Looking at cult behaviour

Exploring the CULT in culture
continued...

demand absolute loyalty from their teams. Many victims of medical accidents have claimed that the tendency of doctors to stick together makes it impossible to pursue a justified grievance. Similarly, it takes great courage for a member of hospital staff to become a whistle-blower, knowing of the ostracism that may well ensue from the entrenched management. Whistle-blowers in all fields, despite benefiting the common good, tend to lose their jobs.

Denigration

The cult devalues outsiders including those from other cults and anyone who criticises them — including members' families. Again, this has its roots in prehistoric times when a natural caution towards approaching strangers was appropriate; they could be intent on your destruction or be diseased or plain old thieves.

But the cult message massively distorts that survival template to, essentially, “we're safe and everyone else is damned!” So, the logic goes, if you are in the cult, you must be superior to outsiders. Is not your 'superiority' the basic reason for your being in the cult in the first place?

This view can harden even further to, “Outsiders are evil, we are right!” Everything is seen in black and white. No successful cult ever proclaimed, “Maybe we're wrong!”

Once outsiders are declared to be evil, it is a simple step to legitimise rationally whatever needs to be done to destroy or 'save' them. Even torture and killing can become a sanctified activity. This pattern can be seen throughout history — just consider, for instance, the appalling intolerance and cruelty of many conquering people towards those they overran in the past.

And today, stemming from most cultures, including Muslim, Jewish, Christian and atheistic ones, we can see the effects of fundamentalism. Even our own government, steeped in the cult of patriotism, sanctify cruel and inhuman behaviour towards anyone they regard as possible threats — and feel right in doing so. (The cruel way we treat people seeking sanctuary on our shores for example.) Righteousness always makes perpetrators feel good whilst doing shameful acts to others.

Another important cult characteristic is projection, where we see in others a trait we don't want to see in ourselves and then attack them for it. This too is common in ordinary life. A bigot, for example, might say; “I wouldn't listen to him. He's from down south, and all southerners are prejudiced!”

The above does not mean, of course, that one should not point out human folly, corruption or crazy, harmful ideas. It is often helpful to do so.

Are cults harmful?

To remain within the strict mental and social confines of a cult for even a short time can have the following effects:

• Loss of choice and free will
• Diminished intellectual ability, vocabulary
and sense of humour
• Reduced use of irony, abstractions and metaphors
• Reduced capacity to form flexible and intimate
relationships
• Poor judgement
• Members may become poorer as the cult siphons
off their wealth
• Physical deterioration
• Malnutrition
• Hallucinations, panic, dissociation, guilt, identity
diffusion and paranoia
• Neurotic, psychotic or suicidal tendencies

Inoculation against cult behaviour

The best way to protect oneself from the more destructive aspects of the human tendency towards cultishness is to be informed about how these groups arise and be aware of why.

We should observe them from a detached standpoint; question our own assumptions instead of simply accepting them; ensure we have adequate support systems in our lives so that our innate emotional needs are being met, including getting adequate sources of attention (so that we are not swept off our feet by the lure of being given attention and being included and taken care of by a strange group).

As with all areas of study it is helpful to develop a willingness to accept the greys and uncertainties of life, instead of looking for black and white answers to difficult questions.

Cult behaviour always employs emotional arousal to prevent objective thinking and put people into trance states where they are more open to suggestion. So learn about what emotional arousal does.

Become aware of the mind control techniques used in cults and see how many of these are only one step away from normal behaviour. Some cults only employ one or two of these techniques — but that can be enough.

Cults can be so big they are rarely recognised as such. I recently heard someone, on hearing a Tony Blair policy being criticised, forcefully say, “I won't hear anything said against him. He's my leader right or wrong!”

Mind Control techniques include:

Peer group pressure: Suppressing doubt and resistance to new ideas by exploiting the need to belong

Love bombing: Exploiting the innate need for intimacy by creating a sense of family and belonging through hugging, kissing, touching and flattery

Hypnosis: Inducing a state of high suggestibility by using trance-inducing techniques such as relaxation, musical chanting, emotionally arousing music, rhythmic movements or techniques thinly disguised as meditation

Rejection of old values: Accelerating acceptance of new life style by constantly denouncing former values and beliefs

Confusion: Encouraging blind acceptance and rejection of logic through interminable complex lectures on incomprehensible doctrines

Metacommunication: Implanting subliminal messages by stressing certain key words or phrases in long harangues often called lectures.

