the big switch

A new and useful website on sustainable living

the big switch

how about this one then?

mentally ill man posing as doctor

It’s quite believable if you have worked in an Emergency Department. It’s just general chaos and no one knows who anyone else is, least of all the staff. It would be as easy as pie to just come in with a stethoscope around your neck, pull out the patient files and start seeing patients. All you’d need is a little experience of how the ED runs, which if you are a mentallly ill person, chances are you might have spent quite a bit of time waiting around Ed’s to learn how they work!

eight point definition of a cult

Eight Marks of a Mind-Control Cult

by Randall Watters

Brainwashing has become almost a household word in the last two decades or so. In 1961, Robert J. Lifton wrote the definitive book on the subject, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, after studying the effects of mind control on American prisoners of war under the Communist Chinese. Lifton outlines eight major factors that can be used to identify whether a group is a destructive cult or not. Any authoritarian religion should be held up to the light in order to determine just how destructive their influence is on their members. Judge for yourselves.

Milieu Control

“Milieu” is a French word meaning “surroundings; environment.” Cults are able to control the environment around their recruits in a number of ways, but almost always using a form of isolation. Recruits can be physically separated from society, or they can be warned under threat of punishment to stay away from the world’s educational media, especially when it might provoke critical thinking. Any books, movies or testimonies of ex-members of the group, or even anyone critical of the group in any way are to be avoided.

Information is carefully kept on each recruit by the mother organization. All are watched, lest they fall behind or get too far ahead of the thinking of the organization. Because it appears that the organization knows so much about everything and everyone, they appear omniscient in the eyes of the recruits.

Mystical Manipulation

In religious cults, God is ever-present in the workings of the organization. If a person leaves for any reason, accidents or ill-will that may befall them are always attributed to God’s punishment on them. For the faithful, the angels are always said to be working, and stories circulate about how God is truly doing marvelous things among them, because they are “the truth.” The organization is therefore given a certain “mystique” that is quite alluring to the new recruit.

Demand for Purity

The world is depicted as black and white, with little room for making personal decisions based on a trained conscience. One’s conduct is modeled after the ideology of the group, as taught in its literature. People and organizations are pictured as either good or evil, depending on their relationship to the cult.

Universal tendencies of guilt and shame are used to control individuals, even after they leave. There is great difficulty in understanding the complexities of human morality, since everything is polarized and oversimplified. All things classified as evil are to be avoided, and purity is attainable through immersion into the cult’s ideology.

The Cult of Confession

Serious sins (as defined by the organization) are to be confessed immediately. The members are to be reported if found walking contrary to the rules.

There is often a tendency to derive pleasure from self-degradation through confession. This occurs when all must confess their sins before each other regularly, creating an intense kind of “oneness” within the group. It also allows leaders from within to exercise authority over the weaker ones, using their “sins” as a whip to lead them on.

The “Sacred Science”

The cult’s ideology becomes the ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence. The ideology is too “sacred” to call into question, and a reverence is demanded for the leadership. The cult’s ideology makes an exaggerated claim for possessing airtight logic, making it appear as absolute truth with no contradictions. Such an attractive system offers security.

Loading the Language

Lifton explains the prolific use of “thought-terminating cliches,” expressions or words that are designed to end the conversation or controversy. We are all familiar with the use of the cliches “capitalist” and “imperialist,” as used by antiwar demonstrators in the 60’s. Such cliches are easily memorized and readily expressed. They are called the “language of non-thought,” since the discussion is terminated, not allowing further consideration.

In the Watchtower, for instance, expressions such as “the truth”, the “mother organization”, the “new system”, “apostates” and “worldly” carry with them a judgment on outsiders, leaving them unworthy of further consideration.

Doctrine Over Person

Human experience is subordinated to doctrine, no matter how profound or contradictory such experiences seem. The history of the cult is altered to fit their doctrinal logic. The person is only valuable insomuch as they conform to the role models of the cult. Commonsense perceptions are disregarded if they are hostile to the cult’s ideology.

