Why are sects dangerous?
Sometimes sectarians are simply people lost in religious dogma, trying to find their own paths to God and not posing a danger to others. But sometimes the activities of such groups become far from harmless, and in these cases society takes all measures to protect its members from the harmful and sometimes deadly influence of sects.
As a rule, such a religious organization is headed by a strong, charismatic personality who is capable of exerting a powerful influence on others and subjugating their will. Sometimes such a leader, in addition to natural abilities, has special knowledge in the field of psychology, acquired during the training process, and sometimes even has the skills of hypnosis and suggestion. In all cases, he has a powerful tool - the ability to control the consciousness of the masses. And the mental health, material well-being, and sometimes the lives of many people often depend on whose hands such weapons ended up, who became their victims.
Dangerous sects in Russia
Sectarianism is widespread throughout the world. Unfortunately, our country is no exception. The list of sects in Russia is quite wide, but there are several organizations that stand out from the crowd. Their activities very often went beyond the law. Let's look at them in more detail.
First of all, this is a sect called “White Brotherhood”. This organization caused a lot of noise ten years ago when its leaders found themselves in the dock. It is known that the leader of the sect, Yu. A. Krivonogov, was a KGB employee during the Soviet period and served in the department that developed methods of influencing the mass consciousness of people. After the national KGB system was abolished, Krivonogov appropriated some of the special equipment for himself. In addition, he had the skills of hypnosis and psychological influence on people.
Together with his wife Marina Tsvigun, a former employee of the Dnepropetrovsk district Komsomol committee, and then a journalist for a local newspaper, he organized a sect. According to his scenario, Marina was supposed to become the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The religious revelations poured out by the spouses on the adherents of the sect were nothing more than a wild mixture of quotes pulled from various occult teachings. Interspersed were excerpts from the works of Blavatsky, Roerich, yoga, various Indian religious concepts and the teachings of Kabbalah.
Thugi - India
The Thugas (or Thagis) worshiped the Hindu goddess Kali, who was believed to help find real truth through murder and destruction. Each human life sacrificed to her improved the karma of the killer, contributing to his subsequent rebirth in some more prestigious forms. The Tugh sect appeared around the 12th century, and the total number of their victims is incalculable. Presumably, in the period from 1740 to 1840 alone, they killed at least a million people in India, mostly local residents.
The word "tug" itself comes from the concept of "to deceive", as they usually huddle with their victims, convincing them that traveling together is safer. In ordinary life, the sectarians looked like typical ordinary people and belonged to different strata of society. The “hunting” season began in November, after the end of field work. It was supposed to kill with minimal shedding of blood, so most often the Tugas resorted to strangulation and they themselves called each other fancigars - stranglers.
The weapon was a scarf or silk ribbon with a load sewn into one end (usually several coins). Sometimes poisons or a dagger were used, which was struck into a notch in the back of the head, which also minimized bloodshed. The corpses were buried in the ground with a hoe, which served as a kind of emblem and element of the sectarian ritual. Since the victims were travelers, people simply went missing, and it was almost impossible to find traces of them in such a large country as India.
“Ideological” Thugas usually donated their prey to the goddess Kali, but, besides them, there were also lovers (the so-called Pindaris), for whom killing travelers was considered a means of earning extra money. British authorities became seriously interested in the sect in 1825, after the Thugs killed the wife of an English general and five officers accompanying her. Captain William Sleeman, posing as an Indian, began collecting information. The information he collected caused a shock in society, and in 1830 a series of punitive actions were carried out. Typically, Thugs were caught on the approaches to temples, after which they resorted to the harshest interrogation methods.
By 1837, 3,266 sectarians were caught, of which 412 were hanged, and the rest received various sentences. Among those hanged was the strangler, who was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the most prolific serial killer in world history. 62-year-old Behram, who was executed in 1840, had 921 victims!
