It's a beauty to see people everywhere in the Public Squares of the world standing up for a more humane world. That is what this site has been about from the moment it was conceived.
Monday 26 September 2011
Sunday 25 September 2011
Nick Bishop
Thanks Golden Veil, For the Record and Shirley.
Lots of food for thought in all your posts.
I’ll state my position as simply as I can. I live in the UK, so I think any project of this sort would need a co-ordinator based in OH. They would be on site and have their ear to the ground in a way I couldn’t. So first it would be necessary first to find that person/persons.
Having said that, I would be happy to be responsible for the European arm of any such project, plus any services [like webchat] that could be offered over the web. I can offer writing, counselling and website design skills.
Because this would necessarily start as a part-time, voluntary endeavour, there has to be a ‘We’ at the beginning, and as I say someone willing to act as the OH co-ordinator.
Any volunteers?
How about you three, GV, FtR and Shirley – are you up for it?
I can be contacted at nicholas.bishop22@tiscali.co.uk
Disasters Merging: Tropic of Chaos
Elena: It's interesting that the greedier people are what is most affected is the atmosphere, that is, the sphere of air, the lungs, where, according to some, the soul resides... as if the emotional sphere of the Earth were the first to suffer the consequences of our instinctive greed pushing on nature.
In cults what becomes most affected by the constraints of cult behavior is the emotional relation with people that establishes itself dogmatically and stereotyped sucking out any possible "life". Every "act" is carefully rehearsed so that what people can "do" is only what is strictly allowed. It would be interesting to put all these different forces in perspective and understand them under the law of three and seven or even better looked at from the point of view of processes.
ropic of Chaos," Christian Parenti's epic new book, revolves around what the author refers to as catastrophic convergence, the "collision of political, economic and environmental disasters." Catastrophic convergence is a culmination of the compounding and amplifying effects of adverse climate change, post-Cold War political violence and neoliberal economic philosophy.
In cults what becomes most affected by the constraints of cult behavior is the emotional relation with people that establishes itself dogmatically and stereotyped sucking out any possible "life". Every "act" is carefully rehearsed so that what people can "do" is only what is strictly allowed. It would be interesting to put all these different forces in perspective and understand them under the law of three and seven or even better looked at from the point of view of processes.
Disasters Merging: Tropic of Chaos
25 September 11
ropic of Chaos," Christian Parenti's epic new book, revolves around what the author refers to as catastrophic convergence, the "collision of political, economic and environmental disasters." Catastrophic convergence is a culmination of the compounding and amplifying effects of adverse climate change, post-Cold War political violence and neoliberal economic philosophy.Parenti, a meticulous writer and economist, uses a timeline and pan-geographic perspective to show how the first factor aggravates the latter two, like pouring gasoline on a raging fire. The combined effect causes the least protected people (such as the "climate change refugees") the most amount of harm.
Parenti doesn't debate whether global warming exists. He doesn't have to - though he provides scientific and military-based evidence from a swath of sources. Parenti humanizes his information. He travels through equatorial regions that span Africa, Asia and Latin America - the Tropic of Chaos situated between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn - and meshes the experiences of individuals most affected by climate change and related catastrophic convergence, with historical and forward-looking implications.
Parenti begins with a poignant example of a young Kenyan man, Ekaru Loruman, who was shot through the head and left to die in the desert. Parenti explains how Ekaru's death "in the heart of the pastoralist corridor - a region of mountains, savannas, marshes and deserts, straddling the borderlands of Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia" - is a direct result of the "violence that follows climate change." Severe aridity caused a decrease in the number of cattle and an increase in the violent cattle raids that led to the killing. It is through Ekaru and his story, and others like him, that Parenti examines catastrophic convergence - from the individual to the global perspective, and back again.
We see, through Parenti's exhaustive research, that the war in Afghanistan is not only detrimental to its struggling population, but that embracing the Taliban, for example, is as much about economic pragmatism as religious fanaticism. Because of the increasingly arid environment, made worse by climate change, the most cost-effective crop to grow is poppy, which Parenti explains requires one-sixth of the water needed to grow wheat. Our expensive war on drugs and terrorism is thus also a war against Afghan farmers. Certain farmers choosing to grow poppy instead of wheat, given the severe water restrictions, turn to the Taliban because the Taliban financially supports poppy production. The US, of course, does not.
Elsewhere in the book, we learn just how much the ongoing violence in Kashmir, between India and Pakistan, is about water rights and the fraying 1960 Indus Water Treaty. Meanwhile, Pakistan supports religious fundamentalists at war with India and Afghanistan, like the Taliban, to strengthen its hand in water-related disputes.
Moving over to Latin America, recounting Brazil's conflicted history as a battleground between structural adjustment programs and nationalization intentions, Parenti describes how IMF and World Bank loans for austerity measures and privatization of national industries result in more profit leaving the most browbeaten countries than entering it. This phenomenon of debasing the economic stability of local populations is amplified by climate change.
