Wild Wild Country

[FireDragon76]

According to its founder, that is also one of the core principles of Scientology -- a nevertheless highly authoritarian group.

So while it sounds good and open-minded as a principle, it's also hollow enough to not mean much of anything until it is filled in with whatever the group actually believes and does, and of course that can be a wide range of things. There are ashrams that are not sex-crazy, controlling, salad-poisoning, arson-committing nuthouses, I'm sure.

I think Osho's realistic views of sexuality alarmed the people around Rajneeshistan who judged his religious practices through their moral puritanism. At the time, in the 70's and 80's, those sorts of ideas would be considered evil by most people, but today more people are open to reconciling sex-positivity and spirituality, especially as traditional Protestant religion is on the decline in the US.

 

[dzheremi]

No, it doesn't. The group in Oregon wasn't Christian. However, it is the Christian-oriented ones that pose a problem for people who listen to their pitches and may think that they ARE bona fide Christian churches.

If a Buddhist crosses your path and you have no interest in becoming a Buddhist, it is basically a moot point whether they conform or do not conform to historic Buddhist principles and practices.

There may be some that amalgamate the beliefs of different world religions, but the problem most often concerns cults that present themselves as the real Christians.

I have had up-close, prolonged exposure to two such groups in my life so far, first when my then-stepmother converted to Mormonism when I was a teenager/early 20s, then later when my father converted to the Iglesia Ni Cristo (a weird sort of Mormon/LDS-imitating religion from the Philippines; he wanted to marry one of their members, so he had to convert to do so). From what I saw, the issue is not so much that they presented themselves as the true Christians (so does the Roman Catholic Church, so does Eastern Orthodoxy, so does Oriental Orthodoxy, etc. -- churches that very rarely get called 'cults', and are very long established, so they don't qualify as 'New Religious Movements', either), but that since they argued their incredibly weird beliefs using various Bible passages, they were able to accepted by people who don't know any better, like my father. One day I remember him saying to me "I can't believe how Bible-based the (INC) church is! It's amazing! I read the Bible, and everything they say is in there!" I told him "Yes; that's how Christianity-based cults work." (By this time, I was an adult and had no trouble nor anything to fear from talking to my father this way.) He didn't really understand my point, but just got mad at the use of the word cult, even though I swear to you this group had a little card that they stamped to show that he had attended X meetings in a row, which was a requirement for his baptism into the group. It was like one of those "Subway Sandwich Club" type-cards that used to be a thing years ago where if you bought X number sandwiches, you could get a free sandwich once every necessary visit was recorded on the card. Except instead of a sandwich, he got baptized into this incredibly heretical and weird group. Honestly, he would've been better off with a sandwich instead.

This probably won't win me friends among many Protestants (I don't know about present company), but I do believe that it should be taken as more or less an unofficial rule that the Bible, in the hands of an idiot, a delusional person, or a shyster, has the capacity to be far more dangerous than beneficial. Reading the scriptures requires understanding which must be learned (see, e.g., Acts 8:31), precisely because without some fundamental understanding to ground a given reading (whether that understanding comes from a Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, or even Nestorian tradition...at least these are extant faith traditions, even if they don't all agree on everything), it is possible to argue for or against anything, or to claim to prove any principle, using the scriptures, and many people are blinded by that.

I mean, Creflo Dollar is a minister, for Pete's sake. I have a friend who became a minister online for the purposes of officiating his friend's (secular/non-religious) wedding, and it was apparently accepted by the state of California, where the couple were legally married. These days at least, being able to read the Bible and take away this or that idea from it simply means you're literate, not that you're 'Bible-based' in any way beyond "these particular words are found in the Bible" (as though there is no interpretation whatsoever involved...I always wonder how these extremely individualistic, 'Bible-only' churches tackle difficult books, such as St. John's Revelation or the Song of Solomon...I have seen Islamic rants against Christianity that use the Song of Solomon as evidence that the Bible is "full of inappropriate contentography", which...yeah, I'm not going to lie, I could see how someone who read it without knowing what they were doing could get that impression, given how graphic some parts are).

