Vegan Joints Are Cults (So Is Yoga Still Not Spiritual?)

The Skeptical Vegan is making an amazing admission - and providing a great service:

"The vegan and vegetarian communities are philosophically and religiously diverse and while secular veganism is growing in the west, still in the US and much of the world religious groups of one sort or another dominate the vegetarian and vegan culture. Most of us are familiar with Hindu-run curry houses or Buddhist tofu joints but there are also many other places run by devotees of smaller 'new religious movements' or cults*. In the following series of posts I will be taking a deeper look into some of these businesses and the groups behind them."

There are five chapters, so far, all featuring figures and cults previously covered on TMR. Click the Red links, and then check out my tags at the bottom of the post, to see who the cults are, how they're trying to exploit us, and how much ground I've covered for the whole truth on these wonderful human beings:

Waiter, There’s Woo in My Food: Sri Chinmoy

Waiter, There’s Woo in My Food, Part 2: Supreme Master Ching Hai

Waiter, There's Woo in My Food, Part 3: African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem & Soul Vegetarian

Waiter, There’s Woo in My Food, Part 4: Landmark Forum & Cafe Gratitude

Waiter, There’s Woo in My Food, Part 5: Falun Gong

Dead Men Tell NO Tales (That's Why Instapundit's Better)

Today's movie is Booker's Place, an immediately engaging documentary with a story I'd never heard, about the killing of Booker Wright (seen above) for simply telling the truth. Needless to say, it's a pre-civil rights era tale that echoes uncomfortably into the present, because it features educated whites doing horrible things - as they act "nice" and claim compassion - and ignorant blacks doing the best they can with their marginalization. 

In that sense, nothing's changed much. 

We've now got a reader who's a Falun Gong nut, and seems to think he can email-recruit me with worthless "first-hand accounts of miraculous recoveries" and claims that "Everything Is God's Plan." He doesn't understand my view of American history. 

"God's Plan" in America was for Booker Wright - a good God-fearing man if ever there was one - to end up dead-as-a-doornail at the hands of another good God-fearing man, leaving Booker's family destitute and in trauma for decades. And all for cutting through the bullshit without malice. That's still the plan. Hell of a plan. Not as good as Americans making "miraculous recoveries" from murderous nonsense, but - with God's dark sense of humor - clever. 

 I'd better shut up now,...

 

It's Scary To Consider This Approach Works On Anyone

 

 I get the most convincing emails from cultists sometimes:

Dear Crack Emcee, 

Do you believe in god? 

Great Master Lihongzhi once said everything is the arrangement of god. All of society is seen by god, Master Lihongzhi himself is the greatest god in the universe. 

In today's world, what is fast and effective way to avoid disaster? Falun Dafa pointed out to us a way. 

Those people who don’t believe Falun Dafa will not get protection from Master Li. The death people in the Boston bombing is bloody facts. 

Falun Dafa is good, Falun Dafa is great, 

Join us right now to get rotection from Master Lihongzhi.

 I can't tell if this guy is more familiar with me or english.

I replied that - if Master Li will rotect me from Master Li - I'm totally in,...

 

HELP! (They're Coming To Get Me, Man!!!!)

Shit. See, unlike other bloggers, I get the kind of crap that's both funny and life-and-death, though hardly anyone but me knows it's both funny and life-and-death, because they don't take it seriously and I do - but fuck, I just want to drink my coffee.

This one starts like those Mitt Romney donation letters I've been getting lately:

Dear  Mr  Crack，  

I  am ____ from University of  San Francisco, I was bothered by a problem these days, I need your advice.  

Here is what happened: My schoolmate of  Department of History who is a falundafa practitioner from China, recommended falundafa to me. She said falundafa is a high-level cultivation practice guided by the characteristics of the universe, lihongzhi, the founder of falundafa, is the king of kings, who comes to the earth to save people before doomsday. My friend also asked me to join falundafa, for not to lose the ladder to ascend to heaven. Li promises his followers that practicing Falun Gong can automatically “eliminate the karma” and cure their sickness and there is no need to seek medical help.     

