Chapter 11–Strategies for Recovery People can leave a mind control group in any of three basic ways: they walk out; they are kicked out (often in a very burned-out condition, both psychologically and physically); or they are counseled out. Although they are all fortunate to leave their cults, adjusting to life in the real world can be extremely difficult for them. If they don’t get good information, support and counseling after they leave, the cult phobias they carry with them can turn some people into psychological “time bombs.” Also, many cult members have lived for so long without any kind of normal work or social life that the process of readjustment to adult life is an uphill climb. As a result, some people leave cults only to return again and again, because they miss family and friends who are still involved, but who were ordered to shun them. While such people are in the minority, they demonstrate the vulnerability of people who have left a mind control environment. Walk Outs Without a doubt the largest number of former members falls into the first category, the walk outs. These are the people who have managed to physically remove themselves from the cult, but have received no counseling about cult mind control. I occasionally meet them socially and find that some of them, even years after the cult involvement, are still dealing with the problems of mind control indoctrination. For example, I once met a woman at a dinner party who had “walked out” of the Moonies. During our conversation, she remarked that even though she had been happily married for more than six years, she was deeply afraid of having children. She told me that she couldn’t figure this out at all, because she had wanted to have children ever since she was a little girl. Now she was in her early thirties and felt she wanted children, but she still couldn’t get over her fear. As we talked, I learned that she had been recruited into the Moonies in 1969—more than 12 years earlier—and had stayed in the group for only three months. “When they started making too many demands on me, I left,” she told me. It was clear that she had brushed off her encounter as simply a close call. “Did it ever occur to you that your fear of having children might be related to your experience in the Moonies?” I asked. She looked puzzled. “What do you mean?” “Do you remember ever being told anything about having children when you were in the Moonies?” She rolled her head up slightly, as if her eyes were scanning the ceiling. After a few moments, her face became flushed and she shrieked. “Yes! I do remember something!” To my surprise, she took hold of my shoulders and shook me back and forth. “I remember being told that if anyone ever betrayed the Messiah and left the movement, their children would be stillborn!”[178] Her excitement at remembering the source of her fear of having children was tremendous, and I couldn’t help but share it. It seemed as though we could hear the psychological chains that had been locking her mind fall to the floor. At that point, I realized that I had to explain phobia indoctrination to her. I told her that even though she had been involved with the Moonies for only a few months, her recruiters and trainers had successfully implanted a phobia of giving birth to a dead child in her unconscious mind. “Even though I don’t believe in Moon anymore?” she asked. “The mind is capable of learning new information and retaining it forever,” I said. “This goes for harmful things as well as helpful things. You may have thought that you were finished with the Moonies when you walked out the door, but it has taken you 12 years to locate and eliminate that fear bomb they put inside your mind.” Of course, it is rare to have a conversation with a former cult member like this—a social situation at a friend’s house which suddenly leads to a breakthrough about phobia indoctrination. Yet, a great number of people, just like this woman, are somehow coping with the damaging aftereffects of undue influence. Their problems are often made worse by the fact that many mental health professionals are not knowledgeable about mind control and do not know how to effectively help people suffering from its lingering consequences. People may be able to escape the cult if they are exposed to too much of the inner doctrine before they are ready to swallow it. For example, when one woman I was recruiting found out that Moon was soon going to assign her a husband, it so infuriated her that she stormed out. A man I was recruiting discovered that we believed Moon was the Messiah before we had had enough time to prepare him for that conclusion.[179] He turned and walked out. Other people leave when they become victims of internal politics or personality conflicts. For example, many people get fed up and exit because they can’t relate to or readily follow their immediate superior. Long-term members often walk out when they feel that group policy is not being fairly and uniformly applied, or if there is a struggle for power. Over the years I have met a large number of people who have walked out of their group because they just couldn’t stand it anymore, yet they still believed in the leader. There are thousands of ex-Moonies who still believe that Moon is the Messiah, but just can’t tolerate the way the cult is run. In their minds they are waiting for the day that the group reforms its policies, so they can return. They do not understand that the group is structured and run the way it is _because_ of Moon. The same pattern applies to ex-Scientologists who leave the group but who still think Ron Hubbard was a genius and that the “technology” works. These people call themselves “independents” or members of the “Free Zone.” If they still believe Hubbard was a great humanitarian and discovered how to be “free”, they are still suffering from undue influence. Over the decades, I’ve met thousands of people who were born