Introduction To Psychosocial, lecturer Carl Jones
Lecture held 15th October, Carl was away so we had his lovely mum Janet taking the lecture on adolescence and also cults. . . . .
The first part of the lecture Janet done a little experiment on us to show us just how easily we could be manipulated and how easily young people could be manipulated into joining cults. It was really interesting as the image that we ended up having when we closed our eyes was of Jesus. The next part of the lecture consisted of talking about adolescents and what characteristics and traits that they have. We all remember half of the ones that follow don't we!!!!!
Gullible, moody, in your face, stubborn, mood swings, black and white, vulnerable, them wanting to have the same as their peers, peer pressure, abuse? Experimental, insecure, depressed, body changes.
Maybe we all still have a lot of that in us but from experience we know a little more then to do half of the stuff we tried then now, well maybe.
We then watched a video on cults and how the leaders can manipulate young people into that cult.
For example one of the cult leaders we looked at was Jim Jones.
- father was often absent
- close to his mother, who pushed him to do more with his life
- as a child he held regular services with his friends and was always bossing them around
- he opened a church in the heart of a black neighbourhood when the blacks were at that time in minority and poor. He done this as they were a vulnerable group of people.
- constantly done nice things for them like opening nursing homes and even paying for them to go on holiday with him. He basically lulled them in to his churches so that he could spread his ideas and messages.
- he then made them believe that he was God, that he was a superior being that he had super powers.
- he created a small town called Jonestown where the occupants of his cult lived including children. All of the children's parents had to give him legal guardianship of their children and he was referred to as dad by all.
- On November 18th all of the cult members all died following Jim Jones in a mass suicide by drinking grape flavour aide with Valium and cyanide including the children. If any tried to escape then they were shot. Jones also died with them by a shot to the head however, we still do not know whether it was self administered.
This is all scary stuff that all of these people can be lulled into this way of thinking that this is the right way to go. Most of the leaders that were looked at seemed to be charismatic leaders who made all of the members think that they were God and often challenging them to question this by asking if I am not God then strike me down. This was not obviously going to happen so the leaders often made the members believe that they were created by these leaders and that their leaders were the ultimate power.
Once into a clan it was often very difficult to get out of.
Lecture held 15th October, Carl was away so we had his lovely mum Janet taking the lecture on adolescence and also cults. . . . .
The first part of the lecture Janet done a little experiment on us to show us just how easily we could be manipulated and how easily young people could be manipulated into joining cults. It was really interesting as the image that we ended up having when we closed our eyes was of Jesus. The next part of the lecture consisted of talking about adolescents and what characteristics and traits that they have. We all remember half of the ones that follow don't we!!!!!
Gullible, moody, in your face, stubborn, mood swings, black and white, vulnerable, them wanting to have the same as their peers, peer pressure, abuse? Experimental, insecure, depressed, body changes.
Maybe we all still have a lot of that in us but from experience we know a little more then to do half of the stuff we tried then now, well maybe.
We then watched a video on cults and how the leaders can manipulate young people into that cult.
For example one of the cult leaders we looked at was Jim Jones.
- father was often absent
- close to his mother, who pushed him to do more with his life
- as a child he held regular services with his friends and was always bossing them around
- he opened a church in the heart of a black neighbourhood when the blacks were at that time in minority and poor. He done this as they were a vulnerable group of people.
- constantly done nice things for them like opening nursing homes and even paying for them to go on holiday with him. He basically lulled them in to his churches so that he could spread his ideas and messages.
- he then made them believe that he was God, that he was a superior being that he had super powers.
- he created a small town called Jonestown where the occupants of his cult lived including children. All of the children's parents had to give him legal guardianship of their children and he was referred to as dad by all.
- On November 18th all of the cult members all died following Jim Jones in a mass suicide by drinking grape flavour aide with Valium and cyanide including the children. If any tried to escape then they were shot. Jones also died with them by a shot to the head however, we still do not know whether it was self administered.
This is all scary stuff that all of these people can be lulled into this way of thinking that this is the right way to go. Most of the leaders that were looked at seemed to be charismatic leaders who made all of the members think that they were God and often challenging them to question this by asking if I am not God then strike me down. This was not obviously going to happen so the leaders often made the members believe that they were created by these leaders and that their leaders were the ultimate power.
Once into a clan it was often very difficult to get out of.
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