How to start a cult

[Mendax]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6217214475742003000&hl=en

[Otis]

This is an excellent video, and a good reminder for seekers.

 

Of course, the cult has appropriated some language from ancient traditions (such as letting go of the ego), but that language, of course, is not what makes it a cult.

 

It is the insistence that the individual surrender his or her own decision-making right, responsibility, and power (by giving it to the group or leader), which is the sign of the cult. The big red flags are dogma, insistence on esoteric jargon/methods, and the raising of the leader/guru as a superhuman figure.

 

Unfortunately, most of the world religions have cults in their center. All fundamentalism is cultism.

Edited July 8, 2011 by Otis

[Otis]

I think it's also worthwhile, taking another look at a group like Ruthless Truth, after seeing this video.

 

On Ruthless Truth, there are two categories: noobs and enlightened people (the believers). The only way to become "enlightened" is to agree with the "truth" that is being shoved at you. Once you become "enlightened", you are given a specific profile picture, the avatar equivalent of the light blue shirts in the video.

 

The concept "there is no 'you'" is never fully explained. It is only preached, growled, cajoled, exhorted, angrily shouted. Exceptions to the concept are dismissed without discussion, and are usually reacted to with epithets and loud "shut up and get over it"-type responses. Noobs are challenged to do all the heavy lifting, to come up with a "self" that will somehow convince the believers, which is, of course, impossible.

 

The disbeliever is bullied, and eventually, ejected from the forum, if he doesn't show signs of caving. The new-found believers, on the other hand, are rewarded by being made special, "enlightened", and then are recruited to start "waking other people up".

 

The founder of the group is treated as a messiah, and refers to himself as "half-genius, half-God". Meanwhile, his epistemology is very self-contradictory (e.g. there is no "me", but I don't mind telling you exactly who you are), but that is never discussed, because discussion is verboten. Only the one "truth" is acceptable.

Edited July 8, 2011 by Otis

[Harmonious Emptiness]

I think it's also worthwhile, taking another look at a group like Ruthless Truth, after seeing this video.

 

 

Wow! I've heard of Ruthless Truth mentioned here before but never knew anything about them. That is some serious tactitioning man!

 

It's great to be able to spot these tactics because people use them EVERYWHERE. There should be more laws against commercials that use these tatics. People should know better, but it's important to protect ones who haven't been educated on these tactics and may have had to suffer them all their lives under manipulative family members, friends, teachers, religious leaders, activist groups, fashion police, coaches, etc.

 

Someone gave me the book "Futher Along The Road Less Travelled" which has a good list of warning signals for cults. "3 or 4 of these and some flags should go up":

 

1. Idolatry of a single charismatic leader

2. A revered inner circle

3. secrecy of management

4. financial evasiveness

5. Dependency (especially on the leader to tell you what to think or believe)

6. Conformity (age, dress, sex, )

7. Special language

8. Dogmatic doctrine (unquestionable, etc.)

9. heresy (attributing God to things that are not God)

10. God in captivity (as if they are the only ones that "possess" God)

 

(M. Scott Peck, M.D.)

Edited July 9, 2011 by Harmonious Emptiness

[mewtwo]

Since we are on the topics of cults woulf u guys say that bob kims aka wan qi's group of people would be concidered a cult?

[Otis]

Someone gave me the book "Futher Along The Road Less Travelled" which has a good list of warning signals for cults. "3 or 4 of these and some flags should go up":

 

1. Idolatry of a single charismatic leader

2. A revered inner circle

3. secrecy of management

4. financial evasiveness

5. Dependency (especially on the leader to tell you what to think or believe)

6. Conformity (age, dress, sex, )

7. Special language

8. Dogmatic doctrine (unquestionable, etc.)

9. heresy (attributing God to things that are not God)

10. God in captivity (as if they are the only ones that "possess" God)

 

(M. Scott Peck, M.D.)

LOL! This list really sounds like it's describing the Vatican.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

LOL! This list really sounds like it's describing the Vatican.

 

lol, yeah, he mentions right after that someone pointed that out to him..

[Seth Ananda]

Hmm Ruthless Truth was good for me.

