Cultic Identity Formation in MKO

8/9/2019 Cultic Identity Formation in MKO

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Cults are largely in need of obedient and submissive members whose mentality

can be shaped through a change ofidentity. The process of producing identity

within MKO follows the same mechanism as similar in other cults and its

orientation began with the start of the internal ideological revolution.

Cultic identity formation in MKO

Mojahedin.wsResearch Bureau

2010

To stripe somebody of his individual identity to replace it with a new identity

has been a common process in majority of all contemporary cults. This cult

identity is created by sophisticated mind control techniques and it does not

represent the whole individual. Steven Hassan stresses that [cult] members are

taught to suppress negative personal thoughts and emotions. They are trained to

speak only positively of their involvement. When the cult member says he is
http://www.mojahedin.ws/index_en.phpmailto:%[email protected]://www.mojahedin.ws/index_en.phpmailto:%[email protected]


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"happy," it is usually the cult identity who is talking. The cult self is doing what

it has been instructed to do. 1

As cults have developed their own principles and rules, their reactions to the

outside world are based on some certain criteria different from that of otherpolitical and social organizations that have to exercise the discipline of their

own in order to achieve certain objectives; however, rarely they make use of

any process to forge identities. At the present, cults are largely in need of

obedient and submissive members whose mentality can be shaped through a

change ofidentity and our aim here is to take a brief look at the concepts of

individual identity, cult identity and investigate the process of setting up new

identity in MKO similar to that of other cults.

We may consider the individual identity as the sum of mental and ideologicalbeliefs of a person and the extent to which he is affected by the environment out

of the cult. On the contrary, the detachment of the person from such beliefs and

values by means of a system controlling his behavioral, mental and

psychological aspects constitute one of the major goals of cults. Such a

replacement of values leading to a new cult personality makes the person

struggling with many contradictions to adapt his potentiality in line with cult

objectives. In other words, cult identity neutralizes the individual identity of the

members. In fact all the cultist instructions depend on such a mechanism for

actualization.

As such, cults make their best to recruit members with unstable identity and

ready to acquire cult identity due to their political, emotional and familial

discouragements in order to play the major role in the quantitative growth of

cults. Under the impact of a new identity, members easily submit to cultic

domination and whatever sacrifices for the cult causes. Eric Hoffer evaluates the

factor of devotion based on the cult identity. He believes that the relation

between these concepts may clarify the nature of members' full obedience to

cultist instructions:

To RIPEN A PERSON for self-sacrifice he must be stripped of his

individual identity and distinctness. He must cease to be George, Hans,

van, or Tadao- a human atom with an existence bounded by birth and

death. 2

Reviewing the historical cults may reveal the role of such a factor. The earliest

religious cults such as Ismailis (Hasan Sabbah) tried hard to instill a kind of

cult identity into members. They declared openly that members had to do

something more than self-sacrifice for leaders and consider the extent ofobedience as the main measure for a new cult identity. Therefore, they asked


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their members to put the principle of absolute obedience into action rather than

pretending by merely saying it. What the leaders asked members was to have

absolute faith in the cults commands:

We dont ask Fedayeen [self-sacrificers] for passion but for a soundbelief. We are to be sure that in case of issuing any order for any of our

Fedayeen, there is nothing to prevent it. 3


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Cultist relations of Mojahedin, as the most typical political leftist cult, are the

same as that of Hasan Sabbah's cult. The term "spiritual journey" refers to the

negation of individual personality and development of a cultist one instead. The

theoreticians of Mojahedin resort to mystical concepts in order to justify their

procedures and approaches saying:

In spiritual journey, no question is allowed. The wayfarer has to put his

faith in Sheikh wholeheartedly and must regard him as the most perfect

person to conduct him in spiritual training, guidance and education, be his

interlocutor and obey Sheikh far from any inward or outward objection. 4

Then a quotation from Maulavi, the Persian mystic poet, is resorted to:

A wayfarer has no responsibility and should be submissive like a piece ofwood in the hands of carpenter. 5

An intellectual outlook does not bear such a procedure and also may denounce

it. Mojahedin are against any spiritual identity but have to pretend to its

reception. They analyze the mechanism of such a new identity as follows:

