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The mark will be made to feel like they’re now doing the right thing where they were doing the wrong thing before. The goal is to give them resolution to the vulnerable and dissonant emotional state that was utilized previously. Once the doctrine is initially accepted by the cult’s mark, the next step is to make the mark feel (morally) welcome and good.
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It must be understood that this is merely the initiation either to a religious or moral conversion or to a cult, in which case the word “initiation” resonates more strongly. The cult application will always be unhealthy in the end, and it can be known by the further manipulations it uses. One will note that this can occur in a healthy context or an unhealthy one, and that these can sometimes be difficult to distinguish from one another. Help us dismantle the system and build a better world” is an “antiracist” example. “ Christ died for your sins, so you can be forgiven” is a Christian example, and “ Be an antiracist. Once this vulnerability has been successfully manufactured in the mark (or identified and inflamed, if already present), cult doctrine is given as a potential resolution to the emotional distress. “ Did you know you’re complicit in racist systems?” is another obvious example. “ Did you know you’re a sinner?” is an example, when a lot of emotional pressure is added about how bad that makes you as a person or in the sight of God. With religious cults, as I’m using the term, however, they can also center directly on making their mark feel morally deficient or unacceptable. These leave much room for manipulations by more cultish sects. With religions in general obviously, many of these vulnerabilities are evoked by asking about one’s fears of death. Would-be indoctrinators ask manipulative questions and try to catch people on the spot in a feeling of discomfort that is usually rooted in their morality and sense of being a good or adequate person. Vulnerability is also often deliberately inflamed or manufactured for the purpose of doing a cult initiation, however, especially in unhealthy cases. People turn to various doctrines to explain and contextualize the major events in their lives or to understand who they are. Sometimes, the underlying emotional vulnerability is there for personal reasons, or as a result of life events. The question is where that emotional vulnerability comes from because with cults it is always exploited. That is, cult doctrine, and I include extreme fundamentalist interpretations of religious doctrines as cultish, exists to resolve a particularly powerful emotional vulnerability in an unhealthy way (this adds another layer of defense for responsible faith, which does so in a healthy way to the degree that it does the same things). One thing I learned through all that study is that most fundamentalist religious (in the colloquial, not technical sense) and cult conversions, especially in adults, occur by using doctrine to resolve some core emotional vulnerability. These three phases are distinct and must be understood on their own terms. First, there is initiation then there is indoctrination and then there is reprogramming. Cult indoctrinations, in particular, tend to follow very predictable stages. I took particular interest in the more authoritarian and cultish elements that can spring up within otherwise more reasonable faith traditions. The Cult Dynamic of Wokeness.īefore I got involved in studying Critical Social Justice like I do now, I mostly studied the psychology of religion. You must be an ally but accept that you will always do your allyship wrong. You must admit to your complicity in racism and pledge to do better knowing that it is impossible to do better. Share 0 You must understand racism and admit that you cannot understand racism.