Over the last year or so now, I have had the blessed opportunity to work with quite a number of people who have been involved with various spiritual organisations and groups, many of which we might call cults, if we understood what a cult actually is. I believe that if people understand the cult mentality, they would not choose to be prisoners of that.

Disclaimer: I am not saying that every spiritual organisation or group is a cult – it potentially could be, we should always be aware of that – but there are most definitely healthy groups and unhealthy groups and it is my intention here to bring the subject up in generalised terms as it is something I have been working with intensively for some time now and it is worth sharing this information publicly in the hope that readers might choose to explore this subject further for themselves.

I found these definitions for the word “cult” – some of them had more resonance for me than did others:

Cult

a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies.

an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers.
the object of such devotion.

a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.

Sociology. a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.

a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.

the members of such a religion or sect.

any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific.

I feel that it is an area that is often overlooked or deliberately ignored by most people. Quite honestly, I have looked away from it too! Quite a few times I would find myself as a next door neighbour of a cult who had the stand beside me at a Mind, Body, Spirit Festival and I would always try my best to avoid them. I think I was afraid that they would start to “read me” or try to “convert me” or something weird like that. Recruiters from a particular group did approach me a few times to ask if I wanted to try their “stress test”. Just having them in my space stressed me actually, so I politely said “No, Thank you”. I was aware that this seemingly generous invitation was one of the hooks that they use as an entry point to introduce a new person to their organisation by suggesting ways in which they could help the person reduce their stress levels and gain control of their life. In further discussions and meetings they would gently begin the process of mind controlling their new member to think and see the world in the same way that they do, and that this would be done in ways so subtle that most people would not even recognise it as a form of mind control. At that time, I didn’t realise that in day-to-day life mind control is everywhere – in the media and various businesses and professions and even in our own homes at the hands of a controlling or dominating spouse or friend. I thought all cults dressed in white or orange and prayed to space ships but in fact many cults are much more sophisticated in their approach than that and can wheel out “on demand” a long list of what makes them not a cult.

The use of the word “cult” often creates an adverse reaction in people. Some people switch off instantly that they hear the word as it creates a particular type of reaction in the body. This could be a feeling of fear, disgust or disbelief or something else. Of course, if you ask a person ”Are you in a cult?” They are unlikely to say, “yes!” because usually they cannot see this for themselves until they have left some time already and then look back. Upon leaving, the person who has been involved in a cult usually starts at a place of denial or disbelief before working his or her way through many emotions on their journey out of the cult and finally to a place of seeing it for what it really is. For some people, depending upon the severity of mind programming it can take years for them to be completely re-integrated back into their own mind state. If you were to ask them, the leaders of a cult are unlikely to say, “Yes, we’re a cult come and join us!” No there is much more sophistication and manipulation than that.

The four main types of cults include those that are Religious or Spiritual, Political Groups, Therapy/Large Group Awareness Training and Commercial Groups and there are smaller sub-groups too so there are many ways in which these groups can disguise themselves. We all know some of these cults and we all engage with them too from time to time although we don’t usually recognise them as cults and we would need to have some understanding of their background behaviours to be able to see them apart from others offering something similar.

In order to understand the process that my clients were going through I have educated myself quite extensively on this subject and to be honest, I have found it completely shocking to discover how these groups work. There is heaps of literature and videos about this all over the internet and if it is something that you are interested in, even just a bit, then please take some time to educate yourself. If you are in a group or spiritual organisation that runs mind control technology it will be difficult for you to recognise this within yourself unless you have managed to retain enough free thinking and still have a strong enough connection to your own inner guidance but you might be able to recognise it first in another person from another group once you know what to look for and then that might lead you to recognise it within yourself IF you are open to looking.

One of the first things that I noticed with some of the people that I worked with who were involved in cults is that they could not “think” for themselves anymore. Their decision making process seemed to have completely vanished. Whilst I talk often about following your heart/inner guidance and not your head and waiting for the right timing to make changes etc, this was way beyond all of that. These people literally could not make a decision that affected their own life until they got the go ahead from their guru. This was rarely direct guidance from their guru but rather some sort of “sign”. Again, I am completely in alignment with following your own inner guidance in fact I recommend that! – but what I was hearing from these people is “my guides this” or “my teams that”, or “my guru came to me in a vision and told me…”. These people were constantly waiting for their guru or leader to complete a process or start a new cycle in their life before they could do their next thing too. Their processes were always timed to coincidence with their leader’s moves and in between all of this “waiting for magical signs” they had somehow forgotten to live their own lives. I never once heard them say, “I feel I need to do this…” or “My heart says I should do that…” The only guidance they ever took was external to themselves, they seemed to have lost their own feeling or sensing and many of them were keen to transpose me into the position of quasi-guru so that I could tell them what to do next. Some of them were empty, almost robotic and I learned to recognise the “switch” – when their real self left the conversation and when their programmed self came in. By that point they couldn’t hear me anymore – I was wasting my breath as the real person had checked out and they were no longer in the present moment.

