Illusion of Happiness in Destructive/Terrorist cults

The Illusion of 3Hs (Health, Honour and Happiness) in Cults A short note on the power of destructive/terrorist cults and their doctrine In the fight against terrorism or cults, we should take care not to promote them in any way or to make it easier for them to recruit. Our first line of defence should be to understand their strengths and weaknesses, in order to match their strengths and attack their vulnerabilities. In most people’s lives, what matter most are three Hs: health (of body and soul), honour and happiness. Destructive and terrorist cults are masters of deception, with their black-andwhite worldview; they appear to be offering a simple, strict and easily understood definition of these three Hs to their followers. A cult’s definition of the three Hs will infiltrate deep into the mind and soul of its followers and stay deep in their unconscious, even years after they leave the cult. The promise of these 3Hs can be very attractive, especially to young people; and this ability to convince and deceive is the destructive cult’s main strength, and the one that should worry us most. In almost all cults, their definition of the three Hs starts with honour, and the other two Hs are defined in relation to honour. Thus, to preserve honour you have to be in good health, although you should be prepared to sacrifice your health and even your life for its sake. Happiness, in the cult’s definition, comes from being honourable and proud of the achievements of the cult. Honour The formula for defining honour in most cults, especially those that may be called destructive or terrorist cults, is very simple: [Love/worship/praise ... and hate/resist/fight ...]. The only thing that remains to make this formula complete is to replace the dots with a popular idea, which can later be defined and elaborated by the cult leader. For example, all ‘religious’ cults, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Moonies, Al Qaeda, Daesh (ISIS) and MeK, will substitute for the first set of dots God/Christ/Islam and for the second set of dots Devil/Satan/the Antichrist/enemies of Islam. Political or nonreligious cults might replace God with the people/freedom/democracy and the Devil with imperialism or dictatorship1. In order to recruit young Muslims, Al Qaeda, Daesh (ISIS) and MeK (the cult of Rajavis; husband and wife) claim that their ideology is Islam and that they are fighting the enemies of the religion. They have all exploited two important Islamic concepts, jihad (struggle) and shehadah (giving witness), and have developed their doctrine around them by giving them twisted, wrong definitions. Jihad (greater and lesser struggle), according to the majority of Muslim jurists (except Wahhabis and Salafis), is defined as a struggle against wrongs in the mind and behaviour of a Muslim or in a Muslim community (greater jihad); or defending a Muslim community against aggression by enemies (lesser jihad). Both greater and lesser jihad have many rules and conditions set in the Quran and Hadith (Sayings of the Prophet and the four Rightly Guided Caliphs). Shehadah (giving witness or martyrdom) also has a very clear definition throughout all the different sects of Islam, but terrorist cults have given a new distorted meaning to both notions, changing them into ‘killing’, even the killing of innocent, unarmed civilians, and ‘dying’, even by suicide bombing2. MeK, Al Qaeda and Daesh (ISIS) have violated all the norms and rules of jihad and shehadah through acts of terrorism, such as killing civilians and unarmed people, women and children and old people, and bombing places of worship. However wrong or distorted and anti-Islam is their definition in the view of the majority of Muslims, they have given a new meaning to the word ‘honour’, namely fighting and dying for the cause of the group and the desires of the leader. Of course, it is easy to show that what they do is nothing to do with Islam, jihad or shehadah, but when the cult has manipulated a person’s mind, from then on he or she is utterly reliant on the leader for understanding the doctrine of the cult and the meaning of honour. What they replace those dots with is not as important as how they define them. For example, in MeK, along with the fluctuating whims and interests of its leader, Rajavi, how to love and worship God and resist and fight those who oppose them has changed many times. ‘God’ has been substituted or supplemented by ‘the people’, ‘independence’, ‘freedom’ or ‘human rights’; and ‘the Devil’ has become ‘exploitation’, ‘imperialism’, ‘Zionism’ or ‘dictatorship’; and so on. At the same time, Rajavi has been able to define these ideas as he wishes; for example, he has defined people and love for the people in such a way as to justify support for international sanctions against Iranians, especially the poorest who suffer most. He has defined honour as a fight for the independence of Iran and opposition to imperialism, while at the same time ordering his followers to join Iraq in fighting Iran during the Iraq–Iran war, and now he is encouraging warmongering, right-wing Americans to attack Iran and ruin the country, as they did in Iraq. MeK’s definition of ‘freedom’ rests on the notion that a person permanently suppresses his or her individuality, desires nothing personal, abandons family life and accepts celibacy. According to this definition of freedom, followers feel they are the freest people on earth, overlooking the fact that with this definition of freedom, objects are freest, as they do not have any individualistic desire, ambition, or want. These days, MeK defines honour for its followers simply as love, loyalty and obedience towards the Rajavis (husband and wife, who are leaders of the group) and hate towards the ‘Iranian regime’, which the Rajavis wish to overthrow in order to become the next leaders of the Iranian people. This definition of honour sticks to the mind and mentality of followers and will direct and justify all their thoughts, feelings and behaviours even years after leaving the cult. As an example, recently I heard about some ex-members of MeK insulting others, calling them ‘traitors’ or ‘mercenaries in the employ of the enemy’, because they had abandoned the ‘honourable goals’ planted in their minds when they were members of the cult. Years after leaving the group, the name-callers still feel they are honourable because of their ‘struggle’ within the group and beyond. I noticed the same kind of argument being proffered by some ex-followers of other