The biggest red flag in those instances were when the person/organization started asking them a) for lots of money, b) for control over aspects of their lives, e.g. I've had a couple friends have near-misses with cults in the past. I guess I would say that using AR games/activities doesn't in any way indicate a cult, BUT I could see cults making use of AR games/activities. Unfortunately, I think that ultimately any system which encourages vulnerability can be warped into something cult-like. That said, I can see the potential for it to be abused. For me, it feels very healing in some ways, and more like a support group or group therapy. My take is that the activities that all under the AR banner are really interesting and can indeed be powerful ways of feeling connected to people. I've just been introduced to the concept of Authentic Relating through a mutual aid organization near me. There continue to be issues with people being traumatized:
They always claim that they are learning/developing, and the reports of issues are old and outdated. or violence, without calling the cops.ĭidn't realize all of this till I had been involved for a bit, so it is good you could tell it was off. Some groups are fairly normal, and some groups go to extremes of stripping down naked in a group, without consent. People like to claim they have solved the issues from then, but they haven't really. there is something called encounter groups from the 70s, which is basically the same. there is a line of people traumatized from their experiences in circling. I was into it at one point, delved in deeply, found out about some insane human rights issues happening. there is some very weird things happening in sections of AR/Circling, that people turn a blind eye to. (And that will be instructive.) But at the bottom of it all, the right-side-up pyramid and the upside-down triangle are the essential criteria. You can go look at all the various cult models in this article, of course. The intended upshot of the victimizing is to bind the members all the way to the ninth level into Learned Helplessness & the Victim Identity even when it may not look like that from the outside or from the lower levels. Some "hurt people hurt other people" because, on the persecutors' Drama Triangles, victimizing others is imperative so that they do not have to experience themselves as victims. The control imperatives of the leaders on the upper two or three levels of each congregation's organizational pyramid vary considerably. “Is this a Cult?” Couldn't answer that for sure without looking into the organizational hierarchy to see if it operates like this in a manner that meets most of the requirements set forth by the experts who put together the various lists of characteristic in this article. Because what's in that article is really close to what I saw and heard in that deal.īUT. But even more closely (on the basis of the article) to AR/C, The Center for Feeling Therapy on the west edge of Hollywood in the 1970s. I'm not familiar with AR/C, but I am with other schemes like it, including the granddaddy of these deals, Jack "Werner Erhard" Rosenberg's famed Erhard Seminars Training, in which I was more than a innocent participant, for sure.
Including mixing psychological facts with fictions, "hot seating," public confession, and emotion manipulation. Well, the long article in The Atlantic points straight at several of the cardinal, "therapy cult" techniques of obtaining access to the mind for the sake of gaining control of it, for sure. Landmark Worldwide (formerly Landmark Education) Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge The International Cultic Studies Association, formerly American Family Foundation Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance Information Network Focus on Religious Movements Racism, homophobia, or religious discrimination will get you banned. The word often carries derogatory connotations, but not always.Īlso, despite questioning some of these organizations, please be respectful of all religious beliefs. However, whether any particular group's beliefs and practices are sufficiently deviant or novel is often unclear, thus making a precise definition problematic. This term has a few meanings: organizations (not always religious) that use tactics to commit crimes and attack opponents, or organizations that act under extreme secrecy or have seemingly 'weird' practices.
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