David Kupelian, Member of Roy Masters’s Sect?
Jonathan Rowe on Sep 17th 2006 11:33 am |
D. James Kennedy just featured David Kupelian and his book The Marketing of Evil on his Coral Ridge show.
Kupelian sounds like a fundamentalist Christian, but he may be part of Roy Masters’s sect, whose teachings qualify it as a “cult” and “heresy” in the eyes evangelical Christians. I’ve written about Masters here, where I noted:
His teachings are a mixture of Judeo-Christian fundamentalism, Eastern-New Age philosophy, Freudian psychology with the fundamentalist element coming out dominant. He sounds, at times, like a Protestant fundamentalist. But they regard him as a heretic and a cult leader. For instance, he denies the Trinity and teaches reliance on a New-Agey meditation exercise which Masters dubs “Judeo-Christian” meditation as essential for salvation.
Masters and his group are also long time associates of Joe Farah’s WorldNutDaily. Farah is a fundamentalist Christian, but has long featured a number of prominent right-wing figures associated with Roy Masters’s group including Jesse Lee Peterson, Michael Savage, Bob Just, and David Kupelian — who appears to be the most important link between the two groups. See this post detailing the link between Masters, Kupelian, and WorldNetDaily.
Incidentally, Matt Drudge is also rumored to be a follower of Masters, and supposedly, so was the late John Wayne.
Masters’s group in Oregon is relatively small time, and most people have never heard of him. But he has managed to gain some significant influence in certain right-wing circles.
Masters may have become even more influential, but, a number of years ago, the Christian right helped to quash the success of Masters’s up and coming conservative journal, New Dimensions. Basically, they said, we don’t need another Rev. Moon. See this article for the story, which quotes John Lofton: “But as John Lofton of the Conservative Digest stated, ‘Masters is a false prophet and theological fraud’ and was critical of Christians who embraced the magazine (Ibid).” Keep in mind Lofton wrote for Rev. Moon’s Washington Times. As the above link notes, “In the early 1990s, Kupelian was managing editor of a Masters-published magazine called New Dimensions” which is the magazine to which Lofton refers.
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I am trying to find out more about Roy Masters, my twin brother listens to him in Jackson,NH and I was visiting during Thanksgiving and listened to him. I didn’t feel right in my spirit and I told my brother I didn’t think he was a Christian, I felt he was New Age and a Cult. My brother listens to him and loves his radio program. I’m getting concerned about Roy Masters, could you please confirm my feelings, is he a Cult and New Age?
Thank you, Rachel Hernandez, Houston, TX
Roy Masters doesn’t believe in the Trinity and other key doctrines in evangelical Christianity (the born again conversion experience where one instantly becomes saved, and others). If that’s what you are, Masters isn’t one of you. He does teach reliance on a New Age like meditation exercise as necessary for salvation. And his group does, according to evangelical Christians (like the late Walter Martin), qualify as a “cult.”
I listened to Roy Masters for several years in the late 70’s and early 80’s .
I lived in Los Angeles and occasionally attended his lectures there at that time.
I am really not offended by his religious beliefs, some of which I agree with and some I do not, and I appreciated the depth of his understanding of both religion and psychology.
My criticism comes from a very different place. In my opinion he is a very bright and insightful guy who is more dangerous than just a religious heretic or a cult leader. He is a person who believes that because he thinks something it must be universal truth. He is unable to see the broad spectrum of ideas or to understand that other people also have insights. He is the ultimate “true believer” and in that sense I believe him to be extremely dangerous.
[...] Roy Masters is sort of like a Marianne Williamson for the John Birth Society. I’ve blogged about him here and a surprisingly high number of people have read that post through search engines. I used to listen to him for entertainment when I had nothing better to do. And then I found out he was connected to the WorldNutDaily. [...]
Yeah, I’ve done the meditation and I love Roy Masters, who isn’t holy and isn’t a cult leader. The “meditation” exercise, demystified, is an brain exercise that, probably among other things, stimulates the front of your mind, the region where consciousness and religious thought arise.
There was a case a few years ago where a man had a front-brain injury, and, as a result, had no conscience or shame, and basically ran around naked all day looking for something to fornicate with. Except for the brain injury, sounds like someone you know, doesn’t it?
The increased awareness, including the awareness of your own evil, lets you live your faith more fully, without the pride of life and the emotionality which is like a smoke-screen that allows evil into your life without seeing it. It’s the awareness that would come to you naturally, had you been raised in the family order and structure that Old Testament law mandated and Jesus fulfilled.
