Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018
Chapter 12–Next Steps _ I knowbut one freedom & that is the freedom of the mind_ Antoinede Saint-Exupéry The unethical use of mind control has reached the point where it is a major social problem, not only in the United States but across the globe. Human traffickers enslave hundreds of thousands of people in this country and millions worldwide. Organizations such as the Unification Church, Scientology, Jehovah’s Witnesses and countless others are affecting the lives of millions of people all over the world. Destructive cults such as ISIS/Daesh[193] and other extreme terrorist groups have gained considerable political attention (if not power) by playing out their grisly activities on the world stage. Some groups, such as Al Qaeda, have managed to invade our shores by influencing domestic terrorists, like those who committed the Boston Marathon bombing. Freeman-On-The-Land, also known as Sovereign Citizens, is listed on the FBI’s domestic terror watchlist.[194] Groups are exerting their influence economically, through their “training” courses for business people in key positions in corporate America. Cults are also gaining ground among the waves of Asian and Hispanic immigrants to the United States, moving beyond their traditional recruitment of the white middle class, which has allowed them to broaden their financial base. People in other parts of the world, who are enamored of the “American dream,” are falling prey to U.S. based Bible cults and multi-level marketing (MLM) groups. Many cult groups have become so skilled at their public relations work that they have gained a high degree of social acceptance, even among prominent professionals. One ploy taken by wealthier groups is to lure respected professionals—scientists, lawyers, politicians, academicians, clergy—to speak at cult-sponsored conferences by offering them large honoraria, often at conferences held in exotic locations, with all expenses paid. These invited speakers may not know or even care about the cult involvement, but their mere presence at such conferences gives tacit approval to the cult. For instance, former British Prime Minister, Edward Heath, attended Moonie conferences. Sociologist Eileen Barker, who wrote _The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing_ and made her professional career saying my life work was mistaken, admits to attending 14 such conferences, but claims that this has not affected her objectivity! My concern about cults is broad and urgent. Their activities, if unchecked, will continue to wreak untold psychological and, at times, even physical damage, on many thousands, if not millions, of people who do not understand what constitutes unethical mind control. Unless legislative action is taken to make destructive cults accountable to society for violating the rights of their members, these groups will continue to deceive the general public into believing that they are doing nothing out of the ordinary. Speaking practically, I realize that many will be reluctant to add yet another issue to their list of serious concerns. Every day, when we read a newspaper or watch the TV news, we are confronted by the threat of nuclear war, global climate change, massive destruction of the earth’s natural resources, starvation in Africa, widespread political corruption, deadly microbes like the Ebola virus and so many other concerns. Why add another? Because like Ebola, the mind control viruses of cults sicken and drain life from human beings. Unless they are contained, they will continue to spread, infecting ever more people. Furthermore, like biological viruses, cults adapt to take advantage of human weaknesses. They exploit legal loopholes to escape prosecution. They manipulate and subvert Internet search engines to bury criticism that might alert people to their unethical behavior. They pour out scorn and disinformation about former members. They use social media to recruit new members. Thousands of stories about cults have appeared in the media in the past few years, yet few address the issue of mind control directly. They tend to be presented as stories about strange or controversial “religions” rather than about people who have been deceptively recruited and controlled through mind control. Media attention usually dies down after the big stories—Charles Manson, the Jonestown massacre, Waco, Heaven’s Gate, and the Tokyo subway sarin gassing by Aum Shinrikyo.[195] It may seem that there are fewer cults because there have been fewer big stories, and as I’ve mentioned, many people with whom I come into casual conversation on the
was Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018
On 10/14/22, Rooty wrote: > > Thanks for your concern and hard work Karl but I’m not in a cult! How do you know?
Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018
Thanks for your concern and hard work Karl but I’m not in a cult! --- Original Message --- On Friday, October 14th, 2022 at 1:15 PM, Undiscussed Groomed for Male Slavery, One Victim of Many wrote: > Chapter 11, Continued > > For the first year after I left the Moonies, every time I heard > the word moon, I would think, Father, and remember sitting at > Moon’s feet. Another example occurred about a month after I left the > group. As I was driving to a friend’s house, I had the thought, This > would be an excellent fundraising area! I had to tell myself that I > was no longer in the Moonies. This thought was triggered because for > the last five months of my membership, I spent fifteen to twenty hours > a day driving around looking for places to drop off members to solicit > money. > > For people who were long involved in a group that required > excessive meditation, chanting, “decreeing,”[185] speaking in tongues, > or other mind-numbing practices, episodes of floating can occur for at > least a year after they have left the cult. Many of my clients have > told me that suddenly, in the middle of a normal conversation, they > would find themselves doing the mind-numbing technique they had > practiced for years. This can be especially dangerous when you’re > driving a car. One former member of a Bible cult told me, “It’s very > frustrating to realize over and over again that my mind is out of > control. Particularly when I’m in a stressful situation, I’ll suddenly > discover I’m babbling nonsense words and syllables (speaking in > tongues) inside my head, and I’ve become disoriented from whatever I > was doing.” > > If not properly understood and responded to, floating can cause a > former cult member who is depressed, lonely and confused to go back to > the group. > > For people fortunate enough to receive good cult counseling, > floating is rarely a problem. However, for people who don’t understand > mind control, it can be a terrifying experience. Suddenly, you flip > back into the cult mindset, and are hit with a tremendous rush of fear > and guilt for betraying the group and its leader. You can become > irrational and begin to think magically, interpreting personal and > world events from the cult’s perspective. For example, you didn’t get > that job “because God wants you to go back to the group,” or the > Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by the Russians “because you > left the Moonies.” > > When you start to float, simply but firmly remind yourself that > the experience has been triggered by some stimulus, and that it will > pass. If you can, try to connect as soon as possible with someone who > understands mind control, and talk it over rationally with them. > > The most powerful and effective technique of all is to identify > the trigger. It could be hearing a song, seeing someone who looks like > a member of the group, or watching someone act or gesture in a way > that cult members often do. Once you know what triggers you, > deliberately call forth that stimulus, but make a new, positive > mental association with it. Think of something non-cult related. Do > this over and over again, until the association becomes a new, learned > response. > > In my case, when I heard the word moon, I would form a mental > picture of a beautiful full moon. I would say to myself, The earth > only has one natural satellite, the moon. For about a week, I often > said to myself “moon,” and conjured up this image, until it stuck. I > referred to the leader of my former cult as Mr. Moon, not wishing to > call him “Reverend,” since that was a self-appointed title anyway, and > visualized him behind bars in prison garb. Similarly, for > ex-Scientologists, it is better to speak of “Ron Hubbard” rather than > “L. Ron Hubbard” or “LRH”, and not to call the cult “the Church”. Such > loaded language is a significant trigger. > > One ex-member of est told me that even though she loves the beach, > she avoided it because the sounds of ocean waves always reminded her > of her indoctrination. Even though she had been out of the group for > five years, that association was still inhibiting her ability to enjoy > something she had always loved. I encouraged her to change the > association. She could hear the sound of waves and deliberately > program in a new and personally gratifying association. I told her to > repeat the new association until it automatically overrode the cult > programming. Within a few days she was able to visit the beach again. > Ultimately, exposure techniques are the fastest methods to override > the programming and make new, healthy associations. > > Also keep in mind that floating is a natural byproduct of > subjection to mind control. It is not your fault and not a defect on > your part. Over time, its effects will naturally decrease, especially > if you practice the techniques described above. > > > Overcoming Loaded Language > > Substituting real language for the
Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018
Chapter 11, Continued For the first year after I left the Moonies, every time I heard the word _moon_, I would think, _Father_, and remember sitting at Moon’s feet. Another example occurred about a month after I left the group. As I was driving to a friend’s house, I had the thought, _This would be an excellent fundraising area!_ I had to tell myself that I was no longer in the Moonies. This thought was triggered because for the last five months of my membership, I spent fifteen to twenty hours a day driving around looking for places to drop off members to solicit money. For people who were long involved in a group that required excessive meditation, chanting, “decreeing,”[185] speaking in tongues, or other mind-numbing practices, episodes of floating can occur for at least a year after they have left the cult. Many of my clients have told me that suddenly, in the middle of a normal conversation, they would find themselves doing the mind-numbing technique they had practiced for years. This can be especially dangerous when you’re driving a car. One former member of a Bible cult told me, “It’s very frustrating to realize over and over again that my mind is out of control. Particularly when I’m in a stressful situation, I’ll suddenly discover I’m babbling nonsense words and syllables (speaking in tongues) inside my head, and I’ve become disoriented from whatever I was doing.” If not properly understood and responded to, floating can cause a former cult member who is depressed, lonely and confused to go back to the group. For people fortunate enough to receive good cult counseling, floating is rarely a problem. However, for people who don’t understand mind control, it can be a terrifying experience. Suddenly, you flip back into the cult mindset, and are hit with a tremendous rush of fear and guilt for betraying the group and its leader. You can become irrational and begin to think magically, interpreting personal and world events from the cult’s perspective. For example, you didn’t get that job “because God wants you to go back to the group,” or the Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by the Russians “because you left the Moonies.” When you start to float, simply but firmly remind yourself that the experience has been triggered by some stimulus, and that it will pass. If you can, try to connect as soon as possible with someone who understands mind control, and talk it over rationally with them. The most powerful and effective technique of all is to identify the trigger. It could be hearing a song, seeing someone who looks like a member of the group, or watching someone act or gesture in a way that cult members often do. Once you know what triggers you, _deliberately call forth that stimulus_, but make a new, positive mental association with it. Think of something non-cult related. Do this over and over again, until the association becomes a new, learned response. In my case, when I heard the word _moon_, I would form a mental picture of a beautiful full moon. I would say to myself, _The earth only has one natural satellite, the moon_. For about a week, I often said to myself “moon,” and conjured up this image, until it stuck. I referred to the leader of my former cult as Mr. Moon, not wishing to call him “Reverend,” since that was a self-appointed title anyway, and visualized him behind bars in prison garb. Similarly, for ex-Scientologists, it is better to speak of “Ron Hubbard” rather than “L. Ron Hubbard” or “LRH”, and not to call the cult “the Church”. Such loaded language is a significant trigger. One ex-member of est told me that even though she loves the beach, she avoided it because the sounds of ocean waves always reminded her of her indoctrination. Even though she had been out of the group for five years, that association was still inhibiting her ability to enjoy something she had always loved. I encouraged her to change the association. She could hear the sound of waves and deliberately program in a new and personally gratifying association. I told her to repeat the new association until it automatically overrode the cult programming. Within a few days she was able to visit the beach again. Ultimately, exposure techniques are the fastest methods to override the programming and make new, healthy associations. Also keep in mind that floating is a natural byproduct of subjection to mind control. It is not your fault and not a defect on your part. Over time, its effects will naturally decrease, especially if you practice the techniques described above. Overcoming Loaded Language Substituting real language for the cult’s “loaded
Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018
This was sent by accident. Further text forthcoming.
Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018
Chapter 11–Strategies for Recovery People can leave a mind control group in any of three basic ways: they walk out; they are kicked out (often in a very burned-out condition, both psychologically and physically); or they are counseled out. Although they are all fortunate to leave their cults, adjusting to life in the real world can be extremely difficult for them. If they don’t get good information, support and counseling after they leave, the cult phobias they carry with them can turn some people into psychological “time bombs.” Also, many cult members have lived for so long without any kind of normal work or social life that the process of readjustment to adult life is an uphill climb. As a result, some people leave cults only to return again and again, because they miss family and friends who are still involved, but who were ordered to shun them. While such people are in the minority, they demonstrate the vulnerability of people who have left a mind control environment. Walk Outs Without a doubt the largest number of former members falls into the first category, the walk outs. These are the people who have managed to physically remove themselves from the cult, but have received no counseling about cult mind control. I occasionally meet them socially and find that some of them, even years after the cult involvement, are still dealing with the problems of mind control indoctrination. For example, I once met a woman at a dinner party who had “walked out” of the Moonies. During our conversation, she remarked that even though she had been happily married for more than six years, she was deeply afraid of having children. She told me that she couldn’t figure this out at all, because she had wanted to have children ever since she was a little girl. Now she was in her early thirties and felt she wanted children, but she still couldn’t get over her fear. As we talked, I learned that she had been recruited into the Moonies in 1969—more than 12 years earlier—and had stayed in the group for only three months. “When they started making too many demands on me, I left,” she told me. It was clear that she had brushed off her encounter as simply a close call. “Did it ever occur to you that your fear of having children might be related to your experience in the Moonies?” I asked. She looked puzzled. “What do you mean?” “Do you remember ever being told anything about having children when you were in the Moonies?” She rolled her head up slightly, as if her eyes were scanning the ceiling. After a few moments, her face became flushed and she shrieked. “Yes! I do remember something!” To my surprise, she took hold of my shoulders and shook me back and forth. “I remember being told that if anyone ever betrayed the Messiah and left the movement, their children would be stillborn!”[178] Her excitement at remembering the source of her fear of having children was tremendous, and I couldn’t help but share it. It seemed as though we could hear the psychological chains that had been locking her mind fall to the floor. At that point, I realized that I had to explain phobia indoctrination to her. I told her that even though she had been involved with the Moonies for only a few months, her recruiters and trainers had successfully implanted a phobia of giving birth to a dead child in her unconscious mind. “Even though I don’t believe in Moon anymore?” she asked. “The mind is capable of learning new information and retaining it forever,” I said. “This goes for harmful things as well as helpful things. You may have thought that you were finished with the Moonies when you walked out the door, but it has taken you 12 years to locate and eliminate that fear bomb they put inside your mind.” Of course, it is rare to have a conversation with a former cult member like this—a social situation at a friend’s house which suddenly leads to a breakthrough about phobia indoctrination. Yet, a great number of people, just like this woman, are somehow coping with the damaging aftereffects of undue influence. Their problems are often made worse by the fact that many mental health professionals are not knowledgeable about mind control and do not know how to effectively help people suffering from its lingering consequences. People may be able to escape the cult if they are exposed to too much of the inner doctrine before they
Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018
On 10/9/22, Rooty wrote: > Great information Karl. Ron Hubbard was not borned. He was delivered by > aliens. Please do your research Rooty, I’m sorry for not replying to you more readily here. I kind of dissociate to do these weekly chapters. But I encourage you to visit the websites and get in contact with somebody in the cultic recovery communities. I observe your behaviors could confuse people in a similar way to the things described in places in this book. To me, this probably means you’re being unduly influenced yourself in some way. I think others would agree, after reading and experiencing these things.
Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018
Great information Karl. Ron Hubbard was not borned. He was delivered by aliens. Please do your research --- Original Message --- On Saturday, October 8th, 2022 at 6:54 PM, Undiscussed Groomed for Male Slavery, One Victim of Many wrote: > Chapter 10–Unlocking Mind Control > > Wherever I go—to the supermarket, to the gym, on an airplane—I > meet people who are involved with destructive cults. My heart goes out > to them, because I was once in a similar trap. With all the cult > members I meet, I try to remember that they are enslaved. They are > also somebody’s son or daughter, sister or brother. Whenever I meet > people like these, I feel extremely grateful that I am free. I was one > of the lucky ones who had the opportunity to be counseled out. Since > people helped me, I try to share my good fortune. > > In these fleeting personal encounters, I know that I will have > only a few minutes, but I try to say or do something to help. Usually > I never hear from the person again, but occasionally I find out that > our brief meeting had some long-term impact. > > Back in 1980, I started to deliberately go out of my way to > conduct impromptu mini-interventions that are really mini-therapeutic > interactions. I was eager to research and practice non-coercive > approaches to helping free someone. I looked at every cult member I > met as an opportunity to hone my skills. > > These encounters taught me more effective ways of communicating > with cult members—methods that serve as keys to unlocking cult mind > control. This chapter offers a summary of those keys, with some > examples of how I use them—and how you can use them as well. > > Briefly, these are the three most basic keys to helping a cult member: > > Key #1: Build rapport and trust. > > Key #2: Use goal-oriented communication. > > Key #3: Develop models of identity. > > This chapter offers two examples of rescue efforts I have > conducted, as well as a mini-rescue that was conducted on me when I > was still a cult member. These examples will help to demonstrate the > importance of the first three keys, and how they can be effectively > employed. In the remainder of this chapter, I’ll discuss the other > five keys, which enable a rescue effort to be carried through to a > successful conclusion: > > Key #4: Access the pre-cult (authentic) identity. > > Key #5: Help the cult member to look at reality from many > different perspectives. > > Key #6: Sidestep the thought-stopping process by giving > information in an indirect way. > > Key #7: Help them visualize a happy future outside the cult. > > Key #8: Offer the cult member concrete definitions of mind control > and specific characteristics of a destructive cult. > > > Key #1: Build Rapport And Trust > > I have already emphasized the importance of building rapport; > several techniques for building non-verbal rapport can help. The first > is to simply mirror the body language of the person with whom I am > speaking. I also use a non-threatening/friendly tone of voice and line > of questioning and try to avoid judgmental statements. Like riding a > bicycle or learning a foreign language, rapport building is a skill > that anyone can learn and develop. > > > Key #2: Use Goal-Oriented Communication > > Practiced mainly in the business world, goal-oriented > communication represents the best way to influence people in a > deliberate way. This is drastically different from the approach people > typically use when interacting with family members or friends. When we > are intimate with people we usually say whatever we think or feel, > because we are being “ourselves.” We don’t have an agenda to influence > others. > > In the business world, most people have to think through their > goals and determine how best to accomplish them. Business leaders > understand that they often have to establish a step-by-step plan to > make their dreams a reality. > > In helping someone break free from a destructive cult, it can be > just as helpful to clarify your goal and then determine how best to > accomplish it. > > Your overall goal, of course, is to help the person you care about > to begin thinking for themselves (hopefully, to help them leave a > cult.) To accomplish this, you need to use communication to find out > just who it is you’re trying to influence. This means getting to know > and understand your loved one’s new mind controlled personality. It > also means learning more about the real person underneath, if > possible. Next, you need to use communication to build trust and > rapport. Finally, you need to use communication to help the cult > member begin to question, investigate and think for themselves. > > > Key #3: Develop Models Of Identity > > By gathering information, family members and friends can > thoroughly research the cult member they hope to influence. In order > to be most effective, three models, or mindsets, will need to be > constructed. > > The first
Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018
