Cult organizations are regarded as the cancer of human society because of the serious influence and harm they bring to human society. Although my country only established a relatively complete anti-cult work system at the end of the 20th century, and gradually carried out systematic theoretical research on cults, in the past two decades, it has achieved world-renowned work results, which has not only effectively promoted the international It also promotes the exchange and interaction of theoretical research on international related issues.
In fact, despite the different historical and cultural backgrounds, Chinese and foreign identifications of cults are still similar. In the classical literature of our country, Zhang Sanfeng, a high-ranking Taoist of Quanzhen Sect, tried to define cults to distinguish them from orthodox religions or beliefs: “There are two religions in ancient and modern times, but there are no three religions. Are there two religions? The religion of the saints. The righteousness is the religion. If it is not an orthodox religion, it is a cult.” In the Spanish context, a cult is referred to as a destructive cult. Some of the scholars represented insisted on identifying cults based on the harmfulness of their actions rather than their beliefs. “A group may appear to have ‘unorthodox or false’ beliefs, but that does not mean it is harmful or necessarily destructive”. Therefore, defining a cult from the perspective of belief will cause conceptual ambiguity and confusion in practical operation. What the above two definitions of cults have in common is that starting from the behavior of cults (including the purpose, process and results of behavior), cults are distinguished from beliefs, and a theoretical foundation is laid for systematic research on cults and premise.
1. The formation of cult way of thinking
Adhering to the definition of cult based on behavior also opens up a possible way for the study of the cult’s way of thinking. That is to say, any behavior does not exist in isolation, and there must be a specific way of thinking behind it. In other words, the cult’s way of thinking is the core of the cult.
The way of thinking of a cult, that is, the form of thinking of a cult, that is, a way of thinking with rigid, exclusive and non-reflective characteristics caused by outsiders (brainwashing). Compared with the physical form of a cult organization, the thinking form of a cult is more secretive and camouflaged. In other words, a cult organization can easily arouse people’s vigilance, while the way of thinking of a cult and its brainwashing methods are often ignored by people. It subtly brings harm and negative impact to individuals and society as a whole. Rather, the cult’s thinking form, as the essential factor for it to be a cult, constitutes the foundation of the cult.
Different from the rigid, exclusive and non-reflective way of thinking that is formed spontaneously by individuals, the way of thinking of cults is based on “thought reformation” or “brainwashing” as a prerequisite for its formation. In other words, the former is the result of individual subjectivity, while the latter is the result of a passive thought remolding.
How does a cult organization make its members form a cult way of thinking and make it “willingly” to be the target of economic and even personal exploitation? Since there is still controversy over the principles of identifying cults—some scholars in the West still insist on defining cults from the level of belief, and believe that cults are intrinsically related to religion, that is, cults are a “non-mainstream†form of religion—therefore, The great harm of cults has not been clearly recognized by the public, and has become one of the objects of academic attention, let alone the research and theoretical support that we can rely on on this issue. In addition, some scholars simply attribute the cult way of thinking to a purely psychological problem, which not only narrows the scope of this problem, but also obscures its essence and hidden dangers to a certain extent, and even makes this kind of research rare for scholars. There are theoretical “wastelands” to dabble in.
Although the interpretation and solution of this problem depends on the further in-depth and development of relevant research, this does not affect our brief description of the brainwashing method of cult organizations by forcing cult members to form their way of thinking and control it. illustrate.
One is to block the connection between individuals and external information by means of personal or ideological isolation. Cult organizations often force their followers to detach themselves from family and society, so that they cannot accept various information from the outside, and artificially cause rigid thinking of members. Its methods can be summarized into two common ways: personal isolation is the establishment of an independent and closed cult community, and the purpose of brainwashing is achieved by mutual supervision and collective life among members; Loss of rational thinking.
Second, under the premise of creating a rigid and closed context, by guiding cult members to form blind and irrational worship, and then actively rejecting external information. The isolation of persons or minds provides the basis for instilling this cult, and the decline of rational reflection further systematizes it. In this sense, the level of education and the amount of knowledge cannot be the criteria for distinguishing whether an individual is a potential cult member. In fact, once the presupposition of the cult organization is accepted, the highly educated person shows a rejection of external information. more active.
