When we get a significant set of comments we raise the comments and make them into a full post. Is this a magical mystery tour signifying a drain of good peoples cash, and remember it is god people not evil people who seek and are sought out by this type of religion? We have been inundated with people raising the question of the importance of May 5 in this group’s identity. A new age of enlightenment, is going to be inaugurated and you need to get on a plane this weekend to be part of this programme. So if you have a family member who is being secretive about money and telling you to not be concerned about cash, beware your bank accounts might about to be emptied all in the name of saving the planet. Marriage beware, loss of intimacy beware. We are on a mission to save the whale and using enough fuel to last most peoples life time.
Q: CS asked:
I wish to ask the right questions. What am I missing? When I read the “information” it appears to me, to be all about the “money”! What are the right questions?
Submitted on 2012/04/24 at 1:04 am | In reply to CS.
Dear CS:
I am reading an excellent book by the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (John Michael Greer). The book is entitled, “Mystery Teachings from the Living Earth” — http://redwheelweiser.com/detail.html?id=9781578634897
In this book he gives a complete list of things to look for and to avoid in pursuing studies within a mystery school. Here is an excerpt from an email exchange I recently had with him:
“First, a valid mystery school charges only what’s necessary to pay the very modest costs of teaching.
Second, a valid mystery school is modest. It never claims to be the only or the best source of mystery teachings…
Third, a valid mystery school is honest about costs and expectations, and about what students can expect to achieve by studying. It doesn’t lure people in with a single class or program, and then pressure them into taking more…”
Please consult John’s book for his full criteria. It is clear and easy to understand. Hope this helps.
-E
A: Asherah Reid
Yes could anyone enlighten us into how certain cults get you sucked in. Why do have to be initiated? Why do things have to be handed down by other members? I have always felt that these people mind control you. They seem to know what you are thinking also what level your spirituality is on? I feel they work with lower level spirits who guide them who to recruit who will be gullible. Usually people they recruit are always at a cross roads in their lives or have just had something unfortunate happen to them.
E
Submitted on 2012/04/24 at 1:19 am
Dear Asherah:
My first experience with the MMS was wonderful. I took a one day workshop. During the workshop we did 5 separate visualizations/meditations. I loved them all and at the end of the day I felt so calm and good. The teacher said our experiences in the workshop were only a “taste” of what could be experienced in other programs about Kabbalah. I was immediately hooked. It was the great experiences I had that made me want to have more. I wasn’t being very cautious about what the other teaching would be like. Why should I? I hadn’t seen anything to be cautious about.
I agree with you that MMS seems to have a knack for snagging people who are questioning their lives. The class I was in was mostly composed of young people in their 20′s and 30′s. The workshop I had taken earlier was only myself and a young woman in her early 30′s.
I think younger people are just trying to find themselves. But, I also have to say that I am almost 50. I am going through an identity crisis as a result of aging. I have been seeking something too. Seekers are open and vulnerable. I don’t think that the folks of MMS are such great mind readers but are more, perhaps, master manipulators. And there seems to be a toxic brew of truth and lies all mingled together. It has taken me weeks to sort it all out.
One of the earmarks of cultic environments is that the leaders want the new members to have many peak experiences early on. The brain likes peak experiences. We want more of them so we keep going to meetings, trainings, etc. I think that is one way we get hooked. Simple brain chemistry.
That’s my two bits,
ESubmitted on 2012/04/24 at 1:42 am
Here are some other reflections of my experience of the MMS. Some of this may be a repeat of the above-
Even from the first Kabbalah class things just didn’t add up. Firstly, this class was taught by a different teacher who came in with a very different vibe than the first gal I had met. This woman was older, colder, and distant and did not have the air of someone who teaches “The Mysteries.” She was imposing and intimidating and, at times, oddly dismissive of the class. She spoke to the apprentice teacher harshly at times. This seemed odd to me. This head teacher also spoke to other returning students in ways that sounded intimidating to me. There was also talk about the role of Satan in the world which left me feeling very disturbed.
There was discussion about how she wanted more students in the class and would we ask around for people we knew who would be interested in starting. We were being asked to recruit. I understand that now but even at the time it seemed strange to me, actually it felt downright inappropriate.
There were many inconsistencies. I thought I was paying for the whole program when I plopped down my $2500.00. But then I was told there would be study groups at 20.00 per session once a month. There were also “highly recommended” healing session, two of those. One was $150.00 and the other 100.00. Then I was told about the “retreat expenses” which were $350.00. Then there were the study guides at 10 or 20.00 per book. By the end of it, who knows what this would have cost.
