Emotionology
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 6:46 pmThis is an excerpt of a draft of some quasi-academic stuff I’m working on. It really is just a draft, and my work at the moment is covering a great deal more stuff than this, and in far greater depth, with real case studies, etc. This isn’t even, for the most part, the kind of stuff I’m mostly interested in – I’m far more interested in mirror-mechanisms, whereby people in cults blatantly and explicitly turn black in to white, censure in to freedom, intolerance in to tolerance etc., as in, I prevent you from speaking therefore I am tolerant – and why people believe then, that they really are tolerant – fascinating.
However, the stuff I’ve posted here, although not by any means much more than a second draft, and far from complete – few direct case studies, etc. – represents some stuff Gonzo and I thought was relevant to some of the things under discussion here – or, more relevantly, to the way things are discussed.
Try not to react on the emotional level. Remember when exploring ideas was fun? Sure enough, what you have here on this site is an orgy of mutual pain infliction. At some point, to end that, you have to stop blaming everyone else and just stop responding to it on the emotional level. I hope some of this information helps to explain why we got ourselves in that position in the first place; and if anyone is interested, I’ll post more at later points.
The Means of Belief
In 1848 Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto. In it, and in his later works, he identifies class struggle as the key machinery of change in human society, and the key event in precipitating the ultimate transition to Communism as the seizing, by the workers, of the means of production. A hundred and fifty years later, many of Marx’s ideas, although brilliant, have been shown to have one seemingly inescapable flaw – they are information, transmitted from one emotional being to another, and that alone appears to have been enough to skew any potential utopian trajectory off course.
However, like his university classmate Kierkegaard, Marx was acutely aware of the growing sense of alienation in modern Western culture; a phenomenon that has opened many people up, through seeking connection, personal knowledge and identity, to cult influence.
If our modern age has any defining name, it must surely be the Information Age. And in the Information Age it is the means of belief which count; the methods, tactics and mechanisms via which individuals, groups or even nations are influenced. Educating ourselves, our children, and one another, as to the often subtle operation of these mechanisms is the new ‘revolutionary’ ideal – seizing control of the means of belief in ourselves, before someone else does it for us.
Fortunately, many of the techniques of influence are easy to inoculate ourselves against – they aren’t particularly sophisticated. However, there are other methods, techniques and ideological tricks which operate on levels other than words and open persuasion; emotional level communication, which by definition is somewhat resistant to mere words. Emotions comprise the most powerful communication method we know of, and educating ourselves and our loved ones to not be manipulated through that ‘open port’ in the programming of our minds requires the installation of a useful, well considered ‘firewall’ – education.
What is a cult?
Understanding the way beliefs are influenced is an ‘organic’ process; it is not possible to give a clearly linear exposition, as many factors exist in an ‘organic’, mutually informing relationship. Therefore, before we even begin to explore ideas such as, in this case, ‘scrutiny proofing’, I need to give an example of it.
Ruth [genuine quote, names changed] writes:
“Third, the cult thing. Honestly I think people use this argument when they run out of options, but maybe we should have a thread about that, even if only to refer to it when newcomers arrive. By the way, as much as I know, there is no clear cut definition for this concept. Some may think that Communism is a cult, others that some Christian sects are cults (like in the ‘DeVinci Code’) etc. actually many ideological rivals use this term to prove to themselves that they are on the sane side and the others are – a cult.”
Ruth is un-defining the term ‘cult’. ‘Scattering’ is the term I’ve chosen to describe this specific tactic; comparing it loosely to the manner in which a radar bounce is ‘scattered’ by the anti-radar designs of stealth ships and planes.
Naturally, the way words are defined is a tool of generating a shared perception, whether for a cult or a cult critic. Wittgenstein’s proposition that there are no atomic meanings to words (meaning that all words, naturally, derive their specific meaning from context) becomes visibly employed as an active tool of manipulating group perception in Ruth’s post.
Scattering is a tactic of ‘territory denial’ – rather than address the issues which make some external critics view her group as a cult, it undermines the meaning of ‘cult’ by, ironically, defining it as an essentially meaningless term, thereby scattering its focused critical implication and denying critics the argumentative ‘territory’ of accusations of ‘cult’. Now calling the group a cult is re-directed back on the critic – the critic is the un-clear thinker using meaningless terms to attack people.
Helpfully, Ruth goes on to give us some guidelines as to what, in a ‘narrow view’ one might expect to see in a real cult:
“But if we take the more narrow view of this concept, we can find a few guidelines that may help identify a cult – for example – you cannot leave a cult, you are cut off all other means of information and you are torn apart from your family and life.”
To say ‘helpfully’ seems facetious, but really means that Ruth is ‘helping’ the other members of the group to ‘see’ clearly what a cult is, and why they aren’t in one. She’s moved from saying that the word cult is meaningless to identifying a cult according to only the strictest definitions.
So is Ruth’s group a cult? Well, she has really done the job herself of placing her group between two extremes, and in so doing leads us in to understanding that there are gradients. Not every collection of people is a cult, but there again, not every group that has evolved a slightly concerning shared group-outlook is separating people from their family.
The fact that Ruth seeks to both undermine the use of the word ‘cult’ as a tool of partisanship, and yet also to compare her own group favourably against the most extreme type of cult, is an insight in to, and an indication of, the difficulties of using the word. As is the fact that in many ways, she’s right. But as we’ll see, Ruth’s group is unusually in a position where many people have called it a cult, and the members of the group have responded – providing a superb example of cultish cognitive dissonance in the process.
Despite the very common ‘scattering’ tactic used against the word ‘cult’, we need to retain it and reclaim it as valid, even though it is not an easily defined term. Rather, we should not only accept its un-definition, but embrace it – utilizing it as ‘fuzzy’ idea covering a wide range of social phenomena. Does a group ‘have’ to separate people from their family to be of concern? No. And we should also remember that groups can escalate in terms of their seriousness or causes for concern; even the most outrageous suicide cults start from small, weak seeming structures.
We need to ‘return the sentiment’ that was used to scatter the term ‘cult’ in the first place, and use that very act as our starting point – to recognize that what makes a group a ‘cult’ isn’t what it believes, but how it operates; especially how it operates its information flow.
Information and Slush
There are many groups in the world. As Ruth informs us, the term ‘cult’ can be widely applied. Therefore we need some definitions of ‘cult-like’ structure. And in addition, we need to employ some gradient – recognizing varying degrees of ‘cult-ish’ behaviour.
The first aspect of a cult-like structure I term the ‘information’. The information which a cult is there to facilitate, perpetuate or spread could be religious, familial (families can be cultish groups, and the sense of being a family can be the ‘information’), spiritual, philosophical, political, hedonistic, violent, sexual, topical (based on being in a place, such as in the film The Beach), nihilistic, physical (such as yoga, martial arts, breathing exercises, qi gong), psychological, emotional, super natural – or a combination of these, or indeed other types of ‘information’ not listed here.
I use the term ‘information’ very specifically, because the information a group is based around ‘in’ forms the group sense of identity – as in, forms it from ‘within’.
The information which a group is based around may or may not be worrying in and of itself. Practicing martial arts may not be specifically worrying, but it would become so if people were told that by practicing it they become immune to bullets or knives – or, in modern times, immune to cancer – or that their cancer could be cured through their martial arts practice. The beliefs of a spiritual group might not in and of themselves be concerning, but if they have an ultimate trajectory of ‘leaving this planet’ to go somewhere else prematurely – i.e. a suicide cult – then they are deeply concerning.
More revealing is the ‘slush’ – the actual mechanisms of information communication employed by the group. This includes how people’s perceptions, egos or emotions are manipulated; how external criticism is dealt with; how status is used – or abused; how information is communicated – e.g. via emotional level communication, violence, trick-logic, sleep deprivation, drug or meditation use, etc.; counselling; psychological or perceptual manipulation and so on. This is not an exhaustive list.
I use the term ‘slush’ as a reference to the ice-flows in the artic where large ice blocks are carried along slushy ‘rivers’. There is a tendency to perceive cults only in terms of the information which they represent (the ice blocks), such as their religious belief, but this is misleading and actually allows other cults to manipulate perceptions – for example, an Evangelical Christian sect might call Wicca a cult because it is ‘un-Christian’.
What really matters (except in terms of implicitly dangerous trajectories in specific ideas) isn’t the large ‘blocks’ of doctrine, but the emotional and perceptual ‘slush’ which is used to carry them around the group – the means of belief; the pressurization, manipulation, word mangling, etc.. It is the slush which defines the ‘cult’ as a cult more than any other aspect. In short, a cult is a manipulator of people, and the slush is how they do it.
It can be frustrating for rational, logical or sceptical groups to find that obscenely illogical ideologies are ‘defended’ by illogical logic; but that is what cults do. Whilst it is important to tackle, say, scientific ignorance, it is also important to recognize that it isn’t the belief of the individual or group that is the problem; it is the lack of open-ness to wider argument or external view point; because without that, it is almost impossible to communicate to people ‘inside’ the cult, no matter how much sense you are making.
So we’re going to take Ruth’s advice, and un-define the term ‘cult’ a little – we’re going to leave it as a fuzzy term which can include anything from a family to a quasi-military group, a religious sect to a local martial arts club, an alcoholics anonymous group to a motorbike gang. It could even be a cult of one, or two. Some people need to be in a power-unbalanced relationship with another person to feel powerful.
The ‘information’ of the group isn’t what defines it as a cult. And there is no absolute, specific structure we can pin point. The only thing that matters is the manipulation of people.
Structure
A structure is a set of beliefs which combine to form a view; not necessarily a world view – it could be a view on tai chi or alcoholism.
Structures can be huge and deeply complex, or they can be simple. And they can evolve.
Psychological Immersion
Psychological immersion is the process of subsuming one’s personal self identity in a ‘structure’. Highly effective structures have specifically evolved to ‘hook’ in to psychological aspects common to potential hosts – sense of personal purpose, identity, emotional need or weakness, group belonging, ego, status, power, etc. They may even hook in to pre-existent mental illnesses in subjects.
It is not necessarily a group phenomenon; a person could read The Communist Manifesto and become a Communist. However, in a group scenario psychological immersion can have powerful effects – an individual can come to identify very deeply with the group, so much so that any criticism of the group or its ideas is seen as a personal attack and emotionally responded to. Navigating past and through emotional level response is one of the difficult areas which needs to be improved in the way we engage cultish groups.
Neutrality
Should a social scientist be neutral in their examination of groups?
In some instances of research, of course, a social scientist should take all possible precautions against bias. However, simply by examining the mechanisms of belief-influence, and revealing their magic, one places oneself in opposition to those who seek to profit by them, whether it be your choice to be there or not. And the question is, how do you choose who to study without that being a bias? Before you even find source material, you have to make a decision that a group is cultish. I say, take a stand on it – don’t even try to be impartial in that sense; just try to explain and research as best as possible how it all works.
