Have you ever been in a cult??

...you had someone you had to tell when you jerked off?




thats...not very nice.....i mean...i know guys talk about it to eachother...least the guys i know...but it must be weird being "required" to do it...


i thought those impond thingies were a myth. no word of a lie. i saw then depicted on the simpsons once....yeah i never thought they actually happened..


only thing i associated cults with was satan and stuff liek that...only cos a nun told me that once when i was a kid

 

nuns=nunsense

 

to me, all religions are cults

 

(not a bad thing)

 

Yeah it was weird. The worst part about it was that it was different from guys standing around joking about it. You were supposed to be ashamed and repentant and all that garbage. I never really got in to sharing most of that stuff with my accountability partner because it was none of his damn business. But I saw enough people confessing an "addiction to masturbation" to know they weren't kidding when they meant it was *evil*.

Honestly, do you think I could tell someone every time I jerked off? I would be on the phone all day. On top of this, I found out what masturbation actually was shortly before I deconverted. I had been doing it for years but never knew that was what they were talking about in church. Oops, I guess being too protective in defining things backfired there. Frankly, for most of my young Christian life... I had no idea what the hell masturbation could be. I figured it was so bad that I didn't have to worry about it because I would know never to do it.

The accountability partner crap started when I was like 15 or 16 which was a couple years after I started to realize it was all BS. Yeah, it was great fun. Imagine 24/7 being surrounded by people who think jerking off is about as evil and sexually sinful as you can get... when you are a liberal hippie-type in your head. I spent almost all of my teenaged years with two dialogs running all the time in my brain: the real me (must maintain absolute silence) and the Christian "me" that was allowed to express itself.

 

Do I think it was good or bad in the end? I don't know, I am kindof okay with it. I'm not one of those people who would change the past since it is already done. I guess I would have liked to date once or twice in high school. But I'll survive.

 

I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. I never really thought of them as a cult untill I heard some one at work call them one. Now that Im on the outside looking in I fell that they definatly could be considered a cult.

 

much more profitable that way

 

In my opinion it's best to join one that's open and honest about being a bizarre mind control cult that wants profits like The Church of the SubGenius. http://www.subgenius.com or start a similar one of your own.

I'm still waiting for my membership BTW. Praise Bob!!

 

I'm a card carrying member as well.
PRAISE TO THE HIGHEST: FOAMY!

 

yes, I have been catholic christian (you know the ones that follow this white old shakking man who helps HIV propagation by forbiding condoms).

 

I travelled withe Christ brothers. That was a heavy trip, like an extention of the sixties
Christ style. Everybody liked them.

 

I've got two Church of Subgenius Tee shirts. I won't join, but. Been there, done that!

In did the guru thing a while ago with Sai Baba after reading about him and went to India to see if it was all true & ended up going 5 times. He did things that were indeed miraculous to me, and I saw things done that convinced me he was very unique or a living divinity. So I got caught up in it for 9 years, attaining reasonably high office in the movement here.
Then I found out that he sexually abused many boys at his colleges, which explained the very first statement that I heard from one of his followers ~ "don't believe what some people say about swami - that he has homosexual sex with boys, because the devil wants to destroy him!" Hearing and knowing that, I couldn't claim that I wasn't forewarned.
Sadly, people who are searching for god outside of themselves will always be easy prey for those who claim greater knowledge, ability, or divinity.
Cults and religions all claim direct links with The Divine, yet The Divine is within each and every one of us.
I know now that the 'kingdom of god' is indeed within, and one need not look further than ones-self for answers.

 

I was practically a cult leader until I realized it...and ended it.

 

Ugh.

About 12 years ago, maybe, I was hanging out in Tuscon, Arizona, having a lovely time. I was a traveller then. I had stopped for the winter in Tuscon and met a lot of nice people. Some of them started teaching me yoga.

I had been doing yoga all of my life, so this was not a radical act for me. I really liked their particular regimen, though. I felt great. Everything was just peachy. So, a couple of guys we knew said to my friends and me, "Hey, if you like this yoga, you should all really come with us to the Catskills to a yoga retreat. You can learn even more yoga. It will be fun."

"Duh, okay." my friends and I said. (Well, not really like that.) "This will be fun. Let's go."

