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Humas seem wired for such entrapment. It pattern matches pretty well to various cults, especially those that grew out of EST Training and its numerous offshoots. A charismatic visionary puts a new skin on old ideas, finds seekers, cordons them off, messes with their brain chemistry (though drugs, fasting, sleep deprivation, conflict, sex) Intragroup adherence is amplified though group activities, financial and relationship ties (which are sometimes totalizing). This pattern pervades Scientology, EST, The Landmark Institute, Osho, original Bikram Yoga, the Peoples Temple, Nexium; probably some companies, families, and churches. Landmark (which grew out of EST), appears to have found a stable payoff matrix. Good for them. As a rule of thumb, if you're invited to The Esalen Institute, you're 1% more likely to be joining a cult. If you hear the word ayahuasca weekly, 2%. If you're suddenly contemplating whether water has a memory, the importance of Ley lines, or past life regression, 50%. If half your discretionary incomes goes to this new group, 200%. When the leader is fucking your wife, you're probably in a cult.
What are your broad thoughts on testosterone? I've long been curious for various reasons. It seems to me like a reasonable tradeoff to a healthy, ageing person, but I haven't looked into it too much.
If you want to avoid a cult and want to do X then don't do X with a bunch of other people in an organized way.
An underdiscussed downside of the renaming of Twitter to X is the added mental difficulty of interpreting sentences where “X” is used as a variable, like this one
It is incredibly annoying, which is why I call it Twitter.
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Half-way between 'Humans' and 'Hamas', reminding us that the potential for cultish fanaticism resides in all of us. I like it, very resonant with your text.
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