MIND CONTROL IN THE CULTS

"A destructive sect is any group whose methods for winning over and/or indoctrinating a follower include coercive persuasion, designed to destroy (destructure) the follower's previous personality, or damage it severely."

During the 1960s, psychologists in the United States interviewed American soldiers returning from the war against North Korea. They focused in particular on those who had suffered a drastic change in their personality. Under the Communists, these soldiers experienced brainwashing. Later, other psychologists realised that some persons involved in cults experienced similar psychological changes. They recognized that cults used the same mechanism, which they termed mind control or mind reform. Therefore, it is very important to know and understand this technique in order to be able to dialogue with cult members. Otherwise, their unresponsiveness, a result of the mind control they underwent, could end up deceiving us. Even though it is true, we would never tell a Jehovah’s Witness, for example, that he is under mind control, because he wouldn’t know what we are talking about. On the contrary, he would feel attacked. Furthermore, by being on the defensive, he would think that the Catholic is the one under mind control.


In the book, Combating Cult Mind Control, by Steven Hassan, we read that mind control is more subtle and sophisticated than brainwashing. The one that affects brainwashing through torture is considered an enemy by the victim, but the cult member who controls the mind is considered a friend, a good Christian. Consequently, the victim (the one being indoctrinated) offers less resistance than if he were being tortured. By co-operating with the process of mind control, the victim little by little and without realizing it surrenders his former personality and assumes the one imposed on him by the cult. He accepts the teachings of the cult, which are considered biblical.


It is safe to say that mind control does not involve physical abuse. It is limited, instead, to certain hypnotic processes combined with group dynamics which create a potent effect of indoctrination. The individual is deceived and manipulated with indirect threats to make him carry out a prescribed behaviour.


In the hands of a cult without scruples, these methods become an effective tool for attracting converts. Not only are they successful with ignorant and naive people, the best converts are often persons of high intelligence. Is mind control evil?


Today the use of mind control is an ethical problem, but it is not objectionable in all of its manifestations. The media attempts to influence us through advertisements. However, there are certain methods of mind control which are not considered innocent, and people who don’t realize that they are getting involved in a cultist group need to be warned before it’s too late. Religious cults employ mind control tactics which are kept secret. These cults don’t consider their methods to be mind control, but rather evangelization. They sincerely believe that they possess the only answers to life’s problems.


By requiring blind obedience and loyalty, cult leaders keep their members in darkness. They understand human beings: they know that a person would be opposed to indoctrination if he knew what awaited him, and thus they reveal information gradually and at the right moment.


Controls used by cults


"A person could make an individual decision to join the Assembly of God ..... but a total submission to authority was required in order to remain in the group. In such an institution of legalistic mentality, gossip was an effective form of social control, especially when the authorities of the church got wind of it and would call the members to render an account. The pastor ..... of a church was an important figure, even the object of veneration, due to his charismatic authority. "It’s amazing to see the attention and the reverence which the people give the pastor" wrote one observer. "They do everything for him" ..... That the pastor controls everything should be emphasized ..... Nothing happens without his consent."

1. Control of Information

• American soldiers were only allowed to receive a limited amount of information from the United States. The Communists censored their letters, allowed them only to hear radio broadcasts of Marxist ideology, and indoctrinated them for hours every day. With all this they prevented them from receiving more objective information from abroad, thus safeguarding that the soldiers only heard one version of the story.
  
• The same happens in cults. They also limit the amount of information that reaches their members. Reading, listening to the radio, watching television, or receiving any information contrary to their doctrines is discouraged. Members are advised to abstain from what the cult considers worldly and improper for a good Christian.
  
• Likewise, in its control of information, the cult does not reveal all of its beliefs until the person is ready to receive them. Information is restricted according to hierarchy. The higher one’s authority, the more internal information he receives.
  
• The Mormon missionaries’ training cassette instructs them not to mention, at the outset of conversations, the differences between Mormon and Catholic beliefs, but rather to show that they are the same. Further confusion results from the fact that many cults [spiritualist trinitarian-marian churches] employ images, songs and rites similar to those of the Catholic Church, displaying even the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and a Catholic Bible.
  
