Remainder of Chapter 4 Three Steps To Gaining Control Of The Mind It is one thing to identify the four components of mind control but quite another to know how they are actually used to change the behavior of unsuspecting people. On the surface, the process of gaining control of someone else’s mind seems quite simple. There are three steps: _unfreezing_, _changing_ and _refreezing_. This three-step model was derived in the late 1940s from the work of Kurt Lewin,[88] and was described in Edgar Schein’s book _Coercive Persuasion_.[89] Schein, like Lifton, studied the brainwashing programs in Mao Tse Tung’s China, in the late 1950s. His book, based on interviews with former American prisoners, is a valuable study of the process. Schein’s three steps apply just as well to other forms of mind control as they do to brainwashing. As he described them, _unfreezing_ consists of breaking a person down; _changing_ constitutes the indoctrination process; and _refreezing_ is the process of building up and reinforcing the new identity. Destructive cults today have the added advantage of many decades of psychological research and techniques, making their mind control programs much more effective and dangerous than in the past. Hypnotic processes, for example, are much more significant parts of modern mind control. In addition, modern destructive cults also tend to be more flexible in their approach. They are willing and able to change their approach to fit a person’s specific psychological make-up, use deception and highly sophisticated loaded language, or employ techniques like thought-stopping and phobia indoctrination. Let’s take a closer look at this three-stage model to see how the step-by-step program creates a well-disciplined cult member. Unfreezing To ready a person for radical change, their reality must first be shaken up. Their indoctrinators must confuse and disorient them. Their frames of reference for understanding themselves and their surroundings must be challenged and broken down. Upsetting their view of reality disarms their natural defenses against concepts that challenge that reality. Unfreezing can be accomplished through a variety of approaches. Disorienting a person physiologically can be very effective. Sleep deprivation is one of the most common and powerful techniques for breaking a person down. In addition, new diets and eating schedules can also have a disorienting effect. Some groups use low-protein, high-sugar diets, or prolonged underfeeding, to undermine a person’s physical integrity. Unfreezing is most effectively accomplished in a totally controlled environment, like an isolated country estate, but it can also be accomplished in more familiar and easily accessible places, such as a hotel ballroom. Hypnotic processes constitute another powerful tool for unfreezing and side-stepping a person’s defense mechanisms. One particularly effective hypnotic technique involves the deliberate use of confusion to induce a trance state. Confusion usually results whenever contradictory information is communicated congruently. For example, if a hypnotist says in an authoritative tone of voice, “The more you try to understand what I am saying, the less you will never be able to understand it. Do you understand?” the result is a state of temporary confusion. If you read it over and over again, you may conclude that the statement is simply contradictory and nonsensical. However, if a person is kept in a controlled environment long enough, and is repeatedly fed such disorienting language and confusing information, they will usually suspend their critical judgment and adapt to what everyone else is doing. In such an environment, the tendency of most people is to doubt themselves and defer to the group. Sensory overload, like sensory deprivation, can also effectively disrupt a person’s balance and make them more open to suggestion. A person can easily be bombarded by emotionally laden material at a rate faster than they can digest it. The result is a feeling of being overwhelmed. The mind snaps into neutral and ceases to evaluate the material pouring in. The newcomer may think this is happening spontaneously within themselves, but the cult has intentionally structured it that way. Other hypnotic techniques, such as double binds,[90] can also be used to help unfreeze a person’s sense of reality. A double bind forces a person to do what the controller wants while giving an illusion of choice. For example, a cult leader may say, “For those people who are having doubts about what I am telling you, you should know that _I_ am the one putting those doubts inside your mind, so that you will see the truth that I am the true teacher.” Whether the person believes or doubts the leader, both bases are covered. Another example of a double bind is, “If you admit there are things in your life that aren’t working, then by not taking the seminar, you are giving those things power to control your life.” The message is: _Just being here proves you are incompetent to judge whether or not to leave_. Exercises such as guided meditations, personal confessions, prayer sessions, vigorous calisthenics and even group singing can also aid unfreezing. Typically, these activities start out quite innocuously, but gradually become more intense and directed. They are almost always conducted in a group. This enforces privacy deprivation and thwarts a person’s need to be alone, think and reflect. At this stage of unfreezing, as people are weakening, most