Ritualized worship has many distinctive characteristics, including its emphasis on drama and narrative, its reliance on symbols, and its bodily appeal to the senses more than to the mindful qualities of the intellect. But what distinguishes ritual above all else is the lack of space it makes available for individuals to decide for themselves methods of worship that fit their own dispositions. Protestantism, in the view of many Catholic traditionalists, puts its emphasis on an individual's sense of inner conviction, while Catholicism, at its core, stresses the magical power that flows from collective participation in sacramental worship.
I attend Catholic Mass regularly, so many things this reading discussed were familiar to me.
A couple of months ago, in the middle of the presidential campaign circus, I had read this excellent article on Cracked.com: 6 Brainwashing Techniques They're Using On You Right Now.
Chanting Slogans
There are many points during the Mass where all the assembled people are supposed to speak together in unison. Services are filled with the singing of lyrics based on Biblical versus. At one point the people speak the Nicene Creed, professing their beliefs. At another point the Deacon reads a list of prayer intentions, and the congregation is expected to say "Lord, hear our prayer," in response to each. I make sure I remain silent when they get to the part about protecting the alleged sanctity of marriage.
Controlling what you watch and read
The church is quick to pass judgement on what films a good Christian should and shouldn't watch.
The Da Vinci Code - Bad!
The Golden Compass - Bad!
Brokeback Mountain - Bad!
The Chronicles of Narnia - Good!
Private schools and homeschooling are also popular among religious families, to protect the children from the secular influence of the public school system. A group called Exodus Mandate calls for an exodus from the public schools.
Keeping you in line with shame
Black and white choices
Us vs. Them
The Catholic church regularly declares that something is Truth. It makes sure its followers are familiar with its laundry list of sins. There's the black and there's the white, there's good and there's evil, Heaven for Us and Hell for Them. Moral relativism is dangerous according to the Pope, the infallible leader of the Catholic church.
When I think of organized religion I am often reminded of The Sharing from the Animorphs book series by K.A. Applegate, a series I loved as a kid. Part of the premise of the books is that aliens called Yeerks are seeking to enslave the human race. Yeerks are parasitic slugs that crawl into a person's ear and meld into the brain, controlling everything the person does from then on. Instead of waging a war to conquer the planet, the Yeerks decide to secretly infiltrate human society through an organization called The Sharing.
On the surface, The Sharing is a friendly organization committed to serving the community. It is often compared to the Boy Scouts. It provides people with a sense of community, a sense of belonging, of being part of something greater than the self. But once you join them, they slip a slug into your ear and gain control of your brain. An interesting metaphor.
That's an image that often sticks with me when I'm at church, surrounded by people speaking in unison. Or when I hear anything about the Church of Scientology. It's an image that sticks with me when I watch videos of the children of Westboro Baptist Church smiling sweetly and singing about eternal damnation for everyone God hates.
This except from the Animorphs book Visser describes the formation of The Sharing, how it was designed to exploit the weaknesses of the human race:
And, once I had the seed money, several hundred million, I began to create The Sharing.
It would cater to one of the most fundamental human weaknesses: the need to belong. The fear of loneliness. The hunger to be special. The craving for an exaggerated importance.
I would make a haven for the weak, the inadequate, the fearful. I would wrap it up in all the bright packaging that humans love so much.
The Sharing would never be about weak people being led to submit to a stronger will, no, no, it would be about family, virtue, righteousness, brotherhood and sisterhood. I would offer people an identity. A place to go. I would give them a new vision of themselves as part of something larger, erasing their individuality.
I needed only one thing before I could go to the Empire, call the Council of Thirteen, and present them with my accomplished fact: I needed one human, just one, to submit voluntarily.
If I could show them one human who had surrendered his or her will and freedom, without threat of violence, I could convince the Empire to follow my path. The way of infiltration.
The first meeting of The Sharing took place on a Saturday. Thirty-five people attended.
I had done a tremendous job in a very short time. I had studied human history, supplementing what Allison Kim already knew. I studied every cult, every movement, every great, mesmerizing leader that had ever held sway over humans.
And by the time those thirty-five humans came into the rented hall, I had adorned the walls with symbols and flags and icons. All the visual nonsense that moves the susceptible human mind.
They filed in, some in small groups, but most alone. They were stirred by the inspirational music. Flattered by the attention paid them by attendants I’d hired from a temp agency. Impressed by the expensively produced booklets we handed out. Awed by the pictures and symbols that draped the walls.
I spoke to them from the stage. Not as Allison Kim, of course, because all my links to Allison Kim would have to be concealed before my fellow Yeerks arrived.
I had carefully picked a human host for just this one purpose. His name was Lawrence Alter.
A real estate salesman. I changed his name to Lore David Altman. Three name combinations were popular then.
He was a charismatic man with a loud, deep voice and an abundance of hair. Just the sort of face that humans respond to, though his brain was a wasteland compared to Allison’s.
Allison Kim had been left handcuffed to a radiator in a hotel room, awaiting my return.
Later, after it was over, I found I couldn’t recall exactly what I’d said to this first meeting of The Sharing, not the specific words. A lot of high-flown rhetoric touching on the themes humans love to hear: that they are special, superior, a chosen few. That their failures in life are all someone else’s fault. That mystical, unseen forces and secret knowledge will give them power.
The next Saturday there were more than twice the number of humans. And already I had begun to explain that there was an “Outer” Sharing, and an “Inner” one. The humans in the “Outer” Sharing were wiser, better, more moral, superior to the average human, but not as superior as those lucky few who had entered the “Inner” Sharing.
Of course at that point there was no “Inner” Sharing. Just seventy or eighty humans sitting in plush chairs and being fed an endless diet of words that had no clear meaning.
The Inner-Sharing, that was the test of true greatness. And all a human had to do to enter was to surrender their will.
This was what Essam, who had infested only Lowenstein and Hildy, would not credit: that humans would surrender their freedom in exchange for empty words. But I had infested the lost soldier, and the even more lost Jenny Lines. I had tasted human defeat and superstition and weakness.
I knew.
- K.A. Applegate, Visser, p98-100.
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