The primary tool necessary for examining cultish groups is the over-view – the stand back, or ‘meta’ view. The meta-view allows us to recognize not only how cults work, but how they engage with and indeed use us, the social scientists and cult researchers and/or critics examining them, as resources. Having critics is a part of how cults self define and thrive, so it is perhaps beholden on us to consider deeply the nature of our means of opposition, and what part that plays in perpetuating cult culture.
It becomes necessary, therefore, at this point to separate cult critique from strict scientific rationalism. In many ways, social science shares a platform with many cultish groups; sociology and psychology interact with a number of cultish groups, and both have an interest in new, fringe philosophy and ideas which aren’t strictly scientific.
One of the ways in which we can modify our engagement with cultish groups is to make it clear – perhaps sometimes to ourselves – that we are not intent on eliminating fringe ideas; in fact, many social scientists, philosophers and free thinkers are fringe, counter cultural thinkers. What we need to emphasize is our belief in making the exploration of ideas safe.
Education, Information, Action
Young people are traditionally seen as being especially susceptible to cults, but we need to re-assess any bias we may have towards young people as weak minded and easily manipulated. One of the ways cults ‘hook’ young people is by asserting their belief in them, and that is only the more powerful a hook if the ‘establishment’, or parents etc., by contrast, do not seem to have confidence in them.
In fact, young people have a lot going for them in the anti-cult stakes – they often have passion, strong will and fresh intelligence. What is missing isn’t in the young people; it is in us – in our lack of preparation and response to cults; in our lack of educating people as to the means by which cultish groups hook and manipulate their members. Young people given sufficient access to relevant educational material have shown themselves to be not only well capable of understanding how cults work, but passionately opposed to them, and prepared to do something about them. As with all illness, prevention is better than cure.
We need to recognize that people will always be interested in alternative view points, spirituality and fringe philosophy. Opposing it isn’t an option – and why should we? The only real option is education and information – teaching people the critical tools necessary to recognize cult operating tactics.
We may even find that people who used to be cultish leaders may themselves begin to re-explore some of their own thinking and actions – if we engage and promote information in the right way.
The Power of Naming
‘Your name is Rumpleslitskin! she cried, and the evil man stamped and stamped and stamped until he fell through the floor and disappeared, never to be seen again!’
In ancient mythology, naming things was seen as very powerful. Many of the tactics, methods and strategies cultish groups use to manipulate the awareness of their members, or to stifle external opposition, are remarkably similar. By identifying these strategies and succinctly naming them for instant recognition – for example ‘love bombing’ – we begin to arm ourselves with the necessary critical weapons to tackle cultish influence.
Imagine if we had to explain ‘love bombing’ or abusive relationships every time we encountered one. Cultish groups and manipulative thinkers rely on the critical explanations of their activities being so necessarily drawn out and in depth that for the most part no one can even be bothered making them, never mind listening to them. It is therefore an essential aspect of cult engagement that we identify, succinctly name, and educate each other as to the means of cult control.
Ideo-cology
America, specifically, has long been a haven and indeed growth medium for alternative spiritualities, philosophies and groups. When such groups are reported on, through the media or other publications, we tend to hear about them as individual groups. However, that is quite an artificial perspective, as isolating any one specific thinker as completely original and unique is largely impossible. Although we can pin-point specific groups with specific belief sets, if we examine any of them, we find that they are actually a part of a continuum of ideas – what I call an ‘ideo-cology’ – an ecology of ideas.
The ideo-cology is a more useful perspective than that of separate groups. For one, the ideo-cology includes not only groups of all sizes, but individuals, authors, dead philosophers, academics, past thinkers, therapists, religious traditions etc., and also the interconnecting relationships between them.
Secondly, seeing an ecology of ideas allows us to plot the ‘evolution’ of the methods and beliefs of specific groups. That’s useful because it allows us to reveal just how cultish groups, or even well meaning, unusual world views or perspectives, ‘evolve’ to ever more powerfully ‘hook’ in to people’s psychology.
Some bacteria have the ability to ‘share’ DNA modifications or immunities with other bacteria of different species. Whilst being acutely aware of the dangers of ‘analogy osmosis’, the sharing of ideas in the ideo-cology can be seen in that way; individuals or groups take and adapt methods and ideas from other groups and individuals, adding them to their own ‘structure’.
What we need to explore is ‘why’ – why are specific ideas or techniques particularly wanted for assimilation?
The answer is going to require an interesting step of awareness for both the rational critic and for the ‘alternative practitioner’ – the assimilated ideas ‘work’.
The Belief Experience
In 1972 the world’s last remaining samples of smallpox were due to be incinerated, freeing the world from its scourge forever. The countdown counted down, and then it counted past, and the last remaining examples of that species remain yet. The official reason given was that there is so much left to learn from smallpox. As a disease, it has been a specifically human companion for centuries. Upon infecting a human being it kills off our immune system and, remarkably, replaces it, even keeping out other infections. It works – it actually works as an immune system; it is just that while it’s working to keep out other infections it is gradually deforming, and will eventually, in most cases, kill, the host.
A common rational/scientific argument against religious belief is that ‘science works, religion doesn’t. Science puts planes in the sky, performs heart operations. Science explains the world.’
It’s a fundamental mistake, to think that just because a belief set seems false or artificial that it can not therefore ‘work’. It can. Once a person becomes infected with a belief set it proceeds to take over how they input and process information, much like the smallpox immune system; keeping out rival ideas, even while it deforms the ‘host’s’ perceptions of the world.
All deeply assimilated belief sets ‘work’. Whatever a person believes, they will tend to experience as self evidently true and reflected in the world around them. That in itself is a crucially desired and hungrily assimilated strand of ideological DNA, both for cults and for people seeking alternative world views. Cultish groups can use the phenomenon of the belief experience to manipulate members in to thinking the group really does have ‘the truth’, and really is ‘revealing’ it to the member. Individuals can feel that they are genuinely unfolding deep or hidden truth about the world.
The belief experience, being formed, and emerging from, a gradually applied drip of information and slush, artificially generates the sense that the initiate is ‘unfolding’ ever deeper understanding – and in some ways, they often are, as many groups use deeply resonant ideas that chime with many people’s psychology, offering insight in to certain aspects of reality and human nature. This can be an immensely powerful emotional experience in some cases, simply because over the past forty years the ‘emotional technology’ swimming around in the ideo-cololgy has evolved via natural selection, eliminating the less effective emotional techniques and philosophically resonant ideas, and sharing, improving and combining the most effective.
Emotional manipulation and psychological archaeology
It is actually very easy to cause a significant emotional response in an average human being. Just a weepy movie can have someone in tears. In fact, our culture relies on the fact that we emotionally engage with information of all kinds – music, literature, films, photographs, news reports. An argument, a strange turn of events, a failure to follow custom – these alone can be enough to emotionally distract or affect people.
Properly trained psychiatrists understand full well the power of engaging in emotional archaeology – digging in to people’s pasts, uncovering trauma. We are emotional beings, so it is no big surprise to say that we can be communicated to, or deeply moved, on emotional levels.
And it is no big surprise that cultish groups and actors seek to access our psychology via our emotions. Emotional communication is not only powerful; it is also not subject to rational scrutiny. A primary driver of evolution is that those who are most effective at surviving have the greatest chance of doing so – so it is no surprise either that cultish belief sets have evolved to infect people via their emotional ‘ports’.
The Emotionologists
Emotionology is a largely American phenomenon, comprising an unusual and not easily defined conglomeration of ideas. It is a product of the ideo-cology, and whatever ‘information’ it carries as its primary doctrine, its defining feature is its use of emotional slush.
Emotionologists may use elements ranging through religion, spirituality, Native Americanism, psychology, sociology, philosophy, UFOs, Carlos Castaneda, politics, etc., conglomerating many aspects in to one ‘eclectic’, loose structure; or they may have a well organised and defined doctrine. What makes them a largely American origin phenomenon is the fusion between counter-cultural belief sets and emotional work – self help, self awareness, success, motivation, counselling, psychology, personal empowerment, life coaching, etc.
The result is a person, or group, who uses emotional techniques to make you believe something. In many ways, that can of course be said about many organisations – political parties, newspapers, etc., but Emotionologists use powerful emotional techniques – hugely invasive, highly ‘active’ psychological methods and interventions made directly in to people’s lives.
Doing this hugely enhances the belief experience of both the initiate and the Emotionologist. Powerful emotional or psychological reactions deepen the belief experience in to deep structure; a powerful emotional milieu; an extreme belief experience where the initiate experiences a massive emotional relationship with the doctrine being passed on by the Emotionologist.
Emotionologists are pseudo-psychiatrists, practicing crude, quack psychiatry without proper training or qualification.
From the Emotionologist’s perspective, their activities are self validated via their own deep structure belief experience. They not only see their practices working in people, they see them working quickly, effectively; reducing people to tears, or powerful emotional responses, perhaps even in one session. This re-validates the whole process for them, and that aspect of their doctrine which states, in varying wording, that ‘we work on deep core issues, helping people more quickly and effectively than psychiatry or counselling.’
In fact, it doesn’t, and it isn’t. Traditionally, de-programming has been seen as a measure used to help the victims of cults, but the Emotionologists themselves are victims of deep structure experiences, mis-recognizing the emotional responses they cause in other people as indications and validations of the efficacy of their methods. Many probably genuinely wanted to help people, so it is possible that some can be communicated to through their deep structure, and be made aware that actually, generating a huge emotional response in people is easy, and its effects temporary, and never is it a valid replacement for genuine, qualified counselling or psychiatric help, especially for people who are already emotionally vulnerable.
Real psychiatric care comes from people who have been properly trained. An important aspect of proper training is boundaries. Emotionologists have no boundaries; by the very nature of the way they operate they forge inappropriate, deeply personal, emotionally dependent relationships with the people they practice on, blurring them somewhere between patient, student, initiate, friend and subordinate. And fairly uniquely (compared to real psychiatry), and deeply worryingly, in time this can become 'enemy' - when a person begins to doubt or criticize the methods or ideas being sold to them by the Emotionologist, and the emotional tools they used to use to heal the person turn in to weapons to attack them. That happens because there is no proper training, no boundaries and no professional over-view.
There are, additionally, a number of strategies used by Emotionologists to avoid accountability, one of which is to say that everything is, after all, illusion/folly/consensual reality, and therefore it does not matter what they do. Really, this is a tactic of scrutiny proofing – refusing to discuss their actions, i.e. refusing to allow external scrutiny.
Emotionally affecting people places them in a vulnerable, suggestive state of mind. Emotionologists rarely come without another agenda – a doctrine, or information which is wholly irrelevant to the person’s emotional growth or healing. Generating a powerful emotional response in people can be enough to convince them that you have real knowledge in wider areas – spirituality, religion, politics, etc. Powerfully emotionally affected people are suggestive and vulnerable, and therefore far easier to indoctrinate. The Emotionologist, used to, and egged on by, previous ‘success’, perceives their doctrine as valid simply because it is so easily ‘smuggled’ in to the consciousness of a mind manipulated in to a suggestive and receptive state via emotional tricks. And they themselves, in return, have their ego ‘rewarded’ by feeling that they have astounding powers to deeply affect and help others.
