Wow, okay, so here’s the deal. Since 2005, TWO THOUSAND FIVE, I’ve been posting daily (not really, but consistent enough to be an ongoing project) excerpts from my gigantic heavingly-huge book collection. I don’t just have books. I have a LIBRARY, down to a dictionary and a Thesaurus. I still like to look up words the old-fashioned way. The very first entry was on Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon. My methodology was simple and rigorous because I like to challenge myself and the “book excerpt” thing was a good way to practice writing on a daily basis, especially on topics that I may not have been “in the mood” to write about. I was strict with myself. I would go book to book to book, in order, across my shelves. No skipping. No slacking. I organize my books by “genre”, as set out by me. So there’s fiction and YA and poetry and history and science, etc. I have some quirks in my organizing system. If I have, say, 40 books by the same author, and they wrote in all different kinds of genres – then I keep the author together in one spot. (Madeleine L’Engle: YA, adult books, memoirs, non-fiction, Christian books: keep them all together.) There are some books I find hard to categorize so I make up my own category. (Like the one I’m starting up with right now.)
Sometimes, if it’s a compilation, I’ll post multiple excerpts (like with all of my essay collections, which I have been doing excerpts from for … 5 years now? 6? An insanely long amount of time, which should tell you something about how many essay collections I have.)
And I’m still not done. Whole categories left to go. I like doing the book excerpts because it broadens the scope of what I write about, and it brings a whole new diverse demographic to my site. Or at least it draws out the people who have something to say about whatever topic it is.
Here are the categories I’ve done thus far:
Non-Fiction (although that category ends up being too broad, so I remove some books – like Letters or Memoirs – from it. And today’s book, for example. It’s non-fiction but I keep it in a section of my library that I refer to as my “cult shelf.” Hence: that’s the category.)
Political Philosophy (my term. But better than “politics.”)
Culture (a weak term, but these books are mainly un-classifiable, so Culture will have to do.)
Memoirs (These include, if memory serves, collections of people’s letters and it excludes Hollywood people. You see the issue there.)
Entertainment Biographies and Memoirs
I’m pretty sure that’s it. Isn’t that enough??
So onward. CULTS. If you have read me for a while, then you know my adventures with actually trying to get recruited by a certain cult, and seeing how far in I could get without paying any money down. Turns out, not that far, but enough to actually experience when the Soft Sell turns to the Hard Sell. It was like a switch being flipped. My interest in cults dates back to when I was a kid, but really what the interest stems from is a fascination with how the brain works, and how fragile it can actually be. (Ironic, considering what would end up being my brain-history. It’s like as a 10-year-old, grooving on science fiction that had to do with fluid-identity-issues, I knew what was to come.) The brain thing manifests in multiple ways: I am interested in psychopaths/sociopaths, those whose brains work differently. I am interested in brainwashing on totalitarian scales, like North Korea/Stalin’s Russia … what made it possible for Rwandas to massacre one another almost overnight, any kind of totalitarian system that has, as its raison d’etre, the hijacking of the brain and the infiltration of the State INTO the brain. If you think it couldn’t happen to you, then all I can say is: You are wrong. I am interested in the experience of POWs, and what happens to the brain under such extraordinary physical/mental pressure, especially the anomalies, like John McCain, who DIDN’T crack. What is it in the people who are ABLE to resist? Often I find the conversation around these issues are far too simplistic, and super-annoying, with people AVOIDING the implications of such conversations. I used to write about Stalin all the time. And inevitably, someone would show up and completely mis-understand my perspective, try to “correct” me (always a man. Sorry, boys. The cliche fits. If you DON’T do that to women, then how about sticking up for us and being an ally, calling out other men when they do it? We can’t fight this alone – because we aren’t listened to), and then observe, condescendingly, that my “fascination” was somehow unseemly, or that by stating that there’s still a mystery around how Stalin did what he did (why else are people still riveted by Stalin’s effect) – I wasn’t “getting it”, and it “actually was very clear” and on and on and on. Again, I say to those people: You are wrong. That’s it. Like I always say, there is actually such a thing as a wrong opinion.
In my interest in cults, which has gone to pretty absurd lengths, there is a certain kind of conversation around them where I almost totally disagree. This has to do with the most famous cult in America (since Jonestown, that is). So, I think South Park will be seen as a tipping point in years to come. That’s neither here nor there. The problem is when people say, “How can people BELIEVE that stuff?” And then it’s just a short step to some idiot saying, “ALL religions have silly beliefs.” These are the cult-apologists, and look out for them, because they are very tricky, and they do not get it. And the snickering, “What is WRONG with the people who buy into that garbage?” Learn a little bit more before you judge. As one of the most famous ex-cult-members says, “You don’t join a cult. The cult finds you.” Learn about bait-and-switch techniques. That’s how an organization gets you. And then you’re in too deep to extricate yourself. Also: if your entire family, your parents, your kids, are in the cult: how easy would it be for you to bust out, knowing that that means you will never talk to your family again? People who think they wouldn’t be susceptible to these pressures, do not know how the brain works. Or how cults work. So here’s my deal with that particular cult: I believe that people should be free to believe whatever the hell they want to believe. That’s one of the foundations of my country. BUT. If those beliefs include human trafficking, breaking child labor laws, corrupt finances, hard labor for minor infractions, and keeping people trapped against their will behind a wall covered in razor wire, all under the umbrella of “religious freedom,” AND you get tax-exempt status … well, no. You’re a cult. You’re not a religion. Seriously: believe in your sci-fi writer as a Messiah. I ain’t telling you you shouldn’t believe it. I have a problem with how your organization operates, how it traps people, how it practices “disconnection” and “fair game,” how there are actually hard-labor camps operating in this country, prison camps, in some cases filled with children and teenagers, with no government oversight and no recourse for those who are trapped. If you break the law of the land, then you should at LEAST have your tax-exempt status revoked.
I could go on. I will go on.
But ultimately, what all of this really comes down to, is a fascination with the brain and how it can actually “snap” under pressure, using mind-control techniques exacerbated by isolation and sleep deprivation and a schedule so packed you have no time to think. There is a part of me that wants to see how far I could be pushed, to see if I could withstand the pressure. Dangerous waters, I realize, but I never said I value safety. I will say this: The day Alex and I entered the New York “org” to see how far in we could get … we emerged 7 hours later, and we felt like we had made a near escape. I KNOW their tactics, and I KNOW how they work, but even I – by the end of it – actually thought, at one point, “I actually … don’t know … how the hell I’m going to get out of here.” They had me in a room in the basement, and people came in to talk to me (this was after the Soft Sell had vanished into the distance, leaving me with the onslaught of the Hard Sell, which was unbelievably difficult to withstand, you’d be surprised), and they separated Alex and me. I had no idea where she was. There were no clocks. Finally, I made up an excuse I had to go to the bathroom, left the room, and Alex – who had the same idea – was seen at the end of the hallway and we ran at each other, babbling about “Oh look at the time! We’re meeting friends in the Village – we’ll be late!” The people who had been “handling” us stood in a semi-circle around us, literally holding out pens for us to sign up for just one class – and we somehow managed to get free of them. And they followed us to the door.
It was when she and I realized that we had been in there for 7 hours (both of us agreed that it felt more like 2 or 3 hours) that we were really like, “Holy shit, those assholes are GOOD.”
But it was important information. We are fascinated by the organization and how it works on the inside, and how people get sucked in. I didn’t get sucked in, I withstood, but I could see how people would cave out of sheer exhaustion. Okay, fine, I’ll sign up for your 125-dollar communications course. They start small, you see. Manageable. They don’t come out with inter-galactic warlords on the first day. They’ve been so deprived of the privacy of their inner workings that at this point the cult is pretty much over, except for its real estate holdings and the fact that so many people are still trapped in there. Cults require secrecy. The Internet (and South Park) denied them that privacy.
I also was involved in another organization which I now believe was a cult, and just like that ex-cult-member said, they found me. And I happened to be in a pretty lost phase, where I didn’t know where my life was headed, and I thought: Huh, this might be a pretty good class to take, and learn some organizational skills. Two years later, I finally stopped going, and it was YEARS before they stopped calling me. It was a cult, especially in its tortured use of language, so that I can now clock someone who has gone through that training from 10 miles away. Cults create a special in-group language so that eventually you become incomprehensible to the wider world. It’s one of the isolation tactics.
