22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Charismatic Coercion Studies, June 18, 2001
This review is from: Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion (Paperback)
This is a fairly rigorous scientific study of the processes composing cults and charismatic groups. The author provides many examples and case studies, then develops a general theory into a process model. In engineering, we call this a control system. A system has various inputs and outputs and setpoints, or references. The setpoints are the desired results (outputs). Effective systems have a feedback mechanism assuring that the group produces the correct results. This is called monitoring. The leader of the group monitors the thoughts and the actions of the members almost fanatically and foresees contradictory evidence from the outside world and immediately attempts to rationalize it and reinterpret it in the mindset of the group. The group induces extreme stress, then provides relief of that same stress by conformance to the group's doctrines or ideas.
So great can be the stress induced on suspecting people, that sometimes the sanity of the person is threatened. There is a conflict between what the person's needs are and what the group's needs are. The person is expected to meet the needs of the group. The group provides stress relief after the member conforms. Of course, this constant stress inducement and relief is the technique used by the leaders to assure themselves that the people are in line both in mind and in action. Someone who sacrifices so much for the group is more likely to be a true believer. It also gives an idea of those most likely to join such groups: those in the midst of great personal problems and distress; in response to the recruit's current psychological distress where the world seems so messy and hard to understand, the group gives the person a false sense of certainty in their doctrines. Of course, I give here only a rough sketch.
The techniques identified are eye-opening and scary. It appears that not too many people are immune to some sorts of mind coercion. I suppose that knowledge is power and the more one knows about cults and charismatic groups and their repressive psychological terror tactics, the less the subject will be suceptible to recruitment. This study explains who some seemingly rational people can fall for such obviously deviant groups.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exceptional, February 15, 2008
This review is from: Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion (Paperback)
This book is hard to put down--it is thoroughly fascinating. It is also an excellent introduction to the dynamics of social psychology in general. The author uses systems theory as a method for thinking about cults--reflecting, for example, on how feedback, monitoring, and group border control can assist us in thinking about insular religious movements. One interesting aspect of cults that the author discusses, and that I had not ever read elsewhere, is their ability to induce in members the 'Stockholm Effect.' This is a term borrowed from a hostage bank robbery in Stockholm some years back, in which hostages began to identify with the person holding them hostage. The author argues that something like this is going on in charismatic religious movements, where initiates are both threatened with abuse and derive their emotional comfort from the same source. People are made to feel abandoned or damned if they stray from the group's norms, but are given family comfort and safety if they adhere closely to the group's beliefs and goals. Like a roach motel, you check in, but have difficulty checking out. I feel that this book's insights into the social psychology of cults is also valuable in understanding propagandistic movements and charismatic manipulation generally.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nice Explanation of the Cult-ure as a Whole, April 13, 2011
This review is from: Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion (Paperback)
I looked into Galanter's book because I have been influenced by authors like R. D. Laing, J. Henry, S. Kopp, E. Hoffer, N. Branden, A. W. Schaef, K. Taylor, C. Black, J. Woititz, P. Mellody, A. Ellis, B. & J. Weinhold and others with respect to the cult-like manifestations of society ("cult-ure") in general. I agree with their theses that our cult-ure =is= somewhat "crazy-making," and that its traditions and core beliefs, values, ideals, rules, assumptions, presumptions, prejudices and attitudes are major players in the increasing incidence of alcoholism, drug addiction, over-eating, gambling, romance obsession and other self-destructive behaviors.
I dug into Galanter to deepen my understand of how dysfunctional families, business organizations and political parties confer their values upon people and manipulate them to behave as they wish them to. While considerably less articulated than those offered by R. J. Lifton, K. Taylor and Internet cult whizbang Rick Ross, Galanter has done a =lot= of primary research with thousands of cult members and former members. That makes him, so far as I know, unique in the field. As a result, his grasp of what makes such folks tick is considerable, conceptually balanced and well-informed, certainly in agreement with my more limited experience as both a former cult member and (later) exit counselor.
I came away with very much what I expected: Galanter's hands-on research supports my own notion that a substantial number of people are raised and schooled in such a way that supports their turning to mind control cults as a solution to their inability to accept and tolerate existential ambiguity and normal, everyday conflict. As "normally" (and normal-izing-ly) authoritarian, tradition-bound, Manichean (black-and-white / all-or-nothing thinking), absolutistic, polarizing, perfectionistic, rule-driven, paradigm-unaware, hyper-moralistic (or conversely hyper-anti-moralistic), doctrinaire, emotionally driven, identity-foreclosed (see J. Marcia), interpersonally enmeshed, external-power-oriented / approval seeking, and codependent (whew!) as this culture seems to be, I'm not surprised.
What Galanter accomplishes is another useful explanation of the tools used by those who =are= paradigm-aware, but still power-obsessed, to gain control of some percentage of those who are cult-urally "normal" or a-cult-urated to the values of Western, consumeristic society as a whole. The careful reader who can accurately generalize from the specific may be able to get a little better handle on how he or she was made anxious, depressed, rageful or codependent by a crazy-making family of origin... or beaten down, battered and burned out by a boss as mystically manipulative, milieu-controlling, shame-soaking and guilt-dumping guru.
It's not, however, as complete a picture as one may need to acquire an understanding of "what happened at home or work (or church or military or team or gang)" sufficient to bust out of the paradigm. One may need to spend some time with the authors I listed above to find more of the puzzle pieces. But this =is= a very good place to start.
RG, Psy.D.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
