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But we are much more likely to believe the impossible the more those around us believe it.
Isn't it just the case that our need for belonging is so intense it takes primacy over anything else apart from short term survival.
Our attitude to global warming is another classic case possibly?
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Hi Hammy, You're quite right of course about peer pressure and the need for belonging. But doesn't that just explain compliant behaviour, rather than belief? And, anyway, it still fits with what I'm saying: what people around us believe is more 'available' for structuring our model of reality. You'll have to excuse me here - I'm an ex-psychologist these days, or anti-psychologist, but can't kick the habit of writing about psychology (which even gives me a modest income). So maybe I also tend to write 1000 words when a couple of sentences will do... The reality of global warming will catch up with everybody pretty soon, I reckon - even Dubya - probably when he's stepped down and its safe to change his mind. We were talking about you last week when Moley and I walked around the woods a couple of miles away, gathering chestnuts and stumbled upon this fabulous red-and-white spotted specimen of Amanita Muscaria, which reminded me of the best photo I never took in my life, of you, sat across my basement table grinning with this amazing spread of botanical / culinary specimens you'd been out gathering, a few years back. Priceless!
Modified by Nigel at Sat, Nov 04, 2006, 17:19:56
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'doesn't that just explain compliant behaviour, rather than belief?'
This might be wacky, but maybe you underestimate the need for compliant behaviour. Maybe our beliefs are very much built up to allow us to have compliant behaviour. Which comes first?
In Darwinian terms, our behaviour is surely much more important than our beliefs. It's nice to think we can be rational, and build up a picture of the world that is accurate, and that our beliefs are founded on a basic reality. But trying to be rational, is there really evidence for that? We have the evidence of our own histories, where we believed in Rawat as something more than human, which now appears as ludicrous as the tooth-fairy. We constructed a strange reality - for what, if not compliance to our new group?
We have lost faith in Rawat. I for one have also lost a lot of faith in the notion that I can see beyond what my cultural context allows. Even in my rebellion, I see compliance...
Of course, if this bleak viewpoint offends, I will change it to something more appealing to you all.
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Interesting reply. For me, obedience, compliance and conformity are separate areas of psychology, involving different levels of personal belief about reality - or no belief whatsoever. We can obey, comply or conform (as in, say, Mao's China) without taking on board the belief system, and I think belief and behaviour sometimes have complex relationship that are hard to untangle. I'll have to get back to you on this, as I'm not finding the right words to express what I think right now, and David Attenborough's on the telly.  Nige
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We constructed a strange reality - for what, if not compliance to our new group? There's lots of groups we could have joined and complied with. But we chose Maharaji, so I think there's something about the group itself that attracts us. We don't just comply, arbitrarilly, with any old group. We're selective.
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Why not Maharaji? I was very young when I bought into it. I wasn't really aware of alternatives - I was offered an alternative to what seemed mundane at the time, and I went for it. I think I might have been available for other cults. I don't think the fact that it was Maharaji matters much at all. I was so naive, open and rebellious, maybe any cult would have done - anything to join the insurgency against mundanity, anything to jump on the fast departing 60's zeitgeist.
I think the premies were just any old group that we complied with - or do you still think they have something special? Some of us were real seekers after truth, with a well-considered shopping list. Those people were selective in their way. Some of us ( me here ) knew no different - it was the first alternative to an apparently mundane 9-5 future. I think some just picked the most convenient cult.
It was any old group. We adopted some bizarre and ridiculous beliefs for it all to hang together. We contorted our minds ( literally! ) to believe the whole Perfect Master - lineage thing, the specialness of our meditation techniques, the infallibility of Mr. Rawat's every utterance. Are you saying you consciously selected that? Nah, we complied. We laid down our discriminatary faculties, and allowed the premies to lay one ludicrous concept after another on top of us until we said 'enough', and signed the dotted line.
In a way, Maharaji was right - we didn't choose him, he chose us! I think any recruiting cult would have chosen us.
