I thought it would be helpful to post the list of what to look for in a questionable group.



See [www.culteducation.com]

Ten warning signs of a potentially unsafe group/leader.

1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.

2. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.

3. No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement.

4. Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.

5. There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.

6. Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.

7. There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader.

8. Followers feel they can never be "good enough".

9. The group/leader is always right.

10. The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

Ten warning signs regarding people involved in/with a potentially unsafe group/leader.

1. Extreme obsessiveness regarding the group/leader resulting in the exclusion of almost every practical consideration.

2. Individual identity, the group, the leader and/or God as distinct and separate categories of existence become increasingly blurred. Instead, in the follower's mind these identities become substantially and increasingly fused--as that person's involvement with the group/leader continues and deepens.

3. Whenever the group/leader is criticized or questioned it is characterized as "persecution".

4. Uncharacteristically stilted and seemingly programmed conversation and mannerisms, cloning of the group/leader in personal behavior.

5. Dependency upon the group/leader for problem solving, solutions, and definitions without meaningful reflective thought. A seeming inability to think independently or analyze situations without group/leader involvement.

6. Hyperactivity centered on the group/leader agenda, which seems to supercede any personal goals or individual interests.

7. A dramatic loss of spontaneity and sense of humor.

8. Increasing isolation from family and old friends unless they demonstrate an interest in the group/leader.

9. Anything the group/leader does can be justified no matter how harsh or harmful.

10. Former followers are at best-considered negative or worse evil and under bad influences. They can not be trusted and personal contact is avoided.

Ten signs of a safe group/leader.

1. A safe group/leader will answer your questions without becoming judgmental and punitive.

2. A safe group/leader will disclose information such as finances and often offer an independently audited financial statement regarding budget and expenses. Safe groups and leaders will tell you more than you want to know.

3. A safe group/leader is often democratic, sharing decision making and encouraging accountability and oversight.

4. A safe group/leader may have disgruntled former followers, but will not vilify, excommunicate and forbid others from associating with them.

5. A safe group/leader will not have a paper trail of overwhelmingly negative records, books, articles and statements about them.

6. A safe group/leader will encourage family communication, community interaction and existing friendships and not feel threatened.

7. A safe group/leader will recognize reasonable boundaries and limitations when dealing with others.

8. A safe group/leader will encourage critical thinking, individual autonomy and feelings of self-esteem.

9. A safe group/leader will admit failings and mistakes and accept constructive criticism and advice.

10. A safe group/leader will not be the only source of knowledge and learning excluding everyone else, but value dialogue and the free exchange of ideas.

This is the definition I used when I decided my concerns about the Gnostic Movement were valid. Anyone not see it?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2009 11:54AM by notanantiGnostic.

I thought I bring up a few qualifiers of an unsafe group since they are likely to be questioned by students of the "teachings"

1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.

From my experience there is an illusion of it not being a one man show. There are lies told which all show the contradictions. They are now saying that Mark Pritchard doesn't run the show, this seems tobe something that is relatively new change as the organization was set up to spread his teachings. This come from his own words in his story. [www.belzebuub.com] . Looking at his story it shows how it is quite likely that he was kicked of the previous organization for megalomania and fanaticism since he says things like. "All the time however, the different people in the organisation were defining themselves, placing themselves apart from me and therefore from the higher guidance from above." This also demonstrates the thoughts of Absolute authority.

10. The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

Along with the previous quote I would like to explain that having exercises where everyone is expected to come to the same conclusion is not investigating things for yourself. Those who leave the organization, like myself have left because they learned something that didn't fit in with what was taught.

But that ties in with my favourite criteria for dangerous groups

5. There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.

It is taught, although mostly as a suggest and inserted in other topics that those who have left have fallen have the path with is a razors edge. They have become Anti Gnostic, hence the name I chose to use here. Perhaps they even be influenced by negative entities.
These types of teachings are a clear example of someone trying to demonize those who have left.

I look forward to any comments that you may have.

They also play with your deep, confusing feelings and your perception of order/reality in the world.


They manipulate you slowly by giving you subtle suggestions, such as "there is an all to common myth that the world and society is moving forward". Then they say that true peace is not just lack of conflict, and that silly things like going for a walk in the garden are useless if they are done without awareness. They say true peace is when the pendelum swinging between pleasure and pain is at rest.

They also say that the devil makes the world seem like a pleasant, good place, when it really isn't. They say this without any reasonable basis or proof, but just because their intuition (or their master) tells them to "feel" this way.


Then they blame what they percieve as human faults (homosexuality, lust, entertainment, pleasure, exc.) as coming from the infra dimensions- (infra-sexuality) or hell, where we have nightmares. They say that there are deep seated, spiritual emotional truths about sexuality and disobeying them means you are corrupted by negative entities. They use our fear and confusion from our nightmares to play with peoples' emotions and superstition (fear based convincers).

This encourages anxious "what if" thinking. "What if they are right, after all?" It also tempts people to ask questions like "what does singing really mean? Is it not what I think it is", because it arouses our superstition and our psycho-babble.
I can imagine it eventually interferes with peoples' perception of the world. Believing the negative philosophies on that website must eventually make people ask questions like "are flowers evil?". If they ask if yoga is evil, then they must ask similar silly questions. But they never get the chance to reflect on whether it is silly or not, because they loose their mind in nonsense meditation.
People there often say "if you meditate on it, you will see that this is true". This makes people expect to see certain things (brainwashing). Soon enough, the individual will become suspicious of everything.

