Under the influence

Hardbound; 356 pp., including an appendix, bibliographic references in endnotes a bibliography, and an index. Contents: Acknowledgments Prologue I: The nature of the beast 1. Collective enchantment Death by group Cultural conditioning The heart of the dilemma Chaos and assimilation Implications for people and the planet Our common humanity Individuation: Differentiating from the herd The differentiated psyche Barbarians in the city The problem of opposites Psychological opportunity cost The collective God hole: The quest for meaning 2. Trapped in paradise My experience in a religious group Filling the God hole Meeting my spiritual teacher . . . oops! The kingdom collapses The exodus The collective holocaust 3. Fatal persuasion Soul psychology The meaning in words Group speak: The language of the group mind Cultural editing and censorship A vocabulary of prejudice Propaganda The statistical wasteland in groups Statistical murder Collective narcissism The totalistic nature of the collective The collective need for power 4. The dark side of groups The trap of one-sidedness Eros and the will to power The flat earth oned-sided personality Loss of soul in groups The disease of exclusiveness An arrogant cosmology Existential sacrifice Deadly superiority: Group egocentricity Exporting our moral ideas Peer pressure Under the influence: Hypnotic effects of groups The social trance Collective complexes Destruction of the individual Collective panic Gangs: Street cults Patriarchal rules Suicide and the collective Repressed collective tension Collective tension producers 5. Systems: Mega groups The serpent in our free market paradise Slavery American style Turning the heart into stone In the shadows: Black markets The religion of organized gambling Capitalist heaven and hell Putting a conscience in the machine Corporate murder Monotheistic capitalism Educational systems The new inquisition and the religious right The industrialized psyche Characteristics of business totalism Cultism in politics The religion of politics The welfare system The FDA: A political cult The Environmental Protection Agency The Department of Energy Unions: Legalized extortion The medical establishment Drugs: Putting the soul to sleep Reclaiming our economic integrity 6. The collective machine Robotization of the human psyche Extroverts [sic], introverts, and groups Mind control and thought reform in groups How control inner and outer communication Mystical control: Calculated spontaneity Rationalizing evil Fanatical separation of pure and impure Control through confession The quicksand of knowing 7. Going backward: Developmental regressions in groups Survival mode Trapping the inner child Developmental stages 8. Creating gods Escaping life through religion Bewitchment: Projection and groups Identification: Unconscious conformity Cultural cloaking What is this thing called 'Self"? The empty Self Archetypal paralysis 9. The neurotic side of religion The shadow of Christianity Collective compulsions Salem revisited: Mass paranoia Stigmata: Our collective hysteria The savior business The born again phenomenon Electronic hypnosis: The cult of evangelism in America Dogma-free meditation Integrity and evil When obedience is evil Fundamentalism: A social plague Finding values outside the religious community The dark side of illumination Dualism in religion 10. The color of the dream The American dream Pre-packaged dreams Dream eaters Group-induced racism The cult of color in America Our collective costumes II: Breaking free 11. Slaying the collective dragon Collective deprogramming The hero's adventure Active imagination: Animating our symbolic world Thirteen steps for recovery from the group mind Becoming your own soul therapist Creating your personal totem Polytheism: Connecting with our inner community The inner shaman Dreams and groups Psychotherapy: Mind control or soul work Characteristics of destructive psychotherapy Characteristics of constructive psychotherapy 12. Putting soul into relationship Holding tension between the individual and the collective Life's oppositeness Relationship: Finding the space of the in-between Where inner and outer worlds meet Tension and integrity Creating healthy tension: Soul work Acknowledgment Process over results Creating insight gaps Seeing through feelings Words that express feelings Repression: Nurturing a "poison tree" Exploring our blind side: Shadow work Criteria for a healthy group 13. Life after group An archetypal perspective Building a healthy community Our need for community Endings and beginnings Appendix: Marks of a destructive group Notes Bibliography Index