Nori Muster's review of the book Modern Religions: An Experimental Analysis and Exposé by Elliot Benjamin

Elliot Benjamin, Ph.D., describes his experiences in a variety of new age spiritual organizations, most of which are psychology-based groups. He describes each group and offers his ratings based on three academic scales in use since the 1970s: the Anthony Typology, the Wilber Integral Model, and the Bonewits Cult Danger Scale. He then places the groups on a spectrum that ranges from favorable and benign to high cult danger. The first hundred pages of the book familiarize the reader with the scales and Dr. Benjamin’s method of rating.

Developing a reliable rating method is useful, since it emphasizes the differences between groups, and would prevent journalists and casual researchers from lumping all new age spiritual organizations in the same category of danger. Along with the more notorious groups such as Scientology and Avatar, Dr. Benjamin rates about a dozen groups that he considers benign. This may help researchers who study group dynamics to recognize what makes a group dangerous. It may also inform religious leaders who want to fall on the favorable-benign side of the spectrum.

Researchers will find plentiful information on lesser known groups. Since many of the groups described in the book are small, or not considered dangerous, until now they may have been ignored in the cultic studies literature. Hopefully, the information on benign groups will put some people’s minds at ease. As the director of Steamboats.com, a website dedicated to historic preservation, I once received a letter from a concerned mother questioning her son’s employment as a deckhand on the Delta Queen Steamboat. I assured her that it was most likely a positive experience for her son that would look good on his resumé.

Dr. Benjamin’s descriptions may bring similar peace of mind to friends and relatives of people who dabble in the benign groups he covers.

A Closer Look at the Rating Scales

The Anthony Typology, developed by Dick Anthony, analyzes a group on the scope of its beliefs, whether it is charismatic, and whether it is antagonistic toward the outside world. The Wilber Integral Model, developed by Ken Wilber, rates a group according to how controlling it is, and whether its philosophy has a rational or traditional basis. The Bonewits scale, developed by Isaac Bonewits, assigns a number between one (low danger) and ten (high danger) on fifteen traits, such as the leader’s(s’) claim of wisdom, the amount of wisdom attributed (blind followers), and rigidity of dogma. Bonewits rates on how much a group is interested in money and political power; as well as the common hallmarks of a dangerous cult: sexual abuse, censorship, endorsement of violence, paranoia, lack of sense of humor about itself, internal control of members, and surrender of will. The ratings are added up and divided by fifteen to come up with an average cult danger rating.

Dr. Benjamin describes each group, then rates each on the three scales, and follows with his rationalization for why he rated each group as he did. He admits that his ratings are purely subjective, based on his experiences. Individual researchers will certainly disagree with some of Dr. Benjamin’s ratings, and certainly the groups themselves will disagree if they have a bad rating.

One of the weaknesses of rating organizations is that it is difficult to see what is going on behind the scenes. A researcher would have to stumble into the inner circle of any group to find out what is really going on. Therefore, there is a danger of falsely giving a group a benign rating. Even a homeowners association or bridge club may have the potential to inflict extreme emotional, financial, or other abuses, which a casual observer may not notice. Also, it must be kept in mind that groups can change. They may reform themselves or turn sinister, based on who is in the group, and whether the system is ripe for abuse, or ready for healing. In addition, once a group has been stained by sexual or other violent forms of abuse, it may have a difficult time getting its reputation back. Therefore high ratings on the Sexual Manipulation and Endorsement of Violence scales need to be more heavily weighted to get an accurate picture of a group’s overall danger rating.

Another note is that it would be a mistake to apply the Bonewits scale to political groups, as Dr. Benjamin has in essays outside of this volume. All political groups would score high on several of the scales, such as Wisdom Claimed, Wisdom Credited, and Dogma; and certainly they would score high on the Wealth and Political Power scales. Since these five scales would be elevated, it would be unfair to compare the average of a political group’s rating to the average of a new age spiritual organization. To obtain a more accurate rating of political organizations, a researcher would need to remove those five items, and add five items to rate the group’s integrity. Does the group lie for political gain? This would say more about whether a political group is dangerous than if they want wealth. Needing money is built into the game of politics these days.

A Closer Look at the Author

In chapters two and three, Dr. Benjamin presents a collection of essays he wrote at the time he was going through his group encounters. The essays are presented in two sections, first the late 1990s and early 2000s; then the 1970s.

Dr. Benjamin took about fifteen years off in between to earn his Ph.D. in mathematics and establish himself as a college professor with a specialization in pure mathematics. He describes his academic pursuits as part of his spiritual search, since he spent years working on pure mathematics for several hours each morning as a meditation.

