Good morning sir, I'm doing pretty good.
It's a bit of an agitated day with all of the Christmas preparations around here in the city and kind of running around with shopping, but it's good, everything's alright.
How are you doing?
Great, I'm doing okay,
So I had something happen this morning and uh I'm hoping you can participate in this fully, you know, and because you're part of this group too.
You know, we're both in this what's up group called the Culsa Society.
And I'll put on the screen a link that you can join it if you wish, you know, but you have to be led into it.
And we saw a very interesting post there this morning, OK?
We probably have different experiences of this in our lifetime just by the fact that I've been in this lifestyle for 50 years.
I'm 73 years old.
you're around 30, right?
So you're younger man and we're brought up in a little bit different world than I was, but we're still sharing space in this world, so to speak.
So there was a person, a woman who shared a personal story that
a friend or somebody she knew had concerns or was asking her if she was in a cult or excuse me if my memory of this post is a little off, but it really doesn't matter because
it's kind of talking about the same issue or that this other person expressed
personal opinion that or as said an opinion or concern that Sikhism or the way she was practicing it was a cult using the word cult and that and that this person was saddened by
this.
Maybe she was also a little angry.
I don't know, but she definitely reacted to it.
And I thought that, I really appreciated that post, by the way, because it's something that, you know, I've had to deal with myself over the years.
People around me have had to deal with it.
People I've known, people I don't know, people in the group I'm in, people in other groups, you know, that's out there.
And although I don't think she explicitly said it,
I think the unasked question is how do you deal with.
because obviously you're feeling something about it.
how do you, you know, how do you quite deal with it that you're in a position where people are either questioning what you got yourself involved with, or they have an opinion about
it and they're giving a word to it.
And how exactly do you react to this knowing that this is going to be a common thing?
So that kind of really got my interest.
I have all kinds of thoughts about that.
But I was interested in, had you read that?
what kind of thinking did it provoke on your part?
Well, I would say the following, you know, because...
The concerns from this person who came to this lady and said like, I'm worried that you're joining a cult or something along those lines.
usually that sort of concern comes in my experience from a legitimate place of caring for the other person and being worried about them, which is understandable for people who are
close to you, right?
And I also think that...
On some level, on some level.
someone makes, let's say, any kind of radical lifestyle change.
It doesn't necessarily have to be tied to religion, but someone makes some kind of massive overhaul of their lifestyle.
They stop doing certain things, they begin doing other things.
And that kind of very strong change, which can look like a sort of 180 degrees change of direction for a lot of people.
that is naturally going to raise some concerns for at least some of the people around you.
Now, whether you are actually joining a cult or not, that is, I think, know, a different question.
And this is something that I have read about a little bit because, you know, I'm a big reader.
I like reading about all sorts of things.
And sometime in the past, I spent a little bit of time reading about the how, like, how could you possibly qualify any kind of organization as a cult?
And apparently there are, you know, criteria that are used to define that.
I don't believe that the Sikh religion as a whole fits this criteria because we're talking about this
international organism of people.
And of course, you know, if you go to the Sikhs who are living in Amritsar right now, they're probably going to be living fairly differently, even if it's the same religion to
the Sikhs who currently live in Los Angeles, or if you find a Sikh community in Europe, wherever like, it's not like Sikhism as a whole, it's
massive to be a monolithic organization, I believe.
And cults are defined by being monolithic.
There is other stuff that is involved as well, but sorry, I'm rambling bit here about this.
No, not at all.
I love it.
And, you know, like, for example, I'm going to give you some examples because I mentioned these criteria for actually identifying cult activity.
And there is a number of things that are mentioned.
One of them is absolute authoritarianism without accountability.
And currently the only leader that officially exists of the Sikh religion is the Siddiqun-Ugransa, the sacred word.
And I don't know about you, but I have never gotten any orders from the city of Gurdwara, at least in the sense of authoritarian oppression.
Then there are other things, things like intolerance for criticism or questioning of any kind.
There are things like...
financial manipulation being involved, know, people controlling your money, telling you what to do with it.
If we go a little bit deeper, we could be talking about planting ideas of fear about the outside world into the followers, so they will not intermingle with anyone outside the
cult.
And, you know, like,
From what I know and what I understand of the Sikh religion as a whole, it doesn't really fit these criteria.
But I can understand why somebody who sees, you know, their friend, their brother, their sister, whoever they know, converting to Sikhism and making a lot of perhaps sudden
lifestyle changes might be worried.
in that way for that person.
Well, I actually would...
I agree with everything you say.
and
And I think a lot of people would.
I think it's very reasonable.
