stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

GURUS AND PRISONERS 377
By the end of Zimbardo’s study, four of his twelve prisoners had
experienced “extreme emotional depression, crying, rage and acute
anxiety,” to the point of needing to be removed from the study for
their own good. (Those breakdowns were later interpreted by the
experimenters as being a “passive way of demanding attention and
help.” Still, they were certainly real to the persons experiencing
them, regardless of what the subconscious motivations might have
been.) A fifth developed a psychosomatic rash on portions of his
body (Haney, et al., 1973).
The prisoners who adapted better to the situation were those
who mindlessly followed orders and who allowed the guards
to dehumanize and degrade them ever more with each passing
day and night (Zimbardo, 2004b).
Compared with those who had to be released, prisoners who
remained in prison until the termination of the study ...
scored higher on conformity (“acceptance of society as it is”)
(Haney, et al., 1973).
On a psychological test designed to reveal a person’s authoritarianism,
those prisoners who had the highest scores were
best able to function in this authoritarian prison environment
(Zimbardo, et al., 1973).
Dr. Zimbardo further characterized the prisoners in general,
by the end of the experiment, as simply “hanging on ... much like
hospitalized mental patients,” blindly obeying the commands of
their guards.
Loyal, beaten-down disciples, of course, “hang on” in much the
same way. And, as the SRF monk implicitly noted, the ones who
stay and adapt the best are, more often than not, exactly the ones
who are able to “mindlessly follow orders,” being free of the “delusive
evil” of independence. Further, as judged by their high authoritarianism
scores in Zimbardo’s study, those order-following
ones are the very same individuals who most enjoy sitting in authority
over others. Put another way: The ones who send the deepest
bows to their own overlords (“divine” or otherwise) also typically
crave and insist on the most respect and obedience from others.
Even without experimental confirmation, one could easily have
discerned that dynamic simply in common sense from one’s daily
observations of others. That, at least, has been my own experience.