Ambition

Ambition

Paranoid personality.

"[...] ambitious..." (1).

Querulants.

"The premorbid traits of litigant-querulant delusional disorder include [...] high aspirations..." (50).

Paranoia. Aimée case.

"And if the patient vigorously prosecutes such lives in her writings, the artifices and corruption she attributes to them, one must underscore the ambivalence of her attitude; since she herself, as we shall see, would like to be a novelist, to lead a grand life, to have influence in the world" (46).

That is to say, deep down, the patient aspired to what others already had.

The paranoid relationship. Tizón.

"Another of the fundamental feelings in such a relational organization, which will come up again and again in the psychoanalytic treatments of these patients, is envy" (70).

This ambitious attitude, characteristic of the obsessive personality, cannot simply be transferred to the member of the paranoid contagion group, from whom it is expected that they renounce their personal interests entirely for the sake of those of the group and its leaders.

Maoist Leninism.

"I remember attending, open-mouthed, the intense sessions that were organized day after day, for weeks on end, against the doctors [...] Their 'crime' was feeling frustrated at having to sacrifice their careers for the benefit of a single party leader" (18).

It is the group that, insofar as it acts as a whole, develops a behavior and sets itself manifestly ambitious objectives, while the adherents or followers merely make that ambition their own, as it is shared. They thus live a kind of delegated ambition.

Although the sectarian's ambition is, on occasion, not so purely altruistic.

Cult groups. Moonies.

"I can also see with complete clarity that the higher I climbed in the hierarchy, the more I became corrupted; Moon was molding us in his own image. In fact, he once explained to the leaders that if we remained faithful and carried out our missions correctly, we could become presidents of our respective countries" (28).

Nueva Acrópolis

"Dedication to the doctrine marks what the next reincarnation will be in a position of responsibility and prestige in a society led by Nueva Acrópolis" (57).

And what is ambition?

Ambition. A disordered passion for glory, power, or fortune (46).

It is disordered, for example, when it leads to moral degradation.

Victimists.

"[…] they are more prone to lie and deceive for material gain and to denigrate others in order to get ahead" (11).

An example:

Victimists.

"In one study, participants who scored high on virtuous and victimist self-presentation tended more to lie and cheat —on average— in a coin-toss test in order to win a prize payment" (11).

Beyond an isolated lie, at a given moment, aimed at obtaining something specific, the paranoid individual would make systematic, widespread, deliberate, and subtle use of falsehoods and underhanded tactics in order to achieve their own benefit.

Victimists.

"[…] is associated with numerous undesirable personality traits such as Machiavellianism (the willingness to manipulate and exploit others for personal gain)" (1).

Glory

Italian Fascism.

"Oh Lord, I thank you for having made me born Italian, in the land where the smile of your divine goodness shines most brightly. You, who have caused the light of your Church to rise from the heart of my Homeland. You, who cause to be born on our soil the greatest saints, the most perfect artists, the wisest men and the deepest thought, the most daring captains, make the Italian genius spread throughout the world, and may the glory of Rome be your glory, oh Lord..." (Lindo Giacobbe, cited in 30).

Sokagakkai.

"Our mission is to make the Soka Gakkai the king of the religious world and the source of genuinely outstanding personalities in politics, economics, education and all other levels of society" (37).

The first manifestation of ambition is the craving for brilliance, admiration, and recognition. An aspiration, common to both IPs and paranoid contagion groups, that takes shape in widely differing objectives. Thus, a Catholic AP devotes enormous resources to the sole objective of having its founder canonized, while a paranoid inventor imagines himself in the ceremony at which he will be awarded the Nobel Prize, and a totalitarian national leader aspires to have his country's capital stand out above all others in the architectural field or in the accumulation of works of art. national totalitarian leader aspires to have his country's capital stand out above all others in the architectural field or in the accumulation of works of art.

French Imperialism.

"There is no doubt that the French elites, both in the revolutionary and the Napoleonic years, felt themselves participants in an experience of unique revolutionary significance. And precisely because France was the mentor of Europe, it seemed fitting to many that Paris, the new Rome, the capital and heart of civilization, should be enriched with the most significant artifacts of the arts and sciences from all across Europe. 'The moment has come for the kingdom (of the fine arts) to pass to France to affirm and embellish liberty', declared the members of the Directory in May 1796, thereby authorizing the plundering of Italian museums" (74).

Nazism.

"After the fall of France in June 1940, Rosenberg asked Hitler for permission to search the libraries and archives of the occupied areas in search of objects of value. The requisition led to Rosenberg's appointment as head of the 'Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg', an organization that would become progressively involved in systematic theft and looting. Rosenberg was authorized to transport to Germany any cultural treasure..." (71).

Taken to its extreme, the thirst for glory imposes upon the IGP the need to be the first, the only one, the greatest.

Crisis cults. The Melanesian cargo (20th c.).

"He said he was preparing the millennium, and designed a flag that would be accepted first in his area, and then throughout the world" (9).

Nazism.

"Again the Minister speaks out against the use of sentimental phrases of brotherhood in relation to Paris. He states with complete clarity that Germany, in the next 300-400 years, will hold in Europe the significance that France occupied during the last one hundred and fifty years. Under those circumstances it is entirely wrong on our part to try to maintain the fame that Paris has had until now, for it is logical that in this era it should be Berlin that takes Paris's place. Everything depends on our carrying our sense of self-assurance and Paris will have only the significance and role of a provincial city" (5).

It must be borne in mind that glory is necessarily a minority possession; for when everyone has it, it ceases to be so. Glory is established by comparison with others, and its attainment requires entering into competition with those others. It is with manifestly envious arguments (of the glory of others) that fanatical German nationalists justified the need to embark upon a policy of colonial expansion.

German nationalism.

"Count von Bismark, the unifier who directed German affairs from 1870 to 1890, distrusted both nationalism and imperialism for their liberal and radical implications. Germany was a latecomer among the powers, only entering the imperial competition in the late eighties, and failed to form an overseas empire equivalent to that of the other European powers. This, together with partial diplomatic isolation, produced a growing resentment among the increasingly numerous nationalists who desired for Germany 'a place in the sun' equivalent, at the very least, to that of Great Britain, France, or Russia" (56).

The immoderate craving for glory has an equally relevant reverse side, namely, the profound aversion to humiliation, ridicule, or defeat.

Nazism.

"The Minister cites the ice hockey match in Prague, lost by the German national team, as a clear example of how it is entirely wrong for Germans to measure themselves against 'colonial' peoples on a field where one cannot be certain of one's own superiority. Mr. Gutterer will need to reach an agreement with Messrs. Tschammer and Osten, that is, with the Reich Department of Sports, so that the repetition of anything similar is made impossible in the future" (5).

After the fall of Nazism, some Germans, now subjected to communist totalitarianism, would once again suffer the visceral aversion to defeat of their leaders.

German Leninism.

"Documents made public by the German authorities reveal that the mass doping of athletes from the former German Democratic Republic was directly controlled by the secret police (Stasi)... 'The objective is to secure for GDR competitive sport a position of privilege in order to demonstrate the superiority of socialist society over capitalist society, all of this achieved through the use of doping substances,' states a Stasi circular" (45).

Nor is criticism tolerable.

Sectarian groups. The Reverend Jones's People's Temple.

"1977. July. The rumor spreads that the magazine New West intends to publish a documented article about the People's Temple, which triggers a chain of attacks by members of the cult to prevent it. San Francisco politicians also attempt to prevent it" (42).

Sokagakkai.

"Articles and books that are considered unfair or mistaken are criticized in the Gakkai's official media with a vehemence that borders on paranoia; and it is difficult to imagine the Society respecting freedom of expression and criticism if the Komeito were to take power" (72).

Sectarian groups. The Patriarch.

"Journalists such as... have had to endure brutal pressure from Engelmajer's group after journalistically denouncing notable irregularities within El Patriarca" (62).

Power

Ambition. Disordered passion for [...] power… (48). That is, for having the privilege of being able to command and be obeyed.

Paranoia. Clinical case.

- I want to be the boss....

Nazism.

"The non-German population of the East must not receive more education than four years of elementary instruction. In them it is sufficient that they learn to count up to 500 and to write their name; I do not consider it necessary for them to learn to read. As a fundamental dogma they must learn that obedience to the Germans, sincerity, honesty and love of work are the only commandments of God" (Himmler, cited in 75).

Paranoid personality.

"... they are envious and jealous of those who hold positions of power..." (1).

The importance that paranoid personalities attribute to power, together with their energetic character and the great amount of energy they are willing to employ in achieving it, means that they do, in fact, often seize the positions of authority they so desire. The following quote reflects this dynamic in a delusional paranoiac, on a somewhat comic level.

Paranoia.

"One day, having finally taken possession in a certain way of the ward [where he was admitted], he takes control even of the telephone in an abusive manner. He contacts official bodies posing as Master X, accelerating through his own initiative the procedures related to his own admission. One day he calls me pretending to be a doctor in order to request information about his case" (54)

The fascination with power, or the desire to command, affects paranoid contagion groups with equal intensity, as they aspire to seize control of their surroundings.

Nazism.

"...The second duty... of the organization, to fight for the conquest of power, in order to secure from it the final success of the doctrine" (33).

Crisis cults. Hau-hau (19th century).

"He now announced that the angel Gabriel had revealed to him a new religion, pai marire, which would place the European usurpers under the authority of the Maori people" (8).

Nazism.

"I now want to fulfil what I promised five years ago, when I had lost my sight in the military hospital: not to rest until [...] from the ruins of present-day Germany a great, powerful and free Germany is reborn!" (75).

Sectarian groups. Agora.

"Socially, the cult advocates the management of the centres of economic and intellectual production by the privileged caste of intellectuals, themselves..." (61).

In the pages that follow I will analyse the various objectives that paranoid contagion groups set for themselves in their drive to seize power: the subjugation of the State (and, by extension, of society as a whole), imperialism or the subjugation of other peoples and states, and the governance of the world.

The conquest of the State

Political PCGs, like other political forces and as is natural, strive to gain political power. However, they do not do so in the same way. First, because they tend to think that, in their case, and given that their cause is so justified and extraordinary, anything goes to seize the reins of authority.

Italian Fascism.

"From the position of a minority, Italian fascism achieved the conquest and unification of the State in a process that lasted more than six years. With the effective aid of deception and illusions, propaganda and terror -but also by exploiting the fear among broad intermediate strata of the disruptive triumph of peasant and workers' agitation-, the PNF (National Fascist Party) led first to the overthrow of the democratic majority (1924), and then to the imposition of a plebiscitary and acclamatory single-party system ordered corporatistically" (30).

Second, because once power has been achieved, when this occurs, the PCG considers itself authorized to not submit to the pre-existing rules of the game, establishing a new order in which it is the State that submits, completely, to it.

Nazism.

"Once power was obtained, the government degenerated into a purely technical apparatus with purely executive tasks. The State departments were, in reality, purely formal bodies, and real power was exercised behind the scenes..." (71).

Ethnic nationalism, for its part, does not aspire so much to the conquest of a State as to wresting from a particular State its sovereignty over a portion of its territory, which henceforth must be possessed by a new State led, obviously, by patriots.

