OK. Here we go again.
FYI--People appear to be physically free in cults, but are nevertheless most often held captive psychologically and emotionally through thought reform/coercive persuasion techniques.
These are the basic building blocks of cults and the control they exert over members.
Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton defines cults simply.
See [
www.culteducation.com]
Certain psychological themes which recur in these various historical contexts also arise in the study of cults. Cults can be identified by three characteristics:
1. a charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose their power;
2. a process I call coercive persuasion or thought reform;
3. economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie.
Lifton defines thought reform.
See [
www.culteducation.com]
A discussion of what is most central in the thought reform environment can lead us to a more general consideration of the psychology of human zealotry. For in identifying, on the basis of this study of thought reform, features common to all expressions of ideological totalism, I wish to suggest a set of criteria against which any environment may be judged - a basis for answering the ever-recurring question: "Isn't this just like 'brainwashing'?"
These criteria consist of eight psychological themes which are predominant within the social field of the thought reform milieu. Each has a totalistic quality; each depend upon an equally absolute philosophical assumption; and each mobilizes certain individual emotional tendencies, mostly of a polarizing nature. In combination they create an atmosphere which may temporarily energize or exhilarate, but which at the same time poses the gravest of human threats.
1. Milieu Control
2. Mystical Manipulation
3. The Demand for Purity
4. The Cult of Confession
5. The "Sacred Science"
6. Loading the Language
7. Doctrine Over Person
8. The Dispensing of Existence
Another detailed explanation of coercive persuasion techniques is offered by a sociologist Richard Ofshe who expands on the themes developed by Lifton.
See [
www.culteducation.com]
Coercive persuasion and thought reform are alternate names for programs of social influence capable of producing substantial behavior and attitude change through the use of coercive tactics, persuasion, and/or interpersonal and group-based influence manipulations (Schein 1961; Lifton 1961). Such programs have also been labeled "brainwashing" (Hunter 1951), a term more often used in the media than in scientific literature. However identified, these programs are distinguishable from other elaborate attempts to influence behavior and attitudes, to socialize, and to accomplish social control. Their distinguishing features are their totalistic qualities (Lifton 1961), the types of influence procedures they employ, and the organization of these procedures into three distinctive subphases of the overall process (Schein 1961; Ofshe and Singer 1986). The key factors that distinguish coercive persuasion from other training and socialization schemes are:
1. The reliance on intense interpersonal and psychological attack to destabilize an individual's sense of self to promote compliance
2. The use of an organized peer group
3. Applying interpersonal pressure to promote conformity
4. The manipulation of the totality of the person's social environment to stabilize behavior once modified
Thought-reform programs have been employed in attempts to control and indoctrinate individuals, societal groups (e.g., intellectuals), and even entire populations. Systems intended to accomplish these goals can vary considerably in their construction. Even the first systems studied under the label "thought reform" ranged from those in which confinement and physical assault were employed (Schein 1956; Lifton 1954; Lifton 1961 pp. 19-85) to applications that were carried out under nonconfined conditions, in which nonphysical coercion substituted for assault (Lifton 1961, pp. 242-273; Schein 1961, pp. 290-298). The individuals to whom these influence programs were applied were in some cases unwilling subjects (prisoner populations) and in other cases volunteers who sought to participate in what they believed might be a career-beneficial, educational experience (Lifton 1981, p. 248).
Psychologist Margaret Singer makes distinctions between various forms of persuasion including education, advertising, propaganda, indoctrination and thought reform.
See [
www.culteducation.com]
Sociologist Janja Lalich calls the type of choice made by cult members a "bounded choice."
See [
www.amazon.com]
It is important when discussing cults and the victims of cults to have an understanding of these issues.
There is a recovery section also included at this Web site.
See [
www.culteducation.com]
The articles linked can be helpful in sorting through issues after leaving a cult.
Survivors that have left McKay's group and other groups called "cults" deserve our sympathy if not empathy from those that have endured similar circumstances.
Lets try to keep all this in mind when posting here.