Transcendental Trickery

from : ICCC (Interfaith Coalition of Concern about Cults)

"As the massacre at Jonestown in 1978 recedes into the distance, as the Unification Church seeks respectability, as the Hare Krishnas dispense with their saffron robes and shaven heads in favor of less conspicuous dress, as the cults in general take on a more assimilative posture, there is an imminent danger that people will forget and overlook the cults' everyday commitment to 'divine deceit,' 'transcendental trickery' and 'heavenly deception.'"

Transcendental Meditation (TM), one of the most popular forms of yoga in the West, exemplifies the deliberate misrepresentation that characterizes so much of today’s New Age scene. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at first introduced TM to the West as a Hindu religious practice. He openly taught that its purpose was to produce "a legendary substance called soma in the meditator’s body so the gods of the Hindu pantheon could be fed and awakened." 10 But when TM was excluded from public schools and government funding as a religious practice, Maharishi quickly deleted all reference to religion and began presenting TM as pure science.

from: RickRoss.com

Mystery and Authority

Convert political corruption. Covert political corruption can be flushed out when secrecy is broken by media scrutiny or whistle blowers.

Authoritarian dictatorships. This type of dictatorship lacks a cosmic ideology and thus tolerates independent intellectual and religious activities - as long as they do not directly challenge the regime's power.

Organized criminal bands. These groups rationalize their conduct without resorting to a transcendental belief system. Thus, some drug baron terrorists and sophisticated juvenile gang members may aspire to "going legitimate" when they accumulate enough wealth. By contrast, cults may engage in criminal activity for a "higher purpose" and may mold idealists into breaking the law in the name of "transcendental trickery" or "heavenly deception."

from: FactNet.org

"What Parents Need to Know About Cults" excerpt

What Is a cult?

Cults are groups or movements exhibiting an excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea or thing. They employ unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders to the detriment of members, their families or the community. These techniques, popularly known as "brainwashing," "mind-" or "behavioral-control" or "coercive persuasion," include isolating cult members from former friends and family, using special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, employing powerful group pressures, managing information, forcing members to suspend their individuality or critical judgment, and promoting total dependency on the group and fear of leaving it.

Cults generally share the following characteristics: * Members submit to an authoritarian all-powerful leader or leaders whose decisions cannot be questioned and who discourage rational thought. * They employ deceptive recruiting techniques. For example, they may not identify the group immediately, explain what the group is really about or reveal how much time, energy or money will be required. * Leaders weaken the followers psychologically, undermining other support systems such as friends, families and clergy. Members may be cut off from their pasts--from schools, jobs, families and friends--and from information from newspapers, radio and television. * Cult members are told the outside world is evil or even Satanic and that the cult and its members are "good." * Every career or life decision may be made by the cult leaders, including whether members should go to school, keep their jobs, marry or bear children. Cults control their members' time. * Followers work long, exhausting hours either recruiting or raising money for the group. They often must contribute large sums of money to the group, which generally goes to the group or its leaders, and not to improve the world, as they claim. (Some cults are very wealthy.) * Cults generally force followers to break relations with their families outside of the cult. If the family is inside the cult, they weaken or destroy the family and love ties so that affection and loyalty go to the leaders and the group. * Members, especially women and children, may be psychologically, physically or sexually abused. Leaders can skillfully manipulate the followers through sexual humiliation and general fear. * Some groups are heavily armed and train their members, even small children, to use weapons. Cult leaders claim the outside world is against them; often because of their hostile behavior, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. * Cults often have contempt for outside society and its laws and social mores because they believe their mission places them above human standards. Since they believe they have "the truth" and are working for the good of the world or spiritual salvation, they maintain their goals justify even deceptive means. The Unification Church, for example, publicly admits it practices what it calls "Heavenly Deception," and Hare Krishna members admit to "Transcendental Trickery." Thus cults often break many laws.

In sum, cults can be harmful to their followers because of a potent and dangerous combination of total authority of the leaders, submission by the followers, and "the ends justify the means" mind-set.

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