fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2951 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2951 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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02.

[The To-Do List, Brandy/Willy]

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03.

[Avatar: Legend of Korra]

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04.

[The Amazing World of Gumball]

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05.

[Agents of Shield]

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[Game of Thrones]

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07.

[Galavant]

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08.

[Soukyuu no Fafner Exodus]

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09.

[Jamie Dornan from "The Fall"]

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10.

(Neil Gaiman)

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 054 secrets from Secret Submission Post #422.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeeeeaaaah, that's creepy. In this situation, if they can't see that it's a scam, might be time to quietly emotionally detach.

(Also, pyramid schemes and scams DON'T make money for long. You are under no obligation to be supportive for shit that can hurt and fleece other people.)

--Rogan

You can be something that's exploitative and just short of a pyramid scheme and survive for a very long time. Plenty of MLMs have survived for a long, long time, although usually they have to modify things somewhat - like, Amway has survived a long time but they don't rely entirely on being a pyramid scheme.

Although even then, you have stuff like Madoff's thing that was absolutely a classic Ponzi scheme, and that lasted for at least 17 years and probably a lot longer.

Yeah, but just that you can maybe survive doesn't mean it's ethical or that OP is required to support friend's behavior while in that fucked up system.

(And now I'm learning about Multi-Level Marketing. Eesh, what a creepy, slimy thing. Thanks for cluing me in, Anon!)

--Rogan

Oh, absolutely! MLMs are the devil. I'm just saying, you can't necessarily just hope for the thing to blow up quickly.

Yeah, the more I've been reading, the more right I realize you are. Man, this is creepy--and interesting to me, since cults are one of my recent interests and MLM definitely seems to be in the ballpark, at least.

Man, it's unsettling. I've seen these businesses around too, yech.

--Rogan

DA

Wow, that's super creepy. And interseting.

I've only recently started reading about cults. It's fascinating stuff, how easily people can be manipulated - and intelligence and willpower really are no barriers. Makes me realize how easily I could fall prey to such things!

I had no idea TM was a cult, for instance. In our psychology course, we touched on meditation once or twice, and some of the research in support for meditation was mentioned. But nothing about the cult aspects of TM.

I also find it interesting how the side effects of long-term meditation aren't mentioned. For example, I wonder if it is healthy for people who experience dissociation or derealization to meditate a lot.

Same. There are a creepy number of wannabe cult leaders in the online multi subculture; I encountered one, and know a handful more that other people I know have personally interacted with, so I started getting into educating myself about it.

I know, right? Especially since, as a dissociative myself, I have to be EXTREMELY careful with meditation. I CAN do it safely, but only under very specific, narrow circumstances; otherwise I just dissociate. Different system members have different mileage, but there's pretty much only one of us who can meditate regularly in a safe way. I'm just glad that I didn't get exposed to meditation until I was an adult who knew about dissociation, but I wish I'd known about the risks sooner.

--Rogan

Wow, I suspected so! It's interesting to me how all these fields seem to overlap.. you have the New Age quacks and Indian gurus, you've got the UFOlogists and conspiracy theorists, and you've got the psychological stuff and otherkin and multis...

I did a BA in Psych, and NO ONE mentioned meditation in anything other than a positive light. Which, I mean, it's clearly beneficial for many people - but you can have too much of a good thing.

I have anxiety & depression myself, and there have been one or two occasions where I've felt very 'spacey' and ungrounded after meditation. Those occasions felt way too similar to the times when I experienced derealization. And that's enough to make me hesitant about continuing it. (And this isn't even TM, this is just generic breathing exercises!)

There's so much quack doctory and New Age BS in counselling circles, it makes me angry. The last thing we need is TM coming in and manipulating people.

Yup, Equinox, at least, is pretty much a textbook cult. You've got the narcissistic ruler who can never be questioned, the recruitment, the encouragement to mindlessly believe and not think rationally or critically... and Bill Gouldd is still pulling the same shit today, despite being shut down for being a corrupt creeper in 2000.

Yeah, I didn't learn about the negative parts of meditation until I started reading on cults this year. And it explains the reactions some folks here have to it. (One of the kids, the one time she started to meditate, freaked out and burst into tears. She said she didn't like it, and we never made her do it again.)

It's not even a matter of too much of a good thing, just some people do not respond well to meditation. Altered states of consciousness are not to be fucked around with, and I'm kinda put out how little people talk about that. Anything that's put out as a cure-all or panacea with no drawbacks is something to side-eye in my opinion.

And sadly, therapy cults are definitely a thing. Multis were notorious for getting sucked into therapy cults in the 90s, which is another reason I started reading up on this.

--Rogan

[ SECRET POST #2951 ]

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