TO: corboy
FM: FCSLC
RE: Cold Reading & Barnum Effect

Thank you. I will investigate these with great interest. I'm especially interested in any tricks used to manipulate people into 'deceiving themselves' out of their own freewill, convictions and religious duty so to speak.

Thanks again.

You would find the book "Twisted Scriptures" interesting.

(With sadness)

I learned this the hard way -- a bad group or off balance leader
wants you to keep secrets. God doesnt deal in secrecy.

Privacy is negotiated between equals. Privacy supports truthfulness. Secrecy
generates lies and oppression.

Secrecy is imposed -- and it serves the Adversary. Paul told his judges that he
preached openly and things were not done in a corner.

Whispers and rumors and secret keeping are signs of a bad relationship, whether a group or friendship going sour -- or a church going sour.

The ways to confuse us are many.

* Keeping people busy and short on sleep. This hampers our ability
to use critical thinking -- and that includes discernment, a delicate
process.

* Exploiting crises when people are under stress due to hardship
in their lives. This happens to any of us - we get sick, or someone we
love gets sick or has some other hardship.

* People we love and trust are tricked into putting their trust
in something misleading and we trust their recommendation because we love
them as friends. This happened to me.

* Hanging onto good memories and not being able to face that a once
trustworthy leader or group has changed for the worse.

*Becoming used to living with unease. I have fallen into this trap a lot. I
grew up in a very anxious family and so before I could think, I was
accustomed to living in the midst of unease. People from this kind of background
can easily ignore bad signs or incongruities.

Properly taught and understood, God works through creation and through our bodies and relationships, not against them.

* Are you getting sick more often? When I got out of a bad situation, I
had fewer colds. A girl pal of mine who was involved in a miserable relationship
and got out of it, was amazed when her grades improved and her anemia went away. She'd been suffering heavy GYN bleeding due to stress. When she left this
bad situation, her health improved.

* If you get sick do you discover you are glad because that means you dont have
to go to church or to meetings of a group that is making you miserable?

* Do you find yourself feeling angry or anxious or depressed when on your way to church or a group that you formerly enjoyed?

*Are you doing more stress eating? Doing shopping compulsions you never had before? Instead of feeling shame and berating yourself, treat these as clues and apply discernment. I was once very angry at someone. Instead of being able to face this, I did something I had not done before -- purchased and read books about battles and military affairs. I remember being puzzled. Only after I got out of the situation did I realize I was feeling as though in a war, and acted it out in my choice of reading materials. So...notice changes in your own behavior -- it may be a sign of a secret you are keeping from yourself.

* You find you are putting more effort into hiding things about yourself
because you dont want to allow an opening that could lead to your being
reprimanded

* You learn to avoid key words or topics that trigger discord or work requests
from your domineering leader

* You stop telling your family or friends about what is going on because you feel afraid that if you do tell theml, they will stare and think it is strange or bad for you and you dont want to face this kind of honest input from your friends.

Or...

You never bring friends to church with you because you are embarressed by how weird the church is.

paleface Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Or...
>
> You never bring friends to church with you because
> you are embarrassed by how weird the church is.


Ha--I had a friend who brought a shy, Christian co-worker to a church service during the height of the 'violent' intercession phase. He placed him at the front of congregation...the place was packed, difficult to make an exit even if you wanted to. This person, over the course of a couple hours, weathered declarative prayers along the lines of 'God D*MN the Nephilim!*&!!'
I think he still suffers from PTID (post traumatic intercession syndrome).

"You never bring friends to church with you because
> you are embarrassed by how weird the church is."


If things go on at your church that you don't feel you can tell your
outside friends about, over time You can find it too much of an effort to maintain church life and outside friendships, precisely because there are too many things you cannot tell your friends.

So, over time you may, by default, spend less time with your outside friends and end up with only the church and its people for company. You can
end up surrounded by people who have done the same thing -- dropped
outside relationships.

Ever so slowly, like fog drifting in, you end up lacking outside perspective.

