Caught In The Existential Drift

The other day, I received a Tweet from a practicing magician who said that I was turning into a dime store preacher. He said I have stopped being a Fortean and that I am now contributing to “satanic panic” because of the warnings I gave about the dedication of the replicas of the Temple arches from Palmyra, Syria.

Tracy Twyman had discussed the strange symbolism of the Needle of Cleopatra and its symbolism paired with the arches that were facsimiles of those that belonged to the Temple of Baal.

Now as American forces have recaptured the Syrian city, the media is now reporting that bodies have been found in mass graves ritually beheaded and it is believed many were tortured before they were killed. The media is now grooming the masses with programming aimed at the idea that it is a black eye to ISIS to erect these arches in a political move to show what ISIS removed we can rebuild.

I do not know how speaking of this ritualistic trauma makes me a dime store preacher, I just know what trauma and ritual programming leads to and that is cult- like programming.

Programming has always been absorbed into our culture. It is silent and seldom felt. It is used in order to rob of us of our cognitive liberty and independence. When we are children we learn reality, through our parents, teachers and in some cases, religious authorities. Environment and circumstances also have a part in programming us during our formative years, and then we mature and take responsibility for ourselves.

However, many people do not even thing about taking responsibility for their cultural conditioning.

The majority of people are conditioned in the most simplistic sense with the idea of “good versus evil” and from there they make their judgments about who are the good and who are the evil doers, what are good and evil choices and whether or not is right or wrong to program people into acceptance of an authoritarian policing over who or what is good or evil.

Much of what is policed by the authoritarian rule we hope is being directed away from us. This means there are the others who are seen as evil or destructive and so they should be avoided, ostracized or even terminated because we have been programmed with what can be called a destructive group think aimed at dividing people and creating chaos.

It is unpopular to throw out warnings about how the divisive arguments and creating scapegoats are destructive. Warnings about self-destruction ruin the programming dialectic. The programmers need you to develop your fear, anger, and hate, in order to give free reign to violent passion and emotion.

Reason, truth-seeking, humility and independent thought are keys fighting against programming and cult-like behaviors.

No word in the English language conjures up more disdain than the word, cult. It has been used and abused to describe any group that dances to the tune of a different drum. While it is arguable that we have all been a part of cult like behavior from time to time in our lives it seems that there are many jumping on the bandwagon to warn you that these groups lurk in the most unassuming of places.

Many of us have our own prejudices regarding the stories of cults or cult leaders like Jim Jones of the People’s Temple, David Koresh of the Branch Davidians and Marshall Applewhite of Heaven’s Gate. However many people don’t realize that they can fall prey to cult like behavior in both their religious and political views. Many already have and this is why there seems to be a polarization of views in the country a model of you are either on our side or the side of those who oppress us.

You will also be surprised to learn that many of you are probably already a part of a group that uses a tactic known as group dynamics to get you to do their bidding. This type of manipulation can get even the smartest of people to do things that most people would consider peculiar.

Cult like behavior exists in therapy groups, political groups, and many businesses use group dynamics to instill pride and loyalty.

The confusing thing is that not all cults are bad. If the group is legitimately trying to find the truth and they’re purpose is to better mankind then they will stand up to the scrutiny and they will persevere. If they are continually pressuring people to commit before they hear the whole story, or if they lie or use nebulous rewards or undefined fear of an enemy as a tactic to get your servitude then you should realize that this group may be destructive and needs to be avoided.

There are many things that can be used to put fear and paranoia into your mind. We have heard of prophecies, outrageous claims, alien invasion terrors, and possible virtual takeovers. While they are possibilities to consider, one must realize that until they transpire, they are pure speculation.

Many though, are convinced that their fears will come true and are left in a hellish pit of despair. They tend to look for a protective network. A group that answers their questions or even weirder still continues to fuel their fears.

While a healthy dose of paranoia motivates even the people who dwindle in unbelief, unhealthy fear and manipulation can get you to move away from your family, stockpile weapons, and kill others, even yourself.

It just takes a few triggers and a few key ingredients and soon the whole world comes crashing down around you.

I have currently begun watching the Hulu television series called “The Path” starring Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame.

The story is about the fictional Meyerist Movement, a cult like organization created by Dr. Stephen Meyer. The movement is a blend of spirituality and pseudo-science marketed as a way of achieving enlightenment to overcome pain and negativity in life. Meyer created The Path as a ladder to self-awareness and as the series begins, he is said to be holed up in Peru writing the ladder’s final rungs.