It is evident that such a process does not follow a logical trend. Its

dominant factor is not reason nor logic but love and emotion. Its means is

not discussion nor justification but blind obedience. Herein Masoud asks

for Mojahedin's hearts. 6

Contemporary cults resort to such techniques in order to establish subordinate

identities in which their members have to replace their external ties with internal

ones. A new identity is regarded as the origin of cults' power. Therefore,

external bonds are the main barriers in the way of a new identity replaced by

cultist models. Hofer refers to such a process saying:

The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished,

ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to slough off the unwanted self andbegin a new life. They try to realize this desire either by finding 'a new

identity blurring and camouflaging their individual distinct- and both these

ends are reached by imitation. 7

From a cultist viewpoint, a new identity works as a new faith to which a

member has to be attached. It may tie an individual to an ideological group,

band, political party or any ritual concept. In this regard, Hoffer writes:

Faith here is primarily a process of identification; the process bywhich the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of


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something eternal. Faith in humanity, in posterity, in the destiny of

one's religion, ation, race, party or family -what is it but the

visualization of that eternal some- tiling to which we attach the self

that is about to be annihilated? 8

The relationship between cults and producing of new identities is a complex one

and varies widely from cult to cult. But what is common is that the main goal of

producing a new identity in cults is to make insiders dependant on the cult and

to be obedient. The mechanisms the cults exploit to achieve the goal are

interrelated but each can be discussed separately since they are all prerequisites

for insiders persuasion and control and the final transformation of the recruits

into real cultists. It will not be wrong to say that whatever the cults do is to cut

the members off from the outside world to produce a new identity and belief

totally different from what the members previously held as right and dear. Theprocess finished, the insiders will adopt a new and reborn personality as Singer

states:

As part of the intense influence and change process in many cults, people

take on a new social identity, which may or may not be obvious to an

outsider. When groups refer to this new identity, they speak of members

who are transformed, reborn, enlightened, empowered, rebirthed, or

cleared. The group' approved behavior is reinforced and reinterpreted as

demonstrating the emergence of "the new person." Members are expected

to display this new identity. 9

The new personality totally split from the outside world is manipulated for a

variety of group tasks based on the objectives of the group and cult that consider

the outsiders as the enemies who have to be confronted:

The conflicts a mass movement seek and incites serve not only to down its

enemies but also to strip its followers of their distinct individuality and

render them more soluble in the collective medium. 10


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As Hoffer asserts, a cultist personality is formed to be submissive to the inner-

cultic relations that have priority to outwardly demonstrated ambitions and

goals. The members undergoing overall identity change easily consent to any

means of changing behaviour and conduct. Thus, cults can successfully

accomplish their goal of binding new members to the group. Considering the

stages people will go through as their attitudes are changed by the group

environment and the thought reform processes, Singer points to psychologist

Edgar Scheins second stages of three:

During this second stage, you sense that the solutions offered by the group

provide a path to follow. You feel that anxiety, uncertainty, and self-doubt

can be reduced by adopting the concepts put forth by the group or leader.

Additionally, you observe the behavior of the longer, term members, and

you begin to emulate their ways. As social psychology experiments and

observations have found for decades, once a person makes an open

commitment before others to an idea, his or her subsequent behavior

generally supports and reinforces the stated commitment. That is, if you

say in front of others that you are making a commitment to be "pure," then


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you will feel pressured to follow what others define as the path of purity.

11

There are also the eight psychological themes that psychiatrist Robert Lifton has

identified as central to totalistic environments and cults invoke these themes forthe purpose of promoting behavioural and attitudinal changes in the members.

