I am reading the musician Sting's autobigraphy "Broken Music." At one point when worried about his ability to financially support his family he found that praying helped.
Now, being raised Catholic he resorted to Catholic prayers and praying techniques. He found praying the rosary helpful but for an interesting reason. He said that the mindless repetition of the words/prayers rendered them meaningless (being raised Catholic I wholeheartedly agree) but also turned them into sort of a mantra that soothed his mind. I can agree with that, also, I think...
Then the thought occured to me that many religions make use of this. Zen and other Eastern philosophies just rely on the mantra as a mantra and don't pretend to be anything else. Seems like JW rely on the constant, endless stream of publications to numb the R & F's minds (read one of Blondie's reviews to see how independent thinking and some logic can change the tenor of the entire thing!) into a kind of mantra-like state. Don't reason out or question the actual words or meaning but just let your mind go numb and take what the WTS tells you as gospel truth. There would seem to be a lot of comfort in that -- that someone is doing your thinking for you and it's gonna be all right. Not to worry...
And I do think a lot of religious organizations rely on this same technique in some form or another for similar purposes. Am I correct about this? Does anyone else think that rote memorization, regugitating thoughts not your own, and doing it thru use of publications has a mantra quality about it? I'm curious.
Robert