Dr. Mara Einstein visits Seton Hall following the release of her book, “Hoodwinked"

Dominique Mercadante

The Setonian

March 26, 2025

   

Dr. Mara Einstein, an author and professor at Queens College (CUNY), visited Seton Hall on March 19 to discuss her latest book, “Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults.”

Einstein worked in advertising and marketing for five years before she received her Ph.D. in media. For the past 30 years, she has conducted research and written books about the dark side of marketing, specifically how marketers trap people into buying things they don’t need.

Earlier this year, Einstein released her eighth book, “Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults.” The book was inspired by documentaries she watched during the COVID-19 lockdown from her home in Queens, New York, according to Einstein.

“Every morning, I went downstairs, got on my elliptical, and I [watched] various documentary series,” Einstein said. “Two I started watching back to back are ‘The Vow,’ which is about the NXIVM cult, and ‘LuLaRich,’ which is about LuLaRoe.”

After watching the two documentaries side-by-side, Einstein had a realization. 

“I said, ‘Holy cow, those are the same thing we're talking about,’” Einstein said. “The first one is about a cult. One's about multi-level marketing. Those two things are the same thing.” 

This realization led Einstein to new research: multi-level marketing. She said she spent three years researching this topic, finding that she was not the first person to have this realization. She redirected her focus. 

“I took a step back and said, ‘Okay, what do I know about the intersection of marketing and cults, and brands?’” Einstein said. “I had done work on brand cults, starting back in 2012 when I wrote my book, ‘Compassion, Inc.,’ and so I began to think, is there a broader way for us to think about the intersections of cults and marketing?” 

Throughout her presentation, Einstein emphasized that brands aid in identity creation as they help define who we are. They tap into our want to be a part of a community. Marketers use cult tactics for this reason, according to Einstein.

“There are specific tools that cults use as part of their recruitment and retention tactics, and there's a series of about nine of them,” Einstein said. “It is almost one-for-one, [brands use] the same pattern that cults use.”

She added that companies manipulate us into buying their products, making us feel that we need to fill a void that only they can fill. Einstein referred to her research that it is a new way of thinking about how marketers grab us by the throat to get us to buy.

“I was recently in the documentary, ‘Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy,’ and it's all about how companies manipulate us to get us to buy things,” Einstein said. “[My book] is in conversation with that documentary to say that we need to think about why we are buying. What is that hole that exists in us that is telling us that we need to fill [it]?”

She explained how the methods companies use to influence people to buy their products resemble how cults convince people to join them by playing with their need to be in a community.

“What cults fundamentally do is to play on our need for being part of a community, and so because there are so few places where we find a community, now, the marketplace has come in to fill that void for us, and at the extreme, those turn into cults,” Einstein said.

But, Einstein emphasized, that doesn’t mean everything around us is a cult.

“If something is a cult, it doesn't mean that everybody who interacts with the product is part of the group that is the cult,” Einstein said. “The rule of thumb for advertising is that 20% of the people buy 80% of your products, so…somewhere in that 20% are the people that you're going to find that are going to be part of the cult.” 

Dr. Ruth Tsuria, an associate professor of communication, invited Einstein to Seton Hall to discuss her book for an event hosted by the Institute for Communication and Religion (ICR). Einstein said that the two have been friends for more than a decade.

“I love the kind of work that Dr Einstein does. I think it's really influential,” Tsuria said. “When her book came out, [Einstein] asked me to review the book, and the moment I finished reading it, I was like, she needs to talk [at Seton Hall].” 

Tsuria said that both she and Einstein are members of the International Society for Media, Religion, and Culture. Tsuria is also a part of Seton Hall’s ICR, which is dedicated to the exploration of communication topics important to religion in society within the College of Human Development, Culture, and Media. 

Tsuria said that the most important message she took away from Einstein’s book was about anxiety and knowing that there are intentional tactics when we use social media.

“We're harming ourselves,” Tsuria said. “[We should think critically] about those needs that we have as religious beings…and how, when we fill that gap with friends or influencers. We have to remember that those relationships are made based on financial benefit for them, not for us.” 

Dominique Mercadante is the head editor of The Setonian’s Campus Life section. She can be reached at dominique.mercadante@student.shu.edu.

https://www.thesetonian.com/article/2025/03/mara-einstein-visits-seton-hall

ICSA Topic Collections: Children

ICSA Topic Collections: Children
https://www.icsahome.com/elibrary/topics/children

Articles

A Workshop for People Born or Raised in Cultic Groups. Kelley McCabe; Lorna Goldberg, MSW; Michael Langone, PhD; Kristen DeVoe, MSW . ICSA E-Newsletter. 6(1), 2007.

Authoritarian Culture and Child Abuse in ISKCON. Nori J. Muster CSR, 3.1, 2004 (4-18) 

Born and Raised in Aesthetic Realism – Ann Stamler, MA, MPhil IT, 2.3, 2011 (20-23) 

Born into a Doomsday Cult – Andie Redwine, IT , 4.1, 2013 (2-5) 

Born or Raised in Closed, High-Demand Groups: Developmental Considerations. Leona Furnari. ICSA E-Newsletter, 4(3), 2005.

Brainwashing and Re-Indoctrination Programs in the Children of God/The Family. Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D. & Deana Hall. CSJ, 17.0, 2000 (56-78)

Child Fatalities from Religion-Motivated Neglect. Seth M. Asser, M.D. & Rita Swan, Ph.D. Cultic Studies Journal, 17, 2000, 1-14.

Child Protection in an Authoritarian Community: Culture Clash and Systemic Weakness. Livia Bardin, MSW. Cultic Studies Review, 4(3), 2005, 233-267. 

Childhood Adversity and Neural Development: Deprivation and Threat as Distinct Dimensions of Early Experience - Katie A. McLaughlin, Ph.D.,,  Margaret A. Sheridan, Ph.D.,, and Hilary K. Lambert, B.S.

Children and Cults.  Michael D. Langone & Gary Eisenberg.  In Michael D. Langone (Ed). Recovery From Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse.  Norton, 1993.

Children and Cults: A Practical Guide.Susan Landa.  Journal of Family Law, 25(3), 1990-1991.

Cults and Children: The Abuse of the Young. A. Markowitz, C.S.W. & D. Halperin, M.D. CSJ, 1.2, 1984 (143-155) 

Cults and Children: The Role of the Psychotherapist. David Halperin, M.D. CSJ, 6.1, 1989 (76-85) 

Current Status of Federal Law Concerning Violent Crimes Against Women and Children. Robin Boyle, J.D. Cultic Studies Review, 1(1), 2000, 65-89.

Diana, Leaving the Cult: Play Therapy in Childhood and Talk Therapy in Adolescence. Lorna Goldberg IJCS, 2.0, 2011 (33-43) 

Education and Reeducation in Ideological Organizations and Their Implications for Children. Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D. CSR, 4.2, 2005 (119-145) 

Generational Revolt by the Adult Children of First-Generation Members of the Children of God/The Family. Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D. CSR, 3.1, 2004 (56-72) 

Growing up in the Culture of a Cult. Lorna Goldberg. ICSA Today, 10(3), 2019, 18-21. 