Dr. Benjamin’s essays in chapters two and three read like journal entries, written in the moment. Many of these entries begin when he is enamored with a new group he is exploring, then in a subsequent entry, he denounces the group and explains what he dislikes about it. He seems to have a cast iron stomach for unusual group experiences. Many ex-cult members and researchers may experience the gack factor (feeing repulsed) by some of Dr. Benjamin’s realizations as a naïve follower.

As an ex-member of an Eastern guru group, I have avoided all new age religious organizations except a very few. The Philosophical Research Society, founded by Manly Hall in 1934, was a short walk from where I lived in Los Angeles in the early 2000s. I attended many lectures, workshops, and even a tai chi class there with no adverse reactions. However, once in the late 1990s, I attended a house party put on by members of a group Dr. Benjamin would rate as mild. At one point, they got everyone’s attention to do a group meditation. Everyone joined hands in a circle in the living room. This was an unbearable trigger for me and I waited out in the front yard until the ceremony was over. In my experience, I would have found most of the situations Dr. Benjamin lived through as undesirable for myself.

Dr. Benjamin describes his deepest and most conflicted affiliation in chapter four: Encounters with Scientology. In a series of his characteristic journal-like essays, he reveals little-known details about the group, such as how they get people to join and what goes on in an auditing session. As a researcher, I never knew much about Scientology before, but the book has given me a substantial education on the group’s inner workings. Since Scientology is a highly secretive group, I believe this is one of the book’s greatest contributions.

One of the most terrifying aspects of Dr. Benjamin’s experience was the amount of money he invested in the various groups he joined. His non-cult friends and family must have found themselves exasperated trying to prevent him from wasting yet more of his hard-earned money chasing the next great thing.
Dr. Benjamin repeats a similar pattern in each group: he becomes intrigued, gets involved, gets hoodwinked for a sum of money, becomes disenchanted, and leaves. He discusses the financial hardships of group involvement quite extensively, which will be informative for seekers who are considering a similar path.

Publishing this book is a milestone for Dr. Benjamin, since it is the culmination of his nearly forty years of writing about alternative spiritual organizations. In essence, Dr. B. is an unapologetic cult-hopper, revealing in chapter five his disappointment with the Jewish religion of his ancestors and the loss of his father at the age of two as factors that may have led him to search for meaning through new age group involvement. He also admits that he joined particular groups after falling in love with women involved in the groups.

After describing and rating all of his group experiences, the book seems to point to the need for a creative non-fiction rendering. It would be refreshing to read a memoir by

Dr. Benjamin that goes in chronological order, offering selected scenes from his journey. He has already told us what he really thinks. Now all that is left to do is to show us the worlds he has discovered sans any further analysis.


Links of interest:

-Elliot's book is available at www.lulu.com

-My subversive interview with Elliot.

-Elliot's articles in the Integral World website.

Richard Dawkins says that rape is morally arbitrary

The transcript:

Justin Brierley: When you make a value judgement don't you immediately step yourself outside of this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it's good. And you don't have any way to stand on that statement.

Richard Dawkins: My value judgement itself could come from my evolutionary past.

Justin Brierley: So therefore it's just as random in a sense as any product of evolution.

Richard Dawkins: You could say that, it doesn't in any case, nothing about it makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural.

Justin Brierley: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers rather than six.

Richard Dawkins: You could say that, yeah.

End of the transcript.

Compare with naturalist and philosopher of biology Michael Ruse:

The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness of morality because such awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. Michael Ruse, The Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics, in the Darwinian Paradigm (pp. 262-269. Emphasis in blue added.)

Or naturalist and philosopher of biology Alex Rosenberg: "One source of meaning on which many have relied is the intrinsic value, in particular the moral value, of human life. People have also sought moral rules, codes, principles which are supposed to distinguish us from merely biological critters whose lives lack (as much) meaning or value (as ours)... Scientism must reject all of these straws that people have grasped, and it’s not hard to show why. Science has to be nihilistic about ethics and morality. Alex Rosenberg, in his article "The Disenchanted Naturalistic Guide to Reality". Emphasis in blue added.

A Japanese among atheists, Christians, parapsychologists and spiritualists: A strange but fruitful journey (part 1)

This is a modest attempt to put in paper (or in digital format) my life as a Japanese living and interacting among wholly different groups of people like atheists, Christians, Buddhists, parapsychologists, spiritualists, ideologues of every kind and other who claim to know the truth.

