I happen to attend an enriching talk on the topic, "Why do some Christians call other groups cults?". A pretty normal title, nothing abstract. But the topic is interesting and I decided to do a summary of it based on the notes I've taken. I never mentioned much names in my blog, but this time I think its necessary to say that all credit of this goes to Rev Adrian Van Leen from CCGM in Australia. I just paraphrased. Lots of stuff and examples not mentioned in this summary, but I'm not exactly a pro at taking notes anyway. And it was a 2 hour + talk.
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Elements of the Common Religions
Besides a name, any religion has to have Leaders. They also have some sort of higher being, like a God. There will be followers who go to a place of worship and follow a set of beliefs and values that the religion respects. These beilefs are usually found in a sort of Sacred Book.

Example (A made-up Religion)
_Tranquility
They have elders who study the deep teachings of the Guru, the Tranquil. They follow a set of beliefs which state that all religions are the same. This is recognised through the carrying of their scared object, the Prism. They believe that the way of the Tranquil is the only true path where one can gain the sense of peace and a new awareness; when light enters the prism, the different colours would be refracted away from it at different speeds. They believe that each colour represents a single religion and only by joing Tranquility, the main source of light, one can be complete. They meet every saturday at Serenity Palaces where they discuss the teachings contained in the "Way of the Tranquil". The book consists of information from all religions and describes the correct path to take in order to find the inner peace in one.
Note: This was made up by a group of students in reply to the Rev.'s request to create a religion.

Style of Cults
The new age kind of stuff is the most appealing thing now in our age. People sometime don't want to think and root off others beliefs.

Case Studys:--

'Orange' People

Followers who believe and trust in this single 'Guru'. At the start, these people listen to talks by him. Later on, they are changed to become strong devotist. The process is as followed...

Stage One: The Enterance
People who come to see the guru talk have to be clean and have no BO nor use perfumed shampoo. (Reason:Guru Allergic)They are also not supposed to carry any items that allows them to take down notes nor record the teachings of the guru. Many were refused for entry, leaving only the rest to feel special to stay.

Stage Two: The Talks
The guru's speeches would be filled with dirty jokes and be littered with sayings from different religious teachers, mixing everything up. People would be slightly distracted through these things and later on just drift into believing what the Guru says. Psychological manipulation is used strongly here, will be talked about futher later.

It finally gets to a stage where the guru never says anything and just says that he w0uld connect with the people by heart. After silence for one and a half hour, the guru leaves and everyone still cheers as usual. Kissing the ground he had placed his feet on.

'Christian' Meditation

When certain christians say they want to find a certain meditation that is more christian as most mediations are based off hinduism. A certain church teacher had travelled to india and recieved teachings from a hindu guru. He brought by the teachings to his church group. It might not be intentional, as in the leader may have been decieved and spread his own deception to his students. The disturbing part of the mediation is that in the church, among christians, the group mediates by chanting phrases that they themselves do not know the meaning of. One vaguely translate to 'I am of that' while the other is stating that there is a single God of a certain name. Somewhere along those lines...

Jim Jones

Started with a church that had all classes of people in it. As previous churches all had people of equal status together, his was the first that allowed such a teaching. Many guys thought he was great as at first he was teaching about Jesus and on the bible. However, very gradually, he moved his teachings into focusing on he himself. On one occasion, he tossed the bible on the ground and said that "You don't need this! You have me!" or something like that. And people believed. He even used psychological manipulation to poison 913 people.

Bible Misinterpretation
Many cults spark off from misinterpreting the bible. The bible should be read in context and not only through quotes. As it was only much later when it was given chapters and verse numbers, quoting from the bible without the whole context might distort its meaning. Take 1
Corinthians 13, the love chapter. Though it was quoted in many weddings, its intentions may be different from what Paul had in mind when he wrote it. I.e. Don't abuse the scripture. Many have done so, and used the bible to say what they want to say.

Miracles and Psychological Manipulation
Even some christians tend to cheat to get that 'people power'. There was this guy who said the lord told him things and openly talked about some random guy in the crowd, citing his injures and stuff of such. This was actually from an audio earpiece which transmited information that his wife recited to him from the back through cards people filled in before they entered.

There are also political manipulation involved. You know, the sort of stuff like when a single guy in the room claps, everyone else starts clapping. There is an incident when the speaker asks everyone in the room to close their eyes. A rebel did not. He asked them to raise their hands at to answer 'yes' to his question of 'how many of you have accepted christ as your saviour'. The rebel looked around to see the number of hands at a specific location the speaker said 'thank you' to, did not correspond to the number of thank yous he said. I.e. he spoke more 'thank yous'.

Then, there is the matter when songs are sang again and again in churches. With the church leader saying that 'the grace of the holy spirit is washing over us'. At some songs, members 'raise their holy hands' to sing and at other songs they do not, some what like their programmed not to. Songs are repeated say 10 over times, chrous especially. A rebel did not raise his hands at a worship session, after awhile the worship leader said, "I think someone here is trying to disrupt the presence of the holy spirit and should go home." She was in eye lock with that rebel. The rebel stayed to the end. The point is that, christianity is not one big mind game. Places with large yellings, heavy cheering even after a long while, makes no sense if we don't see the point with it. As we must love Jesus with all our heart, all our mind and all our soul; we still have to love him with our mind. I.e. conciously, we need to be thinking. Singing of a song with constant repetation may equal to just following the lyrics and not knowing and respecting the meanings.

But, that rebel, being a christian, believed in mircales. Sometimes, little things like someone believing after a certain something happens; is in itself a miracle as well.

--Psychological Manipulative Methods

The reinforcement question
Ideas resaid from the questions asked. I.e. Ask a married man 'Have you stopped beating your wife'. This question traps people and has them state the answer that the cult desires.

Constant Repetition, Frequent Influence
How did Jim Jones poison that lot of people? Slow, steady procedures. He ran a 'test of faith by drinking poison' program a few times without the use of real poison (Yes! God is with me, I will not be posioned when I believe in Jim!) After a few times, people believe. The pressure of the crowd doing it is also a factor.

Acception then Rejection, Correction then Gradual Acception
Very basically.... 1) You are a great guy! 2) Your a sinner! A rotten, despised sinner 3) But if you listen to me, you can be purified. 4) Yes, see! Now you are great.
But I think you get the idea...

Crowd Humiliation
Someone disagrees? Take him to the front and spank him infront of everyone. The followers support it. The disgraced victim would think twice and everyone would not dare rebel.

The Lowdown
Defination of a Cult: Distorts message of truth in Jesus; But, not only dependent on basis of theology. Sociology and its Psychology as well. One should be able to question it and be allowed to think independently in the cult, not to be transformed into the 'clone' of everyone else . Note that sometimes leaders may answer questions but might avoid the actual answering by draggin the answer.

To protect oneself from cults, the values below should be followed--

THINK -- think about the matter
QUESTION -- Ask questions when unsure
BIBLE -- Do constant reading of your bible, check the realibility of stuff through scripture
JESUS -- Focus on Jesus

Note that Theology is linked strongly to God, but to know God, we should know Jesus.

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There are still stuff and bases uncovered. But this is mostly what my notes had covered.

I give liberty for anyone to use and distribute this particular entry of my blog. Or the parts without my 'author's notes' anyway. Please credit it to Rev Adrian Van Leen, its okay if you don't want to talk about Zoneseekers.

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