But having kind of been in a way targeted in the eyes of some people, as somebody who's actually in a cult.
Okay.
I have a different way of, I've kind of got a different way of looking at this, that I think it's important for people like this person who posted this morning.
Okay.
and...
I have experience with dealing with this.
So, so it's like in the end, I think the real issue is how, how does a wise and honorable person deal with that communication?
Okay.
So, so to me, you know, me, I'm like, uh, somebody who's obsessed, fascinated, whatever you call the word, focused on,
communication, linguistics, the origin of words.
And you know that I listen to every single word and I chop it up into pieces because that's what I was trained to do even as a lawyer.
Right.
And then I'm surrounded in a world where people are, to me, very loose with their language.
And actually,
far looser with their language than they can actually imagine.
And that how much misunderstanding there is around words and how much problems it causes.
so that's, oddly enough, that was kind of my angle on this, is that there's words in the culture that have lost.
their meaning and lost any semblance of any valuable meaning.
So it's hard to understand what people are even talking about.
I'll you an example.
It's a little off the subject, but the other day I was in Starbucks, right?
Where I can be found, you know?
And I go to the counter and the lady working behind the counter says, okay, sir, what would you like to have?
I said, whatever I'd like to have a cappuccino, extra shot, extra hot.
whatever and and her response, which I hear a lot now from younger people a lot.
This is very I mean, I'm talking in English, United States.
Maybe it's different other cultures, other languages.
But I got a response from her taking my order.
That I actually have heard for the last 10 or 15 years and I never heard before and
The response was, with a look on her face to match, she goes, amazing.
Now, actually, and of course my response, being the difficult person I am, was to say to her, even a little half humorous, half annoyed.
And I was going, do you really find that amazing?
You
And she's like looking at me like not understanding where I'm coming from.
And then I say, what about my cappuccino order was amazing to you?
And she's, and there's nobody else in the source.
So she has no choice but to engage with this very difficult customer who's putting her very uncomfortable position.
Cause I'm asking her to qualify.
Okay.
Because
Because my understanding is that the word amazing, and there's no word that's exactly the same.
There's words that are similar in the family.
But amazing normally refers to something that's almost miraculous.
It's not quite a miracle.
Otherwise it would be called a miracle.
But amazing is in the miracle family, is that something's amazing in that it doesn't normally happen.
So I'm thinking,
I'm thinking, is it really amazing that somebody's ordered a cappuccino?
that like amazing?
What would really amazing be?
But they don't actually have a word for that anymore because they've been, they basically have decided that amazing means nothing.
Okay.
They basically neutered the word.
And now you'll see in the society, if you use the word amazing, it's actually has no power.
It's been neutered.
And now you have to find other words because now you no longer use amazing because amazing means nothing.
Okay.
So I'm just using that as an example.
So now what's interesting to me is we have this word, or even, even, even, cancer.
Okay.
Cancer basically means you're going to die.
That's what it means.
Okay.
It's not what it is.
It may mean what it is for somebody who's a researcher, right?
But for the average person, means, my God, you have cancer.
You're going to die.
so the cancer means cancer doesn't mean it's a disease.
Cancer means you're like playing with death.
OK, so words start meaning other things.
OK, and then that gets dangerous because then there's a lot of miscommunication.
So you take the word cult, which is a really good example.
So I'm talking about communication now, right?
So.
The word, if you look it up, the word cult comes from Latin.
That's a fact.
Okay.
And what it means is basically it means to care.
Okay.
I mean, it does.
It was originally meant to care, to cultivate and to worship.
I'm not making this up.
That's actually a fact.
Okay.
And that is how the word
cult was understood for generations that it meant to care, to cultivate, to worship, to take care of, like that.
Okay.
And I think that's how it was commonly used until probably, and this is just from my personal interaction with it, is that in the 1800s in the United States,
there were these like split off religions like Mormonism.
Okay.
That were considered by the mainstream to be these breakaway like rebel groups.
They weren't in the majority community.
They broke off and did their thing often with creating their own practices, having their own charismatic leader and
And there were allegations about these groups, whether they were true or untrue, that were salacious.
okay, and they were referred to in the media, okay, as cults.
And they were referred to as cults, not from the original menia cults, okay?
They were referred as cults, kind of inferring they were a cult.
They were dark.
Okay, so it's almost like people reinvented the word in the United States in the 1800s to suit their own purposes because obviously they weren't using the original meaning.
They were using this meaning that they actually associated with the occult, which are dark practices.
So this kind of ties into, because it's reminding me of something else related.
If we go a little bit later in history, because you're talking the 1800s, we go a little bit later, this kind of also ties into things like the satanic panic during the 80s, for
example.