In reality, Emotionology is far more like dog training than spirituality. Dog psychology works in simple emotional terms. Human beings are apes, and carry an animal psychology, a part of which is our emotions. Far from revealing ‘truth’ to their ‘patients’, Emotionologists are often simply training them to accept ideology via emotional programming. The much lauded New Age maxim of be here now takes on new significance when it is realized that dogs very much live in the moment, making them far easier to train.
It’s actually very easy to train people to see the world in a certain way; the real awareness is to see that.
Self validation
Self validation is unacceptable. Persons practicing pseudo-psychiatry can not legitimately self-validate. No matter how much they claim that ‘their stuff works,’ or that it ‘really helps people’, that is not acceptable. The process of ‘seeing it work’ is an illusion of which the Emotionological practitioner is them self a victim. They can not validate the reality of the illusion from within it.
Attacking this criticism on the level of emotional response is not appropriate.
Real psychiatrists receive intensive training in methodology validated by real, qualified experts and are monitored by professional over-seeing bodies of medical professionals.
Pointing out medical errors in the past is not equivalent to a validation of Emotionology or other pseudo-medical practices.
Emotionologists are unaccountable. Their behaviour has no over-watch upon it. Un-monitored emotional work is unethical. ‘Monitoring’ by other members of the same ideological group is not real monitoring, and is unacceptable. Training from the same or other ideological groups is not real training and is unacceptable. Only real, properly medically recognized training and monitoring is acceptable.
Real psychologists and psychiatrists are accountable. Malpractice is reportable and punishable. Emotionologists are not accountable, and have free reign to manipulate, abuse, attack, intimidate, brain wash or psychologically butcher anyone who comes to them.
‘Patient’ or group-member validation is not acceptable validation, either. If cults were allowed to decide for themselves if they were a cult or not, no cult would, and no current cult member would think that they were in a cult.
Toxoplasmosis is a parasitical disease which infects rats and mice, and has the curious effect of making them friendlier towards cats, even seeking out cats and making themselves available as lunch. The toxoplasmosis parasite requires this relationship between cats and rodents in order to live out its life cycle, which revolves around both animals. If the rat could speak, would we accept as valid its claim that the cat was friendly and helpful and that it really wanted to wait there for it?
Incestuous testimony of effectiveness and support from members, students, clients, etc. is not genuine validation of a group or person’s methods, results or character.
When emotional communication goes wrong
Attacking people or engaging in character assassination in the name of ‘spiritual growth’ or ‘awareness’ is inappropriate. Attacking people on a personal level for leaving a group, teacher, guru, etc. is inappropriate. Attacking people on a personal level for not joining a group/philosophy/teacher is inappropriate.
The New Age ideo-cology is deeply mired in the principle of emotional communication. When a person, group or ‘scene’ trains itself, or its members, to primarily communicate on the emotional level, that then applies also to how they recruit, advertise, operate, and also respond to, critique, internal or external criticism, deviation or questioning of doctrine. In the world of emotional communication, everything is personal. If you question the group’s activities or structure, no matter how general or unrelated to you the points you make are, it is personal, and personal will be the nature of the response.
Jonah has decided to leave his group – the same group Ruth belongs to:
“Dear [group] members,
Actually I agree with a lot that Elijah has inferred and can understand what he is saying quite clearly.
I have decided that I MUST leave the [group] for reasons that must be obvious and need no more explanation/examination, especially as posting on the forum is now a requirement to pass the […] which have now been set up in [...] There is no sense in me attending classes all the while repressing my feelings about the views and actions of some of those in the [group] - that's just bad for your health.
I shall continue practising what I have learned, and indeed I shall treasure it for [group information] is a supreme gift. But I must now move on to other things.
I wish you all the greatest success with your practise and I hope that your [group] continues to flourish.
I make no parting shots and don't expect any in return. I hope that you all respect my decision.
From the heart,
With gratitude,
Jonah”
But in groups ‘groomed’ to see things only in emotional terms, there is no area, decision, or question that is non-personal – and non are more personal than questioning or leaving the group. Bono, a committed group member, is the first to respond, and his words aren’t just personal feelings; they are a subtle communication to the rest of the group, contributing to the milieu of emotional control in the group:
“Dear Family,
I would like to address Jonah’s decision to leave [the group]. […]When he [Jonah] writes: ‘I hope that you all respect my decision.’
Some of my brothers and sisters may feel differently, but, personally, I have little esteem, admiration, or regard for that decision. [Bono’s own emphasis.]
Jonah's excess of courage has turned to foolhardiness. His own words suggest that he has thrown away a golden opportunity, and his actions convey disdain rather than gratitude.
Despite my own criticism of Jonah and his unwise choice, I do sincerely wish him all the best.”
Later, Billy-bob writes of Jonah’s decision and words:
“I'm glad to hear that [the group’s information] has brought Jonah much benefit in the area of emotional stability. I find it ironic and sad, however, that he is making such a testimonial after leaving our [group]. I'm sorry that he has not developed the mental clarity to realize the foolishness of turning away from [a group] that has helped him so much. My intuition tells me he has made a common error. Can you guess which one I am thinking of?”
Everything is personal. (Fascinatingly, this group has, as one of its structural beliefs, that belonging to the group imparts mental clarity. However, that mental clarity only exists so long as you are part of the group; leaving the group or questioning it in any way deprives you of it. Consequently, it’s never possible to both question or leave the group and have mental clarity. The cognitive dissonance involved in that shell game is beautifully unconscious in the over all group psyche – it is part of the slush.)
This is the dark side of emotional communication, but once people have experienced their structure as true via emotional level communication, then emotional level communication becomes self validated – even hateful, nasty, highly personal attacks. Combined with group structure, emotional level communication provides powerful psychological scrutiny proofing. Attacks on the group are perceived emotionally – so rational arguments are smudged. Critics become muddle minded, fearful, wearing the mask of critic to hide their own fears of the truth. There are no cold, rational arguments in emotionally manipulated psyches – everything is personal, from the motivations of the critic to the proof that they are wrong.
For Emotionologists, even generating a powerful attack/response relationship with someone in an attempt to make them accept group doctrine becomes a legitimate tactic. However, it is not legitimate, and we should never see it as such.
Emotional level communication self-validates for the Emotionologists. For example, if you can generate an emotional response, then in the language of Emotionology you have opened communications, or begun to access deeper, or quantum levels of perception, and the whole process of emotional communication is shown to ‘work’. It doesn’t matter if the Emotionologist attacks you, or presses you directly on your deepest emotional connections – it is all self validated if it generates an effect - which is why they do it and continue to do it. Effect justifies means. But, it doesn’t – it’s wrong.
Emotionologists evolve their techniques to generate the highest level emotional response. For most people, their deepest emotional connections are with their children, parents and partners, so Emotionologists will ‘hook’ on to these directly. They know that it is the easiest way to generate an emotional response; the key is to recognize the tactic, and know that no matter how much the Emotionologist seeks to justify their actions, it is inappropriate and manipulative, clichéd as a control tactic, and should never happen.
Mirroring
‘Mirroring’ is the process of allegedly mimicking someone else’s behaviour on the spurious pretext of allowing them to see how they behave. Attacking, hurting, putting down, insulting, emotionally pressurising or character assassinating people in the name of spiritual growth, self awareness, etc. is wholly inappropriate and should never happen.
‘Mirroring’ is merely the ‘judgment’ that another individual has ‘bad’ qualities; but no ‘practitioner’, group, group leader, etc. has the right to sit in judgment on anyone. Usually, what they really mean is that a person is not accepting their doctrine, so they use emotional manipulation tactics such as character assassination either to ‘break them down’, or else identify them as ‘bad’ people.
By-passing rational consideration
The great power of emotional communication is that it by-passes rational thought. But
that is also its weakness. If people really stop and think rationally, at an early stage, about some of the things they are being persuaded to believe via emotional pressure, persuasion, or response, they might find huge holes in it. So cultish leaders need, by all means, to train you to think and communicate primarily via emotional language. If you’re having an emotional experience, that validates the group’s wider structure, etc.
Well, it doesn’t. Hundreds of groups are using the same emotional methods, but indoctrinating their members with vastly different information. The emotional method is merely the most efficient carrier, getting to you via your most open ‘port’.
Emotional Communication
Why communicate on emotional levels? Well, one, because it’s very powerful – it places people in highly suggestive, vulnerable states, making them much more open to indoctrination.
Two, it saves time. Most Emotionologists seem to have their own rationalisation of what they do and why, using phrases such as ‘core emotional work’, or ‘deep emotional work’, or ‘that I cut directly to the sub/un conscious/quantum level’. The fact that they’ve by-passed the linguistic, and therefore easily rationally scrutinized level of communication, is seen as deeply positive. They get results. It works.
Yes, it does it work – it causes massive emotional responses. The problem with that is that not only is it unethical, it’s also no big deal. It is easy. It is simply too good to be true – or good. Digging in to people’s emotional psychology naturally causes strong reactions in people. The Emotionologists use a ‘reversal’ strategy on themselves – thinking that their superficial emotional pseudo-psychology is ‘better’ than real psychology because it gets fairly instant, powerful results. In reality, it is a superficial technique which, for both patient and ‘healer’ confuses manipulation and the building of a new ‘structure’ of doctrine with actual psychological healing. Real psychiatry, as everyone really knows, requires time, skill and proper training.
When it all goes wrong
When you have been trained in, and falsely self validated, emotional level communication, rational, linguistic argument seems crude, slow, pointlessly intellectual or semantical and over all unimpressive. The ability to discuss issues impartially is not only undermined, but made to seem inappropriate and clumsy.
In the world of emotional language, emotional response is seen as appropriate, powerful, active and direct. Trained to discuss everything emotionally, the ability to respond to criticism, questioning, disbelief or failure to accept doctrine on a rational level is lost, replaced by emotional response; in other words, it is taken personally, and responded to by personal, ad hominem, emotional level attacks on the doubter/questioner.
Emotionological manipulators are often not conscious of it being inappropriate to do it – which is why they need to be told that it is. It seems valid to them. We have to understand that, and let that teach us how to respond. Just as they train others, like dogs, through simple emotional manipulation, we need to do the same to them – hopefully to try and let them take a step back and understand the correct way of communicating. Emotionologists want you to argue on an emotional level. It is a territory denial tactic; on the levels of intellect, real psychology, real philosophy, semantic awareness, etc., they have no ground – they flounder and collapse. Their strongest ground is the emotional battlefield, and once that is seen, all of their emotional attack strategies are revealed for what they are – crude attempts to generate emotional responses in people; they are trying to put a ‘handle’ on you and steer you by it. The way they ‘work’ in their ‘positive’ work is exactly how they work when dealing with criticism – deep emotional manipulation.
The correct response is to never allow discussions or arguments to stray in to the emotional battle ground. All personal, ad hominem, character assassinating type attempts to ‘hook’ a person should be responded to with ‘personal or ad hominem attacks are not appropriate; you need to address the actual issues, not the person making them.’