Modified by 13 at Tue, Nov 07, 2006, 14:13:55
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It was like a lot of things in life, stuff just comes along at the right moment, often in the form of particular people. If it hadn't been for Tom Bamford, Paul Clamp, and Elaine all those years ago, I wouldn't have been drawn in. Later great souls like Nourri and Nigel, Tony Pannet et al worked their magic on me! Oh the karma of it! Plus of course assorted female people not to be named.It all sort of added up in the right girection. Add in those mind boggling techniques and well, history. Love Bryn
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I was aware of some alternatives, primarily TM and Scientology, and I'd heard about Meher Baba and a couple of others. I think why I chose Maharaji was because he was offering God realization, and claimed he was the only one who could, being the living Perfect Master, and all. Somehow, the idea got into my head that his lineage traced all the way back to great Perfect Masters of the past, including Jesus Christ, and perhaps Moses. I think there was some debate whether or not he was Perfect Master too. And I remember debating with a premie whether Saint Francis was one also. But there was no doubt about Maharaji and Jesus. Those two were cut from the same cloth. At least, that's what I was led to believe. Of course I no longer believe this, but at the time I did, sort of, not entirely really, and I believed it only about Maharaji, no other guru who may have been making similar, grandiose claims.
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As soon as we swallowed the stuff about god realization and perfect masters, we had complied. The only evidence we had for the veracity of these claims were the smiling faces of the premies. That's not really very strong evidence of such powerful claims.
I would go further now and suggest that as soon as we swallowed the stuff about God, even before we met premies, we were primed for compliance. It was all faith-based, not evidence based. I know we had some experiences - I was one of those who did have those profound mystical type things happen in meditation. But our interpretation of those experiences was based on the faith we had already acquired when we joined the cult.
First we complied with the required belief system - then we 'chose'. It is hard to visualise it the other way round:
OK, so the mind is evil and needs to be controlled. The only way to control it is to hand it over to a living Perfect Master, and as it happens, we have one here. If I give everything I have to him, I will have a controlled mind and realize God. Yep, that all fits. Nice and logical. Where do I sign?
It didn't happen that way.
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The only evidence we had for the veracity of these claims were the smiling faces of the premies. That's not really very strong evidence of such powerful claims. Looking back on it, it's kind of comical. How naive we were, and how impressionable. I remember some of the "evidence" for Maharaji. He was the "little child who would lead them" written about in the bible. The bible also said "In the beginnning was the Word", and by gosh wasn't that the holy word, which was only being revealed by Maharaji? Haha! Yeah. Maybe it wasn't so much compliance as it was innocense and naivete. God, we were both! lol! I was one of those who did have those profound mystical type things happen in meditation. But our interpretation of those experiences was based on the faith we had already acquired when we joined the cult. Just out of curiosity, how would you describe those experiences if you had not been primed by the religious baggage you brought to them? Have you ever considered what they may have meant outside of that context? I'd be curious to know what you now think of them, if you don't mind. I still maintain that my reason for complying was because I believe Maharaji had what I wanted, which was God realization, however much that desire had been influenced by previous religious instruction. It wasn't because I wanted to be part of a group that retained the "60's zeitgeist", which seems to be what you're saying.
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Sorry for the delay in replying Jerry - real life intruded.
'Just out of curiosity, how would you describe those experiences if you had not been primed by the religious baggage you brought to them? Have you ever considered what they may have meant outside of that context?'
I don't know how I would describe them. I was primed since primary school. You seem to be suggesting that there is a neutral point of view that I can tap into, like 'real' authentic me that existed before the religious baggage was dumped on me. These days, I consider the idea of a 'real' me inside me as just more religious baggage - the notion of soul, or the perfect child within. Sorry, but I threw that idea out with a whole load of other stuff that came alongside of Rawatism.
How I view those experiences now is that mostly I was deluded. There are some powerful tricks you can do with your mind by meditating, and I had an impressive photographic memory for 2-3 weeks after a 'samadhi' experience. It got me through some exams at university that I hadn't studied for at all. But all the religious imagery I used to interpret that experience and others I now disregard.
I can remember being excited about the tooth fairy who was coming to replace a tooth under my pillow with a sixpence. The excitement was real. The sixpence was real. But I rarely think about tooth fairies any more.
I hear what you are saying about wanting God realization, but I think that just wanting that, you were already swallowed up in that movement. Do people still go about trying to realize God, or has that idea dropped out of fashion now? I think it was just part of the times, part of the zeitgeist. You had already joined that group - and premies were just a sub-group of that larger group. I think it would be hard to judge how much rational selection went on.
