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Women with bad father relationships become easy prey for cults and charismatic men

Women with bad father relationships become easy prey for cults and charismatic men
Women with bad father relationships become easy prey for cults and charismatic men
Women with bad father relationships become easy prey for cults and charismatic men

The following is Part Six of an expanded transcript of a detailed and in-depth interview Patrick Wanis PhD Human Behavior Expert gave to Michele Morrisette with www.PurQi.com  about gurus, cults and brainwashing. Here Patrick Wanis reveals how women who have had poor relationships with their fathers become easy prey for charismatic men and cults. Click here for previous part of the interview, Part Five: https://patrickwanis.com/blog/religion-cults-charles-manson/

Update September 2014

A 64 year-old guru and cult leader, Goel Ratzon was found guilty in Tel Aviv, Israel, of various sex crimes against women including rape, incest and sodomy; some of the women were minors. Ratzon had 21 wives and fathered 49 children.

The women worshipped Ratzon, even tattooing his name and image on their body.

“Other neighbors said he merely preyed on the insecurities of vulnerable young women who came from unstable backgrounds.”  https://www.jpost.com/Israel/Inside-Goel-Ratzons-cult 

“In the past, the women had acted in a suicidal manner when they feared Ratzon was displeased with them. Some attempted to overdose on pills while others slit their wrists.”

“In his twisted and perverse way, and his complete control of every aspect of these women’s lives, he mutilated their thoughts and castrated their personalities until they totally lost their free will. His baseness and contemptibility soar to new heights with the sexual relations he forced upon them,” Judge Hayuta Kochan wrote about Goel Ratzon.

Michele Morrisette: There were these people, hundreds of people at a retreat of Mahendra Trivedi who were treating him in a Messianic type of relationship. Can you expand on that for us please?

Patrick Wanis: Yes, and you’ve raised three good points. So I will talk about that group dynamic that you were referring to in a moment. Let me come back to what you referred to as the demographics. The actual history of psychology is that psychology and philosophy were once very closely interconnected before they branched off and then we had people becoming philosophers and we had people becoming psychologists. But the two are connected; and the reason I say that is that psychology focuses on human behavior  – the individual development – mental function and behavior. Philosophy focuses on human existence  –  the development of society, the development of people, the meaning of life, our deeper needs – the wisdom of reality,existenceknowledgevaluesreasonmind, and language. So it comes from a slightly different perspective but both were and are deeply connected. Artistotle and Socrates were psychologists as well as philosophers. Aristotle is often regarded as the father of psychology, and his book, De Anima (On the Soul) is regarded as the the first book on psychology

The reason I say that is we have to look at why there is a demographic of these young women who are the majority of people being attracted to someone like Mahendra Trivedi. Why were the majority of followers of Charles Manson women? And with regards to James Ray, without knowing all the statistics, I would easily guarantee you that the majority were women.

Most of the people in personal development and self-help are women. Women are the biggest audience and the biggest buying group of self-help and personal development.

Why?

First that goes back to what I said earlier when I said women are more interested in growth and personal development than men are. That’s not a judgment; that’s the way it is. So that’s number one.

Number two: look at the difference between the feminine energy and the masculine energy. Masculine energy is highly directive. The feminine energy is highly receptive so feminine energy is about receiving and creating.

The third aspect is what’s happening in society today.

In the 60s, we had a lot of these girls being attracted to Charles Manson because they came from an affluent background but the 60s was about rebellion. It was about rebelling against the system. It was about rebelling against what’s happening right now. ‘I don’t want to be controlled anymore. I want to be free’ and it was a rebellion against the establishment.

So it was easy for charismatic men like Charles Manson to pull in these young girls who came from an affluent background but were lost – they were looking for something stronger, something deeper, something more meaningful. They were disconnected from their community and family and were looking for connection and meaning and purpose.

Today, in the 21st century, we have an entirely new challenge. The challenge is there are so many broken families. There are so many children being raised by a single parent. This is not a judgment against single parents. It’s simply: let’s look at the great job that single parents are doing, but what is their limitation and what are the consequences?