Freed from reality?
Freeing people from consensual reality, teaching others to think for themselves, getting people to question everything, may have sounded fantastic in the fifties and sixties when young people were beginning to challenge the strict social rules of the past, but now that we’ve had fifty years of groups, cults and mystical leaders promising the same, it is a part of everyone’s consensual realty to know that the last thing these group leaders/alternative gurus will accept is us questioning their doctrine, people thinking for themselves, or unaccpetance of the new view of reality which they have created, with themselves validated as spiritual leaders.
Consensual reality has a lot going for it. Consensual reality is what allows us to be aware of manipulation, falsehood, danger, cults and their leaders. There’s nothing wrong with exploring alternative view points and philosophies; but if anyone tries to separate you from reality, be very, very wary.
It’s all your fault
So, you don’t like cults? You don’t like to see manipulation?
Anti-cult research, anti-cultish perspectives, naturally, are engaged by cultish groups on the level of emotional language; what’s YOUR problem with leadership? Do you have issues with inferiority? Do you feel inferior? Is that why you can’t stand the sense that anyone knows more than you?
The simple answer is, personal level attacks are inappropriate – there needs to be direct response to the issues raised, not the people who make them.
It is entirely appropriate to take a stand against manipulation; far from being contrary to alternative philosophies, it is part of the ongoing process of making the exploration of alternative view points a far safer process. One of the reasons people use emotional; level communication is that many explorers of alternative philosophies are higher than average intelligence, seeking out interesting ideas; emotional manipulation fairly easily by-passes their greatest asset – their critical intelligence.
Us and them
Emotional manipulation is generally hooked on to fairly simple aspects of the human psyche. ‘Us an them’ as a basic binary division is perhaps the most simple manipulative ‘structure’ of all. It is possible that it hooks on to fundamental ape senses of troupe/non-troupe, belonging/unbelonging etc.
Belonging is a powerful emotional need for most people. Hence the reason why it is so directly manipulated in cultish structure.
Hierarchical structure
It is possible that ape trouping behaviour causes us to feel that hierarchical structures are quite natural. Either way, hierarchies specifically hook in to emotional needs of having a place in the family/troupe, the ‘will to power’ – the desire for advancement and seniority etc., natural subservience to and acceptance of alpha male/female, higher ranking members.
The free and the unfree
The free and the unfree, the enlightened and the unenlightened, the saved and the
Damned; the ideological ‘fruiting body’ of the us and them basic structure.
Of course you are being manipulated. The ‘us’ are not only your group, but they, and therefore you, are hierarchically superior to others.
In reality it is a simple control tactic – an artificial structure ‘thrown over’ life to trick you in to a sense of belonging and specialness. Sorry – it’s simply a hook in to your ego.
The Big Change is coming…
Doomsday cults are a well known phenomenon. Making you think that a massive change is on the way is a manipulation tactic, and it almost always goes hand in hand with the idea that the group you are in/being recruited/attacked by, will play a special role in the big change.
It’s really just a crude manipulation tactic. Of course, we’ll all be sorry we said that, when doomsday hits and we’re not saved. However, Doomsday has hit several groups, and their members are no longer here to hear how sorry we aren’t that we didn’t join their group.
Familial structure
The family structure is our basic unit, derived from higher primate troupes. Many of our emotions, such as shame, ambition, belonging, love, can be traced to social structuring and cohesion in ape troupes, and then families, so it is no surprise that cultish groups tend to echo family structures. Not only does it feel natural, manipulating our sense of belonging, but it is the very structure for which emotional level interaction was designed – making it ideal for emotional level manipulation.
Infanticization
One of the great benefits of familial structures – for manipulators – is that it facilitates infanticization; the process of reducing someone to a more child like status/state of mind.
There are many manifestations of infanticization. On an obvious level it can be as simple as ‘call me Father’, or ‘my child…’ generating an unbalanced power/influence relationship. On a more subtle level it can be used to change a person’s state of mind by reducing it to a more child like state.
The Heaven’s Gate cult used room design – creating a class room atmosphere, with raised chairs for T and Do. They infanticized their followers by giving them child like names ending in ‘ody’, and they talked to them using syntax more usually applied when speaking to children.
Using a person’s first name in Western culture has rules associated with it. Addressing an older person by their first name can be seen as patronising. The word patronising means ‘father-like’, and is a reference to infanticization.
Addressing adults as children, using their first name inappropriately, such as repeating it over and over; behaving as an adult to a child; using childish syntax; using punishment and reward language; all are means of infanticization.
Denying people adult pleasures such as sex, alcohol, freedom over their own time, decision making, are all infanticization tactics.
Infanticization can be gross, as in beating people and locking them in their room, or it can be subtle, criticising people for needing to widen their view of the world.
Infanticization creates power differentials, and can be used to make people more susceptible to persuasion, indoctrination and manipulation.
Tiering is a type of familial manipulation, placing people in lower social tiers.
Artificially developing a ‘family’ structure is a powerful means of controlling a group, and it also shows up when someone decides to leave the group. There are a number of almost clichéd responses:
One is the ‘hurt parent’ (or other ‘family’ member – ‘brother’, ‘sister’ etc). – where the teacher emits, emotionally, sentiments implying ‘well you’ve hurt me/us, after all we did for you, and this is how you treat us, but I hope you find what you want.’
Another is the ‘I made you what you are…’
Another is the ‘It’s natural to want to rebel and find your own way…’
There are so many, and they occur so organically, that it is far more useful to remember the principle, and that such responses are clichéd, manipulative and inappropriate, based on emotional level communication, and attempting to continue to exert some link over you. They are also rather sad, and show just how vulnerable most of the ‘parents’ really are, and just how much they needed people to believe in them. In a way, we can use that energy by believing in them again – that they can free themselves from their own self validated fantasy.
The weight of the world
The weight of the world tactic is a simple technique of emotional manipulation, used not only by cults and cultish actors, but by charities, political parties, etc.
There are children starving to death out there, what are YOU going to do about it?
Answer being, what are you doing here, emotionally manipulating me when you could be out saving starving children?
Coincidences and unusual significance
A number of groups use coincidences as a means of intensifying the belief experience of their members. People can experience a milieu of seemingly group-validating experiences, including coincidences and significance.
First of all, it should be understood that significance is an emotion, so it’s no surprise that if you have had your emotional state artificially stimulated via emotional manipulation, that you will feel emotions more powerfully, and things, events, objects in your life will seem to take on greater significance.
As for coincidences, it is a sad fact that much New Age philosophy, whilst seeming astounding when you are emotionally manipulated, is actually very lazy; its ‘quick results’ are actually short cuts to nothing, and its anti-intellectualism is really just a means of protecting itself from scrutiny and better, often deeper and in fact more interesting explanations.
If a coincidence happens in your life, make sure it is an astounding one before you attach too much significance to it. Fact is, in any average life, you expect a few interesting coincidences. Is it magic? No, it’s called chaotic anomalies.
Any life has trillions of things happening in it every day – an astounding, chaotic system of events, perceptions, actions, objects, etc. In hugely chaotic systems it is not coincidences that are significant; it would be the lack of them. For example, if fifteen cats decided to sit in a straight line, that would be a very curious coincidence. However, if there were a million cats on a football pitch, you could draw a straight line at random and hit fifteen cats with it every time. Hugely chaotic systems naturally form chaotic anomalies due to the principles of entropy. If there were not any coincidences, or pockets of synchronicity or order, then it wouldn’t be truly chaotic in the first place.
That doesn’t mean to say that we can not legitimately attach significance to coincidences, it simply makes us aware that coincidences happen very naturally, but groups or individuals can artificially manipulate our perceptions to make us think that they or their doctrine is somehow responsible; in other words, we validate their doctrine with events that were actually perfectly normal.
In terms of significance, seeing significance in objects, events, poems etc., is simply how our brains work. Artists are inspired, physicists are inspired, by things that they see. Our brains are excellent at making connections, building patterns. The Heaven’s Gate cult saw significance in the ingredients listed on food labels. We can see significance wherever we want, but it is really us that does it; but we can be manipulated in to making it a part of our milieu or deep structure, falsely ascribing it to the power of the group’s ‘revelation’.
Fire Breaks
No unqualified people should be working with others on emotional levels. And by qualification is meant real qualification, not self validation, experience, or group’s own qualification.
Emotionology, far from setting us free, has really just given us the phenomenon – the deeply sad phenomenon – of emotional capture.
New Age/spiritual/life coaching, etc., thinkers who up until now have been using Emotionological techniques need to stop. They need to eliminate the practice of working directly with people.
Although traditionally anti-intellectual, the New Age ideo-cology would do well to re-evolve some of the principles of academic presentation, one of which is to present ideas in written form. There should be no direct teacher/student relationships when emotional or emotionally powerful philosophies/techniques are involved. This is called a fire break; a separation between the source of ideas and the receivers of ideas, and it prevents individuals from using their ideas to manipulate others.
If a person only has the ability to cause emotional responses in others, then really they have nothing, although, they could write about that, and help educate people about how that works. If they have no ideas that can be presented without engaging in emotional manipulation (which includes using written language to forge direct relationships with people via the internet) then they have nothing, and the time is really now to realise that and shut up shop.
Naturally, I don’t expect them to do that. In the meantime, we keep researching and educating ourselves.
If we keep out of the level of emotional level manipulation, then we keep a fire break between us and the people we communicate information to. That legitimately allows us to refuse to engage on any matter of our personality, motivations etc., and anyone doing so is acting inappropriately, whether they like it or not. When they do that – when they choose to continue direct, emotional level manipulation – then they forfeit the right to be exempted from personal examination; they have no fire break, so their direct psychological motivations are legitimate objects of study; however, we should not do that on the level of emotional communication, because just like the squirrel burying the acorn, well, that’s just what the oak tree wants, isn’t it?
Bite back
Bite back is the emotional response to criticism and critics. Critics need to be aware that emotionologically groomed thinkers attempt to provoke all criticism in to the emotional realm, and avoid it all costs.
Fascinatingly, bite back is inevitably ‘framed’ in the structure of the biter-backer. For example, opponents of Christianity are servants of Satan; critics of New Age philosophy can not possibly have real, reasoned, genuine concerns – they are simply wearing the ‘mask’ of critic to hide their fear of finding out real truth… well, mirror mirror on the wall… maybe it’s time we all deprogrammed ourselves from that stuff, after all…
Cult Whisperer’s note… Here at the Cult Whisperer’s isolated, sprawling Texas compound, hidden away from the prying eyes of the FBI, we know that many of the gurus, leaders, cultish actors, Emotionological practitioners, new age leaders, etc., really did, at one time, want to help people, and really were excited by the possibility of challenging group-think. And we don’t see any reason why people can’t continue to do that. Understanding how cults and cultish groups work is, in and of itself, part of that same counter cultural philosophy – it’s about understanding how group-think works. We just don’t want the exploration of ideas to lead to cutting your balls off and drinking coolaid in the hopes of finding yourself as an asexual space-alien with supernatural powers travelling on board a spaceship heading to the Kingdom of Heaven…
We believe, that with a little whispering, all cult leaders, big and small, with a little tug on their collar every time they do something naughty, can be returned to a calm, submissive state of mind, where they’ll feel a great deal happier.
