Appearances are different from reality

Rossa-rossella

03/17/2007 9:35

Outward appearances are very different from objective reality

I have read with great attention all the posts that have appeared with regard to the article on cults. The question I would like to ask is as follows: how many of those who have expressed themselves really live in one of these groups? I am currently living in one of these cults and believe me there is a great difference between living ‘inside’ and living ‘outside’ as a sympathizer, even though you may be closely and warmly involved. Many times outward appearances are very different from objective reality: everything that was written in the focus article is true as far as I am concerned. Obviously for me it is true in its essence, its framework, since the way in which a reality of this kind is clothed for others is seen as being completely different and this is the reason we get caught in the net. We live in a perennial hypnotic state and even the few that are well educated, have fallen for it. I have been living here for almost twenty years and it is only recently that I have begun to be aware of the perverse mechanisms that bind all of us to our roots. It has been a slow awakening accompanied by a lot of pain and suffering because of my profound sense of defeat and failure. My dependence on the guru and everything he has created is very strong, unimaginable, powerful and impossible to describe. Contrary to what was reported in the article, I entered the group not because I was depressed or anything similar but because I was an exaggerated idealist and believed I would spend my entire life in this reality in the service of humanity. Total deception!! My strength, my life, my means, my wealth and what is worse all my ideals, were just useful instruments for making a guru even more powerful. For enriching a situation that only outwardly appears to want to help humanity and when it does, its real aim is to find consensus and create a defensive screen. It is however true that I am free to go whenever I want to; I can leave the situation in an instant. That notwithstanding the fact that I do not have the means to do so. This is because in the past, I broke off all my relationships with my family of origin, with friends and all those who had any affection or respect for me. Now I am alone. I am completely dependent on this reality for my every breath and from every point of view. ‘Outside’ I do not know how I would survive: how I could find work, support myself or where I would go. I am almost 50 and the status of a single woman in the world of work and society is somewhat difficult and I do not have any professional qualifications. I do not have any money or the means to liberate myself. I cannot ask help from the world I abandoned: what right do I have, when for the past twenty years I have only denigrated it and not produced anything to improve its conditions?

I have been a ‘recruiter’ for a long time and now I am very ashamed and I want to apologize to all those that I have encouraged to join this path. I do not want to dwell on the tale of my experience: I believe I have given a sense of it. If one day I manage to liberate myself from this condition (and believe me I am doing all I can to recuperate the possibility and means) I will write a book, in the hope that the law in Italy will not condemn me for defamation.

I will recount my experiences; those that I believe can be applied to every individual, the deceit and the fraudulent aims that are declared to obtain consensus, wealth and money from new adepts.

Please forgive me for remaining anonymous, but in this case it is an important source of protection for me.

Rossa-rossella

03/17/2007 13:02

Ref: outward appearances are very different from objective reality

There are many reasons why so many people are attracted to these cult environments; idealism, as I have already expressed in my testimony is one, but if one has the courage to make a critical evaluation, one understands that idealism cannot be expressed practically and just becomes a dream. It does not help the people who really need it, it helps only to reinforce the identity of the group, even good works are done only to have consensus, protection, and defense from the outside world…and that is terrible…because the Others become a means and not an end! The aim is to protect oneself in social and political fields, to create your own power and wealth (only for the few and the guru).

Other people that I have known and that I know have entered into the dynamics as written in the article, truly to give meaning to their lives, to find support in periods of negativity and things of that kind. Pensioners also need to find ways to spend their time and fill up their lives. I believe that these groups are born because people do not manage to find their dimension in society: dreamers, idealists, the hypersensitive, the sick, the lonely, the outsiders…and so on…I do not want to repeat what the article has expressed so well.

I replied on an inner level to the questions that Ektor asked in the forum: every one of my answers according to the experience I am living was positive. Unfortunately. Courage is needed, to repudiate all that I have spent years and years of my life on and above all, I repeat, my ideals.

Posted to the Focus community forum  ‘Noi e le sette’ by Rossa-rossella under the title ‘Realtà e apparenza sono diversa’, after the publication of an article on Damanhur as a psicosetta (destructive cult) by Focus magazine in the spring of 2007.