As per the discussion earlier about the "$GI Chameleon", these are some recent clips from the cult org.'s NYCC (New York Culture Center), catering to the Indian and Chinese cult member communities, respectively:

[www.youtube.com].

[www.youtube.com]

Now I know that some cult members are going to say, this is only an innocent sharing of cultures, cultural education, etc.. I disagree. This is the chameleon cult org. in full swing. Bond with members of your own ethnic community second, but bond with the cult org. itself first. Forging some very strong (lifelong and multigenerational) ties, to keep you in, and keep you shackled to the magical / wishful thinking and superstition.


- Hitch

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TaitenAndProud
. . . . in order to advance to a certain level of adult-division leadership, you had to be married. Just one more way the organization structured your life for you.

Case in point:

Ethan Gelbaum (current Cult Org. "VP" in NYC). Dorky, lanky, balding, socially inept, not too intelligent, hormone raging YMD, asian-o-phile (who lusted after other - older - married asian cult org. women - possible mother's complex, too). Eventually set up with a cult arranged marriage to a chubby Japanese woman from the motherland, promoted in the cult org. hierarchy when he defended the cult org. during the priesthood excommunication, and now has two grown misfortune children for Cousin Rufus (I wonder if they have fully accepted the brainwashing, have their own doubts or are questioning things).

I guarantee you that the Japanese leadership views Gelbaum as a stupid lap dog who will do anything that they ask him to or need, no questions asked. Not very bright, but very loyal.


- Hitch

Useful.

That's the most important characteristic.

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The whole thing is absurd and quite medieval. But it does raise the issue which you point out so well; how anyone would want to belong to a group which is willing to act this way and be so cruel is beyond me.

Many join when all they have been allowed to see are the happy smiles and togetherness.

I bet that there are people who leave when they catch on that a group either is living a collective lie, and has been all along. Or they leave when they see that the group did start out well, but has been steered off course into a corrupt direction.

New converts will not be told about those who have left, or will be given distorted information.

The ones who remain, and especially those who remain in a group even when its leader has steered it into a more and more despotic direction--those who remain are perhaps those who fear the pain and loneliness of making a hard decision to leave something that is tied to good memories and idealism of youth.

Some may fear to leave dreading that their still believing spouse will put them through a ghastly divorce, especially if children are involved. So there may be a few members who silently suffer, knowing that its all wrong but keep mum, due to circumstances.

Though there are others who will leave, even if it means being crucified in a wretched divorce.

I want to make it as clear as possible that people who remain in a group whose leadership is revealed as having been despotic all along or in a group that started out well, but is being taken in a more and more cultic direction and away from its former freedom---I want to make clear that those who remain dont consciously want to be abused.

A coin sorter effect may take place. Ever see those plastic coin sorter devices, where you shake them and the different sized coins fall into and line up in different sized chutes?

When people who dislike dishonesty, dislike grovelling, dislike becoming servants to the increasing demands for largesse and who dont want to take time away from their own lives to serve a tyrant and who refuse to stick around when they hear people being gossiped about--

When people who refuse to tolerate incipient despotism or who refuse to stay aroudn when they hear others being bad-mouthed, the ones who who remain have only the group leader to look to for a role model.

And it takes guts to leave.

Often a group has started out well, and is associated with some of the best, most redemptive times in one's life. It takes courage face that a group that is associated with an idealistic, healing time in ones life is no longer in according with those ideals.

It takes courage to trust one's perceptions that one has been lied to, that a group has been deceitful all along, or that the group has taken a very bad turn and is no longer in service to one's sense of ethics. It can be horrible to face that a beloved leader of a group passed leadership on to someone who turned out to be unworthy, for that calls the judgement of the deceased and beloved leader into question.

People who can walk away and vote with their feet are not wanted by despotic leaders.

When these persons leave, their departure will remove a restraint on leader and when the free spirits leave, a leader may break free and become far more tyrannical.

If a leader relocates to more expensive and isolated quarters this can accelerate corruption. Its harder to access the leader, so favoritism kicks in. The leader gets isolated and becomes more dependant on an entourage and becomes more of a tyrant.

I read somewhere that when Americans servicemen were imprisoned by the Communist Koreans, their captors had a simple and effective way to control the large number of prisoners.

The captors kept watch and identified those prisoners who were what we would term 'live wires' - 'plucky'--those men whom the other prisoners admired, who showed steadiness, dignity and other signs of potential leadership.

