Extremism & Manipulative Groups

And yet, less than half a per cent of Muslims are followers of the Salafi or Wahhabi faction of Sunni Islam, and most of these are not militant, but the acts of the few thousand followers of Daesh and Al Qaeda have stirred hatred towards all Muslims. This hatred has swelled support for the militant Wahhabis, just as they intend.

The Troubles in Northern Ireland became an internecine war between Protestants and Catholics. Extremists on both sides believed that they were the true Christians, with little thought for the teachings of the Prince of Peace they claimed to be following.

Destructive bigots have frequently used religious belief as an excuse for vicious anti-social behaviour throughout history. Christian extremists destroyed the greatest library of the ancient world at Alexandria. The Iconoclasts destroyed great art, as did the English Puritans of the 17^th century. Muslim extremists have destroyed much great art due to their fundamentalist misinterpretation of the Qu’ran.

The Crusades, the Inquisition, the Huguenot wars, the witch-hunts and many persecutions have stigmatized Christianity. But extremism is not limited to any particular religion: after partition in India in 1947, as many as two million people may have died in conflicts between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.

In the lead up to WWII, unthinking obedience was fostered in the Japanese public with the cult of the Emperor and “Soldier Zen“. Leading Zen Buddhist teachers have acknowledged the error of this teaching, and apologised for it.

Gangs are invariably formed by human predators. They function as autocracies, with all of the power resting in the leader, until that leader is deposed. While violence or potential violence is a significant part of any gang, successful leaders use psychological intimidation, ranging from groupthink to isolation.

Ridicule is heaped upon anyone who fails to use the group’s loaded language accurately, fails to wear the correct uniform, or display the right tattoos. The behaviors of the group are modeled by the leader.

In Manchester, England, in the mid-19th century, gangs of youths called Scuttlers fought pitched battles against each other and the police. Serious injury was a normal hazard, and there were many deaths in these street fights. Up to 500 youths aged from 13 to 25 would use belt-buckles as flails and other weapons, causing serious damage to opponents.

These gangs echoed the earlier Roman gangs, who followed a particular chariot racing team, and regularly trashed parts of Rome. In the 1960s, Mods and Rockers battled on Brighton beach, on the South coast of England.

Tribes form around a leader whose word becomes law. Group rituals are practiced to unite the members – a sort of gangland team-building. Any account of the Hell’s Angels details the vicious and misogynistic rites that allow initiates to rise through the ranks.

The Mafia have an elaborate code of honor – as do other criminal and anti-social gangs. This code is imposed as thought reform; failure to follow a rule induces guilt in the gang member. Gang members are conditioned to learn contempt for all outsiders.

Gangs are a significant problem: where they control trade, they are known as cartels. Pablo Escobar became one of the richest people in the world from cocaine trafficking: by the time he died, in 1993, he had accumulated over $30 billion. There are perhaps 35,000 members of the Crips or Bloods, two of the gangs who control the drug traffic of every major US city.

While some members seek out a gang because they are already suffering from an anti-social disorder, many are simply in the wrong place and are recruited and then trapped into a street or criminal gang.

Gangs seek only their own profit, making no claim to benefit society, they are otherwise like extremist and terrorist groups.

Historical accounts show one sinister corporation after another exploiting people and natural resources. The larger corporations even rivaled governments in their power. The various East India companies – Dutch, French and British – plundered India, China and the Americas, oppressing the people they found there with their own fully equipped armies.

In India, slavery was maintained by the British through the system of “indentures”. There are still about 13 million slaves in India at the time of writing, according to the UN.

In the 20^th century, the Great Depression began with speculators pushing up the price of land, leading to a collapse when the banks could not recoup mortgage loans. The social and political fallout from this disaster was a significant cause of the Second World War.

One aspect of Globalization has been the creation of Special Economic Zones, where national laws are replaced by corporation laws. Many western corporations have taken advantage of cheap labor willing to work long hours in conditions that would not be accepted in any western country.

This exploitation is obvious for all to see, but many corporations also use innocuous-seeming “team-building” exercises that use behavioral training to make employees more compliant. Some of these training programs were taken directly from dangerous high-control groups using the controversial “large group awareness trainings”.

This exemplifies an approach that pretends benefit for the individual, by promoting a false sense of community. Team-building experiences invariably feature trust exercises that make people less willing to assert themselves, by amplifying mindsets that foster groupthink and unthinking compliance.

Deception is the simplest of all forms of manipulation, and basic to every scam used by corporate cults. The first deception is the notion that something is for your benefit. Ransomware in computers is a good analogy for this trick: if you buy the fix from a scamming on-line security company, they will put ransomware in your machine, and charge periodically to remove it (and install more).

Perhaps the biggest error is taking away responsibility for ethical behavior by making corporations legally liable to make money for shareholders and nothing else. Indeed, current legal constraints restrict benevolent action by corporations, while protecting those running them from prosecution for their unethical behavior.

