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One time, not too long ago, I was walking home from work when I was approached by a well groomed, professionally dressed stranger. The person said nothing, but just smiled and handed me a business card as I passed by. On the front of the business card it read " Free IQ and personality test, take control of your life!" The slogan did elict intrigue. When I went to the address printed on the card ( it wasn't far from where I had recieved it) the building had written on it, in large print " Hubbard Dianetics" Needless to say, I turned around and continued on my way home.
On another occasion, I was sitting in a starbucks, reading a Newspaper. A very handsome, "hip" looking young man asked if he could sit at the table where I was, I of course said yes. He then began to engage in superficial conversation based on the headlines of the news paper I had been reading. After a few minutes of being insincerely pleasant and accommodating to this stranger, when my attention began to wane, I then found myself listening to a plethora of compliments; mainly that he was amazed at how "insightful" and "sharp" I was, something he couldn't possibly have been being genuine about seeing as to how I hardly said anything during our conversation. He then said that he and his friends were a group of aspiring entreprenuers and they could really use somebody like me on their team. When I attempted to probe him for specific information he became very evasive. "What kind of product or service do you sell/ What will be your means of profit?" " Are you and your friends an Incorporated entity?….or do you just meet in your parent's garage??" None of these questions were answered directly. Ultimately I was left with a name and contact info. When I found this person on FaceBook and connected the dots, the reason for the ungenuine and evasive nature of our odd social interaction became clear, I was being lured into a pyramid scheme. The individual who I spoke with had no interest in me what so ever, he just saw a payday.
One event from my youth follows a similar pattern. I met an attractive girl in one of my classes at school. She was very interested in me, which should have been the first red flag because I was fat, poor and unpopular. She made a point to always aknowledge me when passing by in the hallways and to always sit by me and engage in conversation during the lunch hour. This went on for a couple of weeks and I admit, being a hornie high school student at the time, that I enjoyed it. One day she made the proposal that her and I should hang out. I gleefully accepted as I thought it was a date and that we were going to be "official" However, no such hopes would come to fruition. Our hangout turned out to be nothing more then recruitment event for the LDS church. There was no mention of a church or anything religous or even organized. We were just going to "hang out" little did I know, through flirtatious methods, I was being herded into a church. When I made it clear to her that I was not interested in her church, it was as if I had vanished and she had never met me.
The point I am trying to make through these anecdotes can be summed up in two words: deceptive recruitment. If you are a WMS member, please think about it.
Great post Brian. The deceptive recruiting is a real sore point with so many people. It's such a red flag
Great post. I remember how I felt on cloud nine, early on as a Wms member. They threw so many compliments my way. I remember once the Deacon who was my Team leader telling me how “One day, you’ll be a team leader”. I was gleaming from ear to ear. They made us feel like the best looking family on the planet. Once we were in, this changed.
Really untouchable? Once you were in, once they had you, the postive changed? I see.
I've heard that several times too, Brian. But there is a huge difference between bonafide religions and cults. The deception and recruiting are main points. The extreme control and manipulation are two more. People often don't understand that it's the behavior of the leaders and the group that are the main problem. The exploitation and derailing of lives are the sore points. If my son believed something wierd but he was still in the family fold and not being exploited and damaged by the Wms, I wouldn't be as concerned about it as I have been.
Bonafide religions don't damage their members and derail their future. They let them have their lives.
Speaking of the difference between a religion and a cult… It's ironic that when people ask the members why the internet says they're a cult, their response is 'because we're so small and different'. However, they spend so much time recruiting potential members by explaining how big they are, and how many churches they have, and how fast they're growing. Hmm.
The wms makes videos to show their church buildings and plays them over and over. Once is not enough. If your remember their intro video is about their churches and visiting groups.
Now when I think of a cult, a small group comes to mind, one group and one building. But even the moonies had a big group with a false christ.
Would you say that a cult is any church group that practices religion and doctrine that is not accepted?
A church is somewhere that says “come when you want.” A cult mandates, ordering where ALL your time goes to. The overseers have no job or work to do during the day (as some of the wives in wms don’t have to work). They have no concept of “normal people don’t have 3 hours every day to go prance around telling everyone they’re going to hell for not believing.” People have college, that’s 40 hours a week right there. The only time to rest is one day a week, and wms takes that entire day, making you hear all day “obey 100℅ or you’ll burn.” … You’re already burning-you’re burnt out on hearing the same exact things over and over, having to say them over…… And…… Over…..lol. no one else on earth experienced the sheer torture of having to hear and say the same. Sermons. Over. And. Over.It rivals the torture in the dark ages. Dear God in Heaven-someone make them stop reciting the “practice preaching.” Doesn’t the Constitution protect against cruel and unusual punishment? Lol… Obviously Joo is Satan, he’s literally trying to bore you TO DEATH with the sermon reciting.
A cult is a church with doctrine that is “UNACCEPTABLE.” Not that some people won’t accept it, but that no one is going to do it or accept it without the brute force of
A. Drilling the concept into them over and over to the point they can recite it
(But they are forced to recite it upon punishment of hell for not doing it. Yes wms literally tells people they will go to hell for not reciting sermons so many times because Gil ordered them to do it so many times per month, etc-that was new, even for wms.
That’s B: no one once so ever would obey the doctrine if they were not repeatedly threatened with hell on a very regular basis for not doing it.
C: a cult’s doctrine and concepts are not found in the Bible (THAT’S BECAUSE GOD AND JESUS DON’T RESEMBLE CULT RING LEADERS, nor would their organization look like a power hungry mad house circus show rat race to boost numbers i mean money) therefore the existence of the cult relies totally on establishing the infallibility of the leaders. (GOD HIMSELF ONLY WORKED 12 HOURS OUT OF THE DAY CREATING, AT LEAST YOU GET 4 HOURS A DAY TO DO WHAT YOU WANT MINIMUM LOL).
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