The Cult Whisperer Team… (Watch out for our networked show.)
However, the stuff I’ve posted here, although not by any means much more than a second draft, and far from complete – few direct case studies, etc. – represents some stuff Gonzo and I thought was relevant to some of the things under discussion here – or, more relevantly, to the way things are discussed.
Try not to react on the emotional level. Remember when exploring ideas was fun? Sure enough, what you have here on this site is an orgy of mutual pain infliction. At some point, to end that, you have to stop blaming everyone else and just stop responding to it on the emotional level. I hope some of this information helps to explain why we got ourselves in that position in the first place; and if anyone is interested, I’ll post more at later points.
The Means of Belief
In 1848 Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto. In it, and in his later works, he identifies class struggle as the key machinery of change in human society, and the key event in precipitating the ultimate transition to Communism as the seizing, by the workers, of the means of production. A hundred and fifty years later, many of Marx’s ideas, although brilliant, have been shown to have one seemingly inescapable flaw – they are information, transmitted from one emotional being to another, and that alone appears to have been enough to skew any potential utopian trajectory off course.
However, like his university classmate Kierkegaard, Marx was acutely aware of the growing sense of alienation in modern Western culture; a phenomenon that has opened many people up, through seeking connection, personal knowledge and identity, to cult influence.
If our modern age has any defining name, it must surely be the Information Age. And in the Information Age it is the means of belief which count; the methods, tactics and mechanisms via which individuals, groups or even nations are influenced. Educating ourselves, our children, and one another, as to the often subtle operation of these mechanisms is the new ‘revolutionary’ ideal – seizing control of the means of belief in ourselves, before someone else does it for us.
Fortunately, many of the techniques of influence are easy to inoculate ourselves against – they aren’t particularly sophisticated. However, there are other methods, techniques and ideological tricks which operate on levels other than words and open persuasion; emotional level communication, which by definition is somewhat resistant to mere words. Emotions comprise the most powerful communication method we know of, and educating ourselves and our loved ones to not be manipulated through that ‘open port’ in the programming of our minds requires the installation of a useful, well considered ‘firewall’ – education.
What is a cult?
Understanding the way beliefs are influenced is an ‘organic’ process; it is not possible to give a clearly linear exposition, as many factors exist in an ‘organic’, mutually informing relationship. Therefore, before we even begin to explore ideas such as, in this case, ‘scrutiny proofing’, I need to give an example of it.
Ruth [genuine quote, names changed] writes:
“Third, the cult thing. Honestly I think people use this argument when they run out of options, but maybe we should have a thread about that, even if only to refer to it when newcomers arrive. By the way, as much as I know, there is no clear cut definition for this concept. Some may think that Communism is a cult, others that some Christian sects are cults (like in the ‘DeVinci Code’) etc. actually many ideological rivals use this term to prove to themselves that they are on the sane side and the others are – a cult.”
Ruth is un-defining the term ‘cult’. ‘Scattering’ is the term I’ve chosen to describe this specific tactic; comparing it loosely to the manner in which a radar bounce is ‘scattered’ by the anti-radar designs of stealth ships and planes.
Naturally, the way words are defined is a tool of generating a shared perception, whether for a cult or a cult critic. Wittgenstein’s proposition that there are no atomic meanings to words (meaning that all words, naturally, derive their specific meaning from context) becomes visibly employed as an active tool of manipulating group perception in Ruth’s post.
Scattering is a tactic of ‘territory denial’ – rather than address the issues which make some external critics view her group as a cult, it undermines the meaning of ‘cult’ by, ironically, defining it as an essentially meaningless term, thereby scattering its focused critical implication and denying critics the argumentative ‘territory’ of accusations of ‘cult’. Now calling the group a cult is re-directed back on the critic – the critic is the un-clear thinker using meaningless terms to attack people.
Helpfully, Ruth goes on to give us some guidelines as to what, in a ‘narrow view’ one might expect to see in a real cult:
“But if we take the more narrow view of this concept, we can find a few guidelines that may help identify a cult – for example – you cannot leave a cult, you are cut off all other means of information and you are torn apart from your family and life.”
To say ‘helpfully’ seems facetious, but really means that Ruth is ‘helping’ the other members of the group to ‘see’ clearly what a cult is, and why they aren’t in one. She’s moved from saying that the word cult is meaningless to identifying a cult according to only the strictest definitions.
So is Ruth’s group a cult? Well, she has really done the job herself of placing her group between two extremes, and in so doing leads us in to understanding that there are gradients. Not every collection of people is a cult, but there again, not every group that has evolved a slightly concerning shared group-outlook is separating people from their family.
The fact that Ruth seeks to both undermine the use of the word ‘cult’ as a tool of partisanship, and yet also to compare her own group favourably against the most extreme type of cult, is an insight in to, and an indication of, the difficulties of using the word. As is the fact that in many ways, she’s right. But as we’ll see, Ruth’s group is unusually in a position where many people have called it a cult, and the members of the group have responded – providing a superb example of cultish cognitive dissonance in the process.
Despite the very common ‘scattering’ tactic used against the word ‘cult’, we need to retain it and reclaim it as valid, even though it is not an easily defined term. Rather, we should not only accept its un-definition, but embrace it – utilizing it as ‘fuzzy’ idea covering a wide range of social phenomena. Does a group ‘have’ to separate people from their family to be of concern? No. And we should also remember that groups can escalate in terms of their seriousness or causes for concern; even the most outrageous suicide cults start from small, weak seeming structures.
We need to ‘return the sentiment’ that was used to scatter the term ‘cult’ in the first place, and use that very act as our starting point – to recognize that what makes a group a ‘cult’ isn’t what it believes, but how it operates; especially how it operates its information flow.
Information and Slush
There are many groups in the world. As Ruth informs us, the term ‘cult’ can be widely applied. Therefore we need some definitions of ‘cult-like’ structure. And in addition, we need to employ some gradient – recognizing varying degrees of ‘cult-ish’ behaviour.
The first aspect of a cult-like structure I term the ‘information’. The information which a cult is there to facilitate, perpetuate or spread could be religious, familial (families can be cultish groups, and the sense of being a family can be the ‘information’), spiritual, philosophical, political, hedonistic, violent, sexual, topical (based on being in a place, such as in the film The Beach), nihilistic, physical (such as yoga, martial arts, breathing exercises, qi gong), psychological, emotional, super natural – or a combination of these, or indeed other types of ‘information’ not listed here.
I use the term ‘information’ very specifically, because the information a group is based around ‘in’ forms the group sense of identity – as in, forms it from ‘within’.
The information which a group is based around may or may not be worrying in and of itself. Practicing martial arts may not be specifically worrying, but it would become so if people were told that by practicing it they become immune to bullets or knives – or, in modern times, immune to cancer – or that their cancer could be cured through their martial arts practice. The beliefs of a spiritual group might not in and of themselves be concerning, but if they have an ultimate trajectory of ‘leaving this planet’ to go somewhere else prematurely – i.e. a suicide cult – then they are deeply concerning.
More revealing is the ‘slush’ – the actual mechanisms of information communication employed by the group. This includes how people’s perceptions, egos or emotions are manipulated; how external criticism is dealt with; how status is used – or abused; how information is communicated – e.g. via emotional level communication, violence, trick-logic, sleep deprivation, drug or meditation use, etc.; counselling; psychological or perceptual manipulation and so on. This is not an exhaustive list.
I use the term ‘slush’ as a reference to the ice-flows in the artic where large ice blocks are carried along slushy ‘rivers’. There is a tendency to perceive cults only in terms of the information which they represent (the ice blocks), such as their religious belief, but this is misleading and actually allows other cults to manipulate perceptions – for example, an Evangelical Christian sect might call Wicca a cult because it is ‘un-Christian’.
What really matters (except in terms of implicitly dangerous trajectories in specific ideas) isn’t the large ‘blocks’ of doctrine, but the emotional and perceptual ‘slush’ which is used to carry them around the group – the means of belief; the pressurization, manipulation, word mangling, etc.. It is the slush which defines the ‘cult’ as a cult more than any other aspect. In short, a cult is a manipulator of people, and the slush is how they do it.
It can be frustrating for rational, logical or sceptical groups to find that obscenely illogical ideologies are ‘defended’ by illogical logic; but that is what cults do. Whilst it is important to tackle, say, scientific ignorance, it is also important to recognize that it isn’t the belief of the individual or group that is the problem; it is the lack of open-ness to wider argument or external view point; because without that, it is almost impossible to communicate to people ‘inside’ the cult, no matter how much sense you are making.
So we’re going to take Ruth’s advice, and un-define the term ‘cult’ a little – we’re going to leave it as a fuzzy term which can include anything from a family to a quasi-military group, a religious sect to a local martial arts club, an alcoholics anonymous group to a motorbike gang. It could even be a cult of one, or two. Some people need to be in a power-unbalanced relationship with another person to feel powerful.
The ‘information’ of the group isn’t what defines it as a cult. And there is no absolute, specific structure we can pin point. The only thing that matters is the manipulation of people.
Structure
A structure is a set of beliefs which combine to form a view; not necessarily a world view – it could be a view on tai chi or alcoholism.
Structures can be huge and deeply complex, or they can be simple. And they can evolve.
Psychological Immersion
Psychological immersion is the process of subsuming one’s personal self identity in a ‘structure’. Highly effective structures have specifically evolved to ‘hook’ in to psychological aspects common to potential hosts – sense of personal purpose, identity, emotional need or weakness, group belonging, ego, status, power, etc. They may even hook in to pre-existent mental illnesses in subjects.
It is not necessarily a group phenomenon; a person could read The Communist Manifesto and become a Communist. However, in a group scenario psychological immersion can have powerful effects – an individual can come to identify very deeply with the group, so much so that any criticism of the group or its ideas is seen as a personal attack and emotionally responded to. Navigating past and through emotional level response is one of the difficult areas which needs to be improved in the way we engage cultish groups.
Neutrality
Should a social scientist be neutral in their examination of groups?
In some instances of research, of course, a social scientist should take all possible precautions against bias. However, simply by examining the mechanisms of belief-influence, and revealing their magic, one places oneself in opposition to those who seek to profit by them, whether it be your choice to be there or not. And the question is, how do you choose who to study without that being a bias? Before you even find source material, you have to make a decision that a group is cultish. I say, take a stand on it – don’t even try to be impartial in that sense; just try to explain and research as best as possible how it all works.
The primary tool necessary for examining cultish groups is the over-view – the stand back, or ‘meta’ view. The meta-view allows us to recognize not only how cults work, but how they engage with and indeed use us, the social scientists and cult researchers and/or critics examining them, as resources. Having critics is a part of how cults self define and thrive, so it is perhaps beholden on us to consider deeply the nature of our means of opposition, and what part that plays in perpetuating cult culture.
