The element of fear, yes, it is very strong in selling oneself. Your text speaks to me very much, I read it with interest and I don't see any resistance to it in myself.

I see every form of cult as difficult. Nevertheless, they write the best stories, don't they? The cults of this world.

I would interpret it in such a way that the loss of spirituality and the need to belong to a group of people who ensure one's survival seems to be something that only allows cults to form due to the absence of this spiritual - rather everyday and self-evident - superstructure. Your text, too, feeds and is fed by the presence of the cult; without it, the art you created to go with it would not have been born in the publication. One is both fascinated and repelled, but the interest is there. The important insight for me was to see that the opposing camps are not very different from each other at all, but do not recognise this. But you can see it in the choice of words. There is an "us" and the "world" in it. Not the "I". The first-person perspective is more direct, it cannot hide behind "we" or "the others", "the people". That is why it is avoided wherever one is "trying to save the world against evil". In order to justify this, the opponent must be dehumanised, must be a monster, one must not attribute anything positive or understandable to the opponents in order to fight them. But fighting someone who is basically already on "the other side", i.e. an acquaintance or even a lover, becomes pointless because one feels connected to this person despite opposing views.
A friend who recently got vaccinated asked me if I would continue to be her friend. I asked, "How do you think I will respond?" She laughed and I laughed too and the matter was settled. If I had started criticising her decision, it would not have ended well.

"Disinformation" - I cannot even say what that is. Every form of information challenges me.

Here on Hive, I think we are in the same boat. The destinies of us average people are controlled by other forces, but to think that you either have to join them or fight them makes me think there is nothing in between. But this in-between seems to me to be underrepresented.