cults bombard them with the idea that they are seriously flawed—incompetent, mentally ill or spiritually fallen. Any problems that are important to the person, such as doing poorly in school or at work, being overweight, or having trouble in a relationship, are blown out of proportion to prove how completely messed up the person is. Some groups can be quite vicious in their attacks on individuals at this stage, often humiliating them in front of the whole group. Once a person is broken down, they are ready for the next phase. Changing Changing consists of imposing a new personal identity—a new set of behaviors, thoughts, and emotions—to fill the void left by the breakdown of the old one. Indoctrination in this new identity takes place both formally (for instance, through seminars and rituals) and informally (by spending time with members, reading, and listening to recordings and videos). Many of the same techniques used in the unfreezing phase are also carried into this phase. Repetition, monotony, rhythm: these are the lulling, hypnotic cadences in which the formal indoctrination is generally delivered. Material is repeated over and over and over. If the lecturers are sophisticated, they vary their talks somewhat in an attempt to hold interest, but the message remains pretty much the same. During the changing phase, all this repetition focuses on certain central themes. The recruits are told how bad the world is and that the unenlightened have no idea how to fix it. This is because ordinary people lack the new understanding that has been provided by the leader. The leader is the only hope of lasting happiness. Recruits are told, “Your old self is what’s keeping you from fully experiencing the new truth. Your old concepts are what drag you down. Your rational mind is holding you back from fantastic progress. Surrender. Let go. Have faith.’’ Scientologists are told that they must put their minds under the control of a counselor, to show that their minds can be controlled. Behaviors are shaped subtly at first, then more forcefully. The material that will make up the new identity is doled out gradually, piece by piece, only as fast as the person is deemed ready to assimilate it. The rule of thumb is, “Tell the new member only what they are ready to accept.” When I was a lecturer in the Moonies, I remember discussing this policy with others involved in recruiting. I was taught this analogy: “You wouldn’t feed a baby thick pieces of steak, would you? You have to feed a baby something it can digest, like formula. Well, these people (potential converts) are spiritual babies. Don’t tell them more than they can handle, or they will die.” If a recruit became angry because they were learning too much about the real workings of our organization, the person working on them would back off and let another member move in to spoon-feed them some pablum. The formal indoctrination sessions can be very droning and rhythmic—a way to induce hypnotic states. It is fairly common for people to fall asleep during these programs. When I was a cult lecturer, I was taught to chastise people and made them feel guilty if they fell asleep, but in fact they were merely responding well to hypnosis. Even while lightly dozing, a person is still more or less hearing the material and being affected by it, with their normal intellectual defenses down. Another potent technique for change is the induced “spiritual experience.” This is often contrived in the most artificial manner. Private information about the recruit is collected by the person’s closest buddy in the group and then secretly passed to the leadership. Later, at the right moment, this information can be pulled out suddenly to create an “experience.” Perhaps weeks later, in another state, a leader suddenly confronts a recruit about their brother’s suicide. Knowing that they didn’t tell anyone in this new place about it, the recruit thinks the leader has read their thoughts or is being informed directly by the spirit world. The recruit is overcome and begs forgiveness for not being a better member. Destructive religious cults are not the only ones to engineer “mystical” experiences. One martial artist and self-professed mentalist who formed his own cult secretly paid hoodlums to mug his students on the street, in order to heighten their fear of the outside world and become more dependent on him. Another cult leader, a psychotherapist, manipulated one of his clients by confronting her inability to stay on her diet. She believed that he had special powers. He didn’t tell her that he had seen her earlier that day eating an ice cream sundae. She believed that he had special “powers.” A common technique among religious cults is to instruct people to ask God what He wants them to do. Members are exhorted to study and pray in order to know God’s will for them. It is always implied that joining the group is God’s will and leaving the group is betraying God. Of course, if a person tells the cult leader, “I prayed, and God told me to leave,” this will not be accepted. Perhaps the most powerful persuasion is exerted by other cult members. For the average person, talking with an indoctrinated cultist is quite an experience. You’ll probably never meet anyone else who is so absolutely convinced that they know what is best for you. A dedicated cult member also does not take no for an answer, because they have been indoctrinated to believe that if you don’t join, either you are evil or _they_ are to blame. This