I feel it is absolutely absurd. But she talk me about it again and again. I don’t know much about it ,is it true? Is it cult? How do you think about falundafa? Please kindly give me some advice, thanks

 Wow - I'm not surprised. Yeah, it's a cult; one allowed to flourish in the San Francisco Bay Area:

I've spoken before the Board of Supervisors, several times, about cultish influence in San Francisco - to yawns. Cults are everywhere in The City but - seeing how everyone's so "open-minded" - no one will identify them for what they are, claiming they're a human rights issue (Board of Supervisor Chris Daly) a free speech issue (Investigative Reporter Phil Matier) or, in the case of Yoga cults, an exercise issue (many of my, already overly-health conscious, friends - who really ought to know better). The danger cultish thinking poses, and the fraud cultish thinkers commit, has no effect in a warped-out city where many residents believe they're psychic and it's an act of bravery to say otherwise.

Give 'em the finger.

One Way Or Another (They're Sure To Get You)

We keep trying to tell the public that NewAge isn't just about people who join cults, but the effect and influence cults have in and on society. How that works eludes most people, since they think of themselves as too smart to be caught up in anything cultish, but that's a silly belief:

Do we understand how the advertising industry seeks to manipulate our emotions and decisions? Do our children? I'm not blaming the industry - that's its job. But as parents, it's great to know a little more about what we are dealing with.

The fascinating special "The Persuaders," a PBS "Frontline" show, looked at how advertising radically changed toward the end of the last century. It debuted in 2004, but its message fully resonates today. You can find it online.

Advertising executive Douglas Atkin explained that it used to be a brand manager who oversaw developing a product, its packaging and so on. Ads demonstrated that one detergent got clothes whiter than another. But now all detergents get clothes clean. So what to do?

"Emotional branding." In the early 1990s, there was a shift to the "pseudo-spiritual," one expert explained. Creating a sense that the product was about "a way of life."

Atkin said that the brand manager and the advertising agency now have a new calling - to "create and maintain a whole meaning system for people through which they get identity and understanding of the world." Think Benetton, Starbucks, Nike or Apple products. Atkin said he started hearing people in industry focus groups talk about products in a way that sounded cultish. He got the brainstorm to actually study cults to better understand what made advertising effective.

In a fascinating segment of the program, we go back and forth between groups of devotees of various cults and various products. The rapturous, evangelical language is indistinguishable. What did the groups of Mac users and Falun Gong have in common? The same core desires. They "need to belong and want to make meaning" of their lives, said Atkin. Wow.

Another advertising guru, Kevin Roberts, is revered because, as he put it, he understands how to turn an outstanding brand into an "object of devotion" leading to "loyalty beyond reason."

Again, wow.

So cultish thinking is being used on you - you're even used to it by now. And it doesn't stop at advertising. Consider this bit of information about Scientology:

Using Scientology’s own internal documents—many of which, penned by Hubbard and considered sacred, cannot be altered and must be followed to the letter—Young shows that Scientology has a rigid, paramilitary chain of command. Even non-religious entities that market themselves to the public as having no obvious tie to Scientology fall under the strict rubric. The Way to Happiness Foundation and Applied Scholastics, for example, are two organizations that market non-religious Hubbard writings to school districts and avoid mentioning a tie to Scientology. Narconon and Criminon, meanwhile, try to convince prison officials that they are effective methods for turning inmates from drugs and crime. “To the non-Scientology world,” Young writes, “they will say they are not Scientology and try to appear secular.” But internal documents, he shows, are explicit that these organizations fall under the command of the Scientology’s hierarchy.

There's no escape, and cults have been attacking the psyche of the American public, in this covert or subversive way, for decades.

