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Yahya ORHAN

20802632

09.05.2011

Research Paper/ Final Draft

Mind Control in Cults – Reality or Myth?

Can brainwashing or mind control activities of cults really be a threat to

individual liberty or is this totally a myth which is created by anti-cultists?

Mind control is an extremely complicated process of mental and psychological

manipulation which is generally used by some groups in order to gain adherents and

take advantage of them. Over the years, there has been lots of controversy about

cults and mind control. In this context, there are two different arguments which have

been highly disputed. Some believe that individuals’ free will should be protected

against mind control or brainwashing by manipulative cults, on the other hand, others

believe that mind control of cults is a myth which is used in an attempt to regulate

religious movements is a violation of religious liberty. Contrary to the idea of myth,

in my opinion, cultist doctrines cause the loss of the core of individual liberty

and due to manifold methods of cultish belief system; they impose on people

some special brainwashing techniques such as behavior, information, thought

and emotional control to reform their personalities. Even if cult apologists

claim that the public is prejudiced against cultist movements, I do believe that

such groups influence individuals’ free will and cause them to make choices

and decisions in favor of their groups by using brainwashing techniques.

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Cultist religions do not serve free exercise of religion, because they influence and

change individuals’ beliefs and worldview by using as mind control techniques.

Primarily, a cult aims to promote its cultish believe system on its members. According

to Marcia Hamilton’s article; “The Elizabeth Smart Case: Why We Need Specific

Laws against Brainwashing”, a person’s worldview or belief system determines the

free will of a person, because a person’s belief system is an essential element of

human beings which directly affects their choices and decisions. Hence, the meaning

of influencing and changing a person’s beliefs and worldviews is changing a person’s

will (Hamilton). Actually, a person’s free will or choices which are made can be

influenced in many directions by various outside effects such as their parents, school

teachers, friends and the media. However, all this external influences are not an open

threat to a person because parents or group of friends obviously do not try to change

someone’s free will or own choices; on the other hand, cults have a special agenda

to perform its techniques on people. Therefore, a person’s belief system or worldview

can be changed easily by a cultish belief system.

Furthermore, cults compel their members to join and remain in their group all the

time. Especially young and idealistic people can be more prone to be deceived by

cults. For example, some individuals who are about to change their career path like

entering a job or beginning college can be subject to the cultist doctrines (Dunlop). In

Turkey, some groups, called “Cemaat”, have become highly questionable because of

their actions. In their doctrine, they strongly believe the idea of sharing everything

that you have for god’s sake. Due to this doctrine, they give a hand to university

students by giving them money and inexpensive housing support regardless of

exploiting their indigence. Also they have established a low interest banking system

for their entrepreneurs who especially those who belongs their groups, can take out a

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loan from their banks and invest the money in what Cemaat points to them. Besides

this small communal life- Cemaat and its followers- they strongly recommend their

followers to read their publications, to watch their TV channels and to support their

political party. In detail, how are the members of Cemaat influenced by this money

trap? Some techniques which generally used by these cults such as “repetitive

chanting”, “obsessive prayer”, “repetitive tasks”, “evocation of sin and guilt” and

“intense peer pressure” can explain to how those coercive process paralyze the free

will of members and enslave the devotee (Mackey). For instance, Cemaat strongly

demands regularly watching its TV programs and reading its news papers from its

members and at the same time they press members to disseminate their programs to

outside. Also, these types of techniques make people very loyal to their groups and

force them to encourage the members to serve the purpose of cult’s doctrines.

Due to those facts, it can be asserted that creating a cultish belief system and

imposing it on its members are well-known doctrines of cults. Besides, cultic mind

control seeks to erode an individual’s personal integrity in making his own decisions.

Thus, it not only encourages submissiveness and dependence, but also discourages

autonomy and individuality.

Depending on the tenets of cultish belief system; cultists impose on people some

special brainwashing techniques such as behavior, information, thought and

emotional control to reform their character. Initially, behavior control in cults is an

important issue to determine how victims behave in their belief system. Steven

Hassan asserts in his article, “Combating Cult Mind Control”, that

“In cultist doctrine, they firstly begin with regulation of individual’s physical reality like what

clothes, colors, hairstyles the person wears. Each cult tries to control the person’s

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environment, especially the way he or she dresses and eats. Mormon missionaries dress

alike: white shirt, black tie, and a black backpack. Moustaches and beards are not permitted.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are always found to be clean cut, never with beards. “(Hassan).