 

[dzheremi]

I think Osho's realistic views of sexuality alarmed the people around Rajneeshistan who judged his religious practices through their moral puritanism. At the time, in the 70's and 80's, those sorts of ideas would be considered evil by most people, but today more people are open to reconciling sex-positivity and spirituality, especially as traditional Protestant religion is on the decline in the US.

Giant hippie orgy = worshiping God. Got it.

No thank you.

 

[FireDragon76]

Giant hippie orgy = worshiping God. Got it.

Osho was agnostic/apatheist, being from a Jain background and espousing a hybrid religion made of tantric Zen and depth psychology.

 

[FireDragon76]

I have had up-close, prolonged exposure to two such groups in my life so far, first when my then-stepmother converted to Mormonism when I was a teenager/early 20s, then later when my father converted to the Iglesia Ni Cristo (a weird sort of Mormon/LDS-imitating religion from the Philippines; he wanted to marry one of their members, so he had to convert to do so). From what I saw, the issue is not so much that they presented themselves as the true Christians (so does the Roman Catholic Church, so does Eastern Orthodoxy, so does Oriental Orthodoxy, etc. -- churches that very rarely get called 'cults', and are very long established, so they don't qualify as 'New Religious Movements', either), but that since they argued their incredibly weird beliefs using various Bible passages, they were able to accepted by people who don't know any better, like my father. One day I remember him saying to me "I can't believe how Bible-based the (INC) church is! It's amazing! I read the Bible, and everything they say is in there!" I told him "Yes; that's how Christianity-based cults work." (By this time, I was an adult and had no trouble nor anything to fear from talking to my father this way.) He didn't really understand my point, but just got mad at the use of the word cult, even though I swear to you this group had a little card that they stamped to show that he had attended X meetings in a row, which was a requirement for his baptism into the group. It was like one of those "Subway Sandwich Club" type-cards that used to be a thing years ago where if you bought X number sandwiches, you could get a free sandwich once every necessary visit was recorded on the card. Except instead of a sandwich, he got baptized into this incredibly heretical and weird group. Honestly, he would've been better off with a sandwich instead.

This probably won't win me friends among many Protestants (I don't know about present company), but I do believe that it should be taken as more or less an unofficial rule that the Bible, in the hands of an idiot, a delusional person, or a shyster, has the capacity to be far more dangerous than beneficial. Reading the scriptures requires understanding which must be learned (see, e.g., Acts 8:31), precisely because without some fundamental understanding to ground a given reading (whether that understanding comes from a Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, or even Nestorian tradition...at least these are extant faith traditions, even if they don't all agree on everything), it is possible to argue for or against anything, or to claim to prove any principle, using the scriptures, and many people are blinded by that.

I mean, Creflo Dollar is a minister, for Pete's sake. I have a friend who became a minister online for the purposes of officiating his friend's (secular/non-religious) wedding, and it was apparently accepted by the state of California, where the couple were legally married. These days at least, being able to read the Bible and take away this or that idea from it simply means you're literate, not that you're 'Bible-based' in any way beyond "these particular words are found in the Bible" (as though there is no interpretation whatsoever involved...I always wonder how these extremely individualistic, 'Bible-only' churches tackle difficult books, such as St. John's Revelation or the Song of Solomon...I have seen Islamic rants against Christianity that use the Song of Solomon as evidence that the Bible is "full of inappropriate contentography", which...yeah, I'm not going to lie, I could see how someone who read it without knowing what they were doing could get that impression, given how graphic some parts are).

Religions are all wierd and uncanny on some level, that's part of what makes them so. It's only when they are absolutist or totalitarian that they become dangerous.

 

[durangodawood]

Religions are all wierd and uncanny on some level, that's part of what makes them so. It's only when they are absolutist or totalitarian that they become dangerous.

I would include emotionally totalitarian. I mean many horrible cults dont resort to physical force to keep members in line. Instead they use something almost like emotional restraints.