The exercise of power by the PCG, once it has taken control of the State, is likewise distinguished by the fact that it also respects no limits with regard to the interference of political power in the lives of individuals and institutions. Quite the contrary, its messianism leads it to establish a totalitarian system in which nothing escapes submission to the State and, ultimately, to the PCG and its ideology. One of the clearest manifestations of this totalitarianism is the relentless occupation of positions of authority within the various institutions by members of the PCG.

Maoist Leninism.

"The old Peking Union Medical Hospital, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, had been one of the best and most complete in the country, with the finest doctors and the most modern equipment. But since 1949, the hospital had been entirely reorganized following the Soviet model. Some of the hospital's most distinguished doctors had been transferred elsewhere and its management had been placed under party control. Power was now in the hands of the party's first secretary, Zhang Zhiqiang. The party leadership considered him a doctor because during the war he had received some training from communist doctors, but doctors with Western training did not share that view. Zhang was a coarse and ignorant man, but he was an old revolutionary, and in those days the mere fact of being a revolutionary was already considered sufficient qualification" (18).

The Empire

Nazism.

"If I hold that the indigenous people should learn German in schools, it is solely to allow us to dominate them more effectively. Otherwise, they would have the possibility of disobeying our orders by claiming they do not understand them. For that same reason, Russian script will have to be suppressed and replaced by the Latin script" (32).

In consolidated Nation-States, patriotic exaltation — when it grows in intensity and the superiority complex clouds common sense — generates an impulse to establish a relationship of dominance over the surrounding environment, with arguments always being found to justify the pretension of consolidating a non-egalitarian relationship with the rest of the States, nations or peoples. We are speaking of imperialism. A nation, or a totalitarian leader, arrogates to itself the right to decide on the future of the peoples or populations it has subjugated or seeks to subjugate. For example, with regard to the use of language.

Nazism.

"... For instance, that was the case when Hitler signed a document prepared by Himmler in 1943 containing the rules for the use of language in the future Germanic continental empire. German would be the first language; English and Russian would have to disappear. The remaining languages could be used for one more decade as a means of communication, and after that time they too would be banned" (71).

Historically, the first example of nationalist imperialism is to be found in revolutionary and Napoleonic France.

French imperialism.

"In Napoleon's words, Europe was to be rebuilt according to a system 'of federated states or true French empire'. Within this federation, states could be made and unmade, sovereigns could be appointed and transferred, borders could be altered to expand French territory or to carry out adjustments between vassal states; and for this only the Emperor's decisions were needed, sometimes without even consulting the affected rulers" (74).

In the late nineteenth century, several of the new national States, the most consolidated ones, adopted the same imperialist pretensions for themselves, albeit transferring them to populations and territories that, though distant, were more defenseless than their European neighbors.

Nationalism.

"In fact, when the European powers occupied much of the world outside themselves for their expanding empires, the projection of nationalism into imperialism became almost a matter of course" (56).

As for the fascisms of the following century, they too did not renounce imperial pretensions.

Fascism.

"Typological description of fascism

[...] Imperial, expansionist objective, or one of radical change in national relations with other powers" (56).

The world empire

To some LP and GCP, the prospect of governing a country or an empire seems insufficient and they aspire to reign over humanity as a whole. A good example of this is the Moon cult.

Sectarian groups. Moonies.

"To defeat the enemies of God and establish the kingdom of heaven on earth; to build a world theocracy on the ruins of socialism, is the goal acknowledged by Moon" (7).

Sectarian groups. Moonies.

"When our time comes, we must have an automatic theocracy governing the world. So we cannot separate the political field from the religious one. [...] The separation between religion and politics is what Satan desires most" (28).

Cult groups. Moonies.

"The 'Divine Principles' —we will return to them— do not propose to humanity a timeless ideal, as most of the great contemporary religions do, but rather a short-term project: the establishment of a theocracy. Moon must establish the kingdom of God on earth before his death. If he does not, he will have failed in his mission, as Christ did two thousand years before" (7).

Completely out of touch with reality, the PCG not only dreams of that position of supreme authority, but may show itself convinced that it is going to achieve it.

Cult groups. The Warriors of the Empire of Kir Phoenix.

"[...] someday humans will recognize us as their lords" (61).

And, deluding themselves even further, they believe that this is going to happen in the short term.

Cult groups. The Davidians.

"The leader communicated to the group that God had asked him to sow his seed among the women of the cult in order to father the children who would rule the world after the [imminent] Apocalypse" (63).

It is worth bearing in mind that there are PCGs which, aware that this type of prediction is hardly credible, conceal them, revealing them only to members who have been active for a certain period of time.

On the various explanations for the hunger for power

The motive to which PCGs attribute their lust for power is, more often than not, the messianic one: if it is to be saved, the world must submit (or must be subjected, for its own good).

Nazism.

"We all know that in a distant future, humanity will have to face problems whose solution will require that a supremely exalted race, supported by the forces of the entire planet, assume the leadership of the world" (33).

Sectarian groups. Moonies.

"The only salvation for the world lies in Moon and in the establishment of a theocratic form of government to replace secular democracies" (28).

French revolutionary expansionism offers us another example of the relationship between messianic vocation and imperialism.

French imperialism.

"From that awareness of standing before a historical novelty that embodied the values of a new era, a missionary zeal arose among the men of the Revolution, who believed themselves to be the bearers of the Revolution. Robespierre, practically alone, had warned at the outset that liberty was not won at bayonet point" (74).

French imperialism.

"Like their predecessors of the revolutionary era — and like the majority of imperialist ideologues — it appears that the most committed members of the Napoleonic elite did not consider the ultimate achievement of a new Europe modeled in France's image to be a chimera…" (74).

It did not take long for a split to occur between the more pragmatic ones, for whom it was indeed a chimera, and those who, with Napoleon at the helm, believed until the end in the possibility of universally applying the new model that, as is well known, subverted from top to bottom what had been accepted for centuries.

French imperialism.

"[...] the fact that the dream of a uniform administrative system was unachievable probably led the rulers of the satellite states to assert their identification with their peoples in a more emphatic way than would have been expected [...] Nothing could have been further from Napoleon's thinking: for him, tomorrow belonged to states modeled on the French model and in the service of France" (74).

And so it was. In different contexts he imposed, to the letter, the French constitution.

French imperialism.

"After Marengo, Napoleon was able to draw advantage in the reoccupied territories from two benefits that his predecessors had not enjoyed: unity of command (in contrast to the previous division of power), and a certain degree of support from local elites, owing to the fact that during the brief restoration of 1799-1800 the old regimes had discredited themselves. The immediate solution he applied to the administration of those territories was to use the constitution of Year VIII as a model — the Directory had used that of Year III. In Piedmont, in the Cisalpine Republic, and in Liguria, executive 'government commissions' and legislative 'consultas' were established (June–July 1800)" (74).

But for this to be possible it would become essential that those constitutions, of French origin, also be imposed by Frenchmen, who set themselves up as the supreme authority.

French imperialism.

"But real power was concentrated more than ever in the hands of French representatives — generals Jourdan and Dejean in Piedmont and Liguria, and army inspector Petiet in the Cisalpine Republic — who acted as true proconsuls, combining military with civil authority, receiving orders directly from the First Consul, and presiding over the meetings of the executive commissions"(74).

French imperialism.

"A category ofgrands commis specialized in the occupation of territories emerged, competent in the art of introducing French administrative methods into newly annexed regions, and capable of passing on their experience to the youngauditeurswhoaccompaniedthem"(74).

In conclusion: messianism and imperialism are inextricably linked.

French imperialism.

"Nevertheless, what becomes clear from Napoleon's vast correspondence with the kings of his family is that he would not tolerate any discussion regarding the subordination of their states to France; not only in terms of political hegemony, but also as a cultural model to be strictly emulated"(74).

The colonial expansion projects of the late nineteenth century were likewise justified by themoral obligationto civilize primitive peoples, mired in pre-industrial backwardness. An argument that was also defended by a large part of the European socialist parties.

The messianic arguments, in any case, are not the only ones, and there exists another set of reasonings that revolve around the right to command. This right may represent something akin to a historical compensation for favors rendered…

Serbian nationalism.

"The political manipulation of that genocide complex of the Serbian people has been very skillful and effective. Its aims are also inscribed in Serbian mythology. This states that the Serbs have assumed the main efforts and sacrifices to liberate the Balkan Slavic peoples" (68).

French imperialism.

"[...] an indefinite presence of France over the entire continent, at least until the states and societies of Europe acknowledged their debt to France by accepting its political and economic hegemony…"(74).

(…) or without any very clear reason why.

American nationalism

"[...] that the nation blessed with the highest portion of liberty must be, in proportion to its numbers, the most powerful nation on earth…" (39).

Being almost never able to seize effective control of the State or States and of the society surrounding them, paranoid contagion groups may content themselves with the achievement of more nuanced forms of the exercise of power, of which at least three can be identified: infiltration, the occupation of associative spaces, and moral authority. These attenuated forms of power may be seen as intermediate steps on the path toward the exercise of a more complete hegemony.

Infiltration

Infiltration aims to surreptitiously place members of the paranoid contagion group in positions of command within the group or institution it seeks to dominate, so that authority over it can be obtained, indirectly. The main difference from true subjugation is that, at least formally, the infiltrated institution maintains its independence.

Nueva Acrópolis

"Family and work relationships are maintained in order to avoid having too many problems, on the one hand, and to be infiltrated across all social strata, which means that if the members are well-liked they will have influence and will obtain favors in the media or tips and influences, as well as the opportunity to extract information from the various administrations, occupying middle-management positions in which the cult member tries to go unnoticed. Certain members do not proselytize, in order to settle without arousing suspicion in their family and work environments, when they are of interest to the cult" (57).

Infiltration is characteristic of paranoid contagion groups of a political orientation (which attempt to seize not only the State or political parties but also other types of organizations, such as trade unions).

Nazism.

"The politicized youth movements and student organizations, almost all of them right-wing and increasingly infiltrated by the Nazis, proclaimed themselves to be the bearers of the representation of youth" (30).

The apparatus of the State is a frequent object of infiltration attempts, from central institutions and bodies to local entities.

Cult groups. The Reverend Jones's People's Temple.

"Possibly in gratitude, Moscone appointed Jones as San Francisco's municipal Housing delegate. Tim Stoen, the People's Temple's lawyer, was hired by councilman Freitas. The Temple's members were absorbed into the urban bureaucracy. It was said that Jones effectively ran the Welfare department, and that with a single phone call he could resolve his followers' problems" (42).

Cult groups. Rainbow.

"A town council in the province of Tarragona, that of Mont-Ral, has been democratically taken by storm by the Rainbow cult, whose members registered as residents in the municipality shortly before the elections, and is being used as an instrument in the service of the cult, which since the 1987 elections has experienced a surprising growth in its economic activity, controlling agricultural cooperatives, a fish farm, a restaurant..." (61).

And the UN itself could become one if the claims of Sokagakkai were taken seriously.

Sokagakkai.