So, we go to New York and as soon as we get there things get weird. The 'retreat' was way up in the hills, far from people. We were told that we could stay at the 'yoga center', but when we got there, they announced that we couldn't sleep there, we had to rent hotel rooms. Also, the men and women couldn't hang out together. Also, we couldn't use their kitchen. It was the off season and the kitchen at the hotel was closed. We were hungry and broke now.

There was no yoga teacher. We did no hatha yoga. Instead there was an old man from India. He had one big dread with beads held onto it with a diaper pin. I can't remember his name. He was supposed to be a representative of 'Babaji' though. (We, of course, couldn't see Babaji because we weren't spiritually advanced enough.) He announced that classes would be held in the middle of the night, that we would not be allowed to call our families because this was our new family, and proceded to tell us what we were allowed to eat and do.

I was really scared. They said we had to worship Kali. I said no. They said that I had to pray to the idol. I said no.

I was very scared and upset. What was really scary and upsetting, though, was that all of my friends ATE IT UP. So, they all started pressuring me to accept Babaji or whatever. The guru made an example out of me. He said that I was fighting Babaji and as long as I didn't accept him, I was bad. they tried to break me down.

I think this went on for two weeks. We were malnourished when we left. When we got back to Tucson, all of my friends were absorbed and obsessed with this thing. I got the hell out of there.

I have had contact with those folks I think twice since then, one phone call and running into one lady at Reggae on the River about five years later. They were more involved than ever.

I had another scary cult experience when I was travelling. I wrote about it in another thread a long time ago. It involved kool-aid and crap.

I think I'm a dork magnet.

 

Damn. That would've jilted me too, man.

That's downright fucked.

 

Ok my story is not as fascinating as some of you guys. But here goes...

Back in 1993, I graduated from a Christian academy and went on to receive several awards. After completing my studies, I "rebelled" for a while and tried to find myself for about 7 or 8 years (smoking dope, boozing, fornicating, exploring the occult, etc.), but returned to the Christian religion under a self-discipline to return to my roots. I was already trained in Hebrew/Greek, Jewish history and Biblical apologetics, so I began to become involved with a ministry that was very conservative and extremely disciplined, but seemingly liberal in some areas-- no hell, women were allowed to wear pants and even preach.

It was then that some young people around me took under my tuteledge and began studying under me in private home studies. Finally, I took a college-age Church class and begin teaching them my interpretations of the Bible. They ate it up. I didn't realize how many feeble minds I was dealing with.

Finally it grew to around 20 or so. And the classes got more intense, the studies grew and people would automatically silence themselves whenever I spoke--it was weird. I didn't notice much until a friend of mine mentioned it. I just shrugged it off.

However, the finale came when many of the females in the group would call me or tell me private things about their lives, seek my advice about their relationships. I began to realize this was becoming something I wasn't wanting. I encouraged everyone to study and think for themselves, but most of them would just ask me what I thought or believed and clinged to it like it was concrete truth.

At the same time, I was going through a transformation. I have always been an open-minded person, and I continue to evolve. I begin questioning BIG questions. Studying more and more in philosophy and psychology.

Finally, I decided to give up the class and the end the studies. It was a catastrophe. People (girls mainly) were weeping and wallowing in the floor. One of the girl's mothers told me I "crushed her daughter's soul" by stopping the studies. That poor lady didn't have a clue.

I could've taken great advantage of those people, but I chose not to. I could've probably (DEFINITELY IN SOME CASES) talked those girls into sexual favors, but I didn't.

After a few months, I realized that I no longer believed in, not only my former beliefs, but the supernatural in general. I realized I was an atheist. I've been one now for about 3 years. And I've never felt happier or freer.

This was a bit long, but VERY CONCISE as far as the actual story goes.

 

Wow. Really?

I guess some people just crave a leader. Even an unwilling one.

That's bizarre.

It sounds like it was a learning experience, though.

I think being in the situation you were in would annoy me to no end. "Think for yourselves."

"No, tell us what to think."

I'd be like, "Think for your fucking selves and leave me alone!"

It sounds like you did the right thing.

 

Yes, it was both.

A feeling of "I could take advantage" and "this is so frustrating"...

Thanks for the comments.

 

Is that Cult in Japan that gassed the Subways still around?