
The Man Who Saves You from Yourself (2013) - schrijver
http://harpers.org/archive/2013/11/the-man-who-saves-you-from-yourself/?single=1
======
drzaiusapelord
This is a long article with a lot of items to discuss, but my take is that its
"easy" to "brainwash" people because a lot of what's being offered is actually
good, but, of course, used cynically and for social control.

The Hare Krishna kid didn't know it before, but he now realizes that
meditation helps with his social anxiety. Except now, he's in bed with the
Krishna's, instead of finding a personal and secular path to meditation. The
girl in the Christian cult discovered the power of community and forgiveness.
Funny how white centric these articles are. If a kid becomes a Krishna its
suddenly a bewildering thing, but if a kid joins a gang on the south side of
Chicago, we just shrug. Both these things have a lot in common; society,
family, etc not providing what they should and not projecting those values to
kids.

I think religiosity and cults rise when secular society fails at something.
We're not telling kids that meditation can help them. We've not telling them
that maintaining personal relationships is actually hard work and forgiveness
even harder. Perhaps nowadays we are. I see a lot of what religion offers
distilled into non-faith based practices. You can meditate without knowing the
first thing about the buddha. You can engage in a personal spirituality
without feeling guilted to show up for social functions (that only seem to
empower the leaders of congregations). You can explore consciousness with
drugs, lucid dreaming, or just via one's informed imagination, etc.

Empowering individuals to discover information on a personal basis is what the
information age is all about. There aren't anymore gatekeepers. I imagine this
keeps cult activity low, not to mention a lot of cult stereotypes are from the
60s and built upon mindless baby boomer excess and dramatic parent attention
baiting like 'dropping out of society.' Not only are we in the post-cult age,
we are entering the post-religion age. I don't see too many gen-x'ers and
gen-y's dying to get up early to go to church to be sermonized by the ravings
of 1st century zealots. I don't see how that's remotely in their interests.

~~~
javajosh
_> a lot of what's being offered is actually good...meditation...society_

Indeed.

 _> I don't see too many gen-x'ers and gen-y's dying to get up early to go to
church to be sermonized by the ravings of 1st century zealots. I don't see how
that's remotely in their interests._

Here you hint at a problem: when you take away religion you leave a vacuum.
What fills that vacuum? In our society, today, by default it is filled with
"the pursuit of wealth". Gordon Gecko was a fictional villain in 1987 cinema.
Jordan Belfort is a real hero in 2013 cinema. People _sense_ the emptiness of
greed, and our nascent popular skepticism prevents them from filling the
vacuum. Who can read this riddle?

Clearly, we need something to fill the vacuum that religion leaves that is
also compatible with our skepticism. What replaces it is not necessarily a
religion, but it serves the same purpose: morality and self-restraint. Secular
humanism is clearly not enough.

~~~
api
> morality and self-restraint.

... and hope.

Note the lack of hope among so many skeptics. Start talking to them about the
future and you quickly discover that not only is life meaningless and success
essentially random, but human civilization is doomed to extinction due to
ecological overshoot soon so who cares...

This lack of hope can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It causes people to
disengage and stop investing in the future.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Says who? All of the atheists I know tend to have some like of Star Trek-like
futurist beliefs. Or watered-down Tim Leary beliefs of mind expansion and
space migration.

Also, its probably not in our best interest to pretend that extinction events
don't happen. If anything, if we're seeing some paranoia, it might be healthy
paranoia. Imagine if Al Gore was a "everything happens for a reason" type
person and didn't care to invest his political life into the environment.
Instead he fought to popularize global warming and has helped moved policy
forward. Policy that will probably make a difference to our grandkids. There's
a lot of middle ground between the optimism of 72 virgins and the strawman
doom-and-gloom person you describe.

