I just returned from a wilderness raft trip. It was spectacular. We had no cell phone or internet access for five days. I had no idea what was going on in the world outside my immediate surroundings and no way to connect to anyone outside our little party of eight people and the occasional rafters […]
Let’s face it; we have all been taken advantage of one time or another. No matter how cunning you are, come on admit it, at one time or another you have bought the snake oil. You have been “had”. Maybe not as badly as me, probably not as badly as me, but it must have […]
I am in the process of writing a series of posts about how to prevent vulnerable minds from getting infected with dangerous memes. Memes are everywhere – coming from every direction. The danger comes when they shut down rational thinking. It is not rational that if a football player says a prayer before a game […]
There are certain psychological conditions that create an especially high level of vulnerability to manipulation. Low self-esteem, loneliness and cognitive dissonance are good examples.
Malaria is a disease that affects hundreds of millions of people every year. Despite a clear need, no vaccine offering a high level of protection currently exists. Mosquito nets create a protective barrier against malaria-carrying mosquitoes that bite at night. It is obvious why the effort is made to prevent potential victims from being infected with the disease. […]
For a number of years after I left the Moonies I was part of an underground railroad, of sorts, helping families attempt to free their loved ones from cults like the one I had been involved in. One of the key reasons deprogramming – or exit counseling – works is that it takes the victim […]