Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults

by Steven Hassan

Lifton identified eight basic elements of the process of mind control as practiced by the Chinese Communists.

all eight of those elements: milieu control, mystical manipulation or planned spontaneity, the demand for purity, the cult of confession, sacred science, loading of the language, doctrine over person, and dispensing of existence.

While cult mind control can be talked about and defined in many different ways, I believe it is best understood as a system that disrupts an individual’s healthy identity development.

Under the influence of mind control, a person’s authentic identity given at birth, and as later formed by family, education, friendships, and most importantly that person’s own free choices, becomes replaced with another identity, often one that they would not have chosen for themself without tremendous social pressure.

What about someone who grew up under the influence of a mindcontrol cult?

Those unfortunate enough to be born to members of a destructive cult are deprived of a healthy psychological environment in which to mature optimally.

The essence of mind control is that it encourages dependence and conformity, and discourages autonomy and individuality.

in popular discussions of the subject, the term brainwashing is often used as a synonym for mind control or undue influence. On the influence continuum, however, brainwashing belongs closer to the most negative, injurious and extreme end.

I think of brainwashing as overtly coercive. The person being brainwashed knows at the outset that they are in the hands of an enemy. The process begins with a clear demarcation of the respective roles—who is prisoner and who is jailer—and the prisoner experiences an absolute minimum of choice. Abusive mistreatment, even torture, and sometimes rape are involved.

Brainwashing is especially effective in producing compliance to demands, such as signing a false confession or denouncing one’s government. People are coerced into specific acts for self-preservation; then, once they have acted, their beliefs change to rationalize what they have done. But these beliefs are usually not well internalized. If and when the prisoner escapes their field of influence (and fear), they are usually able to throw off those beliefs.

Mind control is much more subtle and sophisticated. The victim typically regards the controllers as friends or peers, so is much less on guard. They usually unwittingly participate by cooperating with their controllers, and by giving them private information that they do not realize will be used against them.

Mind control involves little or no overt physical abuse. Instead, hypnotic processes are combined with group dynamics to create a potent indoctrination effect. The individual is deceived and manipulated—but not directly threatened—into making the prescribed choices...

It is unfortunate that the word brainwashing is used loosely. People inside most cults aren’t physically tortured, so when critics accuse them of having been br...

People who are hypnotized enter a trance-like state that is fundamentally different from normal consciousness. The difference is this: whereas in normal consciousness the attention is focused outwards through the five senses, in a trance one’s attention is usually focused inwards. One is hearing, seeing and feeling internally. Of course, there are various degrees of trance, ranging from the mild and normal trance of daydreaming to deeper states in which one is much less aware of the outside world and extremely susceptible to suggestions that may be put into one’s mind.

In many cults which claim to be religious, what is often called “meditation” is no more than a process by which the cult members enter a trance, during which time they may receive suggestions which make them more receptive to following the cult’s doctrine.

Destructive cults commonly induce trances in their members through lengthy indoctrination sessions. Repetition, boredom and forced attention are very conducive to the induction of a trance. Looking at a group in such a setting, it is easy to see when the trance has set in. The audience will exhibit slowed blink and swallow reflexes, and their facial expressions will relax into a blank, neutral state. With people in such a state, it is possible for unscrupulous leaders to implant irrational beliefs.

The result of these studies has been the consistent demonstration of the remarkable power of behavior modification techniques, group conformity and obedience to authority. These three factors are known in psychological terms as “influence processes” and demonstrate that situations often determine human behaviors, often more than the values and beliefs of the individual.

As I have come to see it, mind control can be largely understood by analysis of the three components described by psychologist Leon Festinger, in what has become known as the “cognitive dissonance theory.”83 These components are control of behavior, control of thoughts and control of emotions.

from my experience in researching destructive cults, I have added one more component that is vital: control of information. If you control the information someone receives, you restrict his ability to think for himself.