I would argue regardless of gender or sexual orientation that every child needs two parents whether it’s two gay parents or two heterosexual parents. A child needs two parents in the sense that it needs masculine energy and it needs feminine energy. The woman in the first few years is the one that offers the unconditional love to the child. The man, on the other hand, at about age 12 is saying to the kid, “Hey, there are these conditions. These are what you have to do to survive and succeed and be loved.”

So the man always tends to be the stricter parent working off ’cause & effect.’ The woman tends to be the more nurturing. She represents the feminine energy which is focused on nurture, empathy, sympathy, compassion. The man represents the masculine energy – action, direction, leadership, stamina, strength, endurance. They’re two different energies.

So what happens to girls when they don’t have a strong father figure, when they don’t have a strong male role model? Now, rather than me philosophizing, the answer’s on my website. https://patrickwanis.com/blog/Fathers_and_their_negative_impact_on_daughters

Studies have been done with 5,000 girls over 10 and 15 years that identified the girls who either didn’t have a father or didn’t have a strong male role model or didn’t have a relationship with their father, were more prone to increased sexual behavior at a younger age, to unwanted pregnancy and a host of other problems.

 [ Listen to the interview about “Fathers and their negative impact on their daughters” with Patrick Wanis and Linda Nielsen, professor of adolescent psychology and women’s studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina who has been teaching a “Fathers and Daughters” course since 1990: https://patrickwanis.com/blog/Fathers_and_their_negative_impact_on_daughters]

So what they basically concluded was, ‘Oh, dad plays an important part also in the development of a girl and the greater relationship that she has with her father, the more successful she will become and the more well-adjusted she will become on every level.’

Again this is not a judgment of mothers because I can tell you from another perspective the one that screws up men the most is mom, not dad. So the relationship that boys have with their mother will determine who they are in terms of self-esteem more than the relationship they have with their father. It’s just the way it is. Not right or wrong, just the way it is.

So I wanted to share that to say, if we understand that, then we recognize that there are so many girls growing up without a father, then we understand, too, that they still need the masculine energy and father figure. I’ve also given many media interviews explaining why girls tend to marry or date much older men. What is that phenomena? Why is that? Now in some cases, it’s pretty obvious. You know, I used to live in Miami, South Beach, Miami where it was common to see a beautiful, gorgeous 20-year-old girl with some 60-year-old rich man and I’ve just told you why. The man wanted the girl because she was young and beautiful. The girl wanted the guy because he was rich and powerful. It was a subconscious or unspoken trade and contract – I give you this in exchange for that…

He “used his status as a guru to identify and victimize the most vulnerable women from among his flock, grooming them, breaking down barriers, and ultimately assaulting them when they were at their most physically, emotionally, or financially vulnerable,” according to court papers filed in California against Bikram Choudhury, founder of Bikram Yoga. The lawsuits – which contains allegations of rape, sexual battery, fraud and false imprisonment – are also leveled against 25 unnamed members of Mr Choudhury’s inner circle who allegedly knew of his behaviour “yet did nothing to prevent this from happening”.  – Excerpt from “Yoga guru Bikram Choudhury ‘raped students in cult-like training'”

 [Read about people who claim to be victims of Trivedi:
https://trivedifoundationvictims.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/mahendra-trivedi-trivedi-foundation-global-work-life-balance/ ]

But other than those extreme cases, when you see a girl who’s dating a man who’s much older than her, 10, 15, even 20 years older than her, it’s usually because she’s replacing a father figure. She didn’t have a father figure so she’s still subconsciously looking for that father figure. Notice, too, in the bible – how do we refer to God?

Michele Morrisette: God is usually masculine.

 Click here for Part 7 of the expanded transcript of the in-depth interview by Patrick Wanis PhD, Human Behavior Expert about gurus, cults and brainwashing; Patrick Wanis reveals the significance of God being portrayed as a male (by Christianity, Judaism and Islam) and its connection to gurus and cult leaders; why people who don’t have a religion often fall for charismatic leaders and gurus: https://patrickwanis.com/blog/god-masculine-people-religion-fall-cults-gurus/

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