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Hyrax Attack! posted:A Mormon friend in high school who’d get annoyed if anyone spoke ill of the faith had been saving for his mission trip then abruptly changed course & bought a sweet motorcycle instead. Good for him. sick!
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Nov 28, 2023 17:33
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I have a friend who sent me some link to one of those personality tests for eclectic energies enneagram test. I'm pretty sure that's some sort of scam cult.
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Nov 28, 2023 17:50
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My favorite cult are the charlatans who operate the Waldorfian schools because they somehow managed to convince vast swathes of bougie morons that they are a respectable alternative to normal schools, so they send their kids to basically schools run by dollar store scientologists.
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Nov 28, 2023 17:54
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ikanreed posted:There's gotta be some overlap of psychotic disorder and cult membership. Most Christian scientists are just children of Christian scientists, it goes back through the generations. In my familes case it will die out with the death of my mother. All the other believers are dead. To me it always was a great example of the power of the environment and your childhood shaping your beliefs.
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Nov 28, 2023 18:26
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My mum was in a cult, along with my stepdad. The leader was an Indian guy called Guru Maharaji. He was quite blatant in the 70s with the cult aspect of it, calling himself Lord of the Universe and other such poo poo, but over time he has toned all that down to the extent that nowadays he just goes by his name, Prem Rawat, and styles himself as an ambassador for peace. At its heart is the same old poo poo though, and once you start looking through his videos he will try and and ultimately flog you the same mediation techniques that were always the core of what he offered. Apparently in India the cult-like language is still present today. One of the practices that was done at older events, that of darshan (basically kissing his feet) is also apparently still done at some of his events today, but this is all super private now. In older days, when you were indoctrinated enough to be considered ready to learn the techniques, he or one of his appointed teachers would show them to you (no charge), make you promise not to show them to anyone else, and to "keep in touch", i.e. go to events and give lots of money. The techniques by this point in the indoctrination were presented as not being properly effective without a connection with him. Today, one can easily learn the techniques on the internet. They all come from yogic traditions and texts and are unsurprisingly not specific to him, nor the other cults from India of related lineage. One of them is just basic mindfulness; the others are I would say are of questionable theoretical value. Some people gave up their lives/money/inheritances to him; some of them lived in ashrams. At one point, he closed the ashrams and all those people were turfed out on the street with no money and little employment prospects. He meanwhile lived (and still does) in mega luxury, with cars, jets etc. There was also an instructor who abused some of the children of some followers; this was denied and hushed up by the organisation. Many of the adherents who didn't suffer from those terrible things would later need therapy etc from the process of coming out of the cult. Despite this, and though it was obviously a cult and fundamentally hosed up, I'd say it was pretty mild compared to some other cults. I don't think it had a particularly deleterious effect on my mum's life; in fact she would have claimed that it brought her huge peace. She didn't have much money to be fleeced, though she went to events and poo poo and was socially involved with other "premies" (his followers). I'd sometimes go into her room and she'd be under the covers meditating - they were supposed to do it for about an hour a day I think. I remember she had some pictures of him, and I think I remember her taking me to some events (not to involve me, but because she was a widowed single mum), but otherwise it didn't hugely affect my life. I have a book containing some stuff she wrote to me while she was ill and knew she was going to die. This was when I was 10 and her illness and death (as well as my stepfather's death prior to hers) had nothing to do with the cult. Sadly, she passed before she could write too much, and most of what is there (she obviously started with this topic as it was so important to her) is exhorting me to find out more about and follow this motherfucker, which leaves a bitter taste. My only communication from my dead mum, speaking to me as an adult as she never got to do directly in life, and it's largely about this prick. I know she'd have written more had she lived longer, but it's all I've got. Who knows what would have happened had she lived, in terms of me and the cult. I have a very rational and somewhat iconoclastic mind, but I know indoctrination can be strong, especially when you're younger. I reckon I may have got involved with it at first and then ultimately rejected it, needing therapy to deal with the whole thing.
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Nov 29, 2023 16:39
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cult_hero posted:Those were the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) one of several off-shoots of Mormons who refused to give up polygamy/incest/child rape. Their main compound is Colorado City, AZ/Hildale, UT and their "prophet", Warren Jeffs, remains behind bars for his crimes. There's a documentary on netflix about them, Keep sweet: pray and obey. Very creepy poo poo.
