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<\/a><\/p>\n\nWow, 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<\/i>.<\/a> 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.) <\/p>\n 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.) <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n Here are the categories I’ve done thus far:<\/p>\n Fiction<\/a><\/p>\n Non-Fiction<\/a> (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.)<\/p>\n YA fiction<\/a><\/p>\n Poetry<\/a><\/p>\n Theatre<\/a><\/p>\n Children’s books<\/a><\/p>\n Science<\/a><\/p>\n Religion<\/a><\/p>\n Political Philosophy<\/a> (my term. But better than “politics.”)<\/p>\n Culture<\/a> (a weak term, but these books are mainly un-classifiable, so Culture will have to do.)<\/p>\n Memoirs<\/a> (These include, if memory serves, collections of people’s letters and it excludes Hollywood people. You see the issue there.)<\/p>\n Entertainment Biographies and Memoirs<\/a><\/p>\n Essays<\/a><\/p>\n US history<\/a><\/p>\n Scripts<\/a><\/p>\n I’m pretty sure that’s it. Isn’t that enough?? <\/p>\n 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> 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<\/i>), 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.<\/i> That’s it. Like I always say, there is actually such a thing as a wrong opinion. <\/p>\n 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<\/i> 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<\/i>. 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. <\/p>\n I could go on. I will go on. <\/p>\n 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<\/i>. <\/p>\n 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.” <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n It was out of that cultural panic that Snapping: America’s Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change<\/a> 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<\/em> 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<\/i>. 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? <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n \n 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<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n Snapping<\/i> 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<\/i> 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.) <\/p>\n 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<\/a>, who also studied cults and was one of the first guys to come up with ways to “snap” people back. <\/p>\n<\/a>
\nRobert Jay Lifton<\/i><\/p>\n