|
Post by beth on Nov 6, 2009 22:48:56 GMT
This is a list of religious cult characteristics presented by the International Cultic Studies Association (formerly the American Family Foundation). Note the disclaimer at the first of the linked articles. I don't know anything about this group but their list is interesting to read. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Family_Foundationwww.csj.org/infoserv_cult101/checklis.htmReligious Cult Characteristics 1) The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law. 2) Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished. 3) Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s). 4) The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry—or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth). 5) The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar—or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity). 6) The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society. 7) The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations). 9) The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members' participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities). 10) The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion. 11) Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group. 12) The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members. 13) The group is preoccupied with making money. 14) Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities. 15) Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members. 16) The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group. Comments?
|
|
|
Post by Liberator on Nov 6, 2009 23:15:41 GMT
Several years ago there was a move to pass a pan-European control on cults but it failed because by every definition they could make, established religions fell into the same category. I could include a few political parties I think too. Maybe the thinking is wrong; it should concern itself more with what they do and encourage than with what they believe. I wonder about that with the US constitutional ban on Congressional interference in internal state religious affairs - wasn't the original intention to allow states like Massachussets to impose theocracy without interference?
I'm writing a sci-fi with the unlikely background of an extra-terrestrial 'Christian States of America' (check the initials!) combination of black and white fundamentalists and Rand libertarians. They all share devotion to business and the Libertarians provide the 'Sin City' that Botswana used to when South Africa was uptight without need for backstreet hypocrisy like in Handmaid's Tale.
You could apply your cult definitions too to corp9orate business.
|
|
|
Post by beth on Nov 7, 2009 1:55:57 GMT
Didn't I read something the other day about Scientologists being convicted of fraud in France, yet they will still be allowed to go on with business as usual? Personally, I suspect Scientology is a cult, but once a "church" has been defined as a religion I suppose it's pretty hard to prove they are an undesirable entity.
|
|
|
Post by Liberator on Nov 8, 2009 21:21:20 GMT
I don't think there's the slightest doubt about Scientology's cult status though it might have become slightly less of one without L.Ron Hubbard to give the orders. www.xenu.net/archive/books/bfm/bfmconte.htm I had a copy of this by Russell Miller. The only thing I don't know is how much he may have believed himself, but I think he was some kind of paranoid who believed his own fantasies strongly enough to get other people to believe them too. One thing that is true is that he was a prolific writer of pulp adventure, not all of it science-fiction and another that we was very charismatic. I suppose we can be thankful that he did not go into politics. There's a legend (but I think it is only that) that he, Robert Heinlein and Anton LaVey had a bar bet on founding a religion. LaVey founded the First Church of Satan, San Francisco and Heinlein went on to write Stranger in a Strange Land which deals with founding something a lot like Scientology (but genuine) and satirises some of the fundamentalists cults of the time. Miller inPunchThis is actually not true: Ron was the Fifth Horseman of the Discworld Apocalypse who had got bored and become a milkman but was vital to saving the world ;D This too is interesting: As the link says, these are by no means unique to Scientology cultists.
|
|
|
Post by beth on Nov 8, 2009 21:39:42 GMT
I've heard that one, too - about L. Ron, Heinlein and LaVey. True or not, it's certainly legend. Don't you think LRH intended Scientology to be a cult from the first? I think he may have been surprised at how successful it became. All the cult characteristics may not apply to Scientology, but several of them do. Is that enough to definitely say it IS a cult? I admit, I don't know. Most cults I've heard of seem to increase their membership ranks by pulling in those who are needy or wanting in some way or other. Scientology, amazingly, is able to attract large numbers of members who it's hard to imagine would embrace their far fetched theology/philosophy.
|
|
|
Post by june on Nov 8, 2009 21:56:55 GMT
Religious Cults? best use of tautology I have seen for a long time
|
|
|
Post by Liberator on Nov 8, 2009 22:52:03 GMT
Beth, I was reading some of the reviews about Miller's book and one commented on that. Like it or not, there is something in Scientology for some people and I think the answer has to be that LRH was more mad than bad so however preposterous his claims, they came across with sincerity, and that he most certainly was no fool, not some Guru just spouting his latest revelations.