Hedge funds, the Savings and Loan scandal, and corporations like Enron and Worldcom, squandered financial wealth and led to recession in our economies. Corporate cults are among the most successful, and the most dangerous, of all cults.

Freedomain Radio has been soundly criticized for its practice of “defooing”, or departure from the family of origin, where followers cut all ties with their families. This use of ostracism, disconnection or shunning is a fundamental cultic behavior. Founder Stefan Molyneux’s wife was sanctioned for recommending defooing to her therapy clients. While it is sensible to withdraw from an abusive relationship, Freedomain Radio seems to insist that all parental relationships are damaging.

Internet predators groom children for pedophile relationships or even trafficking and murder. In recent years, investigations around the world have implicated politicians and celebrities as members of pedophile rings. These scandals have shaken the Catholic Church, the Methodist Church and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Children’s homes have been implicated, and police enquiries in the Australia, the UK and the US show that organized pedophilia has eluded detection for decades.

Pedophile grooming has moved to the Dark Internet; the Dark Net is rife with pedophile rings, trading child pornography, and sharing methods of manipulation to lure unsuspecting children into immoral and illegal sexual relationships, complete with sites featuring “how to” manuals.

Suicide grooming is another predatory activity found on the Internet. Predatory websites encourage young people to confide their unhappiness online. They are then manipulated by predators into taking their own lives. In 2008, The Independent newspaper reported the deaths of seven young friends in South Wales. They had been persuaded to end their lives, so that memorial websites could be set up for them. Police fear internet cult inspires teen suicides

As crime moves to the Internet, a new world is coming into being. We must be watchful and develop approaches that protect the vulnerable from Internet cults and exploitation.

Among the worst abuses in education are the controversial “brat camps” for difficult adolescents. With their parents’ consent – and payment – students can be forcibly taken to isolated camps, where they are subjected to humiliating treatment in the attempt to break and tame them. Some of these programs are run by former US Marines. These programs should not be confused with legitimate schemes that engage adolescents in outdoor activity, such as the UK’s Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme.

Another shocking use of manipulative techniques in an educational context exists in Christian groups that seek to change gay people’s sexual orientation. In the UK, this practice has been condemned by the National Health Service and the Council for Psychotherapy.

While most health professionals no longer consider homosexuality a disease (as medical manuals used to insist), there are still a few psychiatrists who try to change sexual orientation. The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality offers such programs.

In 2000, current vice-president Mike Pence suggested that tax dollars be used to establish “conversion programs” for people who wished to change their sexual orientation.

All educational programs should conform with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The materials taught should be accurate and verifiable, without recourse to unsubstantiated cultic views. Students should not be restricted in their access to materials – information control is a significant aspect of cult practice. Students should not be bullied or humiliated, and must have the right to communicate freely about their ideas and concerns, which is not the case in a cultic setting. Education should encourage intelligent disobedience, rather than unthinking compliance.

At worst, fake psychotherapy can be deeply harmful, creating the same dependency as any other cultic system, and making the client’s problems worse.

Such therapies are practiced by both cranks and charlatans. Cranks believe their unsubstantiated claims, which are based upon their own experience and opinion. Charlatans are predators, looking to make easy money and manipulate vulnerable people, though some predators come to believe their own cranky ideas.

Therapy cults can overlap into religious beliefs – as they are unable to provide any scientific proof for their claims. There are groups that practice “past life” therapy, and others that focus on belief in UFOs and alien abduction. There are even “future life” therapies.

Followers of Wilhelm Reich practice “orgone therapy“, believing in an intangible energy that can be “accumulated” with the aid all sorts of objects and items of clothing, sold online by both cranks and charlatans online.

In the heyday of the 1970s, there were hundreds of therapy cults based upon the idea that birth could be re-experienced, and believers could be “re-parented” to maturity. Some followers were put into diapers or breast-fed by therapists as part of this bizarre process.

In “scream” therapies, clients are encouraged to express rage through screaming and physical aggression. This can actually heighten aggressive responses, rather than venting them, and if done without proper vocal control, can lead to damage of the vocal folds.

Hypnotic techniques that create euphoria or “reverie” states are frequently promoted and sold. Ethical hypnotherapists understand that their patients can easily accept suggestions and are careful to avoid this. Cranks and charlatans use guided imagination, visualization and hypnosis to convince clients of their own pet theories.

Among New Age beliefs, we find practices ranging from crystal healing and color therapy to magical spells and talismans.

Large group awareness trainings have been with us since the ’60s and should be treated with caution, as they can bring about severely negative reactions.

It is important to check a therapist’s credentials – it is easy to have a certificate printed with an embossed gold seal. Be warned that predators can also obtain proper certification. Check the Internet and contact a professional organization if you have any doubts.

As Singer and Lalich advise in Crazy Therapies, “If something about your interaction with a therapist or counselor doesn’t seem right, trust your gut instincts and go on out the door.”

