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The Man Who Saves You from Yourself (2013)

264 points by schrijver 12y ago

ohwp 12y ago
The 'print' button opens a very readable version: http://harpers.org/print/?pid=243068 http://harpers.org/print/?pid=243068
- Shivetya 12y ago
  there is a PDF version too.
xefer 12y ago
I remember this article when if first came out. Of all the weirdness outlined, one item, which wasn't even part of the main story and added as a bit of color detail, stated: "Sullivan first worked with Singer in the early Nineties. One case involved a woman posing as a psychologist, who had persuaded several of her male clients to undergo sex-reassignment surgery. (The men later alleged that they had been brainwashed.)" That is a level of brainwashing that I wouldn't have even believed was possible.
- kordless 12y ago
  The human brain can be very susceptible to hacking, especially if its trust channels are open.
  - Fuxy 12y ago
    I would never grant such lever of trust to anyone. Hell i don't trust myself so there's no way in hell I'll grant someone else that level of trust.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      Doesn't matter; there are well known and effective ways of hacking the trust channels as well.
      - flatline 12y ago
        In Scientology one of the ways to do this was to address the person's views on "help". Is it okay for others to help you? Have you ever helped anyone else? What if your car broke down by the road, would you refuse help to get it back running? If it was a friend or family member who offered to help? It doesn't take long to make people see that we trust people to help us all the time, often with big, important things, often without thinking about it. Once someone is open to the idea of help in general, it's not a huge leap to show them that the organization is there to help them, and that it's okay to accept the help. Challenging someone's views on control is sometimes required as well, done in a similar manner. A follow-up tactic is to find someone's "ruin". Everyone's got something they will trigger on. Health, depression, family, money, career, whatever. It's usually very easy to get people to volunteer this, sometimes you can just do a cold read of someone and know right away without even talking about it, it's the same thing a fortune teller does. So, you offer to help them with their ruin. There's nothing magical about it, and it works on everyone if skillfully applied, even if they have their guard up in advance and have heard all kinds of awful things about you. You aren't forcing people to do anything, you're not being dishonest or tricking them. Everything is above-board. The hard sell comes later, when a deeper level trust has been established over time.
        CapitalistCartr 12y ago
        Scientology usually actually helps people at the beginning. Just as you said, everything is aboveboard. That is what makes them so dangerous; they actually help people enough to get them hooked.
        Fuxy 12y ago
        That's mostly because they rely on the fact that once you help someone they feel indebted to you that all breaks down if the person your helping feels no obligation to return the favor. A lot of people use this behavior to manipulate other people so it's a good idea deprogram it in yourself. Whenever I help someone i don't expect anything back in return that's probably why I'm ok helping anyone regardless if i ever meet them again and i expect the same no string attached help. Don't get me wrong though i never 'expect' anything from strangers however if they offer to help (which is a nice surprise) that the type of help i expect. You want to help me? Fine.
- davidtanner 12y ago
  I'd be quite skeptical that she was ever able to successfully trick anyone into undergoing SRS. For one thing, it's fairly expensive. Secondly, no reputable surgeon would perform the procedure without verifying that the psychologist who wrote a letter was actually a licensed practitioner. Third, the WPATH Standards of Care specify that SRS should only be performed on patients who have two letters of approval from two separate practitioners.
  - dgabriel 12y ago
    I'd want some verification before taking that tidbit as fact, for sure. The way it's written, it sounds like an urban legend.
    - davidtanner 12y ago
      Yup, an urban legend designed to exploit the taboo and stigmatized reputation of "sex-change" surgery.
  - afarrell 12y ago
    You speak in the present tense. Was this true in the 60s?
    - davidtanner 12y ago
      As far as I know, yes. Generally speaking, the medical establishment was far more restrictive (overly so) in giving trans people the treatment they needed back then.
hnha 12y ago
This ends at a climatic moment prompting you to spend 40$ to continue reading. Fuck everything about this dishonest baiting. It's a shame because I enjoyed reading this up to that point. Don't waste your time with this cliffhanger.
- fredley 12y ago
  I was invited to support the publication, or click a button to continue reading. Clicking 'continue reading' revealed the rest of the article with no further prompts.
  - wil421 12y ago
    Worked for me as well.
  - hnha 12y ago
    Oops! The texts were overlaid on top of each other for me and hard to decipher. I assumed the worst while I should have had trust. Thanks for the correction!
- aw3c2 12y ago
  Just disable Javascript, works perfectly.
Roritharr 12y ago
"The FBI hired him because he claimed to be a Vietnam veteran, but Sullivan discovered that this was a lie — during the war Nivette had been a student at UCLA." This baffles me and lets me question the sincerity of the article. Can this possibly be the case?
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  UCLA as an ROTC student? 'Veteran' implies in the popular mind 'served in theatre' but couldn't it also mean 'was a soldier'?
  - runjake 12y ago
    A "veteran" is a person who served in the military. A "combat veteran" is a person who served in combat while in the military. In the US Army's case, a combat veteran would have a Combat Infantryman Badge. In the Marines, it would be a Combat Action Ribbon.
- XorNot 12y ago
  This happens all the time. There's a whole bunch of people who lead VA boards and testify in congress and things who later get discovered to have never served. Then they move off and make up a new story and start it all over again.