"It goes without saying that the UN in its current configuration is an association of member states. Consequently, it is not an organization in which non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can operate with their full potential. Democracy is based on the idea that legitimacy derives from the will of the people. Therefore, the key to UN reform, in which democratization is a central issue, is to find ways in which the will of the people can be reflected more precisely in the functioning of the international organization. For many years my thesis has been that the UN should bring its human dimension to the fore, as opposed to the nation-state dimension, in terms of both organization and operations. To make the faces of human beings more prominent, we must approach UN reform from two perspectives, that of the people and that of humanity as a whole.

The particular strength of NGOs, which have been extremely active players in international society in recent years, could be used to reinforce UN activities and give greater prominence to the interests of the common person. The UN Charter specifies that relations with NGOs shall be limited to consultations with the Economic and Social Council. However, in view of the growth and activity of NGOs in the international community, as well as the broad degree of collaboration that already exists between NGOs and the UN, I believe these restrictions are unnatural. A system should be created that reflects the opinions of NGOs not only in the Economic and Social Council, but also in the Security Council and the General Assembly" (36).

Occupation of associative space

The second strategy is the "occupation of associative spaces." Applied, to give an example, to the field of youth associations, the paranoid contagion group does not now attempt either to openly subdue or to infiltrate existing ones, but instead opts to create a new youth association, under its obedience, which competes with the rest of youth associations in attracting young people. To the extent that it succeeds, it can be said that the paranoid contagion group has been successful.

Nazism.

"Through the numerous rallies, parades, military reviews, indirect pressures on parents and teachers, and taking advantage of youth's tendency toward idealism and romanticism, the aim was to achieve a total enlistment of young people into the HJ (Hitler Youth)" (75).

The PCGs that deepen along this path tend to create a large number of associations aimed at encompassing different areas of the associative space.

Sectarian groups. El Patriarca.

"Engelmajer's organization is, today, like an immense octopus that operates from behind some one hundred and twenty legal entities around the world. In Spain alone we have confirmed the existence of at least 25 registered entities and another 10 that exist in name only" (62).

Sectarian groups. El Patriarca.

"The Association of Reinserted Persons and for the Reintegration of Le Patriarche (ARREP), established in Valencia in 1986...

In fact, ADELPA is the Spanish branch of its international inspiration, the International Sports Association Le Patriarche (AISP), headquartered in France...

The Association of Artists of El Patriarca (ARTISPA) is made up of...

The Association of Rights and Duties of HIV-Positive Persons and Carriers of the AIDS Virus (ADDEPOS), founded in 1987, is made up of young HIV-positive individuals...etc." (62).

The power that these subsidiaries confer upon the PCG does not always derive from their capacity to influence a greater number of people; rather, their usefulness may lie in providing it with greater effectiveness in its relations with other powers. When El Patriarca creates its own associations of former drug addicts or parents of drug addicts, it does so precisely with that intention.

Sectarian groups. El Patriarca.

"Lucien explains his point of view regarding the functions of the Support Associations:

These Associations must be the ones to assume and carry out relations with authorities, request subsidies, etc., there in the areas where they are established. They must ensure that the El Patriarca Association is accepted and known..." (62).

Sectarian groups. El Patriarca.

"On the one hand, we find support associations, made up of former drug addicts and parents of El Patriarca residents, whose purpose is to provide an apparent social base that legitimizes and calls for the intervention of El Patriarca in matters of detoxification, that faces the Administration and that, in the event of problems, takes up the banners to take to the streets to defend El Patriarca" (62).

The network of subsidiaries also serves the proselytizing objective.

Sokagakkai.

"The Soka Gakkai has a wide range of agencies and affiliated organizations that play two vital roles: extending its influence and teachings to the various sectors of society and attracting people from outside into the orbit of the Soka Gakkai" (52).

Among the temptations of paranoid contagion groups of sufficient size, the desire to create their own political party almost always figures prominently.

Sokagakkai.

"From the autumn of 1954, a new idea began to take root in Toda's mind regarding the partial realization of kosen-rufu. Although the plan he envisioned would someday have to be carried out, he was not sure that the present was the right moment. Discretion would be an essential factor. After all, the Soka Gakkai had barely a total of 180,000 families.

Examining a map showing the distribution of members that had been commissioned from Koichi Harayama, head of the Statistics Department, he saw that Tokyo and the surrounding Kanto region were the most densely populated areas, as was to be expected. In the northeast of Honshu, in Sendai and Akita, high densities were also observed; as well as in Hakodate, Hokkaido; in Sakai, not far from Osaka, and in Yame, Kyushu. Toda then ordered a map to be made combining the distribution of members with detailed information from recent national political elections. When this documentation was completed, dozens of sites appeared marked with circles across the nation where a good, capable candidate who was a member of the Soka Gakkai could have opportunities to win an election. This news was enough. Toda felt that the opportunity had come to put his idea into action" (37).

After World War II, neither Shinto priests nor any Japanese Buddhist organization thought to launch a political party; probably because none of them were so imbued with their own moral superiority or so confident in their fabulous capacity to regenerate and save society.

Sokagakkai.

"Only the Daigohonzon and the philosophy of Nichiren Daishonin can lay the foundations for the kind of nation that Japan must become.

Statements such as this served as the foundation for much of the political activism that began in the early 1950s and which later led to the founding of Komeito in 1964" (52).

Komeito has become a significant party which, having abandoned its initial maximalism, participated a few years ago in the Japanese government in coalition with the LDP. Despite this, no change has occurred either in the catastrophic economic situation or in the deep pessimism that in recent years has pervaded Japanese society. The facts do not appear to confirm the triumphant projections of the founders of Komeito.

The creation of a Third International (intended to compete with the Second International for leadership of the labor movement) with a planetary vocation, by a socialist party that until that point had been relatively small and marginal in intellectual debates, is a good example of how messianism and ambition act through the occupation of associative spaces.

Soviet Leninism.

"The communist regime organized its own revolutionary Third International, made up of the communist parties that were to be formed in Europe and throughout the entire world" (56).

The strategy of occupying associative spaces reaches its culmination when the PCG has the possibility of eliminating the competitors of its affiliates…

Nazism.

"For the time being, Catholic youth organizations were not touched. The Nazi government had signed a concordat with the Catholic Church on July 20, 1933, in which, among other things, it was stated that Catholic youth organizations would be able to continue their activities unhindered. However, this came to an end on December 1, 1936, when Hitler enacted a law concerning the Hitler Youth. From that day on, the Hitlerian organizations were the only legal organization open to all German males and females between the ages of 10 and 18" (71).

(…) or succeeds in recruiting its "target audience," even if by means of intimidation.

Nazism.

"By the end of 1938 the Hitler Youth had nearly eight million members. Despite strict regulations and the threat of imprisonment, the parents of four million young people were able to keep their children out of the organization. However, in March 1939 Hitler enacted a law whereby all boys and girls were automatically members of the Hitler Youth under the same system used for recruiting into the Army. Parents who were still recalcitrant were threatened with the possibility of having their children taken away and placed in orphanages" (Goebbels, cited in 71).

Moral authority

The third variant of nuanced or indirect power to which we alluded is one in which, even without there being formal submission, the PCG seeks to have its voice enjoy such a degree of respect and consideration that its advice is taken as orders (orders that it openly cannot give to those over whom it has no authority).

The TFP, for example, sends letters to members of parliament and political leaders in which it offers them advice regarding what they should or should not do. Their megalomania leads them to believe that those who receive these letters do not regard them as a small, marginal group, but rather see them as the "great wall" against communism…

Sectarian groups. TFP.

"Once again the TFP addresses the constituent members to alert them about the dangers Brazil faces of being turned away from the blessed paths of Christian civilization" (12).

Sectarian groups. TFP.

"As a contribution to the debates of the National Constituent Assembly, the TFP office in Brasilia promotes the delivery of the Society's most recent works on Agrarian Reform to the members of the Subcommittee on Agricultural Policy" (12).

Sectarian groups. TFP.

"The TFP sends a telegram to President Videla, congratulating him on the noble gesture of the Government of having rescued four Vietnamese refugees on the high seas and encourages him to carry out further rescues of these victims of communism" (12).

In a tempered variant of imperialism, the nation sees itself as a kind of primus inter pares that exercises its leadership by virtue of its great moral authority.

Hungarian fascism.

"Hungarianism is not directed solely at the 'mutilated country' nor is it restricted exclusively to the demands of the Hungarian people, but rather turns toward all the nationalities living within the Danubian basin and bounded by the Carpathians; nations all of them worthy of possessing a country in which to settle. Under the guidance and direction of the Hungarian people, and together with them, all these peoples compose the social, economic, moral, spiritual, material and political unity of the Hungarian nation" (Szalasi, quoted in 30).

Falangism.

"3. We have the will of Empire. We affirm that the historical fulfillment of Spain is the Empire. We demand for Spain a preeminent place in Europe. We will not tolerate either international isolation or foreign mediatization.

Regarding the countries of Spanish America, we tend toward the unification of cultures, economic interests, and power. Spain alleges its condition as the spiritual axis of the Hispanic world as a title of preeminence in international enterprises" (from the 26 points of Falangism).

Some paranoid contagion group even makes proposals so that its indisputable moral authority may come to enjoy some form of explicit recognition.

Sectarian groups. Hermetic Philosophical Institute.

"I have no doubt that cases of political demagoguery represent manifestly immoral behavior, due to the fact of manipulating people in order to use this power for a personalistic purpose and not with the aim of serving the real interests of the people.

When does demagoguery exist and when does it not? Only a superior tribunal of ethics, made up of good men, apolitical and authorities on the subject, could determine it with precision, which would be very beneficial…" (3).

Insubmission

Paranoid personality.

"[...] the paranoid tends to resist rules and regulations…" (4).

Just as important as the drive to subjugate one's surroundings is the obstination in not submitting to them. When the paranoid personality does not accept an authority in an absolute and unconditional manner, it tends toward the opposite pole, that of systematic oppositionalism. Authority is either fully complied with or seen as something akin to the enemy. In psychometric tests, paranoid personalities differ from others in that they acknowledge a greater tendency to "do the opposite" of what they are ordered to do, when the one giving the order is perceived as excessively authoritarian…

This resistance of the IP to the rules and regulations of their immediate environment (work, family…) manifests itself, in the APs, in an equally rebellious attitude toward the rules and regulations of society as a whole, that is, toward political power or the rule of law. Among Jehovah's Witnesses, the tendency toward insubordination finds significant support in the theory that all political systems and the entire international order that emerged after the First World War have a demonic origin and constitute a negation of the Kingdom of God. Since Jesus was crowned King in October 1914, the "governing body" of the JWs came to form part of the government of the new Kingdom, responsible for the exercise of power on Earth. Consequently, the world's governments have no alternative but to surrender to the new and only legitimate authority. With these premises, the JWs' respect for the laws and governments of States will be scant and, in any case, merely instrumental, with the aim of avoiding obstacles to their activities.

Paranoid personality.

"[...] the paranoid tends to resist rules and regulations, unless they serve their own plans" (4).

The following quote shows us a curious attempt to escape the control of political authority.

Sokagakkai.

