonising Mars, or in the merger of humans and machines through brain chips and nanobot technology then these hoped-for transcendent experiences on a mythical scale can be seen as manipulations intended to create awe and build devoted followings – a process with strong family resemblance to the prophecies of religious cult leaders.

Within Lifton’s concept of "mystical manipulation," the role of the “charismatic leader” also emerges (analysis of this phenomenon has been further developed by cult analysts, Hassan and Lalich). Undoubtedly, transhumanist ‘visionaries’ and ‘gurus’ such as Kurzweil and Musk whip up immense enthusiasm, expectation and investment-of-meaning among their followers, with their prophesies and they are seen as charismatic by their devotees, even though to outsiders they may seem ‘left brained’ or tunnel-visioned. There is also of course the possibility that such epic pronouncements have been cunningly crafted to flirt with religious language for deliberate promotional effect - nonetheless, the same devotion-effect through manipulated ‘magic’ is achieved.

3. Demand for Purity

In Lifton’s terms this is the insistence on absolute adherence to the group's ideology, with self-purity and a clear division between "us" - the pure and "them"- the corrupted. Everything is divided into good versus evil, with the in-group embodying the righteous side, with no middle ground or tolerance for complexity.

The belief that the group holds the moral high ground and ultimate truth, then leads to a sense of superiority over outsiders or those not fully committed to the group's ideals. Failure to meet these standards of purity results in harsh self-judgment or group-imposed shame, creating a cycle of guilt and redemption where members are always trying to improve and prove themselves. Doubt, questioning, or any form of critique towards the group's ideals is seen as a sign of disloyalty, further entrenching binary Us-versus-Them thinking.

Leading transhumanist, Nick Bostrom, philosopher and co-founder of Humanity plus, formerly the World Transhumanist Association, has demonstrated this mindset when he declared:

"Those who oppose enhancement technologies are condemning humanity to unnecessary suffering and death."

While followers of Musk’s plan to colonise the cosmos believe that critics of Space X “tech accelerationism” are decelerating progress and as a result this will lead to human extinction as we will never be able to leave this doomed planet.

The symbolism here, is an inheritance from the apocalyptic Abrahamic religions, with the escape from the limits of the doomed planet and the dying human body arising from the gnostic dualism that has underscored Christianity with its belief in another heavenly realm and an immortal life beyond the body.

These passionate beliefs, require a binary worldview in which devoted transhumanists see themselves as on the "right side of history". Transhumanist philosopher Max More has stated, "We will transcend our biological limits, and those who cling to outdated humanism will be left behind."

According to Nicholas Agar in an article called Whereto Transhumanism, opponents of Transhumanism “desire to keep us and our near human descendants human, even if this means keeping us and them dumb, diseased and short-lived.”

Non-believers are hurting humanity and destroying the future hope of salvation. Non-believers are chaining us to the material body and to death. This intense fear of outsiders who will ‘decelerate’ progress and doom us to extinction, also bears family resemblance to the Scientologists with their belief that Suppressive Persons (SPs) “steal energy” from their faith, prevent the growth of Scientology and negatively affect the future of the world.

Within the dominant religions, neo-religions and cults, there is a common belief that the enemies of their faiths are preventing spiritual journey, salvation and the attainment of cosmic order.

4. Cult of Confession

Lifton’s analysis of this process was shaped by his research into “Thought Control” in “struggle session” groups during the Chinese Cultural revolution, and from analysing the group confessions of the Aum Shinrikyo cult.

Group confession is a powerful tool. Members are encouraged or coerced into a state of perpetual self-criticism, examining their thoughts and actions for impurities, confessing doubts or deviations from the group's ideology. By confessing, members give the group and its leaders power over them, as the knowledge of one's faults or secrets can be used to manipulate or ensure compliance.

These processes can resemble group therapy sessions but instead of promoting healing, they are used to reinforce group norms and pressure non-conforming individuals. The knowledge that one must confess can intimidate members into compliance, as they fear the repercussions of having secrets or doubts exposed. Confession reinforces the group's ideology by making members regularly reaffirm their commitment to the cult.