- epochwolf 12y ago
  Why couldn't it be? I doubt he needed an actual security clearance to do the work he was doing. The stated "FBI Clearance" probably just amounted to being given access to some confidential records regarding the people he was treating which probably aren't classified.
- Jtsummers 12y ago
  They hired him to be a therapist for other Vietnam vets. They likely never did a (significant) background check because they weren't hiring him for anything crucial (security wise). They were hiring him to help people who had a similar experience to his.
oftenwrong 12y ago
"Get it wrong, and we call it a cult. Get it right, in the right time and the right place, and maybe, for the next few millennia, people won't have to go to work on your birthday." - Dr. Robert Sapolsky http://youtu.be/4WwAQqWUkpI http://youtu.be/4WwAQqWUkpI
- pfortuny 12y ago
  Yeah, that is a very resounding quote but it does not take into account that there have been few incentives to remain a Cristian and people have, despite not being "pressed". Unless you think millions of people can be brainwashed by priests and pastors. And it is remarkable how "Science" was born in those countries where they do not work on that date.
  - brazzy 12y ago
    > it does not take into account that there have been few incentives to remain a Cristian and people have, despite not being "pressed". Yeah, cult followers, once brainwashed are typically very resistant. Besides social pressure to be Christian is often massive, especially the USA. > Unless you think millions of people can be brainwashed by priests and pastors. You seriously believe they can't? Hey, wanna buy a bridge? > And it is remarkable how "Science" was born in those countries where they do not work on that date. Yeah, it was born despite religion, when people stopped believing everything the priests and pastors told them and started thinking for themselves.
    - briantakita 12y ago
      > it was born despite religion I was born out of metaphysics, which, at that time, was primarily a spiritual and esoteric religious pursuit. I think you mean "it was born despite exoteric religion". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoteric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoteric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric
  - yeureka 12y ago
    Millions were killed and forced to convert by christian fanatics during the Crusades, the Inquisition and the "Ages of Discovery". I am Portuguese and find it appalling what was done in the name of Religion back then.
angmar5 12y ago
+1 for using "to-the-tits" as a modifier of degree.
andyidsinga 12y ago
this: “Forget about their philosophy,” he said. “Let’s focus instead on who is really in power.”
- silverbax88 12y ago
  Although not precisely related, I always say 'follow the money' to find out why you see certain political ads, or certain magazine articles, or anything like to figure out who is really in power. Find out who benefits from people believing certain things and it will be like magically being able to understand a language you don't currently speak.
  - brazzy 12y ago
    It can be used as a tool to deceive and lead you deep into conspiracy theory delusions as well, however. Records and studies show that vaccinations have saved millions of lives? No, that's just Big Pharma propaganda to make you inject your children with expensive poison! Follow the money! Scientific evidence shows that homeopathy doesn't work? No, again it's Big Pharma, attacking a superior competition! Follow the money! Massive consensus among the scientific community that climate change exists, is a serious problem, and caused by burning fossil fuels? No, those scientists are just drumming up publicity to get grant money! Follow the money!
    - silverbax88 12y ago
      This is also true, you are correct. But when you see news stories about something, say, 'Turns out corn syrup is good for you!' showing up on the evening news, and on Access Hollywood, and on the Yahoo! front page, and on ESPN, and on Jeopardy! questions all on the same day, there's something up. I mean, this isn't some revelation I'm offering, it's just interesting as to why ESPN and Access Hollywood, who cover completely different genres, would both suddenly have a corn syrup story on their radar. As for Big Pharma, I did used to wonder why prescription drugs were advertised on television...I mean, patients don't pick and choose their brands, their doctors do, right? Until it hit me that often pharmaceutical companies find/discover drugs that don't automatically have a market. But if they advertise that new 'sleep disorder/re-order' drug, then people will think, 'Hey, maybe I need that' and start asking their doctor. My doctor told me that people walk in all the time and ask if they should be taking some new drug they just heard of, and his reaction is 'why? you never had a problem with what this drug is describing before.' There are legitimate cases, but tv ads driving people to buy meds they might not even need is a real thing.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
This is a long article with a lot of items to discuss, but my take is that its "easy" to "brainwash" people because a lot of what's being offered is actually good, but, of course, used cynically and for social control. The Hare Krishna kid didn't know it before, but he now realizes that meditation helps with his social anxiety. Except now, he's in bed with the Krishna's, instead of finding a personal and secular path to meditation. The girl in the Christian cult discovered the power of community and forgiveness. Funny how white centric these articles are. If a kid becomes a Krishna its suddenly a bewildering thing, but if a kid joins a gang on the south side of Chicago, we just shrug. Both these things have a lot in common; society, family, etc not providing what they should and not projecting those values to kids. I think religiosity and cults rise when secular society fails at something. We're not telling kids that meditation can help them. We've not telling them that maintaining personal relationships is actually hard work and forgiveness even harder. Perhaps nowadays we are. I see a lot of what religion offers