Came across an interesting article on the birth and death of new religious movements (NRW) over the last 200 years. It is not so much about the death of these movements but what happens after the death of the leader. It is written by Benjamin Zablocki, a religious ethnographer. He has lived with and studied numerous groups (41 out of the 100) mentioned in the study. These movements are "Christian" and non-Christian. He is agnostic. He has four main points, three which I found interesting and typical of TBS/GGWO culture.

He first goes into a description of these movements and charismatic leaders. The charismatic leader information is very interesting.

He then discusses the following points (3 I have listed).
(1) the sense of urgency and recurring crisis that mark the relationship between a religious fellowship and its charismatic founder during the founder’s lifetime.

(2) the phenomenon of the “charismatic second”, in which the death of the charismatic founder frequently gives rise to a crisis of succession in which a different type of charismatic leader emerges.

(3) the struggle for control of the “means of authentication” that determines a religion’s fate (or at least its power structure) as the charismatic legacy of its founder recedes into collective memory.

You will find it at this link under research papers.
PDF version http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~zablocki/

web version http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~zablocki/birth...20movements.htm
Edited - added html version

Thanks for the link, this is an interesting paper. Here is a quote from page 28 of the PDF, with a page number of 25 on the sheet. I wonder if this will be on point for TBS/GGWO:

"During the first three generations of a new religion, many are found to obey a kind of iron law of charismatic devolution. This law says that the first generation gets the vision and the actuality, the second generation gets the memory, and the third generation gets the rules."

Lots of good stuff in this article...

Some quoted material from the paper referring to the charismatic leader:

And what about the term charismatic. For most purposes, we may employ the classical Weberian (1947 : 328) definition of charisma as a condition of “devotion to the specific and exceptional sanctity, heroism, or exemplary character of an individual person, of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him.” Elsewhere (Zablocki 1980a), however, I have argued that charisma is better understood as a relational property than as an individual property and that its dynamics can only be understood in terms of the reciprocal effects that leaders and followers have on one another.

An individual's control over his own actions is inalienable. The compliance of an agent can be revoked at any moment, however long the history of fidelity. For a charismatic collectivity to have any degree of stability over time, it must find a way to create agents that are not merely enthusiastic and committed but deployable as well. this problem can be staved off by a continuing cycle of crises and triumphs. But the point made by Weber (Weber 1947, 362) about the need for charismatic authority to be continually proved thrusts two ways. If the charismatic leader can never rest on his laurels in legitimating his authority, neither can the leader's agent be trusted to remain loyal through yet another crisis, just because he or she has been trustworthy in the past. The charismatic leader must appear to be capable of accomplishing extraordinary deeds. Otherwise, there is no basis for the heavy claims that charismatic influence makes on its agents. But one of the things that makes such accomplishments possible is the trustworthiness of the leader’s agents. This trustworthy corps of agents allows the leader to accomplish deeds that appear even more miraculous which, in turn, justify even greater claims on the followers.

It is obvious that such a system, caught in a positive feedback loop of mutually increasing expectations of miracles and loyalty, can never attain equilibrium. The most common way out of this dilemma, of course, is for the charismatic authority to be routinized. But, for those groups wishing or needing to keep their charismatic edge (and thus their competitive appeal in a faith marketplace whose shoppers tend to be bored by non-charismatic religion) another way out of the loop is to find a way for the loyalty of the agents to be guaranteed regardless of the actions of the leader. This is possible only to the extent that the hedonic self is transformed into one that always gives uncritical primacy to the goals of the collectivity with no thought of the costs to one's own person. Only individuals who have gone through such a transformation can be trusted to support a charismatic leader in the long run.

Quoted material on succession:

The problem that brings about the first succession crisis is fairly straightforward. The charismatic founder of a new religion, whether a potential world religion or a small sect or cult is, for his followers, a source of ultimate authority. This authority very often requires a break with the past, new ways of thinking and tests of faith, leaps in the dark. When the leader dies, he leaves a trust fund consisting of authentic interpretations of events, writings, and practices. Along with this legacy is left the problem of the management of this intangible trust and the problem of how, bereft of the leader as the ultimate arbitor of inevitable disputes over interpretation, the followers can avoid the twin problems of: excessive routinization (squeezing all of the juice of the spirit from the letter of the teaching); and permanent revolution (continuation of charismatic upheaval without the moral force and access to revealed truth that characterize the great founder or founders of a religion.)

