commune living

[seedlessinsc]

while involved in a thread about strawbale homes an interesting topic came up. Anyone right now or in the past participated in commune living. if so can you give us the pros and cons and an overview of what it was like? :D

[Roadking]

I lived with these people (http://www.sonic.net/sentinel/1earth4.html) for a short time back in 1976....until I hopped the fence late one night and caught a ride south....

[3 Sheets To The Wind]

I lived with these people (http://www.sonic.net/sentinel/1earth4.html) for a short time back in 1976....until I hopped the fence late one night and caught a ride south....

Could you sum it up in a few words, that's a lot to read.

I read a few lines and that sounds pretty.. like.. the Movementarians off The Simpsons or something... strange shit! lol

[Roadking]

The unification church, as they call themselves is considered to be a cult. The leader, Reverend Moon, claims to be the new messiah.
I spent a month with them up in the hills of Northern California back in the seventies. Daily seminars and group discussions and sing-alongs. During the group discussions, a circle of recruits sitting on the ground with a group leader, we were expected to talk about what inspired us that day. If you wanted to test the anger of the group leader, you could maybe say that nothing inspired you. The whole idea was to be inspired...in a group. A subtle chipping away of your individuality.
Even during lunch...and this drove me nuts...you were supposed to break off a piece of your sandwich and give it to someone else in the circle....and someone would give you a piece of theirs. Again, a subtle chipping away of your individuality. I just wanted to eat....not play with my food.
Anyhow, there's lots more....but in the end, when they think they've got you, you move into a special priveledged group and find yourself in this room where you are told to sit with your eyes closed..as they tell you a story about Moon meeting Jesus in the wilderness...and Jesus telling how he didn't finish his work because we murdered him...and that it is up to Moon to finish where JC left off. Very touching. The girls in the front row wept. This is where it all comes to a climax...in this room. You either believe or you don't. And if you don't, you'd better fake it, or you are now suspect. An outcast.
The weather was real nice up in those hills...and there was a *girl with a flower in her hair....and ravens floating in the blue afternoon sky above.

[Roadking]

but...I've drifted....commune living? That was commune living.

[3 Sheets To The Wind]

Ooo that sounds nice.. few hours late but cheers man :p hehe.

Sounds very weird, I wouldn't be able to do that, I'd have to be like "Hold up, hold up, what a load of BS" lol!

[Roadking]

Well, they use different techniques for different people in order to hold them while they attempt to steal a mind. In my case, it was a lovely little blonde-haired girl with a pearly-white smile. I should have known better. Her mother had been with the cult for years.
They even had (have) their own doctors and lawyers that mingled with the new converts...although looking back, I'd have to say that they really weren't doctors and lawyers...but they told me that so I would think that there were very intelligent people around me that believed this strange new philosophy-the Divine Principle-and that if THEY believed, then an average under-educated person like myself was only being dumb if I too didn't believe.
But, oh...if you could only have seen that young lady standing waist-high in swaying yellow grass with the sun highlighting her hair like a halo...that overpowering womanly essence....

...more later...

[Miggoll]

I was at a Kibbutz for about 6 months in Israel during a gap year. It was a good experiance anf fun at times. But not really me - would not really want to do it again!

[UnViaje]

some cult tried to nab a slow friend of mine

[Roadking]

Well, they use different techniques for different people in order to hold them while they attempt to steal a mind. In my case, it was a lovely little blonde-haired girl with a pearly-white smile. I should have known better. Her mother had been with the cult for years.
They even had (have) their own doctors and lawyers that mingled with the new converts...although looking back, I'd have to say that they really weren't doctors and lawyers...but they told me that so I would think that there were very intelligent people around me that believed this strange new philosophy-the Divine Principle-and that if THEY believed, then an average under-educated person like myself was only being dumb if I too didn't believe.
But, oh...if you could only have seen that young lady standing waist-high in swaying yellow grass with the sun highlighting her hair like a halo...that overpowering womanly essence....

...more later...

I knew there was something wrong with that last sentence. If the young lady was standing waist-high in swaying yellow grass, one could get the wrong impression that I'm a pedophile. She was about eighteen years of age...
So, to rephrase that above sentence, it would be proper to say that the young lady stood in swaying yellow grass that was waist-high.

I wish I knew where she was today. We could have an interesting conversation for sure. The day I met her and her friend, they had invited me for dinner at a house on Washington st.
Sitting in a chair reading the Sunday edition of Parade magazine back home on the east coast some time later, I saw a picture of her friend with four other cult members. The caption above the photo read..."THE FAITHFUL FIVE." They had been kidnapped by their families who were attempting to have them deprogrammed. The five cult members in turn were fighting their families in court for violating their rights. Never did hear the outcome of that story.