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AR 26:9 - It's the "most examined cult case in forensics history"
In this issue:
GLOSSOLALIA - speaking the unheard of (and unexpected)
NXIVM - Do "cult documentaries have a responsibility to make it plain that
whatever a cult is selling is by definition a scam"?
OCCULT HISTORY - exploring divination in the ancient Near East
Apologia Report 26:9 (1,514)
March 3, 2021
GLOSSOLALIA
Nestled in Robert Walker's theological discussion while reviewing Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, by Daniel Castelo [1] are the brief remarks that "when considering the history and worldwide scope of the [Pentecostal] movement, it is only North American institutions that maintain 'initial evidence'; only between 5 and 35 percent of Pentecostals have, in fact, ever spoken in tongues.... [R]equiring this experience as a condition of gaining institutional authority introduces unwarranted and unethical uses of power in Pentecostal communities." Toronto Journal of Theology, 36:1 - 2020, pp111-2, <www.bit.ly/37iW9I0>
Once again, that cat will no doubt be returned to its bag very soon.
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NXIVM
"A Cult Is Not Reality TV" by Matthew Remski ("cult researcher and cohost <www.bit.ly/3dAoCwV> of the podcast Conspirituality. His investigations have focused on institutional abuse in Ashtanga Yoga, Sivananda Yoga, and Shambhala International") -- a Buddhist magazine reveals how an internal NXIVM promotional film project morphed into The Vow <www.itsh.bo/3sa1edr> HBO docu-series. "For two decades, the cookie-cutter Albany suburb of Clifton Park was the stage for Keith Raniere's NXIVM (pronounced NEX-ee-um), the self-help business cult that fronted for his boundless sexual and financial abuse. Raniere preached a prosperity-gospel psycho-technology that he claimed would bring about world peace, playing the role of guru until he was sentenced in June 2020 to 120 years for child sex-trafficking and conspiracy to commit forced labor." (Leaving nasty things such as serial sexual abuse unaddressed.)
"In building his cult, Raniere headhunted Hollywood stars and high-value assets as "frontline recruiters and to airbrush his image" - among them, New Age filmmaker Mark Vicente ("What the Bleep Do We Know?!") - formerly with the Ramtha cult - who invested $150m in the effort.
"It took a stint of hounding by Raniere's survivors - or at least a few of those who hadn't yet been bankrupted by his attack lawyers - outside the doors of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and the FBI for the façade to crumble. But over the course of the three-year-long investigation and trial, Clifton Park underwent a strange transformation. The former members of NXIVM turned what had been their propaganda center into the film set of a documentary series primed for a golden age of cult media.
"In HBO's The Vow <www.imdb.to/309OyYk> and <hbo.com/the-vow>, producers Jehane Noujaim and her husband, Karim Amer, have domesticated Raniere's cruelty into cult-themed reality TV.... Meanwhile, the core cast and crew have remained suspiciously in place. Key former stars of the cult are now the stars of its cancellation. And in valuing entertainment over information, they (perhaps unwittingly) end up doing more to keep misconceptions about cults alive - along with Raniere's mystique. ...
"When The Vow was released in August 2020, the NXIVM story was already the most examined cult case in forensics history. ...
"What ends up being most striking about this exposé about an overexposed story is everything the filmmakers leave out. They leave out the fact that Noujaim took the group's introductory course after meeting Sara Bronfman and Mark Vicente. They leave out the fact that to this day Karim Amer says that there was a 'beautiful aspect' to what NXIVM was offering. They leave out the fact that Noujaim was Vicente's personal friend for a decade before his rebranding as a NXIVM whistleblower. They gloss over the most abject horrors of Raniere's abuse - the savage extent of his financial exploitation, the chilling psychological experiments on women in the group, and the two-year bedroom imprisonment of a Mexican woman who 'cheated' on Raniere by kissing another man. [Noujaim and Amer] are filmmakers making a film about their tragically heroic friend Vicente - himself a filmmaker who got caught up making films about Raniere.
"These conflicts of interest are deepened by the fact that almost all the NXIVM archival footage was shot by Vicente while he was making propaganda for Raniere. Noujaim reports on Vicente confiding his doubts about NXIVM in 2017 and then how they decided to film his withdrawal from the group, even as Vicente was documenting it himself. The two streams of footage were eventually interwoven to form The Vow. ...
