shankara
Star
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2018
- Messages
- 1,322
The term “Cult” used in reference to religious movements is controversial, and for good reason. It can be used to demean the religious practises of those who fall outside the mainstream, being used as a tool of the powerful and those who wish to preserve the dominance of some traditional organized religion or another. In reality every religion has some cult-like elements, the tendency to instill guilt and fear. However it is also clear that there are different degrees of this, different levels of psychological control and indoctrination in different religious or pseudo-religious forms.
How exactly can we define a “cult”? First of all, there is the aforementioned psychological control and indoctrination. This though is a very broad notion, it is necessary to be more specific. We could say that in order to regard a group as a cult there must be some kind of strong psychological pressure placed upon the person who encounters them, effectively attempting to force them to believe. A cult could be considered a kind of psychological trap, something that once you fall into it, it is very difficult to get out of. There is something in the group’s way of thinking which makes any person who gets involved find it very hard to leave.
Now, we must be honest enough not to think that such pressure and traps are unique to “New Religious Movements”. There are plenty of people going around saying “believe in Christ or you will burn for eternity”, things of that nature. This is clearly a kind of psychological pressure, not too different from that of any cult. One could argue however that such a doctrine is at least founded in some kind of tradition, it is not something which someone just invented out of their mind. Such an argument may or may not hold water – in any case we can certainly say that some of the more extreme groups of various “traditional” religions are not vastly different from “New Religious Movements”, and could quite easily qualify as “cults”. They certainly have the same idea that they possess an absolute monopoly on the one absolute truth as “cults” do. However they generally lack one key characteristic of many or most “cults”, a charismatic and supposedly infallible leader.
So rather than defining such a group as a cult, another group not a cult, we can simply discuss the psychology of persons who have developed the trapped, stifled and inflexible way of thinking characteristic of the “brainwashed”. This particular psychology is composed of two interdependent characteristics: Comfort and Fear. The former comes from being in the group of “chosen people”, one of the few who will be “saved”. The latter is in relation to everything outside of the group, which is “evil”, “polluted”, “corrupt” by definition, generally simply because those “outside” hold different beliefs, whether or not they live virtuously.
For the cult member, everything becomes dualistic. Everything comes either from “God” or from “the Devil”. There are no grey areas and certainly no colours, everything is clearly defined as “white” or “black”. The leader is the conduit of “God”, hence his every word must be clung to like a drowning man clutching at a life raft. Of course any thought which is in disagreement with the ideas of the infallible leader is “evil” and must be suppressed, driven out. There is no possibility of any positive path of evolution outside of the group, so even undergoing an internal process of questioning its dogmas is something which must be avoided, a way in which “the Devil” might come back and again “possess” the person.
Spiritually mature people are able to understand that different doctrines and practises can all be appropriate for particular persons at particular times, whether they be exoteric popular forms or more subtle and esoteric. So while they might discourage a person from abandoning a more appropriate, complete and effective path for another of less intelligence, they would never attempt to force a person to follow some particular doctrine. This is founded on a kind of respect for a person’s personal space, the idea that whatever path a person chooses to follow (within the limits of what is positive and spiritually evolutive) may be what is best for them, the right thing for their own individual process. Cults, on the other hand, could never accept that a person who leaves could be doing anything right, they are declared anathema, apostate etc.
The cult member comes to interpret everything in accordance with the doctrine which they have internalized. In general this means an exaggerated view of the world’s evil, partly through gradually losing the ability to sympathize with their fellow humans. After all, the only thing which can help people is the doctrine in which the cult member believes, so they put great efforts into trying to convert others, and are then puzzled when such conversion doesn’t work as they believe it should. This in turn makes them believe that the world is even more evil than they had previously thought because it doesn’t accept “the truth”. It may be that there is a great deal of bad in the world, but facing up to this is quite different from simply projecting that everyone is “evil” just for thinking differently – the reality is more complex and nuanced than the false mental picture created by projection.