I saw in many of them, that a part of their soul energy had been bound up in the astral plane, in others it was the monadic consciousness that was being tweaked. Even though they were involved in a spiritual organisation that talked about love and unity – many of them had closed hearts and couldn’t feel or recognise the quality of love. Even though they were lovely people, when feeling into the heart energy they felt almost flat and dead to some degree. The more involved in the organisation that they were, the more evident this became. It literally was like as if the life was being sucked out of them. One lady said to me “there was no joy, I was literally dragging myself through life. I had no energy and I was broke”.

In the course of my study I learned that these groups use a wide array of mind control techniques. From the basic all the way to highly sophisticated techniques to get into people’s heads and keep them locked in. This quote, from Steven Hassan (an ex- cult member himself) in his book Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults and Belief Systems, really had an impact on me:

He says: “In my experience as a cult member, there were specific incidents where fears were either installed or activated by my recruiters. During my initial three day workshop cult leaders implanted the fear that I couldn’t trust my own thinking capacities due to unseen negative spiritual forces (Satan) that were supposedly affecting my mind and spirit. I had never believed in Satan or any such evil metaphysical entity but, by the end of three days, part of me (the nascent cult self) had come to fear these diabolical forces”.

Now that I know about these patterns of mind control, I can recognise that I have been involved in spiritual organisations that use this technique too. I was shocked when I discovered this but once I did, it was glaringly obvious to me and I saw it easily in many of the people that I knew from these organisations.

I consider that being implanted in this way is a major spiritual abuse. It is true that if we do not have control of our own mind – somebody or something else will. We must be alert to negative and self destructive looping patterns but if we do experience this it doesn’t necessarily mean we are possessed by dark forces – even though sometimes it can, so that makes it a bit confusing.

So to break it down in basic terms: If we have a mental loop that tells us we are rubbish, a loser, fat, un-loveable etc clearly this is a negative looping pattern. We must work to quickly recognise these thoughts as destructive to self and actively clear or override them. They are not true (even if your mind says to you “but I AM fat”) and we can recognise them as the negative ego mind – we need to take control of this and replace it with kind loving thoughts towards ourselves. If we are having looping thoughts such as those that tell us to drive our car into a brick wall, commit suicide or harm another being, then clearly we are looking at something more serious. It doesn’t immediately mean that we are possessed by dark forces even though full possession can and does occur in a people, but it does mean that we should acknowledge that we have the potential for this to occur if we do not address these negative thoughts immediately and take back control of our own mind and senses. We will always have enough of our own thought processes still intact at the beginning of this stage to recognise that this is happening and this is the point that we need to act quickly – not ignore it lest, it takes a hold over us. If we reflect to ourselves that “something just came over me and made me do it” or “I don’t know what got into me” – well listen to those words – there is a massive clue there that you are not always in control of your own mind and that something or someone else is.

Apart from these more serious cases, to be told that you can’t trust your own thoughts or that what you think you are hearing is different to what you are actually hearing because you have an implant that is running interference patterns in your head, is very emotionally and psychologically damaging and can be used as a starting point for future mind control or gaslighting. If you have not heard this term before Gaslighting or gas-lighting is a form of mental abuse in which a victim is manipulated into doubting their own memory, perception and sanity. Please read this absolutely excellent article about Gaslighting for a greater understanding of the scope of this manipulation technique. http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/08/things-wish-known-gaslighting/

I always recommend that you trust yourself, trust your own inner guidance. This is, in a sense, slightly different to what your mind says, it is a much richer, deeper experience of knowing something. It is like as if every cell in your body “knows this” or that you feel it “deep in your bones”. If you have the feeling – that something is not right – do not override this with your mind – trust it as if your life depended on it! One lady who has spent tens of thousands of dollars travelling to an ashram in India for years and years told me that she had a feeling that something was off about the whole thing, but she had friends there and she didn’t want to leave the Community. She said that she believed her leader because he always looks so “together” and he knew so much. Please hear this: this does not happen only in India and it does not even happen just by being a part of a group in person.  No.  This happens in online communities too!

