Releasing The Bonds

Refuting Errant Beliefs

(Chapter 4, excerpted, of Steven Hassan's Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves. FOM Press, 2000, Copyrighted, all rights reserved. Permission to use or reprint must be granted in writing.)

You will need to know how to address other people's misconceptions and, eventually, you will have to articulate these issues to the cult member as well. To help prepare you, I have identified ten of the most common fallacies about mind control cults.

1. "THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS MIND CONTROL."
People who reject out of hand the existence of mind control usually have distorted conceptions about mind control techniques. "Nobody can erase your personality and turn you into a brainwashed zombie," is one common belief. Yet, as we have seen, mind control does not erase a person's authentic self but rather creates a dominant cult self that suppresses free will. In speaking to a person with doubts about mind control, you might discuss how the cult identity is not supposed to think, feel, or behave outside of the parameters of the cult doctrine. Understanding cult mind control depends on making this critical distinction between the cult identity and the authentic identity.

By studying Chapter Two of Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves (FOM Press, 2000) "What is Destructive Mind Control?" you will have three powerful models to explain what we mean by the term "mind control." It is also useful to cite the reading material for Dr. Philip Zimbardo's Stanford University Psychology course entitled "The Psychology of Mind Control." As mentioned earlier, the diagnostic manual for the American Psychiatric Association actually has a category, Atypical Dissociative Disorder 300.15, that uses the words cults and brainwashing. NOTE: Dr. Philip Zimbardo (www.zimbardo.com) is President of the American Psychological Association (www.apa.org) for 2002.

It is also true that mind control does not affect all people at all times with equal force. Individuals involved in the same cult can experience vastly different levels of mind control. Some cult members may look glassy-eyed and zombie-like, but these are extreme cases and often the result of sleep deprivation or malnutrition. More often, the member's cult identity seems well-developed, but is actually co-opting the talents and skills of the authentic self. The result is that, to the untrained eye, cult members can appear completely normal. Asking questions that can test a person's thoughts and free will is the only way to evaluate the extent of mind control.

Some may argue that people leave cult groups and, therefore, mind control does not exist. But the truth is that they may have become ill, become disillusioned, or been kicked out. The fact that people walk out of cults does not mean that mind control doesn't exist -- it just means that mind control is not absolute. Since mind control does not erase a person's authentic self or their spirit, it is always possible for people to escape to freedom.

Mind control is often misunderstood because relatively few people have had experience with cults, although most of us can relate to mind control in one way or another. If a potential Team member has trouble understanding mind control, the following questions might help them identify other influence processes that they may have encountered:

• "Have you ever trusted or fallen in love with someone who lied, manipulated and took advantage of you?"
• "Did you ever stay in a relationship in which you felt controlled and disrespected?"
• "Have you ever been hypnotized or watched other people being hypnotized?"
• "Did you ever do something you didn't want to do because someone pressured you to do it (donate money, have sex, smoke cigarettes, use drugs)?"
• "Have you ever bought a product you didn't need or want and then realized how many advertisements for that item you had seen or heard?"

By asking some of these questions, you might stimulate the person to start equating some of these experiences to the issue of cult mind control. Since influence processes can be seen as varying in degree of impact, it might make it easier to see how the extreme conditions which cults use can produce extreme results.

2. "EVERYTHING IS MIND CONTROL."
Mind control is everywhere, the reasoning goes -- in psychotherapy, advertising, education, and the military, for example -- so it must be acceptable. When we generalize and say that everything is mind control, all distinctions are lost. No insight is gained. A more productive model is to think in terms of a continuum of influence: at one end, respectful, ethical, growth-enhancing influence that recognizes the value of individuality, human rights, and creativity; at the other end, conformity, dependency, and slavery, where the value lies in the leader and the group.

Everything is not mind control, although destructive mind control can be used by almost any institution or person. Institutions and systematic social influence programs should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Some are positive; some are benign; some are hurtful. While influence processes exist in all areas of human endeavor, cult mind control is a distinct phenomenon found at the destructive extreme of the continuum.

