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The Path (Hulu) TV Show • Page 3

Discussion in 'Entertainment Forum' started by Night Channels, Mar 30, 2016.

  1. Night Channels

    Trusted

    yep
     
  2. airik625

    we've seen the shadow of the axe before Supporter

    Wouldn't be surprised if Hawk ends up leaving. Sarah is going to have to changer her outlook very quickly for him to stay I think.

    I love how the Ringe's bodyguard was labeled as "goon" in the credits ha.
     
  3. michaelvalerijr

    Pressure's mountin' but I don't Everest

  4. Nyquist

    I must now go to the source Supporter

    As someone who grew up in a hardcore evangelical Baptist Christian home and then left it behind when I got older, this show is endlessly fascinating to me. There are so many unnerving parallels to events and rules in my own life that I actually feel uncomfortable watching at times. I feel for Hawk and I fear for Eddie. My father in-law was wrapped up in an evangelical cult for a while too and tried to pull me into it (it was something akin to the Sterling Institute if you've ever heard of it).
     
    airik625 and michaelvalerijr like this.
  5. michaelvalerijr

    Pressure's mountin' but I don't Everest

  6. airik625

    we've seen the shadow of the axe before Supporter

    odds that Sarah sleeps with Cal?

    Also I'm really glad Hawk and that girl are hitting it off. I'm curious to see if he leaves or not.

    That was a cool sequence of Sarah breaking into Tessa's house. You could tell she was genuinely curious if an IS could legitimately live a happy life. Then, once she saw all the anti-depressants she was horrified and immediately reassured herself it wasn't possible.
     
  7. Nyquist

    I must now go to the source Supporter

    Sarah reminds me so much of my mother in-law. The belief that anyone could possibly have true joy outside the faith is near impossible for her. Indoctrination has convinced her over time that "the world" is dark and sinful and that there is only one answer. This episode was yet again full of things that had me pausing to reflect. Growing up I was taught to believe that "the world" leads you astray and that everything "secular" ("the world" and "secular" were our go to terms which is what I think of whenever I hear them say "IS" in the show) is selfishly motivated. People living in the secular world filled their lives with things they believed would bring them happiness, but those things were "worldly" and would only burn in the end. Anti-depressants and other such pharmaceuticals were considered taboo because they were a communicative interruption between man and god. The idea was that god was the only anti-depressant one truly needed and a dependency signaled a weak faith. The cult my father in-law got involved in believed, and still believes, they could resolve serious mental issues over the course of a life changing weekend. They deputized themselves as psychologists and did more damage than good. One example would be when they asked a young man to sit through a reenactment of the time he was molested as a child because he was (according to them) "struggling with homosexuality" and needed to face the root cause of what most likely determined his path to "deciding" he was gay. These people would start the weekend off by taking your car keys, wallets, phones and any other outside sources of "worldly possessions". Made it a lot harder to leave.

    Anyway, yeah this show has me hooked.
     
  8. suicidesaints

    Trusted Prestigious

    ^ that's fucked. I dunno if I could stand by and just watch that happen.
     
  9. Nyquist

    I must now go to the source Supporter

    The story gets a lot longer and crazier from there. To be honest I'm fearful to even name the organization and get too detailed in an attempt to call them out. The last time I did that, they found me and began harassing me by calling me frequently, attempting to communicate through facebook which caused me to lock up my privacy settings very tight, and finding ways to approach me in person. I felt terribly unsafe. Cults terrify me.
     
  10. suicidesaints

    Trusted Prestigious

    Yeah, that's terrible. Sorry you had to deal with that, and sorry for the unsuspecting followers. I'm not a religious person, but I do think that faith can be a good thing and can help a lot of people, but when it gets to the point where you are judging and controlling others, it become a big problem.
     
  11. Nyquist

    I must now go to the source Supporter

    I agree wholeheartedly. I have had the good fortune of meeting some truly wonderful people who are religious (there are a few in this community, Tim (formerly xJesusFreakx on ap) for example). I think there are a lot of broken, hurting people that can benefit greatly from religion and the communal aspect they may be in need of, but I think there are also a lot of broken, hurting people who use the system set in place to take advantage of other broken, hurting people and that's how we end up with cults or the far right fundamental, evangelical movement, terrorism, etc. My wife actually still doesn't know everything I was dealing with. I struggle to tell her anything because it involves her dad and it's very sensitive. I was scared and alone for a long time, and that's exactly where they want you when you attempt to criticize. There are a lot of these specific types of groups that have popped up over the last several years. It's a growing movement.
     