• Part of the control of information consists in prohibiting communication between an apostate (a person who has been expelled from the cult) and another member of the same cult. In this way members will not know the reasons for which the excommunicate left the cult.
  
• Cults keep a person very busy reading the Bible, attending frequent worship services, and going from door to door, all so that the person becomes very tired and does not have time to think and evaluate his situation. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses have five hours of meetings every week, plus many hours of preparation for such meetings and for preaching from door to door. That’s a lot of indoctrinating! The amount of time dedicated to the cult leaves little time to get other information. Mormons feel pressured to participate in many services, which are known as callings. Being tired and busy all the time keeps the person isolated from people who are not part of the cult. As a result, a person’s way of thinking is gradually changed and controlled through the lack of information.

2. Thought Control

• "The Hare Krishna’s Fourth Principal of Regulation, prohibit mental reflection ..... Cult members not only uncritically obey the orders of their leaders, or ‘elder brothers’ (those who have been in the way of Truth the longest) but they also submit to experiencing their own daily reality through a manipulated and exclusive doctrinal filter."
  
• Control is initiated by getting the person to focus solely on cult affairs. Questioning a doctrine is forbidden, since doubts are considered the work of the devil. The leaders’ way of thinking must be adopted by all, and independent thought is considered to be pride. Members learn to block out all doubts and contradictions, believed to be of the devil, to such a degree that they are unable to penetrate their consciences. Since leaders are seen as God’s representatives, they can teach absurdities, and members believe them.
  
• Seen as prophets, leaders interpret the events of the world and of the lives of their followers. Followers are not even permitted to discern what’s happening in their lives. Interpretation must be given by the cult, not the individual. For example, "This earthquake is a sign of the end; You’re sick because God is punishing you or because the devil is attacking you." Explanations are arbitrary since as the pastor sees it, sickness is caused by God or by the devil.
  
• Leaders claim that they have recovered the Truth which was lost by Catholics. They claim to be restoring the early Church. They warn new converts that their family members will try to get them out of the cult and convince them that they are making a mistake. And when family members put up obstacles, converts are convinced that the cult members are right - the devil does not want them to join - and their trust in the cult is re-enforced.
  
• By taking advantage of the feeling of persecution provoked by critics of the cult, cult leaders make their followers feel special. They are being persecuted like the first Christians were, they say. Cults confuse normal questioning with persecution.
  
• As a result of mind control, members see the world solely in terms of black or white, good or evil. There’s no in-between. Cults (especially the Jehovah’s Witnesses) emphasize the evil of the world and leave aside the good, inducing a longing for a new world.
  
• Cults pressure their members to be perfect. They see themselves as heroes of the faith. They alone follow the Bible. "We keep the Sabbath" (Seventh Day Adventists say). "We reject blood transfusions and we are not of the world because we don’t vote" (Jehovah’s Witnesses). "We have a true prophet like the first Christians did" (Mormons and Light of the World). "We speak in tongues and receive direct revelations" (Pentecostals). "Here, Jehovah comes down from Heaven" (Spiritualists). They have to appeal to some privilege in order to justify their existence. Why not start another religion if the rest are evil or if something better can be offered?

3. Environment and Behaviour Control

• Each cult tries to control the person’s environment, especially the way he or she dresses and eats. Mormon missionaries dress alike: white shirt, black tie, and a black backpack. Moustaches and beards are not permitted. Jehovah’s Witnesses are always found to be clean cut, never with beards. Some Pentecostals do not permit women to wear pants, cut their hair, or at times wear make-up. Women from the Church of La Luz del Mundo wear long dresses.
  
• Furthermore, one’s diet is controlled. Mormons are forbidden to drink tea, coffee or anything that has caffeine or alcohol. Seven Day Adventists are forbidden to eat clams and pork. Jehovah’s Witnesses are forbidden to eat foods that contain blood. Members of the Iglesia Patriarcal de Elia (trinitarian-marian spiritualists) are forbidden to eat pork or drink alcohol. Pentecostals prohibit alcohol. All of them prohibit tobacco. While in some cases they are right, members abstain not because of personal choice, but because they are afraid of being expelled or at least isolated from their brethren.
  
