%BRAINWASHING'

AND MANAGED GROUP EXPERIENCES:

CBNVERGBNG WNEW' TECHNIQUES?
T#Ziam Marina & Thomas 9.. Breslin
f l j . ~ Atlantic & k:n&~ers*s.ikg Institute fi'~' hTkvnmneSts~dies

We were the first to assertthat the more complicated the h r m s assumed by civiiization, the =ore restricted the freedom of the ir,dividi~a,lmust become.

Preface

f The thesis developed here is that there is a convergence s technique between managed n o u p experiences, as they have pawn in the West in recent decades, and Communist efforts at "brainwashing," or thought reform, and that neither of these is new, or 8 result s f technslo~cal society, but existed in sim2ar forms in civdkations which flourished several mglenia ago, This emphasis s n the c o u p tended historicaBlyr to accompany the p o w t h of the totalitarian state, itself not a new phenomenon. As such, it is danngerous to the freedom of the individual, quite apart from the personal problems of a particular c o u p leader, That government i n the United States 4 s now involving itself in such ~ o u work p is a dangerous new development.

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The Emergence of the Group In the last few years there has been a vast increase in the emphasis placed upon the n o u p within Western society. In the area of sex, for example, avant garde magazines and newspapers carry in their personal sections advertisements for ""groupies," and it is clear that the phenomenon has spread to sections of the middle, upper middle, and upper classes. Such an emphasis is quite difkrent from the earlier epoch of Western individuafism. One aspect of this emphasis on the p o u p has been within the field of psycholorn in the area of p o u p sensitivity experiences, often conducted by those who cdl themselves ""hmanistic psychol@stsW and believe they are helping to free people from inhibitions and ""hang-ups." Many businesses have explored the possibifities of the g o u p dynamics resulthg from such mara%ged experiences. The varieties of p o u p experiences have multiplied; though owe book lists twelve basic types? Some psychologists who, defend g o u p work have become concerned about many of the more exaggerated claims and Furthermore, it activities of the most devoted pra~titioners.~ is admitted that there is little data on the long-range effectiveness or consequences of p o u p experiences: Even a defe~lder of the idea acknowledges that in the hands of the wrong p o u p leader group therapy can become like brain~ashing.~ A powerful technique in the hands of an individual without personal intepity, or with his own '"hag-ups" is, indeed, cause for concern. But what if the techniques themselves are sirngar t o those employed in ""bainwashingWUs it possible that these g o u p experiences are simply o m more facet of a larger assault on the individual and his privacy which has come to eharaeterize much of our social development in recent decades? Finally, are these techniques radically new phenomena in our age of science and technolo=, as claimed by many proponents who worship the notion of newness, or are they fundamentally variations on an old theme?

A Personal Encounter
Whae words can never completely describe an event, this is certainly the case 3 one has not actually experienced a p o u p

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session. A personal dispession can, perhaps. help to explain how one of us first came t o consider the question which this essay attempts to answere6 In ~ a d u a t e school in the early 1960~ I ~wrote a paper on Chinese Communist efforts at thought reform, or control, of their own people, and of the ""bainwashing," as it came to be called, which was attempted on a number of American prisoners in the Korean War. In 1968 I was doing some consulting work on Adult Basic Education projects in a Mivawt and Seasonal Workers ProP a m administered by a Community Action Agency under the Office of Economic Opportunity. In this progTarn the teaching was "sing done by a number of Volunteers in Service to American workers, who had enlisted in the War on Poverty. When I arrived a t She site one ms:nSh, 1 was told that the planned ch;saiculum work had been cancelled because a sensitivi6ky1.or 6rT'9 session was being conducted on a nearby university c a ~ l p l by ~ si%7es%inghouse Educational Corporation, which had a federal contract to select and train VISTA workers. Whew 1arrived a t the universiky 1was shown l o a classroor~~, where a proup session dbecked by several psychologists, trainers for Westinghouse, was in propess, 1was a t that tinle not yet acquainted with "7'" sessions, and other aspects of p o u p dynamics which were then already being developed throughout the country, quite exteasive%g Hw t h e center of the room, a young woman, one of the VISTA workers, was seated, Surrounding her in a ckcle, were about twenty-five s f i e r peers, She was highly ageated, and soon in tears, as they continued to bombard her with examples of the many faults in her persoaaEty which made it difficulfio work with her, and because of which she was disl&ed. A f e r awhile, under the direction of one of the trainers, the comments of the ~ o u toward p her began to sh3taIf she would just modgy her behavior, the n o u p could come t o accept her and even love her, several members seemed t o be saying, And she appeared quite eatlfied that the g o u p was willing t o do so. Wi"Lhin a few weeks, however, she quit the propam. As I had come So know her, I believe that what irritated members m inteuectual and held an M.A. of t h e p o n p was that she was a from a leading eastern university (none of the others did), and, envying her abzities, they accused her of being 'bnfeeling,"

