The other analogy, with shining self-improvement seminars, seems more worrying to me. In self-improvement seminars, the speakers are not rewarded for actually helping people; they are rewarded for sounding good. (We know the names of some self-help gurus... but don't know the names of people who became awesome because of their seminars. Their references are all about their image, none about their product.)

I don't think that "sounding good" is a accurate description of how people in the personal development field succeed.

Look at Tony Robbins who one of the most successful in the business. When you ask most people whether walking on hot coal is impressive they would tell you that it is. Tony manages to get thousands of people in a seminar to walk over hot coals.

Afterwards they go home and tell there friends about who they walked about hot coals. That impresses people and more people come to his seminars.

It not only that his talk sounds good but that he is able to provide impressive experiences.

On the other hand his success is also partly about being very good at building a network marketing structure that works.

But in some sense that not much different than the way universities work. They evidence that universities actually make people successful in life isn't that strong.

What determines which way a cult will go? Probably it's compatibility of long-term membership with ordinary human life. If it's too costly, if it requires too much sacrifice from members, symbiosis is impossible. The other two choices probably depend on how much effort does the group put into recruiting new members.

I don't think so. If you are a scientologist and believe in Xenu that reduces your compatibility with ordinary human life. At the same time it makes you more committed to the group if you are willing something to belong.

Opus Dei members wear cilice to make themselves uncomfortable to show that they are committed.

I think the fact that you don't see where many people as members of groups that need a lot of commitment is a feature of 20th century where mainstream society with institution such as television that are good at presenting a certain culture which everyone in a country has a shared identity.

At the moment all sort of groups like the Amnish or LDS that require more commitment of their members seem to grow. It could be that we have a lot more people as members of groups that require sacrifice in a hundred years than we have now.