the French attitude to Sects

Most foreigners in France will at some point notice that this country has a suspicion of les sectes – what we tend to label as Cults in English. If you are reading this as a foreigner then you may well say to yourself ‘ fair enough I don’t like those brainwashing weirdo’s either!’

What you may not appreciate is that this attitude extends far further, and far more often than it is in America, in England or any other European country. France has an official list of sects, which includes the usual suspects (Scientology, the Mooneys etc) and plenty of organisations I have never heard of, but also groups accepted as probably benign (if sometimes bizarre) like the Jehovah’s witnesses, and Transcendental meditation.

Apart from an official list, and laws to back it up the suspicion of sects runs broadly throughout French Society. I have friends in martial arts who are often asked if they are part of a sect. Then again if I think about it doing movements originating in China, then hitting each other is in many ways just as bizarre as chanting words in strange languages -whether Sanskrit, Japanese, or Latin. When I told a client I was going to a an alternative medicine salon and he told me to be careful because ‘those acupuncturists belong to sects.’ Mmmmm….

Now I’m going to do something quite unusual in the realm of NLP. I’m going to write a little about why I think this is so. It’s naturally relates to the nature of belief and if you have ever been eyed suspiciously for carrying a Yoga mat you may be curious as to why…

It all dates back to the French revolution and the imposition of the laïcité. In taking the immense and courageous step of aiming to thought, philosophy and progress from the control of the Church there was a strong desire to remove Religion from France altogether.

However strong the desire it is not such an easy thing to wipe out centuries of belief and culture. People have tried since, in Russia, China, Cambodia and no one has yet succeeded. Napoleon was wise to this. He did not want to have to fight a war against religion at home while he went off empire building. So he made a deal with the representatives of mainstream religion – the Catholic Church.

He gave them the responsibility to report of any new religious groups that might represent a threat to his power, and the authority to cooperate with government to deal with any such threats arising. He based this on the Catholic division of dioceses, a préfet de police supporting each Bishop, and the chief of the local Gendarmerie working with the parish priest.

Spool on a couple of centuries and you have the situation where anything that falls outside of the cosmology or theology of Catholic thinking is regarded with suspicion. Actually much Christian thinking is regarded with suspicion as well. France is a laïcité after all.

In the Academic world actual research and investigation of unorthodox religious organisations is discouraged. An academic here attempting to write a serious treatise on such an organisation is likely to be labelled as a an apologist for sects, and lose their post. The basis on which a sect is designated in France has been attacked because of insufficient research combined with unchallenged negative bias.

If you'd like the long version of this story I recommend the following link, with this story from the Montreal Gazette for dessert.

Of course it’s natural that people find facts to support their beliefs. That applies to whether their beliefs are that the world is a random occurrence in a universe that is slowly running down, or that the world was created in 7 days by a deity with an impressively bushy white beard.

This relates to NLP because NLP includes a pretty good set of techniques that you could apply to setting up a sect. I talk more about people's suspicion of NLP here. Still, we are not always helped by journalists.

Recently on French TV there was a program in which unscrupulous salespeople were filmed swindling old folks by selling them services that they didn’t need. When asked how they had learned to do this they answered they had learned through NLP. Not great publicity for us, but probably a good reason to learn NLP to help deal with that kind of unscrupulous person.

Practically speaking there is not much I can do about this situation – except be scrupulously ethical in how I teach and use NLP. Acting like a relatively normal human being helps. Not that I know what the definition of normal human being is of course.

Occasionally I get mischievous, I’ll admit. People have asked me if I’m part of a sect and sometimes I answer ‘Yes! But my sect has a maximum membership of one. So you can’t join, Sorry.’ It tickles me to imagine extending that idea in a democratic way. To adapt the old saying goes ‘one man, one sect’. Of course if you are a woman you can have your very own sect too. I have not considered if there should be a minimum age for individual sect leadership.

I think a more interesting set of question is: If you were both the guru and membership of your own sect, what would your teachings be? Where might they have come from, and how are you following them?