It’s a helper to the faith, brings people to the faith, and back to the faith once the structure of the faith has failed them. With a clear, prideless mind, the Bible makes perfect sense, and is like telling you what you already know. I doubt very much that God cares about doctrine, whether Jesus is God or the Son of God. How could we truly know or understand that?
Because of the healing, I know there is a God. I know there are demons. I know there is Grace. I know that the morality of the epistles is perfect and true. I understand the order of the Old Testament and how the world seeks to set us astray. Many habits and hates have fallen away and I’m more of a man that I would have ever had the knowledge of.
Bottom line: try the meditation. It’s just holding your hand to the side, feeling your fingers tingle, and concentrating through your forehead to raise the hand. Yeah, that’s the whole spooky exercise. That little stupid thing will be a huge weapon in your arsenal. If your faith isn’t strong enough to stand that, what does that say about your faith?
Bottom line, the evil of the world is more sophisticated than you are. You need to understand it to fight it, and you need to understand why people are the way they are, why they do what they do in order to help them.
There was a case a few years ago where a man had a front-brain injury, and, as a result, had no conscience or shame, and basically ran around naked all day looking for something to fornicate with.
No, actually it doesn’t sound like anyone I currently know.
What did you say his phone number was?
I have tried the meditation, and like lots of meditation exercises, I’m sure it helps (I didn’t find it much different than any of the other meditation exercises I’ve tried, including TM).
Some of Masters’ advice is sound, like learning to calm down, be less emotionally reactive, more detached from the petty things that irritate us from day to day. However, in this regard, I don’t see him as any different from other quasi-New Age Gurus like Deepack Chopra or Wayne Dyer. And as with them, I don’t find Masters’ particular religious claims — esp. his right wing, quasi-fundamentalist, social conservative crap — very convincing. And whatever Chopra’s or Dyer’s issues with positing unsubstantiated theories about God and the universe, under the auspices of “science,” “understanding,” or “truth,” they are a Hell of a lot nicer to their fellow man than Masters and his ilk are (and less paranoid about world events!). Indeed, one point of amusement in listening to Roy and his son David is the way they like to insult their followers when they call up for advice.
And all the egg Roy has on his face about American society ready to collapse since the 60s but never has. No Nuclear War as he predicted, no Y2K, no collapse of the economy and infrastructure, no fascist takeover by the Democrats. Something clearly quite negative resides Roy’s psyche — all sorts of neurotic, paranoid, obsessive compulsive, and and depressed tendencies he keeps at bay through his meditation exercise. As I listen to him, the meditation exercise just made his dark side bury itself deeper into his psyche and emerges in the midst of all of his paranoid rants and raves while telling people that they can eliminate negative emotions!
http://www.roymasters.com
[...] He’s actually a follower of one Roy Masters, a biblical Arian (denies the Trinity) who quotes from the Gnostic Gospels, and promotes “Christian mysticism” and reliance on a meditation exercise (listen to it here) as essential for salvation. [...]
What is all this talk about the trinity? Why is it so hard to believe that Jesus was the “Son of God”? This belief dosen’t make someone crazy or at odds with Christianity, it’s biblical and many Christian sects believe that God the Father and Jesus are separate and destinct personages. This concept only makes sense to me and has since I was a child since I was raised with this belief as a Mormon.
What is the problem with Roy Masters? Isn’t it obvious that it is typical of most people to consider “the other sect” as “cults” or “heresy”? This has been going on since begining of recoded history. One religion preaching against the other. I know this well as a Mormon. Just because another religion dosen’t agree with yours doesn’t make the other religion evil or “new age”. There is the possiblity that your big egos can’t accept that you may be living your life wrong so you are out to prove everyone else wrong in hopes that by elimination you will end up on top the victor in your chosen (questionable) lifestyle and/or religion.
Shorter Ken: Gay sex is icky. Therefore your theology must be wrong.
I followed Roy Masters, as did several other people I know including my brother, and found his meditation to be hypnotic and damaging to mind and spirit. Roy claims he is “de-hypnotizing” people with the exercise, but I contend that he is actually “re-hypnotizing” them. You see, you can be hypnotized and not know it. Roy promotes concepts such as “death of the ego” which he claims is necessary for “salvation.” Ego death is a dangerous and false concept that Charles Manson also taught his followers, as it was necessary for indoctrination and programming.
There needs to be more exposure of Roy Masters, whose organization does not seem very cult-like. There are no dues, no membership, no requirements, no compound that you have to go live on. However, the meditation is just as mind-controlling as any cult, perhaps even more dangerous and insidious because it seems so innocent.