House of Judah, the Northeast Kingdom Community, and the Jonestown Problem: Downplaying Child Physical Abuses and Ignoring Serious Evidence - Stephen A. Kent. International Journal of Cultic Studies, 1, 2010, 27-48.

How Children in Cults May Use Emancipation Laws to Free Themselves. Robin A. Boyle. Cultic Studies Journal, 16(1), 1999, 1-32.

Innocent Murderers? Abducted Children in the Lord’s Resistance Army. Terra Manca CSR, 7.2, 2008 (129-166) 

Lessons Learned from SGAs About Recovery and Resiliency – Leona Furnari, MSW, LCSW & Rosanne Henry, MA. ICSA Today, 2(3), 2011, 2-9.

Litigating Child Custody with Religious Cults. Ford Greene, Esq. Cultic Studies Journal, 61), 1987, 69-75.

Litigating the Cult-Related Child Custody Case. Randy Francis Kandel, Esq. Cultic Studies Journal, 4(2)/5(1), 1987/88, 122-131.

Mothers In Cults: The Influence of Cults on the Relationship of Mothers to Their Children. Alexandra Stein. CSJ, 14.1, 1997 (40-57) 

New Hope for Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse Seeking Justice - Carla DiMare. ICSA Today, 11(2), 2020, 16. 

Physical Child Abuse in Sects – Lois Kendall, PhD. ICSA Today, 2(2), 2011.

Prayer-Fee Mandates Removed from Federal Health Care Bills – Rita Swan IT, 1.2, 2010 (18-21) 

Psychosocial Evaluation of Suspected Psychological Maltreatment in Children and Adolescents. American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. CSJ, 13.2, 1996 (153-170) 

Questions and Answers About Memories of Childhood Abuse.  American Psychological Association.

Raised in Cultic Groups: The Impact on the Development of Certain Aspects of Character. Lorna Goldberg, MSW. Cultic Studies Review , 5(1), 2006, 1-28.

Recovery for My Children and Myself - Gretchen Ward. ICSA Today, 11(3), 2020, 11-15.

Religious Justifications for Child Sexual Abuse in Cults and Alternative Religions. Stephen A. Kent IJCS, 3.0, 2012 (49-74) 

Ritual Child Abuse: Understanding the Controversies. David Lloyd, Esq. CSJ, 8.2, 1991 (122-133) 

Ritualistic Abuse of Children: Dynamics and Impact. Susan J. Kelley, R.N., Ph.D. CSJ, 5.2, 1988 (228-236)  

Stairway to Heaven: Treating Children in the Crosshairs of Trauma.  Bruce Perry, MD, PhD; Maia Szalavitz.  

Starting Out in Mainstream America.  Livia Bardin.

Task Force Study of Ritual Crime. Michael Maddox, Esq. & the Virginia State Crime Commission. CSJ, 8.2, 1991 (191-250) 

The Psychobiology of Trauma and Child Maltreatment. Doni Whitsett, Ph.D., L.C.S.W. CSR, 5.3, 2006 (351-373) 

Women, Elderly, and Children in Religious Cults. Marcia Rudin. CSJ, 1.1, 1984 (8-26)

https://www.icsahome.com/elibrary/topics/children

All the Prophets in all the World

All the Prophets in all the World (2024)

Premieres June 27, 2024

An intellectual look inside the insidious dynamic of cultic relationships where leaders achieve unconditional love, control over people's minds, bodies, and individual ethics.


Director: Carla Barraez

Producers: Tropic of Cancer Films, arla Barraez

Cast:
Patrick Ryan
Dr. Stephen Kent
Dr. Kate Balestrieri

Dr. Michael Burns

If your company seems like a cult, it might be

Two psychiatrists warn about the risks of abusive behavior behind practices meant to strengthen employee loyalty


DANIEL MEDIAVILLA
EL PAÍS in English
JUNE 13, 2022

“Well, you know that my wife and I don’t have children. And we don’t need them. You are our children.” The phrase by Blanco, the charismatic boss played by Javier Bardem in The Good Boss during a speech to his employees, may sound familiar. It’s a common idea in small and medium-sized companies: the business is a family where everyone belongs; everyone has a responsibility to one another, because the wellbeing of the father and the children are intertwined. In larger companies, participating in a well-known organization with global impact can reinforce employees’ sense of identity. While supervisors may be drawn to such strategies to increase workplace motivation, some psychiatrists warn that techniques meant to strengthen the bonds between workers and their companies can trigger pathological behaviors.

In 1953, the psychiatrist Robert Lifton established a series of criteria for institutions that exercise cult-like control over individuals in order to ensure they fit perfectly into the group. “One of them is control of the environment. The group controls who the person can and cannot relate to, trying to alienate them from family and friends. This is something that happens, to a certain extent, in the Big Four [the large auditing and consulting multinationals known for their long working hours]. Because of the number of hours you have to put in, the worker’s main relationship becomes the one they have with work,” explains Íñigo Rubio, president of the Ibero-American Association for the Investigation of Psychological Abuse (AIIAP).

Rubio mentions another common trait between such overly demanding companies and cults: the demand for purity. “You are always asked to give more, and you experience a continuous feeling of guilt for not doing enough,” he says. “As you climb the hierarchy of the organization, you have more power, but you become more and more trapped, all within a discourse that promises salvation and a great job in exchange for years of complete dedication,” he explains. Workers’ exploitation by companies was once much easier to discern. Now, a discourse that sells one’s belonging to the company as a form of personal development, labor relationships are murkier. In an interview published by this newspaper, the South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han referred to the manipulation that can encourage abusive behavior by some companies: “We live with the anguish of not always doing everything we can. Now one exploits oneself by imagining that one is self-actualizing.”

You’re working for a salary, not joining the military

Churches, like other large organizations that want to promote their members’ closeness, are well aware of the value of rituals in promoting group cohesion. Some companies resort to the same practices. In the 1930s, in the US, IBM workers received a book with songs praising the company and its leader, Thomas Watson. Some songs can still be heard on their own website. IBM has since abandoned that tradition, but Walmart employees still do what is known as the Walmart cheer, a chant that emphasizes that the customer always comes first.

Miguel Perlado, a psychologist and expert in cults, works with people who are involved in abusive group dynamics in non-cult contexts. “I have worked with cults, but also in the context of theater or music, where there may be dynamics of abuse of power, unequal relationships that serve to control the individual or that favor abuse of women,” he explains. He has also consulted for companies seeking to improve their labor practices. “There are business contexts in which practices that we otherwise consider abusive are idealized, because they monopolize the lives of workers and leave them no space for their personal lives. Within the organization, they are a sign of involvement and dedication,” he says.

The psychologist warns that the lines between motivational practices and abuse can be blurry. “Mercadona and Lidl, in the first stages of recruitment, carry out a motivational activity to promote loyalty and identification with the company,” he says. “You have to pay attention and respect sensitive areas, because these motivational activities are aimed at people’s identity. They are asked to reframe their identities to include the company,” he says. “Our task is to provide people with discernment criteria to see if they are overcommitting themselves or if the company demands too much,” Perlado adds. “We all have a need to belong, and in our cultural environment that can be provided by the company, but you go to a company to work for a salary, not to join the military.’

