The Circle of Light and Love is NOT a cult

We prove that we are not a cult!

Some ignorant people utter accusations against everything that has something to do with religion and that is outside the patterns they know. Many religious groups are called 'a cult' without good reason. In some countries it is a very heavy accusation. And there are very bad examples of cults in the past and nobody wants to be associated with these bad examples.

In this article we will prove, without a shadow of doubt, that the Circle of Light and Love is definitive not a cult.

People who utter wild accusations don't read. They do not study the facts. So this article will not protect us from slander and wild accusations. But if you are interested, and you read carefully, you can decide for yourself if we are a dangerous cult or a beneficial aid for survival and spiritual growth.

When is a group a cult?

When a group has certain properties, it can be considered a cult. What kind of properties? Several authors use different properties, but basically they come down to the following properties.

1. There is a dominant leader
which is worshipped and who is seen as the bringer of salvation or redemption

Firewolf is not very dominant. He does not allow worshipping. And he is not the bringer of salvation or redemption.

In fact, Firewolf practices the statement of Jesus:

"... If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all."
(Mark 9:35).

Firewolf does what he can for those who open up to him.

Firewolf practices meditation and pranayama since 1974, since he was 12 years old. His chakras radiate energy, he is a great healer and he has had many direct encounters with 'the higher intelligence' or 'god' or whatever you want to call 'the unknown'. Most of the work you should do yourself. But an initiation or training of Firewolf is very special and very beneficial.

Students respect him, yes. But they don't kneel for him or worship him. He created 200 TRANCE-FORMATION CD's. With these CD's you can TRANCE-FORM yourself, improve yourself. This is not salvation or redemption, but steady spiritual, mental, emotional and physical growth. And you do it yourself. The CD's are just tools to shape your body, mind and soul.

Unfortunately, these CD's are in Dutch. But Firewolf is translating them. And we will put them on the internet as mp3-files, so that you can download them. Sign up for our newsletter and we will inform you about this.

2. Followers are promised salvation
if and only if they follow the prescribed path

A prescribed path is something from Jewish, christian and Islamic religions. In these religions you have a big daddy in the sky, who gives commandments and who condemns people when they act or even think otherwise. We do not promote believe in a big daddy in the sky. If in some circle people want to believe in such a way, they are free to do so. But it is not the believe of Firewolf and it is not promoted or prescribed. We promote the believe, that every man and every woman and every child is a unique individual and every person should follow his/her own unique path.

We do NOT promote a believe in a heaven or a hell. The Circle of Light and Love is about living in the here and now. You can believe whatever you want about the live after death. If there is one. If you believe that everything ends for you when you stop breathing, that is fine. If it works for you. Most people live a better life on earth, when they believe that there is something beyond this life. So believe in some form of existence after the death of the physical body is beneficial. But there is no doctrine about life after death.

3. This prescribed path is the only righteous path

We don't have a prescribed path. And we believe that every person should follow his/her own unique path. That is why Firewolf created so many TRANCE-FORMATION CD's. You just use the ones that are beneficial for you. And if you like, you can create your own TRANCE-FORMATION CD's. TRANCE-FORMATION is just a technique, not a religion. If your are interested, you can learn the basics of TRANCE-FORMATION in a few days and create your own tools.

The teachings of Firewolf evolve. They are not perfect. Firewolf writes in his course Kundalini-yoga:

Suppose I would create a new cosmology? Probably I would start like this.

• This cosmology (or this religion) is NOT complete, since my brain is to small to comprehend the universe.
• A year ago I thought different about many things than I do now. Some things I considered to be true a year ago, I consider false now. Next year I will consider some things wrong, which I consider right now. Some things I write will become obsolete. That is why this cosmology contains errors.
• This cosmology (or this religion) contains errors and is incomplete.

Does this sound like the doctrine of a cult? Or does it sound like 'the science of religion'?

4. Followers believe, that they belong to a chosen group

Firewolf rejects the believe in superiority. Believing in superiority is something from Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions. In these religions you have a big daddy in the sky, who chooses people and makes them special. According to Firewolf, humans are apes like the gorilla, the orang utan, the chimpanzee and the bonobo. The main difference between these apes and humans is this:

Humans have a language to tell lies. A nickname for human could be: lying ape.

People do not become human by birth or by simply growing up. To become human you have to evolve yourself. When you are young, your brain is very adaptive. And if you meditate, you can evolve beyond your ape-like basic instincts.

You have to choose yourself. You have to decide, that you will evolve, that you will out-grow your ape-like existence. It is hard work but worth the effort.