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Hi 13, I think the idea of a "real" me has some validity. Throughout history people have spoken of having experiences where they've recaptured some long lost part of themselves that they had forgotten, but at times catch a glimpse of. The real part of themselves. I think it's ill advised to discredit such an experience, out of hand, as a delusion because to do so requires the discrediting of your own internal judgement faculties. Then what are you left with but your mind running in circles trying to explain why such an experience occurred in the first place? It can't be easy having a firm, inner conviction, an intuition, that your mystical experience recaptured the real you, yet at the same time having an idea that it was all delusion. Where does that idea come from? In every fiber of my being I feel I've touched the real in the mystical moment. So, if it had that deep an impact why would I toy with the idea that it's delusion? Maybe because certain intellectuals who have never had such an experience, but are trying to understand why others do, have come up with the theory that it must be nothing more than brain software gone awry, or maybe it's repressed sexual desire manifesting itself in a perverse release. Hmm, maybe they're the outside force that primes people to think their experiences are delusions. What makes them such an authority that they have the final word? Much of their argument is just sheer speculation, pseudo-science, that they try to give authority to by the sheer weight of their credentials as scholars. I hear what you are saying about wanting God realization, but I think that just wanting that, you were already swallowed up in that movement. Do people still go about trying to realize God, or has that idea dropped out of fashion now? I think it was just part of the times, part of the zeitgeist. The term "God realization" is merely an effective way of describing the mystical experience. Just because it was coined during the 60s doesn't mean it's part of that fading zietgeist and can no longer be used today. One could say that the experiences of early Christian mystics and Sufis were of "God realization". It's just a term which I think still has relevance. That's why I use it. Until next time, 13. Thanks for the discussion on a subject which has always been of great interest to me.
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We all comply, to lesser or greater extents with every 'group' that we encounter. A group may consist of just two people so every human interaction involves levels of compliance. Perhaps the only people who never comply are those who would be classified as sociopathic. Compliance is not the problem - it's the particular dynamics that set the terms of compliance that is the problem. Nik
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I have to mainly agree with 13. No particular reason why Rawatism. In many cases it was pure chance. It might have been any other of the similar cults that were proselytising at the time. However in the early 70's DLM did have some unique features. Firstly the outrageous claims about Rawat as avatar that were being plastered up in major cities throughout the West and the extraordinary claims about revealing God. As there was more chance that you'd strike these claims than those of the Indian guru cults that were using less public methods of proselytisation DLM had a greater chance of attracting your attention. Then there were the 7 nights a week meetings. Once again more chance. And it was a quick and easy deal, no lifetimes of struggling in meditation. The mechanics of conversion and belief are the same in DLM as in any religion and so if you try more people, it will stick to a greater or lesser extent with more people. DLM already had a reasonable organisational base in India which provided both the initial capital and the "mahatmas" to allow the intiations to happen. In the long run Rawatism has proved unable to keep it's members or attract any great number of new ones but for that brief window of opportunity it made the most of it. Somewhere during my 25 years of interacting with EV members as a non-believer I dropped my ideas of it being anything special and saw that it was no different from all the other minor cults and religions and works according to the same principles.
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I'm hacked off that I fell for a guru who propagated celibacy (not that I practiced it) and not Rajneeesh whose devos were having it right off. (The rubber gloves were a bit of a turn-off though) A full report from CG is expected.
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"A full report from CG is expected" If you mean cq , he has left the forum.He did occasionally answer questions about his time in Poona. Why not ask Milarepa.......who followed the same spiritual stepping stones? ( or contact Chris via admin.)
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(If you're not still cross with me, Lexy, there's a couple of replies I left you lower down this thread.) Like Falcon, during my heavy-duty Premie era, I was desparately envious of the Rajneeshis - especially since a couple of them were good very friends - they seemed to have their cake and eat it. Hell, I even envied the Krishnas their chanting, cooking and robes - and not having a multi-millionaire Americanised guru with a squeaky voice... But once I 'knew' those other guys were not even valid options any more, I heaved a sigh, and trudged religiously along darkened streets to nightly satsang while my Rajneeshi pals stayed home and blew dope, played music and god knows what else they got up to...
Modified by Nigel at Wed, Nov 08, 2006, 14:52:32
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they were making Ecstasy on Ibiza
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I have only met (to my knowledge) a handful of ex-Rajneeshis ( Sanyassins or whatever they called them selves ); and read Tim Guest's book " My Life in Orange". Personally I think that the cult was as, if not more, damaging and abusive for its followers and their families, as our own. The emphasis on sexual expression may sound more fun, but carried with it its own hidden demons with or without rubber gloves ( the sex that is, not the demons.......demons in rubber gloves aaaaaargh! ). I am not cross with you any more Nigel.