"The three traditional branches of government in the West are the legislative, the judicial, and the executive. For a long time I insisted that an independent fourth branch be added: the educational branch. Education fulfills the vital function of cultivating the individual human being. Furthermore, it must assume the responsibility of teaching each individual absolute respect for life. Education must not be controlled by political authority. It is true that UNESCO exists for the international cooperation of educational, scientific, and cultural activities. The ideal of that organization is to ensure peace. But within the current structure of national powers, UNESCO, just like the United Nations itself, is subject to considerable political influence.

I believe that the matter deserving priority is to establish an independent branch of educational government and to create a world educational organization oriented toward ensuring peace. That organization must be free from all political control" (38).

Fortune

To Affiliate

Ambition. Disordered passion for [...] fortune (48).

Thus, ambition does not solely consist in wanting to shine, or to command, but also in wanting to have. The PI feels an excessive urge to accumulate possessions (money, real estate, etc.), an urge that, in general, is also experienced by PCGs. We use the term expansionism to refer to this ambition to have when the ambitious one is not a person but a group.

The insatiable ambition to have more and more that characterizes PCGs manifests itself primarily in three areas: that of affiliations, that of wealth, and that of territories. Let us begin with the first of them.

Indeed, clinical practice shows us how some PIs attempt to forge around themselves groups of followers who will support them in their ideas and projects.

Paranoia.

"[...] the patient appears in public as an apostle, attempts to found a community…" (41).

The attempt does not always fail, giving rise to newly created PCGs. In turn, the members of the new group, drawn in by the proselytizing activity of the PI, are themselves transformed into new agents of proselytism. In the majority of cases, responding to a very clear demand to attract new members to the group.

Sokagakkai.

"In other words, the practice of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism has two aspects. These consist of practice for oneself and practice for others. Practice for oneself is carried out so that you may receive your own benefits. Doing gongyo is practicing for oneself and doing shakubuku is equivalent to practicing for others. These two are like the wheels of a cart. Without both wheels, the cart could not function properly" (73).

The fact is that the paranoid contagion group is not content with being as it is, but wishes to be larger, to increase its size.

Sokagakkai.

"We have resolved to spread True Buddhism throughout the world" (37).

The need to increase the number of adherents is such that one could almost say that the paranoid contagion group sees itself as a growing organism.

Cult groups. The Patriarch.

"... Lucien points out that the 'El Patriarca' Association is not a therapy but a youth dynamic, its strength lies in its expansion and growth..." (62).

Consequently, there are few things to which the paranoid contagion group attributes as much importance as to its capacity to maintain a satisfactory rate of new additions.

Sokagakkai.

"I am proud of my faith, and willing to sacrifice my life for it. During my lifetime, I will personally bring in seven hundred and fifty thousand families through shakubuku activities. The clergy must be prepared for this number of new members. If I fail to achieve my goal, there will be no need to hold a funeral service when I perish: simply throw my body into the sea" (37).

The importance attributed to growth is manifest in the habitual exhortations by LP leaders to attract new members to the group, as well as in the willingness to devote a large portion of economic resources — if not virtually all of them — to proselytizing.

Sectarian groups. Moonies.

"But when they invited me to participate in one of their international conferences in Korea, it produced great excitement in me [...]

The actual cost of the trip was $4,000, but I could go for $750. When I explained that I was broke, having only very recently started my job at CV, he told me that more money was available. Finally, he suggested that I could go for as little as $100.

[...] The purpose of these trips was to provide clergy with a close-up view of Moon's work. To go, the beneficiary had to sign an agreement to attend forty hours of Unification conferences or spend a similar amount of time with cassette tapes of the conferences. Then, upon arriving in Korea, the traveler had to participate in intensive conferences on Unification theology" (59).

In some APs the proselytizing effort is closely supervised by the leaders, with adherents being required to meet certain minimum quotas: of "friendly" people to attempt to bring in, of home visits, of weekly hours of preaching, or a minimum number of conversions per year. This proselytizing zeal is what has led to the popular perception of cult members as being, among other things, a nuisance.

Sokagakkai.

"Sokagakkai acquired a bad reputation among non-believers in the 50s and 60s because of the fanatical attempts by some eager members to almost force others to become believers. Some of my old American and Japanese friends recount how in the early days of the Gakkai they were approached by members and continually harangued about the benefits of membership. One American had a Japanese neighbor who was a member of the Soka Gakkai. The neighbor bothered the American day and night until he moved away in frustration. The members considered it a sacred duty to convert as many people as possible, even if excessive pressure had to be applied" (52).

Cult groups. Phoenix Valley Church of Christ.

"As she came to think that her entire family would be lost if she did not try to convince them (the Boston churches constituted the only "true church") Barbara constantly spoke to them about salvation. The family grew weary of the spiritual harassment, as did her old friends..." (21).

The scarcity of conversions, or the inconceivable situation in which departures outnumber entries, always produces frustration, as the fulfillment of messianic dreams fades into a progressively more distant and diffuse future. It is not uncommon for paranoid contagion groups to enter into crisis precisely when they lose their appeal and proselytizing efforts fail to yield the expected results.

Nevertheless, the proselytizing success that paranoid contagion groups occasionally achieve is striking.

Italian Fascism.

"There is an incontestable fact that, from its very birth, bore witness to the impetuous vitality of the fascist movement: its proselytism. In this, no other party can rival us. The old parties do not win new recruits to their cause" (Benito Mussolini, cited in 30).

Maoist Leninism.

"He led a miserable life, sleeping in a small room with seven other students. 'Every time I turned over in my sleep I was obliged to warn the companions on either side,' he explains. Afterwards, together with eleven other comrades he would found the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai. In his home region, of whose communist party he is secretary, he has founded twenty-two trade unions" (49).

Nazism.

"At the end of 1926 Hitler sends Goebbels as district chief to Berlin. In the German capital there are, at that time, some 500 National Socialists, who moreover are at odds with one another...

In just a few years he manages to recruit some 50,000 party members in Berlin" (75).

Outside the political sphere, the achievements of the Sokagakkai in relatively few years were equally remarkable.

Sokagakkai.

"After this, the report on membership figures was drawn up. At that moment, the number of members had risen to 102,637 families, nearly one hundred times the figure of 1,204 families from three years earlier, when Toda was named president" (37).

Sokagakkai.

"Today the Soka Gakkai is a mass religious movement that claims to count among its members 10% of the Japanese population and several hundred thousand abroad, including half a million followers in the United States" (52).

These rapid recruitment successes cannot be explained solely by the proselytizing efforts of the adepts, but one must consider that, in some way, postwar Japan or interwar Germany already constituted fertile ground for their respective redemptive messages. Even so, the success in attracting followers that manifestly delusional individuals can achieve remains striking.

Messianic movements. Yahweh ben Yahweh (20th century).

"After the failure of the Modern Christian Church, he spends a few years perfecting his new invention, the Temple of Love, which he launches in 1978. Having become Yahweh ben Yahweh, he attracts close to ten thousand adepts in less than four years.

Mitchell now defines himself as a living God. A radical nationalist, he advocates all-out struggle against the 'white devils' and explains to Black people that they are the true Israelites" (6).

The arguments with which paranoid thinking explains the necessity and importance of proselytizing activity tend to cluster along predetermined lines. Thus, quite a few sectarian groups place the fulfillment of their messianic dreams at the moment when all of humanity shall have converted.

Sectarian groups. Hare Krishna.

"The Krishnas consider themselves the last and best line of defense against the sudras, the inferior forces that were subverting the world. 'We do not wish to obtain happiness for ourselves' stated a communiqué from the North American central office, which was in Los Angeles. 'In Krishna consciousness, we feel happy seeing others chant Hare Krishna and take prashad (blessed food)'. For the Krishnas, personal salvation and inner beatitude would have to wait until the battle was won and the world had converted" (25).

In another paranoid fantasy, the end of the world is imminent and only those within the group will be saved. A minimum of concern for others compels them to frenetically set out to convert them, taking advantage of the last possible opportunity for rescue.

Sectarian groups. A Pentecostalist indigenous community in the Yucatán.

"[...] the men went out to evangelize, trying to save as many souls as possible before the feared but awaited event [the end of the world] came to pass" (23).

In the pages that follow I will discuss the most common specific measures used for proselytism. But first it is worth recalling that, often, paranoid contagion groups set themselves goals and deadlines entirely out of touch with reality, in a departure from it that we might well categorize as delusional.

Sectarian-Leninist groupuscule. SLA.

"Cin announced that for the revolution the SLA would divide itself into three teams, with three members in each, based on each one's strengths and weaknesses. The teams would operate as completely independent and self-sufficient units, training together and carrying out actions together. Once on the street, we would go our own way, never meeting again except for occasional War Council meetings of the SLA units. Each armed team would recruit followers until it had formed itself into a true combat unit. Then each unit would divide again into three teams of three members who would create new combat units. In time, each one of the original nine of us would lead a complete combat unit in the ever-growing Symbionese Liberation Army" (29).

Sokagakkai.

"But as the Soka Gakkai had no success in this part of its mission, which was to bring a third of the world to become believers in Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism…" (35).

Street proselytism

Nazism.

"With these purposes in view, we endeavored to hold, first monthly and later fortnightly, a meeting. The invitations were written partly by typewriter and partly by hand. I remember that I myself once delivered up to eight of those cards; at night we would wait for the crowd that was sure to come" (33).

Sectarian groups with greater proselytizing zeal send their followers into public spaces to approach unknown passersby. Over the years, these street recruiters become true experts at identifying and approaching the most vulnerable individuals.

Sokagakkai.

"In the heat of summer, enthusiastic representatives of the Soka Gakkai roamed the streets of those regions, distributing copies of their newspaper Seikyo Shimbun, inviting family members and close acquaintances, organizing meetings however few the members might be, and employing all their strength to stir interest in the conferences on Buddhism, which played an important role in the campaign" (37).

Cults. Moonies.

"During the nineteen seventies, the members of this group had a regular presence in most American cities. They stationed themselves on street corners and sold flowers, sweets, dolls, and various objects, while actively devoting themselves to recruiting young people in schools and universities. Well groomed, courteous, and persevering, the Moonies proliferated for years while being the subject of strong criticism in the press nearly everywhere" (28).

Cults. Moonies.

"One day, while I was reading a book in the student union cafeteria, three attractive women of Japanese origin and an Italian-American man approached my table. They were dressed like students and were carrying books. They asked me if they could share my table. I nodded, and a few minutes later we were having a friendly conversation. Since I had a three-hour break between classes, I stayed with them and we continued chatting. They told me they were also students and that they belonged to a small community of 'young people from all over the world'. They invited me to come and visit them"(28).

Typically, these street preachers lead a wandering life and the group relocates them with some frequency, since an excessively prolonged presence in the same area loses its effectiveness.

Sectarian groups. Moonies.

"One does not join the Unification Movement on a part-time basis. From the moment of their joining, the majority of young Moonists are in the care of the community. Housed, fed, looked after by the Church. Initially they are entrusted with missionary activities.They then move from one center to another, depending on needs and evangelization campaigns decided at the highest level"(7).

Although recruiters tend to act alone or in small groups, showing a certain discretion in order to facilitate the approach to potential proselytes, others behave differently.

Sectarian groups. TFP.

