Gregg Hurwitz: The Program

A podium stood ignored, home to a second mike and a small bottle of mineral water. Bose speakers adhered to the ceiling piped out Bederman's voice a bit too loudly. The students attended his words diligently.

"In Jonestown, children were kept in a six-by-three-by-four-foot plywood box for weeks at a time. They were dragged out, thrown in a dark well, and told that poisonous snakes awaited them there. Husbands and wives were punished if caught talking privately. Do you know how? Their daughters were forced to masturbate in front of the entire population."

A few hushed exchanges among the students. A girl raised a tentative hand. "But the cult heyday has passed. I mean, they were all over in the seventies and stuff, but now they're kind of gone, right?"

Bederman scowled thoughtfully, as if considering her point. "How many of you have been approached at some point on this campus by someone ready to tell you about a wonderful way to take control of your life?"

Easily half of the students raised their hands.

Bederman drew his lips tight and gave the girl in the front a little nod. "There are more than ten thousand destructive cults operating today. The terrorist campaigns that have so changed our world were hatched inside groups where cult mind control is law. As we've just seen illustrated, countless cults still operate insidiously all around us in our community. And – even better – mind-control techniques and hypnotic inductions aren't even illegal. Literally millions of people are manipulated and indoctrinated without giving informed consent every year, and it's all completely lawful."

He walked to the edge of the stage. "Let's get back to Jonestown. Why did people obey? Why did they drink the Kool-Aid they knew would end their lives? Why did they squeeze cyanide from syringes down the throats of their own babies?"

"Because they were sociopaths?" a student called out.

"All nine hundred ten of them?" Bederman shook his head. "No. Because they were healthy."

A chorus of disbelief from the crowd.

"Stage hypnotists," Bederman said, "will choose the most ordinary volunteers. At all costs they'll avoid neurotics, who are all but impervious to suggestion. Con men and cult leaders go after similar targets. Statistics show that two-thirds of people who join cults are from normal, functioning families – whatever those are – and were demonstrating age-appropriate behavior at the time they joined. You see, the healthy remain attuned to the shifts around them, to suggestive cues in their environment. The human brain is a magnificently evolved tool, designed to adapt to an ever-changing -"

He stopped abruptly and shaded his eyes, squinting up toward the back of the hall at Tim. The students shifted in their chairs, turning around. At once Tim felt the discomfort of five hundred sets of eyes on him.

Bederman chuckled, and the students turned back to him, confused. "I just influenced the behavior of every last one of you. I indicated that there was key information over there – maybe a threat, maybe an opportunity – but something important enough to disrupt a lecture. Further, I am your professor, your authority figure. And if you believe you're not impressed with authority, permit me to impart one of my favorite facts: Students perceive professors as being two and a half inches taller than students of the same height. When I, your towering professor" – a self-deprecating grin – "looked to the rear of the hall, most of you followed my lead, bringing social pressure to bear on the rest. We are wisely influenced by information around us. That's what helps us function as healthy humans. Cults gain inroads to your brain by exploiting precisely such natural, unthinking reactions."

"Following your gaze is one thing," a serious young man in a wool sweater called out. "But it's not like we'd kill ourselves if you asked us to."

"Of course not. First I'd have to gain control over your thoughts, your emotions, your behavior. I'd get you off your turf and exploit the hell out of you." Bederman rapped the podium with his knuckles. "That would disrupt the key markers by which you understand your world. Your neurotransmitters would reset at high levels, your stress hormones would burn out from continuous activation and stop secreting. I could traumatize you so greatly and repeatedly that your brain would be forced to call into question all it had ever learned. And then, everywhere you looked to gather information, I would present your new skewed reality."

The student shook his head, his long hair swaying. "There's no way you could argue me into a cult."

"Of course not. Arguing's not nearly seductive enough." A few students tittered nervously. Bederman continued to pace. "What's your name?"

The student tapped his pen against his notebook. "Brian."

"I would set out to create a new Brian. Cult-Brian. In his new world, Cult-Brian is rewarded for everything he says, does, and thinks by everyone around him. And True-Brian is punished for everything he says, does, thinks, or remembers. Pretty soon I'd have created a dominant cult personality much like everyone else's in my cult, trained to obey me. Why are you susceptible, Brian? You're a healthy, well-adjusted male, unburdened, I'd guess, by dire psychological problems. I need worker bees. I need bang for my buck. I wouldn't waste valuable time and energy indoctrinating someone who wasn't strong, caring, and motivated. Your active imagination, your creative mind, your ability to focus and concentrate – all the better to hypnotize you with, my dear. You're struggling to assert your individuality. Look at how well you've done so here in this forum. Wonderful. Come assert it with me and mine. We're rebels. We'll take on all of society, do things our own way, you and me and our nine hundred and nine friends. Your positive characteristics are merely tools for me to exploit. Within a few weeks, you'll think the cult's the greatest thing that ever happened to you. You'll never want to leave. You'd just as soon…" – he halted onstage, his momentum lost; the air seemed to go right out of him – "die."

A side door banged open. A man with a stocking over his head ran past the stage, screaming, "Fascist Nazi persecutor!" He threw a water balloon that exploded at Bederman's feet, spraying him with white paint. The assailant flashed out the emergency door, tripping the alarm.

Seemingly unfazed, Bederman pulled a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and wiped his paint-flecked spectacles, shouting to be heard over the din. "Okay. Here we go again! File out neatly and orderly! And remember to read Chapter Six for Thursday's lecture!"

Attache in hand, Bederman made his way calmly up the stairs. Tim braved the outward rush of students. "Dr. Bederman!" he shouted. The alarm was so shrill it hurt his teeth. "I'm Tim Rackley from the U.S. Marshals Service. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Bederman nodded and took Tim's arm. They spilled out of Haines into the quad as several security guards trotted inside. "I would apologize for the ruckus, but I've grown accustomed to it. Its reliability is refreshing."

"This happens all the time, I take it."

"Paint balloons, fire alarms, bomb threats, files ransacked. Cults have an enviable amount of manpower at their disposal, especially for an old dragonslayer like me. They've canceled my hotel and airline reservations, sent fraudulent letters to the board of state medical examiners. Once, after one of my expert-witness testimonies, I received seventy-two hours of continuous phone calls. I've elected to find the attention flattering." He paused, sizing Tim up. "But let's get down to business. I'm so glad you got back to me."

"I'm sorry?"

"About my stolen mailing lists. They were encrypted, of course, but -"

Tim finally managed to slide in a sentence. "I think you have me confused with someone else."