H. Spencer Lewis or THE ARROGANCE OF THE VANQUISHED in AMORC
I got this post from the blog of Pierre Freeman the author of "The Prisoner of San Jose"
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www.theprisonerofamorc.typepad.com]
THE ARROGANCE OF THE VANQUISHEDDr. Robert J. Lifton's Eight Criteria for Thought Reform
Criteria Number 7
Doctrine over person
Doctrine over person. Member's personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group.
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I described a scene when I was a dishwasher in a restaurant in Florida in The Prisoner of San Jose. At that time, I was a dishwasher, watching the tall waiter in his early twenties, a white guy who I knew to be bright and likeable, have a good-bye drink with his buddies at the bar. As the news came to the kitchen that this was the waiter’s last night before he left to join the Marines, I felt the need to leave my station and walk to the bar where the big guys were having their last drink together. I walked towards him and gave him a handshake, not just to be friend, but because I thought my giving him a protective handshake would help him out in the Marines. As a Rosicrucian, I knew I was more blessed by being closer to God than most people on Earth and I had responsibility of protecting the “not so close to God.” As in every thing in AMORC, a handshake is a mean of transmitting spiritual power. And as a member of AMORC I saw myself as the holder of great spiritual power that the poor waiter did not have.
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www.ThePrisonerofAMORC.com]
Of course, the waiter knew me only as a dishwasher and accepted my handshake with a smile probably meant to signal to his buddies that this was Peter, our dishwasher, somewhat like a slave master might have introduced his servant to his friends. But I didn’t bother about that small point, nor the fact that I was an officer of the Miami Lodge, in deep poverty, poorly supporting his desperate mother and sister in Haiti with a sense of self-esteem that should have been tragically low and sad. But neither my real status in the world nor the arrogant waiter’s smile intimidated me- because I was one of the spiritual protectors of mankind. And needing the blessing of the Egregore, I was more concerned with my spiritual duty than any opinion of myself or of others. So I might neglect making a living or elevating my social status by my actions, but I never would fail, like a spiritual Robin Hood, to protect and give life to those poor outsiders who didn’t know my status as a member of the protected elite of the spiritual world. As a socially and economically vanquished member of AMORC, I still had a sense of arrogance that far exceeded that of the Waiter or his friends.
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www.ThePrisonerofAMORC.com]