into cults, but walked out. Even as children, some of them could never swallow the weird belief system, particularly if they went to public school and had positive relationships with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, teachers, coaches, and other caring people. Kick Outs I’ve encountered hundreds of people who were “kicked out” of their mind control groups because they bucked authority and asked too many questions. Others were abused to such an extent that they were damaged and no longer productive for the cult. Still others developed serious physical or psychological problems that cost too much money to be treated. They became a liability to their group. People who have been kicked out are almost always in worse shape than people who walk out or have been counseled out. They feel rejected by the group and its members. In the case of religious cults, they also feel rejected by God Himself. Many of them devoted their lives to their cults, turning over their money and property. They were told that the group was now their family, and believed that it would take care of them for the rest of their lives. Then, years later, they were told that they were not living up to the group’s standards and would have to leave. These people, phobic toward the outside world, felt cast into utter darkness. For many kick outs, suicide seems a realistic alternative to their suffering.[180] No one knows how many people have committed suicide because of mind control. I personally knew of a number of people who killed themselves because of their cult involvement. Research should be done, as this is a major public health issue. Those who unsuccessfully attempt suicide are typically given a psychiatric evaluation. Many are incorrectly diagnosed as having schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. Of course, some people do have these disorders, but my experience is that cults avoid recruiting people who cannot be controlled and rendered dependent and obedient, so most are suffering acute psychosis brought on by mind control. Uninformed mental health professionals can hardly be blamed for this. How else could they diagnose a person who screams for Satan to come out of them? How could they know, unless they investigate, that the person had been doing silent, high-speed chanting for hours, and that it was causing them to be so spaced out that they appeared catatonic? One man I worked with was kicked out of a cult after his father threatened the group’s guru with lawsuits and other forms of exposure. The young man had been programmed for six years to believe that leaving the guru meant instant insanity. After he left, he (surprise!) went crazy. His parents took him to a psychiatric hospital, where the doctors diagnosed him with schizophrenia. The young man interpreted this diagnosis as proof that his leader was right: anyone who leaves the guru _does_ go crazy. In the hospital, he started to pound his head vigorously against the wall. He was put in a straightjacket and put under constant surveillance. But no one asked him why he was behaving in this way. I learned that, during his years in the cult, on a visit to India, he had been shown the rock the guru had supposedly banged his head against until (as the young man explained to me), “he managed to reach gross consciousness.” In his effort to replicate his guru’s spiritual path, the young man nearly killed himself. To top it all off, this only convinced the doctors that he had schizoaffective disorder or was schizophrenic. Only when I began to work with him did he begin to undo his cult conditioning, and how he reinforced that conditioning whenever he internally repeated cult jargon, followed cult practices or thought about his cult leader’s teaching uncritically. This unfortunate man also struggled with the years of negative “help” he had received from mental health professionals while in “treatment.” Some of his doctors actually told him that his involvement with the group was one of the healthier things he had done in his life. One caseworker even encouraged him to read cult literature. Meanwhile, he was heavily medicated and was told daily that he was a schizophrenic. One occult-group ex-member I worked with was convinced that her spiritual body was disintegrating and that she was dying. She suffered tremendous anxiety attacks, particularly in the middle of the night, and felt pains in her chest. She had been tested by doctors for every conceivable problem, and it was determined that the difficulty was all “in her mind.” She had been programmed by the group to self-destruct if she ever left it. Once she was out, that was exactly what started to happen—until she began to learn about cults and mind control. When people who have walked out or have been kicked out are not able to receive specialized counseling, their suffering is usually prolonged. Still, many manage, with the help of family and friends, to pick up the pieces and move forward with their lives. However, if these people never come to understand mind control and how it was used to recruit and indoctrinate them, in my opinion, they will never be able to live as full a life as they might. These people may have temporarily managed to put their cult experience on a shelf and forget about it. At some point, though, it could burst back into their lives. Rick was one of these people. He walked out of the Children of God with his wife and three kids after six years. Five years later, a piece of cult literature turned up in his mailbox. All his cult indoctrination was triggered by this one letter from the leader. His mind started racing out of control. A voice in his head told him to go upstairs and choke his children. Fortunately, Rick got help and was able to keep his children safe. Today, he is a successful computer consultant. Efforts to sensitize and train mental health professionals are much needed. I was invited to do a