Midsommar: Cults, Conformity, and Obedience
Midsommar: Cults, Conformity, and Obedience
The Mind And Emotional Control of Totalism
Abstract
There are approximately 3,000 cults in the United States with 300,000 to 3 million members (Singer & Lalich, 1995). Globally, this number is exponentially higher. Cult groups can be defined as a group with a common, extreme, ideological system devoted to a single cause, which can be anything from political reform to self-improvement (Shepard, 2007). Not all cults are destructive, this is determined by the morality of the cult leader and the scope of their cause (Cath, 1982). Destructive or not, cult groups are recognized by their ability to psychologically control individuals through their indoctrination and exploitation of natural human tendencies such as conformity, obedience, compliance, cognitive dissonance, and vulnerability (Zimbardo, 1997). This has been explored in films such as Ari Aster’s Midsommar, which depicts the sinister motives of a secluded Swedish community, the Hårga, when a group of American graduate students are invited to their midsummer festival which turns out to involve a series of ritualized murders (Andersson & Knudsen, 2019). The prominence of cults make it imperative to examine the extreme social influence they exert on people to join and maintain membership. This paper attempts to discuss the social psychology of cults through the lens of Midsommar.
Keywords: cults, conformity, totalitarianism, social influence, group dynamics
Midsommar: Cults, Conformity and Obedience
A group of Anthropology students head to a remote Swedish community is Hälsingland, which turns sinister as each graduate student is murdered in gruesome, ritualistic killings (Andersson & Knudsen, 2019). Underneath gory pagan rituals, Midsommar is a twisted tale of grief, belonging and community. The main character, Dani, loses her family in a tragic event but finds a surrogate family and an empathic community with Hårga, a cult. While the Hårga may not be a real entity, it is certainly grounded in reality. Cults exist worldwide and their practices are not dissimilar to that of the Hårga. A cult can be broadly defined as a group with a shared commitment to an extreme ideology (Lalich, 2017). Cults are known to exercise extreme social influence on individuals by exploiting their basic human tendencies in order to affect thought reform and behavior change which can corrupt even the most ordinary of individuals (Hassan, 2000).
There is currently a problem with the powerful social influence cult groups have on vulnerable individuals to recruit them as members and systematic exploitation of natural human tendencies such as the need to conform with group norms or obedience to authority in order to maintain their membership (Zimbardo, 2007). This is seen in both in Midsommar’s depiction of the Hårga and cults worldwide. In this movie, the rituals ranged from two elders jumping from a cliff to grotesque murder. In the larger context of the world, cults have been able to convince people to kill themselves (e.g. Heaven’s Gate, Jonestown), to kill others (e.g. Manson Family), perform cannibalistic acts (e.g. Ripper Crew) and even steal and inject children with LSD (e.g. The Family). This is a product of cults’ extreme social influence and psychological manipulation.
How are cult groups, such as the Hårga, able to recruit individuals, make them perform in their unique, sometimes sadistic, rituals and maintain them as group members? What defines our modern understanding of cults, and why do people join them?
Midsommar: A showcase About The Susceptibility To The Cult Experience
Through symbolism and metaphor, Ari Aster tells about a tragically orphaned woman’s grief and desire for community. The story is told against the backdrop of a trip to a secluded Swedish town. By examining the details presented in Midsommar, this paper will analyze the factors which contributed to Dani eventually joining the Hårga.
