How To Bend Reality Like a Cult Leader

“So you’re saying reality is arbitrary?” I asked. “Reality is a set of agreements between people,” Daniel said. “There are endless ways to make meaning from events. So we need to confirm what we perceive with other people, otherwise we feel insane. The more people confirm our perceptions, the more real reality feels. Every group has its own interpretations of reality, and they all can find evidence that theirs is right and everyone else’s is wrong.” from ORGSM, A Memoir, Chapter 2

The most profound realization I had in OneTaste was on the subjective nature of reality.

Most people assume that reality is objective. Most assume that their perceptions are pretty close to objective, and therefore countering narratives are false.

This assumption makes one particularly vulnerable to manipulation.

When I was deep in the cult, outsiders thought some of our beliefs were “crazy.” We thought they were “misinformed.” (If you follow politics, this should sound familiar.)

But actually, the people who most deeply believed that they had an objective take on reality, were often the easiest to manipulate. Because in almost all cases, it’s simply not true.

Reality is a set of agreements.

Until you understand this, you are vulnerable to having your reality swayed (let’s say “brain-rinsed”) if not totally brainwashed.

Let’s break it down…

We each live in our own World of unique perceptions.

You are a snowflake of a sort. Everything you’ve seen, heard, and felt over your lifetime makes a unique movie that no one else has ever watched.

And that’s just talking about your direct observations via your five senses.

Layer on top your beliefs about those observations, and you have an unique world¹— your set of perceptions through which you interact with reality.

It had always been true that each person has his or her own world. But prior to the Internet, it was rare to directly come across a totally different world. Most people in a given locality had similar enough experiences and perceptions that their worlds were functionally the same. But now, we can see even the person living next door to us can “be in a totally different world.”

Look at any modern political hot button to see this in action:

• “Israel is an apartheid state” vs. “Israel is a democratic ally defending its right to exist”
• “Undocumented migrants are essential to the economy” vs. “Illegal immigrants bring crime, drugs, and strain public resources”
• “We are in a climate emergency caused by fossil fuels” vs. “Climate change is a hoax used to increase government control.”

If you strongly believe any of the statements above, then you probably believe it’s opposite is false. (And maybe pisses you off.)

These are mostly opinions, of course. But its even true for “hard facts.”

While science is theoretically objective, our interpretations of science is not.

We can see this in ongoing debates over nutrition and exercise. The pandemic revealed this in arguments over masks, vaccines, mandates, etc. (“Don’t you believe in science??” each side would say to the other.)

Regardless of what you believe about “scientific facts,”² (and regardless of the actual truth), few of us are doing any research ourselves. Most of what we “know” comes from 2nd or 3rd hand interpretations of others.

All of us rely on interpretations from other people. (Be they “experts,” our reference group, or a trusted leader.)

Which is where things can get scary…

We attempt to find objectivity via by confirming our perceptions with others.

If you and I camping, and you think you saw something move in darkness, there maybe is a 50% chance that you’re just “seeing things.”

But if I saw it too, then we can be at least 90% sure that there’s something there, and act accordingly.

All of us, to some degree, get our “reality checks” by seeing if others perceive what we perceive. It’s the easiest way to test our sanity. (For if you see or perceive something that no one else does or can, you have to consider, Is everyone crazy, or am I?)

Robert Cialdini termed this Social Proof, the tendency look to others for cues on what to believe and do, especially in times of uncertainty. (More on that last part in a bit.)

OneTaste actually did this as part of their intro class indoctrination. New students were introduced to heterodox ideas about sex and connection, such as a sufficiently trained person can feel another person’s sensations from a distance.³ Then during the “live orgasm demo,” staff members would call out sensations in their bodies. Inevitably, most of the students would join in, even if they weren’t sure if it was real.

What’s crazy about the sensation thing, is that sensation itself is subjective. When students would call out sensations during orgasm demos, most would eventually feel something in their bodies.

You can convince anyone to feel anything under the right circumstances. (Think about reading or hearing a well-written story where you begin to feel chills down your neck.)

This is not a bug in human consciousness, it’s a feature. (Though it can be exploited, as we’ll cover below.)

This phenomenon has evolutionary survival roots.

Social prey animals evolved to feel strong emotions like fear when another member of their group does. That way they can react to a predator before having to see it themselves.

(By the way, humans are social prey animals, too.)

Coincidentally, OneTaste actually used the above concept to explain how people can feel each other from a distance. (Scientific reference used to validate their unique world.)

The more people that confirm a given set of perceptions, the more “real” and stable it feels. When everyone we’re close to seems to believe a certain thing, the less reason we have to question it.

And the more connected we feel to those people since they confirm our world.

