Shattered: One Woman’s True Story of Trauma, Coercive Control and Survival

Shattered: One Woman’s True Story of

Trauma, Coercive Control and Survival

By Ginger Zyskowski

Amazon

The life of a 32-year-old professional musician, university instructor, and mother of 3, is thrown into chaos when her young children are abducted and she is viciously kidnapped. Being held against her will, she is forced to live under the coercive control of the cult deprogrammer known as “Black Lightning.” Confined by her captors, she vows to do whatever it will take to reconnect with her children and reclaim her life. She gets caught in a web of conflicts and complications caused by lies spoken by her family, her kidnappers, and the FBI. Eventually, with determination, resilience, and courage, she reunites with her three sons and, together, they begin the difficult, yet rewarding journey of recovery after trauma. The author shares her harrowing true story here for the first time.

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STANDING OVATIONS

Kick off your shoes and find a good reading spot. Shattered, One Woman’s True Story of Trauma, Coercive Control and Survival will give you reason to pause. Every one of us can relate to some of the experiences told in this memoir, but the depth and breadth of Ginger Zyskowski’s life journey is astounding. Growing up with a domineering mother, visits to a “cult” with a friend, and then her horrific experiences being deprogrammed by the infamous Ted Patrick, who truly became her cult leader, are at once fascinating and rattling to read. The emotional trauma pops off the pages, and we cry for her pain and cheer for her victories. The author concludes with a thorough compilation of research that is enlightening to all readers. This compelling and inspiring true story of one woman’s journey is a tribute to the human spirit. Parents, sociologists, psychologists, educators, and general readers will find this book difficult to set aside.

~ Debby Schriver, President, International Cultic Studies Association ~

The so-called cult wars that emerged in America during the early 1970s produced a controversial and sometimes illegal industry called deprogramming. This intimate memoir by Ginger Zyskowski describes her traumatic kidnapping in 1978 by her parents and a deprogramming team that operated under crude basic assumptions about cultic brainwashing and how to cure it. In the author’s case, the cure was worse than the purported disease as she came under the well-meaning though abusive influence of deprogrammer Ted Patrick and her parents for many months after the intervention. We learn that Zyskowski’s meaningful dalliance with the controversial Divine Light Mission group hardly met Patrick’s definitions of hypnotic mind control. Moreover, her parents held rigid views of cults that amounted to a stereotype that they would not reject over time. This book is an absorbing complex trauma as well as a revealing perspective on a problematic new religious movement in America.

~Joseph Szimhart, a cult information specialist who wrote Santa Fe, Bill Tate, and me: How an artist became a cult interventionist ~

This book cautions the reader about the consequences of an unrestrained power. Presenting a riveting story of resilience, Ginger takes the reader on her journey of love, belief, family betrayal, and abuse at the hands of Ted Patrick – the so-called deprogrammer – and his minions. Against all odds, Ginger reclaims her life, her children, the love of writing, and the joy of music. I couldn’t put it down! Bravo!

~ Patrick Ryan, Cult Inverventionist ~

There have been scores of books testifying how victims had been lured into cults where, having apparently been subjected to mind control and unable to leave of their own accord, have been rescued and returned to their ‘normal’ selves by deprogrammers. But this is a story with a twist. Ginger Zyskowski tells us how her overbearing mother, a leading light in the now-defunct Cult Awareness Network (CAN), concluded that her daughter, having shown a mild interest in the Divine Light Mission (DLM) had been brainwashed, despite the fact that Ginger was leading what might seem like a pretty normal life, looking after her three sons whilst engaged in fulltime work – quite independently of the DLM. Imperiously, her mother arranged that Ginger should be kidnapped and deprogrammed by Ted Patrick, widely referred to as ‘Black Lightening’. We read how, under Patrick’s influence, Ginger became actively involved in the ‘anti-cult’ movement, but then having learned from Patrick and CAN about ‘cults,’ brainwashing and deprogramming, she came to recognize that she had indeed been victimized and coerced – by Patrick – and was able to deprogram herself out of his deprogramming cult and piece together her shattered self. A fascinating, page-turning story – with a twist.

