FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Suppose you move to a different area, and are keeping your eyes open for a good group to belong to (a social club, a church, a synagogue, or service organization). You visit one such group where the people are very friendly, loving, and give you individual attention. The group has a variety of programs: a rehabilitation program for drug addicts, services and nursing homes for the elderly, help for the poor, and free clinics. The leader inspires the disillusioned, the disenchanted, and those who have been rejected elsewhere. He is well-known and respected in the area, and the mayor gave him a position as Director of the City Housing Authority. Would you join this group?
Suppose you spend four years in college and nearly two years in graduate school to prepare for a career in Christian music. Then the ministers of your home church tell you that you are not needed in their music program. Shortly afterward, you find a new group that welcomes you with open arms. They really care for people. The leader of this group has fascinating Bible studies. You and everyone else are able to sit and listen to him for several hours at a time. Would you stay in this group?
If you answered "yes" to the first situation, you joined the church led by Jim Jones who led over 900 of his followers into a mass suicide murder. If you liked the second group, you became a follower of David Koresh who led over 80 of his followers to die in a blaze of fire.
A wolf in sheep's clothing is a short and simple description of a cult leader – as these men were.
Are there any warning signs that a group and its leader are dangerous? That’s largely what this book is about.
To read more about this subject, click here to download Stephen Martin's e-book.
Christian and Secular books on Recovery from Mind Control
Christian Books Addressing the Dynamics of Spiritual Abuse
· **The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse (Johnson & VanVonderan)
· Healing Spiritual Abuse (Blue)
· The Discipling Dilemna (Yeakey)
· Exposing Spiritual Abuse (Fehlauer)
· 12 Steps for the Recovering Pharisee (Fischer)
· The Rest of the Gospel (Stone)
· Twisted Scriptures (Chrnalogar)
· Toxic Faith (Arterburn)
· More Jesus, Less Religion (Arterburn & Felton)
· **Tired of Trying to Measure Up (Van Vonderan)
· **Families Where Grace is in Place (VanVonderan)
· **Safe People (Townsend and Cloud)
· Bring ‘Em Back Alive (Burchett)
Secular Books Addressing Cults and Cultic Churches
[Remember: The dynamics in Biblical churches and in cults are identical.]
· **Take Back Your Life (Lalich)
An earlier version was **Captive Hearts, Captive Minds (Landau-Tobias and Lalich)
· **Combating Cult Mind Control (Hassan)
· **Cults in our Midst (Singer)
· **The Lucifer Effect (Zimbardo)
· Releasing the Bonds (Hassan)
· Recovery from Cults (Langone)
· Snapping (Conway)
· Bounded Choice (Lalich)
· Brainwash (Streatfeild)
· Battle for the Mind (Sargant)
· The Manipulated Mind (Winn)
17 comments:
The best recovery for "mind control" is to say to yourself, "WOW - I was really stupid to follow someone else and not MY OWN best judgment. I should not have surrendered my decision-making to someone else."
To ACCEPT the blame for this fault is the quickest way to recover and the best way not to make the mistake again. Blaming others will never help you to except responsibility for your own actions and their consequences.
Those who require much more than this were emotionally immature BEFORE, DURING and AFTER HWA/WCG/COGS and got WHAT THEY PAID FOR.
GET UP, GROW UP and MOVE ON!
Milq....that's absolutely right and a key to moving on. I wanted to be there. I chose to be there. I needed to be there and anyone telling me otherwise , at that time, would have been a 'get behind me satan for me.
Now I know better. Older, wiser and more determined to be genuine to myself and go with that doubt that niggles or tugs when anything comes up.
Recently, the college I teach at made it madatory for faculty and staff to attend the 'Motivate Me" seminar. You know, Gulliani, Collin Powell, Laura Bush etc. It is a big scam and infomercial plus a traffic nightmare here in the south.
I told the Dean my personal, student and school reasons for why I would not be attending but in my class as my syllibi noted wondering how that would go over. I won my point and even if I didn't, I was not going. they cancelled the whole thing for the students as well based on my research or at least it was not mandatory. I did this based on my need now to speak up when someone orders me to do something I do not wish to do, can't or don't agree with. Felt good.
It's just good mental and emotional health to do so.
As one who has studied this problem for a decade or more, I must say that it is a difficult problem. I don't know much and it seems that the more I learn, the less I seem to actually know.
Unless you are born to it or have a relative push you into it at an early age where it isn't much of a choice, there is one central core to consider for all these cults: What are they offering you?
I would say that knowing yourself and your own vulnerabilities is key to prevention. These groups all have an appeal which is targeted to people who have a specific need. This is especially bad for people with Borderline Personality Disorder who already are vulnerable because of fear of abandonment.
Now it isn't just the emotional appeal which can trap people. There can be a matter of pride wherein a person gets to feel (well, I suppose that's an emotion, then) superior: Intellectual vanity can be a killer.
A person who is in the mode of thinking they can get something for nothing is especially vulnerable. The Universe doesn't work that way.
That said, there are other things to look for, such as is this group focused on a man or a small cadre of men? That's a dead giveaway. How nutty is their ideas? British Israelism is one of the most insane notions ever, pretty much advertised and brought forth by an crazy Canadian (Crazy Canadians are not the norm and are in the minority, David Malm, notwithstanding).
You need to look at how much you have to sacrifice to be a member in the long term. How much money will it take (3 tithes on gross income is not acceptable). How much time do you have to give to this group? What will it do to your family? Just how responsive is the leadership when crimes against you or people you know in the group are committed? What is the integrity of the leadership? Are they perverted adulterer idolatrous thieves? What is their standing in the community? And just how transparent is their accounts? Who makes the decisions for the group?
