When People Attended A Cult Meeting As A Joke (AskReddit)

serious did you ever attend a cult meeting just as a joke which got out of hand Wow opposed that I can actually reply to with my personal experience I was 16 to 17 at the time and me and my friend saw online this ad for meetings to discuss life and what is money worth it on local restaurants Hall turned out it was not a hole eventually well I wouldn't care but it had free food and desert after discussion and at that point I didn't care what it was I had to go and munch my friend didn't really care and kind of went along so we go there and turns out that restaurant has an underground basement that is really nice and has a cool atmosphere all right went in as the sign said follow this sign for the meeting now I'm from a small town in Lithuania and once we sat down I realized I know some of these people they were just regular folks and guy was playing a weird instrument at the front mini stage after the room fills up around 14 people the main guy comes out and plays another weird instrument I highly doubt they have names and I think those guys just made them up the music part only took 20 to 30 seconds to cut the story short me and my friend are these 17 year olds in a room full of 40 to 50 year old people and some guy lecturing about how money is not important and does not extend your time on earth I'm thinking this dessert better be worth it before it ended the main guy suggests we sing a song and gives out these gold color super cool-looking cards with lyrics on them that card was probably the coolest looking card I've seen till this date by the way all right we sing along because I honestly couldn't care less what we did as long as we had that food that was sitting on my left after that the main guy says that donations are accepted but not necessary well I had about two lettuce around zero five dollars maybe and just put it in the basket I see some other people spending 50 to 100 litters minimum wage was 800 litters on books and CD s and [ __ ] and I realized those guys honestly believe in the main guy well after I eat around 8 portions of the tasty stuff they had we leave and start discussing how did people spend [ __ ] loads of money on some books and how it's crazy with my friend next week we see the same ad on the web and we obviously go again because oMG that food was so good main guy talks [ __ ] again and we sing even more and I get the feeling that the topics are different and he starts asking who are here from last time and lalala and then we've the amazing desserts and stuff I think they had Rafael o as well that time few weeks and I'm thinking all of the people are the same people that came all the times and they probably spent by that time all of their wage on those books and CD s I'm quite shocked I go for one last time and then it clicks the main guy says he will be doing these meetings in people's houses that agree to it lots of volunteers at that point and he will sing more talk more and all that stuff as soon as I realize he is now invading other people's houses I leg it after the meeting and never come back sorry if this isn't too inter detail really depends on the cult and your degree of awareness about what's going on it's trite but it's true some cults are really really good at not seeming like cults and usually your introduction to them will not be in the form of a meeting at all but a one-on-one interaction or a group setting that is not clearly related to an organization they'll introduce you to the beliefs first in a very egalitarian way and the actual power structures won't emerge until much later with the leader or leaders of the cult actually blending in very well with the group when they want to as opposed to the very cliche portrayal of the exalted messianic leader and the obviously crazy and adoring followers everything that's going to set off the alarms in your head isn't going to come until much later and you're going to be made to feel like you were a participant in its creation somehow even though everything about it predated your involvement edit I could go on and on about this often times they'll even marry your level of acceptance of the ideas as if you're coming to these conclusions together or there will be a token sceptical person who is part of their group but makes only poor arguments against their ideas which makes skepticism seem stupid eventually you get so invested in the group so surely financially etc' that when the really crazy ideas start to come out you just accept them because the alternative is having to acknowledge the sunk cost of everything you actually did work for being a lie that's why cults often have such high functioning useful people to be parasites on who are nonetheless devoted they know it's [ __ ] but it's too late for them to know it's [ __ ] and not pay a terrible price for it so they go along don't even acknowledge it to themselves I joined a soccer club as a way to meet friends in a new city Seattle this great organization never mentioned religion they also offered free cooking classes free language classes free dance classes all the expense of helping foreigners and to practice their English that was until they were exposed as a front for the Society of Jesus Church they mainly used foreigners as propaganda with our t-shirts and cold signs that way foreigners were clueless about at that time it was scary how caught up you can become a friend of mine had a similar situation except she joined a Bible study only to find out it was also that cult six months after she found out and