Years ago
@lindisfel after I got divorced and the kids had left home, I was searching for something.
And I came across various of these organisations and cults. One group invited me to join them for a few days break. So I went along. It was in Glastonbury. I stayed awhile. I shall call them the Bell People, they had a much fancier name. The women had children, but they weren't married to their children's fathers. It was an interesting period. I learnt a lot. They were very persuasive.
They played videos to me and music, but there was one little point they did not realise. I am profoundly deaf, and I was/am a very good lip reader, my speech is as good as most hearing people. (I didn't get my cochlear implant until my old age! But that still doesn't give me hearing of speech alone, I still need to lipread).
So, the attempts of the Bell People to brain wash me had no chance of succeeding. I had access to their vast library of books. I watched their videos on aliens and all that stuff. But I couldn't hear the music or the subliminal stuff in the sound. However, there were visual subliminals in the videos themselves. But again, I can just see those visual subliminals (which most people can't) and I knew there was trickery to convince you to join and stay with them.
(As a by the by, do any of you remember the Coca Cola subliminals at the picture houses, which got people going for refreshments in the break? It got outlawed or whatever at the end. But I could see those subliminals, yet my friend couldn't and she didn't believe me. I even bought a video with visual word subliminals in, to try and teach my friend where they were in the video, but she still couldn't see them. It was a self help video, but as I could see the subliminals, I didn't quite agree with them so binned it.)
Back to the Bell People. I did get quite immersed in their lifestyle, and I did walk around with a copper pyramid on my head, it channelled stuff from up above. And they got me to talk to an audience of people with this copper pyramid on my head. And no I didn't know they were going to do that. I got tricked into doing it. The audience believed in me...and then the Bell People took over talking, persuading people.
They made money by conning people. And the worst was, the Bell People convinced cancer patients that they could cure them, obviously for money.
But this was a massive organisation, all over the world. They promised me travel...they promised me the Earth literally. One very early morning, the place was locked up, but they didn't lock the top windows, so I planned my escape. I was literally climbing through when someone yanked my foot. I nearly died from shock. Obviously with being deaf, I couldn't hear someone coming. But it was one of the children. A boy named S. He was about 13. He wanted me to take him with me. Obviously I couldn't 'steal' a child. His mother was R, an intelligent woman, who was trying to get me to participate in a research study with her. Anyway, the boy S agreed to keep quiet while I got out of the window and high tailed it down the road. We hugged and I promised never to forget him. I still pray for him and I will never forget him.
So, what was meant to be a few days stay /holiday, turned out to be a longer 'adventure'.
By the way, I checked online, during lockdowns in 2020's (for something to do), and they were still operating, same place in Glastonbury, and still all over the world, and still promising cancer patients to part with money and they will cure them, but sadly the opposite happened. There were so many complaints about the Bell People, but the organisation is so massive...
I am wary of any groups of people. Hence my more solitary existence...