Hi! Good Morning!
1. Their products / teachings imply rituals
A ritual is something performed according to a prescribed order. Take this pill 3 times a day, one in the morning, one at noon, before eating and one before bedtime. Perform this prayer 10 times a day. Can you spot the similarity?
2. You usually get in contact with them, when most vulnerable
When you are in a vulnerable state, let’s face it, you can get more desperate, and more easily manipulated (unfortunately). The fear of illness or death, can make you turn to all sorts of institutions that promise hope and make you decide from a less clear state of mind.
3. They promise a magical solution or quick fix for your problems
There are many people who call ignorant the ones that believe in the power of prayer or holly water, but at the same time believe blindly in a substance or vaccine that can cure any illness developed in time. There is no such thing as a magical solution. This is an illusion. Healing first of all require acknowledgement of the cause by taking responsibility for your daily habits and choices that lead to illness. You cannot live a completely unhealthy life, and expect a miracle potion or prayer that can make you better overnight, without putting in some work. The time for healing is direct proportional with the time the illness took to be developed.
4. They blame the symptoms of your illness or vulnerable state on a villain persona, that cannot be seen by your own eyes, and must be defeated
For you to believe the existence of a magic solution or quick fix, there must also exist someone or something to put the blame on, that is outside of yourself and that can be “killed”. It is easier to blame a demon or a virus for your poor emotional or physical health, than actually acknowledging the bad daily habits that inevitable caused the problem over time.
5. They advertise their products / services
Pharmaceutical companies are promoting their products all over the place. They present their offers to the medical practitioners, and offer commissions. They promote their products on billboards and in TV commercials.
Religions had done their part for hundreds of years, by word of mouth with missioners, that still practice this to this day. They also advertise themselves with objects of cult, paintings or decorations and numerous books describing specific rituals or prayers.
6. Their prosperity and success are based on your continuous vulnerability and fear.
The healthier you become, the less you will consume pharmaceutical products. The healthier you become, the less you will feel the need to look for God in specific places or people, and realize that God is always within yourself at all times. It may seem it is not in their interest for you to be healthy.
7. Their buildings can be found in the most remoted places
The are a lot of villages or small cities, that don’t have basic utilities, decent food and water supplies, or access to education, but they have a church or a pharmacy,
8. Their products / services can only treat the symptoms and not the cause
To find the cause for a problem it requires a lot of soul searching, acknowledging and taking responsibility for your bad habits that led to that, habits that can be in the form of physical (unhealthy eating, lack of exercises) or emotional/psychological (bad thought patterns, self-sabotage, victimisation, blaming etc)
Their products / services offer relief in the moment. But if you don’t uncover the cause for the problem, and you continue to live your life as before, you will fall into the same pattern or illness after some time.
9. Their products/ services can cause addiction
The addiction is related to the avoidance for treating the cause. The relief feels good in the moment. The pills stop the headache for a few hours. The prayer stops the anxiety for a day. But if you do not acknowledge and treat the cause, you become addicted to the temporary relief. There is no difference between someone who cannot feel good without alcohol and someone who cannot feel good without a specific medicine or type of prayer.
10. They have more in common with their “competitors” than they like to admit
Religions have a lot of things in common. Even the story of the characters worshiped have similar life paths and teachings but with different names. Even so, there are a lot of religions that promote themselves as being the “worthy” or “holy” ones, and deny other religious practitioners from Heaven access after death. They consider that only practicing their religion can promise you a spot in Heaven.
Similarly, pharmaceutical companies sell the same medicine, with exactly the same ingredients, but with different names, and different prices.
11. They are quite expensive over a lifetime
For the pharmaceuticals, it is pretty obvious.
For religions, it may not be that obvious, but think about it. Every person in this world is being born and dies. Only these two events require some sort of ritual, according to your religion, that implies some costs. Then there is the act of marriage and any other costs along the way. Some places require entrance fees or donations in the form of money or food.
12. The ones that do no follow are shamed or called ignorant
You are not religious? Well…depending on the religion and place you were born, this can become very problematic. You can be shamed, called a heretic, a sinner or even suffer more drastic consequences.
You do not believe in western medicine? Oh uh…you must be ignorant, not trusting the power of science that can only save humanity.
13. The ones that follow one of them with fanaticism discards completely the other
Usually the ones that believe strictly in western medicine and pharmaceuticals discard completely the power of prayer, and the ones who are praying fanatically and obsessively discard completely the power of certain physical substances or treatments.
14. They request trust without question
Have you noticed how easily someone trusts a product or drug if there is a scientific paper or study on it, made by a scientist? Why do we put our trust so easily in something just because it has some studies done on it? If history has thought us something, is that scientific breakthroughs were never accepted right away, and in the scientists community there were always some political or monetary interests at hand. Very rarely a scientific study is objective. They are funded by corporations that have some interests and require a specific result so they can sell their products safely.
Religion promotes trusting, without question. Trusting to a certain degree that things will work out for the best can be healthy, but we cannot discard common sense, intuition and universal laws. No matter how much you trust, if you jump off a cliff you will die.
15. They deny the power of self healing
Even though there are many studies on the validity of the placebo effect (people healing with sugar pills), and even though it is widely used in the development of pharmaceuticals, the self healing power is not something that the patient is made aware of by medicine practitioners. If the symptoms go away, the medicine is praised and hold responsible. If the symptoms don’t go away, the patient is hold responsible, for not responding to the treatment.
Same goes for religions, who discard the power of our own minds, our thoughts and imagination and put it simply on external forces (God or Devil)
Good morning again! Are you awake yet?
The purpose of this list is not to blame or discourage the use of any of these services or products, as long as they are done from a place of self-awareness. Everything should be taken with a grain of salt and with moderation.
Of course there are in this world wonderful religious practitioners, that are pure at heart and help people connect with themselves and with God, addressing the root cause of the problems. There are also wonderful doctors and pharmacists who not only prescribe medicine for relief of the pains, but also advice in regards to changing the lifestyle of their patients and having conversations with them to discover the possible causes.
I will end this article with a provocative thought. if you believe in others more than you believe in yourself, chances are, you are being manipulated.
Much love to you all!
Laura Dogariu 