How Ritual leads to belief in the unbelievable

jgnat

A couple of months ago I started a blog. Funnily enough, I started it about the same time we knew that JWD would not be staying the same. I talk about many things there, not just the Witness experience. In a way, my blog is my way of connecting with my future and where I want to be.

Recently I wrote a bit about the Witness experience and some of the things I am learning about how Armageddon cults manage to hang on to their members even after spectacular failure. It turns out that human motivations are complex and rarely logical.

It may be that the process of initiation, meditation, and purification sets a person up with a strong identity with the group that transcends all reason. The Watchtower society does have rituals that set up this process of initiation. Can you think of a few?

In that sense, the Watchtower society is not that much different from any "pagan" group, are they?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiation

insearchoftruth

Very interesting, and I like your blog......ritual is so important, if one keeps repeating something, they eventually have it 'written to their mind' as truth.....

carla

Hey jgnat, nice blog. I notice you have a link to Gladwell, have you read 'Blink' yet? I loved it.

I agree jw have their own 'rituals' but would cringe at that someone thought that of them. I believe they retain members in part by the constant repition and constant imaging of a their paradise earth. If they say it and think it often enough it is bound to come true, right? (in their minds) They brush away all the false prophecies to date because they have nothing else and are usually too frightened to look at anything else be it history, science, biblical theology, biblical languages, and so forth.

Dogpatch

jgnat says,

Recently I wrote a bit about the Witness experience and some of the things I am learning about how Armageddon cults manage to hang on to their members even after spectacular failure. It turns out that human motivations are complex and rarely logical.

So true! It is really like a serious carnival show, with the sword swallowers (wild testimonies), demon-possessed members (deliverance), two-headed man (former Satanist becomes Born-again), fortune tellers (prophets of doom and gloom). But the circus eventually becomes a functioning (well, perhaps a BIT dysfunctional!) FAMILY of the disinherited, and once that bond develops, it becomes extremely resistant to change.

http://www.freeminds.org/psych/propfail.htm

When Prophecies Fail

There have been plenty of end-times scenarios that could be studied since the time of Christ. As early as the second century, the charismatic leader Montanus gained a following around the belief that the second coming of the Lord was at hand, and that this would occur at a specific location according to his "New Prophecy". Harold O.J. Brown says,

"Montanus' conviction that the end of the age was at hand led him to call on Christians to abstain from marriage, dissolve marriages already contracted, and gather in an appropriate place to await the descent of the heavenly city. The heavenly city did not descend when expected, and consequently Montanus and his followers had to come to terms with its delay, as the whole church had to learn to deal with the postponement of Christ's Second Coming." 1

What is interesting, however, was that the Montanists did not die out right away, but continued as a small cult for several centuries in Phrygia of Asia Minor."

Randy

BurnTheShips

In-group psychology. It plays on human nature. We are wired that way. It seems to me that there is a logic to the wiring, if not the cult trappings.

Sharkbait ooh haha, but first through Mount Wanna-hock-a-loogie.

BTS

Bubblie

I can remember after 1975 and the end didn't come then. Many stopped coming to the meetings. There was much spinning work done by the wt then to keep a hold on those that still hung in there. Then, there was the changing of the generation meaning. Can't remember when that happened but it didn't effect me since I was just going along with everything they wrote or said. I think I was a pioneer then. When my husband left in 2001, there was the Dateline show about the abused children of witnesses by other witnesses. The spin on that was amazing. The next meeting there was a special letter read to everyone about how all the people on there were disfellowshipped. So, of course they could not be trusted with any real information about the wt. We all know from Silent Lambs that it was true now, don't we! I even told a few friends that I believed it happened. None, could dispute it. There were even stories from some friends about abuse they shared with me. That was a hard one to dismiss but I was on the way out then. There has been so many changes since I left that I can't even believe it. The magazine just for witnesses in good standing and one for the public for instance! I am so glad I am out and free of this mind numbing, messed up creepy place.

I loved your blog & will check it out again. Keep up the good threads until jwd is no more.

Kit

bebu

jgnat, interesting thoughts. I really enjoyed reading through the rest of your blog as well. And I'm left with a feeling of puzzlement: I don't know where you are getting all the time in each day to work, write here, maintain a readable blog, knit, cook, go to the doctor/dentist, etc. You are terribly efficient--and terribly talented. (And I am terribly jealous. )

I would like to have your blog feed to my igoogle page, but I don't know how this can be done. Do you know if that's something you can help enable? I am subscribed to Coco's blog and receive it; I don't quite remember how I succeeded, though. Nothing seems to make it work for yours. So, would you grant a small Christmas gift to me--and perhaps others here who enjoy mulling your thoughts with you?

I've been trying to find a precise date for the closing of JWD. Could you enlighten me on that too, if you know it?

bebu

jgnat

Oh, my. I don't have the "time" to reply to all of you right now. Thank you for all your gracious thoughts. Thanks, Carla, for adding another book to my reading list. Now, in detail, bebu, I'll explain where my "time" comes from.

I type fast. I read faster.

I am freakishly efficient at work. I blame my years as a single parent, where not a moment was to be wasted. I have no patience for managers who show up at a meeting WITHOUT their calendar. Do they want to waste another hour of my life finding a compatible date for our NEXT meeting? I book time in my calendar for sit-down tasks, and schedule blocks of time for longer projects. I also use a "tickler" file, a to-do list, and take time to organize and file daily. I control e-mail; it does not run me. I learned many of my tips from the Productivity Pro, Laura Stack. Her book, "Leave the Office Earlier" vastly improved my work life.

I am an empty nester with only a cute husband to care for. I have TONS of free time.

The diet makes me slightly hyperactive. I read, knit, and type to keep my hands out of the cookie jar.

juni

Interesting jgnat.

Basically I feel that as w/any relationship, there is something to be gained - be it companionship, security, and for some - material. With many, religion is a security blanket. People feel "safe".. their god protects them. They are right. Others are wrong. You know - Seuss' Star-Bellied Sneeches. Logic shuts off, specific rituals take over. "Answers to why" cause need for religion for many.. and the religious "snake oil" salesmen are eager to peddle their wares.

It's the basic animal need in all of us to survive and these Armageddon-based religions appeal to many who have separated from the mainstream and are looking for reassurance that they are on the "road to life".

jgnat

You are on to something, juni

It's the basic animal need in all of us to survive

We are communal animals. Our ancestors survived in groups. An isolated human, without the trappings of modern civilization, is vulnerable indeed. So perhaps once a community is established, it's rituals and traditions take on an identity of it's own that the group is loath to give up. After all, if they reject the practices, they risk losing the group.

You all have experienced that pain of abandonment. Bravo to you all for facing it.

How Ritual leads to belief in the unbelievable

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