distilled into non-faith based practices. You can meditate without knowing the first thing about the buddha. You can engage in a personal spirituality without feeling guilted to show up for social functions (that only seem to empower the leaders of congregations). You can explore consciousness with drugs, lucid dreaming, or just via one's informed imagination, etc. Empowering individuals to discover information on a personal basis is what the information age is all about. There aren't anymore gatekeepers. I imagine this keeps cult activity low, not to mention a lot of cult stereotypes are from the 60s and built upon mindless baby boomer excess and dramatic parent attention baiting like 'dropping out of society.' Not only are we in the post-cult age, we are entering the post-religion age. I don't see too many gen-x'ers and gen-y's dying to get up early to go to church to be sermonized by the ravings of 1st century zealots. I don't see how that's remotely in their interests.
- prestadige 12y ago
  Worth remembering though that there are many cultish aspects to the mainstream, e.g. political movements fight tooth and nail to influence what young children are taught at school.
  - briantakita 12y ago
    Same with technology choices & favored practices.
hkarthik 12y ago
I encourage anyone interested in cults to watch the documentary film "Kumare" which is available on Netflix and Itunes [1]. It's the story of a film maker of Indian origin who creates a cult persona and gains followers in the Phoenix area. It's really fascinating to see what kinds of people fall for it and how they are increasingly more drawn to him. [1] http://www.kumaremovie.com/ http://www.kumaremovie.com/
- turar 12y ago
  Wow. There was actually a nice, sweet comedy about this exact scenario, called The Guru: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEIEb5jPhhA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEIEb5jPhhA
  - solutionyogi 12y ago
    'The Guru' is a bad movie. Kumare on the other hand is much better and it is based on real life experiment to boot.
pit 12y ago
There's a "Download PDF" button. Holy cow, my respect for Harper's, and perception of them as a serious publication, just skyrocketed. Are any other online publishers doing that? It's not even that I'm going to print it out or anything, but clearly it shows that their priority is readership, not ad conversions.
- avn2109 12y ago
  >> "...my respect for Harper's, and perception of them as a serious publication, just skyrocketed." Really? I have always thought of Harper's as first among equals in the respectable, serious-journalism cohort. I think it's the best grown-up publication available in America today.
  - unphasable 12y ago
    clicking the "Reader" button on safari, located to the right of the URL bar gives a similar view.
  - pit 12y ago
    Oh, I didn't mean that I thought they were lousy before, but now my perception is overwhelmingly positive.
- thinkling 12y ago
  The regular web version cuts off after hundreds of words with a "click here to subscribe to continue reading" wrapper, but the PDF has the complete article. Bizarre.
  - lilsunnybee 12y ago
    If you click on that popup though, it displays the rest of the article without forcing a subscription. Much better than the New York Times in my opinion.
gwern 12y ago
This is a very sensationalized article. It seems to be based almost entirely on Singer's acolytes, people with severe conflicts of interest, and long-outdated information, and doesn't reflect the current understanding of 'cults'. Some starting points. On the value of the opinion of "the doyenne of cult scholarship", an issue that the OP seems to never mention despite constant invocations and quotes of Singer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Singer#Cults https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Singer#Cults > Her expert testimony was no longer accepted after the report of the APA taskforce on Deceptive and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control, of which she was chair, was rejected by the Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology (BSERP) of the American Psychological Association. Thereafter, courts shifted to accepting the position held by the great majority of scholars studying new religious movements, moving away from the perspective of Singer and others sympathetic to her brainwashing thesis.[11] This had significant consequences later on, since it meant that brainwashing could no longer be used a defence for the practice of deprogramming.[11] (Singer, incidentally, made a lot of money from being an expert witness peddling her debunked theories.) Some relevant excerpts of less credulous research: http://lesswrong.com/lw/imu/notes_on_brainwashing_cults/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/imu/notes_on_brainwashing_cults/
- sien 12y ago
  Great lesswrong link. It seems to indicate that people doing things in cults is a bit like spam, huge dropout rate but the people you wind up with will do lots of silly things. The purpose of the initiation and nonsense is almost to weed out people who are not extremely controllable. So it's not really brainwashing as much as gullible finding.
300bps 12y ago
And even so, they resort to mass suicide only when they come under threat and have no other way out. Marshall Applewhite of Heaven’s Gate, for instance, had a terminal illness. I'm unaware of Marshall Applewhite having a terminal illness when he convinced 38 of his followers to commit suicide. He feared he might have cancer but an autopsy revealed he didn't have it, and I'm unaware of any evidence that says that was a motivating factor in the suicides. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Applewhite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Applewhite Medical examiners determined that his fears of cancer had been unfounded, but that he suffered from coronary atherosclerosis. Most people his age (65) suffer from coronary atherosclerosis and it's not considered a "terminal illness" like pancreatic cancer would be. http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/atherosclerosis-and-coronary-artery-disease http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/atherosclerosis-and-coron... After age 40, about 50% of men and one-third of women can expect to eventually have coronary artery disease.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
