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Meanwill heres the mind control tool box
Mind Control Tool Box
Copyright © Cultwatch 1996. Written by Mark Vrankovich
Important Note: Remember, all together these form Mind Control.
Separately they are undesirable but they are not Mind Control.
Deception: A cult will use deception. The cult will not normally
tell people exactly what they believe, their origins, what they practice,
and what life is really like in the cult, because if people knew they
would not join. This information is taught to the new recruit slowly
and in pieces - a "frog in the pot" tactic.
Deception is a key pre-requisite to Mind Control. The cult must be willing
to deceive people. The Bible teaches that Christians are not to use
deception. Many cults know this and yet practice deception.
Deception is a very effective tool in the Mind Control Tool Box.
Exclusivism: A mind control cult will promote an "Us verses Them"
environment. They will teach their members that their church is the
only true church, the only church in which you can be saved. If you
leave the cult then it is said you have "fallen away from God." This
is done to instill fear in the members which can be expressed like this:
If you ever think of leaving this body of true Christians or do something
which forces us to expel you from this body then you will be losing
your salvation and God will hate you. There is nowhere else you can
go and still be a Christian. This is a powerful control mechanism.
Exclusivism is fear based control mechanism, the Bible tells us that
we have no reason to fear except for a healthy fear of God. Exclusivism
imposes false criteria on salvation - "If you do not join us and/or
if you are not doing what we are doing you are not saved." This of course
is a serious doctrinal error ingrained in the practice of the group.
Remember, just because a group does not teach it officially does not
mean they do not practice it.
Fear & Intimidation: Leadership is feared. To disagree with leadership
is to disagree with God. If the leaders tell you to do something, you
had better do it. Often intense breaking sessions are employed to destroy
any supposed rebellion or threat to the leadership. These sessions can
involve many people at once attacking the character and motives of the
target.
The Bible tells Christians not to "lord it over people," but rather
to be one another's servants. Jesus attacked the Pharisees who placed
themselves between God and the people. It does not take much to realise
that fear and intimidation is not the biblical model for Christian leadership.
(Fear and Intimidation is very different from having respect for Christian
leaders.)
Love Bombing: A mind control cult practices love bombing or false
love. When you first join the cult you will gain instant friends, you'll
be hugged and everyone will want to talk to you. For someone who is
lonely or comes from out of town this is especially wonderful. However,
after a while this "love" becomes conditional on your performance and/or
you measuring up to the cult's unpublished standards. If you ever leave
the cult then you know you will lose all of your new friends just as
quickly as you gained them. Like an unhealthy marriage relationship,
love is switched on and off to control. Of all of them, this is probably
the most effective implement in the mind control tool box.
We are relational beings with the ultimate aim of regaining a relationship
with the God who created us. It only requires common sense to see the
power this "love bombing" tool could have on someone. We have all seen
it at work in the cults, at work in manipulative relationships and at
work as peer pressure in schools and society in general. This false
love is a distortion of true love which is defined in 1 Corinthians
13.
Information Control: Those who control the information control
the person. In a mind control cult any information from outside the
cult is considered evil, especially if it is opposing the cult. Members
are told not to read it or believe it. Only the cult-supplied information
is true.
This technique is really a partner to deception. Common sense tells
us that a person who does not consider all information may make an unbalanced
decision. Filtering the information available or trying to discredit
it not of the basis of how true it is, but rather on the basis of how
it supports the party line, is a common control method used throughout
history. A Christian should have nothing to fear from any source of
information - after all "Falsehood runs from truth, but truth stands
solid against falsehood."
Reporting Structure: In a mind control cult like in Nazi Germany
or Communist Russia you must be careful of what you say or do; "The
walls have ears." Everyone is encouraged to watch out for "struggling"
brothers and report what they see to the leadership. Often information
given in deepest confidence will find its way to leadership. Cult members
are sometimes shocked to find their problems preached about in the cult
meetings. People comment that while in a Mind Control cult they were
acting, always being worried about people watching.
This is opposite to the biblical model. The Reporting Structure is an
important fear producing method in the Mind Control Tool Box.
Loaded Language: The cult will have their own language and terms.
These prevent people outside the group being able to engage in "dangerous"
conversations with members and it gives the members a sense of belonging.
It also allows a phenomenon known as thought stopping where a simple
word can stop any thoughts in the member's mind which are against the
cult.
