Did anybody else get to watch that two-hour presentation last night on History Channel on dangerous Cults? An excellent program, IMHO.
I thought it was a real eye-opener on several fronts.
First, they made the particular point of the general similarity of many cults: Commonality included such things as the disturbed self-appointed messianic visionary founder (i.e. Jim Jones, Applegate, Charlie Manson, David Koresh, the pseudo-Mormon polygamy guy, and such), the die-hard belief in an apocylptic prophecy, the manipulation of the followers by thought control (brainwashing) techniques, sexual control or manipulation of the followers, monetary exploitation of the followers, the desire to make the followers look ridiculous to normal persons, the tendency to create communes and to isolate the followers from society, the belief that certain of the cult activities are in fact in fulfillment of eschatological prophecy and are thus "helping" to bring about the collapse of society,
One of the FBI "profiler" experts said that with the "time of the end" die-hards, it is often difficult to say when they might slip over the edge and start trying to bring about the "end" on their own. I was more than a little reminded of the September tract which was hinted to be a trigger to make all false religion turn on the JWs.
Kind of sends a little chill up your backbone, doesn't it?