Those psychical alterations on members of cults enable cults to control their

members not only way of inner life, but also appearance of members, so those

extreme alterations on cult members heavily impact on them as the first step of the

joining cults.

Furthermore, cults require their members plenty of tasks to perform properly. One

of the tasks is the commitment of time, which means keeping major time for cult’s

works, and it is also necessary for indoctrination periods and group rituals. As in

psychology experiments, experts carry out behavior reformation techniques like

positive and negative approaches on the persons by using rewards and

punishments. Also they strictly demand that every member needs to ask permission

to major decision (Hassan). As a result of these demands, one who is in the cultist

group starts to feel in need of obedience and dependency.

Information control is the other essential part of the cultist doctrines. The main aim

of this tenet is that intentionally holds back the amount of information in order not to

reach their members. For example, book, article, newspaper, and magazine reading,

and also watching TV and listening to the radio broadcasts are strictly restricted by

cults as to members of cult cannot be able to receive any information from outside

which conflicts with the cults’ doctrines. Another important aspect of restricting

information is keeping the members of the groups so busy (Hassan). For example,

members of the Cemaat read a red book, written by leader of the group and generally

mentioned about the doctrines of existential philosophy, and later they talk about the

references of the book, when they come together. Thus they do not find any time to

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think individualistically. Thereby, it can not be possible to evaluate their situation in

the cult. Moreover, today cults are more effective in the area of the press. They have

many media organs all around world and make their propaganda in order to attract

interest of new adherents. For instance, especially in Turkey and throughout the

world, Cemaat has hundreds of media organs which particularly are more effective in

developing countries. Today Cemaat’s one of the publication (Zaman and Today’s

Zaman) have high circulation in press which is approximately 1.000.000 circulation

average per day (Haber7). Due to the those facts, it is not hard to claim that

individuals who are under the influence of those media organs are controlled through

lack of information and also favorable information pollution so as to change people’s

way of thinking and ability of judgment gradually, because compared to other media

organs or press, Cemaat has huge source of money to reach more people by using

intensive advertising and broadcasts.

In thought control, the control mostly practices by getting the person only to focus

on cultist interactions. Questioning the doctrine is completely forbidden, because any

doubt is considered the work of devil in cults. In this mind control technique,

members are firstly directed to abstain from all doubts and contradictions and see

their leaders as God’s representative, is the only person who knows the absolute

truth. Steven Hassan also mentioned about this issue in his article:

“Seen as prophets, leaders interpret the events of the world and of the lives of their

followers. Followers are not even permitted to discern what’s happening in their lives.

Interpretation must be given by the cult, not the individual. For example, "This earthquake is

a sign of the end; You’re sick because God is punishing you or because the devil is attacking

you." Explanations are arbitrary since as the pastor sees it, sickness is caused by God or by

the devil.” (Hassan).

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As a result of this type of mind control, members of the cults perceive the whole world

in terms of black or white, good or evil.

In addition to the other control techniques, one of the most known control

technique in cult is emotional control. In this type of control, cultists manipulate the

person’s feelings with fear and make the person to believe he is guilty. According to

Cult Awareness & Information Centre’s research, in Australia, about emotional

control:

“The control of the individual's emotional life manipulates a person's range of feelings.

Guilt and fear are used to keep control. Cult members cannot see the control by guilt and like

other abuse victims are conditioned to blame themselves when things are wrong, even

grateful when a leader points our their transgressions. Fear is used to manipulate two ways.

The first is to create an outside enemy (we vs them) who is persecuting you. The second is

the fear of punishment by the leaders if you are not "good enough." Being "good enough" is

following the ideology perfectly. The most powerful emotional control is phobia indoctrination.

This can give the person a panic reaction at the very thought of leaving the group. It is almost

impossible to conceive that there is any life outside the group. There is no physical gun held

to their heads but the psychological gun is just as if not more powerful.”(Groenveld).

Excessive use of fear generally causes some mental problems among members

of the cult. After imposing the fact of fear, they do not think independently and they

depend on more the group in terms of decision- making; otherwise, they become

incapable in the eyes of cult something as getting a rejection from the cult (Hassan).

Those mind control techniques (behavior, information, thought and emotional

control) are strong evidence which is mostly related to scientific psychological and

sociological spheres and gives specific examples to how people are transformed in

the hands of cultish belief system. As it is mentioned above, there are variety of

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methods of mind control which are not considered being innocent and unfortunately,

people who get involved with cults are not aware of the fact that their minds, feelings,

actions, and thoughts are under the control of cultist doctrines.