Just south of the U.S.-Mexican border, in Juarez, Mexico ("the city that NAFTA built and then began to kill, but climate change will finish the task ... "), Parenti introduces us to Tanila Garcia, a woman who lives in a shack that "smells of sweat and dirty clothes" with a "dirt floor covered with strips of salvaged gray office carpet" and an outdoor plywood outhouse. Tanila's family gets its electricity through a jury-rigged setup that can electrocute people during the flash flood times in an otherwise dry area. According to Parenti, "the vortex of murder that now defines Juarez is a harbinger of a world in which climate mitigation has been ignored and adaptation takes the form of violent class apartheid."
Our hysterical war on immigration routinely kills or incarcerates people who have nowhere else to move because of a combination of climate change and economic devastation caused by financial and trade deregulation. None of this explanation seeps into the mainstream media.
In the last chapter, "Implications and Possibilities," Parenti provides a list of steps necessary to mitigate some of the horrific effects of climate change, its causes and the catastrophic convergence of which it is a component. These include capping carbon dioxide emission, redirecting government subsidies to clean technologies and building better socioeconomic infrastructure that can withstand the adverse natural forces enhanced by man's lack of respect for the atmosphere, in his unquenchable thirst for limitless accumulation.
Of course, suggestions such as these are predicated on forcing profit-motivated individuals, companies and international agencies to behave in regulated ways that might reduce profits short-term, but enhance the world long-term. We're talking about a seismic shift in the mentality of pretty powerful, selfish and destructive groups of people. Unfortunately, we have to look at only the IMF and EU's obscene creation of debt, against which punishing austerity measures are being extracted, to see that the morons running the catastrophic-convergence show are a long way from changing course. Hell, to fear things can get only worse, we had to listen to only the inane bantering over the US debt cap ceiling, during which neither party leaders, including President Obama, seemed to have noticed that our debt increased to float Wall Street, not our seniors. That said, I admire Parenti's pragmatic optimism. If he can have traveled and witnessed all he did in writing this book and still maintain a modicum of hope, maybe we all can.
"Tropic of Chaos" is a wake-up call to humanity, particularly to the richest nations (with the U.S. at the top of that list) that produce the greatest amount of carbon that accelerates climate change. The detrimental effects of our environmental gluttony at the heart of our economic avarice are not blurry fatalistic hypotheses - they are here, today. As "Tropic of Chaos" illustrates so clearly, we can't afford, morally or economically, to be lax about the impact of catastrophic convergence on the global population or allow private profit-motivated interests to ruin civilization.
We have only one planet. We have only one global population. As Parenti says at the end of his book, "We owe such an effort to people like Ekaru Loruman, who are already suffering and dying on the front lines of the catastrophic convergence, and to the next generation who will inherit the mess. And, we owe it to ourselves."
Closer to Death
Elena: It's interesting that the closer people are to death the more human they sound. Thank you Sir for your article.
Former Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison warden Allen Ault. (photo: Hollis Bennett/Getty Images)
I Ordered Death in Georgia
25 September 11
The state's former DOC commissioner on 'rehearsed murder.'
can't always remember their names, but in my nightmares I can see their faces. As the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Corrections from 1992 until 1995, I oversaw five executions. The first two were Thomas Dean Stevens and Christopher Burger, accomplices in a monstrous crime: as teenagers in 1977, they robbed and raped a cabdriver, put him in the trunk of a car, and pushed the vehicle into a pond. I had no doubt that they were guilty: they admitted it to me. But now it was 1993 and they were in their 30s. All these years later, after a little frontal-lobe development, they were entirely different people.On execution days, I always drove from Atlanta to the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. I knew death row well: 20 years earlier, I had built it. The state had hired me as the warden of Georgia Diagnostic in 1971, where I renovated a special cell block for especially violent offenders. After I left Georgia in 1977, the state reinstated the death penalty and turned the cell block I had developed into death row.
The state executed Stevens first, in June 1993, and then Burger in December. In both instances, I visited them in a cell next to the electric-chair chamber, where they counted down the hours until they died. They were calm, mature, and remorseful. When the time came, I went to a small room directly behind the death chamber where the attorney general worked the phones, checking with the courts to make sure that the executions were not stayed. Then we asked the prisoners for their final words. Stevens said nothing, and Burger apologized, saying, "Please forgive me." I looked to the prison electrician and ordered him to pull the switch. Last Wednesday, as the state of Georgia prepared to execute Troy Davis despite concerns about his guilt, I wrote a letter with five former death-row wardens and directors urging Georgia prison officials to commute his sentence. I feared not only the risk of Georgia killing an innocent man, but also the psychological toll it would exact on the prison workers who performed his execution. "No one has the right to ask a public servant to take on a lifelong sentence of nagging doubt, and for some of us, shame and guilt," we wrote in our letter.
The men and women who assist in executions are not psychopaths or sadists. They do their best to perform the impossible and inhumane job with which the state has charged them. Those of us who have participated in executions often suffer something very much like posttraumatic stress. Many turn to alcohol and drugs. For me, those nights that weren't sleepless were plagued by nightmares. My mother and wife worried about me. I tried not to share with them that I was struggling, but they knew I was.