Chapter 10–Unlocking Mind Control Wherever I go—to the supermarket, to the gym, on an airplane—I meet people who are involved with destructive cults. My heart goes out to them, because I was once in a similar trap. With all the cult members I meet, I try to remember that they are _enslaved_. They are also somebody’s son or daughter, sister or brother. Whenever I meet people like these, I feel extremely grateful that I am free. I was one of the lucky ones who had the opportunity to be counseled out. Since people helped me, I try to share my good fortune. In these fleeting personal encounters, I know that I will have only a few minutes, but I try to say or do something to help. Usually I never hear from the person again, but occasionally I find out that our brief meeting had some long-term impact. Back in 1980, I started to deliberately go out of my way to conduct impromptu mini-interventions that are really mini-therapeutic interactions. I was eager to research and practice non-coercive approaches to helping free someone. I looked at every cult member I met as an opportunity to hone my skills. These encounters taught me more effective ways of communicating with cult members—methods that serve as keys to unlocking cult mind control. This chapter offers a summary of those keys, with some examples of how I use them—and how you can use them as well. Briefly, these are the three most basic keys to helping a cult member: Key #1: Build rapport and trust. Key #2: Use goal-oriented communication. Key #3: Develop models of identity. This chapter offers two examples of rescue efforts I have conducted, as well as a mini-rescue that was conducted on me when I was still a cult member. These examples will help to demonstrate the importance of the first three keys, and how they can be effectively employed. In the remainder of this chapter, I’ll discuss the other five keys, which enable a rescue effort to be carried through to a successful conclusion: Key #4: Access the pre-cult (authentic) identity. Key #5: Help the cult member to look at reality from many different perspectives. Key #6: Sidestep the thought-stopping process by giving information in an indirect way. Key #7: Help them visualize a happy future outside the cult. Key #8: Offer the cult member concrete definitions of mind control and specific characteristics of a destructive cult. Key #1: Build Rapport And Trust I have already emphasized the importance of building rapport; several techniques for building non-verbal rapport can help. The first is to simply mirror the body language of the person with whom I am speaking. I also use a non-threatening/friendly tone of voice and line of questioning and try to avoid judgmental statements. Like riding a bicycle or learning a foreign language, rapport building is a skill that anyone can learn and develop. Key #2: Use Goal-Oriented Communication Practiced mainly in the business world, goal-oriented communication represents the best way to influence people in a deliberate way. This is drastically different from the approach people typically use when interacting with family members or friends. When we are intimate with people we usually say whatever we think or feel, because we are being “ourselves.” We don’t have an agenda to influence others. In the business world, most people have to think through their goals and determine how best to accomplish them. Business leaders understand that they often have to establish a step-by-step plan to make their dreams a reality. In helping someone break free from a destructive cult, it can be just as helpful to clarify your goal and then determine how best to accomplish it. Your overall goal, of course, is to help the person you care about to begin thinking for themselves (hopefully, to help them leave a cult.) To accomplish this, you need to use communication to find out just who it is you’re trying to influence. This means getting to know and understand your loved one’s new mind controlled personality. It also means learning more about the real person underneath, if possible. Next, you need to use communication to build trust and rapport. Finally, you need to use communication to help the cult member begin to question, investigate and think for themselves.
Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018
Chapter 9–How to Help If someone you care about becomes a member of a destructive cult, you will probably find yourself facing one of the toughest situations of your life. In helping this person return to their authentic self, it’s easy to fall into mistakes that will make your job even harder. But if you respond to the challenge in a planned, emotionally balanced way, the chances are good that your efforts will ultimately be successful. The experience will also be very rewarding and joyful. That is what I have seen time and time again in the families I’ve worked with. This chapter will give you some basic, practical ideas of what to do and not do when trying to help a cult member leave their group. It will also explain what to do for yourself and other members of your family while involved in this effort. Taking a few basic precautions can save you a lot of frustration. The best place to start is with two contrasting examples—one leading to success, the other to failure. The two stories that follow are composites, based on real people I have counseled. To protect their privacy, all of the people’s names have been changed. The Johnson Family and the Twelve Tribes[169] When Bill and Lorna Johnson first noticed that their daughter Nancy was acting strangely, they simply wrote it off as the growing pains of a 19-year-old girl away from home for the summer. Her older brother Neil had gone through his own share of episodes of strange behavior, when he was about the same age. Nancy was then in Milwaukee, selling magazine subscriptions door to door to earn extra money for college. Bill and Lorna knew she was experiencing a slump in sales. Yet when she explained her difficulties with her job to them in a phone call, she surprised them by sounding emotionally cool, as though she didn’t have a care in the world. Knowing Nancy was a go-getter, Bill and Lorna expected their daughter to sound frustrated and anxious. Something wasn’t right, but they couldn’t put a finger on it. Several weeks later they received a telephone call from Leslie, one of Nancy’s close friends. Leslie told Bill and Lorna that she had just received a disturbing letter from Nancy. Leslie had hesitated before calling them—she didn’t want to betray Nancy’s confidence. But the content of the letter was so unlike Nancy that she felt she had to risk alienating her friend. The letter read, in part: “I have truly found my place in the world, Leslie. God has summoned me to be part of the Twelve Tribes, the only true Christians on Earth. I have thrown away my blue jeans, for I realize that they were part of my Satanic past…A woman’s place is beneath a man…the Word of God says so, and I am learning to destroy this vain ego of mine that longs to be part of this wicked world…I’m now living with the most holiest [sic] and most wonderful people on the planet.” Nancy’s favorite clothes had always been her jeans. She had always been easy to get along with, because she was so nonjudgmental. Also, she had been something of a feminist. Such subservient sentiments were highly uncharacteristic of her. All these things bothered Leslie. Nancy’s parents were even more disturbed because Nancy had apparently been hiding her involvement with the Tribes from them. Why hadn’t Nancy even mentioned this group to them? She had always been open and honest with them before. Whenever they asked her what was new, she had answered, “Not much.” From her letter, a great deal seemed to be new. The Johnsons immediately phoned to ask their minister’s advice. He came right over. He agreed that Nancy was indeed acting strangely, and suggested that maybe she had become involved in a religious cult. At the mention of the word “cult,” the Johnsons began to panic. At this point, Bill came close to making a typical mistake. His first impulse was to call Nancy and confront her about the group, her letter to Leslie and her secrecy. Fortunately, he didn’t. Lorna started to sob uncontrollably. She felt she had failed as a parent. Something must have been lacking in Nancy’s life that would allow her to join a cult. Lorna began to mentally review every significant incident in Nancy’s life that might have made her so susceptible. She decided to ask her son Neil to drop whatever he was doing and come over. When Neil walked into the living room an hour later, his father was pacing back and forth, his mother was still in tears, Leslie was sitting near her on the sofa with her hands clasped on her lap, and the minister was standing next to the TV, with a bewildered
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Chapter 8–Curing the Mind Control Virus When most people begin to search for ways to release friends or relatives from cults, they know little or nothing about mind control, the characteristics of destructive cults, or how or where to begin. Some may think the only available option is deprogramming. Yet they have no idea that deprogramming involves forcible abduction of the cult member, a process that is lengthy and coercive, along with a price tag of 10-50 thousand dollars. I _do not_ recommend coercive deprogramming, and know of no reputable person who currently practices it. _Non-coercive_ ways to help now exist. I and others now use therapeutic techniques that are well established in the mental health profession, along with the latest, innovative approaches. Furthermore, today almost all the professionals who help cult members break free are themselves former members of mind control organizations. They are more likely to understand what cult members are thinking and feeling, and can share personal experiences and insight. This chapter is a guide to interventions: how the process of curing the mind control virus works. I’ve included three cases of interventions I have conducted. The dialogues are reconstructed from memory, but the stories themselves are faithful reflections of real events. These case histories took place some years ago. Since then my approach has evolved significantly, into the Strategic Interactive Approach, which is what I use today. Nevertheless, many of the key concepts, dilemmas and techniques that appear in these stories continue to apply in the present day. First, though, it’s important to give you some essential background on deprogramming. Because I myself was deprogrammed in 1976, I am very familiar with its drawbacks. Back then, very few options were available to concerned relatives and friends of cult members. Either people tried to keep in contact with the member and hoped they would leave on their own, or they hired a deprogrammer. Cult leaders saw deprogramming as a terrible threat. They were losing many long-term, devoted members and leaders because of it. And those people were talking to the media and revealing details of the cults’ operations. Ex-members who had simply walked away tended to be paralyzed with guilt and fear, and usually kept their former cult involvement very quiet. But deprogrammees had access to a support network that understood what they had been through and gave them the strength and encouragement to speak out. By the late 1970s, cult mind control had become intertwined in the public eye with forcible deprogramming. This was partly the result of public relations campaigns financed by some major cults to discredit critics and divert the debate from the cults themselves.[156] The propaganda labeled deprogramming as “the greatest threat to religious liberty of all time.” Deprogrammers were falsely portrayed as beating and raping people to force them to recant their freely held religious beliefs. Influenced by this campaign, at least one movie portrayed deprogrammers as money-hungry thugs who were just as bad as cult leaders. For the record, I know of _no_ instance of deprogramming (and I’ve met hundreds of deprogrammees) that involved any beating, rape or physical abuse. Furthermore, no family I have ever worked with would allow anyone, including a deprogrammer, to harm a family member in any way. Nevertheless, deprogramming is often emotionally traumatic, as well as legally risky. In a classic deprogramming scenario, a cult member would be located and physically snatched off a street corner, pushed into a waiting vehicle, and driven to a secret location, perhaps a motel room. There the security team would guard the person for several days, 24 hours a day, while the deprogrammer, former cult members, and family members presented information and argued with them. Windows might be nailed shut or barricaded, because members had been known to dive out of them to avoid the so-called “faith-breaking” process. The member would sometimes be accompanied to the bathroom in an effort to prevent suicide attempts. They might be held for many days, until they snapped out of the cult’s mind control—or, as occurred in some cases, pretended to do so. In the small number of deprogrammings I participated in during 1976 and 1977, the cult member was usually confronted while visiting home rather than grabbed off a sidewalk. Even so, when they were told they couldn’t leave, they almost always reacted violently. In various deprogrammings, I was punched, kicked, and spat on; had hot coffee thrown in my face; and had tape recorders hurled at
