Spirituality
HEGE Series
See — Anthropology - Anthropology of Antichristianity
The Global Religious Landscape | Pew Research Center
Christians — 31.5% of world population (13% live as minority)
Lutherans — 80 million
Orthodox — 260 million
Jews — plurality (44%) live in North America
Religion in the United States | Wikipedia
The Religious Makeup of America | Map
World Religions Map
Defending Sound Doctrine Against the Deconstruction of American Evangelicalism
The deconstruction project doesn’t begin as a conversation about the Bible. ...[T]he primary burden is historical or sociological—less “here’s what 1 Timothy 2:12 actually means” and more “complementarians have interpreted or even translated passages like 1 Timothy 2:12 to preserve the patriarchy.”
In other words, the name of the game is not my understanding of the Bible versus your understanding of the Bible. It’s my understanding of the Bible versus your Story. And by Story, I mean people’s personal stories, their lived experiences, as well as those stories writ large in the histories of a people and documented by social scientists (historians, sociologists, political scientists looking at the polling numbers, and so on). Deconstruction doesn’t begin with exegesis, but with exegeting the exegete.
In the process, theology is dethroned as the queen of the sciences. Or, at least, that’s the risk when we treat people’s lived experiences and history generally as offering “what’s really happening,” while casting a gaze of suspicion over the work of exegetes and theologians.
Forget “Enchantment”: In Praise of the Spooky
Henry Poole Is Here | Wikipedia
Remembering Zion
American Apostasy
The Signs of the Times
The Shape of Things to Come
The Rise of Antichristianity
Ye Shall Be As Gods
Listening to Eve
The Lament of Eve | Amazon
Christianity | Wikipedia
See— Protestantism, Catholicism, Orthodoxy
Judaism | Wikipedia
Islam | Wikipedia
Hinduism | Wikipedia
Buddhism | Wikipedia
Polytheism | Wikipedia
Pantheism | Wikipedia
Indigenous religion | Wikipedia
New Religious Movements
New religious movement | Wikipedia
Mormonism
See — Mormonism
Jehovah‘s Witness
Jehovah‘s Witness | Wikipedia
New Thought
New Thought | Wikipedia
— “modern-day adherents of New Thought share some core beliefs:
God or Infinite Intelligence is "supreme, universal, and everlasting";
divinity dwells within each person, that all people are spiritual beings;
"the highest spiritual principle [is] loving one another unconditionally... and teaching and healing one another"; and
"our mental states are carried forward into manifestation and become our experience in daily living".”
Christian Science | Wikipedia
Unity Church | Wikipedia
Church of Divine Science | Wikipedia
Religious Science (Science of the Mind) | Wikipedia<b
Focolare Movement
Focolare Movement | Wikipedia
The Practice and Meaning of Communitarian Spirituality in the Focolare Movement
New Apostolic Reformation
New Apostolic Reformation | Wikipedia
Abraham Kuyper | Wikipedia
C. Peter Wagner
Toronto Blessing
Bill Johnson of Bethel Church
Mike Bickle of the International House of Prayer
Dutch Sheets, Cindy Jacobs, Lou Engle, Che Ahn, Don Finto, Ana Mendez, Sean Feucht
Bill Bright founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, now known as Cru
Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders
Lance Wallnau
Bill Hamon
Paula White
Gina Gholston
Don Lynch
Jon Hamill
Cults
See — The Bruderhof, Crises, Ron Jones
Anti-cult movement | Wikipedia
Knots: A Forced Marriage Story
Christian Patriarchy Movement
The Patriarchy Movement: Five Areas of Grave Concern
Spiritual Abuse in the Christian Patriarchy Movement
Checklist of Cult Characteristics
Cults and Cultism in American Religion
BITE Marks — left by blood sucking cult leaders
Jen Kiaba
The Illusion of Choice
What’s so bad about growing up in a cult? Lessons on Leaving — Important!
