templeofskelegod

[templeofskelegod]

Identifying and Coping with Cults

Most people seem to believe cults are about religion, robes, and/or UFOs, but cults aren't about theology or cosmology - they're about mental, social, emotional control. A cult doesn't need a compound, robes, or cosmology - just a belief so total and consuming that it swallows the rest of your identity.

We tend to think that cults draw other people.

Dumb people.

Weak-minded people.

People who aren't as smart or educated or skeptical as we are.

The truth is that cults don't rely on stupidity, they rely on conviction and the need to belong.

Conviction makes people feel important, righteous, elite, and part of something bigger than themselves.

That kind of thinking isn't rare. It's everywhere.

Features of All Cults

The Leader/Doctrine Is Infallible

It doesn't have to be a person. It can be an ideology, a set of principles, or a revolutionary narrative. What matters is that it's never wrong. Any mistake, contradiction, or moral failing is either denied, excused, or reframed as proof of how right the group is.

Outsiders Are Enemies

There are no legitimate opponents, only evil ones. If you're not with us, you're corrupt. The world is divided into us (good, awakened) and them (bad, brainwashed, oppressive). The possibility of good-faith disagreement is off the table.

Doubt = Betrayal

Skepticism isn't healthy, it's treason. Asking questions means you've already failed a loyalty test. You either accept the whole package or you're a danger to the group.

The Cause Justifies Everything

Because the group is always right, its behavior is always justified. Harassment, threats, violence, lying, and dehumanization are all fair game if they serve the mission.

Truth Is Monopolized

They have The Truth. Everyone else is misled or malicious. Any source that contradicts the group is propaganda. Any evidence that complicates the narrative is ignored or dismissed.

Purity Is Mandatory

You don't get to agree with parts and question others. There is no cafeteria plan. You believe it all, or you're compromised.

There Is No Exit Without Punishment

Try leaving. Try expressing doubt. You will be humiliated, discredited, and demonized. The group will claim you were never a real believer anyway.

These Features in Famous Cults

Jonestown (People's Temple - Jim Jones)

A political-religious movement that ended in the mass murder-suicide of over 900 people in Guyana in 1978.

Infallible Leader - Jim Jones was treated as a prophet and god-like figure.

Outsiders = Enemies - The US government and defectors were seen as existential threats.

Doubt = Betrayal - Defectors were labeled traitors, dissent was suppressed.

Cause Justifies Everything - Abuse, mind control, and ultimately mass death were rationalized.

Truth Is Monopolized - Only Jones' interpretation of the world was accepted.

Purity Is Mandatory - Members were forced to adopt strict ideological conformity.

No Exit Without Punishment - Defectors were hunted, threatened, or killed.

Heaven's Gate (Marshall Applewhite & Bonnie Nettles)

A UFO-doomsday cult whose members believed they would ascend to a spaceship by shedding their bodies. Ended in 39 suicides in 1997.

Infallible Leader - Applewhite was seen as the only conduit to salvation.

Outsiders = Enemies - Non-believers were seen as "Luciferians" and corrupt.

Doubt = Betrayal - Questioning the teachings endangered the "exit plan."

Cause Justifies Everything - Suicide was framed as liberation from Earth.

Truth Is Monopolized - All external sources were rejected and only the leaders had access to "The Next Level."

Purity Is Mandatory - Strict celibacy, dress codes, and detachment from the world were enforced.

No Exit Without Punishment - Psychological control and isolation made leaving nearly impossible.

Scientology (L. Ron Hubbard / David Miscavige)

A pseudo-religious organization founded by a science fiction writer, known for aggressive legal tactics, secrecy, and abuse allegations.

Infallible Leader - Hubbard's writings are treated as scripture and Miscavige is treated as his anointed executor.

Outsiders = Enemies - "Suppressive persons" are vilified, critics are targets.

Doubt = Betrayal - Internal questioning is punished with auditing, isolation, or expulsion.

Cause Justifies Everything - Surveillance, harassment, and lawsuits justified to protect the church.

Truth Is Monopolized - Members are discouraged from consuming outside media or criticism.

