The following information was found on the Web and is passed along for its general interest, not in relationship to any topic or topics currently being discussed. I just found it interesting.
Whenever someone criticizes the beliefs or practices of the cult you are a member of, do your best to portray the critic(s) as indulging in some form of religious persecution or hate crime. ( It is perfectly OK to do this even while claiming that your cult is not a religion. ) This strategy has many benefits: * First, you attempt to demonize and de-legitimize the critics by assigning a derogatory name or "label" to them, hopefully one that has a negative association for most people. * Second, and more important, responding to any criticism by implying it's "religious persecution" REINFORCES THE IDEA THAT YOU'RE BEING PERSECUTED. This is *tremendously* important in building camaraderie and a sense of esprit de corps and "us vs. them" and ...well... loyalty to the cult in cult members. Remember -- the more they can be convinced that they're being "persecuted," the more "special" that makes them feel. And we all know that most of them wouldn't be part of a cult in the first place if they weren't desperately in need of being told how "special" they are. * Third, this approach allows you to stay "deadly serious" in the face of people who are obviously laughing at you. Implying that the critics are not "really" laughing but "hating" enables you, the cult member, to avoid dealing with the possibility that they really ARE laughing at you.
