Ticket to Heaven (Canada, 1981)

In social psyc class this week we watched Ticket to Heaven, a dramatisation of indoctrination into the Moonies and then being pulled out by determined family and friends. It’s a hell of story, devoting almost its entire run-time to the process of falling under the spell of the cult, and the counter-process of being convinced to leave it behind. It sits right on the tail-end of low-key 70s film realism, with the first section of the film in Toronto full of method-style dialogue, natural light sources, and an integrated, moody soundtrack; by the end it’s switched into early-80s stylisation, with a sweeping score and some clear-cut heroes and villains. Despite these limitations, it provides a compelling vision anchored by a great performance by Nick Mancuso as David, the man who joins the cult.
It held attention in both classes, although the tension-busting gags got more laughter in the second group – I think the first group were too shell-shocked to laugh. It does seem very distant; cults like the Moonies were very much a 70s phenomenon. However, variations on the theme obviously still thrive around the edges of society (and it wasn’t too long ago that a cult was actively recruiting in an NZ university).
What interests me most about cults is the uneasy lines between them and religions, communal living arrangements, alternative lifestyles, even simple pan-cultural acculturation processes; there’s a lot of grey in there. However, what I got talking about after the film in the second class wasn’t what cults are or aren’t, but rather what they demonstrate about ourselves.
Cults highlight what to me is the key lesson in psychology: that our conception of the self as a clearly-defined inner core of identity that drives our behaviour and keeps us cohesive, is wrong. We are massively contingent; who we are is created by who we are with, by the actions we take, by the physiological constraints and stimuli we experience. When we look at a cult and wonder how someone could possibly fall under their spell, we are guilty of not acknowledging this fact. It’s the fundamental attribution error, turned inwards. It’s massively important in working out how to live in the world.
The class humoured me while I ranted and raved on this subject. So that was good.