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 Leaving Cult, $

The effect of claims of omniscience or divine guidance on the part of a guru is largely just to prevent the followers from questioning or disobeying him and his rules. In prisons, and elsewhere, the same unconditional obedience is enforced simply through rigid authority-structures. But the effect is the same, even if the intermediate cause is different.

Likewise, "dogma" is the set of rules which one must obey in order to secure one's salvation. Or, in prison, to secure one's parole. Not merely the set of rules, though, but rather the rigidity/inflexibility with which they must be followed in order for one to be saved/paroled.

The Bonewits criteria (1 = lowest rating; 10 = highest):

• Internal Control. The guards had essentially total control over the prisoners, so a value of 10.

• Wisdom Claimed: amount of infallibility declared about decisions. There was certainly no way for the prisoners to question or disobey the decisions of the guards without being punished. So, taking authority as equivalent in effect to wisdom, this is a 10.

• Wisdom Credited: to leaders by members, amount of trust in the decisions made by leader(s). Again, equating authority with wisdom, another 10.

• Dogma: rigidity of reality concepts taught, of amount of doctrinal inflexibility. Again, a 10.

• Recruiting: emphasis put on attracting new members, amount of proselytizing. There was actually no additional "recruiting" at all done by Zimbardo after the initial call for subjects. So, a value of 1.

• Front Groups: number of subsidiary groups using different name from the main group. None. Value of 1.

• Wealth: amount of money and/or property desired or obtained, emphasis on members' donations. Prisoners' donations? None. Value of 1.

• Political Power: amount of external political influence desired or obtained. By the superintendent and guards? None. (One of the prisoners, though, had planned, going into the study, to expose and publicize what he wrongly took the "establishment" experiment to be.) Value of 1.

  Sexual Manipulation: of members by leaders(s), amount of control over the lives of members. Well, you're not supposed to be having sex with your fellow inmates in a (simulated) prison. But that's hardly an unreasonable "sexual manipulation": It's not that "you shouldn't have sex because God doesn't want you to," or that "you should have sex with me (the leader) because God wants you to." Still, prisoners were actually stripped naked—being allowed no underwear to begin with—and at least once forced to simulate sodomy on one another by the guards. Call it a 4.

• Censorship: amount of control over members' access to outside opinion on group, its doctrines or leader(s). Prisoners could only meet with their families on designated visitors' days. Thus, there was extreme control over that access. Yet, the access was still given on a regular basis, in scheduled hours, as opposed to not being allowed at all (e.g., in the geographically isolated Jonestown). And, they were allowed additional visits from a priest. Say a 7.

• Dropout Control: intensity of efforts directed at preventing or returning dropouts." If this had been a real prison, the value would clearly be 10: you cannot be allowed to (literally) escape/leave. But it was only a simulated prison, where both the guards and the prisoners knew, going in, that they could "walk out any time." Of course, the prison management "thought of luring #8612 back on some pretext and then imprisoning him again because he was released on false pretenses." But, they never actually acted on that, so the other prisoners couldn't have known of the possibility. Also, in practice, the other prisoners' guard-instructed chanting that the ill and hysterical #819 was a "bad prisoner" had the unintended and unpredicted effect of making the prisoner in question want to return to his group, to prove that he wasn't the bad prisoner which they made him out to be. Such a dynamic could certainly be used as an effective form of "dropout control"—but it does not appear to have been thus utilized in the study, beyond the initial, unintentional application of it. But, when a "prison break" was rumored to be on the verge of occurring, Zimbardo and his staff certainly took steps to prevent that from happening, i.e., to ensure that the prisoners would not drop out of the group. Overall, though, you could indeed leave, simply forfeiting your pay for participating in the study, with no other objective negative repercussions for doing so. (Of course, the forfeiting of that pay, as opposed to one's being given a pro-rated amount, would also act to keep individuals bound to that environment.) And, when push came to shove, Zimbardo and his colleagues did release five of the ten original prisoners voluntarily, one-by-one, after four of them had broken down and another had developed a psychosomatic rash. Perhaps a 7, then.

  Endorsement Of Violence: when used by or for the group or leader(s). There was much sadism exhibited by Zimbardo's guards, particularly when they thought they weren't being watched. But, they were explicitly forbidden from using physical violence (which is surely what this criterion refers to, as opposed to "psychological violence" or manipulation) to keep their "prisoners" in line. (The guards carried billy clubs, but were to use those only as symbolic weapons, not as actual ones. On at least one occasion, though, a prisoner was hit lightly on the chin with such a stick, after having [laughingly] grabbed the throat of a guard. The guards also used fire extinguishers to help quell the second-day prisoner uprising, and at one point force-fed a prisoner.) Thus, a 4.

• Paranoia: amount of fear concerning real or imagined enemies, perceived power of opponents. "Opponents" of the "simulated prison"? None. Value of 1.

• Grimness: amount of disapproval concerning jokes about the group, its doctrines or leader(s). The "prisoners" certainly could not get away with joking about their guards' or superintendent's behaviors when the guards were listening. Not if they hoped to be "paroled." And, even just amongst themselves, a prisoner who had stood up to the guards, rather than being celebrated, was punished by his fellow prisoners. Call it an 8.

• Surrender Of Will: emphasis on members not having to be responsible for personal decisions. Certainly very high: prisoners are told when to eat, sleep, bathe, etc. Say, a 10.

How does that all look, then?

The comparable rating for Ken Wilber's Integral Institute is 4.4. Lower, to be sure, but hardly "night and day."