Right?
So like all of these worry about these subversive
organizations of essentially occultist madmen doing things in the shadows, right?
Which makes for a very compelling narrative, but it's very questionable once you look into it a little bit closer.
Like the Satanic panic was essentially just mass hysteria.
There was very little that could be empirically proved about it from my understanding.
Right?
And they hijacked the word.
They hijacked and manipulated the original meaning of the word to almost be its opposite original meaning.
Okay.
So, so, so the average person could understand that cult in their own mind is related to the occult, which are like secret dark practices.
I actually took the time to look up the etymology of the word cult as you said and you're pretty much perfectly correct about it.
says the word cult comes from the Latin cultus meaning worship, care or cultivation, sharing roots with culture and cultivate, stemming from colere which means to till or to
tend.
It originally meant any form of devotion or a specific religious practice, but by the 19th century it developed negative connotations, referring to unorthodox, sometimes controlling
groups with excessive devotion.
So yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
And that's what happened.
But what's interesting, so the word kind of got hijacked and given a meaning that was convenient to the people who had a particular agenda.
And that may have been even the established religious institutions or the media or whatever.
you had these groups in Europe and the United States.
And now any break off group, and it's always some small group, it's a new small group, are being basically assigned the C word.
Okay, not cancer.
word, right.
The C word is cult and they don't, they don't assign themselves that word.
It's being assigned from the outside.
Okay.
For whatever purpose the people do, but it gets to the point that the people now hearing this either from the head of their large institutionalized religion, or they are hearing
it in the newspapers about this cult in this place and this.
Okay.
So now.
the people are becoming like zombies, not the people in the cult, the larger society is that the largest society is being basically manipulated by how a word is being used.
Okay.
And so it's, it's not even just negative connotations.
It's almost like it just means bad.
Okay.
So if you're in a cult, okay, that group is bad.
Okay, if you end the same thing in the political thing that people, the politicians are saying, they're a communist.
Yeah, people don't even know what a communist is.
The average person couldn't even give you a good definition of what communism is, but people get to see another C word.
You're a communist.
You're a cultist.
You have cancer, you know.
So the thing is, is that you get these labels slapped on you from the outside.
Now, like you said,
Some of it I think is out of genuine concern.
But what's really happened is people, in my own opinion, in general society have lost the ability for discriminating thinking.
They don't think, they're not thoughtful.
They hear like a word and they emotionally react, but they're not like thinking what's actually going on here.
Okay, so then of course in the 60s and 70s and when you're moving in,
there were new new religion groups, especially in the West, uh new religious movements, new religious movements.
You know, people and we think of groups naturally that are in the news, the Jonestown thing in South America, the the Hare Krishna movement and so forth.
OK, so of course now they're going to immediately get labeled as a
a cult and they seem to have certain things in common, the things in common that you mentioned, there's authoritarian, that there's a, I'm not saying it's true or not, I'm
just saying that there is this thought that they're authoritarian, that there's a charismatic leader, that they're manipulating people, they're stealing their money,
they're basically using them for, you know, all the...
There's all strange practices that are not even real and made up.
I mean, there's all these things that come out and then people read enough of this.
And then what's happened is that the original meaning of cult is long gone.
Okay.
And now it's kind of understood not what it's really meant to say, but it's, it's, it's meant to label something that is being socially understood as being bad.
that has some common characteristics, but nobody has actually gone out there and defined, yes, this is what that word means.
But people have like, just kind of unconsciously adopted this word and assigned it to a certain kind of thing that they could probably have a difficult time actually defining,
okay?
But one thing they all agree with is that it involves bad people doing bad things.
Right.
Okay, okay, and that if you're involved in this, you're in trouble.
Okay, so, but, and they're deciding, okay, some unspoken agreement that, okay, this group qualifies as a cult, and that person is in a cult, that person left a cult, this person's
leaving a cult, but at the end of the day, it's bullshit, because it doesn't mean anything.
It doesn't mean anything, okay, because there's no,
commonly, okay, there's no real agreement on what that word means because that's actually not what the word was meant to mean.
So it's been kind of owned and manipulated to the point that there's just this general thought about it.
And all people have to do is to say that group is a cult and that's it.
Okay, because I decided they're a cult.
So now it's not even about the group, it's about the word.
Now, if I may say something about this, because I fully agree with your point about the manipulation of the word itself.
I was not actually aware of the origin of the word cult before today.
And as someone who is also a huge fan of linguistics, I do have to say that it's a bit sad to see it mutate.
into this kind of, you know, tool for mass hysteria, as you say.
But at the same time, at the same time, this does not really remove the fact that cult-like organizations are a thing and that they do exist, you know.
