Upvoted for sharing unique experiences for their learning potential. I recall Luke Muehlhauser attended a Toastmasters meetup run by Scientologists several years ago when he first moved to California. This was unrelated to the article, but as an aside he discouraged other LessWrong users to attend any meeting run by Scientologists just because he did, because they are friendly and they will hack people's System 1's into making them want to come back, and even being enticed to join Scientology is not a worthwhile risk, and the best case is you might just waste your time with them anyway. I mean, IIRC, this was after Luke himself had left evangelical Christianity, and read the LessWrong Sequences, so I guess we was very confident he wouldn't be pulled in.
It's interesting that you went, but if you were invited by a stranger on a plane to this home, I hardly think you "infiltrated", as opposed to being invited by a Raelian on the first step to join them. I'm not saying you'll be fooled into joining, but I caution against going back, as you could at least use the time to find other friendly communities to join, like any number of meetups, which aren't cults. It's sad other are in this cult, but it's difficult enough to pull others out I'm not confident it's worth sticking around to pull others out, even if you think they're good people. When you get back Stateside or wherever your'e from, I figure there are skeptics associations you can get involved with which do good work on helping people believe less crazy things.
I hardly think you "infiltrated"
This was tongue-in-cheek of course.
but I caution against going back
I'm not planing to, even though I'm very very very sure about not getting fooled (I've been through Chrisitanity too in my youth, I've escaped with my own strength without external help or inspiration, and have since converted a few people to atheism).
I don't plan to go back because it would be a waste of my emotional energy that I could use to work on rationality communities (that I actually care about). Pretty much what you are trying to t...
I was invited by a stranger I met on a plane and actually went to a meeting of Raëlians (known in some LW circles as "the flying saucer cult") in 沖縄, Japan. It was right next to Claude Vorilhon's home, and he came himself for the "ceremony" (?) dressed in a theatrical space-y white uniform, complete with a Jewish-style white cap on his head. When saying his "sermon" (?) he spoke in English and his words were translated into Japanese for the benefit of those who didn't understand. And yes, it's true he talked with me briefly and then hugged me (I understand he does this with all newcomers, and it felt 100% fake to me). I then went on to eat lunch in an 居酒屋 with a group of around 15 members, who were all really friendly and pleasant people. I was actually treated to lunch by them, and afterwards someone gave me a ~20 minute ride to the town I wanted to be in, despite knowing they won't see me ever again.
If you have ever wondered how it is possible that a flying saucer cult has more members than EA, now it's time to learn something.
Note: I hope it's clear that I do not endorse creating cults, nor do I proclaim the EA community's inferiority. It hasn't even crossed my mind when I wrote the above line that any LW'er would take it as a stab they need to defend against. I'm merely pointing to the fact that we can learn from anything, whether it's good or bad, and encouraging a fresh discussion on this after I gathered some new data.
Let's do this as a Q&A session (I'm at work now so I can't write a long post).
Please ask questions in comments.