Have You Ever Been In A Cult?

due to some cults forming close to my area I was talking about this subject with some friends the other day, cults religions I feel should be made more accountable, I am not sure about cults but here in Australia all religions are what I call tax free businesses, I think it is time that these businesses are made accountable in all areas and one way to do that is to make them pay taxes like any business and make their books open to Government and public.....

I've been in a commercial cult 2 years ago, actully 3 years ago but I left it 2 years ago. There was pressure for me to join up quickly, paperwork were signed very quickly, and I was told to listen to CDs and read their books plus go to every function they had, whether we could afford it or not. It's a really freaky feeling, at first there was this "love bombing" where everyone hugged you and friendship was instant. I then was told to not do outside research, or listen to people who will try to get me out of the business. Also I noticed that everyone talked the same, dressed basically the same, and got hyped up over the leaders, and called the leaders just by their first names (in the tone of familiarity, as if they knew the leaders personally, but in reality never even said hi or boo to them) - and by the time I was starting to leave the cult (7 months later) I was so stressed out, and I was also getting sick. When I left Monavie/TEAM (TEAM is the worst, though, MV was just so bloody expensive) nobody from TEAM had anything to do with me. I even had a friend who was a member of TEAM in another province kick me off her FB friends list just because I spoke out my experience. Here's the freaky part - there's a movement going on in my city, and one of the main head leaders lives here as well. Yuck.

I have not been in a cult. I have a cousin that was. She was even on the cover of a Life magazine I believe. They were a group of people who were living and working communally. If I remember correctly some of them were attacked, beaten and robbed as well. This was in the early seventies. I can understand how you would not miss pressure from very aggressive cults or religious groups. We should all be careful how we try to win people to our way of thinking.

hi bostonphil, Personally, nope, I am not in a cult. I think a small group of my friends are. Reading from what you meant, I think being religious in a group may count as being in a cult. My friends go to church. So I guess they are in a cult? I guess there isn't much cult happenings in my country as the security here are very strict. No riots are allowed. A group gathering of more than 3 in our neighbourhoods can easy earn us a visit to the police station if we are not careful. So you can say I don't see anything unusual or weird in my country. At least not yet I guess, I think as rules changes, people grow old and change hands in government. Something might just happen in the future, but not in my near future i guess.

No, i never been in a cult, it doesn't attract me. I can't find sense of peace in cult teaching, let's those join cult enjoy their own freedom and personal relationship with whatever they want to worship. I have no problem with that, it is their rights to do so.

I have not personally been in a cult, but I had a friend who was in a religious cult. I make a difference between a cult and someone else's religion that I don't happen to think is true. Just because a religion is different than mine doesn't make it a cult. One characteristic of a cult is mind control. The usual recruit is someone who knows just enough about the Bible to respect it, but not enough to really know what it teaches as whole. College or young adult age is the most vulnerable time because that's the age when many are away from home for the first time and many are trying to decide what they believe. Many were raised in a church that never really challenged them, and they may have just been there because it was a family habit. They may never have personalized their faith. Then they leave home, and one day they meet one or two of the cult members who invite them to a meeting where they find everyone is very accepting and loving -- hugs and all. The group my friend was involved with depended more, I believe, on emotion, than on thinking things through. Independent thinking was discouraged. The first thing the cult members did was to invite my friend to leave her home and live with one of them. My friend's father was the pastor of our church, and he and his wife were very sad about all this. Their daughter was convinced they were doomed to hell because they would not leave the denomination (all denominations were evil) and join her group, which was "the only true church." She soon was not allowed to go anywhere alone, even home to see her family. She was a gifted musician, and they made her think her guitar was an idol and she was pressured to destroy it or give it away. Her father asked my husband and me, because we were the college advisors at our church, to attend some of the meetings with her to learn what we could. We even let them have a meeting in our home to get an inside view. There was a lot of singing and chanting of Bible verses and no real teaching from the Bible. The basic teaching was that all denominations are bad, there should only be one church in each city, and they were it. Neither we nor her family could reach her because she could not talk to anyone alone. This is something common to a lot of cults. You are pressured to leave your family and live with the group or someone the group trusts to be totally committed. When you go out, you go with someone else from the group. This girl was no dummy. She had just graduated from a tough Christian College of her denomination. But when she came home, there was really no one her age in our small church and she was lonely. She had come in contact with the members of this group at work. She finally became a missionary for them, and gave all she had. She was sent across the county. And then she got sick. They didn't want the responsibility of caring for her, so they finally called her dad to come and get her. It took her some time to get over the way they had treated her when she was no longer useful to them. She spent time healing with her family and finally came to terms with her faith, and returned to the one she'd been raised in. Fortunately, she had a good Biblical background and finally realized she'd been misled and brainwashed and that the Bible was still true and God hadn't changed. She had just been sidetracked into wrong doctrine at a vulnerable time in her life when she wanted to be very committed and her own church put more emphasis on studying the Bible with one's mind as well as with one's emotions. It was a somewhat liturgical church with a lot of emphasis on right doctrine and not so much emphasis on emotions. Many times people who have grown up in a liturgical church (Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican or Episcopal) are prone to turning to a faith that is more expressive emotionally when they come of age. So they may join a charismatic movement in their own denomination or they may become Baptist or Pentecostal or Evangelical Free or even join an Independent Bible Church. On the other hand, the people who grew up in non-liturgical churches often grow up and join the Catholic or Lutheran church. Sometimes people just tend to go for the opposite of what they grew up with. But when people make these kind of changes today, it's not considered a big deal. Most Christian churches have the same basic creeds, and the big differences are how they express themselves in worship. The disagree on a few doctrinal issues, but most Baptists don't think believing Presbyterians or Lutherans are going to hell, and the Lutherans and Episcopalians don't think the Baptist and Full Gospel Christians won't get to heaven. In fact, their pastors all belong to the local ministerial association and work together on some things, such as a Good Friday service. You will not find cult leaders the least bit interested in that association because they are convinced all others are lost. Period. I do not know if that particular cult is still around. It doesn't seem to exist where I live. It, and many other cults, hang around in university towns to try to recruit from the students who are feeling the need to belong to a group, since the university can often seem like a big and unfriendly place where it's hard to meet people. I do know that most cults, no matter what they believe, try to get people away from the family and friends in the "old life" and replace them with group members. They seek unquestioning obedience, and they sometime insist you turn your money over to them. Got to stop writing and go to bed.

I kinda believe that most organized religions are mini cults.. we enter into them are suppose to accept their rules, believe their teachings and follow their rules. I belonged to one of the biggest ones: the catholic one. No more now. I have seen what's going on with the higher powers. I feel sad that I believed it. It got me hurt and others too.

Hi bostonphil, I guess that would depend on our definition of cult, because all religions could be classified as cults. Blessings.

I have not been in a cult.

I don't believe in cult. My father and mom still believe but I was not sure the portion of their belief to cult. I did not know if you can call it cult or whatever. My father and my mother ever took me to a traditional healer and they ask immune source for my body. Really, i my heart deep down, I regret to follow their will, because I think people who believe in the shaman is same thing as the cult. My father and mother remind me not obey its taboo, so the power did not get weak. I did not ever follow what they wanted me to do, because I did not believe it. Okay

There should never be any pressure to join any faction of any belief. We are all born with inheritant rights and one of those is to choose for ourselves what we think is right. People on both sides of the cultism issue seem very passionate. It seems to me that forcing anyone to believe a certian way just because their beliefs are not viewedd as normal, borders upon the blight that some of the world embraces simply due to a difference in beliefs. This kind of mentality is why many people today and troughout history have had their lives taken in the interest of truth.