Dangerous Sects: Origins, Practices, and Control Methods
4) Stop Suffering (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God)
Official Name: Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.
Also Known As: Stop Suffering.
Founder: Edir Macedo.
Founded: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1977).
Curiosities: The founder has been jailed twice in Brazil, and the church has been embroiled in financial scandals in Argentina. They often offer certain charms, like oil from Mount Sinai or the Jordan River.
Some Examples of Dangerous Sects
5) The People’s Temple
Jim Jones, an American pastor, bought huge tracts of land in Georgetown, Guyana. There, he convinced the followers of his sect (People’s Temple) that he was the Messiah. His megalomania reached the point of ordering the mass suicide of 913 worshipers as a protest against an inspection visit by a U.S. congressman in 1978.
6) Children of God (The Family of Love)
Moses David Berg founded the sect known as Children of God or The Family of Love in California, USA, in 1968. It is a merger of liberal Protestant Christianity and the hippie movement of the 60s, trying to bring people to God’s love through the practice of free sex…
The problem is that this sect is accused in many countries of encouraging and practicing pedophilia.
Its leader, proclaimed as Moses, died in 1994.
How Sects Operate
Sects seek first to attract followers. This is known as proselytizing, for which they invest huge sums of financial and human resources. They often buy media such as radio, television, etc. They offer people a warm, cozy environment, and members are very sure of their beliefs. For those who are lonely, experiencing a crisis of faith, or have low self-esteem, this welcome and message of salvation, so firmly and safely delivered, easily captures them.
Once a person has entered the sect, different control methods begin to manifest:
1) Control of Behavior
The person is told what to do or not do, who to interact with and who not to, where to go and where not. This is done directly, or by asking them to report what they are doing, or suggesting that they must ask permission to do certain things.
2) Control of Information
It controls the information that people are entitled to know before joining a group. That is, it teaches the doctrine in a progressive mode and filters information. There are things to be learned entirely after you have entered. But it also controls the information that can come from the group outwards. This is very typical of sects, which establish a law of silence for its members. They require their followers not to reveal what they do within the group, nor let outsiders participate in its meetings or ceremonies.
3) Control of Ideas
The discourse becomes fanatical, where it is impossible for the group member to contradict any idea of the leader or group practice. Dissent is punished (sometimes even physically). What the leaders say is simply unquestionable and involves accepting the override of reason. It will produce a reform of thought in people, a real brainwashing.
4) Control of Emotions
As people who fall into cults are often people with low self-esteem and significant emotional deprivation, emotional blackmail plays an important role in controlling the followers of the sects. It makes people think that they should respond to the love of the leader with blind obedience. It uses a lot of fear and guilt as a method of emotional control, the fear often associated with announcements of major disasters or the world ending. Guilt is often associated with unattainable moral demands that keep people mired in sin, feeling no return.
5) Economic Control
They force people to donate more than they want to voluntarily give of their income to the group and sometimes lead to extremes to force people to justify how they spend their money.