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Looking
attentively to the news items and the morals problem often involved, it rises
the need to go down into a matter rather thorny and disregarded by mass media
as the moral subjugation, or occult persuasion or brainwashing or mental
control, however you want to call it, on damage of an individual. It's already
hard the way to state what is that intangible reality and notwithstanding so
hard-and-fast as a chain as the moral subjugation is. In fact the
pathological outlines of this phenomenon arises in a disconcerting way only
in occasion of mass suicides, linked to sects, often religious-kind, or
revolutionary-kind. Debate about the
moral subjugation is an entangled knot of philosophic, theological,
juridical, sociological and psychoanalytical conjectures, among which it's
hard to find the simplicity of common sense. So it starts
from this labyrinth of different concepts the researching work about
brainwashing an individual or a sect may ply to another, by isolating from
relatives, friends, and by conditioning wholly one's life. A mother tells
about her daughter who belongs to a magic-occultist kind organization, this
way: “I'm a mother in despair. I've lost my daughter ten years ago, due to a
wild sect...The wretches that end up there are moral subjugated...They tell
tem that mother is the demon releasing negative energies so she hinders young
in fitting in perfectly into the sect life ... I never hear my daughter. She
does not take part to family meetings and calls me up only when she needs
money. You can imagine the tragedy for a poor mother... I beg you, do
something, I'm afraid she will commit suicide as others...Do something, I
repeat, we cannot leave these boys at the mercy of these
torturers...prisoners of that murderer sects.” The matter can
neither be got rid of as a simply even if suffered interference of a parent
in his son's life, nor it can be ignored that there has been young and elder
people reduced to a psychophysical slavery inside certain organizations
stating themselves as 'religious' only for the personal interest of their
bosses. Another
bloodcurdling witness of the mental conditioning by a leader is the recording
of the voice of Jim Jones while inciting its initiates to drink a mix of
poison and to administer it either to their sons: “I'm tired, I've done my
best to make you live well. Everybody dies, somewhere hope faded. I want to
choose by myself my way to die. I'm tired of that hellish torment, to have in
my hands other people's life. I have sacrificed my life, I've dead every day
to give you peace. If we cannot live in peace, let's die in peace. God said
that. I've tried to prevent all that happened but now I see the will of the
supreme body We are not
making a sacrifice, it is a revolutionary act, don't be afraid to die.” After these
words, commenting by it, more than 900 individuals committed suicide at
Joneston, in 1978! It's interesting to remember that the reverend we refer to
was an ordained Church minister for long time esteemed for his generous
helpfulness towards poor, but his behaviour got ever more disturbed till the
final drama. It must be
objected that not all that belong to a group may be defined as initiates,
that it is not correct to call sects in a derogatory meaning groups of
individuals having common ideals, that not all sects promote committing
suicide and that everyone, is after all, free to risk one's life as one
wants. This regard we report the story of a person who succeeded in leaving a
pseudo-mystic group: “...I set about by these days the undertaking to write a
letter of leave from my spiritual guide. It required a great effort on my
part: each word was a great blow, sometimes I must stop because tears prevent
me from see. I couldn't do it in one time, but every once in a while I
resumed painfully what I deemed a little calvary, a calvary I deserved,
unlike the Lord's. I remembered the good thief and I hoped Jesus would answer
me the same way. When I got to the end of the letter a felt a sense of
liberation...It has been a slow process endured for more than twenty years,
but it had happened.... What I believed it was a paradise was instead a hell
coloured of pink and embellished of falsity...I regained possession of my
dead and my roots. I had been stolen for years of all what makes of a person
a human being, free and aware of his acts...” How can be
distinguished a group from a destructive sect? When is it proper talking
about moral subjugation or mental control? What can the master be charged of? Which are the individuals,
the most at risk? Is there also
the mental control in couple relationships? And in families? Or at job? Dangerous questions, but
fascinating at the same time, as the mystery of human mind in his continuous
hide-and-seek play with freedom! We will care of
dealing with this matter with experts that their time have dealt with this
reality, so slipping and yet sometimes so dramatically heavy. As first
meeting we asked Dr. Gabriella de Marco, psychologist and reporter that over
