You get a cult... you get a cult... everybody gets a cult
24th April 2023
The NZ Skeptics held an SGM (Special General Meeting) on the weekend to go over our proposed new constitution and vote on its adoption. We’re doing this because there’s an upcoming change in the law that will require Societies’ constitutions to be aligned with the new law’s requirements. Thankfully we have an active committee, and several members were willing to give up several hours in their weekends to go through the new constitution recommended by Companies Office (who administer Societies) and integrate the key parts of our old constitution with the new one. We also injected a few skeptically-themed easter eggs into our new constitution, so that it’s not an entirely boring read. Thanks to everyone who turned up to our SGM and voted to accept our new constitution, and to those who suggested changes.
I attended my first in-person meeting for the Eastern Lightning group last weekend. I was a little nervous heading out, but it turns out the two men I met on the day were in the same boat as me - it was their first meeting, so none of us had done this before. With just an instruction from our fellowship leader to read the first chapter of a book called “Selections of the Words of Almighty God”, titled “What It Mean to Truly Believe in God”, and discuss it, we somehow managed to spend an hour and a half reading, discussing and chatting. I came away from the meeting feeling quite sad; the stories of the two men I had met up with were ones of hardship and adversity, and on top of their existing struggles they’re now members of a cult that will eventually try to take both their time and their money, while ruining the connections they have with others by forcing them to try to recruit everyone they know.
Our chair, Craig, appeared as a mystery guest on the show 7 Days last week, as a result of our new $100,000 challenge. He did a great job of representing our Society, and the challenge, and it sounds like everyone had a good laugh about it all. If you want to watch the episode, it’s available on Three’s On Demand service:
https://www.threenow.co.nz/shows/7-days/thursday-20-april-2023/61183/M71635-893
This week there’s just a couple of short pieces from me, about the recent Silenced documentary and a “UFO” sighting. But we also have three contributions that are all about cult-like groups; from Al Blenney, who has written about a local “School of Prophets” that I’d love to attend, Dan Ryan, who has pondered whether he might be in a cult, and Bronwyn, who has started to delve into the history of the Builders of the Adytum - an esoteric group that her and I have visited in the past.
