A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaninglessness of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring on them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves — and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman

True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 2, ch. 5, § 34 (2.5.34) (1951)
    (Source)