04-09-2010, 05:37 AM
(revisiting a misunderstood thread in the controversy room)
Love-Bombing is not a new expression. It dates at least as far back as July 23, 1978, when Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church used it in a speech:
“Unification Church members are smiling all of the time, even at four in the morning. The man who is full of love must live that way. When you go out witnessing you can caress the wall and say that it can expect you to witness well and be smiling when you return. What face could better represent love than a smiling face? This is why we talk about love bomb; Moonies have that kind of happy problem.â€
Following that speech, Ronald Loomis, Director of Education for the International Cultic Studies Association, stated that such love-bombing was an underhanded method used by cultists to attract new members and hold onto the members they had. Asserting that the term was not invented by critics, he said: “We did not make up this term. The term ‘love bombing’ originated with the Unification Church, the Moonies. It’s their term.â€
Other groups, such as the International Churches of Christ and Children of God, also use the term. In response to Loomis’ negative tone, the Unification Church’s next leader, Damian Anderson, protested that love bombing was nothing less than a genuine expression of friendship, fellowship, interest, or concern. He wrote: "Everyone likes such care and attention, so it is unfortunate that when we love as Jesus taught us to love, that we are then accused of having ulterior motives."
Love-bombing is therefore two-fold. By its proponents, it’s the positive reinforcement of love. By its critics, it’s a feigned, manipulative "love" used in recruiting and retaining members. While some would protest that love-bombing is preferable to hate-bombing, in fact, hate-bombing is not the opposite of love-bombing. The opposite of love-bombing is unconditional love, whereas love-bombing is highly conditional.
Consider the common practice of love-bombing in cults. Members will love you to death if you represent a prospective convert to their group. As you progress into membership, a tight family love will surround you as you faithfully promote their cause. However, when it is clear that you will not join or after becoming a member, voice doubts, create waves, or leave the group, all that love ceases. Scorn is immediately heaped upon you and all remaining members are encouraged to have no further contact with you.
Unconditional love, on the other hand, allows members to love all visitors, regardless whether they might be prospective members. Love, if genuine, needs to continue even when the visitor chooses to associate with another group of believers. Even problem members need to be loved when they create problems or leave in a huff. Christians need to ask themselves what kind of love they practice—conditional or unconditional. The difference is huge.
Not that organizations, particularly those of a religious nature, have no interest in keeping members. But love-bombing is phoney and manipulative. It appeals to the weaker mind and as such, is particularly unique to religion. Nothing sells product, preaches unity or binds the party faithful better than the good old-fashion evangelical call to unity. But to be honest, marketable goods and services and objectives of political parties need more than love-bombing to give them substance and merit—which is why cult manipulation leads so many to financial ruin and ultimately, senseless death.
Self-awareness, new-age encounter groups have for about 40 years successfully used this technique. But the ones who use it best are individuals, and these are the most difficult to expose. Take an abusive man who love-bombs one day and beats the living daylights out of his wife the next. She will love him to death because he love-bombs her ninety-five percent of the time and only beats her five percent. Pimps use the same love-bomb tactics to feign their love in recruiting a new girl to the street. But of all individual love-bombers, pedophiles are the worst.
While normal abuse is often exposed by neighbours and police, the love-bomber pedophile is rarely caught, since he preys on naïve, innocent children. He will begin by saying things like, “God loves little children who love their daddies (uncles, grandfathers, etc.)—especially those that keep our little secret.†You can only imagine how this plays out in a little child’s brain. Bruises, bloody noses and broken limbs are obvious evidence of abuse, but that which is buried in the heart of a child, for sanity sake, is far too deep and out of sight for anyone to see. Even more profound is the fear worse than death threatened upon the child revealing it.
While studying with a gay man back in the ‘60’s, I remember him telling me what happened to him as a choirboy in the Anglican church. “While having sex with me, the priest used to tell me that I was an angel sent to him from heaven and that God had a special place for all little boys like me. While the catechism was silent on this, the Bible was explicitly otherwise.â€
In fact, love-bombing is a pedophile’s best tool. It is the tool of deception that permeates humanity. In fact I’m convinced its invention is satanic, which is why so many people that use it aren’t even aware they do. To them, love-bombing is true love, even when it is used as a guised threat of abandonment in which the victim receives the underlying message, “If you don’t (love, believe, do, cooperate with) me, I won’t be your friend—or worse, I might even kill you or someone you love.â€
Words don’t have to be spoken—just implied. But they are extremely successful when they detonate into sinister beauty used to manipulate good people—people who would otherwise not end up in abusive relationships or extreme life-styles that they are mistakenly blamed for. Being aware of this method went a long way for me to identify what Jehovah’s Witnesses have been given by those who are presently leading them. Sad to say, many are being love-bombed to death—spiritual death.
Is it any different outside? Yeah, it is. The abuse can be far more frontal where people are permitted greater freedoms. But the tolerance for abuse, while more obvious, is also greater, and because love-bombers are everywhere, they are particularly efficient in religious and volunteer environments—actually anywhere that casts the least suspicion and where members rely heavily upon hierarchal leadership. And since members are lead to believe their hierarchies would be the last to inflict conditional love-bomb techniques, it’s also the only place that nobody looks for an abuser.