The 70s were an extremely cult-heavy decade – no surprise there, considering the upheaval and exhaustion and malaise of that era. Cults arise in times of deep uncertainty when people are searching for stability. EST was huge. There were Christian cults. There was the left-over horror from the Manson murders. And then, at the end of the 70s, was Jonestown, and the numbers dead – and the WAY they died – willingly (although there are stories now that tell of people drinking the Kool-Aid at gunpoint, or having to be forced to) – was so beyond the comprehension of normal people that it brought the danger of cults front and center.
It was out of that cultural panic that Snapping: America’s Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change
The book is mainly interested in the phenomenon known as “snapping.” At some point in the cult initiation period, something “snaps” and the personality is shifted entirely. It’s terrifying, yes, and this is the thing that people have gotten annoyed about when I’ve written about it in the past. I think that people are very scared of this phenomenon, and their entire attitude is: “Well, that happens to THOSE people. It would NEVER happen to me.” It’s knee-jerk and ignorant. You know why sleep-deprivation is used as a torture method, as well as a cult-mind-control tactic? Because it’s EFFECTIVE. You will die if you don’t sleep. If you sleep 3, 4 hours a night for a significant amount of time, your immune system breaks down, you lose resistance, your short-term memory is impacted – it’s devastating to the body. So, no, silly people, you cannot say that it would NEVER happen to you. People are so resistant. I’d bet there are people out there right now reading this and they can feel the resistance rising in them. I get it, I guess, because our BRAINS are precious and we like to think they are SOLID. But they are not. The brain is an organ, like any other organ, and if organs are abused, they react, they shut down. But our brains feel like they ARE our identities. Our whole personalities are in there, right? Our brains ARE us. So what happens to the personality when the brain is drenched by mind-control?
Cult-deprogrammers have been very controversial, and still are. Breaking people out of an organization when they do not want to go is … well, we live in a free society, right? If someone wants to stay in a Yoga-Cult-Commune, then who are we to say that they should leave? Cult-deprogrammers have gotten into a lot of trouble, charged with kidnapping, holding people against their will, and all kinds of scary shit. The book covers that. But it also covers successful deprogramming stories, told by the survivors who went through it. And the survivors all talk about a moment, at some point during the deprogramming, where the mind-control is shattered, when something “snaps.” They “get it.” They see the lie behind the organization they have so revered. They see how they have been manipulated. It’s like the veil is lifted, in a moment. The WAY that this happens is fascinating, and the book is filled with stories, plus testimonies from survivors, deprogrammers, as well as psychologists who understand mind-control.
Robert Jay Lifton
Psychiatrist Robert Lifton became interested in mind control when interviewing American servicemen who had been POWs in Korea. Then he interviewed 25 Chinese students who had gone under indoctrination in the universities in China (during the Cultural Revolution). Lifton wanted to get an understanding of the mental pressure such indoctrination puts on not just the thought-processes, but the personality itself. He published a book about this: Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China
One of the things that Lifton observed was that POWs who had been totally indoctrinated during their time in captivity, even to the degree of aiding the enemy, were able to “snap” back into a normal way of thinking once they were removed from that indoctrination system. This went against the ideas of “brainwashing” at the time. Lifton’s study provided hope, as well as tips for how to help someone break the loop of circular thinking and mind-control.
Snapping includes story after story about the two sides of “snapping”: the one that happens after the person is out of the cult and the brain/personality “snaps” back into itself pre-cult, and the one that happens under brainwashing where the brain finally gives up, caves, and accepts the drenching dogma. (Sometimes it takes weeks/months for this to happen. Sometimes it happens almost overnight, pretty scary. WHY some people are able to resist longer when others cave immediately is still a mystery, still being studied. John McCain has been studied as an example of a man whose basic INABILITY to “break” is practically super-human, when you read the rest of the stories from other POWs. It’s like that great line from Zero Dark Thirty when the torturer says to the torture-victim: “Everybody breaks, bro.” That’s the thing that people who have no understanding of mind-control cannot get and will not get. That “everybody breaks.” They want to believe that they would be John McCain, but it’s important to keep in mind that VERY VERY FEW people are John McCain. John McCain’s total-anomaly stature is why he is so interesting and unique, and equally worthy of study. If techniques can be learned to combat mind-control, then they should be investigated and taught, and they are, especially in the military, which also takes Lifton’s work extremely seriously, so much so that it is a Bible. Soldiers and SEALs and all the rest are put through rigorous and lifelike torture/mind-control session so that 1. they can understand that “everybody breaks, bro” and to take the threat seriously instead of assuming “OTHER people will break, but I NEVER WOULD” and 2. practice tactics to keep one small part of the brain active, protected, resistant. It takes practice.)
Okay, so I’ve babbled enough. Obviously it is a topic that interests me. Here’s an excerpt from a chapter which profiles the extremely controversial cult-deprogrammer Ted Patrick, who also studied cults and was one of the first guys to come up with ways to “snap” people back.
Ted Patrick
Patrick is known as “the father of deprogramming.” He was not a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or anything else. He had dropped out of high school. But he devoted his life to understanding how cults worked, how mind control worked, and developing tactics to break people out – not just out of the cults, but out of the mind-control loop they were caught in. He got in major trouble, repeatedly. He kidnapped people out of cults, for example. He holed up with them and in many cases they weren’t allowed to leave. But his results were extraordinary. His techniques are still used today by deprogrammers.
Snapping is an excellent and compulsively read-able book, not at all dry or academic, but urgent, thought-provoking, and informative.
Excerpt from Snapping: America’s Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change, 2nd Edition
In all the world, there is nothing quite so impenetrable as a human mind snapped shut with bliss. No call to reason, no emotional appeal can get through its armor of self-proclaimed joy.
We talked with dozens of individuals in this state of mind: cult members, group therapy graduates, born-again Christians, some Transcendental Meditators. After a while, it seemed very much like dancing to a broken record. We would ask a question, and the individual would spin round and round in a circle of dogma. If we tried to interrupt, he or she would simply pick right up again or back to the beginning and start over.
Soon we began to realize that what we were watching went much deeper. These people were not simply incapable of carrying on a genuine conversation, they were completely mired in their unthinking, unfeeling, uncomprehending states. Whether cloistered in cults or passing blindly through the world, they were impervious to the pain of parents, spouses, friends and lovers. How do you reach such people? Can they be made to think and feel again? Is there any way to reunite them with their former personalities and the world around them?
A man named Ted Patrick developed the first remedy. A controversial figure dubbed by the cult world Black Lightning, Patrick was the first to point out publicly what the cults were doing to American youth. He investigated the ploys by which many converts were snared and delved into the methods many cults used to manipulate the mind.
He was also the first to take action. In the early seventies, Patrick began a one-man campaign against the cults. His fight started in Southern California, on the Pacific beaches where, in the beginning, organizations such as the Hare Krishna and the Children of God recruited among the vacationing students and carefree dropouts who covered the sands in summer and roamed the bustling beach communities year round. The Children of God approached Patrick’s son there one day and nearly made off with him. Patrick investigated, was horrified at what he found, and immediately set out on a course of direct action. His first-hand experiences with cult techniques and their effects led him to develop an antidote he named “deprogramming,” a remarkably simple and – when properly used – nearly foolproof process for helping cult members regain their freedom of thought.
Before long, Ted Patrick was in action all over the country on behalf of desperate parents. Through the seventies, he made front page headlines in the East for his daring daylight kidnappings of Ivy League cult members. He made network news for his interstate car chases in the Pacific Northwest to elude both cult leaders and state troopers. And eventually he made American legal history. In his ultimate defense of the U.S. Constitution, Patrick challenged the confusion of First Amendment rights surrounding the cult controversy and drew an important distinction between Americans’ guaranteed national freedom of speech and religion and their more fundamental human right to freedom of thought. In precedent-setting cases, U.S. courts confirmed Patrick’s argument that, by “artful and deceiving” means, the new cults were in fact robbing people of their natural capacity to think and choose. To that time, it was never considered possible that a human being could be stripped of this basic endowment.
