I’ve read a lot of cult books since 2011, when I left the little mom & pop cult formerly known as “school”. I think this book might be my favorite, so far… imagine that, having a favorite cult book.

Here’s a quote from the first paragraph in chapter 6, Black Lightening: “In all the world, there is nothing quite so impenetrable as a human mind snapped shut with bliss. No call to reason, no emotional appeal, can get through its armor of self-proclaimed joy…  we talked with dozens … after a while, it seemed very much like dancing to a broken record. We would ask a question and the individual would spin round and round in a circle of dogma. If we tried to interrupt, he or she would simply pick right up again or go back to the beginning and start over.”

I’m grateful that my mind has been “bliss”-free for several years now. Yep, folks, it’s possible. Happy 2018!

Hi Everyone – in my obsessive post-cult research, I found a book called Snapping, copywriter, 1978.  Authors Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman dig into “America’s Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change”, citing weird phenomenons like the Moonies, EST, Patty Hearst, Hare Krishnas and analyzing the mind altering techniques shared.

They interview a guy named Marjoe Gortner, “… the first Evangelical preacher to blow the whistle on his profession.” Apparently, Marjoe’s parents groomed him from childhood to be a boy preacher and the boy preacher caused quite a ruckus – doing faith healings, officiating weddings, leading revivals and, most importantly, racking in the cash. When he hit his mid-teens he refused to continue. Then he returned to the profession in his twenties, recruited a film crew, and made the documentary, to essentially, blow the whistle on himself, and other holy rollers: Marjoe, faith healer/false teacher.  I immediately went to YouTube and low and behold … there it was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVLmKO26Emg

I found it disturbing & informative. It shed some light on today’s End-Days Trumpists, for whom no amount of fact, logic, principle,  or lack of morals shakes their faith in the predator-in-chief. Curious to know what you think — though, be forewarned, it’s not for the faint of heart.

Hey Everyone – This is a great podcast that tells the story of Heaven’s Gate, an end-days cult that culminated in a mass suicide in 1997. Those of us who traversed the Hollow Halls for any length of time will, most likely,  draw parallels. For example, the two leaders referred to themselves as Si & Do. La, la, la … The host, Glynn Washington, grew up in an end-days cult. I recommend giving it a listen: Heaven’s Gate. 

That’s all for now… hope you’re having a good weekend! GSR