The Fundamentalist Fortress
Swimming Across the Moat Surrounding the Cult
Note: This post is part of the SoulQuest series.
Fundamentalism is most often defined as a strict, uncompromising adherence to a set of basic religious or ideological beliefs. It’s usually based on a literal interpretation of a sacred text or founding doctrine, but can often come in the form of divine dictates from a leader.
The Fundamentalist Fortress
Welcome to the land of indoctrination, home to the cult of conformity.
The isolated fortress of the fundamentalists is safely walled in. Surrounded by a deep moat, with no bridges across. Nothing can penetrate the high walls and thorough defenses of the believers.
The high tower of the orthodoxy reaches skyward as a symbolic bridge between heaven and earth. From the highest chamber of the tower, in the holy of holies, the high priest reigns over his fortress, keeping the cult in righteous order.
As the mouthpiece of God, the high priest informs his subjects of what is good and true, and what they ought to do. He offers them salvation in exchange for compliance. For he guards the gate to heaven, and everyone knows, all other paths lead to fire, darkness, and death.
From the very beginning, the children of the fundamentalists are educated in this way—this gospel. The thorough saturation of the teachings keep any thoughts of exploring beyond the walls of the fortress safely at bay. For everyone knows what happens to those who escape the fortress. Their souls are lost, and they are doomed for eternity.
But once in a while, one or two slip through the net of indoctrination before it’s too late—before their wild minds are fully domesticated and their curiosity silenced.
These are called heretics, and they follow another directive than that coming from the high tower of the cult. For they hear a longing from within—a voice calling them to adventure.
Those few who answer this call are deemed mad, as they throw themselves off the high outer walls of the fortress, plunging into the watery depths below.
“I was a fundamentalist not because of the beliefs I held but because of how I held them: with a death grip. It would take God himself to finally pry them out of my hands.”
– Marlene Winell, Leaving the Fold
The Devils Playground
I recently watched “The Devil’s Playground,” a 2002 film documenting the Amish tradition of Rumspringa.
If you aren’t aware, the Amish are a cult of Christians who hold fast to scriptures like:
Romans 12:2: “Be not conformed to this world.”
This fundamentalist reading of the good word has led them to deny the tasty “fruits of progress” and avoid modern technology use altogether. This abstinence is codified in the Ordnung, a set of rules and regulations that govern Amish daily life.
But beyond just keeping people off the booze and away from TikTok, the Ordnung also establishes the norms and values that curb individualism and cultivate community unity. It’s effectively the rulebook for how to be Amish.
It mandates that the Amish lifestyle be notoriously low-tech, with restrictions against electricity use, modern transportation, watching television, using phones, etc.
But at least they get to travel slow and enjoy the scenery.
Rumspringa is a Pennsylvanian German word that literally means “running around,” and it’s a time of fewer restrictions and more freedom to, well, run around. It’s a wild “coming of age” passage that all Amish adolescents navigate, usually around the age of 16.
Amish teenagers on Rumspringa finally get the freedom to dress how they want, get a smart phone, throw back some beers, get a girlfriend or boyfriend, and take a stroll through the Devil’s playground.
But as one might predict, trying to swim across that moat is risky, especially when nobody taught you how to swim. 🤦♂️
So the Amish teens get absolutely waterboarded.
They go from no phone use to rampant screens full of algorithms designed to hijack their monkey brains and turn them into doom-scrolling consumers.
They leave their virgin shelter for the hyper-normal stimuli of ubiquitous pornography, chatbot relationships, and a tsunami of AI generated slop.
They abandon abstinence and a quaint home life, for chronic substance use, continuous partying, and eventually addiction.
Imagine having nearly no contact with any modern tech for your entire life, then at the ripe old age of 16 when you’re the most hormonal, impulsive, and susceptible to peer pressure you’ll ever be, you ditch the bonnet, get on social media, start drinking and smoking, and go to as many parties as possible.
That’s Rumspringa baby. Welcome to the Devil’s playground.
