Spiritual Materialism

In this “mini” episode we discuss how Spiritual Materialism affected the outlook, behavior, and overarching beliefs of CUT church members and our parents.

Topics include:

-- Defining Spiritual Materialism

-- How CUT has their own version of the Law of Attraction and why this is problematic

-- Magical thinking and its influence / an infantile view of the world and how things are affecting you

-- How Purism is linked to our topic

-- How only putting out positive intentions and doing rhythmic chanting (decrees) has limited effects

-- How the Hindu caste system is reflected in CUT hierarchy and their modified theology of karma 

-- How decrees (rhythmic chanting) are part of spiritual materialism

-- Hierarchies of graduation

-- How doing getting professional mental health support comes down to the willingness of the individual, and how some people were encouraged to do it

-- How some mental health conditions are viewed as weakness and being caused by invisible evil spirits called “entities”

-- Beliefs about if you are failing it is because you are failing spiritually

--  In the last four minutes we give a summary and recap of what spiritual materialism is and why it’s harmful