Your closest experience with cults?

>>19166024
What happened next OP?

>>19166050

We're all on good terms with each other and so there was no real harm, but I felt I'd done a slight faux pax against the friend's friend. She (our friend) did indicate that the patriarch (or someone related) was from scientology earlier which (rightly) triggered mom a bit and lended credence to my cult remark. Mom said something like "oh, that's where it gets dangerous!" Now even she started to grasp the culty-culture around this neighborhood, which is not something that she has spent any time looking at or learning about.

Our friend is very kind and polite, perhaps to a fault, and I don't press her on things, but I don't think she's at all religious - for her it's all the same bullshit (she's right), and in the conversation she herself said something like "personally it doesn't matter to me what they really believe in", she just smiles and nods to keep friendships where appropriate.

TBQH from what I know of the local cult it's a fairly harmless one in the grand scheme of things. Better that one than the JWs, say. I was unaware of the prototypical Scientology connection, though, until the friend brought it up.

I did specifically mention that a sandwich shop I visit has their flyers there on a regular basis. Another topic was how "open/closed" their culture is. Apparently the friend got in on some stuff, but not other stuff (I wasn't paying close attention). We both correctly identified essentials though.

I've flipped through the Quran

>>19166024
>WHO YOU
JEJ

>>19166024
My mom was in a private school of sorts for people trying to get training as therapists. I'm explaining it wrong but I don't know how else to put it.
She started changing pretty much right away and when me and the rest of my family pointed it out she pushed us away. Said she has been a pushover and that we'd been using her. It strained her relationship with everyone but the people in her group and her instructor specifically. She was like her handler and the only thing my mom would want to talk about was her and how terrible our family was to her. At that point I just went along with it. Pretending to have changed my mind and seen the merits of what my mom was doing just to make sure she didn't drift any further. And it was a good thing too because my dad had almost been completed alienated from her.
The first time the word cult was used was when my dad accompanied my mom to a party some other members were throwing. Without going to much into it, they acted bizarre, and it seemed like the only people who saw that were those who were not part of the group. I think talking it over afterwards was one of the first things that snapped my mom out. Soon we learned that the instructor had attempted to hypnotise everyone as part of a lesson. Both as a group and in private (glad that one didn't really work on my mom). And that she had been doing magic, specifically binding magic (which I only know through my own research), and that was the thing that scared my mom enough to not want to have anything more to do with them.
There was another instance where I was involved, pretty much getting in the way of a spell unintentionally, but I don't want to go too much into that.
Anyway it feels outlandish to even think about, and I barely scratched the surface but I don't want to go too much into it.

>>19166024
If there is one thing I cannot stand it is a patriarchal WIZARD acting as a priest.
If you are going to be a wizard at least be f****** honest about it.

>>19166024
was mormon, there you go, the cult of Donny osmonds that explode violently due to suppressed primal feelings.
Happy faces and kindness until the negativity they don't face, or deal with erupts like a super volcano.