Rocky

And no COMPASSION for "his people." No empathy for ANY others. WordWolf said: I once walked some kids home in Summer, Once I got them to their block (a partially-protected block), I agreed they were safe enough to walk the last few steps by themselves (they were young teenagers walking less than a block.) I asked them to promise that- as soon as they got home- they would stop and pray for the coming rain to hold off until I got home. They agreed. I saw them off, and marched home with all reasonable speed, hoping to get home before the rain because I didn't pack an umbrella. As it turned out, they did exactly as requested, calling their family to the door so they could pray together immediately. Me, I prayed, marched, and just focused on making the best time. There was occasional thunder, and once a few drops began to fall, then stopped. I might say that the charged air even felt a bit frustrated- but that could easily be argued to be an active imagination. When I got home, I got as far as the elevator before the thunderstorm dropped, so I missed the sound of it starting. I did, however, get inside my building seconds before the storm hit. Naturally, one might consider this a fascinating coincidence, or think I'm exaggerating, or that I'm outright lying. (I insist I'm neither exaggerating nor lying.) Nobody made a big deal out of this at the time, but I respected those teens BEFORE this, and if anything, respected them more AFTER this. I view your story, WW, as neither exaggeration nor deception. It's clear to me that your story (and humans are ALL about stories) wasn't about you. It didn't revolve around you. I don't recall you EVER bragging about yourself. You shared a story to make a legitimate, valid point. And IMO, you communicated it very well. And back to Skyrider's point about veepee, the whiny narcissistic creep probably could have made a lot happen for the people who sojourned every August if he only had a heart.

project much?

Another way a similar phenomenon manifested itself was when JALvis came here or on FB and without much thought to the reality ended up talking down to 50+ year olds like we were still teens or twenty-somethings. I remember having to remind him of the fact that we were no longer young people. Of course I was in my early 30s when I departed the cult.

Perhaps you're right. I was never involved with the Martindale flavored classes.

The advanced class was all bulls*it... of course it's easier to see 40 some years later.

Clearly this was the case, IMO.

I never took the WAP class (even though as a child in upstate NY, of Italian descent, I was called a WAP numerous times)... But he didn't need to drive that concept home. It was ingrained in the DNA of the cult from before I joined up in 1974.

AKA, why is that bozo's first thought any better than MY first thought?

As in "fake it till you make it?" But did they ever make it?

Hulu in the US already aired the final episode.

Hallelujah, Praise God, Amen!

To paraphrase Simon Sinek, start with WHY. Why should we care about any of that?

I took a road trip last month. On the trip, I saw Billions and Billions and BILLIONS of trees... for which I am very thankful. I bet there are lots of trees near where you live in the UK, Twinky. I hope so. When I think about trees, I don't think about twi.

Because you overgeneralize, exaggerate, and make easily debunked claims. YOU can alleviate that problem by being specific and linking to verifiable sources. YOU can count the number of members of such FB groups (they generally say how many members there are) and list the names of the groups. That was too easy of a question, Mike.

And has been so from the start.

Well... I'm of the understanding that there were never more than 100k who took the PFLAP class... and for YEARS (decades), twi strongly discouraged their minions from accessing the evil internet. I can't imagine there are... Especially so many who still give two hoots about the class. How many people go to twigs... er, home fellowships?

That's a figure of speech, right? Exaggerando?

"The snowflake never needs to feel responsible for the avalanche."

Btw, since you seem to believe I have an ax to grind, what might that be, exactly?

What that sounds like to me is that you don't necessarily have any specific insight but you seem to expect me to read your mind. As you wish, but I pose questions seeking clarification, no other reason.

I just read a sentence in a book by Jon Ronson (among his writings is a book titled The Psychopath Test): "The snowflake never needs to feel responsible for the avalanche."

Male cult leaders sometimes claim droit du seigneur over female followers or use physical violence to sexually exploit them. But, on the whole, they find it more efficient to dress up the exploitation as some sort of gift or therapy: an opportunity to serve God, an exorcism of “hangups,” a fast track to spiritual enlightenment. One stratagem favored by Keith Raniere, the leader of the New York-based self-help cult NXIVM, was to tell the female disciples in his inner circle that they had been high-ranking Nazis in their former lives, and that having yogic sex with him was a way to shift the residual bad energy lurking in their systems. According to Sarah Berman, whose book “Don’t Call It a Cult” (Steerforth) focusses on the experiences of NXIVM’s women members, Raniere was especially alert to the manipulative uses of shame and guilt.

Such as these questions...

How many individuals are there in the United States? How are individuals responsible for public health crises that they have no individual power to mitigate? Cop out? Did you cop out and not answer the salient questions I posted for you earlier in this thread that, if you had addressed them, might have given you some insight on what is or is not a societal cop out?

THAT is a demonstration that you lack self-awareness.