OUR SPIRITUALITY IS FOUND IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST NO OPRAH,

SORRY ABOUT THAT!

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I started this article here. This MONDAY Opray is having her 4th session on the "NEW EARTH>"

Anytime 1.8 million people converge for any objective on a regular basis, there’s a story. Have you really taken the time to take a look at what this new spiritual enlightenment is all about? Have any of the readers of this blog really though there might be something good about what Opraha is saying? What ever you faith or belief, any new movement such as this with so many members so rapidly increasing warrants analysis. If you know me, I have never taken any book or person at face value, I will always analize what they are saying and why they are staying what they are writing.

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During the month of February, you heard on The Oprah Winfrey Show, you heard them ask, "Are You Ready to Be Awakened?" They began an interactive class on the interent. I was beginning to think could this be another cult? So I looked up the word cult. Wikipedia says, the word cult "typically refers to a cohesive social group devoted teo beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture considers outside the mainstream, with a notable postive or negative popular perception." My understanding of the book "New Earth," is clearly the views are not typical mainstream views. My understanding of the material has the concepts presentsed require you to suspend critical thinking and say there is only "the Now." They give such phrases like, "If you are aware, you cannot be totally possessed by the ego, by the thought form or the emotional form."

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A seed is planted in your mind, that is very small, and then they seed is watered little at a time, and before you know it, the seed has sprouted up in your mind, and before long it’s a full grown concept that you know believe.
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In the book Tolle says, "this book itself is a transformation device that has come out of the arising new conscious. The ideas and concepts presented here may be important, but they are secondary. They are more than signposts pointing toward awakening. As you read, a shift takes place within you."

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ROBERT J. LIFTON

• In 1961, Robert J. Lifton wrote the definitive book on the subject "THOUGHT REFORM, and the Psychology of Totalism after studying the effects of mind control on American prisoners of war under the Communist Chinese.
• One of the factors Robert Lifton describes is the concept of ‘LOADING THE lNGUAGUE." He said: "The group interprets or uses words and phrases in nenew ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clicki’s which serve to alter members’s thought process to conform to the group’s way of thinking."

JAY LIFTON

Jay Lifton (born May 16, 1926) is an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence and for his theory of thought reform. He was an early proponent of the techniques of psychohistory.

• Lifton's 1961 book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China was a study of coercive techniques that he labelled thought reform or "brainwashing", though he preferred the former term. Othes have labelled it also as "mind control". Lifton describes in detail eight methods which he says are used to change people's minds without their agreement:

• Milieu Control -- The control of information and communication.
• Mystical Manipulation -- The manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated.
• Demand for Purity -- The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection.
• Confession -- Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group.
• Sacred Science -- The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute.
• Loading the Language -- The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand.
• Doctrine over person -- The member's personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group.
• Dispensing of existence -- The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not.

Contrary to popular notions of "brainwashing", Lifton always maintained that such coercion could only influence short-term behavior or produce general neuroses, not permanently change beliefs or personality. Psychologists like Margaret Singer and Steven Hassan (author of the book Combatting Cult Mind Control), later loosely adapted his theories and applied his terms "totalism" and "thought reform" to the practices of certain religious and other types of groups

TOTALISM: THOUGHT REFORM

• Totalism, a word first used in Thought Reform, is Lifton's term for the characteristics of ideological movements and organizations that desire total control over human behavior and thought. (Lifton's usage differs from theories of totalitarianism in that it can be applied to the ideology of groups that do not wield governmental power.) In Lifton's opinion, though such attempts always fail, they follow a common pattern and cause predictable types of psychological damage in individuals and societies. He finds two common motives in totalistic movements: the fear and denial of death, channeled into violence against scapegoat groups that are made to represent a metaphorical threat to survival, and a reactionary fear of social change.

In his later work, Lifton has focused on defining the type of change to which totalism is opposed, for which he coined the term the protean self. In the book of the same title, he states that the development of a "fluid and many-sided personality" is a positive trend in modern societies, and that mental health now requires "continuous exploration and personal experiment", which reactionary and fundamentalist movements oppose.


According to Penguin Publishers, "A NEW EARTH" will be the biggest selling book of all time.

Those who have researched Oprah Winfrey, and those who have influenced her, say she is the most powerful woman in the world, and she has made it her mission in her own words, "transform the world." Her "spiritual" evolution and the persistent determination of her mission.

• She is trying to change South Africa, in the girls home. Then she backed Obama. Oprah said of Obama, "He has an ear for eloquence and a tongue dipped in the unvarnished truth."
• So when did she cross over from TV personality to spiritual and political advisor to the masses? It all started ever so slowly years ago........ and isn’t that the way all will go.

Charles E. Whisnant

The Origin Of The Saying "Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid"

In November of 1978, the world was shocked by the suicide deaths of 913 members of the People's Temple cult. Jim Jones, the leader of the group, convinced his followers to move to Jonestown, Guyana, a remote community that Jones carved out of the South American jungle and named after himself. Jones constantly feared losing control of his followers. His paranoia was the main reason he moved the cult to Guyana.

The mass suicide occurred after U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan of California and a team of reporters visited the compound to investigate reports of abuse. After some members tried to leave with the congressman’s group, Jim Jones had Ryan and his entourage ambushed at the nearby airstrip. He then ordered his flock to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Kool-Aid laced with potassium cyanide.

The mass suicide wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. During the weeks that preceded the dreadful event, Jones had conducted a series of suicide drills, according to survivors. An alarm call would sound and every person in the camp would line up to receive a fatal dosage. These exercises in insanity proved that all of the adults at the compound knew what would be the result of their actions.

The People’s Temple did not start off as your average mind-controlling cult. It initially gained much respect as an interracial mission for the sick, homeless and jobless. Jim Jones did not manifest his darker side until near the end.

One lasting legacy of the Jonestown tragedy is the saying, "Don’t drink the Kool-Aid." This has come to mean, "Don’t trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side."

Of course, you would have to know of Kool-Aid’s dubious connection to Jim Jones to understand the proverb.

Maybe this is why I have come to like the seach engine to "Google" a new term's meaning, I want to research the person, book or idea. And I also have come to like Wikipedia, that gives data on just about anything.

You can be sure that there is an open or a hidden agenda that is being set forth in most movements. Don't drink the kool-aid until you have checked the ingredients.

And this post is a set up for what I want to address as a Don't Drink the Kool-Aid.