> ## CONDITIONS FOR MIND CONTROL

> ### DR. MARGARET SINGER

> (Margaret T. Singer, Ph.D., Emeritus Prof. of Psychology, Univ. of CA, Berkeley)

> ### THOUGHT REFORM = LANGUAGE + SOCIAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCE

> In a thought reform program:
> - the self concept is destabilized
> - the group/leaders attack one's evaluation of self

> #### SELF: 2 Elements in one's self-concept

> - Peripheral Sense: adequacy of public & judgmental aspects, social status, role performance, conformity to social norms
> - Central Sense of Self: adequacy of intimate life, confidence in perception of reality, relations w/family, goals, sexual experiences, traumatic life events, religious beliefs, basic consciousness and emotional control
> When you attack a person's self-concept, aversive emotional arousal is created

> ## 6 Conditions that need to be present in order to Constitute Mind Control:

> 1. #### Control over time

>    - Especially thinking time
>    - Use techniques to get a person to think about:
>      - the group
>      - beliefs of the group
>    - as much of their waking time as possible.

> 2. #### Create a sense of powerlessness

>    - Get people away from normal support systems for a period of time
>    - Provide models of behavior (cult members)
>    - Use in-group language
>    - Use of songs, games, stories the person is unfamiliar with or they are modified so that they're unfamiliar
>    - New people tend to want to be like others (acceptance, feeling part of a group)

> 3. #### Manipulate Rewards, Punishments, Experiences in order to Suppress old Social Behavior

>    - MANIPULATE: social rewards intellectual rewards
>    - REWARDS: support positive self-concept for conformity to new thought system
>    - PUNISHMENTS: attack person's self-concept for non-conformity

>    #### Effects of behavioral modification (reward/punishment):

>    #### Deployable Agent:

>    1. accept a particular world view
>    2. procedures for peer monitoring w/feedback to group
>    3. psychological, social & material sanctions to influence the target's behavior

>    #### When there is control of external feedback, the group becomes the only source -- there are no reality checks

>    - BEHAVIORS REWARDED: participation, conformity to ideas/behavior, zeal, personal changes
>    - BEHAVIORS PUNISHED: criticalness, independent thinking, non-conformity to ideas/behavior
>    - PUNISHMENTS: peer/group criticism, withdrawal of support/affection, isolation, negative feedback

>    #### The person is Dependent upon the Group for External Validation of Social Idenity

>    RESULTS: confusion, disorientation, psychological disturbances
>    - Manipulate experience:
>      - altered states of consciousness (trance)
>      - hypnosis
>    - Hypnosis: (see Ericksonian hypnosis)
>      - speaking patterns
>      - guided imagery
>      - pacing of voice to breathing patterns
>      - parables, stories with imbedded messages
>      - repetition
>      - boredom
>      - stop paying attention to distractions, focus inwardly to what's going on inside you
>      - the use of one's voice to get people's attention focused
>    - Chanting, Meditation
>    - Teach thought-stopping techniques
>    - Work them up emotionally to a negative state:
>      - re-experience past painful events
>      - recall negative actions/sin in past life

>    #### Then rescue them from negative emotion by giving them a new way to live

> 4. #### Manipulate Rewards, Punishments, Experiences in order to Elicit New Behavior

>    - Models will demonstrate new behavior
>    - Conformity: dress, language, behavior
>    - Using group language will eventually still the thinking mind

> 5. #### MUST BE A TIGHTLY CONTROLLED SYSTEM OF LOGIC

>    - No complaints from the floor
>    - Pyramid shaped operation with leader at the top
>    - Top leaders must maintain absolute control/authority
>    - Persons in charge must have verbal ways of never losing
>    - Anyone who questions is made to think there is something inherently wrong with them to even question
>    - Phobia induction:
>      - something bad will happen if you leave the group
>      - if you leave this group, you're leaving God
>    - Guilt manipulation

> 6. #### Persons being Thought Reformed Must be Unaward that they are being moved through a program to make them deployable agents
>    To buy more courses, sign up for the duration, ect.

>    - You can't be thought reformed with full capacity, informed consent
>    - You don't know the agenda of the group at the beginning or the full content of the ideology

>    #### THOUGHT REFORM SYSTEM:

>    - Coordinated programs of coercive influence and behavior control
>    - Use of pop psychology techniques found in sensitivity training and encounters groups

>    #### 2nd Generation Thought Reform Systems (attacks on central elements of self):

>    1. enlist recruit's cooperation, offer something they want (personal growth, salvation, etc.)
>    2. obtain psychological dominace by making the target's continuing relations contingent upon continuing membership
>    3. use seduction by developing bonds and encouraging targets to believe the group can provide something
>    4. develop dependency by direct social pressure to influence a decision that the group has special power or knowledge or can solve a problem; the people in the group are made to seem interested in what is best for the target -- then they "up the commitment level"
>    5. shift the target's social and emotional attachments to individuals who have already accepted high commitment and are conforming to the behavior
>       WHILE
>       decreasing the target's outside relationships
>    6. increase the CHANGES in the target's:
>       - income
>       - employment
>       - personal friends/social life
>       - finances
>       - sexuality

>       This increases the THREATS to the person if they want to Leave
>       ARE TO THE INDIVIDUAL'S

>       - stability of identity
>       - emotional well-being
>    7. the community standards become the ONLY standards available for self-evaluation

>    #### CULTS AND CULTIC RELATIONSHIPS

>    CULT - the political and power STRUCTURE of a group
>    CULTIC RELATIONSHIP - those relationships in which a person intentionally induces others to become totally or nearly totally dependent on him/her for almost all major life decisions and inculcates in these followers a belief that he has some special talent, gift or knowledge

>    ##### PRIMARY IN OUR DISCUSSION OF CULTS IS THE PRACTICE AND CONDUCT OF THE GROUP, NOT ITS BELIEFS

>    ##### Further references:

>    Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. Robert J. Lifton, M.D., University of N.C., Chapel Hill, 1989 Chapter 22

>    "Attacks on Peripheral versus Central Elements of Self and the Impact of Thought Reforming Techniques" Richard Ofshe and Margaret T. Singer, The Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 3 #1, Spring/Summer 1986; American Family Foundation, P.O. Box 1232, Gracie Station, New York, NY 10028 (212) 533-0538

>    "The Utilization of Hypnotic Techniques in Religious Conversion" Jesse S. Miller, The Cultic Studies Journal,Vol. 3 #2, Fall/Winter 1986

>    Recovery from Cults. ed. Michael Langone, Ph.D., W.W. Norton, 1994