rgbrgb 12y ago
> Cult leaders and con artists are opportunists who read the times and the ever-changing culture and adapt their pitch to what will appeal at a given moment. Multi level marketing, in particular a company called Nerium [1] is the closest thing I've seen to a cult lately. [1]: http://www.nerium.com/ http://www.nerium.com/
- iwasphone 12y ago
  All multi level marketing companies are cultish by nature. Realities such as market saturation simply don't exist, you're just not working hard enough / recruiting hard enough. I spent a lot of time in south Florida, where it seems everyone in non-professional careers is hustling the newest MLM. The MLM recruiters are in turn driving their recruits into workshops like Landmark Forum, which is not a cult but is certainly cult-like. It promises the participant a "breakthough" in personal or professional life, but nearly everyone who participates in Landmark is there primarily to increase their MLM recruiting fu.
jqm 12y ago
Many years ago I had a friend who became involved with a Dahn yoga center. (No offense to yoga, I do it myself). It started off innocently enough, but soon became (in my opinion) very obviously a cult. Not only did they make ridiculous claims and demand large amounts of money, it became all consuming, especially for his wife. My friend sometimes talked about "enlightened masters" and if that phrase doesn't ring the CULT bell I don't know what will. I became a bit concerned and suggested he stop going. He didn't listen. Soon enough, his wife was spending lots of private time with one of the instructors or officials at the local center. My friend was not concerned because according to him, that particular individual had transcended the desires of flesh and was pure in intent. At least... until his wife confessed to having sex with the guy (I'm sure this is against Dahn policy and this particular incident doesn't indite the entire "cult".... it's just the kind of danger cults bring). So, after a few "I told you sos" my friend and (reluctantly) his wife agreed to quit the Dahn center. A few months after that they joined some kind of fringe pentecostal church (what is wrong with people?). I shook my head in disgust and stopped hanging out with him. Later he and his wife divorced and he moved away and we lost contact. I still see ads for Dahn from time to time portraying them as a harmless yoga center set up in the strip mall. In fact, some people here may respond angrily that they are NOT a cult. But based on their rhetoric they most certainly are. They may be slightly less pernicious than some cults but they are harmful, are after your money, and can cause you trouble. I have seen it first hand.
- lilsunnybee 12y ago
  Vulnerable people are often still just as vulnerable even when you can convince them to leave one harmful, controlling influence in their lives; they will often just search out another right after.
squozzer 12y ago
Tasty. Too bad people like him don't practice deprogramming us from greater evils than two-bit cults - for example, communism, capitalism, patriotism, orderism. Each of these isms also demand suspension of thought and beliefs in either magic or the greater wisdom of authority figures.
- tormeh 12y ago
  Look, when a Fox News journalist says he needs to be with his family at the mall on Christmas eve to "create capitalism" I get a little worried. And sure, there are lots of cults built on these ideologies. But the ideologies themselves are not cults.
  - thesimpsons1022 12y ago
    believing in some magic "invisible hand of the market" to always bring the best results sounds kind of cultish.
Ologn 12y ago
This guy should help people who listened to the charlatans and then bought Bitcoins and Bitcoin ASICs.
easymovet 12y ago
fyi paywall
- pyre 12y ago
  Click the PDF link.
arjn 12y ago
So here is a question : What is the difference between a cult and an established religion ? Is it the size of the following ? Is it the time of origin, i.e. recent vs long ago ? Is it the number of followers ? Or is it some combination of the above, or something else altogether ?
- b_emery 12y ago
  Good question. According to webster, it has to be 'relatively small' to be a cult. From the article, it seems that the cults have a higher relative level of exploitation. My guess is that there is a continuum that runs between the two. Edit: My guess substantiated by wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult
  - arjn 12y ago
    ok, so that implies that all religions were once cults , no ? So in effect, there is no fundamental difference.
- jqm 12y ago
  Easy. A "cult" is a disparaging term for a religion that someone other than yourself belongs to. YOUR belief group on the other hand is obviously not a cult, but a religion. (Actually I guess it might be size, but in common vernacular I think the above is actually often the case).
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Cults have another attribute: a mechanism for addicting members and keeping them, usually through psychological means.
    - gobots 12y ago
      So, Catholicism's / baptists / etc. hell, the Jehovah's Witnesses everlasting destruction, Mormon / Jehovah's Witness / Amish excommunication... ad nauseum.
anigbrowl 12y ago
Sadly, David Sullivan, the subject of the article, died of chronic lymphoma just around the time it was published. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/12/remembering-david-sullivan-1951-2013.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/12/remember... http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/David-Sullivan-PI-who-infiltrated-cults-dies-4924222.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/David-Sullivan-PI-who-...
adamconroy 12y ago
I want someone to save me from the people who want to save me from myself.
olefoo 12y ago
Just a question for those of you here who've been around the block a few times; have you ever run across a company that acted like a cult? That espoused a messianic vision? That fostered an aura of infallibility around its leaders? Just kidding. Apple, Google, Oracle and other tech companies are nothing like a cult. Not at all. In no way. It was rude of me to even suggest that might be a shadow of a possibility.