While transhumanism is not a formal group, its online communities and streaming discussions often pressure members to conform to the movement's ideals to the point of obsessively repeating certain words. If a member expresses doubts about the feasibility or ethics of transhumanist goals, it can lead to ostracism or accusations of being "anti-science." In transhumanist forums, individuals expressing scepticism about AI safety or life extension are often met with aggressive rebuttals, being accused of being “decels”. As above, this is the accusation labelled at those who will stop the acceleration of progress into “escape velocity”. These in-groups, dismiss all wavering members as fearmongers or technophobes, and when members raise questions about the ethical implications of genetic engineering, transhumanist groups frequently respond with techno-optimistic group-rhetoric rather than engaging in meaningful dialogue.

Central to Transhumanism is the belief in a phenomenon known as “Hyperstition”. Hyperstition is a credo that states that if fictions can be believed in by enough people then they can be made to manifest in reality. Therefore, certain narratives or predictions can become self-fulfilling, altering reality based on how the mass of people act upon them. According to transhumanists, the ammased belief in the coming of AI superintelligence will be the force that brings in enough investment and commitment to make this goal attainable. The concept began with philosopher and provocateur Nick Land, formerly of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU), and although Land is critiqued as alt right, Neo Reactionary (NRx) and anti-egalitarian, his concept is now a foundation stone of mainstream transhumanism.

Hyperstition contains within it a ready-made persecution of doubt, a culture of fear around the consequences of failing to believe enough. For if we as a group do not believe that Space X will make it Mars, or do not believe that one day we will become immortal through permitting the insertion of computer chips into our brains, then our lack of faith will doom this event not to happen. And we must do everything we can to wipe out all doubters so that as many people support this belief as possible, otherwise the process of hyperstition will not work. This belief system shares elements with the magical thinking of many Christian, Hindu and New Age cults with their beliefs in manifesting reality through channelled incantation and prayer, and indeed as some have noted, it strongly echoes the Californian cult-like belief in “the law of attraction” and “manifesting your desires” expounded by self-help gurus such as Oprah Winfrey and Tony Robbins.

Streaming ‘community’ talks on X by transhumanists and e/accs, although ideologically at odds with the far left and with religion, have striking parallels with the group critique sessions performed in both. Through these, within the safety of the group, wavering believers, are made to reaffirm their commitment and shared belief in the common transcendent project.

While transhumanism does not explicitly punish dissent, the movement’s emphasis on a utopian future can create a psychological barrier to leaving. Followers who question the movement’s goals may fear being left behind in a world soon-to-be dominated by “bio-tech enhanced humans”. This fear of exclusion is a subtle form of coercion often seen in cults, and fear of dropping-out of the movement is great as that would mean returning to a mainstream society that you have rejected and that has rejected you. So you confess your deviations to the in-group, and if you have not been banished, you are permitted to re-enter the safety of the circle, and to rejoin with the collective power of tech-optimism and hyperstition.

5. Sacred Science

This is one of the most important of Lifton’s Eight criteria. It is the belief that the group's ideology is scientifically proven, infallible, beyond question, and held as absolute truth. The group’s ideology or leader's pronouncements are viewed as sacrosanct, akin to religious scripture. There is a closure to further inquiry or debate since all answers are believed to be already provided by the "sacred" knowledge of the inner group. The sacredness of the science or doctrine makes it resistant to change or adaptation, even when faced with new information or failures.

Despite significant uncertainties and ethical debates, Transhumanism presents its goals - life extension, mind uploading, etc - as scientifically inevitable, as fated, “progress is unstoppable” - and the power of hyperstition will deliver the outcomes.

Max More’s predictions on overcoming biological limitations demonstrate this zeal. “Over the coming decades we will pursue a series of changes to our own constitution … We will no longer tolerate the tyranny of aging and death …” he says “We will expand our perceptual range … improve on our neural organization and capacity … reshape our motivational patterns and emotional responses … take charge over our genetic programming and achieve mastery over our biological and neurological processes….We have achieved two of the three alchemists' dreams: We have transmuted the elements and learned to fly. Immortality is next.”

Ray Kurzweil's wild predictions about The Singularity are often treated as scientific fact within the movement, despite criticism from other scientists. When says, “We are going to expand intelligence a millionfold by 2045” his followers do not ask how he has acquired the prophetic foresight of the seer, but credit him with magical scientific powers which include prediction.