— “According to Alexandra Stein, author of “Terror Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems,” the grooming process to lure someone into a cultic group is also very similar to the grooming process seen with domestic violence. The victim may be subjected to “love bombing,” a process of inundating a person with adoration and attention, which can trick them into thinking they have found a safe space. But then the switch occurs, where the abuser begins to isolate the victim from their friends and family, and a person is then engulfed in a new, abusive system. Now, when someone is born into this abusive system, they are born within that isolation.
According to Stein that isolation within the abusive system paves the way for “terror” tactics to be utilized. This can range from the abuser threatening the victim, teaching them to fear the outside world, instilling the fear of an apocalyptic event, or causing the victim to walk on eggshells in fear of being criticized by the leader or the group.
Stein says, “I believe attachment theory provides a good theoretical approach for understanding brainwashing, and it holds that people run to a safe haven when they are afraid. If the group has been successful, the recruit, now having had fear instilled by the group, runs to the only safe haven available—the group itself.”
With children in the cultic system, I believe that there is another layer to this. Oftentimes parents are in the position of abuser, or allow for others within the cult abuse the children. In my case other adults and second generation members acted as abusers when my parents weren’t present. When children have been programmed with “terror” tactics from a young age, it means that they are that much more likely to run to the “safe haven” of the abusive parents/members and the cultic system.”
Attachment theory | Wikipedia
Alexandra Stein Ph.D. Understanding Cults and Extremist Groups
Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems | Amazon
Second-Generation Religious Cult Survivors: Implications for Counselors
Cyndi H. Matthews
International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA)
Janja Lalich | Wikipedia
Dr. Janja Lalich — Cults, Extremism, & Undue Influence | About
Promoting a deeper, more accurate understanding of cults with the intent to avoid their manipulation, exploitation, and abuse.
Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults | Amazon
Steven Hassan | Wikipedia
The Definitive Guide to Helping People Trapped in a Cult
— Learn how to help friends and family being influenced by harmful cults.
Freedom of Mind Resource Center
The BITE Model of Authoritarian Control: Undue Influence, Thought Reform, Brainwashing, Mind Control, Trafficking and the Law
Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults | Amazon, Wikipedia
Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs | Amazon
Cult Education Institute — Index
Cults Inside Out — Rick Alan Ross
Rick Alan Ross is one of the leading experts on cults in the world today. He has consulted with the FBI, the BATF, and various other law enforcement agencies, as well as the governments of Israel and China, on the topic of cults.He has been qualified and accepted as an expert court witness in eleven different states, including the US federal court. He has also worked as a professional analyst for CBS News, CBC of Canada, and Nippon and Asahi in Japan.
Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse | Amazon, Wikipedia, Book Review
Rebecca Davis Trauma informed author and book coach who helps abuse victims heal and tell their story
Cult membership: What factors contribute to joining or leaving?
How to talk someone out of a damaging cult
How To Leave A Cult — Spoiler alert: it isn't easy.
How to Avoid Cults That May Try to Convert You
Cult Thinking (And How To Avoid It)
10 Ways to Make Double Sure You're Not In a Cult
How to protect yourself from mind control techniques and cult recruitment (it’s not as far-fetched as you think)
Eight steps to mind control: How cults suck ordinary people in
Recognizing and Combating Cults
Psychotherapy with Former Cult Members
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt Compassionate Addiction & Trauma Therapy
How to Leave a Cult: Tips to Get Your Life Back
healingwithdrnatalie | Instagram
How To Investigate Destructive Cults and Underground Groups: An Investigator's Manual
Paul Morantz | Wikipedia
Escape: My Life Long War Against Cults | Amazon
— Paul Morantz is an attorney living in Pacific Palisades, CA. His legal career focuses almost exclusively on the issues of cults and brainwashing. He is the only attorney ever certified to testify in court as an expert witness on these subjects.
