Thus, Barbara Branden reported that her biggest sin was held to be her refusal to attend, and subsequently to sanction the legitimacy of, her personal trial, and other purgees have had related tales to tell. As is true of all witch-hunting groups, the best sin was not a lot the particular transgressions of the member, but any refusal to sanction the heresy-hunting process itself. They couldn’t be pleased because cult idea decreed that happiness can solely be achieved by being a committed Randian; they couldnt even be intelligent, since how might seemingly intelligent people not be Randians, particularly in the event that they commit the gravest sin failing to turn into Randians as soon as they had been exposed to this new gospel. For the moulding processes of the cult did achieve creating a brand new Randian Man for so lengthy because the man or girl remained within the motion. The elemental line change on Branden is a obvious instance, in addition to the line change on other previously high-ranking Randians who were expelled from the motion. Every certainly one of the unique cadre, for example, was placed on probation not less than as soon as, and was pressured to demonstrate his loyalty to Rand at length and in quite a few methods.
For a while the Randians would discourse at length on “happiness,” and on the alleged fact of their perpetual state of being happy, it grew to become clear on closer examination that they had been glad solely by definition. Conceited by no means deliberate on being GIF fodder, but sometimes that’s just how life goes. If the Randian member was not attuned to these modifications, and occurred to aver that Carson was “rational” or had a benevolent “sense of life” when he had already been designated as irrational or malevolent, he was in for serious hassle and inquiry into the rationality of his own premises. Thus, the “line” on such people as Johnny Carson or Mike Wallace (distinguished Tv personalities) modified quickly largely due to Rands discovering various heresies and alleged betrayals on their half. Thus, kept in ignorance of the world, of information, ideas, or people who might deviate from the full Randian line, held in verify by adoration and terror of Rand and her anointed hierarchy, the grim, robotic, joyless Randian Man emerged. They rally the ingenuity and input and motion of neighbors, the folks with essentially the most interest in making the group secure and successful. Driven by their conception of rational responsibility, each Randian lived in and certainly was himself a group of spies and informers, ready to ferret out and denounce any deviations from Randian doctrine.
But when the Randian lived in a state of fear and awe of Rand and her leading disciples, there have been psychological compensations; for he may also reside within the exciting and comforting knowledge that he was one in every of a small number of the elect, that solely the members of this small band were in tune with motive and actuality. As a result, virtually your complete New York motion lived with a few square blocks of each other in Manhattans East 30s, most of the leaders in the same condo house as Rands. In the first place it meant that deviation from the correct line was all too simple: Preferring Bach, for instance, to Rachmaninoff, subjected one to prices of believing in a “malevolent universe.” lf not corrected by self-criticism and psychotherapeutic brainwashing, such deviation might effectively result in ejection from the movement. How such an atmosphere of concern and censorship crippled the productiveness of Randian members may be seen by the fact that not one of the highest Randians revealed any books whereas in the movement (all of Brandens books, for example, have been published after his expulsion).
If he refused to seem as he would if he had any shred of self-respect left then the trial would proceed in absentia, with all the members present taking turns in denouncing the expelled member, studying costs in opposition to him (again in a way eerily harking back to 1984). When his inevitable conviction was sealed, someone generally his closest friend wrote the excommunicate, a bitter, febrile, and portentous letter, damning the apostate forevermore and excluding him forever from the Elysian fields of motive and reality. They consult with ward and stake incapacity specialists (see 38.8.27.9) to ask members with disabilities to participate. Often, the excommunications especially of important Randians proceeded in a ritual manner. We now have already mentioned the excommunications and “purges” in the Randian movement. If continuing an intense psychological stress was partially answerable for the extremely high turnover amongst Randian disciples, one other motive for this turnover was the very indisputable fact that the movement had a rigid line on actually every topic, from aesthetics to historical past to epistemology. Promptly, the main members have been known as on the carpet by their Objectivist Psychotherapist and bitterly denounced of their “therapy” classes: “After all,” said the therapist, “you wouldnt mock God.” When the owner of the tape refused the therapists demand to relinquish it in order that it may very well be inspected in detail, his doom as a member of the movement was effectively sealed.