The third theme, demand for purity, depicts two opposite world of black and

white; the cult being an absolutely white and clean world versus the black and

evil world of outside. Of course, the members with a new personality have no

other choice but to think and act according to cults ideology and drawn

strategy:

An us-versus-them orientation is promoted by the all-or-nothing belief

system of the group: we are right; they (outsiders, nonmembers) are wrong,evil, unenlightened, and so forth. Each idea or act is good or bad, pure or

evil. Recruits gradually take in, or internalize, the critical, shaming essence

of the cult environment, which builds up lots of guilt and shame. Most

groups put forth that there is only one way to think, respond, or act in any

given situation. There is no in between, and members are expected to judge

themselves and others by this all-or-nothing standard. 12

The process of producing identity within MKO follows the same mechanism as

practiced in other cults and its orientation began with the start of the internal

ideological revolution. All the members undergoing the revolution process have

admitted, unveiled by the ex-members, their identity change, and the result was

development of a long distance between their organizational and personal

identities. It was instilled into them that their identity would be prompted based

on the extent of adherence to the ideological system of the group and denial of

any personal identity. In a written testimony by a member of MKO, he is

somehow proud of his new identity that believes has granted him a new insight

into his within and without:

Personality, egocentrism, self-reliance and individualism are all souvenirsof the bourgeoisies worthless humanism that distanced me from the

organization as far as its degree of its impact on me. I was unworthy and

this barred me to drink the pure, life-giving instructions of the organization

and was leaving me alone in a desolate waste-land with no way out. I was

enslaved by dominant ambiguities within me. When I failed to overcome

the ongoing struggle inside me, I was even more vulnerable to the outside

misfortunes and could not even face them. 13

The members confession well depicts his identity destabilization and whatpsychologists call an identity crisis. He looks back at his own world and values


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to find out that he has been wrong in the past. This process makes him uncertain

about what is right, what to do, and which choices to make and of course, as he

admits, only the cult-like instructions of the organization can lead him to what is

inspired to be the right path. Consequently, he takes on a new organizational

identity which he considers a change for the better. In the process, he, as themember of a cult, detaches from his most dear ideas and attachments which he

discovers to have been nothing beyond a barren waste-land for the identity

reborn, a utopia in the horizon he fails to dismiss easily. Masoud Banisadr,

another separated member of MKO, in his memoir relates of the time when sat

tearing whatever attached him to the past under the commands of the

organization:

This time I attacked my old photographs from my own childhood till

marriage and up to then, my parents photographs as I wanted to deny all ofthem, my father who was perhaps responsible for my bourgeois tendencies

and my mother who was responsible of my own mild and gentle

behaviour known as liberal ones. Anna seeing me taking all those

photographs and albums, with anger, was quietly crying, then when I

attacked our marriage Album she start crying louder, and asked me to stop

it. She said those are not just yours . . . but I was not listening to her and

took everything and put them in a rubbish bag. 14

Quoting Liftons forth theme, through a cults instructions, members are told

whatever connects them to their former lives is wrong and has to be avoided, a

fact well affirmed by MKOs ex-members:

Through the confession process and by instruction in the group's teachings,

members learn that everything about their former lives, including friends,

family, and non-members, is wrong and to be avoided. Outsiders will put

you at risk of not attaining the purported goal: they will lessen your

psychological awareness, hinder the group's political advancement,

obstruct your path toward ultimate knowledge, or allow you to become

stuck in your past life and incorrect thinking. 15

That is why MKO refer to members solubility in the organizational identity as

a reborn or identity salvation. The organization, being transformed into a

cult, pursues the same cult mechanism of altering the members personal

identity to produce a new identity.


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References:

Steven Hassan's Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for

Themselves. FOM Press, 2000.

1. Eric Hoffer; The true believer, Harper &. Row, Publishers, New York,

1966, p.60.

2. Paul Amir; The Lord of Alamout, p.45.

3. Niyabati, B. A different look at the ideological revolution within MKO,

p.32

4. ibid, p.40

5. ibid, p.156. Eric Hoffer; The true believer, Harper &. Row, Publishers, New York,

1966, p.94.

7. ibid, p. 62.

8. Margaret Thaler Singer; Cults in Our Midst, JOSSEY-BASS, 2003, p. 78.

9. Eric Hoffer; The true believer, Harper &. Row, Publishers, New York,

1966, p. 112.


11. Ibid, 71.

12. Mojahed, no. 252; Abdol-ali Maasoumis letter to the ideologicalrevolution.


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13. Masoud Banisadr; Memoirs of an Iranian Rebel.


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Cultic Identity Formation in MKO