Transhumanist literature frequently performs this same slight of hand, using speculative research into things that do not yet exist (e.g, cryonics, permanent brain-computer interfaces) as “evidence” of an imminent technological utopia.

The promise of the equally non-existing ‘sciences’ of life-extension and computer- enhanced-intelligence are marketed as a universal good, while the ethical implications of surgically turning humans into cyborgs are glossed over. As bioethicist Leon Kass warns, "Transhumanism sells a utopian vision but ignores the dystopian risks."

Looking at Musk’s Neuralink project, we see that between 1,500 and 4,500 animals have already been killed in his company’s brain chip experiments. In terms of posthumanism and augmentation, there is the pressing moral issue of human test subjects, informed consent and the breach of the Helsinki agreement on human experimentation that this may entail. Musk has boldly claimed that, "If all goes well, there will be hundreds of people with Neuralinks within a few years, maybe tens of thousands within five years, millions within 10 years."

There are clearly dangers to human persons taking part in such live human experiments, which are glossed over by the belief in technological progress as an unalloyed good. So such experiments deliberately ignore all reasonable caution, citing such things as ‘deceleration’ and ‘regulation’ that will lead to “extinctionism”, because again in the logic of transhumanism, the human species must leave this earth and must leave our bodies of flesh. This transcendent future-science must be protected from reality at all costs.

Perhaps the greatest exponent of sacred science among the transhumanists is co-founder of the Transhumanist Association (Now Humanity Plus), Professor and transhumanist philosopher David Pearce with his plan to use bio tech, pharmacology and cybernetics to eliminate all mortal suffering. His work “The Hedonistic Imperative” he claims," is a manifesto for using biotechnology to abolish suffering in all sentient life. This is not just a scientific goal; it is a moral imperative."

Paradoxically, Pearce is the most vocal humanist, anti-theist and materialist among his peers; he nonetheless frames the use of augmentative and genetic replacement bio-technology as a moral duty within a salvation narrative. We will discuss his secular version of sacred science later.

Proud atheist transhumanists would protest my framing of Pearce. However, in the book, “The Religion of Technology”, David F.Noble, demonstrates, repeatedly, how strands of religious beliefs have throughout history shaped the modern scientific world view. These are the beliefs in the transcendent purpose of technology exemplified by 18^th century post millennialists, the freemasons and 19^th century inventors, technological utopians and poets. Noble cites Ralph Waldo Emerson in his belief that “Machinery and transcendentalism ‘agree well’”. He sheds much needed light on how deeply religious roots go beneath the technological utopian worldview, even if today those roots have been forgotten or are even disavowed.

Even within the canon, we find transhumanists such as Gregory Jordan, who have asked transhumanism to see itself as a religious movement; saying that “Transhumanism serves some of the ‘functions’ of religion with regard to providing a sense of direction and purpose.” While William Sim Bainsbridge, a sociologist with close ties to transhumanism has said, “Religions are human creations….I propose that we become religious engineers.” In an essay for transhumanist thinktank, the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, he has further proposed that Transhumanism become a “Religion for a Galactic Civilization 2.0”. This is call to sanctify a new and mythic science.

6. Loading the Language

According to Lifton new cult recruits are inducted into a secret language of signs and symbols – a practice analysed by other cult specialists such as Hassan and Stein. They're encouraged to identify as victims of the world outside and are promised a rebirth, a new purpose, a new identity or a new body within this life, or an afterlife, all of which is enforced by rote learning of the cult’s slogans. This new jargon is often illogical as a test of “true belief”. New recruits experience euphoria as part of “the chosen” secretive group when they use such expressions.

This loaded language is a specialized lingo of catchphrases that convey profound coded meaning within the group but often seem meaningless to outsiders. This specialized language fosters a sense of belonging and exclusivity among members, again, reinforcing deep group cohesion.

