"Sharing secrets with highly indoctrinated members to prompt feelings of specialness/priviledge/superiority"

As I've mentioned, I rapidly rose through the cult ranks to become a Young Women's Division Headquarters Leader, the highest local leadership level at that time. At each promotion, it was emphasized to us that we must always keep the members' confidences sacred - this was one of our most important responsibilities as leaders.

But then higher level adult-division leaders, including the lone local pioneer (old Japanese war bride) started telling me all sorts of dirt on different members and other leaders! I quickly learned that confidentiality only really applied to outsiders or members - among leaders, you were free to talk about anything and everything. There was no expectation of protecting confidences between leaders.

I had a different standard, though - I kept confidences. Period.

It just occurred to me - remember how I mentioned how, in that district I practiced with in Raleigh, NC, a creepy couple joined the group? She was quite a bit older than him, with dyed-orange hair and an overbearing, abrasive, caustic manner. She frightened me, and he typically sat there like a dazed lump. One night, he chased her in her car - she was chanting on the phone with 911 (I heard an excerpt of the call) - and the police arranged to meet her at a 7-11. She pulled into the parking lot; he took off with the police in hot pursuit. He lost them, doubled back, and shot her dead.

Lots of stuff started coming out after this - we knew she worked as a prison nurse, but didn't realize that's where she met this husband. And he was in prison for sexually abusing his own son. She had 5 different children by 5 different fathers, including mixed-race (still kind of a big deal in the South). She'd mentioned that her son had been convicted of a notorious murder in New York, I think - she said "front page USA Today, above the fold", but I was never able to track that down. AND she apparently had a dissociative disorder - she sometimes talked as if she was a sexually-abused little black girl, I understand. Apparently, she confided quite a bit to our WD District leader, who I was pretty good friends with, but even after this woman was dead, she refused to tell me about the multiple personality stuff, even though she made it clear she could have if she'd wanted to.

Bitch. >:(

Just more "Look how superior and privileged *I* am because *I* am an SGI leader - I'm privy to the best gossip - AND YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY HA HA HA!!"

Here's the guy: [crime.about.com]

As soon as he got back in the can, he reverted to fundamentalist evangelical Christianity.

More: [www.newsobserver.com]

A somewhat sympathetic portrayal: [deathwatch.wordpress.com]

Yep, I was at someone's house, sitting in the same room with this creepy guy and his even creepier wife. Hooray for the SGI!

Once, the scary woman who would later be murdered by her husband was saying how she often gave "guidance" to her husband (who was quite passive and lumpy, as I've noted before). Well, I'd heard for *years* that women's division members must *NEVER* give guidance to their husbands!

But then I realized that we never heard that men's division members must never give guidance to their wives O_O

No mention of THAT. Was it because women were more likely to become members, while still guarding a patriarchal, misogynistic structure? Notice how, in any HQ, the MEN's division leader is the ultimate authority, not any woman!

I think that since, in patriarchal/misogynistic cultures, females are raised to be obedient, submissive, agreeable, and cooperative, and this is what makes them such easy targets for cults like SGI.

Nichijew, do you have any way of contacting Hitch? I miss him...

"Even the nice person who shows you round the Waldorf school may not know the full details of Anthroposophy. "

My nutty sister-in-law, whom I met in the SGI (which was still called NSA at the time - she'd joined shortly before I did) and through whom I met my dear husband, runs a Waldorf school with her good friend from high school/college.

I can GUARANTEE YOU that she has no idea. She belongs to a Presbyterian church and speaks glowingly of it! (Since she knows I'm an atheist, she's frequently trying to pick fights by telling me about her church and its charitable activities, which she basically knows too little about to tell how inefficient it is - "We feed people", she likes to say, but start asking if people get to choose groceries for themselves, as they can with food stamps, or if the needy are simply given a bag full of whatever the church has decided to give them that week, and she gets noticeably cross...)

When cults or cult members get involved with community service, it isnt actually community service.

Its about making the cult look good. The community service is for them a mere means to an end.