The needs of a religious movement change as it grows and adjusts to loss of first leader. So the problem is not one of simply finding a clone. Werner Stark (1970) discusses the problem of succession and what he calls the role of the “Second.” He makes the observation that new religions and religious groups are more often given their final institutionalized forms by their second charismatic leader rather than by their first.

This is just a question that I have to ask.
Is it being inferred that Schaller is a charismatic individual?

If that is the case then my responce would be,,,,
HA, HA, HA, HA, HA !

To a drone maybe. :lol:

I listened to a few minutes of the gh sermon this morning. And remembered how often the subject of "balance" would come up. It was used to explain why Stevens preached something one day which totally contradicted something he preached the day before.

The fact is, even the most sophisticated theology is full of contradictions. The most honest end up shrugging their shoulders and attributing this to being human, needing to exercise faith, etc.

As Hodeoun as painstakingly documented, Stevens' theology changed from sermon to sermon. He'd make an absolute dogmatic statement one day, then contradict himself just as authoritatively in another sermon. Kool aide drinkers will never dare question, never mind challenge that. And ex-ers or outsiders who question are attacked as being evil.

Should be fun to watch what happens now. Just as so many fundies quote a verse to prove the most ridiculous statements, the plaza people will continue to quote Stevens for "proof" as necessary.

But, bmore's quote ended, "He makes the observation that new religions and religious groups are more often given their final institutionalized forms by their second charismatic leader rather than by their first. "

"As Hodeoun as painstakingly documented, Stevens' theology changed from sermon to sermon. He'd make an absolute dogmatic statement one day, then contradict himself just as authoritatively in another sermon. Kool aide drinkers will never dare question, never mind challenge that. And ex-ers or outsiders who question are attacked as being evil. " Quote John Collins Jun 13 2008, 01:15 PM

Reading this, I remembered how the doctrine of 'the annointing' and the 'authority of the pastor teacher' as the one who 'hears from heaven' was used to lend credibility to what we now understand as carl's capricious way of messing with our heads.

It was like, if you wanted to know what god was thinking about anything you had to stick around because it could change...but only pastor would be the one to get the message. Sometimes he would get up and preach on something that he had "already preached on" and he would begin by saying something like,"You might think you already heard this but you have never heard it the way I'm going to preach on it tonight!"

The fact that no one ever challenged his fickleness about any given subject is one of the greatest evidences that their minds were shut off and they were simply taking god at carl's word....or simply stated, worshiping a man. The idea of the annointing of the pulpit usurped the individual right to prove something as true or false...how could you? No matter what you learned or studied on your own, you were told you would never know more than carl...not only that, every thing anyone ever quoted at a rap or at grace hour was always some revelation based on what pastor said first...even if it was from the bible they would always get pointed towards the conclusion he taught...as long as they were affirming the supernatural annointing of carl over all other human beings everyone would say wow...and they could sit down approved of at the right hand of carl.

That individuals like guest 300 and other devotees can't see how carl was such a blatently destructive influence on spirituality is baffling to me...but it is because they are under a spell...they think they have been set free to know god but they have been trapped in a little bubble world.

Until they deal with this pastor idolatry stuff...really cut it down and discourage it out of love for the sake of those who will use it to replace growing up into an authentic individual in their own right...they remain charlatans.

"The Power of Mind Control"

Now that Carl is dead, they might collate all his transcripted messages together and try to make some sort of theology book. It could be that some of these mistakes will come to light. Also, some people in the third generation of just "do it because it's the rule" and have never met and were never influenced by Carl might find Carl's teachings on paper to be more of what they are--a lot of junk. Even for the devotees, the legacy might not be what they think as they produce it in a more formal form.