Paul Morantz dies; L.A. attorney nearly killed when cult planted rattlesnake in his mailbox
SLG Skolnik Legal Group
Free Speech and Cultic Litigation Interview With Attorney Peter Skolnik
A front for legislative defense to protect cults, under guise of “religious liberty” —
Bitter Winter
— A magazine on religious liberty and human rights
Dissolve the Anti-Cult Lawyer Group, Not the Unification Church. 1. Attorneys Against Religious Liberty
The Problems with Elder-Rule Church Government
— “... First, the initial elders in an Elder-Rule church government appoint themselves to be elders; they are not appointed by a higher authority. Any additional elders appointed by these initial elders are appointed by what I consider to be an illegitimate process, since at no point was there a higher authority which appointed the initial elders. The initial elders were not appointed by a higher authority and had no authority given to them by which they could appoint additional elders.
This poses a problem which some elders in Elder-Rule churches seek to address by claiming they were given their authority by God himself and are accountable to God directly. In my opinion, claims like these are the exclusive right of the apostles [apostolic succession]. One might ask, of both the apostles and Elder-Rule elders, “When did God give you this authority?” The apostles might answer, in the Eleven’s case, by pointing to the Great Commission. In Paul’s case, he can point to his meeting with Christ on the Damascus road and his recognition by the other apostles. Elders today who claim to have been given their authority by God will never have as convincing a story of when they were given this authority. ...”
Post-Cult Recovery and Forgiveness
— “When I think back over the beliefs and behaviors of the leaders I followed, I see people who, fundamentally, don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know how to honestly assess themselves. They don’t know how to relate to people with kindness and patience. They don’t know how to respond to criticism without defensiveness and manipulation. They are not happy people and their lives don’t seem to be going in positive directions. Perhaps, on the surface, when they interact with people who venerate them, it seems like all is well. But if you have come into conflict, big or small, with people like this, you have met their interior brokenness and likely been hurt by it.
I don’t have the power, knowledge, or love to bring my former leaders to account. The work involved to heal their antisocial pathologies is beyond anything I have the capability to accomplish. Even the work involved to expose them to their followers would be monumental. So, the only option I have left is very similar to Jesus’. I have to entrust my claims for justice and accountability to a person who actually has the ability to bring about both: my heavenly Father.
In this place, where I’d tend toward hoping for punishment and retribution, I see Jesus’ heart for forgiveness and healing. It is God’s heart for harmful people who don’t know what they’re doing that they repent and become whole.
I don’t think this means minimizing the harm abusive people do to others. In fact, I think doing so prevents forgiveness from happening by taking away the need for forgiveness. I’ve seen friends and family fight to blind themselves from the harm they or other people have suffered in an effort, I believe, to shield themselves from the world’s fallenness. ...”
μετάνοια (Greek: metanoia): repentance; a change of mind, a reorientation, a fundamental transformation of outlook, of man's vision of the world and of himself, and a new way of loving others and God
Gaslighting | Sandstone Care
— [G]aslighting is “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone, especially for one’s own advantage.”
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation and type of ABUSE that makes a person question their own reasoning and sanity.
A gaslight apology is an apology given that often appears sincere but the person is actually not taking any responsibility for what they have caused.
Gaslighting | Psychology Today
— Gaslighting is an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. ...
Who becomes a gaslighter?
Those who employ this tactic often have a PERSONALITY DISORDER [aka mental illness], narcissistic personality disorder and psychopathy chief among them. Manipulators have a tendency to present one face to their prey and another to the rest of the world, leading victims to assume that if they ask for help or speak out, no one will believe that they have been manipulated and emotionally ABUSED. Gaslighters typically repeat the tactics across several relationships.
How to Turn the Tables on a Gaslighter
— 10 Avoid falling for their “love bombing” tactics.
What do ex-cult members need to do to become ”themselves” after leaving a cult? What kind of therapy is available? | Quora
How were able to recover psychologically after leaving a cult or cult-like organization? | Quora