Psychotherapy
Ethical mental health professionals use their knowledge of the mind to influence their clients in a process of growth and change. The locus of control throughout treatment should remain with the client, and not the therapist. It is true that there are many people affected by mental illness who want and need structure and an authority to make decisions for them. Others may never have individuated in their personal development in other words, they are still acting like children, not like adults. If a person has been severely affected by mental illness, or some major psychological problem, he may need to depend on authority figures until he can become strong. There are also poorly-trained and unethical therapists who foster dependency for self-serving reasons.

Advertising
Advertising has a profound economic, cultural, and social impact on our lives. Advertisers use sophisticated psychological methods to manipulate our desires, thoughts, and behaviors. The goal is often to create a need where none previously existed, or to amplify a need, and influence people about how they should fulfill it. As we have learned from the promotional tactics of the cigarette industry, some forms of advertising can be harmful and deceptive. Of course, there are also good advertisements that are meant to inform, persuade, and motivate people to be responsible about their own lives and the lives of their fellow citizens. Becoming conscious of the power of advertising, or simply changing the station or turning off the television or radio altogether are the most efficient ways to minimize negative effects.

Education
There is no doubt that some educational systems are designed to indoctrinate rather than educate. They demand conformity and obedience. But there are other educational systems that encourage students to think for themselves, be creative, and respect themselves and others. Educational systems that use fear and guilt -- and that focus on competition and conformity -- produce ready candidates for destructive cults. Students should be taught critical thinking skills and be encouraged to oppose blind conformity. Education should also encourage students to think from different perspectives to further their understanding.

The Military
The military is an example of a highly structured, pyramid-shaped organization. There is a strict hierarchy. Soldiers are assigned numbers, given haircuts and uniforms, instructed in ways of talking, walking, marching and fighting. It is a career where personal choice is much more restricted than in society at large. In boot camp training, particularly in the Marines, the SEALs and other Special Forces, the use of mind control techniques is considered essential to create the identity of an elite soldier.

But unlike a destructive cult, the military is accepted and valued by society. Military leaders answer to other branches of the government. The military is also governed by ethical codes and structural checks and balances. People join the military for a specified length of time, and receive pay and benefits. With a few unfortunate exceptions, the military does not use deception in recruitment. When people join the military, they know what will be expected of them. Soldiers are encouraged to maintain contact with their family and friends, and vacation time is given annually.

When people endure rigorous training such as medical school, law school, the military, or the priesthood, they are making a conscious choice to become a doctor, a lawyer, a soldier, a priest. This training enhances their sense of identity and offers knowledge, skills and affords a variety of benefits. When a person is deceptively recruited into a destructive cult, the leaders immediately begin a process of tearing down, rejecting, and reprogramming the person's authentic identity. The person loses his free will. He does not receive many personal benefits, and there is no institutional way to exit with honor.

3. "WHY SHOULD I DO ANYTHING? HE SAYS HE'S HAPPY!"
Members of the Heaven's Gate cult took turns making videotaped farewell statements that explained why they had decided to leave their "vehicles" behind and commit suicide. All of them claimed that they were exercising their own free will, and that they were happy to perform this radical act of dying.

It is wishful thinking to accept at face value a cult member's words that he is "happy." In a cult, happiness is often redefined as sacrifice or suffering. Happiness in Heaven's Gate was defined as overcoming "individuality" and "humanness," and suicide was redefined as advancing to the next level of existence. Ingesting the fatal pills with applesauce and vodka, and placing plastic bags place over their heads was seen as a necessary stage of the metamorphosis. The cult identity was "happy" to die. To the members of Heaven's Gate, not agreeing to die was suicide because it meant not going to the higher level.

But as we have learned, this cult identity is created by sophisticated mind control techniques. It does not represent the whole individual. You might tell those who are taken in by the cult identity to look behind the smiling mask. Remember, members are taught to suppress negative personal thoughts and emotions. They are trained to speak only positively of their involvement. When the cult member says he is "happy," it is usually the cult identity who is talking. The cult self is doing what it has been instructed to do.