From my studies, I have also learned about Loaded Language. This can include clichés, doublespeak and coded jargon that the group uses to shut down critical thinking. Each group has it’s own buzzwords and platitudes. If you are speaking with a member of a group like this and you use the wrong word to describe something or if you use an “unauthorised” word this immediately signifies that you are not one of them. There can often be a “you’re either with us or against us” type of mentality where anyone outside the group may be seen as a threat. Sometimes the person will begin to run certain scripts or chants in their head to keep them aligned to their own programme as you may be seen as trying to persuade them away from their belief, that you are possessed by a spirit or that you are of a lower consciousness than them. Either way a resistance barrier will have been put in place and they will no longer be able to engage with you as an equal. This is serious. Families have tried for years to save their loved ones from organisations that use these techniques but they often cannot break through the structures that are in place. Steven Hassan says in his book, that in Scientology for example – when a member is reading some literature given to him/her by the cult and he comes across a word or a passage that he doesn’t understand, he is encouraged to look it up in L. Ron Hubbard’s definition of words. Members are indoctrinated to accept Hubbard’s words as their own – to absorb his definitions as the only true definition and in fact some of the words that exist in his book exist in no other place THAN in his book! Families speak of being mid conversation with a loved one and then by accident using a term that they didn’t realise was a trigger word and watching their loved one literally slip away before their eyes into some type of glassy eyed, distant state. This sounds completely hideous but again I have seen this with clients and friends from various spiritual organisations that use these techniques and it’s both shocking and amazing to witness.

Another example from Steven’s book also speaks to the time when he had been involved in a serious car accident and was to spend many months in hospital in recovery, so he chose to listen repeatedly to the lectures and meditations produced by his cult leader so that he would remain programmed in. He knew that a break away from such teachings would see him begin to naturally become un-programmed and he didn’t want to risk becoming separate from the group. He knows first hand how powerful this is and that is why in his current work as an Cult Exit Specialist he encourages families to move their loved ones away from the cult environment for periods of time if at all possible, in the hope that time away begins the un-programming and that when they return to their group it begins to feels strange enough to them that they no longer want to be there.

Learning to recognise loaded language as well as hooks is important if we are to break away from mind control. In these types of organisations or spiritual groups certain catchphrases may be use repeatedly as a type of entrainment technique. As the person uses that catchphrase, so they become energetically aligned to that group. Look for the catchphrases that the group uses in many of their scripts.  As I’ve worked with this so extensively now, I can actually feeling the loaded language.  It feels to my energetic body the same as a “wrong note” would sound on a piano. It is glaringly obvious to me – it cannot be hidden.

Chants are another method of entrainment to the group field. Research where your group’s chant came from – do you understand what it actually is and what it aligns to? Can that information be verified outside of the group or does it only appear in the “definition of words”. The Moola Mantra, for example, is one used by devotees of a particular spiritual organisation even though it is very well known publicly and many famous artists have sung or played. It was created explicitly for use by this organisation and it is a technique for energetic alignment to that group. Devotees chant this Mantra repeatedly with some rituals requiring thousands of repetitions. They now also have a New Moola Mantra that aligns them to an energy orb that has appeared to them in recent years. These chants and catchphrases are often used to familiarise people to what that field feels like. When things feel familiar to us, we are more likely to continue to use them and although it can take some time for people who are new to the work to “entrain” themselves to the field and really begin to feel a sense of belonging to that Community field or its teachings, they are encouraged to persevere with entrainment even when their inner guidance has already started to raise red flags to them. If they break through this inner resistance then they can easily assimilate the teachings.

Through sound and vibration we can shift the frequency of the cells of our body. On the surface this sounds wonderful and sound healing is a wonderful tool for shifting stagnant energy from the body, but as so many of these chants are actually a technique of entrainment to the field we would want to know exactly what it is that we are aligning to before we begin to entrain our cells and bodies in that way.

One of the most disturbing and enlightening parts of my work this last year has been to be afforded the opportunity to learn to recognise the energetic patterns that form in the energy field of a person whose vital life force is being drained through their connection to a group field. I did not seen this in every person that I have worked with who is part of a group and I came to realise that the higher up the organisation that they were – or the more plugged in they were – the more of this structure had developed in their lightbody. The cording for this plugs in to the kidney area. In Traditional Chinese Medicine the kidney holds the chi or life force, so these cords drain chi or life force from the body through the kidneys. A number of my clients from the same organisation were low in energy and developed kidney problems but kidneys are not the only part of the body that is affected. Through the draining of vital life force, the area in our body that is the weakest will be the area that is affected so it could be the thyroid in some people, the gall bladder in others etc. Stress is a component of this too. If we are constantly in a state of fight and flight, and yet the state of our physical life does not reflect a reason for this then we need to ask why? If we are in a toxic relationship, are caring for sick loved ones or working all hours we could expect that we may be stressed but if not, then Why are our adrenals working overtime and keeping us in a state of fight and flight? Why is our body constantly “on guard” and ready to react when there is no tiger chasing us? Is our body under some other type of attack that it has armed us to be ready to run for our life?