Love-Bombing is not a new expression. It dates at least as far back as July 23, 1978, when Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church used it in a speech:
“Unification Church members are smiling all of the time, even at four in the morning. The man who is full of love must live that way. When you go out witnessing you can caress the wall and say that it can expect you to witness well and be smiling when you return. What face could better represent love than a smiling face? This is why we talk about love bomb; Moonies have that kind of happy problem.â€
Following that speech, Ronald Loomis, Director of Education for the International Cultic Studies Association, stated that such love-bombing was an underhanded method used by cultists to attract new members and hold onto the members they had. Asserting that the term was not invented by critics, he said: “We did not make up this term. The term ‘love bombing’ originated with the Unification Church, the Moonies. It’s their term.â€
Other groups, such as the International Churches of Christ and Children of God, also use the term. In response to Loomis’ negative tone, the Unification Church’s next leader, Damian Anderson, protested that love bombing was nothing less than a genuine expression of friendship, fellowship, interest, or concern. He wrote: "Everyone likes such care and attention, so it is unfortunate that when we love as Jesus taught us to love, that we are then accused of having ulterior motives."
Love-bombing is therefore two-fold. By its proponents, it’s the positive reinforcement of love. By its critics, it’s a feigned, manipulative "love" used in recruiting and retaining members. While some would protest that love-bombing is preferable to hate-bombing, in fact, hate-bombing is not the opposite of love-bombing. The opposite of love-bombing is unconditional love, whereas love-bombing is highly conditional.
Consider the common practice of love-bombing in cults. Members will love you to death if you represent a prospective convert to their group. As you progress into membership, a tight family love will surround you as you faithfully promote their cause. However, when it is clear that you will not join or after becoming a member, voice doubts, create waves, or leave the group, all that love ceases. Scorn is immediately heaped upon you and all remaining members are encouraged to have no further contact with you.
Unconditional love, on the other hand, allows members to love all visitors, regardless whether they might be prospective members. Love, if genuine, needs to continue even when the visitor chooses to associate with another group of believers. Even problem members need to be loved when they create problems or leave in a huff. Christians need to ask themselves what kind of love they practice—conditional or unconditional. The difference is huge.
Not that organizations, particularly those of a religious nature, have no interest in keeping members. But love-bombing is phoney and manipulative. It appeals to the weaker mind and as such, is particularly unique to religion. Nothing sells product, preaches unity or binds the party faithful better than the good old-fashion evangelical call to unity. But to be honest, marketable goods and services and objectives of political parties need more than love-bombing to give them substance and merit—which is why cult manipulation leads so many to financial ruin and ultimately, senseless death.
Self-awareness, new-age encounter groups have for about 40 years successfully used this technique. But the ones who use it best are individuals, and these are the most difficult to expose. Take an abusive man who love-bombs one day and beats the living daylights out of his wife the next. She will love him to death because he love-bombs her ninety-five percent of the time and only beats her five percent. Pimps use the same love-bomb tactics to feign their love in recruiting a new girl to the street. But of all individual love-bombers, pedophiles are the worst.
While normal abuse is often exposed by neighbours and police, the love-bomber pedophile is rarely caught, since he preys on naïve, innocent children. He will begin by saying things like, “God loves little children who love their daddies (uncles, grandfathers, etc.)—especially those that keep our little secret.†You can only imagine how this plays out in a little child’s brain. Bruises, bloody noses and broken limbs are obvious evidence of abuse, but that which is buried in the heart of a child, for sanity sake, is far too deep and out of sight for anyone to see. Even more profound is the fear worse than death threatened upon the child revealing it.
While studying with a gay man back in the ‘60’s, I remember him telling me what happened to him as a choirboy in the Anglican church. “While having sex with me, the priest used to tell me that I was an angel sent to him from heaven and that God had a special place for all little boys like me. While the catechism was silent on this, the Bible was explicitly otherwise.â€
In fact, love-bombing is a pedophile’s best tool. It is the tool of deception that permeates humanity. In fact I’m convinced its invention is satanic, which is why so many people that use it aren’t even aware they do. To them, love-bombing is true love, even when it is used as a guised threat of abandonment in which the victim receives the underlying message, “If you don’t (love, believe, do, cooperate with) me, I won’t be your friend—or worse, I might even kill you or someone you love.â€
Words don’t have to be spoken—just implied. But they are extremely successful when they detonate into sinister beauty used to manipulate good people—people who would otherwise not end up in abusive relationships or extreme life-styles that they are mistakenly blamed for. Being aware of this method went a long way for me to identify what Jehovah’s Witnesses have been given by those who are presently leading them. Sad to say, many are being love-bombed to death—spiritual death.
Is it any different outside? Yeah, it is. The abuse can be far more frontal where people are permitted greater freedoms. But the tolerance for abuse, while more obvious, is also greater, and because love-bombers are everywhere, they are particularly efficient in religious and volunteer environments—actually anywhere that casts the least suspicion and where members rely heavily upon hierarchal leadership. And since members are lead to believe their hierarchies would be the last to inflict conditional love-bomb techniques, it’s also the only place that nobody looks for an abuser.