It’s no wonder that The Amish Church’s retention rate of it’s members is the highest of any of the major cults (religions). After getting absolutely rocked by modernity, about 85-90% of the Amish return to their community after Rumspringa to get baptized.
That’s 9/10 people who stay Amish for life!
I believe this fascinating statistic speaks to the vast gap between the Amish lifestyle and the modern age, a chasm too wide for most to cross. After all, you aren’t just forced to adapt from a low-tech to a high-tech world, you also have to navigate losing your community, your religion, and your entire worldview.
This is tough for anyone leaving a religion with strong social structures. For example, the retention rate of the Orthodox Jews is about 80%, and the Mormons retain about 60% of their born-and-raised members (but that number seems to be dropping fast).
Seems like the more fundamentalist the religion, the more fortified the fortress, the harder it is to escape it. At the end of the day, cultural separation, large families, and social mechanism like shunning, make it very difficult for a person to swim across that moat that surrounds their cult.
However, I think there’s something deeper to glean from the 90% retention rate of the Amish. Maybe, just maybe, they’re also onto something.
No, I’m not admiring the ideological denial of technology, the suppression of individualism, or the strange mandate to larp Little House on the Prairie forever.
Rather, the Amish have three things that are essential for living a good life:
Belief in something greater than oneself
Belonging to a tribe
Having a clear teleology or purpose
Unfortunately, it’s hard to invest in a religion that also kills curiosity, prevents ideas from evolving, and suppresses any art, dance, and culture.
The Amish are locked in a fundamentalist fortress.
And for those reasons, I’m out.
The Moat Around the Cult
I grew up in Short Creek, the original stomping grounds of Warren Jeffs and home to a tribe of fundamentalist polygamist Mormons.
Both my grandfathers were early settlers of the Short Creek area. Both were devoutly religious, and raised (very large) families within the walls of their fortress. Between the two of them, they had about 20 wives and something like 100 children.
But they couldn’t outdo Jeffs, who holds the high score on the polygamist leaderboard (Genghis Khan notwithstanding). Jeffs had an estimated 78 wives and over 50 children when he was arrested in 2006. Had he been allowed to continue to “go forth and multiply,” there would easily be hundreds in his posterity by now.
Jeffs reign was notoriously rough for Short Creek. He broke up families, extracted wealth from his members, and thoroughly abused a congregation of about 10,000 faithful followers. This is to say nothing of his sexual assault convictions that landed him in a Texas prison, likely for the rest of his life. A pedofile of the creepiest order, Jeffs had a dozen or so “child brides,” some as young as 12 years old.
But even 20 years after Jeffs’s arrest, there’s still a fragment of his original cult that are still devout followers. For a thousand or so FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints), his incarceration was also his martyrdom. To them, Jeffs isn’t a serving time for horrific crimes, he is atoning for their sins with a noble sacrifice. To the FLDS faithful, Jeffs is still the “mouthpiece of God.”
To be clear, the majority of the cult has disbanded, and Short Creek is finding itself in a post prophet world.
But consider that for a second. The man who’s otherworldly fucked up-ness solidified him as one of the world’s most famous cult leaders, is still seen by many as a demigod who can do no wrong. Many faithful hang on every divine revelation that comes from his cell.
Despite Jeffs’s own attorney publicly claiming the FLDS leader isn’t in his right mind, and should be treated as insane.
Despite Jeffs attempting suicide multiple times in prison.
Despite Jeffs completely striking out on all his doomsday predictions about the world ending.
Well… I guess that part is actually par for the course. Seems like every prophet calls out the last days, yet here we are.
So, either his followers refuse to look at the evidence, or no amount of evidence would ever change their minds.
Either way, what we got here is a fundamentalist fortress to behold. Joseph Smith laid the foundation for him, but Warren Jeffs built a truly remarkable tower to heaven. And from his holy of holies (in his prison cell in Texas), he still reigns supreme over his fundamentalist fortress.
I recently made friends with one of Jeffs followers. Let’s call him John.
John is a hard working and ambitious man in his late twenties. He runs a large business, travels often, and invests in his growth and development. We had a great time exploring the outdoors together, and I found him to be an overall good guy.