Here's another great quote that describes the situation, using the example of "The Queen of the New Age", cult leader Louise Hay:

Though you may not know it, you live in Louise Hay’s world. Are you a black man who thinks psychics are nonsense but reads the affirmations of Tavis Smiley? Hay House has a special imprint just for Smiley. Are you a TV-loathing snob who occasionally condescends to watch PBS? The pledge-drive specials that Hay House has produced for Wayne (“Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling”) Dyer have helped raise more than $100 million for public television — they are one of PBS’s most-successful fund-raising tools.

And cult leader, Dwight York, who was a popular songwriter had this to say about the deception:

"You were listening to my hits back in the 60’s and did not know it, nor did you know that songs which were considered ‘message music’ in the 70’s were written by me."

So right there, you've got cult influences on the rest of us through advertising, schools, government, publishing and television, and pop culture generally - all without anyone joining a cult of any kind.

And, if you ask us, that no one is alerting the public to how this has worked - or studying what effects it's had on our nation's decision making - is a crime of epic proportions.

San Francisco Can't Get ANYTHING "Straight"

[Click to enlarge.]

"The disgusting homosexuality shows the dirty abnormal psychology of the gay who has lost his ability of reasoning at the present time."

-- Li Hongzhi, founder of Falun Dafa (AKA "Falun Gong," the "anti-human and anti-society" cult) whose followers can be found demonstrating outside of San Francisco's very-gay-friendly City Hall building every day of the week, as all cults are being protected by the San Francisco Bay Area's silly, ignorant, cruel, and equally off-the-wall politicians - like the totally-unhinged Supervisor Chris "It's a free speech issue" Daly, lead signer of the "Certificate of Honor," above - but, thankfully, not endorsed by The Asian Pacific Post.

Idiot: You NEVER Ask What They REALLY Mean

"Every time I asked her a question about the terminology the Falun Gong uses -- what did followers really mean when they used words like 'reason,' 'cultivation' or 'correct information' -- she'd just ask me how I would define them. In other words, she answered questions with questions, and soon our conversation became circular and more than a bit frustrating. At one point, she defensively said that she didn't need me to believe her,..."

-- Gregory Rodriguez, while telling us a few of his experiences being recruited by cultists, in The Los Angeles Times.

It's All About The Finger

"[Berkeley's] recent dustup with the U.S. Marine Corps has so far cost the city more than $200,000, while businesses say they've been slammed by related protests.

And that's on top of the $1 million the city spends annually on domestic and foreign policy matters hatched by its 45 citizen commissions, which outnumber those in virtually every other city in America and debate everything from regime change in Iran to the plight of nonneutered dogs."

- From Carolyn Jones, pointing the finger at Berkeley, in the San Francisco Chronicle

"Nothing brings out the political grandstanding like the national - or even better, the international - spotlight. And so it is that as the Olympic torch is headed for the city, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has forthrightly gone on record against human rights violations in China.

And the point is?

Not that anyone is in favor of human rights violations. And China certainly has a miserable record.

But who asked the supes? Falun Gong has been handing out leaflets and flyers in front of City Hall in protest of the torch for weeks. "Team Tibet" has an active and vocal group of supporters and is coordinating protests. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is coming to town along with actor Richard Gere.

Was the thinking that there wasn't going to be enough publicity? Because, right now, this looks suspiciously like a group of local pols running to the front of a parade.

This week, Supervisor Chris Daly went to a lot of work getting a resolution passed that condemns human rights violations in China. He introduced it first in the City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee, where it was turned to mush with amendments by Supervisor Carmen Chu. He then reintroduced it in the Rules Committee, of which he is chairman, and got it to the board that way.

That it passed Tuesday at the full board meeting 8-3 seems to indicate that this wasn't exactly a ticking time bomb of controversy. After all, who doesn't want to vote against human rights violations?

The larger question is: Who should? Even Daly admitted afterward to the Fog City Journal blog - he is a public official who only speaks to media members he considers friendly - that the issue was 'a bit out of reach of the San Francisco supervisors.'"