Like, I'm going to give you an example.
I'm very like a personal example of this.
Some years ago, some years ago, I was contacted by an acquaintance who told me like, hey, you know, I have a job proposal for you.
You know how these things start.
Usually she was like, yeah, you know, I got a job I would like to offer you.
We're going to get together with some friends to talk about this whole thing.
I would like you to come in to talk about it.
if you want.
And admittedly I was a bit short on cash so the offer sounded fairly tempting.
So I went to this place and what I encountered was a group of people listening to someone giving a kind of a PowerPoint presentation.
about this very peculiar sales model that I had never heard about before, which was all about...
It wasn't really so much about selling a product, but it was about getting more people involved into selling the product and making money from the people you would involve.
So it was a pyramid scheme, really.
Like, that's what it was, right?
Now, the fact that it was a pyramid scheme is not what's interesting to me.
What was interesting to me was how people were talking about it and the general attitudes of people in the room.
Everyone had this sort of like...
I don't want to be mean about this but it's like everyone was kind of high in a way.
Everyone was just high listening to this person.
talking about the sales model and everyone was encouraging each other and hugging each other and talking about how much money they were going to make and that they were going to
reach success together and personally, me personally, I found it a bit unsettling, you know, because there were all of these strangers suddenly being very buddy-buddy with me.
talking about how much they wanted me to succeed in this work.
And later, I looked up the corporation that was in charge of this whole thing, which I'm not going to mention just because I don't want to get in trouble here.
But I looked them up and I found out that apparently a lot of the tactics that are employed in
You know, international pyramid schemes like this are very similar to the tactics used by high control groups, like cults, right?
So this is like, it's a thing that exists, it's out there and it gets like, it worms its way into people's lives.
I don't think it's a silly concern per se.
No, I think it's a legitimate.
I, I get, I, I think that everything you're saying is indisputable and I actually agree with it.
Okay.
So, but, actually to me, what you're saying kind of in a way supports what I've been trying to say is that you see this kind of behavior and sort of like psychological control
in religion, in business.
in politics and all the way down.
Okay, so it's kind of the way that human beings interact with each other.
Right.
So, but the thing is, that, but the word cults is something that has been specifically used as a label for one example of that.
Right.
It's not, but, the behavior is the same.
And this is the lawyer in me talking and really kind of gets back to
how this woman in my eyes will have to learn how to deal with this because it's going to be there.
And as you say, people have legitimate concerns.
Okay?
Okay.
They just don't know.
They don't know.
And they have legitimate reason for being concerned.
All right?
But I'm a lawyer by training.
And so I'm trained to not kind of be distracted by labels.
Because labels are not evidence.
Labels are something that somebody from the outside is stamping on you and you don't have actually even a in it.
They're putting a label on you.
And it may not even be clear what that label even means except that you're a bad human being.
Okay.
So it labels you as bad.
Okay.
But it's not even clear, but no group labels itself a cult.
Okay.
They're all right.
Right.
Exactly.
And, but, but get back to the original meaning is that actually any religious organization would
would want to be defined as the word was originally defined in Latin.
Everyone would because that actually is their job.
Okay.
But now the word's been completely distorted to mean the opposite of what it originally meant.
Now it means instead of taking care, it basically means exploiting innocent people.
Okay.
this is why, I'm sorry to interrupt you there, but this is why in the literature referring to this type of group, like talking legitimate cult activity, I found that there is
another term that is commonly used, which I think is a lot more useful, which is a high control group.
which is not the same as saying a cult, in my opinion.
Right, I agree.
that's hell, okay.
So that's on the way.
I think what you're describing is on the way to where I'm going, okay?
Is that that in itself is not actually, it's almost leaving the word, it's almost leaving a label to you're starting to actually explain what's happening.
A cult does not explain what's happening.
You're saying a high controlled group, at least if it's not the whole story,
At least you're starting to explain something.
Just saying cult doesn't say anything.
It's just your attempt to just label somebody with something.
so.
For instance, getting back to like this woman, so if she's got a friend who's concerned, she's in a cult or has decided that this thing is a cult, whatever it means to this
person, that word.
And she knows the person well, actually, instead of being like offended by the term, okay, which is a senseless fight, actually, and is actually letting the other person take
control of the narrative.
Because as long as the narrative is about a word, the person who's assigning the word is in control of the narration.
Mm-hmm.
The other person's playing defense.
The person using the words playing offense.
The person who's saying you're in this, they're playing defense, but it's not a fair fight and it's a ridiculous fight.
It's over a word about what somebody is labeling something or somebody.
