International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 1, No. 1, 2010 3
new-age groups, and pyramid selling schemes.
A key aim is to answer the question “How do we
stop suicide bombers or terrorists from
developing within the roots of these types of
group dynamics?” as opposed to just cutting off
the abominable heads of the extremist once it
has flowered and already done its horrific
damage.
But first let’s take a step back and examine how
influence transcends definitions of groups or
types of groups, and is all around us. For this is
how we can, I believe, come to better understand
how “undue influence” in groups that we might
call sects, or cults, or simply extremist, is
distinct psychologically, both in manner and
form.
Influence
Without influence, it can be said that we
wouldn’t exist as we appear to exist. From the
earliest moment of our existence, we are
influenced—through school, university,
relationships, and of course by the media. This
nexus of relationships defines us—from an
interpolation that we are a person with a name,
through the notion, to quote R. D. Laing, that we
are “skin-encapsulated egos.” Much of this
influence is benign and beneficial—it’s why we
are all here, in fact. Some of the influence I have
mentioned is perhaps less clear cut, as are other
forms of propaganda, including advertising.
Then we have the examples that are perhaps
even more questionable: the groups that are
commonly labelled as cults, such as that of Sai
Baba, the self-proclaimed prophet whose child
abuse is well documented, as is his
organisation’s intrusion into the UK school
system. And there is Tom Cruise, who is in a
group that some believe is a cult—namely, the
Church of Scientology, an organisation that
regularly falls back on law when it is negatively
labelled. So let me say this clearly: Scientology
is not a dangerous cult that causes harm to some
of its members and that breaks up families!
I would like to focus on a chart from a
wonderful book that sadly is out of print, written
by one of the past century’s leading
psychologists on cults, the late Margaret Thaler
Singer, and a good colleague of mine in the
ICSA community, Janja Lalich. The book, Cults
in our Midst (1995), is a straightforward but
enlightening account of how cults operate all
around us and in a variety of different ways.
The chart sets out a Continuum of Influence and
Persuasion, which moves from more benign
forms of influence, such as education and
advertising, through propaganda and
indoctrination—those areas that are seen as
more questionable, and then finally to “thought
reform,” the process that has been shown to take
place in undue-influence settings—i.e., in cults
or sects. The process of thought reform is one I
will return to shortly it is a concept the
psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton pioneered in his
seminal work (1961), Thought Reform and the
Psychology of Totalism, about the Chinese
thought-reform movement, and later in his
analysis of the Aum Shinrikyo sect and its sarin
gas attacks on the Tokyo underground in the
1990s.
As one moves along this continuum, the power
dynamic between the influencer and the
influenced becomes noticeably more
pronounced. It is widely acknowledged that
some of the most effective education not only
conveys information from the educator to the
students, but also seeks to actively empower the
students to learn for themselves, to challenge
and create new knowledge as part of the process.
Advertising, in contrast, whose main aim is to
convince us to buy something or participate in
something, is less open and honest here, the
power relation becomes a little more
pronounced, as does the level of deception.
Proceeding along the continuum, propaganda,
whether from government or media, is more
pronounced in wanting to exaggerate its
argument and deceive the recipients of the
message. Whether it is “change we can believe
in” or “our broken society,” politicians seek to
sway and influence on a large scale—the detail
of truth is for individuals to pick out. But most
of the time propaganda can take people along in
the swell of the message, at least for a while.
Indoctrination essentially takes propaganda a
stage further, in ensuring that such belief
systems become fully inculcated within the
organisation or society, with members and other
individuals as active agents who work
new-age groups, and pyramid selling schemes.
A key aim is to answer the question “How do we
stop suicide bombers or terrorists from
developing within the roots of these types of
group dynamics?” as opposed to just cutting off
the abominable heads of the extremist once it
has flowered and already done its horrific
damage.
But first let’s take a step back and examine how
influence transcends definitions of groups or
types of groups, and is all around us. For this is
how we can, I believe, come to better understand
how “undue influence” in groups that we might
call sects, or cults, or simply extremist, is
distinct psychologically, both in manner and
form.
Influence
Without influence, it can be said that we
wouldn’t exist as we appear to exist. From the
earliest moment of our existence, we are
influenced—through school, university,
relationships, and of course by the media. This
nexus of relationships defines us—from an
interpolation that we are a person with a name,
through the notion, to quote R. D. Laing, that we
are “skin-encapsulated egos.” Much of this
influence is benign and beneficial—it’s why we
are all here, in fact. Some of the influence I have
mentioned is perhaps less clear cut, as are other
forms of propaganda, including advertising.
Then we have the examples that are perhaps
even more questionable: the groups that are
commonly labelled as cults, such as that of Sai
Baba, the self-proclaimed prophet whose child
abuse is well documented, as is his
organisation’s intrusion into the UK school
system. And there is Tom Cruise, who is in a
group that some believe is a cult—namely, the
Church of Scientology, an organisation that
regularly falls back on law when it is negatively
labelled. So let me say this clearly: Scientology
is not a dangerous cult that causes harm to some
of its members and that breaks up families!
I would like to focus on a chart from a
wonderful book that sadly is out of print, written
by one of the past century’s leading
psychologists on cults, the late Margaret Thaler
Singer, and a good colleague of mine in the
ICSA community, Janja Lalich. The book, Cults
in our Midst (1995), is a straightforward but
enlightening account of how cults operate all
around us and in a variety of different ways.
The chart sets out a Continuum of Influence and
Persuasion, which moves from more benign
forms of influence, such as education and
advertising, through propaganda and
indoctrination—those areas that are seen as
more questionable, and then finally to “thought
reform,” the process that has been shown to take
place in undue-influence settings—i.e., in cults
or sects. The process of thought reform is one I
will return to shortly it is a concept the
psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton pioneered in his
seminal work (1961), Thought Reform and the
Psychology of Totalism, about the Chinese
thought-reform movement, and later in his
analysis of the Aum Shinrikyo sect and its sarin
gas attacks on the Tokyo underground in the
1990s.
As one moves along this continuum, the power
dynamic between the influencer and the
influenced becomes noticeably more
pronounced. It is widely acknowledged that
some of the most effective education not only
conveys information from the educator to the
students, but also seeks to actively empower the
students to learn for themselves, to challenge
and create new knowledge as part of the process.
Advertising, in contrast, whose main aim is to
convince us to buy something or participate in
something, is less open and honest here, the
power relation becomes a little more
pronounced, as does the level of deception.
Proceeding along the continuum, propaganda,
whether from government or media, is more
pronounced in wanting to exaggerate its
argument and deceive the recipients of the
message. Whether it is “change we can believe
in” or “our broken society,” politicians seek to
sway and influence on a large scale—the detail
of truth is for individuals to pick out. But most
of the time propaganda can take people along in
the swell of the message, at least for a while.
Indoctrination essentially takes propaganda a
stage further, in ensuring that such belief
systems become fully inculcated within the
organisation or society, with members and other
individuals as active agents who work
