Ex-Cult Member Explains How He Escaped the Moonies - YouTube
universal techniques:
deceptive recruitment
thought stopping
loaded language
totalist black and white ideology
you don't know what is happening to you
phobia indoctrination
love bombing
guilt promotion
hypnosis
sleep deprivation (in frum world result of sexual deprivation and schacharis every day no matter what) and information overload, mind goes numb
told to stop negative thoughts against leader and phobias that terrible things will happen if you question leader
something that's legitimate will stand up to scrutiny, do not be manipulated by guilt or fear, tune into your own inner voice, you should be in control of your life, don't be manipulated by threats that if you don't obey bad things will happen, religious organizations frame it as you have to obey God but you are in a human institution whose leaders say that know what God wants
empower people to think for themselves and give them information to reality test
can't say, you are in a cult and try to argue the person out of it because they have been programmed to expect persecution
cults often use front groups, the moonies have 1000s of them, doesn't the yeshiva world do this too, each yeshiva is a front group for the general movement which as i said isn't necessarily a cult but can be experienced as one, cults often have a pyramid structure with a supreme leader, isn't that what yeshiva people do when they talk about the gadolim, following the gadolim as if they all agree, they are trying to create a pyramid where of course you are on the bottom
Torah observance is not necessarily a cult but contemporary frum culture can be whether it be yeshivish, chassidish, zionist, or modern
aren't you told to only be around your group?
aren't you told not to think for yourself?
aren't you taught an us verses them philosophy?
aren't you told to do ridiculous things like kollel or aliyah when you can't possibly afford it or even cope with it mentally? (both are more pronounced in israel)
if you are a BT, weren't you recruited deceptively, weren't you told in Judaism we can ask questions, we aren't anti-physical, were you told about the obligation to study Torah every second?, were you told rabbis are caring and rule for your case? were you told klal yisrael is one big family? were you told that we are not like the Catholics who aren't allowed to think? the reality is there's far more thought control with Jews.
You say can't happen to me, I'm too together, too smart.
How would you know if you are under mind control?
It's an identity disturbance. A cult identity that was programmed into him suppressed the real him that was interested in writing, etc.
ISIS, pimps use cult techniques.
Control of behavior, information, thought, emotion. (BITE)
Phobia indoctrination - terrible things will happen to you
We are vulnerable to peer pressure and authority.
It's your mind, it's precious, and only you should control it.
Change of name, clothing, needing to ask permission, information control, distort info, hold back info, spies, confessions and use material against you, lie to you, use info from other sources to manipulate you and give you false sense of mystical experiences,
Key book: Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, Lifton, Robert Jay
Recommend total disconnect for minimum of 3 days from who you fear is controlling you, let mind decompress
Seek out critics and former members and hear what they are saying as if you never were involved
ask, was i lied to, if i knew then what i know now would i have joined? if answer is not in a million years then know you are under undo influence, know others have left
person is split from himself and has cult identity
seek out information about leader
goal shouldn't be to get person out but to empower people to think for themselves
let them know being in an organization is a choice, don't have to be there
recruiting is hey come over for a shabbos meal, hey here's some purim candy, they don't tell you that you'll have this yoke on you, can't ever leave, all free time torah study, 9 kids, no way to make a living, etc. the recruiting is very deceptive
In the book, Lifton outlines the "Eight Criteria for Thought Reform":
- Milieu Control. This involves the control of information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.
- Mystical Manipulation. The manipulation of experiences that appears spontaneous but is, in fact, planned and orchestrated by the group or its leaders to demonstrate divine authority, spiritual advancement, or some exceptional talent or insight that sets the leader and/or group apart from humanity, and that allows a reinterpretation of historical events, scripture, and other experiences. Coincidences and happenstance oddities are interpreted as omens or prophecies.
- Demand for Purity. The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here.
- Confession. Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; members' "sins," "attitudes," and "faults" are discussed and exploited by the leaders.
- Sacred Science. The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or all humanity, is likewise above criticism.
- Loading the Language. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking.
- Doctrine over person. Members' personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group.
- Dispensing of existence. The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious, and must be converted to the group's ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also.[3]
deprogramming was forcibly holding person in room and lecturing them
Hassan uses different method, strategic interactive
empower sense of real self, everyone wants to be free, loved, not exploited or separated from passions, abilities, controlled through fear, guilt
uses love, ethical based approach
listen to feelings, gut
are people who leave after 50 years of cult involvement
alleged to be unconditional love but in fact all is based on performance and bad performance is viewed as the devil
be in the now, be in your body
took him a full year to try to reclaim old self, used to love literature, when first out of cult couldn't read, had to train brain like a muscle
spend 90% of your energy on what you can do something about
While in captivity, kidnap victim Patty Hearst became afraid to have any of her own thoughts. She had been yelled at so many times for appearing to think by her captors who were afraid psychics would use her thoughts to locate her. Even after the FBI captured her, she couldn't use her brain. She didn't know if she was coming or going. Her mind was shot. After getting out of the Moonies, Steve Hassan was unable to read even though he had been an avid reader to the point where he had previously wanted to to become an English professor. He said it took him a year to recover, to retrain his brain to work again.
