Overconfidence of Cults

Of Dominance and Decision-Making

"Many who break with problems are hard-headed spirits against imposed dominance."

If you let others dominate you and ride you and your life course by lots of big and fine-sounding words mainly - speaking of God, Mr Big, Great, and even many godmen on their side, and so on - you are a fool. Try not to be one. Keep your key assets away from the cult in question, and stick to good fares and courses that normally would be open to you. And it helps to preserve one's relative freedom.

Some cults teach meditation that serves to bind members. Self-Realization Fellowship, SRF teaches kriya yoga that way, and also say there is no way out. Seek out the best methods according to research, keep in mind the counsel of preserving your freedom as best you can, and then you could benefit from meditation, including kriya yoga. You can learn it from others than SRF, withour forsaking your liberty, without having to swallow some faith, and so on. Do what is good for you. That is what I tell.

Otherwise, there are cults around - They strive for members, in part by publishing guru-good material. It is much common. But what is good for a guru may not be the thing for his or her many-lifetimes-submitted "spirit-serfs", who are bound by too costy pledges on their part.

Granted that, you can feel fine and be happy for a whole life in a closed religious group, or for a long while. But if you start to doubt, or fall in love outside of the cult, things might get difficult. Leaving a closed religious group may be difficult indeed. Many who break with sects or cults, may recognise parts of their situation on the following pages. They relate a lot to Self-Realization Fellowship, SRF, but you can put other group names instead of it as you like.

A sect is a group adhering to a distinctive doctrine or to a leader or both. The sect offers a limited scope, and may make persons narrow or bigoted. The term sect is used synonymously with cult. A member of a cult usually has great devotion to someone, or to his or her objects of devotion. Cults and sects are often small. If they grow big, they can be called religions. Christianity started out as one of the minor sects of Judaism. Vishnuism, with its devotional Krishna focus, started as a cult, and is the facet of Hinduism that has the most members today by far - maybe nine out of ten Hindus are Vaishnavas.

Many who break with sects find themselves much alone afterwards and in dire need of building a new identity. Many appear to lack concepts (words) for what they have been dealing with. They may need help to identify and understand what they have been through. There are other problems too, and many of them relate to dominance - and who can decide over others and what they are to do and believe in too? Lots of hard-headed gurus try it.

From a Norwegian Report

In a recent study by the "National Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress", produced at the request of the Norwegian government, sixteen former members of religious groups were interviewed. The study suggests the need for a centre that maps out religious groups and members' rights. Key points on sectarianism should be taught in high schools. Health personell should know of cult defector problems and issues. Closed religious groups should receive information about human rights.

It stands out from interviews that former sect members have overwhelming feelings of being alone. Depressions, fear of hell, and isolation trouble many. There is a need to learn new cultural codes and learn to orient themselves again in life. Many defectors are tormented by faith and a fear of ending in hell after cultwise, repeated "mental rapes", where leaders among other things used bible verses to tell how bad people were. Leaving a cult can be far worse than a broken marriage. Defectors risk losing their entire social networks and family in the church, in addition to being troubled by ideas that God condemns them.

Some cult defectors gradually get what is called a good life, while others struggle with depression. Many feel they have wasted part of their life. Hardest hit are those who have broken with a religious group where the rest of the family is still there. Most defectors stick to their cult faith, although with tensions.

Cult defectors need information and courses, and ongoing assessments of members' rights from a human rights perspective - and a monitoring centre. Psychologists in general may be untrained for and unable to deal with faith and religious issues.

In Sweden, there are between 50 and 100 cult defectors yearly, according to estimates.

Roald Ramsdal. "Religiøse avhoppere skal få hjelp (Religious defectors are to get help)". Oslo: Aftenposten (The Evening Post) 27 Oct. 08. www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article2735087.ece

SRF

Opposition to cults and to new religious movements comes from several sources. There are cult-watching groups, opposition from traditional religion, from secular cult-critics, from sceptics, and from critical former members, defectors. Critical former members sometimes form loose networks, including Internet discussion boards like the SRF Walrus, the Cult Busters, SRF Division or Ananda Awareness Network, AAN. The motives of such critical former members, the roles they play in the anti-cult movement, and how valid their testimonies might be, can indeed be debatable.

Among those in opposition to a group, some debate, some take to activities, and then there are academic studies . . . Some academics incline more to see cults as harmful and to regard apostates' testimonies against cults as generally reliable; others not. New religious movements are not all alike, but different. And that calls for debate as to the reliability of the testimonies of critical former members as well. Some academics think that defectors may stand in need of self-justification, seeking to reconstruct their own past to conform better to their present standing and self-image, and to excuse their former affiliations, while blaming former close associates. And that may be true for some defectors, but not for other defectors. By way of example, a professor at Rutgers University, when analyzing leaver responses, found the testimonies of former members as least as reliable as statements from the groups themselves. [Wikipedia, sv. "Opposition to cults and new religious movements"]

The next pages of cult information relate to SRF, Self-Realization Fellowship, which is classified as a cult by some. There are more SRF members in Southern California than other places, and more members in the United States than in other Western countries.

Thus, cult-related problems of some kriya-church members are more pronounced where there are most members and with members interacting in a social network - in congregations and groups. Many SRF members around the world appear to be more isolated SRF-wise, "away from court, away from care", less involved with SRF as their church or network of belong, so to speak. Besides, the voices of SRF dissidents and defectors may get more difficulties in being heard. That was how it was before the Internet, at any rate.

SRF has an Indian sister organisation, Yogoda Satsanga Society, or YSS in short. What follows does not pertain to YSS, which I know very little about.

Hallmarks of a cult

• They exclude others.
• They take to reductionist thinking and such language to accomplish one or more general aims.
• They divide members from the outside world somehow.
• They bring ideological totalism and use reinforcements that shame some who do not conform enough.
• There is simplistic thinking which tends to serve mind-control of members.

When assessing to what degree a group is a cult, simple "yes" and "no" answers may not be good enough: then try to nuance the responses to:

1. "emphatic yes",
2. "cool yes / to some degree, yes",
3. "don't know" in the middle,
4. "cool no",
5. emphatic no".

At last you sum up the scores, and judge the findings. This sort of nuanced responses form the basis of the Likert scale, where you differentiate your responses wiser than by just "yes" and "no". The Likert scale is often used in the social science to get more reliable data.

In considering breaking out of a group, one's environment is a formidable influence. It is generally decent to take that into consideration, not only oneself, the expert or councellor (whoever that may be), and one's sense of belonging, and firm expectations. These are factors to take into account.

Literature  

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