ItsRaining wrote: ↑Wed Feb 21, 2018 8:11 am
Has anyone else seen this documentary Kumaré?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumar%C3%A9
Is it really this easy to be a guru and have people follow you? The stuff he says is so generic and nonsensical, why do people follow him? It's pretty interesting how people follow someone so easily without doing any checking, comparing or noticing he's basically not saying anything whenever he teaches something....
And Michael Roach gets a cameo at the start
Saw this. Always interested in docs and films about cults and how they operate. This one was notable as the guru was a conscious fake, and as noted was spewing total non-sense. But look at the phenomenon of pop songs, especially in the 70's 80's with bands who would make lyrics seemingly unintelligible on purpose. Doesn't stop folks from belting out whatever they think they are hearing in the muddied parts of "Tall Cool Woman" for example - only encourages them. So, for a charlatan like this, it was enough to say some vague stuff as long as it was with the appropriate amount of gravitas, and projection took over from there.
Some people almost refused to believe they were being punked and insisted this was a high and profound teaching.
We humans are hard-wired for stories, and with our tendency to project at the best of times, let alone in situations where we deal with incomplete info or cues like e-mail, message boards etc., this becomes super obvious, at least to me with my tendency to do so, which has caused me grief.
For example, it never ceases to amaze me how some posters here are accused of being a certain way - arrogant, rude, condescending etc. when it is mostly only a function of the ability to speak right to the point with clarity and precision - but, minus visual clues or knowing a bit about the character of the person speaking, it's easy to mistake clarity and precision for arrogance or lack of compassion. Again, goes back to our projection and I'm certainly guilty of this, even professing this insight.
Not a bad film, btw - the idea I guess, was to help people see through the machinations of a charlatan - but for example, if I watched it with family members who are still entrenched in the fundy cult I grew up in, they would be able to follow the plot and absurdity of the situation in the documentary where the fake teacher had every intention of a reveal party, where he came clean and thus demonstrated his point - but only b/c they are in on the joke. They'd be completely nonplussed if I pointed out that they have been in a similar situation their entire lives, that of simply accepting what someone else says is true because they buy the story and don't ask too many questions or apply the same scrutiny they're capable of doing in other areas of life.
The capacity for self-delusion is quite amazing, but easier to see in others than myself, or so I've noticed.