When I arrived to Canada and US many years ago, I was already very interested in phenomena like psi (precognition, telepathy, etc.) and in spirituality. Coming from a faimily sympathetic to systems like taoism, zen, buddhism and similar, I had a set of beliefs (not necessarily shared by all of these systems, since I had my own view of all of them and wasn't entirely convinced) that shaped my view:

1-Monotheistic religions are based entirely on faith, dogmatic authority and are seriously misguided.

2-There is probably no God (no "big daddy" in the sky, I favorite expression of mine which I now see as strongly ignorant and stupid) and if something like this exists is in the universe as a whole (see point 4).

3-Human beings have probably a soul which could survive death.

4-The "universe is consciousness" (another favorite expression of mine, which now I see as largely uninteligible and philosophically naive) and each of us is a finite part part of that universal consciousness.

I had a lot of other beliefs, but for the sake of this post, let's to stick to the above four. (This was the ideological baggage that I brought to America).

Now, first let me stress that I don't see any of the above beliefs as demostrably false. I'm even sympathetic to some of them (like the number 3), even though for different, more informed reasons.

What I found in America (specially in US) was a kind of cultural battle between Christians and secularists (evolution vs creationism, etc.). At first, I thought these battled was justified because Christians were basically religious dogmatists and bigots who weren't interested in scientific research and evidence.

But I very soon find that "secularists" had an ideological agenda which include suppression of any view which could suggest that materialism was false (including honest scientific research by atheists and agnostic researchers about phenomena like psi or the afrterlife). So I realized that they had an axe to grind against whatever view, opinion or research program which could destroy their beliefs.

I was shocked to discover their dishonesty and how they misrepresent the evidence of parapsychology, for example.

In this point, another thought appeared in my mind: The view about Christians being essentially ideologues and dogmatists who are enemies of scientific research and their only motivation was to predicate their ideology is true? I had bought that idea reading the books of atheists and secularists.

But my confidence in them fell apart. So, I began studying carefully the books of the best Christian philosophers, theologians, scientists and other scholars in order to see what they defend and believe. And in this point I was shocked again.

What I found (with some exceptions) was a rigurous, evidence-based support of their belief system. I found sophisticated philosophical and scientific arguments for God's existence and (for my absolute astonishment) for Jesus' Resurrection which I saw in that time as something beyond historical, rational evaluation and only believed "by wishful thinking and faith" (again, I bought the highly efficacious atheist propaganda!).

Also, I realized that Christian intellectuals had a desire to discuss and debate rationally their beliefs. This was another shock for me, since in the atheist books that I had read, Christians are portrayed as irrational individuals who knows next to nothing of logic, reason and the scientific method, are wholly credulous people and are afraid of discussing their beliefs (and my direct experience with some normal Christian people tended to confirmed this view). I realized that atheists were attacking the weakest Christians, not the better ones (exactly as Richard Dawkins has made recently).

I noted a certain pattern in the atheist argumentation against Christians which was very similar to their arguments against parapsychology. Stereotypes, facile (and long refuted) objections, misrepresentations and straw men, labels, attacking the weakest version of the argument, etc. were common in atheists in their "campaign" against religious and parapsychological believers.

I thought that perhaps I was buying too much in the popular atheist literature. So I began to studying intensively scholarly books and papers by the best defenders of metaphysical naturalism and materialistic atheism. My library had (and probably even HAS) more books defending atheism than books about any other topic. And I was astonished again.

I found that (otherwise serious and rigurous atheist thinkers) posed crude objections and obvious fallacies (repeating long and already refuted arguments) when arguing against the best Christian scholars. I couldn't understand this, since that if religion is false, then its falsehood should be easily shown, specially if religious believers are ignorant and stupid, and atheists are rational, smart and scientific.

Since I shared with atheists the view that religious believers were essentially irrational, ignorant and wishful thinkers (even thought I never had any strong emotion behind this opinion), all the above caused on me a profound and very strong cognitive dissonance. I simply couldn't believe what I was seeing. I never expected such a thing.

In this point I began to suspect that I had been subtly fooled or "taken in" by the atheistic literature that I had read. And I discovered that most non-Christian people in US were fooled into the atheistic-caused anti-religious stereotypes too.

I discovered too that most Christian pastors were anti-intellectual , dogmatists and tended to confirm the stereotypes created by atheists. So, I understood why people in US (who are likely to have more conctact with Christian pastors than with sophisticated Christian scholars) believed the atheistic propaganda.

But this excuse couldn't apply to me, since my anti-religious opinion wasn't based on the time in any experience with Christian pastors and other anti-intellectuals. I bought the atheistic propaganda almost entirely based on books and my own prejudices (+ some ocassional encounters with religious fundamentalists).