cults, claiming that the doctrine and goals of the groups were fine and only the leadership was wrong, and that they were going to stick to that doctrine. What they fail to realise is that ‘goals’, ‘honour’ and ‘doctrine’ are, in this context, nothing more than words without any substance. Whatever the words used – freedom, imperialism, Justice – ex-members of a cult should know that they simply reflect the cult leader’s interests. It is very difficult for ex-members, who have made great sacrifices and paid an enormous price for being in the cult, to reject the concepts of the ‘doctrine’ or the ‘honour’ that they have learned within the cult and to seek new principles to live by. Unless they succeed in finding a better meaning of ‘honour’, they are condemned to be unhappy and, in many cases, to remain a follower at heart, without knowing how or why. Health Health (physical, psychological and emotional) is obviously another prerequisite for a happy life. Again, in destructive cults there is a very clear and strict, unequivocal definition of health. Physical health is important as long as one is struggling to pursue the cult’s goals, but it can and should be sacrificed as a mark of honour when needed. In destructive cults, followers do not need to think about their physical health (including their essential needs such as food and shelter), as the cult acts as a kind of insurance, guaranteeing them the fulfilment of all their physical needs and lifelong care. They achieve this by, first, drastically reducing each person’s personal expectations about his or her physical needs, and, second, by channelling the resources of the cult towards specific needs when necessary. In addition, cults, by rejecting ‘individuality’, which they describe as the ‘ugliness of selfishness’, dramatically reduce the psychological needs of individuals, offering them a collective life, comradeship and brotherhood/sisterhood, common goals and the security of the cult’s character. Cults deal with the emotional health or needs of their followers by labelling outsiders as the enemy and dehumanising them, thus psychologically isolating their followers from the outside world and their familiar social milieu and neutralising any feelings they may have for their loved ones. At the same time, the cult portrays itself as a family, cult leaders as ‘parents’ and other cult members as ‘friends/comrades’ or ‘siblings’, thereby creating a new set of feelings and emotions among the followers, which can easily be directed, controlled and satisfied by the leader. Cults also instil a new set of beliefs in their followers about their sexual needs, which can be met by free sex, arranged marriages or sex without emotion and family ties, or denied by eliminating sex from their lives altogether. Happiness Destructive cults, by rejecting all the social and family responsibilities and expectations of their followers and their individual needs and desires, claim to provide the ‘health’ component of happiness. More importantly, by creating a strong belief system and a clear, simple and achievable definition of honour and being honourable, they promise their followers an illusion of happiness, which seems satisfactory, although to outsiders it seems strange, wrong and unacceptable. This capacity to delude their followers is one of the great strengths of destructive and terrorist cults that enable them to recruit and hold on to their followers. Most of us would of course argue that this kind of happiness is a sham, an illusion, and is only achievable via some sort of mind manipulation or brainwashing; but the reality is that it can be and has been achieved within cults, and we have yet to find an answer or antidote for it. For us in the West especially, it is very difficult to imbue young people with a sense of the three Hs, particularly ‘honour’, given that all three Hs have been commercialised and given ambiguous and sometimes unachievable meanings. The mass media and advertising give young people the impression that, to feel good, proud and honourable, they have to be rich, famous, good-looking, with fit and beautifully proportioned bodies, and, perhaps, endowed with immense artistic or scientific talent. It is almost impossible to define honour for an ordinary individual by reference to an idea such as nationalism or a belief in a religion or philosophy, without pushing them towards becoming racist, dogmatist or superstitious. For other meaningful, achievable and admirable values, such as caring for nature and humanity or standing up against exploitation, there is a lack of teaching and incentives in our families, schools and the media. With respect to health, again, the monopolisation of its meaning by the mass media and its exploitation by the dollar is, to say the least, unfortunate. Similarly, happiness for our younger generation tends nowadays to mean ‘joy’, ‘fun’ and ‘lust’. In defining the three Hs, we in the West are therefore at our weakest and destructive and terrorist cults at their strongest; and in this situation, the worst thing that we might do is to attack them from this angle. This is why I believe that those who direct their attacks to the ideology of destructive cults – often by blaming Islam and portraying Islam and Muslims as the roots of terrorism – are promoting and supporting these cults and, knowingly or unknowingly, facilitating recruitment to them. I am not referring to groups that are themselves cults in some form and that feed on hate. For them, the existence of other destructive or terrorist groups gives them ammunition with which to promote their own philosophy and agenda and to recruit3. Rather, I am referring to our governments, our police, our old and established media and even those who claim to be fighting cults and terrorism: they too, in some cases, by calling these groups ‘Muslim’ or ‘jihadist’ and by attacking their doctrine, knowingly or unknowingly support and promote them instead of crippling and ultimately destroying them4. To know more about common factors of Cult’s ideology please look at my paper at: http://www.ridc.info/resources/P1Doctrine.pdf, and http://www.ridc.info/resources/P3DoctrineIn+MEK.pdf 1 2 for further information about the meaning and rules of jihad and shehadah, please see my article at: http://www.ridc.info/resources/Martyrdom$5B1$5D.pdf 3 4 As an example please watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byRGsYJAPPA As an example please watch this: https://vimeo.com/129517320 and also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjlxSguj8QU