Lmst

The Line's 2025 Recovering From Religion Fundraiser, LIVE! Swing by and say 'Hi'!

https://www.youtube.com/live/Lva3TxYNSq4

#atheism #Religioustrauma #ReligiousTraumaSyndrome #deconstruction #deconstructingchristianity #exchristian #excatholic #agnostic #ptsd #cptsd #recoveringfromreligion #Secular #SecularTherapy #SecularTherapist #ExCult #atheist #charity #fundraiser

Out May 17 - Memo PST "s/t" LP from In The Red. Debut album from this new group led by Orville Neeley (Bad Sports, OBN IIIs) and Chris Shaw (Ex-Cult, Vile Nation). Twelve blasts of raw and primitive Los Angles punk rock.
https://midheaven.com/item/memo-pst/s-t
#memopst
#intheredrecords
#obniiis
#badsports
#excult
#vilenation
#punkrock

Hi y'all.
Starting this fresh (anonymous for now) account to connect with fellow #exvangelicals #exSBC #exGOP and others that have gone through deconstruction (#exMo #exJW #exfundie #exCult) we have a lot in common. I'd love to build community and common resources that are helpful across these groups. This is me taking a first step towards some of my longer term ideas in this space.

If you have resources to share or are interested in new resources or just wanna chat, reach out.

the "don't criticize unless you have a better suggestion" argument is very tough for me to swallow, and I admit this may just be because of my trauma history. for many years I had trouble pointing out abusive issues with the JWs because they constantly say 'well it might have problems, but it's still the closest religion to the truth' or 'where else will you go' or 'any church in Christendom is worse'.

First of all, these things weren't true. But this mindset can be really freezing to critical thought. Sometimes it's hard to imagine an improvement. Sometimes you need to wrestle with critique for a while until an alternative comes to mind. Critique is a useful activity in its own right, and sometimes the 'better alternative' is in an entirely different category than the thing you are walking away from, so it's not obvious at first.

#exCult #exJW

Is Eckankar a cult? I never hear them listed when people talk about high-control groups, even though they resemble a lot of other ones by being a new religious movement and having a lot of gatherings and their own songs. Is this an example of the fabled non-abusive NRM?

note: they definitely seem appropriative, it's basically a white guy leader taking a lot from Sikhism and Hinduism. not trying to say they are great I'm just curious if they are a cult.

#exCult #religion

I'm reminded of a sneaky language trick JWs do. When you leave they will announce from the podium "[Name] is no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses." They say this exact phrase when they forcibly kick people out and when people choose to leave on conscience grounds. But the audience will always interpret it as the first situation. Regardless, the audience is expected to shun the person and never speak to them again.

#exJW #exCult

Under mind controlling systems, there is never a legitimate reason you can have for disagreeing. It will be attributed to a personal grudge, selfishness, resentment, hurt feelings, trying to gain notoriety, lying to hurt the organization, or often some version of 'you failed' or 'you couldn't take the heat' and now you're bitter.

People who are stuck in these systems self-censor any thoughts they have that resemble disagreement because they fear becoming a bad person. They have multiple examples of bad people who disagreed for 'immoral reasons', and they don't want to fall prey to those same reasons. Subconsciously what they really fear is isolation and becoming targets for abuse, but the system gives them a comfortable cover story consciously, which feels like being ethical and following necessary rules.

When cornered with an actual mistake, or proof of having done real harm, mind controlling systems will fallback to 'it was for the greater good so it's not a big deal'. The transition will be seamless, where members previously said no mistakes were made and detractors were wicked, to saying yes a mistake was made but it didn't matter because of the greater mission. Soon after, the group will return to a posture of infallibility as if nothing happened.

You will often see this play out under a guise of transparency. For example Jehovah's Witnesses often say that anyone is welcome to attend their meetings, that their full history of literature is available to read. It's all an open book, and anyone reading it without bias would find that their record is spot free. The trick is that when someone does see a blemish or asks a question about a particular policy that was changed in the past, that is evidence that they were reading with some bias and shouldn't be engaged with.

#exCult #exJW #highControlGroup #cultMindControl

The most damaging thing about this series is how it presents cults (high demand groups) as totally weird, out there, and always ending in newsworthy tragedy. It’s depicting cult leaders in cartoons where they have evil faces. This is a common narrative in media that treats the topic casually (like a single episode of a police procedural, or news reporting on said tragedies), so it’s disappointing to see this narrative reinforced in a production that pretends to be educational.

Yeah no, cult leaders are quite usually nice-seeming people. That’s what “charismatic” means. They appear to many as trustworthy and generous, insightful and kind. Their ideals will appeal to large swathes of the population. Most get by without committing any large atrocities, though a path of invisible individual disasters will follow it.

We need to be warning people about this, not creating more smoke screen. Which this series does.

#cult #exmo #exmormon #exvangelical #exjw #exCult

I’m watching this new docuseries on Netflix, How to Become a Cult Leader and it’s already annoying me.

First off, don’t fucking invite people to use this information to start a cult. Come ON. It’s not only in the title, but in how the series is framed and structured, like it’s a how to guide. STOP IT.

Next, it’s a bit overwrought on the sensationalism. Calm down with those graphics and sound effects.

Third, most of what they’re saying is true, but there are some inaccuracies and imprecise statements. This is BAD. Ethically bad. Will cause people harm bad. Feeds into the narrative cult leaders construct bad.

I’m less than five minutes in.

#cult #exmo #exmormon #exvangelical #exjw #exCult

I helped make this :D
My incredible musician friends and I are ex-cult members and this is a love letter to being in our own skin after the deprogramming.
https://youtu.be/h2J_lN3d3FI
#excult #deprogramming

#excult

Client Info