Name: The True Believer:Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
ISBN: 9780060505912

The True Believer:Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

This book presents ideas about how mass movements work and the psychology of people that awaken/join mass movements. The author uses examples of movements of all types from the past, as well as movements that were current when the book was written; and discusses in great detail many techniques used to form and hold them together, the many motives that draw people to them, and the similarities between movements that appear on the surface to be completely different in nature (e.g., secular vs. religious, communist vs. fascist, radical vs. reactionary movements). The book is well referenced, and uses quotes from secular and religious writings (the Bible, too) associated with mass movements past and (the author's) present. This book will be of great interest to anyone who is interested in: psychology, particularly of fundamentalism and blind faith, why some psychological conditions cause people to behave as they do, and the psychology of groups; the history of change through social upheaval and mass movements; how and why secular and religious extremist/fanatical groups come into being; and why there has been and continues to be so much injustice, violence and depravity on such large scales in "civilization".

What Hacker News says

webdoodleAug 2026

This list is incomplete without Eric Hoffer's True Believer, which is probably a reference/source for all of these other books. It's basically how to build a fanatic, a cult and a mass movement. It's also required reading for Terrorism studies classes, and CIA personnel, the latter, using it to conduct regime change in banarepublics and oil bearing nations.

Of course now it's used on everyone who uses smartphones and social media.

It's a Brave New World, and you're carrying the main tool to mind control you in your pocket. Bonus, you probably pay for it too!

thread

Joel_MckayFeb 2026

I often ponder why Carl Sagan never added another book to his famous reading list for students, as it makes a fairly reasonable argument that most populist movements are essentially interchangeable =3

"The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" (Eric Hoffer, 1951)

https://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Nature-Movemen...

thread

m_herrlichMay 2025

What a great read, it reminds me of "True Believer" by the great Eric Hoffer. "Stupid" as a word is a translation choice, it would be more effective if they had chosen a less derogatory term. 'True believer' would work better than 'stupid person'.

thread

black6May 2024

Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer"

Cicero's "How to Grow Old"

John Derbyshire's "Prime Obsession"

thread

zingababbaOct 2023

Some recent ones I've really enjoyed: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - Julian Jaynes; And: Phenomenology of the End - Franco Berardi; The True Believer - Eric Hoffer; I See Satan Fall Like Lightning - Rene Girard; Surplus Enjoyment - Slavoy Zizek; Dionysus, Christ, and the Death of God - Giuseppe Fornari

Phenomenology of the End in particular blew my mind.

thread

everybodyknowsJul 2022

A historical survey of political personality cults, from Martin Luther to Mao, is The True Believer by Eric Hoffer, the "longshoreman philosopher":

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=eric+hoffer+the+true+believer&t=ip...

thread