It has happened to all of us in various degrees throughout our lives. . . Have you ever bought something because of a commercial? Ever tried anything you really did not want to because "everyone else was doing it?" Have you ever laughed along with an audience before you got the joke yourself because it seemed funny before you got it? Logic does not enter into the equation at those points in your life. 

Someone trapped in a cult is living in a world where conformity is the easiest and sometimes only safe action to take. How is this accomplished? Cult leaders have learned the secrets of manipulation through controlling the areas of life that make us who we are:

• Control of Authority: By encouraging trust in your leader, discouraging "gossip", ostracizing "doubters" and the like you begin to distrust even your own thoughts. With nowhere else to turn, you turn to the group, your comfort zone, others who believe "like you do" for strength and encouragement.

• Control of Behavior:  Behavior outside the group norm results in sneers, gossip, bad reports, guilt, shame - punishment. Right behavior gets you praise, much needed encouragement, celebration - rewards... Even in the little things your behavior is slowly and carefully modified. Before you are aware of it, you fit right in. You begin doing things you never would have though possible, but in this world - it is not only O.K., but necessary for survival.

• Control of Communication:  "Groupspeak," the language of the cult does several things to remove someone from society and into the cult. First, it establishes a superior attitude (you understand something most people don't). Second, it establishes group identity with those also "in the know." Third, it removes one from society by making communication with "outsiders" difficult because they do not understand the concepts behind the words you use. Fourth it discourages "bad-thinking" about the group... if you have no words, you have no thought (George Orwell discusses this beautifully in his novel 1984).

• Control of Environment:  Censoring relationships, reading, movies, lectures, etc. causes one to regress even further from the outside world, and also allows the leadership to fill in the blanks with disinformation which further alienates you from society, family, friends...

• Control of Feelings: Group experience is a very powerful motivator. Entertainers and leaders alike have learned to elicit response from a group environment. Once you have been learned certain cues, your behavior is controlled without you even noticing.

• Control of Personality: By discouraging actions resulting from your past, changing your name, encouraging "group confessions" of your "evil" (pre-cult) past, you are transformed into a "member"... possibly even forgetting your past. Why would you ever want to return?

• Control of Relations:  With such an emphasis on what is right or wrong within the group, outsiders become the enemy. It is us vs. them, and  there is no opportunity to find out differently. Persecution from the "evil" outside inevitably comes when you finally do venture out... just as the leader said it would. Where else can you turn now?

• Control of Social Contact: As you withdraw into the cult "family," you lose the support of any outside the group. Where could you turn if you left?

• Control of Time: Through endless programs and goals your time is so limited that you have no time to think or worry. Just getting through the day without major setbacks or problems become your only goal. "Just one more day, and I can rest..." but that day never comes. As your exhaustion takes over your mind opens up to any suggestion that leads to comfort. These words will, of course, only come when you are obedient and conforming.

Is this Mind Control?  

Not exactly. Notice that all of these are normally experienced by everyone, they are natural responses and needs in all people. These are basically sales tactics used by many groups (cult and non-cultic alike). It is when a person chooses to become totally focused on the cult that they become tools for the leadership to use, and weapons to wield to force obedience and allegiance.

True "mind control" relieves the victim of the ability (not just the desire) to choose otherwise. There is a huge difference between convincing someone to do something by means of coercion, and actually enslaving their wills. In reality, mind control appears to be practically impossible. This is demonstrated by several facts:

• Very few individuals have been shown to have been truly "converted" to a new behavior AND basic worldview (it is one thing to torture a person into changing their behavior, quite another to change their desire to act). This has been shown by the victims of "brainwashing" techniques used in the Korean war and the CIA's drug tests. . . the techniques were largely unsuccessful and later abandoned.

• If the world's top government agencies failed to perfect "brainwashing" techniques involving torture, drugs, etc. it is hardly reasonable to think that thousands of cult leaders (many of whom have little education) could have done it with mere words.

• People DO leave. If mind control were the issue, there would be a significant number who never leave. Many do, and are not scarred for life afterward.

• Many never join a cult. Even those exposed to high pressure tactics never get involved, if the cult leader had a foolproof strategy, most would agree to stay with the cult.

• The "deprogramming" techniques some "exit counselors" use to get people out of a cult are based on reasonable approaches - they assume a rational, free mind! If the cultist were truly under some magical spell, those very techniques would be useless. The success rate of these deprogrammers is basically the same as the natural rate of loss a cult experiences over time anyway. It is generally only those who are told they were brainwashed that end up thinking that they were. People leaving the same cults for personal reasons do not.

The point to this is: cultists are still free humans who are responsible for the choices they make. It may make us feel much better thinking that our loved one is under someone else's control and so blame that person for their behavior, but we must face the reality that they are in fact acting on their own wishes much of the time.

All of the above techniques are designed to do one thing: remove a person from society and align them with the group. The steps taken to affect this change are as follows:

• Undermine the person's identity: undermine self confidence using punishment, peer pressure, guilt, shame... make them see how wrong they are and what happens to unacceptable people.

• Offer an improved identity: Reward right behavior with applause, encouragement, celebration, and affirmation... make them see how good it can be when they are accepted.

• Reinforce new identity: Continuing with the above procedures, solidify person's new identity within the group by alienating them from the world and making the "group family" their family.

• Fear of being wrong (either way).
• Belief in the group, the leadership, or the cause.
• Loyalty to those they committed to, not wanting to become quitters.
• Respect for authority, teachers, leaders.
• Instinct for survival in their environment.
• Pressure from peers.
• Community of others who don't see a problem (or, more likely, won't admit it).
• Threat of punishment or revenge for leaving.
• Dependency on the group for acceptance, affirmation, decision making, in some cases livelihood.
• Guilt over their participation in certain actions.
• Shame over lost time.
• Loss of social skills, identity, interaction with society.

Conclusion

It is important to realize that some or all of these techniques are used in everyday life in non-cult situations. Friends use fear and guilt to get other friends to act in accordance with their will. Families have been known to use loyalty and community to put pressure on each other to go certain directions in life. If these techniques are used to define a cult, then all religions, families, organizations, etc. could be mistaken for mind controlling cultists!

It is also unfair to blame one for someone else's actions. Emotional persuasion does not free one of responsibility. The "victim mentality" of the late 20th century has done nothing but increase crime as individuals are told not to feel guilty for their actions, but to instead blame genetics or upbringing. While these factors do come into play, free-willed individuals are still answerable to the basic laws of right and wrong.