I didn't grow up saying, "I want to work in prisons." I had never even been in a prison or a jail before I became warden of the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison. The commissioner at the time hired me to revamp the system, to implement case management, and work with inmates to make them safer. I had always worked in helping professions, and my main goal in corrections was always to reduce recidivism, so that inmates would leave prison better than they arrived. Over this course of time, the death penalty figured larger and larger into my work. I never supported it, but I also did not want to let it distract me from improving overall prison conditions. Death-row inmates are, after all, only a tiny fraction of the prison population.
When I was required to supervise an execution, I tried to rationalize my work by thinking, if I just save one future victim, maybe it is worth it. But I was very aware of the research showing that the death penalty wasn't a deterrent. I left my job as corrections commissioner in Georgia in 1995 partially because I had had enough: I didn't want to supervise the executions anymore. My focus changed to national crime policy and then to academia, where I could work to improve the criminal-justice system without participating in its worst parts. Today, I am the dean of the College of Justice & Safety at Eastern Kentucky University.
Having witnessed executions firsthand, I have no doubts: capital punishment is a very scripted and rehearsed murder. It's the most premeditated murder possible. As Troy Davis's execution approached - and then passed its set hour, as the Supreme Court considered a stay - I thought of the terrible tension we all experienced as executions dragged into the late hours of the night. No one wanted to go ahead with the execution, but then a court stay offered little relief: you knew you were going to repeat the whole process and execute him sometime in the future.
I will always live with these images - with "nagging doubt," even though I do not believe that any of the executions carried out under my watch were mistaken. I hope that, in the future, men and women will not die for their crimes, and other men and women will not have to kill them. The United States should be like every other civilized country in the Western world and abolish the death penalty.
The Group Psychological Abuse Scale
Presented to Division 36 (Psychology of Religion) American Psychological Association Annual Meeting
Toronto, Canada
August, 12, 1996
Toronto, Canada
August, 12, 1996
The study of cults has stimulated much disagreement among academics, clergy, and mental health professionals. These disagreements led to a resolution passed by Division 36 (Psychologists Interested in Religious Issues—now called Psychology of Religion) of the American Psychological Association, which says in part:
- "...there is no consensus that sufficient psychological research exists to scientifically equate undue non-physical persuasion (otherwise known as ‘coercive persuasion,’ ‘mind control,’ or ‘brainwashing’) with techniques of influence as typically practiced by one or more religious groups." Further, the Executive Committee invites those with research on this topic to submit proposals to present their work at Divisional programs. (PIRI Executive Committee Adopts Position on Non-Physical Persuasion, 1991, p. 3).
This paper briefly explores some of the definitional confusion that contributes to the disagreements in this field and then reports on the development of a measure, the Group Psychological Abuse Scale (Chambers, Langone, Dole, & Grice, 1994), which will contribute to the advancement of empirical research, as called for by Division 36, and, after it is fully developed, will help clarify definitional confusion in this field.
Definitional Issues
According to the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary(1971) the term "cult" has historically referred to "worship; reverential homage rendered to a divine being or beings...a particular form or system of religious worship; esp in reference to its external rites and ceremonies...devotion or homage to a particular person or thing, now esp. as paid by a body of professed adherents or admirers." The term has more recently been applied to "devoted attachment to, or extravagant admiration for, a person, principle, etc., especially when regarded as a fad: as, the cult of nudism" (Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, 1960).
Sociologically the term "cult" has usually referred to innovative religious groups, with "sect" referring to groups that split off from mainstream religions (Robbins, 1988). In 1969, for example, Robbins published an article entitled, "Eastern Mysticism and the Resocialization of Drug Users: The Meher Baba Cult" (Robbins, 1969). During the 1970s, however, and especially after the Jonestown tragedy of 1978, a steady stream of critical journalistic reports resulted in the term’s taking on a decidedly negative connotation of exploitation and extreme manipulation of followers. As a consequence some scholars have come to prefer the term "new religious movement (NRM)," which does not have the negative connotation of "cult." (Ironically, the Meher Baba group does not exhibit the negative features associated with the pejorative definition of "cult.")
Academic Disputes
During this period, the concept of thought reform (Lifton, 1961), or coercive persuasion (Schein, Schneier, & Barker, 1961), popularly called "brainwashing" or "mind control," was used to try to explain the behavior of many controversial groups that were being called "cults." Disputes arose between so-called "pro-cultists," who favored the term, "new religious movement," and "anti-cultists," who favored the term, "cult." The debate between these parties was often depicted as revolving around the question of whether or not thought reform, "brainwashing," exists, or whether it necessarily entails physical coercion. Proponents of thought reform models, however, have long held that their models apply to extreme examples of the sociopsychological influences seen in everyday life. Lifton, for example, extensively studied Chinese civilians who had not been exposed to physical coercion. And both he and Schein warned society about the dangers posed by sociopsychological influences within our own culture. Indeed, the American Psychological Association (APA), recognizing that even responsible, well-meaning psychologists should avoid the use of certain forms of influence, imposed ethical constraints on psychological researchers (APA, 1992).