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"stuck-up," and ""insensitive." Over the long weekend each member of the p o u p was ill the ""ht seatS5 at one time or another. Interspersed with these sessions, which left the participants in a highly emotionak state, were some content classes, again conducted by Westinghouse, that dealt with American history, in particular that of the Cumberland area, Taught by young, radical, student organizers, they focused on a very strong class exploitation interpretation of the American past. I was disturbed by the whole process, especially the p o u p therapy sessions. Though I had not attended one before, the techniques seemed, somehow, famiEas. Suddenly, I realked that what 1had witnessed were variations of the techhques of thought reform as employed by the Chinese, about which I had written some years earEer. In the next few months 1 came to know several psychologists who were workhg on doctorates in counseling. One of the requ$ed courses bvolved encounter p o u p therapy and &%endance at several weekend encounter p o u p sessions. When 1 spoke with these friends, what struck me was t h e tremendously high regard which they felt for members of t h e g o u p . A f er only a weekend together, they had really come to ""know" these people, and t o "&are9' with them, and found them among the most "marvelous" people they had ever met. These comments came Rom individuals I had known for many years, and whose abdities to dzferentiate between persons P respected. Yet, they seemed unable to discriminate very well when it came to members of the poup. My friends regarded my comments on the similarity between thought reform and encounter p o u p s as a hostgity tsward all psychotherapy. But the most interesting reaction came from the professor who taught the course, I had an opportunity to discuss the question with him, and n d e d that the Chinese technique of making the person in the " 'h o t seat" formally write an autobiogaphy for criticism by the poaap was a much more "efficient" method than discussion alone. The group could constantly return to the written record for repeated criticism of "errors" unt2 the document had been reworked to its satisfaction. He smzed, and then informed me that some of the more advanced encounter p o u p s around the country were now employing that approach,

GROUP THERAPY &- BRAINWASHING

The Recurrence of the 'New' One of the most fascinating aspects of the study of history is the awareness on the part of the historian on the extent to which people in every age, and certainly in our own "Modern" period, tend to believe that much of their social development is new and has not been experienced by other civiEzations, This attitude is not confined to the general population but is shared, and often promulgated, by intellectuals and opinion makers. Among the numerous examples that might be offered, Future Shock, Alvin Toffler9sbest-seller of a few years back is indicative of this idea. He appears to believe that our society is the first to experience ""fatuse shock," which is simply the cuHtarral shock which the individual experiences when confronted by rapid social changes. Granted that perhaps modern teehnolog'acal swiety has experienced a. g~eatteer d e ~ e of e such change wit"mixa the Eves of each generation durhg the Bast few hundred years or so, most of this is overkia. That is, the sense of shock that leads to social disorientation is much like schbophrenia; once a person has received enough dislocation to send him over his threshold, any additional shmk is overkill, and the organism is ns longer much affected by it. That modern society has this overkill capacity is, therefore, much less signsicant than the fact that other eiviEzations i~ history have undergone periods sf intensive and rapid change which led to a dishtepation of the older society and its values. These civ%zations also experienced "future shock.'" Elsewhere, one of us has traced the parameters of rapid dislmation in several civiEzations; What should be noted here is that, as these changes occurred, those in control of the State became especially receptive to the development and refinements of techniques of p o u p dynamics as means of smiaE control. Most of those writing about contemporary techniques of noup dynamics seem bEsslEully unaware that other civBHations thousands of years ago developed methods of g o u p control. A recent study on the subject, for example, which has a section ""A Short History of the Study of Small Groups" notes s largely a twentieth-centhat $he"[s]eient3ic study of ~ o u p is tnry phenomenon," and indicates that in the nineteenth @entury socisls~stswere preoccupied with major historical

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trends8 Another study, by Frederick C, Thayer, waxes ecstatic about the ""emerging orgar~ha"Lonal rev01ution.'~~ This emphasis on the newness of the study of p o u p s is closely related to the quote from Benito Mussolini, cited by F. A. Hayek, with which we began this article: ""Lat the mox-2 complicated the forms assumed by civibzations, the more restricted the freedom of the %ndividual," Behind the whole push for c o u p dynamics rests this basic assumption which Mussolini fancied he was the first to comprehend. Closely dKed Lo this notion is the view that the rise of totalitarianism is interwoven with the growih of industrial society. Thus, even those who woulid oppose the $o"bEtarianism which they feel is made possible by industrialism, concede that the seeming complexities of this "new'bsociety saecessitate the cudadment of individual freedom in favor of the larger cornmeanity or s o u p . The scholar who has, perhaps, done most to question the assumption of the relationship between "&o%;K%i"tarianism and industriaEsm is Barrin@on Moose, JF., whose Socid Om3ins of Dctatorskip a d Democracy: E o ~ d a d Peasant i% the Modem WOTM attempts to show the totalit aria11 elements in a number of pre-industrial societies beghning with the EngGsh Revolution in the seventeenth centur$P That book, however, evolved out of an earlier essay on ""Totalitarian Elements in Pre-Industrial Society,""'in mrhich Moore offered a great deal of e-sidenee with respect to ancient Chin&. We will f w t s on C h h a here, though there is cedainlg data with repect to other eivi;K%i"z&ioaas12 China Whde students of Chbese history disapee as to the fundamental causes of the breakdown, there is no question that the society was undergoing a considerabEe social tension in the sixth century B.C. during the period that produced critics such as Confucius and Lao Tze and culminated in the establishment of the centralbed empire of the Ch'in dynasty in 221 B.C. One of the most remarkaMe documents dating from this era is the 4th century Book of Lord Shaag, dating from aroeand 360 B.G. As in Greece, with the laws attributed t o L g e u r p s in Sparta or Sdon in Athens, the changes credited to Lord Shang probably t m k place over a much extended period of time, In An End to Hie~a?*chy,F An End to C~rnpeiition!~