Hitler made the trains run on time, so the proverb goes. But thats not because he had respect for the inherant dignity of the ordinary human person.

Its because he, like all fascists, understood machines and systems.

In any fascist set up, human beings are mere cogs in a machine.

The point of fascism/cultism isnt the well being of the cogs; a worn out cog is discarded and replaced with a new one.

Its to keep the SYSTEM humming on time.

...Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy is a a great one to examine.

Onion model at its most sophisticated.

There is a 5 page thread on Anthroposophy on this message board.

On page 3 of that thread, here is a copy from a discussion venue elsewhere. One of the discussants quoted this material.

The Anthroposophists even have their own bank, Triodos (formerly Mercury Provident) and are active in something called the Transition Town movement.

And also in nice green community service movements in which they present their astrological astral forces, phases of the moon biodynamic farming as permaculure (which it is not) or as organic farming.

It conceals an occultist and elitist religion under the guise of feel good community service.

Rather like SGI thinking its all for our own good to shokubuku us while concealing Uncle Rufus -- the way Waldorf schools conceal Rudolf Steiner and that they function as offshoots of his religion.

One in which the upper level initiates feel entitled to lie to non members, because its for our own karmic good that we be exposed to steiner designed environments and projects--just as its for our own good to become Ikeda-bots.

"
Dhar1- you asked about Steiner teacher's ultimate goal other than to deceive people. This is a Steiner teacher talking about their task

" In waldorf, every tiny detail is intentional and purpose driven. Once you start studying Anthroposophy--beyond the basic few books read by most who send their kids to a waldorf school-- then you start to see just what a good job the waldorf curriculum has done reflecting anthroposophy in every fiber of the school's life, and reflecting Rudolf Steiner's view of reality and his hopes for the larger social structure of the future.

Basically, when I was teaching waldorf, we operated out of the following assumptions:

~The children in a waldorf school are there because their destiny brought them there.

~Children in a waldorf school are more than likely a part of the Michaelic School in the spirit world, meaning they were/are loyal to the archangel Michael (aka St. Michael who conquered the demon in the 3rd grade stories and St. George who conquered the dragon in the 2nd grade stories) meeting with him between their last life and birth into this one. Michael is currently the leading spirit/angel of our time period (300 years) and his devoted followers are on earth serving him, and working towards the redemption of humanity.

~Waldorf education serves as a way to gently guide these children, these followers of Michael, into incarnating properly, healthfully, and gently waking them to their destiny."

and this is from a question and answer article in The Independent 2005

"How do Steiner schools compare with traditional state schools?

What makes them different is the vision we have for the children. We see them as incarnating spiritual beings having not only physical bodies but also subtle bodies governing emotions and desires, and energy bodies controlling the growth of the physical body. From Steiner's lectures, we have a huge volume of work that talks about how these subtle bodies develop and how the child slowly incarnates from the spiritual world into the physical matter of their bodies. Teaching needs to be aware of where the child's consciousness is, how the child is incarnating, and to be aligned with that. The understanding of the human being and the changing consciousness of the child is the vital seed from which the educational methods come."

Of course, you can choose to ignore all this, they would far rather you did, and let them get on with their job really."

[forum.culteducation.com]

More here. No regard for inherant dignity of the untransformed individual.

You matter only as part of the karmic mission.

Barf.

Quote

darkgirls
15 December 2008 4:24PM

This is by a Steiner teacher too
"To: waldorf-critics@topica.com
From: baandje <bangus nb.sympatico.ca />
Subject: RE:'Childhood is not magical' ~ Diana
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 16:39:16 +0000

IMO and as I said, Anthroposophical Waldorf often fails to address the
needs of the individual child and family. Diana's comments regarding
childhood, joy and magic touch upon a major problem that's at the heart
of Anthroposophical Waldorf in general.

The reason many Anthroposophical schools exist is because of the
Anthroposophy, period. It's not because of the children. It's because a
group of Anthroposophists have it in their minds to promote
Anthroposophy in the world. That's the Michaelic spiritual task.
Educating children is secondary in these schools; or, it's the means by
which these many Anthroposophical and cosmic Christian impulses are
incarnated.