 

[FireDragon76]

I would include emotionally totalitarian. I mean many horrible cults dont resort to physical force to keep members in line. Instead they use something almost like emotional restraints.

That's true of many world religions, though. I have encountered that myself in the past (not Buddhism but in Eastern Orthodoxy).

Again, an intense religious environment is actually more of the norm than the exception. We are so used to Protestant notions of religion that we fail to take religion seriously when we say religious groups have no right to impose anything upon us.

 

[dzheremi]

I would include emotionally totalitarian. I mean many horrible cults dont resort to physical force to keep members in line. Instead they use something almost like emotional restraints.

This is very important. One person from my former congregation (I didn't leave the Church or anything; just moved to a different state) tried to do this to me once by criticizing my lack of practicing the daily prayers, as is common in our tradition. "You are doing nothing to live as an Orthodox person!" and that sort of thing. At the time, I needed to monitor my father 24/7 to make sure he didn't hurt or endanger himself or others, because he was suffering from a brain disease due to his failing liver that caused him to become delusional and confused at random times due to the build up of ammonia in the blood that sort of pickled his brain and caused extreme confusion (e.g., thinking it was 1985 even though it was 2016), so I couldn't let him drive his car (he refused to give up his license, and the police couldn't legally take it from him, so his doctor told me privately "Do whatever you have to do; hide the keys, disconnect the battery, whatever"), use the stove, or do anything else that would potentially bring him into contact with danger, since he didn't know what was going on. I had to call the police once because he was determined to go driving while in one of these spells, and was becoming combative when I tried to physically take his keys. They sent him to the psychiatric hospital against his will (code 5150), at which point I finally had at least 48 hours to myself. This period of constant monitoring lasted three years, ending only last year when he finally got his medication straightened out and moved to another state, far away from me (thanks be to God; it has improved our relationship greatly).

Given all this, and my reticence to try to explain it to my friend from Church (I don't know how popularly understood mental conditions are within Egyptian culture, but what little I had tried to explain didn't seem to be well understood or received by this particular person), I simply cut off contact with him in particular, though I love him and think of him like a second father to this very day. It is nothing against the Church, of course, but just more than I could deal with at the time. Sometimes people meaning to do good can nevertheless have a negative/further straining impact.

God knows our struggles, and our life and our death are with our brothers. Lord have mercy.

 

[Mantishand]

Did anyone pay attention to the part where someone snuck a camera in one of their sessions? The were all making animal sounds and doing all sorts of aggressive stuff, then they all went silent? It was super weird, seemed very demonic to me.

 

[dlamberth]

Did anyone pay attention to the part where someone snuck a camera in one of their sessions? The were all making animal sounds and doing all sorts of aggressive stuff, then they all went silent? It was super weird, seemed very demonic to me.

I've done that. It's kind of fun, and at the same time takes one out of the box of normal and into unaccustomed areas of weirdness. That's what makes it fun.

A lot of our spiritual hangups come about because we are afraid to reach outside of the box. Exercises like that are a way to stretch those spiritual muscles into new and different area's of presence.

But I can see how from the outside it may seem demonic. When a person doesn't know what's going on, to see a bunch of people making animal sounds is a pretty weird sight, and could even be frightening to some.

 

[Zoness]

Did anyone pay attention to the part where someone snuck a camera in one of their sessions? The were all making animal sounds and doing all sorts of aggressive stuff, then they all went silent? It was super weird, seemed very demonic to me.

That wouldn't weird me out anymore than Pentecostals freaking out in tongues and rolling around on the floor.

 

[Zoness]

That doco was wild and very interesting if you didn't know the history. Like, no big deal just cultist folks committing bioterrorism on US soil. I'm sure it was huge at the time before being overshadowed by Waco and Oklahoma City.

I'm not quick to paint new religions in an automatically bad light since I'm more or less apart of one but there was definitely a flare-up that began in the 60s that ran through the 80s where cults spring up constantly, especially in remote places out west.