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Nov 29, 2023 17:08
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steinrokkan posted:My favorite cult are the charlatans who operate the Waldorfian schools because they somehow managed to convince vast swathes of bougie morons that they are a respectable alternative to normal schools, so they send their kids to basically schools run by dollar store scientologists. Ah, the Steiner schools? Yeah those amusing. Not super bad, though; the worst I can say about them is that it sounds like they make it too easy for kids to choose to not learn things they really ought to know by the time they finish school. e: Though they really do seem to attract the crunchiest antivax and alt-medicine parents. Computer viking fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Dec 1, 2023 |
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Dec 1, 2023 16:56
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IIRC most studies of Waldorf schools conclude that students generally come out fine academically and possibly even a little better than average, but the huge asterisk there is that those schools all charge $$$$ and being able to afford to go there is already an indicator of good academic outcomes. I don't know how many of those studies actually control for economic status.
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Dec 1, 2023 17:54
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OneSizeFitsAll posted:My mum was in a cult, along with my stepdad. The leader was an Indian guy called Guru Maharaji. He was quite blatant in the 70s with the cult aspect of it, calling himself Lord of the Universe and other such poo poo, but over time he has toned all that down to the extent that nowadays he just goes by his name, Prem Rawat, and styles himself as an ambassador for peace. At its heart is the same old poo poo though, and once you start looking through his videos he will try and and ultimately flog you the same mediation techniques that were always the core of what he offered. Apparently in India the cult-like language is still present today. One of the practices that was done at older events, that of darshan (basically kissing his feet) is also apparently still done at some of his events today, but this is all super private now. drat, dude. I don't know what to say. That's hosed.
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Dec 1, 2023 18:09
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I have had two friends who did the Landmark Forum thing, at some point in the long-rear end session they are told to call all their friends and tell them how much they love and appreciate them and apologize for all their sins. It came off as both kind of sweet and unhinged, I think the first friend of mine who did it realized that going to raves was way better and the other one had a mental breakdown in Israel believing he was the new messiah and they shipped him home, lol
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Dec 1, 2023 19:34
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Turpitude posted:I have had two friends who did the Landmark Forum thing, at some point in the long-rear end session they are told to call all their friends and tell them how much they love and appreciate them and apologize for all their sins. It came off as both kind of sweet and unhinged, I think the first friend of mine who did it realized that going to raves was way better and the other one had a mental breakdown in Israel believing he was the new messiah and they shipped him home, lol Weirdly that is a not uncommon disorder people experience in Israel. It even has a name
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Dec 1, 2023 20:48
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Hyrax Attack! posted:The JWs are frequently camped outside libraries in suits looking bored, is that a part of their doctrine? looks like they are just checking a box and even if I was in the market for a religion nothing about that looks fun. Yeah I guess there's been a switch in doctrine where they don't ring doorbells that often anymore. Instead they have these little display cases with books and magazines and stand around near them on sidewalks. There's usually a couple of them parked outside my building, in summer and in winter. Weirdly enough they keep ringing MY doorbell. I guess membership must be down or something because they're aggressively pursuing ex-JWs. I've told them repeatedly that I'm an ex-JW and not interested in coming back, and they always make a note of it, and then a month later some other pair are at my door. But it gets even better. Here in Finland, we have mandatory military service for all men. You can instead opt for civil service, but you have to do something, or get a six month prison sentence. The JWs over here sat in prison long enough to get an exception. The elders periodically write a note to your local draft board until you're 30 and that gets you out of military service. But if you aren't super active, they'll stop writing the notes and you have to either go to prison or join the army and become an ex-JW. When they stopped writing a note for me, I opted for military service. During the last months in service, literally the night before we were leaving for a two week artillery camp in Lapland, one of the elders from my congregation called me and tried to do the "hip priest rapping with the young hoodlums" thing and told me that I had strayed far from Jehovah's light, but there was still hope for me. If I immediately went to my commanding officer and told him I was stopping my service and wanted to go to prison instead, then maybe there could still be a way for me to come back. I told him I had made my choice and was very happy with it, and told him not to call anymore.
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Dec 1, 2023 21:39
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It's kind of comforting, in a scary way, to see that I'm not the only child-of-wannbe-cult-leader around. He failed, but he's still dressing weird in the hopes that someone will ask him about it and he can try to convert them. Mom still refuses to divorce him, too, so she can . . . well, she can live with her choice to be permanently miserable and angry.
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Dec 1, 2023 23:08
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