Think Al Gore is Too Soft? Join This Climate Change Cult!

Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, a handful of deniers manage to keep arguing about the existence, causes, and likely outcomes of global warming. Not to be outdone by this conventional irrationality, we have a few oddballs on the ‘believing’ side of the fence too.

Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment, a new-age religious cult based out of Yelm, Washington, makes exaggerated, doomsday predictions about global warming to instill fear in its followers and convince them to build underground shelters to protect from the “Days to Come.“[social_buttons]

According to the prophesies made by the spiritual school, the human population at the end of 2012 will be two-thirds what it is now, and those who survive in the long term will do so by stocking up on food, water, and medical supplies and by having an underground shelter to protect them from the dangers of a rapidly changing earth.

Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment, or RSE, was founded in 1987, and its teachings date back a decade further. The lessons are based around the concepts of tapping into the forgotten God within oneself, being able to create one’s own reality, and using one’s mind to perform superhuman abilities. Supposedly the teacher is a 35,000-year-old warrior from Lemuria who is being channeled by a 62-year-old woman named JZ Knight.

Ramtha students were behind the pseudo-science documentary What the Bleep Do We Know!? , which purports to inform us about quantum physics and the subjective nature of reality, yet could not even accurately tell us what percentage of the human body is composed of water.

While so-called prophets have been making doomsday prophecies for centuries, Ramtha’s predictions take on a unique form of sophistication. Their claims are masked as science, which has attracted followers who are not only wealthy and credulous, but surprisingly intelligent, creating an aura of credibility.

They can not seem to keep the prophecies consistent even from one lecture to another, but the scare tactics are generally rooted in a combination of climate change exaggerations and economic collapse straight out of New World Order. In Last Waltz of the Tyrants, their book of predictions for the ’90s, Ramtha told of the financial collapse we would see in the ’90s and explained how using cars has created a hole in the ozone layer, which is simply not true.

When none of the catastrophes came to fruition in the ’90s, they turned their scares toward 2012 and are using reports that recent hurricanes and floods have likely intensified due to climate change as evidence that the world as we know it has only a few more years.

Listen to some incoherent babbling here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/DfGs-cA3E_M&hl=en&fs=1]

One might ask, “So what? They have some controversial new age views, but at least they are concerned with the planet! They’re an ally!” That could have been the case. But these money-grubbers, who charge thousands per year for their students to retain their invitation to the doomsday party, have instead decided that convincing their followers to move to Yelm and build underground shelters is a far bigger priority than actually trying to stop climate change from occurring (so much for them being able to “create their own realities”).

McKenna, the town neighboring Yelm, conveniently has a business run by Ramtha students called the Survival Center, which sells Ramtha books, emergency supplies, and will build you a fully stocked 5-room underground shelter for the low price of $1.5 million! The survival center claims to be independent of RSE, but it’s anyone’s guess where the profit from the store goes.

So the next time someone tells you that climate change is just a paranoid doomsday embellishment, you can show them the IPCC’s accurate and frightening most recent findings and then tell them that if they’re looking for crazy and exaggerated, you’ve got just the group for them.

Oh, and if money is still burning in your pocket after purchasing that bargain of a bunker, you can always pay $30,000 to speak one-on-one for an hour with Ramtha him/herself.

Photo Credit: lonesome:cycler on Flickr under Creative Commons license.

12 thoughts on “Think Al Gore is Too Soft? Join This Climate Change Cult!”

  1. “little – wise one” and the other knuckle heads here, including me.

    You should just consider what it is your doing here ?
    if its info your getting,..? is it anti or pro, or is it just infomation. is it personalized by sum folk that you wouldn even eat at the table with or is it real infomation. .

    To experience something is when you personally have a opinion of it through self experience. so y believe em?
    Nob Shiners, who wanna fix it in your head and go beyond lengths to hate at regrets, are dull.

    and yea, most this world only see’s, black or white.
    your either in or out, you got it, you dont. your special, your not. seperated by the silly.

    As sheep have shepereds, so do shepereds have sheep.

    when is it, all for one and one for all ? ? ? and so, why not now and forever ?

    HeyLittlewise one, if you didnt get it.. your a knob shiner, but its cool, you just added to my day.