The POW camp supervisors IDd those persons as quickly as possible and removed from the general population.

By removing the people who showed initiative and leadership capabilities, the larger group of prisoners fell into line and were much more easily controllable.

People who remain dont want abuse and they dont ask for abuse and do not deserve abuse.

And..persons who do leave--they need to leave. If one ignores ones hunches and remains, the regret is terrible.

Finally those who are born into a tyrannical group--they most certainly do not ask for abuse or deserve to be abused, either.

Human dignity has to be re-affirmed each day, each month, each year, each lifetime.

And...better to leave, whether one decides after one hour, a week, a month, a year, or a decade.

Freedom still tastes sweet no matter how long it has sat in the bottle, waiting to be uncorked and sipped.

Beautifully put, corboy.

And I'd add that some people just don't see the cruelty, they are never subjected to it, they keep a low profile and they just don't question things. Because they're good little zombies and drink their kool-aide without question, leadership never feels the need to show them the true red-blue-and-yellow. They don't trust their instincts when something doesn't ring right; they buy the whole line of goods because they are so desperate for a solution to something and they believe with their whole hearts that this is working for them. That cultivation to think that something is wrong with them if they don't "get it" is so strong and they are so primed for guilt that they can't feel anything else. Some people, for whatever reason, are not capable of thinking for themselves and beg to be led. I'm not being critical of them - there's something deep inside that's broken or damaged, and whether it's sgi, the moonies or any other cult, there are predators sniffing around for their next victim. And while they sniff, they are warm, encouraging, loving and supportive.

There is one fundamental reason that each and every one of us are here on this board, and that's because we wouldn't tolerate it. We were raised nails waiting to be pounded, we asked questions we shouldn't have, we put two and two together and came up with the right answer. I like to think that I'm a pretty smart person, but it took me nearly seven years to figure out what's the what. I don't think that means I'm special - that means that I am really effing lucky.

There was a man who grew up Jewish in Berlin. I got to meet him by accident

He said his father owned a business and saw the rising tide of bigotry. HIs dad liquidated his assets and emigrated with his family from Germany to the US one year before Hitler became ruler of Germany.

At the time, the gentleman must have caught a great deal of criticism from others. Perhaps he wondered at times if he had done the right thing. Perhaps this fellow had an unusual degree of dignity, and encountered one too many insults and decided things were already intolerable and it would only get worse.

But...because this man had a most unusual acuity and sensitivity to events, he read the signs that things were going to become yet worse in Germany for its Jewish citizens and emigrated.

So it may take unusual gumption to leave very early when there are just a few signs that somehting is going wrong and most of ones friends or relatives are remaining in the group.

The other thing that may have saved this man was that by getting out early, he didnt stay long enough in a bigoted country to become accustomed to the bad treatment and lose stamina having his own spirit beaten down and worn down adjusting.

Getting out while one still has enough stamina to feel indignant is very, very important.

But its still difficult. We humans have a capacity to break loose.

But as social animals we also have a capacity to adjust and that can lead to remaining so long in a deteriorating situation that eventually one becomes worn down and estranged from one's own gut instincts.

And a few especially bad groups may blackmail people if they learn embarassing information.

Then it can take yet more courage to leave.

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corboy
But as social animals we also have a capacity to adjust and that can lead to remaining so long in a deteriorating situation that eventually one becomes worn down and estranged from one's own gut instincts.

You said a mouthful, amigo. Look at the seas of shiny happy faces, and you won't see a lick of any remaining instinct except for the herding one. I think that's why I hold most of the people I've dealt with in the org largely blameless - even the leaders. There is nothing left of themselves, they have become creatures of sgi. and the idea of thinking for themselves just doesn't exist for them any more. They are incapable of thinking or acting outside of the org parameters - expecting them to function otherwise is sort of like expecting a sheep to build a suspension bridge.

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corboy
And it takes guts to leave.

Often a group has started out well, and is associated with some of the best, most redemptive times in one's life. It takes courage face that a group that is associated with an idealistic, healing time in ones life is no longer in according with those ideals.

It takes courage to trust one's perceptions that one has been lied to, that a group has been deceitful all along, or that the group has taken a very bad turn and is no longer in service to one's sense of ethics. It can be horrible to face that a beloved leader of a group passed leadership on to someone who turned out to be unworthy, for that calls the judgement of the deceased and beloved leader into question.

People who can walk away and vote with their feet are not wanted by despotic leaders.

