Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace by Margaret Thaler Singer

Author:Margaret Thaler Singer
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Cults, Sociology, Psychology, Brainwashing, Religion, History
ISBN: 9780787967413
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 1995-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A Clash in the Workplace

How many reading this hook recall attending a large group aware -ness training, either on your own or at the behest of employers or friends, where you repeatedly heard the trainer or so-called facilitator shout at attendees that what was getting in their way was their “beliefs”? Without being told what was happening, you were being taught a new belief system about the universe.

People do have the right to try to persuade others to think as they do. But participants should know ahead of time when a program teaches a new belief system, and they should be able to choose whether or not to participate. The majority of complaints about this kind of training have centered around the fact that employees weren’t informed either about the intensity of the psychological attacks that would be made upon them as individuals or about any underlying belief system or philosophy being taught. And the biggest concern always remained that the training “had no real application to my job!”

The criticisms come from many parts of the country and from employees in a variety of work situations. The most frequent criticisms are that certain programs make concerted attacks on employees’ moral and ethical values and spiritual beliefs. Claims have been made that these training programs seek not only to convert employees to accept specific spiritual philosophies but also to recruit employees to cults. Among the recruitment programs are those that lack any markedly visible spiritual content but that are used to get into business, educational, and industrial settings, at the company’s or the government’s expense, where large numbers ofpeople can be contacted. Once their foot is in the door, cultic groups will attempt to get as many employees as possible who take the first course to join the cult. Cult leaders and trainers assess individual participants in their seminars as potential recruits, already partially converted.

Cultic programs that tend to be purely commercial ventures generally aim at selling more and more courses. Again, persons met through the program are regarded as potential buyers and as links to a whole company. Shortly after taking one course, individuals are contacted by agents of the training program to purchase additional courses and to get their companies to send more employees to the introductory seminar.

All these programs raise several general areas of concern:

• They are religious and philosophical in nature and thus don’t belong in the workplace.

• They use thought-reform techniques and methods of psychological coercion and can cause psychological breakdowns.

• They produce social friction in the place of business.

I have mentioned that those for whom religion or a personal belief system is an issue are deeply offended by having what is essentially another religious belief foisted upon them under the guise of job betterment. Also a plethora of allegations has been raised, some in civil suits, pointing out that individuals have suffered mental breakdowns and psychological harm as a result of participating in certain training programs.

In addition, negative social consequences in the workplace have arisen from these programs.

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