I've been watching a series about various cults.  It's not exactly the pinnacle of journalism but is sort of an interesting overview of various cults.  Though I have heard of, or read about, many of these cults seeing them covered in short documentaries one after the other, I am struck by how many cult leaders bring in polygamy and/or child sexual abuse.  

The draw seems to be serving a god and having a sense of community only to find out that it's really about abuse...sexual and otherwise.

I am surprised by the people who fall for these leaders and what they are willing to do to remain a part of the cult.

(February 17, 2021 at 10:35 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: I am surprised by the people who fall for these leaders and what they are willing to do to remain a part of the cult.

I'm not.

Mind tricks work on those with tiny, weak, minds.

When you let others do your thinking for you, principles are conveniently obscured.

Watched a show on cults from YouTube a couple of years back.

Very weird, very scary people.

Our chief luminary Markus Bright-Light-Of-The-World teaches us that there are no such things as these 'cults' you people speak of. All that is required to achieve supreme consciousness and life long happiness is dedication, having an open mind, and a willingness to bring others into the light.

Oh, and your banking information.

Boru

(February 18, 2021 at 6:32 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: ...

Oh, and your banking information.

Boru

Your daughter probably too.

(February 18, 2021 at 1:28 am)no one Wrote: Mind tricks work on those with tiny, weak, minds.

When you let others do your thinking for you, principles are conveniently obscured.

A more competent mind more competently lies to it's owner.  Conditioning works on every swinging richard, not just the dumb ones.  

Smart ones may have a unique blindspot in that their perimeter defense is taken to be so effective that anything inside of it is automatically assumed -not- to be the loony conditioned shit.  That's where the thin end of the wedge comes in.  

If I were intentionally looking to con someone, I'd pick a person that believed that only weak minds could be conditioned, and that they didn't have one of those weak minds.  In fact I'd tell them that, in many other words and ways, all the time. Laundering my efforts. A wary mark, otoh, is too much work. Frankly, a cult has an existential requirement that swirls around the cultists ability to close their mind off. To be strong in the way that the comment above would imply had some benefit to preventing conditioning. It doesn't..it's how you hold conditioned states - and you don't want someone so empty headed that the next con can come along, undo all your work, and profit from it.

The only difference between a cult and a religion is - in the cult there is a guy at the top that knows it's all bullshit. In religion - that guy died.