"Some TFP propagandists, who had taken part in the campaign of September-October of this year, expressed the desire not to interrupt the work of spreading the works recommended by the TFP and to devote themselves to this arduous task. Thus arose the firstcaravanof TFP members and cooperators, which set out from São Paulo that month to travel across Brazil.

Little by little, several caravans take shape, constituting a highly efficient and sui generis propaganda machine that marks the permanent presence of the TFP even in the most remote corners of Brazil. From that point on, the caravans have not interrupted their work. Up to the publication of this book they had already covered 4,155,310 km., made 19,387 visits to cities and sold 1,430,981 copies of publications, from north to south and from east to west of a country of continental dimensions. The distance covered is equivalent to one hundred trips around the earth or five round trips to the moon" (12).

The street preachers of modern sectarian groups are nothing but the updated version of the wandering preachers of the ancient messianic movements, walking without rest through the countryside and from village to village....

Anabaptist messianisms. John of Leiden (16th century).

"Emissaries went out without cease, slipping through the siege whenever and however they could, to spread propaganda and attract new saints…" (19).

[...] or from village to village.

Crisis cults. The Melanesian cargo (20th c.).

"L. and his brothers and other Katami men brought the new teachings to neighboring clans and distant areas..." (66).

Crisis cults. The Shakers of Puget Sound (19th c.).

"He fully recognized Slocum's authority because the latter had been to heaven, but he undertook the construction of churches and sent preachers to other tribes, which brought with it the spread of the cult throughout the coast of the State of Washington" (44).

Crisis cults. Keekhwei: ramkokamekra prophetess (20th c.).

"The day the girl was born, the hero would return to restore justice on earth. Enthused, the ramkokamekra hastened to spread the news through the various villages of the tribe..." (64).

Proselytizing friendship

But, in most cases, indiscriminate proselytism is rarely successful, and it is preferable that some kind of personal relationship exist between the recruiter and the potential recruit. For this reason, it is common for the cult member to proselytize among their relatives and friends, or to attempt to befriend their potential proselytes.

Sokagakkai.

"One begins shakubuku with another person by inviting them to a discussion meeting. Questions are answered in advance to prepare the guest for the meeting. At the meeting, the member takes care to help the guest chant, often sharing a gongyo book, introducing the guest during the meeting, and speaking with the guest after the meeting to answer further questions and obtain a phone number to call. The member does everything possible to establish a personal relationship with the potential shakubuku. The relationship between an NSA member and the one who was shakubukized by him or her is considered mystical, parallel to the master-disciple relationship spoken of by Nichiren" (35).

However, this is a merely instrumental friendship, which ceases when it becomes apparent that it does not lead to the desired objective.

Sectarian groups. Moonies.

"Their departure file is a condemnation without appeal. 'Under a strong negative spiritual influence. Strange and bothersome behavior; member of a Christian group called the Templars, perhaps sent here as a spy; has attempted to influence the other guests. [...] Has retained nothing of the Principles and has been unable to enter into the atmosphere of the Family. Pointless to make contact again" (7).

Sectarian groups. Maranatha Christian Ministries.

"Friendships outside of MCM come to an end except in the context of evangelism. Friendships were only permitted to be developed for the purpose of bearing witness" (21).

French revolutionary messianism had a clear intuition of the importance that friendly interpersonal relationships could have for proselytism, and it concerned itself fully consciously with taking the necessary measures to ensure that those relationships could be generalized.

French imperialism.

"Thus, the export of French forms of sociability formed an integral part of the process intended to raise the level of civilization of other nations. On a more practical level, French administrators were always very sensitive to local associative structures and to other less formal expressions of sociability, given that these provided precisely the appropriate setting and occasions for social contacts and friendly conversations that made it possible to overcome old social distinctions or political disagreements, as well as to forge or consolidate new relationships and integrate elites within the new order. For Napoleon, sociability constituted an essential part of administrative responsibilities.

The memoirs of the period that referred to the occupied territories, whether from civilians or military personnel, are filled with descriptions of receptions, dinners, balls, and other social events. Their tone oscillates between indulgence toward the old ways of life and the conviction that the new French style was imposing itself upon local elites. Duret de Tavel, an officer serving in Calabria, wrote home in 1808 saying that:

Since the arrival of the French, Cosenza has gained much with regard to sociability. There are balls, brilliant and numerous gatherings, at which liqueurs and sorbets are served... The ladies, captivated by our manners, have become very accessible... The voluptuous waltz has succeeded the strange dances of the country" (74).

Certainly, those AP in which that convenient personal relationship is replaced by a sexual relationship are a minority.

Sectarian groups. Children of God.

"So we soon realized that we could not enter these places for purely personal and selfish recreation, exercise and entertainment. We could not be face to face and body to body with those who clung to us with such longing for us to meet their needs. We could not withhold the bread from the hungry, —the Bread of Life, Christ Jesus— nor the drink from the thirsty, the Water of His Word that satisfies the most extreme longings of the human soul.

The flesh can satisfy the flesh, but only the spirit can satisfy the spirit and we soon discovered that we had to give both in order to 'satisfy all their needs according to His riches and glory'. (Philippians 4:19) We could not deny any need to those hungry for love, when we had it at hand and when we had the power to satisfy them and give them our all, so that they might be healed and for His Glory.

Sometimes we went through the agonies of Gethsemane, but once the life of love had begun, we realized it was endless, that it had no limit or end until death on the cross. We had to give and give and give again until it hurt.

[...] We soon found that there was no end or extreme to which God would not go to save a poor lost soul with His infinite love and boundless mercy. We soon discovered that our hearts were irresistibly drawn toward the emptiness of their hearts to satisfy their spirits, in the same way that our bodies were irresistibly drawn to one another to satisfy their flesh.

There was no place to draw the line of distinction between the two, the flesh and the spirit. There was no middle ground, no 'sort of'. It had to be either 'all or absolutely nothing'; otherwise it was impossible for them to believe it was true love. They could not understand how one could offer to fill their heart but not their body, to satisfy their soul but not their hungry flesh" (53).

Lure centers and activities. Deception

The imperative to recruit at all costs leads PCGs to resort with some frequency to deceptive methods, initially projecting a distorted image of themselves. All for a good cause.

Cult groups. Nueva Acrópolis.

"Propaganda —continues Livraga, leader of Nueva Acrópolis— must offer a welcoming image of personal convenience, without letting it show that people are being called to change their lives and burden them with enormous sacrifices or efforts. Once inside, they understand us better and regard these sacrifices as honors, but, before that, they frighten people away" (61).

Or else they organize activities or centers that apparently serve one purpose, but in reality serve above all the proselytizing objective.

Sokagakkai.

"And that year, as an objective —or perhaps as part of a broader process— in our movement toward worldwide belief in Nichiren Shoshu, it has been proposed to hold a Festival for World Peace in Los Angeles" (38).

The messianic bias causes adherents to become understanding even of the most brazen frauds, if these are going to serve to attract new members to the group.

Cult groups. Reverend Jones's People's Temple.

"According to the testimonies of former followers, Jones recruited no fewer than twenty thousand adherents through his miraculous healings. As in all hermetic cults, there were levels of initiation. Those who sensed something was amiss justified the tricks on the basis that they served to draw a greater number of individuals to the truth..." (42).

Procreation

In already mature groups, intrafamilial proselytism plays a progressively more prominent role. Parents take it upon themselves to indoctrinate their children at an early age and to immerse them in the atmosphere, emotions, and activities of the group (although these second-generation adherents, who in recent years have attracted growing scientific interest, show a certain tendency toward relaxation and toward blurring the paranoid profiles of the group into which they were born).

Sokagakkai.

"Take care of your health so that you may live to see the 21st century. If you were to die before seeing everything you have set out to achieve come to fruition, pass the work on to your children and always strive to show yourselves attentive and loving toward your wives" (38).

It goes without saying that there exist paranoid contagion groups that encourage the birth rate of couples with a view to achieving, through this means, the growth of the group.

Nazism.

"The preservation of the large family as it exists today is a matter of social sensitivity; the maintenance of the large family type is a matter of biological conception, as much as of national conception. It is necessary to sustain and support the large family not because it does not have enough to sustain itself, but because it constitutes the precious and indispensable cell of the German people. And it is both things not only because it is, in reality, the one that guarantees the numerical preservation of the nation, but because it is the best support for popular morality and culture..." (30).

Nazism.

"Members of the SS who had served meritoriously would have the right to take a second wife, so that as many fair-haired, blue-eyed children as possible would be born [...] so that in 1,000 years the German people would total 500 million souls, populating the lands between the Urals and the North Sea" (71).

Cult groups. Children of God.

"... of the Children of God, in which the leader Berg, alias Moses David, encourages his children to have as many children as they can in order to increase the 'tribe'..." (61).

Self-proselytism

An interesting variant is the one in which proselytizing activity is limited to those people who, from the perspective of the PCG, belong to the group, but do not know it. This is how the Nazi regime understood the education of children.

Nazism.

"6th. One is born a National Socialist, but is perfected through education and, what is more, through self-education" (Ten Laws for the Education of Children, September 9, 1937, cited in 75).

And the same happens with nationalisms when, using linguistic, racial, or historical criteria, they persist in denying individuals the right to decide for themselves their affiliation.

Serbian nationalism.

"Seselj has taken mythological nationalism to its ultimate consequences: to the justification and apology of genocide. He is at least sincere when he explains that the Serbs must cleanse Kosovo of all those Albanians who do not accept Serbian national order and power; to strip the Macedonians, by fair means or foul, of the idea that they are not Serbs..." (68).

Nazism.

"From the outset, it must be prevented that a national myth of Belgium and Holland be created anew on the other side. The points that might give rise to this must be destroyed or occupied. That is why, starting this afternoon, Radio will begin broadcasting old war songs of Dutch peasants, characterizing them as an enduring part of German folkloric heritage" (5).

Greed and avarice

Paranoid personality. Hampton (1990).

"As an old man [...] he becomes a [...] greedy and miserly person" (26).

Paranoid personality. Hampton (1990).

"[...] there are some personality traits that indicate a paranoid tendency, in a person who is susceptible, solitary, deeply absorbed in money and possessions and little interested in others" (26).

Erotomania. Clinical case.

"A patient [interned in Trélat's asylum] is typical in this regard: after having nurtured an ideal love for a certain Alexis for many long years, as she was a skilled worker, she managed to accumulate through authorized work paid for by employers a sum of 1,200 francs. She no longer spoke of her dear Alexis but sometimes would stop to take from her corset a bundle of gold coins which she would contemplate and handle with intense happiness" (17).

The relationship between greed (the excessive desire to obtain money and riches) and avarice (the morbid reluctance to part with them), on the one hand, and paranoid behavior , on the other, has aroused far less interest than it deserves. Although the excessive attachment to money often surfaces in clinical descriptions, very few authors have underscored the importance of this relationship.

Paranoid personality. Hampton (1990).

"Their compulsion to control, manipulate, and acquire can result in the accumulation of great wealth or power" (26).

Paranoid personality. Hampton (1990).

"Paranoiacs experience something akin to physical pain when they must part with money or material possessions" (26).

