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All cults are doomed?

scooter

Gold Meritorious Patron
Been doing my usual eclectic reading of late and have just finished a biog of Hermann Goering, Nazi #2.

The thing that struck me was just how DM, Hubbard and Adolf had such a sway over their minions that none dare nay-say them so that they surrounded themselves with True Believers rather than competents who could do a proper job. Hitler doomed himself by listening only to his own voice, as did Hubbard and DM's been doing just that since Hisself took over.

The structures they created may allow someone of competence to briefly rise to the upper ranks but never to stay there. Only True Believers who would ignore their own consciences to follow their Guru could survive in such an atmosphere. And a fanatic is seldom capable of much other than destructive fanaticism.

Now if this were broadly true, then no cult could survive for any length of time unless it lost its lunatic devotion to literal interpretation of the "Sacred Scriptures" and the infallibility of the Guru and actually brought in non-fanatics into the ranks. This seems to have happened with the "mainstream" religions such as Christianity, Islam and even the Mormons, although all still have the small splinter cults that never seem to survive too long.

I remember every competent staff member who left and started a successful business just never fitted into the paradigm demanded to be a "successful" staff member, and every "successful" staff or SO exec was usually a screaming failure at every other facet of their lives. And, if they did leave the cult "sheltered workshop" environ, failed miserably as business folk, especially if they'd trained on the OEC/FEBC.

And I think it all comes back to just that one point - that cults by their very nature eliminate all but the Fanatic from their upper echelon and so commit slow suicide by incompetent Fanaticism.

After all, a Fanatic never has to study the world because he or she already knows everything about it from the Guru.

Your thoughts?
 

oneonewasaracecar

Gold Meritorious Patron
An interesting point of view. A cult is defined by it's maniacal devotion to a leader and it's leader's narcissism. I think you are right in that this central aspect of a cult is both the reason for it's rise and fall.

This would explain why most cults do no survive the deaths of their leaders.

Those that survive the death of their leaders and beyond do so by abandoning their roots. They reform. All of the mainstream religions started as cults.

It's funny, but I thought the form your post was going to take was along the lines of - Will the internet make it impossible for any cult to emerge and survive? Not to derail, but I think the internet has sped up the process you have described.

Which makes me wonder - the internet accelerates the death of cults. Will it accelerate the rise of them?
 

hpm1999

Patron with Honors
An interesting point of view. A cult is defined by it's maniacal devotion to a leader and it's leader's narcissism. I think you are right in that this central aspect of a cult is both the reason for it's rise and fall.

This would explain why most cults do no survive the deaths of their leaders.

Those that survive the death of their leaders and beyond do so by abandoning their roots. They reform. All of the mainstream religions started as cults.

It's funny, but I thought the form your post was going to take was along the lines of - Will the internet make it impossible for any cult to emerge and survive? Not to derail, but I think the internet has sped up the process you have described.

Which makes me wonder - the internet accelerates the death of cults. Will it accelerate the rise of them?

Janja Lalich in her books (on cults) make a distinction between religious cults (and most major religions started out as a "Cult" or offshoot of another religion, ie Mormons, Islam (blending of Judaism and Xtianity)- and SOCIOLOGICAL cults- which are destructive in nature. I think it is important to distinguish between religious and sociological cults (Lalich herself was in a non religious sociological cult that mirrored scientology in many many ways)
 

Idle Morgue

Gold Meritorious Patron
What has kept the Cult of Scientology going is the abusive and harsh tactics they employ to any critics. That was carefully masked PRIOR to the internet.

Any Clam still in should ask to see the reference about looking at the internet. Hubbard did not have this yet because he was not Oat Tea enough to know it was coming.

I asked for it and was ignored.

That is what cults do - they ignore you when you ask for transparency and proof by the nature of their own "tech" and discard you if you start to pop the bubble.

The sign of sanity is asking and looking.

The internet will destroy the cult.

The Idle Morgue's has destroyed the cult.

The bad PR has destroyed the cult.

David Miscavige's narcissism has destroyed the cult.

No clears, no Oat tea's - no delivery of promises and a constant bilking of members funds has destroyed the cult.

There are many different events occurring that will self destruct their own "religion" - not even Xenu can save them now - they are too far gone! :happydance:
 

Good twin

Floater
I think it requires further study. I also honestly believe that we are part of that study as exes and not qualified to conclude. Scooter, I wonder about this stuff all the time. After all we are the experts, right? I'm not so sure.

