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Beware the Cult of Fear

Look out for online and offline cult-builders taking advantage of Covid-19

By Deeann MathewsPublished 4 years ago 5 min read
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Photo by Olesya Yemets on Unsplash

42 years ago, Jim Jones put his name in the evil pantheon of individuals to which we admit Adolf Hitler also.

Jones, and Hitler, led their cults to destruction in the same manner all cult leaders do.

First, an appeal to real needs of the targeted people – often economic depression, often real (or perceived) injustice being suffered from areas of the society the targeted people feel like they can no longer impact.

Second, the process of convincing the targeted people that the cult leader is the only source of truth and help.

Third, the process of extracting all resources the cult leader desires from the victims of the cult.

In Jones' case, what he demanded was the life of every single victim, and most willingly gave him that after having giving up time, treasure, livelihood, family, community, and nation. It was a matter of conditioning.

Very few survived Guyana.

The cult builders I'm going to tell you about today are not on Jim Jones' level, but you still need to protect yourself and your family, especially now.

Do not listen to people that do nothing but feed the fears you most believe in. Your financial life depends on this, and perhaps your physical life if things get serious enough.

There are people on platforms talking about Covid-19 being designed to take out one group of people on the earth or another … if you are in a people group that worries about being eradicated, then someone online wants you to listen to them saying Covid-19 was designed to get you.

But the data shows one thing is for certain. Covid-19 is the one organism on earth that is no respecter of persons. It only checks if you are bat, or human – and it eats at the respiratory tracks of both.

And, let's throw on the sheer logic: if Covid-19 were designed to take out one group of people, we do realize that “the usual suspects” are getting just as sick and dying at least as fast as “the usual victims,” right?

The only thing that is a good determinant for whether or not you or me gets Covid-19 may be how seriously regional governments take getting people to apply social distancing.

Which brings me to those people on their platforms talking about how Covid-19 is being used to enact martial law and purge certain elements of the population.

Here I just want to remind us all of a few things. First, “The Purge” is a fiction. This is not to say that things like that have not happened – “Kristallnacht” in 1938 in Nazi Germany is a good example.

But we all know how that came out for Germany – 51 years of paying for that.

It would come out that way even faster in the United States.

We are a consumer-driven economy in the United States, meaning that eliminating a couple of million consumers – especially at time like this – is a sure way to destroy the country's economy.

We will get to see, in a few months, what gets to happen when small businesses in certain regions go bust at the same time. As tragic as that is, the entire United States could look like that, minus a few million consumers.

The powers that be who have the means to run a purge like that count money really well too and they love that money … and they are not likely to mess up their money just yet.

Then there are people on their platform talking about how Covid-19 is being used as an excuse to shut down public education … never mind that school districts and educators are scrambling all over the country to set up online education, and many school districts still have their kitchen staffs providing free breakfast and lunch.

I could go on, but that ought to be sufficient to encourage fact-checking.

Then, there are the established cult-builders … religious leaders who are incessantly talking about how government is using Covid-19 to attack religion and how worship is an essential function of human life and how people need to come together.

I agree with the assessment of worship being essential. But that still doesn't require me getting close enough to anyone to put money in their offering pan.

And now we get to the heart of the matter – what the cult leaders all want from you and me.

The online and offline cult leaders, Jim Jones, Adolf Hitler, and every slave owner that ever was have something in common.

They look at you and me with one view: we are chattel to be used at their pleasure.

They look at you and me with one intention: to extract every ounce of value from the lives of their victims in order to uphold their delusions of godhood in their small sphere – delusions of them being the only arbiters of truth and supply in our lives.

They use their personality and their gift of gab to appeal to our deepest fears and manipulate time, treasure, talent, and life out of us.

When they have done the extraction that they want, they don't care about what happens to us and the consequences on our families and communities.

Did you know? Check the record on Jim Jones. He never drank the Flavor-Aid (not Koolaid … poor Koolaid, branded with that stain for decades), and was killed in the process of escaping.

What was he escaping to, and for? For whom were those bodies left dead, from a city that was pushing out the population they were from?

I don't deal in conspiracy theories, so I can't tell you anything.

I don't make money in dealing in conspiracy theories.

But a lot of people do, and I'm warning you.

I know that it is very hard to fact-check people who are validating a lot of what we want to believe about the things we are afraid of. It is hard to check people who are telling us what we want to hear, who offer us at least some emotional relief.

But as ever, our well-being and quite possibly our lives depend on not listening to those who only feed our fears.

Covid-19 intensifies that reality.

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About the Creator

Deeann Mathews

Deeann D. Mathews is is a former professional journalist with the Bay Area News Group, and is a writer, composer, and community servant living and working in San Francisco, CA. She is an early adopter on Vocal and the new Hive Blockchain.

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