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403

Thayer discusses the recent research into small-poup processes which has culminated in the choice of five as the ideal discovery in the number for the noup'.3 Consider that ""newv9 light of Lord Shang9s advice to reorganhe the people into g o u p s of five and ten ""t control one another and to share one another's punishments. They were also obBged to denounce each other's crimes." As The Book ofLord Shang put it:
Now the people in $soups of five are responsible for each others crimes, they spy on each other to discover transgessions, they denounce each relations. By thus establishing enmity the people other and cause hostL%e harm each other, they injure friendly feelings, destroy benevolence and kindness and damage scholarship and culture. Those of friendly spirit are few, but those who desire to cause harm are many, and the way of virtue has been destroyed.'5

It is difficult for a normal human being t o comprehend that this monstrous system is being advocated in the passage. Thus, Prof. Duyvendak, the translator, comments: It would seem as if here is given a description of the state of affairs as
desired by Shang Yang. For, as we have seen, the reform which came before all others was the organization of the people into g o u p s of five or ten men, who were mutually responsible for each other, and were obliged to denounce each other's crimes; at the same time the old patriarchal famzy-system was broken up!6

If one did not denounce a crime, he received punishment as

if he himself had committed the crime; he would be cut in two.

The study of g o u p dynamics by the ancient Chinese may not be ""seient8icn enough to satisfy modern scholarship, but we suggest that Lord Shang knew quite well what he was about. He wished to smash the extended famay, destroy the scholarIy works of Confucianism, and concept of individual virtue, thus placing all power over human action in the hands of the State, It is dia"ficult to find any modern totalitarian system the Ch9in even resorted to book burnings - that goes any further, and impossible to accept the myth that modern t e c h n o l o g is a necessary condition for totaKtarianism. When the Kuomhtang pushed a variation of this spy system in the twentieth century, it did not go so far in its attempt to break up t h e extended famay, though the Communists would go farther. But both found clear precedents i n the Men of Ch'in. It might also be noted that the Cuban gove~nmentof Fidel Castro has made efforts to institute such a neighborhood spy system.

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Western Gla.ssicel CiviEzatican The Greco-Roman world does not appear to have developed anything comparable to the early Chinese in the way sf formally worked out teehaiques anti~zing the group. In Battk fod;iar the Miaad, William Sargem has an excellent chapter on "Brainwashing in Ancient Times," in which he compares many s f the procedures used by the priests to those used by contemporary psyckstherapistsi7 It is not clear, however, what role was played by &hen o u p itself ia any sueh experiences, as cornpered to that played by the pries",About g o u p techniques in Christianity we shall deal later, though many of these probably go back to the earliest Christian communities, We have suggested tlzat such an e ~ ~ ~ p h a s i s on the group as a shaper of values and af a meaning for life is closely correlated with the breakdown phase of a civiEsatis5-n where there has beernan erosion of the old values and a search is underway for some replacement, In CivilG~tisn a d the Caesars, Chester A. Staler has br2liantly recounted the decay and disintegration of Roman soeiety under the Caesars."It was in that atmosphere that Christianity eventeaagy triumphed. But there were many other p o u p s also i n contention for the ailegianee of Roman society. It has, of course, become cormmoapIace to speculate on cornparisons between the contemporary United States and the Roman Empire These speculations are usually couched in terms of pswer: the decline of '"law and order" and 642 the pswer of the State in general. Wh3e Edward Gibbon even went so far as to blame Christianity for undercutting the gl;~on;es s f Rome, it is the virtue of Starr" analysis that he reverses Gibbon" aarament and demonstrates that the first and fundamental factor in the decline of Rome was that Classical Civakations had reached a dead end in terms of values and any sense of feeGng about a meaning of life. For a long time the State, and the power which it could bring to bear, attempted t o fill that void, But in the long run it failed, What characterkes our simi4ari$g to the Classical World, a s Nietzsche and Spengker so elearly g~asped, was the cultural exhaustion, the lack of a r y value hase. It is in sueh a disintsp a t i n g situation that one finds a despera%esearch for ""meaningBy9 often i n x n a ~ and c other fads. Peter F, Bauer has pointed

