Perseveration

I was thinking about what happened to Lekhraj Kirpalani and what his symptoms were that grew into the cult that followed him, and a new to me word or concept was perseveration. By the accounts of his later life especially, and the evidence of his disordered repetitive writing, and stream of consciousness rambling, repeating the same simple ideas over and over again, despite their obvious failures, it seems to me that the community to some degree sheltered or hid mental health symptoms, giving them a magical interpretation instead.

Perseveration is repetitive and continuous behaviour, in word or thought, that occurs due to changes in cognitive skills such as memory, attention, and mental flexibility etc. Although I am not suggesting he was, it is common among autistic individuals

Perseveration is when a person's repetitive thoughts and dwells on negativity causes them to become “stuck”. It can happen because a person is trying to manage stress, process information, shift attention, and can’t stop thinking about certain things, or control behaviors. A kind of thinking, or looping thoughts, that is not done consciously or on purpose. It can often be a coping mechanism for individuals when they feel overwhelmed.

Reasons can include (and, again, I am not addressing all of them to him):

not knowing how to calm the mind and body
difficulty with flexible thinking
slow processing speed which means a person needs a lot of time to take in, make sense of, and respond to information
not understanding social cues
being hyperfocused on things

It can arise due to physical influences such as frontal lobe lesions, and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Perseveration may show itself by:

worrying about something that might happen because it happened in the past
continuing to ask the same question long after getting an answer to the question
going over previous conversations or interactions in the mind
repeatedly talking about something that happened a long time ago
giving the same answer to a different set of questions, even if it makes no sense

Etymologically, it derives from the word to "persevere". Where persistent behaviour is directed toward an identifiable goal, it is called "perseverance", but when not directed toward such a goal is called "perseveration". It refers to insistent or redundant repetition.

Arguably, copying Lekhraj Kirpalani's behaviour, BKism teaches perseveration as its methods, e.g. "say Baba 16,108 times a day", "keep spinning The Cycle", the fixation with all of life being an identical repetition, "do more Yoga" being the cure for everything etc etc.

In the past we've discussed how the early days of BKism was a kind of Folie a Plusieurs, a madness shared by many emanating from the leading individual. We know that he had some kind of breakdown after visiting the unidentified Bengali sadhu and paying for some kind of undefined initiation. We don't know precisely what caused his transformation but we also know it encouraged a kind of madness within, e.g. believing that he himself was god for 20 years. Even the BKs' own account of him after was being sent away, and covering the walls of one of houses with scribbled drawings of cycles etc. His mentally drifting off and retreating from life.

Perhaps the practice of 'learned perseveration' among the follower is a manifestation of it?

New word - Perseveration. Useful. Thanks.

Otherwise we can look at how ego and attachment work together.

New word - Perseveration. Useful. Thanks.

Credit goes to Eric Weinstein, in an interview with Diary of a CEO, who is clearly a very clever chappie. He used it in the verbal form, i.e. to perseverate, as a way of describing one strategy that governments, and whoever is behind them, mislead the general population.

Of course, in our case, I am applying it to the ShivShakti Army's Global Government, or whatever the BKs call themselves today.