Our bodies need life force, if that is not available to us because it is being siphoned out then our health will suffer. If we are in a spiritual group and everyone around us is not healthy and are always dragging themselves through life, we might want to take a closer look and ask why? This could indeed be something that we should run away from, very fast! Afterwards we can rest and recover, but we need to get out of there first as there will be no recovery if we stay there, just a constant draining of energy and personal resources. We must call all of our precious life force and energy back from that group and use it to heal our body.

This draining pattern that I repeatedly witnessed however, did not seem to apply to the group leaders – there must be some kind of energetic payback for them – as although they would have their followers believe that holding light on the planet in this density is very tiring work (which is true to some degree) they always seem to sparkle! (When did you last sparkle?) I found that if a person was an occasional visitor to the group headquarters for example then they had minimal cording, but the bigger their commitment to the work the more cording they actually had, to the point that those that studied the material on a daily basis were being drained because they were feeding the structure. We have all heard the expression: Where attention goes, energy flows and this is what was happening for them. Many of the people I worked with were feeling tired and yet they kept checking in there each day, believing that this work would make them feel better if they just ran the procedures or did more chanting or whatever. It can be very difficult to move away from these practises – for some people it becomes their whole identity. There is a Community there of like minded people and they can’t bear the thought of not having that in their life anymore. We must always, always, be willing to leave things behind that no longer serve us – the trick is being able to see what is serving us and what is not.

I have witnessed repeatedly, a particular pattern that is common to many spiritual groups. That is, that when a person, who has seen the “behind the scenes” inner workings of the group, or it’s structure you could say, chooses to leave that group, that however graciously they try to leave, the leader of the group will launch a verbal or written attack upon them. I have seen this happen over and over again to other people and I admit, that at the time, when I was a part of these groups myself, I believed every word that the leader said about these people. Once I left these groups though, I began to hear the real stories of these “attacked” people and I saw that everything I had believed of them had been a fabrication created from the leader’s own unresolved negative ego. I felt ashamed that I had judged these other people without hearing their side of the story and I asked myself Why had I not been able to see all these lies this clearly ever before? The answer is easy for me to see now of course… When we are fully integrated into a group field or cult mentality, we think and see as that group field or mentality. It is like a merging of minds and it is only when we step away that we can see clearly.

This pattern of attack always involves some kind of unprovoked character assassination of the person who just left and the whole intention behind it is to discredit that person so severely that if they choose to tell the truth of what they have seen within the organisation, that nobody will ever believe them because they have already been painted to be “a bad or untrustworthy person”.

Every attack launched upon another person, even if it is just written or verbal become an actual psychic attack as it comes from the venom that the person feels as they write or say such things. Unfortunately I have personally been on the receiving end of these several times when I have chosen to leave a group in which I have been involved and have seen distortions or a lack of integrity or transparency there, and these attacks are not pleasant. It is however, very easy for me to source where an attack is coming from and to read it’s energy signature. I have done this for myself as well as for many, many clients over the years, who have been under psychic attack for various reasons. When a leader of a spiritual group or organisation conducts themselves in this way, there is our confirmation that they have crossed the line. Make no mistake. These are black magic spells being woven into a sticky web. This is another level of spiritual abuse and I personally believe that when one chooses this as their preferred method, there can be no coming back from that. They have now chosen which path they walk.

When did spirituality get so complicated right? Well, it is not really. A dear friend always says to me that “God is simple” – and she’s right. Developing our own personal spiritual practice is the key. It doesn’t cost thousands of dollars each year to connect with your God Self and it is not reliant upon an internet connection either. Sitting in meditation, perhaps out in nature, is far healthier for you than being plugged into a computer all day reading what someone else says is happening on or off this planet. When we sit quietly on our own, with no headset filling our ears with someone else’s meditation technique, we can actually hear our own inner guidance. It’s alive and strong in there – we just have to give ourselves a space so that we can hear it. We are not fools! We know we live on a prison planet and that some really bad things happen here! We are not going back into a state of denial and we are definitely not on a descending spiral just because we choose to pull ourselves away from an organisation that intimates to us that our ascension is in danger if we don’t keep up with their latest information or chant enough times! God, through our God Self and through our own inner connection will give us all the information and frequency that we need for our ascension process. Sure, we might want to read some stuff now and again and that’s ok but try to pick quality work. It’s much easier to see the spells that people cast with their words when we are away from it for a while.

Break away from yet another illusion created by the spiritual or ascension industry and come back to the way God intended us to be. BE in the present moment of Awareness. Do your inner work. Be a good person and continually strive to improve yourself. Be kind to others. Be kind to animals. Eat good food. Drink clean water. Sit in the sunshine and breathe fresh air.

It’s all very simple really. God IS simple.

With love, until next time.
Stay in the Truth of your own Heart’s knowing and if it tells you to run away – they do so, very fast!

Karen

© 2016, Karen AnTara

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