In many courtrooms, however, Ted Patrick lost his case for freedom of thought, gathering a stack of convictions for kidnapping and unlawful detention. In unsuccessful attempts to free cult members from their invisible prisons, Patrick was repeatedly thrown into real ones, in New York, California, and Colorado. In July 1976, during a time when Americans were celebrating their two hundredth year of freedom, Patrick was sentenced to serve a year in prison for a cult kidnapping he did not in fact perform.
Early in 1977, we first visited Ted Patrick in the Theo Lacy Facility of the Orange County Jail to learn about deprogramming from the man who coined the term. It was dark when we arrived, and we had to squeeze past the evening’s incoming offenders at the main desk and make our case for seeing a prisoner after hours. Theo Lacy, we were told, was not half as bad a place as some others Patrick had seen. Yet upon showing our credentials, we were ushered into a glaring, airless cubicle under fluorescent light and constant surveillance. Minutes later, Patrick joined us.
Sturdy, round-faced, with dark skin and close-cropped hair, he conveyed little of his notorious reputation through his physical appearance. He wore large dark-rimmed glasses, a plain white prison shirt and baggy trousers. Yet even in this depersonalizing environment, he projected an unmistakable presence. There was a sense of command about him and even a measure of charm in his guarded smile.
When we told him about the nature of our investigation, Patrick seemed to warm to our visit. In a sentence, he ticked off the physical and emotional stresses that make up the basic cult technique as he saw it. “They use fear, guilt, hate, poor diet and fatigue,” he said. We had heard that from many people, we told him. What we had come for was his perspective on the way those techniques may affect the mind. Suddenly, our interview came alive.
“The cults completely destroy the mind,” he said without qualification. “They destroy your ability to question things, and in destroying your ability to think, they also destroy your ability to feel. You have no desires, no emotion. You feel no pain, no joy, no nothing.”
Patrick confirmed our own perspective when he described the method of control used by many cults, beginning with the moment the recruiter hooks his listener.
“They have the ability to come up to you and talk about anything they feel you’re interested in, anything,” he said. “Their technique is to get your attention, and then your trust. The minute they get your trust, just like that they can put you in the cult.”
It was the class sales pitch, carried off so smoothly that it amounted to what Patrick called “on-the-spot hypnosis.” Then, he said, once the potential member is hooked, the cult keeps up a steady barrage of indoctrination until conversion is complete.
“When they program a person,” said Patrick intently, “they use repetition. They give him the same thing over and over again, day in and day out. They sit up there twenty-four hours a day saying everything outside that door is Satan, that the world is going to end within seven years, and that if you’re not in their family you’re going to burn in hell. When a person goes under, he feels guilty if he goes outside in that bad, evil world. He is terrified of what will happen to him out there.”
Patrick stopped. His version was almost identical to the experiences Lawrence and Cathy Gordon had reported, although they had not been deprogrammed by Patrick but by one of his former clients. He leaned forward, resting his powerful arms on the table between us, and he continued.
“There’s just so much the human mind can take. You can stay up just so long without sleep. You can hear the same thing over and over and then it breaks you down. I went into one of the cults with the intention of staying a week. I stayed four days and three nights, and if I’d stayed six more hours I would have been hooked. I’d have never left.”
It was in 1971 that Patrick infiltrated the Children of God, the cult that had tried to recruit his son, Michael, one Fourth of July on Mission Beach in San Diego. His initial concern over the cults was personal but it also had a public side. Worried parents had already appealed to him for help in his official capacity as head of community relations for California’s San Diego and Imperial counties. Patrick had moved to the area years earlier, and became active in local politics working against discrimination in employment. During the Watts riots in Los Angeles in 1965, he helped calm racial unrest in San Diego. His public service caught the attention of then California’s Republican governor, Ronald Reagan, who appointed Patrick, an active Democrat, to the community relations post.
In his brief encounter with the Children of God, though he was alert to the cult’s tactics, Patrick found that he was not immune to their effects.
“You can feel it coming on,” he explained. “You start doubting yourself. You start to question everything you believe in. Then you find yourself saying and doing the same things they are. You feel like you’re sinking in sand, drowning – sometimes you get dizzy.”
Here, according to Patrick, was that moment when the individual first goes under, when he may experience the overwhelming emotional release of snapping. From then on, the new member is taught daily rituals of chanting and meditation which effectively prevent him from regaining control of his mind, or wanting to.
“Thinking to a cult member is like being stabbed in the heart with a dagger,” said Patrick. “It’s very painful, because they’ve been told that the mind is Satan and thinking is the machinery of the Devil.”
Having gained personal insight into the manner in which that machinery may be brought to a halt, Patrick developed his controversial deprogramming procedure, the essence of which, he explained, was simply to get the individual thinking again.
“When you deprogram people,” he emphasized, “you force them to think. The only thing I do is shoot them challenging questions. I hit them with things that they haven’t been programmed to respond to. I know what the cults do and how they do it, so I shoot them the right questions; and they get frustrated when they can’t answer. They think they have the answer, they’ve been given answers to everything. But I keep them off balance and this forces them to begin questioning, to open their minds. When the mind gets to a certain point, they can see through all the lies that they’ve been programmed to believe. They realize that they’ve been duped and they come out of it. Their minds start working again.”
I have a friend who used to be my best friend but not so much now. We had a lot in common in that we both children of alcoholic parents (my father, her mother), we were both oldest in our family and had assumed the role of the “hero” and we were both pretty smart. She had started drinking heavily but one day she came to me and said that she had stopped drinking because she had joined this club and she wanted me to attend her graduation. So I went.
The guests of the graduates were not allowed to attend the actual graduation ceremony but at the end of the ceremony, all of the friends and family of the graduates were taken into the room where the ceremony occurred where all of the graduates were in a circle with their eyes closed. Friends and family were asked to stand in front of their loved one. From somewhere the song “The Greatest Love of All” began to play. The graduates opened their eyes to see their loved ones and high emotionalism were felt by all. But that wasn’t all.
We were then conducted into a large auditorium with no windows and no clocks. The leader of group began to speak. After a while, I got up to use the bathroom. But when I went to the door to leave, it was explained to me that I was expected to wait until the presentation was over. And what astonished me was that I said “Sure, Okay” as I went back to my seat. Eventually, the presentation was over but that still wasn’t all.
I was asked if I wanted to join a gathering of ‘special’ friends. “Asked” is rather a loose term because I distinctly got the feeling that I was being shepherded to this room where there were several other people who explained that I had been selected to join their group. By this time, I had been separated from my friend. They explained however that the course costs $xxx to take. I explained that I didn’t have the money. They promptly explained that all I had to do was to ask my friends and family to donate a portion of fee and to tell them that it would make me a better person for them (my family). When this didn’t work, they said , “No problem”, the group would be willing to donate the fee if I would be willing to gather people to attend the next ceremony. When this didn’t work, my friend was brought to me and they explained to her that they thought I was “sly” and “secretive”. At that point, I was allowed to leave. My friend stayed.
Eventually, she left the cult with the help of me and her family but we were never quite the same friends.
Everything you say is so true and so scary.
Carolyn – I am so sorry to hear that about your friend – I am glad she left. Getting hooked in with something as positive as “this will help you quit drinking” is how these cults prey on the weak and the lost. It is so disgusting.
// After a while, I got up to use the bathroom. But when I went to the door to leave, it was explained to me that I was expected to wait until the presentation was over. And what astonished me was that I said “Sure, Okay” as I went back to my seat. //
Wow. Right? I had moments like that in my own cult experience – which was kind of a life-coach self-help cult thing – (lampooned on Six Feet Under, actually – I was already out by that point, and I never was really that far in). But what amazed me was that, yeah, I obeyed their rules – the peer pressure is huge, and it works in such SUBTLE ways – sometimes you can’t even clock it. It’s terrifying when you realize just how eager human beings are to be told what to do. (shivers.)
And even if you KNOW that you have free will and you can leave any time you want to … somehow it’s engrained in us to … obey? I don’t know. It was very disturbing to me once I realized that I had played along without even questioning it.
The whole no-windows-no-clocks thing … textbook. Separating you from your friend … same.
It’s so frightening how well these techniques work. And I am always curious about the actual Leaders. Not the followers who pay for courses and convert, or even the ones who rise up in the chain of command to be the teachers, etc.
