"The Guru Papers" demonstrates with uncompromising
clarity that authoritarian control, which once held societies
together, is now at the core of personal, social, and planetary
problems, and thus a key factor in social disintegration. It
illustrates how authoritarianism is embedded in the way people
think, hiding in culture, values, daily life, and in the very
morality people try to live by. The book unmasks authoritarianism
in such areas as relationships, cults, 12-step groups, religion,
and contemporary morality. Chapters on addiction and love show the
insidious nature of authoritarian values and ideologies in the most
intimate corners of life, offering new frameworks for understanding
why people get addicted and why intimacy is laden with conflict. By
exposing the inner authoritarian that people use to control
themselves and others, the authors show why people give up their
power, and how others get and maintain it.