Certain words or phrases can also evoke powerful emotional responses by summoning feelings of a longing for transcendence; a sense of being ‘saved’ and ‘chosen’, or of being ‘on the path to enlightenment. Such emotions are amplified through group chanting and repetition. However, the repetitive use of loaded terms can mystify or obscure reality, making the belief system seem more profound or authoritative than it really is. Regular use of this language can lead to thought terminating clichés where cult members stop thinking critically because the language provides a quick, seemingly definitive answer. An example would be the slogan “Say Guaranga, be Happy.” of the Hari Krishna’s, or the phrase "Om Namo Guru Dev Namo" as used in the cult of Aum Shinrikyo.

“Next Level” was a repeated phrase used by the Heaven’s Gate cult, while “Helter Skelter” was the mantra of the Manson Family. The group's special loaded language can be fabricated nonsense, but for the group such expressions become signs of loyalty and of their rejection of society beyond.

Transhumanism employs highly specialized terminology that builds a deep sense of exclusivity in the in-group. "Posthuman","e/acc”, “d/acc”, “longevity escape velocity”, “Substrate independent minds”, “mind uploading”, “biohack” and "cyborg ethics" – all of these expressions are a fusion of deliberately obscure tech-speak with futuristic fantasy. Transhumanist slogans like "Death is a disease, and we will cure it" also magic-away the profound ethical questions surrounding the biological re-engineering of human beings through processes like CRISPR and augmentation. Again, through the magic of hyperstition, if you repeat and disseminate the phrase – “we will cure death”, the desired outcome, will come to pass.

Philosopher Francis Fukuyama, a critic of transhumanism, has noted. “Transhumanism’s language of enhancement and evolution masks a deeper desire to redefine what it means to be human." Post-human, transhumanism and humanity plus, each push towards a technologically improved version of humans, which would ultimately make our existing homo-sapien model extinct, and so there is a masked contempt for the human within the loaded language.

As Lifton says, the coded lingo of the in-group, by necessity builds animosity towards the outgroup and this is not an accidental by-product. One stratum of society is usually the target of the cult in-group, and they might be given a coded name that degrades them. Members are encouraged to share their hatred in ritualised forms using these nicknames for their enemies. This has a long history in cults.

The leader of The Children of God named his enemies ACs (Antichrists), while any outsiders who clung to mainstream society were labelled “systemites”.

For Gurdjieff, everyone outside his cult were “sleepers” or “the asleep”.

The Scientologists not only label enemies Suppressive Persons (SP), but anyone who is connected to an SP is also named a PTS (Potential Trouble Source).

The Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord was a paramilitary Aryan supremacist cult, who believed that the US was populated by “white traitors” and was secretly run by a cabal they named “Z.O.G.” (Zionist Occupied Government).

Bernardine Dohrn, of the violent Marxist-Maoist terrorist group The Weather Underground described the white working class and mainstream society as “sleepwalkers” duped by “white skin privilege.”

QAnon followers use terms like "sheep" or "sheeple" to dismiss “normies” who followed the mainstream narrative. The NXIUM self-help sex-slave cult called their enemies “suppressives”.

Charles Manson used the word pigs to define all his enemies. If he were to become victorious, he wrote, “Los Angeles and all the other pig cities would be in flames. It would be the apocalypse … on the whole sick establishment that hated us and all the other free children.”

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s (Osho) cult of love and peace launched a campaign of intimidation and hatred against a neighbouring town in Oregon resulting in 700 cases of poisoning, and they referred to the locals, their enemies as “unenlightened” and “the ignorants”.

The Japanese cult of Aum Shinrikyo called their opponents the “hellbound”, and Heaven’s Gate Cult named the humans trapped in a doomed world, the “earthbound”.

In each cult, there is precise loaded language of Us versus Them with a slur nickname to devalue the outsiders. No matter how egalitarian or transcendent its beliefs purport to be, each cult offers a license to hate and to share in-group hatred, and this can be a secret attraction for recruits, while deepening bonds between devotees.

Loaded language and slur nicknames play a big part in transhumanist jargon practice. Transhumanists often frame their goals and beliefs as morally superior, while online transhumanist trolls attack all questioners of their deeply-held beliefs as “doomers”, “decelerationists”, “bio-conservatives” "bio luddites" and “extinctionists”.

