Rocky

I certainly don't think any of them are, but hey, I've been away from them for more than 30 years, so what do I know? OTOH, I think what our friend Bolshevik posted about "hoovering" has plenty of merit. IF any of them, especially those who escaped with the R and R gang have any regrets about leaving, they could be SUCKED right back into the cult. If some of them have not established much of an alternative social network, or found a way to make a living, they could be vulnerable.

According to Dr. Peter A Olsson, a psychiatrist and the author of Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time, the origin (false) myth is typical of malignant narcissists who start cults. Olsson suggests these myths arise out of what he calls "dark epiphanies" in the lives of the cult leader.

Yeah, they can't plausibly deny it if they put it in writing.

A helpful resource directly on point. Thanks Bolshie

Why it's almost like knowing that the love of money is the root of all evil!

I'm confident you're correct. The seven primary subjects of the book were all high-profile and responsible for significant casualties (deaths). Nevertheless, it's obvious former followers of Wierwille will recognize him in the pages of this 174 page (not counting notes, bibliography and index) book.

I now have my own copy of this book in front of me on my desk. I checked the index, neither Wierwille nor TWI are cited in the book.

Robert Greene's book, The Art of Seduction, seems to be directly related to how and why we ALL get conned and so many (apparently increasing numbers in contemporary times) became/become vulnerable to cults. Critical thinking skills can be helpful, but I wonder how often (and how easily) seduction can overcome critical thinking. Greene has also written books on Human Nature and Laws of Power.

Looks like Frank Z didn't like us criticizing his interview. It's still available on YouTube. https://youtu.be/yN8r0r7JVns

That is, the text posted by Allan is glaringly (and dangerously) incorrect, yes.

And I'm confident you know that's obviously NOT the subject of this discussion.

Tzaia posted this obit in another forum.

Thanks for the link. We had already heard that he had passed.

The question was not whether you were or would be embarrassed, but whether you are INTERESTED at all in the actual topic of this thread. It seems you are not.

The paper mentions this book, Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time From a review of the book on Amazon: As a former member of a cult this study really hit home for me. My wife and I struggled for years trying to understand how we could have been so readily drawn into the Children of God. Thank God we found our way out. We did not suffer many of the aftereffects many ex members do but some of our friends did. A malignant Pied Piper emerges when an individual with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder finds a population who need a leader to take over the responsibilities of life for them and tell them what to do. They become dictatorial and usually sexually exploitative. When they take the next step and become involved in the occult they can become malignant and violent.

From page 13 of the pdf of the linked study: Destructive cults often create peculiarly distorted, unreflected-upon, short-cut, sometimes concrete thought in their recruits who are undergoing processing. It appears to the observer that these recruits have lost their higher powers of empathy, insight, and judgment. A percentage of cult followers develop symptoms partly as a result of this distortion or derangement and the concomitant short-cutting of their prior-to-cult, formerly richer and more reflective thought patterns (neural connections).

Allan, THIS is a complete derailing of the thread away from the accepted topic of comment on publicly criticizing (or not) a person shortly after the person's passing. Are you seriously not interested at all in the thread topic?

Intuitively, Mark and Avoid is recognizable as psychological abuse. And that's by far NOT what The Way International's abusive conduct has been limited to. Perhaps the first abuse twi subjected me to was (more than 40 years ago) when I was "influenced" to discontinue saving money from my meager military pay to donate to the movement of God's Word over the World. I had been on track to have enough to purchase a new car at the end of my enlistment. Instead, I mustered out of the USAF in late November and hitchhiked in winter weather Rochester NY to visit family before heading west to a small Ohio town and then on to Lawton, OK.

In 1985 The International Cultic Studies Association/University of California at Los Angeles, (ICSA/UCLA) Wingspread Conference on Cultism developed the following definition: Cult (totalist type): A group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control ... designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community. (West & Langone, 1986) In a 1992 survey of physicians, Lottick (1993) defined destructive cults as groups which violate the rights of their members, harm them through abusive techniques of mind control, and distinguish themselves from normal social or religious groups by subjecting their members to physical, mental, or financial deprivation or deception to keep them in the group.

Cults have a history as long as history has been recorded, but there has been remarkably enhanced concern about them more recently. In the 1970s at least two noteworthy whistle-blowers called attention to the rapidly expanding adversity of cults. One was Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D., a psychologist, and the other was John G. Clark, M.D., a psychiatrist. Their writings (Singer, 1979; Clark, 1979) sounded an alarm. They suggested that harm, which consists of physical and psychological constraint and manipulation, refusal to let adherents leave, depletion of adherent’s funds and assets, denial of competent treatment for illness, and even plain and simple wasting of adherents’ time, had been widely noted as a consequence of destructive cult involvement. Such harm is now clearly perceived by a significant segment of the population, but widespread awareness of the extent of destructive cultic harm is not yet incorporated into the American culture.

My daughter hadn't married her daughter's father when she realized she was pregnant. Still didn't for a couple of years but I'm glad she didn't abort either the pregnancy or the relationship. Later they had a son.

Welcome back. I've had trouble with one of my knees for close to a year and a half. Got two grandkids, one of each. Best thing about this life is grandchildren, IMO.

Obviously, data in the public sphere has demonstrated that the vaccine has, at worst, mild side-effects. Nobody has been killed by the vaccine. OTOH, people WE KNOW have been killed by the virus, in increasing numbers of cases those deaths are preventable when people heed sound public health and safety guidance. It's overwhelmingly sad, but true that the only threat to freedom in the pandemic has been death itself.