Sects and spirit guides

[seramadis]

Hello all! I was just wondering about people's opinions in general about sects. Do you believe they can be valid religions that really do help people to evolve spiritually? Do you think some of them help people and some of them are just elaborate hoaxes to dominate people and take their money away from them? Do you think ALL sects are harmful, etc.?

I have had a few friends who were on the path of trying to connect with their spirit guides. All of these friends claimed to have been successful with establishing contact with their spirit guides and that they were underway in setting up a nice, strong relationship with their guides, getting to know them, etc. And THEN, all of these friends up and went and joined a sect, each one joined a different sect. They all told me it was their spirit guides who led them to the sects and that once they were in the sect they realized that Sect X, Y or Z was the one true religion in the world and the only salvation for the world.

When this happened to one friend, I just assumed maybe she hadn't really connected with her real spirit guides, perhaps she had connected with lower entities passing themselves off as her own spirit guides.

But then it started happening to many people I knew. So now I wonder, what is going on here? Do you think all these people really WERE led by their very own real spirit guides to join sects? Do you think sects could actually be good for the spiritual evolution of these particular people?

[YourHumbleNarrator]

A lot of people are gullible. Let's get that out of the way now. They think any "spiritual" entity is acting in their best interest. If they are merely looking for someone to lead them rather than a means to grow, then they wanted to be lead by these entities into sects which proclaimed they had the one and only truth.

On the flipside, anything can be a growth experience, even time spent in a cult or sect. Would spirit guides lead them that way? I don't know as much about guides as many of the posters here but my intuition says no. Somebody who can contact their spirit guides is probably going to be at a level where they no longer need closed-minded religious philosophies to guide their way. I think they're being deceived.

[rei]

are you using the word sect in reference to a secret order or a cult?

i think what is beneficial to one person is not always beneficial to another, and we can't know with certainty whether those friends really were guided to join because it was in their best interest.

generally i think sects create a sense of separation. most guides i'm aware of are working to help us create a greater sense of unity. but i don't think i have enough insider info about your friends or anyone else who joins a sect to say it is or isn't in their best interest.

[seramadis]

Hi Rei! Great to see you around again!

I refer to sects in the *usual* sense of the word. As in for example maybe an evangelical messianic type group of people living in communes with very strict rules about what is or is not permitted within the group, which books may be read, what music can be listened to, dress codes, who the members can communicate with in the outside world and who they can't, etc.

Or another example could be for example a sect (also evangelical) where members do not actually live together in a commune but they still abide by very strict religious rules, are required to recite a large litany of prayers written specifically for that particular *religion* every day, etc. If they dared to question any of the rules they would go to *hell*, etc.

[blossom]

In an abusive relationship, the abuser will make sure that his/her victim is isolated from the outside world, for the express purpose of cutting off that persons ability to see for themselves whether or not the situation they are in is 'normal' and healthy. The abuse becomes so 'normalized' that the victim will no longer even question their abuser, but succumb to the internalization of all the messages that they are being fed by their abuser.

I feel that this is what happens in these sort of sects!

By controlling the kinds of books the disciples are allowed to read, the guru can ensure that noone will think for themselves about anything other than what He (or she, but it is usually a male that plays the Guru) WANTS them to think and absorb. If they talk about what they have read, they only talk to other disciples, since they are cut off from the rest of the world, and so, everyone believes the same thing and validates it to each other, until it becomes a Consensus Reality, where everyone agrees that this is the truth, when it's really just one persons point of view.

The process of brainwashing is fairly simple when you look at the diluted methods, which you have pointed out in your post, which are administered. It's diabolical to be sure

[themaster]

If you ask me "The Secret" is a sect of a spirtual form of "new age" religion so if you ask me, yes they can be helpful