If I'm her, I'm saying, thanks for your concern, what exactly do you mean?
What exactly is happening that's concerning you?
Okay, well, you're going to probably hear a lot less information because they don't know.
Okay, they have some general fear, but you're being very fair.
See, I never let the people run the narrative on me.
It's like if they have a legitimate concern, I appreciate that concern.
What specifically are you concerned about?
Well, I'm concerned you're in a cult.
So I'm not interested in your, you're being concerned about a word.
I'm concerned about what you think is happening that shouldn't be happening.
Okay, and be specific about it.
And usually they can't because usually they don't have any personal information.
Like, for instance, even in the group I'm in, and you probably are aware of this, that many of the people who are my contemporaries, not many, but quite a few people my
contemporaries, who are back in the original people who were Westerners who took on Sikhism, right?
yeah.
and we had a charismatic teacher.
And then there were allegations made against the charismatic teacher decades later.
So now there are people around me, okay, who I've known for 40 or 50 years who are going, my God, I gotta get out of here.
I didn't realize it.
I've been in a cult for 40 years.
Right.
And I'm going, really?
I know you for 40 years.
This is the first time you've ever said, you know, but, now I've seen the light.
I've been controlled and I've been in a cult.
Well, seemed like you were perfectly happy the last 40 years.
What exactly do you say?
Well, they're going this, this, and this.
Do you actually know that's true, personally?
Well, no, no, but I believe something to be true.
Okay, but them saying that now they believe they are in a cult gives them permission to leave.
And maybe they want to leave anyhow.
But the thing is, it's like, they're making it about a word.
But what actually happened?
What happened is they actually, in most cases,
had very happy, productive lives.
Okay, and now they're just gonna wrap their heads around a word.
And now people are saying, I'm in a cult, but it's all about a word.
It's like, what actually is happening?
Okay.
And what's happening this second that you did not find offensive for 45 years, but today you find offensive.
And so I try to stay away from these labels and just get into what's happening.
And so you brought up a very good point in the beginning of this conversation, which I think people don't want to go there really, is that actually any religion could be called
a cult.
Any religion.
Okay?
Because religion is by definition authoritarian.
If it's not by a person, it's by a representation.
So...
you know, basically, you know, whether you talk about Buddha, Mohammed, you know, Moses or whoever, Jesus Christ, there was a person, Guru uh Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh, there was a
person at some point who had an authoritarian message.
And in some cases, they left something behind, whether that's the Bible, Sri Guru Granth Sahib,
Whatever.
That's now the authority.
Okay?
And so it's not even up for debate.
Okay?
So...
And then there's an institution built around it, and things happen and don't happen.
Uh, I'm not here giving you opinion whether it's good or bad.
I'm engaging.
That's a longer conversation, whether it's right or wrong, good or bad.
But really the difference between most cults as they are known and institutionalized religion is science.
Okay.
So you can easily make these, these accusations against a small group of vulnerable people in a minority.
but you can't say the same thing against a group that has 100 million members.
You know, this reminds me of...
There is this kind of silly joke.
It might be a bit mean-spirited, I don't know, but it's a silly joke that says, what's the difference between an institutionalized religion and a cult?
And it says the difference is that the guy who founded the religion has been dead for centuries.
And I agree with you, but I'm not an anti-religion person.
You know, I'm a minister myself.
But I mean, I keep driving back to this point, this base point.
that there's a hysteria over a word, a word that now is not that helpful and is even manipulative.
and can be used basically to put people down by just the mention of that word.
But the real issue is what's actually happening.
I mean, factually what's happening because groups can look similar, but that doesn't mean that everything about them is similar.
It's much easier just cast one word about a group, but there's a...
many variations of this.
And also like this, going from this angle where you're going, this is an excellent way to demonize minority religions, right?
Absolutely.
And even minority religions that are sex or sub-sex of larger religions.
And in fact, even you could say that about any group, even Christianity.
You've got Catholics and Protestants and Evangelicals and Mormons.
They're all basically Christians.
But they demonize each other even.
Yes, that's true.
Yes.
And you know, I think that because we talked a little bit about the factors that go into this.
I think that Hollywood shares a lot of blame for this thing we are talking about right now because, you know, there are countless examples of high budget films where
Cults are the villains, you know, where small religious communities are essentially portrayed as a bunch of sinister weirdos who do strange, immoral things and who are trying
to somehow con you into joining them.
Like there was a movie that came out a couple years ago, you know that I like horror films and
There is one called Midsommar by Ari Aster, which is about the main characters who are a group of university guys.
They go and they spend some days with this, basically it's like a small community of Norwegian pagans, right?