  12. suicidesaints

    Trusted Prestigious

    Was your wife raised in that system? Does she follow any of it? What kind of relationship does she have with her dad now?

    Hope I'm not getting too personal.
     
  13. dadbolt

    Prestigious Prestigious

    Jesus Christ dude. Sorry you've had to deal with all of that mess. I can understand you not going into detail but does you FIL actually believe he's doing good by taking these actions? Is it a money/control/just wanting to humiliate people kind of thing?
     
  14. Nyquist Apr 29, 2016
    (Last edited: Apr 29, 2016)
    Nyquist

    I must now go to the source Supporter

    My wife was indeed raised in it. She grew up in the same evangelical church I was. That's actually where we met. I've known her since I was four years old. Think I fell in love with her when I was about ten, haha. She could do this impression:



    And for whatever reason that was what hooked me. Anyway, when my mom announced she wanted a divorce (partially to save herself from that world but also to save my sisters and I) the church shunned our family. They held my sisters and I downstairs in the nursery while they attempted to shame my parents in front of the congregation. My dad came downstairs, grabbed us and we left. I was twelve years old. My wife was one of my best friends back then and I was heartbroken to lose her. Eventually her family left for reasons of their own. Turns out the Treasurer of the church was committing fraud, laundering money and was on the run from the FBI...I wish I was making any of this up. Her dad had been working with that guy and there were a lot of bad things that happened in the wake of that event and so they left. Years later I found out both the pastor and his son, the youth pastor, were now in prison for similar misdeeds (the first youth pastor at that church was caught having an affair with one of the teenagers in his youth group and then later was discovered to have been molesting his own daughter for years). God.

    Anyway, I think my wife has a harder time letting go of that old world because her mom is heavily religious and has a lot of issues of her own. Both of my wife's parents were adopted as children and both grew up in sexually and physically abusive homes (my father in-law's drunken father used to tie him to a crib and put a wooden board over the top so he couldn't escape whenever he wanted to go out drinking and other such events). As a result, they turned to the faith and got sucked into this bubble world. It's all they knew for a very, very long time. In a lot of ways they still maintain some of those old beliefs although now my mother in-law does joke about certain practices and feels bad about them. My sister in-law, who is ADHD, was believed by the church elders to be inhabited by a demon and so they would force her to drink this weird concoction and spit into these paper cups to get the evil spirits out. Gave her a lot of psychological problems along with an eating disorder when she got older of course. My wife is a lot more liberal about things though. My best friend is from Iraq, his family was raised Muslim and he now considers himself an Atheist. That's my best friend, haha. My wife loves him and his family and it's amazing to me to think about the younger versions of ourselves whenever we're all together. If time travel were a thing, our younger selves would be shocked. As for my wife's relationship with her dad, it's very complicated. He's done a lot of bad things and it has definitely created a rift. She loves him because he's her dad, but she is definitely her mother's daughter and sides with her.
    Sadly, yes. I know for a fact that he believes he's doing good things. I've heard him say it, I've seen him do it, and then I've seen him turn around and attempt to do something awful behind closed doors when he thinks no one is watching. I have a complicated relationship with the guy as a result of all of this. He knows that I know certain things and even attempted to apologize to me last summer for everything that had happened with this organization, but he still holds to the idea that they are doing what's right. I honestly think that, for him, it's an attempt to feel like he has some semblance of control over his own life and the things that happened to him as a kid. That's how he got roped into it. The men in charge of this movement used one of those weekends to push him to confront the "idea" of his father and quite literally unburden himself of the things that had been done to him. When the weekend was over he was "healed" which was obviously a farce because things only got worse after that.

