the Wild Conceits essay: the cult apparatus — Phelps & Phelps
A Field Guide to Cults of Currency Speculation, Melanin, Fitness, Bioflavinoids, Spectation, Assassination, Stasis, Property, Agoraphobia, Repute, Celebrity, Acraphobia, Performance, Amway, Fame, Infamy, Deformity, Scopophobia, Syntax, Consumer Technology, Scopophilia
Context
The essay's scholarly authority situates the A.F.R. inside a whole pre-O.N.A.N. taxonomy of fanaticism — Phelps and Phelps's The Cults of the Unwavering I, whose subtitle catalogs "Cults of Currency Speculation, Melanin, Fitness... Spectation, Assassination, Stasis... Deformity... Scopophilia... Telentertainment in pre-O.N.A.N. North America." The joke lands the theme's frame: the A.F.R.'s train-cult and the Endless-Kiss cult are of a piece with cults of Spectation and Telentertainment — the whole continent, north and south, organized into unwavering devotions, the Separatist cells only the most lethal instance of a general North American cultism the Entertainment will exploit.