tried to leave they harassed her both at her work at her house - point of having to leave notes and call the police on them too many crazies out there my friends and I created a joke cult when we were young teens and distributed flyers around town telling people to join us give us their belonging because they wouldn't need them on the space shuttle signing over monetary savings and other stuff that we thought it was obvious satire to us it was a stupid joke from bored kids in a small Midwestern town and we didn't think many would take it serious people actually started contacting the email we made for the flyer and rumors got started about a possible group suicide which led to police investigating us there was talk of the FBI getting involved but I don't know if there is truth behind that I went to a conference of a bunch of Christian extremist weirdos they claimed to not have a denomination which is already ridiculous because they have all the codes of Baptists / evangelists they say we are not a church but their movement is named echo shil which is a root word for church in Greek for languages like French or Spanish EGH Lygia ed lies went there because the brainwashed brother-in-law was trying to convert his whole family I figured it was better to go rather than have my girlfriend go without me every time you mention the word spirituality to her she goes for it what did I see there is on this everywhere the leader screaming for three hours about Satan you have to sit and if you get up and try to leave a guy comes to you and asks you to sit back which I politely shoved away and left when it became too much you speak to one guy you spoke to all of them they all say the same thing and every sentence ends with God is good while they actually have poor knowledge of the Bible and not very happy to engage in theological questions when you raise an argument they just say you are too much in the mind brother but I just quoted a phrase from Jesus guys were trying to tell me I should break up with my girlfriend because we are not married they married within their little community people who had no chemistry at all the leader chooses I assumed they swore on the Bible did not even kiss and then did God knows what I met a couple of parents who were actually normal they came because their daughter was part of the cult and was marrying some guy they explained me that she disconnected from the whole family since she joined this group and that all they could do was be here hoping she would drop it otherwise they would lose her they all come to you with their passive-aggressive smiles and tell you you are twisted and need to bathe in the light meet a woman who tells me she disconnected from her family because although they were Christians they would not join this cult and thus did not have the truth three days of this was rather aggravating one of the most scarring experiences for me I refused to take their baptism first of all I'm already baptized but they claimed it was not real good of them to know who is a true Christian or not after I refused everyone was looking scared of me and avoided my gaze as if I was the Antichrist which became comical to me really saw the damage some [ __ ] can bring with their so-called truth depends on your mental state and if you give them any info do not give them any information and be prepared for some of the nonsense they spout to make a weird amount of sense every cult starts by offering universally comforting platitudes you are loved and valuable there is a purpose to your life you can achieve the things you dream of if you have the right motivation and support you would be amazed how nice this can sound to someone who's having a rough time they are not offering you aliens and superpowers at first they are offering you friendship connections motivation nice practical things you might be lacking then they get your info and drop the alien [ __ ] on you but by then you're too deep into the sunk cost fallacy to question it people who think they are too smart for cults are some of the easiest to recruit I live in Chicago and in the mid-1990s I was really into religion and also chasing girls so I decided to do both and joined a Bible study group to meet nice Christian girls I was 20 so my brains were in my ass the Bible study group had about eight people with a few girls who seemed okay but the time I spent with them wasn't any fun yes I learned a great deal about details in the Bible that I had missed in my own study but they were getting more and more extreme in their beliefs I would only devote a couple of evenings a week to the group but then they decided to hold regular study for four days a week and I was heavily criticized for missing any then the group leader decided we needed to start taking part in groups with religious causes to help increase the size of the Bible study group and expand it into a real ministry at this point my brains transitioned slightly up from my ass towards the small of my back and I realized I'm in way over my head I don't like these people I was trying to meet a Christian girl to date but they were all deranged so I said [ __ ] it I'm out then they are constantly calling me and knocking on my door to get me to come with them back to Bible study and threatening me with Hellfire if I don't come back I sort of lucked out when another member tried to leave and a physical altercation resulted in the police getting involved the so-called Bible study group and one abe ministry broke apart after that I consider myself lucky they weren't more aggressive but they were