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Chapter 7–How to Protect Yourself and People You Care About Nobody joins a cult. They just postpone the decision to leave. —Source unknown I am frequently asked to help people who are involved with a group I’ve not heard of before. Over the years I have had to develop a way to evaluate a group and assess its negative impact. Some organizations, I have found, may appear to be unorthodox or even downright bizarre, but do not practice mind control, and are not damaging to their members. I have gotten dozens of calls from parents who didn’t like the person their child was marrying, and accused them of practicing mind control. In some cases the accusation turned out to be true; but in many instances, I have simply refused to intervene or become involved. People are entitled to make their own decisions, even bad ones, if they are legally considered adults. While I am always interested in working to enhance people’s opportunities for choice, perspective and good communication, I do not take every case that is offered to me. Many groups have certain potentially destructive aspects, but are not inherently destructive. These groups fall into a gray zone—the middle of the continuum presented in Chapter 3. For some individuals, membership may have a destructive effect, while the organization as a whole may not meet the significant criteria of a destructive cult. How can we discern whether or not a group is a destructive cult? What are the crucial elements that separate benign organizations from dangerous ones? In this chapter I’ll discuss the general characteristics of destructive cults in more detail, so you can protect yourself and people you care about from their influence. I’ll also answer some of the more frequently asked questions about cults. In addition, I’ll include a list of questions you can use to begin evaluating any group. In examining and evaluating a group that I suspect of being a destructive cult, I operate primarily in the realm of psychology, not theology or ideology. My frames of reference are the influence processes of mind control, hypnosis and group psychology. I look at _what a group does rather than what it believes_ (or purports to believe). I analyze how an organization and its members communicate (or fail to communicate), rather than whether its principles, political outlook or interpretation of the Bible is the _right_ one. I see if the group wants to convert the cult member into _its_ own belief system. My approach is to encourage the individual to sort things out for themselves by researching and considering an array of perspectives. A person’s right to believe, however, does not grant them an automatic license to act indiscriminately on those beliefs. If it did, white supremacy groups would deport or kill every non-white person in the country, and criminal satanic cults would openly murder people in their rituals. If a group believes it is all right to lie to non-members, in order to advance its cause, and that lie undermines the principle of informed consent and infringes on people’s constitutionally guaranteed rights, it violates their freedom. Frederick Clarkson emphasized this point by saying that “destructive religious cults are violating people’s religious rights by using undue influence.” Likewise, if a group hides behind First Amendment privileges, routinely violates its members’ civil rights, and works to destroy democracy, then freedom is not being supported. There must be equal protection of liberties under the law. People have a right to be free from undue influence, both in groups and as individuals. Some people may think, _Why should I worry about all this? My rights are violated by someone every day and there’s nothing I can do about it._ While many factors in life are beyond our control, people _should_ have some control when it comes to membership in a group. And the truth is that there is quite a lot you can do. By preventing others from violating your rights, you can keep them from harming you. I’ll say much more about this later in this chapter, but let me offer an example. Suppose you meet someone whom you suspect is a recruiter for a destructive cult. You might not have even given this person the time of day, but, for some reason, you feel attracted to them. They keep trying to persuade you to meet them at a certain place. You aren’t really interested in the group, but are toying with the idea of coming to know this person better. In a situation like this, there’s one cardinal rule to follow: _Don’t give them your phone number,
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Chapter 6–Courageous Survivor Stories Many people involved with destructive cults may have some experiences that are too painful to remember. Even after counseling, ex-members may not wish to communicate their experiences to anyone but the closest people in their lives. Others realize that the world at large needs to understand their suffering while under mind control, and overcome their fear of speaking out, publicly. While I certainly understand the reticence of those who wish to guard their privacy, I admire the courage of those who come forward and tell their stories. Such people can make us all stronger for being able to share their personal experiences. They give us an invaluable insight into the dynamics of recruitment, life in a destructive cult, and the stress of leaving. They are role models to others in the groups they escaped from, proving that there _is_ life after the cult. There are millions of former members all over the world. One of my deepest hopes is to de-stigmatize mind control involvement and to encourage them to speak out. I wish I had the space here to tell the stories of the literally hundreds of courageous men and women I have come to know who have overcome their programming, escaped to freedom and worked to help others.[96] I am delighted to share a few of these stories. Jon Atack and Scientology Jon Atack left Scientology in 1983 and became one of the few outspoken critics of the group at that time—at great personal risk. He authored the must-read book, _Let’s Sell These People A Piece of Blue Sky_, which was published only after a fierce legal attack by Scientology. This book is the first objective history of any post-war cult. It became a bestseller, and is the foundation for all subsequent work on Scientology. Jon and I met in the late 1980s and we have remained friends ever since. He is one of the most talented people I know, and has an encyclopedic mind. Aside from his decades of work helping people understand Scientology, he is an accomplished drummer, painter, poet and author of numerous books. Jon encountered Scientology when he was 19, after the abrupt end of a romantic relationship. Desperately searching for help to resolve his distress, he read a book by Scientology’s creator, Ron Hubbard, and was impressed by what appeared to be a rational therapeutic approach. There was no mention of the supernatural beliefs he would be expected to adopt once he had joined. Jon asked both a doctor and a vicar about Scientology. Neither knew anything, even though a UK government inquiry had condemned the cult only three years earlier.[97] The Scientologists at the local “Mission” were young graduates, all dynamic and friendly. Jon eagerly took up the study of Scientology. After the first few inexpensive courses, the prices spiraled out of his reach, but, unlike many other recruits, he rejected the frequent offers to join the staff. It costs about half a million dollars to complete Scientology’s “Bridge to Total Freedom.” At the hard-sell urging of Scientology registrars, Jon borrowed money and studied Scientology, full-time, for a year. In his nine-year involvement, he completed six counseling courses, becoming a Class II and Dianetic “auditor.” By the time he escaped, Jon was on “OT V,” the 25th of the 27 available levels of the cult’s systematic indoctrination. According to promotional literature, Jon should have achieved supernatural powers by this time, but, as all Scientologists find, the technology just induces euphoric states and heightened suggestibility. Despite many boasts, to date not one Scientologist has taken up James Randi’s million-dollar challenge to perform a psychic feat.[98] When one of Jon’s close friends was expelled from the cult, without justification, Jon followed the cult’s complaint procedure exactly. After six months, Jon received a letter, purportedly from Hubbard, saying only, “Your letter is on my desk.” He refused to sever communication with his friend—called “disconnection” by the group—and spoke to other so-called “Suppressives.” Jon found that 11 cult officials, including Hubbard’s wife, had been jailed in the U.S. for burglary, breaking and entering, theft, kidnapping and false imprisonment. Horrified by this and other evidence, he resigned from the cult. Jon was briefly at the center of a burgeoning independent Scientology movement in the UK, but soon realized that Hubbard’s claims to have been a war hero, a nuclear physicist, and a student of Oriental gurus were bogus. He also