There are scholars interested in the cult and cults and of course we are interested too. But I think having been part of the "experiment" sort of keeps us from being able to scientifically observe the big picture.
 

oneonewasaracecar

Gold Meritorious Patron
Janja Lalich in her books (on cults) make a distinction between religious cults (and most major religions started out as a "Cult" or offshoot of another religion, ie Mormons, Islam (blending of Judaism and Xtianity)- and SOCIOLOGICAL cults- which are destructive in nature. I think it is important to distinguish between religious and sociological cults (Lalich herself was in a non religious sociological cult that mirrored scientology in many many ways)
Do you mean a religious cult is the meaning of the word 'cult' that theologians used - a religion that was derivative from a previous existing religion? So by that definition, Christianity is a Judaic cult. And that the sociological term was the meaning of the term after Jonestown in common parlance? If so I agree on both counts.

Christianity, long ago, was a cult by both definitions. The Catholic churches early history runs quite parallel to the church, disconnection, regging and the persecution of outsiders. The Vatican was the Catholic Super Powers building, built on the sale of indulgences. That was the point I was trying to make. If Catholicism had not changed in the last 400 years, it would have died out.
 

Gib

Crusader
Been doing my usual eclectic reading of late and have just finished a biog of Hermann Goering, Nazi #2.

The thing that struck me was just how DM, Hubbard and Adolf had such a sway over their minions that none dare nay-say them so that they surrounded themselves with True Believers rather than competents who could do a proper job.
Hitler doomed himself by listening only to his own voice, as did Hubbard and DM's been doing just that since Hisself took over.

The structures they created may allow someone of competence to briefly rise to the upper ranks but never to stay there. Only True Believers who would ignore their own consciences to follow their Guru could survive in such an atmosphere. And a fanatic is seldom capable of much other than destructive fanaticism.

Now if this were broadly true, then no cult could survive for any length of time unless it lost its lunatic devotion to literal interpretation of the "Sacred Scriptures" and the infallibility of the Guru and actually brought in non-fanatics into the ranks. This seems to have happened with the "mainstream" religions such as Christianity, Islam and even the Mormons, although all still have the small splinter cults that never seem to survive too long.

I remember every competent staff member who left and started a successful business just never fitted into the paradigm demanded to be a "successful" staff member, and every "successful" staff or SO exec was usually a screaming failure at every other facet of their lives. And, if they did leave the cult "sheltered workshop" environ, failed miserably as business folk, especially if they'd trained on the OEC/FEBC.

And I think it all comes back to just that one point - that cults by their very nature eliminate all but the Fanatic from their upper echelon and so commit slow suicide by incompetent Fanaticism.

After all, a Fanatic never has to study the world because he or she already knows everything about it from the Guru.

Your thoughts?

Hubbard figured out that to surround yourself with true believers, well,

that's called PTS/SP tech. A-J checks. You no can have an open mind. Either you believe or you don't. If you don't and are critical, you are SP who is stopping the greatest invention since fire, or was it the wheel. LOL
 

dchoiceisalwaysrs

Gold Meritorious Patron
I would submit that any group, founded on core dogmatic ideology, is seeded by that dogma towards it's destiny. It's activities will interact with it's enviroment and either garner goodwill, wherewithall, energy and power, and lead towards fluctuating state of existence or extinction.

Perhaps, otherwise stated it could be said that the degree to which the ideology and attendant activities align with the fundamental laws or basic nature of the enviroment/universe in which it operates it will survive and possibly even flourish. If it's dogma is not completely or dominately in alignment with nature or prohibits some degree of adaptive or morphogenetic capability then it most likely is eventually doomed.

I see this in Scientology. It was founded on a small subset of data which were wrapped in claims of universality, promoted as containing the formulas of absolute natural laws whereas in actual fact it is very limited in it's utility.

I see it as having made attempts at morphing to maintain it's existence. Examples of this would be the myriad of injections of various additives to the original dogma of the reactive mind hypothesis. Some of these would perhaps on first consideration be the ideas of; a THETAN, Whole track, SP, always attack, Security checks, withhold/ MWH arbitraries, intelligence bureaus, Fair Game, Madison ave PR campaigns, and the ubigitious front groups to deceptively promote ability to help.

Now having been widely viewed as a fraud and undesireable as a symbiotic entity, it has increasingly been devouring it's young and old alike while attempting to smother all it's membership.

Perhaps that can become its new moniker. Scientology, the cult of eventual doom.

Perhaps not all cults are doomed from the beginning, but one might surmise that that, is STANDARD TECH. :coolwink:
 
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