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to the profiferation of such phenomena in the poor countries, where the old life style is being completely ripped apart, Hm Rome, Gibbon scggested, many "keonverted "ce study of philosophy into magic." For those Romans who enjoyed a degree of aMuenee, Epicureanism held out a promise of restoring some meaning to life. The Cowus 1~'azscn) tioaurn LakBa'mmm, for example, speaks of "$he Epicurean band full of joy Starr observes that such comments "strike one as a weak expression of social
.'j2*

MThiEe discussing this wider cultural context In which the shift of emphasis to the joys of the g o u p takes place, we would he rcrniss no"co mention Wdbam C. Schutz, much of whose encounter p o u p work is described in his book Joy and a secozd volume, More Joy, Perhaps the ulti~raatein such titles is Herbert Otto's Peak Joy, We might also note here that the Elysium Institute, whose very name recognizes a simaarity betn?een the Greeo-Roman experience and our own, came up with a seminar on "Cosmic Joy," foHlswed by another on "Advanced Cosmic d"oy,"?? It wm%d be dsficuit to match the wit with which Asndrew Malcolm has treated Schnrtz and other faddists. The reader is simply advised to peruse those sections of his important st~dgp.2~ To capture the fu11 flavor o f a ccomparison with Roman phenomena, the portions from Malcolm's work should be read in conjunction with the seetions s f Starr and Gibbon describing the rise of cults, and $argent's description of dance therapy and the use of hallucinogenic drugs such as hellebore, There is a marvelous passage in the memobs of the Emperor JuEan (4th century A.D,$ where he talked about the bearded, unwashed youth in tattered clothes frequently found along the Roman highways (read ""Hitehhikhg 13ippies'yf,What angered Julian, who had respect for the learning of the Stoic and Cynic ph3ossphers, were the claims of these ignorant youth that they, too, were philos~phers, He referred to them as "'PseudoThe general boredom with life of many of the wealthy n gladiaRomans led to some of the youth seeking excitement i torial contests and to the increasing advocacy of suicide as a way out after sex, drugs, and other efforts to find joy or thrills had been exhausted. Only a2 obtuse reader wd% fad to note the simgarities with our own civBkation,

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REASON PAPERS NO.2

Christianity, Conversion, and Group Conformity The pheraomenon of intense personal behaviorah change o r conversion has always been associated with Christianity* But in the sixteenth century, while the Roman Catholic Church was being challenged by the Reformation and was attempting to initiate a centralized hierarchy with strong vertical control over the membership a t large, Bgaaatilas Loyda, founder of t h e Society of Jesus, the Jesuit Order, developed the Spiritual Exercises to systemize the conversion process and to lead those converted into the obediewhervice of the Church. Whether conducted for three days or for as many as t h k t y , the Bgnatiaw exercises be@n with a meditation on sin, in which the exercitant is to consider his own soul as though it were imprisoned in his body, then the sin of the rebeuious angels, and finally the fate of a soul damned for committing but one p a v e sin. The individual is asked to compare his malice, iniquity, weakness, and ignorance with the goodness, jars"&ice, omnipotence, and wisdom of God; "to see all my corruption and foulness of body;. . . t o Book upon myself as a sort of ulcer and abscess, whence haere sprung so many sins, and so many wickednesses and such most hideous venoma'"' Eoyola structured the Spiritual Exercises so that individuals would pass o w to the next stage only when they had experienced contrition, grief, and perhaps tears. To that end, koyola counselled reductfon in sleep, food, and light, as well a s the sex-infiction of physical penance. Then, after purHng themselves in a general confession of the sins of their past lives, the exercitants would begin a series of mediktisns on Christ, their Icing and savior, cauing them to his g1orious service. The Spkituai Exercises of Loyola have remained the core of the Jesuit Order and, combined with various disciplinary practices such as group criticism and pubtic confession, have remained the source of its strengdh and proverbial discipline. At first, these exercises were gvew only to selected volunteers; later, Jesuits and members of &her refigious orders were required t o carry them out in abbreviated $ o m each year. In this way the Ignatian exercises became a r e p j a r and formal instrument of group discipgne, a sort of revival, as the Ch~rch and especially its reEd:lous societies became more iso-