But the people who actually set up these organizations. Who are they? So many of them are such sketchy characters. Werner Erhard, I mean, that’s not even his real name. I know a couple of people – who also were involved in the cult-like organization I was involved in – who are hanging out shingles as “life coaches.” Now I don’t mean to be mean but a lot of these people are freaking MESSES. They over-think things, they don’t have their shit together, and yet … they’re going to get you to pay them to be your life coach? It’s like, old habits die hard.
Anyone who walks around saying they have “reached a new level” of understanding should be treated with suspicion. Especially if they reach “a new level” every other week. Human beings are not built like that. It’s bull shit. You may gain some new understanding – but nothing you wouldn’t gain under a licensed therapist. Also, a licensed therapist also might help you change your behavioral patterns in a way that has some staying power. Whereas the people I saw around me in my experience NEEDED to keep taking expensive classes in order to stay on point with the technology. It was such a RACKET.
and – just like you say – not having money was never a valid excuse to these people.
Manipulation and mind-control are still so mysterious – but I think one of the important things I’ve learned is that it happens by stealth. You can’t even TELL that it is happening, in the best cases.
So Jim Jones sets up his church, and he sets it up in a way so that it will have a broad appeal. His church was diverse, racially – when so many churches, to this day, are not. That was by design. Plus economically. It seemed to be a Utopia for those looking for a shared and hopeful community where the races could come together. (It’s f***ing TRAGIC that people’s best impulses – their most hopeful wishes/goals – are then used against them by charlatans like Jim Jones.) But he didn’t immediately say “Sell all your belongings and follow me.” He grew his power by stealth, by creep, and finally – when the time came to de-camp (run away) – and ask everyone to move to the jungle – everyone said Yes, because they were IN.
Just horrifying. Horrifying.
//(always a man. Sorry, boys. The cliche fits. If you DON’T do that to women, then how about sticking up for us and being an ally, calling out other men when they do it? We can’t fight this alone – because we aren’t listened to)//
Sheila, you are so capable – formidable – that it seems unnecessary and condescending to step in and say something when the occasional “Kirsten Dunst’s boobs” comment shows up. You handle those folks (guys) so readily. Would you prefer “dude, really?” to be added from someone else?
Or was this more of a real world versus your blog comment?
To the bigger topic. Does the book talk about the psychology of the programmers/recruiters? It seems like they would need to be sociopaths to engage in that horribly manipulative behavior. Were some NOT sociopaths before they snapped – and they became the equivalent of a sociopath while trying to recruit others to salvation? What a terrible legacy that would be, if one had become a true believer, and a programmer/recruiter – and then left – knowing that you had trapped other innocents. Probably similar to people who had been sexually abused as children continuing that horror as abusers in adulthood.
I have a friend who was an Air Force colonel, a test pilot on the F-35. He has spoken a bit about the training they get to resist torture, and “everybody breaks, bro” is something that is understood by people who need to truly prepare for that situation. And the organization understands this and tries to prepare to deal with someone who has broken and is returned or rescued.
Mutecypher – ha. Well, that comment came after reading Jen Kirkman’s Twitter feed for 3 days straight, and the comments from men – even well-meaning men – were somewhat clueless. “I’m gonna teach my daughter to fight back!” (instead of: “I’m going to teach my son to not treat women that way.”) Or: “I told my son to respect women when he was a kid.” Kirkman was like: “You only told him once? It’s not enough. Tell him again.” There’s a huge disconnect there somewhere – not on an individual level – but on some sort of systemic culture-wide level. I think real change will come when men start to be willing to call other men out. There’s some taboo there for some reason – maybe a fear of ridicule from other men? Not sure. A restaurant owner just wrote this whole Facebook letter about how he had to ban a customer from coming to his bar because the guy wouldn’t stop sexually harassing the waitstaff. When the owner would confront the harassers, the harasser initially always felt somewhat safe, that they could commiserate with the owner because the owner was also a man, and it’s a “dude thing”, “you know how it is, brother, right?”. Owner was like: “I have HAD IT WITH YOU PEOPLE.” It’s a great letter.
And yeah, I can definitely fight back against men myself. :) A guy friend who comments here sometimes said that one of those interactions with a condescending male was like watching “a panther leap out of a tree.” HA. But again, I think men shaming other men for misogyny/homophobia is when real change will start to come about – a cultural shift. I think it’s already happening to some degree. Mitchell and I talked about it a lot (ironically, so silly) in our conversation about Zac Efron.
ANYWAY. Don’t mean to derail our cult conversation with that – but Jen Kirkman’s Twitter feed got me going! (I love her. Her two Drunk History episodes are my favorites.)
// Were some NOT sociopaths before they snapped – and they became the equivalent of a sociopath while trying to recruit others to salvation? //
Fascinating, right? I mean, I think the majority of people who get involved in cults do so because they want to be involved in something good, that is larger than themselves, where they can “give back” to a community. That’s the initial impulse. Even with S****tology (I’m still hesitant about those people, damn Xenu!) – before the Internet, that cult presented itself as a way to help other people. So the people who got sucked in were the kinds of people who want to devote their lives to helping other people.
// if one had become a true believer, and a programmer/recruiter – and then left – knowing that you had trapped other innocents. //
That’s exactly what happens! I think that’s one of the main reasons why people have a hard time leaving. Because the guilt will be enormous and they KNOW that. Marty Rathbun, for example, has done so much good by leaving – it took enormous courage, and he did so publicly and he is still a public figure – but he STILL – STILL – cannot acknowledge all the shitty (criminal) things he did. I mean, things he should be in jail for. And to say “I did it all because I was being abused by the horrible head of the cult” – Nope, Marty. Not cutting it. I don’t want to take away from Rathbun’s accomplishments – which are huge. He was second in command! And he left. And he TALKED. That’s HUGE. How can the cult say that he was just a “disgruntled apostate” – when they had him in such a position of power for 25 years?? But still. The abused becomes the abuser.
And I think that’s part of the point, which is awful. Make people complicit in the cult-secrecy, make them be ashamed to leave.
Jason Beghe said, about the same cult, “It’s a very good con. Because you end up policing yourself.”
That’s when the mind-control is actually IN you. Your brain has ceased to function. Terrifying.
// something that is understood by people who need to truly prepare for that situation. And the organization understands this and tries to prepare to deal with someone who has broken and is returned or rescued. //
Very interesting! Resistance tactics are super-important to learn – certainly for soldiers and people in combat – but also for regular civilians (especially college students, away from home for the first time looking for stability – they’re super-vulnerable to these organizations.)
Joaquim Phoenix was so superb in The Master – that whole movie is so so so good on how mind-control works. The charismatic leader, the non-blinking-thing which basically becomes a metaphor for submitting to the stronger will, the us vs. them thinking, the repetition, the meaninglessness of the cult tasks … all designed to break a person down. So good. Even more fascinating when I remembered that Joaquim and his siblings grew up in a pretty disgusting cult – like, really disgusting – and the damn thing still exists, and there are PR statements from the new leaders saying “We no longer practice what we practiced back then … ” so they’ve changed the name, but it’s still the same people.
I’m not going so far as to say Joaquim was drawing on his own experiences, because I have no idea – and it seems like River, as the oldest, took the full brunt of that overly-sexualized-Christian childhood atmosphere. But I frankly cannot picture anybody else but JP in that role. It was such a perfect representation of how an organization sucks somebody in, a misfit, an outsider, made to feel special, unique, elevated, plucked out of the crowd. Heady addicting stuff.
I had heard of the Jen Kirkman thing, but didn’t have any context. My thoughts on her objections were “Maybe the first dad only had a daughter, so he was working on the problem that was within his influence.” And on the second one, “we stop telling our kids to do things if they are in fact doing them.” No reasonable father keeps telling his son to rinse his plate and put it in the dishwasher if the boy habitually does it. One the other hand, perhaps she had information about the first dad and knew he also had sons. Or had information about the son of the second father, and the kid was not living up to what his dad tried to teach him. But from the little I read, I didn’t reach the conclusion that they men tweeting were necessarily clueless.
None of which negates the point that things would be better if guys were a little more active in policing each other.
And I’ll have to check out her Drunk History youtubes.
// if guys were a little more active in policing each other. //
or, even active at all.
And there was a lot of cluelessness.
A lot of my guy friends were basically Retweeting what she was saying, and also Retweeting her Retweets (Tweets from thousands of women describing harassment) – my friends saying to their own followers: “Guys, we really need to be listening to this stuff. This is OUR problem.” (and etc.) That’s how I found out what was happening (even though I follow her on Twitter) – through my guy friends who were watching that whole thing go down in real time.
