Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2005, Page 10
use numerous techniques to infuse people with the groups‘ alternative values and ethical
codes. In essence, as people deindividuate, they look less inward and more outward for
moral and ethical cues.
With groups‘ directions, people undercut the foundations for their own value systems in
numerous ways: pseudocounseling in both individual and large-group settings manipulated
―born-again‖ experiences wherein one denounces one‘s previous life intrusive and
aggressive psychotherapy and so on. One of countless groups whose leaders were
masterful at inducing deindividuation was the Rajneeshees, who accomplished this goal
through numerous time-consuming and energy-draining pseudopsychotherapeutic
techniques and physical exercises. A British writer, Tim Guest, was a child whose mother
was a devotee of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and Guest captured with painful clarity the
consequences for children growing up in that environment:
Bhagwan invented radically new ‗dynamic‘ meditations and therapies he took
nitrous oxide and spoke from a dentist‘s chair he encouraged his disciples to
surrender totally to him and to live their lives to the extreme. For my mother,
on a rocket-ship rebellion from her strict Catholic girlhood, Bhagwan offered
everything she had long hoped for the path to enlightenment but with free
love, drugs and rock n‘ roll thrown in.
For the children—at least for me—Bhagwan‘s communes were a different
proposition. As each adult struggled to prove himself or herself the most
egoless, we competed to show who had the best break-dance moves. As they
abandoned the consumerist dream, we fought over Legos and ‗E.T.‘ toys.
Intent on building spiritual togetherness as a model for the world, my mother
and her friends ignored some of the more practical needs of the children
under their feet—forgetting, for example, to take us to the dentist or to clip
our fingernails (Guest, 2004a see 2004b:98).
His mother‘s neglect had profound, life-altering consequences for him, and in all likelihood
for other children who suffered similar feelings:
When I was born, my mother swore she would never let her child suffer the
way she had she felt that her Catholic childhood had crushed her. She gave
me what she had longed for. She let me run free. At some point, I made a
similar vow to not inflict the particular agony I knew—of abandonment and
absence—on my children. Even if that meant not having kids at all (Guest,
2004a).
It was a story repeated thousands of times across, one suspects, dozens if not hundreds of
groups: parents trying to save the world by giving themselves over to a spiritual teacher,
but all the while neglecting their children.
Other-Deindividuation
As deindividuating people align themselves more with high-demand groups, they intensify
normal processes of creating ―in-groups‖ and ―out-groups‖ by deindividuating perceived
enemies. According to Stahelski, deindividuating people cut off contact with supposedly
―enemy‖ group members and essentially deny their individuality by blending them all in a
―homogeneous, faceless mass‖ (Stahelski, 2004:34). Sometimes children themselves were
among the most unfortunate victims of this process of other-deindividuation. Commonly,
children were at variance with adults‘ own spiritual quests.
In extreme cases, group leadership defined children as hindrances to adults‘ spiritual growth
and/or as financial drains, so members got sterilized. Although the prospect of parenting
was not even a consideration among members of Heaven‘s Gate, eight men underwent
use numerous techniques to infuse people with the groups‘ alternative values and ethical
codes. In essence, as people deindividuate, they look less inward and more outward for
moral and ethical cues.
With groups‘ directions, people undercut the foundations for their own value systems in
numerous ways: pseudocounseling in both individual and large-group settings manipulated
―born-again‖ experiences wherein one denounces one‘s previous life intrusive and
aggressive psychotherapy and so on. One of countless groups whose leaders were
masterful at inducing deindividuation was the Rajneeshees, who accomplished this goal
through numerous time-consuming and energy-draining pseudopsychotherapeutic
techniques and physical exercises. A British writer, Tim Guest, was a child whose mother
was a devotee of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and Guest captured with painful clarity the
consequences for children growing up in that environment:
Bhagwan invented radically new ‗dynamic‘ meditations and therapies he took
nitrous oxide and spoke from a dentist‘s chair he encouraged his disciples to
surrender totally to him and to live their lives to the extreme. For my mother,
on a rocket-ship rebellion from her strict Catholic girlhood, Bhagwan offered
everything she had long hoped for the path to enlightenment but with free
love, drugs and rock n‘ roll thrown in.
For the children—at least for me—Bhagwan‘s communes were a different
proposition. As each adult struggled to prove himself or herself the most
egoless, we competed to show who had the best break-dance moves. As they
abandoned the consumerist dream, we fought over Legos and ‗E.T.‘ toys.
Intent on building spiritual togetherness as a model for the world, my mother
and her friends ignored some of the more practical needs of the children
under their feet—forgetting, for example, to take us to the dentist or to clip
our fingernails (Guest, 2004a see 2004b:98).
His mother‘s neglect had profound, life-altering consequences for him, and in all likelihood
for other children who suffered similar feelings:
When I was born, my mother swore she would never let her child suffer the
way she had she felt that her Catholic childhood had crushed her. She gave
me what she had longed for. She let me run free. At some point, I made a
similar vow to not inflict the particular agony I knew—of abandonment and
absence—on my children. Even if that meant not having kids at all (Guest,
2004a).
It was a story repeated thousands of times across, one suspects, dozens if not hundreds of
groups: parents trying to save the world by giving themselves over to a spiritual teacher,
but all the while neglecting their children.
Other-Deindividuation
As deindividuating people align themselves more with high-demand groups, they intensify
normal processes of creating ―in-groups‖ and ―out-groups‖ by deindividuating perceived
enemies. According to Stahelski, deindividuating people cut off contact with supposedly
―enemy‖ group members and essentially deny their individuality by blending them all in a
―homogeneous, faceless mass‖ (Stahelski, 2004:34). Sometimes children themselves were
among the most unfortunate victims of this process of other-deindividuation. Commonly,
children were at variance with adults‘ own spiritual quests.
In extreme cases, group leadership defined children as hindrances to adults‘ spiritual growth
and/or as financial drains, so members got sterilized. Although the prospect of parenting
was not even a consideration among members of Heaven‘s Gate, eight men underwent
