Cults

Even though cults are quite creepy they continue to captivate and convince people to succumb to the sectarian societies’ every command. These devious disciples, with their dark devotions, are nothing new and have been around since we’ve had the will to worship. FYI will make you see the light, brother!  We’ll uncover the calamitous world of cults on this week’s episode of FYI!  
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[Music] even though cults are quite creepy they continue to captivate and convince people to succumb to the sectarian society's every command these devious disciples with their dark devotions are nothing new and have been around since we've had the will to worship fyi will make you see the light brother we'll uncover the calamitous world of cults on this week's episode of f y i welcome to for your info english you got it[Music] hello hello hello and welcome to another exciting edition of f y i and today we're gonna take a darker look at humanity the dark side that's right cults are as you call them sektas now we do say the word sect but we use the word cult much more often let's get the show on the road and take a look at our intro which is chock full of tons of vocabulary that's going to help you sound better in english sound more eloquent in english i started off by saying even though cults are quite creepy and even though it's anke you can say even though although or though you'll make a decon even though even though cults are quite creepy if something is creepy it's scary that repels usually the heads of these cults are creeps and we're going to take a look at a lot of different cults today and some creepy characters and one of those is charles manson don't forget he was involved in murders but all of that started as a cult then i said they continue to captivate and convince people to succumb to and to succumb to this is what you call palabron and it's interesting because it has a b in it but we don't say the bee sukum so i think it's a word that uh it's related to this sphere to this realm este mundillo to succumb to the sectarian societies every command no no i don't even know how i managed to say it and your command is tu mando que es lo que medites que tengo cafe you give me a command you order me it's another way to say it as well then i said these devious disciples i think that's easy devious is uh with not good intentions and disciples well distipuros i think you know that maybe from the bible with their dark devotions and devotion devotion are nothing new no it's not a nuevo they've been around since we've had the will to worship and the word worship is alaba and then i well i became a cult leader myself for a moment there and i said fyi will make you see the light brother and that's what they all promise you know they're all gonna make us see the light and they're all gonna make us better people and we're gonna look at that too we're gonna look at the psychology what makes somebody get involved in a cult because they're normally just everyday people like you and me but we're going to look at some of those factors and we're going to have a lot of fun even though it's a dark subject then i said we'll uncover this the calamitous world of cults and calamitous calamitos and we'll see that a lot of these have ended in tragedy as always i think we should start by defining what a cult is and i'm gonna read it verbatim word for word in modern english a cult is a social group that is defined by its unusual religious spiritual or philosophical beliefs and rituals so there's a lot of vocabulary right there unusual poco spiritual not espiritual spiritual or philosophical beliefs is believe rituals spiritual see statues make a list of words like that future nature and this way you never say situation again and next time you say situation i'll continue then it goes on to say or it's common interest in a particular personality object or goal this sense of the term is controversial having divergent definitions both in popular culture and academia is and has also been an ongoing recurrente it keeps happening an ongoing source of contention among scholars and scholars are people who study across several fields muchos campos of study de studio the word cult is usually considered pejorative offensive so if somebody says oh man your religion that's a cult nobody wants to think that they're a part of a cult even if you are the only way i would say this word is not offensive is like when we talk about oh this movie pulp fiction for example it's a cult classic that one is okay but if you're telling somebody they're a part of a cult in the way we say sect that's never a good thing not these days but an older sense of the word cult was used in religious devotional practices they're very conventional things that are related to religion we know there are many rituals and they would worship a particular figure usually a particular place and there are even references to the cult of a particular catholic saint or the imperial cult of ancient rome that's how they used it but again back then it didn't have that negative connotation it wasn't until the 19th century when the word cult became synonymous with excessive devotion going too far and again we throw this word around haphazardly some people would say that my mother's religion christianity is a cult and if you look at the definition well technically it is but i love what religious scholar megan goodwin had to say about it she said the term cult is used nowadays when a layperson una persona normal says this is a religion i don't like we just label it as a cult so i guess we've got to be careful with throwing those words