What pissed Jen off the most is the outrage. “I can’t BELIEVE in this day and age women still have to tolerate this …” splutters a well-meaning man. I get it, it’s nice that he’s mad. But honest to GOD. You have no excuse to not know that this is going on “in our day and age” and in every day and age because women have been talking about this stuff openly for 50, 60 years now. You’re just figuring it out now? I know, it’s supposedly supportive, but it’s also … I mean, that kind of ignorance is literally head-in-the-sand, “if it doesn’t affect me directly then I am totally not aware of it” cluelessness.
Here are Jen Kirkman’s 2 hilarious Drunk Histories.
The first one is a CLASSIC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqzUI1ihfpk
And this one … as my friend Jen said to me, tears of laughter streaming down her face: “Don Cheadle gives an Oscar-winning performance.” So so so funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipV2u-MxlFc
Being oblivious to the shit going on around you is a privilege in itself. So, really, going ‘I’m so outraged by that thing I probably kind of enforce without knowing it’ is cute, but it’s not useful. And I get it, I’ve done it too. But then I’ve realized how not useful it is, and how it means I haven’t been listening.
These Drunk History videos are hilarious. I only knew Kirkman’s special that’s on Netflix Canada, and the title alone seduced me.:)
I’m in love with Don Cheadle.
Don Cheadle’s speech in that clip:
“He was a great guy because he fucking listened.” hahahahahaha Don Cheadle MEANS that when he says it.
My friend and I still say “Thank you much … for the walking stick” to each other.
Ha ha ha! I’m crying! “His ffffffavorite walking stick.”
Do you watch House of Lies? The actors are so, so good.
I’ve often thought this same issue (your own complicity and the havoc you wreaked) is what keeps many addicts and alcoholics from staying sober. Once you’ve kicked the addiction you have to face the physical, emotional and psychological wreckage you caused. That must be tough and I would imagine contributes to recidivism.
And the cult environment is so comforting because personal choice is removed, you submit, you don’t have to worry anymore, everything is taken care of.
It’s why people are drawn to them in the first place: order, stability, a group that “has your back,” etc. I think jumping from cult to cult to cult is pretty common.
I follow a lot of the situations going on in evangelical sects right now – the “quiver ull” people, the “complementarians” – people like the Botkins – which is (as far as I can tell) – Family as Cult.
A lot of the Christians who finally leave these churches are drawn, yet again, to strong churches with strong leadership that dominate their followers. Like, they don’t get the memo. Or it takes them years to stop searching for a strong church – to realize how susceptible they are to domineering ideologies. Many of them lose their faith, entirely.
But the desire to belong to a group – where every question has an answer – it seems to be irresistible to human beings – and it’s something to be resisted.
I think accepting uncertainty as part of life is very difficult for 99% of the planet.
This is one of the reasons why I use the “both/and” so much in my writing/analysis – because “either/or” strikes me as destructive – but also flat out not true the majority of the time.
A favorite subject. Would you publish a list of the books you’ve got under “Cults”? Took the est training in NYC Aug. 1976 and was more amused than anything, but find myself still using some of the actual things I learned at that time. It stays with you. Loved your entries on trying to smuggle yourselves into “headquarters.” Some of it was funny, but really not so much.
SNAPPING is a fave, even though I believe I still have it packed up since my last move. MUST get to those books! which means dealing with the hundreds I’ve accumulated since. Never ending process. So thanks for this. Write more, please. I find it totally fascinating. And wish I could like John McCain as much as I sometimes admire him.
Melissa –
// Would you publish a list of the books you’ve got under “Cults”? //
Well, that’s what this whole next section will be about. I’ll go book to book like I did with every other genre.
I think you and i have discussed your est training before, if memory serves! I was involved in what est eventually became – and still is – for about 2 years in the late 90s. Interestingly – I heard through the grapevine that they have now decided to pay for advertising. It’s a huge shift – before, it was up to the members to “invite” people. I mean, the pressure to invite people and get them to sign up was the #1 reason I left. I basically refused to do it. And finally I was like, “Fuck you, don’t ask me again, I’m outta here.” So maybe 5 years ago, I heard that they were paying to advertise – and I thought – Huh, maybe they’re – in their own verbiage – “getting it”? I’m not holding out much hope, though.
I find cults fascinating too, obviously – and relate to Ted Patrick deciding to join Children of God for a couple of days to see what it was like and experience it for himself.
A recent film that deals with this – and I really liked it – was Sound of My Voice. In this fictional film, two documentary film-makers infiltrate an apocalyptic end-of-world cult. They hope to understand the workings of the cult so that they can put it in their documentary. But they find it almost impossible to withstand the mind-control of the atmosphere in the group – it was impossible to “do” the group exercises only half-way – both of them start to lose it.
The head of the cult is a charismatic young gorgeous blonde, who is so sensitive and compromised by the current world that she carries around an oxygen tank. (She’s played by Brit Marling, who also wrote the script). Marling really understands the quiet intensity of these charismatic leaders – that once you have the power, you don’t have to yell. It’s better if you don’t yell, it’s better if you whisper.
It’s an incredibly creepy movie and really really smart about cults and how mind control works. I recommend it!
and finally: I admire John McCain unreservedly, for a lot of reasons, the main one being his behavior during his years as a POW, although there’s more. (His famous handling of a heckler, is another.) But mainly – it’s his strength of character and his refusal to break – even when he was offered – offered, flat out! – a way out, a way free. I don’t know, he’s one of those one in a million weirdos who should be studied under glass by those who care about how the mind works, and what it looks like when someone can withstand those psychological assaults.
OOOhhh. This will be interesting. I also became interested in cults, mind-control, etc young – between Jamestown and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (which I saw 20 minutes of as a kid, and had nightmares about it for weeks), the idea that you could fall into a group that changed something as private and personal as what you thought was horrifying. And therefore fascinating.
There was what I’d term a cult in my hometown growing up. I had a friend who got extremely involved in it – and had a few exposures to their methods. They freaked me out and I backed way away. (The group still exists, and when one of my current friends described taking her tween to a gathering run by them I had chills. I have no clue if they are still as much of a cult as they were in the 80s…but ewwww)
(Also, love the book reviews. Your essays on your books have inspired me to increase my already overwhelming library by many of these titles. Except YA. I already had most of those :-) )
OMG Invasion of the Body Snatchers!!! Good call, great film – and so so so creepy about identity and sociopaths “passing” as normal and what it means to have your personality totally co-opted by this outside force. So terrifying – it’s scary to me still!!
In re: the cult in your hometown:
so creepy!! Targeting the youth is how they do it … get ’em when they’re young … bait and switch methods – so these ignorant college campuses allow these groups (yoga/life-coach groups, Christian groups, whatever) to set up tables in the student union – having not done any due diligence about the real nature of the group. It’s a tough call, though. We live in a free country, supposedly. People should be free to join up with whatever group they want to join up with.
Thank God for the Internet, though – because now you can Google any given group and see what the horror stories may be and make your own decision. But back in the 80s? You’d be in the dark.
Did your friend extricate him/herself from the group? I hope so.
I think she did? We lost touch after high school. Through the magic of Facebook I see she’s career military now, and at our 20h reunion she did not bring up God once, so I think so.
Fascinating topic I’ve never really looked into because, like psychopaths/sociopaths, it freaks me out so, so much. Who are those people so convinced they are better than the rest of us? I am terrified because I am pretty sure I would not even see it coming. It’s like those people who are so sure they would have stood up to the German orders when france was occupied and people sent to camps. It’s so easy, when you’re not in the situation, to despise people for what they do – but it also shows quite a lack of empathy.
Lyrie –
// It’s so easy, when you’re not in the situation, to despise people for what they do – but it also shows quite a lack of empathy. //
I totally agree.
Eddie Murphy had a hilarious “bit” about that in one of his shows. Maybe only he could get away with it. But it was really honest, saying, “Oh come ON, you think you’re so tough, you would have been hiding in the corner like everybody else.”
But you’re right: it is that sense of superiority towards the people who were trapped in whatever system it is – like I would never be trapped, they were weak somehow. It’s really horrible.
