America's religious cults and mass therapies offer an abundance of victims of information disease, individuals beset with severe emotional disturbances and states of reduced awareness, delusion, detachment, and withdrawal. Undoubtedly, throughout history, similar afflictions of awareness have occurred from natural stresses or at random. Now, however, they are becoming increasingly common consequences of America's runaway technology of experience. Norbert Wiener first proposed that some forms of mental disturbance could be attributed to problems of human information processing. In Cybernetics: Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, Wiener discussed the information-processing aspects of some traditional forms of mental illness. He wrote:
Psychopathology has been rather a disappointment to the instinctive
materialism of the doctors, who have taken the point of view that
every disorder must be accompanied by material lesions of some
specific tissue involved. . . . There is no way of identifying the
brain of a schizophrenic . . . nor of a manic depressive patient,
nor of a paranoiac. These disorders we call functional, and this
distinction seems to contravene the dogma of modern materialism that
every disorder in function has some physiological or anatomical basis
in the tissues concerned.
This distinction between functional and organic disorders receives a
great deal of light from the consideration of the computing machine.
As we have already seen, it is not the empty physical structure of the
computing machine that corresponds to the brain -- to the adult brain,
at least -- but the combination of this structure with the instructions
given it at the beginning of a chain of operations and with all the
additional information stored and gained from outside in the course
of the chain. This information is stored in some physical form --
in the form of memory.
There is therefore nothing surprising in considering the functional
mental disorders as fundamentally diseases of memory, of the circulating
information kept by the brain in the active state, and the long-time
permeability of the synapses. . . . Even the grosser disorders . . . may
produce a large part of their effects not so much by the destruction
of tissue . . . as by the secondary disturbances of traffic.
Wiener's theory of "diseases of memory" and "circulating information" pertained primarily to psychopathology, and many of the fine points of his proposal have since been validated through medical research (although some instances of schizophrenia and manic depression have been shown to correspond to specific conditions of chemical imbalance within the brain). In 1948, however, when Norbert Wiener wrote Cybernetics, there was no such thing as a "consciousness movement" in America, and the only religious cults were long-established sects that posed no glaring psychological or legal dilemmas. In his concern for what is human in human beings, Wiener foresaw the dangers of automation and runaway technology, and he sought to use his insights to protect man's most cherished capacities. It wasn't until after his death in the early sixties, however, that new forms of experience began to threaten Americans with startling new kinds of "functional" disorders.
In the broadest technical sense of the term, information disease may result from a variety of experiences. Some may be intensely physical. As Wiener pointed out, fundamental changes in information-processing capacities may result from injury to the nervous system. Poor diet, too, especially lack of protein, as is common in many cults, has been shown to alter the overall function of the brain. Prolonged lack of sleep, as well, may weaken or impair the brain's ability to perform vital information-processing functions. But information disease may also result purely from intense experiences that abuse an individual's natural capacities for thought and feeling. The most dramatic examples of this type of information disease result from the concentrated experiments in thought, feeling, and imagination practiced by many cults and therapies; simple techniques of encounter, guided fantasy, and meditation that are in widespread use today. These communication processes are no less powerful than immediate physical experience in their potential to disrupt and impair the brain's information-processing capacities. By tampering with basic distinctions between reality and fantasy and between past and present, or simply by stilling the workings of the mind over time, these practices may result in the breakdown of vital faculties of discrimination and destroy fundamental pathways of human awareness.
We can identify three distinct varieties of information disease in America today, each of which may follow from the snapping moment, although they do not necessarily depend on the occurrence of a single intense experience of drastic change. The most prevalent is the "sustained altered state" of awareness. This altered state is not one of enlightenment or "mind expansion." On the contrary, it is the state of narrowed or reduced awareness clearly visible among many of America's young cult members, and in our view it represents the first stage in the reorganization of personality. Another form of information disease is more extreme. As we have come to understand it, it represents a lasting impairment or destruction of a vital process of the mind. This is the "delusional phase," characterized by an absence of feeling and emotion. It may result in vivid hallucinations and in irrational, violent, and self-destructive behavior. This form is prevalent in many cults and is present in a number of mass therapies, and in recent years, in our view, it has been the cause of some of America's most startling news headlines. A third type of information disease takes the form of not thinking or shutting off the mind and may result in the complete dissolution of personality. This state is common among cult members and practitioners of many self-help therapies. In our opinion, it is the most damaging form of all. In keeping with the dynamics of the catastrophe curve, each of these varieties of information disease may come about suddenly or in slow motion; in their extremes, two or all three may occur in combination.
