> > What does it mean when you pronounce everyone else
> > is a cultist while missing that you might have
> > issues, yourself...
> >
turquoiseb:
> What does it mean when current cultists feel the
> need to portray former cultists who are honest
> enough with themselves to realized they were a
> part of a cult and who still have some lingering
> curiosity about those who have never reached that
> point as having something *wrong* with them?
>
> I mean, there is a concerted attempt on this forum
> to portray anyone who still finds the machinations
> of current-day cultists fascinating from a curiosity
> standpoint as having something *wrong* with us. Our
> curiosity doesn't mean that we're still attached to
> the cult or its leader or its dogma the way the
> current-day cultists are, merely that we find those
> who still feel that way curious.
>
> As I suggested before, it's sorta like going to a
> high school reunion and running into people for
> whom high school was the high point of their lives.
> You've got yer "popular kids" (those who became TM
> teachers and worked for the TMO) who were members of
> all the right clubs and were voted "Most likely to..."
> and who still identify so strongly with that image
> of themselves that they attempt to pretend that they
> are still those same people, and not the owner of
> a car wash in Peoria. Then you've got yer folks who
> never fit it even back in high school (the ones who
> never became TM teachers, never did a lick of work
> for the TMO, but feel that they deserve being treated
> as if they did). They were members of the Debate Club,
> or the National Honor Society or some other group of
> dweebs, and none of the popular kids ever wanted to
> have anything to do with them. On some level they're
> *still* trying to get the popular kids to accept them
> as their equals, which is never going to happen. Even
> sadder, at every high school reunion there is someone
> like Ravi, who never even *went* to that high school,
> but is so desperate for attention that he attends its
> reunions anyway. It's all so Romy And Michele's High
> School Reunion.
>
> I'm just curious, that's all. High school (the TM
> movement) was not that big a part of my life, and
> certainly not on any level that fueled attachment.
> But I'm still fascinated by those for whom the
> attachment factor (and the seemingly corollary need
> to praise the similarly-attached and demonize those
> who got over it) is as present for them now as it was
> back in the heyday of TM's fleeting popularity.
>
> All I do is point out some of the silliness of the TM
> movement, past and present. There is more than enough
> of this silliness so that I never lack for material.
> It's not the silliness *itself* that fascinates me,
> but the *reactions* to it by those who've seemingly
> never realized how much allegiance and attachment they
> have for the silliness, and how much anger they have
> towards people who do nothing but point out that it's
> ...uh...silly.
>
The guilty always scream the loudest?
