Captured Minds
By R. Z. Halleson
Prejudice limits people. I first became acquainted with Gordon Allport's thinking in the early 80s when I picked up his book The Nature of Prejudice first published in 1954 and which has become such a classic on the subject that it has been reprinted in its original edition. Allport mentions the "pecking order." This term, used to shortcut the idea of a person looking down on someone who looks down on someone else who in turn looks down on someone else is used fairly often with the presumption that we all know what it means. Thinking back into my own childhood on a small dairy farm, I could guess its origin.
Every few years, my father would order several dozen fertilized chicken eggs. They were placed under warming lights in a small Quonset hut until they hatched. It was exciting and fun to go into the hut and pick up the peeping baby chicks until my father finally forbade it. As the babies grew, we could spot those who were not developing, who had raw sores where other babies had pecked off their feathers and had chased them away from the choice places to access the chicken feed. When one chick found itself to be such a victim, it wouldn't matter much who it was near, because any healthier chick would turn on the hapless baby, leap upon its back and peck its neck and head which added to the spreading sore.
Why this particular baby chick? Who knows? Maybe it had been hatched a bit smaller than the others. Maybe, early on, it hadn't held its own in a mini-chicken quarrel. Somehow the victimization had begun and the crowd turned on it. The only safety was when my father spotted such a victim and separated it from the flock to be raised in a separate pen until it healed. This must surely be the origin of the term "pecking order."
Using this as an allegory for human prejudice, one needs to ask what it is that allows individuals to subject themselves to a group mentality and to willing give up their own ability to think for themselves.
It was while living in a South American city that I became involved with a cult. The pastor of our English-speaking, church had resigned and we were searching for an interim minister until a permanent one could be called. Someone suggested "Bill" as an interim and it seemed an easy temporary answer. Little did we know.
Instead of working quietly to help this international congregation deal with any leftover problems from the last pastor and to help members prepare for a new spiritual leader, Bill and his wife began almost immediately to change the structure, culture, and even the theology of this congregation. Long-standing groups within the church were abolished and new ones formed. Sermons were captivatingly philosophical and enigmatic. The ongoing message "God accepts you just as you are" was appealing. We listened.
Before long, cadres of instructors arrived from Bill's organization to hold what they called pedagogical sessions usually over long weekends beginning Friday evening and ending Sunday evening. At first these teach-ins were pleasant and fun. They became more intense as time went on, more insistent that we think of ourselves as people who would go out and proclaim to others what we were learning here, which I might add, wasn't so outrageous that we couldn't continue to be stimulated by the thinking. Yet, I began to realize that they were stealing our Christian faith and putting nothing in its place but an intellectual reliance on a world philosophy devoid of spirituality. What were these people up to? I began silently to ask this question, but I was curious to see where this was going.
Sometimes these teach-ins were held in beautiful mountain retreats, sometimes in sparse monastic settings where we slept in rustic dormitories having gone to bed around 1 or 2 p.m. and awakened at 5 a.m. by someone ringing a bell, and chanting while walking up and down the hallway outside our rooms.
The cult leaders used words and odd phrases again and again in contrived accents that simulated someone from Georgia perhaps, or Alabama, even though the speaker was from Minnesota or Illinois or Pennsylvania. When we moved back to the States a couple of years later, we continued to be involved with the "organization." One Sunday afternoon driving back from a weekend retreat, I turned to my grade-school-aged children sitting in the backseat and asked if they'd had fun. "No," my son answered, and his sister agreed. They didn't want to go back there anymore. They had played the usual games and sung songs and done some crafts, but when it was time to lay down on their mats and sleep through the night, a smaller child had begun to cry for her mother. The caretaker had hit her and threatened her with never seeing her mother ever again if she didn't stop crying. My children had huddled under their blanket and stayed quiet so they wouldn't be noticed.
I felt sick that I had placed my children in this situation, and I told them that we would never go back, and we didn't, but it didn't end there. A couple of years later I got a call from a woman I had known in South America who had joined this group's "Order." She had just now left it and wanted to come stay with me while she retrieved her meager belongings from the Order's American headquarters which was just a few miles from where I lived. No one paid much attention to us as we wandered about the building. I wasn't acquainted with anyone there anymore and Michelle recognized only a couple of people. She showed me the cubicle where she had arranged group marriage ceremonies. She told me that some couples who joined the Order were asked to divorce their current spouses to form marriages with others more suitable for overseas assignments. Children were sometimes taken away from parents and sent to live in group homes in another state.
Michelle showed me the dorm room in which she had slept, filled with row upon row of bunk beds with no privacy for anyone. Property was considered communal. If someone needed a pair of winter boots, they simply took any that fit them regardless that it would leave the boots' owners with no protection against deep snow. Their "ends justifying the means" methodology didn't end there. Thievery from neighbors or stores or anyone with goods needed by the Order was fair game. The mission to bring about a new World Order was paramount and had no regard for ethics or morals or personal values or integrity. This group still exists today, and I am told that it has undergone radical restructuring including changing its name, but for what ends I do not know.