Even before I came across the DI blog, I was having serious doubts about the teacher, the teachings, and the organization. I probably would have left anyway but after finding the postings on the DI site, I was positively shaken. I wrote the apprentice teacher and told her I was quitting immediately. She called me and tried to talk me out of it. She said I had so many gifts to share with the world. Also, that the head teacher had invested so much energy in me. Blah, blah, blah. If I had not read the DI posts, I wouldn’t have been prepared for that conversation. As it was I was prepared for the arm-wringing I got and the attempted guilt trip.
Right now I am trying to get the balance of my tuition back. Apparently, the policy is that I can only get credit for other classes and no cash back. The apprentice teacher says she told me this the first day of Kabbalah class but I don’t remember having that discussion. I do not want to have any involvement with this group again, so I am probably out this money.
Whether or not there is such a thing as supernatural powers or enlightenment, I don’t know but what I do think is that this group has just enough truth running through it that it attracts people but it’s mixed up with a lot of confusing energy and plain old human greed. I have been around things like this for years, seen good and bad teachers, but it took me a while to sort it all out. I had to do a lot of soul-searching to understand, that at bottom, something just wasn’t right about these teachings, well, at least for me.
My involvement was really quite short but I am glad I am out.
-Elizabeth
Submitted on 2012/04/24 at 1:59 am
Here are a few more musings:
I thought that this was a pyramid scheme early on and I chuckled to myself. Years ago I had had some experience in Amway and I spotted this element in the MMS right away. At least with Amway you get good laundry soap! Perhaps they ought to change the name to Metaphysical Multilevel Marketing School. That would be more honest.
The MMMS borrows or steals quite liberally from other traditions. The MMS draws heavily on the Golden Dawn mystical tradition. One of the key members in that group was a woman named Dion Fortune. I read quite a bit of her book, “The Mystical Qabbalah.” This book was on the book list from my Kabbalah class. Luckily, reading this book was instrumental in my leaving the class. Ms. Fortune freely admits that Golden Dawn draws unabashedly from the Jewish mystical/kabbalistic tradition because mysticism in the Christian tradition was discouraged so vehemently throughout the Church’s history. (I tend to agree with her on that one, my apologies to the blog’s moderators!) Another book I read about Golden Dawn states that the founders of the traditions were Freemasons and Rosicrucians. The Golden Dawn tradition is a synthesis of many things put together by middle class people in England in the late 1800-early 1900′s with a keen interest in metaphysical studies. I think this was the time period in which Theosophy really took off. Needless to say, the practice of magick is deeply emphasized, if not the key component. That was what also sent me away from the school.
There are layers to my rejection of the school.
The teaching felt disjointed, uncohesive. I remember trying to practice the rituals and thinking, “Why are there so many prayers for protection? What kind of energy are we messing around with that we require “protection?” That frightened me. At other times I had a hard time taking it seriously. I mean, I could not understand what any of this magickal practice had to do with creating a more satisfying life. It just never felt right or good. No matter how hard I tried to justify it, I could not find any good reasons for continuing with the program.
Thanks to all who have followed my meanderings. I feel better for just writing about these experiences..
E
Asherah
Submitted on 2012/04/24 at 6:51 am | In reply to E.
Hello Elizabeth, at least your Spirit is still alive! It gave you all the necessary information to let you know what you were learning was not learning but control. Yes you get reeled in to get you hooked, but then nothing makes sense (even if you pay more money). Yes it is a pyramid business & trust me you will NEVER make it to the top because you will go mad by then at the amount of negative entities around you that you have called to your light with rituals. Yes they keep you down and make out you have found Heaven with little magical tricks. Its disgraceful that you have come to a point in your life when your Spirit want to be discovered to unfold all the mysteries of why you are living on Earth, these people take advantage of that natural human growth to seek themselves and charge you for free things which you already have within yourselves but have forgotten how to activate these energies and memories. Everything in life is an experience and all your instincts which are working greatly as they do naturally told you something just was not right with this organisation. Yes because fore mostly they are a business and have no concern about people’s spiritual development and they have no love in their hearts and this is what humans ultimately crave for that Bliss. Everything you learn is out there for free if you want it. The secrets and rituals they conduct belong to every spiritual organisation. Don’t let this experience put you off the path to find yourself. Anyway your spirit has been stirred now so it will not let you rest as you are on a natural human mission to ‘Know Thyself’. Trust me no one outside is going to be able to tell you the truth, the truth is within you and only you can find it. People / Books may assist you, but just remember if it don’t feel right it probably isn’t. Don’t worry you will find Enlightment but it is a path sometimes long sometimes short, just enjoy it along the way and have fun, we learn from our mistakes and most importantly we grow Spiritually!
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