In Anthroposophical Waldorf schools, ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING centers
around the task of implementing Steiner's spiritual scientific theories.
Educating children is looked upon in much the same way Anthroposophical
spiritual concepts are embraced: children are "temperaments" or "stages
of human development"; they're vessels for purpose of receiving cosmic
wisdom in the form of an Anthroposophical curriculum. One could go even
further and say children in an Anthroposophical Waldorf school are
looked upon as "the future initiators of the Christ Impulse". Again,
EACH INDIVIDUAL CHILD'S EDUCATION takes a back seat to the spiritual
scientific and cosmic Christian tasks and ideals of the Anthroposophical
initiative.

The idea of "magical childhood" is more than just a banal
generalization; it's simply more spiritual theory and word play along
the lines of all those many other typical Anthroposophical spiritual
sayings: We must "strengthen our will" or we must "overcome our fear of
the future." But what does any of it really mean, other than something
having to do with the way Anthroposophists conceptualize?

Does any of this spiritual conceptualizing and generalizing actually
have anything to do with the individual child, and with educating the
individual child? Maybe "the individual child in relation to
Anthroposophical theory and pedagogy", or in relation to "the cosmos" or
"the Christ". But that's the issue here -- that all of these grand
"magical" sayings and words are first and foremost about instilling and
reinforcing Anthroposophical spiritual theory, and nothing more. It is
not about educating the "individual child".

Whether it is SGI or another "onion model" cult such as Anthroposophy/Waldorf,

The point of it all is the mission and the cultic system needed to incarnate (put meat) on the system.

Members (and kids in the Waldorf schools plus parents who are not told the actual beliefs) are mere cogs in this system, recruited to put meat on it.

The cogs serve the mission. The mission doesnt serve the cogs.

Cogs are interchangeable.

And such systems always need a supply of cogs to keep it going.

Blech.

I have to admit, this whole waldorf-school issue is completely new to me; there are a couple of them in Baltimore and I knew of their existence. There's a town in MD called waldorf, and I must've just always associated them back to the location. I always thought of it as one of the exclusive private schools, with no idea of its sinister background and methods. Here's their website:

[www.waldorfschoolofbaltimore.org]

Looks perfectly innocuous, no? Just appealing to those parents who want their kids to continue growing into special little snowflakes. It's particular repellent when you realize that these are elementary/middle-school aged children, who are so . . . teachable.

We wouldnt let just any bloke root around inside our computers, would we?

In relation to computers, it is now common knowledge that hackers are out there, and it is no longer considered paranoid to beware of online scams.

We need to normalize this type of intelligent, knowledgeable vigilence in relation to mind hackers who *phish* for new recruits by not giving full disclosure about their principles in running infants schools, childrens schools, and elder care facilities.

Thought I am using Waldorf as a quite vivid example of dissimulation as part of recruitment, it applies to many other groups, perhaps SGI.

If someone has fought free from SGI, life must be lived. Family life, school placements, elder care. And friends or relatives who may unknowingly become entangled in webs spun by operators who want their time, treasure and energy.

If you know anyone thinking of schools for their children, they should
go and run a background check, by doing "waldorf" "concerns" "parents".

waldorf concerns parents critical

Or just type waldorf watch

Look up Waldorf and jewish for added info.

[www.google.com]

Whether you are looking for a school for your children (any age), a boarding school for your troubled teen or -- (drum roll for us baby boomers) elder care,
it is sad to say but an index of suspicion is needed.

You have money, possible volunteer time to donate. And, when stressed out by the need to place your little child in school or your aging fragile relative in a care situation, it is nearly unbearable to face that the world is not a safe place and that such situations need to be fact checked.

And it seems paranoid to imagine that someone with a lovely school might give you incomplete information because the school is operated by a group that thinks they are entitled to lie to potential recruits - "for their own good".