Purity Is Mandatory - Advancement requires complete adherence to doctrine and lifestyle.

No Exit Without Punishment - Defectors face smear campaigns, disconnection from family, and threats.

NXIVM (Keith Raniere)

A self-help organization that devolved into a coercive sex cult with branding, blackmail, and criminal convictions.

Infallible Leader - Raniere was marketed as a genius and moral authority.

Outsiders = Enemies - Critics were dismissed or targeted with lawsuits.

Doubt = Betrayal - Members were pressured to ignore red flags or risk expulsion.

Cause Justifies Everything - Abuse and manipulation were reframed as empowerment.

Truth Is Monopolized - Raniere's teachings overrode conventional ethics or science.

Purity Is Mandatory - Members were ranked and groomed for obedience.

No Exit Without Punishment - Those who left were harassed, blackmailed, and/or publicly discredited.

The same seven features are always there in every cult.

These, of course, are all in the past.

Here in 2025, we have two popular cults which are doing all of us extraordinary amounts of harm.

MAGA

Infallible Leader

Donald Trump isn't just a politician to his followers, he's a symbol. When he lies, it's not a flaw. It's strategy. When he fails, it's sabotage by the deep state. He is the center of the movement's gravity, and his word overrides observable reality. The courts, the media, even physics, meteorology, and basic math are all wrong if they contradict him.

Outsiders = Enemies

The MAGA worldview is binary. You're either a patriot or a traitor. Democrats, immigrants, journalists, academics, scientists, and election officials are all suspect. Ther are no disagreements, there's only war. Opponents aren't wrong, they're evil.

Doubt = Betrayal

MAGA has no tolerance for internal dissent. Most of the Republicans who acknowledged Biden's win were branded as RINOs and purged. The rest got in line and kissed the ring. Asking for evidence about election fraud is seen as disloyal. Even silence can be suspect.

The Cause Justifies Everything

Storming the Capitol? Justified. Threatening election workers? Patriotic. Spreading conspiracy theories? Necessary. There are no rules if the mission is to save America from the leftist cabal.

Truth Is Monopolized

Only certain sources are trusted and even Fox News has often been smacked down for insufficient loyalty. So the cult faithful turn to right-wing echo chambers, YouTube prophets, and meme accounts. Anything mainstream is automatically suspect, but in a world of liars, only the Dear Leader is always telling you the truth.

Purity Is Mandatory

You can't just support tighter borders or lower taxes. You have to accept the whole package: the stolen election, the culture war, the personality worship, the persecution narrative, the attacks on immigrants, the assault on higher education...Moderation or nuance are weakness.

No Exit Without Punishment

Look at Liz Cheney or Mike Pence. Look at anyone who tried to steer the movement or the GOP back toward reality. They didn't just lose support, they were cast out. Once you're disloyal, you're dead to the group.

And on the other end of the horseshoe:

The Western "Pro-Palestinian" Movement

Infallible Doctrine

This movement isn't about support for Palestinian rights (a legitimate cause we should all support). This is a movement which treats anti-Zionism, the belief that Israel must cease to exist, as sacred law.

No amount of evidence, history, or context can challenge the idea that Israel is uniquely evil, that Palestinians are uniquely innocent, and that the only moral position is total condemnation and elimination of the Jewish state.

Outsiders = Enemies

Anyone who supports Israel's right to exist is an enemy. Jewish students are enemies. Palestinian peace advocates who reject Hamas are enemies. You don't need to hold extreme views to be treated as an enemy, you just have to diverge from the orthodoxy.

Doubt = Betrayal

Say you're uncomfortable with chants like "from the river to the sea" or that you believe in both Israeli and Palestinian national self-determination...or say you oppose Hamas' methods and violent suppression of the people of Gaza...?

That's enough to get you labeled a Zionist apologist, a traitor, a colonizer. There's no space for complexity. No room for nuance.

The Cause Justifies Everything

Celebrating the October 7 massacre? "Context."

Ripping down posters of kidnapped civilians? "Resistance."

Harassing Jewish students? "Solidarity."