But when anyone asks whether or not this is ethical (should I destroy the egos of my mind?), some moderator makes a contrived, reassuring comment like "keep your mind open, but not too open or else your brain will fall out". The messages are mixed and covered in false reassurance. No one there really knows up from down or left from right. They have no idea where they are going. People who are lost and confused with life are attracted to Gnosticweb, and they leave more lost and confused. Belzebuub gives people messages like "spirituality is like baking a cake...many layers, keep the middle the most important" etc. which makes him seem trustworthy. But in the end, these New Age groups often having alot of edit copy edit paste going on with their philosophies.
Read this. Read that. This person doesn't agree? Paste contrived convincing quote. Paste longer quote for further justification. Oh! New awareness technique? I don't need to do it. Just reading about what other people got from it is enough. Oh! Another skeptic. Paste "this technique worked for me and other peope".

Further brainwashing is done when Belzebuub analyzes people's near death experiences. He claims to know everything about them and what they mean to certain people. Therefore, people think he knows the secrets of life and death and rely on him to sort out their confusion.

I'm curious. How many people there do you think may claim to be experts at astral travel, yet they have never really done it and just blindly make up stories to catch up with the cult?

Question: It it normal that this happens?

Answer: Oh yes, this happens quite often. Just continue the exerscises and it should pass. (that's what I've read everywhere)



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2009 06:15PM by Free_955.

Quote
Samael
I tried posting on both sites, on Gnosticweb my account was deleted without a reason then on Bezlebub's site was deleted after a few days of posting because my name was "in bad taste".
........ And they do not appreciate dissent.

Its a Common tactic for cultish groups to silence its critics.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2009 09:01AM by Keir.

Quote
notanantiGnostic
I would like to give another quote from Secret Knowledge, Hidden Wisdom page 203 "Those who betray or reject a Master of the White Lodge will never awaken, even if they Practice Alchemy".

It is very significant that this statement is made in the section of the book were people are being told to work for the Gnostic Movement, or the third Key, Sacrifice for Humanity. Essentially this is slavery disguised as a message to help others. ....
This is not tolerance.

(To repeat for the benefit of those who just started reading the thread.)

To qoute myself:
Its also meant to lead you to certain "conclusions".
This 'leading method' has been documented among cult watch specialists.
You can view some of the methods used in this parody video about cults:
[www.youtube.com]

Everyone who hasnt read George Orwells 1984 should do so. There are some valuable lessons to learn from that book and the historic back ground of the book. Its quite common for cultish groups to redefine regular meanings of words and sentences.


Qoute: "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

n/a



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2009 09:13AM by Keir.

I would like to copy a few things posted by rrmoderator in another forum that should be helpful who are suspcious of how the Gnostic Movement led by Mark Pritchard operates. This is forum I took it from the full discussion might also be helpful. [forum.culteducation.com].

Before you decide for yourself if you are dealing with a dangerous group or cult decide what that really means. Remember a group does not have to fit the whole description or every description right away, from my experience you realize more later on.


[www.culteducation.com]

Defining the word "cult"

Psychiatrist and professor at Harvard Medical School Robert Jay Lifton's writings are definitive and pivotal in understanding cults.

Lifton writes, "Certain psychological themes which recur in these various historical contexts also arise in the study of cults. Cults can be identified by three characteristics:

1. a charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose their power;

2. a process I call coercive persuasion or thought reform;

3. economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie."

Coercive Persuasion

[www.culteducation.com]

This paper by sociologist and Stanford University professor Richard Ofshe can also be helpful in better understanding the coercive persuasion methods frequently used by destructive groups.

Ofshe writes, "The key factors that distinguish coercive persuasion from other training and socialization schemes are:

1. The reliance on intense interpersonal and psychological attack to destabilize an individual's sense of self to promote compliance

2. The use of an organized peer group

3. Applying interpersonal pressure to promote conformity

4. The manipulation of the totality of the person's social environment to stabilize behavior once modified."

Recognizing thought reform

To better understand how such persuasion methods distinctly differ from education, advertising, propaganda and indoctrination note the chart prepared by psychologist and UC Berkeley professor Margaret Singer.

[www.culteducation.com]

In addition to the list mentioned in the post above I was able to see a lot of this behaviour going on in the Gnostic Movement when I started to get away from the "teachings" and the "work" (the phrase the work is very common in cultish groups)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2009 01:22PM by notanantiGnostic.

More on Thought reform,

Here is an excerpt from a good book [www.culteducation.com]. Most of the book is available at google books [books.google.ca].

The author Robert Jay Lifton has eight criteria that are as follows:

Milieu Control

Mystical Manipulation

The Demand for Purity

The Cult of Confession

The "Sacred Science"

Loading the Language

Doctrine Over Person

The Dispensing of Existence

Think about these in relation to the Gnostic Movement and the teachings of Mark Pritchard Alias Belzebuub. Particularly relevant is the area about loading language. This is giving a word a meaning that it does not have for the rest of society or redefining the word. More reading will help you if you are trying to clear your mind. This kind of work has slowly helped me.

If anyone has anything to say we could have quite an interesting discussion.

Lastly this should be good article to help with starting the recovery process. [www.culteducation.com]

"The most common key issues Singer covers in this article include depression, loneliness, indecisiveness, slipping into altered states, blurring of mental acuity, uncritical passivity, fear of the cult, the fishbowl effect, guilt, perplexities about altruism, money and elite no more." rrmoderator

I would like to relate a feeling I had when first going through this material, while being in the Gnostic Movement you are given very much a feeling of the us and them or the world and use. This extreme dualism, forgetting that the world is multifaceted and complex. This come directly from the teachings of the organization. So what you hear about from other peoples cult experiences is not going to fit yours, but you will find similarities with different peoples stories. This website is good in general to see that the techniques you have seen used are not unique and not all that special. This process takes a lot of work.