--- In [email protected], new.morning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Instead of calling the TMO a cult, personally I find its far more > meaningful in terms of discussion and communication to say: > > "The TMO is a strongly top-down organization, making moderate claims > of being a unique path to enlightenment. Some experienced TMers can > tend to exhibit elitism. The TMO at higher levels, uses mild control > and motivation techniques."
As several have pointed out, the issue us not so much about "TMO as cult" as it is about "Some TMers are cultists." I mean, the organization can try its best to manipulate all it wants, but if no one falls for the manipulation, it's not a very successful cult, now is it? (Witness the failure of the TM organization to get a measly 2000 people to attend this latest course.) My personal definition revolves not so much around the organization as cult but around the *behavior* of certain individuals within the organization. Thus you can have an organization that is pretty much a cult, but a bunch of people within that organization who *ignore* all the cult manipulations and think for them- selves. So they're not cultists in my book. (An example of this might be some right-wing Bible-thumper church that tries to intimidate its members to vote Republican, but the congre- gation votes its conscience instead, ignoring all the manipulation.) Then you've got the opposite, where *some* people within the cult-like organization take upon themselves a ROLE -- they begin to identify with the group so much that they begin to think of themselves as "defenders of the faith." It's the ROLE that makes them cultists. People who adopt that ROLE are easy to spot because they are no longer in control of their lives. Their actions are all determined by other people, the people they feel compelled to answer when "defending" the things they feel are under attack. The cultists don't actually ever initiate anything -- all they do is REACT. Someone says something they consider negative or incorrect about their cult, and the cultists "spring into action," coming up with any argument (or ad hominem) they can think of to "prove" that the negativity isn't true. And it never even OCCURS to them that they've been suckered into doing this, and that the people who said the stuff they're responding to are using their own obsessions to control them. IMO, all that they've "proved" is how easy it is *to* control them. Anyone who wants a cultist to jump through hoops knows *exactly* how to get them to do so. For example, if the person is a TM cultist, simply criticize TM. Bingo! The cultist HAS to respond, to "defend" the "honor" of the thing that they've become a cultist about. In other words, my definition of a cultist is someone who can be consistently "programmed" by those who have figured out what the cultist is cultlike about. A normal, everyday TMer who isn't over the top can NOT be tricked into screaming and yelling on the Internet to defend TM, just because someone says something negative about it. The normal person just shrugs or laughs and goes about his day. But the cultist CAN be tricked into screaming and yelling. He LIVES for the screaming and yelling, because he's assumed the ROLE of apologist for his cult of choice. Anyone who has adopted that ROLE has given up control of his or her life, and thus in my book has become a cultist. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
