The Abdicated Condition of Consciousness

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A few of several years ago, I wrote an report called “The Abdication Syndrome,” in which I attempted to explain the electricity of some cult leaders, corrupt gurus, and political leaders more than their followers. The followers abdicate duty for their possess life, give up their possess will, and give unconditional devotion to the leaders. They obey their commands unthinkingly, almost as if they have been hypnotized. No make a difference how poorly the leaders behave, their followers often come across some justification, in order to preserve an graphic of infallibility.

I argue that this “abdication syndrome” stems from the unconscious motivation of some individuals to return to a point out of early childhood, when their mothers and fathers ended up infallible, omnipotent figures who controlled their lives and defend them from the planet. They are striving to rekindle that childhood state of unconditional devotion and irresponsibility.

There’s no want for them to think for on their own mainly because the chief is aware all the responses. There’s no will need for them to worry about nearly anything due to the fact the expert will present all the things they need. They don’t really feel insecure or incomplete or perplexed anymore. They don’t experience insecure or incomplete or bewildered anymore. They just bask in the enjoy and security of the expert, as they utilised to with their dad and mom.

An Abdicated State of Consciousness

In my new book DisConnected,¹ I discover the abdication syndrome in far more depth. I advised that the syndrome is so highly effective that it offers increase to a certain altered point out of consciousness—or as we could get in touch with it, an abdicated state of consciousness.

When I went to a chat by a perfectly-recognised spiritual teacher. Arriving early, I wandered all around the venue, perusing the textbooks and other goods. I chatted with a person of the teacher’s followers, who slightly unnerved me with his vacant stare and childlike admiration of his guru. “He’s the male!” he instructed me with broad-eyed enthusiasm. “He’s every thing I have been looking for. Everything’s been heading so well in my lifetime due to the fact I have been pursuing him.”

I remembered that I had viewed that vacant seem prior to. A number of many years earlier, an acquaintance invited me and my girlfriend to show up at a workshop of her religious team. I realised straight away that it was not for me.

I was set off by the huge reverence they confirmed to their trainer (who was not basically present). Every time they outlined his identify, a huge smile broke throughout their faces, like teens in love. I was also bemused by the bad quality of the teachings, which have been generally incoherent psychobabble, comprehensive of cliches and platitudes.

But what disturbed me most was the strange, absent glance of most customers of the group. They shared the very same vacant stare.

Anybody whose close friends or relatives have joined a cult will recognise this trance-like stare. As a previous follower of the Unification Church pointed out of the group’s associates, “They all experienced glassy eyes, like two eggs sunny-facet up, open up so wide that the pupils seemed to bulge out of their faces.”²

In reality, this “glassy-eyed” stare has been investigated by researchers. The sociologist Benjamin Zablocki explained this “glazed, withdrawn look”—along with an eerie, frozen smile—as a typical sign of brainwashing, or “extreme cognitive submissiveness.”³ One more sociologist, Marc Galanter, considered that the “glassy stare” has an insulating result, establishing the boundaries of the team and pushing outsiders absent.⁴

From my issue of view while, the glassy-eyed stare is a absolutely sure indication of the abdication syndrome. It is the seem of persons who have offered up responsibility for their lives and returned to a baby-like condition of devotion to a paternal figure.

This abdicated state of consciousness is comparable to hypnosis. Right after all, the vital feature of hypnosis is that a man or woman gives up their will, and will allow the hypnotist to just take above the “government features” of the thoughts, which handle our behaviour and regulate our choices and thoughts.

An Arrangement

I’m a tiny reluctant to use the conditions “brainwashed” or “brainwashing” in this context since they suggest that cult users are harmless victims of malevolent leaders. This is far too simplistic.

In Disconnected, I propose that cult leaders, corrupt gurus, and authoritarian political leaders are “hyper-disconnected” personalities who crave energy and admiration. As with hypnosis—when a topic enables the hypnotist to get about their will—the abdication syndrome is (at least at first) an agreement among the follower and the hyper-disconnected chief. The follower has a psychological have to have to worship anyone, and the chief has a psychological need to have to be worshipped. It is an agreement among a particular person who wishes to take the part of baby and a particular person who needs to consider the position of dad or mum.

The abdication syndrome in no way has a good consequence. Like all poisonous relationships, the connection in between authoritarian leaders and their submissive followers is doomed from the start off. Immediately after all, the marriage is centered on pathology, on each sides: the hyper-disconnection of the leaders, and the insecurity and psychological immaturity of their followers.

It is also a remarkably unstable connection, because of to the big gulf between the leader (with his acolytes) and his submissive followers. Every pathocracy—in the type of a cult or a government—leads inevitably towards conflict, chaos, and self-destruction.