This exposure to cult thinking made a profound difference in my life. I decided not to throw away all that I had learned from them as they scattered my traditional Christian upbringing to the winds, but to try to incorporate this new non-Christian openness into a different way of looking at my life and what my own existence meant in the context of the greater world of people who had come to God through other traditions (or individually without traditions), and perhaps my eventually making the journey back into a Christianity whose theology might actually be accepting of all God's people and of God's creation just as it is.
One day, about a year after moving back to the States, I received a visit from the son of a close friend who had recently passed away in South America. At first Ned seemed to be just like the pleasant young man who had once babysat for my children. After I had caught up on news of his father and sister, he began to tell me about the love of Jesus for my sinful heart, the coming of the end, and the need for immediate repentance. I tried to discuss his ideas with him, but he wasn't hearing anything I said. He continually repeated the same ideas with the same phrases again and again. I didn't want to be impolite as he was the son of my friend and probably still grieving for the loss of his mom, so I offered him a snack and something to drink, but he declined. As the first hour turned into the second, he was still telling me about Jesus and the judgement day to come. I tried to hint that I had housework to do. I went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water, but he stayed in the chair in the living room and continued to talk to me through the wall, or to talk at me as was more the case. I tried to change the subject to his family and mutual acquaintances, but he was only interested in saving my soul. Finally my children came home from school, and he left. I was saved at last. We parted warmly, but I never heard from him again. I guess he thought I was a lost soul.
Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman in their 1970s book Snapping, America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change describe a phenomenon where a person's mind stops functioning and becomes amenable to repeated suggestions given by an authority figure. The techniques of using fear, guilt, anger, poor diet, and lack of sleep are standard methods to break a person down. Certain phrases and ideas are repeated to them again and again, and the person's mind hears and absorbs these until the words become rote. By showing empathy, cult leaders gain their trust, and before they know it, they don't want to leave. They slide into a state of mind where it is easier to accept everything they are told than to question it, and the mind stops working on its own. At first, there is a feeling of numbness, then as if they are dizzy, sinking, or drowning. Then they cross over and are converted into the overwhelming emotional release that comes with snapping. The mind goes into a state of detachment and doesn't connect anymore. At first there is a feeling of bliss, but this wears down and they are left profoundly empty. Their personality changes and they even look different. There is something eerie about their eyes and the lack of expression there. This is something that can happen to anyone. . .anyone. With Ned, it was a kind of intense unwavering stare with a small smile that never changed. He seemed so sure that what he was saying was right, no sense of doubt, no room for negotiation, and no room for an open conversation even with me who had been friends with him and his family for several years. Someone had found this grieving young man who had been so very close to the mother he had just lost, and had set about stealing his mind turning him into the robotic empty shell of the boy I had once known.
Cults and fundamentalist groups are not the same. Fundamentalism is a term used somewhat loosely today, but strictly speaking, it is an extraordinary pattern of religious belief and behavior that came into being around the beginning of the 20th century and arose in every known religion throughout the world in a very short time. It is not limited to Christians, Jews, and Muslims, but also appears among the Hindus and even the Buddhists. Fundamentalists are made up of religious conservatives who choose to separate from their traditional communities in an effort to preserve and protect the "true" religion from the secularization and immoral behavior that they see encroaching on the religious traditions that they hold to be the only path to God. Gabriel Almond, R. Schoot Appleby, and Emmanuel Sivan, authors of the study Strong Religion, The Rise of Fundamentalisms Around the World, published in 2003, have found that regardless of where fundamentalism arises in the world (Europe, America, Asia, the Middle East) or in which religious groups, the core characteristics are similar. It is a positioning against the relatively mainstream religion from which they sprang. It is an opposition to what they consider lukewarm believers. They may also oppose the secular state and civil society, but their main focus is first against drifters from their own religion.
Almost always a charismatic man (rarely a woman) emerges as the visionary leader who demands complete loyalty. A dualistic world view is developed where all beliefs are rigidly acceptable or not acceptable. Levels of sin are identified and often codified into "laws." The scriptures, whether the Bible or the Qur'an or something else are seen as divinely given and without error, yet the actual use of these scriptures is often interpreted to serve the purpose of holding the members of this enclave in check. There are strict rules and boundaries of behavior that may not be broken without punishment of some sort. Women are almost always in subservient roles and children may be viewed as property.
The world is considered temporary. Fundamentalists believe that the end is near, and when it comes, everything will change to their benefit. Their own suffering will end in glory and all those not a part of their specific movement will be punished.
