IMO cults are like Roach Motels. Once you check in, you cannot check out.

In a healthy, group or relationship people are upfront about their hopes, dreams and values. In relation to such a group or relationship a decision to leave can be sad and quite painful, but you can leave without feeling damaged, not feel afraid and depart with your dignity intact. And...(very important) you can still remain friends with those who choose to stay in the group.

The sign of a bad group or harmful relationship (eg Roach Motel) is when dissent or departure are considered betrayal, not a choice that is regrettable yet worthy of respect.

In an harmful group or relationship departure or disagreement are turned into ordeals.

In a harmful group, you cannot simply leave. Leaving is traumatic. You have to defect. Or get kicked out. Even to imagine leaving is difficult.

In such a group leaving is [b:6468797648]not [/b:6468797648]respected and is not considered normal--in a bad group or relationship there's no way to graduate.

Departure is treated as a sign that you're a failure or a traitor and those who stay with the group are ordered to forget you/vilify you and forbidden to communicate with you. Anyone who is ejected or leaves is suddenly pathetic, weak or a villain, no matter how many years they were members or how much support they gave. They may once have been considered model members. If you leave all your past loyalty and achievments suddenly mean nothing.

This is an crucial difference between a cult and a 'new religious movement'. Authentic religions (whether new or old) assist our search for liberty and we can leave without being treated as a traitor or a failure.

In good groups, we know where the exit route is, even in relation to the group itself. And in a healthy group, you can apply your questioning mind to any and all topics--including the group and its internal affairs.

Cultic groups are quite different. The questing mind that brought you to a cult is, after you join the cult, no longer praised. Instead you're gradually trained to replace your questing mind with an indoctrinated mind.

This training need not be formal. Humans are social and we watch what others do. In some cases, formal indoctrination (hectic schedule, lovebombing, LGAT tactics that deprive of sleep and confuse the mind) will be employed.

In the more sophisticated cults, your questing mind is domesticated--like house-breaking a dog.

Just as domestic dogs are taught not to piss or drop turds indoors, smarter cults teach you not to apply critical thinking to the group--the equivlent of not whizzing in the house.

However, you're allowed, sometimes even encouraged, to apply that same skepticism and intellectual sophistication to topics outside the group--especially in relation anything or anyone the group considers a threat.

Or you're taught to apply your sarcasm and skepticism to bash members whom the group designates as scapegoats.

You think you're free, you feel free, you may have all kinds of breakthroughs or bliss experiences, but your horizons have actually shrunk--in a process Janja Lalich has termed 'Bounded Choice'--(see her book of the same title).

But the cult owns your inner life and you forget where the exit is--or you become afraid to imagine leaving.

In bounded choice, you learn not to test the limits, much the same way people with angry partners unconsciously become skilled at avoiding topics that make the person angry. The limits get more confining, you constrict your behavior further and further, avoiding any open ruptures.

Some groups enforce the the limits by using strategic rejection. They are skilled at brutally identifying members who have misgivings but whose misgivings are still unconscious. In strategic rejection, these persons are brutually ejected before their misgivings become conscious.

A group or leader that can skillfully apply strategic rejection of selected victims whose skepticism has not yet become conscious delivers a powerful message to stay in line. Thg victims may be haunted, feeling they 'did something' to provoke their ejection, but may never guess that what they did was come dangerously close to waking up on their own that it was time to leave. Instead they got kicked out before they could do it themselves, robbing them of any sense of conscious mastery. They got kicked out for growing--and for nearly outgrowing a vindictive and needy leader.

Instead of having doubts about the group or its guru, you're taught to have doubts about anyone who disagrees or shows less than total enthusiasm.

If there are freaked out rejectees hanging on the fringes of a group, this increases the drama and subtly trains remaining members to keep their minds on a short leash.

After skepticism has become housebroken to serve the group and never question the group there are fewer things you can talk about--and you experience this constriction as normal. It may be balanced by intense experiences, by the delights of group gossip and intrigue. All this pseudo intensity distracts from what you've given up as the price of staying in good standing.

In the remaining safe topics, you feel quite free. But overall, your range of inner freedom and topics for discussion has shrunk.

Intensity and dream of power become valued at the expense of inner liberty and the ordinary democratic give and take of adult peer relationship--which may be devalued as dull, as mediocre, as demonic or evidence of narcissism or inferior levels of consciousness.

You learn to avoid applying your questing mind to the cult, its background, its leader's pretensions, where he got his training, who taught him, or whether he had a criminal record or if he or his group changed names.

You learn not to apply your questing mind to where the money goes or why some people suddenly stop coming to meetings and everyone pretends they never existed--or suddenly badmouths them.

This kind of common sense fact checking is often discouraged, treated as evidence of cynicism, when its what we need to do for all sorts of tasks, such as deciding what make of car or computer to purchase.

In some cases, people may be subtly taught to profess some sophisticated skepticism about the group and guru, make it seem they're not as over the edge as more extreme devotees, making it seem one can follow the guru, but not become a blissed out zombie. But--if any really effective challenge is made to the guru or group, these 'housebroken skeptics' will suddenly get quite defensive of the group and turn vicious.

These 'not-quite devotees' are valuable because they make it seem one can be a devotee and stay respectable and functional in society.

The fact is, their social and intellectual sophistication have been domesticated--house broken--to serve the group's agenda. More damaged members may be kept out of sight, or may be abused as members of the guru's inner circle.

If you were expertly trained by a group to have your intellect and skepticism housebroken, you'll feel free and very sophisticated-- but you're still on a leash--the leash is quite a long one, a modern extendable leash that lengthens when you pull on it.

But it is still a leash.