Schools and eldercare are services and aimed at a vulnerable set of people - children and elders but (important!) parents and adults who are busy and due to pressures from the culture, often feeling guilty, shame ridden, inadequate, often feeling ashamed they cant spend more time with their children or their elderly parents but who have to work.

Exactly the conditions exploitable by any cultic group on a mission.

Or..just a lone granny basher or kiddy diddler/nunce.

And once your children are in school, parents have to be aware of programs offered in such schools, especially yoga or meditation, or alleged enrichment activities volunteer activities. Who is offering to teach meditation to your kids in school? Find out. If its a group tied to SGI or transcendental meditation or art of living -- those have been identified as profiteering cults.

A garden project that is taught by a nice, ever so nice person who is gonna teach biodynamic farming? That person might not even know its based on a religion. Or may know and feel entitled to conceal this information -- because a biodynamic project is conducted according to Anthroposophical *ritual* as designed by Rudolf Steiner and anyone involved with it, even unknowingly, is gonna be given karmic benefits and this justifies keeping them ignorant so that they are exposed to those wonderful influences -- and dont remove themselves because of silly suspicions about Anthroposophy...

Also, look up Waldorf and Jewish

[www.google.com]

Spartacus gave this thread a great power tool by using information
on Bronte Baxter's site to compare SGI with Transcendental Meditation

[forum.culteducation.com]

I can offer some additions (I nearly misstyped it as 'addictions')

Things to watch out for:

A friend of yours is suddenly happy and glowing. Most human problems, if dealt with via work and stable insight, resolve gradually. If someone is suddenly happy or euphoric, they may be 'high' on group influence of some sort.

In the West even those of us who are not Christians are influenced by the story of Paul of Tarsus being converted from hate to love in a surge of blinding light.

And we love our friends and wish them well. So be cautious if a friend has gone through sudden, simingly miraculous transformation and wants you to do it too.
Too often these ecstacies can be produced via adroit social engineering.

If you are yelled at and accused of being a hater or a cynic for daring question your friends happiness -- or she suddenly goes icy and silent, thats a signal her or his happiness is a fragile achievement, not deep rooted healing that can withstand queries.

A guru who is, according to biographical information, in his or her 70s or 80s
but looks smooth faced and younger by two decades. A guru who needs plastic surgery is still in the grip of ego -- and high maintainance.

*A guru who has CPAs and a PR strategy. Avoid. If a formerly humble and unpretentious guru acquires these -- leave.

*A guru who wears a lot of fashionable clothing or gold and is always surrounded by an entourage. If the guru has kids or relatives, they may need pampering, too. (Private schools, Harvard, Stanford, ski vacations, expensive weddings, etc)

*What can someone who lives with an entourage teach all of us who run our own errands? Even if the founding guru lived in simplicity in an ashram and still was waited on, hand and foot, that person is still living as a wealthy person. The rest of us dont have entourages.

A celibate guru urges followers to marry, get good jobs and have kids. This is quite a departure from Indian (and most Asian traditions) which mandated spiritual quest for renunciates.

That means two things:

**Disciples usually return to their home countries in the West. They dont stay around at the ashram and become a drag on its resources. Back in the West by following Gurus instructions to become householders, marry, get good jobs and have kiddies, they are kept busy. Morale is boosted by guru study groups and letters. They earn money. They are tied to family life and less likely to go live 24-7 at the gurus ashram in India and become a drag on resources. Its better for members to build their assets in their home countries. Why? Because Australian and US dollars, Euros, Swiss Francs and British Pound Sterling have vastly greater purchasing power than Indian rupees.

The guru can come to these countries for visits and bring hard currency back to India -- and with increased purchasing power buy political support and buy gold and real estate.

* Big building projects. They become money-pits. Two, when you slave away to donate money and labor for that fancy ashram or sanctuary -- watch out. Once it is built, you may no longer be able to see the guru -- who will remind you that you are being egotistical to feel disappointed at guru's lack of gratitude.