And the film portrays them as essentially a bunch of inbred
white supremacist murderers, which is like, wow, it's like a very harsh look at, you know, a group of people that I don't know if they're with based on a real pagan community in
Norway or any place like that.
But if I were a member of a community like that and I saw that movie, I would probably be very offended.
know what I mean?
It's like
It's an ongoing thing and it's very much a part of mass media as well, which doesn't help, of course.
Yeah, but it's I think we're at that place with society and mass media.
It's all the thing.
And ultimately.
Again.
In our conversations, I don't think our objective is to lecture people or to to even try to force our thinking on people.
think, you know, I speak for myself.
I think you probably agree that.
what we're hoping for is at least the themes that we talk about that are like an uncomfortable subject.
Like this is probably an uncomfortable subject for a lot of people.
And we're, don't think we're like suggesting something is right or wrong.
We're just like hoping to provoke people to think about it because instead of being on automatic pilot and whether they're the person who feels very comfortable,
putting a cult tag on somebody else, or it's somebody like this morning, somebody who feels like they're having the cult tag stamped on them.
OK, that people or the woman at Starbucks who's who's insisting that my cappuccino is an amazing experience in the in annals of human history that that you know, people.
can have a discerning mind and be careful with the words that they're throwing out and be careful about how they're digesting the words being thrown at them and take responsibility
for actually thinking this thing through instead of being a willing member of a zombie land.
I think that if you get where I'm going with this,
problem is not cults.
The problem is the kind of behavior that people have reasonable concern about.
Okay?
Okay, so that people are not being...
harmed in some way that they shouldn't be harmed.
Okay, so those issues can be more maturely addressed without the labels being put on them, which actually are not particularly informative and actually creates more
misunderstanding.
yeah, I'm in this group.
I'm not a cult.
You're a cult.
You're in that group.
You're a cult.
Okay, so it's about who
Who gets the boogie, who gets the boogie man tag?
And again, keep going back to what I read this morning.
think that the other piece of this is that the people who really, I think, have the biggest investment in this kind of conversation are people who are targets, okay?
And unjustly targets.
Like this woman this morning, she's just doing something she considers to be very divine and very lovely, okay?
She doesn't see how she's being manipulated and she's sure she's not manipulating anybody else.
And I think that's probably true.
She seems like a perfectly fine person to me.
And now somebody has put in the boogie man tag on her and she's feeling defensive or offended or sad or however she's feeling.
And really doesn't have the experience of how do you deal with that situation?
Because that situation is not ending anytime soon.
I've learned that myself over the years, you know, because I found when I was younger that I'd be defensive and I try to debate people about things.
So now you think what is the best way to handle that?
OK, if I was talking to this person, I probably would be smiling.
I said, look,
To me, you got one of two things you could do, or you could do a number of things.
You could totally ignore it, but I think then you're allowing the person having free punches at your faith without not standing up for yourself, which by the way is a very
good way for a person to frame it, is that if a person is putting that tag on them,
They're really not insulting them.
They're insulting their faith.
It's not personal.
Okay?
It's not like me against you.
It's kind of like I am going to offend your faith and you don't have any right to defend your faith.
You have a right to defend yourself personally.
Okay, but actually I think it's the other way around.
If somebody is insulting my appearance, for instance,
I don't take it personally.
They don't know what they're talking about.
But on the other hand, it's not okay that they're insulting my faith.
That's not fair.
Okay.
And that is outrageous behavior.
Especially since they don't even know what my faith is.
And that's not okay with me.
So I'll defend my faith, but not myself, not myself personally.
Okay, so if it's not personal, you can do that better.
The other thing is, I'm just giving ways that I would deal with it, okay, that I've learned.
Okay, another way of learning it, and because I've gotten good at this, is like, I call them conversation stoppers.
It's like a person, when I say conversation stopper is that we've all experienced this, is that somebody
wants to basically give you the deep six.
Okay, so they they're going to talk to you in a way to the spirit to the spirit you they're going to they're going to say things to demoralize you whether it's offensive or
something that they're going to try to push you down in some way.
Okay, so you can you have a choice you can engage with them or you can disengage with them.
but not in a way that you're not paying attention to what's going on.
So for instance, let's say this person is saying these things to this woman that really are offensive to her faith.
And they're going, well, you know what?
I've done some research here and I think you're in a cult.
Whatever that means, you know?
And you know what one response is actually?
You know what?
I think you're right.
I am in a cult.
Okay, next.
And I'm enjoying it.
Yeah, I'm not only in a cult.
Thanks.
Thanks for recognizing I'm in a cult.
I never been happier in my life.
Okay, next.