around i wanted to clear up those things i don't like to split hairs rita el rito or i think you say buscar trespass but i wanted to clear that stuff up and then in the 60s and 70s the 1960s and 1970s there was a boom there were cults popping up left and right and california was a very popular place for cults and as we'll see later on all of these cults are pretty well documented and there are tons of documentaries fascinating documentaries about these cults because these aren't just documentaries about a cult but they're documentaries about sociology psychology human behavior and let's call a spade a spade las cosas como son we are enthralled by these kind of documentaries that's why they're so popular and in the bonus episode i'm gonna give you guys some of those documentaries the top cult documentaries we're also going to talk about doomsday cults and what is a doomsday cult well this is an expression which is used to describe a group that believes in the apocalypse so these are these cults that say the apocalypse is coming it's imminent and the only place you're going to be safe is right here at our compound that's right just do as i say i think doomsday cults are probably the most dangerous ones because if they think the world is going to end desperate times call for desperate measures as we say and some of these people have even committed mass suicide so that's pretty crazy but we're going to look at that in the bonus part plus we're going to look at the documentaries as i said as well we'll look at and we'll look at what google has to do with an active cult a cult that is currently active so we're going to look at all that stuff in the bonus episode i just want to remind you guys right now that there's a bonus episode every week so you can get tons of extra content and you'll also get pdf documents with all the vocabulary all the expressions and all the structures that we look at in each show plus you can attend weekly review classes with me monthly master classes and so much more if you want to find out more about joining our curious community go on over to patreon.com slash alberto alonso and i'd like to send a shout out to all my patrons especially my super duper students javier roberto david jose maria mila alex and edgard and don't forget about my interstellar students isabel paco diego and carmen keep up the great work guys i'm so proud of you and if you guys want to find out more go over to patreon.com slash alberto alonso if you want a free sample just drop me a line all right well we're going to take a look at manson not marilyn manson charles manson and if you want to find out more about this because i'm going to give you the tip of the iceberg there's a great documentary called manson the women and in the late 1960s charles manson brought a group of people together displaced young people and he called them his family and they went over to a ranch called spawn ranch in california which used to be like an old west movie studio picture it like mini hollywood in almeria it was abandoned so they went over there to live on their commune that's a word we hear often when we talk about these kind of groups and what they did is uh free-flowing drugs mandatory orgies and obviously you know pushing ideals pushing a narrative pushing an agenda and in the case of manson he was pushing an imminent race war and in order to prepare for that he urged his followers to go on a killing spree okay and a killing spree is matara muchisi magente and on august 8th 1969 a few members of his cult went over to beverly hills and they murdered five people including actress sharon tate if you remember they wrote the word pig on the wall in sharon tate's blood and the violence continued it didn't stop there the next night when rosemary and lino le la bianca were murdered in their home by manson followers well that was kind of the the end-all be-all and the end-all all separately the end-all be-all or the be-all end-all esos rosemary was stabbed 14 times to be stabbed and to take a stab at something is intentarlo the next one is synonymous with cults in the united states when you think of cults you think of waco which i think is kind of funny because waco is a place in texas and wacko means loco and this was i remember watching this live on tv this was the branch davidians a group of people who followed a man named david koresh and he was the leader and he considered himself the messiah he declared all those women that were there including the ones who were under age now we're going into illegality here and even if they were married he declared them his spiritual wives and this group like many doomsday cults believed that the apocalypse was on the horizon and what they did to prepare and i'm using air quotes is they locked themselves in a compound and on february 28 1993 agents from the atf the bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms raided the waco compound and this was because of a suspicion that he was stockpiling weapons now this was crazy what ensued it was a shootout and a standoff a standoff as unenfrentamiento between the branch davidians david koresh's followers and the authorities it lasted how long did it last how long do you think they were there on his ranch it lasted 51 days and it eventually ended when they brought in tanks they filled the whole compound with tear gas and they lit the place on fire more than 80 people were killed and again this is pretty recent the branch davidians existed from 1955 to 1993 and my favorite thing about these guys is they always believe in polygamy they're never into monogamy for some reason uh-huh i get it i get it and what we're gonna see in