But behind the quaint country fashion sense and “cricker” accent, I was shocked to find he was still a believer in Papa Warren, despite the fallout since the pedophile prophet’s went to prison 20 years ago. Not to mention the many documentaries made about one of the world’s most notorious cult leaders.
But John defended him, claiming that his teachings were good and true, and that following them led to living a good life.
I mean, if by good life you mean life in prison, under constant suicide watch, mostly in solitary confinement so you aren’t raped to death by the angry inmates who don’t particularly vibe well with pedofiles.
“By their fruits ye shall know them” — Jesus, (Matthew 7:16-20)
Those are some rotten fruits my man.
I mean the list of people willing to step forward and testify against Jeffs is a long one. An entire generation is still trying to heal from the shit show that was his authoritarian reign over Short Creek.
So how then do we explain John? A smart guy. A good dude. He wants to learn, grow, and lead. But somehow he’s still stuck in the gravity well of an incarcerated pedo-narcissist who’s devastated the lives of thousands.
My take in explaining this strange phenomena: The moat around the cult.
As we saw with the example of the Amish, being part of a tribe is a non-negotiable part of being human. This creates a strong pressure to conform to the norm.
In fact, the tribe is so fundamental to homo sapiens, that we will drink the communal cool aid (even when it’s deadly), shunning (or burning) the heretics.
Belonging IS survival for a tribal primate like us. And core to belonging is our collective tribal identity—the “We” that holds the “Me.”
For hundreds of thousands of years of pre-history, to be exiled from the tribe was a death sentence. Nobody could make it alone in the jungle. We still can’t, but now our modern world affords us a kind of individualism that our ancestors could never have imagined (for better or worse).
As hunter gatherers, we had a singular choice: belong to the tribe or starve.
Now, most of us in the modern world have the freedom to think for ourselves, design the lives we want to live, and evolve beyond the stories we’ve inherited from our ancestors.
But this requires crossing that pesky moat, and navigating “The Devil’s Playground” for ourselves.
However, even with the individual freedoms of modernity, many of us choose conformity instead, even when it means denying our authenticity. Simply put, it’s easier to swallow the collective cool aid, than it is to answer our own call to adventure.
Plus, look at all those poor souls crawling back from their “Rumspringa,” broken by the harsh outer world, returning to the fundamentalist fortress. Every person who fails to get across the moat becomes a testimony of the tribe’s truth: the best way to live is right here in the safety of these tall walls.
The existential moat around the cult deters most from ever considering a life in the wild lands of soul out beyond the safety of the fortress. So we ignore that pesky inner voice, pull that prairie dress on over our magic underwear, then keep sweet, pray, and obey.
Your Religion is Probably a Cult
Most mainstream Christians or Mormons would likely agree with most of this post so far. The Amish and the FLDS certainly seem extreme from the outside. And few would argue that Jeffs is a top tier cult leader.
But in Christian history, fundamentalism simply dictates the Bible as literally true and inerrant, making those “fundamental” teachings central to Christian life. Most Christians usually insist on doctrines such as the virgin birth, bodily resurrection of Christ, and his future return as non‑negotiable truths.
Strange, considering they all violate the natural laws of biology and physics.
So you don’t have to be in a small back-woodsy cult to be a fundamentalist. There are roughly 2.4 billion Christians, and most of them take those myths as literally true.
And hey, I’m not throwing out the Christian story altogether, just saying we don’t have to be so culty about it.
Another example of fundamentalism is the faith that The Book of Mormon is a literal translation from lost golden plates. This “ancient record” tells the story of the first immigrants to the Americas, a family fleeing Israel in roughly 600 BC. They inherited a fertile and empty land, spreading their genetics and language, ultimately creating a vast civilization.
Unfortunately, there’s absolutely no genetic, linguistic, or archeological evidence to support this story at all. The Mormon scholars themselves weren’t able to find it, after decades of diligent searching.