Alternation between comfort and fear is the defining feature of a cult member’s psychological life. It is the fundamental dualism on which the whole “castle in the sky” is constructed. Convinced that all is well just so long as they remain in the bosom of their group and obey whoever is leading it, the person feels great happiness in “knowing” that all is well and they are “saved”. On the other hand it is constantly necessary to maintain the sense of being “good” and “pure”, to drive out all thoughts which question the dogmatic construction, ignoring the cracks which might make the whole edifice fall. Indeed, the whole situation is somewhat akin to an addict chasing after a “fix”, except that the “fix” is the feeling of being pure, good and holy, or “sanctified” by the “infallible leader”. Fear prevents the possibility of leaving behind the psychological and cognitive addiction to the doctrine, exactly as the unpleasantness of withdrawal symptoms keeps people addicted to psychoactive drugs.
A final thing worth noting is that researchers have discovered that people who become involved with “cults” and undergo indoctrination have a strong tendency for their MBTI/Jungian personality type to become ESFJ, known as “the Caregiver” (in half of cases in one particular study, but with all cases tending towards becoming Extroverted rather than Introverted and Judging rather than Perceiving). Without going into any detail about this personality type, it is the opposite of the INTP type, “the Logician”. We could say that accepting the philosophical constructions of another as the final and unquestionable truth would naturally have a negative effect on the individual’s powers of reasoning and logic. The person would not only have a tendency to see logical errors in others and none in their “infallible” leader, but would even lose the ability to properly self-critique, in that they would carry out self-criticism only through the narrow lens of their doctrine.
In conclusion, it may be worth mentioning some of the wisdom of Buddhism. Though undeniably Buddhism can take forms which are cultish and destructive, such as in the case of the “NKT”, in general we can say that it is the religion which most encourages logical analysis. It is in fact discouraged in Buddhism to simply take doctrines on faith, to accept ideas without understanding or seeing the reason behind them. Some practises of Buddhist meditation also suggest avoiding getting caught up in longing for salvation and Fear of suffering. After all, these two powerful emotions get in the way of spontaneity and stop us from thinking clearly for ourselves. Rather than being led by them, we should simply practise virtue and kindness as much as we can, struggling to do better without falling into self hate. Being worried by threats of hellfire disturbs our minds and doesn’t help us to develop insight and compassion, two things which are truly spiritually necessary. Indeed if we are practising something primarily out of fear, our practise is not going to be particularly fruitful.
How exactly can we define a “cult”? First of all, there is the aforementioned psychological control and indoctrination. This though is a very broad notion, it is necessary to be more specific. We could say that in order to regard a group as a cult there must be some kind of strong psychological pressure placed upon the person who encounters them, effectively attempting to force them to believe. A cult could be considered a kind of psychological trap, something that once you fall into it, it is very difficult to get out of. There is something in the group’s way of thinking which makes any person who gets involved find it very hard to leave.
Now, we must be honest enough not to think that such pressure and traps are unique to “New Religious Movements”. There are plenty of people going around saying “believe in Christ or you will burn for eternity”, things of that nature. This is clearly a kind of psychological pressure, not too different from that of any cult. One could argue however that such a doctrine is at least founded in some kind of tradition, it is not something which someone just invented out of their mind. Such an argument may or may not hold water – in any case we can certainly say that some of the more extreme groups of various “traditional” religions are not vastly different from “New Religious Movements”, and could quite easily qualify as “cults”. They certainly have the same idea that they possess an absolute monopoly on the one absolute truth as “cults” do. However they generally lack one key characteristic of many or most “cults”, a charismatic and supposedly infallible leader.
So rather than defining such a group as a cult, another group not a cult, we can simply discuss the psychology of persons who have developed the trapped, stifled and inflexible way of thinking characteristic of the “brainwashed”. This particular psychology is composed of two interdependent characteristics: Comfort and Fear. The former comes from being in the group of “chosen people”, one of the few who will be “saved”. The latter is in relation to everything outside of the group, which is “evil”, “polluted”, “corrupt” by definition, generally simply because those “outside” hold different beliefs, whether or not they live virtuously.