On the basis of our research, we feel that it is reasonable to suggest that hundreds of thousands of Americans may have been caught in the throes of information disease in this decade -- and that millions have experienced some of its symptoms. In the pages that follow, we will examine these varieties of information disease one by one and present testimony that illustrates the personal nature of each. With these examples in view, we hope that other individuals may come to understand how their own afflictions were brought about -- and realize that they can happen to anyone.
The Sustained Altered State
In the wake of snapping, after an individual surrenders or lets go, whether in a sudden moment or gradually, he may possibly slip into a level of reduced awareness in which the disorientation and confusion that follow the snapping moment become part of his everyday manner of experiencing the world. This trancelike limbo state represents the suspension of a person's response as an individual and is the first stage in the reorganization of personality.
This is the state of mind that has befallen so many of America's cult members. In this sustained state, the individual's fundamental abilities to question and to act suffer dramatic impairment. At the same time, he becomes almost wholly vulnerable to suggestion and command, and so emotionally dependent on the cult and its leaders that, in many instances, it can indeed be said that the cult member can no longer be deemed responsible for either his action or expression.
Once an individual's freedom of thought has been broken in this manner, most cults then add a torrent of new information in the form of direct indoctrination. In lectures, discussion groups, and personal confrontations, the new convert receives the values, beliefs, doctrines, and stiff regulations of the cult.
One of the most important factors in creating and maintaining this sustained altered state is the severing of the cult member's personal relationships outside the closed world of the cult. By cutting off
contact with parents, friends, and other social connections, the cult strips the convert of his most vital sources of self-reflection. Isolated in this way and cut off from all external sources of information, an individual may easily be remade by the cult in their own tightly controlled image. Then, once firmly established, this new state of mind becomes self-sustaining.
A former Krishna devotee described to us how he experienced the beginning of this process.
"The temple leaders talked in a soft voice, smiling, in a kind of I-don't-care tone," he said. "There was something strange about it, because I completely forgot about everything. In a period of about two hours they convinced me to call my parents and say that I was moving in. They had everything figured out; they knew exactly what my mother was going to say. They said, 'She's probably going to ask you if you have a toothbrush, and you just tell her that we have everything here.' Then they said, 'Don't tell her that you're moving in right away, because she'll get upset. What you do is tell her that you're going to stay here for a couple of days to listen to a seminar.' So I called my mother and said, 'Hey, listen, I'm going to be staying here overnight to listen to a seminar.' And she said, 'But you don't have a toothbrush!' And I said, 'Yeah, they've got everything here.' "
For this new convert, the intense group pressure made him feel physically helpless.
"I got the feeling I couldn't leave," he told us. "Like there was no way I could get out. I don't know what that was. I had the feeling that it was God calling me, and that the whole outside world had sort of vaporized."
Once the individual has been cut off from the world in this manner, the cult's ritual practices tend to ensure that he will not return to it on his own. Initiation into the cult usually involves a change of appearance. In Krishna, for example, the new devotee's head is shaved and his clothes and money are taken away. As in many cults, he receives a new name as well, usually during a solemn ceremony. Definitions of basic words such as "love" and "family" may be changed in accordance with the teachings of the cult. In some cults, parents become agents of Satan, and their expression of love is defined as a desire to kill the one true God. Bible scriptures are often reinterpreted to exclude from care, concern, and communication anyone who isn't a member of the cult. These alterations of the outside world, each in itself a small or subtle change, succeed in creating an impenetrable barrier between the cult member and his former identity.
One of the most comprehensive programs of manipulating language is carried out by the Pacific Northwest cult called the Love Family, or Love Israel. We spoke with one young woman whose story demonstrated the innocent manner in which most young people begin their descent into the cult state. While traveling through a town in Washington, she told us, she sought overnight lodging in a safe Christian community. Directed to the Love Family house by some local townspeople, she was immediately impressed.
"They had a sign on the door that said, 'Anyone who wants to worship Jesus is welcome here,' " she recalled. "I was struck by how clean and orderly the house was. No two people ever talked at the same time, and everyone seemed so self-assured. That really got me. They just had a certain air that they were important people."
