MovieChat Forums > Holy Hell (2016) Discussion > I have mixed feelings, I think some of t...

I have mixed feelings, I think some of them do also

posted 8 years ago by cashmccall
9 replies | jump to latest

Yes, he's creepy looking, but in the beginning they all had a good time, dare I say, a beautiful experience. The guy was not a total control freak, otherwise the follower who filmed him constantly would have been told to give the master all the footage and he would have edited everything and kept all the footage locked up. But he didn't do that, did he?

It was interesting following the time line. I found myself remembering what I was doing every year they covered as I am the age of the younger followers. In the 80's and 90's I was working my ass off, 14 hours a day 6 days a week, a virtual slave to an ego maniac who owned the company. Most of the time I was miserable and regretted not being in a commune like 60's flower children, where I could be free and be with hot women. One day I even delivered some galleys to a rich cult, where I was greeted by a very pretty woman who seemed spiritual and peaceful and loved her job; ironic, right?

Anyway, he was a creep, but some of the original people stayed with him, didn't they? And if you think absolutely none of his followers wanted to have (voluntary) sex with him ever, you're deluded.

[–] rocklyn80 8 years ago

But I bet your "Ego Maniac" boss didn't sodomize you and then charge you $50 for it!!!

[–] kicke_blueblack 8 years ago

I think he did.

[–] debunkerboy 8 years ago

I think the flaw in your argument is in your idealization of their so called beautiful experience. There is a difference between real happiness and some sort of manic, dreamland high fueled by your own youthful delusions of grandeur. Anything you fiercely believe or desperately want to be true can actually seem true, for a time, but life is more than just a placebo, there are real limits and realities beyond you belief state. The high is destined to collapse and then you have no foundation status in your career, society, family, etc. It is also probably true that you will come to hate 'outsiders' and fear the outside world - they are the non-believers, they are filled with stress, mind, etc. "We have heaven here, outside there is darkness." They will bring you down. That's enough to KEEP YOU there long after the giddy high is gone. There is also the inherent fear involved - if the master can give me this high then he can take it away. And people in cults are afraid, very afraid. The master is given so much power! "Maybe I won't achieve nirvana in this life but if I keep my nose clean here with the master he may put in a good word for me upstairs." Don't laugh, that's the kind of thinking that goes on.

To whatever extent they were experiencing things of real value they could have had that elsewhere without the baggage. There are communes without the delusional dictators. There are saner ways to find real spiritual value and some of the answers to your own unhappiness.

As to your own realization about being a slave to the man - well, there was probably a middle ground between flat dropping out of society and keeping on in a job relationship you hated. That's a false dilemma there. Not everybody hates their work and if you do your energy would be better spent finding something better than escaping to Buddafield.
That you are so strongly tending toward a devaluing of your own life to the point that Buddafiled looks kind of good goes a long way toward explaining its attraction.

[–] cashmccall 8 years ago

I think all or most of them were happier in the beginning of the cult than I was at my job during the same time period. That's all I'm saying. Is there a point? Yes, they were happy in the cult for a while, and a lot, a LOT of people hate their job but stay stuck in it. I got out and became happy and successful eventually. So, the point, the cult experience can be, and often is, exactly like the corporate world. You "work" for a megalomaniac, or you "worship" one, same thing.

[–] edt89 8 years ago

Drug addicts are happy using drugs at first too. The sickness and feelings of rock bottom don't appear until later. These are all pretty weak minded individuals here who were capable of deluding themselves to such an extent that many of them still clearly don't seem to think they were part of a cult. Notice how some of them are still going by their cult names?

These idiots could have found happiness in pretty much anything because they were LOOKING for happiness. The fact that their eventual idea of what was an enlightened state meant becoming a slave to a narcissistic lunatic is telling.

[–] Xeque 8 years ago

1. Most drug addicts are victms too, one way or another.

2. Not surprisingly from you condescending tone, you appear to be sure you wouldn't fall for a similar situation. I'm not.

3. Looking for happiness sounds like a pretty good thing to me, and I find it weird that you use it as a tool for victim blaming.

Yeah because you're victim blaming, obviously. Let's even assume for the argument they were "weak-minded" or "idiots", all of them. Who's to blame here, exactly? The manipulative lunatic or the people who he chose to con/enslave all those years?

You're being judgy and focusing on how those kids deserved it, which is unproductive and unfair, is my point.

[–] cashmccall 8 years ago

Everyone in the world wants and looks for happiness. But these few individuals definitely have a mental problem that most don't have, that's why they were so easily duped for so long. They are weak people, lacking personal responsibility, sorry, you're wrong.

[–] activista 8 years ago

@cashmcall

They are weak people, lacking personal responsibility, sorry, you're wrong.

Actually,you're wrong. One reason some people may be more susceptible to joining cults is if they don't feel any real connection to the society around them---like, for example, some of the people who joined the Jim Jones cult back in the '70s, or the people who joined the Heaven's Gate cult back in the '90s. There's a book I read years ago called Awake In A Nightmare, which was about a black Vietnam vet from Detroit who joined Jones' cult about the mid-'70s or so, and was with them until the horrible end---amazingly enough, he and a friend managed to get the hell out of Dodge before all that went down. It's one of only two books I've read from the point of view of someone who was actually in the Jones cult----the other was by a woman whose family personally knew Jones years before he put his cult together---she was a the daughter of a minister who years later joined said cult, and saw firsthand how it went downhill within a couple of years. Both of these two were pretty regular normal folks (in their own words) people who believed enough in Jones' making of what they thought would be a real-life utopia in the making; only to see it fall apart at the seams in the worst way. Point being, there are certain people more susceptible to being sucked up in a cult than others, but you never know what kind of person can get caught up in that kind of mess,regardless.

Haven't seen this film, but would definitely like to because of the subject matter----I can't think of too many docs I've seen about a cult that was actually made by a former ember of said cult---they definitely sounds like a must-see, if you ask me.

[–] alkimia4 8 years ago

Director Will Allen was asked in an interview with Esquire how he was able to record Michel so much if he was so manipulative and he said that at first Michel was reluctant, but that after Allen put together a montage and made him "look good", Michel relented and was more at ease. Allen said it got to the point where it became the norm and Michel loved the attention. Allen attributed it all to Michel's narcissistic and egomaniacal personality. I'll get you the link for the interview if you'd like, but it's readily available if you search for it. It's what supplied most of the trivia.