-- San Francisco Chronicle columnist, C.W. Nevius, pointing that finger right back at San Francisco.

Gruesome Newsom

"He's using his imprimatur of San Francisco, the mayor of San Francisco, to lend credibility to this cult. This means people may join Dahnhak when they otherwise wouldn't have,...Mayor Newsom has admitted his personal peccadilloes in the past. But actually this is much more serious."

That's a message, printed in yesterday's SF Weekly, right from the Rick A. Ross Institute on cults. Yes "cults". You know, those groups that are insidiously warping minds to the point where "only in San Francisco" is a cliche? And this, even though the most famous and dangerous cult - The People's Temple - was not only based in San Francisco, but was so popular with The City's politicians, the cult's leader, Jim Jones, was put in charge of it's Housing Authority Commission before he killed 900 followers.

So anyway, the blatently-immoral (and apparently worthless) Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, made September 7th "Ilchi Lee Day", in honor of the leader of the Dahnhak Yoga cult - the same cult that killed a black professor on the East Coast. And this comes after he's dated a Scientologist, ignored the pleas of citizens regarding the Falun Gong cult - even allowing them to recruit in front of City Hall - and has also allowed numerous other cults to flourish.

I've spoken before the Board of Supervisors, several times, about cultish influence in San Francisco - to yawns. Cults are everywhere in The City but - seeing how everyone's so "open-minded" - no one will identify them for what they are, claiming they're a human rights issue (Board of Supervisor Chris Daly) a free speech issue (Investigative Reporter Phil Matier) or, in the case of Yoga cults, an exercise issue (many of my, already overly-health conscious, friends - who really ought to know better). The danger cultish thinking poses, and the fraud cultish thinkers commit, has no effect in a warped-out city where many residents believe they're psychic and it's an act of bravery to say otherwise.

Well, now that it's official, and Rick Ross is involved, maybe somebody will wake up and do something before another disaster strikes. As Rick Ross says:

"I don't see anything in Newsom's recent history that suggest he'd suffer political damage from admitting he'd made a serious mistake."

And - take it from someone who's shed so many tears over this issue that he now dreads even going into The City limits - that's a crying shame.

Goose-Stepping To God

A recent commenter, named "Secret", said:

"Your strained attempts to somehow connect 'Eastern mysticism' with the Third Reich are of course beyond the pale and laughable."

From today's Wall Street Journal Opinion Page about this story:

"Before it was the symbol of National Socialism, the swastika was a Hindu emblem of good luck."

Seems to me "secret" is making strained attempts not to see a connection,....

"Tibetan Buddhism is not a values-free system oriented around smiles and a warm heart. It is a religion with tough ethical underpinnings that sometimes get lost in translation. For example, the Dalai Lama explicitly condemns homosexuality, as well as all oral and anal sex. His stand is close to that of Pope John Paul II, something his Western followers find embarrassing and prefer to ignore. His American publisher even asked him to remove the injunctions against homosexuality from his book, ''Ethics for the New Millennium,'' for fear they would offend American readers, and the Dalai Lama acquiesced."

- From Patrick French's essay Dali Lama Lite, Published: September 19, 2003 in the New York Times.

"This study begins with the question, “What is Tibetan music in the United States?” It then examines Tibetan music in the United States from a historical, political, spiritual and economic perspective to answer that question. As part of this investigation, historical sources, marketing sources, New Age religion, the New York Times, and over one hundred recordings are examined.

This work also applies marketing theory to demonstrate that “Tibet” has become a term in American culture that acts as a brand and is used to sell music and other products. It also uses semiotics to address the prevalence of certain sounds in music marketed as Tibetan in the United States, finally demonstrating that sounds referencing New Age representations of Tibet have become a symbol representing Tibet as a whole in America."