~Eileen Barker, Professor Emeritus of Sociology with Special Reference to the Study of Religion, London School of Economics ~

“In her compelling memoir of abduction and survival, Ginger’s honesty offers a captivating glimpse into the resilience and hope that sustained her through unimaginable challenges.

~ Kaitlin Nachtigal, Editor ~

I Have Been…

I have been victimized

But I am not a victim. I have been shamed

But I am not ashamed. I have been guilted

But I am not guilty. I have been used and abused…

But I am not used up!

gz, 6/24/22

Inside The Cowboy Industry Of ‘Cult Deprogramming’

SERA BOZZA

Boss Hunting

October 26, 2020

In the 1970s, America quite literally lost its mind. Doomsday cults, satanic sects, and saffron-robed gurus were exerting undue influence upon thousands of Americans with fatal consequences. Desperate families paid a pretty penny for rogue operators to infiltrate cults and rescue their brainwashed loves ones by any means necessary. It spawned the entirely new, highly lucrative, and dubiously ethical industry of ‘cult deprogramming.’

Vigilante ‘deprogrammers’ continue to operate today via covert means and legal loopholes. And their services are in high demand. Cult expert and former cult member himself, Steven Hassan, estimates that over 5,000 cults operate today in the United States alone.

What defines a destructive cult

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, defined destructive, totalitarian cults, as having three key metrics:

1. A charismatic, authoritarian leader, who employs
2. Coercive persuasion to gain absolute influence over followers, using
3. Economic, sexual, emotional, physical or financial abuse and harm.

And yes, the definition can extend to radical political groups, multilevel marketing schemes, and self-help seminars. Even your mate who tried to sign you up to Herbalife.

Cult life (and death)

Fears surrounding absolute devotion to a cult, and its leader are not unfounded.

• The Manson Family – 1969 California, USA Charles Manson ordered his members to carry out gruesome murders. Explored in Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood.”
• The People’s Temple – 1978, Jonestown, Guyana Reverend Jim Jones ordered 900 of his members to commit suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. Upon which Leonardo DiCaprio produced this harrowing documentary.
• Heaven’s Gate – 1997, San Diego, USA Marshall Applewhite and 38 of his followers committed suicide to reach a UFO spacecraft.
• NXIVM – 2020, New York, USA Keith Raniere, head of a cult based on the forced sexual abuse of women, was sentenced to 120 years in prison after a New York Times investigation prompted authorities to scrutinize its inner workings.

It is near impossible to change someone’s mind about a cult because they have been indoctrinated into an “us versus them” mentality. In the past, they may have isolated in remote compounds, but today they can just exist entirely in their own echo chambers on the internet.

If an individual does not leave voluntarily, the only other option is to forcibly remove them.

By whatever means necessary

Over the decades, U.S. judges routinely granted parents and cowboy deprogrammers the authorization to (re)kidnap their children without a hearing.

Ted “Black Lightning” Patrick, was dubbed “The Father of Deprogramming.” His skin was in the game after saving his own son from a cult known as The Children Of God. He deprogrammed over two thousand clients via abduction (daylight kidnappings with the assistance of his henchman), snapping (inflicting mental, emotional, and physical abuse to undo the cult’s brainwashing), and releasing (a process of freeing an individual from their trancelike state).

US courts backed Patrick’s argument that, by “artful and deceiving” means, cults were robbing people of their First Amendment Rights to think and choose.

Cult deprogrammers (used to) make serious bank

Although it didn’t crack the highest-earning jobs list – not to mention Patrick had US$60 million in lawsuits pending against him by 1979 – cult deprogramming is highly lucrative. Can families put a price on the freedom of their loved ones?

In the Colombrito vs. Kelly case of 1978, one deprogrammer received a US$25,000 fee (inflating to US$100,000 today and approximately AU$140,000.) It is a niche market, with just a handful of operators carrying out thousands of conversions to date. However, the industry had to go underground following the monumental court case in 1995, Scott vs. Ross.

Deprogrammer Rick Ross was duped by Jason Scott, who faked his deprogramming and pressed charges. Scott’s case was picked up by a powerful backer.

The Church of Scientology, growing frustrated with the anti-cult movement, funded Scott’s civil suit in 1995. It bankrupted Ross and the Cult Awareness Network (CAN). Scientology bought the CAN assets and logo and runs it as a front for their own organisation. The case ended the lawful use of involuntary cult deprogramming.

