CCChat-Magazine_Cults-Coercion

What made the difference is that he used the
legitimate mechanisms of communication that
we all use 1,000 times a day to teach people
things that were only going to serve him, so
you have to be afraid of outsiders, you can't
talk to these people, you can't have any
friends, can't leave the house unless he gave
permission, you have to report back whatever
you've done - all these other things that he
would have indoctrinated them with. If we want
to call it indoctrination that would have been
solely for the purpose of making him the centre
of their reality.
M: Can I just ask you a question? This is
something that I really struggle to get my head
around.
I'm just wondering how much gaslighting needs
to occur, for people to doubt their own
intelligence, their own reality and just go along
with it, if that makes sense.
C: That makes sense. It more than makes
sense.
M: Ah, good because I think I’ve just confused
myself!
C: We have an old fairy tale that reminds us of
this and it's the Emperor's New Clothes. This
is, this is what you were talking about the fact is
that we all are afraid of looking stupid if we say
“I don’t know what you’re talking about”, so we
just let all this nonsense waft over us and waft
it does, until we no longer feel that we dare
"The inflation of a problem into crisis is a great way to manipulate
somebody, if you can make them experience some kind of relief. "
I will listen to people talk, or I will read
something and although I understand the
meaning of each of the words, I can’t make any
sense of what is meant when they are joined
up together and I really can’t make out what it
is that that person or piece of writing is trying to
say. The reason I'm saying this is because I've
been watching documentaries on the NXIVM
cult and listening to Keith Raniere speak, and
what comes out of his mouth is complete
rubbish but he’s managed to convince so many
people that it’s really deep and profound.
I bring this up because it’s not uncommon for a
New Age-y type of spiritual situation, where
people talk the language of personal growth
and self-improvement and I haven't understood
any of it, but everyone else is nodding and I've
been too embarrassed to admit that I just didn't
know what the heck they're talking about.
speak up at all because every second that we
allow a person to talk nonsense without
challenge is another second where it gets
harder and harder to challenge. I think of it as a
version of procrastination. The longer I
procrastinate at any task, the harder it is to
make myself do that task, but when it's
something like this, where your reputation is
invested, your ego is invested, your public face
is invested in not looking stupid, it gets even
worse because now, speaking up and saying
you don’t understand does two things: One, it
exposes you to ridicule if the idea is really easy
and any reasonable manipulator will endeavour
to make it look like that and two, the person is
likely to just waft the audience with even more
BS , it’s like listening to a perpetual Boris
Johnson where the words come tumbling out,
but attempting to make sense out of them is
another story altogether and somewhere,
somebody has to stand up and say the
Emperor is naked, but nobody wants to do that
Making The Invisible Visible