This goes well beyond mere in-group, gang-think, as there is a highly emotionally charged belief that “decels” and “extinctionists” are actually stopping technology from achieving acceleration “escape velocity” and so are dooming our species.

When you are named an “extinctionist” by a transhumanist, they are accusing you, in the most passionate terms possible, of dooming us all to become extinct on a burning planet in 1 billion year’s time, when our sun becomes a red giant; you are dooming us to never becoming an interplanetary species, to never escape earth and you are destroying all hope of humans ever merging with the digital deity to become disembodied consciousness, immortal, timeless and infinite. You are rendering the transcendent faith the transhumanists need to live by - extinct.

7. Doctrine Over Person

For Lifton this is the prioritization of the group's ideology over personal experiences and concerns, and the devaluation of personal autonomy and “the individual”. If a member feels something that clashes with the doctrine - like doubting the leader’s “prophecy” because it didn’t happen - they’re told their feelings are wrong. The doctrine isn’t questioned; their perception is. They might be told, “You didn’t see the signs because you’re not faithful enough.” Or “the event didn’t happen because people like you didn’t believe in it enough”. Over time, the person’s quirks, instincts and habits get sanded down through group conformism.

If the doctrine says, “tiredness is a sign of doubt,” a member who wants a day off is shamed into seeing their desire for rest as a betrayal, not a basic human need. They are being “selfish”, and within the collective doctrine “selves” no longer matter. In Lifton’s terms, the individual’s concerns, even over their own safety or that of others are pathologized by the group.

Furthermore, with the vision of the future perfected group identity, found in cults, there is a devaluation of everyday people beyond the cult, who are seen as the unsaved, sub-human. Again, one’s moral feelings towards one’s fellow humans are broken, in favour of group doctrine. You are not to worry about those people out there because they are not ‘the saved’, they are not ‘the enlightened’ ‘the revolutionaires’ or ‘the chosen’. Outsiders are not even to be seen as people with rights, but as a mass of sinners, of the reactionaries, of the doomed.

Transhumanism, with its focus on enhancing human capabilities through advanced technology, often positions its vision as a superior path, which can implicitly or explicitly devalue the lives and ideas of "average" people.

Ray Kurzweil, has stated, “We are not going to stop the progress of technology. We are not going to stop the progress of science. We are not going to stop the progress of human evolution.”

This deterministic view leaves little room for individual dissent or compassion for those “left behind”. A position enforced by Nick Bostrom who has argued that “human enhancement is a moral obligation” and that those who resist it are guilty of “status quo bias.” This framing positions failure to keep up with progress as a moral failing.

With this dreamed of future in which “enhanced humans” or posthumans possess vastly superior abilities, a hierarchy is created that relegates the unenhanced to the status of inferiors. Transhumanist, Max More states, "No more gods, no more faith, no more timid holding back. The future belongs to posthumanity."

This bravura, in turn results in a dismissal of current human limitations, and those outdated and inferior people who remain within them. A thought echoed by Bostrum who seems to believe that resources should be channelled towards posthuman futurist experiments, rather than addressing current inequalities or struggles. He says, “The genetically privileged may be ageless, healthy, super-geniuses of flawless physical beauty, who are graced with a sparkling wit and a disarmingly self-deprecating sense of humor, radiating warmth, empathy and relaxed confidence. The non-privileged would remain at today’s level but perhaps deprived of some their self-respect and suffering occasional bouts of envy. The mobility between the lower and the upper classes might be reduced practically to zero so that a kid born to poor parents, lacking genetic enhancements, would have no chance whatsoever of successfully competing against the super-kids of the rich”. He concludes that, “a technology leading to an increase in unjust inequalities is not a sufficient reason for discouraging the development and use of that technology.”

Costly enhancements could widen gaps between the "enhanced" elite and average people, devaluing those unable to afford upgrades. Transhumanist Zoltan Istvan claims in The Transhumanist Wager, "You need to put your resources into the technology… into the strongest, the brightest, the best of our society," explicitly prioritizing an enhanced minority over the broader population. A process that would leave the unenhanced economically and socially marginalized.