"It is increasingly important that the cult stories we tell and consume are framed more for public health than private entertainment." Some unable to watch the "hours of haloed portraiture of Raniere will make the series unwatchable for those he raped. ...
"Cult dynamics have become newly relevant across various online and political spaces - to the point where these issues have bled into conversations about national elections and pandemic responses. ...
"With the stakes rising, cult documentaries have a responsibility to make it plain that whatever a cult is selling is by definition a scam....
"Those who really want to explore answers instead of intrigues could move on to Cecilia Peck's documentary Seduced <www.bit.ly/3dxuSpa> and listen to India Oxenberg describe Raniere systematically raping her over months."
The ones left most frustrated in all of this may well be "those who didn't survive NXIVM to strike a deal with HBO." Tricycle, Spr '21, <www.bit.ly/2NKrZpP>
Also see "Seduced is not the better NXIVM series, but it does have more information" <www.bit.ly/3k5AmbX>
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OCCULT HISTORY
While ancient occult practices are frequently noted in passing, historical works on the subject are rarely discussed. The Art of Divination in the Ancient Near East: Reading the Signs of Heaven and Earth, by Stefan M. Maul [2] is an exception. Reviewer Joseph Mueller (Assistant Professor of Bible and Theology, Manhattan Christian College) finds it a "sharp primer on the critical role played by various divinatory arts across millennia, not only in the ancient Near East but around the Mediterranean."
Chapter one goes all the way back to "Mesopotamia's place of influence in the art of divination, as over a century's worth of archaeological evidence now details how much of the disciplines of astrology and extispicy [reading animal entrails] practiced by ancient Greeks and Romans depended upon their ANE [Ancient Near East] forbearers. Chapter two demonstrates the vital link between divination, especially extispicy, and the sacrificial cult. While not every sacrificial gift delivered to a temple would have been meant for oracular purposes, every act of extispicy would have been an offering.
"Chapters three through seven then dive further into the 'signs of the earth,'" beginning with an overview of extispicy. Chapter four moves on from the performance of the ritual (as to fervor and intricacy) to "the formulation of the associated question addressed to the gods. As the ritual procedure established that the only possible verdicts were 'yes' or 'no,' the diviner devoted much of his skill toward framing the question. Questions which were poorly worded or lacking in detail might afford a false hope.
"Chapters five and six shift their focus to the parallel practices of ornithoscopy, or the inspection of sacrificial birds, and divination by means of nonanimal offerings." Here the economic class of the one seeking help came into play. Birds were cheaper to read. But for those who were really scraping by? "Divination could also be practiced using vegetable votive substances, namely flour, incense, and oil. While these modest means of divination obviously benefited the poor, their portability also contributed to their use for wartime decisions."
This section concludes by tracing "the diachronic progression of extispicy from its origins in the depths of prehistory to its political association in the third millennium BC to the heights of its influence in the first millennium BC....
"Chapter eight depicts the rise of astrology as a competing source of divination to extispicy. [I]ts impact on the other divinatory arts is featured in chapter nine. Eventually, the lines separating divinatory disciplines began to blur, leading to attempts toward harmonization."
Chapter ten describes how "various ambiguities and contradictory prognoses built into the practices themselves kept divination from devolving into a mechanized process by necessitating the diviner's careful interpretation (hence, divination was both 'art' and 'science')."
The book concludes with a discussion of "the intellectual barriers which post-Enlightenment audiences face when considering such practices. Maul argues that while the acts of divination performed in the ANE go against contemporary reason, they would have nevertheless promoted a habitual state of societal, political, and personal self-analysis...." Stone-Campbell Journal (23:2 - 2020, pp292-3), <www.bit.ly/36XdnKD>
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SOURCES: Monographs
1- Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, by Daniel Castelo (Eerdmans, 2017, paperback, 214 pages) <www.amzn.to/3bcJtU3>
2 - The Art of Divination in the Ancient Near East: Reading the Signs of Heaven and Earth, by Stefan M. Maul (Baylor Univ Prs, 2018, hardcover, 359 pages) <www.amzn.to/3beYRPB>
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