Coordinate_Apotheosis Wrote:What a useful list to organize this post with, thank you for posting it! Don't mind if I just use it to help organize my explanation.
1: Cult members sometimes do not associate their group as being a cult.
2: Ra is a very charismatic leader and without her word would not have formulated the material that has drawn so many into this group.
3: The Ra Material has a well known effect on some people of causing a 'spiritual awakening' which in some ways can be equated to indoctrinating one into a new way of life, in this case, a Spiritual Life.
4: It is my understanding that Don during the time of the Ra Material basically had Carla on a leash during the escapades with the 5D Entity, this is arguably a form of exploitation by Don to pretty much protect that which he needed to continue performing the ritual needed to channel this material. That's ignoring the exploitation by Ra of Carla's willingness to channel Ra at her own free will choice even if right up to the point of her Death, which fits with a leader exploiting one who believes in said leader. That is also ignoring how Jim and Carla basically had to have sex in lieu of Carla being with her partner, Don, just to 'charge her' to do Don's desire to channel Ra for further questioning at Carla's consensual expense.
5: Some groups may not fit the definition of a cult, but may pose potential risks for participants: Some examples of this with regards to the Ra Material, I have seen people, and seen people talk about seeing people, of after reading the Ra Material pretty much losing their minds to ideas of being haunted by negative entities, other's have posited wild stories citing the Material as their proof that they are being manipulated by discarnate negative entities. There's also people who have become damaged psychologically from this material, coming to believe themselves to be greater or lesser than who they really are, even weaving a narrative using information from the Ra Material to rationalize it. Some people believe they are many great characters from history, other people believe they do not even come from this reality, and some believe that they are actively 'jumping' through various realities based solely on making loose connections to synchronicities and their personal beliefs engendered by the core philosophy of the Law of One with it's outer teachings of metaphysics. Finally, the Ra Material provides 'teachings' (indoctrination's some might say) of how to properly be as a Wanderer trying to polarize in certain ways, which is further Ra Material speak for behaving certain ways.
6: There is a keen lack by anyone to try and attempt to contact Ra again, as if scared of what this might entail or disbelieving in the ability to do so again, but whatever it might be, there is a total lack of acceptance or at least desire of this notion, which can loosely be equated to a lack of tolerance for this line of reasoning beyond hearing it out then shooting it down.
7: Unreasonable Fears occur in some who read this Material, as said above, it mostly manifests as people believing they are being harassed, assaulted, and manipulated by invisible malevolent entities. Further for some, such as myself personally, this Material has exacerbated a fear of the outside world, specifically the chance to be met by random intense catalyst while out in it, involving a catastrophe occurring in my personal life, not so much the entire world. To further point out, many people of this group for a long time believed in a 'sudden shift' event in 2011-2012 because of the information found in the Ra Material, which is in some ways for some people a cause to make them fear that date, as the only way to become harvested (or even go through Harvest) is for the person to pretty much die first with few exceptions.
8: There is no legitimate reason to leave behind the Law of One, and to do so while not looked down upon, would possibly appear strange to others who live adamantly by this Philosophy.
9: Many members have related stories of abuse in their childhoods, and while not caused by the group specifically, it is seemingly a natural occurrence according to the Ra Material for one to become traumatized during intense polarization, of which they offer the information or teachings of how to perform such an act. This can lead to people abusing themselves, pushing themselves to be ways that result in their being traumatized. Such stories are not far and few, they occasionally pop up where a 'sufficiently polarizing person' is suddenly 'afflicted with something'. Carla was in Pain, Don became mentally unstable, others say they were being manipulated by invisible entities, and others have said wilder things.
10: There is documentation of Don's suicide, and of his keeping Carla close by at all times when he felt her life was in danger, and further some speculate that Don was in ways abusive in how he handled Carla.
11: At least for me personally, I can say that since discovering the Ra Material I have felt a keen sense of 'I can never be as good as those entities of Love and Light', which can be translated to never feeling good enough. I often feel that way when posting here on the forum too, like I can never explain myself good enough. I imagine I'm not the only one who experiences this.
12: Ra is always right, except when Ra points out they are wrong, at least, the majority of drawn in readers will undoubtedly listen to what Ra has to say, but one (or possibly a few) poster(s) has pointed out several areas where Ra was incorrect, and this was rationalized with mathematical translation errors and faulty contact tuning. Hence, Ra typically is not wrong on purpose.
13: Ra for many is a 'truth' source, and despite their teachings of discovering truth on the inner self, nonetheless is what most people of this group refer back to when they are in search of Truth. You can tell a man to fish, you can even teach him how to fish, but if you're the master fishermen he will want to see your fish that you've caught.
14: You provided me a list to organize all of this information upon while others are in denial of this group having the qualities to be properly identified at least as a peaceful cult. You don't need to identify as belonging to this group if being a part of a cult in other's people minds bothers you, but overall there would be many who upon observation would categorize this group as a cult irregardless of our open and accepting nature as a group.
Christianity started out with a set of teachings that people felt to be truth, that they behaved accordingly to, it was a cult. This 'Philosophy' isn't very much far away enough to be unable to be classified with the designation 'cult'.
A Cult is not evil, I am not assigning the attribute of evil to this group when I say that it can be classified as a Cult. The word Cult is not a stigma to me, so when I assign that observable identifier to this group, do realize it's more so for my own rationalization to remind myself that there is those who believe in one thing, and then there's me/us, who believe in some crazy One Infinite thing.
