Those who are truly capable of independent thinking, watch the following video, read the information available and decide for yourself whether somebody is an Avatar or just a Cult Leader
Cult denotes a group that forms around a person who claims he or she has a special mission or knowledge, which will be shared with those who turn over most of their decision making to that self-appointed leader.
The term cult tends to imply something weird, something other than normal, something that is not us. But cults are far from marginal, and those who join them are no different from you or me. The issues they represent are basic to our society, to our understanding of each other, and to our accepting our vulnerabilities and the potential for abuse within our world.
Cults come in all sizes, form around any theme, and recruit persons of all ages and backgrounds. Not all cults are religious, as some people think. Their reasons for existing may concern religion, life-style, politics, or assorted philosophies. Not everyone who is approached by a cult recruiter joins, and of those who join, not all stay forever. Cults vary in how much financial and political power they wield. Some are local phenomena with only a dozen members. Others have thousands of members, operate multinational businesses, and control complex multimillion- if not multibillion-dollar organizations.
Modern-day cults and thought-reform groups tend to offer apparent utopias, places where all humankind's ills will be cured. The cults' lure is, if you just come along, all will be fine, and everyone will live happily ever after.
Since the 1960s, there has been a burgeoning of independent entrepreneurial groups that go into the mind-manipulation and personality-change business. Myriads of false messiahs, quacks, and leaders of cults and thought-reform groups have emerged who use Orwellian* mind-manipulation techniques. They recruit the curious, the unaffiliated, the trusting, and the altruistic. They promise intellectual, spiritual, political, social, and self-actualization utopias. These modern-day pied pipers offer, among other things, pathways to God, salvation, revolution, personal development, enlightenment, perfect health, psychological growth, egalitarianism, channels to speak with 35,000-year- old "entities," life in ecospheres, and contact with extraterrestrial beings.
There is truly a smorgasbord of spiritual, psychological, political, and other types of cults and cultic groups seeking adherents and devotees. Contrary to the myth that those who join cults are seekers, it is the cults that go out and actively and aggressively find followers. Eventually, those groups subject their followers to mind-numbing treatments that block critical and evaluative thinking and subjugate independent choice in a context of a strictly enforced hierarchy
The wisdom of the ages is that most manipulation is subtle and covert. When Orwell* drew on this wisdom, he envisioned the evolution of an insidious but successful mind and opinion manipulator. He would appear as a smiling, seemingly beneficent Big Brother. But instead of one Big Brother, we see hordes of Big Brothers in the world today. Many of them are cult leaders."
* In 1949, George Orwell wrote about the negative utopia he feared would evolve, perhaps by 1984.
Source: Excerpts from 'Cults in our Midst' by Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer
Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D., is one of the leading experts in the field of coercive persuasion, a clinical psychologist and emeritus adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In her career, she has counseled and interviewed more than 3,000 current and former cult members and their relatives and friends.
http://standupfordharma.blogspot.com/
Cult denotes a group that forms around a person who claims he or she has a special mission or knowledge, which will be shared with those who turn over most of their decision making to that self-appointed leader.
The term cult tends to imply something weird, something other than normal, something that is not us. But cults are far from marginal, and those who join them are no different from you or me. The issues they represent are basic to our society, to our understanding of each other, and to our accepting our vulnerabilities and the potential for abuse within our world.
Cults come in all sizes, form around any theme, and recruit persons of all ages and backgrounds. Not all cults are religious, as some people think. Their reasons for existing may concern religion, life-style, politics, or assorted philosophies. Not everyone who is approached by a cult recruiter joins, and of those who join, not all stay forever. Cults vary in how much financial and political power they wield. Some are local phenomena with only a dozen members. Others have thousands of members, operate multinational businesses, and control complex multimillion- if not multibillion-dollar organizations.
Modern-day cults and thought-reform groups tend to offer apparent utopias, places where all humankind's ills will be cured. The cults' lure is, if you just come along, all will be fine, and everyone will live happily ever after.
Since the 1960s, there has been a burgeoning of independent entrepreneurial groups that go into the mind-manipulation and personality-change business. Myriads of false messiahs, quacks, and leaders of cults and thought-reform groups have emerged who use Orwellian* mind-manipulation techniques. They recruit the curious, the unaffiliated, the trusting, and the altruistic. They promise intellectual, spiritual, political, social, and self-actualization utopias. These modern-day pied pipers offer, among other things, pathways to God, salvation, revolution, personal development, enlightenment, perfect health, psychological growth, egalitarianism, channels to speak with 35,000-year- old "entities," life in ecospheres, and contact with extraterrestrial beings.
There is truly a smorgasbord of spiritual, psychological, political, and other types of cults and cultic groups seeking adherents and devotees. Contrary to the myth that those who join cults are seekers, it is the cults that go out and actively and aggressively find followers. Eventually, those groups subject their followers to mind-numbing treatments that block critical and evaluative thinking and subjugate independent choice in a context of a strictly enforced hierarchy
The wisdom of the ages is that most manipulation is subtle and covert. When Orwell* drew on this wisdom, he envisioned the evolution of an insidious but successful mind and opinion manipulator. He would appear as a smiling, seemingly beneficent Big Brother. But instead of one Big Brother, we see hordes of Big Brothers in the world today. Many of them are cult leaders."
* In 1949, George Orwell wrote about the negative utopia he feared would evolve, perhaps by 1984.
Orwell's genius was in sensing that combinations of social and psychological techniques are easier, more effective, and cheaper than the gun-to-the-head methods of coercion. Social and psychological persuasion is also less likely to attract attention and thus is less apt to mobilize opposition early and easily from those being manipulated. Orwell reasoned that if a government could control all media and interpersonal communication while simultaneously forcing citizens to speak in a politically controlled jargon, it could blunt independent thinking. If thought could be controlled, then rebellious actions against a regime could be prevented. Not only in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four but also in his essays on politics and the English language, Orwell emphasized the power of words. Words represent thoughts, and without the capability to express thoughts, people lose access to their own thinking.
Source: Excerpts from 'Cults in our Midst' by Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer
Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D., is one of the leading experts in the field of coercive persuasion, a clinical psychologist and emeritus adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In her career, she has counseled and interviewed more than 3,000 current and former cult members and their relatives and friends.
http://standupfordharma.blogspot.com/