It becomes necessary, therefore, at this point to separate cult critique from strict scientific rationalism. In many ways, social science shares a platform with many cultish groups; sociology and psychology interact with a number of cultish groups, and both have an interest in new, fringe philosophy and ideas which aren’t strictly scientific.
One of the ways in which we can modify our engagement with cultish groups is to make it clear – perhaps sometimes to ourselves – that we are not intent on eliminating fringe ideas; in fact, many social scientists, philosophers and free thinkers are fringe, counter cultural thinkers. What we need to emphasize is our belief in making the exploration of ideas safe.
Education, Information, Action
Young people are traditionally seen as being especially susceptible to cults, but we need to re-assess any bias we may have towards young people as weak minded and easily manipulated. One of the ways cults ‘hook’ young people is by asserting their belief in them, and that is only the more powerful a hook if the ‘establishment’, or parents etc., by contrast, do not seem to have confidence in them.
In fact, young people have a lot going for them in the anti-cult stakes – they often have passion, strong will and fresh intelligence. What is missing isn’t in the young people; it is in us – in our lack of preparation and response to cults; in our lack of educating people as to the means by which cultish groups hook and manipulate their members. Young people given sufficient access to relevant educational material have shown themselves to be not only well capable of understanding how cults work, but passionately opposed to them, and prepared to do something about them. As with all illness, prevention is better than cure.
We need to recognize that people will always be interested in alternative view points, spirituality and fringe philosophy. Opposing it isn’t an option – and why should we? The only real option is education and information – teaching people the critical tools necessary to recognize cult operating tactics.
We may even find that people who used to be cultish leaders may themselves begin to re-explore some of their own thinking and actions – if we engage and promote information in the right way.
The Power of Naming
‘Your name is Rumpleslitskin! she cried, and the evil man stamped and stamped and stamped until he fell through the floor and disappeared, never to be seen again!’
In ancient mythology, naming things was seen as very powerful. Many of the tactics, methods and strategies cultish groups use to manipulate the awareness of their members, or to stifle external opposition, are remarkably similar. By identifying these strategies and succinctly naming them for instant recognition – for example ‘love bombing’ – we begin to arm ourselves with the necessary critical weapons to tackle cultish influence.
Imagine if we had to explain ‘love bombing’ or abusive relationships every time we encountered one. Cultish groups and manipulative thinkers rely on the critical explanations of their activities being so necessarily drawn out and in depth that for the most part no one can even be bothered making them, never mind listening to them. It is therefore an essential aspect of cult engagement that we identify, succinctly name, and educate each other as to the means of cult control.
Ideo-cology
America, specifically, has long been a haven and indeed growth medium for alternative spiritualities, philosophies and groups. When such groups are reported on, through the media or other publications, we tend to hear about them as individual groups. However, that is quite an artificial perspective, as isolating any one specific thinker as completely original and unique is largely impossible. Although we can pin-point specific groups with specific belief sets, if we examine any of them, we find that they are actually a part of a continuum of ideas – what I call an ‘ideo-cology’ – an ecology of ideas.
The ideo-cology is a more useful perspective than that of separate groups. For one, the ideo-cology includes not only groups of all sizes, but individuals, authors, dead philosophers, academics, past thinkers, therapists, religious traditions etc., and also the interconnecting relationships between them.
Secondly, seeing an ecology of ideas allows us to plot the ‘evolution’ of the methods and beliefs of specific groups. That’s useful because it allows us to reveal just how cultish groups, or even well meaning, unusual world views or perspectives, ‘evolve’ to ever more powerfully ‘hook’ in to people’s psychology.
Some bacteria have the ability to ‘share’ DNA modifications or immunities with other bacteria of different species. Whilst being acutely aware of the dangers of ‘analogy osmosis’, the sharing of ideas in the ideo-cology can be seen in that way; individuals or groups take and adapt methods and ideas from other groups and individuals, adding them to their own ‘structure’.
What we need to explore is ‘why’ – why are specific ideas or techniques particularly wanted for assimilation?
The answer is going to require an interesting step of awareness for both the rational critic and for the ‘alternative practitioner’ – the assimilated ideas ‘work’.
The Belief Experience
In 1972 the world’s last remaining samples of smallpox were due to be incinerated, freeing the world from its scourge forever. The countdown counted down, and then it counted past, and the last remaining examples of that species remain yet. The official reason given was that there is so much left to learn from smallpox. As a disease, it has been a specifically human companion for centuries. Upon infecting a human being it kills off our immune system and, remarkably, replaces it, even keeping out other infections. It works – it actually works as an immune system; it is just that while it’s working to keep out other infections it is gradually deforming, and will eventually, in most cases, kill, the host.
A common rational/scientific argument against religious belief is that ‘science works, religion doesn’t. Science puts planes in the sky, performs heart operations. Science explains the world.’
It’s a fundamental mistake, to think that just because a belief set seems false or artificial that it can not therefore ‘work’. It can. Once a person becomes infected with a belief set it proceeds to take over how they input and process information, much like the smallpox immune system; keeping out rival ideas, even while it deforms the ‘host’s’ perceptions of the world.
All deeply assimilated belief sets ‘work’. Whatever a person believes, they will tend to experience as self evidently true and reflected in the world around them. That in itself is a crucially desired and hungrily assimilated strand of ideological DNA, both for cults and for people seeking alternative world views. Cultish groups can use the phenomenon of the belief experience to manipulate members in to thinking the group really does have ‘the truth’, and really is ‘revealing’ it to the member. Individuals can feel that they are genuinely unfolding deep or hidden truth about the world.
The belief experience, being formed, and emerging from, a gradually applied drip of information and slush, artificially generates the sense that the initiate is ‘unfolding’ ever deeper understanding – and in some ways, they often are, as many groups use deeply resonant ideas that chime with many people’s psychology, offering insight in to certain aspects of reality and human nature. This can be an immensely powerful emotional experience in some cases, simply because over the past forty years the ‘emotional technology’ swimming around in the ideo-cololgy has evolved via natural selection, eliminating the less effective emotional techniques and philosophically resonant ideas, and sharing, improving and combining the most effective.
Emotional manipulation and psychological archaeology
It is actually very easy to cause a significant emotional response in an average human being. Just a weepy movie can have someone in tears. In fact, our culture relies on the fact that we emotionally engage with information of all kinds – music, literature, films, photographs, news reports. An argument, a strange turn of events, a failure to follow custom – these alone can be enough to emotionally distract or affect people.
Properly trained psychiatrists understand full well the power of engaging in emotional archaeology – digging in to people’s pasts, uncovering trauma. We are emotional beings, so it is no big surprise to say that we can be communicated to, or deeply moved, on emotional levels.
And it is no big surprise that cultish groups and actors seek to access our psychology via our emotions. Emotional communication is not only powerful; it is also not subject to rational scrutiny. A primary driver of evolution is that those who are most effective at surviving have the greatest chance of doing so – so it is no surprise either that cultish belief sets have evolved to infect people via their emotional ‘ports’.
The Emotionologists
Emotionology is a largely American phenomenon, comprising an unusual and not easily defined conglomeration of ideas. It is a product of the ideo-cology, and whatever ‘information’ it carries as its primary doctrine, its defining feature is its use of emotional slush.
Emotionologists may use elements ranging through religion, spirituality, Native Americanism, psychology, sociology, philosophy, UFOs, Carlos Castaneda, politics, etc., conglomerating many aspects in to one ‘eclectic’, loose structure; or they may have a well organised and defined doctrine. What makes them a largely American origin phenomenon is the fusion between counter-cultural belief sets and emotional work – self help, self awareness, success, motivation, counselling, psychology, personal empowerment, life coaching, etc.
The result is a person, or group, who uses emotional techniques to make you believe something. In many ways, that can of course be said about many organisations – political parties, newspapers, etc., but Emotionologists use powerful emotional techniques – hugely invasive, highly ‘active’ psychological methods and interventions made directly in to people’s lives.
Doing this hugely enhances the belief experience of both the initiate and the Emotionologist. Powerful emotional or psychological reactions deepen the belief experience in to deep structure; a powerful emotional milieu; an extreme belief experience where the initiate experiences a massive emotional relationship with the doctrine being passed on by the Emotionologist.
Emotionologists are pseudo-psychiatrists, practicing crude, quack psychiatry without proper training or qualification.
From the Emotionologist’s perspective, their activities are self validated via their own deep structure belief experience. They not only see their practices working in people, they see them working quickly, effectively; reducing people to tears, or powerful emotional responses, perhaps even in one session. This re-validates the whole process for them, and that aspect of their doctrine which states, in varying wording, that ‘we work on deep core issues, helping people more quickly and effectively than psychiatry or counselling.’
In fact, it doesn’t, and it isn’t. Traditionally, de-programming has been seen as a measure used to help the victims of cults, but the Emotionologists themselves are victims of deep structure experiences, mis-recognizing the emotional responses they cause in other people as indications and validations of the efficacy of their methods. Many probably genuinely wanted to help people, so it is possible that some can be communicated to through their deep structure, and be made aware that actually, generating a huge emotional response in people is easy, and its effects temporary, and never is it a valid replacement for genuine, qualified counselling or psychiatric help, especially for people who are already emotionally vulnerable.
Real psychiatric care comes from people who have been properly trained. An important aspect of proper training is boundaries. Emotionologists have no boundaries; by the very nature of the way they operate they forge inappropriate, deeply personal, emotionally dependent relationships with the people they practice on, blurring them somewhere between patient, student, initiate, friend and subordinate. And fairly uniquely (compared to real psychiatry), and deeply worryingly, in time this can become 'enemy' - when a person begins to doubt or criticize the methods or ideas being sold to them by the Emotionologist, and the emotional tools they used to use to heal the person turn in to weapons to attack them. That happens because there is no proper training, no boundaries and no professional over-view.
There are, additionally, a number of strategies used by Emotionologists to avoid accountability, one of which is to say that everything is, after all, illusion/folly/consensual reality, and therefore it does not matter what they do. Really, this is a tactic of scrutiny proofing – refusing to discuss their actions, i.e. refusing to allow external scrutiny.
Emotionally affecting people places them in a vulnerable, suggestive state of mind. Emotionologists rarely come without another agenda – a doctrine, or information which is wholly irrelevant to the person’s emotional growth or healing. Generating a powerful emotional response in people can be enough to convince them that you have real knowledge in wider areas – spirituality, religion, politics, etc. Powerfully emotionally affected people are suggestive and vulnerable, and therefore far easier to indoctrinate. The Emotionologist, used to, and egged on by, previous ‘success’, perceives their doctrine as valid simply because it is so easily ‘smuggled’ in to the consciousness of a mind manipulated in to a suggestive and receptive state via emotional tricks. And they themselves, in return, have their ego ‘rewarded’ by feeling that they have astounding powers to deeply affect and help others.
In reality, Emotionology is far more like dog training than spirituality. Dog psychology works in simple emotional terms. Human beings are apes, and carry an animal psychology, a part of which is our emotions. Far from revealing ‘truth’ to their ‘patients’, Emotionologists are often simply training them to accept ideology via emotional programming. The much lauded New Age maxim of be here now takes on new significance when it is realized that dogs very much live in the moment, making them far easier to train.
