Society has Moved Away from Ethical Practice and Lost Values

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Lecture 5: Family Cults
One thing that unites David Berg and Ma Jaya is that they both saw themselves as parents and their followers as a family. I suspect that they thought that this sort of language sounded friendly. However, family dynamics are not always friendly and power relations are sometimes problematic in such environments. Parents have authority over their children and when this authority is connected to religious visions, you may have all the ingredients needed to make and serve trouble (especially with the added mix of a seeming fixation on sexual practices).
Family cults are common and these two are being used as an example for many.
Some quick notes on this lecture:
1) I downplay the Family International site. That said, I did draw quite a bit of material from it.
2) I understand that David Berg and Ma Jaya have passed away. I am treating them as a formative influence on their respective groups. Whether these groups have radically changed since their passing is a fair question. For instance, Family International has claimed that they have denounced the practice of "flirty fishing," However, according to the page attached in your readings, there is evidence that this practice continued past the declaration of its discontinuation. Is it still happening? Some say yes, others, within the group, shout no. My interest is in their foundations, not how they have managed the poor public relations of their origin.
3) I have provided some quotations from David Berg's article "The Devil Hates Sex" (and from other pamphlets) within the images of the lecture. These quotations contain coarse language and opinions that may easily offend. I understand that these may be off-putting and disturbing for some students. My own commentary seeks to be delicate about these matters.
https://www(dot)macvideo(dot)ca/media/Lecture+5A+Family+Cults+%28Summer+2022%29/1_99dnx2p5
List of Topics and Sub-Modules for Lecture 5: Family Cults
Lecture 6: Heavens Gate and Eckankar (Out of this World Groups)
On Monday, I presented a lecture about two groups whose niche is the "Family" centered container of new religious movements. Today, we have two groups, Heavens Gate (they do not seem to use the possessive apostrophe) and Eckankar, as representations of new religious movements that saw, or see, their future as beyond the usual dimensions of our daily life and world. Heavens Gate, I suggest, is a curious group: 1/3 theological reformation, 1/3 political commentary, and 1/3 science fiction mythology. The first two-thirds would not be, I predict, outrageous to many people. It is that last third that makes us wonder. Why is it crucial to their perspective? Did they know we would find it odd? Yes, they did. They knew we would call them a cult. And yet, they stood by their beliefs. How come?
Eckankar, on the other hand, is for the more adventurous, or bored, among us. They offer travelling on the spiritual plane, special knowledges, experience of your past lives, and access to the sight and sound of God. They will show you how to be a happier person, a better student, a more giving member of your community. They will show you how to be special and one thing many of us seem to like is feeling special? Are they a religion? Are they a self-help group? Are they a cult? Are they a scam?
Warning: suicide is a part of the Heaven's Gate story. It must be mentioned, I hope I treated it with delicacy.
Note: I make reference to Jesus telling Peter that he should let the dead bury the dead. Jesus does say this but I don't think he said it to Peter.
https://www(dot)macvideo(dot)ca/media/Heavens+Gate+and+Eckankar+Summer+2022/1_0gcj8a58
List of Topics and Sub-Modules for Lecture 6: Heavens Gate and Eckankar (Out of this World Groups)
Readings: Unification Church, The Brethren, The Twelve Tribes of Israel
Unification Church:
http://www(dot)rapidnet(dot)com/~jbeard/bdm/Cults/unificat.htm
http://www(dot)unification(dot)net/dp73/
http://www(dot)newrepublic(dot)com/article/115512/unification-church-profile-fall-house-moon
The Brethren (no self made media presence)
http://www(dot)huffingtonpost(dot)com/evangeline-griego/god-willing_b_851258.html
https://www(dot)culteducation(dot)com/group/849-the-brethren/1022-the-brethren.html
Twelve Tribes
https://www(dot)twelvetribes(dot)org
http://www(dot)cbc(dot)ca/news/canada/manitoba/my-six-weeks-with-winnipeg-s-twelve-tribes-community-1.2809431
https://yattt(dot)blogspot(dot)com/2008/01/89-reasons-why-one-ex-member-left.html
Lecture 7: Groups That Think the World Corrupt (and Corrupting)
Last week, I discussed groups that offered escape from the ordinary aspects of this world. Today, we are considering representative groups who think the world is corrupt and either seek to fix it (Unification Church) or escape it (The Brethren, Twelve Tribes of Israel). Of the thousands of cults, that we hear about on our internet feeds, this type is probably the most common. The world is full of sin, the world will destroy you. The tone, here, is harsher, and more concerned, then what we find in mainstream religions which also implore you not to become too engage in the ways of the world. In mainstream religions we still find a call to love the people of the world (employing the classic, and difficult, maxim of love the sinner but hate the sin). With these groups this premise of affection is tempered by a "leave us alone" or "Get behind me Satan" approach to life and others.