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Chapter 5–Cult Psychology Since my departure from the Moon cult, I have counseled or spoken with many thousands of former cult members. These people come from every sort of background and range in age from 12 to 85. Although some of them clearly had severe emotional problems before becoming involved, the great majority were stable, intelligent, idealistic people. Many had good educations and came from respectable families. Many were born or raised into totalistic groups, but still managed to leave. Many were able to form relationships and have successful careers. Many more struggled and suffered from a myriad of psychological and life issues related to their cult involvement. The fact that many were intelligent, well-adjusted and from good homes hardly surprises me. When I was a leader in the Moonies, we selectively recruited “valuable” people—those who were strong, caring and motivated. Indeed, a cult will generally target the most educated, active and capable people it can find. People with emotional problems, on the other hand, always had trouble handling the rigorous schedule and enormous psychological pressures we imposed on them. It took lots of time, energy, and money to recruit and indoctrinate a member, so we tried not to waste our resources on someone who seemed liable to break down. Like any other business, large cult organizations watch these cost/benefit ratios. Cults that endure for more than a decade need to have competent individuals managing the practical affairs that any organization with long-term objectives must do. The big groups can afford to hire outsiders to perform executive and professional tasks, but a hired professional is never trusted as much as someone who is psychologically invested in the group. Moreover, cult members don’t have to be paid for their services. Cults thus try to recruit talented professionals—to run their affairs, to put a respectable face on their organizations, and to ensure their success. Outsiders who deal with the leadership of destructive cults never cease to be amazed that they aren’t scatterbrained kooks. I hear comments such as, “I never knew there were so many brilliant people in these types of groups,” or “That leader is really a very nice, kind, insightful person. How could he ever join a group like this?” Occasionally I am asked whether there is some kind of typical problem family from which cult members tend to come. The answer is _no_. Anyone, regardless of family background, can be recruited into a cult. The major variable is not the person’s family but the cult recruiter’s skill and the recruit’s life situation. Participation in destructive cults does sometimes provide some people with an outlet for aspects of themselves that they did not find in their family life or social activities. For example, many people have a genuine impulse to work together with others as a team for a variety of social or religious causes. Relatively few communities, though, offer such organized activity to idealistic people. Cult life gives them just such an opportunity, along with the apparent benefits of “belonging” that comes from an intense group experience. I support anyone’s search for more meaningful ways to develop relationships with other people—but, as I have learned, people who are engaged in that search are often more vulnerable than others to cult recruitment. I have also noticed that many idealistic young people recruited into cults are struggling to assert their individuality, and some are going through a period of rebellion. For these young people, cult membership can be a way of substituting cult authority figures who become a surrogate family when they are away from home. I have occasionally come across more serious problems, such as alcoholism or drug addiction within the family, which made the person feel a strong desire to escape the dysfunctional family as soon as possible. However, there does not appear to be a consistent pattern in the type of family from which recruits come. The majority seem relatively normal. So, what makes a person vulnerable to cults? How does a friendly, kind, insightful human being become a member of a destructive cult? If he or she is like most cult members, he or she is probably approached during a time of unusual stress, perhaps while undergoing a major life transition. Intense stress is commonplace in the modern world. Many people experience great pressure at work or school, or tension from family problems, social relationships, health concerns, new jobs, new homes, money crises, or combinations of several of these stresses at once. Usually our defense mechanisms help us cope, but
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Remainder of Chapter 4 Three Steps To Gaining Control Of The Mind It is one thing to identify the four components of mind control but quite another to know how they are actually used to change the behavior of unsuspecting people. On the surface, the process of gaining control of someone else’s mind seems quite simple. There are three steps: _unfreezing_, _changing_ and _refreezing_. This three-step model was derived in the late 1940s from the work of Kurt Lewin,[88] and was described in Edgar Schein’s book _Coercive Persuasion_.[89] Schein, like Lifton, studied the brainwashing programs in Mao Tse Tung’s China, in the late 1950s. His book, based on interviews with former American prisoners, is a valuable study of the process. Schein’s three steps apply just as well to other forms of mind control as they do to brainwashing. As he described them, _unfreezing_ consists of breaking a person down; _changing_ constitutes the indoctrination process; and _refreezing_ is the process of building up and reinforcing the new identity. Destructive cults today have the added advantage of many decades of psychological research and techniques, making their mind control programs much more effective and dangerous than in the past. Hypnotic processes, for example, are much more significant parts of modern mind control. In addition, modern destructive cults also tend to be more flexible in their approach. They are willing and able to change their approach to fit a person’s specific psychological make-up, use deception and highly sophisticated loaded language, or employ techniques like thought-stopping and phobia indoctrination. Let’s take a closer look at this three-stage model to see how the step-by-step program creates a well-disciplined cult member. Unfreezing To ready a person for radical change, their reality must first be shaken up. Their indoctrinators must confuse and disorient them. Their frames of reference for understanding themselves and their surroundings must be challenged and broken down. Upsetting their view of reality disarms their natural defenses against concepts that challenge that reality. Unfreezing can be accomplished through a variety of approaches. Disorienting a person physiologically can be very effective. Sleep deprivation is one of the most common and powerful techniques for breaking a person down. In addition, new diets and eating schedules can also have a disorienting effect. Some groups use low-protein, high-sugar diets, or prolonged underfeeding, to undermine a person’s physical integrity. Unfreezing is most effectively accomplished in a totally controlled environment, like an isolated country estate, but it can also be accomplished in more familiar and easily accessible places, such as a hotel ballroom. Hypnotic processes constitute another powerful tool for unfreezing and side-stepping a person’s defense mechanisms. One particularly effective hypnotic technique involves the deliberate use of confusion to induce a trance state. Confusion usually results whenever contradictory information is communicated congruently. For example, if a hypnotist says in an authoritative tone of voice, “The more you try to understand what I am saying, the less you will never be able to understand it. Do you understand?” the result is a state of temporary confusion. If you read it over and over again, you may conclude that the statement is simply contradictory and nonsensical. However, if a person is kept in a controlled environment long enough, and is repeatedly fed such disorienting language and confusing information, they will usually suspend their critical judgment and adapt to what everyone else is doing. In such an environment, the tendency of most people is to doubt themselves and defer to the group. Sensory overload, like sensory deprivation, can also effectively disrupt a person’s balance and make them more open to suggestion. A person can easily be bombarded by emotionally laden material at a rate faster than they can digest it. The result is a feeling of being overwhelmed. The mind snaps into neutral and ceases to evaluate the material pouring in. The newcomer may think this is happening spontaneously within themselves, but the cult has intentionally structured it that way. Other hypnotic techniques, such as double binds,[90] can also be used to help unfreeze a person’s sense of reality. A double bind forces a person to do what the controller wants while giving an illusion of choice. For example, a cult leader may say, “For those people who are having doubts about what I am telling you, you should know that
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Chapter 4–Understanding Mind Control When I do trainings or lectures at colleges, I usually challenge my audience with this question: “How would you _know_ if you were under mind control?” After some reflection, most people realize that if they were under mind control, it would be impossible to determine it without some help from the outside. In addition, they would need to understand very clearly what mind control is. When I was under mind control, I didn’t understand what it was all about. I assumed that mind control would involve being tortured in a dank basement somewhere, with a light bulb shining in my face. Of course, that never happened to me while I was in the Moonies. Whenever people yelled at me and called me a “brainwashed robot,” I just took it as an expected persecution. It made me feel more committed to the group. At that time, I didn’t have a frame of reference for the phenomenon of mind control. It wasn’t until my deprogramming that I was given a credible model of what it is and how it works. Since I was a member of the Moonies and we regarded Communism as the enemy, I was very interested in the techniques that the Chinese Communist Party used to convert people into Communism during the 1950s. I didn’t resist, then, when my counselors asked to read me parts of Dr. Robert Jay Lifton’s book _Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism_.