Rocky

Jumping to contusions sounds better than jumping to concussions. Just sayin'

Steamed live and recorded in October 2022.

Also from page 22 of UnCULTured: So, without being able to peer inside the mind and heart of Victor Wierwille, WE can look at his PFLAP indoctrination with new insight from the recollections of others subjected to cult indoctrination. Again, it doesn't "establish" his motivation, but it does suggest he was setting up BRAINWASHING of vulnerable and susceptible (mostly) young people. And it DOES show the antidote for any and everyone who chooses not to be thus constrained about "how far they can go."

I just read this in UnCULTured: a memoir, by Daniella Mestyanek Young [pgs 21 and 22]who is a survivor of the Children of God cult:

Speaking of the longevity of cult organization, I just started reading UnCULTured: a memoir written by a survivor of the Children of God cult. It's notable (to me anyway) how a common thread (perhaps a RED thread) among all fundamentalist Christian cult survivors' stories is that the founders find ways to rationalize and self-justify sexual abuse of increasingly young women. Twi is no different in that regard.

Are you sure that was me?

Rather than sexual predation being "the core" of cults and religion, I believe sexual predation is an inherent risk/danger of any group or institution in which substantive power imbalance exists without adequate "guardrails" in the written/unwritten mores of the group or institution.

How certain are you of the interpretation the phrase you quoted is a command? I see it differently but find your take to be intriguing. At this time, I see the phrase as a declaration based on assessment or personal inference. I suppose Victor's intent could have been an effort to place constraints on the minds of his listeners.

I won't "expound on" what you personally thing regarding the internet. But regarding the book and movie...here's a description of the book from Goodreads: One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm. While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women—all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in—have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they’ve ever known or should they dare to escape? Based on real events and told through the “minutes” of the women’s all-female symposium, Toews’s masterful novel uses wry, politically engaged humor to relate this tale of women claiming their own power to decide.

I'm not shocked. They sell soap (Amway) for the mind. They sit on a lot of scratch and they have a few people making up stories to keep the sheep in the fold. Occasionally, one (or some) get out, but the proselytizing keeps it going.

No. But that would be nice right about now.

And even if they did... oh, come on... how could they possibly make sense of what Mike rambles on about anyway?

THIS movie (and book) seem to me to be very significant an related to the cult (and other religions') practice of sexual predation and abuse.

Of course you wonder in that direction. It's called rationalization.

My last name is definitely NOT Sanders. It would have been a harrowing experience for me if I would have transcribed any of Wierwille's teachings.

The movie, Women Talking, will be in wide release in the first week of January 2023. In 2022, I read Polley's memoir, Run Toward the Danger. I loved it. I'm confident the movie will be very emotionally moving and important in countering cult activity world wide.

Perhaps one of the reasons we are so quick to ascribe superpowers to people like this–Stoics or otherwise–is it’s a way of letting ourselves off the hook. If we raise them above ourselves, then we excuse ourselves. From the Daily Stoic, December 20, 2022.

Not a preposterous proposition.

I'm SHOCKED!

What? Still no time for living life, raising children, earning a living, or learning anything other than rehashing pflap?

What do you know about medications for depression? It seems maybe not much. SSRIs (very common type of medications for depression and anxiety) don't make people look or act like zombies. One of the things "they did to him" was give him money to live on. Reportedly, at some point, about $60k/yr. Another thing "they" did was divorce him. But if you like what he has to say, then enjoy.

Okay, I see the Way Mag at the links. However, there's NFW I'm going to read much of it. Bolshevik, does it (the linked Way Mag) mention stoic philosophy at all?