Do you find the world is corrupt? Are what used to be vices now considered virtues? Have we become decadent people governed by selfishness and greed? Has technology damaged the ways we connect with each other? Are our families and relationships in splinters, are our children out of control? And, sorry to say, but it is a question implicit in all three of the groups under discussion here: have women forgotten their proper place? These three groups all started as hyper patriarchal churches (although the Unification church has made movements to more progressive beliefs - resulting, possibly, in the dwindling of their numbers). You need to get back to the basics of old time religion. You need to forget about money and think about your community. You need to take God more seriously. These three groups, led by very wealthy representatives, ask you to think about how a life pursuing worldly goods has damaged you.
I predict that you are going to find these three groups curious. Arranged marriages, strange sexual rites, eating out of dumpsters, dressing in rags, employing corporal punishment with children, are some of the components we will discover. If cults are new religious movement that have disgraced themselves in the eyes of larger society, there seems to be a lot to consider here. However, part of the story is also about politics and media, if you are rich (as Rev. Moon was), you can make political friends who will defend your ways.
https://www(dot)macvideo(dot)ca/media/Lecture+7A+Unification+Church%2C+The+Brethren%2C+and+The+Twelve+Tribes+%28Corrupt+World+Groups%29/1_geh1zls5
List of Topics and Sub-Modules for Lecture 7: Groups That Think the World Corrupt (and Corrupting)
Lecture 8: The Church of Satan
As I note in the video lecture, it seems unthinkable to present this course without a section on The Church of Satan. However, it also seems thinkable that The Church of Satan belongs in this course. Is it a cult, a religion, a world-view, a playful rebellion? That is up to what you think. What it is, though, for many (if not all), is a startling name for an organization. When in doubt about certain vicious criminal acts that have occurred in society, newscasters and opinion-generators have long had the tendency to throw the idea of Satan-worshippers into the mix of those possibly responsible. It does not reassure those tuning in. It sounds dangerous and arbitrary, it sounds like the name for a hidden anarchy slinking through our streets trying to ruin everything that might be good and innocent.
But, as we will find out, it is only a name and behind the name there is nothing much (depending on what scares you) to be afraid of. In fact, the video lecture asks if many of us (if not all of us) might be able to say, are, in the ways we think, are already aligned with the core beliefs of the Church of Satan. Pro-rationality, freedom of expression, the rejection of organized religion, take care of yourself, respect others if they respect you, do not let yourself be walked on, love animals, spend your money on what you want - these tenets do not sound so foreign or unappealing to many people. But is this all there is, is there something diabolical behind all these ways of considering our lives? Maybe, I think it depends on how you want other people to see you, and how you want to see yourself.
https://www(dot)macvideo(dot)ca/media/Lecture+8A+Church+of+Satan/1_24v836hr
Film: Going Clear
https://www(dot)macvideo(dot)ca/media/Going+Clear+Summer+2022/1_ukite3yn
Lecture 9: Scientology
Scientology is unique as a new religious movement (or "cult") given its celebrity membership. What attracts celebrities to this organization and how does this attraction impact the ways that people like you and me see this group? At the start, Scientology has its undeniable attractions. Do you feel scarred or stained that thinks that have happened to you in your life? Do you find yourself reacting to situations that end up exacerbating your problems? Scientology can help. Though it denies the relationship, Scientology appears to be quite similar to traditional psychological therapy - talk about what has happened to you, uncover its causes, deal with them, and be better for it. But then, as we saw with Heavens Gate, the conversation gets a little stranger. Demons are acting as leeches on your spirit and this is no metaphor. These are actual demons and they are weighing you down. There is a science fiction/apocalyptic narrative that we are living in and you, if you are a Scientologist, have a significant role to play. So sign the billion year contract and give yourself to the truth, and in doing so free yourself forever from the judgment and criticism of others - rid them from your life. They are holding you back. Save up, sign up, and start the auditing process. It will be a long and expensive road but as the Church of Scientology explains, it will prove more worthwhile than your pricey university education.
Is this a religion, a science (designed and tested by only one scientist whose own narrative raises a glut of questions), a psychology, a financial scam, or is it the new way?
https://www(dot)macvideo(dot)ca/media/Lecture+9A+Scientology/1_1ig7w4sx
Lecture 10: Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple
Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple (a group like Heavens Gate, in more ways than one, that does not care for the possessive apostrophe) are the classic North American cult. Charismatic leader, communal living, a home for the disenfranchised, and... mass suicide. With this group we begin a shift towards discussing disgraced new religious movements in relation to how they are presented in popular media. Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple were a socialist church that sought to create a utopia. It did not work out, and ever since, this failure has been used as a symbolic prediction for any American group that also sequesters themselves from the larger society and strives to live by socialist principles. Is there a vested media interest in portraying such groups in the most negative of lights? Does doing so serve the mainstream goals of the larger society?
Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. I argue in the lecture, posted below, that we have two different entities at play here. We have Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple and perhaps they are not the same. Jim Jones was, in my estimation, a cult leader (among other identities). But the Peoples Temple, were they a cult? I am not sure. Of course, as already mentioned, they were the classic cult, a new religious movement that disgraced themselves in the most awful of ways. But is that all they were, was there good here? Was the good such that it had to lead to destruction? Or did Jim Jones ruin a good temple filled with good people? Did a monstrous man destroy his one good idea through paranoia and delusions of grandeur? My ability to come to a reasonable answer is clouded by much, predominantly the way the group ended. I hope the lecture provokes the same difficult questions.
Warning: Unavoidably, the lecture deals with suicide.
https://www(dot)macvideo(dot)ca/media/Lecture+10A+Jim+Jones+and+the+Peoples+Temple/1_82u7gwbw
List of Topics and Sub-Modules for Lecture 10: Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple
Film: Waco, The Rules of Engagement
Waco: The Rules of Engagement - McMaster University Library (exlibrisgroup.com)
Or:
Waco: The Rules of Engagement (1997) [FULL DOCUMENTARY] - YouTube
Lecture 11: Branch Davidians
To begin, I do not know what happened in Waco, Texas. I also do not know whether or not the Branch Davidians hurt themselves or their children. I do know, or I think I know, that the narrative that has been presented about this time in history may not be entirely accurate. While you and I may not know what happened, we do not need to. There is no shortage of people who will tell us precisely what happened. This does not mean that these people are telling the truth.
I have offered that a "cult" is a new religious movement up until they disgrace themselves (this understanding does not include organized religions because they are not new and are often big enough to withstand scandals). It is commonly understood that this is what happened to the Branch Davidians, they took the Jonestown route. But, is this the case? As one "expert" in the film puts it, mainstream society does not have a history of accepting fringe groups that challenge the status quo. The tendency is to find fault with the group, find something that allows us to dismiss the group as dangerous and that their accusations against us are without value. The Branch Davidians were not like you and me, they had different sexual practices and they had a lot of guns. This alarms us, likely, for the latter concern about guns, because we do not live in Texas where guns are much more common. As to the former, David Koresh was investigated for sexual abuse against a minor and there was not enough evidence to charge him. However, I do not know if this means that he was innocent. I do have suspicions that if there was strong evidence of his guilt, a person like him would have been prosecuted.
Were the Branch Davidians murdered by the United States government? Again, I do not know (though I have opinions). It seems enough, for now, to note that it is a fair question. It is enough to set us to thinking about how we are educated to consider fringe new religious movements, and to wonder if the people who are teaching us are neutral in their presentations.
https://www(dot)macvideo(dot)ca/media/Lecture+11A+Branch+Davidians+%28Summer+2022%29/1_jjll5ys2
List of Topics and Sub-Modules for Lecture 11: Branch Davidians
Lecture 12: Jesus Camp
As the last video lecture of our term, this lecture brings a conclusion to the story that the course has been trying to tell (there is an epilogue in written form yet to come). Does Jesus Camp's treatment of children disturb you? Or, as Becky Fischer puts it: something is going to get ahold of your children's minds, why not us?
There does seem to be some brainwashing going on here. Perhaps, inculcation is a better word for the way these children are learning. Maybe, the actual word is just education. The question, then, is what is education? Is it inculcation? When you were taught the value of a dollar were you also taught a lot of other things at the same time? Is what you have been taught about what you need to do, need to accomplish, in this life, true? Does truth matter when belief is rampant? How is our university different than the Jesus Camp, other than the difference in messages? It is different, right...?
When we judge others do we feel that we need to be right? Or is feeling right enough? Does the question even matter given that we are going to judge what we judge? What is exposed about me, or you, in how we think about Jesus Camp? What is exposed in our consideration of new religious movements as cults?
https://www(dot)macvideo(dot)ca/media/Lecture+12+Jesus+Camp/1_4srzb9rm
Lecture 13: Conspiracy Thinking
Attached is the last lecture for the course. I had planned to release it on Monday but I see no great point in waiting.
The lecture is a written text. It discusses the connection between cults and conspiratorial thinking, the Ku Klux Klan, the Tsuki Project, social constructions, and, of course, the mystery of truth.