But not everyone experiences the same business culture in the same way. Amazon’s 14 leadership principles focus on the customer and demand a high level of collective success, sometimes at the expense of workers, drawing intense criticism of the company. As a result of that criticism, shortly before leaving the company, Jeff Bezos added two more principles, one of which focused on being the best employer on Earth. One former employee of the company, who does not want to give their name, believes that “corporate principles are not a way to reprogram people, but to organize them when you have so many people from so many different countries and cultures working together.” “Everyone learns to talk about their work through those principles, and it makes it quite reasonable to talk to an Indian, a Japanese or a Russian. You speak from the culture of Amazon and not from your personal culture, and that makes it possible to work in a transnational company,” he says.

“The fact that a group may have cult-like characteristics or coercive behavior does not imply that all members of the group are unhappy or that they suffer or exercise the same level of abuse,” says Rubio. “As Eric Fromm explains in The Fear of Freedom, during the 20th century freedoms and rights have been gained, but that freedom can sometimes be distressing, because it makes you more responsible for your life and your decisions. There are people who may want to give up their freedom in exchange for greater security or to feel part of something bigger. Many abusive behaviors are sold in a positive light, as a way to get workers to know each other better and to be more attached to the company and the leader. “Just like in a romantic relationship, a relationship of abuse or excessive control can be approached from another point of view, as something beautiful, as two inseparable people. Abusive behavior in business, or even in a cult, does not start with malicious intent. People, at first, believe in their mission. Cult leaders often believe the story they are telling and have good intentions,” Rubio says. Being aware that the risk exists, and identifying it when it becomes a reality, can prevent falling into behavior more typical of a cult than of a job.

https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-06-13/if-your-company-seems-like-a-cult-it-might-be.html

Cult Mediation Specialist Patrick Ryan discusses how cults operate and how to intervene when someone needs help

This Podcast Will Save The World: Episode 5: Cults

May 23, 2020

Interview with 1BR writer/director David Marmor

Cult Mediation Specialist Patrick Ryan discusses how cults operate and how to intervene when someone needs help.

https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-2sh2e-dd7bf6

Cult Witness (Cult Documentary)

Real Stories
August 20, 2016

At the age of 19 Samuel Stefan, consumed by crisis, was drawn into a cult. It would be 10 years before he was able to escape.

Using a technique called ‘love-bombing’ cults prey on the vulnerable, recruiting new members with love and warmth. After a period of brain-washing, members are forbidden to leave, enslaved through psychological control, and in Samuel’s case, even violence. He was finally able to escape in the dead of night, persued by other members and seek help.

Cult Witness is an intelligent exploration of how cults attract and manipulate their followers, sharing the disturbing firsthand experiences of Cult Witness director Samuel Stefan and six others who have freed themselves from cults: Jill Mytton (The Exclusive Brethren), Jim Bergin and Judy Garvey (The Gentle Wind Project), Lea Saskia Laasner (The Janus Project), and Celeste Jones and Amoreena Winkler (The Children of God).

Analytical insights into the cult experience are provided by leadership expert Betty Sue Flowers; Benjamin Zablocki, chair of the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University; UCLA Professor Emeritus Bertram Raven, an expert on interpersonal influence and social power relationships; psychotherapist Miguel Perlado, who specializes in cult-related problems; and Urs Eschmann, a specialist in legal issues involving cults.

Cult Witness unravels the hidden world of cults; the hold they have on their victims, the reasons people form and fall prey to them and what takes place within.

What is a cult? Are all cults dangerous? Do they use brainwashing?

Eileen Barker, Ph.D.
London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
January 15, 2019

Eileen Barker
Professor Emeritus of Sociology of Religion
London School of Economics
Houghton St
London WC2A 2AE
U.K.

Tel: +44 (0)208 902 2048
E.Barker@LSE.ac.uk
www.Inform.ac

Building Bridges; Leaving and Recovering From Cultic Groups and Relationships

Joseph Kelly, Patrick Ryan
International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA)
Oct 10, 2019

Topics discussed include:

Assessing a family’s unique situation; understanding why people join and leave groups; considering the nature of psychological manipulation and abuse; being accurate, objective, and up-to-date; looking at ethical issues; learning how to assess you situation; formulating a helping strategy; learning how to communicate more efficiently with your loved one; learning new ways of coping.

Talk: Cultic Dynamics and Psychics

ICSA Event: Sexual Abuse of Children and Adults in Religious Organizations

When: November 2, 2019 (9:00 – 10:30)

Joseph Kelly; Patrick Ryan; Joseph Szimhart

 
Twenty-two percent of American adults have consulted a psychic or medium. One third believe they have had a psychic experience. Nearly half of women and a third of men have felt the presence of a spirit. Over twenty percent of American adults believe that a psychic can see into the future and contact the dead. We will explore activities and tools that psychics use to influence and foster dependence on their psychic powers.

We will discuss how people are fooled. We will examine the potential impact of questionable psychic influence on the mental and emotional health of people who are involved and consider what educators and caregivers can do to implement possible prevention and intervention strategies.  

The conference will take place at La Fonda on the Plaza, one of Santa Fe's finest hotels, located in the heart of the old city.

Santa Fe, New Mexico November 1-2, 2019

More Information: https://sites.google.com/icsahome.com/icsa/events/conferencesantafe

I Left the Cult Next Door

My mother and I stopped speaking after I broke with the man we called the Apostle.
Tracy Simmons
Wall Street Journal
September 12, 2019

For the past five years, I have received a daily email filled with stories about those who succumb to extreme religious ideologies. Whether it’s the Nxivm sex-cult trial in New York earlier this year or the Netflix documentary series “Wild Wild Country,” Americans have shown an expansive appetite for cult stories. While my interest in the topic isn’t unique, it’s personal: I grew up in a cult.

In fact, I grew up in the cult next door. There wasn’t sexual or physical abuse. We never lived in a compound. I didn’t work on a farm in the woods. Instead my cult venerated one man, who said he was an apostle receiving direct revelation from God. We followed the Bible and this man’s teachings. We gave him 10% of our income—which he used to buy a Jaguar, snakeskin boots and a house on the Rio Grande.

In hindsight, my mother and I must have been the perfect mark. A woman abandoned by her husband and left to raise a socially awkward child on her own had some wounds. She was looking for belonging and acceptance. We had faith in Jesus but were never going to be noticed at the megachurch we attended. All it took was someone to make us feel special.

Enter a man with a charming Caribbean accent. We met him when we were invited to his Albuquerque home, when I was about 7. He invited us to worship in his living room and made my mom feel noticed. His care, instruction and prophetic rhetoric made us feel important. And after being deserted by her spouse, my mother felt seen. Too bad she was seen by the wrong person. We began to call the man the Apostle.

