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How to Become a Cult Leader
Something I thought I'd share with all of you, it's rather interesting.
1. Create your own social reality.
a. Eliminate all sources of info except that provided by the cult.
b. Provide a cult's-eye view of the world.
c. Keep repeating it.
2. Use the ingroup bias (the inherent belief we as humans possess that states that our group is the best because a) we belong to it and b) we do not see ourselves as stupid, thus that group MUST be good) to your advantage. Emphasize the ingroup by having an initiation, wearing distinctive clothes, changing the person's diet or name.
3. Create commitment. The foot-in-door technique (a technique in which you start small and gradually build up. A good example of this is the Church of Scientology which starts you off with a free test to determine whether you need the church, the answer always being "yes", and working you up gradually until you are shelling out thousands of dollars an hour for an indetermined amount of time to cleanse your body from the influence of evil aliens who are controlling you) works well.
4. Establish leader's credibility and attrativeness. Create myths surrounding the leader (I heard the leader is the second coming of Jesus Christ! Or, to use a Simpsons example, Na na na na na na na na na LEADER!)
5. Send your members out to witness. This brings in new members and reestablishes current members' beliefs (if you spend all your time preaching about how great an organization is and you do not believe it, the cognitive dissonance this causes will eventually cause you to either break ties, or, more commonly, especially if you've already invested a lot of time and/or money in it, believe your own words, that it truly is good.)
6. Distract members from thinking "unthinkable" thoughts. This is particularily important for new members. Chanting, singing, meditation, and constant group interaction works well.
7. Fixate members' vision on a phantom. "Better world for the faithful." It looks solid, but is never accomplished.
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You just described the Bush administration.
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No arguments there. However, to be fair, we all use this method. Our FAMILIES use this method.
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Blademaster of Northland
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Actually, most cults aren't all that destructive, it's just the ones that get the press.
As far as why they stay, it's simple. The foot-in-the-door technique coupled with several other techniques creates cognitive dissonance, which usually ends up in a person's mind basically deciding "if I'm doing all this for it then it MUST be good".
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The main thing cults do is take a common belief and spin it. Look at the "God hates Fags" website, for example, that is a cult.
In essence, this is how a cult operates.
They first try to get you in by giving you a free trial sort of thing, an offer that doesn't seem so much and isn't that much of an inconvenience to you.
You start off small at this point, and most of the things you hear aren't too radical, thus making you more inclined to join.
If you join, you often go through an initiation period which they use to indoctrinate you into the cult. Usually it involves a great deal of work or ceremony, including but not limited to changing one's dress and diet. This further enforces the "you were once one of them, now you are one of us" idea. One of the reasons fraternities have such rabid loyalty is because they operate along the same basic prinicples. The terrible hazing that a person undergoes solidifies their belief that such a thing is good. As we are horribly self-biased (we tend to see ourselves as above-average intellect, for example) we believe that any group we join MUST be good because we belong to it. Also aiding this is the fact that we think that if we've gone through so much hardship to join the group, then it MUST be good. These two principles combine to make a rather powerful magnetic affect, in essence keeping you in.
Once you're in, you will often be put to work to be distracted from "unthinkable" thoughts, i.e. "man, this is stupid". This, coupled with other things such as chanting and song, meditation, and constant group interaction keep you from thinking that it isn't a good idea, and once you do get around to thinking about it you tend to think it is good because you wouldn't have stayed so long otherwise.
As your faith becomes stronger, they can up the dosage and introduce you to more parts of it, often with harder tasks involved. The more you are willing to accept, the further in you are drawn.
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I haven't seen the Fight Club so I'm not quite sure what you mean. I hear it's good though, I have to look into it.
As far as a cult thing, the most crucial thing is the initial first few steps. If they can get you to at least look at it, they've already started you down the path. Those with the greatest chance of breaking out are those who do so early. The same was seen with an experiment involving delivering a "shock" to a patient. A person would deliver a shock to a patient, increasing the voltage at the insistance of the alleged professor who was conducting the research. As the patient began to shriek in agony begging for them to stop, the researcher would keep insisting that they continue. Most of them went through all the way to the end, despite the agonized shrieks from the patient, though many were visibly distressed at doing so. In actuality, there was no shock, the patient was merely acting, but it is quite interesting indeed. Those who did not carry through with the experiment usually stopped early on.
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Blademaster of Northland
you seem pretty ... emotional about this topic. had a bad experience with a cult or somebody you know?
Humans being social creatures, the "us/them" mentality has motivated grossly horrible events throughout human history. Romans would decorate the road from the port city (whatever it's name was. Boat-ius or whatever) to Rome with 10,000 slaves on special occasions. why? cuz the slaves weren't Romans. therefore, it must be ok. I wonder what 10,000 people would be, proportional to the entire world's recorded population at the time... wonder if it's a greater percentage than 6 million Jewish people in 1944.
anyways, I digress. Ostracization from the social group from which you derive Meaning is a bad thing for 2 reasons, 1) you get kicked outta the group and lose your friends. 2) you lose your source of deriving Meaning. Therefore, to avoid such a fate, you're motivated to enmeshing yourself deeper.
although, who can really say for certain? Humans are such immensely complex things and our behavior hinges upon the smallest, most obscure details.
Makoto, Honesty.
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Actually I'm not emotional, I merely find the topic extremely fascinating.
In any event, not all cults are bad. Cults are merely organizations with differing beliefs on the fringes of society. There's a rather popular organization that was once a cult. It's called "Christianity". All movements must start somewhere.
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