Maybe not to the superstar status of Osho, but looking at modern guys like Sadhguru who speak to a firmly middle class audience and who talk in circles there are still those kinds of ehm, suspicious organizations. Don't get me wrong, even I occasionally like the guy's calm demeanor and soothing outlook but there's something just a bit off about his Ashram.

 

[FireDragon76]

Did anyone pay attention to the part where someone snuck a camera in one of their sessions? The were all making animal sounds and doing all sorts of aggressive stuff, then they all went silent? It was super weird, seemed very demonic to me.

It's based on ideas from the human potential movement and depth psychology. There are similar ideas in Asian medicine. Chinese medicine sometimes vigorous, emotive or physical activity (like shouting) is useful to purge negative emotions from the body.

Tantric and esoteric practices are not for everyone (and can be misused) but labeling it demonic does nothing to help Christians actually look like thoughtful people.

 

[FireDragon76]

This is very important. One person from my former congregation (I didn't leave the Church or anything; just moved to a different state) tried to do this to me once by criticizing my lack of practicing the daily prayers, as is common in our tradition. "You are doing nothing to live as an Orthodox person!" and that sort of thing. At the time, I needed to monitor my father 24/7 to make sure he didn't hurt or endanger himself or others, because he was suffering from a brain disease due to his failing liver that caused him to become delusional and confused at random times due to the build up of ammonia in the blood that sort of pickled his brain and caused extreme confusion (e.g., thinking it was 1985 even though it was 2016), so I couldn't let him drive his car (he refused to give up his license, and the police couldn't legally take it from him, so his doctor told me privately "Do whatever you have to do; hide the keys, disconnect the battery, whatever"), use the stove, or do anything else that would potentially bring him into contact with danger, since he didn't know what was going on. I had to call the police once because he was determined to go driving while in one of these spells, and was becoming combative when I tried to physically take his keys. They sent him to the psychiatric hospital against his will (code 5150), at which point I finally had at least 48 hours to myself. This period of constant monitoring lasted three years, ending only last year when he finally got his medication straightened out and moved to another state, far away from me (thanks be to God; it has improved our relationship greatly).

Given all this, and my reticence to try to explain it to my friend from Church (I don't know how popularly understood mental conditions are within Egyptian culture, but what little I had tried to explain didn't seem to be well understood or received by this particular person), I simply cut off contact with him in particular, though I love him and think of him like a second father to this very day. It is nothing against the Church, of course, but just more than I could deal with at the time. Sometimes people meaning to do good can nevertheless have a negative/further straining impact.

God knows our struggles, and our life and our death are with our brothers. Lord have mercy.

Good for you for not caving in to their misguided formalism. Unfortunately, I did not know better and I often suffered from this. Finally, I just left Eastern Orthodoxy after a mental breakdown (which landed me in a mental hospital), not being able to meet peoples expectations.

My Enneagram is the Individualist and my stress point is people pleasing. At the time I knew nothing about this though, so I just wanted to try to be a good, obedient person, and that was really sabotaging myself.

 

[Mantishand]

It's based on ideas from the human potential movement and depth psychology. There are similar ideas in Asian medicine. Chinese medicine sometimes vigorous, emotive or physical activity (like shouting) is useful to purge negative emotions from the body.

Tantric and esoteric practices are not for everyone (and can be misused) but labeling it demonic does nothing to help Christians actually look like thoughtful people.

Yeah I don't really care if people think I'm thoughtful or not. People hate Christians anyway. It looked demonic to me so I stated it.