The true source of the disagreement was summarized in the Division 36 resolution quoted above. This statement recognizes the existence of coercive persuasion, while noting that research does not yet tell us the degree to which coercive persuasion characterizes religious groups typically categorized under the terms "cult" or "new religious movement." Langone (1988, 1993) has advocated that a distinction be made between these two terms, reserving the former term for groups that are highly manipulative and exploitative and the latter for benign groups, such as the Meher Baba group. Many scholars, however, continue to write as though the two terms refer to the same category of group, thereby needlessly adding fuel to the spurious debate between so-called "pro-cultists" and "anti-cultists."
A Proposed Conceptual Integration
Galanter’s (1989) term, "charismatic group," has some advantages over "cult" or "new religious movement" in that it can encompass the benign and the destructive. Furthermore, the term may be applied to some nonreligious groups, such as political movements, human development organizations, and small subgroups of mainstream groups. A charismatic group is characterized by a shared belief system, a sustained high level of social cohesiveness, powerful behavioral norms, and a leader to whom members impute charismatic or divine power. Unfortunately, this term is not widely used.
The concept of psychological abuse, particularly that observed in groups, presents possibilities for further theoretical differentiation. Psychological abuse refers to practices that, simply stated, treat a person as an object to be manipulated and used, rather than as a subject whose mind, autonomy, identity, and dignity are to be honored (Langone, 1992). Obviously, for a group to be called psychologically abusive, abusive practices must reach a designated threshold of frequency and/or intensity. This threshold could be selected after sufficient research using the Group Psychological Abuse Scale (Chambers et al., 1994).
Group psychological abuse may be distinguished from thought reform, or "mind control," in that the latter may be viewed as a specialized instance of the former. Figure one presents Venn diagrams that illustrate the relationship between "thought reform," "group psychological abuse," "cult," "new religious movement," and "charismatic group."
The center circle represents group environments characterized by thought reform, or coercive persuasion. The following conditions are present in groups practicing thought reform:
- Obtaining substantial control over an individual’s time and thought content, typically by gaining control over major elements of the person’s social and physical environment.
- Systematically creating a sense of powerlessness in the person.
- Manipulating a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in such a way as to inhibit observable behavior that reflects the values and routines of life organization the individual displayed prior to contact with the group.
- Maintaining a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure in the organization.
- Maintaining a noninformed state existing in the subject. (Singer & Ofshe, 1990, pp. 189-190)
Psychologically abusive groups, may, but do not necessarily, have some or all of these features to varying degrees. Psychologically abusive groups may also be characterized by less potent or less systematic forms of influence that abuse people by treating them as objects. Psychologically abusive groups may be, but are not necessarily, charismatic, and may be, but are not necessarily, religious.
Encompassing the circle representing group psychological abuse is a circle labeled group-related harm. This circle refers to broader types of harm that would not necessarily be psychologically abusive, religious, or related to a charismatic group. For example, a relatively benign, nonmanipulative new age group might advocate an unorthodox diet that could be medically harmful to some or all of the group’s members.
Partly overlapping these three circles is a circle representing "charismatic groups" (Galanter, 1989). This circle includes groups commonly referred to as new religious movements, as well as groups—religious and nonreligious—commonly called cults, including those using thought reform. The circle also includes groups characterized by psychological abuse and other nonabusive types of harm, as well as benign groups.
Much needless disputation arises when the distinctions implied by these Venn diagrams are ignored or when the only distinction made is between benign and thought reform groups. As the Division 36 resolution suggests, the debate ought to be focused not on whether or not thought reform exists, but the degree to which it—and lesser forms of psychological abuse—characterize the broader category of charismatic groups. In other words, what ought to be the relative sizes of the Venn diagrams? Some who work with people harmed by psychologically abusive groups may be inclined to overestimate the number of psychologically abusive groups and the intensity or prevalence of abuse in such groups. Others, whose experience is primarily with benign groups, such as Meher Baba, or who don’t work with those who have been harmed, may be inclined to underestimate the prevalence of psychological abuse. This is an empirical disagreement that ought to be settled through empirical research, such as that called for by the Division 36 resolution.
Group Psychological Abuse Scale
The Group Psychological Abuse Scale (Chambers et al., 1994) was developed to provide a measure that would permit such empirical research. One cannot study depression without a measure of depression, and one cannot study psychologically abusive groups without a measure of group psychological abuse.
The GPA was derived from a pool of 112 descriptive items, which formed part of a larger survey to which 308 subjects from 101 different groups responded. These items were selected from a delphi study (Dole & Dubrow-Eichel, 1985) that examined experts’ perceptions of cults, a careful review of the clinical literature on cults and thought reform programs, and Langone’s (1992) theoretical analysis of psychological abuse. Langone’s work suggested that cults, defined as exploitatively manipulative groups, would be conspicuous examples of group-induced psychological abuse. The descriptive items used to rate groups fell into three domains of interest:
- the purpose of the group,
- the relationships within the group, and
- the relationships with others outside the group.
