Anyone who has survived a cult can testify to the power a guru holds over them. Families have temporarily lost a member, and cult de-programmers are aware of the difficulties of banishing cultish thoughts from the person being recovered.
How does the guru do it? What power does he exert over the person? Is it really ‘brain-washing’? Perhaps one way is for the guru to show the future disciple he has authority. Stanley Milgram showed how easy this is in the 1960s.
ELECTRIC PERSONALITY
In Milgram’s infamous experiment an actor was rigged to a fake electric chair. Students were told to turn up the power as part of an experiment, the actor squealing in kind. Some would have delivered enough power to kill him.
It is accepted that these otherwise non-violent students did as they were told because they accepted the authority of the experimenter. Their moral objections were therefore overcome and they became obedient.
Another obvious power a guru exerts is an over-powering charisma – an ability to ‘seduce’ the person into compliance. We can actually see such a process in action quite often. It is achieved by stage hypnotists in their act.
CROWD CRYSTALS
Some people can become natural hypnotists. They are usually those who are so sure of themselves that a similar authority to Milgram is achieved; especially when the person to be hooked is searching for something to believe in.
In one way, we can say that a person’s individuality is transferred to a higher authority in such instances. The social processes involved were described by the sociologist Elias Canetti, who studied crowds and the power people and symbols can have over them.
Calling such focal points ‘crowd crystals’, Canetti studied all forms of crowd, including riots, where individuality seems to be submerged below a ‘group’ entity. With such powers over the person, it is hardly surprising we use the term ‘brain-washing.’
© Anthony North, May 2007
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