Dear readers, why is it important to identify universal medicine as a cult?
In the end, as Wittgenstein has noted, all such attempts to scientifically describe or define objects are just word games. But with practical and signifying ends.
This point is not lost on 'cult' members, least of all, whose existential self-esteem is entirely conditional on holding the absolute Truth. Hence their endless announcements of knowing the truth, holding the truth, being in the truth and feeling into the truth. One truth and guess what, its their cult's truth. Regardless of the objective fact that, as demonstrated on this site, there are thousands of cults all with members/students/followers/whatevers all protesting that they hold the only absolute truth handed down by their particular chosen one.
Dear Lordy, sometimes you get the feeling that there are so many cults holding the absolute truth that anyone not in a cult and not holding the absolute truth will be the last one out the door and will need to turn the lights out.
It is holding this 'Truth' that protects them from the feeling of worthlessness, emptiness and lovelessness that drives people to join the cult in the first place. This would also help to explain reported correlations between histories of addiction, deep seated feelings of inadequacy, co-dependency and holding the absolute truth.
Accordingly, it is not surprising that this particular word game about whether Universal Medicine is a cult or not, or can be defined as a cult, is of such importance to cult members themselves and is so stridently and aggressively opposed. To do otherwise would plunge them into the abyss of their feelings of worthlessness and meaningless. It represents a fall of grace not just into normalcy and existential poverty, which was already previously unbearable, but also into self-ridicule.
On the other hand, it is equally important for the families, friends and loved ones of cult members to identify any particular cult as a cult. In precisely the same way that providing a diagnosis of a dis-ease or 'mental illness' provides the families, friends and loved ones of a practical way of understanding what is going on - of making sense of a person's behaviour that has changed so radically that it is experienced as irrational, bewildering and disturbing. Understanding that the family member is in a 'cult' allows the family to make sense of the sudden shift in personality that takes place when a cult member, in lived contradiction, believes that they are more loving, more enlightened, more gentle, more honest, while they are objectively acting increasingly hostile, judgmental, accusatory and suspicious. Understanding also opens up the possibility of taking action to protect yourself and your family by getting professional support, seeking information and ending self-blame. Its not you its definitively them!
Identifying that your partner, mother, sister has fallen psychologically prey to a cult also allows the recognition that you are in fact objectively the strong one, full of love who still loves that person and who holds a rational truth of what is actually going on: they've fallen prey to an insidious cult.
In the words of the great George Benson, for all the family members seeking support for someone lost to any cult, including Universal Medicine, 'I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadow'. There's a lot of people trying to hide behind Serge Benhayon's small shadow while you can hold your head up high in the sun.
Next why Universal Medicine, like all cults, need anti-cult cults.
In the end, as Wittgenstein has noted, all such attempts to scientifically describe or define objects are just word games. But with practical and signifying ends.
This point is not lost on 'cult' members, least of all, whose existential self-esteem is entirely conditional on holding the absolute Truth. Hence their endless announcements of knowing the truth, holding the truth, being in the truth and feeling into the truth. One truth and guess what, its their cult's truth. Regardless of the objective fact that, as demonstrated on this site, there are thousands of cults all with members/students/followers/whatevers all protesting that they hold the only absolute truth handed down by their particular chosen one.
Dear Lordy, sometimes you get the feeling that there are so many cults holding the absolute truth that anyone not in a cult and not holding the absolute truth will be the last one out the door and will need to turn the lights out.
It is holding this 'Truth' that protects them from the feeling of worthlessness, emptiness and lovelessness that drives people to join the cult in the first place. This would also help to explain reported correlations between histories of addiction, deep seated feelings of inadequacy, co-dependency and holding the absolute truth.
Accordingly, it is not surprising that this particular word game about whether Universal Medicine is a cult or not, or can be defined as a cult, is of such importance to cult members themselves and is so stridently and aggressively opposed. To do otherwise would plunge them into the abyss of their feelings of worthlessness and meaningless. It represents a fall of grace not just into normalcy and existential poverty, which was already previously unbearable, but also into self-ridicule.
On the other hand, it is equally important for the families, friends and loved ones of cult members to identify any particular cult as a cult. In precisely the same way that providing a diagnosis of a dis-ease or 'mental illness' provides the families, friends and loved ones of a practical way of understanding what is going on - of making sense of a person's behaviour that has changed so radically that it is experienced as irrational, bewildering and disturbing. Understanding that the family member is in a 'cult' allows the family to make sense of the sudden shift in personality that takes place when a cult member, in lived contradiction, believes that they are more loving, more enlightened, more gentle, more honest, while they are objectively acting increasingly hostile, judgmental, accusatory and suspicious. Understanding also opens up the possibility of taking action to protect yourself and your family by getting professional support, seeking information and ending self-blame. Its not you its definitively them!
Identifying that your partner, mother, sister has fallen psychologically prey to a cult also allows the recognition that you are in fact objectively the strong one, full of love who still loves that person and who holds a rational truth of what is actually going on: they've fallen prey to an insidious cult.
In the words of the great George Benson, for all the family members seeking support for someone lost to any cult, including Universal Medicine, 'I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadow'. There's a lot of people trying to hide behind Serge Benhayon's small shadow while you can hold your head up high in the sun.
Next why Universal Medicine, like all cults, need anti-cult cults.