the bonus part is there are a lot of cults that have gone way too far we mentioned the underage thing before and even doing rituals that could be harmful to anybody if you're doing it to yourself or doing it to somebody else as i said you know it's all fun and games it's great to worship things people who knows it's great but you got to be really careful because there's a fine line between worshiping somebody or something and i'm even talking about food we all worship some leader we all have a master i just hope that master is you[Laughter] and now i'd like to get into the psychology i mean what makes somebody in their right mind get involved in a cult is it something that happens overnight or is it something that they're grooming you for and this is a very interesting word because to groom somebody is prepared but to groom somebody also is to prepare them for your needs it's used a lot when we talk about young children and sexual abuse another word that comes to mind is the word pray and i'm not talking about i'm talking about presa yeah the word pray espresso is to prey on someone so putting it in context these cults prey on young people right they're preying on young people usually who want to better themselves they want to evolve evolution either professionally or personally so some of it has to do with self-realization you know doing something better doing something that's almost spiritual esoteric something that is bigger than us and this planet and i think that's one of the reasons people believe in god muhammad or whoever because we want to believe that there is a higher power we want to have faith that everything is going to be all right another reason that people join these kind of things is because they want to feel a sense of community they want to feel like they are a part of a group maybe these people are outsiders or misfits in their school or in their jobs and they just want to belong they want to feel a sense of belonging which don't underestimate that the importance of feeling like you belong that sense of belonging is such a a basic human need so they promise you oh you're going to bring out the best version of yourself you're going to reach your higher power you're going to see the light and you're going to be a part of a community these aren't your friends these are your brothers and your sisters and in many cases they change their name because remember there has to be a certain amount of brainwashing going on they have to convince you that the old you is dead and that your parents and all your old friends they're no longer your friends they don't have your best interest in mind and that's i think where it gets really scary too because i put myself in as a father in you know somebody's shoes who's going through this and i don't think i could deal with it my daughter she turns me down she turns her back on me and says dad i'm not interested in you and what you have to say i don't love you i don't care about you these people are my family they're the ones who really care about me so i think one way we can avoid this is by telling our children every day how much we love them how much we care about them how much we want the best for them so they don't end up going somewhere else for it and i imagine that also there are some feelings of loneliness i imagine many people are feeling lonely as i said before they want to feel a sense of community maybe there's a certain vulnerability right if you're feeling vulnerable or hurt and then there's this element of cognitive dissonance i don't know how to say this in spain but the good thing is word reference knows how to say everything and cognitive dissonance is a conflict of ideas dilemma di sonantia cognitiva dis untiva in layman's terms this means you know in your head in your heart of hearts that what you're doing isn't right something doesn't feel right but you keep doing it anyway you have this internal battle going on where you question your own existence and there's something that we call gaslighting and to gaslight somebody very interesting word and this is a technique that's used a lot in cults to gaslight somebody is to make them believe an alternate version of reality your version of reality it's making somebody think they're crazy when they're really not because well you're a manipulator i guess i imagine most of these people who start these cults are feeling these feelings themselves so they decide i'm gonna take advantage of other weak people or people i feel are weak and there's an expression i remember hearing and i it just stuck with me how you treat the weak is your true nature coming through and i really believe that because everybody is going to treat somebody who they can get something from somebody who who can help them out everybody's going to treat them with respect but i'd like to see how you treat that homeless guy on the corner i'd like to see how you treat the woman who's checking you out at the supermarket and i don't mean checking you out and we are going to wrap the first part of today's episode remember guys there's a bonus episode and if you're not sure as i said contact me i have no problem sending you the link so you can give it a listen i can also send you some sample pdfs from other seasons whatever you need let me know because i'd love to have you in our cult i mean our english class i mean our community oops i'm just kidding guys but as i said before a cult isn't always a bad thing the original meaning of the word wasn't a bad thing well when i talk about cults and i talk about fyi i just hope it has a cult following and folks i hope you'll follow us in the bonus episode of f y i[Music][Applause]