|
|
Post by Admin Horan on Dec 16, 2020 10:04:09 GMT -6
Everybody knows Bruce Davis was a Scientologist who had traveled to England. But people forget that, just before he joined the Manson Family, Davis was a Christian youth pastor and YMCA counselor.
So, what? Well, both mark David Chapman, who assassinated John Lennon, and Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Robert F Kennedy, were graduates of a YMCA program that included one particular camp in Lebanon.
So, what? Well, a LOT of "major" Manson Family "children" started out as enthusiastic young Christians. Brooks Poston and Ruth Ann Moorehouse were followers of Reverend Jim Jones when they met Charlie. Paul Watkins was another youth Christian evangelist, whose family had spent time in Lebanon. And so on.
|
|
|
|
Post by dmam2011 on Jan 3, 2021 13:43:29 GMT -6
Wasn't the spirituality of the 1960s a major part of the subculture? That being typed... Phillip Agee's book "Inside the Company: CIA Diary", sounds to be a part of your reading. Did his personal politics play a role in the book's creation?
|
|
|
|
Post by amerigochattin on Jan 22, 2021 14:01:05 GMT -6
Everybody knows Bruce Davis was a Scientologist who had traveled to England. But people forget that, just before he joined the Manson Family, Davis was a Christian youth pastor and YMCA counselor. So, what? Well, both mark David Chapman, who assassinated John Lennon, and Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Robert F Kennedy, were graduates of a YMCA program that included one particular camp in Lebanon. So, what? Well, a LOT of "major" Manson Family "children" started out as enthusiastic young Christians. Brooks Poston and Ruth Ann Moorehouse were followers of Reverend Jim Jones when they met Charlie. Paul Watkins was another youth Christian evangelist, whose family had spent time in Lebanon. And so on. Particularly in the 1970s (probably the height of cults in the U.S.), you have a lot of ostensibly "Christian" organizations that attracted followers and behaved much more in line with a conventional cult. Certainly, Jim Jones is a paradigm example of this. Jim Jones was an avowed anti-anti-Communist and organized the People's Temple popular Marxists teaching of the period. Jones referred to himself as alternatively agnostic or atheist. Of course, coating a cult in the veneer of mainstream religion was not unique to Christianity. Both Buddhism and Hinduism were used by cults to attract followers. By the same token, the profile of those attracted to these cult movements fit nicely with those also attracted to organizations like the Peace Corps. In a nutshell, followers were looking for deeper meaning in life. |
|
|
|
Post by Admin Horan on Jan 24, 2021 12:47:46 GMT -6
Dmam: Phillip Agee....many others. And the 1960s were far from the beginning of The New Age Spirituality mumbo-jumbo. But you might say that was the time it began to be culturally "mainstreamed" by corporate media--movies, TV shows, pop music, advertisements, even politics. Both the USA and USSR undertook both real and fictional research into ESP, UFOs, etc which the USSR propagandized rather clumsily, and the USA propagandized a bit more slickly. Even my own WWII-generation father, the most rational, skeptical, reasonable, intelligent person I ever met had no doubt that Edgar Caycee was a genuine psychic of some kind. So did a lot of educated people. My mother, another intelligent, educated person, regularly consulted a local psychic/fortune teller. People later made fun of Ronald Reagan for believing in astrology, but that was pretty normal for his generation. And so on.
But there are strands of even "normal" Christian churches, especially the Episcopal Church (the Anglican church in America,) Presbyterian Church, and others who have most definitely been infiltrated by some who abuse Oriental Orthodox, etc teachings of Athanasius, Augustine, and others concerning the "divinization" of Man. This passes as "Christian Identity," or "man becoming God," etc. The Mormons have always believed this. Many sects of Arab Christians and Druze also teach this. The Templars probably picked it up when they were in Western Asia, because it informs Freemasonry. Theosophy is plagiarized from it. Contrary to their public relations campaigns, I know from first hand that the Mormons DO have esoteric, or "secret," teachings, that they only reveal to dedicated members. And this is one of them.
I myself lump it under a broad definition of "Gnosticism" that includes other "esoteric" teachings that end up making a lot of the believers very dangerous people and groups.
|
|