**And..one of the things you dont like to be aware of is...feeling trapped. That becomes one of the things you find you dont want to face, and that feeling of being trapped becomes another secret you keep from yourself. It can be tempting to become yet busier with church or group projects and convince yourself that all this is right for you. And that feeling trapped is just a temptation from ego.

And because one often drops outside friendships by default, by not
thinking about it, you dont realize you've done it.

And these days, when so many of us have the 'busy disease' our
outside friends may be too distracted to catch on that they
are not seeing us quite so often.

In case any of it is of use, I once wrote a series of posts on what I called
social commute -- the effort it takes to go back and forth between the outside world and a church or group that has become increasingly off kilter.

I wrote much of it with guru based set ups in mind. But with some adjustments, you may find a few things that describe what happens when a church or group goes sour.

And..finally. Watch out if during pastoral counseling or shepherding, you are told something about yourself that turns into an oppressive secret. Here is
what happened to me over twenty years ago.

I had a spiritual advisor decades ago. One day, I told a friend
something X had said to me. This friend was shocked.

I knew in my heart that she was quite right to be upset, but at the
same time, I felt defensive of this spiritual director.

So...I stopped talking about the guy.

And...here's the thing. THis spiritual advisor told me something
that turned into a secret.

He told me I had the potential to become spiritually advanced. And at
the same time, warned that this exposed me to assaults from
the adversary.

So...this threatened me with ego inflation if I thought
about this too much, and it was something I could not share
with just anyone for fear of being laughed at.

So, because thinking about this exposed me to the threat of
ego arrogance, I dared not ponder why X even told me this.

It increased my dependance on him.

And...it never did occur to me that perhaps he told others this
same thing --(!)

So watch out.

Spot on, Corboy! Your observations align with my experience 100%. It is my opinion that the master of this trick is Marilyn. She will tell you some secret thing like "you are the best..." to make you feel very special and favored by her.

Am grateful that the stuff I went through helps
others see that these forms of seduction, flattery and trickery
tend to fall into patterns. One can learn to spot these
methods being used in different situations.

We do not know how much time each of us is given for this
life.

So it is cruel and unacceptable if anyone ever dares to suggest
that being put through these trickeries is some sort of
necessary 'purification' or 'test of faith' or a 'lesson'.

We are persons, not objects to be toyed with.

I forgot to give the URL for the Social Commute thread.

[forum.culteducation.com]

corboy

I’ve made it through page two of “Social Commute -- How Much will a Group Ask of You?”

It’s exhaustive to say the least. I need to take notes because I start getting lost in all the information.

In the light of all your research, what is your opinion concerning occasional, not forced, independent, for free, non cult affiliated, non drug induced, all natural "transcendent experiences"?

Dear FCSLC:

I know that social commute thread is dense. I was going through
a painful discovery at the time I wrote most of it.

I think the best part I came up with was the discovery that the phrase
'take what you like and leave the rest' is utterly misleading when
used by someone who does not give us full disclosure of what their
group's belief system consists of -- if we do not know what 'the rest of it' is,
how can we take what we like and leave 'the rest'?

You had asked, "In the light of all your research, occasional, not forced, independent, for free, non cult affiliated, non drug induced, all natural "transcendent experiences"?"

I probably come across as disapproving. With the conditions you list, I do not think such experiences are a problem or something to worry about -- so long as we take care to apply discernment.

And so long as we pay attention if friends and family point out that
we have become harder to deal with after having had such an experience.

I have had a few peak experiences that fall into the catagories you describe.

There is no cause for concern if:

* You dont find yourself clinging to the experience in a craving manner.

* New meaning and depth in your religious growth occurs but in ways that
are, in the old and fine sense of the word, 'edifiying' -- support your growth
and give added depth to your awareness and care for others.

* Your sleep patterns are not disrupted

* You can resume functioning day to day and remain capable of looking
after yourself and your dependants. (Eg after the experience you remain able to
concentrate on necessary tasks, such as minding the road when driving.)

* You dont become arrogant or puffed up after such experiences -- and dont
become terrified, either.

* Above all, whoever you consult for guidance after you have such experiences
must never try to get you dependant on their guidance, or tell you that you are special.