// I am terrified because I am pretty sure I would not even see it coming. //
I know what you mean. I am pretty sure that if I had had Internet – or used it the way other people did – in the late 90s, when I took classes with this group that I now consider to be a cult – I would have Googled them, saw all the horror stories, and thought: No thanks. It was only afterwards that I did all the research. Dumb Sheila! But a lot of my friends were taking classes. So if my FRIENDS tell me it’s great … shouldn’t I trust that?
I always had one foot out the door with that organization. I should write about it one day. My main issue with them had to do with how they changed the English language, creating an inner world of meaning only understood by the group. Now I understand that that element is one of Robert Lifton’s “criteria” – the creation of “loaded language.” Because I’m a language person, and I’m articulate, I was like, “There is no need to say this thing in this way. You’ve just said that thing in 20 words when you could say it in 5, tops.” I felt how sketchy that part of it was. But – and this is key – I turned off the part of my brain that had a problem with the use of language. I almost remember when it happened.
It’s really insidious. I’m almost glad I had that experience though because it keeps me humble. I’ve been fascinated by cults since my childhood – word of Jonestown trickled down to me even though my parents shielded me from it – and so the fact that I was susceptible too was very very good information to have.
Like: don’t assume you won’t get sucked in, Sheila. Be vigilant.
I wonder if cults are having a hard time in general now because of the Internet. It’d be interesting – I’m sure there have been studies.
Here’s the Eddie Murphy bit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGQMpi-uOkI
Oh, and probably best to not listen to that in a public place or on a work computer. :)
Oh God, thanks for the warning!!
I’ve had my own encounters with shady people, but I was probably lucky that they were not a very well-oiled recruiting machine – although I did spent money I could have used somewhere else. You’re a good prey when you’re looking for solutions. In my case, I think it’s my antisocial tendencies that saved me.:) The whole ‘let’s be together all the fucking time’ is just unbearable for me, and makes me very suspicious – including in relationships outside of organizations. It’s probably not for nothing cults and manipulative people like violent spouses have techniques in common, like isolate their prey, etc…
// The whole ‘let’s be together all the fucking time’ is just unbearable for me, and makes me very suspicious – //
Ha! I totally feel the same way!!
I think the peer pressure thing is huge – like a whole room, say, is going Ommmmmmmmmmmmm together and it just feels like you should be going along with it, even if you don’t feel like going Ommmmmmmmmm.
// It’s probably not for nothing cults and manipulative people like violent spouses have techniques in common, l //
Really good point. A really talented abuser can break down someone’s personality, infiltrate him/herself into the brain of the other – this speaks to why women can’t leave abusive relationships, even outside of the fact that you have no financial support except your abuser. And that’s probably by design too. Create dependency.
It’s just so sinister. Run for the hills!!
I read this WHOLE post!
hahahahahahahahahahaha
Good for you! You want a gold star?
Bren, your comic timing is almost otherworldly. You race in where humor is needed and BOOM. There it is.
Wow! This sounds like a very interesting book. I need to check it out. Like many of the other posters, I’ve found myself fascinated by cults and brainwashing for years. I remember reading Helter Skelter when I was about 10 years old and finding Manson’s control over his followers to be both repellent and intriguing. Then Jonestown happened and I fell down the rabbit hole seeking answers and ultimately trying to shield myself from falling victim to a cult.
As I got older, this expanded to learning about serial killers, social and peer pressure a la Zimbardo’s works and forensic psychology. I’m convinced this interest was behind my desire to complete a MA in forensic psychology.
At first I was one of those who loudly boasted “thus could never happen to me.”. Now I’m convinced that given the right circumstances I could be brainwashed and manipulated as quickly as anyone else. That’s a thought that keeps me up nights.
// Then Jonestown happened and I fell down the rabbit hole seeking answers and ultimately trying to shield myself from falling victim to a cult. //
Wow. Yeah, that seemed to be a tipping point for a lot of people. I mean, it’s incomprehensible … still … especially the image of mothers feeding their babies Kool-aid with eye-droppers.
// I’m convinced this interest was behind my desire to complete a MA in forensic psychology. //
Ooh! I’m envious! I always feel like that could have been an alternative path for me, outside of the arts. Good for you! I’d love to pick your brain!
I have Zimbardo’s book on my shelf – which I was fascinated by. I think his work is very very important (especially his thoughts on Abu Ghraib which really changed my understanding of what was happening there: an essential shift in perspective, I think). And the Stanford Prison Experiment holds as many questions as answers – I haven’t seen the film version of it (it came out last year), but the documentaries I’ve seen are RIVETING. and UPSETTING.
But it makes perfect sense. Of course in a world where choice is limited or eradicated – evil torture-happy leaders will arise. it’s not our best quality as a human race, but it should be understood that it is a GIVEN. I think that’s where a lot of the resistance comes from. People want to believe that people are inherently good. I don’t think they are. I think it’s all choice, based on circumstance and opportunity and training and positive reinforcement. I suppose that will be argued about forever.
// Now I’m convinced that given the right circumstances I could be brainwashed and manipulated as quickly as anyone else. That’s a thought that keeps me up nights. //
I know, it really is scary.
Thanks for your perspective. I’d love to hear more about the work that you do and your forensic studies!!
I’m always happy to have my brain picked (well, except by zombies ?) although it has been a while since I worked in the field.
Stanley Milgrim’s work on obedience to authority offers an equally enlightening and frightening look at this topic. The things people will do because that were following orders.
In my opinion, the only difference between Manson and Jim Jones was polish. Manson spent much of his youth incarcerated so he had a convict’s approach to life. Jones was more civilized, educated and seemingly normal. Both obviously has charisma combined with narcissistic, sociopathic personalities. What frightens me is how many more are out there in positions of authority – CEOs, politicians, religious leaders. The mind boggles!
Interesting. I mentioned something akin to what you say about Milgrim in my review of The 5th Wave – it’s not a good movie (I loved the book) – but one of the things it does really well is show how – in times of chaos – if you get people to “move to the exits in an orderly fashion,” you are halfway there to dominating them entirely. And people YEARN to line up in an orderly fashion.
And of course exiting a catastrophe in an orderly way cuts down on the possibility of injuries/deaths. So firemen, policemen, or just strong Alpha-type personalities, can take on such a role and save lives.
But in the hands of a sociopath or a sociopathic organization – like Jim Jones pouring out the plastic cups of Kool-aid, march forward in an orderly fashion for your share … it can be devastating.
I don’t know Stanley Milgrim’s work though!
Do you know Elias Canetti? He’s more of a historian/philosopher – he won the Nobel Prize. I haven’t read his novels – but he wrote a study of crowd behavior that is fascinating. Not scholarly, but hugely observant and thought-provoking – it’s called Crowds and Power. I know some people who have had a hard time getting through it – but I found it revelatory! !
Interesting in re: Manson and Jones.
There was the drug factor too. I know Manson often stayed sober while all of his followers were tripping – so that he could stay in control. If memory serves, Jim Jones was a pill popper? Amphetamines? I’d have to check. But yes – he was a “pillar of the community”, working with different groups in San Francisco to promote racial harmony, etc. I think he was even elected to office, or at least served in official capacities. It’s inconceivable to picture Manson in a similar position.
Also, Manson’s “family”, at its highest number, was about 30 people. Jones, of course, was much much more destructive. I mean, to get 900 people to leave their homes, leave the United States, and go live in the jungle … that’s some serious sociopath charisma.
I do not know Elias Canetti. I’ll have to check the book out. Thanks!
You’re so right about using our need for order and safety as tools to manipulate us. It’s why some people are drawn to fundamentalist churches – it’s all black & white. Follow our rules and you’ll be saved, disobey and you’ll go to Hell.
Jones definitely imbibed substances. I read some followers who indicated it contributed to his paranoia. I think he was ultimately more successful in recruiting followers because he was more mainstream. Manson was always counter-culture and so had a smaller pool of potential followers. Still, both created horrifying legacies.
Then if course there are groups like the extremist Mormons who broke away from the main church so they could practice polygamy, among other things, and other fundamentalist extremist religious groups. The names may change but the dance continues. When I was a kid it was “Moonies” and Hare Krishna’s. Now you rarely hear about them but we’ve got new players keeping cult behavior alive and kicking. Frickin’ frightening.