I get that they may be seen that way, but it was not my experience with them. Mind you I understood right from the start exactly what they offer, how they help you achieve it and thus I understood how to use my time there.

 

I did not waste any time theorising. I did not try to debate them, or convert them to my super philosophy!

I told them what I was experiencing in relation to any Ideas/thoughts/feelings of self that I was having.

They then asked me further questions about it which I answered. Finally I gained the realisation of no self.

 

The Ideas were old to me but the environment they have there, where they put pressure on you to really look, as if your life depended on it, that is what helped me get it.

 

 

I am planning to write a piece on the experience of No self, but want to watch it for longer.

All I can say is it is awesome and utterly simple at the same time, and has nothing to do with belief.

All the content [mind/attachments/emotions/baggage/blah blah] is still there, but before hand, There was a central set of Ideas [the Idea of being someone] holding all those little stories together.

 

I am still free to fly off the handle in a threesome thread, or act like a tool when triggered, but at the same time the intensity is greatly reduced, as well as many desires and attachments.

 

To tell you the truth I am still getting used to it. Parts of myself [my stories or history] are just surfacing and unwinding by them selves. I am amazed at how many Issues are just resolving themselves, without me doing anything at all...

 

I do not see Cirian as a cult leader, in the negative sense, although there will always be sycophantic behaviour around anyone who stands up and does something like him.

I am not one of those people, and I do not believe what he is doing is as original as he thinks. Nor do I think they have to be as rude as they often are. In some of the threads I have thought 'you may be liberated but your still a dick head'

 

They have only been running for a year and hopefully they will get better and better at dealing with the different views they encounter.

 

Time will tell whether it degenerates or gets good and massive. Either way I find it hard to imagine it will go down quietly

At the same time, they are helping large numbers of people gain an amazing Insight. One that could very well be a Major turning point in a persons spiritual life.

 

Blessings.

[Seth Ananda]

http://www.ruthlesstruth.com/arena/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1122

[Seth Ananda]

 

 

The founder of the group is treated as a messiah, and refers to himself as "half-genius, half-God". Meanwhile, his epistemology is very self-contradictory (e.g. there is no "me", but I don't mind telling you exactly who you are), but that is never discussed, because discussion is verboten. Only the one "truth" is acceptable.

lol, nothing of the kind goes on. He is not a messiah, he has no deeper Insight into No self that anyone else there and is in general far more fucked up [baggage wise] than most of the other people.

 

And as I already stated in the RT thread, if you want to argue or debate or make friends, then RT is not the place for you - join a philosophy club, and theorise for the rest of your life...

 

RT's one and only purpose is to help people realise No self.

 

You go there and you look. That's it.

 

Worked for me...

[Informer]

You mean believing in no-self in totality, as an absolute?

 

In fact, you never even existed in the 1st place! It is a hypnotists parlor trick.

[ralis]

Famous quote by Herman Goering.

 

If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. ... Hermann Goering to Leon Goldensohn, May 24, 1946

[Otis]

Hmm Ruthless Truth was good for me.

I get that they may be seen that way, but it was not my experience with them. Mind you I understood right from the start exactly what they offer, how they help you achieve it and thus I understood how to use my time there.

Clearly, you have spent more time there, than I have.

 

I have not engaged in any direct conversation with them, but have just read through Ciaran's pinned posts, and a few of the "pit" and "dueling ground" threads. From that experience, I saw a bunch of red flags.

 

For example, the fact that Ciaran's gospel is all about no-self, and yet he openly called himself "half-God/half-genius". There seems to be a big disconnect between those two things. How do you preach no-self, but have an enormously important self-image? If anything, self-image is the most contaminated part of the "self" illusion, the first thing that needs to go.

 

Secondly, he has created a structure, whereby "realization of no-self" = enlightenment. That seems pretty questionable, to me. No-self seems, to me, like just one part of the bigger picture of waking up, hardly the one true realization. For example, it was my first awakening, but hardly my last.