In our little group, those without a spiritual father were called orphans. After joining, members were assigned a male pastor to meet with weekly. And then once a month everyone would gather together to hear the Apostle’s divine word. If you were obedient enough, you could become an elder or prophet. When I was a member, there were about 20 normal members and three elders and prophets. That was our home group, but others gathered throughout the area.

At first the cult simply offered charismatic worship. But over time it became more. The Apostle proclaimed God was sending him updates to the Bible—often ones that didn’t make much sense—like demanding that unmarried women give their earnings to their spiritual fathers, who would in turn give them an allowance. Eventually anyone who disagreed with anything was cut out.

We considered mainstream organized religions faulty and their adherents misinformed. Non-Christian religions were especially dangerous. Eventually we cut ties with those who didn’t believe the same as us, especially if they argued a lot. If we were too strong-willed, we were shamed about our disobedience and prayed over until the demons found their way out through vomit or collapse. Hardship was a clear sign that God disapproved of our behavior.

The desire to feel welcomed and earn approval can push even the most rational people to make bad mistakes. In extreme cases, such people commit violence in the name of their cause. Or they literally drink the Kool-Aid. But in everyday cults like the one we belonged to, the mistakes were small but significant over time—voluntarily forfeiting our earnings, relationships and free will.

I started to pull away from the cult when I went to college in the early 2000s, putting a wedge between my mother and me. The wedge grew into a wall over the years as I became a religion reporter and refused to discuss the Apostle and his teachings with her. My refusal was followed with a letter from my mom saying we could no longer be in relationship because I “continued to disobey God’s law.” Her note came with two boxes full of my childhood belongings.

Cult expert Rick Alan Ross once told me that he learns about a new cult in the U.S. every day. Most of these are like the cult next door that I grew up in. They won’t cause death or sexual abuse on a massive scale. Rather, these everyday cults tear already weak families apart.

The real issue is how many distressed and lonely people go without care. People like my mom, who needed love and healing, but couldn’t find it in a church, neighborhood, family or friend. I don’t know if there’s a top-down solution to protect people like her from cults. But we can all do a better job noticing each other, showing empathy, and offering acceptance to those around us. You never know who you might be saving.

Ms. Simmons is editor of the religion news website SpokaneFAVS.com and a lecturer at the University of Idaho.



https://www.wsj.com/articles/i-left-the-cult-next-door-11568325148

Think Like A Cult Leader - Part Three - Braggadocio

Openingminds
Published on Aug 15, 2019

In this 14-part series, Jon and Sam discuss the fine art of how to be a cult leader. In part three, they talk about how braggadocio, or how to let everyone know just how fabulous you are.

CONDITIONS FOR MIND CONTROL DR. MARGARET SINGER

Margaret T. Singer, Ph.D., Emeritus Prof. of Psychology, Univ. of CA, Berkeley

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.

Two 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: 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.

PRIMARY IN OUR DISCUSSION OF CULTS IS THE PRACTICE AND CONDUCT OF THE GROUP, NOT ITS BELIEFS.

Further references:

Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. Robert J. Lifton, M.D., University of N.C., Chapel Hill, 1989 Chapter 22

"Attacks on Peripheral versus Central Elements of Self and the Impact of Thought Reforming Techniques" Richard Ofshe and Margaret T. Singer, The Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 3 #1, Spring/Summer 1986; ICSA

"The Utilization of Hypnotic Techniques in Religious Conversion" Jesse S. Miller, The Cultic Studies Journal,Vol. 3 #2, Fall/Winter 1986

Recovery from Cults. ed. Michael Langone, Ph.D., W.W. Norton, 1994

DR. ROBERT J. LIFTON'S CRITERIA FOR THOUGHT REFORM THOUGHT REFORM: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TOTALISM CHAPTER 22

Chapel Hill, 1989

THE FUTURE OF IMMORTALITY CHAPTER 15 (New York 1987)

Any ideology -- that is, any set of emotionally-charged convictions about men and his relationship to the natural or supernatural world -- may be carried by its adherents in a totalistic direction. But this is most likely to occur with those ideologies which are most sweeping in their content and most ambitious or messianic in their claim, whether a religious or political organization. And where totalism exists, a religion, or a political movement becomes little more than an exclusive cult.

Here you will find a set of criteria, eight psychological themes against which any environment may be judged. In combination, they create an atmosphere which may temporarily energize or exhilarate, but which at the same time pose the gravest of human threats.

1. MILIEU CONTROL the most basic feature is the control of human communication within and environment if the control is extremely intense, it becomes internalized control -- an attempt to manage an individual's inner communication control over all a person sees, hears, reads, writes (information control) creates conflicts in respect to individual autonomy groups express this in several ways: Group process, isolation from other people, psychological pressure, geographical distance or unavailable transportation, sometimes physical pressure often a sequence of events, such as seminars, lectures, group encounters, which become increasingly intense and increasingly isolated, making it extremely difficult-- both physically and psychologically--for one to leave. sets up a sense of antagonism with the outside world; it's us against them closely connected to the process of individual change (of personality)

2. MYSTICAL MANIPULATION (Planned spontaneity) extensive personal manipulation seeks to promote specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such a way that it appears to have arisen spontaneously from within the environment, while it actually has been orchestrated totalist leaders claim to be agents chosen by God, history, or some supernatural force, to carry out the mystical imperative the "principles" (God-centered or otherwise) can be put forcibly and claimed exclusively, so that the cult and its beliefs become the only true path to salvation (or enlightenment) the individual then develops the psychology of the pawn, and participates actively in the manipulation of others the leader who becomes the center of the mystical manipulation (or the person in whose name it is done) can be sometimes more real than an abstract god and therefore attractive to cult members legitimizes the deception used to recruit new members and/or raise funds, and the deception used on the "outside world"

3. THE DEMAND FOR PURITY the world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure, the absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely evil (everything outside the group) one must continually change or conform to the group "norm" tendencies towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for the group's controlling and manipulative influences once a person has experienced the totalist polarization of good/evil (black/white thinking), he has great difficulty in regaining a more balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human morality the radical separation of pure/impure is both within the environment (the group) and the individual ties in with the process of confession -- one must confess when one is not conforming

4. CONFESSION cultic confession is carried beyond its ordinary religious, legal and therapeutic expressions to the point of becoming a cult in itself sessions in which one confesses to one's sin are accompanied by patterns of criticism and self-criticism, generally transpiring within small groups with an active and dynamic thrust toward personal change is an act of symbolic self-surrender makes it virtually impossible to attain a reasonable balance between worth and humility a young person confessing to various sins of pre-cultic existence can both believe in those sins and be covering over other ideas and feelings that s/he is either unaware of or reluctant to discuss often a person will confess to lesser sins while holding on to other secrets (often criticisms/questions/doubts about the group/leaders that may cause them not to advance to a leadership position) "the more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you"

5. SACRED SCIENCE the totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence questioning or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited a reverence is demanded for the ideology/doctrine, the originators of the ideology/doctrine, the present bearers of the ideology/doctrine offers considerable security to young people because it greatly simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying the truth about human behavior and human psychology