moving that way fast I still think that son of a [ __ ] who styled himself as the leader of the group probably tried to get the whole thing going again with another group it's fine enjoy I sat in on a hare Krishna style cult meeting once they guy said we have nightmares of being chased because of the bad karma from eating animals he recommends nuts and tofu and had a weird spaced out look in his eyes I had the free Hare Krishna feast one afternoon it was tasty no hard sell I met with the Red Bus Jews for Jesus guys who follows the dead and fish around recruiting they were nice late to party may well be buried but here goes so I'm walking through town and I'm having a really shitty day lady comes up to me and asks if I wouldn't mind doing a personality test it's free of charge immediate results e.t.c e.t.c so as my head isn't on straight I say yaar okay get pulled into a local office building and complete the test there are a couple of other people there looking as clueless as I was and then I saw the picture of l ron Hubbard and realized where I was sad through the orientation video but as it was in a tiny room that was blacked out I felt out so just watched the crack of light under the door instead of the video I don't even remember what was on it now understand I was going through some stuff at the time so they got me involved pretty quickly next thing I knew I was working for them as an admin assitant boughs were 60 plus per week and wages worked out to about 100 pound PW if their hit recruitment targets I II sold enough programs to unsuspecting suckers like myself as I was working for them I got this stuff for free but the average Joe would be paying something like sixty pounds to 80 pounds for a study course usually a three day thing just as quickly as I was asked to work for them I get invited to a massive award ceremony of their st. Hill complex google it when I get there I'm taken away from the rest of the group who had been with the church far longer than I had and introduced to one of their sealed members they knew what they were doing as I was fairly young and this woman who was talking to me was ridiculously attractive she told me she got to turn a world for free and promote Scientology whilst getting paid she made it sound amazing I missed the whole ceremony slash party and basically was sat in a little office the kicker was that to join the co guy would have to make a decision in the next couple of days and would be leaving home immediately my mum was a single parent and I'm an only child so I couldn't imagine doing that to her on the way home from the event when I was finally allowed to leave the office I really began having second thoughts about what I was doing here I mean I was only working in the office and didn't believe what I was studying but it felt like I was being dragged into something so started working on how to tell them I was leaving the last straw was when someone made inquiries to my bank about me getting a loan for six hundred pounds to undertake the debt expense staff had to pay for and was 1200 pounds for non staff which involved lots of tap water and ridiculous exposure to a sauna for three days straight was supposed to purge your body and spirit as far as I know I could have just drunk my own tap water and gone to a spa for far far less than 600 pounds and how dare they use my details to contact my bank to make inquiries about debt on my behalf so that pushed me over the edge and I just woke up the following morning thinking WTF am i doing I went into the office told them I was leaving with immediate effect didn't get any wages for the time I was there and avoided indoctrination / brainwashing that they undertake and all of this took place over 10 days that's how long I knew them for 10 days imagine what it's like for those like me who don't quickly wake up and realize what's going on around 1983 or so I was in the Air Force stationed in Southern California while on base my buddies and I ran into a group of really cute girls they were really flirty and friendly and started talking with us about an hour of talking they invited us to go with them to a meeting we tagged along thinking that we might get laid at some time during the night long story short it was a Scientology indoctrination meeting it was like an initial contact kind of thing and the girls were just sent out to recruit new members I was and still am an atheist and pretty cynical at the time I've mellowed with age so when we got to the center I saw it for what it was right away I pulled my buddies aside and told them that now we are not going to get laid and they are just trying to recruit us into some [ __ ] so we decided to just [ __ ] with them giving insane answers when they started doing their audits I only learned later this was called an audit or whatever they got frustrated pretty quickly and we just left they didn't even offer to drive us back to the base so we had to call a cab

Channel: ToadFilms

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Keywords: people, attended, cult, cult meeting, as a joke, joke, people attended a cult meeting, meeting, reddit, askreddit, askreddit funny, top posts, top posts of r/, r/, r/askreddit, reddit top posts, reddit cringe, comedy, reddit compilation, top posts of all time, askreddit question, askreddit top posts, ask reddit, askreddit reading, subreddit, reddit stories, best of r/askreddit, funny reddit, best reddit posts, best of reddit, ToadFilms, pewdiepie

Id: 3o8kMDM8tL0

Length: 16min 17sec (977 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 10 2019