[74] Since the book had been published in 1961, I could not accuse Lifton of being anti-Moon. That book had a major impact on my understanding of what had happened to me in the Moonies. Lifton identified eight basic elements of the process of mind control as practiced by the Chinese Communists. My counselors pointed out that no matter how wonderful the cause, or how attractive the members, if any group employed all eight of Robert Jay Lifton’s elements, then it was practicing mind control. I was eventually able to see that the Unification Church used all eight of those elements: milieu control, mystical manipulation or planned spontaneity, the demand for purity, the cult of confession, sacred science, loading of the language, doctrine over person, and dispensing of existence. (In the Appendix of this book[included before endnotes at end of this email], Lifton describes these eight elements in more detail. Two video interviews with Lifton can be found on my website, freedomofmind.com.) Before I could leave the Moonies, though, I had to wrestle with several moral questions. Does the God I believe in need to use deception and mind control? Do the ends truly justify the means? Do the means determine the ends? How could the world become a paradise if people’s free wills are subverted? What would the world truly look like if Moon assumed total power? Through asking myself these questions, I decided I could no longer participate in an organization that used mind control practices. I left behind the fantasy world I had lived in for years. Over the years, I have come to realize that millions of people have actually been subjected to a mind control regimen but don’t even know it. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t talk with several people who are still experiencing negative side effects from their experience of mind control. Often, it is a great relief for them to hear that they are not alone and that their problems stem from their past involvement with such a group. Perhaps the biggest problem faced by people who have left destructive cults is the disruption of their own authentic identity. There is a very good reason: they have lived for years inside an “artificial” identity given to them by the cult. While cult mind control can be talked about and defined in many different ways, I believe it is best understood as _a system that disrupts an individual’s healthy identity development_. An identity is made up of elements such as beliefs, behavior, thought processes and emotions that constitute a definite pattern. Under the influence of mind control, a person’s authentic identity given at birth, and as later formed by family, education, friendships, and most importantly that person’s own free choices, becomes replaced with another identity, often one that they would not have chosen for themself without tremendous social pressure.[75] Even if the person gets along through deliberate play-acting at first, the act eventually becomes real. They take on a totalistic ideology that, when internalized, supersedes their prior belief system. Ultimately, the person usually experiences—and shows—a radical personality change and a drastic interruption of their life course. The process can be initiated quickly, but usually requires days or weeks to solidify. Those unfortunate enough
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Chapter 3–The Threat: Mind Control Today Imagine, if you will, the following scenes. Saffron-robed men on street corners, dancing and chanting with cymbals and drums. Bedraggled young people running from car to car, selling flowers in the pouring rain. Glassy-eyed men and women confronting people behind folding tables near busy intersections, asking for money to quarantine AIDS victims and build particle-beam weapons. Over nine hundred people—men, women, and children—lying dead, face down in the mud. Mention cults to someone and these might be some of the images you’ll evoke. Yet these images do not accurately represent cults, mind control, and undue influence as they exist today. They represent only a small fraction of these phenomena. Imagine, then, a different set of images. Business executives in three-piece suits sitting in hotel ballrooms for company-sponsored “awareness” training, not permitted to stand up or leave, even to go to the bathroom. Housewives attending “psych-up rallies” so they can recruit friends and neighbors into a multi-level marketing organization. Hundreds of students gathering at an accredited university, being told they can levitate and fly through the air if only they meditate hard enough. High-school students practicing satanic rituals involving blood and urine, being directed by an older leader who claims he will help them develop their personal power. “Troubled” teens being sent off to boot camps by their deceived parents, unregulated by the government, some run by religious groups who seek to convert them.[47] Hundreds of women and men of every description paying huge sums to learn cosmic truths from some channeled spirit. Tens of thousands of women dressed in long dresses, living in harem-type households run by men with long beards. Young girls and women (and men and boys, too) being sold for sex, making their traffickers rich. Young Muslims being trained to kill, rape and even blow themselves up in the name of Allah. _These_ are some of the forms that mind control takes today. The Pervasiveness Of Cults Do you know anyone who has undergone or witnessed a radical personality change because of such a group? The odds are that you do. Someone you know—someone in your family, at work, or in your circle of friends—has likely been directly and profoundly affected by undue influence. In the past decades, the destructive cult phenomenon has mushroomed into a problem of tremendous social and political importance. It is estimated that there are now over three thousand destructive cults in the United States, directly affecting more than three million people.[48] These organizations come in many different types and sizes. Some have hundreds of millions of dollars; others are relatively poor. Some, however, are clearly more dangerous than others. The largest and most destructive are not content to simply exercise their control over the lives of their members. They have an agenda to gain political power and use it to reshape American society—or even the world. Considering how well these cults have been largely able to shield themselves from public scrutiny, it might seem alarmist to regard them as a threat to individual liberty and society as a whole. Yet, some are influencing the political landscape through extensive lobbying efforts and electioneering for candidates.[49] Some are attempting to influence United States foreign policy by lobbying covertly for foreign powers.[50] The Moonies, for example, were a major supplier of money and guns to the Contra forces in Nicaragua.[51] They also invested between $70 and $100 million in Uruguay,[52] in a failed attempt to turn that country into the cult’s first theocratic state—a springboard from which to pursue its declared goal: “to conquer and subjugate the world.”[53] In the United States, cults exert tremendous economic clout by buying up huge blocks of real estate and taking over hundreds of businesses. Some enter corporations under the pretense of offering executive leadership training, while harboring a covert agenda of taking over the company. Some seek to influence the judicial system by spending millions of dollars annually on top attorneys to bend the law to their will. Since all destructive cults believe that their ends justify any means, no matter how harmful, they typically believe themselves to be above the law. As long as they believe that what they are doing is right and just, many of them feel justified to lie, steal, cheat, or to use any and all forms of undue influence to accomplish their
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Tail of Chapter 2 I tracked down Dr. Robert Jay Lifton and arranged a meeting at his apartment in Manhattan. He was curious to know why I was so interested in a book about Chinese brainwashing he had written 15 years earlier, in 1961. He was amazed when I described to him, in detail, what the Moonies do to recruit members and how they run their 3 day workshops, their 7 day workshops, and their 21 day, 40 day, and 120 day workshops. He said, “What you are telling me is so much more sophisticated than what the Chinese did in the ‘50s. It’s like a hybrid mutation of a virulent virus strain!” Lifton shifted my entire perspective on myself when he said, “You know more about this than I do, because you’ve lived it. You know it instrumentally. I only know it theoretically and second-hand. You must study psychology and take what you know through your experience and tell others about it.” He later asked me to co-author a book with him on mind control (something that was never to be). I was flattered by his offer and intended to take him up on it, but the timing wasn’t right for me. I Decide To Go Public Meeting Lifton transformed my life. Instead of looking at myself and seeing a college dropout, a poet with no poetry (I sorely regretted throwing those four hundred poems away), and a former cult member, I saw that perhaps there was a higher purpose for me. At that time, although I was no longer a Moonie, I was still thinking somewhat in black and white terms: good versus evil, us versus them. The world’s most renowned expert on brainwashing thought that I had an important contribution to make, that what I had experienced could be useful in helping people. By this time I had started attending cult awareness meetings of people affected by the problem and was approached by many parents of people in the Moonies. They asked me if I would talk to their children still trapped in the Moonies. I agreed. It was then, in 1976, that I seriously began taking steps to become a professional counselor. At first I had my work cut out for me; there were then no alternatives to forcible deprogramming. I had undergone a little training as a peer counselor at college before joining the Moonies. I myself had been deprogrammed. Most helpful of all in talking to members was that I had been a Moonie at a high level, and I knew the group doctrine and policies inside and out. I reread Moon’s _Divine Principle_. I studied the Bible and sorted out which things Moon said about it were true, which ones weren’t, and what was taken out of context. I established my own belief system. I was involved with deprogramming for about a year. A couple of the cases may have involved abduction by parents or people they hired; most were cases in which members came home to visit and weren’t allowed to leave. Some of these were legal conservatorship cases, in which the family received legal custody of an adult child. (Such conservatorship laws are now gone. This change is partly the result of legal and lobbying efforts by cult lawyers, as well as by more well-intentioned people who did not understand the gross human rights violations of mind control cults.) Fortunately, I was never sued. All of my cases were successful, except two, when the Moonies went back to the group. The exhilaration of helping someone reclaim their life and be restored to their loved ones is beyond words. The closest thing I can use to describe the feeling is how I felt when a friend of mine had a leg cramp in the ocean and was going under and I ran out to the waves, dived in, swam as hard and fast as I could and managed to pull him safely to shore. However, I disliked the stress of forcible deprogramming and wanted to find some other way to help members of destructive cults. After a year of going public, giving lectures, and doing television and radio interviews, I decided that I needed to figure out who I was again. I went back to college for a semester at Yale and temporarily dropped out of my life as a full-time cult fighter. I wrote poetry, played basketball, went out on dates, and tried to be normal. I did not like Yale, switched to Boston University, volunteered to be a counselor in two student counseling agencies and got in touch with myself again. During this time, though, Moon was making new and bigger waves. In Congress, the House Subcommittee on International Relations held a lengthy investigation into Korean CIA activities in the United States and other efforts by Korean agents to influence United States’ government decisions. I agreed to help the investigation as much as the committee wanted, provided they not ask me to testify publicly. The truth was, as the highest-ranking recent defector who knew a lot of