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I do not think that I would ever have become a follower of Maharaji, because I would have disliked the - lack of any intellectual contents
- the lack of a comprehensive but practical ethical system
- the secret teachings (followers would have had a lot to explain to me about the need for secrecy)
- the lack of emphasis on charity
Andries
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......look how you hang around here
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That would indeed have been a wicked pic, god it seems a long time ago, in my raving days, ah well everything passes 
E-mail us yeah, and we can get on skype for a free natter and video call
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OK here's 'wot i think': All social animals face a dilemma, on the one hand conformity to the group is of proven survival benefit, on the other conformity inhibits innovation which may be demanded by survival needs of the individual or/and/or the species in the face of environmental challenge. The human species having invested heavily in both social behaviour and habitual innovation could be considered to have evolved a 'perpetual crisis' state for its members where the individual has to make endless choices between belonging to or being outside of groups. On top of (or because of ?) this, humans have a profound sense of individual identity which demands not merely physical survival of the organism, but also psychological survival of the individual 'person'. We should therefore not be surprised if there are complex processes at play in the interaction between individuals and groups. Brainwashing is perhaps the most unhelpful piece of journalistic wordsmithing ever and as a discipline Psychology has been profoundly remiss in not challenging the accretion of notions that has built up around the 'brainwashing' misnomer. There are a few relevant questions which seem to me to underlie the wider problem of 'coercive indoctrination': 1. Are human beings predisposed to a high level of group conformity ? 2. Are there conditions under which predisposition to group conformity is greatly enhanced ? 3. Do threats (perceived or real) to the individual 'psyche' produce responses that are as comparably energetic as are to threats to the body ? 4. Is the vulnerability and form of response to threats, uniform or is there variability dependant upon circumstance ? My conclusions are that the answers to these questions do give validity to the work of Margaret Singer and others who have concluded that coercivity can play a role in producing mental and physical conformity to a group. Question 4. seems to me to be particularly relevant because I would suggest that there is a huge variation of response by individuals. The situation is comparable to physical biology - a mature individual in otherwise good health will generally brush off the infections and physical insults of every day life with few noticeable effects. By contrast someone who has yet to develop a full working immune system, or who is poorly nourished or is suffering some pre-existing frailty will experience everyday infections and insults in a much more dramatic way. In this sense I would characterise exploitative groups/individuals as operating like opportunistic infections taking hold on an already weakened system. However I see no reason to suggest this as a single and uniform explanation as to why individuals become part of exploitative groups; one obvious alternate reason is that some indivuals see opportunities to become effective exploiters. Nik
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Thanks for your comments, both. I'm beginning to regret having used the Patty Hearst example of 'brainwashing', particularly as it calls in the extra factors of compliance and conformity, which aren't really necessary and cloud the issue somewhat. I agree that the need for group acceptance is a powerful factor, almost certainly evolutionary in origin - but both behaviours can exist independently of belief, just as belief can change independently of social peer pressure. I have addressed some of this in my last posts to Lexy and Stardust. Basically, group belonging for emotional / security reasons doesn't argue against my points about 'cognitive availability', and it probably helps provide the hot-house environment in which beliefs may be corrupted - just as the closed space of therapy can establish the sufficient and necessary conditions for repeated suggestion + imagination to result in 'recovered memories'. I think the important new factor in Garry and Loftus's work is the point that a 'memory' - even a genuine one, is, in fact, a form of imagination; we don't actually relive our past experiences; rather we reassemble images and impressions into a coherent, believable whole. But Garry and Loftus's work only looks at 'autobiographical' memory, ie., recall of ones past. My own suggestion is that 'semantic' memory (knowledge of the world - also acquired in the past) should, logically, also be corruptible by repeated imagining of counterfactual scenarios, and that the availability heuristic also plays a central part in reprogramming process. Probably a better example I referred to of this would be Mary Wesley praying for one of her characters. If teenagers and young adults are particularly susceptible to this effect ('suggestible' is the term usually used), it might be because they have not yet constructed a sufficiently robust sense of themselves, their beliefs, or the way the world works.