264 points by schrijver 12y ago

ohwp 12y ago

The 'print' button opens a very readable version: http://harpers.org/print/?pid=243068 http://harpers.org/print/?pid=243068

Shivetya 12y ago
there is a PDF version too.

xefer 12y ago

I remember this article when if first came out. Of all the weirdness outlined, one item, which wasn't even part of the main story and added as a bit of color detail, stated: "Sullivan first worked with Singer in the early Nineties. One case involved a woman posing as a psychologist, who had persuaded several of her male clients to undergo sex-reassignment surgery. (The men later alleged that they had been brainwashed.)" That is a level of brainwashing that I wouldn't have even believed was possible.

kordless 12y ago
The human brain can be very susceptible to hacking, especially if its trust channels are open.
- Fuxy 12y ago
  I would never grant such lever of trust to anyone. Hell i don't trust myself so there's no way in hell I'll grant someone else that level of trust.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Doesn't matter; there are well known and effective ways of hacking the trust channels as well.
    - flatline 12y ago
      In Scientology one of the ways to do this was to address the person's views on "help". Is it okay for others to help you? Have you ever helped anyone else? What if your car broke down by the road, would you refuse help to get it back running? If it was a friend or family member who offered to help? It doesn't take long to make people see that we trust people to help us all the time, often with big, important things, often without thinking about it. Once someone is open to the idea of help in general, it's not a huge leap to show them that the organization is there to help them, and that it's okay to accept the help. Challenging someone's views on control is sometimes required as well, done in a similar manner. A follow-up tactic is to find someone's "ruin". Everyone's got something they will trigger on. Health, depression, family, money, career, whatever. It's usually very easy to get people to volunteer this, sometimes you can just do a cold read of someone and know right away without even talking about it, it's the same thing a fortune teller does. So, you offer to help them with their ruin. There's nothing magical about it, and it works on everyone if skillfully applied, even if they have their guard up in advance and have heard all kinds of awful things about you. You aren't forcing people to do anything, you're not being dishonest or tricking them. Everything is above-board. The hard sell comes later, when a deeper level trust has been established over time.
      - CapitalistCartr 12y ago
        Scientology usually actually helps people at the beginning. Just as you said, everything is aboveboard. That is what makes them so dangerous; they actually help people enough to get them hooked.
      - Fuxy 12y ago
        That's mostly because they rely on the fact that once you help someone they feel indebted to you that all breaks down if the person your helping feels no obligation to return the favor. A lot of people use this behavior to manipulate other people so it's a good idea deprogram it in yourself. Whenever I help someone i don't expect anything back in return that's probably why I'm ok helping anyone regardless if i ever meet them again and i expect the same no string attached help. Don't get me wrong though i never 'expect' anything from strangers however if they offer to help (which is a nice surprise) that the type of help i expect. You want to help me? Fine.
davidtanner 12y ago
I'd be quite skeptical that she was ever able to successfully trick anyone into undergoing SRS. For one thing, it's fairly expensive. Secondly, no reputable surgeon would perform the procedure without verifying that the psychologist who wrote a letter was actually a licensed practitioner. Third, the WPATH Standards of Care specify that SRS should only be performed on patients who have two letters of approval from two separate practitioners.
- dgabriel 12y ago
  I'd want some verification before taking that tidbit as fact, for sure. The way it's written, it sounds like an urban legend.
  - davidtanner 12y ago
    Yup, an urban legend designed to exploit the taboo and stigmatized reputation of "sex-change" surgery.
- afarrell 12y ago
  You speak in the present tense. Was this true in the 60s?
  - davidtanner 12y ago
    As far as I know, yes. Generally speaking, the medical establishment was far more restrictive (overly so) in giving trans people the treatment they needed back then.

hnha 12y ago

This ends at a climatic moment prompting you to spend 40$ to continue reading. Fuck everything about this dishonest baiting. It's a shame because I enjoyed reading this up to that point. Don't waste your time with this cliffhanger.

fredley 12y ago
I was invited to support the publication, or click a button to continue reading. Clicking 'continue reading' revealed the rest of the article with no further prompts.
- wil421 12y ago
  Worked for me as well.
- hnha 12y ago
  Oops! The texts were overlaid on top of each other for me and hard to decipher. I assumed the worst while I should have had trust. Thanks for the correction!
aw3c2 12y ago
Just disable Javascript, works perfectly.

Roritharr 12y ago

"The FBI hired him because he claimed to be a Vietnam veteran, but Sullivan discovered that this was a lie — during the war Nivette had been a student at UCLA." This baffles me and lets me question the sincerity of the article. Can this possibly be the case?

