--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, navashok wrote: > > I guess the same is true for discussions here on FFL, the > more I think about it ...
See? That's why it's more fun to chat with you than with those who claim to be all rational and all. You actually "get" things. :-) > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb wrote: > > > > http://www.cracked.com/article_20223_5-bizarre-factors-that-secretly-influence-your-opinions.html > > "Well, when you're forced to think through or express why > you like something, you're immediately biased toward > opinions that you can actually explain or verbalize. > In other words, you may taste five jams and decide that > No. 4 just tasted better, because in that moment your > senses were taking in a thousand different factors you > weren't consciously thinking about. But when pressured > to actually explain in detail which one you liked best, > you're looking for easily quantifiable things -- suddenly > you're talking about how No. 2 had more berries, or how > No. 1 had better color. In reality, neither of those > things actually affected your enjoyment. You're just > trying to make it sound like you made your decision > based on an easily explainable chain of logic when in > reality your tongue had it right all along." When it comes to cults, what's fascinating is that this tendency to believe in what we can explain or verbalize can be "pre-loaded," as a form of mind control. For example, if someone were told, "We can teach you to FLY, if you just pay us several thousand dollars," most people would roll their eyes and know instantly that they were dealing with a charlatan. But if you "pre-loaded" that claim with a bunch of bogus bullshit spouted by a supposed scientist, giving them pseudo-rational reasons for how or why they could fly, or a supposed "holy man," giving them equally BS "Vedic" reasons for how or why they could fly, they'll tend to plunk their money down for the TM-Sidhi course. In this case, the more the obvious insane idea is explained and verbalized *TO* them, the more it convinces their brains that it *isn't* an insane idea. BTW, not mentioned in the original Cracked article but IMO related to it is a recent study showing how we use *nostalgia* to make ourselves feel warmer. Clinical trials indicated that when people were placed in cold rooms and then asked to remember favorite songs from the past, or recollect favorite positive memories from the past, they felt warmer, and thus more comfortable. I tend to think that this is why, when criticisms of TM or Maharishi come up here and people have their *un*comfortable cognitive dissonance buttons pushed, what often follows is a nostalgia-fest. They start talking about the Beatles, or some course they went on 20 years ago, or even the "Vedic era" that never existed but which they've been told was So Much Better Than Now. IMO, all of this is an unconscious attempt to "warm" them- selves by taking the chill off of their cognitive dissonance.