When I was in the cult, I told everyone that I was happier than I had ever been in my life. But when you are a Moonie, being close to God makes you happy, and God is defined as a suffering parent. Therefore, the more you can feel God's suffering heart and sacrifice, the happier you will be. By this Orwellian logic, happiness is suffering. As Moonies, we were also taught to suppress all negative feelings and thoughts, so we had to feel happy. We weren't allowed to feel anything else. If those feelings crept in, we were chastised and sent for retraining.

People must not accept such statements without examining the deeper issues. This is a time for reality-testing. If potential Team members have doubts because the cult member says he's perfectly happy, you should encourage them to pursue such blanket statements with follow-up questions:

• "What do you mean when you say you are happy?"
• "If you were unhappy, would you be able to admit it to yourself?"
• "Would you tell us if you were unhappy?"
• "What would need to happen for you to feel unhappy enough to walk away from your involvement?"

4. "HE'S AN ADULT. WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO INTERFERE."
It is normal for people to resist interfering in the lives of their adult relatives or friends. In fact, the law states that once people reach the age of majority (usually 18 but in some countries 21), they are responsible for their actions. However, cult mind control impairs an individual's capacity for mature decision-making. Especially at the beginning of the cult involvement, family members and friends know that something is wrong. But they often back off when the adult cult member says, "Don't tell me what to do. I am an adult. Don't try to control my life." People don't realize that this is a tactic to neutralize objections and induce passive acceptance. Cult members often threaten to cut off all contact if they are not "treated as an adult."

The fact that a person is of legal age does not mean that he is functioning as a responsible adult. For example, under hypnosis, a person can be age-regressed to childhood. The individual thinks, feels, and acts like a child. That becomes his "reality". It is common for cult leaders to ask members to become like "children of God." In fact, an essential aspect of the cult identity is to possess the naivete of a child. A child's idolization of the parent figure is precisely what a cult leader needs to be in total control. By taking advantage of the desire for childlike innocence, cult mind control undermines the normal resources of a mature mind.

If a concerned friend or family member is questioning his own right to interfere, remind him that his love gives him the right to be concerned. If a loved one is under the influence of destructive mind control, relatives and friends have the right and the obligation to take steps to undo the mind control process so that the person can think independently. Once the cult member has an opportunity to learn about mind control, recognize the features of destructive cults, and meet with former members and critics, he will be in a position to make an informed choice.

5. "HE HAS THE RIGHT TO BELIEVE WHAT HE WANTS TO BELIEVE."
If a person wants to believe that David Koresh is Christ, that is his right. If people want to believe that Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han are the perfect True Parents, they are entitled. In a free society, people are free to believe whatever they like, but at the same time, they should be protected from undue influence processes that make them believe something and prevent them from reevaluating their beliefs.

As we have seen, cult mind control makes it seem as though members are exercising their own free will, but this is only the illusion of choice. When people in a controlled environment are subjected to psycho-social influences -- like group conformity or behavior modification techniques -- they can be manipulated and indoctrinated into accepting a completely different belief system. Social psychologists have conducted experiments that graphically demonstrated how a person's beliefs can become extremely pliable under the right set of social circumstances. Because cult mind control techniques are more sophisticated and invasive than the methods used in these studies, cult indoctrination is even more effective in suppressing a person's free will.

If a person insists that he has freely chosen his beliefs, especially if they are contradictory to his previous beliefs, then he should be willing to engage in an in-depth questioning, to demonstrate that he was making his own decision when he adopted his new beliefs. For anyone born into a belief system, religious, political or otherwise, there always come a time in that person's development into adulthood when they should challenge and test his assumptions. This is more than just a one-time process. It should be done by all of us, as we mature into responsible people.