When these persons leave, their departure will remove a restraint on leader and when the free spirits leave, a leader may break free and become far more tyrannical.

If a leader relocates to more expensive and isolated quarters this can accelerate corruption. Its harder to access the leader, so favoritism kicks in. The leader gets isolated and becomes more dependent on an entourage and becomes more of a tyrant.

...

People who remain dont want abuse and they dont ask for abuse and do not deserve abuse.

And..persons who do leave--they need to leave. If one ignores ones hunches and remains, the regret is terrible.

Finally those who are born into a tyrannical group--they most certainly do not ask for abuse or deserve to be abused, either.

Human dignity has to be re-affirmed each day, each month, each year, each lifetime.

And...better to leave, whether one decides after one hour, a week, a month, a year, or a decade.

Freedom still tastes sweet no matter how long it has sat in the bottle, waiting to be uncorked and sipped.

I know I have it good and have had it easy compared to some people who've been on and off here at any point. Although my "experience" is quite different except in some very universal ways, it still feels good to be working with other people who are for real doing something of true worth and for once serving the greater good by participating in this forum as much as I can.

A life lived with regrets is one not worth living. So remember, no egrets! :)

Y'know, time and again, no matter what the group or ideology, the bad set ups are the ones that train us to feel ashamed of 'dirty' emotions.

Such as anger, dismay, disgust, feeling weirded out, creeped out.

Or so called 'negative attitudes' such as doubt, recognition of inconsistencies (as in the rules have been changed, the group is drifting from its own stated ideals, or things are going in a way that you were not old about in the brochure)

I suggest we see the alleged negative emotions and attitudes in a new way.

As a signal system. As governors that when kept in place and skillfully used, keep human behavior from becoming too extreme.

These alleged negative emotions and and attitudes actually serve as social consequenes, as brakes, on selfish or self absorbed behavior. Sort of like or the way we suss out traffic by a combination of traffic lights -- and automobile honks. Then there are the special vehicles with sirens--if you hear a siren, thats an unpleasant noise, but its a priority signal to get out of the way for a fire engine, ambulance, police car.

Imagine our roadways if we were told to ignore red lights, forbidden to use the "negative noises"--no use of horns, or sirens.

Or imagine the danger if one single driver were to act in traffic in a way analogous to a cult leader amid a group of people trained to accept disgusting behavior and not get angry or say no to increasing demands.

Imagine one single driver who feels entitled to ignore red lights (No, I dont want to do community service guru) and ignores sirens (No, I will not let my pretty teenaged daughter stay unsupervised at the gurus mansion)


IF some new age leader finds ways to train people to suppress all this, the result is a group of people who no longer supply any sort of restraint on a leader's latent eccentricities and hangups.

Friends, its the insecure people who cant stand to face other peoples anger, dismay, or being reminded that they've violated the prime directive they claim to serve.

Again, I am not recommending a permanent state of rancor. That is unsustainable and unpleasant. One cannot lean on one's car horn all the time. But we have horns on our cars for a good reason.

But...look at us when we were little kids, too young for empathy and too young to think things through.

Mistreat a cat, and the cat will bite you, claw you, run away.

Training people to feel ashamed of anger and only to show smiles and reverance and enthusiasm--thats like declawing cats.

Some animal sensitive places have made it against the law to do this to cats.

This new age/fake dharma deal of socializing people to feel ashamed or afraid of doubt, anger, dismay -- thats robbing us of features that enable us to regulate each other's social output, that keep us from doing too much wierd shit.

By training us to feel ashamed of anger or lack of enthusiasm, this gives a guru an environment free from normal social consequences.

And that brings out the worst in anyone.

Corboy, I've always loved your posts and this one is a great one as well. People have to learn to listen to their gut and their intuition. Orgs like SGI tell you to ignore it at all times since anything that is against SGI (your doubts, questions etc. being called negativity) is perceived as negativity and therefore you should ignore it because you'll stray from the path and that is what you are taught from the beginning. I have been guilty of dismissing things as they happened only to keep a sort of mental log and when the picture became clear it became too hard to ignore. It may take some people a while but as shown with many others before us, it does happen unless they completely shut off their ability to think critically. It's too bad people are willing enough to put tons of money into it, especially when it's based on their selfish expectations that they will get more, but then again they deserve it in a way for trying to use Buddhism for profit and selfish gain. Wasn't the Path supposed to be the Middle Way, and no extreme was right? They must have forgotten that part. Just don't tell them that!

This cat still has claws and fangs and plenty of fight.