How do you think it would be possible for an incipient cult leader to fight the tendency for people to idolize him or her? While still maintaining the group and staying engaged with the group? Are there any examples of people successfully doing that?
It would be possible for the incipient leader to just walk away, and in that case I would expect either the group to lose a lot of its cohesion and the good parts of cultishness—or another incipient leader might step in.
They have some suggestions of how to do that in the episode; one is just exhibiting behaviors that don’t fit the idealized image they want to project on you. (Taft: “It’s remarkably easy to break, at least for a little while, by just—you know—picking your nose or swearing or something. And if I notice someone doing [the idealization] - because you can tell when it’s happening—I just keep breaking it and breaking it and breaking it until it breaks, and then probably they’ll go away at that point if that was their goal, you know, ‘he was not who I thought he was’ and then they lose interest. But if they stick around after that, then they are probably seeing me quite a bit more for who I am.”)
Another thing that he mentions is that while you do want to maintain boundaries—don’t let crazy people call you at 3 AM—it’s also good if you can reduce distance and let people in close. If people stay distant and never meet you, then it’s easy to continue idealizing you, whereas meeting you in person makes it easier for them to see who you actually are. He used to invite anyone who was interested into his living room for his meditation class, and “while that was probably too much”, he says it was good for getting that distance down.
Brainstorming some answers to my own question, I think it would help to maintain more standard social boundaries with followers. Avoid group living. Don’t have sex with followers (and don’t let on if you find any of them attractive). Don’t adopt followers into your family. Actively foster other leaders, so that group members’ dependence and demands are not centered solely on you.
How do you think it would be possible for an incipient cult leader to fight the tendency for people to idolize him or her? While still maintaining the group and staying engaged with the group? Are there any examples of people successfully doing that?
It would be possible for the incipient leader to just walk away, and in that case I would expect either the group to lose a lot of its cohesion and the good parts of cultishness—or another incipient leader might step in.
They have some suggestions of how to do that in the episode; one is just exhibiting behaviors that don’t fit the idealized image they want to project on you. (Taft: “It’s remarkably easy to break, at least for a little while, by just—you know—picking your nose or swearing or something. And if I notice someone doing [the idealization] - because you can tell when it’s happening—I just keep breaking it and breaking it and breaking it until it breaks, and then probably they’ll go away at that point if that was their goal, you know, ‘he was not who I thought he was’ and then they lose interest. But if they stick around after that, then they are probably seeing me quite a bit more for who I am.”)
Another thing that he mentions is that while you do want to maintain boundaries—don’t let crazy people call you at 3 AM—it’s also good if you can reduce distance and let people in close. If people stay distant and never meet you, then it’s easy to continue idealizing you, whereas meeting you in person makes it easier for them to see who you actually are. He used to invite anyone who was interested into his living room for his meditation class, and “while that was probably too much”, he says it was good for getting that distance down.
Brainstorming some answers to my own question, I think it would help to maintain more standard social boundaries with followers. Avoid group living. Don’t have sex with followers (and don’t let on if you find any of them attractive). Don’t adopt followers into your family. Actively foster other leaders, so that group members’ dependence and demands are not centered solely on you.