Francis Fukuyama highlights the risk of a societal divide where unenhanced people are less valuable or relevant. "If we start transforming ourselves into something superior, what rights will these enhanced creatures claim, and what rights will they possess when compared to those left behind?” And he warns, “The environmental movement has taught us humility and respect for the integrity of nonhuman nature. We need a similar humility concerning our human nature. If we do not develop it soon, we may unwittingly invite the transhumanists to deface humanity with their genetic bulldozers.”

Sociologist Nicolas Le Dévédec is also critical, "Changing the human being to avoid changing the world is the movement’s basic political message," suggesting that transhumanism devalues the lives of the rest of society by neglecting systemic issues like poverty or healthcare in favour of elite enhancement projects.

Transhumanists also frequently portray unenhanced human traits - like aging or biological limits - as flaws to be eradicated, as when Kurzweil claimed, "We can and should eradicate ageing as a cause of death." This is framing natural human processes as technical problems, beyond the reach of those who live within these ordinary biological cycles.

Transhumanism’s emphasis on surpassing human limits also frames unenhanced people who cling to outdated notions such as “selfhood” and bodily autonomy as impediments to progress. As Bostrom has said of the posthuman undergoing transformation: “Preservation of personal identity… is not everything. We can value other things than ourselves, or we might regard it as satisfactory if some parts or aspects of ourselves survive and flourish, even if that entails giving up some parts of ourselves such that we no longer count as being the same person.”

From this transhumanist and posthumanist perspective, those who cling to the old traditions of the “sanctity of the individual”, who resist the merging of biology and technology, are not just preserving the status quo - they are standing in the way of humanity's next great leap. To elevate the species, we must transcend the regressive limitations of the self.

This is dogma over personhood, and over human rights.

8. Dispensing of Existence

Lifton’s final criteria, exposes the endpoint that cults reach, when they manifest the belief that only their leaders and followers have the right to exist or thrive. The cult hold the power to judge who is in or out, who is part of the chosen or the condemned, who has the right to exist

This criterion can lead to extreme fear of being ostracized, causing members to conform out of fear of losing their "existence" in the eyes of the group or the ideology. The group might justify harsh actions or exclusions by claiming moral or divine authority to “dispense existence”.

Those outside the group or those who leave are labelled as traitors, or non-persons, further justifying their exclusion and poor treatment. As Lifton has shown, this phenomenon has been exhibited in various totalitarian regimes, religious sects and cults where leaders claim the right to determine the fate, both spiritual and physical, of individuals based on adherence to central doctrine.

This can lead and has done in many cults to acts of violence against outsiders. We see this in the act of poisoning committed by the Osho cult, the sarin gas attack of the Aum Shinrikyo (13 fatalities), and the murders of Manson Family (9 fatalities). Cult suicide, in which the leader again decides who lives and who dies, can be seen in Jonestown (909 fatalities), The Order of the Solar Temple (74 fatalities), Heaven’s Gate (39 fatalities), the Movement of the Restoration of the Ten commandments of God (778 fatalities), and there is the fatal conflict at Waco (82 fatalities).

Transhumanism often frames its goals as essential for the survival of humanity, implying that those who oppose or fail to embrace its vision are obsolete or doomed. Recently we have seen a threatening tone used within the language around those who will be left behind by technological progress, with Noah Yuval Harari, describing them as “The useless class” and Sam Altman on Open Ai referring to them as “Median humans”.

David Pearce, the prominent transhumanist and co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association (now Humanity+), as noted above, exemplifies the transhuman vision that current forms of sentient life are suboptimal or lesser when judged against a future ideal.

In his text, The Hedonistic Imperative he has stated: “I predict we will abolish suffering throughout the living world. Our descendants will be animated by gradients of genetically pre-programmed well-being that are orders of magnitude richer than today's peak experiences.”

Pearce’s plan to re-engineer all species on earth to eliminate suffering (genetically, chemically and through nano-technology and biotechnology) reflects an absolute belief in the rightness of the imposition of the Transhumanist project on the entire planet, regardless of the consequences. As Pearce writes, “The world’s last unpleasant experience will be a precisely dateable event.”

Pearce's vision of a “negative utilitarian” post-suffering world created through technology is, whether he can see it or not, built on a narrative of "salvation". Conversely, those who resist or cannot access these technologies might be metaphorically "damned" in the sense of being left behind in a suffering world.