At their invitation, this young woman remained at the Love Family house for four days, she told us, growing increasingly attracted to their humble lifestyle and warm hospitality. The women in the house all wore long skirts, and every meal was considered a communion, complete with sacraments of bread and wine. Discipline was severe, but the family life appealed to her. Before long she made a decision to join the family and, as she acknowledged, "give up everything for God." At that point of surrender, the Love Family introduced her to their private world of thought and language.
"Everyone was given biblical names or virtue names," she said, "like Strength, Courage, or Serendipity." (Or Logic -- see chapter 6.) "When you joined the group, you were baptized into the Love Family, not the church or Christ. They used the word 'Christ' interchangeably with 'the Family.' They had different names for everything. The days of the week were named after the seven churches in the Book of Revelation; the months were named after the twelve tribes of Israel. Even their calendar was slightly different: each month had thirty days, with the extra days at the end for a Passover celebration. We also had different ages, which were computed according to the book of Matthew."
After she joined the Love Family and adopted their new vocabulary and schemes of organization, this young woman began to see that the inside of the cult was not as wholesome as she had been led to believe. Inhalation of tuolene, a powerful cleaning solvent, was incorporated into cult rituals, and experimentation with various hailucinogenic plants and chemicals was a part of daily life. Activities were rigidly controlled, and members were never left alone, with the elder males in the cult dominating an unyielding social and sexual hierarchy.
"There was no possibility of seeing or understanding what was really happening," this young woman told us. "You knew who your boss was, you had your chores, and you were expected to be doing something at any given time. But there were always surprises. They changed the rules at random without warning, and the propaganda was always being drummed into us. Their beliefs and information came at us from outside, and there was never any time to sift through it. There was never any time to step back and look at it and see if any of it fit together. The Family would always say, 'What's inside your mind is lies. We are your mind. The group is your mind.' "
In the Love Family, as in most cults, women are given roles of complete subservience. No cult, however, is more blatant in its discrimination against women than the Hare Krishna, as one former devotee testifies.
"I always said in the beginning that the way they treat women was one thing I would never swallow," we were told by an attractive young woman who had long since turned in her Krishna robes, "this never looking the man in the eye, always looking at his feet, and never being alone with a man. But sooner or later, all the women fall into their little thing, walking two steps behind the man -- the whole bit."
While the women are hard at work within the cult temples or family houses, the men in most cults are sent out into the world to solicit donations and new members. Before the cult member may enter a larger environment, he is first instilled with guilt and fear, to keep him from questioning his participation in the cult and to negate the criticism of outsiders. Members of the Unification Church and other allegedly Christian cults have the fear of Satan drummed into them. Among the Hare Krishna, as in other Eastern cults, members are told to shun outsiders, all of whom are reputed to be in a state of "maya" or alienation from God, a kind of spiritual contamination.
An ex-Krishna devotee recalled for us his excursions into the outside world.
"Everyone got dressed up in their robes and shaved heads and we'd go out chanting in public," he said. "We'd dance in the streets and hand out flyers and in general attract a lot of attention. All of a sudden, here we were in the middle of this bustling city, and we were the only people doing this stuff and everyone looked at us like we were crazy. There was no way out of it. You felt really solemnly religious like you were supposed to, as if you were doing these people a fantastic favor because every time they heard the words 'Hare Krishna' they were supposed to make tremendous spiritual advancement. There was a kind of facelessness about the whole thing, though. We got used to the idea of feeling very foreign. And the more you got used to being there like that, the more accustomed you got to being in the cult."
For this young man, journeys away from the temple only intensified his identification with the cult.
"I had to put up a mental barrier shielding myself from the world," he admitted. "I'd have to hold everything out, because it was all hanging over me. The whole street atmosphere, the entire outside world was sitting there, just waiting to fall on me -- and I used Krishna as a protection from the whole thing. I didn't realize I was doing it, but if I didn't do it I would have gone crazy for sure. One time there was a group of devotees going out on
a bus, and I remember getting this tremendously threatened feeling as we were driving through the city. I knew I'd left that world, and I really couldn't go back because it looked so terrifying."
Another former cult member described for us his very physical reaction as he slipped into his cult state of mind.
"I got a distinct sense of things actually getting dark as I was going into this thing," he recalled.
"It seemed like everything was getting a little bit darker, as if the weather had gotten really overcast, but this bleakness was only perceptual. At the same time, I started to notice more dark things around me, outside, in my room, sort of a heavy, gray mood."
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