The most hopeless people I know tend to be conservative religious types for
whatever reason. "Get while the gettings good" seems to be their collective
motto. Who cares about the future when Jesus/Buddha/whoever is coming back any
day now!

~~~
JoshuaDavid
Correction -- all of the atheists you know who vocally express their beliefs
have Star-Trek-like beliefs, or other generally optimistic beliefs about the
future. The atheists who think that there's a significant chance that we'll
manage to wipe ourselves out in the next century generally aren't going to
vocalize those beliefs, unless there's something actionable that can be done
about it (though I don't think I actually know anyone who thinks that
ecological overshoot is a real threat to civilization, much less humanity).

I think you see the pessimists on both sides of the secular / religious
divide. The difference is that pessimism is generally low-status and frowned
upon in secular groups, meaning that pessimists in those groups are generally
not very vocal about their pessimism.

------
gwern
This is a very sensationalized article. It seems to be based almost entirely
on Singer's acolytes, people with severe conflicts of interest, and long-
outdated information, and doesn't reflect the current understanding of
'cults'. Some starting points. On the value of the opinion of "the doyenne of
cult scholarship", an issue that the OP seems to never mention despite
constant invocations and quotes of Singer
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Singer#Cults](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Singer#Cults)

> Her expert testimony was no longer accepted after the report of the APA
> taskforce on Deceptive and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control, of
> which she was chair, was rejected by the Board of Social and Ethical
> Responsibility for Psychology (BSERP) of the American Psychological
> Association. Thereafter, courts shifted to accepting the position held by
> the great majority of scholars studying new religious movements, moving away
> from the perspective of Singer and others sympathetic to her brainwashing
> thesis.[11] This had significant consequences later on, since it meant that
> brainwashing could no longer be used a defence for the practice of
> deprogramming.[11]

(Singer, incidentally, made a lot of money from being an expert witness
peddling her debunked theories.)

Some relevant excerpts of less credulous research:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/imu/notes_on_brainwashing_cults/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/imu/notes_on_brainwashing_cults/)

~~~
sien
Great lesswrong link.

It seems to indicate that people doing things in cults is a bit like spam,
huge dropout rate but the people you wind up with will do lots of silly
things.

The purpose of the initiation and nonsense is almost to weed out people who
are not extremely controllable.

So it's not really brainwashing as much as gullible finding.

------
xefer
I remember this article when if first came out. Of all the weirdness outlined,
one item, which wasn't even part of the main story and added as a bit of color
detail, stated:

"Sullivan first worked with Singer in the early Nineties. One case involved a
woman posing as a psychologist, who had persuaded several of her male clients
to undergo sex-reassignment surgery. (The men later alleged that they had been
brainwashed.)"

That is a level of brainwashing that I wouldn't have even believed was
possible.

~~~
davidtanner
I'd be quite skeptical that she was ever able to successfully trick anyone
into undergoing SRS. For one thing, it's fairly expensive. Secondly, no
reputable surgeon would perform the procedure without verifying that the
psychologist who wrote a letter was actually a licensed practitioner. Third,
the WPATH Standards of Care specify that SRS should only be performed on
patients who have two letters of approval from two separate practitioners.

~~~
dgabriel
I'd want some verification before taking that tidbit as fact, for sure. The
way it's written, it sounds like an urban legend.

~~~
davidtanner
Yup, an urban legend designed to exploit the taboo and stigmatized reputation
of "sex-change" surgery.

------
oftenwrong
"Get it wrong, and we call it a cult. Get it right, in the right time and the
right place, and maybe, for the next few millennia, people won't have to go to
work on your birthday."

\- Dr. Robert Sapolsky

[http://youtu.be/4WwAQqWUkpI](http://youtu.be/4WwAQqWUkpI)

~~~
pfortuny
Yeah, that is a very resounding quote but it does not take into account that
there have been few incentives to remain a Cristian and people have, despite
not being "pressed".

Unless you think millions of people can be brainwashed by priests and pastors.