6. "HE'S TOO INTELLIGENT TO JOIN A CULT."
This was my mother's response in 1974, when I dropped out of college, quit my job, donated my bank account, and moved into the Moon center in Queens, New York. She was trying to reconcile how her son, an honors student, could be foolish enough to be taken in by a cult and accept such stupid beliefs. She thought that I would see through it quickly and on my own. I only wish that she had been right.

Many people have a hard time believing that bright, talented people -- often from good homes and with higher education -- could fall under the control of a cult. What they fail to realize is that cults intentionally recruit "valuable" people -- they go after those who are intelligent, caring, and motivated. Most cults do not want to be burdened by unintelligent people with serious emotional or physical problems. They want members who will work hard with little or no sleep. Most of the former cult members I have met are exceptionally bright and educated. They have an active imagination and a creative mind. They have a capacity to focus their attention and enter deep states of concentration. Most are idealistic and socially conscious. They want to make the most of themselves -- and to make a positive contribution to the world.

Cult mind control groups thrive to the extent that they can recruit such intelligent, dynamic people. It is essential for all members of the Team to realize that cults target these people for recruitment. The more creative a mind a person has, the more his imagination can be used to control that person. Indeed, bright people sometimes have even more sophisticated fantasies about the group and its doctrine than does the cult leader. The bright member usually follows his own fantasy construction of the group's belief system.

7. "HE MUST BE WEAK, OR LOOKING FOR EASY ANSWERS. HE NEEDS SOMEONE TO TELL HIM WHAT TO DO."
This is a very commonly held, but fallacious generalization about cult members. People often try to find fault with people who experience tragedy by blaming the victim. Laying blame gives people a false sense of control over their own lives by distancing them from the victim. However, the idea that people knowingly join destructive cults is patently wrong. Most cult recruits are recruited at a vulnerable moment, without understanding the forces that are brought to bear on them. Sometimes a cult manipulates a recruit's strength. For example, by playing to my high degree of self-confidence, the Moonies managed to get me, and keep me, at their three-day workshop.

There is no doubt that many people in cults have emotional baggage and other assorted problems -- everyone does. But focusing the blame for cult membership on the individual is a mistake. If a friend or family member blames the cult member, ask him to consider the following:

• Why would over 900 men, women, and children follow Jim Jones' order to drink Kool Aid laced with cyanide?
• Why would members allow David Koresh to have sex with every woman in the group (including minors), while other men were not allowed to have sex at all, even with their wives? Why did most members die in flames rather than surrender to the authorities?
• Why would seven male followers of Marshall Applewhite castrate themselves?
• Why did the members of Heaven's Gate ingest the vodka and pills and allow plastic bags to be placed over their heads to smother them?
• Why do the Jehovah's Witnesses want their members to die rather than accept a blood transfusion?

In my twenty-plus years of working with cult-related issues, I can categorically state that most cult members are not "weak" people, looking for someone to tell them what to do. I strongly urge you to meet a few dozen former members and come to your own conclusions.

8. "SHE'S BETTER OFF WHERE SHE IS."
Sometimes family, friends, and even mental health professionals will think that a person is better off in the cult than where they were before their recruitment. It may be tempting to agree, particularly when a person has stopped abusing drugs or alcohol, or when a person is no longer being physically or sexually abused -- although some cults practice physical and sexual abuse.

A cult may provide temporary relief from traumatic circumstances, but cult involvement doesn't cure anyone's problems. It substitutes unethical mind control practices for legitimate help. Destructive mind control is itself a form of psychological abuse. In the hands of a cult leader, mind control techniques can be devastating to an individual's psyche. By inducing a dissociative state and creating a dominant cult identity, cult mind control represses the real issues of the pre-cult and authentic identity. The cult member's past problems with family members and friends are used to break contact, rather than to resolve past hurt. When people leave a cult, all of these pre-cult issues resurface, along with the problems caused by membership in a destructive cult.