Harmless by itself, "loaded language" is used in all areas of life from
the computer industry to orthodox Christianity. Every group or specialist
field develops its own words or meanings for words, and this is often
called "jargon." However, when mixed in with the other Mind Control
tools, "loaded language" can take on a threatening attribute which is
unbiblical. For example, in the International Church of Christ cult
"loaded language" is used throughout the world - a typical conversation
might go like this...
"The Bible says that we are saved by grace, not by works. You are telling
me that I must get people baptised or I'm not a real Christian," says
the Disciple.
"I am more spiritually mature than you and you are questioning what
I am saying. You are PRIDEFUL and REBELLIOUS, you need to get RADICAL
about your SIN," replied his Discipler.
Prideful & rebellious = You are the problem, not the ICC teaching.
Radical = Plunge into obeying the ICC teaching.
Sin = Thinking or acting outside the ICC rules, often including disobeying
your discipler.
Time Control: Mind control cults keep their members so busy with
meetings and activities that they become too busy and too tired to think
about their involvement.
Again, common sense allows us to see that this would be an effective
tool for controlling people. The flip side to this is that if a person
can get out of the cult's "time control" schedule then after a few weeks,
in our experience, they can begin to contrast "normal" life with the
controlled cult environment and often this results in them leaving.
The ICC, in New Zealand at least, has preached that it is best to not
have a holiday at Christmas because that is when most people fall away
from God (leave the ICC).
Relationship Control: A mind control cult will seek to maneuver
your life so as to maximise your contact with cult members and minimise
your contact with people outside the group, especially those who oppose
your involvement. Cult members will be moved into cult communities or
cult flats where they can be watched more closely and immersed in the
cult environment. The cult must cut off any contact through which information
or reminders of your past life will come. You cannot marry or date anyone
outside of the cult and often your spouse will be chosen.
Controlling relationships is a powerful Mind Control method. Friends
and family are important influences on our lives. By controlling those
who we associate with and those who we respect, a Mind Control cult
can influence a person towards becoming like those people who are "good"
to be around. The Bible tells us that those we associate with do effect
us. Every parent knows that the peers their child associates with affects
the child, moving them towards what the peers have as a norm. All people
are affected by society and the groups to which they belong. By defining
who is "good" and who is "bad" the Mind Control cult is attempting to
move the subject towards the "group norm" that their group has. Often
intense pressure is put on people to stay away from the "bad" people
which are often friends, parents and their old church.
Personal Identity Replacement: Three stages are involved; breaking,
indoctrination and finally refreezing.
Fear and intimidation are used to break a person. Often the cult calls
into question a person's salvation, and in some cults a person is not
truly broken until they are crying uncontrollably.
Next the cult indoctrinates the person by pumping them full of cult
doctrine and systematically destroying anything which does not agree
with the party line. If a person objects to anything, their sincerity,
character and motives are questioned.
Finally the person is frozen into the cult member mold. They become
like all the other cult members to a certain degree. Friends and family
will complain that the cult member has become a different person. Often
in the early stages the cult member will float between their true identity
and their cult identity, but as their cult involvement continues their
true identity becomes more and more repressed.
This is a well established method of changing how people act and think,
to mold them into a team member like everyone else. The Armed Forces
use this method in basic training and throughout the career of their
soldier. The difference is, that unlike in a Mind Control cult, the
Armed Forces recruits know what is going on; it is expected. The Mind
Control cult recruit goes through this process covertly. The cult recruit
does not lose his true personality but rather represses it. They realise
that by conforming there is more acceptance and less pressure to change.
This is why people in a Mind Control cult will often seem to think,
act and sound the same, whereas in a normal church group individual
personalities are more evident.
Summary: Mind Control is not what many secular authors have tried
to portray it as - a magic method of controlling its targets against
their will making them only victims. Neither is it what those in opposition
to the secular Mind Control model have defined it as, in their reaction
they let the pendulum swing to the other side saying that Mind Control
does not exist and is a fable invented by anti-Christian secularists.
Cultwatch says that Mind Control is a suite of practices Mind Control
groups use to influence their members and potential recruits, a real
attempt to control their minds. There is an enormous amount of evidence
that certain groups are employing the Mind Control methods.
Mind Control will fail or succeed to a certain degree depending on the
many factors of its target. The target of Mind Control is always able
to choose to stop allowing it to influence them.
Mind Control is a morally wrong, unbiblical and unethical practice for
any group. All Christians and non-Christians should strongly oppose
its use. Counter-cult groups should oppose its use, labeling correctly
any group which has been proven to use it as a Mind Control cult.
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