For all his prophesied atheism, Pearce is “dispensing existence” - playing God, deciding who or what "exists" in the future. And perhaps, dazzled by the scale of his futurist vision, very few have attempted to envisage what this world of creaturea who cannot suffer or cause suffering would be like. Picture if you will, defanged lions, vegetarian crocodiles, vegan eagles, or perhaps the 2.1 million knowns species on earth forming in neat lines to receive their pain-free protein substitutes from a centrally planned transhumanist department of suffering-free nutrition. Again, we are reminded of the kitsch imagery of the Christian paradise, the yet to come Golden Age, the millennium cited in the Apocalypse of Isaiah, in which:

“’The wolf and the lamb shall graze together;
the lion shall eat straw like the ox,
and dust shall be the serpent’s food.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain,”
says the Lord.”

Pearce’s thinking is exemplary within the canon of Transhumanism, in that it fuses hubristic technological futurism with subterranean elements that it’s atheism cannot admit to – namingly, powerful and dangerous religious beliefs. But secular denial strategies only lead to the proliferation of these beliefs, in the shadow of their light, so to speak. So, transhumanism is suffused with apocalypticism and salvation beliefs, with the coming transhuman god-men, creating the animals and fish on the fifth and sixth day of their new genesis. And what would the genetic redesign of the human being be but the genocide of the existing human race, and what would the redesign of every creature on earth entail but the destruction of every living thing.

The Test of Time

Transhumanism does appear to be a neo religion, a secular form of salvation that exhibits, to differing degrees all of the eight characteristics of Lifton's criteria for identification as a cult. I say this while, noting that transhumanism is a diverse movement, and not all adherents share the same beliefs or practices. Most likely, like Christianity, it is a vast faith that spawns cultic factions, rather than one unified cult.

It is typical of cultic movements, to ultimately exploit their own devotees, and it is a fact that some transhumanists have been accused of profiting from the hopes and fears of their followers. For example, companies offering cryonics or unproven life-extension therapies often charge exorbitant fees, preying on individuals’ desire to cease the processes of ageing. Such financial exploitation has been a common feature of cults, from the Rajneesh movement, to The Scientologists, to NXIVM, to Jim Jones people’s Temple, to the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon.

Common to cults of transcendence comes a belief in the devaluation of everyday human life and human nature and so sults always, inevitably, demand extraordinary sacrifices from their devotees, which can lead to escalations of belief-based violence, purges and acts of self-sacrifice.

In the last six months we have seen the emergence of a tiny “AI cult” - the Zizians - charged with two murders in Philadelphia, who, it is claimed in the press, “hold fringe, esoteric ideological beliefs about transhumanism’”. They may just be a freak aberration, and we shouldn’t tar the dominant belief system they subscribe to with the same brush; after all the existence of tiny Christian doomsday cults like the Branch Davidians or the Order of the Solar Temple, doesn’t discredit all of Christianity. Neither does the existence of a group of Florida based transhumanist life-extensionists calling themselves – The Church of Perpetual Life, or the noted existence of Christian and Mormon transhumanist organisations, prove the transhumanism is a religion. But, there are clearly elements within the transhumanist belief system that lead to Us-versus-Them thinking, and to the devaluation of the lives of non-believers within an urgent apocalypse/salvation framework – and this is cult mindset.

The real test of whether transhumanism is a cult, or is spawning cult factions, will come by three different ends that will unfold over time.

First, there is whatever happens when the outside world attempts to shut the movement down, as in the cults in Jonestown and The Branch Davidians, which ended in violent confrontation and self-sacrifice. A cult would rather fight to the death or destroy itself than be shut down. As transhumanism lacks a geographic centre this would be unlikely, although it must be said that the Order of the Solar Temple orchestrated its own demise over the three nations of Switzerland, France, and Canada.

Clearly, the vast majority of transhumanists do not exhibit anything like these kind of extreme behaviours, but the question is whether those on the fringes and factions, the transhumanist ‘true believers’ or fundamentalists, might be drawn into destructive acts as the movement grows and faces challenges or is placed under threat.

