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Mind manipulation is a
strategy used by deceptive, exploitive groups for the expansion of their influence,
control and exploitation. (Not all these factors need be present for the group to be
considered harmful.)
First, the
person is conditioned or softened up by means of love-bombing.
Second, the
person is persuaded or indoctrinated into new beliefs.
The leaders have
three objective in mind: 1) recruit converts, 2) control lives, and 3) make money.
Factors to
indoctrinate a person:
 Isolation
Hunger
(or fasting)
Fatigue
Tenseness
(unpredictability)
Fear-Love
Relationship
Threats which
the person doesn't realize or perceive
Repetition
Lack of
privacy (physical and mental)
Depending on which
deceptive group you are talking about, these factors are used more or less in
producing mind manipulation. Thought-reform is the name of the game--reform to what the leader wants his
followers to think.
Fear phobia induction
is used to cause the member to become submissive and obedient.
During the time
when the individual is being indoctrinated, he/she does the following
things:
Studies
diligently
Listens hour
after hour without asking any questions
Self-examines
himself and what he stands for
Becomes
self-critical
Re-examines
himself and his/her beliefs
Reaches new
thought conclusions
Learns by
doing
Does not test
reality with anyone outside the group (Questions are only answered
within the group by programmed statements from the leader.)
The most
important and last phase is impressing the individual with the
infallibility of the group leader. "God has revealed great things to
the leader" or has had "revelations which no other person has duplicated
in all of history."
Read:
All or Nothing Statements (from those that have
"the truth)
After being with
group members, teachers, leaders, etc. the individual will gradually be won
from the ability to make a decision. He will become an integral part of
the group and will not be able to function alone. When this finally
happens, the mind manipulation is complete. The person will obey faithfully
all "God" has revealed to the authoritarian leader.
Deceptive, abusive
leaders use
certain phrases (i. e., buzz words1) over and over and these are woven into speeches,
materials, teachings, conversation, and everyday living so that the
individual repeats them audibly to himself and others day after day. This
type of repetition reinforces the mind manipulation.
The individual finally
cannot think except as far as the group thinks and the terrible thing is
that the individual does not know his mind is controlled. He thinks he has a
free will to believe what he wants, while in fact he thinks only as far
as the teachers and leaders of the group think. You cannot feel
thought-reform! Just like you cannot smell carbon-monoxide.
Thought reform has intense and dramatic effects on the personality structure.
It alters the psychological and physiological makeup of a person's
functioning.2
Leaders of these
kinds of groups are
self-righteous, hypocritical, religious paranoids who are on a religion for profit
ego-trip.3 They give religion lip service only. You do not see them feeding the hungry, helping the needy, or doing
any kind of mission work to help others.
These leaders only
want to victimize new converts and to make money.
Unfortunately, many people cannot see the gigantic rip-off and betrayal! These groups
offer free Bible correspondence courses, free booklets, and other literature,
which are the hook to draw others inside their group where they will be
controlled and exploited.
Investigate and see what is happening in
the world. We are not
talking about freedom of religion--we are talking about deliberate
manipulation of innocent people's minds through the use of skilled thought reform
techniques!
~Adapted from an article
sent to Exit & Support Network™.
(Further reading:
How Did Herbert W. Armstrong Recruit
People?)
The Techniques of
Coercive Persuasion
(Taken from Factnet.org)
There are seven main techniques categories that are layered, interwoven,
and overlapped into a coercive persuasion [C. P.] program. The presence
of every technique is not always required for the program to be
effective.
1. Increase mental confusion and increase the individual's
suggestibility:
This is done through hypnotic or other suggestibility increasing
techniques. Repetitive audio, visual, tactile, or verbal fixation
exercises or stimuli also may be employed.
Within this technique mental confusion is employed to break or intrude
upon the subject's normal concentration. Concentration is distracted or
decreased to inhibit the subject's ability to think through or verify
the claims or story they are being given. One way this can be done is by
using a constant verbal or sensory barrage of pro system information.
2. Apply strong non-physical punishments:
Techniques such as humiliation, loss of privilege, social isolation,
abrupt social status changes, anxiety and guilt manipulation, and other
techniques for creating intense negative emotional reactions are used.
Rewards paradoxically play an integral role in this technique.
Manipulatory leverage is usually maximized by alternating harshness with
leniency or lavish rewards. Love, admiration, approval and other
supportive rewards are used as weapons.