• Perhaps the clearest case of control of the environment of followers is that of the La Iglesia Luz del Mundo, which imposes isolation on its members by making them live in colonies made up almost entirely of other cult members. There they interact exclusively with other members of the same cult. One example is La Hermosa Provincia, Gozo de toda la Tierra, colony in Guadalajara, Jalisco (Mexico). Similarly, that of the followers of Jesus Adame, the Holy Chieftain, who lives in the Province of Jerusalem colony in Cuernavaca (Mexico).

4. Special Language

• Each cult has its own particular language. This creates in the group a special identity and way of thinking, and at the same time is useful for isolating the followers. Some examples are: the use of the word brother (Mormons). ‘El Santo Varon de Dios’ <The Holy Man of God> (Luz del Mundo) and being in the truth (Jehovah’s Witnesses), and the way in which followers of the Apostolic Christian Church ... the Truth ... bless themselves while greeting each other.
  
• Control of the environment allows the cult to make personal decision for the followers. How and where to live and work, what to study, who to marry, etc.

5. Control of Feelings

• Cults employ tactics to create feelings of fear and guilt. For example, "I don’t think you’re serving God the way He wants you to, brother."
  
• Helen White, the confusing prophetes of the Seventh Day Adventists, wrote: "Christ is looking over his church. How many there are whose religious life constitutes their own condemnation!"
  
• The use of fear is extensive. "The end of the world will come soon and those outside our group will be destroyed. Watch out! The devil wants to possess you, brother." This fear forces one to stay in the cult. The Jehovah’s Witnesses say that anyone who leaves the cult will fall into vice. They mention people to whom this has happened. The directors of the trinitarian-marian spiritualists warn that those who leave will suffer terrible punishments that will only go away if they return.
  
• They constantly speak of the end of the world in order to incite fear, because it is difficult for a person to imagine that such an important cosmic event could take place without him participating in it. Subconsciously the person rejects the idea of not participating in the divine event of the end of the world. Therefore, the signs of the end attract his attention. One example of the predominant use of fear and guilt can be seen by the cult, Light of the World. During its worship services, one of the leaders records a list of all those absent from the ceremony.
  
• Guilt and fear encourage conformity to cult rules. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons threaten their members with expulsion. Members of the cult are forbidden to associate with a fellow member who has been expelled. Fear of losing family, work, and friends keeps a person in, even if he doesn’t believe in the cult’s teachings. One Mormon bishop commented that, even though he does not believe in their doctrines, he remains a Mormon because he doesn’t want to lose his job.
  
• Speaking of those who criticize and try to correct the leaders of the church, the president of the Mormons, David O McKay said "Their souls have become embittered, their minds distorted, their judgements inaccurate, and their spirits depressed".
  
• In almost all cults there is confession of sins. But it is not like our Sacrament of Reconciliation, in which one can chose to remain anonymous. Cult members make their confessions publicly, usually in the presence of more than one person. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons confess in front of a three to five member committee, whereas in some evangelical fundamentalist cults sins are revealed to the entire congregation.
  
• At first, one feels very positive and experiences a lot of love (which in fact is false, or at least superficial). There are promises of an earthly paradise (Jehovah’s), peace in the world, or a special place in heaven. Through visits, attention, and sometimes even gifts, one feels overwhelmed with so much kindness. This makes a person lower his defences.Despite the fact that each cult promotes negative feelings, leaders know that nobody should experience only negative feelings. Therefore, many cultish groups makes sure that their members have spiritual experiences such as visions (Pentecostals and Spiritualists), or inner sensations of God (Pentecostals, Mormons: burning in the bosom). We are not saying that the emotions one experiences in the present of God are false, but rather that they can be artificially induced. We see this in sports, where players psyche themselves up before a game. In some cults [La Iglesia Luz del Mundo], it is common to see the entire congregation, beginning with the preacher, fall to their knees and begin to scream and cry out in great wailings. It is not coincidental that some leaders weep while praying or explaining a vision of Jesus.
  
