Cult-Indoctrination techniques include (intensive) :
1) Subjection to stress and fatigue
2) Social disruption, isolation and pressure
3) Self criticism and humiliation
4) Fear, anxiety and paranoia
5) Control of information
6) Escalating commitment
7) Use of auto-hypnosis to induce 'peak' experiences

Totalism is defined by psychiatrist Robert Lifton as the tendency to view
the world in terms of 'all or nothing' alignments. Lifton details 8
'psychological themes' that can be found in totalist groups:
-- A 'sacred science' -- an ideology that is held to be true for all
people at all times. This ideology generally claims to be inspired
and scientific at the same time.
-- 'Milieu control,' the control of human communication, not only over
our communications with others, but also with ourselves.
-- 'Mystical manipulation' -- including deception and 'planned
spontaneity' which seeks limit self-expression and independent action.
-- The demand for purity, the notion that absolute purity exists, and
that anything done in the name of this purity is ultimately moral.
-- 'The cult of confession' -- "There is the demand that one confess to
crimes one has not committed, to sinfulness that artificially induced,
in the name of a cure that arbitrarily imposed." (Lifton, _Thought_
Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism"
-- 'Loading the language' -- redefinition of language, with an emphasis
on moral polarization, and thought terminating cliches.
-- 'Doctrine over person' -- the subordination of personal experiences
to the doctrines of the sacred science.
-- 'Dispensing of existance' -- the doctrine that the group can decide
who has the right to exist, and who does not.

In other words, the cult manipulates the environment to 'set up' the
recruit to trap him or herself in a black and white mindset.[/quote]





...and...




THOUGHT REFORM = LANGUAGE + SOCIAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCE

In a thought reform program:
the self concept is destabilized
the group/leaders attack one's evaluation of self

SELF: 2 Elements in one's self-concept

Peripheral Sense: adequacy of public & judgmental aspects, social
status, role performance, conformity to social norms

Central Sense of Self: adequacy of intimate life, confidence in
perception of reality, relations w/family, goals, sexual
experiences, traumatic life events, religious beliefs, basic
consciousness and emotional control

When you attack a person's self-concept, aversive emotional
arousal is created

6 CONDITIONS THAT NEED TO BE PRESENT IN ORDER TO CONSTITUTE MIND
CONTROL:

1. CONTROL OVER TIME
Especially thinking time
Use techniques to get a person to think about:
. the group
. beliefs of the group
as much of their waking time as possible

2. CREATE A SENSE OF POWERLESSNESS
Get people away from normal support systems for a period of time
Provide models of behavior (cult members)
Use in-group language
Use of songs, games, stories the person is unfamiliar with or they are
modified so that they're unfamiliar
New people tend to want to be like others (acceptance, feeling part
of a group)

3. MANIPULATE REWARDS, PUNISHMENTS, EXPERIENCES IN ORDER TO
SUPPRESS OLD SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
Manipulate: social rewards
intellectual rewards
REWARDS: support positive self-concept for conformity to new
thought system
PUNISHMENTS: attack person's self-concept for non-conformity

Effects of behavioral modification (reward/punishment):
DEPLOYABLE AGENT:
1. accept a particular world view
2. procedures for peer monitoring w/feedback to group
3. psychological, social & material sanctions to influence the
target's behavior

When there is control of external feedback, the group becomes the
only source
-- there are no reality checks

BEHAVIORS REWARDED: participation, conformity to ideas/behavior,
zeal, personal changes

BEHAVIORS PUNISHED: criticalness, independent thinking,
non-conformity to ideas/behavior

PUNISHMENTS: peer/group criticism, withdrawal of support/affection,
isolation, negative feedback

THE PERSON IS DEPENDENT UPON THE GROUP FOR EXTERNAL
VALIDATION OF SOCIAL IDENTITY

RESULTS: confusion, disorientation, psychological disturbances

Manipulate experience:
altered states of consciousness (trance)
hypnosis
Hypnosis: (see Ericksonian hypnosis)
speaking patterns
guided imagery
pacing of voice to breathing patterns
parables, stories with imbedded messages
repetition
boredom
stop paying attention to distractions, focus
inwardly to what's going on inside you
the use of one's voice to get people's attention
focused
Chanting, Meditation
Teach thought-stopping techniques
Work them up emotionally to a negative state:
re-experience past painful events
recall negative actions/sin in past life
Then rescue them from negative emotion by giving them a new
way to live

4. MANIPULATE REWARDS, PUNISHMENTS, EXPERIENCES IN ORDER TO
ELICIT NEW BEHAVIOR
Models will demonstrate new behavior
Conformity: dress, language, behavior
Using group language will eventually still the thinking mind

5. MUST BE A TIGHTLY CONTROLLED SYSTEM OF LOGIC
No complaints from the floor
Pyramid shaped operation with leader at the top
Top leaders must maintain absolute control/authority
Persons in charge must have verbal ways of never losing
Anyone who questions is made to think there is something
inherently wrong with them to even question
Phobia induction:
something bad will happen if you leave the group
if you leave this group, you're leaving God
Guilt manipulation

6. PERSONS BEING THOUGHT REFORMED MUST BE UNAWARE THAT THEY
ARE BEING MOVED THROUGH A PROGRAM TO MAKE THEM DEPLOYABLE
AGENTS, TO BUY MORE COURSES, SIGN UP FOR THE DURATION, ETC.

You can't be thought reformed with full capacity, informed
consent
You don't know the agenda of the group at the beginning or the
full content of the ideology

THOUGHT REFORM SYSTEM:
Coordinated programs of coercive influence and behavior
control
Use of pop psychology techniques found in sensitivity training
and encounters groups

2nd Generation Thought Reform Systems (attacks on central elements of
self):
1. enlist recruit's cooperation, offer something they want (personal
growth, salvation, etc.)
2. obtain psychological dominace by making the target's continuing
relations contingent upon continuing membership
3. use seduction by developing bonds and encouraging targets to
believe the group can provide something
4. develop dependency by direct social pressure to influence a
decision that the group has special power or knowledge or
can solve a problem; the people in the group are made to seem
interested in what is best for the target -- then they "up
the commitment level"
5. shift the target's social and emotional attachments to individuals
who have already accepted high commitment and are conforming to
the behavior

WHILE

decreasing the target's outside relationships
6. increase the CHANGES in the target's:
income
employment
personal friends/social life
finances
sexuality
THIS INCREASES THE THREAT TO THE PERSON IF THEY WANT TO
LEAVE
THREATS: ARE TO THE INDIVIDUAL'S
stability of identity
emotional well-being

7. the community standards become the ONLY standards available for
self-evaluation

CULTS AND CULTIC RELATIONSHIPS

CULT - the political and power STRUCTURE of a group
CULTIC RELATIONSHIP - those relationships in which a person intentionally
induces others to become totally or nearly totally dependent on him/her for
almost all major life decisions and inculcates in these followers a belief
that he has some special talent, gift or knowledge