program for psychiatrist Judith Herman, who is one of the leading trauma experts and the author of the seminal book _Trauma and Recovery_. A two-hour cults course was added to her Trauma curriculum and I was able to do this, in 2014. I was grateful that a woman I’d had the good fortune to work with was willing to share her 11-year experience with mental health practitioners. Her prior caregivers did not realize that her 13-year involvement with the Bible cult International Churches of Christ was at the root of her depression and suicidal impulses. Laura later did a Dr. Drew[181] podcast on the issue of the need for mental health professionals to learn how to correctly identify and help victims of mind control. A video of my presentation and a link to the Dr. Drew podcast can be found on the Freedom of Mind website, freedomofmind.com. Counseled Outs People who had had assistance are the smallest group of ex-members. Most people who are counseled out of cults are able to find the help and information they need. However, some are still carrying around cult-related psychological baggage. Just because a person has been out of a group for years, this does not mean that all of their issues are resolved. This is particularly true of those who were deprogrammed. Some deprogramees report ongoing PTSD symptoms from the deprogramming itself. While I am eternally grateful that my family deprogrammed me, I have needed to do much self healing and also have needed to turn to experts for support. Those who were exit-counseled or experienced some voluntary form of intervention do much better. However, it takes time and good support to recover fully. If the person’s family and friends did not understand mind control and cult psychology it undermines a smooth recovery. Some people are encouraged way too fast to find a job or embark on a career. A supportive cult-aware therapist can be very helpful. Much more is now known about undue influence and cults than ever before. Today there are also many more former cult members who have become professional cult counselors. Unfortunately, however, those are not always the professionals to whom ex-members turn. Often they spend many frustrating years working with therapists who know little or nothing about mind control. It is unethical for a therapist who is not trained in addictions to be in charge of treating someone with an addiction. Similarly, an otherwise-talented therapist, who is largely clueless about undue influence, should not counsel ex-cult members. Therapists need to understand that it is essential to first make an accurate diagnosis by doing a thorough interview. Then the client should be referred to a professional with the proper training and experience. After all, it is the therapist’s obligation to get proper help for a client. Psychological Problems Of Ex-Cult Members Former cult members report a variety of psychological difficulties after they leave. The most common is _depression_, particularly during the first few months after leaving. It is difficult to describe the pain of realizing that you have been lied to and mentally enslaved—that your dream was really a nightmare. Many people who leave after decades of involvement have to face the lost years of missed opportunities. Some have no spouse or partner, no children, no education, no relationships with relatives, and no friends. Many ex-cult members describe their experience with a cult as if they had fallen deeply in love, and given every ounce of their love, trust and commitment to someone, only to find out that the person was a false lover and was just using them. The pain and the sense of betrayal is enormous. Others describe the realization in more graphic terms: feeling as though they had been spiritually and psychologically raped. The sense of personal violation is indescribable. I myself came to realize that all of the love and devotion I felt towards Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han as my “True Parents” was totally one-sided. I realized after I left that they didn’t care about me personally at all. Instead, I was automatically labeled “Satanic” and a traitor, and shunned.[182] When people are depressed, they tend to only see the bad side of things. Their pain can be so great that it blots out any hope of a positive future. It is essential that former members acknowledge and work through their pain, and go through the necessary grieving period. Two realizations seem to help ex-cult members most: first, that some positive things came out of their involvement, and, second, that they now are (or can be) much stronger because of their experiences. It can also help to encourage them to put their experience in a manageable and hopeful perspective. There are almost always examples of people whose experience was much worse than their own, and who were able to thrive after exiting. Another common problem is an overwhelming tendency toward _continued dependence_ (learned helplessness) on others for direction and authority. In groups where members lived communally, most life decisions were made by leaders. Members were encouraged to be selfless and obedient. This form of dependency creates low self-esteem and undermines the healthy desire and ability for personal development. When I first left the Moonies, I didn’t seem to have that difficulty. My deprogrammers had told my parents that they should expect that I would have trouble making decisions. My parents were quite confused when we went out to eat, because I easily knew what I wanted. They told me later that they thought, in some twisted way, that this meant that I hadn’t been deprogrammed. What they hadn’t taken into account was that I had not been a rank-and-file member. I had been a leader and was used to making certain kinds of decisions for myself, as well as for others. Day-to-day decisions were easy for me; bigger decisions, like which college to choose, were more difficult. Like most skills, decision-making becomes easier with practice. In time, people learn how to resume control over their lives. This process can be speeded up by the gentle but firm insistence by family members and friends that ex-members make up their own mind about what they want to eat or do. By bolstering the ex-member’s self-esteem and confidence, the dependency problem is usually overcome. Floating: Dealing With The Cult Identity After Leaving A more difficult problem is a phenomenon known as _floating_.