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lated from and threatened by the emergng modern world. A contemporary of Ignatius Loyola, John Calvin (b, 15091, used the dyrsaniics of reGdous conversion to estabEsh a religious dictatorship in Geneva, That city had been passing through an uneasy period of profound social change during which the old order lost its grip on the politically divided populace. Rejecting reason and historical tradition as p i d e s for human conduct and as bases for human society, Calvin offered the Genevans the Judaeo-Christian scriptures as the unique and necessary soalrce of befief and the foundations of a new social order. ARer years of effort, Calvin established a State in which every activity, every word was judged in Eght of his religous values and mandates. No"chg was private. Spies were everywhere. Believers were held responsible for their own behavior and that of their famgies. Reeaicitrants were banished or put to death; the wayward were punished. The E the cithenry prided themsefves. and rested secure, In rest o the belief that they had been chosen by ~ o d a ' Communal religious responses t o social stress did not end with Galqin. Both in Great Britain and later in the United States, the Protestant churches and their members found themselves threatened by the rise of the industrial way of Me. The religious revival became an important way of imposing order on society. In Engjand, the Wesley brothers spearheaded revivalism. In the fast-changing United States, the best known and most infiuential of the nineteenth century revivali s o r e a c h e r s was Charles Grandison Finney. Firaney was not oniy an effective revivalist but he was also an analyst of sevivalisrn, His own L e c t u r e s on Revivab of R e l i g i o n clearly witness t o his oratorical strategy of cultivating distress among his listeners and then, in a g o u p context, of providing a sense of relief, of personal safety or salvation. ""Iis of p e a t importance," he wrote, ""that t h e sinner should be made to feel his g u i l t ,and not Ieft t o the impression that he is unfortunate." Until you can make the sinner blame and condemn himself, Pinney believed, "the gospel will never take Those in whom the revivafist stirred up a sense of guilt were urged to make their guilt public by moving forward and sitting in the "anxious seat." By thus putting aside what Finney termed "false shame" and breaking the ""@hains of p r i d e 9 2 h e individual would open himself to the assembly which might then comment on his past behavior and pray for

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him, thereby accepting him on its terms and assuring him t h a t it accepted his decision to be a fervent Christian?* To help the newly converted on the straight and narrow and to win over new converts, Firrney urged that church members go k s m house to house exhorting their neighbors?' But the g e a t revivalist realized that:
A revival will decline m d cease, unless CBln~tkm (~re~%e~den reeontlg verted. By this I mean, that Christians, in order to keep in the spirit of a.
revival, commonly need to be frequently convicted, and humbled, and! broken down before God, and re-converted. I have never labored in revivals in company with anyone who would keep in the work and be fit to manage a revival continuauy, who did not pass thrsiagk this process of breaking down as often as once in two or three weeks. Revivals decline, commonly, because it is found impossible LO make the church feel their guilt and their dependence, so as to break down before God. It is importarit that ministers should understarad this, and learn how to break down the church, and break down themselves when they need it, or else Christians will soon become mechanical in their work. and lose their fervor and their power of prevazng with God. 30

No less than Finney, twentieth century evangeljsts have attempted to master the process of inducing conversion, sadical behavioral change. Thus Bryan Greeo, Rector of BfrmingL-naru, in The Practice o f Z ~ a n g e l u m points out that in des?l'an,g with individuals the evangelist ought to do more than emphasize failures against honesty, love, etc., and allow people to get them off their chests, "Instead of true conversion," he notes, the result of that technique was often "only a psychological release." Instead the evangelist should b e g k with the '"superficial or surface needs" of the iaadivid~~al, such as fear of death, loneliness, weakness of will, aimlessness, failure to achieve, and shame, and then work to convince t h e individual that behind these hies a need for God. ""Te first principle is that the soul must come to a real sense of need to that point of despair when it is crying out, TI God I need Thee. Come to me and save me.' For it is in the despair of t h e soul that faith is bosnaW3' Brainwashing and Thought Reform While Western scholars and students of industrial psychology studied g o u p dynamics for various reasons, it was the socalled ""hainwashing" efforts of the Chinese C~rnamaun"~s on United Nations prisoners taken during the Korean War in the
AS

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early "a950s that focused public attention on such techniques. In this short essay, we shaU not describe those efforts to indoctrinate forcibly prisoners of war. There are several. excellent studies which do so?' A mystique has flown up about srach ""l;ainwashiwg," which was actually muck less successful than is commonly imadned - about 13O/o of those subjected to the process were converted by it but their conversion was temporary. As Robert Lilton has pointed out, the term has come to be used quite looseiy," We prefer the phrase ""ehoght reform,'" as used by LZtoa and others, coupled with the term ""coercive persuasion," employed by Edgar ~ c h e i nA ,~ more ~ descriptive through coercive pessuaphrase might be ""thought r e f s r n ~ sion and continued follow-up." W7e are prirnarBy concerned here with the efforts of the Chinese, going through three pl~ases,d s indoctrinate their own people, %tis these techniques which we wish to compare with group experiences as they are now de- eloping in the West. The first phase of indoctrination of the Chlnese population began after their takeover of mainland China in "a949, though aspects of it had been in use earlier. A major effort was made to wipe out any vestiges of attachment to capitalism and the profit motive. As WgBiam Sargent notes, "'Orgies of group confession about political deviation were encouraged." 35 A good description of this process is given by Andrew Maicoim in his excellent study, The T y ~ a m y of the G o u p :
Apart from these p e a t spectacles the Chinese aiso made extensive use of small-pomp training, which makes the Chinese experience partieuhrly relevan&to the subfeet of this book. These training courses all took place a t isohted camps. Students were kept in a condition of eonstant mental and physical fatigue. Tension was always maintained at a high ie~e1.3~

Such techniques are Standard Operating Procedure for many sf the Encounter Groups in the West. Weekend sessions are usually held a t isolated retreats. This is a not so subtle aspect of coercion, for even if the individual chooses to break group, he may find it rather difficujt to make his way with &he back t o civaization. The effort to f a t i w e the individual is 2kh0 common in t h e "marathon" encounter p o u p s , for this dulls his ability t o cope with the pressures of the g o u p and its leaders. The recent Erhard Seminars Training (estj* groups even deny the individual the opportunity to t o the bathroom, so that

