How Cults Work

[Delta4Embassy]

Ironic this list comes from a Christian site. Isn't that sorta counter-productive?

"

How Cults Manipulate People

Many people now agree that cults frequently psychologically manipulate their membership to ensure conformity and control. Steve Hassan's excellent book "Combating Cult Mind-Control" is a great starting point. The following points come from numerous sources. Not all of these are found in every cult but enough of them are found in most cults to make them very frightening places that inflict deep psychological damage on their membership.

1. Submission to Leadership - Leaders tend to be absolute, prophets of God, God Himself, specially anointed apostle, or just a strong, controlling, manipulative person who demands submission even if changes or conflicts occur in ideology or behavior.

2. Polarized World View - The group is all that is good; everything outside is bad.

3. Feeling Over Thought - Emotions, intuitions, mystical insights are promoted as more important than rational conclusions.

4. Manipulation of Feelings - Techniques designed to stimulate emotions, usually employing group dynamics to influence responses.

5. Denigration of Critical Thinking - Can go so far as to characterize any independent thought as selfish, and rational use of intellect as evil.

6. Salvation or Fulfillment can only be realized in the group.

7. End Justifies the Means - Any action or behavior is justifiable as long as it furthers the group's goals. The group (leader) becomes absolute truth and is above all man-made laws.

8. Group Over Individual - The group's concerns supersede an individual's goals, needs, aspirations, and concerns. Conformity is the key.

9. Warnings of severe or supernatural sanctions for defection or even criticism of the cult - This can go so far as to apply to negative or critical thought about the group or its leaders.

10. Severing of Ties with Past, Family, Friends, Goals, and Interests - Especially if they are negative towards or impede the goals of the group.

11. Barratrous Abuse - Some cults use "cult lawyers' to sue ex-cult members and critics often using fabricated evidence and causing financial stress by repeated trivial law suits. The cult's aim is not so much to win the lawsuit (though they often do) as to harass and intimidate their critics into silence."
How Cults Manipulate People

Just having read 1 Thess. 4 (NIV,) the author is doing some of these very things.

As to no. 1 above,
"4 As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus."
[sourcing their authority to G-d's, and Jesus']

no.2,
4 that each of you should learn to control your own body[a] in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God;
[be like us, not the pagans]
no. 3,
17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. [in the air? repealing gravity is he? ya that's rational]

and on and on. So how many of these methods a "cult" uses need to be in effect before we declare Christianity a cult? Interestingly, at the end of this article:

"Can an Orthodox Christian Group Get Like This ?

Yes they can!!! Just because the theology is straight down the line does not mean the behavior will be. I was in a mission society that in a particular place under the influence of a leader with a great deal of charisma and authority became "cultic" for a year or so. That has been corrected but much damage was done.

Some Christian groups start off great -like the "children of God' and end up utterly wrong and evil. The church needs strong leaders, but they must always be accountable to Scripture and to other wise Christians.

We must allow people to be critical, to think for themselves and to understand scripture freely apart from the dictates of any leader. we must allow a great deal of emotional and intellectual freedom and renounce our desires to control others if we are to have healthy churches where people rejoice in the Truth."

If we accept this as true, why are so many "Christians" prone to saying someone's going to hell if they don't believe exactly as they think they should? Are these cult people masquerading as Christians?

 

[Chuckt]

Some cults offer their members sex.

Other people don't want to leave because they don't want to give up their family.

Some of the arguments are doctrinez of demons and people don't want to leave because evil is appealing.

Religion is an attempt to sew fig leaves to cover their nakedness and for others it is just an exercise; they don't want to come to the living God.

 

[theword]

Ironic this list comes from a Christian site. Isn't that sorta counter-productive?

"

How Cults Manipulate People

Many people now agree that cults frequently psychologically manipulate their membership to ensure conformity and control. Steve Hassan's excellent book "Combating Cult Mind-Control" is a great starting point. The following points come from numerous sources. Not all of these are found in every cult but enough of them are found in most cults to make them very frightening places that inflict deep psychological damage on their membership.

1. Submission to Leadership - Leaders tend to be absolute, prophets of God, God Himself, specially anointed apostle, or just a strong, controlling, manipulative person who demands submission even if changes or conflicts occur in ideology or behavior.

