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In Reply to: Re: My guess on what's up with Barney posted by exer on July 24, 2003 at 13:31:13:
Someone told me that Barney said some years ago that he wanted to set up Laurel Homes as competition to the Family just like Burger King is competition to MacDonalds. He did his rah-rah thing & meetings then going around trying to get all exmembers under his umbrella organization. He did seem to want a following. If you can imagine -- he even asked Sam Ajemian if he wanted to be part of what he was doing. Sam said no. (You did say no, didn't you Sam?)
I wouldn't say that what Barney has done or is doing is necessarily the lesser of two evils. It's more like the lesser of two goods. Ideally people should get right out of the Family & distance themselves from it, but Barney has served as kind of a halfway house where you can still read the MLs for devotions if you want, party if you want & share sexually if you want. I don't think it's necessarily a healthy environment but it's better than the Family. At least Barney isn't a cult leader. You can walk away from his place if you don't like it.
But here's a question I have: people coming out of the Family are still to a degree under cult mind control, tho it fades in most cases & gets less as time goes on. But even tho Barney is not a dictator & doesn't use mind control techniques, is he inadvertently reaping the benefits of mind control already in place? Point in case: does he teach people that Berg is not a prophet & his words are not to be feared? Does he let people know that God won't kill them if they stop believing in the Letters? Or is he content to leave these controls in place?
Maybe Barney is simply in love with communal life & all its perks & is simply renting out rooms to kids with not a whole lot more agenda than that? Is he just the ultimate not-in-not-out Family junkie? Or is he still trying to set up his Burger King empire in competition to the Family?