5. The group exerts pressure on the members

5. The group exerts pressure on the members. Followers are punished with moral pressure or with a high workload. Behavior is under strict surveillance.

It can happen that in a certain Circle of Light and Love there is some form of pressure on members. Peer-pressure is hard to avoid. This depends on the quality of the leader and of the members. It is not encouraged by Firewolf.

It also depends on the situation. In an autarchic circle it is necessary to do the work together and to follow the rules. The rules are created and maintained by the leader of that circle and it's members. If the leader likes to dominate and the other members like to be submissive, that circle could become like a cult. This is neither encouraged nor condemned by Firewolf.

In the Circle of Light and Love you are expected to do at least one TRANCE-FORMATION a day. During a TRANCE-FORMATION you look at yourself and how you live. When your circle is not good for you, you will see that and then you can leave that circle. Or try to change that circle. As long as you do a TRANCE-FORMATION a day you have a strong immunity against cult-membership.

6. There is pressure to close down relations with people outside the group

We encourage people to develop relations with other people and to get knowledge about other things. Firewolf encouraged a housewife to study psychology at a common university.

How you should deal with other people is your choice and the choice of your particular circle. It also depends on the physical qualities of your circle

If you become part of an autarchic circle in some rural area, you should be careful with relations from a big city. You should not invite people who could disturb your relations with your neighbors. And you should do your best to have a friendly relation with your neighbors.

If you are a member of a circle in a big city, you live in your own house and you meet with the members of your circle once a month or once a week, there is no reason why this should affect your relations with people outside your own circle.

Example:

Suppose you have a circle of people who are abused by their parents during childhood. This circle could demand from members to cut all ties with family-members. This is not what Firewolf prescribes, but it could be a useful and beneficial choice for that particular circle.

People with a common upbringing can have family-relations in whatever way they like. But if you choose a path that is different from mainstream society, relations with family-members can become strained or awkward. This depends mainly on the maturity of those family-members.

7. Followers do mission work,
hand out brochures and visit acquaintances solely
to tell about their 'fantastic experiences' within the movement

We don't have a mission. We take care of ourselves. We like to share knowledge but only to those who want it.

It could happen that members of a circle go to a fair to find members. But only if it is beneficial for them.

We don't want members who are not ready. So we don't need to convince acquaintances to join. If you pull in people who are not ready, you disturb the peace in your circle. If you try to keep members in your circle, while they don't feel at home, you are also disturbing the peace in your circle.

8. Followers are forced to give donations and
are forced to give up all their possessions
when they become part of the group

This depends entirely on the circle you join. If you become part of a circle with meetings once a month or once a week, it is possible that a master asks for a reasonable donation. If you become part of an autarchic circle and you are going to live on a property owned by that circle, you could be asked to give a part or everything you own to that circle. Another possibility is that an autarchic circle functions as an enterprise with shares. In stead of giving up all your possessions, you could buy shares. When you want to leave, you could sell your shares to that circle or to new members of that circle.

How much you give and receive from a group is always difficult. You should consider the rules of a particular circle carefully before you join. But you will not get a guarantee. When you get disappointed with a circle and you say goodbye, it is more than likely that some people get hurt. There are TRANCE-FORMATIONS to deal with this kind of situations, to do damage-control.

Firewolf asks for donations on a voluntary basis. TRANCE-FORMATIONS are available as share-ware. When you like them and use them, you should donate some money. The amount of money will be stated on the download-pages.

You can also get consultations with Firewolf by email or telephone. You can pay for this with paypal.

9. The group uses made-up words, which are not explained

TRANCE-FORMATION is a made-up word. A TRANCE-FORMATION can mean:

• a session spend in alpha-state, in which you look at yourself and your behavior with the help of a TRANCE-FORMATION CD (or cassette or mp3-stick or any other carrier of sound);
• a story told in a relaxing voice with language-structures as in NLP or hypnosis, preferably with a relaxing background sound (like waves, streaming water, singing birds, bin-aural beat or differential beat, etc.) preferably put on a sound-carrier like a CD or mp3-player.

We use certain jargon. If we use jargon, we explain the words.

Firewolf studied non-aristotelic semantics during his puberty. He studied 'Science and sanity' of Alfred Korzybski meticulously. His books in the dutch language are extremely precise in the use of words and he is very concise. Some of his students remarked: 'Other writers use an entire chapter for what you write in one sentence'. If readers are not careful, they project their own meaning in the words of Firewolf. But if you take the time to really read and you take the exact literal meaning, you often find that the writings of Firewolf are factual precise.