In 1950, Festinger summarized its basic principle this way: “If you change a person’s behavior, his thoughts and feelings will change to minimize the dissonance.”84 What did Festinger mean by “dissonance?” In basic terms, he was referring to the conflict that occurs when a thought, a feeling or a behavior is altered in contradiction to the other two. A person can tolerate only a certain amount of discrepancy between his thoughts, feelings and actions, which after all make up the different components of his identity. Festinger’s theory states—and a great deal of later research has confirmed—that if any one of the three components changes, the other two will shift to reduce the dissonance.

According to Festinger, people need to maintain order and meaning in their life. They need to think they are acting according to their self-image and their own values. If their behavior changes for any reason, their self-image and values change to match. The important thing to recognize about cult groups is that they deliberately create dissonance in people this way and exploit it to control them.

To make it easier to remember, I call it the BITE model of mind control: Behavior, Information, Thought and Emotional Control.

Behavior control is the regulation of an individual’s physical reality. It includes the control of their environment—where they live, what clothes they wear, what food they eat, how much sleep they get, and what jobs, rituals and other actions they perform. This need for behavior control is the reason most cults prescribe a very rigid schedule for their members. Each day a significant amount of time is devoted to cult rituals and indoctrination activities. Members are also typically assigned to accomplish specific goals and tasks, thus restricting their free time—and their behavior. In destructive cults there is always something to do.

Behavior is often controlled by the requirement that everyone act as a group. In many cults, people eat together, work together, have group meetings and sometimes sleep together in the same dormitory.

Bethel

If a member is not behaving sufficiently enthusiastically, they may be confronted by a leader and accused of being selfish or impure, or of not trying hard enough. They will be urged to become like an older group member, even to the extent of mimicking that person’s tone of voice. Obedience to a leader’s command is the most important lesson to learn. A cult’s leaders cannot command someone’s inner thoughts, but they know that if they command behavior, hearts and minds will follow.

Information control is the second component of mind control. Information provides the tools with which we think and understand reality. Without accurate, up-to-date information, we can easily be manipulated and controlled. Deny a person the information they require to make sound judgments and they will become incapable of doing so.

Outright lying, withholding information and distorting information all become essential strategies, especially when recruiting new members. By using deception, cults rob their victims of “informed consent” and in the case of religious cults, this lack of honest disclosure most certainly violates people’s individual religious rights.

In many totalistic cults, people have minimal access to non-cult newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and online information. Certain information may be forbidden and labeled as unhealthy: apostate literature,

JWs pretty much self-censure.

When they do read, it is primarily cult-generated propaganda or material that has been censored to keep members focused.

Information control also extends across all relationships. People are not allowed to talk to each other about anything critical of the leader, doctrine, or organization. Members must spy on each other and report improper activities or comments to leaders, often in the form of written reports (a technique pioneered by the Nazis, with the Hitler Youth).

Most importantly, people are told to avoid contact with ex-members and critics. Those people who could provide the most outside—that is, real—information are to be completely shunned.

Information is usually compartmentalized, to keep members from knowing the big picture. In larger groups, people are told only as much as they “need to know” in order to perform their jobs. A member in one city therefore does not necessarily know about an important legal decision, media story, or internal dispute that is creating turmoil in the group somewhere else. Cult members naturally feel they know more about what’s going on in their group than outsiders, but in counseling ex-members, I have found that they often know far less than almost anyone else.

Destructive organizations also control information by having many levels of “truth.” Cult ideologies often have “outsider” doctrines and “insider” doctrines. The outsider material is relatively bland stuff for the general public or new converts. The inner doctrines are gradually unveiled, as the person is more deeply involved and only when the person is deemed “ready” by superiors.

JWs refer to deep spiritual truths.

If they have problems, they are told that they are not mature or advanced enough to know the whole truth yet. But they are assured that all will become clear shortly. If they work hard, they’ll earn the right to understand the higher levels of truth.

Thought control, the third major component of mind control, includes indoctrinating members so thoroughly that they internalize the group doctrine, incorporate a new language system, and use thought-stopping techniques to keep their mind “centered.” In order to be a good member, a person must learn to manipulate their own thought processes.