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coping with one's kidneys becomes a major problem. Malcolm describes the language in the Chinese small p o u p s as "vicious and humour was utterly lacking." In each p o u p were informers who were very difficult to identzy, He concludes:
One characteristic of the Chinese ideolo@.icalg o u p that is stiU not used in American organHationaI development g o u p s was the writing of autobiogaphical statements. These comprehensive narratives were read and criticized in the small gsoups. They would then be revised to refleet an even more perfect understanding of Maoist thought and would finally become the proper@ of the state.37

Malcolm is correct to emphashe the great efficiency of the Chinese use of the written autobiopaphy. He is in error, a s we noted earlier in recounting the admission by an Encounter Group teacher, in his view that the autobiopaphy is not yet in use in advanced Encounter Groups. In the Chinese traharing techniques, after about six months of group meetings a crisis develops, at, roughly the same time in most members of the group, ""@haracterized by hysterical weepiwg.'"n this atmosphere, the trainers b e ~ to n introduce the Communist revolutionary ideas, followed by four more months of reinforcement*38 rnL _ 1 r r e o r e a t Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the last Baecade, including the public d e ~ a d a t i s n of those seen as not sympathetic to the r e ~ m e and the development of cadre schools for training, is simply an extension of these early efforts. R. L, W a k e r has listed six factors that form the basis of thought reform: the isolated camp; fabipe, with no opporkuity for relaxation or reflection; tension: uncertamty; vicious language; seriousness, with all humor forbidden?' These are devejoped by making the hdividual feel guilt and disillusionment about himself and his past. As John Wesley and Charles G. Fisaney both realized that continuing meetings were necessary t o reinforce the conversion, so do the Communists, The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is an admission that such g o u p training mus"eecome a permanent way of life in Chinese society if they are to create the ""new man." In the face of this agonizing process, we can perhaps take some smau
#T

*We have foliowed the practice of using lower case letters -est-- to abbreviate Erhard Seminars Training so as not lo confuse it with -EST- the usual abbreviation for Electra Shock Therapy.

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solace in the knowledge that Chinese rulers have been attempting such a re-creation since a t least the time of Lord Shang.
The Present Situation

Earlier we touched upon the bednnings of the study of p o u p dynamics in the West during the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Recent studies of group dynamics are the varieties of @sup techniques hard pressed t o enco~npass now so widespread in business, pyschotherapy, and religion. Only on occasion do advocates of group techniques show an awareness of the historical dimensions of what they are proposing. Wh2e he does not mention other civilizations and only probes recent Western "nstory, an advocate of encounter g o u p s . Thomas C. Oden, notes:
Most. o o f the leaders of the "'encounter eulture" have not been trained to think historieaUy, and make no pretenses to do so. So the service of thinking historically must be rendered by those in touch with the historie tradition, but it must be rendered in a way that can be appreciated even by those who had i m a ~ n e d t h a t they were doing something entirely ianpreeedented.4"

Oden does not wish to debunk encounter p o u p s but to sups port t h e movement by "'shswing that its historical o r i ~ n are connected with rich western religious sources from which it is now estranged ," Those sources, he claims, are Protestant pietism (puritanism) and Jewish hassidism. He points t o the curious fact that "if you can convince the encounter clientale that the medita"con they are doing comes from eastern religions, and not from the west, you can proceed amiablya4'

Some Observations We have attempted to show that these p o u p techniques not only spring from religion, but go back to totalitarian societies of t h e past, especially when the society and its values were in a s t a t e of rapid change. The refinement, and widespread use of these techniques by the Chinese Communists is but the latest example of the effort of the State t o utfiiae such procedures. W e beEeve in the inherent dignity and freedom of human beings as rational individuals, We do not oppose pyschother-

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apy, g o u p or any other, which beagds on the dignity of the individual and helps him ts learn tea Eve his life more rationally P2 Most people would a p e e that the Chinese p ~ o g a mof thought reform is a monstrovs crime agains"bthe freedoan and dignity of the individual, We would suggest that anyone considering involvement in a group experience examine the procedures to be used, against the six points which Walker Ested as the essence of the thought reform technique. In listing these aga..in, we shall discuss the new es4, phenomenon in eonjunction with each point, as an example. and because t h a t gsokap has attempted to keep secret its proeed~sres.4~
1. Xsndation. The est meeting is not so isolated as some of the trziniaag spats used for many weekend eneaunters, Often ~t is held in a hotei to accommodate the 200 or so participants. But the g o u p is closed off for enormous periods of time. What holds many is the $200 which they have prepaid for the course. 2. Fatigue. The est sessions go on for 1 6 hours at a time with only two short breaks, and fatiwe is an obvrous goal of those in charge of the system. 3.4,%,and 6, Tension, Uncertainty, Vicious Lanmage, and Seriousness. These are an present In an interlocking fashion. The participants are castigated for hours on end, with a aeedngly endless floiv of foal ?ar?,grnzge. The ?et resud!t of this r?r?rernittingattack an those present is to develop a sense of deprivatnon and guilt.

