Fastest Growing Religions of 2024
Here’s a subject I wasn’t expecting to write about in 2024! But it looks like since cults are never really out of fashion (not to mention the big cult that’s plaguing our world today that I won’t even name here!), I think it’s important to reflect on what happens when a cult really takes root, gains legitimacy, and earns the title of religion. Religion is protected under many nations’ laws - unlike cults - and can be wielded as an instrument of agency in the halls of power as well as any corporation can. It’s important to take note of the ones that are gaining traction so that when you’re approached on the street by one of their adherents, you don’t say the wrong thing or draw the wrong prophet and end up on their kill list.
Eelism
Eelism is one of the fastest growing religions for a very obvious reason, once you see it: We don’t know where eels come from. Eels are a creature that live in the sea, whose reproductive cycle has never been observed by any living humans, or by any humans who have lived to tell the tale or who have seen it and thought it was worth telling other people about.
They are themselves not any more or less remarkable than any of the other trillions of animals skulking around the great wet depths, but they have become an object of fascination in their own right, and as much as any animal, deserve to have their own group of humans to worship at their altar.
Here is a quick AI-written rundown of why eels are so cool, translated into a combination of English, French, German, and Aramaic:
Eels are among the ocean’s most mysterious creatures, offrant une richesse de fascination pour les biologistes marins. Einer der faszinierendsten Aspekte ist ihr Lebenszyklus, insbesondere bei den europäischen und amerikanischen Aalen, die epische Wanderungen unternehmen, um im Sargassomeer zu laichen, מסע למרחקים של אלפי קילומטרים.
Ce qui est particulièrement remarquable ist, dass trotz jahrhundertelanger Forschung Wissenschaftler noch immer viele Aspekte der Fortpflanzung von Aalen nicht vollständig verstehen, da noch nie jemand gesehen hat, wie sie sich in freier Wildbahn vermehren. Eels undergo a unique developmental process called *catadromy*. הם מתחילים את חייהם באוקיינוס כלרווה, treiben monatelang mit den Meeresströmungen, bevor sie sich in transparente Larven verwandeln, die als Leptocephalus bezeichnet werden.
As they approach coastal waters, ils deviennent des “glass eels” avant de mûrir en formes adultes serpentine. Dieser komplexe Metamorphoseprozess macht sie besonders faszinierend, besonders wenn man bedenkt, wie sie sich an völlig unterschiedliche Umgebungen anpassen — von salzigen Ozeanen bis zu Süßwasserflüssen und Seen.
Eels also have electrosensory abilities, die ihnen erlauben, in dunklen, trüben Gewässern mit Präzision zu jagen. Certaines espèces, comme l’anguille électrique (bien que techniquement pas une véritable anguille), מייצרות חשמל חזק מספיק כדי לשתק את הטרף שלהן או להרתיע טורפים, was eine erstaunliche evolutionäre Anpassung zeigt.
Les anguilles, mit ihrer serpentine shape, ihre geheimnisvollen Gewohnheiten nocturnes et leur vie énigmatique, מסקרנות את הדמיון ומסמלות את הפלאים הנסתרים של האוקיינוס.
The reason I translated it that way is that one of the primary tenets of Eelism is obfuscation, a trait that eels have developed over the course of their evolutionary trajectory that may help them elude this current anthropocene’s mass extinction event. Of course, they may become extinct if humans never learn these secrets, but that irony is where the sort of scientific wonder part and the cult part begin.
You see, Eelists, like many cults and for profit corporations, borrow some characteristic from an inspiring source that is either abandoned and corrupted, or taken to its literal extreme. Eelists are in the latter camp. They can be so married to the idea of obfuscation that they sometimes, like a squirrel who forget where it’s buried its nuts, become the target of their own machinations.
I’ll give you an example. A few years ago, I was deep in my “search” for meaning and found myself in a kind of polyamorous relationship with several members of the Eelist swarm, who rotated in and out with me in order, I believe, to resist the temptation of any one member having a strong romantic attachment to an outsider while also attempting to draw me into their group.
They, perhaps with a bit of irony, called themselves the “bed” (a small group of eels is called a bed, a large group a swarm) and would often fight over who got to see me and what they could do with me. I liked them all equally, and would teach them in my ways as they attempted to teach me in theirs. One of them, Eelvelyn, really took a liking to me and would secretly leave the swarm late at night to meet me in the park where we would sip chamomile tea together and look at stars, while I recited improvised poetry, or on one occasion, drew a very accurate portrait of Eelvelyn and I kissing, which I still have today.
Eelvelyn and I kissing, accurately
One night, Eelvelyn told me she couldn’t see me anymore. I was confused, so I asked her, “what had happened?”
She said that she didn’t really know if anything happened, but that she’d felt that the others in her “bed” weren’t receiving as much attention from me and that they had begun to feel jealous. And that this jealousy had become an issue for her at the Sargasso Hotel (this four-floor factory-converted hovel in Dumbo they all lived in), where the other Eels slithered around making comments about her to each other during meal time.
Without thinking, I told her I would speak with these other Eels, to make sure they were getting as much time with me as I could offer. That I would teach them as I had been teaching her, about the ways of the city, about how pigeons were as mighty as eels; that we Pigeonists may not be as independent-minded as the Eelists but that we fought as passionately for our members as they did… but as I was saying this I could tell it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
I pulled her closer to me for an embrace that might communicate my love for her and her Eel friends, but she pushed me away and left the room, and out the door.
That’s when I learned an important lesson about recruiting members from another cult: you really have to work on them one at a time.
2. Pigeonism
Like Eelism, Pigeonism is a religion whose founders discovered their cult’s purpose by studying an animal and bringing its qualities back to humanity perhaps to save it from itself. Pigeons are notoriously peaceful animals, thriving primarily in human-dominated environments denuded of predators and other hunters keen on birdflesh (save cats). Pigeonists take a similar tact, opting for a life of relative ease and “taking-what-they-can-get”. Pigeonists prefer to settle but don’t balk at nomadism, and will go out of their way not to disturb the habitats of others nesting nearby. Unlike Eelists, Pigeonists do not require regular infusions of adulation from the outside world to be considered thriving, and are largely content to live in the obscurity of the everyday. It is for this stark contrast between Pigeonists and Eelists that the two cults have an ongoing agreement to permit each other’s members to flock (or swim) back and forth, so long as they obey each group’s customs and do not attempt to culturally cross-pollinate.
Full disclosure: Years ago, when I was a recruiter for Pigeonism, I took especial note of this policy and worked clandestinely (independent any orders from above) to poach Eelists. I was sanctioned by both groups for this activity and banned from affiliating with either for 10 years. That was 9.5 years ago.