- From Darinda J. Congdon's “TIBET CHIC”: MYTH, MARKETING, SPIRITUALITY AND POLITICS IN MUSICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF TIBET IN THE UNITED STATES, 2007

(Photo of the Dalai Lama with Tokyo subway gas attack mastermind, Aum Shinrikyo - or ‘supreme truth’ - cult leader Shoko Asahara, above. Determined to bring about Armageddon so that he could rule everyone, Aum Shinrikyo became a mixture of Buddhism, occultism and fascism. His cult was rounded up by armed police following a series of major crimes, the most infamous being his Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo underground on 20 March 1995, killing twelve and injuring thousands. The Japanese authorities later discovered that his cult was based on his committing sexual and physical atrocities on his own members.)

"China, in its latest tirade against Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, on Tuesday accused the exiled Nobel peace prize laureate of supporting "evil cults" like Falun Gong and Japan's Aum Shinrikyo."

- From a recent Reuters News Agency article titled "China labels Dalai Lama a supporter of 'cults'".

"Although some Westerners imagine that the Dalai Lama is an absolute pacifist, the teachings of the present Dalai Lama and of his predecessor, as well as the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, all legitimize the use of deadly force against killers and would-be tyrants.

This may come as news to certain anti-American pacifists in the United States and Europe who are guilty of “Shangri-La-ism” — of what Jane Ardley (in her book The Tibetan Independence Movement) describes as the “idealized, romantic vision of Tibet as a land of enlightened, non-violent, happy and exotic people.” She observes, “For those in the West who look to Tibetan Buddhism for all the answers to their insecurities, the image of ‘violent’ Buddhists is uncomfortable particularly where Buddhism itself can be offered as a justification for their actions,...Many Westerners are familiar with the non-violent teaching of the current Dalai Lama, such as “The basis of all moral teaching ought to be nonresponse to attacks.” But before Westerners take such sayings as categorical imperatives, it is essential to remember that, as the Dalai Lama emphasizes, Buddhism does not operate on the binary terms of Western thought,..."

How could Tibetan Buddhists engage in violence? Jampa Tenzin, a former guerilla and monk, explained, “Generally, of course, non-violence is good, and killing is bad…But each and every thing is judged according to the circumstances of the situation, and, particularly in Buddhism, according to the motivations….In order to save a hundred people, killing one person may be acceptable…Individual, or self, motivation is obviously not allowed….“…unless we did something sooner or later we couldn’t practice religion…Dharma [had to] prevail and remain…even by violent means.”

Living in exile in India, the Dalai Lama professes his admiration of Mohandas Gandhi. Yet, like Gandhi, the Dalai Lama is not as inflexibly pacifist as some Westerners imagine. Indeed, the Lama defended what he calls India’s “right to nuclear weapons.”



According to the Dalai Lama, “If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.” (Seattle Times, May 15, 2001). Elsewhere, the Dalai Lama said: if the situation was such that there was only one learned lama or genuine practitioner alive, a person whose death would cause the whole of Tibet to lose all hope of keeping its Buddhist way of life, then it is conceivable that in order to protect that one person it might be justified for one or 10 enemies to be eliminated—if there was no other way. I could justify violence only in this extreme case, to save the last living knowledge of Buddhism itself.

Sometimes the Dalai Lama states that non-violence is the most important thing. Sometimes he offers broad justifications for violence — such as national defense against Communist imperialism, or individual self-defense against deadly attack. Sometimes he allows only an extremely narrow justification for violence — namely, saving his own life. To puzzle over the contradictions is to miss the non-binary spirit of Tibetan Buddhism."

- From Dave Kopel's article, The Dali Lama's Army

"The New York Times review of [the movie "Seven Years in Tibet"] by Janet Maslin was headlined, "A challenge for Brad Pitt: Making a Nazi charming."