6. LOADING THE LANGUAGE the language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliche (thought-stoppers) repetitiously centered on all-encompassing jargon "the language of non-thought" words are given new meanings -- the outside world does not use the words or phrases in the same way -- it becomes a "group" word or phrase

7. DOCTRINE OVER PERSON every issue in one's life can be reduced to a single set of principles that have an inner coherence to the point that one can claim the experience of truth and feel it the pattern of doctrine over person occurs when there is a conflict between what one feels oneself experiencing and what the doctrine or ideology says one should experience if one questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group, one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to even question -- it is always "turned around" on them and the questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than the questions answered directly the underlying assumption is that doctrine/ideology is ultimately more valid, true and real than any aspect of actual human character or human experience and one must subject one's experience to that "truth" the experience of contradiction can be immediately associated with guilt one is made to feel that doubts are reflections of one's own evil when doubt arises, conflicts become intense

8. DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not saved, and do not have the right to exist "being verses nothingness" impediments to legitimate being must be pushed away or destroyed one outside the group may always receive their right of existence by joining the group fear manipulation -- if one leaves this group, one leaves God or loses their transformation, for something bad will happen to them the group is the "elite", outsiders are "of the world", "evil", "unenlightened", etc.

How a Dysfunctional Family Functions Like a Cult Published

By Jose Fernández Aguado
ICSA Today

Note: This article is based on a paper presented at ICSA’s Annual Conference in Bordeaux, France in 2017.  Vol 9 No 3 2018
In my clinical practice, I often see how dysfunctional families cause pain to their members, and it is my opinion that the cult perspective can help explain certain aspects of what these families go through. (Many families may be dysfunctional in ways that have nothing to do with cultic dynamics. Those are not the focus of this paper.)
I start with a working definition of a dysfunctional family and note some broad areas of relationship between dysfunctional families and cults. Then, using three concepts from family systems theory (Minuchin, 1981; Satir, 1976)—boundaries, rules, and roles—I suggest similarities between how a dysfunctional family weakens its members and the harmful effect of a cultic group on its members.
In this article, I do not intend to deal with the relationship between persons being part of dysfunctional families and the degree of risk of their being recruited by a cult. Dysfunctional families may make their members more vulnerable to cult recruitment, but professionals acknowledge that even people belonging to healthy families can be deceived into cultic involvement; no one is free of the risk of recruitment. Rather, I focus on how families in which there is psychological abuse or inadequate relationships are similar to cults.
https://www.icsahome.com/artic...unctions-like-a-cult

Aum's former poster boy Joyu finds a new gig

Japan Today
October 3, 2018


Aum Supreme Truth guru Shoko Asahara and a dozen other top leaders of the doomsday cult went to the gallows during the summer, but one prominent cult member remains among the living. And in the news.

At the height of his celebrity, Fumihiro Joyu could be described as Aum's poster boy. Bright, well spoken and photogenic, with a degree in engineering from Waseda University, the Fukuoka native served as a magnet to attract new female adherents. He also debunked the image of Aum acolytes as brainwashed automatons. After the subway attacks he frequently appeared on TV and in abrasive question-and-answer sessions with reporters he gave as good as he got.

Most important, Joyu had an airtight alibi that absolved him from complicity in the March 20, 1995 toxic nerve gas attack on the Tokyo Metro. He had been assigned to Aum's office in Moscow, engaged in proselytizing efforts in Russia at the time. Nevertheless, authorities arrested him on suspicion of document forgery in October 1995 and he was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. Upon release, Joyu became the de facto head of what was left of the cult, renamed Aleph. Most of the time he stayed out of the public eye.

At age 55, Joyu has been unable to wean himself from lure of the spiritual world. In 2007 he broke away from Aleph to organize his own group, called The Circle of Rainbow Light. He was recently in the TV news again, commenting after the execution of guru Asahara and other cult members found guilty of various capital crimes.

Now, reports Shukan Jitsuwa (Oct 18), Joyu's diversifying. According to materials distributed during an appearance at a recent seminar, he is peddling such merchandise as incense and other Buddhist paraphernalia. The materials also invited people to partake of his services as a fortuneteller.

Utilizing traditional Indian astrology, Joyu will make prognostications about the future for a fee of 20,000 yen.

When asked if that fee could be considered expensive or cheap, another fortuneteller -- perhaps reluctant to speak negatively of a fellow member of the profession -- said, "Considering the amount of 'data processing' that Joyu will do, I suppose the charge is appropriate."

A female office worker who attended Joyu's seminar was quoted as saying, "Joyu-san had seemed very scholarly, so I was surprised when he suddenly turned into a salesman and began pitching fortunetelling and good-luck charms. It's no different from the kind of hokum that other new religions do."

Joyu has reiterated that his group disavows Asahara, and has also broken off all ties to Aum's current incarnation, called Aleph. Moreover, he denies his group is a religious organization, describing it a "Buddhist philosophy study group."

That still raises questions over why, all of a sudden, his group has become so entrepreneurial.

A spokesperson for the group replied, "There is nothing sudden about it. Mr Joyu had been studying Indian astrology previously, and had even told fortunes when he was involved with Aleph. I suppose some people were surprised because this is the first time he made the information available in writing."

In the background, in September 2017, the Tokyo District Court ruled in favor of Joyu's group, invalidating an investigation of his group by the Public Security Agency. (The state did not appeal the verdict.) A person in the agency remarked bitterly that the verdict effectively concealed the "real situation." Another view is that following Asahara's execution, people are less likely to associate Joyu with Asahara, which gives him free rein to engage in activities more openly.

Shukan Jitsuwa also offers readers a taste of one of Joyu's recent prognostications. "He predicted that 'Abenomics and the Tokyo Olympics are creating another real estate bubble, which will soon be over,'" said a person who attended the seminar. "But he didn't say what's going to happen afterwards."

Well, the writer concludes sarcastically, that prediction is so obvious just about any Tom, Dick or Harry can make it. So come on, Joyu-san, how about telling us what's really going to happen to the Japanese economy after the post-Olympic bubble collapses?

https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/aum%27s-former-poster-boy-joyu-finds-a-new-gig

Narcissists and Cult Leaders: Are You Being Controlled by One?

Rachel Bernstein

How do narcissists and cult leaders get people under their control? How can you know if you are connected with someone who is unhealthy for you and is just using you? I break this down in this first of three videos about narcissistic relationships.

If you need any help or have any questions about this, check out my website: http://rachelbernsteintherapy.com.

Life in a cult: Like an extreme version of domestic violence

MICHELE WEEKES AND TIM FISHER FOR LIFE MATTERS
ABC
April 12, 2018

From indoctrination and control, to god-like gurus and 'love bombing' — there's a powerful psychology behind why people join cults, and why they stay.

But what makes a cult? And are they, by definition, always 'bad'?

As someone who was once deeply involved in several, Mary Garden is uniquely qualified to comment.

Having discovered yoga at the age of 16, in the 1970s she left university and her life in New Zealand for India, spending seven years in various sects and cults.

