Howard Bloom has made a  point considering the super-organism and its effect on each person. This is in his book the Lucifer Principle. He takes this super organism as a kind of being in itself.

The point is hanging around in with people you recognize are a cult is a bad idea. If the whole group does not have the kind of character traits you think are admirable, you should leave. The Rambam made a similar point that a person is drawn in his traits and charter by the group he hangs out in.

Howard Bloom brings from the idea of hard wiring a computer. Once the circuits are set, that is it. It only takes a short time for the groups dynamics to get set inside ones cerebral cortex, and then get hard wired.


I think there is a difference between groups behavior individual behavior. There is such a thing as a Bell curve. While individual can rise above the group norms, that is still no reason to ignore the fact that there are groups norms. And the group norm is what one will be dragged into if he stays.