Warren Jeffs provides us with still another object-lesson in madness.  His private delusional system eventually was confronted by the world outside of himself and he was found guilty.  It was interesting to note that even as the hand of justice came down on him, his only defense was to recite his self-serving interpretation of FLDS holy writ.  He still didn’t get it.  And, he won’t get it.  His delusional system is too rigid.

Jeff’s delusional system was mirrored by a somewhat larger delusional system, the sectarian religious culture that he had lived in for his whole life. But that sectarian world-view was not mirrored…eventually…by the world at large.  And the “mirroring” by the world at large is what separates a sect from non-sectarian religion

We all have private belief-systems even apart from religious/spiritual beliefs.  That is to say, we all have our own private world that we live in.  But the issue is always the boundary-region between that private belief system and the world at large.  If the belief system is too rigid, if there is no permeability with the world-at-large, then madness reigns.  Mental illness is a reference problem.

The more rigid the private world view, the less permeable it is and the more likely it is that an “us-them” paradigm will emerge. Those ensconced in such a paradigm tend to be paranoid.  And, of course, the more paranoid one is the more likely one is to see “them” as being intrusive and aggressive, even threatening.  This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the paranoid individual’s attitude, speech, and behavior eventually lead to intervention by “them.”  (For a provocative analysis of this phenomena on the group level, see Richard Hofstadter”s Paranoid Style in American Politics.)

Groups such as the FLDS are always in-bred in the sense that they are their own private reference system.  Being “in-bred” like this, it is no accident that incest and child-abuse takes place.  For incest…speaking now in terms of family-system theory…is always an illustration of a family or group feeding on itself.