For her, the dangers stemmed partly from naivety.

"You've got to realise there had been no exposés or warnings of these groups," she says.

"Tens of thousands of us Westerners went over to India in the footsteps of the Beatles.

"I think you can under-estimate the power, the feelings you can get with the mantras and the rituals. It was it very, very hypnotic."

Eventually, Ms Garden found herself pregnant to a yogi in the remote Himalayas.

"Many of us Westerners got pregnant. I got pregnant twice," she says.

Initially not allowed to see a doctor, Ms Garden managed to get away, and had a late-term abortion.

"I ran away quite often and but I would still be drawn back," she says.

"I was completely under [the guru's] spell. I mean, I thought he was this god-like figure.

"There's extreme pressure to believe everything he says and to be devoted. I'm very grateful I managed to get away."

Cult-like dynamics can exist in meditation, self-help groups

Tore Klevyer is a Wollongong-based counsellor who helps former cult members adjust and recover.

Having spent 11 years in Children of God, a Christian cult founded in the United States, he's highly qualified for the work.

"Many people think a cult is just a strange religion or strange set of belief systems, but the defining factors are more the abusive things," he says.

"Having rights and freedoms taken away from members, and then instilling in them an extremism, and a sense of black-and-white thinking."

As Mr Klevyer explains, a cult does not have to be religious.

"The dynamic of control and abuse can exist in meditation groups, or self-help groups," he says.

"What makes one person vulnerable may be a religious belief, and what may make another person vulnerable may be a desire for self-improvement."

It's often said that no one sets out to join a cult — and Mr Klevyer agrees.

If you or someone you know needs help, contact:Cult Information and Family Support IncLifeline on 13 11 14Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800

"People don't go down a list of known cults, choose one and think, 'This is the philosophy that best suits me'," he says.

"The key thing to remember is that they don't know what they're joining — this is where coercion comes into it.

"If people knew upfront what all the beliefs of the group were they would probably never join, but it's a slow process where the inside doctrine of a group is released over time."

After spending several years with different gurus in India, Ms Garden can attest to this approach.

"Most of us who go into these groups, especially with a charismatic leader, it's like we have this love affair," she says.

"We fall in love with them, and we are in the honeymoon phase for a long time."

And as she explains, if a guru becomes controlling or abusive, the behaviour can be rationalised away.

"It's very much like an extreme version of domestic violence," Ms Garden says.

"It means the guru can get away with doing anything abusive, and it's rationalised as his 'drama', or a game to wake us up. So everything that happens and what we go through is all our fault."

Control and 'love bombing'

Mr Klevyer says most cults share patterns of operation, including a controlling technique commonly known as "love bombing".

He describes this as a situation in which new members are made to feel at the centre of the group's universe.

"You've met this wonderful group of people who all want to be your best friend, and they all want to know everything about you," he says.

"A lot of love, a lot of hugs, a lot of affirmation and it just really feels like a type of paradise.

"It's like, 'Wow, I found this family that I never had'."

Mr Klevyer explains that in The Children of God, this "love" became increasingly conditional on a member's participation and their submission to belief systems that were released incrementally.

Losing your child to a cult
In one urgent phone call Gerry Wagemans' life changed forever.

"If at any point you question the beliefs they present, they sort of back off and justify it, saying 'Oh no no, we didn't really mean that, it's not that we believe he is the end-time prophet of God, he's just like a minister'," Mr Klevyer says.

Joining at 21 years old, Mr Klevyer gave the cult control of his finances, and was encouraged to write letters to parents to say he had a new family.

"It's one of my greatest regrets," he says.

"There's this process of cutting off your old life and embracing the new and that's affirmed as a badge of allegiance and a badge of courage.

"Your whole social life, your friends, your work, your vision for the future, everything that you are gets wrapped up in the group."

Life after escaping a cult

For both Mr Klevyer and Ms Garden, extricating themselves was a long process.

Having been a member for over a decade, by the time Mr Klevyer left Children of God, he had a family of his own; a wife and five children.

"There was a lot of pressure on the children, which impacted my wife," he says.

"They couldn't really play outside. Their lives were completely taken up in the group with homeschooling, and my wife saw a lot more of the lack of opportunities.

"But the real clincher was when I started, because of the pressure, to question some of the doctrines of the group … that just wasn't allowed.

"We were kicked out temporarily, first hoping we would repent and come back more submissive, and then when that didn't happen, we left and came back to Australia."

Once free of a cult, finding help can be a challenge too.

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Life Matters is your guide to a better life for you and those you love.

For many years, few mental health professionals had the training to adequately deal with former members.

"I was obviously suffering post-traumatic stress from being with that Himalayan Yogi who physically and mentally abused me quite severely," Ms Garden says.

"I remember ringing up Lifeline, saying 'I need help, I feel suicidal.'

"When I went in to talk to someone, at the end of the session she said 'Oh, it's so fascinating. What an interesting story'.

"I went to people over the years to try and get help and they just had no understanding at all."

As a counsellor now specialising in helping those who've lived in cults or suffered religious abuse, Mr Klevyer feels many counsellors may not attribute the damage they're seeing in a person's life to a cult.

"There are mental health professionals coming up to speed with this, but many of them do not want to touch it," he says.

"They don't see the full breadth of the damage that can be caused when people are institutionalised in this way."

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-12/life-in-a-cult-how-i-escaped/9641852?pfmredir=sm

What Doomsday Cults Can Teach Us About ISIS Today

CLYDE HABERMAN
New York Times
November 5, 2017

How ISIS Resembles the Doomsday Cults of the 1970s

Can the lessons we learned from extremist cults decades ago be used to fight ISIS recruitment today?

A disturbing 1981 film from Canada could serve as an enduring learner’s manual for any family worried about a son or daughter succumbing to the lure of a religious cult. The movie, “Ticket to Heaven,” describes how a young man, adrift and vulnerable, falls prey to a sect closely resembling the Unification Church of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Deprogramming — rescuing him from the zombielike state into which he has fallen — proves a challenge for his friends and relatives.

More than three decades later, a ticket to heaven is what Abdirizak Warsame thought he had bought when he and other young Minneapolis men of Somali origin came under the spell of recruitment videos posted online by the Islamic State. The power of that propaganda to inspire acts of terror was evident again last week in New York, where the authorities said such videos impelled Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbek immigrant, to drive a truck along a bicycle path at high speed, killing eight people and injuring 11 others.

In Minneapolis, the aspiring jihadists were like the fellow in the 1981 film: nowhere men. They felt distant from both family traditions and the conventions of their adopted country. In 2015, they set out to join Islamic State fighters in Syria, only to be arrested by federal agents who had them under surveillance.

“My son was brainwashed because he was watching this propaganda video,” Mr. Warsame’s mother, Deqa Hussen, said to Retro Report. “He thought that if he go to Syria, he’s going to go to heaven and all my family is going to go to heaven.”