The cruelty is framed as necessary, desirable, even virtuous.

Truth Is Monopolized

Official sources are dismissed as biased. Only certain accounts (often anonymous, hyper-partisan, and unchecked) are treated as legitimate.

If a Palestinian criticizes Hamas, they're ignored or attacked as a Zionist (ask Hamza Howidy or Ahmed Fouad Alkahatib).

If a Jew defends Israel's right to exist, they're a propagandist. HASBARA!

Purity Is Mandatory

You can't be selectively critical. You can't say "I support human rights but also think Hamas is a terrorist group." That's impure. You must affirm the full narrative or you're compromised. You must chant the slogans, share the posts, and avoid any hint of nuance. If you don't strictly follow the purity guidelines, anything you say on any topic is deemed false.

No Exit Without Punishment

Try saying you no longer support the movement because of extremism and antisemitism. You'll be attacked, disowned, doxxed, called a Zio or other slurs. There's no graceful exit.

Once you're out, you're not just wrong. You're the enemy.

Coping

So what do we do when people we care about fall into cults draped in flags and slogans?

First, understand that logic won't pry them out. Cults aren't built on facts, they're built on identity, emotion, and a deep need to belong. 

If it's someone close to you, your best move is to stay connected without indulging the dogma. Ask questions, not to debate, but to remind them there's a world beyond the script. Don't play their game of moral purity, just show them what it looks like to think freely and still care deeply.

With strangers, it's different.

You owe them less, and it's okay to disengage when the cost is too high. Not every argument is winnable, and not every person wants to come back.

But when you do engage, go for clarity, not conversion. Speak plainly, factually, and with spine. Cults thrive in echo chambers. Every time you speak outside the script, you widen the crack that might let someone else out. 

Not today, maybe. But eventually. That's the long game. 

That's how you fight a cult without joining one.

(This post inspired by tags of @tapdancingmutantboy - thanks!)

Further Information:

Two-hour playlist of excellent videos on cults

Singer, M. T., & Lalich, J. (1995). Cults in our midst: The hidden menace in our everyday lives. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Hassan, S. (2015). Combating cult mind control: The #1 bestselling guide to protection, rescue, and recovery from destructive cults. Freedom of Mind Press.

[templeofskelegod]

all of this.

[templeofskelegod]

When she introduces you to her new boyfriend after the messy divorce.

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insp

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[templeofskelegod]

S K E L E T O R

By Luke Thompson

[templeofskelegod]

it’s exhausting whenever a post about (leftist, usually) Jew hatred semi-blows up— obviously they never actually blow up because why would the pure tumbrites touch the dirty Jews lmao. But anyway, the notes are instantly infested with people saying ‘oh no, this is so bad!’ for any other reason apart from the fact that hate crimes against Jews are bad.

‘This is so bad for our image, the media will use this to say we’re violent’, ‘now Jews won’t come to our protests!’ Real sentiments that I’ve had to slog through reading the tags of a post about a man’s shop being vandalised with slurs and death threats, and having its windows smashed (windows smashed? The photos I saw were from nighttime as well so we’ve got a perfect match). Repeated over and over and over again.

You know what I didn’t see?

People saying that hatecrimes against Jews are bad because hatecrimes against Jews are bad. Because Jews should be protected from being murdered and violently harassed. Because we’re actual people and maybe, maybe we don’t fucking deserve this.

I’m not even kidding. I didn’t see it, in over three hundred reblogs nobody bothered to maybe think about how we’re human beings to support and defend on an independent level. I just… I don’t know what to do. This feels even more tiring than whenever everyone crawls out to scream about us deserving it. It just shows how little they care. Even the unradicalised ones, even the normal ones. They don’t care. I’m so tired.

[templeofskelegod]

June 9, 2025, NYC Resists with Gaza tells specifically Indigenous people in the USA that they shouldn’t vote:

Because why fight disenfranchisement when you can discourage Native Americans in the U.S. from exercising their rights?

[templeofskelegod]

Obviously preaching to the choir here, so I hope this breaks containment, because I want to see the lay of the land on this site.

