Below is a quote from one of Herbert Armstrong's letters where he screams at members who were getting sick of HWA's incessant begging for money by accusing them of being like his his wife's blocked bowel.
HWA Co-Worker Letter April 1967:
Many
professing to be Church MEMBERS say, when a Co-Worker letter arrives,
in a grumbling, complaining disgust: "Oh, that's another of Mr.
Armstrong's REQUESTS for MONEY," and many don't even read the letter!
Are
YOU one of those? If so, LET ME BURN YOUR EARS before the Almighty GOD
burns YOU in the Lake of FIRE! If that has been YOUR attitude -- if YOU
are only on the GETTING side, and SHUN helping, and giving to the cause
of GOD, then I say to you ON AUTHORITY OF JESUS CHRIST, if you don't
REPENT and QUICKLY, and change that hostile, despicable, detestable
attitude, you DO NOT BELONG in GOD'S CHURCH! You are some of the ROTTEN,
PUTRID, spiritual WASTE that has been PLUGGED UP INSIDE OF THE
SPIRITUAL BODY OF CHRIST'S WIFE, just as physical waste is plugged up in
my dear wife's body! And the living Jesus is just as able to EXPEL YOU
from the spiritual Body of HIS WIFE as He is to expel this physical
waste from my wife's body!
And
if THAT doesn't make your ears tingle, and AWAKEN you, then Jesus
Christ says to YOU through me, YOU are in danger of the Lake of FIRE!...
Below is the Lifton Criteria, a list of ways that cults control devotee's. This is exactly what the Worldwide Church of God did. This is also what Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack and Bitter Bob Thiel are doing.
We are always aghast as to why so many members stand by Flurry, Pack and Thiel's sides when they KNOW for a fact that they are being abused. Here is why they do it.
Dr. Robert J.
Lifton's Eight Criteria for Thought Reform
-
Milieu Control. This involves the control of information
and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within
the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from
society at large.
Mystical Manipulation. There is manipulation of
experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and
orchestrated by the group or its leaders in order to demonstrate divine
authority or spiritual advancement or some special gift or talent that
will then allow the leader to reinterpret events, scripture, and
experiences as he or she wishes.
Demand for Purity. The world is viewed as black and white
and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of
the group and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or
shame is a powerful control device used here.
Confession. Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed
either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no
confidentiality; members' "sins," "attitudes," and "faults" are
discussed and exploited by the leaders.
Sacred Science. The group's doctrine or ideology is considered
to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is
not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for
God or for all humanity, is likewise above criticism.
Loading the Language. The group interprets or uses words
and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not
understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which
serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way
of thinking.
Doctrine over person. Member's personal experiences are
subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be
denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group.
Dispensing of existence. The group has the prerogative to decide
who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not
literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved,
unenlightened, unconscious and they must be converted to the group's
ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group,
then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world
loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the
group, he or she must be rejected also. (Lifton, 1989)
Another version is here with more points:
- Control of human communication.
- Totalist environment seeks to control external information
(that which a person sees, hears, reads, writes, experiences, expresses) and
the inner life of a person's thoughts (communication with himself).
- This milieu control can't become absolute, there will
always be "leaks".
- The leaders are considered the source and dispensers of
truth and knowledge so they try to create a rarefied environment in which
only this truth exists.
- To be engineers of the human soul, the leaders must
bring it under full observational control, monitoring information and
thoughts.
- Person is deprived of both external information and
inner reflection, which are crucial for testing realities.
- Strivings toward new info, independent judgment, and
self-expression are thwarted.
- A person who experiences a reality outside of the group
will negate the experience by not considering it legitimate since it is
outside the milieu.
- A hampering in the human quest for that which is true and
relevant within and outside a person.
- Us/them mentality keeps outside information from being
processed critically
- Person's entire frame of reference becomes the group,
has no independent reality or information against which to test the verity
of the information the group is giving him.
- Separation from family and friends who represent the
outside.
- Control of books read, movies seen, music listened to.
- Communal living further controls the milieu.
- Activities are limited because time is dominated by group.
Even if a person wanted to hear another pastor there wouldn't be enough time
to do so.
- Intense indoctrination seminars or retreats.
- Information for making decisions supposed to come from
"seeking counsel" or consultation from leaders.
- Anything that is not the sacred science (see below for
explanation of sacred science) is rejected as evil.
This list came about because of the authors book on the following subject on how China brainwashed the minds of American prisoners and their won people.
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China is a non-fiction book by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton on the psychology of brainwashing and mind control.
Lifton's research for the book began in 1953 with a series of
interviews with American servicemen who had been held captive during the
Korean War.
In addition to interviews with 25 Americans, Lifton also interviewed 15
Chinese who had fled their homeland after having been subjected to
indoctrination in Chinese universities. From these interviews, which in
some cases occurred regularly for over a year, Lifton identified the
tactics used by Chinese communists to cause drastic shifts in one's
opinions and personality and "brainwash" American soldiers into making
demonstrably false assertions.
More can be found here by a man who was deprogrammed from a religious cult in Santa Barbara.