 

Even if he believes in no-self, he obviously believes that his insight is so deep, that he now can ascertain what it means to be "enlightened", not only for himself, but for others. When he draws a (what seems to me, very arbitrary) line in the sand, saying this is where enlightenment lies, it is not an act of emptiness on his part, but arrogance. How does he know that that's what enlightenment is? "No self" appeared to me, ten years ago, and I certainly don't think I'm enlightened. Nor do I think it makes sense for me to tell others what will save them. Since I have never been anyone other than me, how could I make that claim?

 

Thirdly, I don't think that "no-self" is literally true. The "thoughts, no thinker" argument has no validity, that I recognize. Of course there's a thinker. No-self is fine as a metaphor, but not a "truth". The distinction, IME, is that the thought is not from the same source as the sense of I. But we both originate from the same brain; just different parts of it. If the site was willing to make subtle distinctions, instead of just banging the "no-self" drum, then I might see wisdom there. Instead, I see "gospel", which is a sign of fundamentalism.

 

Fourthly, the site and the doctrine are all about duality. You either exist, or you don't. You're either enlightened, or you're not. Nothing else is even allowed to be talked about. When a member asked the group: "how have your lives changed since you became enlightened?", that member was immediately shouted down, told that was off-topic, and shouldn't be discussed. WTF? If a bunch of people are going to call themselves "enlightened", then I think the question of how they live their lives is extremely relevant. This is very cult-like behavior, to forbid any questions that don't directly support the main message of the leader.

 

Fifthly, Ciaran proclaims "no self", but in his rants, he projects like a mofo on people. He tells them who they are, and what they're doing. But that "you" delusion is 100X more flimsy than the "me" delusion. Of course, everyone believes in "me", because that seems self-evident. But to believe that I know who "you" are, especially when you're just a screen name and an avatar, that's just sheer arrogance. It doesn't seem very "enlightened" to act as if my projection on the world is actually accurate; that's what delusion is. And yet, that's never discussed, never considered.

 

Sixthly, of course, is the fact that Ciaran himself relies on badgering as his main tool. Now, others have said that he's chilled out since his early days, but he has pinned those early vitriolic threads as a flag, something he's proud of. He even sets up his site in combat terms: the pit, the dueling ground. Is "overwhelming" people really the path of waking them up? I don't even know anyone who is ever convinced by badgering, except perhaps those who feel the need to follow "authority figures" (i.e. good subjects to join a cult). His approach seems to be similar to one of the pick-up artists (or the cult leaders in the video above): isolate the one with low self-esteem, and f*ck with them, until they capitulate.

 

So, again, I haven't gone through what you went through. I'm just speaking from my observations, from spending several hours on the site. But those red flags were bright and shining, and the hypocrisy of the leader seems too obvious to miss. I don't know how you rationalize these things, but they sure spell "cult" to me.

[Seth Ananda]

Clearly, you have spent more time there, than I have.

 

I have not engaged in any direct conversation with them, but have just read through Ciaran's pinned posts, and a few of the "pit" and "dueling ground" threads. From that experience, I saw a bunch of red flags.

 

For example, the fact that Ciaran's gospel is all about no-self, and yet he openly called himself "half-God/half-genius". There seems to be a big disconnect between those two things. How do you preach no-self, but have an enormously important self-image? If anything, self-image is the most contaminated part of the "self" illusion, the first thing that needs to go.

 

Secondly, he has created a structure, whereby "realization of no-self" = enlightenment. That seems pretty questionable, to me. No-self seems, to me, like just one part of the bigger picture of waking up, hardly the one true realization. For example, it was my first awakening, but hardly my last.

 

Even if he believes in no-self, he obviously believes that his insight is so deep, that he now can ascertain what it means to be "enlightened", not only for himself, but for others. When he draws a (what seems to me, very arbitrary) line in the sand, saying this is where enlightenment lies, it is not an act of emptiness on his part, but arrogance. How does he know that that's what enlightenment is? "No self" appeared to me, ten years ago, and I certainly don't think I'm enlightened. Nor do I think it makes sense for me to tell others what will save them. Since I have never been anyone other than me, how could I make that claim?