We must remember that one of the contents of the limited repertoire of delusional themes is, precisely, sudden enrichment, and that quite a few paranoid personalities offer their followers the reward of material prosperity. A near future of wealth figures in thecatalogue of benefits of some cult groups. In Sokagakkai, for example, there is the conviction that the recitation of thedaimoku will resolve all the economic problems of those who carry it out with sufficient fervor and intensity. Some commercial mercantile cults, mainly sales networks, likewise offer the possibility of earning great fortunes. For the ambitious paranoid individual, the acquisition of money is just as important as its preservation, and it is for this reason that many of them, like Trélat's patient, become wealthy.

Paranoia. The master painter N.

"The master painter N. has risen from a poor social class to a respectable bourgeois position, through his effort and his ambition" (43).

The connection with other facets of paranoid behavior (superiority, contempt, or catastrophism) is made evident in the following quotation.

Paranoid personality. Hampton (1990).

"John Stark has been a successful businessman and by fifty he had amassed a fortune. His father had imposed discipline rigorously. He was a person of humble condition and John often had no money. This generated in him a deep drive to make money and his entire life was dominated by greed and the need to control. John Stark was not a friendly person and only wanted the company of wealthy people. He spoke ill of those who had little, and considered them stupid, arguing that everyone has the same opportunities to earn money" (26).

Greed and avarice in APs

But furthermore, it is the groups themselves that, acting as such, display an inexhaustible greed. So much so, that one of the most commonly accepted topics concerning cults conceives of them as mere machines directed at the obtaining of money. And, like many IPs, they often succeed.

Sectarian groups. El Patriarca.

"In these last four years of activity, the organization of El Patriarca has accumulated an enormous patrimony in every country in which it has managed to establish itself…" (62).

Sectarian groups. El Patriarca.

"By increasing their population of inmates with subsidized young people, they not only gain access to a fixed income that lowers the organization's general costs, they also obtain an economic surplus that can be directed toward other purposes of dubious welfare value — or at least, in no way related to the spirit of the subsidies — and a mass of free labor that, through their effort, contributes to keeping the centers running and to increasing the value of the Association's real estate holdings: that is, ultimately, to substantially lowering structural operating costs and, at the same time, to notably increasing El Patriarca's capital.

The magazines published by El Patriarca are another important source of income for the organization" (62).

Sectarian groups. The commune of Otto Muehl.

"Today, five years after its foray into the processing of life and health insurance, with companies in Zurich, Munich, Düsseldorf, Berlin and Luxembourg, the cooperative that was born in Friedrichshof picking strawberries in season has already invested 1 billion pesetas in La Gomera. Its facilities on the Austrian farm are worth considerably more. Its members in the Munich company travel in Mercedes cars with telephones" (69).

Sectarian groups. The Reverend Jones's People's Temple.

"1965. Jones organizes two societies, his first serious ventures in the field of business. The non-profit society Protective Wings registers its objective as 'To promote the Kingdom of God and propagate the Truth of the Sacred Word of the Most High'. The objective of the Jim-Lu-Mar association was to obtain profits through the acquisition of companies" (42).

To what should we attribute paranoid greed and avarice? While in the IP catastrophism and fear of the future tend to predominate, in paranoid contagion groups economic ambition responds to more varied motives. Some groups use money primarily for proselytizing activity; other APs use it to embark on costly real estate projects.

Sokagakkai.

"In the following days, the Words of the Supreme Prelate regarding building more structures and protecting the Main Temple with greater devotion never ceased to wander through Toda's mind" (37).

Sokagakkai.

"After evoking the difficulties that had arisen the previous year in relation to the temple, Toda summarized the process by which the Soka Gakkai sought to promote the construction of temples throughout the nation, sometimes with success, sometimes with disagreements with the clergy" (37).

Many cults use the profits simply to surround the LP with luxury and ostentation.

If APs seem to have a certain ability to enrich themselves, it is mainly because they obtain a large amount of economic resources from their followers, given that those followers show little reluctance to donate their belongings to the group, and even do so spontaneously. Furthermore, the availability of cheap and uncontentious labor makes it possible to organize highly profitable activities. Among these, the street sale of group materials stands out (which serves the dual purpose of proselytizing and commerce), which in some cases generates truly significant income.

Cult groups. Reverend Jones's People's Temple.

"In 1966, Jones led a procession of about one hundred followers to the city of Ukiah, in northern California, about one hundred miles north of San Francisco. There he purchased a church, which he simply called the People's Temple, along with other property. From his base in the Redwood Valley, Jones's reputation and his church's influence spread to San Francisco and Los Angeles. His entire community would travel to both cities on weekends to spread Jones's word and win converts (and collect money). According to the testimony of his former acolytes, those weekend trips brought in some thirty thousand dollars or more for the coffers of Jones's cult" (42).

The organization of courses is another characteristic source of income for cults. Thus, some academies or yoga centers or alternative therapy centers serve, at the same time, to enrich the AP that sets them up, to allow their members to subsist, and to attract new members.

Less frequently, APs establish businesses in other more traditional sectors. Success is usually based on the low remuneration and unconditional dedication of the employees.

Cult groups. Otto Muehl's commune.

"It is not entirely clear, and they do not go into much detail on the matter, whether Muehl's powers of persuasion were the key to success in this brutally competitive sector. Groups of members received specialized training at universities in the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland" (69).

Cult groups. Church of Bible Understanding.

"The members of COBU were employed in various businesses, including S & G Cameras, one of Traill's companies, and Christian Brothers Carpet Company, a carpet cleaning company run by almost all the men of COBU. Betty, in her capacity as a Gayle Helper, had signed a 'Gayle Helper Contract', and worked in the camera store. Anything, from purchasing supplies to attending promotions to cleaning dishes and bathrooms, was carried out by the Gayle Helpers, usually full-time without compensation. Although with the privilege of living in Traill's $900,000 property in Princeton, New Jersey, the Gayle Helpers on the camera promotion circuit were expected to sleep in the vans. According to Betty, 'These women were called gypsies. They washed their hair in sinks at gas stations, used the pools of hotels they were not staying at, and changed their clothes in the bathrooms of restaurants where they had no intention of eating. They ate in the vans'"21).

Greed and avarice in SPs

SPs are not immune to economic ambition. In nationalism, prosperity is often valued not so much because it allows for increased well-being of the population and the meeting of its needs, but because it allows one to "win" in an absurd competition with other nations to be the most prosperous, most influential nation, etc.

American nationalism

"Seven years later, Benton himself conceived of the United States as a great Pacific power, which would complete the unfinished work of Columbus and discover the western route to India. Pointing westward, he said: 'There lies the East, and there the road to India.' He maintained that Europe had begun to decline, that the United States should turn its back on it, take advantage of its geopolitical advantages by dominating the oceans,seize the trade of Asia and become the axis [economic]of the world"(39).

Today, the state patriotism of some countries is expressed — at a fairly superficial level — in an insistent display of scores obtained in GDP, incomeper capita, economic growth, etc.

Territorial ambition

Querulous litigants. Clinical case.

"He had tried to demolish his son's house with an axe, claiming it was his property..." (50).

The drive to establish dominion over a portion of the planet (whether large territories or small plots of land or real estate), being a relatively universal human tendency (at least since the discovery of agriculture), seems to carry somewhat greater relevance among IP, yet another reflection of their inordinate ambition. In some cases one might even say that the defense or expansion of territory comes to occupy the foreground of patients' ruminations and actions.

"Under the somewhat imprecise title of 'Monomanic states linked to the deviation of the instinct for the preservation of property', Dr. Pailhas has presented to the Congress of Alienists and Neurologists of Bordeaux an interesting work in which he describes the mental state of certain individuals who, having had their assets expropriated, refuse to accept the judgment rendered, and, considering themselves unjustly dispossessed and still the legitimate owners, engage, in defense of their supposed rights, in more or less violent claims

[...] Facts of this kind, which appear to belong to the reasoning delirium of persecution, to the paranoia querulens of the Germans, must not be rare at all.

[...] could be designated more simply, I believe, by the name of reasoning delirium of confiscation" (60).

"The history of O., reduced to the essential facts of the case, is as follows:

Now forty-five years of age, he married in 1877, under a community of marital property regime, a woman who, in money and property, made a total contribution of 1,500 francs; at first, the family functioned properly, but discord soon arose, and in 1887, O. was sentenced by the criminal court of Bergerac to a fine of 5 francs for acts committed against his wife and son.

Further quarrels then ensued and, on repeated occasions, his wife brought a divorce suit against him. But, for better or worse, matters were settled and they resumed their life together.

In 1893, unable to bear it any longer, and following a heated argument in which her husband proved more violent and brutal than usual, Madame O. abandoned the conjugal home and moved in with her children to her parents' house, where she has remained ever since.

The matter is judged by the court of Bergerac which, on July 3, 1894, approves the divorce in favor of the plaintiff and orders O. to return the assets brought by his wife and to pay her an allowance of 30 francs.

O. appeals before the Bordeaux Court, which, on January 24, 1985, purely and simply upholds the ruling of the Bergerac tribunal.

O.'s refusal to comply with the terms of the judgment persisting, proceedings are initiated for the liquidation and confiscation of his assets, and his furniture is sold on September 1st and his enclosure on November 13th, 1985.

While the sales are taking place, O. lets things happen and says nothing. But he does not abandon his property, and when the buyer wants to take possession of it, he refuses to leave, declaring himself to be in his own home. At the same time, and as if to assert his rights, he demonstrates that he is the owner by uprooting the fruit trees and cultivating the land.

It is in vain that the authorities intervene and attempt to expel him. O. adopts a dangerous attitude and, armed with either a spade or a rifle, threatens the police commissioner, the gendarmes, and the bailiff who appear one after another with death.

[...] a medico-legal examination concludes that he is in full possession of his cerebral functions and is responsible for his actions" (60).

A second forensic evaluation concluded that O. was a genuine lunatic, and therefore not responsible for his actions, not only due to the presence of long-standing delusional ideas (of an alleged grievance on the part of his in-laws, of poisoning, hypochondriacal ones) but because the reasoning on which he based his conduct suffered from numerous flaws revealing of his diseased nature.

"To this end, he has interpreted things in his own way, and has created a kind of right and procedure of his own, essentially based on the principle that, as long as he does not give his acquiescence through his signature or his presence, the sentences handed down and the instructions given were null and void. Thus, the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Bordeaux has been, according to him, pronounced, but not delivered, because there were no pleadings nor did he sign. Likewise, the sale of his furniture is null, because the proceedings were carried out as in a voluntary sale and not as in a foreclosure sale, and because the fees were made payable by the seller and not the buyer. Furthermore, the sale of his enclosure has not taken place, because the administration cannot register it without his signature…" (60).

The real estate ambition of PDs is well known. Reading their periodical magazines often reveals the great importance they attach to the acquisition and opening of new premises, a goal to which they devote a disproportionate economic effort. On some occasions, they may accumulate a more than notable patrimony, taking into account the size of the group.

Sectarian groups. Moonies.

"In order to receive those aspirants under the best possible psychological conditions — in calm, away from family, friends and temptations — the Church needs secluded, spacious and, if possible, attractive houses... This explains why the Movement endowed itself, very quickly and throughout the world, with a considerable and very bourgeois real estate patrimony" (7).