 

[durangodawood]

This is very important. One person from my former congregation (I didn't leave the Church or anything; just moved to a different state) tried to do this to me once by criticizing my lack of practicing the daily prayers, as is common in our tradition. "You are doing nothing to live as an Orthodox person!" and that sort of thing. At the time, I needed to monitor my father 24/7 to make sure he didn't hurt or endanger himself or others, because he was suffering from a brain disease due to his failing liver that caused him to become delusional and confused at random times due to the build up of ammonia in the blood that sort of pickled his brain and caused extreme confusion (e.g., thinking it was 1985 even though it was 2016), so I couldn't let him drive his car (he refused to give up his license, and the police couldn't legally take it from him, so his doctor told me privately "Do whatever you have to do; hide the keys, disconnect the battery, whatever"), use the stove, or do anything else that would potentially bring him into contact with danger, since he didn't know what was going on. I had to call the police once because he was determined to go driving while in one of these spells, and was becoming combative when I tried to physically take his keys. They sent him to the psychiatric hospital against his will (code 5150), at which point I finally had at least 48 hours to myself. This period of constant monitoring lasted three years, ending only last year when he finally got his medication straightened out and moved to another state, far away from me (thanks be to God; it has improved our relationship greatly).

Given all this, and my reticence to try to explain it to my friend from Church (I don't know how popularly understood mental conditions are within Egyptian culture, but what little I had tried to explain didn't seem to be well understood or received by this particular person), I simply cut off contact with him in particular, though I love him and think of him like a second father to this very day. It is nothing against the Church, of course, but just more than I could deal with at the time. Sometimes people meaning to do good can nevertheless have a negative/further straining impact.

God knows our struggles, and our life and our death are with our brothers. Lord have mercy.

I would categorize that members admonition as a sort of ordinary emotional pressuring. Not at all saying its valid imo, but its pretty mild compared to the full on emotional violence cults sometimes use to keep members in line. Wish a had a good example at hand.

(Your story makes me thankful for how easy I've had it in certain arenas of life).

 

[dzheremi]

Yes, of course. Sorry, I should've been clearer. I just meant that yes people can be emotionally pressuring, and it's a matter of degree and end goal, as I've been saying to FireDragon76. The difference between a regular religion that may nevertheless exhibit some mild forms of the same sort of behavior that is observed in cults is that my friend in my example was applying a regular level of emotional manipulation or pressure (so, not anything extreme), with the end goal of getting me back to the regular prayer rule (so, also not anything extreme, in the context of normative Coptic Orthodox worship). Unfortunately for both of us, it was at a time when I really couldn't deal with even that moderate level of external pressure, what with everything else I was going through, but it's not like he was doing it to 'break me' or whatever, as an actual cult would do.

Basically, the cult wants to push you over the edge so that they can rob you of your ability to make your own decisions and live your own life and instead remake you into something more useful to them, while the non-cult may have some people in it that end up doing that, but it's often by accident/without realizing that they're contributing to that, and with ultimately healthy goals in mind (which doesn't mean that it's good that they do that, even if it's accidental; it's just a distinction that should be remembered).

 

[FireDragon76]

Yes, of course. Sorry, I should've been clearer. I just meant that yes people can be emotionally pressuring, and it's a matter of degree and end goal, as I've been saying to FireDragon76. The difference between a regular religion that may nevertheless exhibit some mild forms of the same sort of behavior that is observed in cults is that my friend in my example was applying a regular level of emotional manipulation or pressure (so, not anything extreme), with the end goal of getting me back to the regular prayer rule (so, also not anything extreme, in the context of normative Coptic Orthodox worship). Unfortunately for both of us, it was at a time when I really couldn't deal with even that moderate level of external pressure, what with everything else I was going through, but it's not like he was doing it to 'break me' or whatever, as an actual cult would do.

Basically, the cult wants to push you over the edge so that they can rob you of your ability to make your own decisions and live your own life and instead remake you into something more useful to them, while the non-cult may have some people in it that end up doing that, but it's often by accident/without realizing that they're contributing to that, and with ultimately healthy goals in mind (which doesn't mean that it's good that they do that, even if it's accidental; it's just a distinction that should be remembered).

I look at alot of evangelical religion with its absolutism, emotional pressure, apocalypticism, lack of social responsibility, and I really don't see the difference between that and a "cult", except for the social respectability given to one and not the other. There is enormous cultural pressure in the South to be an evangelical Christian, or at least to give it deference as a worldview, no matter whether that fits with scientific or personal experience or not.