The story starts off as Dani’s sister commits suicide and kills both her parents. Launched into a state of despair, Dani hunts for comfort but finds none in her boyfriend, Christian, whom she is trapped in a codependent, toxic relationship with. Meanwhile, Christian and his friends, Mark and Josh, are invited by their friend, Pelle, to his commune in Sweden. Unable to break up with her and out of pity, Christian invites Dani. This exposition sets up the entire story and largely contributes to Dani joining the cult. Dani is in a depressive state and alone with nobody to grieve with. With no support system and emotionally vulnerable, she is susceptible to fall prey to the illusion of family, however malicious. After hours of travel, they arrive at the isolated grounds of the Hårga where they are greeted with hallucinogenic tea (which they receive throughout their stay). The residents of the community are dressed in similar floral white robes practicing traditional arts and crafts. They have no signal, no internet, and no way to escape without using the Hårga’s car. The situation climaxes when they witness the ättestupa, where two elderly members of Hårga jump to their deaths from a cliff. Nonetheless, Dani gets lured into the Hårga, she helps them bake in the kitchen, starts wearing a traditional outfit and participates in one of the rituals of the festival, the search for the May Queen. During the ceremony, Dani dances with other women and for the first time in the whole movie, we see her smile. She wins and is crowned May Queen. Meanwhile, the others are being murdered. When Mark mocks the Hårga and urinates on an ancestral tree without showing remorse and then sleeps with one of the girls, he is skinned to death. Josh is clearly told not to leak any of the rituals yet is found taking pictures of their sacred texts in their temple to publish in his paper. He is found and killed by a member of the cult wearing Mark’s face skin as a mask and his leg skin as pants. Connie and Simon, freak out and curse during the ättestupa ritual, are killed when they demand to leave. Connie is drowned in a river and Simon is hung up in a chicken coop with his eyes gouged out and his lungs removed from his back in the shape of wings. Christian of course was used for an impregnation ritual and given a love potion made out of genital blood and pubic hair. The students are unlike Dani who is polite, kind, and open to the Hårga. In the last few scenes of the movie, we witness a sacred ritual where nine humans are burnt. The elders who committed suicide, two volunteers, and four outsiders. For the last sacrifice, Dani chooses Christian who is stuffed into a disemboweled bear and burnt in the temple with the others. As the fire rages, the villagers howl and cry. The movie ends with Dani beginning to smile. In this purging ritual; they allow every feeling and emotion inside themselves to be let out. Dani finally finds a sense of belonging and violent catharsis for her grief. She also becomes an accessory to murder.
The ending of this film puts everything into perspective. It becomes clear that Pelle was not sincere, he had planned for the students to be sacrificed and for Dani joining the cult. Dani was volatile, vulnerable and in need of community — and Pelle knew this. Pelle asks her, “Dani, do you feel held [by Christian]?” and tells Dani about the way he lost his parents, but that he had the support of his community. At the festival, Dani sees how every emotion, even orgasms are felt by the whole group. Dani comes to realize the power of empathy and is slowly shown what a real support system looks like as the community helps her express her emotions. When Dani blissfully smiles at the end of the movie, we know she has found the feeling of home and belongingness.
Aster explores bloody totalitarian mind control under a layer of community warmth. Midsommar is about grief, empathy and community, but ultimately, is about the cult experience and the enticing and believable illusion of warmth and community they offer to people.
The Psychological Impact Of Cults
A cults sustenance depends on their ability to recruit and maintain members which they do with coercive techniques and by exploiting natural human tendencies (Clark, 1979).
Midsommar revolves around the Hårga, a Swedish community from Hälsiagland. The rich culture of the Hårga’s beliefs are detailed in costumes, runic symbols, and elaborate murals. Every ritual, from a woman cutting her own genitals to stuffing dead bodies is prepared and undertaken with meticulous detail to showcase the depth of their beliefs. The Hårga extract their beliefs from the natural word, deriving a framework in which to live meaningful lives. Their conception of life is divided into a rigid cycle of life; birth, death, rebirth, and so on. Their cycle of life follows the seasons, 18 years of childhood which represents spring, 18 years of pilgrimage, summer, 18 years of work, autumn, and 18 years as a village elder, winter. At the age of 72, they commit suicide by jumping from a cliff and at 18, women are to get impregnated. This enforced impregnation and death is a way to control their life cycle; the newborns take the names of the elderly victims. The Hårga’s efforts are to maintain this cyclical balance at all costs; and the eugenic population. This cult, like those in real life, are paradoxically rule-bound and lawless. They live in isolation, cult off from the law but have their own rigid hierarchy and rules.
Cults like the Hårga are not uncommon. For instance, in 1978, Reverend Jim Jones set up the “People’s Temple” which combined communist and socialist ideology, with an emphasis on racial equality in Guyana, South America. At his orders, 912 people were shot, committed suicide or killed their own children (Moore, 1989). Like Jonestown, Heaven’s Gate was a religious cult where 39 members committed suicide because they believed it would allow them entrace to a spaceship in the wake of the Hale-Bopp comet (Robinson, 1997). In the 1960s Charles Manson set up the “Manson Family” with 100 followers who later murdered nine people (Gilbert, 2017). Social Psychologists continue to expand their efforts in examining how Jones, and Manson were able to command and influence people’s thoughts and actions. These cults offer important lessons on the power of situational and social influence and the consequences of a leader using such influences to destructively manipulate others’ behavior. How were so many people influenced to take their own lives? These cults shed a light on the complex psychology of cults.