Sectarian groups. El Patriarca.

"The same source states that, in 1988, Lucien Engelmajer is the founder of more than 200 centers in the world. Of these, 85 are therapeutic apartments, with 5 to 20 places, located in the largest cities of Europe. For communal living, there are 22 large-capacity centers (which can range from 50 to 200 places), 20 more 'family-oriented' centers (between 20 and 25 places), and 31 centers of intermediate capacity" (62).

Without any doubt, the PCGs that attribute the greatest importance to the possession of land are nations. If the praxis of nationalism grants such extraordinary importance to territory (to its defense and to its expansion), it is because territory is simply indispensable to its existence. A true nation cannot practice nomadism (as the Roma once did, or the ancient warrior tribes) nor can it exist as a minority that coexists with different peoples in geographically distant areas (as the Jews or the Quakers do). A nation requires a territory — it is indispensable to it — for territory not only delimits the sphere of action of the Nation-State, but also determines, in the Enlightened version of nationalism, who has access to nationality/citizenship: all those born within its borders. But this practical sense of the appropriation of territory does not explain why nations are capable of waging the most ferocious and destructive battles over the most remote, inhospitable, and useless territories.

Not to mention romantic nationalism, which establishes a mystical ancestral relationship between a people and their territory.

Since the nation sees itself as a people and a territory fused and inseparable, it is natural that ambition, the desire to be "greater," should include the absorption of new portions of the earth's surface. In fact, shortly after coming into being, the first modern Nation-State began a process of violent expansion of its own borders.

French imperialism.

"Although France did not seem capable of establishing peace on account of its limitless expansionist ambitions…" (74).

French imperialism.

"When the coup of Brumaire took place, successive French governments had experimented with the mechanisms of occupation and had developed certain techniques. Purely military occupation, which entailed treating the conquered country as enemy territory, was a provisional or emergency situation [...] As soon as it became apparent that the extension of French borders was desirable and feasible, the territory was restructured according to the French model of departments, either after annexation (Savoy, Belgium) or in preparation for annexation (the Rhineland, Piedmont)" (74).

An annexation suffered by increasingly distant territories…

French imperialism.

"The extension of military activities and political changes from the Netherlands and the Rhineland to Switzerland and Italy, along with the annexation of the Rhineland and Geneva and the creation of the Roman and Helvetic Republics (1798), effectively nullified all the provisions of the Treaty of Campo Formio. The extension of military strategy throughout the Mediterranean, with the annexation of the Ionian Islands and Malta…" (74).

(…) and which transformed France into a state far more extensive than at the beginning of the Revolution.

French imperialism.

"In 1812 the Grand Empir had reached its maximum extent: 750,000 km2 divided into 130 departments, with 44 million inhabitants, in addition to the four Catalan departments, six Illyrian intendancies and 24 departments of the Kingdom of Italy" (74).

Subsequently, discontent with existing borders and the desire to expand them (the opposite being absolutely exceptional) spread to other nations, especially during moments of greatest patriotic exaltation.

German nationalism.

"Arndt, Goerres (for whom the French are the hereditary enemy) defend the same ideas. Arndt does so with a popular surliness, preaching at the same time the wars of liberation of 1813, hatred of the French, 'who tear apart our energy and weaken our virtues and our power.' One of his pamphlets bears the title, 'The Rhine, a German river and not a border of Germany.' It is necessary for a people to protect itself from any outside influence and to take root in its native land" (16).

Nazism.

"Mr. Gutterer will be required to demand that the 'Skala' withdraw the program booklet in which the Eastern March appears outside the German Reich" (5).

The natural growth of that living organism which is the Nation-State takes place through contiguity, absorbing neighboring territories. But there is also the possibility that it may occur over great distances, in the manner of true metastases.

German nationalism.

"In 1834, a customs union (Zollverein) was established among the 18 states of northern Germany, including Prussia. This agreement would crown the efforts of the economist Friedrich List. List belonged to the spiritual lineage of Fichte: he was, like him, simultaneously a nationalist, a protectionist, and a pacifist. The Zollverein was only a first step; it was necessary for Germany to achieve self-sufficiency. To that end, the Zollverein would one day need to encompass Belgium and Holland, and Germany would need to possess 'complementary territories' as indispensable 'as the air it breathed.' A well-directed emigration toward South America and the Danubian basin would ultimately prepare this indispensable expansion" (16).

German nationalism.

"But nationalist ideology was quick to stifle liberal aspirations. Already at a Congress in 1846, Grimm proposed aiding Germans living abroad and regarding their settlements as the embryo of future colonies" (16).

Be that as it may, nationalism manages to transform discontent with existing borders into a true obsession, a fixed idea…

Nazism.

"We must enormously expand our borders to the East. In this regard, our program is well defined, and nothing and no one will be able to alter it. We will never tire of speaking on this subject" (Himmler, cited in 75).

(…) and a matter of honor.

Nazism.

"Hitler declares, on November 8th, at the traditional solemn ceremony at the 'Bürgerbräukeller' in Munich, that Stalingrad has been taken; that nothing in the world would ever cause German soldiers to abandon this city. He repeats over and over again his best-known maxim; 'The land that the German soldier sets foot upon, he never abandons!'" (72).

Serbian nationalism.

"Serbs must understand that this war cannot end with an agreement. It is a war for territories and where the fighting takes place today, either there will be no Muslims, or there will be no Serbs" (speech by Mirko Jovic, president of the Party of National Renewal, May 24, 1992).

Expansionist vision of natural borders

When —unilaterally, more often than not— nationalists set themselves to the task of determining where the border that will circumscribe their national State runs, they have a range of different criteria at their disposal: linguistic, historical (always highly malleable), orographic, plebiscitary, etc. Which one do they choose? Normally the most favorable one, the one that allows for the greatest territorial growth.

Hungarian nationalism

"It has often been considered that the history of modern Hungary began in 1825, when in the Hungarian Diet —the autonomous institution granted to Hungary by the Habsburgs— Magyar nationalists made their appearance demanding the establishment of a liberal regime and constitutional and social reforms. It was the beginning of a sharp confrontation against Austrian imperial autocracy, but at the same time of the contradictions that would pit the Hungarians against the Slavic peoples and against the Romanians of Transylvania. Certainly, the onset of contemporary Hungarian nationalism gave rise to a profound Magyarization that affected the Slavic peoples —especially the Croats— and the Romanians, who inhabited the territory that the Magyars considered the historical borders of the medieval Hungarian kingdom. In this way, the awakening of Magyar nationalism entailed the national oppression of non-Magyar peoples and created deep nationalist resentments, which would not take long to generate, in turn, new nationalist movements" (55).

Turkish nationalism.

"An ethno-linguistic Turkish nationalism allowed even a series of imperialist dreams on a secular nationalist basis, since vast areas of western and central Asia, especially in Russia, were inhabited by peoples who spoke different variants of the Turkic languages, and the destiny of Turkey was, without doubt, to assimilate them into a great 'Pan-Turanian' union. Thus, within the Young Turks, the westernizing and transnational modernizers lost influence in favor of modernizers with strong ethnic or racial convictions [...]" (34).

Full territorial absorption

The conquest, manu militari, of a territory is not enough to fully integrate it into the expansionist Nation-State. It is necessary that the population which will inhabit it also form part of the same national community. This objective can be achieved by different means, the first of which is the removal —through extermination or expulsion— of all individuals not belonging to the national community or of those who do not wish to belong to it.

Serbian nationalism.

"Mihailovic's political program from late 1941 proposes 'to create and organize a homogeneous Serbia, which must encompass all the ethnic territory where Serbs live.' The project, drafted by Stevan Moljevic, adviser and collaborator of Mihailovic, was to become the catechism of these warriors determined to emulate the 'savage energy' of their heroic ancestors, whose monarchist affiliation and visceral anti-communism would soon lead them to fight against Tito's partisans. The instructions of the high command chetnik included among their objectives 'the creation of Greater Yugoslavia and, within it, of Greater Serbia ethnically pure; the purification of the territory of the State of all national minorities and anational elements [Roma and Jews]; to cleanse the Sandžak of its Muslim population and Bosnia of its Muslim and Croatian population'" (24).

Nazism.

"With regard to Alsace and Lorraine, if we wish to turn those provinces once again into authentically German lands, it will be necessary to expel from them all those who do not spontaneously accept being German" (32).

The second path is the absorption (linguistic, cultural and sentimental) of the indigenous population.

Nazism.

"We can even draw a lesson from the way the French have behaved in Alsace. Without the slightest consideration for the generations of people who were to suffer as a result, they have worked tirelessly in favor of the suppression in Alsace of every trace of German influence, brutally imposing upon the population the culture and customs of France. Behaving in the same manner, we will ruthlessly eradicate bilingualism from those territories, and the radical means to which we will resort will prove their effectiveness even on the population resistant to Germanization. We will rapidly reach a clear situation, so that by the second generation, or at the latest the third, those regions will be completely pacified" (32).

And, of course, it is possible to occupy the territory, which was empty or has been vacated, by settling national elements within it.

Nazism.

"My policy consists in acting in such a way that in the long run the Germans who have settled in those lands reach the figure of one hundred million. So it is necessary to set everything in motion so that the progression is constant, so that, million by million, the Germanic penetration keeps spreading"(32).

Nazism.

"The gauleiter Forster recalls that in 1830 the city of Thorn had a population in which the German element predominated, whereas in 1939 only insignificant vestiges of it remained. This prompts the Führer to make the following declarations:

The fault is attributable to the policy followed by Prussia over the last one hundred and fifty years. During this period, the Prussian government turned those eastern German territories into a veritable penal colony, sending there only those teachers, civil servants and officers whom it had reason to reproach or whom it wished to remove from certain functions.

It is absolutely necessary that in the course of ten years of activity in the East we manage to repair all the mistakes made by Prussia. I demand that once that period has elapsed my gauleiters should be in a position to announce to me that those regions have once again become German"(32).

Nazism.

"3. We demand land and territory (colonies) to feed our people and to settle our surplus population" (from the NSDAP program).

Convincing

Alongside the eager pursuit of glory, power, and fortune, the ambition of the IGP takes shape in a fourth objective no less important. Often, in fact, the most important one. It concerns his recognition as a authority of thought. In other words, the IGP is not satisfied with developing his own ideas, but requires that these be generally accepted, that he be proven right. And sometimes he succeeds.

Paranoia.

"With his passionate energy the patient often succeeds in convincing some people of the legitimacy of his claims. I knew a querulous man of 58 years who, in a remote village, caused several peasants to sacrifice significant sums of money to obtain compensation of 50,000 marks from a burgomaster. Their requests bore a striking resemblance to those of the patient; one of the peasants already regarded him as his future and welcome son-in-law" (41).

How does he manage it?

He proclaims

It is with the sole objective of making others share in his certainties that the IP proclaims his convictions left and right, to all those who are willing to listen to them and to those who have no interest in them whatsoever.

Reformers. The Case of Eduardo V.