D. C. Bebb, an early researcher in the field of sensory deprivation - and over-stian~idSatian does the same observed that it could disturb the individuai's "'capacity for critical Judgment, making him eager t o listen t o and believe any sort of preposterous aonsensep4 In that situation the esk participants exhibit the szme kin6 sf crying and hysterical behavior as was found in Chinese thought reform sessions, It is at that point that the trainers begin to impart their own message. Like the Communisr;s, t h e est people have found i t necessary to have a cgantifiuing series of follow-up sessions. We suggest this is necessary because the vaporous information they have been given is based upon the context of the: emotional experience rather than a legitimate, and thought-out system of values, The shallowness of Ply therefore, demands constant reinforcement, as the religious evangelists elearly understood. In closing we would like to touch upon two qeaestions: the damage done to individuals in these group experiences, and mo6jl ominous of all, the inexeasing interest and inwo8vement

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by government in group techniques, It is frequently argued by advocates of g o u p techniques that such drastic procedaares are necessary to break down the old patterns of behavior and replace them warith new ones. While some success is claimed there are few studies on either these or the casualties. quits apart from whether ""saaccess" meant a constant need for reinforcement. We suggest that whateeve~ the success, it is not worth 2 3 technrque that is based f self-esteem and upon depading the individual's sense s increasing his sense of g-uilt, One of the few studies on Encounter Group casualties found that goup leaders were very poor at identifying casualties, and found a sate of 9.4%- among khose who completed the poups. Apart from a suicide, the study found:
The severity and type af psgchslo@cal injury varied considerablygr. Three student3 denrang or ammedlateiy acctilowing the group had psychotic deeo:aapositioas - cne a rnanlc pyschosis, one an acute paranoid schiaophrenic episode. and the thkd an accke undgferesatiated schkophsenicivserg-ic acid dnsthglam~deepisode. Seterai stUdents had depressive or aaxiet: syaptoms, or both, raa@ng from low g a d e tension or discauragemient to severe crippling anxiety attacks to 8 major sk-month depresdoaa with a 20-ib, weight loss sad suicidal idea-lion. Others suffered some disraaptkoi? of their selj-esteem: they felr empty, seZ-negating, inadequate, shameful, unacceptable, more discouraged about ever growing or cIian@a?g, Several subjects noted a deterioration in their interpersonal Be; they wirhdr ew or avoided others, experienced mere distrust, were less w d h g to reaeia out or t o take risks with okkersP5

The Chinese Communists also found a large number who simply never recovered from the effect of the training. We believe that these techniques, based as they are on selfabase~nenhand guilt, will always have a high casualty rate, regardless of the extent of training of the leaders, and that the "illusion of success" must be maintained by frequent reinforcement since it is based upon an emotional experience with the group rather than a reasoned kvorkiag out of a new set of values. Finally, we noted earlier thauthese techniques were used by "OVestinghouse Educational Corporation on a eontract do train VISTA workers for the fedesskl government. The techniques have increasingly coxaze to be used by large corporations, often in a context where some workers are unaware of it. and in goverlainent agencies. Werner Erhard makes no secret of the fact that he hopes to see est utilized a s a means to change our social institutions. That it is a psychological mech-

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anism and not a value system is seldom considered. As the Chinese clearly understand, once this crisis has been reached the individual is disarmingly open to whatever values are then introduced. And the former encyclopedia salesman turned entrepreneur may be right, for the article about est mentions ""the recent, Federally funded est training of school children is a step in that d i r e ~ t i o n . " ~ ~ This is, indeed, ominous. We began by pointing out t h e Base of these techniques by the State in Ancient China. Evangelists, such as Finney, always understood the p e a t appeal of these techniques to youth as a substitute for a more diseiplined education. He criticized many religious books written for the young because they did mot sufficiently emphasize '%he guilt of sinners, or make them feel how much they have been s now subsidizing the develto blame?' That the government 2 opment of suck techniques for use on the young is a fearful prospect for the future.