You can compare a lot of the E-meter processing with false memory syndrome. It's not a regular hypnotic technique but it probably has the same effect. I can't remember whether I ever finished reading Dianetics or not but there is enough in it to make the rest plausible and when you're dealing with mental situations then belief that a thing works goes a long way to making it work. All it needs is the right environment and a certain amount of genuine therapeutic solving old problems and you're well on the way to believing that the same thing will work at deeper levels and to believing that there are deeper problems for it to work on. It becomes self-reinforcing.
It's like the early days of people queueing up for aspirin to cure their malaria because it cured something simpler - and sometimes missionaries have achieved miracle cures with something like aspirin that you could call auto-faith healing. There's been some placebo research that shows that belief does affect efficacy (and can inhibit genuine cures too).
So I reckon that it gets intelligent people of two sorts. One are those with suppressed doubts. It's not surprising that Hollywood would find an appeal in anything because it is a very insecure profession. In the end, a bad film or two can kill you off, so it helps to find something more solid in yourself than just your reputation. But because those people go for it, others think it must be glamorous. Then there's the ones intelligent enough but without much real education so they don't have much to check its claims against. If they find some of it effective they might not realise that conventional systems are more so.
Then there's the money thing. The more you get into something expensive the harder it is to accept that you've been taken for a ride. And they make no secret about going for anybody who says a word against them or just drops out.
I think what makes it so dangerous isn't that it's bunk as much as some of it works.
|
|
|
Post by beth on Nov 9, 2009 5:21:15 GMT
The mind's pretty powerful. There have been studies that show people with serious illnesses have gone into remission on the power of simply believing it's true. I suppose the process Scientology members go through to reach their goal of "clear' could, very well, make it easy for them to convince themselves they've made the grade (so to speak). We used to know some people who belonged to a "church" created by a guy at a sci fi con. It was based on Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. I'm embarrassed that I don't even remember the name of it now - didn't make much of an impression, I guess. They used to have material online. If I come up with any of it, I'll post it. Nice people - strange beliefs, imo. I think the leader's (chosen) name was Oberon.
|
|
|
Post by beth on Nov 9, 2009 5:32:50 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Liberator on Nov 9, 2009 14:51:17 GMT
I always liked the idea of putting 'Stranger' into practice but it would have to avoid taking Heinlein literally. It would have to be more of a practical commune organisation since the original has two 'magical' advantages in unlimitted funds and a language to unlock psychic faculties without seeming to take much effort. I have followed Damanhur but I've also heard that as it's grown and settled down, so it has become expensive, newcomers are expected to 'volunteer' for all sorts of projects and the leadership spends most of its time playing the game of Life, a sort of magical manipulation. I started to have second thoughts when they got all enthusiastic about their time travel to Atlantis. It wouldn't surprise me if they experience a collective hallucination or something of visitting Atlantis, just that such a place ever existed.
|
|
|
Post by Big Lin on Nov 10, 2009 17:56:12 GMT
I always liked the idea of putting 'Stranger' into practice but it would have to avoid taking Heinlein literally. It would have to be more of a practical commune organisation since the original has two 'magical' advantages in unlimitted funds and a language to unlock psychic faculties without seeming to take much effort. I have followed Damanhur but I've also heard that as it's grown and settled down, so it has become expensive, newcomers are expected to 'volunteer' for all sorts of projects and the leadership spends most of its time playing the game of Life, a sort of magical manipulation. I started to have second thoughts when they got all enthusiastic about their time travel to Atlantis. It wouldn't surprise me if they experience a collective hallucination or something of visitting Atlantis, just that such a place ever existed. It has actually been done. A group in the 1960s and 1970s whose name I've forgotten (it was something like the 'Church of All Worlds) actually DID try to found a religion based on the ideas of 'Stranger in a Strange Land.' Their core ceremony was water sharing and they had a big influence on many teenage Americans, particularly, for some reason - especially considering Rand's fierce atheism - on those who also liked Ayn Rand and who voted for Goldwater in 1964. Apparently the group was still going in the 1970s but whether it still exists I've no idea. They used to wear some special badge as well which they called something like a 'tiki.' (No idea what it was or why they wore it.) Hope this helps.