There is a great deal of fear in these groups. Fundamentalists themselves know how fragile their group is because their leaders have taught them to distrust all outsiders. Conspiracies upon conspiracies lurk just outside the gates waiting to do them in. The leaders, too, are afraid. Their power always hangs on their ability to keep their followers in the fold, and to this end they employ techniques such as choosing a populist issue and using it to stoke up even more fear. Adolf Hitler used persecution of the German Jews as a strategy to pretend they were an enemy so that he could use it to enhance and solidify his power. American Christian Fundamentalists have used the abortion issue to stoke up emotion, and currently their leaders are focusing on the rights of Gays, Lesbians, Trans-and Bi-sexuals (GLTBs) because they believe this is the hot-button issue of our time and will help to keep themselves in power. There is no logic to who is chosen as the target except for the emotional upheaval in their followers that it may engender. Hitler gave no regard to the fact that Jews were a peaceful, integral, and contributing part of German society. People discriminating against GLTBs give no recognition to the fact that GLTBs are children of the same God that created us all and have existed in every age, in every nation, and in every race and ethnic group since the beginning of human existence. We need only to open our eyes to see that gender is more than just man vs woman. There appears to be degrees of gender, and where one appears on this continuum is more a matter of how we were created than of any choices we were given. The choices come later, and many factors impact where we go with what we are given.
Almond, Appleby, and Sivan, in Strong Religion, outline four levels within fundamentalist enclaves and give many examples of these in the various world religions. The most benign type of enclave is the one that simply separates itself from the world as much as it can. Members live in clusters or at least in close proximity to each other and try to build an existence where they depend only upon each other. A Pentacostal group that I met in El Salvador in 1989 was one such group. Where Baptists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and others were putting their lives on the line every day trying to protect innocent civilians and to bring peace to that small nation embroiled in a civil war and suffering brutal persecution from the government as a result, the Pentacostal group had pulled in upon itself, served only itself, and told us that their reward was in heaven and that nothing that happened on earth had any meaning. The government found them to be no threat and left them alone in their little fundamentalist enclave while their fellow citizens in El Salvador were being tortured, imprisoned, and killed every day.
A more typical enclave is one that seeks to proselytize sinners, convert them, and make the enclave grow. The mainstream religion from which it springs is seen as the most fertile ground for new converts although they will also go after persons from outside their enclave if there is the opportunity to do so. These people may upgrade their activities to the next level which seeks to transform the larger society by seeking a reinterpretation of the laws, the customs, and even the culture of the region or the nation in which it resides. To do this requires a stronger leadership structure than the charismatic inspirer that began the movement, and now the fundamentalist organization grows into an entirely different kind of group altogether, more sophisticated in its methods, using secular world techniques of public relations, media, and high technology to promote its agenda.
Finally, we have seen in our time, the incredibly violent turn that fundamentalist groups can take where nothing is allowed to stand in the way of their world view. They will kidnap, torture, kill, and do whatever they deem necessary to prepare the way for the kind of future that they are certain is to come. Whatever compassion or conscience they once had is gone, sacrificed to the cause to which they have given their intellect, their emotions, and above all, their will. Mob mentality reigns with or without an active central leadership still being heard and obeyed. It becomes out of control. Read the news.
This doesn't happen in a healthy society where most people make a living wage, have hope for future advancement for themselves and their children, have access to good education, where neighbors of all kinds live together peacefully and help one another, where everyone has decent health care, where the air and water is clean, and there are plenty of recreational activities to keep people busy, interested, and happy, where everyone has a say in determining government policies. Once, some of us believed that the United States was such a society.
Howard Zinn in his amazing book The People's History of the United States records numerous instances where repressing Blacks and Indians and immigrant groups was used for the sole purpose that politicians and property owners could retain their social positions of power. Our nation's very important system of checks and balances to power may have begun under questionable historical circumstances, but it has stood us well over time and must be preserved so that this nation, the only super-power in the world right now, can continue to work for fairness and equality for all people everywhere.
Once a semblance of power is achieved, it is not relinquished willingly. People in power, those who think they are at the top, will do anything to stay there, but we must remember that people who hold power over other people always have to look over their shoulder to see who is gaining on them, because someone always is. They are afraid, and so they build relationships and systems and means of protecting themselves and their power in any way they can.
Consider this:
"He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God."
"So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets."
In my opinion, we the people in this great nation are at a point where we need to begin a movement to think of fairness and equality for all people everywhere, regardless of how they look or what they believe or how they have been behaving. We are called to do this. That is what true compassionate leadership means. America isn't being given a free ride here. We must pay our way by showing kindness together with equal justice for everyone. And of course, we must listen to, and walk humbly with God or Allah or the Creator or whatever greater power we feel has given us our reason for being and which speaks to us through our inner selves.
The time has come.