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
UCLA as an ROTC student? 'Veteran' implies in the popular mind 'served in theatre' but couldn't it also mean 'was a soldier'?
- runjake 12y ago
  A "veteran" is a person who served in the military. A "combat veteran" is a person who served in combat while in the military. In the US Army's case, a combat veteran would have a Combat Infantryman Badge. In the Marines, it would be a Combat Action Ribbon.
XorNot 12y ago
This happens all the time. There's a whole bunch of people who lead VA boards and testify in congress and things who later get discovered to have never served. Then they move off and make up a new story and start it all over again.
epochwolf 12y ago
Why couldn't it be? I doubt he needed an actual security clearance to do the work he was doing. The stated "FBI Clearance" probably just amounted to being given access to some confidential records regarding the people he was treating which probably aren't classified.
Jtsummers 12y ago
They hired him to be a therapist for other Vietnam vets. They likely never did a (significant) background check because they weren't hiring him for anything crucial (security wise). They were hiring him to help people who had a similar experience to his.

oftenwrong 12y ago

"Get it wrong, and we call it a cult. Get it right, in the right time and the right place, and maybe, for the next few millennia, people won't have to go to work on your birthday." - Dr. Robert Sapolsky http://youtu.be/4WwAQqWUkpI http://youtu.be/4WwAQqWUkpI

pfortuny 12y ago
Yeah, that is a very resounding quote but it does not take into account that there have been few incentives to remain a Cristian and people have, despite not being "pressed". Unless you think millions of people can be brainwashed by priests and pastors. And it is remarkable how "Science" was born in those countries where they do not work on that date.
- brazzy 12y ago
  > it does not take into account that there have been few incentives to remain a Cristian and people have, despite not being "pressed". Yeah, cult followers, once brainwashed are typically very resistant. Besides social pressure to be Christian is often massive, especially the USA. > Unless you think millions of people can be brainwashed by priests and pastors. You seriously believe they can't? Hey, wanna buy a bridge? > And it is remarkable how "Science" was born in those countries where they do not work on that date. Yeah, it was born despite religion, when people stopped believing everything the priests and pastors told them and started thinking for themselves.
  - briantakita 12y ago
    > it was born despite religion I was born out of metaphysics, which, at that time, was primarily a spiritual and esoteric religious pursuit. I think you mean "it was born despite exoteric religion". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoteric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoteric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric
- yeureka 12y ago
  Millions were killed and forced to convert by christian fanatics during the Crusades, the Inquisition and the "Ages of Discovery". I am Portuguese and find it appalling what was done in the name of Religion back then.

angmar5 12y ago

+1 for using "to-the-tits" as a modifier of degree.

andyidsinga 12y ago

this: “Forget about their philosophy,” he said. “Let’s focus instead on who is really in power.”

silverbax88 12y ago
Although not precisely related, I always say 'follow the money' to find out why you see certain political ads, or certain magazine articles, or anything like to figure out who is really in power. Find out who benefits from people believing certain things and it will be like magically being able to understand a language you don't currently speak.
- brazzy 12y ago
  It can be used as a tool to deceive and lead you deep into conspiracy theory delusions as well, however. Records and studies show that vaccinations have saved millions of lives? No, that's just Big Pharma propaganda to make you inject your children with expensive poison! Follow the money! Scientific evidence shows that homeopathy doesn't work? No, again it's Big Pharma, attacking a superior competition! Follow the money! Massive consensus among the scientific community that climate change exists, is a serious problem, and caused by burning fossil fuels? No, those scientists are just drumming up publicity to get grant money! Follow the money!
  - silverbax88 12y ago
    This is also true, you are correct. But when you see news stories about something, say, 'Turns out corn syrup is good for you!' showing up on the evening news, and on Access Hollywood, and on the Yahoo! front page, and on ESPN, and on Jeopardy! questions all on the same day, there's something up. I mean, this isn't some revelation I'm offering, it's just interesting as to why ESPN and Access Hollywood, who cover completely different genres, would both suddenly have a corn syrup story on their radar. As for Big Pharma, I did used to wonder why prescription drugs were advertised on television...I mean, patients don't pick and choose their brands, their doctors do, right? Until it hit me that often pharmaceutical companies find/discover drugs that don't automatically have a market. But if they advertise that new 'sleep disorder/re-order' drug, then people will think, 'Hey, maybe I need that' and start asking their doctor. My doctor told me that people walk in all the time and ask if they should be taking some new drug they just heard of, and his reaction is 'why? you never had a problem with what this drug is describing before.' There are legitimate cases, but tv ads driving people to buy meds they might not even need is a real thing.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

