Bhakta Jim's Soap Box: An Explanation

I got my second review for The Life And Times Of Bhakta Jim:

The Life and Times of Bhakta Jim is an account of the Jim's experience within the Hare Krishna cult. The story is informative, but dry at times as some true stories can be. I learned a lot from his account though.

My only issue was Jim's dig at Republicans on several occasions. This was both unnecessary and off topic. I found that when he threw this in he took away from the story and got on his soap box.

This is a fair comment. I know exactly what part of the book she is talking about: the chapter about my own deprogramming. It is the least interesting chapter in the book. If I paid to have the book edited the editor would certainly have pointed that out, but whether he could have suggested any way to improve it is questionable.

Deprogramming is not done much anymore. Back in 1980, it was about the only effective way to get someone out of a cult. It involves holding someone against his will for several days (usually three) and arguing with him about his life in the cult. Usually the arguing is done by people who have been in cults themselves. The arguments do not involve threatening the cult member with hell, or telling him about Jesus, or anything like that. They are pretty much just arguments. This is what you thought life in the cult would be like. This is what you actually spend your time doing. And guess what, the same damned thing goes on in the Moonies, the Divine Light Mission, the Children of God and the Scientologists. And you know they're nuts, don't you?

At some point in this argument, often the third day like it was for me, the fog clears all at once and you're out. After that you need to spend time with others in the process of getting out, otherwise there is some danger of going back in again. The problem is that the cult way of thinking is comforting on some level, and you miss it.

To explain the cult way of thinking I do compare cultists to Republicans, however making it clear that the cultists take this kind of thinking to an extreme that the Republicans do not approach.

Yet.

Of course not all Republicans don't accept the evidence that evolution is real, that the world is millions of years old, that global warming is real, and so is Barack Obama's birth certificate. There are even Republicans who believe that the New Deal was beneficial (like Ronald Reagan, who voted for FDR four times).

Here is the conclusion of an article by a well known Republican who clearly accepts the evidence of science:

Such is the history of it. Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel tower were now representing the world’s age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man’s share of that age; and anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.

Mark Twain wrote that.

In 1903!