Retro Report, a series of documentary videos that mine past news events for their continuing relevance, explores the behavioral threads that run through the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and apocalyptic cults from years ago. “When you’re in a vulnerable situation,” Leslie Wagner-Wilson said, “by gaining your trust, slowly, you become indoctrinated into the ideology of the organization.”

That description fit Ms. Wagner-Wilson and her family 40 years ago. They were mesmerized by Jim Jones, a charismatic figure who declared himself God incarnate. He founded the Peoples Temple, a cult that promised a future utopia where poverty, racism, injustice and war were banished. Based first in Indiana and then Northern California, Mr. Jones drew thousands to his side. But he became ever more paranoid, and his behavior ever more erratic and menacing.

In the mid-1970s he moved his flock to a jungle base in Guyana called Jonestown. On Nov. 18, 1978, feeling threatened by deepening scrutiny from American officials and the news media, Mr. Jones organized one of history’s most devastating acts of mass suicide and murder. He compelled his followers to drink a fruit punch laced with cyanide.

Ms. Wagner-Wilson managed to escape in time with her young son. Others in her family were not so fortunate. They died, along with more than 900 others, including at least 270 children, their bodies strewn across the jungle floor. The horror shocked the world (and gave rise to a lasting expression for blind adherence to a perilous idea: drinking the Kool-Aid).

Jonestown was not the last cult twisted by visions of apocalypse. Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, the Branch Davidians in Texas, Heaven’s Gate in California, the nonreligious Manson Family — all had faithful disciples. All embraced death.

Now, groups like the brutal Islamic State and the Shabab in East Africa are magnets for several thousand readily duped Westerners, including scores of Americans. Many of them feel isolated from family and community, and long for something to believe in. They’re typically young men like the Minneapolis Somalis. “ISIS tries to instill that there is something greater that you can be doing,” Mr. Warsame said in an interview last year with the CBS show “60 Minutes,” after his arrest and before a federal judge sentenced him to 30 months in prison. “It kind of takes control of you,” he said.

Social media and online videos are powerful recruiting tools that the Islamic State has exploited skillfully and aimed at young people like him and his friends. “If they’re living in a context where they feel alienated, they feel like they’re not getting a fair deal, they can be open to indoctrination,” Charles B. Strozier told Retro Report. Mr. Strozier, a psychoanalyst who is the founding director of the Center on Terrorism at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, added, “They’re susceptible to thinking of these larger messages which come flooding at them through the internet.”

They are not necessarily beyond salvation, though. Almost as if “Ticket to Heaven” were a training film, the federal court in Minneapolis has turned to a version of deprogramming as a possible solution. Only the word used in connection with jihadists is deradicalization. The court invited in Daniel Koehler, founder of the German Institute on Radicalization and Deradicalization Studies in Berlin. Mr. Koehler has concluded that extremists of all stripes share a sense that what is wrong with the world and what is wrong in their own lives are intertwined.

Many high school or college students feel woebegone: Parents are annoying or teachers are oppressive. Most young people figure out that there are various ways to cope. But for someone who has been radicalized — say, a teenager led to believe that his religion is being persecuted — the perspective can narrow and obvious solutions fade (except maybe violence). Mr. Koehler calls it “depluralization.” What he attempts, he told Retro Report, is to “repluralize the worldview, make it broader again, make them understand that there are no easy answers for single problems.”

That means, in part, reintegrating them back into the larger society and inculcating skills other than how to fire an AK-47 or strap on a suicide vest. He thinks that progress has been made with some of the young Somali men, but not all. The judge in Mr. Warsame’s case, Michael J. Davis, said he remained unpersuaded that the defendant had abandoned jihadist aspirations.

While the Islamic State in recent months has lost much of its territory in Syria and Iraq to United States-backed coalition forces, experts say it is not defeated. Thousands of militants remain in those two countries and presumably are still able to tempt gullible Western recruits, who are within reach via laptops and smartphones. And there’s always a chance that new death-hugging cults will arise. If the past is a guide, some young people are bound to be seduced into picking up a gun, convinced it’s their ticket to heaven.

The video with this article is part of a documentary series presented by The New York Times. The video project was started with a grant from Christopher Buck. Retro Report, led by Kyra Darnton, is a nonprofit video news organization that aims to provide a thoughtful counterweight to today’s 24/7 news cycle. Previous episodes are at nytimes.com/retroreport. To suggest ideas for future reports, email retroreport@nytimes.com.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/us/retro-cults-isis.html

Gaslighting and Mind Control Disable Rational Thought: How to Resist

Linda Hatch, PhD 

Psych Central

March 2017

Authoritarian mind control techniques are hazardous to your mental health in ways that bypass rational thought.

Gaslighting, brainwashing, cults, hostage situations, and totalitarian propaganda have a common basis. They use similar techniques to confuse, intimidate and disempower people.  These methods are used by abusers of all kinds for the purpose of controlling other people, and promoting the abusers’ interests.

Partners of sex addicts have often been lied to and manipulated into doubting their own sanity, hence the nickname gaslighting after the classic film. Once exposed to this process it is difficult to restore your own sense of stability and control over your life.

Writers have recently found parallels with related techniques in the tactics of President Trump and his inner circle. These tactics include such things as anti-intellectualism, fear of difference, disagreement as treason, seeing life as eternal warfare, scapegoating of minorities, militarism, control of mass media, hostility to education and academia, and rampant sexism.

But it is one thing to understand the tactics and the resulting disempowerment of a person or group of people. But it is at least as important to understand (and protect against) the internal psychological process at work.

Shock, trauma, and dissociation

A recent article in The Atlantic describes a gradual process of an authoritarian takeover built to a great extent on what they call a “culture of threat” or an “aesthetic of menace.”  They site as an example Donald Trump’s frequent references during his campaign to violence, incitement of violence, threats against his opponent, verbal assaults and talk of assaulting women.

This talk of doing something shocking or unthinkable is not designed to win over the audience but to scare them.  This fear can vary anywhere between a sense of shock and an outright traumatic stress response. But it is outside the norm in a way that makes it impossible for people to integrate it into their thinking.  When this happens one is likely to experience dissociation, meaning a “zoning out” or temporary experience of the brain going off line. This maneuver is sometimes described as “ritual abuse” in the brainwashing of cult followers and in other abusive situations.

In this state, critical thinking and judgment may be impossible.  We may shake off this feeling and return to normal thinking but something of the fear remains, making the manipulator more high profile in our minds. In gaslighting, the victim remains in a constant state of fear and insecurity which exaggerates the tendency to focus almost exclusively on the abuser.

Confusion, conformity, and loss of self

Both the authoritarian power figure and the emotional abuser constantly challenge everything that you thought you knew about your world; social institutions, values, science etc.  Nothing is true or false any more, so the ground starts to move underneath you.

Once alternate sources of information, e.g. the media, one’s family, etc. are discredited or taken over we are vulnerable to the ever present messages of the abuser to define our reality.  Other sources of input are labeled as fake and disloyal.  We then adapt to a world in which propaganda is as real as it gets.  This is not mental stability.

The psychological experience at work here is derealization,”a subjective experience of unreality of the outside world.” Nothing is familiar and there is no solid foundation to our experience.  This is a seriously disordered state which undermines any attempt at independent thought or action.