Speaking of the FLDS:
I just watched the documentary Prophet’s Prey from last year and it is one of the most disgusting outrageous things I’ve seen in recent years. I think I mentioned it in the post – I forget what I’ve written immediately after I post it. :)
I just wish that that group could be dis-banded because polygamy – not to mention child-marriage and rape – is against the law in the United States. The polygamists were busted up in the 1950s. I guess there’s hesitance on the part of the government now to interfere? Or they’re afraid of another Waco?
It’s GOT to stop. It pisses me off that it is going on now, right at this very moment!
So, I googled Jonestown, because I had never heard of it. I had a light-bulb moment because I finally REALLY understand the expression “drinking the kool-Aid.” Very closely followed by pure horror.
That’s why I really try never ever to use “drink the Kool Aid”. I do slip up sometimes because it’s so common, and a perfect shortcut description of “going along with the flow”. But what it means is so horrible I just can’t justify throwing those words around. 900 people dead.
One of the reporters who flew down in a crowded airplane of reporters to Guyana – said that they flew over Jonestown – and at first he thought the field was covered in some kind of colored quilt. He couldn’t understand what he was looking at. It was all pink and blue and green colors down there, like a patchwork quilt.
Then he realized that the “quilt” was the overlapping piled-up dead bodies that completely covered the entire field. 900 people.
Jonestown is a deep deep pool of crazy and horror – there have been some good documentaries and books.
Jim Jones was a pure sociopath. A narcissist. Totally paranoid. It is INCREDIBLE what he was able to pull off. Did he “believe it” at one point? Maybe. There’s a kind of “apologetic” documentary out there about him, which basically says “he had good ideas, and then it all went bad.” But I take a more cynical view. That he was a sociopath, who had figured out that people who were lonely and hurting and looking for racial and economic harmony would respond to his call for a diverse community where all of those wounds could be healed. I think he figured out what people were looking for – and set about providing it, so that he could gather all power unto himself.
At first all went well. His church services were joyous and you watch footage of them and think, “That looks kind of fun.” It does.
But he had to be some kind of crazy-good snake oil salesman – because little old ladies and young guys and all the rest gave him all their money, handed over retirement savings, sold their houses … gave it all to Jim Jones.
It just boggles the mind. And of course they had no idea how crazy he was and what, ultimately, he would make them do. The only reason the whole thing happened was because he had convinced everyone that they were in such danger of persecution in the United States that their only hope was to live in the jungle in Guyana. Once they were in Guyana, he had total “milieu control” (from Lifton’s 8 criteria) – he couldn’t have milieu control in San Francisco, because people were still going home, and riding trolleys and reading newspapers, etc. Not so in Guyana. He became their only connection to the outside world. He told them over and over over the loudspeaker that enemy forces were encroaching on their camp, to ratchet up their sense of danger and paranoia.
God, it’s just so awful. I’ve gone into that a little bit deeper than even I wish I had. There are websites where his “sermons” down in Guyana can be listened to. (He recorded everything.) And I admit I listened to some of them.
He is so obviously OUT of his MIND … sometimes he’s WASTED … and all of these people are totally under his control. It’s a nightmare.
I think the whole “the cult finds you” is so true. One day you might be able to resist the pressure but on another when you’re feeling vulnerable, not so much.
//I admire John McCain unreservedly, for a lot of reasons, the main one being his behavior during his years as a POW, although there’s more. (His famous handling of a heckler, is another.) But mainly – it’s his strength of character and his refusal to break – even when he was offered – offered, flat out! – a way out, a way free.//
I do, too. I’m fascinated by his strength of character. And although you always wants to cast yourself as the hero when you think how you will react to such barbarous pressures, I doubt I would have the fortitude to survive such an onslaught.
I’m also fascinated by Stalin and the Soviet Union in general. FWIW, I think one way Stalin was able to keep control was by constantly keeping people off base. One day you had to denounce the Jews, the next someone or something else. Eugenia Ginzburg, a party member, found herself in the gulag after she didn’t denounce someone strongly enough. IT was a giant mind fuck of the entire population.
The Cultural Revolution was another giant mind fuck.
Which brings me to the stories of two others who refused to break. Natan Sharansky, a chess prodigy, said he played chess games in his head during his long confinement in the punishment cell. In Fear No Evil he describes how he insisted upon his legal rights and I remember almost shouting while I was reading it “But they don’t care about your so-called legal rights!” He also refused to work until the authorities returned a book of Psalms they had confiscated.
Nien Cheng was imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution and she had to be forced out of prison after declaring that she wouldn’t leave until prison officials officially declared her innocent and published an apology to that effect.
Amazing.
Rachel – yes, to all of this! I think understanding that the brain is very vulnerable to these kinds of onslaughts could help people not become prey to these predators – but there is such resistance to that idea. “I’d be just like John McCain, no doubt about it …” and etc.
This book tells these amazing stories of what “snapping” feels like – the euphoria that drenches the body, making people feel hot/cold, tingling (the stories are amazingly similar, regardless of the cult). I think it’s in part because the mind-control is meant to disorient a person – you don’t know which end is up, and the entire bodily system flails. It’s terrifying!!
Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon is one of the definitive descriptions of what that process is like – how you break a person down, and then re-build them.
I didn’t know the story about the chess prodigy – fascinating. Is Fear No Evil his memoir?
I am not sure there is an answer to why some people don’t break. It seems to be different for everyone. I am not sure that even John McCain would have an explanation – because he lived it, I’m sure it all seemed very obvious to him that his path was the only way to go.
People talk about consciously keeping a tiny portion of their brain safe. ?? Like playing chess games in your head. Nobody can get at that. But it takes tremendous mental strength.
Thanks so much for your comment – gives me a lot to think about.
//This book tells these amazing stories of what “snapping” feels like – the euphoria that drenches the body, making people feel hot/cold, tingling (the stories are amazingly similar, regardless of the cult). I think it’s in part because the mind-control is meant to disorient a person – you don’t know which end is up, and the entire bodily system flails. It’s terrifying!! //
YES. Up is down, black is white. Your sure that whatever they’re saying is wrong, but you are surrounded by other people telling you it’s right. Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you’re the one who’s insane.
Yes, Fear No Evil is Sharansky’s memoir of his time in prison. It’s been a long time since I’ve read it, but he did all kinds of other things, too. He made demands of his captors. He demanded a trial. He quoted the “law” to them and he went on hunger strikes. I don’t think many people who found themselves imprisoned in the USSR could take them on like that. Nien Cheng’s memoir Life and Death in Shanghai is another such story. Just reading about what was going on during the Cultural Revolution is enough to make you break out in hives and start hyperventilating.
Rachel – thank you, I will definitely be reading both of those books.
Cults are one thing – but when the entire STATE becomes a cult … I mean, how do you resist? Propaganda is so powerful – I don’t think people realize.
When people compare Obama to a dictator – I think: When there is a billboard of Obama on every corner, when his voice is blasted out via microphone over Times Square, then I’ll believe what you’re selling. I’ve often said that you see pictures of Elvis more often than you see a picture of ANY U.S. President – and that’s a good thing.
Yeah, it’s generally a bad sign when you enter a country where all the billboards feature the dear leader.
I’m deeply shocked by what I’ve been reading. Thank you so much for bringing up this subject and for putting into words what I couldn’t do in my mind for years. Of course it relates to own experience, which I’m not going to explain, sorry.
But now I have a lot to read, please give your list of books, I’ll follow up.
And yes, of course you never think it’ll happen to you and yes, during the 80s we were in the blue. And yes too, to the fact that the world will show now and again people or governments trying to own your mind, with people willing to do it gladly. Stalin, Hitler, Jones, the next meditation center, not the same, but similar in the way you yield to them.
Cla – no need to apologize! Many of us have had such experiences – either very involved or brief encounters – and they are incredibly disturbing.
A friend of mine has a really good friend who has been “lost” to Sc****tology as clearly as if he had become a heroin addict. My friend has been trying to get him out, and break through to him, for YEARS. It’s tough tough stuff.
// the world will show now and again people or governments trying to own your mind, with people willing to do it gladly. Stalin, Hitler, Jones, the next meditation center, not the same, but similar in the way you yield to them. //
Yes. These people are not dummies: they understand mind-control and understand how to use it. I often wonder what will break the choke-hold in North Korea. We barely know what is going on there. The propaganda is so total. But I kNOW that there are people living there right now who are withholding portions of their brain for themselves, and keeping their thoughts to themselves. They “act” in public because they have to – but inside, they are holding some kind of line for themselves. I look forward to the day when we can hear more of their stories.
