The use of an "auditor" to closely listen to the ruminations of others is eerily similar to co-counseling and Hubbard's belief in "unlocking the power of the human mind" is also consistent with RC's belief that purging negative emotions will unleash long-dormant intellectual powers.

"Many RC assumptions, such as the central importance of the discharge process, are identical to the dianetic ideas developed many years earlier by Hubbard, despite the repeated insistence of Jackins and his followers on the distinctiveness of their ideas," Dr. Tourish notes.

Although none dare call them a cult, this totalistic ideology does seem to exhibit various characteristics endemic to coercive sects.

Their authoritarianism, dogmatism, and sense of mission exhibit a marked "chosen people" mentality and the "discharge" process closely resembles the "cult of confession" practiced by Jim Jones and the People's Temple or the "attack therapy" techniques utilized at Synanon. The belief that only the co-counseling community is in possession of invaluable insights unfathomable to the "wide world" serves as yet another effective method to instill obedience to RC theory and further insulate its members from alternative ideas.

"What you've got is an entire political movement built of 'yes men'" declares O'Hartigan. Despite its unsavory origins, questionable history, and dubious methods, RC is on the march.

Discerning activists should aware of this dynamic mass movement, which seeks to appropriate the lexicon of opposition politics, in order to propagate a collective agenda of group control, statism, and neo-Freudian tomfoolery.

Endnotes:

[1] "Sex, Lies, & Co-Counseling." Activist Men's Journal, August 1993.

[2] "Reaching for Influence." Present Time, January 1998.

[3] "Group Influence and the Psychology of Cultism Within Re-evaluation Counseling: A Critique." Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 13, No 2, 1996.