We do not use made-up words or jargon to cloud the meaning of what we try to express. The study of general non-aristotelic semantics is encouraged by Firewolf. One of his students joked, that TRANCE-FORMATION is in fact Null-A training as described in the books of A. E. van Vogt.

10. Followers react unreasonable on criticism and stigmatize critics with insulting words

There is no real criticism on Firewolf or on the Circle of Light and Love. With 'real criticism' we mean criticism with reasonable and true arguments. Wild accusations made by people who don't bother to read what we write are ignored when we can.

In the Netherlands Firewolf is persecuted from 1988 until now (November 2009). Persecution and social exclusion for more than 21 years. In October 2009 he lost his job, because there is a nasty article on the internet about him. He compares the Netherlands with Nazi-Germany 1933-1938. In this period Jews were not murdered, but excluded. They lost their jobs and civil servants did everything they could to get them out of Germany. From 1938 situation became worse and genocide started. Firewolf compares his situation with the situation of the Jews in Germany around 1933. There is complete social exclusion, he is not allowed to make a living, often he was refused to go to fairs or even to advertise in spiritual magazines. Left-wing extremists are continuously slandering him. This is not criticism but discrimination.

Acceptable criticism is a two-way communication: If you criticize you should listen to what the other has to say. There has never been two-way communication between Firewolf and those who persecute him. And the media? Firewolf is blacklisted since 1988 or 1989.

Firewolf calls his persecutors 'Nazis'. That is a very big word in the Netherlands. Not one of these 'Nazis' ever dared to go to court in fear of a judgment. They simply ignore everything Firewolf does, says, writes. Or they say things like: "He becomes angry. That proves that he is xxx." For xxx you can fill in any insult that is popular at the moment.

Are we a cult?

You should decide this for yourself. After reading this, you can make up your mind. If you think we are a cult, you are not intelligent enough to be a member of a Circle of Light and Love. In that case you simply don't belong here.

If you want a better life, you have to create it yourself. 'The Lord' does not send you a better life, that you can send back when it doesn't suit you. Creating a better life is hard work. You can do it all by yourself, alone. Or you can form a group or join a group. A Circle of Light and Love is just a group of like-minded people, who want to cooperate to create a better life.

Variations in sexuality

Many cults and many religions have prejudices against homo-sexuals, trans-sexuals, bi-sexuals, etc. We have not.

Let us look at the following possibilities:

1. There is no 'Lord', no 'God', no 'all-wise Creator'. Variations in sexuality are just genetic or hormonal variations. There is nothing wrong with it. We just have to get used to the idea that other people experience sex in a different way. We don't kill each other if one likes potatoes and another likes rice. Why should we fight about sexual preferences?
2. There is an 'all-wise Creator' that created each and every being. If this is true, than all people are created with a certain sexuality. Criticizing the sexuality of other people is criticizing this 'Creator'. That seems a bit silly to me. A believer should not criticize the work of the Creator.

If you like sex, you can find people who are like you and create a Circle of Light and Love with your sexual orientation. If sex is not important to you, find people like you and create a Circle of Light and Love without attention to the sexual dimension of life.

There are many types of gay men. Some are just like hetero-sexuals and they want fidelity with one man. Another type of gay men likes sex with different men. This is dangerous. If a group of gay men creates a Circle of Light and Love and they have only sex with the men in their circle, one can keep diseases out.

Members of the Circle of Light and Love do not condemn this kind of behavior or other kinds of sexual behavior. If you want a BDSM-circle or a circle of bi-sexuals? Have fun! There are however things you have to do: Keep diseases out, take responsibility, avoid trouble and foremost: Honor and respect each other!

Does this freedom sounds like a cult to you?

Do What Thou Wilt !

The Circle of Light and Love is a blueprint for a Circle of Light and Love. The Circle of Light and Love gives you guidelines for creating and maintaining your own Circle of Light and Love.

In your own Circle of Light and Love you can and should do what you consider good en beneficial. The Circle of Light and Love has as little rules as possible. Your own Circle of Light and Love should have enough rules and regulations as necessary. And that largely depends on the maturity of the members. The more mature and responsible people get, the less rules they need. Animals (like dogs) are regulated by rules, humans rule themselves. Most people are somewhere between the animal state and the human state. You should evolve in the direction of the human state. Unfortunately many people seem to degenerate in the direction of the animal state. Alcohol and other drugs play a major part in that process. Becoming a member of a Circle of Light and Love means, that you consciously choose for evolution. That means becoming more human and taking more responsibility.