Developments of the secret department in the service of the sect
But the main weapon, of course, was the skills acquired in the secret department of the KGB. As a result of the active work of the spouses, several thousand adherents were attracted to the sect. Krivonogov and his newly minted messiah managed to establish simply phenomenal control over their consciousness. People sold their property and took the proceeds to the sect, broke with their families and settled in specially organized villages. There they eked out a half-starved existence, without the right to any manifestations of their own will. There was a complete zombieification of the adherents.
The leaders of the sect themselves lived a luxurious lifestyle with the money of their victims. There are also known cases of mass suicides generated by the fear of the end of the world, which was an integral part of their “teachings”. As a result, the couple ended up behind bars. But now a new round in the history of the sect called the “White Brotherhood” begins. Marina Tsvigun was released and launched extensive efforts to revive it. Judging by the scale of the work, she is not constrained financially.
"Neo-Pentecostals"
The list of sects in Russia should be continued with a story about an organization that is currently considered the largest in the country. This is the sect of “Neo-Pentecostals”, or, as they are also called, “Charismatics”. According to some reports, it has about 300,000 adherents in our country, which is almost half of all sectarians in Russia. This organization originated in America in the seventies of the 20th century. They rent concert halls and stadiums for their meetings. Everything is carried out in the form of a well-staged show in a purely American manner.
False spiritual guidelines
Their main doctrine, which is certainly attractive to the broad masses, is the thesis that a true Christian should be healthy, happy and rich. To become like this, you just need to bring money to the sect. The more you bring, the sooner you will get rich and become a true believer. It’s difficult to talk about methods of influence, but they work flawlessly. Thousands of masses in a single impulse fall into a state close to ecstasy. Even those in dire need suddenly begin to feel like they are rich, and the sick feel an illusory surge of health.
Heaven's Gate
Followers of this teaching believed that through suicide they would leave their earthly bodies, and their souls would travel on a spaceship that accompanied Comet Hale-Bopp. Some male members of the cult underwent voluntary castration in preparation for the sexless life they believed awaited them after suicide.
Marshall Applewhite. (Pinterest)
Sect ideologist Marshall Applewhite believed that comet Hale-Bopp, which was supposed to fly close to Earth in 1997, would crash into our planet. The best way out, in his opinion, was immediate suicide. On March 26, 1997, 39 cult followers, including the spiritual leader, committed mass suicide at Rancho Santa Fe in California. They were all dressed in black clothes with the inscription: “Departing Heaven's Gate Team.”
The cult is a killer of hundreds of people
As can be seen from the above examples, modern sects are armed with carefully thought-out methods of influencing the human psyche. Their arsenal of funds is very wide. The danger they pose cannot be underestimated. To further illustrate this, let us recall an organization that, fortunately, is not included in the list of sects in Russia. At one time, its name was often mentioned in the media. This is the Peoples Temple. The Lord saved us from this dirty trick, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk about it.
Its creator, Jim Jones, in 1955 in the American city of Indianapolis gathered a group of followers of his religious teachings, which soon moved to the jungles of Guyana. Filled with pathological hatred of America and people in general, he managed to create on the territory occupied by the settlement a semblance of a totalitarian state, and in its worst version. He achieved slavish submission from all adherents of the sect. His will was carried out unquestioningly.
This dictator had sympathy for the Soviet Union and the totalitarian system established in it. One of the streets of the village was named after Lenin. He even turned to the Soviet authorities with a request to provide him and members of the sect with the opportunity to immigrate to the USSR. The answer was positive, but the tragedy that took place in 1978 prevented it. More than nine hundred members of the sect, on the orders of its creator, committed suicide. The Peoples Temple ceased to exist. Jim Jones was convicted, but was released early in 2002.
Branch Davidian
The American sect “Branch David” broke away from the Davidian sect of Seventh-day Adventists, which, in turn, was a splinter of a large sect of Adventists. Its spiritual leader was Vernon Weil Howell (1959-1993), who took the name David Koresh, which was a combination of the anglicized names of the Israeli king David and the Persian king Cyrus.
David Koresh
Koresh was born into a dysfunctional family, as a child he was constantly bullied by his peers, he suffered from dyslexia (problems with reading and writing), but at the age of 11 he memorized the text of the Gospel. Having joined an already existing sect, he became the lover of its elderly leader Lois Roden, after whose death he fought for power with her son John. The outcome of the struggle was determined after John was sent to prison for the murder of one of the sectarians.