This is a long article with a lot of items to discuss, but my take is that its "easy" to "brainwash" people because a lot of what's being offered is actually good, but, of course, used cynically and for social control. The Hare Krishna kid didn't know it before, but he now realizes that meditation helps with his social anxiety. Except now, he's in bed with the Krishna's, instead of finding a personal and secular path to meditation. The girl in the Christian cult discovered the power of community and forgiveness. Funny how white centric these articles are. If a kid becomes a Krishna its suddenly a bewildering thing, but if a kid joins a gang on the south side of Chicago, we just shrug. Both these things have a lot in common; society, family, etc not providing what they should and not projecting those values to kids. I think religiosity and cults rise when secular society fails at something. We're not telling kids that meditation can help them. We've not telling them that maintaining personal relationships is actually hard work and forgiveness even harder. Perhaps nowadays we are. I see a lot of what religion offers distilled into non-faith based practices. You can meditate without knowing the first thing about the buddha. You can engage in a personal spirituality without feeling guilted to show up for social functions (that only seem to empower the leaders of congregations). You can explore consciousness with drugs, lucid dreaming, or just via one's informed imagination, etc. Empowering individuals to discover information on a personal basis is what the information age is all about. There aren't anymore gatekeepers. I imagine this keeps cult activity low, not to mention a lot of cult stereotypes are from the 60s and built upon mindless baby boomer excess and dramatic parent attention baiting like 'dropping out of society.' Not only are we in the post-cult age, we are entering the post-religion age. I don't see too many gen-x'ers and gen-y's dying to get up early to go to church to be sermonized by the ravings of 1st century zealots. I don't see how that's remotely in their interests.

prestadige 12y ago
Worth remembering though that there are many cultish aspects to the mainstream, e.g. political movements fight tooth and nail to influence what young children are taught at school.
- briantakita 12y ago
  Same with technology choices & favored practices.

hkarthik 12y ago

I encourage anyone interested in cults to watch the documentary film "Kumare" which is available on Netflix and Itunes [1]. It's the story of a film maker of Indian origin who creates a cult persona and gains followers in the Phoenix area. It's really fascinating to see what kinds of people fall for it and how they are increasingly more drawn to him. [1] http://www.kumaremovie.com/ http://www.kumaremovie.com/

turar 12y ago
Wow. There was actually a nice, sweet comedy about this exact scenario, called The Guru: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEIEb5jPhhA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEIEb5jPhhA
- solutionyogi 12y ago
  'The Guru' is a bad movie. Kumare on the other hand is much better and it is based on real life experiment to boot.

pit 12y ago

There's a "Download PDF" button. Holy cow, my respect for Harper's, and perception of them as a serious publication, just skyrocketed. Are any other online publishers doing that? It's not even that I'm going to print it out or anything, but clearly it shows that their priority is readership, not ad conversions.

avn2109 12y ago
>> "...my respect for Harper's, and perception of them as a serious publication, just skyrocketed." Really? I have always thought of Harper's as first among equals in the respectable, serious-journalism cohort. I think it's the best grown-up publication available in America today.
- unphasable 12y ago
  clicking the "Reader" button on safari, located to the right of the URL bar gives a similar view.
- pit 12y ago
  Oh, I didn't mean that I thought they were lousy before, but now my perception is overwhelmingly positive.
thinkling 12y ago
The regular web version cuts off after hundreds of words with a "click here to subscribe to continue reading" wrapper, but the PDF has the complete article. Bizarre.
- lilsunnybee 12y ago
  If you click on that popup though, it displays the rest of the article without forcing a subscription. Much better than the New York Times in my opinion.

gwern 12y ago

This is a very sensationalized article. It seems to be based almost entirely on Singer's acolytes, people with severe conflicts of interest, and long-outdated information, and doesn't reflect the current understanding of 'cults'. Some starting points. On the value of the opinion of "the doyenne of cult scholarship", an issue that the OP seems to never mention despite constant invocations and quotes of Singer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Singer#Cults https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Singer#Cults > Her expert testimony was no longer accepted after the report of the APA taskforce on Deceptive and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control, of which she was chair, was rejected by the Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology (BSERP) of the American Psychological Association. Thereafter, courts shifted to accepting the position held by the great majority of scholars studying new religious movements, moving away from the perspective of Singer and others sympathetic to her brainwashing thesis.[11] This had significant consequences later on, since it meant that brainwashing could no longer be used a defence for the practice of deprogramming.[11] (Singer, incidentally, made a lot of money from being an expert witness peddling her debunked theories.) Some relevant excerpts of less credulous research: http://lesswrong.com/lw/imu/notes_on_brainwashing_cults/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/imu/notes_on_brainwashing_cults/

sien 12y ago
Great lesswrong link. It seems to indicate that people doing things in cults is a bit like spam, huge dropout rate but the people you wind up with will do lots of silly things. The purpose of the initiation and nonsense is almost to weed out people who are not extremely controllable. So it's not really brainwashing as much as gullible finding.

300bps 12y ago

And even so, they resort to mass suicide only when they come under threat and have no other way out. Marshall Applewhite of Heaven’s Gate, for instance, had a terminal illness. I'm unaware of Marshall Applewhite having a terminal illness when he convinced 38 of his followers to commit suicide. He feared he might have cancer but an autopsy revealed he didn't have it, and I'm unaware of any evidence that says that was a motivating factor in the suicides. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Applewhite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Applewhite Medical examiners determined that his fears of cancer had been unfounded, but that he suffered from coronary atherosclerosis. Most people his age (65) suffer from coronary atherosclerosis and it's not considered a "terminal illness" like pancreatic cancer would be. http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/atherosclerosis-and-coronary-artery-disease http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/atherosclerosis-and-coron... After age 40, about 50% of men and one-third of women can expect to eventually have coronary artery disease.