The cult has an eerie symbol that looks like the All Seeing Eye.

It appears to be a tribal rendering of an orb that resembles a sun inside the middle of a circle. It’s virtually everywhere: etched in wood outside meeting halls and headquarter offices, hanging framed on walls inside homes and prison-like “isolation” cells, adorning everything from communal teepees to recruitment pamphlets.

The timing of the release of this series couldn’t be any more appropriate in terms of how the country has been enveloped in cult like behavior with the political rallies, and that Lyle Jeffs one of the controversial leaders of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints cult will stand trial for fraud.

Many of the polygamist sect believe that on April 6th, 2016 an earthquake will apparently cause the walls of a prison in Texas to crumble and Lyle and his brother, Warren Jeffs, the group’s “prophet” and supreme leader, will walk free – despite the fact he has been serving a sentence of life plus 20 years in that state since 2011, convicted of having sex with underage girls as young as 12 that he took as polygamous wives.

By divine coincidence, the 6th of April, is the date most Mormons –the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints proclaim is the actual birthday of Jesus Christ. It will also be the day that another episode of The Path called “A Homecoming” will be available to watch.

The Path’s first episode was released just after the 19th anniversary of the Heaven’s Gate cult’s mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, North San Diego County.

Heaven’s Gate is best known as the cult whose leader, Marshall Herff Applewhite, convinced 38 people to commit mass suicide in 1997, in what was the largest mass suicide in U.S. history. Applewhite had told his followers that extra-terrestrials would give their souls new bodies after they died, and the group determined in 1996 that the passing of the comet Hale-Bopp would bring with it a spaceship that would usher their spirits to a place Applewhite called the Evolutionary level above human. The group gathered in a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California to ritually kill themselves in expectation of the event.

The month of April is also the month of when another cult calling themselves, The Branch Davidians were killed.

The Branch Davidians were at the center of the Waco siege in 1993. The group believed that Jesus Christ’s return to earth was imminent. Their leader, David Koresh, reportedly convinced his followers that they needed to arm themselves for that apocalypse. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raided their Waco, Tex., ranch in 1993 based on information that the group was stockpiling weapons. The raid began in a gun battle that killed four agents and six Branch Davidians and lasted 51 days. Eventually, a fire, which broke out at the ranch as the FBI invaded with tear gas, engulfed the compound. Seventy-five Branch Davidians, including children, died.

These stories of cults gone bad are the horror tales that most people use as examples of why cults are destructive.

In fact, the word “cult” is often misused as a pejorative term because of sects like the Solar Temple, another suicidal cult, or even the People’s Temple.

The term, “drinking the Kool-Aid” originates with the mass suicide of 911 members of The People’s Temple in 1978. The leader of the cult, Jim Jones, began preaching about social equality, lifting up the downtrodden and other socialist principles in the 1960s. He amassed a huge following in Indianapolis before migrating with his followers to California to build a commune. As he began to abuse amphetamines, Jones became paranoid about attacks on his person, so he moved his now hundreds of followers to a town in Guyana called Jonestown.

In 1978, Congressman Leo Ryan flew to Jonestown with a television crew to investigate claims that people were being held against their will. When the congressman attempted to leave with defectors from the cult, he was ambushed at the airport by Jones’ people. They shot and murdered Ryan and four others. That evening, Jones ordered everyone in Jonestown to drink cups of cyanide laced grape Kool-Aid. When it was over, 911 people were dead. Jones was found with a bullet in his temple.

A majority of people think that people get sucked into cults because they’re “stupid”, “brainwashed”, “insane”, “weak-minded”, “types who need to be told what to do”, “or people who are too lazy to mentally think for themselves.”

As media coverage tends to blast society with stories such as the 911 deaths at Jonestown, 39 suicides of Heaven’s Gate members, or the showdown between law enforcement agents and David Koresh’s followers in Waco, Texas, it can be hard for people not to be influenced by this information.

Always remember that a cult is the starting point of every religion, at the stage where there is simply a charismatic leader and an enthusiastic band of followers, who have not yet developed anything more than the simplest organizational structure. Most cults die before they get beyond this stage; others become more bureaucratized, as what happened to Christianity.