Koresh and his followers founded a kind of commune at the Mount Carmel estate in Texas. In addition to the property and free labor of sectarians, an important source of income was the legal trade in weapons. This commune, of course, irritated the authorities, but in order to obtain a search warrant it was necessary to prove that the sectarians were doing something illegal - for example, illegal trade in automatic weapons or abusing minors.
Back in 1989, Koresh forbade his adherents from sexual contact, declaring that all women of the sect were his personal “spiritual wives.” True, he did not live with everyone, but only with 10 “carnal” (carnal) spouses, many of whom were seduced by him at the age of 10.
The police, having received a search warrant in Mount Carmel, decided to raid the estate suddenly, on the morning of April 28, 1993. However, law enforcement officers and the television crews accompanying them were spotted on their way. The sectarians took up arms and put up fierce resistance. While trying to enter the territory, four FBI agents were killed, after which the security forces began a full-fledged siege.
Koresh agreed to release 19 children under the age of 22, but flatly refused to give up, saying that he needed to complete work on the sacred texts. The supply of electricity and water to the estate stopped, armored vehicles destroyed buildings adjacent to the building, and the same Sinatra song and cat meowing were broadcast through loudspeakers, which should have driven the besieged into a frenzy.
On April 29, firing tear gas shells, the FBI and National Guard launched an assault under cover of tanks. The sectarians did not return fire. The building in which they were located was set on fire, either by the besieged or by the stormers, and only nine people managed to get out of it. 82 sectarians, including 20 children and teenagers, died in the fire.
Arrested members of the Branch Davidian sect
Supporters of the “militia” movement existing in the United States, who oppose government interference in the personal lives of citizens, sharply condemned the actions of the authorities. One of them, Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh, blew up a building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, which led to the death of 168 people and became the largest terrorist attack in US history (before the explosion of the Twin Towers in New York) . McVeigh was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection.
Scientology sect
The list of sects in Russia would not be complete without recalling the organization called “Scientologists”. This is also an “American bottling” team, like many others. In the fifties of the 20th century, it was created by science fiction writer Ronald Hubbard. The main tenet of his teaching is the doom of the existing world. He will die, but life will not stop there. Those who have achieved the ideal in this world will find life after death.
You can become a perfect being by being trained by Scientologists. The course is paid and very expensive, but you can’t sacrifice anything for eternity. It is not for nothing that this organization is called the “sect of the rich.” According to experts, her daily income ranges from three to five million dollars. In our country, it has representative offices in different cities. The main office is located in Moscow.
Moonies
In the 1950s, the Korean Sun Myung Moon created an international empire, which has several different official names. Moon and his wife now live in the States. There are hundreds of thousands of adherents in the ranks of the organization, Moon owns factories and shipyards. In Moscow, sectarians bought a cinema building for their meetings. They do not allow strangers there, and the mayor’s office is not yet able to return the building back. The flock lives in small groups of 5 to 10 people, breaking all family ties. They get up at four in the morning and immediately begin a long morning prayer. You cannot have sex before marriage, and the “other half” for marriage is appointed by the top of the sect. Most often, future spouses see each other for the first time after Moon's approval without their consent, and the wedding takes place three years after they met. All income of the flock goes to the organization's treasury. According to the ideology, Moon bears divine blood and is sent to Earth to cleanse humanity. To do this, he needs to sleep with sectarian women so that they give birth to as many “special” children as possible. The psyche of the flock is destroyed. They imagine Jesus Christ, Stalin and other great personalities. Adherents run around the stage with terrible screams and distorted faces, uttering screams and stupid speeches. The police are fighting the sect because they evade taxes, commit fraud and violate visa regulations.