2. Polarized World View - The group is all that is good; everything outside is bad.

3. Feeling Over Thought - Emotions, intuitions, mystical insights are promoted as more important than rational conclusions.

4. Manipulation of Feelings - Techniques designed to stimulate emotions, usually employing group dynamics to influence responses.

5. Denigration of Critical Thinking - Can go so far as to characterize any independent thought as selfish, and rational use of intellect as evil.

6. Salvation or Fulfillment can only be realized in the group.

7. End Justifies the Means - Any action or behavior is justifiable as long as it furthers the group's goals. The group (leader) becomes absolute truth and is above all man-made laws.

8. Group Over Individual - The group's concerns supersede an individual's goals, needs, aspirations, and concerns. Conformity is the key.

9. Warnings of severe or supernatural sanctions for defection or even criticism of the cult - This can go so far as to apply to negative or critical thought about the group or its leaders.

10. Severing of Ties with Past, Family, Friends, Goals, and Interests - Especially if they are negative towards or impede the goals of the group.

11. Barratrous Abuse - Some cults use "cult lawyers' to sue ex-cult members and critics often using fabricated evidence and causing financial stress by repeated trivial law suits. The cult's aim is not so much to win the lawsuit (though they often do) as to harass and intimidate their critics into silence."
How Cults Manipulate People

Just having read 1 Thess. 4 (NIV,) the author is doing some of these very things.

As to no. 1 above,
"4 As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus."
[sourcing their authority to G-d's, and Jesus']

no.2,
4 that each of you should learn to control your own body[a] in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God;
[be like us, not the pagans]
no. 3,
17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. [in the air? repealing gravity is he? ya that's rational]

and on and on. So how many of these methods a "cult" uses need to be in effect before we declare Christianity a cult? Interestingly, at the end of this article:

"Can an Orthodox Christian Group Get Like This ?

Yes they can!!! Just because the theology is straight down the line does not mean the behavior will be. I was in a mission society that in a particular place under the influence of a leader with a great deal of charisma and authority became "cultic" for a year or so. That has been corrected but much damage was done.

Some Christian groups start off great -like the "children of God' and end up utterly wrong and evil. The church needs strong leaders, but they must always be accountable to Scripture and to other wise Christians.

We must allow people to be critical, to think for themselves and to understand scripture freely apart from the dictates of any leader. we must allow a great deal of emotional and intellectual freedom and renounce our desires to control others if we are to have healthy churches where people rejoice in the Truth."

If we accept this as true, why are so many "Christians" prone to saying someone's going to hell if they don't believe exactly as they think they should? Are these cult people masquerading as Christians?

All religious people are involved in cults. That's because they have no knowledge to understand the past, present and future that us saints understand.

Saints are NOT Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, or any other religious person. We are the flesh that God uses to reveal Himself and His hidden knowledge that no man has ever seen before. That's because God's knowledge is invisible vibrations called energy.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I thought this was a thread about Manmade Global Warming

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Post #2 doesn't realize that the OP is talking about him.
Post #3 is a saint?
Post #4 is, as usual, lost, posting in the wrong thread.

 

[theword]

Post #2 doesn't realize that the OP is talking about him.
Post #3 is a saint?
Post #4 is, as usual, lost, posting in the wrong thread.

And Post #5 is a very confused disobedient child of God's.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

How Cults Work

Just observe the people who still believe in man made climate change.

 

[syrenn]

ALL religions are cults.


Some cults are just more successful then other.

 

[theword]

ALL religions are cults.


Some cults are just more successful then other.

You're correct. But our invisible Creator did use religious people to go out in the world and teach His people how to build false gods ( things built with human hands ) so that we would have the modern technology today for our Creator to use as analogies to help us understand that we are only vibrations called energy and that everything we see are only illusions that come from our created invisible existence.

 

[Darkwind]

ALL religions are cults.


Some cults are just more successful then other.

You're correct. But our invisible Creator did use religious people to go out in the world and teach His people how to build false gods ( things built with human hands ) so that we would have the modern technology today for our Creator to use as analogies to help us understand that we are only vibrations called energy and that everything we see are only illusions that come from our created invisible existence.

