Happytown wrote:

Quote

The games these groups play require a 'stable' mind that will justify, rationalise and normalise what is unjustifiable, irrational and unacceptable. And there is no way to see it when you're in it, and the ability to see it gets weaker and weaker with time unless the cognitive dissonances and abuses increase to twenty-stupid (e.g. a growing number of Gold Rolls Royces).

This is fascinating.

Most of us have grown up on Hollywood stereotypes of gun toting heroes who stay steady and are never at a loss for words -- and enlightened masters who show no emotion.

A big part of the guru/disciple game is learning to appear serene.

So much Dharma and New Age teaching appears to emphasize and value development
of stable mind states to the point where we become unflappable no matter
what amount of shit we are exposed to and expected to regard as:

* Crazy wisdom

* An education

* A learning opportunity

* Purification

* Unwinding of samskaric or karmic impressions

By contrast, in the Hans Christian Anderson story, a little kid who
refused to act like a balanced minded adult revealed that the Emperor
was naked...and had hair on his balls*.

So...let us dare consider what Happytown has suggested.

There is such a thing as a state of mind that is so balanced
that it is too balanced.

It stays inert when the human response would be to lose one's shit and
create a scene, rather than stay serene and keep on eating whatever
shit is doled out to us in the name of enlightenment or just being
polite, adult and lady like.

(According to the Urban Dictionary, someone with untrimmed
hairy nuts has what are known as "Wizard Balls".

[www.urbandictionary.com]

See, we get to learn everything here at CEI.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2017 10:50PM by corboy.

I came across today this interesting quote today, from CIC's Ian Haworth, which makes the same point about instability being a blessing:

Q: Do you believe intelligent, educated people are more likely to be recruited than people in turmoil or who may be considered unstable?

A: This idea of troubled people is the eternal myth. People want to imagine this is the case because they don't want to consider themselves as "vulnerable". I don't use the word vulnerable very often, but I'd argue that we're all vulnerable to the techniques used by these groups. The late Dr John G Clark, who I quote a lot, said the safest people are the mentally ill. The easiest people to recruit are ones with alert, questioning minds who want to debate issues with other people. You take a strong-willed, strong-minded person and put them into a cult environment and the techniques used will break a person down very, very quickly. The smarter, the healthier the mind, the quicker and easier you are to control. It's just one of these tragic realities.

[www.vice.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2017 05:19PM by goneinawhistle.

(Sad)

Correct.

Human beings are social mammals.

We are creaturely. We hate to admit this, and this refusal to accept
this actually disempowers us and makes us vulnerable to cult recruitment.

As social mammals we are wired to desire and seek human contact. We cannot balance out our emotions and physiologies in isolation.

When human relationship is disrupted due to death, moving away from family and friends to a new school, travel to a foreign country, a new city where no one knows us, trauma -- we are sent off balance, no matter how many Harvard degrees
and no matter what social sophistication.

We are human because we are influenceable. And that is why we are all vulnerable to cult recruitment -- or to con artists. Look at all the people
who were ripped off by Bernie Madoff.

One friend survived the Sixties and Seventies and beyond without
landing in a cult.

Instead, he became a junkie.

Heroin was his guru.

Kicked heroin years later - then succumbed to late onset paranoid schizophrenia.