The movie is based on a book by Heinrich Harrer (above) about his time in Tibet in the 1940s when he and the Tibetan ruler - the Dalai Lama - became good friends. The book never really mentions Harrer's background, which was only recently exposed. Harrer always denied he was a Nazi until there was so much evidence that he had to admit it last spring.

Harrer was a member of the Nazis' elite SS who was sent to Tibet, probably by Hitler himself,...According to a lengthy investigative story in the October issue of a magazine called Men's Journal, the Nazi-Tibet connection is much deeper than anyone is talking about.

"Harrer's presence in Tibet may have been related to a terrible but little-known Nazi campaign" to join forces with "Aryan Tibetans" to rid the country of the British - and eventually wipe out non-Aryan Eastern races, especially Asian Jews, the Men's Journal reports.

The magazine also reports that Harrer had been preceded into the country years before by a Nazi reconnaissance team sent by SS chief Heinrich Himmler. (The "chicken farmer", above - CMC) Evidently the Dalai Lama was aware of Harrer's Nazi assignment and goals.

Most of the other information put into the Hollywood Tibet propaganda is just as reliable as Harrer's denials that he was a Nazi.

- From That's entertainment? It's propaganda (Tibet as it never was) Reprinted from the Oct. 23, 1997 issue of Workers World newspaper.

FASCIST OCCULTISM AND IT’S CLOSE RELATIONSHIP TO BUDDHIST TANTRISM

(Notorious con woman - and the so-called "Mother of New Age Thinking" - Madame Blavatsky, above)

"Visionary fascism was, and indeed still is, exceptionally deeply fascinated by the Buddhocratic form of state. In the late thirties (as the various fascist systems bloomed in Europe and the whole world) Spencer Chapman, a traveler in Tibet, wrote that even in the days of the dictators one can only be amazed at what uncontested power the Dalai Lama possesses” (Chapman, 1940, p. 192). The idea of kingship of the world, the uniting of spiritual and secular power in a single person, the ideology of war in the Shambhala myth, the uncompromisingly andocentric orientation, the tantric vision of the feminine, the whole occult ambience and much more besides were specifically adopted by several fascist ideologists and welded together into an aggressive myth. As we shall soon see, entire fascist systems are based upon the adoption of Tibetan/tantric doctrines."

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s National Socialist Friends

"As depressing as it may be for the Nobel peace prize winner’s followers, there has been continuous contact between the Dalai Lama and the far right wing and former national socialists (Nazis). His close friendship with his German mentor, Heinrich Harrer (above) has become the most well-known of these. It caused a small scandal in 1997-1998 when, after years of research, the Austrian journalist, Gerald Lehner, succeeded in making public Harrer’s “brown-shirt” (i.e., German fascist) past, which the latter had been able to keep secret for many years. Harrer is not just anybody. He is one of the best-known international authors and has sold over four million books in 57 languages (mostly about Tibet and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama)."

- From The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: © Victor & Victoria Trimondi.

The People's Temple

At the end of the '70s
The People's Temple
had the full support
of The City
900 black souls
were to lose their lives
to a cult
that would rise on pity

Now in front
of that same City Hall
The Falun Gong
parade
Family members say
they're thinking all wrong
but The City
offers them no aid

The Maitre Hospice
has a Reiki cult
that claims
they can stop the dying
A woman told me
she could walk through walls
I said "Show me"
She then stopped trying

One Taste will get you
by selling sex
once you climb up
the Yoga Tree
Mind/Body/Spirit?
Please, tell me: what's left?
If I live
and just want to be me?

When bad people do bad things
for bad reasons - it's bad
- my mother-in-law killed
by a homeopath
A father got killed;
a sister, in Vegas
"It's all natural without any side effects!"
- magic words, surely, they played us

Nobody talks
about killing each other
No, they talk
about what you believe
How something gets stronger
diluted in water
and wishing
cures heart disease

Black people are leaving
The City in droves
Why?
Doesn't seem so simple:
Where are they going?
Nobody knows
Nobody
leaves The People's Temple.