The vast majority of cult members are young, intelligent and middleclass. This is often hard to believe. It is necessary to try to understand how such people can be so easily led into the charismatic arms of a guru.
Intriguingly, the place to look is not so much the future disciple, but the society to which he belongs. And the best place to begin is with an understanding of the word, alienation.
OH, TO BELONG
Alienation is a sense that you do not belong. No one understood the term better than Karl Marx. Society, he decided, alienated people en masse through the economic system they lived in. He got it so right that he suckered millions into Communism.
Modern society is often thought to be one of the most open, free systems ever, but the reality is very different. For no-brainers, happy with consumerism and trivia, this may be true. But as soon as you think about meaning, society dissolves into nothingness.
Consumer society plays a part in this, but it is only a symptom of the major problem. This is the idea that the world is totally material, specialized and individualistic, with no concept above the person, and no reality above the physical world.
I MEAN, WHERE’S THE MEANING?
There is no meaning to this – indeed, this is why consumerism is so successful, enticing people to think that meaning can be had in purchases. The meaning achieved is gone in an instant, guaranteeing that people will buy and buy, searching for a meaning that isn’t there.
You realize this as soon as you look at society and think: there should be more. Once you do this you begin to realize a lack of bonding. Spirituality is, I’m sure, an understanding of the bonding of man to man, man to the environment, and environment to the universe itself.
Modern society can offer nothing to satiate these feelings, which are uppermost in the searcher of meaning. So where is this young, intelligent, but impressionable person to go? The obvious place is religion. But what is on offer?
TOWARDS ASSIMILATION
When I look at most traditional western religions today, all I see is a shadow of their former selves. Brow beaten by a modern, material world, they have soul-searched their creeds and become afraid to uphold them.
Personally, I feel most of those creeds are based on very good stories, but this is irrelevant to the fact that if you believe, you should be proud of your belief, hold your head up high and say you believe. Cocks crow all the time to these timid Peters.
We can see that traditional religion holds nothing for the searcher of meaning. If we wonder why Islam is on the rise in the west, you need look no further than this. It is the most obvious, known religion that still offers something, even if that could be martyrdom.
But for most searchers, the final door to be opened is the alternative religion, or maybe the cult. And once at the door, meaning comes in torrents. It is just a shame that the meaning surrounds a personality – a guru – and not a valid system of belief. And most of that shame is on our insistence that the material is enough.
© Anthony North, April 2007
A LITTLE EXTRA
Parent – A fisherman with a kid on the end of the line, letting him play, letting him learn, letting him experience, but occasionally reeling him in.
(c) Anthony North, Apr 07 – find more little extras on pages of North’s Review
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