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Mrs. Rodin and I watched, for the second time, the documentary about the Buddhafield cult, Holy Hell. The cult started in LA, migrated to Austin, Texas, and its remnants finally settled in Oahu.
The documentary follows a 22-year sojourn of the documentarian and about a dozen long-term members. Each describes the euphoria and transcendence of the early days, the connections they felt to one another. And yet the cult leader, “Michael,” slowly atomized them, made each into a transactional relationship with him even as they continued to believe they were united as a group. Whereas they earlier believed the leader was helping them bond with one another, they eventually came to understand that their common bond was only in service to the leader.
The leader’s hold was only broken (and not completely even then) when his rapes of male acolytes became widely known and discussed. Only then was the spell broken—the manifestly narcissistic and controlling behavior of the leader was no longer deniable and excusable.
But even then, more than the lost years, the sense of lost communal connection was mourned. It struck me that man’s innate social need is a powerful tool that is exploited over and over again. The exploitation takes many forms. And while certainly drug use in whatever form can facilitate a loss of sovereignty, it seems that humans are fully capable of entering into “hive mind” states without drugs of any kind.
That is a mechanism I would like to understand better. It seems to be a corollary to the placebo effect in medicine. At some level, knowledge of how to harness that mental flow would be as momentous as the mechanism of controlled nuclear reaction in science, medicine and warfare.
Why do we seek the hive mind?
Discussion (17)
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I recognize that merely using the term “hive mind” can come off as a pejorative. Human religious practices and some descriptions of the afterlife emphasize unity with (in?) God and/or the universe. And yet we see horrible things happen to humans brought into such states for malign purposes. It is a quandary.
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Off the top of my head, most of us want to feel connected in some way to others. We may not be close with them, but we are surrounded by them and there is a sense of camaraderie. Clearly in this case the guy was a major exploiter, making everyone believe they were connected as a group, but that connection was only served by their connection to him. What they had to do to maintain that facade in order not to be alone is tragic.
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There is a seven part video series called "The Search" which describes the universal human desire for this phenomena you call "the hive mind". It does offer a traditional Catholic answer and solution for this desire. But I think it explains, or at least describes, this human desire for "something" that is greater or unifying.
You might find it fascinating, and possibly offer you an answer to what you might be searching for.
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I can help with sources. The first thing you should read, to understand that phenomenon, is Dietrich Bonhoeffer's essay After Ten Years, particularly the section Of folly. It was written in 1943, ten years after the National Socialists came to power in Germany. The essay is the preface to the 1953 edition of Letters and Papers from Prison.
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I don’t know about this particular cult, but I see the “hive mind” as a human desire to seek the path of least resistance. It’s the brain’s desire to be efficient. We all have it to some extent. For instance, when a liberal says something stupid in front of me, instead of engaging I usually just ignore it and walk away. I won’t waste time for zero benefit.
For those that fall into a cult I think they want the best of both worlds. They have the desire to seek a greater meaning but are unwilling to exert the intellectual effort. They want all the answers in a can. Or should I say, a glass of Kool-Aid.
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