Everyone has heard of the saying "Drink the Kool-Aid" but do you know where it comes from. Jim Jones is one of the most infamous cult leaders to ever exist. He had a massive following of people all of whom were so brainwashed that they moved from the US to Guyana and started "Jonestown." None of them had any idea they would eventually be forced into "suicide." Looking back on it you probably wonder, how could anyone fall for this crap?
They say, you don't realize you're in a cult until you're already in one. For the people of Jonestown, some of them realized and tried to leave but the armed guards wouldn't let them.
Luckily, there are many people out there who did realize they were in a cult before it was too late.
When they make it easy for you:
When they said I'm going to marry someone from Korea. When I said no, they said they already bought the plane tickets.
poopyheadthrowaway
"When the high lama snapped a crying toddler on the side of the head to get him to shut up, then demanded that children be kept out of earshot, a thousand yards away. Great compassion my ass.
(Not to mention he got drunk every night while he taught. Not to mention he said Westerners lacked the discernment to judge and choose their own teachers.)"
tyinsf
Hey former member, we promise we just want to meet up for a movie...
Was accidentally in a religious cult. I would see how the pastor would treat non members and members that didn’t comply with what he wanted and I would think “I hope he doesn’t start acting this way towards me” he would berate people, gossip, expect us to stay at his house until late hours, forbid us to hang out with non members, and he even asked me to move in there when I already had my own place.
I noticed it was a cult when I told them I was hanging out with an old friend and they preceded to ask why was I doing that and that they were my friends.
I came to a service that following Sunday and the pastor sees me and says “I had a message I was going to preach, but I’m going to preach a different message today”
The whole service was pretty much him talking shit about me and making rude jokes. I knew this sermon was about me when he kept referencing the “person” hanging out with other people and saying it was sinful and of the world. I never felt so embarrassed in my life with everyone laughing at me. I sat that entire service just embarrassed.
Once I left, several of the members attempted to contact me with a few of them trying to “go to the movies” with me at midnight when they knew damn well the closest movie theatre was an hour away and what movie theatre shows movies at midnight.
After I stopped going to that church a few of the members completely stopped talking to me despite us being “friends” still can’t believe that happened to me.
Tito_Santana
Multi Level Marketing Cults...
My time with Primerica:
- Weekly events that had long moments of clapping and loud music. Prevents thinking and conversation.
- Big events with clapping, music, doing things like 'the wave'. Prevents thinking, conversation and encourages conforming
- Several speeches from my upline about how we shouldn't spend our time with people who don't want to be apart of the company, including family and life long friends.
- Planning on moving into the same community together that was referred to as the 'Primerica Estates'.
- Parents had a halloween party planned the same night as my Primerica office's halloween party. I was chewed out for picking family over company
- We traveled to events out of state. It was frowned upon for us to travel on our own. They wanted us to go on a bus or van together.
- The idea that someone would be happier doing something other than Primerica? Comical. Surgeons, lawyers, military officers, scientists, all would be better off joining Primerica and giving up their jobs.
- Doing something that wasn't Primerica related? You better be ready to explain yourself. One guy got chewed out in front of the office for going to his grandmother's 80th birthday party. I went out of state with my then wife to celebrate our anniversary required me explaining to those running the office about my actual dedication to the company, even though I was only gone for one fucking weekend. I even had to explain myself when I stayed home one Sunday to replace the brakes on my car. I was asked "How is that going to improve your business?" My answer was "I have to drive to people's homes to sell policies. I shouldn't have to explain how car maintenance is a business related thing."
- Hobbies had to almost be company approved. If you're reading a book, it better be one to improve your business. Have a hobby that doesn't have any relation to Primerica? Drop it and focus more on Primerica. Sell your television if it's a distraction from your business. When it came to getting to the company event in Georgia, we were told that getting there is our highest priority. Sell anything you can if you can't afford to go (tickets alone were over $100), including televisions, video game consoles, computers, so on and so forth...
- Kids weren't safe either. Those members who were dedicated 100% to the company who had kids, drug their kids to the office on nights and weekends. I saw kids the day after Christmas, with some of their new toys, playing at the table in our breakroom, fighting off boredom. One pair of parents had a kid who got a laser tag birthday party invite that was the same day as one of the big dull events where higher ups from out of state came in to speak to us in long dull speeches. The parents told their kid, nearly in tears as we were in line to enter the event room, that going to this event was more important than playing laser tag. He's a 10 year old kid, and he can't be a kid, has to follow this as what he will do for his life long career.
"I was young at the time so I didn't realize until after my family had left.
Looking back on it, the way the community practically worshipped the leader, hanging on his every word whether it was what they should name their new baby or what movies were evil and would bring the devil into their lives really should have tipped me off.
The biggest red flag I can't believe I didn't realize at the time was when he decided one of the kids in the community was possessed and needed an exorcism. That kid was me.
I won't bore you with the details but remembering that years later is what made me finally realize "holy fuck that was a cult"
"I used to practice kung fu at what was basically the most McDojo place ever. On top of all the usual money grabbing bullshit, the grand master changed his title to something like His Celestial Holiness and started getting his students to travel to the woods to build his temple.
Nope!"
"Heavens gate cult in the late 90s targeted me because I was obsessed with Star Trek. My best friend growing up, her family was part of it.
I
spent almost two years with them Before I was brought to a meeting.
When we went to the church it was just the house and it was nice but felt dirty. It took us over 3 hours to get to this “church” and it was just a house with folding chairs. Everyone was very nice and excited but they tried to make me pledge my lift to the cult. I was a very butch, short haired nerdy girl and I fit right into their weird sexlessness. A lot of them were gay and suppressing it. They put me with some older women who scared the fucking life out of me then they wheeled out this old tv on a cart and I saw applewoods video for the first time. I only went to one meeting because I would not pledge but they spent years trying to indoctrinate me.
It
was fucking scary as hell. They all killed themselves a few years after.
No one believed me for 16 years. That part fucked with me the most..."
The most organized cult...
"Just left the Jehovah’s Witness “Religion” this year. Honestly what really did it for me was the fact that my entire life all the speeches and sermons started sounding identical. Insisting that the end was coming. I was raised as one so i just thought that it would have happened by now. I talked to an older friend of mine who also used to be in the cult and asked him “hey dude when u were young did they say the end was coming”? He answered that they’ve been preaching the same thing since the 60’s. I was denied of a regular childhood and they took away my teen years . I vowed when i left that I wouldn’t give that cult another day of my life ever again. My mom and her family have been super understanding and still talk to me as if nothing happened even though they still attend regularly."
"Mine wasn't a typical definition of a cult, but I realized Jehovah's Witnesses were pretty delusional by about 12-13 years old. Took me a few more years to get out due to my father being an Elder and someone who had no problem physically forcing his son to go to meetings and out in service (door knocking). Sounds like a corny fake scenario but it took me being "tough" enough to fight him off. Was asked to leave the house at 17 while still in Grade 12, so I did. I had a job and had an older friend to live with.
That's when I realized it was (in my opinion) a cult. That you would turn on your son because he didn't believe what you believe. That you would beat your son because he was being bullied at school at couldn't stand door knocking anymore in his own neighbourhood where he encountered classmates either at their homes, or as they were riding their bikes down the street on a sunny Saturday morning with me walking with my dad in a suit and tie with a briefcase full of maniac ravings about living forever."