creates a lot of pressure on them to succeed. When someone is completely surrounded by such people, group psychology plays a major role in the changing process. People are deliberately organized into specific small groups, or cells. People who ask too many questions are quickly isolated from the main body of other members. In the Moonies, we would set up teams at the beginning of a workshop to evaluate the recruits. We would divide them into sheep and goats, and assign them to groups accordingly. The sheep were the ones who were “spiritually prepared.” Goats were stubborn individualists who were not expected to make good members. If they couldn’t be broken, their “negativity” was safely confined to a goat team where sheep couldn’t see it, and they could be asked to leave. (After I left the Moonies, I was amazed to learn that entirely different cults were doing the same thing. I thought “The Family” had invented the technique.) But the changing process involves much more than obedience to a cult’s authority figures. It also includes numerous “sharing” sessions with other ordinary members, where past evils are confessed, present success stories are told, and a sense of community is fostered. These group sessions are very effective in teaching conformity, because the group vigorously reinforces certain behaviors by effusive praise and acknowledgement, while punishing non-group ideas and behaviors with icy silence. Human beings have an incredible capacity to adapt to new environments. Charismatic cult leaders know how to exploit this strength. By controlling a person’s environment, using behavior modification to reward some behaviors and suppress others, and inducing hypnotic states, they may indeed reprogram a person’s identity. Once a person has been fully broken down through the process of changing, they are ready for the next step. Refreezing The recruit must now be built up again as the “new man” or “new woman.” They are given a new purpose in life, and new activities that will solidify their new identity. Cult leaders must be reasonably sure the new cult identity will be strong when the person leaves the immediate cult environment. So the new values and beliefs must be fully internalized by the recruit. Many of the techniques from the first two stages are carried over into the refreezing phase. The first and most important task of the new person is to denigrate their previous _sinful_ self. The worst thing is for the person to act like their old self. The best is for them to act like their new cult self, which is often fully formed within a few months, or even days. During this phase, an individual’s memory becomes distorted, minimizing the good things in the past and maximizing their sins, failings, hurts and guilt. Special talents, interests, hobbies, friends, and family usually must be abandoned—preferably in dramatic public actions—if they compete with commitment to the cause. Confession becomes another way to purge the person’s past and embed them in the cult. During the refreezing phase, the primary method for passing on new information is modeling. New members are paired with older members, who are assigned to show them the ropes. The “spiritual child” is instructed to imitate the “spiritual parent” in all ways. This technique serves several purposes. It keeps the “older” member on their best behavior, while gratifying their ego. At the same time, it whets the new member’s appetite to become a respected model, so they can train junior members of their own. The group now forms the member’s “true” family; any other is considered their outmoded “physical” family. Some cults insist on a very literal transfer of family loyalty. Jim Jones was one of many cult leaders who insisted that his followers call him “Dad.” In my own case, I ceased to be the son of my parents and became the son of Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han, the “True Parents” of all creation. In every waking moment, I was reminded to be a small Sun Myung Moon, the greatest person in human history. As my cult identity was put into place, I wanted to think like him, feel like him and act like him. When faced with a problem, Scientologists are encouraged to ask, “What would Ron (Hubbard) do?” To help refreeze the member’s new identity, some cults give them a new name. Many also change the person’s clothing style, haircut, and whatever else would remind them of their past. As mentioned, members often learn to speak a distinctive jargon or loaded language of the group. Great pressure is usually exerted on the member to turn over money and other possessions. This serves multiple purposes. First, it enriches the cult. Second, donating one’s life savings freezes the person in the new belief system, since it would be too painful to admit that this was a foolish mistake. Consistency is an important aspect of influence. Third, it makes financial survival in the outside world appear harder, thus discouraging the person from leaving. Sleep deprivation, lack of privacy, and dietary changes are sometimes continued for several months or even longer. Often the new member is relocated away from familiar surroundings and sources of influence, into a new place where they have never been anything but their new self. This further fosters dependency on cult authority figures. The new member is typically assigned to proselytizing duty as soon as possible. Research in social psychology has shown that nothing firms up one’s beliefs faster than recruiting