Thank you Corboy,
I read some of the stuff written here on Cult Education via the link you posted and all I can say is: Wow! I probably need to do a lot more reading about all this kind of thing!
Trance Induction:
I knew that watching Moo's videos on YouTube made me feel relaxed and I thought there was something just a little bit 'addictive' about them. I couldn't put my finger on it and no-one seemed to believe me when I talked about it, anyway.
But now it really makes sense. The soft voice, the long, long pauses and the sustained eye contact from Moo. This creates a false sense of intimacy, like you know the person, when of course you do not know Moo at all. You tend to trust people you know. You tend to believe them.
This relaxed feeling makes you really open to suggestion. You don't try and question things when you are tranced out.
The group hysteria thing:
Like, everyone wants to be part of a group, so when the group worship Moo, you kind of feel like going along with it. It's sort of inexplicable the way you want to behave like everyone else. It just happens. We are social creatures.
Cultural disphoria:
I twigged on this aspect myself. They use all the props, like the robes and the beads and the photos of gurus in the background. It makes the whole show seem 'official'. Because these 'props' are from a non-western culture, it's easier for a western person to be fooled by them. We don't like to question things that come from a different culture, because it would seem rude or ignorant to do so. So we think "when in Rome...do as the Roman's do!". It's really destabilising on a personal level.
Confusing Message:
What Moo teaches is vague in the extreme. It's contradictory, in a lot of incidences. When you hear a lot of contradictory things from someone who you look up to and trust, it makes you feel 'undone' or just confused, I guess. But when this confusion is coupled with the whole group dynamic, the intimacy you feel for the guru, then it has the effect of making you think you have heard something "profound".
All this happened to me! I am an educated person and really not that naive and yet it all happened to me!
It was interesting reading what Sudhir Kakar had to say in the book "Shamans, Mystics and Doctors." On page 147 he says that a lot of the guru's followers had a kind of child-like mentality (after the brain-washing, that is) in that they understood the guru's message in a very black and white fashion. There were no grey areas for them. This type of thinking is used an escape from adult responsibilities and normal, complex and meaningful adult life.
Strangely enough, this is exactly what I think I was after when I started watching Moo videos. It was escapism for me. Pure escapism. I wanted someone to tell me all the answers, because I was exhausted by life.
Thankfully I am OK now and back in business. I'm not exhausted, just extremely curious. A good way to be, I think.
I read some of the stuff written here on Cult Education via the link you posted and all I can say is: Wow! I probably need to do a lot more reading about all this kind of thing!
Trance Induction:
I knew that watching Moo's videos on YouTube made me feel relaxed and I thought there was something just a little bit 'addictive' about them. I couldn't put my finger on it and no-one seemed to believe me when I talked about it, anyway.
But now it really makes sense. The soft voice, the long, long pauses and the sustained eye contact from Moo. This creates a false sense of intimacy, like you know the person, when of course you do not know Moo at all. You tend to trust people you know. You tend to believe them.
This relaxed feeling makes you really open to suggestion. You don't try and question things when you are tranced out.
The group hysteria thing:
Like, everyone wants to be part of a group, so when the group worship Moo, you kind of feel like going along with it. It's sort of inexplicable the way you want to behave like everyone else. It just happens. We are social creatures.
Cultural disphoria:
I twigged on this aspect myself. They use all the props, like the robes and the beads and the photos of gurus in the background. It makes the whole show seem 'official'. Because these 'props' are from a non-western culture, it's easier for a western person to be fooled by them. We don't like to question things that come from a different culture, because it would seem rude or ignorant to do so. So we think "when in Rome...do as the Roman's do!". It's really destabilising on a personal level.
Confusing Message:
What Moo teaches is vague in the extreme. It's contradictory, in a lot of incidences. When you hear a lot of contradictory things from someone who you look up to and trust, it makes you feel 'undone' or just confused, I guess. But when this confusion is coupled with the whole group dynamic, the intimacy you feel for the guru, then it has the effect of making you think you have heard something "profound".
All this happened to me! I am an educated person and really not that naive and yet it all happened to me!
It was interesting reading what Sudhir Kakar had to say in the book "Shamans, Mystics and Doctors." On page 147 he says that a lot of the guru's followers had a kind of child-like mentality (after the brain-washing, that is) in that they understood the guru's message in a very black and white fashion. There were no grey areas for them. This type of thinking is used an escape from adult responsibilities and normal, complex and meaningful adult life.
Strangely enough, this is exactly what I think I was after when I started watching Moo videos. It was escapism for me. Pure escapism. I wanted someone to tell me all the answers, because I was exhausted by life.
Thankfully I am OK now and back in business. I'm not exhausted, just extremely curious. A good way to be, I think.