" A man like Panditji coud mesmerize you into submission, hypnotize you into regarding him as a source of spiritual comfort. It was undoubtedly his intention to try, and when you knew a man's intentions you were even more in danger of being subjected to them because to be aware of an intention somehow increased its force. I shall destroy you, one man might say to another; and at once he would have a confederate, the man himself. Ideas seemed to have a life, a power of their own. Men became slaves to them. To challenge an idea as an alternative to accepting it was to be no less a slave to it. Neither to accept nor challenge it was the most difficult thing of all; perhaps impossible. "

― Paul Scott , The Day of the Scorpion