Nowadays, people believe slavery is gone for good. That we are long past the days of subjugation, and that we can do whatever we want. Well, in America, at least. However, as any good writer knows, slavery doesn’t have to pertain to racism or prejudice. In fact, slavery is still all around us, whether that be through technology, politics, society, or even our own individual selves. This concept is disturbingly true of cults. One of these cults was The Work.

The Work was a sex cult founded by Julius Schacknow. Though he started off as a Jew, he soon converted to Christianity. He was a fundamentalist preacher who would proclaim himself to be Christ incarnated and through his charisma managed to attract and inspire many with his messages. Years later, he established a cult known as The Work as a way to make sense of what he viewed to be a meaningless world.

The cult managed to build up their own finances through real estate and construction. However, many members were paid slave wages and had to work long days in order to pay for Schacknow’s lifestyle. Even so, the members believed in Schacknow and happily went on to support him, regardless of what he said.

Schacknow was known to enforce a strict code of conduct on his followers, though he himself didn’t follow that code. In fact, he happily took the nickname “The Sinful Messiah” in order to justify his actions. He had multiple wives, and manipulated other young women in order to have sex with him, some of which were even actually underaged. He went on to claim that he was God in order to convince these girls to have intercourse with him.

Schacknow was exposed but had managed to avoid being arrested. Once Sweetman took over the cult, he was arrested for bank fraud. When he was released, he was murdered by two members of the cult. Police arrested the two members, who then accused each other of the crime. Despite this, the cult continues to operate to this very day.

Cults such as The Work have been featured on channels such as Investigation Discovery. These cults have very similar characteristics that make them so predictable, yet so successful. Charismatic leaders, dark and oftentimes illegal actions, abuse to a horrifying magnitude; cults like these still reign in the dark. They’ve been the subject of many books, such as Cults: How They Work by Robin Jackson and Christianity, Cults and the Occult, published by Rose Publishing. Scholars have examined the symptoms of these cults, and just how much damage they can do. They show what could happen if faith is taken too far, if beliefs are twisted enough to convince followers to harm others, regardless of their intentions. They’ve also shown the complexities of human nature, and how far people go to get what they want. It’s an idea that’s been explored in literature over and over again.

And despite its repetitiveness, it’s still an interesting concept.