WHAT IS A CULT?

[Belle]

Okay, maybe the book isn’t as different as I thought. The author uses Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and the cult following that came from the book. She presented her philosophy, called “Objectivisim” as:

1 – Metaphysics – Objective Reality

2 – Epistemology – Reason

3. Ethics – Self Interest

4. Politics – Capitalism

“In other words, reality exists independent of human thought. Reason is the only viable method for understanding reality. Every human should seek personal happiness and exist for his own sake and no one should sacrifice himself for or be sacrificed by others. Capitalism is where the above three fourish the best.”

p. 116 - “Why People Believe Weird Things” by Michael Shermer

Despite the great individual thinking this seems to promote, people began to see Rand as the end all and be all of philosophy and an inner circle developed to surround and protect her. Her ideas became treated as omniscience and error free. She also had an extremely powerful personality and did not allow people to challenge her.

Along with that came the belief that absolute knowledge and final truth are attainable through reason and as such there are, then, “absolutes of right and wrong knowledge and moral and immoral thought and action. For Objectivists, once a principle has been discovered by (the Objectivists’ version of) reason to be true, the discussion is at an end. If you disagree with the principle, then YOUR reasoning is flawed.

If your reasoning is flawed, it can be corrected, but if you don’t correct your reasoning (i.e., learn to accept the principle), you are flawed and do not belong in the group. Excommunication is the final solutino for such unreformed heretics.”

Sound familiar? Here are the characteristics Shermer uses to classify a cult (I’m not going to put definitions for the most obvious ones, the rest are quotes from the book)

Shermer takes religion out of the definition and shows how it could be any group, not just a religious one.

Veneration of the leader

Inerrancy of the leader

Omniscience of the leader: accepting the leaders beliefs and pronouncements on all subjects – important and trivial

How many of us were encouraged and expected to treat our children with the exact same rules the martindale’s taught in their class? In our area, people went so far as calling them “sponsies” like Donna did.

Persuasive techniques: Methods, from subtle to coercive, used to recruit new followers and reinforce group beliefs.

Hidden agendas: The true nature of the group’s beliefs and plans are hidden from or not completely explained to potential recruits and the general public.

Isn’t it funny how they never mentioned “speaking in tongues” until you were already committed to coming to a meeting? Seems the more involved you got the more you learned that was shocking and required more of you. I remember thinking when we were out witnessing that we were being awfully dishonest and deceptive in our manner.

Deceit: Recruits and followers are not told everything they should know about the leader and the group’s inner circle, and particularly disconcerting flaws or potentially embarrassing events or circumstances are covered up.

We know this all too well, don’t we? How much more have they hidden that we still don’t know about?

Financial and/or sexual exploitation:

Absolute Truth: Belief that the leader and/or the group has discovered final knowledge on any number of subjects.

Absolute morality: Belief that the leader and/or the group has developed a system of right and wrong thought and action applicable to members and nonmembers alike. Those who strictly follow the moral code become and remain members; those who do not are dismissed or punished.

This was a new one to me, but we did justify “morally” everything we did and laughed at others not “spiritually mature” enough to know better.

[Lifted Up]

A lot of this stuff is straight out of Lifton, and the rest I recognize as well...from my deprogramming. Of course, unlike Lifton, who presented these factors as absolute, these criteria are listed in degrees. It was the absolute nature of mind control and the other factors...such as Lifton's "milieu control" that made my deprogramming necessary...that is, no would ever could or would leave on his/her own, no matter how bad things got.

On the freedom of mind discussion group, there was some fairly recent debate about mind control and deprogramming, and there seemed to be some sort of consensus, including from the moderators...and this is from people who believe in these criteria...that they werent absolute.

Some of these numbers are getting pretty absolute. especially the 35. But I guess that's pretty pc for GS. And when Raf came in with his 22, I guess we had to get him up there some.

[Lifted Up]

And after Raf had been talked up, we still had a differecnce on this "loaded language" thing. Sure, there were some words special to TWI...but a full-blown vocabulary?

I had a minor but interesting experience a year or two after being yanked out. I was with some people (felloe singles, actually) at the church I had drifted into. Being silent at the time about my TWI involvement, I listened to them talk about their contact with some local TWI people...I think it was at the hairdressing place Sushi remembers. They were remarking that they seemed pretty much like "normal" people compared to some other groups they had run into or heard about.

[GrouchoMarxJr]

I gave em 33 points also...

If a person was in the corps, the points will probably be higher than a person who wasn't...

...But, just because a person didn't involve themselves to the full extent, doesn't negate the fact that the "cult" itself was at the "high point extreme"...it simply means that they didn't experience it themselves...but many others did.

[GrouchoMarxJr]

Lifted up..."pc for greasespot"?...If by that, you mean that there is a general consensus at GS, that twi was a manipulative, self serving, cult that hurt a lot of people...I agree...but I certainly felt no need to get Raf's points "up there some"...or anyone else's.

Perhaps we should apply the same cult test to the Grease Spot and see how many point's IT gets?

[GrouchoMarxJr]

OK...I just ran the GreaseSpot Cafe through the cult test...I gave it 1.5 points.

A lot of folks here share their experiences to show that recovery from twi is attainable

...and we have invented some new words to explain certain concepts:

such as:

"waybrain"

"the forehead"

"king okie"

"the cornfield cult"

"Rozilla"

"twits"

"The bus driving pimp"

The list is endless B)

...as far as charismatic leadership goes...Raf almost got a half point...almost, but not quite.