Does the group have a good solid business sense?
Well, even then, when all these questions are answered honestly, it may lead to personal tragedy: How is it going to affect you and your family in the long term? Will you have any friends "outside" left, or will you be stuck with ersatz virtual faux friends who dump you the second you are not part of the group any longer?
And if you are technological, are you joining an empty headed cult of historians, social theorists and other non objective people without structural visualization? For that matter, are you a cat person and they are all dog persons? Beware!
Ah, but people aren't logical... and that is the source of the problem. These days, there is seemingly little incentive to control the emotions: People are driven to factless decisions based on what they feel, instead of relying on solid pragmatic principle based relationships grounded in something real (such as science).
This is all something akin to a marriage. I suggest "Avoiding Mr. Wrong" by Stephen Arterburn. Avoid any leader with any of the 10 characteristics. Herbert Armstrong had at least 5. Ooooh the anger!
Too many assume they've fallen into a good thing when they have just fallen.
"I wanted to be there. I chose to be there. I needed to be there and anyone telling me otherwise , at that time, would have been a 'get behind me satan for me."
Me,too. It took over twenty years for me to start to get my head screwed on right. Like sharks, these people ferret out the weak and vulnerable and tailor their message to them. The problem will never go away as long as needy. vulnerable prey is out there. That means it will continue as long as humans exist.
I think it's good to learn of the techniques used by those who try to control people.
Anyone can tune their TV to Daystar, TBN, or JCTV, to see a plethora of this crap in action. These networks are chock-full of "preachers" using such sleazy techniques.
Personally, one of the things I've found most helpful in distancing myself from the WCG was chapter 22(entitled Ideological Totalism) of Robert J Lifton's book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism.
It's at many places online, such as click here
Also, I was surprised to learn how easily manipulated the average person could be, after reading about the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment.
Just google, if you are unfarmiliar with those.
Baptism was never intended to be into a denomination, cult or sect, although that seems to be the prevailing application today. Christian baptism is into the body of Christ. It is a highly personal thing, between one's self, and God.
These days, if you do attend a church regularly, the pastor and members expect you to fully participate in that community, often even requiring you to sign a covenant membership. That is partially why I choose to anonymously attend services at a large church. It's perhaps 1/10 of my spiritual program, combined with personal Bible Study, prayer, abundant reading, and occasionally watching messages from the very few non-clowns on Christian TV. Church, for me, is a place to participate in group praise, to partake of communion, to be inspired by the messages and to learn, and to occasionally cut loose with some of my tithes and offerings.
Other Christians have been very sympathetic and understanding when I explain to them that I was raised in a toxic, authoritarian, apocalyptic cult which had prophesied that Jesus would return in 1975. They understand how difficult it is for such a person as I to trust, and think it's a miracle straight from God that I could even walk into a church.
But, you know? It's all worth it! The stakes are just so high, and the blessings and potential reward make it so worth getting out of one's comfort zone, and navigating the spiritual mine field, carefully avoiding the con artists, tyrants, and spiritual abusers.
BB
Norm,
Watch the movie "Das Experiment"
Learn what happens when you hand you life over to others.
As Mr. Becker has said, there are prisoners and there are guards.
Which group do you belong to?
Available on Netflix.
It is truly unfortunate that the Armstrongist leadership doesn't see itself as it really is: They are so terrible, just like the Das Experiment movie.
They should be horrified by their own behavior, but they just don't and they are totally incapable of seeing themselves as being the merciless guards in a terribly gone wrong vile experiment.
The murders should have been a clue, but they are so clueless, so corrupt, they just don't get it.
They deserve full contempt.
James,
I could only see the trailer.
I will be subscribing to Netflix within a few weeks, and am looking forward to that.
BTW, I had a couple of years of German in high school, but I wasn't able to understand all of what I heard, although it helped somewhat.
Is the Netflix version in English, or does it have subtitles?
Author:
Did you change the font on the site, or is it my computer? All the captions and headings come up in an unreadable fond.
I've been following this blog for a year or more, and this is the first time this has happened (about 4-5 days ago)
same font switch here. I do like the more crisp other one better for what it's worth
LOL, me too, about the font.
This one may be an alternative to comic sans, but it's like an alternative to Michele Bachmann
Sorry to drag this out, but...
I'm somewhat of an aficionado of all the Bat Boy articles in the Weekly World News, before it went under(no pun intended).
When I first saw that particular picture of Michele Bachmann, I thought to myself, "Hey, that looks just like Bat Boy!"
The next day, I saw the two pictures side by side and realized the resemblance was closer than I'd imagined.
Years ago, when I stayed at a West Virginia Association for Cave Studies field station overnight, me and my friend put our reason for exploring the cave there as, "Searching for Bat Boy."
I had no idea that Bat Boy had gotten into politics.
Perhaps Bat Boy can "pray away the gay" from all those awful stalagmites in the caves.
Yes.
That's the ticket.
I must apologize.
Upon reflection, I now remember that Bat Boy had indeed gotten into politics.
IIRC, he wore some spiffy clothes, too.
My bad.
I keep getting two different fonts when I open the blog.
Let me get into the settings and see what is happening. Blogger has been a pain in the ass lately with posting.
NO2HWA,
I just off the phone with Bat Boy, who suggested the Trinité font.
But, to me, it sounds like something the Whore of Babylon would suggest, so I just may have to block Bat Boy's number.
Norm
It's satan trying to destroy this mighty work! ;-)
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