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rgbrgb 12y ago

> Cult leaders and con artists are opportunists who read the times and the ever-changing culture and adapt their pitch to what will appeal at a given moment. Multi level marketing, in particular a company called Nerium [1] is the closest thing I've seen to a cult lately. [1]: http://www.nerium.com/ http://www.nerium.com/

iwasphone 12y ago
All multi level marketing companies are cultish by nature. Realities such as market saturation simply don't exist, you're just not working hard enough / recruiting hard enough. I spent a lot of time in south Florida, where it seems everyone in non-professional careers is hustling the newest MLM. The MLM recruiters are in turn driving their recruits into workshops like Landmark Forum, which is not a cult but is certainly cult-like. It promises the participant a "breakthough" in personal or professional life, but nearly everyone who participates in Landmark is there primarily to increase their MLM recruiting fu.

jqm 12y ago

Many years ago I had a friend who became involved with a Dahn yoga center. (No offense to yoga, I do it myself). It started off innocently enough, but soon became (in my opinion) very obviously a cult. Not only did they make ridiculous claims and demand large amounts of money, it became all consuming, especially for his wife. My friend sometimes talked about "enlightened masters" and if that phrase doesn't ring the CULT bell I don't know what will. I became a bit concerned and suggested he stop going. He didn't listen. Soon enough, his wife was spending lots of private time with one of the instructors or officials at the local center. My friend was not concerned because according to him, that particular individual had transcended the desires of flesh and was pure in intent. At least... until his wife confessed to having sex with the guy (I'm sure this is against Dahn policy and this particular incident doesn't indite the entire "cult".... it's just the kind of danger cults bring). So, after a few "I told you sos" my friend and (reluctantly) his wife agreed to quit the Dahn center. A few months after that they joined some kind of fringe pentecostal church (what is wrong with people?). I shook my head in disgust and stopped hanging out with him. Later he and his wife divorced and he moved away and we lost contact. I still see ads for Dahn from time to time portraying them as a harmless yoga center set up in the strip mall. In fact, some people here may respond angrily that they are NOT a cult. But based on their rhetoric they most certainly are. They may be slightly less pernicious than some cults but they are harmful, are after your money, and can cause you trouble. I have seen it first hand.

lilsunnybee 12y ago
Vulnerable people are often still just as vulnerable even when you can convince them to leave one harmful, controlling influence in their lives; they will often just search out another right after.

squozzer 12y ago

Tasty. Too bad people like him don't practice deprogramming us from greater evils than two-bit cults - for example, communism, capitalism, patriotism, orderism. Each of these isms also demand suspension of thought and beliefs in either magic or the greater wisdom of authority figures.

tormeh 12y ago
Look, when a Fox News journalist says he needs to be with his family at the mall on Christmas eve to "create capitalism" I get a little worried. And sure, there are lots of cults built on these ideologies. But the ideologies themselves are not cults.
- thesimpsons1022 12y ago
  believing in some magic "invisible hand of the market" to always bring the best results sounds kind of cultish.

Ologn 12y ago

This guy should help people who listened to the charlatans and then bought Bitcoins and Bitcoin ASICs.

easymovet 12y ago

fyi paywall

pyre 12y ago
Click the PDF link.

arjn 12y ago

So here is a question : What is the difference between a cult and an established religion ? Is it the size of the following ? Is it the time of origin, i.e. recent vs long ago ? Is it the number of followers ? Or is it some combination of the above, or something else altogether ?

b_emery 12y ago
Good question. According to webster, it has to be 'relatively small' to be a cult. From the article, it seems that the cults have a higher relative level of exploitation. My guess is that there is a continuum that runs between the two. Edit: My guess substantiated by wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult
- arjn 12y ago
  ok, so that implies that all religions were once cults , no ? So in effect, there is no fundamental difference.
jqm 12y ago
Easy. A "cult" is a disparaging term for a religion that someone other than yourself belongs to. YOUR belief group on the other hand is obviously not a cult, but a religion. (Actually I guess it might be size, but in common vernacular I think the above is actually often the case).
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Cults have another attribute: a mechanism for addicting members and keeping them, usually through psychological means.
  - gobots 12y ago
    So, Catholicism's / baptists / etc. hell, the Jehovah's Witnesses everlasting destruction, Mormon / Jehovah's Witness / Amish excommunication... ad nauseum.

anigbrowl 12y ago

Sadly, David Sullivan, the subject of the article, died of chronic lymphoma just around the time it was published. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/12/remembering-david-sullivan-1951-2013.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/12/remember... http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/David-Sullivan-PI-who-infiltrated-cults-dies-4924222.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/David-Sullivan-PI-who-...

adamconroy 12y ago

I want someone to save me from the people who want to save me from myself.

olefoo 12y ago

Just a question for those of you here who've been around the block a few times; have you ever run across a company that acted like a cult? That espoused a messianic vision? That fostered an aura of infallibility around its leaders? Just kidding. Apple, Google, Oracle and other tech companies are nothing like a cult. Not at all. In no way. It was rude of me to even suggest that might be a shadow of a possibility.