It’s very difficult to get somebody out of a cult if they are not willing to. But the need to belong is harder to break, I mean you can begin to go to a Kite Club and next thing you know, every weekend you are there, nothing else matters, you spread the Word to every passing person, kites make sense. It can be a Party, a cult, a religion and you lose yourself into that. Disturbing, to say the least.
That’s why a person like Ted Patrick is so interesting, though I’m not excusing his harsh methods. What are the questions he asked? What his deprogramming system is not widespread?
Cla – Ted Patrick’s success in deprogramming was actually extremely influential and people still use his methods (although maybe not his kidnapping.)
What he did was ask questions. That’s all. He asked questions meant to “poke holes” in the certainty of the belief system that had been imposed upon them. Sometimes he would inform the cult member of the dirty-deeds of the cult leader. And he would say it over and over and over. The questions were designed to get the brain active again.
And it worked. He tells stories about literally seeing a brain kick into gear again.
It usually wasn’t in response to a specific question being asked. It was the repetition – maybe even a form of reverse-brainwashing – that helped break the circular thinking.
Sometimes this process took days. Unlike a Kite club, to use your example, or a biking club, or a book club, with more innocent purposes – anything CAN become a cult, but enthusiastic participation in a group event is not necessarily a cult – people in dangerous cults are trained to look at those “outside” the cult as evil, even Satanic. So there was often a lot of fear, and panic, in the people being deprogrammed – like, Hare Krishnas starting to chant, non-stop, in order to block out Patrick’s voice – and also – even worse – to STOP thought in their brains.
People can “snap” out of it.
The really hard work comes afterward as the person tries to integrate back into society. It’s like stopping drinking. A lot of times alcoholics live in “sober houses” for a year, sometimes more, after they dry out. They need that structure.
People who have just gotten out of a cult are extremely vulnerable to getting into another one. Structure-less living terrifies them. They miss the intensity of feeling encouraged inside a cult. You see the phenomenon of cult-hopping. This is really obvious in certain evangelical Christian sects – no different from cults – where a person breaks out of a strong abusive “church” and then joins up with another equally abusive church.
Ted Patrick says it really helps for people who just got out of cults to hook up with other ex-cult members because it’s only those people who can truly understand. The Internet has made it much easier for ex-cult members to find each other.
This has been so so true with Sc*****tology. The second someone “gets out” or “blows” (in their terminology), there is an entire network of people all over the world online ready to celebrate that person’s choice, say “Welcome”, help out, whatever. It makes a HUGE difference. More people are leaving every day because of that support system.
20, 30 years ago? When people “blew” Sc******tology? there was none of that. You were stepping out into outer darkness. You had no bank account. You had no education. Your entire family and network of friends was in the cult. You had no credit score. You couldn’t drive. You’re 45 years old.
Can you imagine the guts it took for people to leave back then?
It’s much easier now. The Internet has made it much more difficult for cults to operate. There’s just too much information out there.
North Korea, yes. One keeps hoping that those walls will be breached and the whole nasty damned apparatus will split open. A while back I read an article about the break up of the Soviet Union and one of the things they talked about was how difficult it was now to get workers to man some godawful plant in the more desolate reaches of Siberia. Before the state broke apart, they had no problem. Not because they were forcing their own people to do the task but because citizens of their client state, North Korea, were volunteering by the hundreds to go. They figured that even though the climate was bad and conditions were bad, they were promised three square meals a day, and, hell, it wasn’t North Korea.
Wow. I hadn’t heard about that situation but it makes total sense – and it’s amazing how far-reaching the consequences of the USSR falling and all the collateral stuff that was affected – stuff that nobody could have predicted.
In re: North Korea: I take comfort in the fact (granted, from my very comfortable existence) that Tyranny ALWAYS falls. Eventually. It is terrible for the people enduring it, but Tyranny is just not built to last. Something equally awful may take its place. But that, too, will fall. Eventually.
It’ll be a huge day when that happens for NK – and very dangerous too – because in the power vacuum – who knows who else will rise? Somebody much worse?
Megalomaniac sociopaths LIVE for chaos. It helps them solidify their power.
The hold on NK seems so complete. Even more complete than the USSR – maybe because it’s a much smaller country.
//It’ll be a huge day when that happens for NK – and very dangerous too – because in the power vacuum – who knows who else will rise? Somebody much worse?//
Seems unthinkable. But never say never.
//The hold on NK seems so complete. Even more complete than the USSR – maybe because it’s a much smaller country.//
It does. But I remember thinking similar thoughts about the USSR. Nothing lasts forever. And tyranny DOES always fall.
I felt the same way about the USSR – they were the Big Scary Bad of my childhood.
and, of course, once they cracked up – all kinds of other horrifying shit came roaring to the surface, like Milosevic and the ‘stans and all the rest.
North Korea is more self-contained – not an empire like the USSR, but still: any time tyranny falls it’s a really dangerous moment.
Like what happened in Iran in 1978-79. What was a revolution for democracy, and a call for the Shah to step down – was hijacked by the fundamentalists and Ayotallah Khomeini. He was flat-out more powerful and more convincing – and the people who had been shouting for democracy were the first up against the wall in the new regime.
So it’s all very precarious.
This is awesome! I read every word and every comment. I share your fascination with the psychology of cults, sociopaths, mobs — also with profilers and forensic psychologists. I can’t wait to read your “cult” posts. ;)
I’m curious to know if you’re watching Hulu’s “The Path,” and if so what you think of it.
I haven’t seen The Path – is it cult/mind-control focused? Let me look it up. Do you like it?
I’m waiting until the end of the season, when I will binge-watch it. My issue is that I tend to get drawn in and then it gets inside my head. So it’s better for me emotionally to watch and process it all over a weekend, rather than drawing it out over a few months. ;)
It’s getting high viewer ratings and some good critical press. It sounds good:
The Path follows a family at the center of a controversial cult movement as they struggle with relationships, faith and power. Each episode takes an in-depth look at the gravitational pull of belief and what it means to choose between the life we live and the life we want. The series blends elements of mystery-thriller, romance and the supernatural.
Wow. Sounds right up my alley.
I know I’m very late to the cult party, but Sheila, have you ever read (or heard of) the book “Monkey on a Stick: Murder, Madness, and the Hare Krishnas” by John Hubner and Linsdey Gruson? So well-researched and chilling. The HKs are, or were, a terrifying bunch who used very simple, effective techniques to convert the disaffected into True Believers in Krishna. Along the way, the leaders amassed huge fortunes and had various members murdered whenever their authority was challenged. Highly recommend if you haven’t come across it. I still have my hardback copy from a bazillion years ago because it’s one of the best true crime (I consider it as such) books I’ve ever read.
Wow, really fascinating post and great comments too. Very interesting stuff.
Sheila, you DO know the work of Stanley Milgrim, even if you don’t recognize the name. Most famous for the “shock” obedience study at Yale described below, he also coined the term “6 degrees of separation” after another experiment.
I actually just saw “Experimenter” starring the great Peter Saarsgard as Milgram, and it’s a fantastic movie. Really thought provoking, 90 minutes long, streaming on Netflix, you will absolutely LOVE IT!
“In Milgram’s basic paradigm, a subject walks into a laboratory believing that s/he is about to take part in a study of memory and learning. After being assigned the role of a teacher, the subject is asked to teach word associations to a fellow subject (who in reality is a collaborator of the experimenter). The teaching method, however, is unconventional–administering increasingly higher electric shocks to the learner. Once the presumed shock level reaches a certain point, the subject is thrown into a conflict. On the one hand, the strapped learner demands to be set free, he appears to suffer pain, and going all the way may pose a risk to his health. On the other hand, the experimenter, if asked, insists that the experiment is not as unhealthy as it appears to be, and that the teacher must go on. In sharp contrast to the expectations of professionals and laymen alike, some 65% of all subjects continue to administer shocks up to the very highest levels.”
LOVED Experimenter! Both the subject matter and the storytelling techniques it used. Fascinating and thought-provoking.
Agreed I can’t stop thinking about that movie! Such an unusual style but it totally worked.