Therefore, through brainwashing to form and consolidate the cult’s way of thinking, the cult organization has established a “pyramid”-like internal structure. Its leader, as the only brain in the organization, occupies the top of the pyramid, and the backbone of the organization who can become vested interests constitutes the middle level of the pyramid, and the vast majority of those brainwashed members are reduced to cults under the shackles of the cult’s way of thinking. The bottom layer of the pyramid is even the “fertilizer” that its leader can squeeze at will for his ulterior motives and self-interest, and can be discarded. In addition, in order to survive, cult organizations must continue to obtain new nutrients that can be squeezed and utilized by the organization. Therefore, cult organizations will never be satisfied with the formation and solidification of cult ways of thinking, but need to spread through cult ways of thinking. To expand influence and recruit members, that is, to complete the “reproduction” of this way of thinking.
2. The spread of cult way of thinking
Just as the core of a cult lies in the way of thinking of the cult, the essence of the spread of a cult lies in the spread of the way of thinking of the cult, and different means of communication constitute the carrier of its thought dissemination. The dissemination process of the cult way of thinking is also the process of its reproduction, that is to say, the dissemination form of the cult way of thinking is not necessarily static. to renovate and change, and to camouflage and disguise in clumsy and hypocritical ways. Nonetheless, since cults themselves are not compatible with modern society, and people have a clearer and deeper understanding of the dangers of cults, the spread of cult thinking and its false cloak are easily recognized and exposed.
Taking the “Falun Gong” cult as an example, at the beginning of its formation, the so-called “doctrine” put together by Li Hongzhi did achieve the purpose of successfully deceiving some people under the background of a specific era. He himself provided the opportunity to accumulate wealth, and provided the conditions for the achievement of personal ulterior motives and ambitions. However, in the face of reality, his so-called “doctrine” has been refuted by a large number of facts. Therefore, Li Hongzhi had to politicize the “Falun Gong” cult organization, act as the vanguard of the anti-China forces, and disguise himself as a victim to deceive Sympathy, and enlist “allies” to survive. Li Hongzhi is eager to seize the “life-saving straw” of anti-China while selling his cult way of thinking in any medium, but he ignores the irreconcilable contradiction between politicization and his own deification, which can only be counterproductive. Full of loopholes.
The “Falun Gong” cult organization relies on the so-called “New Tang Dynasty Television” and its affiliated “Shen Yun Performing Arts Troupe” to spread the cult’s way of thinking and slander the reality of the Chinese government under the guise of Chinese culture. resentment from the international community and public opinion. Therefore, the “Falun Gong” cult organization’s frantic self-indulgent “Shen Yun” performance, in addition to proving that it has been marginalized, is nothing more than an absurd farce. In addition, the “Falun Gong” cult organization used online means to concoct and spread rumors of “harvesting human organs”, which also showed its despicable behavior. Facts have proved that Li Hongzhi, who is blinded by profit, is completely immersed in the illusion of realizing his ambitions, and has ignored basic facts and simple common sense in an attempt to deceive the international community. However, this lie did not go as expected. In front of medical experts and public opinion all over the world, Li Hongzhi once again became a laughing stock, proving to the world that he is funny and ridiculous.
Although the “Falun Gong” cult organization at the end of its stranglehold has repeatedly provided us with failure cases in the propagation of the cult’s way of thinking, this is not enough to explain that the study of the cult’s way of thinking and its propagation will eventually become a dragon-slaying technique. In fact, there are currently many cult organizations in the world, especially the cult organizations that use the name of Christianity, which have caused great trouble to modern society and anti-cult work in terms of the dissemination of the way of thinking. We still need to give high vigilance.
As an ancient social phenomenon in human history, cult has been burdened with “original sin” since its birth. In other words, there has always been an irreconcilable contradiction between its closed ideological system and the socialization of its way of thinking. In the long run, this contradiction determines that the phenomenon of cults will inevitably be eliminated by the continuous development of human society. However, in the short term, because cult organizations are constantly changing in modern society, and even unscrupulously alleviating their own internal contradictions, they still have a certain vitality.
