K.J. Charles's Reviews > Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

Interesting dive into how cults are primarily language-driven, and how language both draws us in and keeps us in. Particularly good on Internet cults (QAnon) and on the things she calls cult*ish*, like MLMs and CrossFit, that use those techniques. It's entirely American, as she acknowledges, linguistically and culturally (USians are apparently suckers for the prosperity gospel in its many forms), and I would have really liked to see some more wide-ranging examples covering a broader cultural spread, and to see how that might affect the language and techniques. Very much worth reading anyway, if only to get a heads up on what the apparently bizarre language choices are doing.