A 20-page questionnaire, of which these 112 descriptive items formed a part, was sent to lists of ex-members and professionals and organizations who had access to former members of cultic groups. Approximately 35% of subjects responded (the exact number is not known because not all professionals and organizations handed out all questionnaires they received). Approximately 37% of the subjects had no or little contact with cult educational organizations. The average length of membership was 6.79 years. Sixty-four percent of the subjects were female. Their religious backgrounds were roughly representative of U.S. religious affiliations. Education was high, with subjects reporting an average of 14.84 years of school. Sixty percent of the subjects left their group without formal outside assistance, 9% were ejected, 13% had been deprogrammed (i.e., some restraint used), 17% had been exit counseled (an intervention in which the person is free to leave at any time). This subject population was much broader than that of earlier research in which the vast majority of subjects had left their groups because of family-initiated deprogrammings.
Principal components analysis with varimax rotation revealed four interpretable factors, each with eigenvalues greater than 3. The strategy for scale development was to choose items that loaded substantially on the factors, assuming that the scales made up of such items would reflect the factors from which they were chosen. Seventy-five of the 112 items loaded substantially on one or more of the four retained factors. Four subscales with 7 items each (28 items altogether) were identified, using items that loaded substantially on only one of the four factors in order to increase the unidimensionality, and thus interpretability, of the scales. Items were rated on a 1-5 likert scale with 1=not at all characteristic, 2=not characteristic, 3=can’t say/not sure, 4=characteristic, and 5=very characteristic. Each subscale can produce scores from 7 to 35, while the GPA summary index of psychological abuse can range from 28 to 140. Scores of 21 for the subscales and 84 for the GPA summary index mark the dividing point between ratings indicating abuse and ratings indicating nonabuse. An analysis of items loading on the subscale factors indicated that the following were appropriate names for the factors: Compliance, Exploitation, Mind Control, and Anxious Dependency. The average scores of the subjects on the GPA scale were 110.70 for the summary index (SD=13.42), 29.27 for Compliance (SD=5.30), 22.96 for Exploitation (SD=5.91), 31.64 for Mind Control (SD=3.43), and 26.52 for Anxious Dependency (SD=5.55).
Research on the ICC
The GPA was used in a research study conducted at Boston University’s Danielsen Institute (Langone, 1996). This study examined former members of the International Churches of Christ (ICC—often called "the Boston Movement"), one of the most controversial and fastest growing groups in the country. The study looked at the nature and level of psychological distress and perceptions regarding the psychological abusiveness of the group. The GPA served as a measure for the latter objective. In one component the GPA was mailed, with two other questionnaires, to 228 former ICC members throughout the U.S., of whom 40 responded. In another component, the GPA was given, along with a psychological test battery, to 15 former ICC members, 23 graduates of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a mainstream campus ministry, and 19 former Roman Catholics—all of whom were seen either at the Danielsen Institute or an alternate site. These latter groups permitted comparisons between an allegedly cultic group (ICC) and former members of two mainstream religious groups. In one of these groups, the members had left (i.e., graduated) on good terms; in the other group, the members had left because they were disenchanted for various reasons. The latter comparison group tested the hypothesis that former cult members have negative perceptions about their groups simply because they are disgruntled. If this were the case, then former Catholics and former ICC members would rate their groups similarly.
In fact, the former ICC members rated their group much higher on the GPA than either of the two comparison groups: M=105.60 (SD=13.69 -- Component One) and 108.50 (SD=11.28 -- Component Two) versus 65.26 (SD=15.90) for the ex-Catholic group and 46.91 (SD=8.10) for the InterVarsity group. Subscale scores were also much higher for the ICC group. These results were consistent with the only other study to use the GPA, a Master’s thesis (Adams, 1993) that compared former ICC members in Cincinnati and graduates of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
A discriminant analysis was conducted to see if the composite GPA score alone could correctly classify individual subjects in their respective groups. The discriminant function analysis revealed that the GPA score alone could predict group membership better than chance, Wilk’s =.188, F(2,52) = 112.62, p <.001. Thirteen of the 14 former ICC members (92.9%) were correctly classified on the basis of their GPA scores. None of the former IV members and only 2 of 19 former Catholics were incorrectly classified as former ICC members. Overall, the discriminant function correctly classified 76.4% of the cases. However, it should be noted that discriminant functions derived from a sample and used to classify cases on the same sample capitalize on chance variation of the sample and are very likely to generate more accurate classification results than would be achieved if the canonical coefficients were used to classify cases on a separate sample.
Ohio University/Wellspring Data
GPA data have also been collected by researchers at Ohio University and Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center, a residential treatment facility for former cult members. Thirty-six former cult members attending Wellspring and 52 former cult members attending a national conference of the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) were administered the GPA.
The mean of the GPA summary index for the first group was 100.70 (SD=19.91), 95.50 (SD=11.45) for the second group. Subscale scores, along with all other GPA scores reported here, are summarized in Table 1.
These data indicate that the GPA may have much potential to contribute to the kind of research called for in the Division 36 resolution. More psychometric work must be performed, however, before the GPA will be fully developed. The scale must be given to large numbers of current and former members of charismatic and mainstream groups, religious and nonreligious, in order to determine if it retains its discriminative capacity across a wider subject population. Test-retest reliability studies must be conducted, as well as criterion and construct validity studies. Such studies will take some time and effort, but they can be completed.
