The Devil's strategy for our times is to trivialize human existence and isolate us from one another while creating the delusion that the reasons are time pressures, work demands or economic anxieties.

Human behavior is incredibly pliable, plastic.

We want to believe in the essential, unchanging goodness of people, in their power to resist external pressures, in their rational appraisal and then rejection of situational temptations. We invest human nature with God-like qualities, with moral and rational faculties that make us both just and wise. We simplify the complexity of human experience by erecting a seemingly impermeable boundary between Good and Evil.

Many cults start off with high ideals that get corrupted by leaders or their board of advisors who become power-hungry and dominate and control members lives. No group with high ideals starts off as a cult; they become one when their errant ways are exposed.

The Stanford prison experiment came out of class exercises in which I encouraged students to understand the dynamics of prison life.

Being hurt personally triggered a curiosity about how such beliefs are formed.

Research shows that the deciscions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful and creative when there is minority dissent than when it is absent.