3. Promote social isolation:
Contact with family, friends, or associates who do not share the group
approved attitudes or ideology is abridged. Economic and other
dependence on the new group is fostered.
By manipulation of rewards, group pressure, and non-physical punishments
the program operators establish considerable control over a person's
time, social environment, and sources of social support. The subjects
are manipulated in such a way to put psychological distance between
observable behavior that reflects the values, routines, and life
organization that the individual displayed before contact with the
group. This is sometimes done by symbolic and actual acts of betrayal,
renunciation of self, or attacking past associations, or previously held
values.
A person continually exposed to a C. P. program in lectures, events or
experiences will gradually cut himself off from his past. They may begin
to stop calling or writing family and old friends. Work, school, or
other important previous activities may be dropped or relegated to such
a low priority that eventually it is not possible for them to keep up.
The group applying C. P. now occupies all their time.
4. Attack one's self concepts and world view:
This is the most effective
facilitator for coercing change of all C. P. techniques.
Using coerced confessions, detailed personal histories, or other
discovery methods, frequent and intense attempts are made to cause the
subject to reevaluate in unfavorable ways the most central aspects of
his experience of "self," and his prior conduct. These efforts are
deliberately designed to destabilize, degrade, or diminish the subject's
self concept, world view, emotional control, awareness and
interpretation of reality, and defense mechanisms. Such psychological
assaults force the individual into reinterpreting their life history and
adopting a new version of causality.
Regardless of previous fact, the individual is gradually convinced that
his past, his beliefs, or his family, were bad; or at least considerably
worse than they were. He is then manipulated into believing, to
"survive," he must now commit himself to the group using C. P. and the
superior knowledge, talent or mission they espouse.
5. Make intense and frequent attempts to undermine a person's
confidence in himself and his judgment to create a sense of
powerlessness:
Criticism or complaints are
handled by showing the subject that he or she is somehow flawed, not the
group or the ideology being advanced. The subject is taught the system
is always right and they are always wrong. Contrary to what might be
professed, they soon learn through experience the system is the only
true authority for decisions.
6. Manipulate information and language:
Conflicting, upsetting, or
non-supporting information is censored or prohibited whenever possible
in group communication and indoctrination. Direct deception or the
clever mixing of truth and lies in confidence game strategies also may
be employed to manipulate information or inhibit discovery of falsehood
in stated claims.
Rules exist about permissible topics to discuss with outsiders.
Communication is highly controlled. An "in group" language is usually
constructed.
To reinforce the belief system, commonly used words often are redefined
and new words created.
Language is loaded, often dividing the world into "good, aware,
wonderful us" and "evil, unaware, ignorant them."
Information is controlled is such a way to offer "no choice choices."
All alternatives given to the subject to choose from are void of any
valid options that run counter to the goals of the operators of the C.
P. program.
This technique also helps to prevent independent thinking, discovery of
deception, or rebellion by maintaining a closed system of logic and an
uninformed state in the victim. One main theme in Orwell's 1984
was, without the capacity to express or use certain words, people lose
access to the thoughts and actions that those words represent. Since
words represent thoughts and thoughts motivate actions, if words can be
controlled, thought and eventually action can be controlled.
7. Use or have present psychological threat of a secular
nature:
Those failing to adopt the
approved attitude, belief, or consequent behavior are directly
threatened, or are led to sincerely believe that severe punishment or
dire consequences will befall them. Physical or mental illness, drug
dependence, economic collapse, social failure, divorce, failure to find
a mate are a few examples of these secular threats.
These seven techniques of C. P. combine the most effective, age old
psychological and sociological coercive influence and deception
techniques with the most powerful advances in behavioral modification,
and other technologies. This synthesis is sometimes wrapped in a slick
Madison avenue, public relations, or soft sell veneer.
Footnotes by ESN:
1 See
"Loading the Language" from Lifton's Eight Criteria
of Thought Reform for specific examples that have been used in
Worldwide Church of God and offshoots.
2 Altered
states of mind and personality can happen quickly or gradually in these
groups. Refer to the book,
Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden
Personality Change by Flo Conway
& Jim Siegelman.
3 Some cult leaders may
exhibit the
behavioral characteristics of a sociopath.
Clues to
Application of Mind Control in WCG (detailed letter to ESN)
Articles For Those Who Were
Emotionally & Spiritually Abused
Questioning Herbert W. Armstrong (was he who he said
he was?) (many articles)
Back to Articles on
Understanding Mind Control and Exploitive Groups
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