Paranoid pseudocommunity beliefs in a sect milieu

Abstract

Summary.A shared paranoid belief system was identified among members of a sect-like group. The imagined "paranoid pseudocommunity" includes both persecutorial conspiracies and networks extending and supporting the group. Delusional hypotheses are frequently reorganized within this paradigm, as are accompanying verbal styles. A paranoid perceptual and cognitive style is maintained by leader influence, information-processing roles of members, and the dogmatic, insular, elitist, and antagonistic qualities of this encapsulated subculture.Paranoid delusions seldom find adherents beyond a minority of one. Diagnostic classification reflects this fact by identifying no clinical entity broader than a pranoid dyad 1. Occasionally, however, larger groups of a sect of cult-like nature are infused with the paranoid ideation of a dominant member. This study examines such a group, the "League of Geniuses" (pseud.), focusing on the relationship between the belief system and a social system that encourages, orders, and maintains it in a "cognitive subculture". Interviews were conducted with a dozen members and ex-members over a period of a decade, and there was a comprehensive review of documents, speeches, and other communications 2.

The Role of Psychotic Disorders in Religious History Considered

“…Once separated from the group's social fabric, many members have been observed to regain the ability to view others without undue levels of suspicion. 100 This pattern of group behavior may lie along a continuum with that of the fight-flight group described by Wilfred Bion. Much more speculatively, each of our subjects and their followers could have been either an initiator or recipient in a chain of persons who transmit delusional-like beliefs.…”

Cognitive styles: Intelligence.

“…Gustafson and Kallen (1989) distinguish cognitive styles from personality styles. Myers (1988) refers to a hierarchy of styles of cognition, defining personality as a source of individual variation within styles. Developed to ascertain the element of affect in cognition, the construct of style has never been clearly distinguished from either ability (intelligence) or personality.…”