The internal parallel experience of unreality is called depersonalization, “a sense of unreality in one’s personal self.”  Conformity to whatever the dictator or abuser says is good or true is rigidly enforced. In a world in which any deviation from authority is viewed as treason, we come to distrust our sense of ourselves as independent agents.  In the treatment of betrayal trauma in a spouse, this is sometimes referred to as “role collapse,” the erosion of who we thought we were.

In the end we accept someone else’s definition of reality and we accept someone else’s definition of who we are. And again the net result is that we focus on the abuser and become cut off and mistrustful of others.

Staying sane

Reality check not fact check

Ultimately our sense of what is real rests on trust.  We trust the group consensus of a relevant group as to the truth of a fact, a scientific truth and even a core value.  We get these ideas from our community, our family, our curiosity about the world and our accumulated fund of general information.  This basic trust in our world begins very early in life.  Therefore, if we have a disrupted early attachment history we may lack basic trust, making us all the more vulnerable to having our sense of reality disrupted.

Recent writing about “inoculation”  against mind control techniques stress a historical framework and an intellectual awareness of the authoritarian playbook.  And while this is certainly important it is not enough.

When a manipulator wants to redefine what is true or real in order to sow fear it is vital that we respond by connecting with other people. It is not enough just to try to gather facts and information, especially in the face of gaslighting techniques.  If there is no one to give us a reality check then all the information in the world will not make us safe.

There is nothing wrong with demanding proof in the face of lies.  But the ultimate proof will be found in the shared views of smart and knowledgeable people.

Resisting normalization

Our natural tendency is to try to fit our experience into some known way of understanding things, i.e. normality.  Something new, even something bizarre or dangerous, may not seem obviously abnormal at first.  As the saying goes, “The new comes dressed in the clothing of the old.”

We want to be open-minded.  We want to give people the benefit of the doubt.  Often we feel a tug-of-war between a gut sense that someone is hazardous to our wellbeing on the one hand and a desire to make excuses for them on the other.  That is when we need to listen to the disruptors, those who are oppositional and irreverent.  Speaking the truth in these circumstances requires messaging that may seem crazy or over-the-top.  But we need something powerful to pull us back from the unconscious abyss.

Examples of such bravery in the current public arena are Andrew Sullivan, in his wonderful New York Magazine article, Ari Melber by incorporating an “abnormality” segment on his Sunday show, Keith Olberman, and many others.

And of course comedy and satire are especially important in helping us see the absurdity of attempts to normalize the abnormal.  This is because comedy functions by raising to consciousness and validating what we have repressed into unconsciousness.

Taking care of your brain

The brain and mind are delicate mechanisms and need to be handled with care. What you listen to, whom you talk will affect your ability to keep your balance.  Your sanity is partly a matter of conscious choice.

As we know, the biggest danger is fear.  In a gaslighting situation the tendency is to become isolated and hypervigilant.  We can end up mistrusting everybody, even those closest to us.  And when exposed to toxic paranoid thinking we can easily become paranoid ourselves.  Fear is just a signal to renew our determination and hope.

Find Dr. Hatch on Facebook at Sex Addictions Counseling or Twitter @SAResource and at www.sexaddictionscounseling.com

Check out Dr. Hatch’s books:

“Living with a Sex Addict: The Basics from Crisis to Recovery“ and

“Relationships in Recovery:  A Guide for Sex Addicts who are Starting Over“

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/sex-addiction/2017/03/gaslighting-and-mind-control-disable-rational-thought-how-to-resist/

'It's like being in a cult for one': Read 14 tactics used by coercive controllers

Gemma Mitchell

East Anglian Daily Times
March 6, 2017


Experts in the field of domestic abuse gathered in Suffolk today to explore the intricacies of a crime that is “invisible in plain sight”.

A sold-out audience filled the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds for the third Conference on Coercive Control, with presentations from a line-up of celebrated professionals.

Keynote speaker was American university lecturer and author Lisa Aronson Fontes, who described a manipulative relationship as “like being in a cult of one”.

Dr Fontes said dangerous romances often started out happy, with abusers using methods that seem loving such as constant texting or only not wanting to be around anyone else.

She added: “It looks like the care that many women crave, then over time that warm beam gets narrower and narrower and she wants to get that back and she feels like it’s her fault she doesn’t have it.

“Her life is then spent looking for ways of getting into that light again.”

One form of abuse that survivors often feel unable to talk about, Dr Fontes said, is sexual coercion, violence and degradation. This includes revenge porn, sex on demand and forced prostitution.

“Coercive control feels like being trapped in a cage and you can’t get out and you don’t know where the turn,” Dr Fontes added.

Professor Evan Stark, a forensic social worker and lecturer, praised the criminalisation of coercive control - calling it a “revolutionary moment in our women’s movement”.

According to Mr Stark, around 25% of women in abuse relationships are never assaulted, and in some cases it is “low level” harm which police may not take seriously, such as biting, pushing and shoving.

This is where the new law, which was passed in England and Wales in 2015, can come into play.

It carries a maximum prison term of five years for perpetrators who repeatedly subject spouses, partners and other family members to serious psychological, social, financial and emotional torment.

Mr Stark deems coercive control a “liberty crime” that turns victims into “slaves in their own homes”.

He added: “When you smell the suppression of freedom the stench of injustice reeks through society like a great wind.”

Dr Jane Monckton-Smith, an expert in domestic homicide and stalking, told the conference abusers often used coercive control because they were experiencing “separation anxiety” - a fear of losing someone.

She said: “They do not want to be separated from this person that they control because that person if absolutely fundamental to the way they feel about their life.”

It is this trait that can lead to a domestic murder, Dr Monckton-Smith said.

She added: “Some killers say to me once they kill someone it’s like a relief, they don’t have to worry about owning her anymore because she’s gone.”

Organiser Min Grob said she was “ecstatic” about how well received the Conference on Coercive Control had been since she launched it last year.

She added: “What I wanted to do is have coercive control pitched at a level that anyone can get more knowledge or understanding, from frontline workers, professionals and people in relationships or those who know someone who is being coercively controlled.

“It is a day of learning because coercive control is invisible in plain sight and even if you don’t realise it we all know someone in our family that could be being coercively controlled.”

Ms Grob, who has experienced domestic abuse in the past, said putting on an event like this made her feel “safer”.

Here are 14 ways coercive control can exist in an intimate relationship:

- Controlling access to a phone and social media

- Enforcing a certain diet

- Prohibiting or limiting contact with friends, family and health services

- Monitoring and controlling time and movement

- Regulating what clothes, make up, hairstyle is worn

- Continual belittlement, telling someone they are worthless

- Harming or threatening children

- Jealous accusations

- Constant phone calls, texting and emails

- Controlling access to money and transport

- Forcing sex

- Name calling

- Refusing contraception

- Preventing a person from working and sleeping

http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/it_s_like_being_in_a_cult_for_one_read_14_tactics_used_by_coercive_controllers_1_4919263