Reblog so this breaks containment. Thanks.

[templeofskelegod]

Please read the following headline and subhed on a New York Times report today:

“The Tunnel That Leads Underneath a Hospital in Southern Gaza

To Israelis, the location of an underground passageway highlights Hamas’s abuse of civilians. To Palestinians, Israel’s decision to target it highlights Israel’s own disregard for civilian life.”

Just so we’re all clear on what happened: The leader of Hamas was using a bunker directly underneath the emergency department of a hospital. Israel took out that leader with a strike that avoided the hospital itself, after giving advance warning of its intentions. Then Israel cleared the area around it and retrieved the body.

According to the Times, the preceding scenario is open to interpretation.

But to really understand what’s happening here, one has to rewind slightly to the moment of the strike and its aftermath. Last month, Israel struck the tunnel under the European Hospital in an attempt to eliminate Muhammad Sinwar, the leader of Hamas and successor to his brother, Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks. News agencies insisted Israel was lying about the presence of Hamas leadership or an underground bunker, relying on fake “experts” whose expertise I debunked here.

Then it turned out that, as usual, Israel was telling the truth. Then journalists complained that Israel was keeping journalists out of the war zone, a kind of veiled justification for why they keep making up stories. Israel responded by giving journalists a tour of the underground bunker itself. Journalists responded by saying, essentially, ah well, nevertheless!

So here’s a question worth repeating: Will these news agencies still continue to platform the fake “experts” who keep making fools of them? Will they still use the same reporters and anchors that keep getting these stories wrong while behaving unprofessionally on-air?

Let’s put a pin in that one and talk briefly about a man named Mahmoud Bassal. He is a spokesman for a Palestinian agency called Civil Defense, a security and emergency service that claims some independence from the Palestinian government under which it works. This ruse is less important in territories governed by the Palestinian Authority, which is a legitimate governing body, than it is in Gaza, which is governed by the barbaric terrorist organization Hamas. No one can operate such an agency in Gaza unless it is effectively controlled by Hamas, just like everything else. But news agencies have been sensitive about the fact that most of their “reporting” is regurgitated Hamas press releases, and that this is not in fact journalism at all. So they quote “civil defense” officials.

Bassal is a key player in this scam, because news reports can quote him without saying the word “Hamas.”

Well, they could. Past tense.

Yesterday, the IDF revealed that it recovered Hamas documentation of Bassal’s role within the organization. Bassal, the documents purportedly showed, was not Hamas-adjacent but rather simply Hamas. “The three intelligence documents disclosed by the IDF all mention Bassal by name and list him serving in various roles, including as a cell head in a Hamas intelligence unit,” the Jewish Chronicle reported. “According to the documents, Bassal joined Hamas in 2005, became a soldier in 2013, and was promoted to officer in 2020.”

Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov did a quick search and turned up Bassal’s appearances in stories in the Guardian, France24, AFP, and Reuters right off the bat. Will news organizations continue to quote Bassal? For that matter, will news organizations quote Palestinian Civil Defense?

Probably. Will they do so at least with a caveat about Bassal’s apparent Hamas membership? Unlikely. Just as it is unlikely all the reporters and analysts and “experts” and anchors who got it wrong on the hospital story will see no meaningful reduction in their contributions to the global journalism charade that is reporting on Israel and Gaza.

And we should take it one step further: The type of imaging evidence that Israel has released regarding tunnels under hospitals is reliable; will it be treated as such going forward? Additionally, there is no question now that Hamas and other terror groups operate from within and around and underneath the medical facilities just as Israel says they do. A remotely honest fourth estate would see this fact reflected in future reporting.

Just imagine how informed the public might have been—and how many fewer Jews attacked in the streets all over the world—had news agencies gotten the story right all along. Instead, the coverage of the war has been a 20-month work of extended fiction produced on behalf of a terrorist group that murders and kidnaps and tortures and does little else. I don’t know that the world is even capable of grappling with the extent of the scandal its news organizations have been perpetrating

[templeofskelegod]

Happy Pride Month!!