The GPA will also contribute to theoretical development in this area. The GPA’s four subscales—Compliance, Exploitation, Mind Control, and Anxious Dependency—reflect varieties of abuse, while the summary index of the four factors is a statistically efficient measure of the extent of abuse. The permutations of the four scales may be useful in developing an empirically based classification system of groups with respect to the notion of psychological abuse.
The importance of developing the GPA is underscored by research indicating that one to two percent of the population may have been at least transiently involved with psychologically abusive groups (Bird & Reimer, 1982; ICR Survey Research Group, 1993; Lottick, 1993; Zimbardo & Hartley, 1985). Although the number of such groups is not known, evidence indicates that there are probably thousands, if one includes those that may have no more than a few dozen members (Langone, 1993).
Table 1
GPA Mean Scores (Standard Deviations)
| Subject Group | GPA | Comp- liance | Exploitation | Mind Control | Anxious Depend- ency | |
| Ex-Roman Cath. | 65.26 (15.90) | 17.63 (3.96) | 14.47 (4.47) | 17.58 (5.80) | 15.58 (3.89) | Langone -n=19 |
| InterVarsity | 46.91 (8.10) | 15.36 (3.91) | 10.57 (1.96) | 12.04 (4.01) | 8.89 (1.38) | Langone - n=23 |
| InterVarsity | 42.15 * | 12.71 (4.70) | 10.37 (2.59) | 10.59 (3.15) | 8.48 (2.13) | Adams - n=27 |
| ICC - Comp 1 | 105.60 (13.69) | 31.70 (3.90) | 19.30 (4.35) | 31.48 (3.66) | 23.13 (4.40) | Langone - n=40 |
| ICC - Comp 2 | 108.50 (11.28) | 31.86 (3.28) | 21.79 (2.81) | 30.43 (4.55) | 24.43 (3.25) | Langone - n=15 |
| ICC - Adams | 107.68 * | 32.96 (2.35) | 20.18 (4.68) | 31.43 (3.57) | 23.11 (4.63) | n=28 |
| Wellspring? | 100.69 (18.91) | 27.27 (5.98) | 18.92 (6.49) | 30.41 (5.12) | 24.69 (6.12) | Clients - n=36 |
| CAN Ex-Cultists | 95.50 (11.45) | 25.77 (3.17) | 21.36 (6.35) | 23.23 (2.00) | 26.26 (4.43) | n=52 |
| Diverse groups | 110.70 (13.42) | 29.27 (5.30) | 22.96 (5.91) | 31.64 (3.43) | 26.52 (5.55) | Chambers et al.n=308 |
Wellspring
*SD not available
Applications of the Group Psychological Abuse Scale
Given the large number of harmful groups and the number of people who have had at least transient involvements in such groups, an instrument that measures group psychological abuse would have many applications. Currently, for example, clinicians and researchers rely upon a priori checklists of destructive group characteristics and anecdotal or clinical data to evaluate groups. Passionate debates sometimes surround allegations that a particular group is a "cult." The GPA draws attention away from the difficult-to-define and categorical concept of cult and focuses instead on the intuitively meaningful and theoretically quantifiable concept of psychological abuse. If developed psychometrically, the GPA could provide quantitative, systematically collected data that would greatly reduce reliance upon anecdotes, participant observation, and clinical impressions. Moreover, because the GPA has four distinct factor scores, as well as a summary index, it will permit much more nuanced evaluations of groups than is currently possible and will reduce the level of disagreement among professionals in the field.
The following are additional applications envisioned for the GPA:
Once the GPA has been used to evaluate at least several dozen groups, it may become possible to select several small groups that, according to the GPA, are especially abusive. Current and former members could then be studied in depth in order to increase understanding of the mechanisms that sustain such groups, harm at least some of their members, and induce some to commit violent or criminal acts. Presently, the only criteria for selecting groups to study are their availability and level of controversy in the press—neither of which is a reliable indicator of the degree to which the group is in fact psychologically abusive.
The GPA can be used to help determine if there are any relationships between perceived psychological abuse in group environments and pre-existing or post-group psychopathology. Ongoing studies at Ohio University and Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center are examining this question.
By comparing the GPA subscale profiles of various controversial and noncontroversial groups, it may be possible to develop empirically grounded theories and classification systems pertaining to the varieties of group psychological abuse. Such a use of the GPA might draw attention to relatively noncontroversial groups that, though not highly abusive, may be sufficiently abusive on one or two subscales to warrant criticism. Conversely, using the GPA in this way may call into question allegations of abuse in certain groups whose controversial nature may be unjustified or based on factors other than abuse. In other words, the GPA will give a measure of objective clarity to disagreements currently based upon opinion or relatively unstructured observations.
Clinicians who want to assess the possible abusiveness of a client’s group involvement could use the GPA to help determine the level and nature of perceived abuse.
Family members who approach clinicians for advice regarding a loved one’s group involvement could use the GPA to make at least a preliminary analysis of the possible abusiveness of the group.