It’s actually very easy to train people to see the world in a certain way; the real awareness is to see that.
Self validation
Self validation is unacceptable. Persons practicing pseudo-psychiatry can not legitimately self-validate. No matter how much they claim that ‘their stuff works,’ or that it ‘really helps people’, that is not acceptable. The process of ‘seeing it work’ is an illusion of which the Emotionological practitioner is them self a victim. They can not validate the reality of the illusion from within it.
Attacking this criticism on the level of emotional response is not appropriate.
Real psychiatrists receive intensive training in methodology validated by real, qualified experts and are monitored by professional over-seeing bodies of medical professionals.
Pointing out medical errors in the past is not equivalent to a validation of Emotionology or other pseudo-medical practices.
Emotionologists are unaccountable. Their behaviour has no over-watch upon it. Un-monitored emotional work is unethical. ‘Monitoring’ by other members of the same ideological group is not real monitoring, and is unacceptable. Training from the same or other ideological groups is not real training and is unacceptable. Only real, properly medically recognized training and monitoring is acceptable.
Real psychologists and psychiatrists are accountable. Malpractice is reportable and punishable. Emotionologists are not accountable, and have free reign to manipulate, abuse, attack, intimidate, brain wash or psychologically butcher anyone who comes to them.
‘Patient’ or group-member validation is not acceptable validation, either. If cults were allowed to decide for themselves if they were a cult or not, no cult would, and no current cult member would think that they were in a cult.
Toxoplasmosis is a parasitical disease which infects rats and mice, and has the curious effect of making them friendlier towards cats, even seeking out cats and making themselves available as lunch. The toxoplasmosis parasite requires this relationship between cats and rodents in order to live out its life cycle, which revolves around both animals. If the rat could speak, would we accept as valid its claim that the cat was friendly and helpful and that it really wanted to wait there for it?
Incestuous testimony of effectiveness and support from members, students, clients, etc. is not genuine validation of a group or person’s methods, results or character.
When emotional communication goes wrong
Attacking people or engaging in character assassination in the name of ‘spiritual growth’ or ‘awareness’ is inappropriate. Attacking people on a personal level for leaving a group, teacher, guru, etc. is inappropriate. Attacking people on a personal level for not joining a group/philosophy/teacher is inappropriate.
The New Age ideo-cology is deeply mired in the principle of emotional communication. When a person, group or ‘scene’ trains itself, or its members, to primarily communicate on the emotional level, that then applies also to how they recruit, advertise, operate, and also respond to, critique, internal or external criticism, deviation or questioning of doctrine. In the world of emotional communication, everything is personal. If you question the group’s activities or structure, no matter how general or unrelated to you the points you make are, it is personal, and personal will be the nature of the response.
Jonah has decided to leave his group – the same group Ruth belongs to:
“Dear [group] members,
Actually I agree with a lot that Elijah has inferred and can understand what he is saying quite clearly.
I have decided that I MUST leave the [group] for reasons that must be obvious and need no more explanation/examination, especially as posting on the forum is now a requirement to pass the […] which have now been set up in [...] There is no sense in me attending classes all the while repressing my feelings about the views and actions of some of those in the [group] - that's just bad for your health.
I shall continue practising what I have learned, and indeed I shall treasure it for [group information] is a supreme gift. But I must now move on to other things.
I wish you all the greatest success with your practise and I hope that your [group] continues to flourish.
I make no parting shots and don't expect any in return. I hope that you all respect my decision.
From the heart,
With gratitude,
Jonah”
But in groups ‘groomed’ to see things only in emotional terms, there is no area, decision, or question that is non-personal – and non are more personal than questioning or leaving the group. Bono, a committed group member, is the first to respond, and his words aren’t just personal feelings; they are a subtle communication to the rest of the group, contributing to the milieu of emotional control in the group:
“Dear Family,
I would like to address Jonah’s decision to leave [the group]. […]When he [Jonah] writes: ‘I hope that you all respect my decision.’
Some of my brothers and sisters may feel differently, but, personally, I have little esteem, admiration, or regard for that decision. [Bono’s own emphasis.]
Jonah's excess of courage has turned to foolhardiness. His own words suggest that he has thrown away a golden opportunity, and his actions convey disdain rather than gratitude.
Despite my own criticism of Jonah and his unwise choice, I do sincerely wish him all the best.”
Later, Billy-bob writes of Jonah’s decision and words:
“I'm glad to hear that [the group’s information] has brought Jonah much benefit in the area of emotional stability. I find it ironic and sad, however, that he is making such a testimonial after leaving our [group]. I'm sorry that he has not developed the mental clarity to realize the foolishness of turning away from [a group] that has helped him so much. My intuition tells me he has made a common error. Can you guess which one I am thinking of?”
Everything is personal. (Fascinatingly, this group has, as one of its structural beliefs, that belonging to the group imparts mental clarity. However, that mental clarity only exists so long as you are part of the group; leaving the group or questioning it in any way deprives you of it. Consequently, it’s never possible to both question or leave the group and have mental clarity. The cognitive dissonance involved in that shell game is beautifully unconscious in the over all group psyche – it is part of the slush.)
This is the dark side of emotional communication, but once people have experienced their structure as true via emotional level communication, then emotional level communication becomes self validated – even hateful, nasty, highly personal attacks. Combined with group structure, emotional level communication provides powerful psychological scrutiny proofing. Attacks on the group are perceived emotionally – so rational arguments are smudged. Critics become muddle minded, fearful, wearing the mask of critic to hide their own fears of the truth. There are no cold, rational arguments in emotionally manipulated psyches – everything is personal, from the motivations of the critic to the proof that they are wrong.
For Emotionologists, even generating a powerful attack/response relationship with someone in an attempt to make them accept group doctrine becomes a legitimate tactic. However, it is not legitimate, and we should never see it as such.
Emotional level communication self-validates for the Emotionologists. For example, if you can generate an emotional response, then in the language of Emotionology you have opened communications, or begun to access deeper, or quantum levels of perception, and the whole process of emotional communication is shown to ‘work’. It doesn’t matter if the Emotionologist attacks you, or presses you directly on your deepest emotional connections – it is all self validated if it generates an effect - which is why they do it and continue to do it. Effect justifies means. But, it doesn’t – it’s wrong.
Emotionologists evolve their techniques to generate the highest level emotional response. For most people, their deepest emotional connections are with their children, parents and partners, so Emotionologists will ‘hook’ on to these directly. They know that it is the easiest way to generate an emotional response; the key is to recognize the tactic, and know that no matter how much the Emotionologist seeks to justify their actions, it is inappropriate and manipulative, clichéd as a control tactic, and should never happen.
Mirroring
‘Mirroring’ is the process of allegedly mimicking someone else’s behaviour on the spurious pretext of allowing them to see how they behave. Attacking, hurting, putting down, insulting, emotionally pressurising or character assassinating people in the name of spiritual growth, self awareness, etc. is wholly inappropriate and should never happen.
‘Mirroring’ is merely the ‘judgment’ that another individual has ‘bad’ qualities; but no ‘practitioner’, group, group leader, etc. has the right to sit in judgment on anyone. Usually, what they really mean is that a person is not accepting their doctrine, so they use emotional manipulation tactics such as character assassination either to ‘break them down’, or else identify them as ‘bad’ people.
By-passing rational consideration
The great power of emotional communication is that it by-passes rational thought. But
that is also its weakness. If people really stop and think rationally, at an early stage, about some of the things they are being persuaded to believe via emotional pressure, persuasion, or response, they might find huge holes in it. So cultish leaders need, by all means, to train you to think and communicate primarily via emotional language. If you’re having an emotional experience, that validates the group’s wider structure, etc.
Well, it doesn’t. Hundreds of groups are using the same emotional methods, but indoctrinating their members with vastly different information. The emotional method is merely the most efficient carrier, getting to you via your most open ‘port’.
Emotional Communication
Why communicate on emotional levels? Well, one, because it’s very powerful – it places people in highly suggestive, vulnerable states, making them much more open to indoctrination.
Two, it saves time. Most Emotionologists seem to have their own rationalisation of what they do and why, using phrases such as ‘core emotional work’, or ‘deep emotional work’, or ‘that I cut directly to the sub/un conscious/quantum level’. The fact that they’ve by-passed the linguistic, and therefore easily rationally scrutinized level of communication, is seen as deeply positive. They get results. It works.
Yes, it does it work – it causes massive emotional responses. The problem with that is that not only is it unethical, it’s also no big deal. It is easy. It is simply too good to be true – or good. Digging in to people’s emotional psychology naturally causes strong reactions in people. The Emotionologists use a ‘reversal’ strategy on themselves – thinking that their superficial emotional pseudo-psychology is ‘better’ than real psychology because it gets fairly instant, powerful results. In reality, it is a superficial technique which, for both patient and ‘healer’ confuses manipulation and the building of a new ‘structure’ of doctrine with actual psychological healing. Real psychiatry, as everyone really knows, requires time, skill and proper training.
When it all goes wrong
When you have been trained in, and falsely self validated, emotional level communication, rational, linguistic argument seems crude, slow, pointlessly intellectual or semantical and over all unimpressive. The ability to discuss issues impartially is not only undermined, but made to seem inappropriate and clumsy.
In the world of emotional language, emotional response is seen as appropriate, powerful, active and direct. Trained to discuss everything emotionally, the ability to respond to criticism, questioning, disbelief or failure to accept doctrine on a rational level is lost, replaced by emotional response; in other words, it is taken personally, and responded to by personal, ad hominem, emotional level attacks on the doubter/questioner.
Emotionological manipulators are often not conscious of it being inappropriate to do it – which is why they need to be told that it is. It seems valid to them. We have to understand that, and let that teach us how to respond. Just as they train others, like dogs, through simple emotional manipulation, we need to do the same to them – hopefully to try and let them take a step back and understand the correct way of communicating. Emotionologists want you to argue on an emotional level. It is a territory denial tactic; on the levels of intellect, real psychology, real philosophy, semantic awareness, etc., they have no ground – they flounder and collapse. Their strongest ground is the emotional battlefield, and once that is seen, all of their emotional attack strategies are revealed for what they are – crude attempts to generate emotional responses in people; they are trying to put a ‘handle’ on you and steer you by it. The way they ‘work’ in their ‘positive’ work is exactly how they work when dealing with criticism – deep emotional manipulation.
The correct response is to never allow discussions or arguments to stray in to the emotional battle ground. All personal, ad hominem, character assassinating type attempts to ‘hook’ a person should be responded to with ‘personal or ad hominem attacks are not appropriate; you need to address the actual issues, not the person making them.’
Freed from reality?
Freeing people from consensual reality, teaching others to think for themselves, getting people to question everything, may have sounded fantastic in the fifties and sixties when young people were beginning to challenge the strict social rules of the past, but now that we’ve had fifty years of groups, cults and mystical leaders promising the same, it is a part of everyone’s consensual realty to know that the last thing these group leaders/alternative gurus will accept is us questioning their doctrine, people thinking for themselves, or unaccpetance of the new view of reality which they have created, with themselves validated as spiritual leaders.