years has studied this phenomenon, to tell us her experience. In fact man has
sensed since ever the need of guide helping him to give answers to the main
questions about life and who could direct his way. It's enough to think to
the great Greek philosophers, in the Western or to the great masters, in the
East. Being a disciple was an honour. Later being a master of life
unfortunately turned to a job. It must be admitted that in recent times there
has been a real inflation of persons passing off as masters, but who chased only
their own profit. Throughout my
experience I've tested a simple formula: the real sage does not lead to
dependence, all the opposite, he promotes the autonomy of his own pupil as a
good father toward his son. He educates him to elect and to understand the
soon as possible that everyone is one's own master and everyone's pupil. A
real master of the East does not want a large community, he does not measures
his power by the number of followers, all the opposite, he finds his peace in
himself and in his spiritual personal poise. As a reporter I was really
stroke by some experiences I lived personally, I received the witness of a
person, whose name I won't say in order to safeguard his privacy, and who for
seven long years belonged to a sect where it was practiced a strong
destructive mental control, and I tried to understand which are the mental
process it started- off in him and that allowed him to be so involved by the
charm of that centripetal force that the sect is. Everyone, at
least for once in his live, passes through a condition of weakness, moments
of fear that turn our decision-making capability very fragile. If in this
phase you meet who can be defined as a
“recruiter”, it's easy to fall victim of manipulation. These persons
have refined techniques, they know how to employ the potential weak points of
a person: troubles with the fiancé, conflicts with parents, at job, at
school, the mourning for a parent or a friend, or simply the desire to enter
a group to escape loneliness. Sometimes it may be the anxiety to give a sense
of peace to one's own distresses. The most evident sign of the work that is
carried out “drop by drop” is the radical change in personality, in the style
of clothing, the way of talking, strange, far and elusive behaviours, whereas
previous interests, hobbies, friends are neglected, since they do no matter
anymore. It is known about persons that after having entered a sect have
changed their name, donated all their possessions, left the job or the school
and moved far away, severing all relationships with relatives. This friend of
mine wanted to reach his poise by the means of the of yoga teaching and since
he did not have money he entrusted an Ashram (community) in Italy. Since the beginning the leader
stressed in him a very strong guilty and inadequacy feeling even in front of
the group, and reducing methodologically his capability of logic choice. On
the other side he leaded him to a continuous and light blackmailing by
promising him the possibility of ransoming and spiritual evolution in
exchange of a more intensive and feverish work for the community.o because to
face the day with the right responsibility towards the community he did not
have anymore the strength to reflect on his own condition, he must obey
quick, doing his very best, in a continuous pressing about his errors or his
faults! Once a person is
inside this way of life his defence capabilities decrease progressively.
Another system is that of changing the sleep and rest rhythms. Sleep
deprivation is common to many destructives cults. Anyone having lived many
nights without sleeping or having stayed up all night to work or study has
experimented the trouble to manage a normal set of daily engagements. It is
not that initiates are compelled not to sleep, but they have such charges of
work that it remains rather few time for rest and only those performing their
work perfectly are praised! In this Ashram, needless to say, safety norms
lack at all, the right to a retribution does not exist, and if someone
undergoes an accident he is sent away or influenced to the extent that he
will deny in hospital that the accident occurred in the community. At certain point
in him it kicked-off, he told me, the spring of the sane egoism. He regained
this way that new awareness of oneself on which lies any free choice. The
work to cure the deep wounds that period left him inside him has been instead
long ad hard. If some asked
you, Gabriella, a point-blank question: “Does the moral subjugation exist?”,
you, doctor, what would you answer? “That it exist,
unfortunately, and it's a drama many individuals live losing this way the
contacts with their relatives! We must not be afraid and learn to talk more
about it.” It's just what
we intend to do! |
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David Koresh and (below) the
“temple”of the Branch Davidians after the assault of the police
Luc Jouret from the canadian group “Solar
Temple” |
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