others to share them. Making new members do so quickly crystallizes their new cult identity. Some groups finance themselves by difficult and humiliating fundraising methods, such as all-day and all-night solicitations. These experiences become a form of glorious martyrdom that helps freeze commitment to the group. Running around a supermarket parking lot selling overpriced flowers in the pouring rain is a powerful technique for making you really believe in what you are doing! After a few weeks of proselytizing and fundraising in the outside world, the member is often sent back for reindoctrination. This entire cycle may be repeated dozens of times over several years. After a novice spends enough time with older members, the day finally comes when they can be trusted to train other newcomers by themselves. Thus, the victim becomes victimizer, perpetuating the destructive system. Dual Identity: The Key To Understanding Cult Members Given freedom of choice, people will predictably always choose what they believe is best for them. However, the ethical criteria for determining what is best should be your own, not someone else’s. In a mind control environment, freedom of choice is the first thing that is lost. The cult member no longer operates as an individual. They have a new artificial _cult identity_ structure, which includes new beliefs and a new language. The cult leader’s doctrine becomes the master map of reality. Members of a mind control cult are at war with themselves. Therefore, when dealing with a cult member, it is extremely important to always keep in mind that they have _two_ identities. This applies even to people born into destructive cults—they too have an authentic, private self and a cult self. Identifying these dual identities is often confusing for relatives and friends of cult members. This is especially true in the early weeks or months of the person’s cult involvement, when their new identity is most obvious. One moment the person is speaking cultic jargon with a hostile or elitist know-it-all attitude. Then, without warning, they seem to become their old self, with their old self, with their old attitudes and mannerisms. Just as suddenly, they flip back to the cult identity. (This behavior is very obvious to anyone who works with cult members.) For the sake of convenience, we can call these dual identities _John_ or _Jane_ (when the person is most themself) and _John-cultist_ or _Jane-cultist_ (when functioning as a cult clone). Ordinarily, only one of these two selves occupies the person’s consciousness at a time. However, the personality on duty most of the time is the cult identity. Only intermittently does the old self reappear. It is essential for family members to sensitize themselves to the differences between the two identity patterns, in terms of both content (what the person talks about) and communication patterns (the ways they speak and act). Each looks and sounds distinctively different. When John or Jane-cultist is talking, speech is robotic, or like a tape recording of a cult lecture—what I call a “tape loop.” They will speak with inappropriate intensity and volume. Their posture will typically be more rigid, facial muscles tighter. Their eyes will tend to strike family members as glassy, cold or glazed, and they will often seem to stare through people. On the other hand, when the authentic John or Jane is talking, they will speak with a greater range of emotion. They will be more expressive and will share feelings more willingly. They will be more spontaneous, and may even show a sense of humor. Their posture and musculature will appear to be looser and warmer. Eye contact with them will be more natural. Such a stark description of a divided personality may seem overly simplistic, but it is remarkably accurate. It’s an eerie experience to be talking with someone and sense that, mid-sentence, a different identity has taken over their body. As you will see in later chapters, recognizing the change and acting appropriately is the key to unlocking the person’s real self and freeing them from the cult’s bondage. As much as cult indoctrination attempts to destroy and suppress the old identity, and empower the new one, it almost never totally succeeds. Good experiences and positive memories rarely disappear entirely. The cult identity will try to bury former reference points and submerge the person’s past. Yet, over time, the old self will eventually exert itself and seek ways to regain freedom. This process is speeded up by positive exposure to non-members and the accumulation of bad experiences the person has while in the group. The real identity deep down—the hardware (self) beneath the mind control virus—sees and records contradictions, questions, and disillusioning experiences. It still amazes me, even though I had such an experience myself, that my clients are able to verbalize very specific painful incidents that occurred while they were members. People are able to recall horrible things, like being raped by the cult leader or being forced to lie, cheat or steal. Even though they knew at the time that they were doing something wrong or were being abused, they couldn’t deal with the experience or act on it while their cult identity was in control. It was only when their real self was given permission and encouragement to speak that these things came back into consciousness. Indeed, an essential part of helping counsel a cult member involves bringing that person’s own experiences into