Okay, because if you basically, you're like what she's really doing is showing the person that they're not capable of putting them down.
Like you're, you're, it's basically saying to somebody without saying it.
okay.
I get it.
You're trying to like actually put me down in some way and actually, you know what?
I'm going to take it as a compliment.
I'm going to take this compliment.
You're not putting me down.
You say I'm on a cult.
You're right.
I love being in a cult.
It's been the best, best thing I ever decided was to join this cult.
Okay.
Then where does the other person go?
Nowhere.
It's the end of the conversation.
Okay, that person wants to kind of keep putting you down.
They keep wanting to take this in the weeds and you're basically saying, you're right.
And, and I love every minute of it.
Okay, next.
Okay.
So they basically been, they've been neutered.
They've been neutered because they're coming with their sword swinging and you're basically saving to them.
okay.
Chop my head off next.
Right.
You're very strong.
Good for you.
You just took my head off.
Next.
Okay.
So you can basically just agree with them and, uh, and just not go, not go where they're wanting to take you, which is they're trying to convince you they're right.
You're wrong.
And they're going to save you from yourself.
Okay, and you're basically telling them, thanks for trying to save me.
I'm already saved or I'm, I'm, I'm too lost for me to forget about it.
You know, so you're basically not going where they're trying to take you with the dog leash.
Okay.
So you're happy right where you're at.
Okay.
So that's one way to handle it is basically going, thanks for thinking of me.
You know what?
You're right.
But you know what?
I really enjoyed this call.
All right.
Okay.
That's the end of the conversation.
All right.
That's a conversation stopper.
All right.
And the other thing is, or if you're not that kind of person and you want to take it in another direction, another direction to take this is, understand you think I'm in a cult.
That's very interesting.
Thanks for your concern.
What actually are you concerned about?
Other than the word cult, what behavior are you actually concerned about?
And do you have evidence of
Now you're playing the lawyer.
Okay, that's also very effective.
Yeah, you go the empirical way and go the sense of humor way, And maybe if you go the empirical way, maybe they're right.
Actually, I mean, not that the word means anything, but maybe they're concerned as well placed and maybe they know something you don't.
But from my personal experience, it is
unbelievably rare that they actually know more than I do.
Because I have to deal with it day to day.
They just read something or heard something or want to believe something in the air.
And they could be right, but if they're right, prove it to me.
And you know, this actually leads me to another possible recommendation for our listeners, especially the people in the culture society group who might be listening to this later.
I would say that it's good to inform oneself on what actual cult
activity looks like or I'm gonna I'm gonna use the other term which I prefer what actual high control group activity looks like because as you say you know as you say most people
don't actually know very much about it and most people are not equipped to identify it right you know just the same I could get
worried because a friend of mine joined, I don't know, an evangelical church, for example, and they started going there all of a sudden and they're reading the Bible more often and
because I know them as a non-religious person, I might become worried and go like, you know, I'm not worried that you might be joining a cult here, but I actually don't know
their life situation.
I'm not really aware of that.
that is a really good example though.
That's a really good example using more of a mainstream group is that there may be people who can see that ever since they've been in this new group, that their behavior has
changed, their communication has changed, and they're concerned that actually they're going to lose a friend.
There's personal interest involved here too.
Okay, but the thing is, is that it's not helpful to decide which group deserves the tag of cult.
What's important is what's actually going on.
I mean, what exactly is going on and what can I learn from it?
And as you said, you know, we've been uh using this as a platform to expose people to the Kalsa ideal.
Okay.
And if you read the book I wrote, I I didn't mention it last episode, but you know, I wrote a book called Kalsa Consciousness, and I'll try to put the links in here, but it
explains
like this ideal that was passed down by this individual 300 years ago.
I mean, if Guru Gobind Singh was here in 2025, forget that, that happened 300 years ago, okay?
If he's here 300 years later, which he is through what he formed, just as
Christ is here for a Christian as much as he was 2000 years ago, which most followers actually feel and I'm very sympathetic to that point of view.
I'm very sympathetic that Christ still lives, that Gurugobind Singh still lives.
And they lived through what they left behind, okay?
Nobody could deny that, okay?
At the very least, okay?
And so...
I'll just talk about my own group.
I won't get into other groups.
That's not fair.
But if Guru Gobind Singh was here in 2025, it would be all over the newspapers and all over the news on TV that there's this horrible cult leader in India who has these
cult-like following of people who basically are now dressing the way he wants them to dress, eating the way that he wants them to eat, doing this, doing that.
And you know what's even worse?
They're actually warriors.
He's actually training them to be able to fight on the battlefield.
We've got a real problem here.