However, when the term cult is used today, we know that the subject is a controversial “high demand” religion, or some other group which has come to be associated with the term in the minds of the media.

New religions which demand a high degree of commitment from adherents are bound to be disturbing to outsiders, especially to family members of those who join. Also it is easy to call high demand religions as cults, namely Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons.

However, defining “high demand” groups as cults puts at risk other religions like the Pentecostals, and Catholics as well as organizations like Amway and the U.S. Army.

Despite the misinformation that has been spoon fed to us through the media coverage, people who join cults are typically not insane, brainwashed or stupid. According to studies, some which can be found in Lorne L. Dawson’s book, The Sociology of New Religious Movements, cult members fit relatively similar demographics across most New Religious Movements. Common characteristics that emerge between members of various cults include: a higher level of education, a weaker spiritual background, higher financial success, younger age, and fewer time constraints.

Not only are people without a spiritual identity more likely to get recruited, young adults searching for their own personal identity are more likely to join cults also.

People who have suffered great loss or are traumatized are also in a mental state that would put them in a situation where they would join a destructive cult. There are also those who are on the path of “religious seekership” that are vulnerable to joining a new religious movement or cult.

A cult defined is basically any group or organization where dedicated, willing members surrender independent thinking and their lives for an idealistic sounding mission.

This definition literally points to any group that uses peer pressure and group dynamics to further an agenda. Thus, creating a mindset where people would rather die or sacrifice those around them than go against the group.

It is a programming mechanism that we are all familiar with. Whether it is a religious influence, a political influence, or patriotism we have allowed ourselves to make the claim that we would be willing to sacrifice our time, our well-being, and even our lives for
that ideology.

Sometimes however, there are things we give up little by little when we are being manipulated.

We lose our integrity, and self-responsibility, little by little and become dependent on those who are controlling us. When they tell us of a threat and urge us to agree upon it, we are willing to give up everything even our lives to eliminate that threat.

No one realizes this form of mind control is destructive until they reach the edge and by then they realize that they really don’t care anymore because they feel trapped. They are damned if they leave and they are damned if they stay. If they leave they do it after the slow stripping away of your character you fail to realize that you have resolved that the group or ideology is far more important than you are. This is where the danger begins.

You then fail to see the other warning signs that develop like centralized control and policing of others, making sure that measures to insure control are upheld for the survival of the collective’s intentions.

This leads to censorship and secrecy. Flaws of the group are not mentioned, or they are covered up or classified.

There are some however that will be given certain secrets, if they have proven their loyalty to the controllers. They learn their secrets through secret meetings and ceremonies that are not open to all members of the collective.

There will be those within the group that will further the agendas and ideologies by publicly declaring the loyalty through testimonials and endorsements. It is an imperative that no disagreeing oratory be heard among the collective. To do so would be considered subversive or insurgent. Maybe in some cases it would be considered blasphemous or heretical.

How many times have we been accused of having a lack of faith, or having our loyalty questioned because we have been critical of a viewpoint or ideology foisted upon us by those who claim that they are above us, or claim to be our leaders?

In the current political climate of the country, we are seeing the ritualizing of politics through theater and show boating. The politicians are using ideologies that are preparing us for war within ourselves.

We are also seeing what can be termed, civil blasphemy – in political rallies, and on social media.

Civil blasphemy is defined as anything that can be construed as speaking out in dissent of a government policy or action, if you question authority, or demean or otherwise point out hypocrisy in government you will be arrested for civil blasphemy.

Civil blasphemy will be determined by the lawmakers as anything that the state deems sacred; so sacred that it will be protected from any form of irreverence and challenge.

I am beginning to see some unhealthy attitudes being expressed about our leaders.

People are having difficulty differentiating between mortal leaders who are elected to govern, and anointed prophets.

Groups who are willing to support this kind of apotheosis would be willing to march single file into hell all for the promise of heaven even if it means socialism or globalism.

No one is immune from the destructive group dynamic or trapped in the Hegelian dialectic. Perhaps now we can understand why some people who are members of destructive groups act the way they do. Now perhaps we can look outside ourselves and see why groups go willingly to the slaughter when the day of reckoning takes place.

God moves in mysterious ways, but not so mysterious as his mortal believers.

Text – Check out Ground Zero Radio with Clyde Lewis Live Nightly @ http://www.groundzeromedia.org