Cults in Nigeria
National Association of Seadogs (NAS) is a Nigerian charitable and humanitarian organisation and is the registered name for the group also known as the PYRATES CONFRATERNITY.
The organisation is dedicated to humanitarian and charitable endeavours within Nigeria and whatever society the members find themselves.
The Pyrates Creed - The Pyratical aims of fighting all social ills and conformist degradation within and outside our midst stand supreme. These are translated into the creed which is supposed to act as a guide to our acts and thoughts and to the solutions to dilemmas that may face us in making choices in life. There are four compass points whose function is to give us founding principles upon which to direct our lives.
• Against Convention
• Against Tribalism
• For Humanistic Ideals
• For Comradeship and Chilvalry
Certain psychological themes which recur in these various historical contexts also arise in the study of cults. Cults can be identified by three characteristics:
1. a charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose their power;
2. a process I call coercive persuasion or thought reform;
3. economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie.
Milieu Control
The first method characteristically used by ideological totalism is milieu control: the control of all communication within a given environment. In such an environment individual autonomy becomes a threat to the group. There is an attempt to manage an individual's inner communication. Milieu control is maintained and expressed by intense group process, continuous psychological pressure, and isolation by geographical distance, unavailability of transportation, or even physical restraint. Often the group creates an increasingly intense sequence of events such as seminars, lectures and encounters which makes leaving extremely difficult, both physically and
The organisation is dedicated to humanitarian and charitable endeavours within Nigeria and whatever society the members find themselves.
The Pyrates Creed - The Pyratical aims of fighting all social ills and conformist degradation within and outside our midst stand supreme. These are translated into the creed which is supposed to act as a guide to our acts and thoughts and to the solutions to dilemmas that may face us in making choices in life. There are four compass points whose function is to give us founding principles upon which to direct our lives.
• Against Convention
• Against Tribalism
• For Humanistic Ideals
• For Comradeship and Chilvalry
Certain psychological themes which recur in these various historical contexts also arise in the study of cults. Cults can be identified by three characteristics:
1. a charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose their power;
2. a process I call coercive persuasion or thought reform;
3. economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie.
Milieu Control
The first method characteristically used by ideological totalism is milieu control: the control of all communication within a given environment. In such an environment individual autonomy becomes a threat to the group. There is an attempt to manage an individual's inner communication. Milieu control is maintained and expressed by intense group process, continuous psychological pressure, and isolation by geographical distance, unavailability of transportation, or even physical restraint. Often the group creates an increasingly intense sequence of events such as seminars, lectures and encounters which makes leaving extremely difficult, both physically and