Limitations and Future Research
The GPA’s major limitation is that it is a self-report measure. Instruments that assess group psychological abuse through behavioral observations are also needed. The development of such instruments, however, poses serious methodological problems and requires a much greater level of resources than the GPA demands. In part, behavioral measures will be enormously difficult to develop because the manifested psychological abusiveness of a group may, ironically, vary inversely with the skill of the abusive leader. At least in some case a skillful leader may have so thoroughly stifled dissent and enforced conformity that overt abuse may not often be necessary and, therefore, will not be readily observed. MacDonald (1987/88) proposed the concept of the bicameral normative system to account for this phenomenon: the abusive norms of the group will replace the seemingly benign surface norms only when a dissenter or noncompliant member threatens to disrupt the specious harmony resulting from the leader’s dictatorial control. The existence of bicameral normative systems helps explain why there is so much disagreement among cult researchers. Some agree with MacDonald’s contention that appearances can deceive; while others are more inclined to take appearances at face value. If MacDonald is correct, psychometrically meaningful observational measures of group abuse will be extremely difficult to construct. Langone (1989) proposed a framework for constructing a behavioral measure of group abuse, but his proposal does not overcome the problems posed by bicameral normative systems. More conceptual work is needed.
The GPA will not solve all measurement problems associated with psychologically abusive groups. But it will at least enable researchers to systematically assess the perception of psychological abuse among members and former members of a large variety of abusive and nonabusive groups. If, as expected, it succeeds in discriminating among types of groups, it will enable researchers to focus on those groups that are most abusive and, therefore, most likely to be useful in the development of observational measures and the examination of research questions. The GPA can undoubtedly provide a useful foundation for research in an area that cries out for solid empirical study.
References
Adams, D. (1993). The Cincinnati Church of Christ: How former members rate the group on the cultism scale. Unpublished master’s thesis, Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio.American Psychological Association. (1992). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. American Psychologist, 47(12), 1597-1628.Bird, F., & Reimer, B. (1982). Participation rates in new religions and para-religious movements. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 21, 1-14.Chambers, W., Langone, M. D., Dole, A., & Grice, J. (1994). Group Psychological Abuse Scale: A measure of cultic behavior.Cultic Studies Journal, 11(1), 88-117.Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. (1971). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Dole, A. A., & Dubrow-Eichel, S. (1985). Some new religions are dangerous. Cultic Studies Journal, 2(1), 17-30. Galanter, M. (1989). Cults: Faith, healing, and coercion. New York: Oxford University Press.ICR Survey Research Group. (1993). Cult-screening test conducted for the American Family Foundation.Langone, M. D. (1989). Social influence: Ethical considerations. Cultic Studies Journal, 6(1), 16-24. Langone, M. D. (1988). Cults: Questions and answers. Bonita Springs, FL: American Family Foundation. Langone, M. D. (1992). Psychological abuse. Cultic Studies Journal, 9(2), 206-218.Langone, M. D. (Ed.). (1993). Recovery from cults: Help for victims of psychological and spiritual abuse. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Langone, M. D. (1996). An investigation of a reputedly psychologically abusive group that targets collee students: A report for Boston University’s Danielsen Institute.Lifton, R. J. (1961). Thought reform and the psychology of totalism. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Lottick, E. (February, 1993). Survey reveals physicians’ experiences with cults. Pennsylvania Medicine, 96, 26-28.PIRI Executive Committee adopts position on non-physical persuasion. (1991). Psychologists Interested in Religious Issues Newsletter, 16(1), 3.Robbins, T. (1969). Eastern mysticism and the resocialization of drug users: The Meher Baba cult. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 8(2), 308-317.Robbins, T. (1988). Cults, converts, and charisma. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Schein, E., Schneier, I., & Barker, C. H. (1961). Coercive persuasion: A sociopsychological analysis of the "brainwashing" of American civilian prisoners by the chinese communists. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Singer, M. T., & Ofshe, R. (1990). Thought reform programs and the production of psychiatric casualties. Psychiatric Annals, 20(4), 188-193.Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. (1960). Cleveland and New York: The World Publishing Company.Zimbardo, P. G., & Hartley, C. F. (1985). Cults go to high school: A theoretical and empirical analysis of the initial stage in the recruitment process. Cultic Studies Journal, 2, 91-148.NOTE: Researchers interested in possibly using the GPA should contact Dr. Michael Langone,_icsa_name_address_phone
Saturday 24 September 2011
Triumph of groupthink
This is an important article because it reveals a pattern that is common in groupthink and that has been performed both in the fofcult and the fofblog lavishly. What it shows is, in terms of the System, how people functioning from their instinctive center overrun justice, decency and truth to maintain a position of power that they are interested in keeping and how they then wash their hands after their position doesn't depend on whether they tell the truth or not. The people in the fofblog are in the process of washing their hands from the responsibility of actually doing something important to close the Fellowship cult down. They are slowly realizing that in the long run they too will be made accountable and are hence, revisiting the ideas for which they banned me as if they could be made possible. They are still far from taking such action though, they will make words of them for a long time before they are ready to take action when a few more have committed suicide and other such horrors have been allowed to pass no matter how clearly I warned them. Screaming out for action then was the natural response to the horror. Seeing the truth and acting on it does not mean that one is better than anyone else but that one has suffered it more deeply. The knowing comes from the suffering. I also know that I was banned from the fofblog not because I screamed at the horror of realizing how deaf they were acting on them with swear words but because I proposed the actions that they are now beginning to consider. That keeps the injustice alive, the questions beating. You are people who, in your group thinking, are as willing to hurt someone like me with the same mechanisms and justifications that the fofcult is willing to do so. It is no wonder that you belonged to the cult so intimately and continue to reproduce the same behaviors outside of it. It's a great loss for you that Ton was unable to silence me and simply revealed the mechanisms that you try to use to justify yourselves but let me admit with pleasure that it is with great satisfaction that I see you considering the possibility of doing something more about the Fellowship cult than showing how well you can write. "Objectifying" our selves means acting on the truth and when you manage to raise your selves up to it you will have no reasons to ban the likes of me. Just like Robert would have no reason to ban anyone if he were truly conscious. A "school" cannot discard people, it teaches them to be. Only repeated crime justifies such punishment and I doubt that I indulged in such a process. When we begin to see processes objectively and connect our actions to them then we'll know the difference between people committing a crime and people acting against justice to fit their interests.
