Extreme eagerness to disavow accusations of cultishness ... doth the lady protest too much perhaps? My hobby is occasionally compared to a cult. The typical reaction of an adherent to this accusation is generally "Heh, yeah, totally a cult."
Edit: Oh, but you call him "Guru" ... so on reflection you were probably (?) making the same point... (whoosh, sorry).
> Extreme eagerness to disavow accusations of cultishness ... doth the lady protest too much perhaps?
You don't understand how anxious the rationalist community was around that time. We're not talking self-assured confident people here. These articles were written primarily to calm down people who were panickedly asking "we're not a cult, are we" approximately every five minutes.
Edit: Oh, but you call him "Guru" ... so on reflection you were probably (?) making the same point... (whoosh, sorry).