If a person's pre-cult life was unhealthy and traumatic, then ethical psychotherapy can set them on a path towards healing by facilitating the process of:

• Positive growth and change
• Building self-esteem
• Learning how to trust themselves and others
• Developing better strategies for coping with life's issues When used by a reputable mental health professional, mind control techniques can be enormously effective, provided the client's autonomy is always respected. For example, there are ethical programs that can help a person overcome a drug or alcohol addiction. These structured environments are healthier and safer than destructive cults, because they encourage clients to:
  • Think for themselves
  • Stay in touch with their own feelings and needs
  • Be part of a meaningful community (without indoctrination)

There is no doubt that people deserve a chance to control their own lives. I know countless former cult members who have become teachers, lawyers, doctors, computer experts, and parents.

9. "HE'LL WALK OUT ON HIS OWN WHEN HE IS READY."
This attitude presumes that the cult member has the resources and free choice to leave. He does not! If he did have free choice, I can say from my own experience, he would have left the group long ago. As we shall see, one vital step of the Strategic Interaction Approach is to remove the phobias that keep the cult member imprisoned. It is important to do what you can to speed up the reality-testing process, because the longer the person stays in a cult, the more damage that is done to the fabric of their life. The more healthy contact that cult members can have with family, friends, and non-members, the better their chance to leave sooner.

Former members often express anguish over damage done to their psyche and to their valued relationships. They feel sorry about lost educational and career opportunities. Even worse, they feel guilty about the people they recruited, the money they collected, and the unethical behavior they committed as members. The longer they were in, the deeper the regrets when they get out. Cults have shown us that a passive, hands-off, wait-and-see approach can have tragic consequences. Few people suspected that a UFO cult like Heaven's Gate would end in a mass suicide.

However, there are some families who realize that their loved one was under mind control. I first met Bob and Alice Maeder at a Cult Information Service meeting in New Jersey one year after their daughter Gail's death. Even though Gail had cut off contact with them, they had made repeated and often ingenious attempts to find and communicate with her. The Maeders are good people and loving parents. Even though they lost their daughter to Heaven's Gate, they still come to cult awareness meetings, appear on television, and participate in interviews in the hope that other parents will be spared their suffering. They want to tell you: "Do everything you can to rescue your loved one. Don't sit back and passively wait for her to leave."

10. "WE'VE LOST HOPE."
Giving up hope is a dysfunctional coping mechanism. If family members and friends no longer believe that the person will leave the group, then at least they will no longer be sad and disappointed. Some people have actually told me that they have grieved their loved one as if they had already died. I say, "If the person is still breathing, then they are still alive!"

Negative beliefs can often become self-fulfilling prophecies. People become depressed when they think they have tried everything: they tried to talk with the person and it has done no good; maybe there was a failed rescue attempt; maybe the cult member married within the group and had children. The common cause of hopelessness involves projecting the negative past into the present and future. Family members think that there is nothing else they can do. They feel totally resourceless.

Family and friends must find a way to adopt a new belief: that their loved one will inevitably leave the cult. Hope will sustain and motivate you through the many ups and downs of the rescue process. Build a support system and make sure to include others who have successfully helped their loved ones after long-term cult involvement.

I have encountered innumerable people who have left destructive cults after decades of involvement. Ray Franz ceased his association with the Jehovah's Witnesses after 60 years. Before you give up hope, I urge you to find long-term ex-cult members to speak with. Despite all of the problems they have when they finally get out, they are always glad to be free. As long as the cult member is alive, there is reason for hope.

To determine the first logical step, review the facts:

• How long ago did you talk to your loved one?
• What were the circumstances?
• Were you practicing goal-oriented communication?
• Did you have information about destructive mind control?
• Did you have the resources of former members?

Even if you do not know where your friend or loved one is living right now, you can be a part of the solution by participating in SIA work. Every person in a cult is someone's relative or friend. You can make time to interact positively in the lives of other cult members-individuals in the same group as your loved one, as well as people in other groups-even if you have lost contact with your loved one. The person you help today may help you later, when you have found your loved one.

(Chapter 4, excerpted, of Steven Hassan's Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves. FOM Press, 2000, Copyrighted, all rights reserved. Permission to use or reprint must be granted in writing.)

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