Since its emergence, the cult phenomenon has undergone at least two changes in form, namely, falsely using the name of religion, disguising itself as the original form of a religious organization, and using the cult’s way of thinking as the basis to falsely use other names to expand. Although its form has changed, the essence of its cult’s way of thinking has not changed. However, starting from the change in the form of the cult itself, we can also find the clues of its development trend. Since cult organizations can reconcile their own contradictions and achieve their illegal goals through the spread of their thinking methods, their reliance on traditional so-called “doctrine” and their substantiated organizational forms will inevitably show a trend of gradually weakening. Therefore, we have reason to believe that in modern society, cults are going through the process of producing their new forms. Although cult organizations are more clear about the purpose of spreading their way of thinking, the cultural anxiety of modern people, the way of life that is extremely dependent on the Internet, and the dissemination and acquisition methods of information fragmentation formed by this are all cult thinking. The spread of the method provides a more cryptic protective coat. Therefore, while cracking down on cult organizations, how to actively deal with the spread of cult ways of thinking in order to block the path of reconciling their own contradictions will become one of the key directions for the future work of the international community’s anti-cult cause and theoretical researchers.
3. Response to the spread of the cult way of thinking
The dissemination of the cult way of thinking requires two essential factors, one is the subject of dissemination, that is, the cult organization, and the other is the object of dissemination, the masses. Therefore, while cracking down on cult organizations, it is also necessary to strengthen the guidance of the masses to make them clearly aware of the dangers of cults, and always remain vigilant against the spread of cult ways of thinking.
There are two types of objects spread by the cult’s way of thinking. One type of mass has the ability to identify and recognize the true face of a cult organization. Therefore, it can also become an important supporting force for anti-cult work. On the other hand, because of their own lack of this ability, or because they have personal demands that are difficult to achieve through formal and legal channels, they are very easy to accept the way of thinking of cults and are brainwashed by cult organizations. In other words, they constitute a potential group of cult members. Therefore, it has naturally become the object of assistance and guidance that should be focused on in the anti-cult work.
In the process of helping and guiding this part of the group, it is advisable to grasp the principle of specific analysis of specific problems, and correctly distinguish the nature and form of their demands. For groups with utilitarian appeals, increase support and education. On the one hand, for groups facing short-term difficulties formed in a specific period of social development and social transformation, it is necessary to promote the overall development of the region and solve social development through social development. The way to solve their own problems minimizes the space for the spread of the cult’s way of thinking; for groups with illegal sexual appeals to satisfy their own selfish desires and take the opportunity to seize personal interests, they must rely on legal means to resolutely crack down and stop them. Actively guide groups with non-utilitarian appeals. Since such groups are more common in religious appeals, while improving their ability to identify and correctly distinguish cults from orthodox religions, they should also actively play the role of orthodox religions in exposing and criticizing cults. In fact, while cult organizations seriously endanger the safety of society and people’s lives and properties, they also form a tit-for-tat conflict with orthodox organizations because of their misinterpretation of religious teachings. Therefore, the orthodox religion will naturally have the obligation and responsibility to expose the cult that falsely uses its own banner. On the one hand, it is necessary to expose the lies of cult organizations from the doctrinal level, and on the other hand, it is necessary to reveal the harm of cult organizations from the perspective of the state’s legal management of religious affairs, so that its believers can avoid being deceived by cult organizations.
In addition, we need to pay more attention to the fact that, in the process of spreading the cult’s way of thinking, to a certain extent, it caters to the lifestyle, cultural anxiety, and fragmentation of information dissemination and acquisition. The trend, that is to say, in order to conceal its true purpose, cult organizations try their best to avoid the integrated form in the process of spreading their thinking, but spread them scattered in the fields of economy, politics, culture, etc., even far beyond the People’s traditional cognition of cult organizations and the functional scope of anti-cult work have also created certain obstacles and difficulties for anti-cult work. Not only that, the cult’s way of thinking and the brainwashing methods that produce this way of thinking are being used by some lawbreakers with ulterior motives in society, and, from a practical point of view, the problems in the economic field are particularly obvious. Although Mr. Ross, in his book “Cults: The Truth Behind Brainwashing”, has attempted to define and understand “controversial large groups and their awareness training” in the sense of a destructive cult, however, due to historical, cultural Such differences, as well as differences in the definition of cults, the cult way of thinking infiltrated in the economy or other fields has not been widely valued, and these organizations or behaviors are still not regarded as a kind of cult organization and cult brainwashing activities. The variant form of cult is naturally not included in the field of anti-cult work.
It is undeniable that the spread of the cult way of thinking in modern society is gradually subverting and reshaping our traditional cognition of cults, although this means that the anti-cult work of the international community is facing new challenges. With the continuous deepening of cults and our understanding of cults, any new derivative forms of cults will inevitably be finally clarified, so that there is nowhere to hide.