But no amount or evidence (or the lack thereof) can sway a devout Mormon’s mind. Mormon’s have a fundamental belief in the Book of Mormon’s historicity, because without it, everything else falls apart.
“The Book of Mormon is the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion…Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations, and where is our religion? We have none.” —Joseph Smith
The Book of Mormon is the fortress of the Mormons. It creates a righteous order, from which all within the walls must comply. And as Smith said himself, without that order, the Mormons have nothing.
So the tall walls were built, a deep moat was dug, and the cult was fortified to keep the devil out… but also to keep the faithful in.
But those fortification were built nearly 200 years ago.
Before the information age. Before we sequenced the human genome. Before we could read Egyptian. Before we could linguistic analyze the Book of Mormon. Before we had thousands of scientists piecing together the history of the Americas.
Now that fortress doesn’t seem so impenetrable, and about 40% of Mormons are taking the leap and swimming the moat, just as I did.
Taking the Leap
I went on my own Rumspringa back in 2012.
After the collapse of my faith at the age of 20, I left the fundamentalist Mormon fortress. But for me, there was no bridge across the moat.
So I learned how to swim, but just barley.
I moved to Las Vegas at the age of 21. For 5 years, I floundered about, nearly drowning in a desert wasteland of soulless materialism.
I ditched my magic underwear, clothed myself in expensive brands, and hit the Vegas strip… like a lot.
I did what everyone around me was doing: making money, partying hard, and consuming anything that might temporarily numb my inner anguish and my soul’s deeper longing.
But hedonism alone couldn’t get me across the existential moat, no matter how much money I made, alcohol I drank, or strippers I cried on. Seeking pleasure and avoiding pain kept my head above water for a few years, but something wasn’t right.
I was making six figures, so starvation and destitution weren’t my problem. I even had a solid community of other so called “ex-crickers” who had left the fundamentalist flock as well. But despite my affluence and community, I was getting sunk by a lack of purpose.
Sadness and despair filled the god-sized hole in my heart, and a numbed-out nihilism began to take hold. Addiction set in, as I drank my way to the bottom.
Leaving the cult and crossing the moat means starting over. In Amish or FLDs society, it means losing most if not all of your relationships as they currently exist.
Swimming that moat is risky business, and many don’t make it across, turning back to the safety of the fortress.
Tragically, some drown in the moat, taking their own lives.
Deconstructing beliefs, navigating the existential void, and reconstructing a new worldview is not for the faint of heart.
It’s estimated that the rate of suicide in ex-FLDs members is about twice the national average. Swimming across the moat on your own can be existential, to say nothing of navigating the vast wilderness beyond.
But playing life safe in the fundamentalist fortress or drowning in the existential moat are NOT our only options.
We can wake up. We can re-wild our minds and bodies. We can remember our true nature.
The wilderness of soul out beyond the fortress might be scary, but she’s also breathtakingly beautiful, and she is calling you home.
She will welcome you with open arms.
After all, crossing the moat is just the beginning of your hero’s journey—the beginning of your SoulQuest.
And that quest leads through Soul Canyon.
See you on the far side,
Christian
Las Vegas, 22/01/2026
P.S. If you’re already across the moat, this might be for you: Humans 2.0
Go for a Swim
We put torch to truth during dark ages
Faithfully burning witches and sages
For all who keep their wild mind
Are called heretics by the blind
See, conformity is the collective vibe
Within the walls of a fundamentalist tribe
Wether you’re Amish, Mormon, or Cricker
You can consider me the cosmic trickster
Away from the cult’s high tower I crept
Over the walls of the fortress I leapt
Across Short Creek moat I swam
Away from all the priesthood scams
The torch you hold keeps your vision dim
Magic underwear makes it hard to swim
So free thy body from ankles to wrists
Else vigilant compliance to the cult persists
And the holy sunshine will kiss your skin
Re-wilding your mind, forgiving your sins
When false gods reign, life gets queasy
But your path is clear, though never easy
Follow your bliss beyond the cult
Trust in yourself and swim that moat
I’ll wait for you on the other side
And in Soul Canyon, I’ll be your guide
