Role of Discipline in Cluts

• Much of the propaganda of the anti-cult movement is based on a misunderstanding of the role of discipline within high-demand religious groups. For centuries, such groups have required their members to submit to a restricted diet, work hard, spend hours in repetitive prayers, live a very simple life without luxuries, conform to the rules of the group, remain celibate, abandon smoking and drinking, etc. Such requirements within convents and monasteries have been long accepted in society. Some within the Anti-Cult Movement attacked sincere religious faith groups for these same practices, and concluded that the groups are profoundly evil, dangerous and manipulative.

• The reality is that most people join these groups and stay as long as membership remains a positive experience. Some leave after a few days; others stay only for a few weeks; still others stay for years, but later leave for a variety of reasons. People are almost always physically free to leave religious groups. If organizations attempted to restrict freedom of movement, they would be vulnerable to a charge of kidnapping or forcible confinement.

Actual "Mind Control" Groups

One definition of a Mind-Control group is:

• "A religious group that engages in extreme spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional manipulation of its members in order to control closely their beliefs, thoughts, emotions and behavior"

The critical word here is "extreme".

• There have existed (and continue to exist) many truly abusive mind-control groups in North America. Usually, these are headed by a single leader who uses manipulative techniques to control his/her followers. The group is tightly knit and often remains hidden unless some criminal act is discovered.

Essentially all religious groups require their members to conform to specific beliefs; they attempt to restrict members' behaviors to certain norms. But faith groups vary greatly in the level of demands and the degree of control that they maintain over their membership:

• At the higher end of the spectrum might be a Roman Catholic convent or monastery that requires its members to adhere to a strict schedule of sleep, work and prayer, a limited diet, poverty, celibacy, total acceptance of decisions by those in authority, etc.
• Next would be actual mind-control groups. These are often small, local, new, Christian groups who make extremely high demands on their members, and are often led by a single charismatic individual. Their total membership is quite small.

The Phat Street Boys - "I Ate Too Much Today"

This is what a so called "Christian" program is teaching young adults. Don't they know Gluttony is a sin!... And to top it of making the students of the program idol the "Phat Street Boys" at the end of the video.

Proverbs 23: 20-21 "Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh: For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags."

The DreamCenter

For many will come in My name, saying, I am the Christ, and they will lead many astray. Matthew 24: 5

Made it out of Hell!

It's my 4th day out of The Movement and I can't stop thanking God enough that He got me out of there. The Movement is a 10 month discipleship program that is suppose to help you grow in your relationship with God while serving the community. The 1st week was orientation week: rules and regulations. Boring!. . . 2nd week that's when it got out of hand. Waking us up at 3am, leaving us a letter that said "You have 10 mins to get dressed, and make your way to the gym, but no shoes or socks. You must keep quiet, absolutely no talking". Once we got to the gym they informed us they were going to wash our feet just like Jesus washed the feet of His disciples. I said okay that's biblical. After that they send us to put on shoes and began tieing us up with ropes to one another. While the 2nd year students did suicides across the gym we had to hold in push-up position, leg lifters and others holding up a stick. If someone dropped we had to start all over again. Once that was over they blindfold us while we were still tied up and took us outside to a so called "maze" we had to get out of the maze. 3 hours passed by & I was not finding the exit. We had a lunch break, during all of this we are not allowed to talk to anyone. After lunch we went back to the maze, by this point we were all frustrated & some angry. When suddenly I hear my friend screaming "I twisted my ankle!" I couldn't help her up since we were tied up & blindfold. 1 more hour passed and a leader came up to me and said "do you need something?" I just said I wanted water but they didn't have any. So I finally asked for help. The leader untied me & said that was The Exit! to ask for help because there were going to be times in life when God wouldn't help us so we had to ask them for help. (God always helps us when others can't)  The next day same drill: up at 3am, this time they locked us up in the gym with the lights off, we were not allowed to talk or move. Meanwhile a worship song was playing over & over for 2 hours! We were going crazy listening to the same song. They eventually the leaders & staff walked in and took us back to the place were we did the maze. They send us to the bottom of the cliff and the challenge was to get to the top of the cliff by carrying one girl at a time without using a rope or anything, if someone fell we had to start over again. Hours passed and we couldn't get everyone to the top. The leader finally said to stop because we weren't ready for this king of challenge. So instead they send us out walking to Hollywood Blvd to pray in the stars of fame for 10 minutes then come back walking in total 10 miles and we were only allowed 1 water bottle. I was dehydrated & hungry. On our way back when we were almost there we stopped by at a McDonald's so excited thinking we were gonna eat a Big Mac or something like that. Turns out they had lunch bags for us, tuna salad in a bag which was expired and 2 slices of bread moldy. (ugh!)  The next day, they were so kind that they let us sleep in for 1 more hour so they woke us up at 4am. This time the told us to get on the bus (without asking any questions & not talking to anyone). We drove for 15 minutes up a hill. When we arrived they gave us a small black pouch. Then they sang a few worship songs with a guitar. I did not feel God's presence at all so I couldn't worship. The we started to walk up the hill on the track, it was so dark people had to take out their cell phones to see where they were going. The leaders told us to get off the trail and walk towards another direction (danger! we could get lost!) Once we stoped they told us that that was the same place where the students form last year came and got anointed. The leader even said "oh, I can still smell the oil of last year" (yeah right. it smelled like horse poop!) So they told us that we had to get dirt from where the oil had spilled from last years anointment. (wired) Everyone was getting some and putting the dirt in the black pouches they has given us earlier. After that they said they wanted to anoint us and pray for us. I didn't feel confirmation from God that that was okay. So 2 of my friends & I didn't get prayed for. We had to pretend like we did because the leaders were watching us. (creepy) While we were sitting down we saw some people do a wired figure on the sand, so we walked up to it to check it out. Turns out it was a small dirt mountain with a stick on top of it, watter bottles surrounding it and a circle around the whole thing. When my friend looked at it she said wow! God just gave me a vision of what that represents; the stick on top of the mountain represent the leaders, the watter bottles represent us students and God is looking down on that circle saying I'm not in that circle! We decided to leave the group for a little while and go of to the side. When we were there we could hear the birds chirping and a total peace. We got called back in and felt the oppression in our spirits. The leader then said that we had to pour the sand from our pouches into a jar container he was carrying. The day ended at that. The so called "Hell/Champion Week" 

More things to come so keep posted!