[183] The former cult member suddenly starts to mentally float back in time to the days of their group involvement, and starts to think from within their former identity. The experience is triggered when the ex-group member sees, hears or feels some stimulus that was part of their conditioning process. This can briefly jolt them back into the cult mindset. Here is an example. Margot, a 19-year-old college student, was recruited into Lifespring during a summer job in 1987. Lifespring is a Large Group Awareness Training. She completed the basic course and was one weekend away from completing the leadership training course. Margot’s mother, an ordained Methodist minister, saw some personality changes in her daughter, and was concerned enough to borrow money to initiate a rescue effort. The effort was successful, and Margot soon broke from the group. (As part of an investigation of Lifespring, ABC’s 20/20 interviewed psychiatrist and cult expert Dr. John Clark of Harvard Medical School. Although Lifespring insists otherwise, Dr. Clark stated that Lifespring does, in his opinion, practice mind control).[184] For Margot, one of the biggest problems after the intervention was hearing music come on the radio, including Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love,” and having flashbacks of the training. Groups such as Lifespring like to use popular music as part of their indoctrination for that very reason. It creates a strong association in the individual’s unconscious, which without proper counseling can take months, sometimes years, to overcome. Music is used by many cults for indoctrination, because it forms a strong anchor for emotional states via memory. This stimulus-response mechanism that caused the flashback, or “floating,” can be a significant problem for former members. This experience is triggered when a former member sees, hears or feels some external or internal stimulus, which was part of the conditioning process. This can briefly jolt them back into the cult mindset. For the first year after I left the Moonies, every time I heard the word _moon_, I would think, _Father_, and remember sitting at Moon’s feet. Another example occurred about a month after I left the group. As I was driving to a friend’s house, I had the thought, _This would be an excellent fundraising area!_ I had to tell myself that I was no longer in the Moonies Endnotes for Chapter 11 178. Cf. “Relationship Between Men and Women,” Master Speaks (May 20, 1973), 2. Although this is a dramatic example of the things members are told by the Moonies, I have heard many similar tales from ex-members. 179. Gary Scharff, “Autobiography of a Former Moonie,” Cultic Studies Journal (1986). Vol. 2, No. 2, 254. 180. See Marcia R. Rudin, “The Cult Phenomenon: Fad or Fact?” New York University Review of Law and Social Change (1979-80). Vol. IX, No. 1, 31-32. 181. Dr. Drew’s podcast with Steve Hassan and former 15 year ICC member is at: https://freedomofmind.com//Media/videos.php 182. See Steve Kemperman, Lord of the Second Advent (Ventura, California: Regal Books, 1981), 87. 183. Floating has also been linked to “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” from which many Vietnam veterans suffer. 184.Geraldo Rivera, “Lifespring Part 2,” ABC’s “20/20” (Nov 6, 1980). 185. Decreeing is used by only one group that I am familiar with: Elizabeth Claire Prophet’s Church Universal and Triumphant. It is a high-speed recitation of the group’s “prayers.” It is done so fast that anyone listening will not understand what a member is saying. In my opinion, it is a highly effective technique for trance induction and thought-stopping. 186. During my time in the Moonies, I had personally recruited fourteen people and influenced hundreds of people to join. 187. Francine Jeane Daner, The American Children of Krishna: A Study of the Hare Krishna Movement (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1976).Hillary Johnson, “Children of Harsh Bliss: In a West Virginia Commune, An Extraordinary Look at Life and Love Among the Krishnas,” Life Magazine (April 1980).Eric Harrison, “Crimes Among the Krishnas: The world wouldn’t listen to Stephen Bryant’s charges against his religion’s leaders, until he was murdered,” The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine (April 5, 1987). 188. See 3HO/Sikh Dharma Publication, Beads of Truth, Preuss Road, Los Angeles, California. 189. Richard Behar, “The Prophet and Profits of Scientology.” Forbes Magazine (October 27th, 1986). 190. Tony Ortega wrote a wonderful book entitled, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely (Silvertail Books, 2015) about Paulette Cooper and Scientology’s harassment of this pioneering writer. I became friends with Paulette in 1976 when I first exited the Moonies and was declared an SP. I have a 2013 video interview with her on my web site, freedomofmind.com. 191. Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, Snapping (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1978), 249. “Penthouse Interview: L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.” Penthouse (June 1983), 112. 192. Jim Healey, Sharry Ricchiardi, and D. Vance Hawthorne, “ISU Bible Study Group: Wonderful or a Cult?” Desmoines Sunday Register (March 9, 1980), 1B.Michelle M. Bell, “I think I was Brainwashed: Religious Group Criticized as Cult-like is now al KSU,” Daily Kent Stater (Dec 3, 1982), 1.