Consensual reality has a lot going for it. Consensual reality is what allows us to be aware of manipulation, falsehood, danger, cults and their leaders. There’s nothing wrong with exploring alternative view points and philosophies; but if anyone tries to separate you from reality, be very, very wary.
It’s all your fault
So, you don’t like cults? You don’t like to see manipulation?
Anti-cult research, anti-cultish perspectives, naturally, are engaged by cultish groups on the level of emotional language; what’s YOUR problem with leadership? Do you have issues with inferiority? Do you feel inferior? Is that why you can’t stand the sense that anyone knows more than you?
The simple answer is, personal level attacks are inappropriate – there needs to be direct response to the issues raised, not the people who make them.
It is entirely appropriate to take a stand against manipulation; far from being contrary to alternative philosophies, it is part of the ongoing process of making the exploration of alternative view points a far safer process. One of the reasons people use emotional; level communication is that many explorers of alternative philosophies are higher than average intelligence, seeking out interesting ideas; emotional manipulation fairly easily by-passes their greatest asset – their critical intelligence.
Us and them
Emotional manipulation is generally hooked on to fairly simple aspects of the human psyche. ‘Us an them’ as a basic binary division is perhaps the most simple manipulative ‘structure’ of all. It is possible that it hooks on to fundamental ape senses of troupe/non-troupe, belonging/unbelonging etc.
Belonging is a powerful emotional need for most people. Hence the reason why it is so directly manipulated in cultish structure.
Hierarchical structure
It is possible that ape trouping behaviour causes us to feel that hierarchical structures are quite natural. Either way, hierarchies specifically hook in to emotional needs of having a place in the family/troupe, the ‘will to power’ – the desire for advancement and seniority etc., natural subservience to and acceptance of alpha male/female, higher ranking members.
The free and the unfree
The free and the unfree, the enlightened and the unenlightened, the saved and the
Damned; the ideological ‘fruiting body’ of the us and them basic structure.
Of course you are being manipulated. The ‘us’ are not only your group, but they, and therefore you, are hierarchically superior to others.
In reality it is a simple control tactic – an artificial structure ‘thrown over’ life to trick you in to a sense of belonging and specialness. Sorry – it’s simply a hook in to your ego.
The Big Change is coming…
Doomsday cults are a well known phenomenon. Making you think that a massive change is on the way is a manipulation tactic, and it almost always goes hand in hand with the idea that the group you are in/being recruited/attacked by, will play a special role in the big change.
It’s really just a crude manipulation tactic. Of course, we’ll all be sorry we said that, when doomsday hits and we’re not saved. However, Doomsday has hit several groups, and their members are no longer here to hear how sorry we aren’t that we didn’t join their group.
Familial structure
The family structure is our basic unit, derived from higher primate troupes. Many of our emotions, such as shame, ambition, belonging, love, can be traced to social structuring and cohesion in ape troupes, and then families, so it is no surprise that cultish groups tend to echo family structures. Not only does it feel natural, manipulating our sense of belonging, but it is the very structure for which emotional level interaction was designed – making it ideal for emotional level manipulation.
Infanticization
One of the great benefits of familial structures – for manipulators – is that it facilitates infanticization; the process of reducing someone to a more child like status/state of mind.
There are many manifestations of infanticization. On an obvious level it can be as simple as ‘call me Father’, or ‘my child…’ generating an unbalanced power/influence relationship. On a more subtle level it can be used to change a person’s state of mind by reducing it to a more child like state.
The Heaven’s Gate cult used room design – creating a class room atmosphere, with raised chairs for T and Do. They infanticized their followers by giving them child like names ending in ‘ody’, and they talked to them using syntax more usually applied when speaking to children.
Using a person’s first name in Western culture has rules associated with it. Addressing an older person by their first name can be seen as patronising. The word patronising means ‘father-like’, and is a reference to infanticization.
Addressing adults as children, using their first name inappropriately, such as repeating it over and over; behaving as an adult to a child; using childish syntax; using punishment and reward language; all are means of infanticization.
Denying people adult pleasures such as sex, alcohol, freedom over their own time, decision making, are all infanticization tactics.
Infanticization can be gross, as in beating people and locking them in their room, or it can be subtle, criticising people for needing to widen their view of the world.
Infanticization creates power differentials, and can be used to make people more susceptible to persuasion, indoctrination and manipulation.
Tiering is a type of familial manipulation, placing people in lower social tiers.
Artificially developing a ‘family’ structure is a powerful means of controlling a group, and it also shows up when someone decides to leave the group. There are a number of almost clichéd responses:
One is the ‘hurt parent’ (or other ‘family’ member – ‘brother’, ‘sister’ etc). – where the teacher emits, emotionally, sentiments implying ‘well you’ve hurt me/us, after all we did for you, and this is how you treat us, but I hope you find what you want.’
Another is the ‘I made you what you are…’
Another is the ‘It’s natural to want to rebel and find your own way…’
There are so many, and they occur so organically, that it is far more useful to remember the principle, and that such responses are clichéd, manipulative and inappropriate, based on emotional level communication, and attempting to continue to exert some link over you. They are also rather sad, and show just how vulnerable most of the ‘parents’ really are, and just how much they needed people to believe in them. In a way, we can use that energy by believing in them again – that they can free themselves from their own self validated fantasy.
The weight of the world
The weight of the world tactic is a simple technique of emotional manipulation, used not only by cults and cultish actors, but by charities, political parties, etc.
There are children starving to death out there, what are YOU going to do about it?
Answer being, what are you doing here, emotionally manipulating me when you could be out saving starving children?
Coincidences and unusual significance
A number of groups use coincidences as a means of intensifying the belief experience of their members. People can experience a milieu of seemingly group-validating experiences, including coincidences and significance.
First of all, it should be understood that significance is an emotion, so it’s no surprise that if you have had your emotional state artificially stimulated via emotional manipulation, that you will feel emotions more powerfully, and things, events, objects in your life will seem to take on greater significance.
As for coincidences, it is a sad fact that much New Age philosophy, whilst seeming astounding when you are emotionally manipulated, is actually very lazy; its ‘quick results’ are actually short cuts to nothing, and its anti-intellectualism is really just a means of protecting itself from scrutiny and better, often deeper and in fact more interesting explanations.
If a coincidence happens in your life, make sure it is an astounding one before you attach too much significance to it. Fact is, in any average life, you expect a few interesting coincidences. Is it magic? No, it’s called chaotic anomalies.
Any life has trillions of things happening in it every day – an astounding, chaotic system of events, perceptions, actions, objects, etc. In hugely chaotic systems it is not coincidences that are significant; it would be the lack of them. For example, if fifteen cats decided to sit in a straight line, that would be a very curious coincidence. However, if there were a million cats on a football pitch, you could draw a straight line at random and hit fifteen cats with it every time. Hugely chaotic systems naturally form chaotic anomalies due to the principles of entropy. If there were not any coincidences, or pockets of synchronicity or order, then it wouldn’t be truly chaotic in the first place.
That doesn’t mean to say that we can not legitimately attach significance to coincidences, it simply makes us aware that coincidences happen very naturally, but groups or individuals can artificially manipulate our perceptions to make us think that they or their doctrine is somehow responsible; in other words, we validate their doctrine with events that were actually perfectly normal.
In terms of significance, seeing significance in objects, events, poems etc., is simply how our brains work. Artists are inspired, physicists are inspired, by things that they see. Our brains are excellent at making connections, building patterns. The Heaven’s Gate cult saw significance in the ingredients listed on food labels. We can see significance wherever we want, but it is really us that does it; but we can be manipulated in to making it a part of our milieu or deep structure, falsely ascribing it to the power of the group’s ‘revelation’.
Fire Breaks
No unqualified people should be working with others on emotional levels. And by qualification is meant real qualification, not self validation, experience, or group’s own qualification.
Emotionology, far from setting us free, has really just given us the phenomenon – the deeply sad phenomenon – of emotional capture.
New Age/spiritual/life coaching, etc., thinkers who up until now have been using Emotionological techniques need to stop. They need to eliminate the practice of working directly with people.
Although traditionally anti-intellectual, the New Age ideo-cology would do well to re-evolve some of the principles of academic presentation, one of which is to present ideas in written form. There should be no direct teacher/student relationships when emotional or emotionally powerful philosophies/techniques are involved. This is called a fire break; a separation between the source of ideas and the receivers of ideas, and it prevents individuals from using their ideas to manipulate others.
If a person only has the ability to cause emotional responses in others, then really they have nothing, although, they could write about that, and help educate people about how that works. If they have no ideas that can be presented without engaging in emotional manipulation (which includes using written language to forge direct relationships with people via the internet) then they have nothing, and the time is really now to realise that and shut up shop.
Naturally, I don’t expect them to do that. In the meantime, we keep researching and educating ourselves.
If we keep out of the level of emotional level manipulation, then we keep a fire break between us and the people we communicate information to. That legitimately allows us to refuse to engage on any matter of our personality, motivations etc., and anyone doing so is acting inappropriately, whether they like it or not. When they do that – when they choose to continue direct, emotional level manipulation – then they forfeit the right to be exempted from personal examination; they have no fire break, so their direct psychological motivations are legitimate objects of study; however, we should not do that on the level of emotional communication, because just like the squirrel burying the acorn, well, that’s just what the oak tree wants, isn’t it?
Bite back
Bite back is the emotional response to criticism and critics. Critics need to be aware that emotionologically groomed thinkers attempt to provoke all criticism in to the emotional realm, and avoid it all costs.
Fascinatingly, bite back is inevitably ‘framed’ in the structure of the biter-backer. For example, opponents of Christianity are servants of Satan; critics of New Age philosophy can not possibly have real, reasoned, genuine concerns – they are simply wearing the ‘mask’ of critic to hide their fear of finding out real truth… well, mirror mirror on the wall… maybe it’s time we all deprogrammed ourselves from that stuff, after all…
Cult Whisperer’s note… Here at the Cult Whisperer’s isolated, sprawling Texas compound, hidden away from the prying eyes of the FBI, we know that many of the gurus, leaders, cultish actors, Emotionological practitioners, new age leaders, etc., really did, at one time, want to help people, and really were excited by the possibility of challenging group-think. And we don’t see any reason why people can’t continue to do that. Understanding how cults and cultish groups work is, in and of itself, part of that same counter cultural philosophy – it’s about understanding how group-think works. We just don’t want the exploration of ideas to lead to cutting your balls off and drinking coolaid in the hopes of finding yourself as an asexual space-alien with supernatural powers travelling on board a spaceship heading to the Kingdom of Heaven…
We believe, that with a little whispering, all cult leaders, big and small, with a little tug on their collar every time they do something naughty, can be returned to a calm, submissive state of mind, where they’ll feel a great deal happier.
The Cult Whisperer Team… (Watch out for our networked show.)
