Patrick Jane Forums | Anthropology & Theology

The New Collectiveism and the Dialectic As A Belief Changing  Procedure
Bernard Pyron

The Group Dynamics movement in experimental social psychology and the Encounter Group Movement can be seen as a part of the influence of  Transformational Marxism on American politics and culture. The Group Dynamics movement found ways of manipulating groups and individuals in the groups, which was then applied in the Encounter Group movement. Group Dynamicse, for example, found ways of creating cohesive groups, which the Encounter Group movement then applied to  create cohesive groups to use to move members toward the goals of Marxist Group Facilitators.

The term "facilitator" is right out of the Encounter Group Movement of the sixties and seventies. Carl Rogers was one of the leaders of the Encounter Group movement,and with other facilitators under him,they ran encounter groups using the nuns of the
Sacred Heart of Mary in Southern California.

And we can say that the Dragon, or Serpent, used for the fallen angel Satain in the Book of Revelation, was the first facilitator in Genesis 3: 1-6.

"And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon."  Revelation 13:  11

"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2.     And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3.     But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4.     And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5.     For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6.     And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."   Genesis 3: 1-6

In an interview called "The Story of a Repentant Psychologist" long after the
encounter groups were run on the Nuns in 1966 and 1967, one of Carl Rogers' facilitators says "Within a
year after our first interventions, 300 of them were petitioning Rome to get out
of their vows. They did not want to be under anyone's authority,
except the authority of their imperial inner selves."The interviewer
asks "How many years did it take to destroy this Immaculate Heart
order? Coulson: It took about a year and a half."

William Coulson's story of how Carl Rogers and a number of trained
facilitators of encounter group procedures "destroyed" the Sacred
Heart of Mary group in Southern California is an example of the power
of the dialectic as developed within American social and clinical
psychology by the mid sixties. When you have a group led by a trained
facilitator of the dialectic where the group is deliberately led to
avoid focusing upon facts as truth and absolute morality, and instead
the group is led to focus more on feelings and opinions, then you have
a group which is more ready for transformation. Such a group is one in which more traditional
reliance upon facts, or truths and on a fixed set of morals are given
up and whatever satisfies man's feelings and opinions, which are
derived from feelings, or emotions, take over.

William Coulson had some kind of a junior  faculty appointment  in the University of Wisconsin Psychiatric Institute in the sixties under Carl R. Rogers at about the same time that I was on the Schizophrenic Project under Rogers in the Psychiatric Institute.  I did not know Coulson at that time. but made contact with him years later.  By that time Coulson had become critical of Rogers and the theories Rogers promoted.

“The individual accepts the new system of values and beliefs by
accepting belongingness to the group.” Kurt Lewin in Kenneth Benne
Human Relations in Curriculum Change

The type of group that Kurt Lewin, the flounder of Group Dynamics, is
talking about is a collective, unlike the cohesive family under the father
figure.

"And on the basis of this individual growth of each in our conditions a new
type of mighty socialist collective will in the long run be formed, where
“I” and “we” will merge into one inseparable whole. Such a collective can
only develop on the basis of profound ideological solidarity and an equally
profound emotional rapprochement, mutual understanding."
Nadezhda K. Krupskaya a, Letter to A. M. Gorky

Marx is said to have "turned Hegel on his head" in making the dialectic of Hegel atheistic and without morality. The Marxist version of the Hegelian dialectic has been developed into a belief and attitude change procedure, which also infiltrated the major institutions,including the churches, in the 20th century. Carl Rogers and other Encounter Group Facilitators used forms of the Marxist version of the Hegelian Dialectic. The Marxist dialectic was made into an attitude and belief changing procedure by American psychologists, who did not always identify themselves as Marxists. Dean Gotcher has written and talked about this work by American social, personality and clinical psychologists. Gotcher goes so far as to say that "Psychology is Marxism - Psychotherapists are Marxists." 

Gotcher got on the trail of Carl R, Rogers, which became a hot trail after Rogers left the University of Wisconsin in the sixties for Southern California, to became a Facilitator for the Encounter Group Movement.

The dialectic was further developed in the Encounter Group Movement by facilitators as a method for changing attitudes and beliefs, which became part of the new collectivist movement in America.

Some forms of the dialectic were popularized and used by the media, in education, by government and in the churches to some extent, especially in the mega church movement. Rick Warren used the dialectic in small groups.

Rick Warren said that "Small groups are the most effective way of closing the back door of your church."

But beyond Rick Warren's use of the Encounter Group attitude changing procedure, forms of the dialectic as a method of making an argument became popularly used in Christian dialogue.. Remember that we can see a dialogue as being necessary to set up the dialectic change procedure in Genesis 3: 1-6, where Satan deceived  Eve  into disobeying God. . In Chapter 8 of John the Pharisees were making arguments opposing the doctrines of Christ,who was there with them. They were using a form of the dialectic to argue against Christ's absolute truth.This is a second characteristic of the dialectic, making that which is absolute truth - the word of God - into the thesis and directly opposing it by an anti thesis.

"The dialectic is man thinking through his feelings. This is the reason God flooded the world and will judge the world again. "And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man." (Luke 17:26 ).God cannot speak into the pre-flood, Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, dialectic mind." Quotes from Dean Gotcher

The presence now of the dialectic mind could be an indication that the prophecy of Luke 17: 26 is starting to be fulfilled. The presence of the dialectic mind is a part of the spiritual darkness which is coming on at this time in history.

The dialectic is  a  way of making an argument against that which is true or moral.  The dialectic mind  rejects  the truth of the word of God and makes an argument against it by use of  types of arguments within dialogue.

 

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