Something similar happens in many controlled and abusive environments such as dysfunctional homes, corporations, the military, and even yeshivas, particularly Maclone Shlomo where the very idea of a bochur thinking at all was viewed as chutzpadick. There was a constant mockery of the baal habayis' and particularly a young person's brain. I see this in many yeshiva boys. They are afraid to give their own pshot on anything, so programmed they are that they are not qualified. You need to think and offer your ideas while at the same time recognizing that your idea is not the final word on the subject and may be inaccurate or even totally wrong. By the way, that's true of all people - even scholars and experts - but of course more true of young and less educated people. It's not so complicated, yet that approach is not used in many places. The world will not end if you are wrong. It's OK. Share your thought. These crazy control freak middle management rabbis will accuse you of destroying the Oral tradition or whatever for having a thought they don't like. That's an example of another cult technique called phobia indoctrination. How can I be a nobody and at the same time tear down the Torah? They are trying to destroy you at both ends, making you feel like you are of no importance but at the same time you are so powerful that you are destroying Judaism because you privately shared a question or well meaning explanation with the big shot rabbi, who is so arrogant that he isn't going to be affected by anything you say. At MS, this was taken to the extreme. MS had a fundamental problem that they recruited kids from elite schools, but the dean was kind of a dope and was intimidated by them. So he set out to mock the very idea of them using their brains in any way other than to say "why does Tosfos says this?"
"He taught his talmidim that most questions beginning with "Why?" (unless they are in the form "Why does Rashi or Tosafos say this?") are more likely than not to be products of the yetzer designed to deflect from a full Torah commitment. In question and answer sessions, he refused to answer as many questions as he was asked. First the questioner had to acknowledge what was really bothering him and how the information sought was relevant to his life."
Incredibly, that description of him is from a hespid. It is meant as praise. Sounds like an indictment to me. That's a cult leader. Yes, Judaism can be a cult. He was quite relentless. I would say his main goal was to shut down thinking. Many BT yeshivas have a questions and answers class where the students try to get answers to such questions as why the Jews in the desert killed the children of Midian, why we break the first-born donkey's neck (the back of the animal's neck is struck with a hatchet, until the windpipe and food pipe are severed. See Yerushalmi, Sotah 9:5.) and toss the goat off the mountain. Am I allowed to say, these actions seem cruel? Even now, thirty years after leaving that place, when I ask those questions, I feel a terror creep up inside me and a hand covers my mouth. I feel guilty for asking. My thoughts just stop in terror. That's called thought stopping, a trait of cults. I know by now that's the madman Rosenberg still inside my system and I stay with my question. But many people allow their thoughts to be stopped. They feel guilty for having a mind. They are told, the gadolim say X, you must obey. The gadolim say to vote for gimmel. If you don't follow, you can never do teshuva. I have been told this. But what about the gadolim in the Edah Charedis? They say not to vote at all. It's so manipulative this phrase "the gadolim say." Gadlim disagree with one another all the time. You see it in the Gemara and you see it today. In Eretz Yisroel references to the authority of the gadolim as if they are a monolithic group are rampant. I think it's a reflection of Israeli military culture. The old Litvacks didn't work that way. It's turning Judaism into a cult as influenced by Zionism. There's an intense contradiction in the yeshiva world. They'll tell you Torah study is the purpose of life, yet they severely limit your ability to think. If study is the ikur, then you must be able to think.
Once you become afraid of your own thoughts or view them as sinful you have been murdered. I remember thinking, don't we have a yetzer tov too? In many of these places, all they talk about is the yetzer hara. You start to see yourself as evil. You have a kind of mental autoimmune reaction where you start attacking your own thoughts.
"A cytokine storm, also called hypercytokinemia, is a physiological reaction in humans and other animals in which the innate immune system causes an uncontrolled and excessive release of pro-inflammatory signaling molecules called cytokines. Normally, cytokines are part of the body's immune response to infection, but their sudden release in large quantities can cause multisystem organ failure and death."
This can happen with your thoughts. You get a thought and you immediately contradict it. As Patty Hearst said, humans are fragile. They crack up from the mental oppression. “My heart is lost; the beasts have eaten it.” (French poet Charles Baudelaire). Patty was such a "mess" - her word - when she got out of the SLA that her brain wasn't working normally. She didn't know if she was coming or going. She was emaciated, spaced out, unsure of her own identity. She was dazed and fragmented and lost. She didn't even know how to go about defending herself in court. It's like her mind was broken. She couldn't use it, just like many of us after bad yeshivas experiences. You can't formulate a thought. You have a good brief thought - your conscience is trying to speak - but you immediately contradict it. You can't follow through on anything because you are not allowed to think. I know many baal habatim who have this problem. Their brains are broken. They have been yelled at so many times by their captors. They have been threatened with death, with damnation. They can go the rest of their of their lives like this. They can't really function.
This is not what is supposed to go on with Orthodox Judaism. But it happens often. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik was very good at not doing this to people. He encouraged them to have their own minds. Yes, that approach produced some rogue rabbis, but it also created many healthy, productive students whereas many of the heavy handed rabbis broke many people. The Lubavitcher Rebbe also used this approach. He let people think. Both of these great men were roundly condemned by many in the yeshiva world (but not by the saint Moshe Feinstein).
The way some of the corrupt ones approach it, you are only yetzer hara but somehow the rabbi, who might be younger than you, who might be no smarter than you, who might be dumber than you, who may be less knowledgeable in many areas, is all yetzer tov. I know personally five prominent rabbis - all who were treated by many of their followers with incredible deference - who were involved in sex scandals. I know the cases. All were guilty. So I guess rabbis can have yetzer haras too. Dare I say it? I dare.
authoritarian with pyramid structure
black and white, us versus them, good versus evil
perfectionism is common - relax, breath, grow
reclaim your own mind
use authentic self - everyone has one, takes time, what resonates with who you are, tv shows whose characters you like?
balance and harmony of mind
dissociative disorder, disconnected from feelings, start with liking to be in your own body
patty before kidnapping
after capture
a shell of her former smiley self