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Chapter 2–My Life in the Unification Church As a child, I had always been very independent. I wanted to be a writer and poet, but during my college years I struggled to find a career path in which I could make enough money to pursue my dreams. When my girlfriend dumped me in January 1974, I wondered if I would ever find true love. I had always been an avid reader; during that time I began to read a great deal of psychology and philosophy. My neighbor next door, a mathematician, introduced me to the writings of G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky. I became interested in what was presented as ancient, esoteric knowledge. Much of what I read described humanity’s natural condition as being “asleep” to the truth and in need of someone more spiritually advanced to teach us about higher levels of consciousness. The suggestion that one should join a spiritual school was embedded in those books. At age 19, I knew I was never going to be happy as a businessman, like my father, living my life to pursue money. I wanted to be a creative writer. I wanted answers to the deeper questions. Is there a God? If so, why is there so much suffering? What role was I to play in the world? Could I do anything to make a difference? I felt extreme internal pressure to make a big contribution to humankind. I had been told all my life how intelligent I was and how much I would accomplish when I grew up. But I was going to graduate in another year and I felt like time was running out. I had already become a “foster parent” of a little girl in Chile to whom I sent money each month. I had decided that writing was probably my most important pursuit, and so I wrote. Still I felt it wasn’t enough. I looked out at the world and saw so much in the way of social injustice, political corruption, and ecological destruction that it seemed I could do very little. I knew that I wanted to help change things, but I didn’t know how to go about doing it. One day, as I was reading a book in the student union cafeteria, three attractive Japanese women and an Italian-American man approached me. They were dressed like students and carried college textbooks. They asked if they could share the table. I nodded, and within minutes, they engaged me in a friendly conversation. I thought the women were pretty cute. Since I had a three-hour break between classes, I stayed and talked. They told me they were students too, involved in a small community of “young people from all over the world.” They invited me to visit them. The semester had just started and I thought I might be able to get lucky with one of the women, so I drove to their house that night after class. When I arrived I found a lively group of about 30 people from half a dozen countries. I asked if they were a religious group. “Oh, no, not at all,” they said, and laughed. They told me they were part of something called the One World Crusade, dedicated to overcoming cultural differences among people and to combating major social problems, such as the ones I was concerned about. “One world where people treat each other with love and respect,” I thought to myself. “What idealists these people are!” I enjoyed the stimulating conversations and energetic atmosphere at the meeting. These people related to each other like brothers and sisters and clearly felt they were part of one global family. They seemed very happy with their lives. After a month of feeling depressed, I was invigorated by all that positive energy. I went home that night feeling lucky to have met such nice people. The next day I ran into Tony, the man who had approached me in the cafeteria. “Did you enjoy the evening?” he asked. I answered that I had. “Well, listen,” Tony said. “This afternoon Adri, who’s from Holland, is going to give a short lecture on some interesting principles of life. Why don’t you come over?” I listened to Adri’s lecture a few hours later. It seemed vague and a bit simplistic, but optimistic, and I could agree with nearly everything he said. However, the content of his speech didn’t explain why everyone in this group seemed so happy all the time. I felt there must be something wrong with me or something exceptional about them. My curiosity was engaged. I wound up going back the next day. This time another person gave a talk about the origin of all the problems that humankind has had to face. This lecture had a decidedly religious tone; it dealt with Adam and Eve and how they were corrupted by a misuse of love in the Garden of Eden. At that point I didn’t notice that my questions were never answered, and didn’t suspect I was being deliberately strung
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Chapter 1–My Work as a Cult Expert Finally, a chance to relax, forget about work, and enjoy some social time with my friends. Maybe meet some new people at this party. “Hi. Nice to meet you.” (I just hope no one asks me to talk about work.) The question: “So, what do you do?” (Oh no, not again!) The dodge: “I’m self-employed.” “Doing what?” (No escape.) “I’m a cult expert.” (Here come the 50 questions.) “Oh, really? That’s interesting. How did you get into that? Can you tell me why…?” Since February 1974, I have been involved with the problems caused by destructive cults. That was when I was recruited into the “One World Crusade,”[1] one of hundreds of front groups of the Unification Church, also known as the Moonies. After two and a half years as a member of that cult, I was deprogrammed after I fell asleep while driving a fundraising van, and smashed into a tractor trailer truck at 80 miles an hour. Ever since then, I have been actively involved in fighting destructive cults. I have become a professionally trained therapist and fly anywhere my help is genuinely needed. My phone rings at all hours of the day. My clients are people who, for one reason or another, have been damaged emotionally, socially, and sometimes even physically, by their involvement with destructive cults. I help these people recover and start their lives over. My approach enables them to make this transition in a way that avoids the trauma associated with the often-illegal abduction method Ted Patrick called deprogramming. My work is intensive, totally involving me with a person and their family, sometimes for days at a time. My approach is legal and respectful. Usually, I am able to assist a person in making a dramatic recovery, accessing and reclaiming their authentic identity, or, at least, understanding that they have a better life ahead of them if they decide to leave the group. Only a handful of people in the world work with members of destructive cults. This book reveals most of the significant aspects of my approach to this unusual profession. This is work and a way of life that I never imagined. I undertook it because I thought I could help people. Having seen how destructive cults deliberately undermine basic human rights, I also became an activist. I am especially concerned with everyone’s right to know about how destructive cults recruit, keep control of and exploit highly talented, productive people. My life as a cult expert often makes me feel as though I’m in the middle of a war zone. All kinds of incredible cases and media situations come my way and I do the best I can to help. Even though I try to manage the number of active cases and see only a reasonable number of clients each week, unexpected emergencies sometimes command my attention. Here is one such story: I came home late one Friday evening after a night out with friends and checked my phone messages. There were four calls, all from the same family in Minnesota. “Call us any time—day or night—please,” said a woman’s voice. “Our son Bruce has gotten involved with the Moonies. He’s going on a three-week workshop with them in Pennsylvania on Monday. He’s a doctoral student in physics at MIT. Please call us back.” I called right away and talked with the mother and father for about an hour. They had heard that their son had become a member of an organization called the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (C.A.R.P.) They had done some investigation and discovered that C.A.R.P. was the international student-recruiting arm of the Unification Church.[2] I had started a branch of C.A.R.P. on the Queens College campus, so I knew all about it. We agreed there was no time to lose. After some discussion, we decided on a course of action. They would take a 6:45 a.m. flight to Boston, the next day. They would go to their son’s apartment, take him out to a restaurant, and assess his situation. Their success or failure would depend on Bruce’s close relationship to them, and on how far the Moonies had already indoctrinated him. Had they gotten to the point where they could make him reject his family as “satanic?” His mother and father assured me they would be able to talk to their son. I wasn’t so sure, but agreed it would be well worth the attempt. From my experience with the Moonies, I felt that if Bruce went to the three-week indoctrination, he would most very likely drop out of school and become a full-time member. The next
Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018
On Mon, Aug 8, 2022 at 10:18 PM professor rat wrote: > For those who act like this list is a nasty cult - Gramps, Argentine > based, Juan Garofalo and New England, based Karl Semich - here is one really easy way to fight back. > > GET OFF the INTERNET. > hi pr, i do come from a cult-like group a bit but they didnt like me i think. i hope you are well. are you able to share at all why you post so much to this list? i think people here know it is very important to get off the internet, but your reminders are likely very helpful.
Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018
For those who act like this list is a nasty cult - Gramps, Argentine based, Juan Garofalo and New England, based Karl Semich - here is one really easy way to fight back. GET OFF the INTERNET.
Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018
Preface to the First Paperback Edition Since the first publication of this book in the fall of 1988, I have heard from hundreds of people who have told me about the positive impact this book has had on their lives. Lawyers, educators, mental health professionals, and clergy have let me know how valuable it has been in their work. Families have told me incredible stories of how reading it led to a series of phone calls, meetings, and, ultimately, successful interventions with loved ones. Yet nothing gratifies me more than to hear from individuals who were involved with a destructive cult for many years, and who felt that reading this book helped them open a door to freedom. For each of you who might be a current or former member of an organization that is controversial, and to those who are friends or relatives of someone involved with such a group, I have some special words of advice: **If you are currently a member (or former member) of a group or organization that has been alleged to be a cult:** You may find that it takes a great deal of strength, courage, and integrity to make the effort to learn about this phenomenon. But as difficult as it is, keep in mind how much you stand to gain by reading this book in its entirety. Knowledge is power. You may even discover that, although the public views your group as a cult, there in fact is no mind control being used. I have been thanked countless times by members of unorthodox organizations who were able to, once and for all, discuss with their families and friends the criteria I outline in this book. By reading and discussing the material, they can demonstrate that they _are_ exercising their own free will, and continue their involvement with a clear conscience. If you are questioning the ethics, policies, or practices of your group, approach this book with an open mind. However, please be careful about letting other group members know you are reading it, as this might invoke unwanted attention and disciplinary measures from the group’s leadership. If it is at all possible to take some time off and get some distance from other members, I urge you to do so. Find a place where you have minimal pressure and few distractions. I also strongly suggest reading the book at least two times. When reading it for the first time, do so with the perspective that it is describing _other_ groups (preferably ones that you do believe are destructive), and really allow yourself the opportunity to understand the process of mind control and the characteristics of destructive cults. Be sure to make notes as you read, writing down everything you agree with or disagree with, as well as things you want to research further. Then do all the follow-up research necessary to fully answer your questions. Once you have finished the book, give yourself at least a few days before reading it again. When you pick it up a second time, read it objectively, as though it may or may not apply to your own personal situation. Make a new set of notes on what you agree with, what you disagree with, and what you need to research further. On completing this second reading, go find the answers to the issues that are raised pertaining to your own group. Take some time off (if possible, a minimum of a few weeks) and go to a restful place, away from other group members, and gather more information from other sources. _Remember, if the group is a legitimate, valid organization, it will stand up to any scrutiny._ It is far better to find out the truth now than to invest more time, money, and energy, only to discover years later that the group is very different from its idealized image. Truth is stronger than lies, and love is stronger than fear. If you are involved with a religious organization, keep in mind that God created us with free will, and that no truly spiritual organization would _ever_ use deception or mind control, or take away your freedom. **If you are a family member, friend, or loved one of someone who is involved in what you suspect is a destructive cult:** It is best to approach the problem in a systematic and methodical manner. Avoid overreacting and getting hysterical. Don’t jump the gun and tell the person that you have bought this book or are reading it. Wait until you and other relevant people have had a chance to read and get prepared before planning a team Strategic Interactive Approach (SIA). Be sure to also read my book Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults and Beliefs, which will offer a great deal of further information and guidance. Unfortunately, there have been cases in which people have bought this book and
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Foreword to the 1988 Edition The phone was frighteningly loud. The clock read 4:30 a.m. It was difficult to take in what a reporter from The Berkeley Gazette was saying on the phone: “Margaret, I hate to bother you this early, but we have just learned that Jim Jones has decided to pull the trigger down in Guyana. I’ve been here all night at a house in Berkeley talking with ex-members of Peoples Temple and with relatives of persons down in Jonestown. There’s a mother here whose husband and 12-year-old son are down there and she is desperate. It is not known if everyone’s dead, or if there are survivors. I know I’ve told you not to work with ex-members of Peoples Temple because of the dangerous harassment that Jones’ so-called ‘Angels’ direct against former members. But these people need to talk with you and get some help with what has happened.” As daylight was breaking, I passed up the steps guarded by somber Berkeley police, as it was feared that Jones had left “hit orders” for members still in the area to wipe out defectors when he ordered the final “White Night,” his term for the often-rehearsed moment when he would have all his followers drink poison. The reporter, my son (also a reporter), and a few police officers had warned me not to give my usual gratis consultation services to ex-Peoples Temple members, even though I had long given these services to former cultists. Jones allegedly used his “angels” to wreak vengeance against members who left, and against their supporters as well. The woman whose husband and young son were eventually identified as dead in Jonestown was only one of many. I spent hours and days meeting and talking with various survivors as they returned from Guyana to the Bay Area and attempted to get their lives going again after the Guyanese holocaust. There were attorney Tim Stoen and his wife, Grace, whose young son had been held captive by Jones and died in Jonestown. There were the members of the basketball team who missed the mass suicide-murder. There was a nine-year-old girl who had survived having had her throat slit by a woman who then killed herself in Georgetown, Guyana, as part of Jones’ mass death orders. There was Larry Layton, who faced courts in two countries for allegedly carrying out Jones’ orders at the airport in Guyana where Rep. Leo J. Ryan and others died. I began to work with ex-cultists about six years before Jonestown and continue to do so to this day. I have provided psychological counseling to more than 3000 persons who have been in cults. I have written about some of this work and have talked with lay and professional groups in many countries about thought reform programs, intense indoctrination programs, cults, and related topics. My interest in the effects of thought reform programs began when I worked at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research after the Korean War. At that point I met and worked with Edgar H. Schein, Ph.D., Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., and Louis J. West, M.D., pioneers in the study of the effects of intense indoctrination programs. I was involved in the follow-up studies of former prisoners of war, interviewed long-term prisoners of the Chinese, and participated over the years in much of the work on conceptualizing thought reform programs. As the author does in this volume, I have repeatedly described the specific needs of persons who have been subjected to such and have emphasized the lack of knowledge that most citizens as well as mental health professionals have about the processes, effects, and aftermath of being subjected to thought reform programs. The author has clearly and convincingly described how mind control is induced. He integrates his personal experience in a cult, and his practical skills developed in years of exit-counseling of persons who have been in mind control situations, with theories and concepts in the scientific literature. The book comes alive with real-life examples. For the first time, an experienced exit-counselor outlines step by step the actual methods, sequence, and framework of what he does and how he works with families and the persons under mind control. He draws on the various scholarly works in the fields of thought reform, persuasion, social psychology, and hypnosis to offer theoretical frameworks for how mind control is achieved. Exit-counseling is a new profession, and the author has spelled out here a type of ethical, educational counseling which he and others have developed. He has devoted the time and has the literary skill and educational background to make this volume a major contribution. The reader is taken from Steve’s first telephone contacts with
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Introduction to the 2018 Edition Fake News! –Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States of America In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act. –George Orwell, (actual name, Eric Blair) in his dystopian novel 1984, published in 1949 Spring, 2018. I am waiting to fly home to Boston, exhausted, but with a deep feeling of fulfillment. Last night I concluded a three-day intervention with a wonderful group of family and friends who had hired me to help a loved one wake up from a deep involvement with a Hindu guru group. Her marriage and their family business were threatened. The new guru had instructed believers to move to India and not speak with ex-members. Her husband and now two adult children had hired me, along with her sisters, to do my best to develop, guide and implement a Strategic Interactive Approach that culminated in this three-day voluntary intervention. Last night and again this morning tears came to my eyes as I read texts from everyone filled with gratitude. Her true believer trance was gone. She was now thinking for herself. Before we began, many had doubted we could be successful because she seemed so programmed. Thankfully, they were mistaken. She agreed to listen because her sisters, children, husband and her close friends begged her to stay and learn. They asked her to have an open mind and learn about cults and mind control from me. With the help of long-term former members who had been her friends while in the group, she was overwhelmed with compelling and believable stories. She learned about horrible abuses of power that her daughter experienced and discovered had happened to others. She sat with and listened to her old friends she had previously dismissed and avoided. Love, patience, and respect guided the process. It worked beautifully! As I am waiting at the airport, I get into a conversation with some fellow travelers who have recognized me from my appearance on the Leah Remini show exposing Scientology abuses. They have many questions. They ask me to tell them more about how I got interested in helping people out of cults. I ask them if they have ever heard of the Moon cult? No, they haven’t. But they have heard of the newspaper owned by them, the Washington Times. As I’m describing how high-demand groups have proliferated over the past few years, reaching what I consider epidemic proportions, they stop me. They can’t believe it’s true. They are amazed to hear that cults are successfully recruiting people. I go back through decades of big stories: “Charles Manson?” The woman had read that he was supposed to get married. “Patty Hearst and the SLA?” They’ve never heard of her. “Do you know about Jonestown and Jim Jones?” Astonishingly, no, they don’t. This edition is being published on the 40th anniversary of the Jonestown tragedy, which took place November 18th, 1978. The hardcover edition of Combating Cult Mind Control came out on the 10th anniversary of the Jonestown tragedy. While today most Americans know the expression “drink the Kool-Aid,” many people have never heard of Jim Jones and his cult, the Peoples Temple. Even fewer know the grim story of how cyanide was mixed with Flavor Aid and forced down the throats of over 300 children and hundreds of adults. Jones told them it was an act of “revolutionary suicide.” They believed he was God on earth. In total, he killed 912 people. What about Waco, David Koresh, and Branch Davidians? Heaven’s Gate? The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo and their sarin gas attack in the subways of Tokyo?” No, no. Sadly, no. They are not alone in not knowing. The world has changed. While the names of the big cults of the 1970s and 1980s have disappeared from the headlines, even more, insidious names—Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony—have taken their place. In fact, my traveling companions ask me about ISIS, also known as Islamic State or Daesh—it seems to them that it might be a cult. Yes! I tell them that, in my opinion, it is a political cult that uses religion to lure and influence people. It exhibits many of the classic signs—recruiting people through deception, whisking them away to isolated locations, giving them new names, clothes, controlling their access to food and information, implanting phobias, and making false promises. We talk about North Korea, its nuclear arms development, and assassinations of enemies, cyber attacks against Sony Pictures, whose movie, The Interview, casts the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in a decidedly unflattering