So, I concluded that secularism had largely won (with cheap shots and an astute aggresive anti-religious propaganda + the anti-intellectualism of Church pastors) the cultural battle, at least among "intellectually sophisticated" people.

At that time, I was more or less convinced that "spiritualists" had the right answers to a whole of topics which atheists had stigmatized as unscientific "religious fallacies".

And even though I still believe that spiritualists have important things to say, I found in spiritualism something that I had never expected...

I will tell you what it is in part 2.

The dangerous ideas of Richard Dawkins: Irrefutable proof that Dawkins' refusal to debate Craig is not only coward but intellectually dishonest

In 2006, the magazine Edge published a series of articles with leading scientists and scholars on the question What's your dangerous idea?

Richard Dawkins was one of the "scholars" to whom such a question was asked. Let's copy here the entire article (in order to avoid misrepresentations of Dawkins' view). Please, read carefully the full article, specially the emphasis in blue added by me. (You can consult the original article in the Edge website here). I'll prove, with irrefutable evidence (in the context of Dawkins' excuses to avoid debating William Lane Craig) that Richard Dawkins is not only a COWARD but that, additionally, his refusal to debating Craig is based on reasons which Dawkins himself see as scientifically false.

People like Dawkins deserve to receive public intellectual punishment (i.e. sound refutations of his charlatanisms) and an evidence based debunking.

Let's all stop beating Basil's car

by Richard Dawkins

Ask people why they support the death penalty or prolonged incarceration for serious crimes, and the reasons they give will usually involve retribution. There may be passing mention of deterrence or rehabilitation, but the surrounding rhetoric gives the game away. People want to kill a criminal as payback for the horrible things he did. Or they want to give "satisfaction' to the victims of the crime or their relatives. An especially warped and disgusting application of the flawed concept of retribution is Christian crucifixion as "atonement' for "sin'. Retribution as a moral principle is incompatible with a scientific view of human behaviour. As scientists, we believe that human brains, though they may not work in the same way as man-made computers, are as surely governed by the laws of physics. When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it. We track down the problem and fix it, usually by replacing a damaged component, either in hardware or software. Basil Fawlty, British television's hotelier from hell created by the immortal John Cleese, was at the end of his tether when his car broke down and wouldn't start. He gave it fair warning, counted to three, gave it one more chance, and then acted. "Right! I warned you. You've had this coming to you!" He got out of the car, seized a tree branch and set about thrashing the car within an inch of its life. Of course we laugh at his irrationality. Instead of beating the car, we would investigate the problem. Is the carburettor flooded? Are the sparking plugs or distributor points damp? Has it simply run out of gas? Why do we not react in the same way to a defective man: a murderer, say, or a rapist? Why don't we laugh at a judge who punishes a criminal, just as heartily as we laugh at Basil Fawlty? Or at King Xerxes who, in 480 BC, sentenced the rough sea to 300 lashes for wrecking his bridge of ships? Isn't the murderer or the rapist just a machine with a defective component? Or a defective upbringing? Defective education? Defective genes? Concepts like blame and responsibility are bandied about freely where human wrongdoers are concerned. When a child robs an old lady, should we blame the child himself or his parents? Or his school? Negligent social workers? In a court of law, feeble-mindedness is an accepted defence, as is insanity. Diminished responsibility is argued by the defence lawyer, who may also try to absolve his client of blame by pointing to his unhappy childhood, abuse by his father, or even unpropitious genes (not, so far as I am aware, unpropitious planetary conjunctions, though it wouldn't surprise me). But doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car? Why is it that we humans find it almost impossible to accept such conclusions? Why do we vent such visceral hatred on child murderers, or on thuggish vandals, when we should simply regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing? Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live. My dangerous idea is that we shall eventually grow out of all this and even learn to laugh at it, just as we laugh at Basil Fawlty when he beats his car. But I fear it is unlikely that I shall ever reach that level of enlightenment.

Jime's conclusions:

1)Dawkins claims that according to science human brains "are as surely governed by the laws of physics" and hence the concept of "retribution" is unscientific. Therefore, "punishment" makes no sense at all (Dawkins: "When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it.")

Such a view implies DETERMINISM (i.e. the view that human thinking and actions are wholly determined by physical laws, not freedom of the will is allowed).

True, naturalism implies such view on determinism, but wait a minute. Think about it: If determinism is true, then Dawkins' belief in determinism is ALSO determined by physical laws, not by reason or logic (which are no physical laws). Dawkins is a determinist because physical laws impose on him such a belief, not because such a belief is rationally justified over other non-jusitified beliefs.

