In my self-published memoir of how I got into cult intervention, I indicated in the Introduction that cultic behavior drove human social evolution. After reading this book by Dunbar, I better understand why I made that claim. How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures condenses decades of research from anthropology, neuroscience, history, and language development into a readable reference book for the nonspecialist in those fields. Though not without controversy, Dunbar’s evidence and ideas deserve a look.
Some corporations have designed and organized their communities using Dunbar’s ideas. My intent in this review is to concentrate on what this book reveals about the formation of cults and sects. First, I list some interesting observations I took from Dunbar’s research and Dunbar’s number, which is the theory, based on Dunbar’s research about group behavior, that 150 is an optimal group size for allowing people to maintain meaningful and personal connections.1 Consider the following:
The number 150, coined as Dunbar’s Number around 1993, is attributed to British evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who writes in this book:
The optimal size seems to be quite finely specified at 150 members, and even a modest overshoot in the size of a congregation inexorably results in a loss of coherence. Above about 300 members, a phase shift in the organizational structure is necessary if its size is to be maintained or increased, but at the unavoidable cost of a [gradual] eroding of the sense of belonging. (p. 264)
• Based on the “social brain hypothesis,”2 Homo sapiens can retain meaningful memories of friendships with up to 150 people. (p. 79)
• According to the author, the evolution of religion is social or communal, with biological underpinnings related to the size of the neocortex. (p. 80)
• Religious communes survive longer than secular communes that deny a hierarchy under a transcendent deity. (pp. 267–268)
• The transcendent connection to high gods through rituals and doctrine forms a strong bond that works better than authoritarian force alone to create cohesion, although both approaches might be present in large movements as in Fifteenth Century Aztec society employing human sacrifice toward religious ends. (p. 65)
• The optimal size for a local church or a congregation is 150 people. (pp. 89–96)
• In megachurches with thousands of subscribers, the maximum number of meaningful friendships within that larger group also remains around 150. (pp. 94–96)
• Roman military contingents numbered on average around 150.3
Not everyone agrees with Dunbar’s assertions or his science;4 however, Dunbar’s number has become a mini paradigm to such an extent that, for decades, some companies and organizations have organized their employee populations around that number.5 The verity of Dunbar’s science is not my concern here, though I think it would be a mistake if overvaluing his ideas created a cult around the number 150. In this review, what interests me are Dunbar’s remarks on religion and cults.
Dunbar first addresses cults directly in Chapter 9, “Cult, Sects and Charismatics,” after he has established in the previous chapter that “A Moralizing High God, of the kind found in many of the world religions, seems to represent a final stage of development that appears only when the civic units are very large” (p. 212).
Chapter 9 begins, “All religions begin as cults, built around a charismatic leader.” Dunbar goes on to unpack this claim, while he defines religion in the broad sense of communal cohesion with belief in a transcendent god or force. Transcendent experience tends to be shared by the cult founder who may act as the cult leader—but not all cult founders are the leaders. For example, I recall exit-counseling members from a cult called Miracle of Love that was based on the charismatic experience and teaching of a former member of the Hare Krishna movement. The partner of this former member and founder, who called herself Kalindi, was the acting leader and manager of the group. The founder, in my view, was mentally ill and could not function as a leader (e.g., his attendants helped feed, clothe, and bathe him).
As a case study, Dunbar uses a little-known, early twentieth-century cult called The Panacea Society, founded and led by Mabel Barltrop. He chose the group because, despite its eccentricities, it was never viewed as dangerous or more than an idiosyncrasy by the local Church of England. At the time of her husband’s death in 1909, Mabel Barltrop was in treatment at the local asylum for extreme depression. She later became inspired by the teachings of eighteenth-century prophetess Johanna Southcott. Barltrop’s movement grew to around seventy committed, mostly older female members by 1930, “with as many as 1,300 additional ‘sealed’ members (those who had undertaken the necessary training and signed up to the commitments of membership). . .” (p. 218). As the movement grew, Barltrop was obliged to establish formal rules.
The Panacea Society fell apart soon after the founder died in 1934. “The last surviving member died in 2012” (p. 219). Dunbar uses this scenario to exemplify the typical start-up cult that fades away after the charismatic leader dies, as most new religious movements lack the capacity for the viable governance and doctrinal formation required to enter a much larger phase of group size. Dunbar also examines, in brief, other groups, including The Ant Hill Kids, the Branch Davidians, Rajneeshpuram, The People’s Temple, Tenrikyo, and the Cathars (see pp. 213–241).
Dunbar also presents evidence in this book that psychoactive substances and natural endorphin (endogenous morphine) stimulation through chanting, dance, and other rituals enhanced early human religious development in the social brain, and that they still do. In my long familiarity with cult formation, I have seen that any number of new cults arise around someone who experiences trance and transcendental awareness during or after a severe illness, an existential crisis, a neurological breakdown with schizophrenic symptoms, a psychoactive drug effect, extreme fasting, or days or weeks of sitting still and other over the-top physical exertions. Out-of-body or near-death experiences account for many stories about transcendental journeys to a heaven, hell, or other planets—not to mention meetings with angelic beings, gods, and ancestors. Transcendent experience, whatever the stimulation, helped to form the social brains of modern humans (see pp. 158–161 in Dunbar’s book for further details about his perspective on this topic).
The book also presents evidence for a connection between certain psychopathologies and some religious behavior: “A synthesis of the clinical and neurobiological evidence concluded that the same brain centers are overactive in schizophrenia, the manic phase of bipolar disorder, and hyper religious behavior” (p. 228). He states that schizotypal6 personality traits, like all personality traits, “are simply one extreme of the normal distribution range into which we all fall . . . . ” (p. 229). It is worth reading the science behind this assertion that Dunbar provides in detail. I can only agree from experience after working in the crisis and intake department of a psychiatric emergency hospital for 25 years. Religious preoccupation appeared in my mental-status evaluations of well over half the patients I processed with the diagnoses mentioned above. Grandiose claims by those kinds of unmedicated patients to be God or the voice for a god were so common as to be expected.
Though it is rare in my experience that someone diagnosed with schizophrenia after hospitalizations can ever function well enough to manage a cult following—and they likely will not want to once they are properly medicated—charismatic leaders with strong schizotypal personality traits rather than disorders can manage a cult following. Schizotypal traits can make a leader far more interesting to true believers who see evidence of transcendence in the same eccentric traits that nonbelievers find annoying, manipulative, and deceptive.
There is so much more I could say about this book by Dunbar, but for this review I hope to whet the appetite of anyone who is interested in the science behind what we can know and want to know about religious behavior.