 

Thirdly, I don't think that "no-self" is literally true. The "thoughts, no thinker" argument has no validity, that I recognize. Of course there's a thinker. No-self is fine as a metaphor, but not a "truth". The distinction, IME, is that the thought is not from the same source as the sense of I. But we both originate from the same brain; just different parts of it. If the site was willing to make subtle distinctions, instead of just banging the "no-self" drum, then I might see wisdom there. Instead, I see "gospel", which is a sign of fundamentalism.

 

Fourthly, the site and the doctrine are all about duality. You either exist, or you don't. You're either enlightened, or you're not. Nothing else is even allowed to be talked about. When a member asked the group: "how have your lives changed since you became enlightened?", that member was immediately shouted down, told that was off-topic, and shouldn't be discussed. WTF? If a bunch of people are going to call themselves "enlightened", then I think the question of how they live their lives is extremely relevant. This is very cult-like behavior, to forbid any questions that don't directly support the main message of the leader.

 

Fifthly, Ciaran proclaims "no self", but in his rants, he projects like a mofo on people. He tells them who they are, and what they're doing. But that "you" delusion is 100X more flimsy than the "me" delusion. Of course, everyone believes in "me", because that seems self-evident. But to believe that I know who "you" are, especially when you're just a screen name and an avatar, that's just sheer arrogance. It doesn't seem very "enlightened" to act as if my projection on the world is actually accurate; that's what delusion is. And yet, that's never discussed, never considered.

 

Sixthly, of course, is the fact that Ciaran himself relies on badgering as his main tool. Now, others have said that he's chilled out since his early days, but he has pinned those early vitriolic threads as a flag, something he's proud of. He even sets up his site in combat terms: the pit, the dueling ground. Is "overwhelming" people really the path of waking them up? I don't even know anyone who is ever convinced by badgering, except perhaps those who feel the need to follow "authority figures" (i.e. good subjects to join a cult). His approach seems to be similar to one of the pick-up artists (or the cult leaders in the video above): isolate the one with low self-esteem, and f*ck with them, until they capitulate.

 

So, again, I haven't gone through what you went through. I'm just speaking from my observations, from spending several hours on the site. But those red flags were bright and shining, and the hypocrisy of the leader seems too obvious to miss. I don't know how you rationalize these things, but they sure spell "cult" to me.

Good points all. But, when he said the mad God thing, I do not think he means that literally, the way many crazy cult leaders believe it - Adi Da, Li Hong Zhi...

 

that said, you still make good points, and I myself have always wondered about the possibilities for the place to go Evil Cult. It remains to be seen.

 

There was a guy here in the RT thread who claimed he was bullied into accepting No self as a belief, with all kinds of negative consequences [dizziness, distortion...] and it seems pretty clear to me that he was not done, even though they may have Blued him when he started to parrot them...

That concerns me and always did. The possibility that people who are not strong in their personalities yet [maybe just young], could just get bullied into accepting with out really seeing, would be a disaster.

I am very strong in my personality, so cannot be bullied into something.

 

These are all things I worried about reading various thread...

 

It is possible he may have discovered a system that really works, and will continue to work, that rely's on the controversial technique of goading, haranguing and Insulting the student into Liberation from Self.

Getting called a cowardly dick headed fuck face who is to chicken shit scared to just look to see if there is a Self, anywhere... tends to make people sweat, and feel a very Heightened sense of them selves - which is potentially very good for Inquiry. It is much like many Zen stories where the Zen master uses any dirty tactic to Liberate his student.

 

I myself grew up in a Cult. ours was no 3 on the Australian dangerous Cults list, and since i left I have studied Cults in great depth. At points I even deliberately joined them to gain more insight into cult dynamics. Unfortunately what I see there could send it the way of Falun, if they are not careful.

 

Ciaren has mentioned that No self does not end suffering. An Asshole who realises No self will probably still be an Asshole. But he has said it does end the Matrix that suffering depends on, - the belief in being someone... It certainly reduces suffering [iME] but time will tell.

 

I still think RT [at least for the moment] is an Invaluable resource for the strong minded...

[Otis]

I still think RT [at least for the moment] is an Invaluable resource for the strong minded...

It may be. I just got a strong impression.

 

Thank you for engaging on this.