Triumph of groupthink
... careerism and narrow interests over honesty and moral courage
By Lawrence Davidson * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.bizThere is an interesting phenomenon which we can call "the political retiree’s confession". I don’t mean all those hyped memoirs, ghost written for all manner of high ranking ex-officials. Here I refer to statements by important political leaders and bureaucrats, either out of office or about to vacate their positions, publicly describing what really needs to be done. For instance, what really needs to be done to obtain peace, or accurately pointing fingers at those obstructing peace. These statements can be shocking in their honesty, but curiously enough, are never made, much less acted upon, while the truth sayer is in a position of power. They come to us only with retirement or pending retirement.
Olmert, left, and Gates, right, shake hands at Olmert's office in Jerusalem, April 19, 2007.
Example 2: Robert Gates on Israel the ungrateful ally
Now we have another example of this strange phenomenon. This time from the United States. According to Jeffrey Goldberg, the national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, former US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, "in a meeting of the National Security Council Principals Committee held shortly before his retirement this summer [2011]", gave his expert opinion that the Israeli government was ungrateful for United States assistance. That despite all the Obama administration had done for Jerusalem, "access to top-quality weapons, assistance developing missile defence systems, high-level intelligence sharing ... the US has received nothing in return". On top of that, in Gates’s estimation Prime Minister Netanyahu is "endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel’s growing isolation..." No one at the high level meeting disagreed with this analysis.
Gates’s publically revealed anger is nice to hear about but, like Olmert’s epiphany, it means little in practice. Netanyahu has been rude, duplicitous and downright nasty to President Obama in what was actually a replay of the behaviour of Menachem Begin toward Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s. Carter’s National Security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, learned to distrust the Israeli leadership and would later, after he was no longer in office, advocate an increasing hard line toward Jerusalem. Indeed, he once suggested military confrontation with Israel if that country’s leaders risked a regional war by attacking Iranian nuclear development sites (he suggested the US Air Force shoot down the Israeli planes). This was a reasonable suggestion given the stakes but, of course, it was made when Brzezinski had no position of influence.
Getting back to the article on Gates’s negative opinion of Netanyahu and his government, Jeffrey Goldberg writes that the former defence secretary actually "articulated bluntly what so many people in the administration seem to believe". OK. So what are they doing about this? Absolutely nothing. They will all wait until they no longer have positions of influence to come out and vent. The situation is disgusting. And it is disgusting because in both the US and Israel (and no doubt in many other countries as well) there are leaders and advisers who know what needs to be done in Israel-Palestine to make the world more secure and stable, and yet they stand by and twiddle their thumbs.
Why do these leaders do nothing about matters of such importance? Here are two interconnected reasons:
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- 1. In his book Victims of Groupthink (1972) Irving L. Janis shows how governing political elites create self-reinforcing decision-making circles that insulate themselves from serious challenge. It is rare that anyone within these circles "thinks outside the box". However, it turns out that the "box" must always be able to accommodate the demands and interests of other groups whose money and power support the "circle’s" political viability. This is a system that must produce frustration and a sense of powerlessness among (the rare) officials who can see even a little more clearly than their peers. By the way, it is not a problem unique to political elites. It surely exists in most organizational structures. It is just that when it comes to government the stakes are so much higher for all of us. 2. Enmeshed as they are in a system of national interest group politics that dictate the fate of their various political parties and their own careers, those who might suspect a world outside the box will stay silent. The narrow fate of party and career is, apparently, worth more than world peace. It is worth more than the lives of millions of doomed civilians and soldiers. It is worth more than justice for nations and peoples. Only when free of this debilitating system do some of these people find their tongues. But by then all they have are impotent words. This is what we are seeing in the belated surfacing of rational criticism and analysis from unexpected sources such as Olmert and Gates.
How often do we read about individuals and groups who, witnessing an accident or a crime, just stand by and do nothing? These people do not want to "get involved". Afterwards, such folks are usually very quiet and meek. They don’t want their neighbours to know that they stood by and did nothing. But the position of these confessing political retirees is quite different. They were already involved. And now, after the fact, these one-eyed men in the world of the blind want us all to know they have seen the light. Great. Now you tell us!
* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.
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