|
|
|
Post by Liberator on Nov 16, 2009 1:55:05 GMT
I think rather a lot of groups can fall into 'Church of All Worlds' territory, Wicca among them. They all give a sense of participation in something greater while avoiding serious literal belief. I don't know if that's good or bad. I think it shows a searching for something and the old systems become too fixed, worn out just as they were 2,000 years ago and needed to move on for a new age that we might find pretty savage but at least had the novel ideas of a universal law and citizenship.
|
|
|
Post by gabriel on Nov 18, 2009 12:46:59 GMT
www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,26366760-5003402,00.html About Scientology.Australian PM 'concerned' about ScientologyArticle from: November 18, 2009 10:43am PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd says he has concerns about the Church of Scientology but wants to see what material independent senator Nick Xenophon has before committing to a parliamentary inquiry. Senator Xenophon yesterday told Parliament there was criminal activity within the church and has called for a Senate inquiry into Scientology's tax exempt status. Senator Xenophon has also called for police to investigate the church after being contacted by a number of former Scientologists who accused the organisation of shocking crimes. Senator Xenophon said their correspondence implicated the organisation in a range of crimes, including forced imprisonment, coerced abortions, physical violence and blackmail.Asked about the senator's claims, Mr Rudd described them as "grave allegations". "Many people in Australia have real concerns about Scientology," Mr Rudd said. "I share some of those concerns. Let us proceed carefully and look carefully at the material he has provided before we make a decision on further parliamentary action." Asked about the Church of Scientology's tax exempt status, Mr Rudd said he was advised the High Court had dealt with the matter back in the 1980s. "I am so advised, but I stand to be corrected," he said. "Therefore the true question is the actual nature of the operations that involve Scientology now. "I don't want to rush into any judgment on this, other than to say he's (Senator Xenophon) raised concerns and made some serious allegations." I don't believe it's a religious organisation at all. Some guy writes books about aliens and starts a religion about it? Tom Cruise and John Travolta and all the others who believe in this cr** are supposed to make me believe it's all up front and above board?
Seems to me that most of these 'celebrity' converts spruiking it are ex Catholics. Seems strange to me. Catholicism to science fiction. They need to get a life that doesn't have anything to do with ET. Does anyone remember that godawful movie Travolta made maybe 10 years ago based on this Scientology cr**? It tanked. What a surprise.
|
|
|
Post by Liberator on Nov 18, 2009 13:56:53 GMT
It doesn't take much to register as a religion in California. Once done, it confers considerable advantages including tax exemption. Hubbard was bright, no doubt about that, so where others might have set up as an institute, he registered as a religion and got all the official advantages as well as the unofficial ones of people feeling reluctant to go poking about in 'sincerely held beliefs'.
|
|
|
Post by beth on Nov 18, 2009 17:29:51 GMT
I always liked the idea of putting 'Stranger' into practice but it would have to avoid taking Heinlein literally. It would have to be more of a practical commune organisation since the original has two 'magical' advantages in unlimitted funds and a language to unlock psychic faculties without seeming to take much effort. I have followed Damanhur but I've also heard that as it's grown and settled down, so it has become expensive, newcomers are expected to 'volunteer' for all sorts of projects and the leadership spends most of its time playing the game of Life, a sort of magical manipulation. I started to have second thoughts when they got all enthusiastic about their time travel to Atlantis. It wouldn't surprise me if they experience a collective hallucination or something of visitting Atlantis, just that such a place ever existed. It has actually been done. A group in the 1960s and 1970s whose name I've forgotten (it was something like the 'Church of All Worlds) actually DID try to found a religion based on the ideas of 'Stranger in a Strange Land.' Their core ceremony was water sharing and they had a big influence on many teenage Americans, particularly, for some reason - especially considering Rand's fierce atheism - on those who also liked Ayn Rand and who voted for Goldwater in 1964. Apparently the group was still going in the 1970s but whether it still exists I've no idea. They used to wear some special badge as well which they called something like a 'tiki.' (No idea what it was or why they wore it.) Hope this helps. Lin, back up and read post #8. That's the group you're talking about. I knew some of those folks in the mid-90s and from the links, it appears they are still in business.
|
|