For the cult member, everything becomes dualistic. Everything comes either from “God” or from “the Devil”. There are no grey areas and certainly no colours, everything is clearly defined as “white” or “black”. The leader is the conduit of “God”, hence his every word must be clung to like a drowning man clutching at a life raft. Of course any thought which is in disagreement with the ideas of the infallible leader is “evil” and must be suppressed, driven out. There is no possibility of any positive path of evolution outside of the group, so even undergoing an internal process of questioning its dogmas is something which must be avoided, a way in which “the Devil” might come back and again “possess” the person.
Spiritually mature people are able to understand that different doctrines and practises can all be appropriate for particular persons at particular times, whether they be exoteric popular forms or more subtle and esoteric. So while they might discourage a person from abandoning a more appropriate, complete and effective path for another of less intelligence, they would never attempt to force a person to follow some particular doctrine. This is founded on a kind of respect for a person’s personal space, the idea that whatever path a person chooses to follow (within the limits of what is positive and spiritually evolutive) may be what is best for them, the right thing for their own individual process. Cults, on the other hand, could never accept that a person who leaves could be doing anything right, they are declared anathema, apostate etc.
The cult member comes to interpret everything in accordance with the doctrine which they have internalized. In general this means an exaggerated view of the world’s evil, partly through gradually losing the ability to sympathize with their fellow humans. After all, the only thing which can help people is the doctrine in which the cult member believes, so they put great efforts into trying to convert others, and are then puzzled when such conversion doesn’t work as they believe it should. This in turn makes them believe that the world is even more evil than they had previously thought because it doesn’t accept “the truth”. It may be that there is a great deal of bad in the world, but facing up to this is quite different from simply projecting that everyone is “evil” just for thinking differently – the reality is more complex and nuanced than the false mental picture created by projection.
Alternation between comfort and fear is the defining feature of a cult member’s psychological life. It is the fundamental dualism on which the whole “castle in the sky” is constructed. Convinced that all is well just so long as they remain in the bosom of their group and obey whoever is leading it, the person feels great happiness in “knowing” that all is well and they are “saved”. On the other hand it is constantly necessary to maintain the sense of being “good” and “pure”, to drive out all thoughts which question the dogmatic construction, ignoring the cracks which might make the whole edifice fall. Indeed, the whole situation is somewhat akin to an addict chasing after a “fix”, except that the “fix” is the feeling of being pure, good and holy, or “sanctified” by the “infallible leader”. Fear prevents the possibility of leaving behind the psychological and cognitive addiction to the doctrine, exactly as the unpleasantness of withdrawal symptoms keeps people addicted to psychoactive drugs.
A final thing worth noting is that researchers have discovered that people who become involved with “cults” and undergo indoctrination have a strong tendency for their MBTI/Jungian personality type to become ESFJ, known as “the Caregiver” (in half of cases in one particular study, but with all cases tending towards becoming Extroverted rather than Introverted and Judging rather than Perceiving). Without going into any detail about this personality type, it is the opposite of the INTP type, “the Logician”. We could say that accepting the philosophical constructions of another as the final and unquestionable truth would naturally have a negative effect on the individual’s powers of reasoning and logic. The person would not only have a tendency to see logical errors in others and none in their “infallible” leader, but would even lose the ability to properly self-critique, in that they would carry out self-criticism only through the narrow lens of their doctrine.
In conclusion, it may be worth mentioning some of the wisdom of Buddhism. Though undeniably Buddhism can take forms which are cultish and destructive, such as in the case of the “NKT”, in general we can say that it is the religion which most encourages logical analysis. It is in fact discouraged in Buddhism to simply take doctrines on faith, to accept ideas without understanding or seeing the reason behind them. Some practises of Buddhist meditation also suggest avoiding getting caught up in longing for salvation and Fear of suffering. After all, these two powerful emotions get in the way of spontaneity and stop us from thinking clearly for ourselves. Rather than being led by them, we should simply practise virtue and kindness as much as we can, struggling to do better without falling into self hate. Being worried by threats of hellfire disturbs our minds and doesn’t help us to develop insight and compassion, two things which are truly spiritually necessary. Indeed if we are practising something primarily out of fear, our practise is not going to be particularly fruitful.
Last edited:
