Cults I Have Known
What is the difference between healthy belief and cultism? If you've never wondered, perhaps you should.
Cults I Have Known
Let’s start at the beginning. Healthy relationships are a two-way street. Both people can express opinions and desires. Compromises are made both ways. One partner may predominate, or not. As long as the cards are on the table and there is no manipulation, then things should work out.
Manipulation. Perhaps that’s the key point. Expressing needs, desires and wants is healthy. Discussion of them openly and honestly is healthy. “Working the room” to get what you want without being forthright, is manipulation, and it is ugly. Even children can do it. After all, manipulation is childish. Kids throw temper tantrums if they don’t get what they want. Good adult parents don’t go along. Good parents tell the child that they won’t get what they want by means of throwing tantrums. Not so good parents capitulate, and the kid ends up running the show. In severe cases, one kid, even with multiple siblings, runs the show.
Among adults, similar things can happen. One person, more from self-doubt than confidence, becomes dominant. They can’t handle the give and take of a healthy relationship, so they seek to control the other person, and all situations. The controlling partner will gradually isolate the submissive partner from friends and family that are perceived as a challenge to this relationship. The submissive partner capitulates to keep the peace rather than assert their equality status. It’s never all at once. It’s one step at a time, barely perceptible. It can become violent, but even if it isn’t, it is clearly not a healthy relationship.
So far, probably no one would disagree with me on this. Now, let’s kick it up a notch. Let’s talk about cults. What is a cult? By my definition, it is the same as a controlling/submissive relationship, but involving multiple people. The controlling person or persons set standards of beliefs and behavior, and the submissive participants must accept them unquestioningly. To question the ‘authority’ of the leader is to question their right to lead, and the submissive is made to feel guilty for doubting the great leader. Of course, any normal person WOULD doubt such leadership. And in this manner the normal people are culled out, and only pure submissives remain.
I believe in God, yet I still question. I believe in God, but I don’t insist that anyone else does. Consider that there are people who insist that they are the second coming of Christ, the Messiah, and that there are people who believe them. Both the controller and the submissive have unhealthy psychological needs to participate in very unhealthy relationships.
Here are some famous examples. Remember, there are countless unknown examples.
There was the Heaven’s gate cult, with two leaders who led hundreds to believe that they could reject their human nature and become entirely heavenly. When the one leader died of cancer, and their followers began to doubt, the remaining leader convinced them all to commit suicide, before they had a chance to think their way out.
One infamous cult was the one controlled by Jim Jones. It lasted for over twenty years, ending when Jones and his staff ‘assisted’ in the suicide of their hundreds of loyal followers, after having murdered a congressman and his staff who were investigating.
More infamous still is the Manson cult. Nine prominent people, including actress Sharon Tate were murdered for no reason whatsoever. The murders did it to prove their fealty to Manson.
So far, everything I’ve described has involved people with serious personality disorders, some as ‘leaders’, some as ‘followers’. Their ‘issues’ were not real; they served only as a vehicle for the exercise of controlling/submissive relationships. That is the common thread. Some people, narcissists perhaps, or histrionic, or both, have a sick need to be at the center of the situation and to be idolized. And often, rather than work their way to the center of a legitimate organization, they create their own center and draw others to them. And those others, for their part, are so insecure, so lacking in self-confidence that, like the moth to a flame, they are pulled in. Some, ultimately escape. Over time, and with just a little self-awareness, they see that they are in a sick relationship. Others never do.
So, we’ve discussed one on one sick relationships, and we’ve discussed cults involving dozens or hundreds. Is there anywhere to go from there? Is there any case involving still more people? Hell, yes. Political parties. Some might say that the two major political parties of the USA are legitimate and healthy. But are they? Are they not large cults? Is the leadership of the parties interested in healthy give and take, back and forth? Not just no, but HELL no.
If you are a party loyalist, and you are sure that you’re not enmeshed in a controlling/submissive relationship, let me ask you something: Do you have any political opinions that lie outside the talking points of your party? Where do your opinions really come from? Do they develop from your own thinking, in your own mind, or have they been programmed into you? Do you think ‘those other people, in that other party’ are horrible people out to destroy democracy? Are you that stupid, or are you just that indoctrinated?
The two parties insist on unquestioning loyalty, just as Jones and Manson did. They seek to isolate their believers from outside influences that might cause them to doubt, to question. Believers are rewarded with praise and a desperately needed sense of acceptance and belonging. Believers are not offered the opportunity to form their own opinions. A believer expressing a contrary opinion to the party line is subject to ridicule, and the ultimate disgrace, cancellation.
The two parties are cults, folks. If they ever operated on principle, those days are gone. They operate on blind submission to the dictates of the controlling class. Follow them unquestioningly, defend them even to the point of absurdity, and your reward shall be the comfort of feeling like you belong. But, belong to what? See below for some links that examine some people’s neurotic need to belong.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/friendship-20/201506/20-signs-of-a-controlling-partner
In fact, some controlling partners are acting out of a sense of emotional fragility and heightened vulnerability, and may perhaps show traits of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. Controlling people use a whole arsenal of tools in order to dominate their partners—whether they or their partners realize what's happening or not
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-cult-5078234
A cult is an organized group whose purpose is to dominate cult members through psychological manipulation and pressure strategies.
Cults are usually headed by a powerful leader who isolates members from the rest of society.
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3693552-party-loyalty-will-be-our-end/
It seems logical to me that there would be only a small number of people whose ideas perfectly match those of their party and its leaders. As we listen to the media and observe a rising number of real-life individuals who fit this criterion, it becomes evident that party loyalty has supplanted reasoning and individualism for many people; it has become the mainstream, not the fringe.
Comments?
Really like this
“Let’s start at the beginning. Healthy relationships are a two-way street. Both people can express opinions and desires. Compromises are made both ways. One partner may predominate, or not. As long as the cards are on the table and there is no manipulation, then things should work out.”
And arguing with a party loyalist is just as pointless as arguing with a religious believer.