From 'The Universal Identifying Characteristics of a Cult' (David Brear, Axiom Books, 2005)
Pseudo-scientific mystification. The instigators of pernicious cults seek to overwhelm their adherents emotionally and intellectually by pretending that progressive initiation into their own superior or superhuman knowledge (coupled with total belief in its authenticity and unconditional deference to the authority of its higher initiates) will defeat a negative or adversarial force of impurity and absolute evil, and lead to future, exclusive redemption in some form of secure Utopian existence. By making total belief a prerequisite of redemption,adherents are drawn into a closed-logic trap (i.e. failure to achieve redemption is solely the fault of the individual who didn’t believe totally). Cultic pseudo-science is always essentially the same hypnotic hocus-pocus, but it can be peddled in an infinite variety of forms and combinations (‘spiritual’, ‘medical’, ‘philosophical’, ‘cosmological,’‘extraterrestrial’, ‘political’, ‘racial’, ‘mathematical’, ‘economic’, ‘New-Age’, 'magical', etc.), often with impressive, made-up, technical-sounding names. It is tailored to fit the spirit of the times and to attract a broad range of persons, but especially those open to an exclusive offer of salvation (i.e. the: sick, dissatisfied, bereaved, vanquished, disillusioned, oppressed, lonely, insecure, aimless, etc.). However, at a moment of vulnerability, anyone (no matter what their: age, sex, nationality, state of mental/ physical health, level of education, etc.) can need to believe in a non-rational, cultic pseudo-science. Typically, obedient adherents are granted ego-inflating names, and/or ranks, and/or titles, whilst non-initiates are referred to using derogatory, dehumanizing terms. Although initiation can at first appear to be reasonable and benefits achievable, cultic pseudo-science gradually becomes evermore costly and mystifying. Ultimately, it is completely incomprehensible and its claimed benefits are never quantifiable. The self-righteous euphoria and relentless enthusiasm of cult proselytizers can be highly infectious and deeply misleading. They are invariably convinced that their own salvation also depends on saving others.
Repression of all dissent. The leaders of the most-destructive cults are megalomaniacal psychopaths (i.e. suffering from a chronic mental disorder, especially when resulting in paranoid delusions of grandeur and self-righteousness, and the compulsion to pursue grandiose objectives). The unconditional deference of their deluded adherents only serves to confirm, and magnify, the leaders’ own paranoid delusions. This type of cult leader maintains an absolute monopoly of information whilst perpetrating, and/or directing, evermore heinous crimes. They sustain their activities by the imposition of arbitrary contracts and codes (secrecy, denunciation, confession,justice, punishment, etc.) within their groups, and by the use of humiliation, and/or intimidation, and/or calumny, and/or malicious prosecution (where they pose as victims), and/or sophism, and/or the infiltration of traditional culture, and/or corruption, and/or intelligence gathering and blackmail, and/or extortion, and/or physical isolation, and/or violence, and/or assassination, etc., to repress any internal or external dissent.
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Although most of the world has rightly treated the matter as a huge joke, quite a number of enterprising charlatans have again been making money by presenting the mystifying lie that 'The End is Nigh' as though it is the supreme truth. However, this particularly destabilising, and highly-profitable, cultic controlling-scenario goes back to the dawn of human history; 'Doomsday' just keeps being updated and adapted to reflect the spirit of the times.
In essence, the current version doing the rounds is that a bunch of Mayan wise men calculated, and prophesied, that Doomsday would occur today, Friday, December, 21st, 2012. Personally, I'm not entirely sure how this typically precise and complex pseudo-scientific bull-shit has been passed off as reality, since Mayan writing has never been fully-understood and the Mayans used a different system for recording the passage of time.
In general, and for obvious reasons, the mainstream media has lumped together and ridiculed the 2012 crop of 'Doomsday' believers, but, nonetheless, there exist potentially lethal consequences. I sincerely hope that when the end of the world again fails to arrive by itself, no cult leader will attempt to fulfil his/her own prophesy.
World leaders should never forget that, since 1945, the human race has, in fact, possessed the means to bring about its own destruction. To date, atomic weapons have never fallen into the hands of a psychopathic cult leader, but there are certain observers of the cult phenomenon who consider that it is only a matter of time. As recently as 1995, Chizuo Matsumoto a.k.a. 'The Great Enlightened One,' made a serious attempt to obtain a nuclear device in the former Soviet Union as part of his elaborate plan to slaughter millions of his fellow Japanese citizens and trigger WWIII. Although Matsumoto's agents failed to buy atomic weapons, they did manage secretly to stockpile around 150 tons of other war materials, including chemicals to manufacture a quantity of Sarin nerve gas sufficient to kill millions of individuals. Furthermore, on the advice of certain 'religious scholars,' Japanese law enforcement agencies refused to investigate, and when the mainstream Japanese media was also given a timely-warning, a group of television journalists initially treated the 'Aum Doomsday cult,' as a huge joke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoko_Asahara
http://mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.fr/2012/04/anders-breivik-is-not-unique.html
http://mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.fr/2012/05/scholars-of-religion-or-scholars-of-new.html
http://mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.fr/2012/06/after-17-years-on-run-remaining-aum.html
David Brear (copyright 2012)
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