Invisible?

I thought you were a Saint....


Not a very good one, however.

I can see God all around Me, every single day.

Funny you can't. You must need another banana.

 

[Chuckt]

Post #2 doesn't realize that the OP is talking about him.
Post #3 is a saint?
Post #4 is, as usual, lost, posting in the wrong thread.

Christianity is a cult. It is a good cult. The rest are bad cults.

 

[syrenn]

Post #2 doesn't realize that the OP is talking about him.
Post #3 is a saint?
Post #4 is, as usual, lost, posting in the wrong thread.

Christianity is a cult. It is a good cult. The rest are bad cults.

still a CULT.

 

[Pennywise]

ALL religions are cults.


Some cults are just more successful then other.

Bullshit. That's a rather grandiose claim to pretend to know any such thing. You must have insight to the truth of life that no one else on earth has now or ever before.

Blanket statements like yours reflect a mind so devoid of curiosity that it essentially ceases to function.

 

[syrenn]

ALL religions are cults.


Some cults are just more successful then other.

Bullshit. That's a rather grandiose claim to pretend to know any such thing. You must have insight to the truth of life that no one else on earth has now or ever before.

Blanket statements like yours reflect a mind so devoid of curiosity that it essentially ceases to function.

i am quite sure the romans..... felt that the upstart christians were nothing but a cult. AND.... they were right.

get over it.... try a dose of reality and not being offended by the truth.

all religions are cults.

 

[Pennywise]

ALL religions are cults.


Some cults are just more successful then other.

Bullshit. That's a rather grandiose claim to pretend to know any such thing. You must have insight to the truth of life that no one else on earth has now or ever before.

Blanket statements like yours reflect a mind so devoid of curiosity that it essentially ceases to function.

i am quite sure the romans..... felt that the upstart christians were nothing but a cult. AND.... they were right.

get over it.... try a dose of reality and not being offended by the truth.

all religions are cults.

Get over what? Your arrogance?

I'm not a religious person, and your claim on reality is juvenile hubris, oh enlightened one.

 

[theword]

ALL religions are cults.


Some cults are just more successful then other.

You're correct. But our invisible Creator did use religious people to go out in the world and teach His people how to build false gods ( things built with human hands ) so that we would have the modern technology today for our Creator to use as analogies to help us understand that we are only vibrations called energy and that everything we see are only illusions that come from our created invisible existence.

Invisible?

I thought you were a Saint....


Not a very good one, however.

I can see God all around Me, every single day.

Funny you can't. You must need another banana.

I can see the illusions that God has given me to see but He also taught me how He created us as invisible vibrations. Vibrations are God's language that no man can see and every illusion comes from these vibrations.

 

[Dajjal]

I have been involved in a number of cults, and they are very compelling. One reason is you feel like a member of an extended family, and there are many attractive people of the opposite sex involved in them.

I was briefly involved in Japanese buddhism, where you chant Nam yo ho ringe ko.

I was in a cult started by Guru Raj Ananda, whch taught various meditation techniques.

I also investigated the Divine light mission who thought their boy guru was an incarnation of God. It was based on a meditation technique called, taking knowledge. People who took knowledge said they heard divine music, and things like that. It did not apeal to me because the guru said you must keep practicing knowledge if you take it, and I did not want to commit myself to something I did not understand.

 

[theword]

I have been involved in a number of cults, and they are very compelling. One reason is you feel like a member of an extended family, and there are many attractive people of the opposite sex involved in them.

I was briefly involved in Japanese buddhism, where you chant Nam yo ho ringe ko.

I was in a cult started by Guru Raj Ananda, whch taught various meditation techniques.

I also investigated the Divine light mission who thought their boy guru was an incarnation of God. It was based on a meditation technique called, taking knowledge. People who took knowledge said they heard divine music, and things like that. It did not apeal to me because the guru said you must keep practicing knowledge if you take it, and I did not want to commit myself to something I did not understand.

How would you like to get to know your true existence in the mind of our Creator? Most people believe the illusions they see are real but even physicists today are understanding that the things we see are only illusions. The real us are vibrations called energy.

 

[hjmick]

USMB is a cult...