And it is remarkable how "Science" was born in those countries where they do
not work on that date.

~~~
brazzy
> it does not take into account that there have been few incentives to remain
> a Cristian and people have, despite not being "pressed".

Yeah, cult followers, once brainwashed are typically very resistant. Besides
social pressure to be Christian is often _massive_ , especially the USA.

> Unless you think millions of people can be brainwashed by priests and
> pastors.

You seriously believe they can't? Hey, wanna buy a bridge?

> And it is remarkable how "Science" was born in those countries where they do
> not work on that date.

Yeah, it was born _despite_ religion, when people stopped believing everything
the priests and pastors told them and started thinking for themselves.

~~~
briantakita
> it was born despite religion

I was born out of metaphysics, which, at that time, was primarily a spiritual
and esoteric religious pursuit.

I think you mean "it was born despite exoteric religion".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoteric](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoteric)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric)

------
hkarthik
I encourage anyone interested in cults to watch the documentary film "Kumare"
which is available on Netflix and Itunes [1].

It's the story of a film maker of Indian origin who creates a cult persona and
gains followers in the Phoenix area. It's really fascinating to see what kinds
of people fall for it and how they are increasingly more drawn to him.

[1] [http://www.kumaremovie.com/](http://www.kumaremovie.com/)

~~~
turar
Wow. There was actually a nice, sweet comedy about this exact scenario, called
The Guru:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEIEb5jPhhA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEIEb5jPhhA)

~~~
solutionyogi
'The Guru' is a bad movie. Kumare on the other hand is much better and it is
based on real life experiment to boot.

------
ohwp
The 'print' button opens a very readable version:
[http://harpers.org/print/?pid=243068](http://harpers.org/print/?pid=243068)

~~~
Shivetya
there is a PDF version too.

------
jqm
Many years ago I had a friend who became involved with a Dahn yoga center. (No
offense to yoga, I do it myself).

It started off innocently enough, but soon became (in my opinion) very
obviously a cult. Not only did they make ridiculous claims and demand large
amounts of money, it became all consuming, especially for his wife. My friend
sometimes talked about "enlightened masters" and if that phrase doesn't ring
the CULT bell I don't know what will. I became a bit concerned and suggested
he stop going. He didn't listen. Soon enough, his wife was spending lots of
private time with one of the instructors or officials at the local center. My
friend was not concerned because according to him, that particular individual
had transcended the desires of flesh and was pure in intent. At least... until
his wife confessed to having sex with the guy (I'm sure this is against Dahn
policy and this particular incident doesn't indite the entire "cult".... it's
just the kind of danger cults bring). So, after a few "I told you sos" my
friend and (reluctantly) his wife agreed to quit the Dahn center. A few months
after that they joined some kind of fringe pentecostal church (what is wrong
with people?). I shook my head in disgust and stopped hanging out with him.
Later he and his wife divorced and he moved away and we lost contact.

I still see ads for Dahn from time to time portraying them as a harmless yoga
center set up in the strip mall. In fact, some people here may respond angrily
that they are NOT a cult. But based on their rhetoric they most certainly are.
They may be slightly less pernicious than some cults but they are harmful, are
after your money, and can cause you trouble. I have seen it first hand.

~~~
lilsunnybee
Vulnerable people are often still just as vulnerable even when you can
convince them to leave one harmful, controlling influence in their lives; they
will often just search out another right after.

------
pit
There's a "Download PDF" button. Holy cow, my respect for Harper's, and
perception of them as a serious publication, just skyrocketed.

Are any other online publishers doing that? It's not even that I'm going to
print it out or anything, but clearly it shows that their priority is
readership, not ad conversions.

~~~
avn2109
>> "...my respect for Harper's, and perception of them as a serious
publication, just skyrocketed."

Really? I have always thought of Harper's as first among equals in the
respectable, serious-journalism cohort. I think it's the best grown-up
publication available in America today.

~~~
pit
Oh, I didn't mean that I thought they were lousy before, but now my perception
is overwhelmingly positive.

------
Roritharr
"The FBI hired him because he claimed to be a Vietnam veteran, but Sullivan
discovered that this was a lie — during the war Nivette had been a student at
UCLA."

