An outsized focus on mindset is another modern manifestation of the grace-nature divide. It’s mind over matter, and “matter” is the rest of your body. This kind of hierarchy is possible only in the wake of a division. Which is why bad actors engender such a split. If the mind is put above the body, they can silence your instincts with their rhetoric. This was a textbook tactic in the self-help therapy cult NXIVM, according to former member Jessica Joan. “In the curriculum, you focused more on the mental and intellectual aspects of understanding,” Joan told me. “If you had a physical reaction,
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