ch 7 while copying into email - i disagree that coercive deprogramming would have no place,. i might say i believe all tools have a need at some obscure point. i might keep public record of incidents that went poorly so people could learn and improve. i had a difficult therapy today and notes may get either scant or again very weird while reading along - author states not aware of any deprogrammings involving beating or rape. wikipedia stated otherwise, interesting information conflict one could contribute to advancing. - cult members often do strongly dislike classic forcible deprogramming and may not forgive the deprogrammer, despite staying out of the cult - behavior of woman who rejoined and releft cult so as to comprehend deprogrammer seems thematically similar to my attempts to retain management over my memories and personal influence - reminder to self that i experienced something similar to the negative messaging regarding deprogrammers, with similarity around "what is this oh this is terrifying and evil [then slowly over years] oh this was actually the thing for _rescuing_ people" ... an element of prevention of trauma therapy and of memory reconstruction ... - Strategic Interactive Approach is deprogramming v2. involves family and frienxds working together, and lots of information. - thorough interview of family prior to engaging cult member, many questions listed in book - i would not consolidate a complete list of people contacted around the issue as mentioned, as this would produce data that could be used by the cult to re-establish thorough control if they acquired it - introduces family to other ex-members to better understand - including all family and friends eases burden of task, sharing among many I'm reading this and I have an idea for resisting disruption. You'd basically mind control each other to stay sane, forming each other's group to do so. For example, if everyone is getting irrational, you might make ritual points of reinforcing things that are clearly logical and true for everyone involved. like professor rat said the one time he said soemthing that made sense to me: "clear, rational replies help us all out the most." or similar. - for people not fully and heavily indoctrinated: non-authoritary-figure-friend asks member if they would be willing to hear a little of the other side of the story. if interested, place and time is immediately scheduled. promise is pursued to continue regardless of pressure from cult to cancel. - boston church of christ also uses "dead" term for people not in cult i'm having trouble reading the section on surprise encounters, recalling tiny events in which others have apparently planned influence of me, but never revealed this to me. - people so indoctrinated they would never agree to meet ex-members are engaged without prior explanation - surprise encounter done with family, who are prepped on how to reduce e.g. flight risk, and respect the member where they were at the surprise encounter rings of a microenvironment. the pace yields better likelihood for the member to agree to various things. this is likely rooted in some understanding of the psychology of the cult in question. it's a nice idea, the positive microenviironment. there are things i'd like to have easier to choose to do. - in the example story from early in career, the cultist held firm and agreed only to a small compromise. - cultist made comfortable, given sense of control as much as possible - related to cultist this was an opportunity to prove that he wasn't under mind control - in example, an experienced church person used bible to let cultist realise contradictions in cult it looks like the technique might work on extremists in general - evidence used to build mistrust in cult leader - commonly disliked cults described. cultist builds parallels. a lot of shock needing processing is described in the cultist. sad, the sense of a situation that doesn't seem as psychologicalyl safe as it could be. - after exposure to question-building material, cultist is not restrained from leaving, so as to build trust. if cultist leaves, information is further flowed to them in ways they would receive. - cultist considered sense of surprise encounter when asked to consider what else would hacve produced the information exchange - cultist did not express memory of the request made to talk consensually i'm thinking on how the surprise encounter approach provides for protecting the intervention approach some from being mobbed by the cult itself [i'm thinking iw would try to avoid it, but don't yet have a safe-seeming alternative thought up] - cultist wanted to spend many days figuring it out, qwithout deciding to leave nor returning it's so hard to make decisions in situations of heavy influence. so hard. - the parents worked with a mainstream church similar to the cult in order to successfully extyract the cultist, despite themselves having a very different church. the cultist joined the mainstream church. this flexibility helped it work. copying over - not everyone chooses what they think is best for them, i think that's from financial media? but most people do in the usa i think; at least, it's very encouraged to. maybe what's relevant here is that ina situation of mind control, what is best for you is very important since you use your mind to make every other decision. while reading along - 1. _demonstrate_ that cultist is in trap. 2, _show_ them they did not choose to be in a trap. 3, point out that other people in other mind control groups are trapped. 4, inform that it is possible to escape. - tends to take someone who has been in the trap to convey the message effectively. former cult leaders pretty good at this. - 1. people need and want to grow, and move toward where growth is available.. 2, peopl eneed to focus on the here and now, what they can do now, not e.g. worries. 3. people will always choose a better decision at any point in time. 4, each person is unique and each situation is different.; each member must be adapted to and understood, and held as the most important person . - understanding cult member: what do they value, what do they need, what do they want, how do they think; step inside their head and temporarily become them, to understand them and help them do what they want to do. deep down, everyone wants out. - 5, it's essential to be family-centered. everyone is affected and invovled, and can be trained to communicate as effectively as possible.. serious family problems are addressed first, which shows the cuktist that positive things happen outside the cult. - famiyl members learn: how to build rapport, trust, and plant questions. family love is stronger than cult love: supports growth rather than dependency. - never try to take the group away from the cultist or permanently remove them from the group.without their interest in this. offer paths of growth via perspecvtives and possibilities; new choices. do everything to help them feel in control. thoughts here on the power of reality-backed messaging vs influence-motivated messaging. - indoctrination suppresses the real self, which stays. the mind control virus can be cured, developing repair and bringing the self forward again. - author describes a slow flood of realizations upon "waking up" brings one to think of the ongoingness of internal habits to suppress certain ideas. similarity to my current experience. - people who would want to be in the cult are not removed from it and the intervention does not work, but such people rarely demonstrate harm that results in the need for one. but people being enslaved, when they can review fairly, prefer to make more choices of their own than fewer. - 1. focus on _process_ and _how_ change happens, not specific changes. 