This baffles me and lets me question the sincerity of the article. Can this
possibly be the case?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
UCLA as an ROTC student? 'Veteran' implies in the popular mind 'served in
theatre' but couldn't it also mean 'was a soldier'?

~~~
runjake
A "veteran" is a person who served in the military. A "combat veteran" is a
person who served in combat while in the military.

In the US Army's case, a combat veteran would have a Combat Infantryman Badge.
In the Marines, it would be a Combat Action Ribbon.

------
rgbrgb
> Cult leaders and con artists are opportunists who read the times and the
> ever-changing culture and adapt their pitch to what will appeal at a given
> moment.

Multi level marketing, in particular a company called Nerium [1] is the
closest thing I've seen to a cult lately.

[1]: [http://www.nerium.com/](http://www.nerium.com/)

~~~
iwasphone
All multi level marketing companies are cultish by nature. Realities such as
market saturation simply don't exist, you're just not working hard enough /
recruiting hard enough.

I spent a lot of time in south Florida, where it seems everyone in non-
professional careers is hustling the newest MLM. The MLM recruiters are in
turn driving their recruits into workshops like Landmark Forum, which is not a
cult but is certainly cult-like. It promises the participant a "breakthough"
in personal or professional life, but nearly everyone who participates in
Landmark is there primarily to increase their MLM recruiting fu.

------
andyidsinga
this: “Forget about their philosophy,” he said. “Let’s focus instead on who is
really in power.”

~~~
silverbax88
Although not precisely related, I always say 'follow the money' to find out
why you see certain political ads, or certain magazine articles, or anything
like to figure out who is really in power. Find out who benefits from people
believing certain things and it will be like magically being able to
understand a language you don't currently speak.

~~~
brazzy
It can be used as a tool to deceive and lead you deep into conspiracy theory
delusions as well, however.

Records and studies show that vaccinations have saved millions of lives? No,
that's just Big Pharma propaganda to make you inject your children with
expensive poison! Follow the money!

Scientific evidence shows that homeopathy doesn't work? No, again it's Big
Pharma, attacking a superior competition! Follow the money!

Massive consensus among the scientific community that climate change exists,
is a serious problem, and caused by burning fossil fuels? No, those scientists
are just drumming up publicity to get grant money! Follow the money!

~~~
silverbax88
This is also true, you are correct. But when you see news stories about
something, say, 'Turns out corn syrup is good for you!' showing up on the
evening news, and on Access Hollywood, and on the Yahoo! front page, and on
ESPN, and on Jeopardy! questions all on the same day, there's something up.

I mean, this isn't some revelation I'm offering, it's just interesting as to
why ESPN and Access Hollywood, who cover completely different genres, would
both suddenly have a corn syrup story on their radar.

As for Big Pharma, I did used to wonder why prescription drugs were advertised
on television...I mean, patients don't pick and choose their brands, their
doctors do, right?

Until it hit me that often pharmaceutical companies find/discover drugs that
don't automatically have a market. But if they advertise that new 'sleep
disorder/re-order' drug, then people will think, 'Hey, maybe I need that' and
start asking their doctor.

My doctor told me that people walk in all the time and ask if they should be
taking some new drug they just heard of, and his reaction is 'why? you never
had a problem with what this drug is describing before.' There are legitimate
cases, but tv ads driving people to buy meds they might not even need is a
real thing.

~~~
zheshishei
>I mean, patients don't pick and choose their brands, their doctors do, right?

Oftentimes, there's a choice between brand-name and generics, as well as
different medications treating the same illness/disorder/symptom. In these
cases, advertising would certainly have an effect. Or, maybe the ads serve as
the push to convince people to take the step from OTC meds to prescription
meds.

------
anigbrowl
Sadly, David Sullivan, the subject of the article, died of chronic lymphoma
just around the time it was published.