“Be careful with these people, Roo,” Roger said. “You know when you Google ‘OneTaste,’ the third thing that comes up is ‘OneTaste cult.’ “Yeah well,” I said, “what’s a cult other than a couple of like-minded individuals?” ORGSM, A Memoir, Chapter 1

The “real world” (non-cult conventional society’s beliefs) isn’t that much more “real” that the worlds of ideological groups. It just happens to have a lot more members, so it seems closer to objectivity.

If you want to make something “real,” you just have to convince enough people that it is so.

A lot of modern day personal development is based around ideas such as “Don’t care what others think” and “Follow your truth.”

These are great principles for inner peace. But unless you live completely separate from society, what other people perceive does actually matter. And cognitively, unless you confirm reality externally sometimes, you will feel unstable and insane.⁴

If anything, these self-help principles point to a darker truth:

If you don’t care so much about what others think and follow your truth, then others are more likely to follow yours and confirm it. (Because most people aren’t sure enough of their own perceptions to hold on to them without confirmation from others.)

Not everyone’s perceptions are weighted equally in a herd’s collective reality. How much the group values an individual’s perceptions is a measure of status.

Every social mammal forms a hierarchy of some sort. Higher status individuals always determine more of the reality for the lower status.

This can be seen interpersonally in the direction of approval-seeking. We value the approval most greatly of those whom we trust can perceive reality most accurately. (Be it through advice, forecasting the future, or accurately assessing the present.)

Therefore if someone proves to you that they can see what’s true more accurately than you can, you can’t help but trust them…

Enter: The Cult Leader

Flip one previously held belief, and rest of reality will crumble

I mentioned in the beginning that the more firmly someone held onto their beliefs, the easier they were to flip, or brainwash.

Since most of our perceptions are third hand observations and abstract opinions, it’s not hard to find something you can disprove in a person’s worldview. And once you do, and show them that you can see things that they can’t, they will assume the next thing you say is also true. (Halo Effect).

I did some version of this to quite a few people when I was an indoctrinated cult member. Nerdy guys like me were the easiest, because they tended to have all sorts of incorrect beliefs around women that I once also had.

In fact, the more attached a person was to their belief, the easier it was flip them entirely. They have to follow the logic of, “If that last thing I believed is false, then what else is false??”

Conversely, the hardest people to brainwash were the open-minded. Such people can entertain multiple opposing worldviews, so none of them stick too hard.

I was able to do this, because it’s what happened to me:

“I know why you don’t connect with people. You only stay in this tonal range,” Nicole said, holding her palms six inches apart. “It’s a nice range, but you’re denying everyone the full spectrum.” She spread her palms to full wingspan and her smile got bigger and brighter. The lump in my throat dropped to my stomach. “Uhm…” “You see, you’re trying to play ‘super cute frat boy’ who says everything is ‘cool’ all the time. But everything isn’t cool with you all the time. You’re not a cool frat boy... You’re a dark, dangerous man.” ORGSM, A Memoir, Chapter 1

In the OneTaste intro class, the first half of the day was called “stroking the room,” where the teacher did a sort of impromptu therapy with each person. It was the first stage of indoctrination.

This is where she usually proved that she could see things in people that they couldn’t see in themselves.

In OneTaste’s case, these first “cold reads” were usually quite accurate and useful. OneTaste did in fact teach little known truths about sex and connection. Some of it was legitimately mind-blowing. But when a mind is blown, you can put all sorts of stuff in it.

Every time I adopted a new belief and entered more deeply into the “OneTaste world,” it was because the initial advice I got was really useful.

The more heterodox a belief you prove, the more weight it has. A belief that goes directly against previous assumptions is called a moral switch.⁵

Ideological movements are always rooted in moral switches.

If you can convince people that a previous assumption they had is wrong, they become the most evangelical about the new belief system. And since their old reference group no longer confirms their reality, they become more attached to the new group that does.

That’s why former vegans often become the biggest advocates of the carnivore diet.

“Walkaway” Democrats become the most vocal conservatives.

Previously emotionally closed off nerds (like me) become obsessive “Messengers of Orgasm,” preaching the importance of feeling all your feelings.

Conclusion

Reality is a set of agreements.

We each live in a unique world of our perceptions.

We attempt to find objectivity, by confirming those perceptions with others.

The more people have a perception, the more real is feels.

The more heterodox a perception, the more defining of a reality it is.

A lot of my motivation to put out ORGSM, A Memoir was to help people understand the brainwashing process. Though most of us aren’t in literal cults, all of us are exposed to cult dynamics… now more than ever.

Cult dynamics are social dynamics.

I’ve been particularly frustrated with how most cult journalism ultimately becomes “look at this weird thing” rather than pointing to the universal truths about human consciousness.

If you want to check out my book, you can do so here: https://amzn.to/430MzX2

The audiobook is coming soon!

I’ll also be posting more articles like these + excerpts from my next book, ANIMA: The 5 Aspects of the Feminine Unconscious.