    As for the organization, yes I believe it is a mix of power and money. The men that head up the movement are people who held jobs as bankers at local banks and grocery store managers. They were people who had bigger ambitions and felt they'd been let down by life. So they started this movement. It puts them into positions of power. They strip other unsuspecting men of their possessions, deride them, force them into uncomfortable situations, cause emotional pain they believe to be "healing" and then silence them if they step out of line. The weekends themselves usually cost upwards of $500 a person. Cal in The Path very much reminds me of these men.
     
  15. dadbolt

    Prestigious Prestigious

    Fucking wild. Thank you for sharing. This is truly fascinating to me. I live about 2 hrs from Waco and I'm very familiar with the Koresh stuff but never hear of any new movements in this area.
     
  16. airik625

    we've seen the shadow of the axe before Supporter

    @Nyquist wow. What a story. Thanks for sharing.

    I'm also sorry you are in the position that you are in. Like @suicidesaints said, it would be difficult to stand by and watch all of that unfold. I am very interested to hear more about your story though. Maybe another time.

    But please don't share anything that you think might warrant the wrong kind of attention.


    Anyhow, I read this article last night written by a Harvard professor about The Path. It's a very thought provoking read, that I think you, @Nyquist, would be very interested to read.

    The Path - The Most Uncomfortable Show that I Can't Stop Watching
     
  17. suicidesaints

    Trusted Prestigious

    @Nyquist Holy shit, man. I can't even imagine. Thanks for sharing that.

    @dhayes Where do you live? I'm in Dallas.
     
  18. dadbolt

    Prestigious Prestigious

    I'm in Breckenridge. Small town about 1.5 hours west of Dallas. I think we talked on the old comedy thread on ap.net some. I'll be there on the 17th for CBB!
     
  19. dadbolt

    Prestigious Prestigious

    How many episodes are left this season? I feel like this show has really hit its stride in the last three episodes.
     
  20. Nyquist

    I must now go to the source Supporter

    No problem. I do like to talk about it as much as I can without drawing too much attention to myself. There are so many characters I relate to on this show it's scary. My fear of these people finding me again after what happened last time has me feeling like Alison Kemp. I'll just say this: there are a lot of these groups and many of them call themselves different names, but by and large they all stem from the blueprint of one larger organization. Churches and individuals in different states have begun spreading them around. It started as a men's group specifically, but they've recently started branching into women's groups, teen groups and the like.

    Wow, thank you for this. This article is dead on. Says so many things I don't know how to express because I'm too afraid to say them.

    No problem. Like I said above, it can be therapeutic for me to talk about it sometimes. I sought counseling over it and I was told it can be good to find ways to express myself without calling too much attention. It was really unhealthy to hide it from absolutely everyone I knew for a long time.
     
  21. suicidesaints

    Trusted Prestigious

    Hit me up beforehand. I'll be at the CBB show too. I'm having to go alone since the show sold out before any of my friends got tickets.
     
  22. suicidesaints

    Trusted Prestigious

    I think it's 10 episodes in the season/series, so 4 more.
     
  23. Nyquist

    I must now go to the source Supporter

    I forgot to mention these groups I'm referring to also utilize sleep deprivation, the liberty of gaze (prolonged eye contact to exert dominance which sounds like a small thing, but trust me it is not), and mass marathon training which, if you read into it, is a professional psychologist's nightmare.
     
  24. dadbolt

    Prestigious Prestigious

    So after you spend the 500 and go for the weekend, is this like their opening salvo? Or do they open soft to keep you spending money and slowly start to break you down over time?

    What you said earlier about these being smaller branches of a larger organization has me all kinds of intrigued. Again, thank for sharing but i totally understand if you feel like you have said too much already. I can't imagine what it would be like to be in the middle of that.

    There's a church a town over from me that my dad and his wife attend that I sometimes wonder if it borderlines on cultish. Maybe not even cultish but they they do things a weird way. For example: the church "raised" money and built probably a $500000 home and bought a new Lexus for the pastor all in the last couple of years. The congregation then surprised him with those "gifts". I dunno, always seemed kind of shady to me. Definitely not even anywhere near what you have experienced but that's about the only questionable thing I've got in my little small town bubble.

    Another thing the pastor does that i think is really strange is that he instructs his congregation how to vote in elections. It's a very ultra conservative/vote biblical values type of church.
     
  25. dadbolt

    Prestigious Prestigious

    Will do man!