The cult experience is complicated, the details of which are beyond the scope of this paper and while only a few turn out as deadly as Jonestown or the Hårga, most cults share basic characteristics. What consists of our modern understanding of cults and how can we identify them? Additionally, what is their impact on individuals and on society? Mostly, the experience can be summed up in two words: thought reform. Cults systematically exert social influence to produce behavioral change and thought reform (Singer, Lalich, 1995; Lifton, 1989). Like Heaven’s Gate and the Hårga, there are characteristics which fall in line with identifying cult-esque behavior. Firstly, a typical cult requires commitment from its members and expects them to follow a strict hierarchy with no access to knowledge of the internal life and reality of the cult (Collins, 1982). With the Hårga, hierarchy innate in their ideology of life cycles. Secondly, individuals attempting to leave the Hårga, were killed. Cult groups claim to provide answers to life’s biggest questions through its extreme ideologies and doctrines, with the Hårga for example, they seemed to have an answer to the cycle of life and birth. Very importantly, the cult environment discourages critical thinking, they make it hard to voice doubts, known as thought stopping (Lifton, 1989). This is commonly done with the use of chanting, meditation, or for instance, hallucinogenic mushrooms. Dr. Cath, a psychoanalyst and associate professor of psychiatry from Tufts University, refers to this as environmental control used to make it difficult to test reality (Cath, 1982). Cults like Jonestown and the Hårga control the environment by isolating recruits leaving no escape routes. Under these tremendous pressures, anybody can succumb to the pressures of cults (O’Reilly & Chatman, 1996).
The real horror displayed in Midsommar and in cults is that virtually anybody can be roped in. Destructive cults, such as the Hårga, due to their extreme ideology can be a threat to individuals and to larger society. The ideology of a cult may seem bizarre to outside observers, but anybody is susceptible to joining. Cults use compelling conversion techniques to exploit people (Clark, 1979) and can induce radical personality changes as easily in normally developing people as among disturbed ones (Singer & Lalich, 1995).
The impact of joining a cult is not limited to temporary brainwashing and psychological manipulation, it can lead to lasting psychological damage such as depression, guilt, fear, paranoia, slow speech, memory impairment, and more (Clark, 1979).
Cults use their indoctrination to play on our natural inclination to mimic social behaviors or follow orders and stunt psychological and emotional growth. And most importantly, they use both formal and informal systems of influence and control to keep members obedient to conform to social norms.
The Cult Experience: The Power of Extreme Social Influence in Cults
What theories and research from social psychology can be used to explain extreme social influence?
In order to carry out their beliefs and plans, cults need people. It remains that recruitment is an essential part of the process. How are ordinary people recruited and why do they get lured in? The answer to this is all too clearly shown in Midsommar: a need to belong.
Recruiting Members
Human beings have a strong and perhaps innate need to join social groups. Joining a group can provide us with a sense of belonging and help define who we are. They can provide a lens through which we can view and understand the world, and our place it in. For instance, in Midsommar, they believe that in order to ensure their own survival, they must maintain the cycle of seasons. Groups establish social norms to define acceptable behavior. This can be implicit and explicit rules, for instance, in Midsommar, an example of an explicit rule is that sacred texts have restricted access. An example of an implicit rule is not urinating on trees. Cults are, ultimately, another form of social group and many times, people succumb in need to belong.
The single most impact fact about cults, as mentioned before, is that anybody can be lured in.
For instance, Dani, a psychology graduate student nonetheless, was lured in by Pelle into the false illusion of warmth and family of the Hårga. However, there were certain factors, as we discussed before which contributed to her joining the Hårga. Most significantly, the fact that she lost her family in a tragic event with nobody to help her through it. Pelle was able to play into this by explaining that even though he too lost his parents, he had the support of the Hårga. “I have always felt held. By a family. A real family. Which everyone deserves. And you deserve,” he tells her as he tries to sell her on the totalitarian life of Hårga.
While anybody can be lured into cults, the most susceptible are those who are emotionally vulnerable, for instance, those without a family, such as Dani, and are enticed by reward, a community (Clark, 1979).
