Cults in Nigeria free essay sample

The organization is dedicated to humanitarian and charitable endeavourers within Nigeria and whatever society the members find themselves. The Pirates Creed The Piratical aims of fighting all social ills and conformist degradation within and outside our midst stand supreme. These are translated into the creed which is supposed to act as a guide to our acts and thoughts and to the solutions to dilemmas that may face us in making choices in life.There are four compass points whose function is to give us founding principles upon which to direct our lives. ; Against Convention ; Against Tribalism ; For Humanistic Ideals ; For Comradeship and Calvary Certain psychological themes which recur in these various historical contexts also arise in the study of cults. Cults can be identified by three characteristics: 1. A charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose their power; 2. We will write a custom essay sample on Cults in Nigeria or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page A process call coercive persuasion or thought reform; 3. Anomic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie. Milieu Control The first method characteristically used by ideological totality is milieu control: the control of all communication within a given environment In such an environment individual autonomy becomes a threat to the group. There is an attempt to manage an individuals inner communication. Milieu control is maintained and expressed by intense group process, continuous psychological pressure, and isolation by geographical distance, unavailability of transportation, or even physical restraint. Often the group creates an increasingly intense sequence of events such as seminars, lectures and encounters which makes leaving extremely difficult, both physically and psychologically. Intense milieu control can contribute to a dramatic change of identity which I call doubling: the formation of a second self which lives side by side with the former one, often for a considerable time. When the milieu control is lifted, elements of the earlier self may be reasserted. Creating a Pawn A second characteristic of totalistic environments is mystical manipulation or planned spontaneity.This is a systematic process through which the dervish can create in cult members what I call the psychology of the pawn. The process is managed so that it appears to arise spontaneously; to its objects it rarely feels like manipulation. Religious techniques such as fasting chanting and limited sleep are used. Manipulation may take on a special intense quality in a cult for which a particular chosen human being is the only source of salvation. The person of the leader may attract members to the cult, but can also be a source of disillusionment.If members of the Unification Church, for example, come to believe that Sun Unsung Moon, its founder, is associated with the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, they may lose their faith. Mystical manipulation may also legitimate deception of outsiders, as in the heavenly deception of the Unification Church and analogous practices in other cult environments. Anyone who has not seen the light and therefore lives in the realm of evil can be justifiably deceived for a higher purpose.For instance, collectors of funds may be advised to deny their affiliation with a cult that has a dubious public reputation. Purity and Confession Two other features of totality are a demand for purity and a cult of confession. The demand for purity is a call for radical separation of good and evil within the environment and within oneself. Purification is a continuing process, often institutionalized in the cult of confession, which enforces conformity through guilt and shame evoked by mutual criticism and self- criticism in small groups.Confessions contain varying mixtures of revelation and concealment. As Albert Scams observed, Authors of confessions write especially to avoid confession, to tell nothing of what they know. Young cult members confessing the sins of their prelatic lives may leave out ideas and linings that they are not aware of or reluctant to discuss, including a continuing identification with their prior existence. Repetitious confession, especially in required meetings, often expresses an arrogance in the name of humility.As Scams wrote: l practice the profession of penitence to be able to end up as a judge, and, The more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you. Three further aspects of ideological totality are sacred science, loading of the language, and the principle of doctrine over person Sacred science is important because a claim of being scientific is often needed to main plausibility and influence in the modern age. The Unification Church is one example of a contemporary tendency to combine dogmatic religious principles with a claim to special scientific knowledge of human behavior and psychology.The term loading the language refers to literalism and a tendency to deify words or images. A simplified, cliche-ridden language can exert enormous psychological force reducing every issue in a complicated life to a single set of slogans that are said to embody the truth as a totality. The principle of doctrine over person is invoked when cult members sense a inflict between what they are experiencing and what dogma says they should experience. The internalized message of the totalistic environment is that one must negate that personal exp erience on behalf of the truth of the dogma.Contradictions become associated with guilt: doubt indicates ones own deficiency or evil. Perhaps the most significant characteristic of totalistic movements is what I call dispensing of existence. Those who have not seen the light and embraced the truth are wedded to evil, tainted, and therefore in some sense, usually metaphorical, lack the right to exist. That is one reason why a cult member threatened with being cast into outer darkness may experience a fear of extinction or collapse. Ender particularly malignant conditions, the dispensing of existence is taken literally; in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and elsewhere, people were put to death for alleged doctrinal shortcomings. In the Peoples Temple mass suicide-murder in Guyana, a cult leader presided over the literal dispensing of existence by means of a suicidal mystique he himself had made a central theme in the groups ideology. The totalistic impulse to draw a sharp line between those who have the right to eve and those who do not is especially dangerous in the nuclear age.Historical Context Totality