The second test, is that posed by actual outcomes, after believers, again on the extremes, have committed their lives to transhuman projects as live human test subjects, say in the case of the installation of BCI brain chips, or in becoming astronaut pioneers to colonise Mars or cryogenically frozen, life-extensionist test subjects.

The reality tests here are life or death, through potential technological failure. Five manned rockets blow up and no-one makes it Mars, or the colonists don’t receive their supplies and starve. The brain chips cease to work and cause brain damage and fatality. The cryogenically frozen bodies will not revive. The life extensionist pioneer who was aiming to live to hundred and fifty dies at the age of seventy-two from heart failure.

These are the reality tests of the transcendent collective dream. And we will soon see, as the dates that have been predicted and set in stone for these and the other great events of transhumanism, are fast approaching: 2025 has been precited for Artificial General Intelligence - AGI (Altman), 2029 for the same emergence of AGI (Kurzweil), 2029 for Longevity Escape Velocity (Kurzweil), 2029 for the first crewed Mars mission (Musk), 2030 for Mind-Uploading (Bostrom), 2044 for a self-Sustaining Mars colony (Musk), 2045 for The Singularity (Kurzweil).

If these dates arrive without results and followers commit anxious and desperate acts as a result, then this will show that transhumanism as a belief system, had facilitated cult behaviour.

Bear in mind that Musk’s first predicted date for the Mars colony was once 2024, and Kurzweils first date for Longevity Escape Velocity was 2025. Both have been “kicked down the road.” The reality test of real outcomes, can only be delayed so many times.

There is the third test, and that is the one that only the minority of cults face, this is what happens when the promised land is postponed and postponed and postponed by the leaders, and gradually it dawns on the believers that they have been led astray by a fantasist or shyster who sold them big dreams to make horribly mortal money or to advance their own personal power. If the movement is not a cult, then followers will turn away quietly, feeling shame for having been taken in, and they will return to their everyday lives.

If it is a cult however, they will keep on believing; they will accept their leader’s new promised date - the third, fourth, fifth date for the arrival of The Singularity, for the Mars colonisation, for the mapping of the entire brain and the uploading of human consciousness.

They will double-down or suffer deep disillusionment, depression and violent retributions against one another, as the Millerite Baptists did after their Great Disappointment of 1844, when their promised Second of Christ coming failed to materialise for the second time, on October 22^nd. And so, the Millerites turned against their leaders in humiliation, rage and dismay and were in turn mocked by the wider society – “jeered at in the streets” - as so many Millerites had given up their possessions and homes in their belief that Christ’s Second coming was only in a matter of weeks, then days, then hours. Tens of thousands in fact - estimates range from 50,000 to 100,000 - had donned “ascension robes,” and waited on hilltops or on the roofs of houses for the skies to open. Suicides were common among the Millerite followers after their great disappointment and in time they split into the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Advent Christian Church, and largely vanished from history, while many followers abandoned Christianity altogether, driven by shame, financial ruin, or shattered faith. (Later an offshoot, the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, would lead to a further subgroup, who were the Branch Davidians of Waco).

As I have shown in another article: “There were a further thirty-five failed occurrences of the Second Coming before the year 1700. Seventy-three Last Days came and went in the twentieth century and twenty have already passed in the twenty-first.” Such predictions for over a thousand years have been the fuel of religions, cults, heresies, factional splits and internal self-destruction.

2045 is the date when every one of transhumanist predictions should have come true. We will know by then whether this technological salvation movement was a cult or a prophetic scientific movement. We may also know before this, if many believers offer their bodies and brains up for hybrid human-machine experiments, such as Elon Musk’s invasive brain chip experiments, which if he is to be taken seriously, will result in “millions” of people being implanted within the next ten years. That is a lot of faith that would be placed in the hands of transhuman surgeons.

If transhumanism is a cult, there will soon be volunteers in their hundreds and thousands, who see the risk to their lives as the necessary sacrifice that must be made to accelerate the salvation of their beliefs.

Time will tell.

Ewan Morrison’s ninth book - the transhumanist techno-gothic novel: FOR EMMA is published on 25th March 2025, by Leamington Books, and is available for pre-order. It will be published in the USA by Arcade Publishing on 17th June, 2025.