"It doesn't need to have been anythin' to do with religion." It isn't said as a correction, just an addition; Jayden didn't study cults as his specialty, but he does know at least a little about them. "Just whatever appeals to the people she recruited. Could be power, could be some sorta' specific goal she was working toward, could've just been offering a sense of belonging. That's how a lot of cults get people." Which is, of course, depressing. Normally he might feel some sympathy for people taken in by cults, but in this situation it's pretty hard to manage, considering just how many people are dead because of them.

But that's another thought he doesn't want to dwell on, so he quickly continues. "Is that somethin' we know for sure? That it only works because of a connection with the divine?" It's something that's possible, sure, but he's skeptical; other magic seems to work without gods, so he wonders if High Magic isn't just the same way, but religion credits it to the gods. There have been so many things attributed to gods throughout history--in his world, anyway--that later turned out to be natural phenomena, after all.