In totalistic cults, the ideology is internalized as “the truth,” the only map of reality. The doctrine not only serves to filter incoming information, but also regulates how the information can be thought about. Usually, the doctrine is absolutist, dividing everything into black versus white, or us versus them. All that is good is embodied in the leader and the group. All that is bad is on the outside. The doctrine claims to answer all questions to all problems and situations. Members need not think for themselves because the doctrine does the thinking for them.

A destructive cult inevitably has its own “loaded language” of unique words and expressions. Since language provides the symbols we use for thinking, using only certain words serves to control thoughts. Cult language is totalistic and therefore condenses complex situations, labels them, and reduces them to cult clichés. This simplistic label then governs how members think in any situation.

The cult’s clichés and loaded language also put up an invisible wall between believers and outsiders. The language helps to make members feel special, and separates them from the general public. It also serves to confuse newcomers, who want to understand what members are talking about. The newbies think they merely have to study harder in order to understand the truth, which they believe is precisely expressed in this new language. In reality, though, loaded language helps them learn how not to think or understand. They learn that “understanding” means accepting and believing.

Another key aspect of thought control involves training members to block out any information that is critical of the group. A member’s normal defense mechanisms often become so twisted that they defend their own new cult identity against their old, former self.

If information transmitted to a cult member is perceived as an attack on either the leader, the doctrine or the group, a defensive wall goes up. Members are trained to disbelieve any criticism. Critical words have been explained away in advance—for instance, as “the lies about us that Satan puts in people’s minds” or “the lies that the World Conspiracy prints in the news media to discredit us, because they know we’re onto them.”

Perhaps the most widely used, and most effective, technique for controlling cult members’ thoughts is thought-stopping.87 Members are taught to use thought-stopping on themselves. They are told it will help them grow, stay “pure and true” or be more effective.

Different groups use different thought-stopping techniques, which can include concentrated praying, chanting aloud or silently, meditating, speaking in tongues, singing or humming.

They also become quite mechanical, because the person is programmed to activate them at the first sign of doubt, anxiety or uncertainty.

After leaving a cult that employs extensive thought-stopping techniques, a person normally goes through a difficult withdrawal process before they can overcome this addiction.

I sometimes have a compulsion to pray when under stress, when anxious or when sad.

Thought-stopping is the most direct way to short-circuit a person’s ability to test reality. Indeed, if people are able to think only positive thoughts about their involvement with the group, they are most certainly stuck. Since the doctrine is perfect and the leader is perfect, any problem that crops up is assumed to be the fault of the individual member. They learn to always to blame themselves and simply work harder.

Emotional control, the fourth component of the BITE model, attempts to manipulate and narrow the range of a person’s feelings. All or nothing. Either you feel wonderful as a “chosen” member of the elite, someone really special and loved and part of a wonderful movement; or you are broken, unspiritual, have bad karma, are guilty of overts, are sinful and need to repent, try harder and become a better, more devoted member. Guilt and fear figure mightily. However, most cult members can’t see that guilt and fear are being used to control them.

Members are conditioned to always take the blame, so that they respond gratefully whenever a leader points out one of their “shortcomings.”

Fear is used to bind the group members together in several ways. The first is the creation of an outside enemy, who is persecuting the group and its members.

Second is the terror of discovery and punishment by cult members and leaders.

Loyalty and devotion are the most highly respected emotions of all. Members are not allowed to feel or express negative emotions, except toward outsiders. They are taught never to feel for themselves or their own needs, but always to think of the group and never to complain. They are never to criticize a leader, but to criticize themselves instead.

If you criticise the Governing Body you are thinking more of yourself than you ought to.

Many groups exercise complete control over interpersonal relationships. Leaders can and do tell people to avoid certain members or spend time with others. Some even tell members whom they can marry, and control the entire relationship, including their sex lives. Some groups require members to deny or suppress sexual feelings, which become a source of bottled-up frustration that can be channeled into other outlets such as harder work. Other groups require sexuality, and a member who hangs back is made to feel selfish. Either way, the group is exercising emotional control.