In such a case you turn off your questing mind in relation to the group, like the house-broken dog, and know to find the dog-door when you apply your critical thinking skills to anything not directly related to the group.

The minute someone uses their intellect and skepticism and actually does the equivalent of pissing in the house--they'll get the equivalent (or worse) of a biff on the snout with a rolled up newspaper.

You are trained to forget there is a decent life outside the group and made to feel that outside life is dull, dangerous or inferior.

Or, you may operate in this outside life like a secret agent on a mission--you may hold down a well paying job, but secretly feel your real life is to serve the group. This secrecy may be quite thrilling--especially if as a child you experienced parental love by keeping secrets.

You're taught to forget where the exit signs are, so you lose ability to imagine leaving the cult situation. The thrill of feeling special and the equivalent thrill of despising an inferior world may hide what you've actually lost.

Many cults are crazy making because you're made to hope and believe you can someday 'get it right' when, there is something in the group doctrine that makes proficiency impossible, or the leader has an unconscious hang up and feels threatened when members show signs of progress and will either punish them or try to confuse them if they DO show signs of progress.

[b:a321cb267c] At one point I wrote on the JG forum:[/b:a321cb267c]

Personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with anyone, spiritual or otherwise, running for political office. There is something peculiar, however, in denying any religious affiliations you might have when you Do run for office.
And when your religious leader goes underground when there is a controversy, I for one, start to get suspicious.
And when the self- professed devotees of that religious leader start to change their behavior and the nature of there religious services, [as I was witness to, I might add], when their leader goes underground after political controversy involving one of his [very high ranking] followers, who publically denies any affiliation with said religious leader, It does raise the odd eyebrow.
Where is Chris Butler? Is there anybody out there?
Why doesn't He respond?
Hypocrital? Maybe, but who am I being hypocritical to? I adhere to no religious philosophy or leader, and I state my own beliefs only, so I don't accept the designation of hypocrit.
No, really, what is Siddhasvarup up to these days? Doesn't he want anybody [outside of the inner circle] to know?
And if not, WHY?

[b:a321cb267c]And I was swatted by a devotee with the proverbial rolled-up newspaper:[/b:a321cb267c]
(I can't find the old post where i called the cult another apocalyse cult)
Posted: 05-12-2005 01:23 PM    Post subject:

I believe I know who "Bonnie" is and I would like to ask them in reference to thier criticizing Lord Krishna as being the God of War:
Quote: "Well I should have seen it coming. After all, Krishna was the God of war in the Bhagavad-gita not a prince of peace, just another cult believing in the great holy war."
#1 Was this person at one time a devotee of Lord Krishna? I know this person had connection with ISKON when she was younger.
#2 Did this person pray to Lord Krishna at one point in her life to help her, and if Krishna helped her with her personal problem, did she end up making a shrine for him and worshiping Lord Krishna for some time?
Hypocrisy? Well isn't it hypocritical to be criticizing Lord Krishna and acting as if anyone who worships Lord Krishna is a cult follower, when she herself has and possibly is still engaging in such worship?

[b:a321cb267c]And, yet, I remain un-housetrained. Does that mean I have to go back to the pound?
I'd love to start a posting for cult-groupies like myself. Maybe I will.[/b:a321cb267c]

Corboy, I very much like your essay, thank you. I've printed out a copy and will share with my son also.

I am reading through and thinking on my past experience with a destructive cult, Church of Immortal Consciousness.

I had to defect, there was no available easy route to exit. Leaving was seen as a betrayal, a failure. No one from the cult was allowed to contact me after.

Questioning, studying, even going to the library and checking out books of interest was not allowed while I was in the group. Even newspapers were controlled.

Scapegoats were used liberally. I was often told that I reminded members of an ex member who had left before my arrival, no one would tell me what he had done wrong, it was kept as something mysterious and ominous.

I wanted to do things the right way. But I was never allowed to figure out what that was, it always changed, and I usually was accused of doing things for negative reasons. My questions about who all was part of the group and where they lived, instead of seen as questions from a new member who wanted to adjust quickly, was seen as somehow bad.

Gossip was intense, was often called "judgements", and was seen usually as a positive thing.

I arrived shortly after all the women had had their hair cut very very short, the leader had come up with some sort of spiritual reason to do this.
Because the leader was supposedly not smoking now, the members were not allowed to smoke either, but they did, semi-secretly. I volunteered for the job of walking up to the corner store to buy smokes for the smokers, I myself do not smoke. This gave me a few minutes of breathing room, interaction with people not part of the group, and also some semblance of minor rebellion. I also kept the tips from my job as a housekeeper at a resort, I was supposed to turn them in too, my pay checks already went straight to the cult. But I kept my tips, and I still recall the taste of the pie and coffee I bought for myself at a restaurant, totally illegal in terms of the rules of the cult, but all the tastier for the fact that I was doing a good, independent thing for myself.

The group especially preyed on single mothers, and even created single mothers by breaking up couples, marrying the successful men to other women in the group, and leaving the then single moms to basically fend for themselves. I remember one woman who had lost her husband this way, she tried to leave the group, moved back to stay with her parents. She found herself without any support, transportation, and was depressed. The leaders of the cult flew out to see her, and brought her back to the group.

Fortunately I did not have any money, I believe that is mainly why the leaders did not try to prevent my departure.

Most of us could never ever "get it right" because the rules always changed, and no matter what we did, it was probably wrong. Lovebombing got us into the group, this was used then occasionally to keep us in line, along with lots of sarcasm and cruelty to keep us confused.

I am so grateful that my son and I escaped. I am concerned for the members who remain, especially the children. I made it out of the roach motel, and even went on to testify concerning my experiences.

Sarah