Alexandra Stein, a cult survivor and author of the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing explains how almost anyone, in the right circumstance, can be radically manipulated to perform incomprehensible acts (Stein, 2016). She explains this through the lens of John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory (AT), which theorized about the development of bonds between individuals in relationships (Bowlby, 1978). AT discusses also about the requirement of attachment as protection from threats. But in abusive relations, Stockholm Syndrome, and cults, the group instilling the fear is also to whom we become attached to, this fear-based attachment is known as Disorganized Attachment (Main & Solomon, 1990). Essentially this confusing bond results from a failed attempt to find comfort leading to cognitive dissociation as individuals run toward the source of fear instead of away from it. This maladaptive way of coping, leads to illogical thinking, which is why perfectly rational, functioning people, can find themselves unable to rationally consider the cult they are involved in as it is too frightening to do so (Stein, 2016).
Maintaining Membership
Next, it calls to identify why people stay in cults and how they are able to successfully influence our behaviors and thoughts.
Human behavior can be influenced in two ways; through informational social influence, when humans look to others for information on how to behave acceptably, and normative social influence, which is where humans get along with people for the sake of social approval (Aronson, Wilson, Akert & Sommers, 2018). This is also the difference between private acceptance and public conformity of a group’s norms and beliefs. Social Impact Theory, which discusses the likelihood of responding to social influence, cites three key variables for social influence; strength, refers to the importance of the group, immediacy, refers to the physical proximity of the group, and number, refers to how many people are in the cult versus on your side (Aronson et al., 2018). In Midsommar, there were two of these factors, firstly that Dani had no physical distance from members and secondly, the ratio of cult members to graduate students was very small.
A crucial factor contributing to social influence of cult members is the concept of obedience to authority. Obedience is key to cults and totalist regimes. Nazi Germany for example was an army of ordinary people under complex and powerful social pressure (Aronson et al., 2018). It is human nature to obey authority figures and difficult to say no, especially when the people around you are obeying them as well. Stanley Milgram showcased this in his obedience experiment where two thirds of ordinary people were willing to administer severe electric shocks to complete strangers when ordered to do so by an experimenter (Haslam & Reicher, 2012). From Midsommar we saw this when Christian was invited to perform in the impregnation ritual with Maja. Siv, the matriarch of the commune, insisted Christian join Maja in her sexual rite to adulthood. Another example is when children and other members watched as a village elder disembowel a bear and stuffed an alive Christian inside of it. The people obediently did as they were told. An additional example of Obedience is during the river ritual where the villagers sacrifice their possessions to mother nature, a young child volunteered to sacrifice himself by drowning himself in the river. Everybody silently watched this young boy being tied to stones and about to be thrown into the river, until Dani said “stop.” Immediately everybody else said stop too and started yelling. This is similar to the conformity experiments of Solomon Asch, who showed that, even when faced with clearly incorrect information, the majority of people publicly denied clear evidence. However, when just one other person disagreed with the majority the conformity effect almost disappeared (Asch, 1956). Leading to our next point: conformity and compliance.
Compliance and conformity are a second key ingredient in the cocktail of social influence present in the cult experience. Going back to the example of the Nazi regime in Germany and the tragic mass suicide at Jonestown, what we see is not just obedience to authority, it is conformity to group social norms and compliance to behavior. Compliance can be normative, without private acceptance, purely for social approval. This type of social influence can be subtle, indirect, and outside of awareness (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).
In addition to authorities, individuals will also look to social norms and other members in the group to effectively respond to social situations, especially during times of uncertainty (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).
Individuals will alter their behaviors in order to conform to the real or imagined expectations of others. There are many reasons why an individual may choose to conform to the group, for instance, the ambiguity of a situation. If an individual finds themself in a confusing or unusual situation, such as Dani finding herself in a grip of the Hårga and being crowned the May Queen. Or Jonestown, where people were found themselves in a jungle. When people are uncertain and in new surroundings, they look to others for cues on what to do (Zimbardo, 1997). Other times, people conform because they simply in order to meet the group’s expectations to be accepted. Dani did not have to become an accessory to murder, but she did when she chose Christian as the sacrifice. Why did she conform to the social pressure? This was firstly, an ambiguous and highly unusual situation, secondly, she was the only one left from the initial group of six students, there was nobody on her side. Thus, she conformed to the group by selecting a sacrifice. Under strong social pressure, individuals will give in and conform even if this means doing something unethical (Aronson et al., 2018). In 2004, American soldiers were found abusing prisoners held at Abu Ghraib (Aronson et al., 2018). This is similar to the Stanford Prison Experiment where ordinary students were given positions as wardens and prisoners and started conforming to their perception of those roles, eventually abusing each other (Zimbardo, 2007). Likewise, Dani conformed due to high social pressures. Cults exploit this natural human tendency to conform to make individuals take other’s lives and even their own. An additional factor to this is our perceived consensus of the group. Our perception of the level of consensus held by a group influences our own reaction to those beliefs (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004). Conversion Theory suggests that majority influence is normative, and this is likely what happened to Dani when she decided to sentence Christian to death (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004). Dani was in an ambiguous, critical situation, with no time to stop and think, and nobody on her side, she had to look at the others as experts. Maja not only participated in a strange impregnation ritual with Christian while thirteen women watched, she also performed the Love Spell on Christian which required her to extract genital blood to feed Christian along with a pubic hair. She conformed to the beliefs of the group after being taught that all women do this and that this is just a part of her life.
