The book “terror, love and brainwashing by Alexandre Stein is one of the most exact and academic analysis which is existent about the mechanisms of totalitarian cults; it is a book which provides a comprehensive model to understand “how an organization is able to conquer human being’s mind and behavior permanently ” not merely through empirical narrations, but depending on attachment psychology, power sociology and the studies of ideological organizations. Stein explains: Apart from their theological contents- whether they are religious, secular, leftist, rightist or so-called social, the cults are using a common logic: Creating a disordered attachment relationship based on love-fear, social and epistemic isolation, strict information control, collective identity engineering, constant crisis-making and structure.
This book indicates that how the cults make the minor totalitarian systems. ” The systems which surround people in a cycle of dependence, anxiety and hope not by using physical force but by mental engineering. Cults [1] create an artificial relationship in which the person sees the source of security and that of fear in the same point: In leader or the center of command. This duality is called intervened “love and terror” by Stein – and shows that this bond is the main column of mental dominance on members.
This book stresses that the signs of a cult must be sought not in “the ideological content but in the organizational structure, the method of leadership, language, recruiting and excretion and controlling the humane relationships. A group may be religious or not, it may be secular, scientific, social or even humanitarian. It is important whether its structure is sectarian or not:
– Are leader or center of command the final resource of reality?
– Does the organization create inseparable dependence through emotional and cognitive technique?
– Does it answer to criticism via threatening, eliminating or boycotting?
– Does it substitute the personal relationships with or organizational net!
– Does it seize the person’s time and energy?
– Does it divide the world into “we/ others”?
– Does it create the structure of permanent crisis?
Steins research about these criteria provides a powerful framework for analyzing each complicated organization which is claiming for the universal mission and exploits an extensive net of educational, financial and ideological foundations.
The topic of the research:
The comparison between the Baha’i organization and Stein model:
In this research collection, we exactly use this framework. The axis of our analysis is not the Baha’i beliefs – cos personal beliefs of respected people and our criticism don’t focus on beliefs. The topic is the administrative-political organization of the universal house of justice; a foundation which is located in Haifa which directs all universal, continental, national and local Baha’i foundations based on the formal documents.
The Baha’i organization – as stresses in its formal documents – is a multi-layered net which includes:
– The universal house of justice (the final command center)
– The house of proselytizing (trans regional foundation)
– The council of consultants and board of assistance
– Nation education institute and Rouhi plan [2]
– Regional councils
– National and local assemblies
– Financial structures such as continental funds and Israel office
– Universal net of human resources (ITC)
More than 180 countries are executing a unique pattern of growth plan, education, service, recruiting, and making net.
The key note is that the net is exactly indicating the same characteristics which Stein lists for sectarian systems: the concentration of power, the duality of love and terror, isolation, data control, identity engineering, excommunication, crisis making and mental subjugation.
How has this research been done?
We have compare hundreds of Baha’i formal documents with Stein model and have shown that the Baha’i organization is compatible with the model of a totalitarian organization not based on “the Baha’i beliefs”, but based on the organizational
structure, and its administrative methods. The Baha’i formal documents include:
– The annual massages of the universal house of justice,
– The messages of 5-year plans,
– Rouhi plan books,
– The reports of the Baha’i universal community to the United Nations Organization
– ITC statements
– The educational institute instructions
– The stages of membership, service and boycotting mechanisms.
An important part of formal documents is frankly indicating mechanism which are described in Stein’s book as “the definite signs of cult”:
Creating emotional attachment, making permanent terror from outside, the necessity for absolute obedience, omitting old relationships, defining intact relationships just in the form of organizational, suspension of critical wisdom in the domain of organization.
The result of the research:
This research shows that the structure of the organization of the universal house of justice is not an ordinary religious organization, but it is “a system of organized mind control which is using the recognized sectarian models-exactly based on Alexandre Stein’s analysis.
The key characteristics which is found by us in the formal Baha’i documents include:
– Charismatic leadership and concentrating on absolute power
– The duality of love and terror to create disorganized dependence
– Temporal and social isolation through assemblies and services
– Severe controlling data and producing alternative reality
– Identity engineering and changing the person
– The financial structure without supervision and totally centralized
– The organizational boycott and eliminating the opponents
– Permanent crisis making to preserve obedience
– The engineering of feeling guilty and confessing
– The substitution of family net with the organizational net
This adjustment is exactly the one predicted by stein in his book:
Whenever an organization can concentrate love and terror into one source, isolate the individual from the outside world, control information, and define a new identity, it has effectively changed into a sectarian system-even if its appearance is social, moral, or humanitarian.
Source: Hassan Ershad site
http://www.hassanershad.com [3]
Keep in touch with us: bahaismiran85@gmail.com [4]
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