2, an educational approach, spreading and teaching. rescues work better at down times and poorly at positive times in the cult. author says down times are impossible to predict, but a cult would say they could craft one. - chocies after failed recsue effort: 1. back off, leave cult member in charge,offer communication when interested. 2, intervene with help of other people, energy anbd time intensive: a surprise encounter - prepping surprise encoutner is similar to cult recruitment, research them, plan an inintial deception. but the end result is empowerment. the story of rescuing the woman from The Family has pleasantness; the hsuband was offered a job interview so she would be alone from him. he was making all her decisions, and she was being used to recruit members with sex. - the interaction with the woman and her husband involved positive celebration events in the family; bought everyone new clothes, went to restaurants. no criticism of cult behavior. thinking some of my personal experiences. i attempted a naive influence of myself recently that had some impact. as i continued, and encountered more variety in my life, it faded. the internal experiences expose me to diverse stuff i respond to as i move through my dissociations, with a little similarity to how a risk is run if a cultist returns to their cult. [i had an experiencing attempting to stabilize another who had gotten influenced earlier than me, where their exposure to other things could wildly change stuff]. internally, short term memory seems releveant. it's certainly easier to manage my experiences if the interaction stays in my mind and actions. meanwhile, when i have time away, i likely will teach myself to avoid or sabotage the new influence pretty strongly. - when wife separated from husband, she was recommended to rest and got very long sleep [noting that author's cult experience involved consistent denial of sleep] {and room servic meal after, everyone staying at very nice hotel} - conversations began with topics that had been oted to stimulate parts of real identity in past this is something i've experienced done to me a little; i need communication for this, due to how i am managing my memories and experiences. i was prepped against this. - discussion then became honest-expression; family missed her crying happened here, which is a moment of psychological shift. also prepped against this. i fake-cry to cover it up somewhat regularly. - then question whether cultist was having what they wanted etc, instilling questions. story is worth read. - while wanting to visit family, but not feeling able, cultist emotionally shared parts of cult situation - again, intervention group used religious content of cult to undercut cult [it looks kind of like author retained sense of how cultist's feelings and thoughts and subconscious were moving, in order to influence some of her decisions, from experience as an indoctrinator, but he describes it] - once connection formed, described other cult experience, drew parallels, asked more questions the deprogrammer hugged the woman when she was in a shock state regarding conenction of suppressed information. i would avoid this as it could be unfair influence when soembody may be trying to sort out what is real inside themselves: but maybe freeing them from the horrible situation they are in is more important, unsure. it seems like if there is certain shared truth underneath the instilled beliefs, then continued influence there would be warranted. he was also there in the moment in order to sense what was appropriate. a question discrediting cults is whether the ends justify the means. the reason they don't, is that if you include everybody in goals that everybody would agree to anyway (e.g. world paradise as cults might pursue in their doctrines), rather than blocking information flow in and out, many many ways open up, ones that are far more efficient than the ones being justified by their ends, and there is no need to justify them, as they make good things happen already. - author describes instilling strong emotional questions in the cultist as empowering them this doesn't seem right to me, maybe from my own influence, but it makes sense the author would really bleieve this, since their career is deprogramming and is backed by a passionate personal story. the author wrote the dreams of the woman the following night, briefly. first, solitude and lostness. then with the addition of bombardment. then great peacea dn happiness. my interpretation could be that her subconscious considered it painful and rude to have the new information forced on her so much, and so confusing, but that she ended up agreeing with what she was shown for freedom. it's notable those dreams have reached all the way to this list. i can't know what dreams mean to others, just what they meat to me at one point in time. prevalence of hugs in the story indicate the family and cultist likely were big huggers women dislike long term submission, but don't necessarily speak of it - often after cultist decides to leave and says farewell to cult member, a countering cult intervention can happen thinking about how the interventions involve a group of people. this is likely much safer than an individual - an intervention was performed for the husband, after the wife left. - emotional problems present after leaving, from long-term cult involvement what an inspirational chapter. one section left. - Roy Masters is a professional hypnotist who recruits via selling meditation audiotapes that beginni indoctrination and is still doing it - also does stage exorcism, maybe he could enslave me by removing my evil spirit - author took time to describe how cultist's parents were behaving erratically, driving dog and child crazy by giving contradictory information. this made it hard to find a family draw out of the group; the group seemed better than the family. - lack of family stability and finances made it hard to figure out how to provide an environment for enjoying leaving cult - it's fruitful to engage support groups with the resources to provide a healing environment for cultist - successfuly intervention requires at least three full days of counseling ch coda - people will do anything for what they believe is truly right, but nobody wants to waste time on harmful lies - phobia against leaving is addressed, then contact with the true self is made, and the person usually chooses to leave when learning what was done to them - important for people to understand that good things happen in cults too, and these good tghings must be remembered - belonging to a destructive cult changes you forever - leaving a cult engages a time of sitting naked with oneselfe and reanalyse one's entire knowledge and beliefs. this can be liberating and terrifying. it's a new beginning. the scary moment of trancy change, when you could become anyone. deprogrammers engage it assertivelty and frequentyl. but they would know about when it is engaged for harm. i believe in deep respect being held at such times. from a well of deep respect, comes rebuilding.