"Very young, he started in Nantes with the trade of tailor, then became a butcher's assistant. His unstable character prevented him from settling in the same place for too long; he traveled extensively throughout France. He completed his military service and earned the stripes of a non-commissioned officer; after leaving the army, he joined as a worker at the Saint-Lazare station. But his tastes for social reform became more pronounced, gradually taking shape in his mind, and one day he believed himself called to play a great role in the emancipation of humanity; it was then the time of the first manifestations of the first of May. He had no doubt about it and felt he had to speak to the people through a proclamation. He himself drafted a poster in which he decreed the sovereign power of the people, the abolition of property, the suppression of the clergy and of marriage. Having hung the poster in the Place de l'Opéra, he awaited the effect produced; a crowd quickly grew; he commented in virulent terms on the various articles of his program, but soon a brave officer arrived urging him to move along; V. refused and went to his post to continue his proselytizing. The Sainte-Anne hospital received him shortly thereafter, but as injustice irritated him and it was to be found everywhere, he directed violent reproaches at the physicians on duty; from stage to stage he arrived at the Rennes asylum where we found him in a cell after quite a few years. He was nevertheless a harmless man capable of showing violence only in his speeches and his writings. His keen intelligence led us to strike up a friendship, and he easily learned the trade of laboratory assistant, in which capacity he rendered us great services.

[...] He was not lacking in recommendations; the most friendly advice was lavished upon him. To devote himself to regular work, to write, if he wished, his system with a view to publishing it, but in any case to avoid violent contact with people — such were the conditions under which he might preserve his freedom.

But! A month later, we learned that V. had burst into a church, taking advantage of a moment when the gathered faithful were attending the celebration of Mass, and had climbed to the pulpit to launch into a violent diatribe against the clergy! 'The golden calf still stands!' he thundered, while the pious old ladies, indignant at the sacrilege, lashed him with blows of their umbrellas.

The inevitable came to pass; our unfortunate reformer returned to the road of the asylum" (17).

Jealousy delirium. Clinical case.

"During this period she began to suspect his fidelity, confessing her doubts to neighbors and friends, winning sympathies for her cause" (67).

Persecuted-persecutors.

"[...] causing scenes, they publish their claims through posters, to draw public attention to themselves and to what concerns them…" (58).

Clinical experience and observation of sectarian and totalitarian leaders suggest that some IPs are inexhaustible talkers, though more fond of monologue than dialogue. Others write tirelessly.

Querulants.

"It seems that since he had been discharged he had been mainly occupied in writing about the injustice he had experienced" (2).

Writings that are not composed for literary pleasure but to convince, especially the authorities, to whom they are often addressed, …

Querulants.

"Nothing remarkable is noted about the patient until 1965. During a military exercise he was taken prisoner by some soldiers, who mocked him, which ended in a major fight. The patient became so enraged that he fired uncontrollably with blank rounds. He was sentenced to 120 days of arrest. This was the key experience for the patient. He developed ideas of grievance and began writing to all kinds of authorities" (2).

(…) as well as to the mass media.

Delusion of grievance.

"[...] tries to win the Press over to his cause..." (65).

Paranoia.

"Feeling increasingly insecure, he now attempts, through newspaper announcements or pamphlets, to stigmatize the infamous schemes of his enemies and to defend himself against the veiled accusations" (41).

Paranoia. The Aimée Case.

"He besieged a journalist in order to obtain from him the publication of articles in which he set out his grievances, entirely personal and delusional, against Mrs. C., the celebrated writer" (46).

Paranoid contagion groups attribute the same importance as paranoiacs to the media.

Sectarian cults. The Patriarch.

"So, I repeat to you once more this message that is already very old and very ancient: it is easy to come together, it is easy to stop contamination, but it is also necessary that those who hold power and the media be in agreement and authorize us to do so" (20).

Sectarian cults. TFP.

"In principle, of course, counter-revolutionary action deserves to have at its disposal the finest means of television, radio, the major press, rational, efficient and brilliant propaganda. The true counter-revolutionary must always strive toward the use of such means, overcoming the defeatist state of mind of some of his companions, who, from the outset, abandon all hope of having access to them because they see them forever in the hands of the children of darkness" (14).

Nevertheless, the majority of paranoid contagion groups, in their eagerness to convince, resort above all to their own followers, less costly and more easily influenced than the media.

Sectarian cults. TFP.

"September - The 'Catholicism' group inaugurates the system of selling its works directly to the public in the streets. By the end of 1963, 11,500 copies (3 editions) of the Pastoral Letter warning the faithful of the Diocese against the wiles of the communist cult, by Monsignor Antonio de Castro Mayer, will have been distributed; 13,000 copies (2 editions) of the Pastoral Letter on the Communist Cult and 110,000 copies (5 editions) of the Anti-communist Catechism, both by Monsignor Geraldo de Proença Sigaud" (12).

Nazism.

"The nationalists distribute eight million pamphlets and twelve million special copies of their newspapers. During the electoral struggle, the NSDAP organizes a daily average of 3,000 meetings and demonstrations" (75).

Dispute

Nazism.

"Every general theory of the world, whether political or religious... struggles not so much in a negative way and with the purpose of destroying the world of contrary ideas, as positively and with the aim of imposing its own" (33).

Nevertheless, in order to im-pose one's own ideas it is necessary to remove the others, since, for the PCI they are incompatible and cannot coexist.

Nazism.

"The future of a movement depends on the fanaticism, and even the intolerance, with which its supporters exalt it, presenting it as the only correct course and carrying it forward in opposition to ideas of a similar nature..." (33).

Sectarian groups. TFP.

"[...] whoever directs the extermination of heresies, directs the triumph of orthodoxy, and by directing both, directs History in its most essential aspect" (14).

Maoist Leninism.

"Of course it is inadmissible to refrain from criticizing mistaken ideas, to look on with indifference as they spread everywhere and to allow them to monopolize the market. Every error must be criticized and every poisonous weed, uprooted" (51).

In other words, ensuring that one's own ideas are accepted means, for the IPP, that all others must necessarily be eradicated.

French imperialism.

"The French closed the chapels and the shrines, suppressed the crucifixes, and dismantled the church bells, because they were convinced that if the outward expressions of superstitious beliefs disappeared from the sight of the faithful, the latter would abandon such beliefs" (74).

Sokagakkai.

"In the postwar years many new religions have sprung up like mushrooms and made their way into rural regions. They have given more importance to remote areas than to cities. We must now venture into these distant zones in order to, in time, be able to eradicate the new cults and religious organizations" (37).

Nazism.

"The greatness of any active organization that constitutes the personification of an idea lies in the spirit of religious fanaticism and intolerance with which it attacks all others, fanatically convinced that it alone is in the right. If an idea that is in itself correct and armed with such weapons undertakes a struggle in this world, that idea will be invincible and persecutions will only serve to increase its inner strength" (33).

To achieve this exterminatory objective, in addition to proclaiming one's own truth and exposing the errors of others, it is often necessary to engage in ideological combat, to polemicize with the rival.

Delusion of grievance.

"Their need for dispute is one of the driving forces behind their actions" (65).

Falret's persecuted-persecutors.

"[...] they apply their pigheadedness and their great intellectual activity to making their point of view prevail against and before everyone" (22).

Factor QlV of the 16PF test.

"[...] does not hesitate to make their ideas prevail over others" (40).

And some paranoid contagion groups remind their followers that engaging in polemics is an obligation.

Maoist Leninism.

"Liberalism manifests itself in different forms:

"To be clearly aware that a person is in error, but since they are an acquaintance, fellow countryman, classmate, close friend, loved one, old colleague, or former subordinate, not to engage in a principled discussion with them and to let things pass in order to preserve the peace and the friendship" (51).

Thus, the IGP is distinguished by a way of understanding the exchange of ideas in which there is no interest whatsoever in bringing positions closer together or in —simply— knowing what the other person thinks. It is solely and exclusively about convincing.

Sokagakkai.

"Shakubuku is a means of propagating the Buddhism of Nichiren Shoshu. By practicing shakubuku, we extol the greatness of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism to others such as family members, friends, associates, etc. Shakubuku means helping to refute people's mistaken concepts and helping them to correct their understanding of Buddhism, giving them a correct view, as taught by Nichiren Daishonin" (73).

In the need to impose oneself by con-vincing with words, there probably underlies the same impulse that causes, in other circumstances, the same IGP to attempt to impose itself by winning with weapons.

Paranoia. The Count of Montlosier.

"A curious type —writes Thureau-Dangin—, this elderly septuagenarian, a Catholic royalist gentleman, who was suddenly seen [...] transform into the harshest and most implacable of denouncers of the Jesuits and the clerical party. An original and strange nature above all others, who possessed in his manners and in his spirit the strong, rough, abrupt wildness of the corner of Auvergne in which he had been born, and where he liked to shut himself away, a fighter with sword or pen in hand, a polemicist, a demolisher of arguments, who upheld the theses he had formed in solitude with the obstinate energy of the mountain man defending his land; not lacking in generosity, but frequently possessed by pride or hatred" (47).

Pride leads the IGP to see itself as the indisputable winner of its verbal skirmishes.

Sectarian groups. TFP.

"Indeed, the uproar currently underway in Spain does nothing more than recycle old slanders already launched on other occasions and in other countries. Each and every one of them —I repeat, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM— has already been completely and roundly refuted in its time, through books and studies that invariably reduced the opponents to silence" (12).

It is frustrating for the IGP to win (or believe it has won) and yet fail to convince. But everything has an explanation.

Sectarian groups. Hermetic Philosophical Institute.

"Unfortunately, our society is sick with hypocrisy and prudishness, and these patterns are deeply introjected into people's minds, preventing them from accepting truths that are self-evident, but that come into conflict with the great social masquerade" (3).

Sokagakkai.

"To their surprise, the young people of Soka Gakkai discovered that they were invincible in these debates, although they had never managed to convert a single monk from another cult. When they asked why this was so, Toda once replied that the absolute corruption of the priests made it impossible for them to see or admit the truth of the teachings of Nichiren Shoshu" (37).

Presence

One last expression of expansionism, common in cultic groups and messianic movements, is the determination to be present in as many places as possible and, ideally, throughout the entire world.

Sokagakkai.

"We must persevere until our movement reaches worldwide dimensions…" (38).

Cultic groups. The Patriarch.

"From July 15 to October 15, a team from the Lucien J. Engelmajer association prepares and carries out a first trip to India. First contacts, first impressions. The shock of India. Hindu grandeurs and miseries, which lacked only drugs and AIDS. It is the beginning of a new dynamic..." (31).

Sokagakkai.

"May your wings, as they soar,

Shine ever more brightly

Until you reach

The rainbow

Of faith spread throughout the world" (38).

Another cultic leader commented on his intention to "cover the planet" with his pamphlets… To this task they dedicate a good part of their energies and resources. On some occasions, with undeniable success.

Cultic groups. The Patriarch.

"The first center of what would become the future organization Le Patriarche was born in La Boère, near Toulouse, in 1972, on grounds and a mansion in absolute ruins that the City Council leased to Lucien Engelmajer and his first followers.

There began the development of the dynamics of El Patriarca and its expansion, first toward other parts of France, then toward Spain and other European countries.

Currently, apart from France and Spain, El Patriarca is perfectly established in Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica and the United States. And it is in the process of being established in several other European countries and, especially, American and African ones" (62).