Just watched Alex Gibney’s new documentary on Scientology, Going Clear.
What really got to me was how utterly foolish and chronically masochistic many of those former members of this so-called church were. I have studied various cults, and even dabbled within one myself during my younger days.
I have seen, firsthand through my own vulnerability, how the need to either belong to or feel needed by a group of others can drive one to enter into these cults. The sad reality is that few people, and this is key, ever realize that it is in fact a cult that they are joining.
What made me literally shout at my television screen while listening to some of those interviewed was “How much **** did you have to take for so many years before you finally saw the light?” Watch the film and see for yourself how far people allow themselves to be manipulated and exploited and even tortured.
Mind you, my experience with cults like Scientology, including my brief visit with LifeSpring (an offshoot of EST), revealed to me the vast number of highly educated and (seemingly) intelligent people who allow themselves to be taken in. I myself was taken in too . . . as far as LifeSpring’s advanced training course which consisted of two weeks of intensive (and expensive) mind control.
As I began to speak one-on-one with some of the others sharing this experience, I realized how many overly sensitive and “needy” folks like myself (and recovering addicts and alcoholics) that were there. The need to “belong” and to feel “wanted” can be so great.
Having gone through three years of intensive Freudian analysis, I can see how cults like Scientology and EST and LifeSpring copied much from standard psychoanalysis, then tweaked it a bit and renamed it something else. Having studied how our own government has used various techniques of outright torture, especially in regard to this ongoing Orwellian “War of Terror,” I can see how cults copy those techniques and refine them a bit, all for the same heinous purpose: Control.
Having also spent more than half my adult life studying the entire Nazi movement right through WWII, I can see how much of what Hitler’s gang did with their mass rallies and pomp and circumstance has, and is being, mirrored by cults like Scientology. Seeing the leaders of this cult and its top executives dressed in uniforms that resemble those worn by movie ushers from the ‘30s and ‘40s, one has to laugh at the audaciousness of it all.
Yet, it is real! Thousands attend these spectacles and cheer and applaud . . . just like those fools did in 1930s Germany! Or, how about the overflowing crowds who follow those TV preachers and send their hard earned savings for “Prayer cloths” and other nonsense?
Now, allow me to go one step further. One year from now we will have our next Presidential Horserace. Check out the conventions they hold for these two major political parties. You will then realize why cults like Scientology have been so successful.
To this writer the two-party system here in our dear America has been the longest-lasting cult in our nation’s history. As with the inane British “Tory vs. Labor” con job, our own “Republican vs. Democrat” garbage has for so long scammed so many good, decent Americans.
Do the research and see how the really key issues and policy decisions that keep this American Empire going full speed always have the consensus of the two parties. It has to . . . or the wizards behind the curtain would do some pruning to make certain of it.
Cults, any and all . . . SUCK! Isn’t it time for more Americans to “connect the dots?”
Philip A. Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He is a freelance columnist (found on Nation of Change Blog, Truthout.org, TheSleuthJournal.com, Worldnewstrust.com, The Intrepid Report, The Peoples Voice, Information Clearing house, Dandelion Salad, Activist Post, Dissident Voice and many other sites worldwide). Philip works as an environmental products sales rep and has been an activist leader since 2000. In 2010 he became a local spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25%. Philip can be reached at PAF1222@bellsouth.net.
My husband and I watched it last night and were also astounded by how many people are taken in by this nonsense. Then again, religion — any religion — is just more of the same. But human beings clearly feel the need to belong to such organizations, so we’ll never be rid of them.
As for connecting the dots, good luck. Though I’m thankful for every small victory, I have little hope.
thanks and agree with you lisa. unreal.when will our good souls see how the 2 party con job is analogous to those cults?
Writers produce their best work when relating their personal experiences.This is why the article is excellent. Some publisher needs to produce a book from Mr.Farruggio’s many works!
Good connection between cults and the Western so-called democracies. Both use incessant brainwashing to get compliance. The US empire is a bit more accomplished at this, so it’s able to hide the effects and make 2+2=5 seem natural. Through the mendacious corporate media and the k-12 schools, we’re all bombarded with the Big Lie that supports the status quo of the few ruling the many so that we accept it as the natural order of things. The scientologists’ thought control may seem clownish, but it’s based on the same principles used by the ruling class to maintain hegemony
In Hanna Arendt’s’ book on totalitarianism she states that the Nazis and the communist movements recruited their members “from the mass of apparently indifferent people whom all other parties had given up on as too apathetic or too stupid for their attention”
In our form of totalitarianism they have rendered the masses permanently indifferent, and those that participate in what Farruggio calls the two party scam are just useful idiots to the power structure. Only 60% of the people vote and just guessing I would say for at least half that amount that is the extent of their political participation.
thanks to all of you who commented. Johnny J is too kind in his flattery. thanks so much to a man who I know has been through the ringer of this corporate hypocritical system.