Supposedly, on these anti web sites, people are marked to feel bad about being rich so the organization can drain them through guilt. Some with money give a lot, some don’t, from what I know of them. However there aren’t a bunch of drunken out of control drug parties being paid for with the cash. They have several centers to pay for, phone bills, postage, advertising. If you have ever held a seminar and paid for all the brochures handed out then you know the costs involved. But lets say you do feel manipulated, then look at that. It is good to give cash freely to something that has a good impact on many people. If you think the cult leader is twisting your arm, then leave. It’s your cash. If you think the leader is full of it, then what do you care if they tell you that you will not make “it”? So yes, you will be asked for cash, as you are from the TV or restaurant or people on the street everyday.
-- Is MOL a cult? Yes. It is a group of people with a common set of beliefs, that is centered around a central powerful figure held to have a spiritual importance. Which also describes a lot of other organizations. Are you being brain washed? Aren’t you anyway? Every time you talk to a lover, a friend, watch TV? The difference is that MOL is trying to do something really hard. They aren’t trying to replace your beliefs with another set. They are trying to lift all beliefs off you so an eternal part within that is beyond words can awaken. Their doctrine, by their own words, only points at the goal, and is not the goal itself. The doctrine is not the goal.
-- There are many people in MOL who do not surrender everything to the mission. Actually the vast majority do not. But they do want to support it so others can have the experience. You don’t win a prize for this. The goal is to wake up a deeper eternal part of you. The question is have you awakened? This is something humans have struggled with for thousands of years. If you believe MOL helps in that and want to give cash (support) so others can have it, then do so. If you do not believe this, then don’t.
-- For me the oddest thing is how normal the members are. I have been around this group for about ten years, heard rumors, scandal, things the leaders did with one another. When you think about it though they acted like people, people who would be struggling to get out of their old patterns. The founder, David Swanson, many think he is a strange case. The claim is he so totally let go that his energy was replaced by God. Personally I, with my Catholic background, find this hard to swallow. From what I understand if God showed up in all His Being, this part of the universe would melt. However they are saying he is an incarnation. Sort of like an Angel (an angel is a physical manifestation of God, thus the -el at the end of the word). I know a woman who says she had “wild fucking sex” with him, but felt no spiritual power from him. Then again her life is highly centered around the penis and herself, so who knows maybe this is more about her. Besides most of us desire wild fucking sex. I also know women who say he never approached anyone for sex. By the end though David seems to have had something happen to him. Personally I can’t say myself as this all happened before I came on the scene. You will hear some of the founders had sex with one another. Oh how could they?! Some did drugs or drank. Oh My God! That has never happened before. Some have been totally saint like. ASTONISHING! This is built into scandal, but isn’t this what people do? Yet a change came in them that is amazing to behold if you see it. I know of the tremendous change that came in me. I know that at meditation some intense energy comes and assists me in awakening. As I become less self absorbed with my day dreams and opinions of others, what I see is people. People struggling with the things that bother them. Their pains, repressions, obsessions, self feelings, anger. Just like everyone walking in the world is doing. And yes, in this group some people get hurt. Some new people will tell you to “let go” because they want you to be as they think. If you don’t want to it, don’t. You just have to check with how you feel and if you don’t like the idea, say no. It is that simple. I have had a lot of the leaders tell me they want me to do something, and I say no I can’t do that. The great price that I pay is a statement like “Oh, that’s too bad we were hoping you would.” I wasn’t thrown out or disowned nor admonished. I could hear their statement as manipulation but they were simply expressing their disappointment. If I feel guilt for this, that doesn’t mean I need to do it, just need to look at the guilt feeling. The question is do I have the time, ability and am I agreeable, and if not, then I don’t.
-- There is a stress about surrendering your control back to God. You may feel that you have to do something you don’t want to so you don’t appear to be withholding surrender. Giving into what you don’t want to isn’t surrendering to God. It is setting yourself up for being hurt. Being concerned how you appear to others isn’t letting go, it is allowing your internal judge to get a better grip on you. The thing you have to understand is that there is a point to trying to surrender how you control things all the time, the things you hold onto. There is something living within you that was there before you developed the personality, the person you hold yourself to be, and they are trying to awaken that. These web sites that hate MOL talk about people being depersonalized. They claim it is so the members can be controlled, mind melted and unable to think. Far from it. The reason for the depersonalization is that your personality is just a made up collection of beliefs you have, the results of a life time of misunderstanding and defenses against pains you have or you how you have been trained to believe. But under that personality, that protection, that prison, is that energy