chnique. Will Baron observed the same thing. “In fact,” he recalls, “it appears to be one of the main methods of recruitment used by the New Age devotees. Many of them offer therapy and counseling to people in need — and then interest the clients in the philosophies associated with their practices” (28).In fact, for the duration of his experience, the demands on his acts of submission increased as his willingness to submit was demonstrated continually. He ended up leaving his job, traveling half-way around the world, ending a relationship that was going well, and financially supporting the little group with which he was affiliated by depleting his bank account, borrowing on his two credit cards until they were over the limit, and even extending the limit to borrow more (Baron, 1990). Indeed, once he had “cast his lot” with the little group, as the demands increased, he just went along with it.During one of Baron’s first interview’s with a New Age devotee, the woman made a statement to the effect that Will was benefiting somehow from experience he had in a former life. He wrote “Because Marcus’ wife was a respected professional psychologist, I felt quite open to seriously accepting her revealing statement. You know how it is; one tends to trust qualified people” (27). The language Baron uses here so parallels what we read in the textbooks, this author tends to believe that, in preparing to write his book, he had done some homework to try and understand what had happened to him. Whatever the case, he probably did not consciously say to himself that day while sitting with the couple, “she’s respected in this field, I’d better believe her.” Few of us would — it is a somewhat subconscious factor. The purpose of this paper is to reveal what factors are at work, whether we are aware or not, and, once aware, take more control of our beliefs ...
