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lightsout
Junior Member
Username: lightsout
Post Number: 38
Registered: 8-2007
Posted From: 76.100.140.96
| | Posted on Saturday, September 22, 2007 - 1:17 am: | 
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This was posted over a year ago - but i was just reading it again tonight - and think it could prove beneficial to the new people reading and posting to this site...especially those who question whether either the CofJ or GCC were/are cults.
According to Janja Lalich, Ph.D. & Michael D. Langone, Ph.D., these are the signs of a cult. As far as I know, neither of these two are even aware of the Community. Which of these would current members recognize as practices of the Community?
1. The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
2. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
3. Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
4. The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry—or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
5. The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar—or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).
6. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.
7. The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).
8. The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members' participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
9. The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt iin order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.
10. Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.
11. Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.
12. Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
13. The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.
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having lived in both communities - I believe that I can come up with examples from both places for each of these 13 items. |
sheilac
Member
Username: sheilac
Post Number: 73
Registered: 8-2007
Posted From: 70.54.18.207
| | Posted on Saturday, September 22, 2007 - 12:00 pm: |
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This reminder was very timely, lightsout. I remember when I first read this, I found it a chillingly accurate description of Grenville. |
staff_kid_survivor
New member
Username: staff_kid_survivor
Post Number: 13
Registered: 8-2007
Posted From: 65.93.162.7
| | Posted on Saturday, September 22, 2007 - 9:26 pm: |
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Wow - This is such a comprehensive description of cults. It's really eye-opening for someone like myself who grew up in this kind of mentality and didn't know any different. Life for staff and their children was exactly as this states. This is such a validation of the suspicions I've had for a while now. Funny - many of the GCC staff former or current still don't recognize its cult-like characteristics. Oh well.
Thanks "lightsout" for sharing it with us. |
spain
Member
Username: spain
Post Number: 66
Registered: 5-2006
Posted From: 69.204.218.39
| | Posted on Sunday, September 23, 2007 - 11:59 pm: |
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All of those characteristics were present at GCC in the years I was there..... |
wagener84
Member
Username: wagener84
Post Number: 80
Registered: 8-2007
Posted From: 199.214.192.50
| | Posted on Monday, September 24, 2007 - 12:32 pm: |
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been there..done that....got the T-shirt ;) |
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