When I was pregnant with my son, I almost named him Atlas. I loved the way it sounded, like a name built for someone who would spend his life discovering things and chasing the horizon. But then I remembered the other Atlas, the one from Greek mythology condemned to hold the weight of the world on his shoulders. I couldn't put that on him. Not even as a name.

We have all studied cults in hindsight. We know the names, the footage, the outcomes. Jonestown. Heaven’s Gate. NXIVM. Aum Shinrikyo. The Manson Family. We watch the documentaries and wonder how people did not see it. We ask how ordinary individuals ended up defending leaders, repeating slogans, rejecting outside reality checks, and accepting behavior they once would have rejected. That question usually comes with an assumption: if we were there, we would have recognized the warning signs.