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:Quoted in P.A, Bayek, The R o d to Serflorn (Chicago, 1944), p. 43. "arl Goldberg, Encounter: e3roztp Sensitivity Trajning Expe.Pience (New York, 1970), p. 38, 3 f i i d . , pp. 77-80. 4Joseph J , Reidy, The S e n s M i t y Phenomenon (St. Meinrad, Indiana, 19921,p, 15. 5 ~ h o r n z 13. s Qden, "The New Pietism," J o u d f m Humanistk Psychology, Vol. 42, No. % (Spring, 19721, pp, 24-41. "he personal experiel~ce i s related by William Marina. ' ~ ~ i l i a rMarina, n "'The XE' Factors in History," Modem Age, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Spring, 19741, pp, 175-86, and expanded and revised as Egditarianism and %mpi.e (Menlo Park, Calgornia, 197%). Theodore M. Mills, The Sociobgy ofS& &owps (Ennglewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 19671, p . 3. ' ~ r e d e r i c kC.~ h a ~ eArn,End to Riermeky!An End to Competitim! (New York, 1973), p. 4. '"(~oston, 19661. "Barrington Moore, Jr., Politicd P o w e ~ and S o d T h e w : Si3c S t d i e s (Fambridge, Mass., 19581, chapter two. " h i d . , pp, 54-9, also discuss India, I3P. 8, l4 Moose, Power, pp. 43. '"he Book of Lord Shang: A Cbs& of the Chinese School of Law, Translated froin the Chinese with Introduction and Kotss by J. J. L. Diiyvendak (Chicago, 19631, pp. 57-8.
7 6 AYe.D.,
FQ p. . a " .

I7(hdswYork, 19571, chapter eight. (New York, 1965), pssim, 19 Peter T, Bauer, Ecmomic Analysis a d PoEky in U d e d e v e l o p e d Gowntries (Durham, 1967),p. 30. Edward Gibbon, The Decline andFaU of the Roman Empi.e, many editions, Volume One, chapter two, 2@&uoted in Starr, Ciwzkatian, p, 271.

''

"?%id.

Andrew Maleom, The Tyranny of the &oup (Toronto, 19131, p. 95, wh~ch we also consider the best single book on the dangers discussed here. 23 Pnid., especially pp. 104-7. 24 Sargent, Mind, chapter eight. 25~gnatius Loyola, The S@~tacdkExerdses, edited by Joseph Rickaby, S. J. \London, 1923), p, 34. 'Moore, Power, pp. 59-73. "Charles Grandison Fbney, Lectures on Reviv& of Religion, edited by Waiam G. Mcioughlin (Cambridge, Mass., 19601, pp. 205-6, emphasis in original. 28 ybicE., pp. 26'9-9. 29 Bid., p. 240. 3 0 ~ i d ,p. , 284. 3 1 ~ r y aGreen, n The Pmctiee ofEvangeE&m (New York, 1951), pp. 153-4. 3% good bibliography is in the excellent study, Edgar 14. Schein, et. d., Coercive Persumion: A S o & o - P s y c h o b g Andusis of the 'Brainwashing" of A m e ~ a Civilitla n P~somrs by the Chinese Communists (New York, 1961). 3 3 ~ o b e rJ. t Lifton, Thought R e f o m and the fiyehology of T o t d i m : A Stsdg of "BrainwashingVCChina (New Yosk, 1961), pp. 3-5., " ~ c h e i n , Coercive P e r s m ' m . 3 5 ~ a r g e n tIkiind, , p. 161. 36 h%alcom,Tyranaypp. 46.
2 2 See

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37

REASON PAPERS NO. 2 China U d e r CommunGm (London*19561, pp. 91-2.

fiid.

3 8 ~ La . Walker,

391bd., p. 58.

400den, 'mew Pietism," pp.25. " fiice., p. 29. 420f course, not all pyschotherapy attempts to d e p a d e the individual as a means of breaking down the personality. Albert Ellis' Rational Emotive Therapy especially emphasizes working out problems rationally. See Albert Ellis, '% Weekend of Rational Encounter," Freedom Today, #2, ( A u ~ s t , 1975), pp. 26-9. One of the problems with psychotherapy, as with law, as Richard R. Korn has pointed out, is that they "testify in [their] own behalf. We seldom hear from the clients or patients about what was done for them or to them." In a witty essay he shows that prostitutes and psychotherapists do much the same thing. They: I) are "not typicdly involved on a personal and emotional level,"; 2) "offer services to strangers"; 3) "manipulate" the client; and 4) offer the service "'for money." Korn quotes William Schofield, Psychotherapy, The Burchwe ofFriendship (Englewood Cliffs, 19691, p. 164: "If prostitution is the oldest o a f professions, is there any pride to be taken i n the fact that the sale of friendship may be the commerce of the newest?"Richard R. Rorn, '?restitution and Pyschotherapy," paper delivered on June 15, 1969 a t the Symposium "Sex Disorders i n Clinical Practice," held at the Sam Francisco Medical Center of the University of California. 430ur data on est is drawn from Mark Brewer, ""We're Gonna Tear You Down and Put You Back Together," Psychobgy To&y (August, 199Sj, pp. 35-6, 39, 40, 82, 88-9. "Quoted in Mdcolm, Tyranny, p. 27. 451t-winD.Yalom and Morton A. Lieberman, "A Study of Encounter Group Casualties," P,mhives of Gelzeral ,Dsych&t~ji, Vo1. 26 (July, 19911, pp. 16-30, and reprinted in Robert 1". Golimbiewski and Arthur Blumberg (eds.), Sensitivity m i n i n g and the Labwatory A m o a c R : R e d i n g s About Concepts and Applications (N.P., 19'931, p. 245. 46Brewer, "We're Gonna," p. 89. " ~ i n n e y , Lectures, p.7.