  2. heylittlewiseone

    confusion… be confused no more. RSE is indeed a cult and is listed as such by the international cultic studies association http://www.icsahome.com/infoserv_grp/grp_ramtha.asp It might also be interesting to examine the 8 criteria laid out by Robert Lifton that define a cult: Dr. Robert J. Lifton’s Eight Criteria for Thought Reform

    1. Milieu Control. This involves the control of information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.

    2. Mystical Manipulation. There is manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated by the group or its leaders in order to demonstrate divine authority or spiritual advancement or some special gift or talent that will then allow the leader to reinterpret events, scripture, and experiences as he or she wishes.

    3. Demand for Purity. The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here.

    4. Confession. Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; members’ “sins,” “attitudes,” and “faults” are discussed and exploited by the leaders.

    5. Sacred Science. The group’s doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or for all humanity, is likewise above criticism.

    6. Loading the Language. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members’ thought processes to conform to the group’s way of thinking.

    7. Doctrine over person. Member’s personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group.

    8. Dispensing of existence. The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious and they must be converted to the group’s ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also. (Lifton, 1989)

    1. they say ignorance is bless..you all have no idea what your talking about, thats for sure…ITS NOT A CULT..its not a religon and its not new age..What it is is GRAND…Beautiful Teachings..

  3. “Wow, I would have expected a more open minded approach from a political activist and recent graduate of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

    I encourage you to check out some of the other Youtube videos here
    http://www.youtube.com/RSEWebTeam

    hahaha! posted for and/or by the RSE Web Team.

    and….
    “Don’t be so quick to brand a religious group that you’re not familiar with as a cult.”

    uh…i am 19 years familiar with the group, and it IS a cult.
    onto discussing more intelligent arguments like “what is the true cause of” or
    “is there really global warming?”

  4. Ha ha! These people making money on the ignorant are no less guilty than Gore himself. He simply tells people that CO2 is pollution and the world will end tomorrow unless you invest in his green companies. Gore will become one of the wealthiest people in America over the next 10 years and perhaps when he has enough cash, he’ll run again for President.

    All I can say is beware of Cap&Trade and particularly Carbon Rationing. At a cost of $500 per person per year, it will disrupt the economies of nations all over the world. And as always, the USA will take the blame.

  5. Don’t be so quick to brand a religious group that you’re not familiar with as a cult. Just because it’s more socially acceptable to worship and omniscient being and fear the impending rapture doesn’t mean that it is more correct.

  6. Awesome! Thanks for spreading some real knowledge on the www :-). As a former rse student, I can tell you that this only scratches the surface of crazy that can be found there. In 5.5.2000 we were told that ‘ramthas’ alien space ship saved the earth from destruction, but just in case, we were to ‘seek higher ground’ to protect ourselves from the potential tidal waves, etc. phew, glad that ship stopped by just in time! You can be sure that for every prediction that doesn’t come true there is some elaborate reason why the date has been pushed ahead again…

    I hope your article may help open the eyes of some people still stuck in the rse web of fear and delusion.

  7. [quote]So the next time someone tells you that climate change is just a paranoid doomsday embellishment, you can show them the IPCC’s accurate and frightening most recent findings…[/quote]

    Ah yes, the group of scientists with no agenda whatsoever, the cornerstone of truth, and whom have now concluded that the consensus is MMCC is a done deal!
    Last time I learnt anything scientific (and was a fair while ago), consensus was not in the scientific vocabulary – hypothesis and testing of said hypothesis, before refining the hypothesis, and retesting……ad nauseum, was definitely there.
    How time seems to have changed when scientists have political agendas, funding to secure, and notoriety to cash in on!

    I preferred Al Gore too – when he was a (decent?, honourable?) politician, not the corrupt and morally bankrupt person he’s become since having nothing to do after losing to Bush.
    Of course, least said about his hypocritical speeches about Carbon Footprints and using less energy, soonest mended! Pity he doesn’t exercise what he preaches – but then which politicians do?

  8. Wow, I would have expected a more open minded approach from a political activist and recent graduate of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

    But he is probably one of those numbskulls laying in front of military shipments at the port last November.

    I encourage you to check out some of the other Youtube videos here
    http://www.youtube.com/RSEWebTeam

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