"To religion I would add powerful secular ideologies - nationalism, national socialism, communism and so on. Perhaps there's a basis for a journal article entitled " The neurochemistry of Eric Hoffer's True Believer"That's a good point, Mark - although it's more likely that it's self medicating via dopamine and nor-epinephrine . My own fieldwork tended to show three major personality types: the Seeker (someone searching for transcendental "meaning"), the "natural born follower" someone searching for a cause), and the type you mention. Add to that the usual mix of cynical opportunists, badly psychologically damaged people and the occasional person who has there feces coagulated, and you have the typical New Religious Movement. On the whole, unless an ecstatic religion is a fairly strong part of the cultural matrix, it does tend to be used as a "drug". "
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