Today, at the right-wing end of the spectrum is the LaRouche Movement. Lyndon LaRouche is an American-born conspiracy theorist who was jailed for mail fraud in the 1980s. It was alleged that his organization had defrauded many elderly people through credit card fraud. Espousing an extreme conservative platform, he was a presidential candidate in every election from 1976 to 2004.

There are many political parties in Europe with a right-wing tendency. In Britain, the National Front morphed into the British Nationalist Party with a significant skinhead following.

In North America, White Supremacists and some Survivalist and Sovereign Citizen groups have the dynamics of political cults with unswerving dedication to a leader and a hateful attitude towards outsiders. Such groups include ‘Identity Christians’ who are strongly racist and other conspiracy cults.

Left-wing cults are almost identical in behavior to right-wing cults. In the desire for complete democracy, members fall in line behind an autocratic leader. In Bounded Choice, Janja Lalich gives an excellent description of her time in Marlene Dixon’s Democratic Workers Party. Alex Stein’s Inside Out details her involvement with The O, another left-wing group that became totalitarian.

North Korea is a political cult ruled for over 60 years by the Kim family. Because it has nuclear weapons, this totalitarian state poses a threat to all humanity, and keeps its 25 million citizens in a constant state of fear and subservience.

Daesh or ‘Islamic State’ is a political cult that has grown out of radical Islamism – a fusion of fundamentalist Wahhabi or Salafi religious belief with revolutionary communist strategies. Al Qaeda grew from the same beliefs and methods.

Today, at the right-wing end of the spectrum is the LaRouche Movement. Lyndon LaRouche is an American-born conspiracy theorist who was jailed for mail fraud in the 1980s. It was alleged that his organization had defrauded many elderly people through credit card fraud. Espousing an extreme conservative platform, he was a presidential candidate in every election from 1976 to 2004.

There are many political parties in Europe with a right-wing tendency. In Britain, the National Front morphed into the British Nationalist Party with a significant skinhead following.

In North America, White Supremacists and some Survivalist and Sovereign Citizen groups have the dynamics of political cults with unswerving dedication to a leader and a hateful attitude towards outsiders. Such groups include ‘Identity Christians’ who are strongly racist and other conspiracy cults.

Left-wing cults are almost identical in behavior to right-wing cults. In the desire for complete democracy, members fall in line behind an autocratic leader. In Bounded Choice, Janja Lalich gives an excellent description of her time in Marlene Dixon’s Democratic Workers Party. Alex Stein’s Inside Out details her involvement with The O, another left-wing group that became totalitarian.

North Korea is a political cult ruled for over 60 years by the Kim family. Because it has nuclear weapons, this totalitarian state poses a threat to all humanity, and keeps its 25 million citizens in a constant state of fear and subservience.

Daesh or ‘Islamic State’ is a political cult that has grown out of radical Islamism – a fusion of fundamentalist Wahhabi or Salafi religious belief with revolutionary communist strategies. Al Qaeda grew from the same beliefs and methods.

At worst, fake psychotherapy can be deeply harmful, creating the same dependency as any other cultic system, and making the client’s problems worse.

Such therapies are practiced by both cranks and charlatans. Cranks believe their unsubstantiated claims, which are based upon their own experience and opinion. Charlatans are predators, looking to make easy money and manipulate vulnerable people, though some predators come to believe their own cranky ideas.

Therapy cults can overlap into religious beliefs – as they are unable to provide any scientific proof for their claims. There are groups that practice “past life” therapy, and others that focus on belief in UFOs and alien abduction. There are even “future life” therapies.

Followers of Wilhelm Reich practice “orgone therapy“, believing in an intangible energy that can be “accumulated” with the aid all sorts of objects and items of clothing, sold online by both cranks and charlatans online.

In the heyday of the 1970s, there were hundreds of therapy cults based upon the idea that birth could be re-experienced, and believers could be “re-parented” to maturity. Some followers were put into diapers or breast-fed by therapists as part of this bizarre process.

In “scream” therapies, clients are encouraged to express rage through screaming and physical aggression. This can actually heighten aggressive responses, rather than venting them, and if done without proper vocal control, can lead to damage of the vocal folds.

Hypnotic techniques that create euphoria or “reverie” states are frequently promoted and sold. Ethical hypnotherapists understand that their patients can easily accept suggestions and are careful to avoid this. Cranks and charlatans use guided imagination, visualization and hypnosis to convince clients of their own pet theories.

Among New Age beliefs, we find practices ranging from crystal healing and color therapy to magical spells and talismans.

Large group awareness trainings have been with us since the ’60s and should be treated with caution, as they can bring about severely negative reactions.

It is important to check a therapist’s credentials – it is easy to have a certificate printed with an embossed gold seal. Be warned that predators can also obtain proper certification. Check the Internet and contact a professional organization if you have any doubts.

As Singer and Lalich advise in Crazy Therapies, “If something about your interaction with a therapist or counselor doesn’t seem right, trust your gut instincts and go on out the door.”