• Cults take advantage of people who are in moments of crisis, when they are feeling alone or weighed down with doubt and sadness. Parents who have lost a child in an accident, widows and those recently divorced all ask themselves "Why is this happening to me?" They are invited to prayer services and are offered an attractive vision of a world without problems. For a Jehovah’s Witness, who sees Catholics having a good time while he goes from door to door each Saturday, the idea that the end of the world is fast approaching is attractive and helps him to persevere even though the demands of the cult may be overwhelming him, because it’s not fair that he has to suffer while Catholics are having fun.

Do only non-Catholic cultish groups use mind control?

No. There may be groups and organizations whose roots are Catholic (Nueva Jerusalen), political (Lyndon La Rouche, Neo-Nazis), and even economic (Amway Products). They all employ one or more of the above mentioned tools because these tools are more psychological than religious. The cult, Nueva Jerusalen, which was started when Gavina Sanchez received a revelation from Mary, Our Lady of the Rosary, is one example. This group, lead by the priest Nabor Cardenas, is described as "the most heterogeneous community of the country..... The men work the fields and the women leave home only to go to church... Believers who decide to join the community renounce independence and marriage, as well as the consumption of alcohol, which is prohibited. They may leave to visit their families only if ‘Papa Nabor’ grants permission... Their dress should be ‘heavenly’, unadorned, and of plain fabric.... Those who do not conform to the rules as defined by ‘Papa Nabor’ are simply expelled from the community and may never return" (Epoca, August 9, 1993, pp20-21).

Each one of the above-mentioned techniques by themselves lack much force, but when taken together, they are effective in controlling the mind. Because of their subtlety, one is caught unaware. There is little communication between members who are experiencing doubts or anxiety. They are unaware that there are others who feel the same. On the outside everyone appears happy, and the person who has doubts thinks he is all alone.

Double Messages

Psychologists say that it is harmful for a mother to send mixed signals to her children. She says "I love you" and later says, directly or indirectly "Get out of here. You are always bothering me." This increases the child’s insecurity and his attachment to his mother, because he is unsure of his relationship with her. The same thing happens in a cult. they send these same kind of signals. "God is love. God is going to kill everybody, including children, who are not with us. god speaks through us, but we are not his prophets. Each person must follow his own conscience, but one must not think independently from the leaders". (Here are other examples of double messages taken from the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ magazine, The Watchtower: It teaches that the world is under Satan’s control, and yet that world leaders to not always ‘serve Satan’s ends’; they should be obeyed. It proclaims Christian liberty: "Stand fast in Christian freedom (11/15/90, p23) but it does not recognize the freedom of its people to read other literature: "Do not yoke yourselves with unbelievers" (11/1/89). It complains that people don’t read the Bible when its accessible to all, yet at the same time claims that it cannot be understood without the help of Watchtower publications (8/15/81, pp28-29). the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that the leaders of their religion, who are in New York, must be obeyed, and yet at the same time, they often proclaim that one should not place his trust in men.

Sour Grapes and Sweet Lemons

Psychologists say that a person who has opposite thoughts and convictions feels anxious and searches for coherence in his situation. The fable about the fox who wanted grapes but could not reach them is an example of this psychic phenomena. In the end, he decided that the grapes were sour. He convinced himself that they must be sour so that he wouldn’t feel bad for not being able to reach them. Sweet lemons is another example. A person spends a large amount of money to buy a car and afterwards discovers that there is something wrong with it. Then he has two thoughts: I’m a fool for having bought it and/or I don’t want to think that I’m a fool. He then rationalizes that there is nothing wrong with the car. He sweetens the lemon by denying the real condition of the car. He emphasizes the car’s good qualities while ignoring the bad ones.

These two examples, sour grapes and sweet lemons, apply to all of us. They apply to cults also, and therefore although we may show cult members all of the evils of their group, they persevere in the cult, sometimes with more conviction than ever! The person cannot live with the idea that he has lost 10 or 20 years of his life to the cult and that he is wrong. He will stress the good things and disregard the evidence that his group does not have the truth.

(Source: http://www.double-cross.com/)

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