Removal of privacy: Achieving a loss of the ability to evaluate experience logically by preventing private contemplation

Time sense deprivation: Destroying the ability to evaluate information, personal reactions, and body functions in relation to passage of time by removing all clocks and watches

Disinhibition: Encouraging child-like obedience by orchestrating child-like behaviour such as circle dancing, chanting

Uncompromising rules: Inducing regression and disorientation by soliciting agreement to seemingly simple rules which regulate mealtimes, bathroom breaks and use of medications

Verbal abuse: Desensitizing through bombardment with critical, foul and abusive language

Sleep deprivation and fatigue: Creating disorientation and vulnerability by prolonging mental and physical activity and withholding adequate rest and sleep — typical brainwashing process

Dress codes: Removing individuality by demanding conformity to the group dress code — sometimes by removing all clothes in ritual circumstances

Chanting and singing: Eliminating non-cult ideas through group repetition of mind-narrowing chants or phrases

Confession: Encouraging the destruction of individual ego through confession of personal weaknesses and innermost feelings of doubt

Financial commitment: Achieving increased dependence on the group by 'burning bridges' to the past, through the donation of assets

Finger pointing: Creating a false sense of righteousness by pointing to the shortcomings of the outside world and other cults

Flaunting hierarchy: Promoting acceptance of cult authority by promising advancement, power and salvation

Isolation: Inducing loss of reality by physical separation from family, friends, society and rational references

Controlled approval: Maintaining vulnerability and confusion by alternately rewarding and punishing similar actions

Change of diet: Creating disorientation and increased susceptibility to emotional arousal by depriving the nervous system of necessary nutrients through the use of special diets and/or fasting

Games: Inducing dependence on the group by introducing games with obscure rules

No questions: Accomplishing automatic acceptance of beliefs by discouraging questions

Guilt: Reinforcing the need for 'salvation' by exaggerating the sins of the former lifestyles

Fear: Maintaining loyalty and obedience to the group by threatening soul, life or limb for the slightest 'negative' thought, word or deed

Replacement of relationships: Destroying pre-cult families by arranging cult marriages and 'families'

The parallel in the corporate workplace

Deikman has shown how the patterns that characterise cults are found in all kinds of human activities, including the military, politics, religious, sport, psychotherapy, academia, entertainment, education and training. Below is just one of his examples: corporate business and administrative organisations.

In any such organisation, the chief executive usually becomes the chief authoritarian. They tend to manipulate the truth about situations and abuse their power. Negative reinforcement is often used, and threat of punishment is linked with power. Most companies automatically develop an authoritarian structure. The lives of employees are often regulated to some extent by the firm. There is 'sibling rivalry' in competition for advancement and the need for approval by 'parents' — one's managerial superiors. Everyone hopes for promotion. Managers tend to feel that they personally should have more power and their subordinates should have less.

The similarity between cult induction and joining a company is striking. The new employee may have to become totally immersed, leading to overwork, exhaustion and having only enough time to mix with other workers, thus reinforcing the company ethos.

Company personnel exhibit 'in-group' identification. Certain uniforms of dress and behaviour become company trademarks. Subordinates curry favours and copy superiors, often in silly ways such as wearing the same shoes or sporting the same style of coloured tie. Dress cues become important statements that give away individuals' ambitions and signal who they would like to be. This is really sympathetic magic: “If I wear what the boss wears, I'll become like the boss”.

Subordinates may also fear the consequences of dissent. They won't speak out if they disagree with the group or its leaders, fearing the consequences of becoming outcasts. Dissent from the company ethos is not encouraged in companies unless it is ritualised 'token' dissent.

Family needs are often sacrificed for the needs of the company. Commonly, a family is expected to move with the job. This may cause family disintegration, loneliness and insecurity for children, etc. Also, when a family announces they are going to move on, people they know often 'drop' them. The family suddenly becomes invisible to neighbours. No one wants to invest any more time with them. It's as if they have already gone. This is very painful for wives and children who don't understand what's happening and who tend to blame themselves for 'being unpopular'.

Despite the pain that moving causes, the company must come first. Loyalty to the larger group is seen as more important than loyalty to the family. The employees most likely to get themselves into this fix are those still looking for a 'parent', and their need to be part of a greater family is more powerful than duty to the real families that they are now responsible for themselves.

Another common conflict occurs when the working partner must take work home from the office, resulting in neglect of the family. Failure to do this extra work may indicate to superiors that advancement isn't wanted. Catch 22!

Colleagues at work may become an 'in' group (cult) and the main source of friends for the employee, leaving the partner at home lonely and resentful. Yet to back out of this business 'in' group would nullify all the previous sacrifices made by the employee and family.

Companies are generally parental and protective in nature. Some companies even arrange a necessary house move, or look after medical and educational arrangements. This is very comforting for most of us and does not encourage us to leave — and step out into the cold.

Company values override individual values, in that a person can have a separate thought and behaviour structure for home and work. The 'violent soldier' goes home and becomes the 'kindly father'.

If employees come to believe that the company is greater than themselves and their families, this can have a tragic outcome for the family.

The original article first appeared in Volume 1, No, 2 (1993) of the The Therapist journal, now entitled: the Human Givens journal.

IVAN TYRRELL is a psychotherapist, writer and lecturer who, with JOE GRIFFIN, developed the human givens approach

Arthur Deikmanhas studied cults extensively and published his findings in The Wrong Way Home: uncovering the patterns of cult behaviour (Beacon Press) and an updated version of that book called Them and Us: Cult thinking and the terrorist threat (Bay Tree Publishing).