Modified by Nigel at Mon, Nov 06, 2006, 03:00:50
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I entirely agree about 'cognitive availability' and the importance Garry and Loftus's work - I also think that your suggestion 'semantic' memory (knowledge of the world - also acquired in the past) should, logically, also be corruptible by repeated imagining of counterfactual scenarios, and that the availability heuristic also plays a central part in reprogramming process - is excellent. Perhaps where I would take a different tack would be in respect of the rational/irrational juxtaposition. John McCrone made some headway with this in his The Myth of Irrationality although his perspective was too confined to a split between learned 'human' thinking and unlearned 'animal' thinking, for my liking. The problem with 'irrational' is that no one considers themselves irrational, the identification of irrationality is always dependant upon an external value judgement. Even in circumstances where an individual is affected by some serious health condition - say schizophrenia - where their actions may lead to self harm, those actions are entirely rational when seen from the schizophrenic's perspective. T mentioned some Identity Disorders; certainly conditions which involve 'confabulation', including extreme forms such as Capgras's, Fregoli's and Cotard's Syndromes - belief that someone close has been replaced by doppelganger - recognition of strangers - belief that someone that can be seen is dead - certainly show that we do in some circumstances rewrite reality to suit our current world view. Quote from Lars Hall, a philosopher at Lund University in a New Scientist (7.10.06) article dealing with confabulation: "It is an unsettling thought that perhaps all out conscious mind ever does is dream up stories in an attempt to make sense of our world." If I was forced to accept McCrone's split thinking then I might well conclude that Hall's quote is entirely accurate for McCrone's human side of the mind. >If teenagers and young adults are particularly susceptible to this effect ('suggestible' is the term usually used), it might be because they have not yet constructed a sufficiently robust sense of themselves, their beliefs, or the way the world works.< I think the way that I would express this is not so much in terms of robustness but that young adults retain for very good evolutionary reasons, a degree of the 'plasticity' that is more commonly seen as a characteristic of childhood. But of course the principle of vulnerability certainly holds true. Nik
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I enjoyed reading that, it is a useful template for understanding a lot. Your example of the Trobriand Islanders is very interesting. You really ought to find a place where your essays could be put up for publication. How does 'imagination inflation' differ from false memory syndrome and it associated conditions of MFD and DID? T
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I don't know (or don't remember) the acronyms 'MFD' and 'DID', but I can probably help with 'false memory syndrome'. This is not so much a theory as a descriptive label of situations where clients in therapy - usually of the psychoanalytical kind - become persuaded that they were sexually or physically abused when very young, even though they came to therapy with no memories of the alleged events. The notion of abuse comes from the therapists themselves, who, if schooled in the Freudian tradition, will have various (unscientific) beliefs in the idea of 'repression' where our unconscious minds - to proctect us - will block access to painful and traumatic memories from our early years. (Serious memory research actually shows the opposite to be true: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, being the obvious example, where the psychological disturbance arises through an inability to free oneself from memories of past emotional distress.) The therapist is invariably the first to suggest the possibility of abuse, and may make repeated suggestions - accepting no alternative possibilities for the client's current unhappiness until the client is eventually persuaded of their truth. 'Imagination inflation', is not just a descriptive label, but offers testable hypotheses, by which it can be shown experimentally how memories can be 'planted' and thus demonstrate the process that results in false memory syndrome - and puts it on more of a scientific footing. So it's not a case of a 'difference' between the two concepts, rather that one explains the other. Hope that helps..? Cheers,
Nige
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I haven't read all of your very long post Nigel......however I have read my paperback about Patty Hearst at least twice( The Trial Of Patty Hearst). I have always been quite fascinated by what happened to her .....maybe partly because I have always felt that I was kind of "kidnapped" , isolated and "brainwashed" by the premie who first "gave me satsang". I remember the fear ,confusion and craziness of it all and how frightened and susceptible I was. I could go on and on and get quite cross with you Nigel ,for your lack of understanding....but there would be no point and I've got other things to do. Patty Hearst was easy prey....and in those bizarre circumstances ( imprisonment with a bunch of desperate kidnappers) realities become distorted thus she was soon sucked into her kidnapper's anti-establishment world. The judge was 100% correct in releasing Patty Hearst.She didn't ask to be kidnapped at such a young and vulnerable age, and put in mortal peril of her life ( or whatever the expression is). She came from a protected, precious and privileged existence and found herself , in a moment , with a group of desperate strangers who might just as well have come from another planet.She was the victim and IMO should never have had to face trial.
Modified by lexy at Sun, Nov 05, 2006, 09:36:18
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> and get quite cross with you Nigel ,for your lack of understanding....< I thought Nige demonstrated a very great deal of understanding and nothing in his post suggests that Patty Hearst's defence was not warranted. What is in question are the actual psychological processes that led Patty Hearst to behave as she did and to believe the things that she did. Nik
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I take on board all that both you & Nigel have said, but the unusual thing about our experience of coercive manipulation is that it was based on a physical trick. The belief system & the fucked up social dynamics came as a result of accepting that the trick was really the Knowledge of God, not the other way round. At least at the time I got into it. Or maybe just in my personal history, but I can't believe I was the only one who looked on the group with a deal of scepticism, only to find that it was 'true' on initiation, & then have to handle the implications.
As you say in your post above:
4. Is the vulnerability and form of response to threats, uniform or is there variability dependant upon circumstance ?...........
............Question 4. seems to me to be particularly relevant
because I would suggest that there is a huge variation of response by
individuals.
The interesting thing about the appalling way that Lexy got involved, is surely that she is as a result, more likely to understand the Patty Hearst mindset than others. Having said that I don't think Nigel was being unsympathetic to her either, except maybe in the unthinking sense that rich kids don't have feelings.
hey.............maybe I can get into this pc stuff after all.
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Hi Pat, Thanks to you (and Nik) for pointing out I wasn't being unsympathetic. But nor was I remotely suggesting that rich kids don't have feelings. Any ironic asides I added in brackets were just comments on the sheer surreality of the story - the kind of yarn that nobody would accept as fiction if it hadn't actually happened, where heiress to America's richest (?) family turns revolutionary-cum-bank robber. It's one of those 'only in America' stories that leave you not knowing what to believe. And I still don't...
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" It's one of those 'only in America' stories that leave you not knowing what to believe.And I still don't..." I totally disagree Nigel. The detail of the story is possibly "only in America" but the basic story could happen to anyone anywhere IMO. All it takes is isolation from everyone and everything with which you are familiar, the sudden stripping away of the values you took for granted ; throw in a whole bunch of carefully graduated and tailored persuasion along with a big dose of fear, threats and humiliation......it doesn't take long for your view of reality to turn on it's head.......Some manage to run away before the tipping point,others are too afraid ( my case;.... although I am not suggesting that what I experienced was anywhere near as serious as what she went through!) and for some it is impossible ( Patty Hearst). A couple of years ago,in this country there was the well publicised and chilling case of a con man who pretended to work as a spy for MI5 and totally convinced five or six young people to obey him implicitly or they would be targetted by the enemy.For several years they were separately on the run from a non-existant foe....hiding out ,half starved in desperate conditions while he fleeced them of their assets.Horrific....but because of what happened to me.....I knew it was totally believable... even though two of his victims had fallen in love with him,separately in hiding and had his children ( while he stole their money). Horrendous...and I'm quite sure this stuff can happen anywhere, perhaps not to anyone as the victims are often,though not always in the late teen ,early twenties age bracket.
Related link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/3945885.stm
Modified by lexy at Sun, Nov 05, 2006, 18:17:03
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>A couple of years ago,in this country there was the well publicised and chilling case of a con man who pretended to work as a spy for MI5 and totally convinced five or six young people to obey him implicitly or they would be targetted by the enemy.For several years they were separately on the run from a non-existant foe....hiding out ,half starved in desperate conditions while he fleeced them of their assets.Horrific....but because of what happened to me.....I knew it was totally believable... even though two of his victims had fallen in love with him,separately in hiding and had his children ( while he stole their money). Horrendous...and I'm quite sure this stuff can happen anywhere, perhaps not to anyone as the victims are often,though not always in the late teen ,early twenties age bracket. I remember the case well – but there’s nothing you are saying here that’s really at odds with my original post. Fear and coercion are sufficient conditions to bring about compliant behaviour – as with Patty Hearst. They also create the ‘psychological isolation’ necessary for ones belief system to change. Again, its about the ‘cognitive availability’ of explanations and alternatives. If those poor women had not been so terrified of discussing their perceived danger with outsiders, any number of people would have told them the guy’s an obvious con-man – but it didn’t happen, so the ‘brainwashing’ was a fairly straightforward matter – as it tends to be in cults. The ‘falling in love’ element (or Stockholm Syndrome) adds an extra layer to the mix, where the psychological dependence on one’s ‘captor’ – literal or metaphorical – apparently combines with a person’s need for comfort and safety in what is probably a basic survival mechanism. (I don’t pretend to be an expert here.) And I often wonder what the premie women procured by Mike Dettmers for Maharaji’s exploitation must have gone through emotionally – whether there was an element of fear, etc. But the cult process can happen without the emotional dimension, and that’s a bit of a side-track from the changing of beliefs from the rational to irrational which was my main interest here.
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"What is in question are the actual psychological processes that led Patty Hearst to behave as she did and to believe the things that she did." Why ? It happened.
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Hi Lexy, I haven't read any paperbacks about Patty Hearst, but there's a ton of material on the web based on newspapers and contemporary court records. I can't imagine what I have 'failed to understand', and I certainly haven't expressed any moral judgements about her, one way or the other. What I don't now understand is your statement that the judge released her, whilst my sources indicate she was certainly jailed. I'm not sufficiently interested in the case to explore this further myself - it was only a springboard into what I really wanted to discuss: ie. 'brainwashing'. And now I wonder how much of my post you actually read? In talking about Patty being jailed, I added 'rightly or wrongly - I don't know'. I still don't know, but I don't think I have been unsympathetic, if that's what's bothering you. Cheers,
Nige
Modified by Nigel at Sun, Nov 05, 2006, 13:54:08
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What I don't now understand is your statement that the judge released her, whilst my sources indicate she was certainly jailed. She served 22 months in jail but was eventually released on appeal.I was referring to her release. The link refers to her "pardon" not her release from jail,but contains some interesting info concerning the circumstances of her abduction and " brainwashing".
Related link: http://edition.cnn.com/US/9910/06/hearst.pardon/index.html
Modified by lexy at Sun, Nov 05, 2006, 18:12:38
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Hi Nigel,Reading this thread reminded me of something I read recently about the way the Chinese 'brain washed' American POW's during the Korean war and successfully (albeit may be only temporarily) converted them to communism. They didn't achieve this with threat of torture, but through changing the soldier's self image gradually, bit by bit. "During an interrogation, prisoners were persuaded to make one or two mildly anti American, or pro communist, statements, e.g. "The United States is not perfect", or "In a communist country there is less unemployment". Once these apparently minor statements had been extracted, the prisoner would then be asked to define exactly how the United States was not perfect. When he was worn down and weary, he would then be asked to sign his name to the list of reasons he had come up with. "Later on the prisoner would have to read his list in a discussion group with other prisoners. This would then be broadcast to his own camp and all the other North Korean POW camps and to the rest of the American Forces in South Korea as well. "Suddenly the prisoner found himself labelled as a collaborator, but when fellow prisoners asked why he had done it, he couldn't claim he had been tortured. It was, after all, just been what he had said and signed himself." Now this is the crunch bit: "Psychological research has shown that human beings can only tolerate a certain amount of discrepancy between their thoughts and their behaviour, thus the prisoner felt that he had to justify his actions to maintain consistency with his own internal sense of identity. He would say that what he said was true, and in that moment his self image changed. He now believed he was pro communist, and his fellow prisoners reinforced his new identity by treating him differently. "Before long, his desire to act consistently with his new self image would drive him to collaborate with the Chinese even more, thereby reinforcing his new self image until he no longer questioned if it was even true." Quite interesting, and I can see how this could apply to cults. Just thought it might be of interest to you. But may be you've read this book too All the best
Stardust
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Hi Stardust, Fascinating stuff - and it fits various 'consistency' theories about attitude change, eg. Festinger's 'cognitive dissonance', where if your actions are out of kilter with your beliefs, the resulting discomfort means 'something has to give', and since it is easier to change your belief - especially after the event - that's what tends to happen. But although Festinger's theory was popular for a while, there hasn't been a lot of evidence to support it. A rival theory by Bem ('self-perception') claims we don't 100% know what our own attitudes are until we observe our own behaviour then assemble an explanation to fit that behaviour. I'm not taking sides here, and I certainly don't think either theory can be made to work in all cases of people's changing beliefs. But another explantion for the POW-collaborator phenomenon could be a matter of labelling: the soldiers didn't really know what 'communist' meant, and previously thought it was just some vague evil to be confronted, but the indoctrination process reframed the term, using selective information, that appeared to show that communism fitted the soldiers' own moral codes: ie, persuading them they had always been communist without knowing it. The fact that the information/propaganda was selective (no mention of Mao's ruthless brutality) also fits my 'availability' argument. Whether POW's renounced their new beliefs after release might give us a clue as to the best explanation. My 'imagination inflation' hypothesis would predict that they did change back again - but if the 'consistency' theorists are right, wouldn't they be more likely to stick to the new belief? Hmm, but they'd probably have to hide the fact to escape charges of collaboration - so finding out for sure might be a bit tricky... Cheers,
Nige
