In Defense of the Cult
Countless times, people have asked me, “What do you really do in that Latin club anyway?” They are looking for an explanation for the total devotion John C. Kirtland Society members have to their club, and their seeming willingness to do anything, go anywhere, and spend six hours a week poring over laborious Latin sources. There is no simple way to explain this loyalty in a five–second soundbite, so I usually just say, “We do the most insane stuff, but it’s my favorite thing in the world”.
The Kirtland Society is often leveled with accusations of cult–like behavior. While we can neither confirm nor deny these allegations, I recently found myself telling an innocent Fishers Islander, “It’s not a cult, it’s a family”. How I got into this family is a funny story: I was hanging out with a guy, it was Friday night, he was going to Latin club, and I tagged along. They were doing Latin Jeopardy, and every time I got a question right, I would get another piece of candy. The boy quit Kirtland, and here I am on the New Hampshire state team.
However dubious my initiation, I was quickly wrapped into this club and it soon became the thing I was most excited by. Every Friday night, I would leave dinner at 7 and run across the lawn to the Academy building. As I walked through the heavy doors of the Latin study, I felt like I dropped my problems outside. Friend problems, grades, homesickness, insecurity– all fell away as I put on my imaginary toga and returned to the world of Cicero and Caesar.
For an hour, I became close with people I could never have imagined. We ouija’d on the Assembly Hall balcony, put on skits on the stage, built Legos while sitting on tables, did Secret Saturnalias, mock legal trials, auguries, chariot racing, Roman cooking, and gladiator fights.
With each sword-stab, bite of garum, and piece of Lego Colosseum, we learned a little more about our members. From philosophy to psychology to social structures to the movie “Madagascar” (3, of course), we formed a bond unlike any other on campus. New members discovered the power of being immersed in something you love with people who love it, upperclassmen enjoyed their weekly return to Latin Land, and the Augusti (our coheads) smiled upon us all. Kirtland changed from little circles of friends sneaking glances around to one group. No matter who you sat next to, no matter where you were in the world, you had a shared love that made everything easy.
Kirtland is not a “sit and watch” club– you are constantly in it, constantly talking or listening or thinking or feeling or laughing. Sometimes, I leave reluctantly to take a call or go to the restroom. When I come back, I stop at the door and watch. Smiles go past a small curve– teeth parted, it feels as if every person there has so much joy inside of them they can’t take it all and are pushing it out into the very air itself. At least, that’s how I feel. I rush back into the room and feel that pure love hit me like the smell of warm cookies, or flowers, or king-sized sharpies. You cannot properly understand that feeling until you are in it, and that is why we all struggle so much in describing the wonder of that group. For them, I would go to war, give every cent I had, and live in a 97-degree fourth–floor dorm room filled with cockroaches. There is so much closeness in that club that I cannot leave it, just a little bit, to explain to someone else the phenomenon that is the John C. Kirtland Society. You have to feel it yourself.