We are Beautiful in our Infinite Diversity

We are Never Going Away

We’re Here, We’re Queer, Get Used To It 🙌

Most importantly, to my queer Jewish friends, who have been ostracised from and made to feel unsafe in queer spaces, you matter and you are loved and glorious just as you are ❤️

🏳️‍🌈

[templeofskelegod]

Why can't I say "hate crimes that target Jews are bad" without immediately being told not to detract from the ongoing genocide in Palestine when like... I did not at all mention any country or context other than "it is bad to throw Molotov cocktails at Jews" like

Why can't I be upset and afraid and unhappy about hate crimes being perpetrated on my people without having to preface my fear and sorrow with an acknowledgement that I, A Jew, 100% denounce the ongoing, unrelated genocide taking place in a country I've never visited, perpetrated by people I do not know

"please don't hate crime Jews" is not a statement that has any-fucking-thing to do with Israel I fucking swear

[templeofskelegod]

Amplifying Arab Voices

5/9/25

Emirati Ahmed Sharif

Greta’s silence on Sudan is not just hypocrisy. It exposes the algorithm of modern activism where visibility matters more than truth.

Today’s influencers do not follow justice, they follow the camera. And the camera follows the narrative set by ideological machines like the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas has mastered the propaganda playbook, using deepfakes, choreographed grief, emotional bait, and viral testimonies to flood Western feeds with curated pain.

Not all suffering is equal in this system. Sudanese refugees, Uyghur prisoners, Iranian women, none of them serve the ideological agenda, so they remain invisible. Greta shows up only when the performance is polished and politically aligned. This is not humanitarianism, it is staged morality. The Muslim Brotherhood does not need to shout anymore. It scripts empathy and lets Western influencers deliver the lines.

This is how extremism launders itself through climate marches and social justice slogans. What looks like compassion is often just well-produced complicity.

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this article detailing the plan is even worse.

A WhatsApp group for left-wing activists in Portugal plotted to poison Israelis at the upcoming Boom Festival, Sarah (not her real name) told KAN News on Monday. The members also intended to defecate on the Israelis' tents and urinate in their food.

The unnamed Jewish woman said she entered the group chat through her work as an artist, though she imagined they didn't know she was Jewish.

“Their idea was to infiltrate the Boom Festival (set to take place in July), because a lot of Israelis go there after doing their service at the IDF. And they felt that it was unfair that [Israelis] should be allowed to be included.

“It started off as quite a mess, but then they started to organize themselves. What started off with just silly ideas then started to become plans. And as you can see, it's truly sinister."

One of the texts read "they are all pretty much IOF veterans boys and girls. I was thinking of giving them a taste of their own medicine. Wake them up and let them know that they are getting a humanitarian warning to leave their tents, make sure they are at a safe(ish) distance away and then torch their tent. I'd let them know that I am the most moral arsonist in the world and then give them the strychnine drop to cheer them up."

Another says: "Oh c'mon, strychnine in their acid is not dismemberment of babies... they are all former or current IOF after all... what's a little strychnine to people who have torn babies to shreds while wearing their mother's stolen underwear."

A third says "The entire world needs to adopt this tactic [of boycotting] wherever Israelis are found."

Strychnine is a highly toxic, colorless alkaloid used as a pesticide, which leads to convulsions and then death through asphyxia if ingested.

Sarah told KAN that she was also on a group phone call where similar plans were expressed, although she said the plans on the phone call were "worse."

"Plans to defecate on Israelis tents, plans to urinate in their food, plans to set their tents on fire, plans to put bad substances inside other substances they may take. Plans to make them feel uncomfortable, plans to attack."

Sarah told KAN that, as a Jewish woman, she felt "absolutely appalled" to hear the plans.

"First of all, our nature party scene has always been very inclusive, we become one when we are on the dancefloor."

"So reading these vile, racist, actually criminal plans, to hurt Israeli people, especially after what happened on October 7, was really appalling to me."

Festival organizers 'did nothing about it'

She said that she approached the festivals themselves first about what she had found, but that "nothing has been done about it."

