[youtube:9pknx9t9]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NQ5KBzD8w0[/youtube:9pknx9t9]
Just finished watching this documentary on Jonestown. It very good, and very chilling. It definitely goes in depth on what it's like to be in a cult.
I joined the moonies for a bit around your age. The Unification church.. My mom damned near gave birth to a cow when she found out. It was right before Jonestown.
And just think..I could had a brother or sister in the dairy indudtry.
I wouldn't doubt that I've seen that documentary. There were a few of them right after the event. And they were chilling. Few people had even heard about the cult. Then one night, completely out of the blue, comes this story of horror on the news. People were wondering, "How could something so horrible happen," which is a reasonable question in hindsight.
The people that got caught up in the thing, were just people searching for something mystical to make sense out of their empty lives. They bought some guy's bullshit fantasy, happily thinking they were going off to find meaning and happiness, and then slowly began to realize they were trapped. It's the same scam sold to women looking to escape oppressive situations that end up as sex slaves, which is an even more Hellish existence.
Yeah I was a dumbass kid back then and nearly fell hook line and sinker for Sun Myung Moon's line of bullshit.
Watched a few documentaries on them. It's utterly insane that such a man could control so many people that way, and I would like to think that it couldn't happen today but I know better.
A few images to put this in perspective:
[spoil:1dh57zik](//http://theartofpsychologicalcontrol.wikispaces.com/file/view/cult_Suicide.jpg/61845556/cult_Suicide.jpg)[/spoil:1dh57zik]
If you choose to view the image those white dots are bodies. A lot drank the poison, but those who refused were forced.
[spoil:1dh57zik](//http://64.13.149.200/pximg/URFAUUQMERKOJQ7N-cp0x0x1280x720-rszw640.jpg)[/spoil:1dh57zik]
A close up of some of the bodies.
Try to rationalize it as a cult if you will, but this is what religion does. When reason, logic, and human empathy are abandoned for faith in the unreasonable, the illogical, and the paranoid this is what happens. When your life is devoted to what happens after death behavior like this comes easy, as long as you can rationalize it as a matter of faith. The shackles of evidence are no longer upon you, so you are free to unleash monstrosity in the form of religion or politics. That is why unreasonable and illogical ideas must be fought to the bitter end.