should a lways be considered within a specific historical context. A significant feature of contemporary life is the historical (or psycho historical) dislocation resulting from a loss of the gym folic structures that organize ritual transitions in the life cycle, and a decay of belief systems concerning religion, authority, marriage, family, and death. One function of cults is to provide a group initiation rite for the transition to early adult life, and the formation of an adult identity outside the family.Cult members have good reasons for eyeing attempts by the larger culture to make such provisions as hypocritical or confused. In providing substitute symbols for young people, cults are both radical and reactionary. They are radical because they suggest rude questions about middle-class family life and American political and religious values in general. They are reactionary because they revive performed structures of authority and sometimes establish fascist patterns of internal organization.Furthermore, in their assault on autonomy and self-de finition some cults reject a liberating historical process that has evolved with great struggle and main in the West since the Renaissance. (Cults must be considered individually in making such judgments. Historical dislocation is one source of what I call the protean style. This involves a continuous psychological experimentation with the self, a capacity for endorsing contradictory ideas at the same time, and a tendency to change ones ideas, companions and way of life with relative ease.Cults embody a contrary restricted style, a flight from experimentation and the confusion of a protean world. These contraries are related: groups and individuals can embrace a protean and a restricted style n turn. For instance, the so-called hippie ethos of the sass and sass has been replaced by the present so-called Yuppie preoccupation with safe jobs and comfortable incomes. For some people, experimentation with a cult is part of the protean search. The imagery of extinction derived from the con temporary threat of nuclear war influences patterns of totality and fundamentalism throughout the world.Nuclear war threatens human continuity itself and impairs the symbols of immortality. Cults seize upon this threat to provide amortizing principles of their own. The cult environment plies a continuous opportunity for the experience Of transcendence a mode of symbolic immortality generally suppressed in advanced industrial society. Role of Psychology Cults raise serious psychological concerns, and there is a place for psychologists and psychiatrists in understanding and treating cult members. But our powers as mental health professionals are limited, so we should exercise restraint.When helping a young person confused about a cult situation, it is important to maintain a personal therapeutic contract so that one is not working for the cult or for the parents. Totality begets totality. What is called deprogramming includes a continuum from intense dialogue on the one hand to physical coercion and kidnapping, with thought-reform-like techniques, on the other. My own position, which I have repeatedly conveyed to parents and others who consult me, is to oppose coercion at either end of the cult process. Cults are primarily a social and cultural rather than a psychiatric or legal problem.But psychological professionals can make important contributions to the public education crucial for dealing with the problem. With greater knowledge about them, people are less susceptible to exception, and for that reason some cults have been finding it more difficult to recruit members. Yet painful moral dilemmas remain. When laws are violated through fraud or specific harm to recruits, legal intervention is clearly indicated. But what about situations in which behavior is virtually automated, language reduced to rote and cliche, yet the cult member expresses a certain satisfaction or even happiness?We must continue to seek ways to encourage a social commitment to individual autonomy and avoid coercion and violence. N destructive cults, members are manipulated and exploited, they may distance themselves from their family and friends and even leave their careers to work in the cult, often for little or no pay. Their own beliefs and values have been changed to those of the group, and they identify with the group and the leader. They suffer psychological and emotional abuse, and there may be physical or sexual abuse.And very often, at the same time, they believe that theyve never been happier in their lives. Such is the power of mind control! Usually there is an elitist mentality because they have acce ss to information or their leader in a way that outsiders do not. They become very defensive of their leader and in a way their identity and their well-being becomes linked the well-being of the leader. Hence, they will usually be very quick to defend him/her, often aggressively! In the most obvious cases, family and friends notice that there has been a significant change since the person joined the group.A change in their beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and values. They often say its like dealing with a different person. IMPACT ON SOCIETY When we think about cults in this way, it is obvious that they are detrimental to society in many ways. Nowadays, young and old alike are susceptible to eyeing recruited. When people think about cults they do not often consider older people, but nowadays old people are targets because they have money, and may be extremely vulnerable, for example, they find themselves living alone after the recent death of their spouse. When and if members manage to leave, they may need an extensive period of recuperation before they can integrate themselves usefully into society again. Some cults are so large that they have extraordinary (and frightening! )influence in the media, in politics, and in lawmaking. They may dominate whole communities. Some cults are violent, leading to suicides and murders. Destructive cults thrive on conspiracy and fraud, and the legal system is often ill-equipped to deal with them.Cults deny people their freedom. They take away their possessions. Frequently there is sexual abuse. Its possible that many mentally ill people have been in cults, and dont know it. The symptoms they have after leaving a cult are interpreted as mental illness (yes, post-cult symptoms can be that severe! ) And they are treated as such, instead of getting the advice and counseling from experts who understand their situation, and can actually help them to undo the harmful effects of cult mind control.