"Hence why I scrabbed to try and warn the 4000 Israelis that I know are coming to be on that dancefloor; they need to be careful, and know there is a plan to hurt them."

She also spoke to police who she said "did not take her seriously."

"After what we saw in Washington and Boulder and France, it's imperative that this is taken seriously."

Sarah then told KAN that she herself has recently emigrated from Poland due to "institutionalized antisemitism."

This included being spat on when she wore her star of David and hostage tags in public.

[templeofskelegod]

some of y'all would cheer if jews started being shoved into ovens again so long as the headlines and tweets and your tumblr mutuals said "zionists finally being shoved into ovens"

[templeofskelegod]

Who is Evil-Lyn?

Evil-Lyn is Skeletor's second-in-command and also the only woman on the Evil Warriors' team.

She made her debut in 1983 as Mattel's attempt to add a woman on the bad guy's team to balance Teela whom (at the time) was the only woman on the good guys' team. And, just as Teela was a "Warrior Goddess" at that time, Evil-Lyn was labeled a Dark Goddess/Evil Goddess. Her body sculpt was exactly the same as Teela's but with a different head mold, and different color palette.

Was Evil-Lyn created as a love-interest for Skeletor?

No.

Originally, Evil-Lyn was created as a rival for Teela.

However, she very quickly became a love interest for Skeletor, as early as the newspaper comics published between 1983-85, Evil-Lyn decided that her endgame was to help Skeletor take over Eternia so that she could rule the world beside him as his queen.

This relationship continued on though the Filmation cartoon, the 200X reboot cartoon, the Classics-Line comics, and the Revelation series on Netflix.

[was gonna put an image of the making out on the throne scene from Rev., but I decided I didn't want to]

The only exceptions to this relationship were the New Adventures of He-Man, where Evil-Lyn doesn't appear at all; and the 2021 CGI Masters of the Universe series where Evil-Lyn appears to be shipped with Trap Jaw instead (although the ship does appear to be subtext).

What's Evil-Lyn's Backstory?

Evil-Lyn doesn't have one unified or consistent backstory.

One of Lyn's early concepts had her as an explorer from Earth whom crashed with Marlena, but while Marlena crashed near Eternos and was found by Randor, Lyn (as well as 2 others) were jettisoned and crashed in the Dark Lands instead where she was found by Skeletor and joined him.

[no image available]

This starkly different from her backstory in subsequent iterations of the franchise.

In the 200X reboot, Lyn's backstory has her as a Princess of a destroyed ancient civilization. When she was an infant, she was kidnapped by King Hiss and held as ransom against her father, the King of Zalesia. Her father did what Hiss wanted and Lyn was given back, but then Hiss destroyed Zalesia. As punishment her father was cursed with immortality and Lyn was taken by a time traveler into a future so that her father, now called the Faceless One, could raise her safely "away from the wars of Preternia". Sometime later, Lyn has left her father and is out on her own when she crosses paths with Keldor and his group who are trying to steal an artifact that she'd already stolen. After a brief scuffle and some cringe flirting, Lyn joins Keldor's group.

In the tie-in comics that pair with the Revelation series on Netflix, Lyn was being raised by a couple that may or may not have been her biological parents, but they turned out to be cannibals and tried to maim her to eat her limbs. She escapes them and flees into the sewers where she meets a witch, Magestra, who feeds her, raises her, and teaches her magic. Until Skeletor appears and gives Lyn a better offer.

The CGI series doesn't give a backstory for her (yet). But we do know that she's most likely from Eternia, she was a member of the royal court of King Randor before Keldor's coup, and -based off her accent- was probably born into a wealthy family that lived in the Upper Ward of the capital city.

[templeofskelegod]

@lama-gaza @lama-gaza2 @lama-gaza21 @lama-gaza3 @lama-gaza1

Why do you have so many accounts?

@abdullahgaza-4 @abdullahgazasblog @abdullahgaza2 @abdullahgaza

Why do you have so many accounts?

🚨🚨Scam detected🚨🚨

Thank you @queenclaudiabrown for bringing this to my attention!