"Jehovah witnesses"
Many residents of our cities are well aware of the Jehovah's Witnesses sect. Why are they dangerous? Often adherents annoyingly ring doorbells and stop people on the streets, offering to listen to their pseudo-religious dogmas, learn the “true” understanding of the Holy Scriptures, and gain eternal life. As soon as you show any interest in them, they become intrusive, thrusting their brochures and inviting you to attend their meetings. The technology for recruiting new members is so well thought out that a person practically does not notice how he becomes an active member of the sect.
This organization has headquarters in America and branches in many countries around the world. Despite the fact that they call themselves Christians, their teaching has nothing in common with Christianity. In all their activities, true, purely mercantile motives are clearly visible. In our country, the sect was illegal for a long time, but with the advent of perestroika, all prohibitions were lifted, and members of the organization began vigorous activity. Residents of St. Petersburg remember how in 1992 their congress was held at the Kirov Stadium, which seats 100,000 spectators, to which Jehovah's Witnesses arrived not only from all over Russia, but also from abroad.
Hare Krishnas
The International Society for Krishna Consciousness was founded in 1966 in the United States by an immigrant from India. The doctrine strongly contradicts the beliefs of Hinduism. In the Russian capital, Hare Krishnas at the beginning of the 2000s tried to take a large plot of land to build a temple. But the anger of the public was such that the authorities of the Mother See did not allow it.
There are up to four thousand adherents of this sect in the Russian Federation. They wear Indian clothes, eat the national food of India, pray from morning to night and study a distorted version of the Hindu holy book. They consider Krishna to be the creator of the Universe, who started the wheel of reincarnation. You can get out of samsara by becoming concubines of God. That's why both men and women happily get themselves high at meetings. Thus, they are trying to depict sexual intercourse with the effeminate youth Krishna. Hare Krishnas regularly go into trance. At this time, they scream and laugh heart-rendingly, dance, jump and hug, roll on the ground and even spit. In this way they are trying to enter the heavenly palace of Krishna. Mental illness among many has become so severe that there are known cases of members of the organization raping small children and cutting off the heads of Christian clergy.
Reasons for the growth of sectarianism in recent years
Religious sects in Russia have received a powerful impetus for their development over the past two decades. An important role here was played by the deterioration of the economic situation of a number of segments of the population and the political instability of recent years. Apologists of various sectarian movements, using these internal difficulties, try to exploit them, attracting new members to their ranks. Converted members of such sects who believe the propaganda promises come under severe psychological pressure. Often the result of their gullibility is severe mental illness, loss of property, and separation from family.
What sects are called totalitarian?
In order to protect citizens from the harmful influence of such religious movements, legislative measures were taken. In particular, certain courts have approved a list that includes sects banned in Russia.
Their activities are suppressed, and those involved in them are subject to punishment in accordance with the law. The so-called totalitarian, or destructive, sects are especially strictly persecuted. In world practice, a striking example of such an organization is the Peoples Temple.
In our country, a ban has been imposed on the activities of all religious associations that infringe on the rights of their members and cause harm to them. Totalitarian sects in Russia and their activities are widely covered in the media to prevent and prevent their influence on people. Much work in this direction is being carried out by representatives of the church. Teachers are not left out either. There are many sects that do not seem to pose a threat, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses sect. Why are they dangerous? The answer is obvious - any enslavement of mass consciousness is fraught with a real danger to society.
Adamites: naked and slutty
The Christian sect of the Adamites originated in Antiquity, but its heyday came in the Middle Ages. It was especially popular in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. The Adamites fought the spread of Catholicism and preached a return to heavenly innocence in the image of Adam and Eve before the Fall, who “were naked and not ashamed of it.” Adamites still consider clothing an obstacle to communication with God and therefore conduct services in the nude. In addition, the Adamites preach other attributes of the heavenly, in their opinion, human condition: community of property, naturalness and shamelessness of sensual relationships. Medieval Adamites did not recognize family, private property, or the official church with its rituals. And this, of course, cast a shadow on the followers. They were often accused of witchcraft, Satan worship, and debauchery.
Adamites. (Pinterest)
But, despite this, the religious movement was able to survive to this day. There are Adamites in Russia too. Modernity has left a certain imprint on its followers. Now they do not oppose official marriages and private property.
