..the concept of 'memes'--- which one author has called 'viruses of the mind.' Take a look at these threads.
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forum.culteducation.com]
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forum.culteducation.com]
The worst 'memes' are the ones that are designed to elude detection and critical evaluation. ('Anyone who has doubts is going to hell')
The ideas of scientific method and critical thought are memes, but they are special memes that enable us to test whether other memes are useful/true, not yet proven, or false/dangerous, and can be ignored.
If we are not allowed to test whether a meme or set of memes (aka 'memeplex') is true or not true, it will sit in our minds forever, and clutter up our thought process. Its like packrat syndrome of the mind. The clutter keeps piling up. You cant talk about anything else. You turn into a bore at parties--unless you arrange to socialize only among those as heavily meme-infected as you.
One way we can object to cults is that they intentionally arrange indoctrination so as to eliminate the subject's ability to engage in critical thinking--'meme testing'.
Imagine a friend insisting on downloading new software onto your computer and ordering you to first get rid of your firewall, and your virus detection software and accusing you of being cynical and 'close minded' if you refuse to do this before the new software is downloaded.
You'd be pissed. You'd be suspicious. You'd think your friend was bonkers.
But this is exactly what many cults and newly recruited members of cults to do us.
Hypnosis would probabably greatly enhance suggestibility because in hypnotic trance you cannot access critical thinking (meme busting), so memes implanted while you are in trance cannot easily be identified and examined after you are out of the trance.
If you're made to feel ashamed (a tactic many cults employ) you are in a painful state of mind that you will not wish to return to when you escape. Any meme you are exposed to while in a state of shame will be hard for you to analyze, because its linked to an area of mental and emotional pain that deflects insight--unless you have the ability to sustain analytic insight and apply it to shame ridden states of mind. This can be hard to do, unless you get some special training--and already have a suspicion that you've been tampered with.