I'm sorry the term upset you guys, but in my eyes this group qualifies enough so to be identifiable with that label. I don't see why that's a big deal, it's not like you guys hand out cyanide flavored kool-aid each year or force anyone to read this material or be certain ways. That doesn't change that in loose ways the qualities I just quoted and used to build that Above List are enough, to me, and many others, to qualify the group with the label Cult.
While some call the Ra Material 'freeing' others have called it 'hellish' in that it posits a form of nihilistic existence, and has posited that we have free will but that free will can be superseded, meaning we don't have absolute individual free will and what free will we do have can be infringed and manipulated, and further in some ways the description of how catalyst works paints Earth as more hellish in potential than most would like to admit to such as anger alone causing Cancer and pain being a form of teaching an entity a lesson.
Continuing on with more points, last I heard, there are some in L/L who have Executive Decisions over the others who also make up the group, that's a form of authority and those whom have that authority are arguably very charismatic. Don was rather controlling of Carla some would argue. Thought Reform in the form of Spiritual Awakening aka Initiation does occur to some who are exposed to the Ra Material, while not done personally by other members (unless you count some accusing others of things like murder for eating meat) this is another loose example of the potential available to be used to call the group by the label, 'cult'. There is a lack of hierarchy only in that the next step down from the people with exclusive executive decision is a bunch of people being trained how to channel, then underneath that a bunch of people interested in the channelings... Wow...Sigh...The more I explain it the less I can tell myself this isn't a cult... It is in it's own always and ever the same unique way.
I wonder what Rick Ross would say about the dynamics of this group and whether or not it can be qualified as a cult, peaceful or otherwise.
I wish I could copy and paste from .pdf files... Oh well, I guess I derailed my own thread to argue that I'm hanging out with a bunch of like minded people behaving certain ways to adhere to their belief system derived from the given Material that brought this group together.
It always amazes me how two people can have such vastly different experiences from reading the same text, and I think you were taking some liberties with the truth in your extrapolation, but you seem quite convinced of your argument, and if that's how you see it, I won't attempt to convince you otherwise.
I would however like to point out some perceived flaws in your extrapolation. If some people have adverse reactions to the material, it isn't a reflection on the material or LL. You can't attempt to erase the human element from any sub-culture, people are complex beings and psychology is messy business, so you can't point to... say... an individual case of someone who is prone to paranoia for example, and say "look, this is what effect the material has on someone"...
I was also surprised when you described the material as nihilistic. Nihilism posits that life has no intrinsic meaning or value, which is exactly the opposite of the philosophy contained in the material. But I think the thing I wish to touch on more than anything in your post, was this:
Coordinate_Apotheosis Wrote:At least for me personally, I can say that since discovering the Ra Material I have felt a keen sense of 'I can never be as good as those entities of Love and Light', which can be translated to never feeling good enough. I often feel that way when posting here on the forum too, like I can never explain myself good enough. I imagine I'm not the only one who experiences this.
Ra tells us that each entity is of infinite worth. It doesn't matter where you are in your evolution, it doesn't matter where I am in my evolution. The purpose of a piece of music or a symphony isn't to get it over and done with as quickly as possible, it is to enjoy and experiences every phase. Ra gives a nice grand overview, but evolution simply isn't linear like that. You don't open your red chakra like flicking a light switch, then orange, then yellow, in neat little steps like baking a cake. It goes round and round, fail and fail and fail again. Dead end after dead end. The reason it keeps your interest, is because it's difficult, but also very interesting. The game needs to be worth the candle. That's what the Ra material did for me, it made the game worth the candle. They described a creation that was beyond my wildest imagination.
I don't compete with others, or compare myself to them. This is my adventure, and I am enjoying my free will in playing it just the way I want to. I am not overly concerned with things like graduating or polarising as quickly as possible, because deep down I trust the process, and I can't really know what my evolutionary level is anyway. When I know a little better, I try and do a little better. If I fail again, I dust myself off and look forward to the next surprise or chapter, but I have never lost interest. This adventure is infinitely interesting and exciting to me.
My personal issue with spiritual communities is that it has that inauthentic feel to it, because people act in a certain way because they think it's right to act that way. I call it "imitating Jesus"... it is hollow and there is no spiritual evolution in imitation. Alan Watts alluded to as much when he said this "Nothing is really more inhuman than human relations based on morals. When a man gives bread in order to be charitable, lives with a woman in order to be faithful, eats with a Negro in order to be unprejudiced, and refuses to kill in order to be peaceful, he is as cold as a clam. He does not actually see the other person. Only a little less chilly is the benevolence springing from pity, which acts to remove suffering because it finds the sight of it disgusting. But there is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love."
The Ra material is simply the same message that has been taught throughout the ages by enlightened ones, and the other sources serve as equal inspiration to me. If you go back to the Upanishads, you see the same message, or Zen, or Daoism, etc. That's what Ra themselves said: "a different slant on information which is always and ever the same". No exclusivity, no special status. The reason I think it has been so earth shattering for some, is because Ra made contact with the West, people indoctrinated by the Abrahamic religions, which is very restricting, repressive and guilt inducing. So that's why I think it has been so freeing for many, because it felt like shackles falling off. For the first time, you are not some lowly creature on probation here in a hostile world which makes no sense, it makes perfect sense and you can relax, create and love, and know that you are of infinite worth, and however long it takes to evolve, is how long it takes. No burning in hell and fear based nonsense like that.