Dispensing of Existence

The cult decides who has the “right” to exist and who does not. They decide who will perish in the final battle of good over evil. The leaders decide which history books are accurate and which are biased. Families can be cut off and outsiders can be deceived, for they are not fit to exist!

the advantages of staying home in evenings because of children

1. Get to watch a lot of good TV
2. Read books
3. Write a novel
4. Do research / complete a PhD
5. Invite friends over for drinks / dinner
6. Save money on taxi fares
7. Save money on overpriced / fattening restaurant food
8. Become an artist, catch up on unfinished knitting projects
9. Instant excuse for unwanted invitations
10. Write a blog!

happiness wins science book prize

This looks like an interesting book, haven’t read it myself. There is a lot going around about happiness and positive psychology these days.

linkto story

personality and coping style

interesting article fromOmnus

one month free cable

My husband just arranged a month free trial of cable TV. You get all the whiz-bang extras including digital recording. So you can build up up to 80 hours recorded on your box, as well as the ability to pause live TV and catch up later. Apparently most people who do the free trial do end up signing up with the cable company. We have vowed not to do it, especially as we have the data projector, if we were to get cable as well our lives would be pretty much over.

I am trying to get as many great movies (and episodes of the Wiggles) recorded in this month as I can. The digital recording allows us to set the box to record programs at 2am, then record them into the video the next day. So I have bought a lot of tapes!

the spectator

This is an Italian film, the first I watched on my one month free cable TV.

I really liked this movie because I thought it was clever and plausible. It was ultimately unsatisfying, but I think that’s true of young girls who have secret crushes on men who don’t know them. Nothing usually happens, in the end.

The girl who engages in this type of behaviour quite often hasn’t much experience of real relationships and so freezes or has no idea what to do when confronted by an actual man, much less one she’s hugely attracted to and has built up high expectations for the meeting.

This movie was a bit slow to start, and that is part of the style of the story. The pace reflects the long periods in these people’s lives where nothing much happens. Once one gets into the groove it’s quite hypnotic. It’s ironic that the man she is following is himself unsatisfied in his love life by pursuing an unattainable woman.

blogthings

I couldn’t resist this site, because the quizzes are mercifully short. I’ve just put in the results I liked!

Your Hidden Talent

You have the natural talent of rocking the boat, thwarting the system. And while this may not seem big, it can be. It’s people like you who serve as the catalysts to major cultural changes. You’re just a bit behind the scenes, so no one really notices.

What’s Your Hidden Talent?

You Are 80% A Child of the 80s

Not only did you experience the 80s… you are practically an expert. You should be totally stoked!

Are You a Child of the 80s?

You Are a Mac

You are creative, stylish, and super trendy. You demand the best – even if it costs an arm and a leg.

Are You a Mac or a PC?

You Are 79% Creative

You are beyond creative. You are a true artist – even if it’s not in the conventional sense of the word. You love creating for its own sake, and you find yourself quite inspired at times.

How Creative Are You?

You Are 34% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well. In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

How Evil Are You?

Your Personality Is Like Ecstasy

You’re usually feeling the love for the world around you – you want to hug everyone. And while you’re usually content to sit back and view the world with wonder… Sometimes you’re world becomes very overwhelming and a little scary.

What Drug Is Your Personality Like?

what the white elephant is reading

Since I have changed my mode of transport to bus travel, there are many benefits but the nicest one is novel reading. I have read quite a few novels recently.

The memory keeper’s daughter (Kim Edwards) – was a compelling one, the author has that useful knack of writing to keep the reader turning the pages. And it was interesting that she chose to write the plot straight through chronologically and could still make it hard to put down. Another writer may have been tempted to make the thing into a mystery with the key event being discovered at the end of the book instead of the beginning. Interesting observations on life and relationships but slightly airport-fictionish (I bought this at an airport!)

Seven Types of Ambiguity (Elliot Perlman) was a nice meaty read. Managed to carry off a complex plot without losing the reader. Managed to write convincingly from many different perspectives and carry the chronological narrative at the same time which was stylish. Psychologically accurate. There were a few improbable or implausible bits, maybe more than a few.

And I also read the Poisonwood Bible (Kingsolver) which was the best of the lot, more later.