the light, so that they can process them consciously with their real self. In my work, I have seen time and again that a person’s real self—their mental and emotional hardware—holds the keys to undoing the mind control process. Indeed, this real self is responsible for creating the frequent psychosomatic illnesses that cult members experience. I have met people who have developed severe skin problems, which excused them from the normal grueling work schedule and gave them a chance to sleep. I have seen people develop asthma and severe allergic reactions in order to seek outside medical attention and help. Migraine headaches, backaches, chronic fatigue are just a few more very real and painful things that members develop which may help them to exit. The real self exerts itself in other ways as well. It can exert pressure on the cult self to go home to the family for a visit, using as an excuse the need to collect clothes or funds, or to look for new recruits. The real self can also drop hints, when speaking to family members or friends, that the member wants to be rescued. I have had several families contact me after their children in cults told them specifically _not_ to get a professional counselor to get them out. Before the cult members made that remark, the families hadn’t even known that there was someone they could contact to help. People’s real selves have also been responsible for generating thematic dreams. I have met hundreds of former members who reported having nightmares over and over again while in cults. These dreams typically involved being lost, hurt, or trapped, of being choked or suffocated, or of being imprisoned in a concentration camp. Some people have told me of receiving a dream or “revelation” that they were supposed to leave the group. At the time, their cult identities didn’t want to leave, but their “spiritual” experiences were so powerful that they followed instructions and eventually were able to receive counseling. I like to use the metaphor that there is hardwiring in our DNA that influences our bodies and minds to move away from harm. The real self resists conditioning and indoctrination and any attempt to suppress wellbeing. I wish to add something here. My own spirituality has evolved over the decades. My family and I belong to an independent religious community in Boston that is non-dogmatic, egalitarian and justice-oriented. We do traditional services as well as meditation services. Our community allows for both analytic atheists and more mystically oriented people to feel at home and be part of a community. Faith can be a wonderful thing if it is balanced by critical thinking. For me, I still have the belief that somehow there is a transcendent force, One God that is the unifying power of love and creativity. Whether people the world over like to call that being God, Manitou, Jesus, Hashem or Allah—or the sound of breathing (as we do)—that force resonates and works through people. And despite all that I know about psychology and influence, there are still experiences that have happened in my life that I can’t just chalk up to coincidence or confirmation-bias, and which I prefer to believe as mysterious and mystical. One of these experiences has to do with how I came to be rescued from the cult. After I had been out of the Moonies for over four years, I accidentally overheard my mother saying to a friend, “And don’t tell Steven, but I was praying for a whole year that God should break his leg! I said, Dear God, don’t hurt him too much—just enough so we can find him and rescue him.” Amazed, I asked my mother why she hadn’t told me this after so many years. She answered, “It’s not nice to pray that someone should hurt himself. I didn’t want you to be upset.” I wasn’t. In fact, I thought back to what the emergency technicians told me as they were prying me out of the wreckage: “It’s a miracle you weren’t killed.” So, in my own life of faith, I choose to believe that God did answer my mother’s prayers. Of all my injuries and what could have happened in the crash, the main injury was indeed that my leg was broken. I believe that on some deep unconscious level, the real me was influenced by my mother’s love to fall asleep and wake up at precisely the right moment. Of course, there is no way I can prove this. But I have heard of others being involved in accidents that led them eventually to freedom. I might add that I have had other mystical experiences during my life, like when I met my now wife, Misia. On our very first date, I knew we were meant to be together and have a child together. And so it has come to fruition. We got married within a year and are raising our amazing son Matthew together. Of course, there are so many prayers that so many good people utter to ease suffering, to prevent harm, that seem to go unanswered. I do not believe in an anthropomorphized deity who sits on a throne with a beard, with a book on his lap deciding what events takes place on earth. That said, I encourage my clients to pray and have hope and do everything in their power to help their loved ones and friends who are still involved with cult groups. No matter how long a person has been involved with a destructive cult, there is still hope that they can be helped. I have talked with an 85-year-old grandmother who left a destructive cult after 15 years of membership. Tears came to her eyes as she described how wonderful it was to be free again. I cried, too, as she spoke. I knew exactly what she meant.