When a guru (whether Hindu, Buddhist, Christian or Sufi (fake Sufi, genuine Sufi makes no diffence) acquires a fancy ashram -- all too often favoritism crystalises. Who is allowed into the sanctum and who is not? Who gets the best appointment slots for access to the music studio for recording a ghazal or kirtan or chant one has composed? Whoever is in favor, thats who.

And whowever is in favor can change at any time. Palaces bring problems.

*A stance of smiling serenity maintained at all times, even in circumstances where most of us would be upset. These persons may give an impression of strength and remarkable confidence, but this calm and smiling facade will shatter if someone knowingly or unknowingly makes fun of their guru and religion. Then the smiles and serenity will be replaced by childish viciousness.

With time, one may realize that this smiling serenity is not from genuine psychological integration but is a very well rehearsed default response. Sweet condescending humor may be used to distract or trivialize concerns. Smile, smile, smile.

If someone is in a smiley face group for very many years and cannot afford facelifts, the person may over years develop grotesquely deep smile lines at corners of eyes and mouth.

(Corboy note) In general, watch out for any group that is reportedly all about love, love, love. They're the ones who turn savage when their guru is exposed.

* Members are so dependant that they have pictures of their guru -- sometimes very many pictures - fostering an impression that they little different from young children who need to carry a favorite blanket or teddy bear at all times. In some cases, they may not have pictures of the guru but may decorate their rooms and offices in a manner prescribed by the guru.

*Some groups encourage members to dress only in a restricted range of colors, encourage a sugary, sentimental style meant to attract good karmic influences or assist in removing bad karmic impressions. This style may seem non specifically "new age" to outsiders, but have a quite specific theological meaning inside the group.

*The cult seems to value money and materialism too much. One *does* have to earn money to survive in this economy, but one should not be under pressure to have a certain 'look'.

*Building projects that are pushed through with no respect for concerns of neighbors. If you're the ones who know God, why care about the ignorant?

* A cult pushes for a particular type of dress code, or even, in some cases, a particular style of interior decor. (Anthroposophists do this. Some groups encourage members to dress only in a restricted range of colors, encourage a sugary, sentimental style meant to attract good karmic influences or assist in unwinding samskaras)

*****Beware if there is a high rate of marriage within a cult.

*****Be especially concerned if there's subtle or not so subtle pressure to have children, and especially if the guru and upper mangement seem to favor or be comprised of persons married in the cult and also who have children, while persistently single members are not nearly as favored -- unless they are affluent and have useful social or business connections.

******Be yet more wary if you notice that there's a trend to divorce non believing or disaffected partners followed by a second marriage to someone already in the cult.

If you note If you and your spouse are both in the cult, and one of you is mistreated or has doubts, you risk being divorced by your spouse and shunned by the group if you complain.

If you are both married and have children while in the cult and then one of you has doubts, the doubter may risk being shunned, divorced, may not be able to afford an attorney of the same caliber as the one supplied by the pooled wealth of the cult.

One feature listed by Spartacus:

Drugs are forbidden/discouraged – credit for drug abuse recoveries assigned to practice/master

(Corboy) Some groups may prefer to recruit people who have been through drug and alcohol hell. That way, the person lives in fear that if he or she questions to cult, or gets kicked out, they will relapse.

One sign if if a group (or a therapist affiliated with a cult) fails to mention or even discourages participation in rehab programs offered by hospitals outside of the cult. Another tip off: a group discourages or forbids participation in 12 Step programs such as AA, NA and Ala-non.

12 step groups encourage diverse viewpoints, and even atheist AA groups exist. And 12 Step groups, unlike cults, encourage service, but never at the expense of a person finding and keeping jobs and family life. And the 12 Traditions of AA forbid prosyletizing on behalf specific religions, sects, or political projects.

And in 12 Step, unlike cults, one is free to come and go, and you can dump your sponsor if you feel your sponsor is acting like a dictator.

Anyone who is at a 12 Step group and tries to use it to prosyltize their guru or group is *violating* the 12 Traditions. Dont let anyone do this.