Yeah, you'll be getting headlines going like, Madman in India creating death cult and things like that, yeah.
yeah, but the thing is, is that his enemies back 300 years ago did describe him that way because in his eyes they were a danger.
He was a danger to their thing.
So they portrayed him as this basically very evil person.
His followers thought him very differently, obviously 300 years later.
getting back to the word cult,
the person, the friend of this woman who may have gone on the internet, may have even read my book, read about the life of Guru Gobind Singh, and he's now freaked out because it's
so much different than his current worldview.
And now he's calling up his friend and going, I don't think you know what you're getting into.
This whole kalsa thing, this whole Sikh thing, it's a cult.
But
thing is he's right under his understanding of that word.
Okay, that that can't like the C word.
You could definitely of course you can.
I would agree with him if that is how you're defining it and you're okay.
If you're defining the cults as a cult according to that definition that you're holding on to.
Okay, I actually agree with you.
It's indisputable.
It checks every box.
I contribute money to it.
I dress like it's asking to.
I go to bed when it tells me to go to bed.
You know, I basically give my allegiance to it.
OK, so yeah, I'm in the cult of cult.
I agree with you.
OK, but the thing is, that's not the issue is that if you are successfully labeling me, incorrectly by the
using a word incorrectly to label me to basically put me down and put down the faith that I've given my life to.
that, okay, I see what you're doing.
I agree that I check all the boxes.
The faith checks all your boxes, but what's your point?
What actually did Guru Gobind Singh do that was wrong here?
How is my association with him?
and what he taught, how is this diminishing my life?
You show me that.
Okay, I'm not interested in the fact that you can successfully label me with a contemporary term, term that scares the shit out of you.
Okay, what I'm concerned about is if I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing.
If Gudegobin Singh did something that was wrong, okay, show me that he did something that was wrong.
Show me that
by taking on the lifestyle he gave, diminished my life in any way.
If you can do that, that's going to be helpful.
But to just throw a label on me because it scares, the label scares the shit out of you and that I check all the boxes for that label that you're buying into.
Okay.
And so that's kind of where I wanted this to go is it's, the whole thing is ridiculous.
But what you're saying,
is legitimate is that this stuff going on that has always gone on, it's not a new thing.
This mind control, okay, of people is a concern and they're not on the planet that many years.
And if they basically lose their direction in life in a bad way, they losing the entire human life, that is a bad thing.
I actually
Agree.
I think what is good for people to learn, including this woman, is like, how would a conscious person deal with this?
because in the end we know one thing.
We're all going to disappear.
We're all going to leave this planet.
And so while we here, we want to learn something.
Okay.
And so to me, this is just a win-win situation for her.
whoever this person was did her a big favor in my world because
Now she's gotta deal with something she didn't have to deal with yesterday.
And so maybe from this,
If she does everything the way that I think that she can, she'll never have to deal with this the rest of her life.
Right.
I think it's important to know that every single person who is currently walking on this planet has the potential
abuse the authority they have over others.
know, that is something anyone could do.
The most well-intentioned person could fall into that trap.
um
the most well-intentioned person.
Yes, yes, yes, I agree.
And I think that, you know, I don't blame people for being guarded about this sort of thing because as we say, there is a lot of mass hysteria related to this.
Like mass media certainly doesn't help when it comes to sort of airing people's fears about this.
something that I would recommend to all of our listeners, our watchers is to actually inform yourselves about the tactics of high control groups.
That is, as I said, what I believe to be a more useful term than cult.
Because as you said, cult is a very diluted term.
It doesn't really mean much in our current context.
But informing yourself about this subject, know, about things like, I don't know, the Johnstown massacre and what kind of social engineering went into creating a situation like
that.
Knowing about this will not only help you in the sense that it will
protect you from actually falling into any high control group if you ever happen to come across such a thing.
But if you, like it's happening with this lady that we've been talking about the entire meeting, if you just happen to be someone who is discovering a path of faith, who is
trying to engage in some kind of spiritual exploration and you are informed about this,
and you can clearly see that whatever it is you're doing is just not aligned with these ideas of coercion that we're talking about, then that should certainly be a positive
signal for whatever it is you're doing.
It should bring you some self-assurance, I would say.
it...
I think it comes down to, how do you at the same time have such a strong sense of individuality that's unbreakable, that nobody can manipulate, and at the same time allow
yourself to merge into something that's bigger than yourself, that you lose your individuality and merge into something that's infinite?
How do you do that at the same time?
anyhow, thanks so much for this conversation.
maybe you have a better suggestion, but I think a good title for this episode is Oh My God, I'm in a Cult.
No, I like that one.
That one is fine.