The Brain and Cults

1 Comment » // September 17th, 2009

I was reminded today that the brain loves patterns. It loves what it knows. Our brains literally love a rut. When a neurological path has been ground into the brain, the brain loves nothing more than to fire all those neurons in sequence.

It makes me realize that sometimes what my brain does is simply habitual. The teacher I was listening to tonight said it this way; “The brain is not committed to the truth. It’s committed to patterns it knows and new things it learns.”

I’ve been studying brain science for a while but it was nice to be reminded of this. I have practiced a brain rewiring program called The Solution for a few years in order to try to heal a food addiction I’ve struggled with. The program is mostly about learning to rewire the limbic brain from a state of stress to one of ease and joy.

I am also lately enjoying learning more about Byron Katie’s work that asks us to meet our thoughts with understanding in order to move from a state of stress to one of love and joy.

The techniques in both these programs involve creating new neural pathways in the brain. (Believe me, it ain’t easy but it’s possible.)

The field of brain study has been expanding lately with scientists like Jill Bolte Taylor and Norman Doidge and authors like Daniel Coyle describing and discussing how the brain can change, and recover, and rewire, even after catastrophic injury.

My interest in this brain science, and in trying to practice it myself, lies mainly in my quest for peace regarding addiction. But today I wondered if anyone has studied the brain rewiring that must have to take place when someone leaves a cult. I’ll bet that no one has yet, because this field that is interested in brain elasticity is so new. Until just 10 or 11 years ago, scientists mostly agreed that once the brain was wired after puberty it was cooked. It couldn’t be changed after that. Now they know this is not the case.

But, as I say, the field is SO new that I doubt anyone has studied what must be a very interesting connection between brain wiring and the illogical and dangerous things we come to believe when we’re in cults. I’ll do a bit more Googling and see if I can find any references to such a study.

Stay tuned.