Herd Mentality

Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.

' Aldous Huxley coined the phrase `herd intoxication' to describe what happens when people get
together in large numbers. Orthodox religions encourage people to congregate with like-minded
people. What's wrong with that? The problem, as Huxley observed so well in the annex of `The
Devils of Loudun', is that when numbers of people increase `Divine Presence' dwindles.

This is an important observation for those attending religious events because every crowd is self-
exciting. Each person stops being an insulated consciousness; there is no thought, no judgement or
discrimination - only a strong sense of `togetherness' and shared excitement; a type of collective
alienation. Our capacity for rational thought in deciding ethical principles diminishes considerably
in crowds. We fall into a state of heightened suggestibility similar to a light hypnotic trance or
being injected with sodium amytal. In this state a person is likely to believe statements, however
senseless and will act upon almost any command. This sub-personal state of heightened
suggestibility often turns into destructiveness and violence - even in religious crowds.

A good example of herd intoxication was seen some years ago on an episode of `Everyman', a BBC
religious magazine program. It featured a group of American evangelicals in post-communist
Russia. Their newly-converted Russian Christians who accompanied the evangelicals on a rally to
Moscow's red Square claimed that the Russian orthodox church was corrupt, practised idolatry, and
was no longer a true representation of Christ. All went well until they met a counter-demonstration
organised by the Russian Orthodox Church who'd been tipped-off - and were furious at the `foreign
spiritual invasion'. The two groups clashed: I have seen Mods and Rockers on Brighton beach, the
Poll-Tax riots, the Anti-Nazi league and the National front, but I have never seen such a venomous
and violent fracas as this Christian crowd went at each other as if they were deadly enemies. Sweet
old ladies on both sides welded crucifixes and shouted: "We are the true followers of Jesus... you
are sent by the Devil to lead people astray from the true church!"

It is highly unlikely that an evangelical minister and orthodox Russian priest would have become so
excitable let alone come to blows during a one-on-one discussion. That is the power of the herd
mentality.

Copyright © 2004 by Michael Davies