Contributing to both conformity and obedience, is the concept of deindividuation which essentially describes the loss of personal responsibility thereby increasing the extent to which people obey the group’s norms (Postmes & Spears, 1998). Group norms sometimes deviate from societal norms, such as the Hårga, and when members are together and deindividuated, they become more likely to act according to the group norm (Aronson et al., 2018) . For instance, when individuals no longer feel like individual entities and rather like a small part of a larger group. It makes people feel less accountable thus increasing adherence to local group norms. For instance take “The Family,” where members stole children from their homes and forced them to take LSD. When an individual is just “following orders,” it becomes easier to do unpleasant things as they no longer need to take full responsibility (Aronson et al., 2018). To tie this back to Midsommar, every student was brutally killed and disfigured by individual members, likely because they did not feel responsible to carry the blame.
A third factor which keeps people in cults is the need to satisfy self-esteem by behaving consistently with beliefs and commitments (Cialdini & Trost 1998). Leon Festinger, a famous psychologist, studied “The Seekers” to examine their reaction when their prophecy, that predicted the end of the world, was disconfirmed (Aronson et al., 2018). He found that members developed a stronger belief in the cult when the prophecy failed, revealing how people had to find a way to cope psychologically with the failure (Festinger, Riecken & Schachter, 1956). Festinger described this as Cognitive Dissonance, the internal conflict caused when our beliefs do not turn out to be an accurate reflection of reality (Festinger et al., 1956). Each compromise makes it more painful to admit the deception, keeping people trapped in cults (Lifton, 1989). This is a human tendency to justify our actions and commitments in order to protect self-esteem. In Midsommar, Dani makes the monumental decision to kill her boyfriend. Assuming Dani stays part of the Hårga, she is likely going to convince herself that it was a good decision rather than admit the truth, murder. The same could be said for the other members of the Hårga, for Maja, the Hårga is definitely not the ideal place to raise a child, assuming she gets pregnant in the future, though it is unlikely she would leave the cult. She has done too much, from cutting her own genitals to witnesses all of those horrific murders and suicides. The other members, especially those who committed the crimes, have done and seen too much for them to admit what is really going on.
The theories and research presented here showcases the power of extreme social influence which can corrupt anybody. Cults exploit individuals’ natural inclinations to follow orders, mimic others, and to protect self-esteem. Many times, we are left struggling to comprehend our circumstances, it can be difficult to respond in line with our private judgments in the face of external pressures (O’Reilly & Chatman, 1996).
Conclusion: Totalism is government, communities, and institutions
George Orwell explored the power of induced powerlessness in his book, 1984. He painted a terrifying dystopia of a totalism regime in full control of people’s behaviors and thoughts. Unfortunately, this fictional depiction is not far from reality. Cults revolve around totalist philosophy of “all or nothing,” which has been seen in government and institutions for centuries. It is not just delusional cults which can work in this way to exploit humans, but entire government systems. Totalitarian regimes work to control behavior and thoughts just like cults. They use mind control techniques used such as sophisticated types of compliance, conformity and obedience training. The process of brainwashing that totalist systems engage in is one of psychological and coercive manipulation. Today, this is seen in the suicide bombers of ISIS and the child soldiers of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, even North Korea. There are three million people trapped in the strong grasp of cults, unable to break free (Singer & Lalich 1995). It is imperative for us to understand the workings of authoritarian organizations. Cults are terrifyingly fascinating. And they are in our midst.
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