[http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/12/remember...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/12/remembering-
david-sullivan-1951-2013.html)

[http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/David-Sullivan-PI-
who-...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/David-Sullivan-PI-who-
infiltrated-cults-dies-4924222.php)

------
300bps
_And even so, they resort to mass suicide only when they come under threat and
have no other way out. Marshall Applewhite of Heaven’s Gate, for instance, had
a terminal illness._

I'm unaware of Marshall Applewhite having a terminal illness when he convinced
38 of his followers to commit suicide.

He feared he might have cancer but an autopsy revealed he didn't have it, and
I'm unaware of any evidence that says that was a motivating factor in the
suicides.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Applewhite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Applewhite)

 _Medical examiners determined that his fears of cancer had been unfounded,
but that he suffered from coronary atherosclerosis._

Most people his age (65) suffer from coronary atherosclerosis and it's not
considered a "terminal illness" like pancreatic cancer would be.

[http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/atherosclerosis-and-
coron...](http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/atherosclerosis-and-coronary-
artery-disease)

 _After age 40, about 50% of men and one-third of women can expect to
eventually have coronary artery disease._

------
arjn
So here is a question :

What is the difference between a cult and an established religion ?

Is it the size of the following ?

Is it the time of origin, i.e. recent vs long ago ?

Is it the number of followers ?

Or is it some combination of the above, or something else altogether ?

~~~
jqm
Easy.

A "cult" is a disparaging term for a religion that someone other than yourself
belongs to. YOUR belief group on the other hand is obviously not a cult, but a
religion.

(Actually I guess it might be size, but in common vernacular I think the above
is actually often the case).

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Cults have another attribute: a mechanism for addicting members and keeping
them, usually through psychological means.

~~~
gobots
So, Catholicism's / baptists / etc. hell, the Jehovah's Witnesses everlasting
destruction, Mormon / Jehovah's Witness / Amish excommunication... ad nauseum.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Those are really passive techniques. Cults have active, planned techniques of
mind control. Try this: [http://www.scribd.com/doc/514598/How-Cults-
Seduce](http://www.scribd.com/doc/514598/How-Cults-Seduce)

~~~
gobots
I was a Jehovah's Witness and since leaving three years ago I have been
struggling to differentiate between cult tactics and the control tactics of
that particular religion.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
JW tactics are definitely taken from the cult playbook.

------
squozzer
Tasty. Too bad people like him don't practice deprogramming us from greater
evils than two-bit cults - for example, communism, capitalism, patriotism,
orderism.

Each of these isms also demand suspension of thought and beliefs in either
magic or the greater wisdom of authority figures.

~~~
tormeh
Look, when a Fox News journalist says he needs to be with his family at the
mall on Christmas eve to "create capitalism" I get a little worried. And sure,
there are lots of cults built on these ideologies. But the ideologies
themselves are not cults.

~~~
thesimpsons1022
believing in some magic "invisible hand of the market" to always bring the
best results sounds kind of cultish.

------
olefoo
Just a question for those of you here who've been around the block a few
times; have you ever run across a company that acted like a cult? That
espoused a messianic vision? That fostered an aura of infallibility around its
leaders?

Just kidding. Apple, Google, Oracle and other tech companies are nothing like
a cult. Not at all. In no way. It was rude of me to even suggest that might be
a shadow of a possibility.

------
Ologn
This guy should help people who listened to the charlatans and then bought
Bitcoins and Bitcoin ASICs.

------
adamconroy
I want someone to save me from the people who want to save me from myself.

------
easymovet
fyi paywall

~~~
pyre
Click the PDF link.

------
angmar5
+1 for using "to-the-tits" as a modifier of degree.

------
hnha
This ends at a climatic moment prompting you to spend 40$ to continue reading.
Fuck everything about this dishonest baiting. It's a shame because I enjoyed
reading this up to that point.

Don't waste your time with this cliffhanger.

~~~
fredley
I was invited to support the publication, or click a button to continue
reading. Clicking 'continue reading' revealed the rest of the article with no
further prompts.

~~~
wil421
Worked for me as well.