How cult deprogramming works today

“Exit counselling” has since replaced coercive cult deprogramming, yet consists of many of the same players. Ross compares his counselling sessions to an intervention. It spans three to four days, in eight-hour lengthy sessions, alongside families and loved ones. However, by law, it must be voluntary.

The subject can leave at any time, and the cults have clocked on to it. Cults and questionable self-help groups train their members to sense it coming. Many parents enlist psychologists in covert operations to assist them in gaining conservatorship powers. Through conservatorship, they can explore more coercive measures…

Cult deprogramming techniques used to change someone’s mind

Alongside discrediting the authority of the cult leader and presenting contradictions in the group’s ideology, a strong emphasis is placed on education.

Margaret Singer, PhD psychologist advocates for “showing them how their own decision-making power had been taken away from them.” It can include:

• Naming the group’s indoctrination techniques, and helping the victim to reference the ways they were used against them during their indoctrination period.
• Asking thoughtful questions, prompting the victim to think in a critical, independent way, such as “How can the group preach X, but exploit Y? And then providing significant praise when they do.
• Reintroducing objects and individuals from the victim’s pre-cult past to prompt an emotional connection.

What is the measure of success?

Cult brainwashing techniques can permanently damage an individual’s cognitive ability, and not everyone snaps out of it. Harvard psychiatrist, Dr John G Clark, told the New York Times, ”the destructive effects of cult conversions amount to a new disease in an era of psychological manipulation.”

Cult deprogrammers and exit counsellors measure their success by the individual’s ability to think critically and exercise free will, which can take years of counselling to achieve.

https://www.bosshunting.com.au/culture/inside-cult-deprogramming/

Movie review: Mia Donovan's Deprogrammed cracks cult appeal

T'CHA DUNLEVY, MONTREAL GAZETTE
June 16, 2016
Deprogrammed

✮✮✮1/2
Documentary
Directed by: Mia Donovan
Running time: 85 minutes

Cults don't have much to do with most of our day-to-day lives. They make the headlines from time to time, but to the average person they don't hold any relevance. So a documentary on cults could seem like a random choice. To Montrealer Mia Donovan, it was anything but.

Donovan hadn't seen her stepbrother Matthew in 20 years when she embarked on her second documentary, Deprogrammed, and decided to track him down. A rebellious teen with a penchant for heavy metal and all its trappings, Matthew was kidnapped by his father and a group of men and confined in a motel room for eight days to try to rid him of his evil ways.

Leading Matthew's captors was Ted Patrick, the pioneer of "deprogramming." A former aide to governor Ronald Reagan, he became known as Black Lightning in the '70s for the speed with which he would track cult members, pull them off the street and shake some sense into them.

After reconnecting with the heavily tattooed, all-grown-up Matthew on a makeshift shooting range on a country road, Donovan goes on a search for Patrick and the many people he helped, and didn't help (Matthew appears to fall in the latter category), over the past several decades.

His methods were controversial. "In some cases, you have used physical force, coercion, deception, harassment to break a person and bring them back to 'sanity,' " he is told in an archival news segment.

It all sounds rather questionable, but things begin to click when Donovan takes us back to the early '70s in California, where within the flower-power movement there emerged a preponderance of "Jesus-centred communes."

Through revealing footage of deprogramming attempts from the era, Donovan shows the extent to which some of these groups took hold of the minds and bodies of their members.

Many ceased to think for themselves and could spout only the spoon-fed dogma of their leaders. Enter Patrick, who caught on to what was happening and conceived controversial methods to get beyond the robotic platitudes.

It involved sequestering alleged victims and questioning their every presumption until they began to crack. And while it didn't always work — Donovan gives voice to a few former deprogrammees who were more hurt than helped by the interventions — Patrick's unconventional techniques paved the way for the cult deprogramming movement for years to come.

Donovan's film would have been interesting enough if it were just a history lesson, but it goes deeper, exploring the eerie disconnect that takes place when people hand over the reins of their brains to an outside force.

tdunlevy@postmedia.com

http://montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movies/movie-review-mia-donovans-deprogrammed-cracks-cult-appeal