So, as we never say that a computer is irrational when it malfunctions (because such computer is not guilty of the malfunctioning due to the deterministic physical laws which controls it), we cannot say that human beings (e.g. religious fundamentalists) are irrational when they have false beliefs or do dangerous actions. After all, like the computer, human beings are fully determined (by physical laws) in their functioning (reason and logic, not being physical laws, don't determine anything), and the concepts of rational or irrational makes no sense.

Moreover, on what grounds are you going to criticize religious people who believe in God, free will, the afterlife, spirits and indeterminism, if their beliefs are ALSO determined by the same physical laws which impose on Dawkins his deterministic view?

The same physical laws which makes Dawkins an automata without free will will be efficacious to make all the other people automata too. And the difference of beliefs of each person will be caused by physical laws, not by the person' fault, and hence you cannot complain that such people are irrational or guilty, since they have not responsability at all regarding the beliefs they hold.

2)Dawkins claims that "evil and good" are MENTAL CONSTRUCTS and USEFUL FICTIONS (i.e. they exist in our minds alone), and don't have any objective, mind-independent existence. In Dawkins word's: "Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live. My dangerous idea is that we shall eventually grow out of all this and even learn to laugh at it"

Note that Dawkins constrast such a mental constructs and fictions with the "truer analysis of what is going on in the world", which implies that such mental constructs and fictions are probably FALSE.

Again, this view is entailed by metaphysical naturalism and atheism, so Dawkins is (at least in this point) being consistent.

Now, if the "evil" is a mental construct which a scientific atheist should deny (on behalf of a more rational and true scientific analysis), then WHY THE HELL DID DAWKINS SAY THAT WLLIAM LANE CRAIG'S THEOLOGY IS EVIL? On that objective moral grounds is Dawkins going to criticize Craig if such a moral ground is a pure mental construct without any objective validity? Moreover, is Craig guilty of something "evil" when, according to Dawkins' beliefs, the evil doesn't exist and Craig is fully determined in his beliefs and actions by the same deterministic physical laws which determine Dawkins' beliefs and actions?

This is evidence which Dawkins doesn't take his worldview seriously. He denies the objective existence of the "evil", but then accusses others (specially religious believers) of being evil or of doing evil things.

He denies the justification of the concept of "retribution and punishment", but then castigates Craig when the latter defends a religious view that Dawkins finds unpalatable.

He criticizes (and uses as an excuse to refuse debating) Craig by his (alleged) justification of biblical genocide, but Dawkins himself claims that he is open to the persuasion that "killing people is right under certain circunstances" (so, supporting genocide).

Do you think the evidence mentioned here support the conclusion that Dawkins is a rational, logical and intellectually honest scholar?

I think the answer is obvious. As I said, in my opinion, people like Dawkins deserve to receive a public exposing and evidence-based intellectual punishment (=solid refutations of his views), and in this blog I'll contribute to this purpose.

I entirely agree with atheist Oxford philosopher Daniel Came who says that Dawkins's refusal to debate Craig is cynical and anti-intellectualist, and that people like Dawkins "seek to replace one form of irrationality with another."

As expected and predicted Richard Dawkins didn't appeared to debate William Lane Craig

The above is a video by a Christian youtuber called (in youtube) Birdieupon. He made a good work putting together some of the pictures of the Oxford scholarly meeting to discuss Craig's lecture on Dawkins' book The God Delusion.

As the coward Richard Dawkins didn't showed up, Craig was confronted with a panel of 3 skeptical scholars (including atheist philosopher Daniel Came, who called Dawkins a coward and an anti-intellectual) who made critical comments of Craig's lecture, followed by Craig's response. It seems the session also included questions by the audience.

This kind of intellectual interaction is good and productive, because it enables to see the force and weaknesses of the arguments of each side.

High level intellectual debates like this are much appreciated by seekers for the truth (people like Richard Dawkins and many pseudoskeptical charlatans don't like that kind of debates, because the extreme weaknesses, superficiality and sophistical character of their case is fully exposed in front of the public).

Stay tuned for the video and audio of this interesting Oxford session.

Michael Shermer vs John Lennox debate on the existence of God

I think Lennox won this debate against Shermer.

In my opinion, Shermer is too superficial as to be a serious intellectual opponent to debate any topic whatsoever. So, if you add the falsehood of atheism to an unsophisticated defense of it, you will get a debate like this.

In any case, don't be influenced by my opinion; just watch the debate, think hard about the arguments of both sides, and draw your own conclusions.

A.C.Grayling vs. William Lane Craig debate on the problem of evil against God's existence