Myths About Cults: Not Just "Those People Over There" Anymore

 

When the sad history of cultism's victims comes to light in the smoldering ashes of their devastated lives, it becomes abundantly clear that the ruin is an equal opportunity storm of destruction. It doesn't matter if you're a rich white American executive or a dirt poor Chinese laborer: the power of cultic delusion is such that it drags down any and everyone who yields to its siren songs. 

And, in typical form, someone who thinks they Know Better decides to edify all around them with their excoriating criticism of a cult victim who, they snarl, should have indeed Known Better.  They rattle off a list of glibly intoned rationalizations that they say prove that the cult victim surely could have "done better," and that their involvement was a tragic miscalculation they saw coming, therefore, they hold the lion's share of responsibility for their involvement and the cost they suffered for having gotten involved. If they were more "mature", more "spiritual", more "educated", etc., they would have then "Known Better."

This strident belief is one of the  most persistently cruel charges that supposedly well meaning observers can inflict upon a cult victim. It leaves them twice victimized and abused and unfortunately it's not at all uncommon among the worlds of pain that cult survivors live in. It is bad enough that they've suffered the religious abuse, personal chaos, lost careers and futures that have left them without friends, family,  resources, even their health. Now you have a bunch of "truth tellers" wanting to essentially scold them and reopen woundings with salted knives of verbal abuse.

It's part of human life for people to want to feel superior to others .. and it's particularly disgusting when these myths are completely wrong to begin with.   We wrote an article years ago that is no less true today about seven of the most popular misconceptions that these armchair therapists like to circulate but which are a break from reality.  Enjoy the no-nonsense rejoinder by clicking here.  
 

"The Way Down" 2.0 On The Way: Until Then Not The Good Girl's Awesome Recap Online

The latest information we've received is that the final two episodes of the HBO Max docuseries "The Way Down" which will conclude this hard hitting expose of the morally bankrupt cultism of Gwen Shamblin Lara and her Weigh Down Workshop/Remnant Fellowship business cult empire, will air either in April or May, 2022, which is literally around the corner.  Keep your DVR's ready.

There's going to be some very tough truth to heed in these and it will be as easily chilling and dark a look into the soft underbelly of the spiritual anorexia that this cult actually does pack in around itself. We look forward to the premiere, having contributed quite heavily to the production of the series and being subjects of interviews and a lot of back office discussion that is completely invisible. Without our work, the series might never have gotten off the ground. We're grateful to have had a part in this second and final installment. 

Until then, a Patreos documentary producer calling herself Not The Good Girl has taken the insights and information shared in the HBO Max doc and created her own gripping and engrossing telling of the grotesque Remnant tale. The linearity and well researched narrative summarizes the whole tragic emergence quite well and we'd recommend watching it if you wanted a recap that is fair, detailed and factual. Not The Good Girl's work can be viewed here. Enjoy. 

In Memorium : Lawrence Pile and Pastor Bill Randles

 

                                                 Lawrence Pile                   Pastor Bill Randles                                                      
                                                    1943-2022                           1959-2022

We recently learned of the passing of these two giants of the faith who you likely never heard of.

Larry Pile was a researcher as well as a facilitator of recovery workshops at the Wellspring Retreat and Rehabilitation center in Albany Ohio and assisted hundreds of people onward toward their own healing and growth beyond the impact cultism had made upon them. He was a well known Bible teacher and wrote a book based upon the epistle of Paul to the Galatians for those suffering religious abuse to help in their recovery of spiritual stability.

Pastor Bill Randles a former Word of Faith pastor, renounced his association with that error and continued onward toward creating a pastoral response to the deceptive doctrines and bad practice that the Faith movement had inflicted upon his church and then began a serious retrenching of his ministry, toward exposing the the New Apostolic Reformation culture (NAR) which emerged in the past 40 years and was based on the profoundly warped Latter Rain error from two generations past.

Both men were gentle, yet uncompromising proclaimers of sound analysis of truth from pastoral perspectives and helped untold numbers of those ripped off by spiritual abuse for decades. I knew of Larry and had only met Bill once but they came highly recommened and the work they gave themselves to speaks for itself. Visit our YouTube and Vimeo channels in the next few weeks as we upload three talks Pastor Bill gave on the spiritual deception the NAR has left behind. For an excellent article by Larry detailing the dangers of the shepherding movement, a vile system of cultic control hatched by Charismatic extremists within it which intensified the lure and damage of the proto-NAR churches then in existence, click here. 

We will truly sincerely miss their discernment, their love of truth and their care for those ripped off by abusive. They were good men who ran the race and kept the faith. Godspeed and condolences to the Pile and Randles families.  Please click on their obituaries above for more information and if you'd like to extend any personal condolences. 

The Legacy Of The Leaderless Cult Remnant Fellowship: From Our Podcast

Episode 2 of Season 2 is under way at our "Where Are We Going" podcast and for the first time, we finally tackled the uncertain destiny of Remnant Fellowship for a full 30 minute episode, the longest we've done so far.

Remnant Fellowship, for all of it's public posturing, appears to be struggling through a serious crisis of direction. Since the 2021 death of Gwen Shamblin Lara, there really hasn't been any actual leadership arising to provide for Remnant the needed vision and leadership for her cult to move beyond it's loss of her iron hand. 

In this episode, we offer our perspectives on where this cult truly seems to be going. It's not a pretty picture and we pull no punches. Enjoy the download here. 

 

Some One Has Some 'Splaining to Do And It May Not Be The Twelve Tribes .. In Colorado, That Is.

 

The Twelve Tribes might be guilty of being a maddeningly enduring and abusive communal cult with roots all the way to Tennessee and beyond.

However, despite initial reports to the contrary, they now seem to have been determined of helping set any fires that started the massive Marshall wildfire in rural Colorado that caused massive property loss and a couple of deaths.  

But that doesn't make them any less a destructive force of human nature. Not all that glitters is gold.  Click here for more information on this seemingly harmless group of spiritual entrepreneurs as they operate in Australia. The Twelve Tribes' obsession with perfecting their abusive community standards of living needs to be remembered.

We are grateful that long time associates of ours, Bob and Judy Pardon of the New England based Meadowhaven rehabilitation cente,r were able to help offer further insight in this online report.