Though lots of evidence displays the fact that cultish movements use plenty of

manipulative doctrines on people, some cult apologists still claim that the public is

prejudiced against cultist movements. Today many cult apologists try to justify the

deception of cultist doctrines. They strongly bolster the idea that every person seeks

to fulfill very legitimate needs of life such as trying to find a meaning, having a place

in an obviously caring community, or a real exploration of ideal ultimate life which is

the meeting of felt needs (Martinez). Even if those are all about the people’s natural

manners to understand life, cults strategically play a prominent role to bring people

into the fold and also manipulate people into seeking something as felt them special.

According to Dr. Margaret Singer’s research on how influence of cults impacts on

a huge amount of people in the United States:

"An estimated 5,000 economic, political, and religious groups operate in the United States

alone at any given time, with 2.5 million members. Over the last ten years, cults have used

tactics of coercive mind control to negatively impact an estimated 20 million victims in the last

ten years. Worldwide figures are even greater."(Singer).

Moreover, Dr. Richardson’s some small surveys about the spread of cults in the eyes

of public point out that:

“- Among a sample of 383 adults from a western U.S. state, 78% said that they believed that

brainwashing exists. 38% agreed that "brainwashing is required to make someone join a

religious cult."

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-Among a sample of 1,000 residents of New York State taken before a high-profile tax

evasion case involving Reverend Moon and the Unification Church, 43% agreed that

"brainwashing is required to make someone change from organized religion to a cult."

-Among a random sample of Oregonians who had been exposed to media reports on the

Rajneesh group, 69% agreed that members of that group had been brainwashed.”

(Richardson).

Of course one question comes to mind that if so many people aware the fact of

cults, why do cults spread over the world rapidly and become to gain popularity? I

think it seems as doctor and patient relations. A patient goes to doctor for a complaint

in his body and doctor check up his patient in order to find an answer to symptoms,

so if doctor find the ill point on the patient, he tries to remedy the illness; otherwise,

there is nothing to do for patient to cure his illness. Like this sample, in a society, a

person faces lots of difficulties in daily life. While sometimes they can cope with these

difficulties, sometimes they can not. In the second point, in case of failure from

difficulties, cults become the part of a solution for their problems by giving moral and

material support to them. Therefore, cults become unavoidable fact of a human

being. Today everybody can know something about the cults and say something

about negative things to them; however, if people do not realize the facts which are

mentioned above- mind control techniques in cults and its destructive coercions-,

they are in totally irremediable position against exposure of cults.

Mind control in cults has been controversial throughout the history. While some

skeptics favored the idea that cultist movements use some special techniques to

attract people to their side, others argue that those allegations are a conscious attack

on the freedom of cultist movements. However, it is obvious that they recruit large

numbers of young and idealistic people, who are displayed vulnerable behavior, or

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are more prone to act free for taking, to impose their doctrine readily due to the

usage of special mind control techniques such as behavior, information, thought and

emotional control. All in all, though some cult apologists totally disagree with the idea

of mind control in cults and they justify in some respects, the most effective mind-

control is the persuasion that isn't recognized by the victims in case of using

manipulative techniques of cults, because they use plenty of techniques to attract

people for their self-interest. Thus, I do believe that all kinds of cultist movements

steal individual’s liberty contrary to idea of violation of religious liberty.

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Works Cited

Dunlop, Mark. “The Nature of Cult Mind Control”, 2004. www.ex-cult.org Web.

20 April 2011.

Groenveld, Jan. “Cult Awareness & Information Centre”, 1994. www.reveal.org

Web. 29 April 2011.

Hamilton, Marci. “Why We Need Specific Laws Against Brainwashing”, 2003.

www.writ.news.findlaw.com Web. 20 April 2011

Hassan, Steven. “Combating Cult Mind Control” – “Protection, Rescue and Recovery

from Destructive Cults”, 2000. www.freedomofmind.com. Web. 20 April 2011

Martinez, Rafael. “Myth about Cults”, 2000. http://www.spiritwatch.org. Web. 29 April

2011.

One Million Circulations from Zaman. www.haber7.com. Web. 18 April 2011

Singer, Margaret. “Cults in Our Midst”, 1996. www.religioustolerance.org. Web. 02

May 2011.

Richardson, James T. "Brainwashing Claims and Minority Religions Outside the

United States: Cultural Diffusion of a Questionable Concept in the Legal Arena,"

Brigham Young University Law Review circa 1994. Web. 20 April 2011