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Hi Nigel,Thanks for your interesting comments. I agree with your "imagination inflation" hypothesis as I expect most of them did change back. As for those (if any) that didn't, well it's only conjecture, but possibly they already felt disillusioned and a new philosophy filled a gap. (Sounds familiar!) But I expect those with homes/wives/families to go back to, after the war was over, would have quite quickly forgotten all about it, and hidden it too. I don't know if you ever watch Graham Norton's "The Bigger Picture". A few weeks ago one of his guests was a journalist/investigative reporter (whose name I can't remember and I hadn't heard of him before). He wasn't the hard hitting expose type reporter, but very laid back and with am extremely dry sense of humour, full of irony. Any way, when Graham was chatting with him, the reporter related that he had put an ad. in the personal column of a national newspaper, last year I think, inviting people to join his new 'cult'. He didn't give any more information other than contact details. He did this out of curiosity (he didn't say this, but may be he's going to investigate cults in the future, and this is part of his research - the mind set of cult applicants!) But, he has no cult, doesn't intend to have one, and he certainly didn't expect any replies. Any way, guess what - he received a reply! So he met up with the applicant in a London pub and the cult-applicant asked the journalist (wish I could remember his name, I think it was David somebody). So the applicant asked David how many people were in the cult, and David replied 2 - you and me!! And David said how he sat there in the pub, with a pint, wondering what he should talk about! It was so funny when he told the story. Of course, the joke really was on the applicant. The reporter finished off by saying that he's had loads more replies since then and there are now hundreds of new interested people..... I wasn't sure if he was joking or serious when he said that, it was hard to tell. But if true, that's how easy it is to set up your own cult. I'm trying to imagine it now. You're reading the paper one day and you decide to have a look at the personal column, and there you see an ad to join a cult. I mean really, who would actually phone up for that?!! It's mind boggling.....!!
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Nigel, if I understand what you're driving at, you're proposing that the "experience" that premies talk about never happens. It's just a false memory. Now, I personally don't know what premies are talking about when they talk about the experience because I don't recall ever having one, though I did give it my best shot. So, I suppose my mind was immune to the false memories that infected other premies? Lucky me, I guess. However, I do have a memory of the classical mystical experience where I sensed the presense of God. Are you telling me it never happenned? I just think it did? That's pretty wild, Nige. Maybe if I think enough about Jennifer Love Hewitt, I'll develop some pretty interesting memories there, too, eh?
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>An example: there is little doubt that breath meditation can make a person feel good. If it didn’t it would not be central to so many yogic and mystical practices. But under a Guru’s auspices, breath meditation takes on a different conceptual quality. Imagination provides the ‘as if’ factor; repeated imaginings change ‘as if’ to ‘is’. Most yoga books - or the would-be ‘serious’ ones - describe meditation as a connection with an ephemeral, universal energy source or spiritual core (‘atman’, ‘prama’, ‘om’, ‘kundalini’ etc.) Whatever good stuff aspiring yogis experience in their practice is attributed to a real experience of the ineffable/sublime, through meditating as if that were the case – when it is more likely to be the ‘availability’ heuristic in action: we grab at the most available, most well-rehearsed explanation – the one we have run through our heads most frequently. Imagined possibility becomes certainty via repetition – as real as anything else we feel certain about. A guru’s follower adds an extra ‘as if’ conceptual layer to the yogic energy concept, namely, ‘inner connection with the Master’. I think you've misunderstood me. I'm not saying that 'feel-good' experiences are not genuine: the 'false reality' dimension is the way we conceptualise those experiences - and that's an exercise in creating a sense of certainty about their source (Marahaji, God, or whatever) through repeatedly imagining that to be the case.
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The experience the meditator is striving for isn't just feeling good, it's for an experience of perfection. I think most people are able to discern the difference. I know, for me, there has to be a threshold that is crossed before I would attribute an experience to the adjectives you've described, "ephemeral, universal energy source, spiritual core". Maybe other people are less demanding, I don't know. But it still holds that you're saying the experience never happens. People are just exaggerating "feel good" experiences into something they're not. I think it's probably more true that people do experience something beyond just "feeling good" when they describe the experience beyond that rather prosaic term. Some people, anyway. People not prone to suggestion. But I've met some really strange premies in my time, and I always did wonder why they were having the "experience" and I wasn't. Maybe they weren't either. Maybe they just got all "heuristic" about it. By Maharaji's direction, of course. I know he did try to convince premies who complained they weren't having an experience that they really were. Maybe he succeeded. How diabolic he could get.
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