>A part of the article one part of me found surprising, but another didn't, is that author said he that there was a segment during the retreat where the leader of the retreat stands up on stage and get's the crowd all excited about the dangers of the devil (gambling, pornography, tv, computers, that sort of thing). The leader went on for what seemed like eternity.
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>Matt said he did almost have to slap himself to bring himself back to reality. As even he got wrapped up in it.

A big attention getter for every fire-and-brimstone preacher from Savonarola through the Mathers and on to Billy Sunday was to describe in *vivid* detail the kind of sin that could get you in trouble and then luridly dwell on the punishments of hell for the sinners.

Before hardcore porn and slasher movies people got their frisson where they could <bg>


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>>>I read an article in Rolling Stone a couple weeks ago, that I think you'd find a hoot. Matt Talabi (sp?) infiltrated hagee's sect. He spent about 3 weeks with them. The article focused on a weekend retreat he went on with them at the end of the 3 weeks.
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>>>The article does a good job of describing the psychological tactics these groups use. And how a week minded person could get sucked in.
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>>>But at the same time there's some very laughable parts. During the retreat the crowd is broken up into smaller groups where the leader of the group has everyone go around and describe something your parents did to you went you were little that is the root cause of why your screwed up. And how the only way to fix your life is to accept jesus.
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>>>Matt found himself being really put on the spot, and he searched his mind for a while to come up with something for the group. He described to them all how his father was an alchoholic circus clown. And he used to chase the children around with his big clown shoes, whipping them with the shoes. And how traumatized he became of big clown shoes.
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>>That's beautiful. There is an Etrade commercial, with the baby buying stock, and he says when he made money he rented a clown - "I underestimated the creepiness". My grand daughter since about the age of 4 has declared herself creeped out by "clowns, mimes and angels".
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>>Religious sects of any kind are always a source of wonderment to me. Maybe it comes from being raised as a Methodist, migrating to a sort of Masonic Unitarianism and then going to live with the Moslems and the Buddhists. When I lived in SF the Jim Jones People's Temple thing happened (the source of the expression "drink the Kool Aid", as you know) Didn't seem much crazier than EST, Scientology, or Fundamentalist anything but demonstrated pretty dramatically what happens when one gives up one's spiritual responsibility to gurus or dogmas.