Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS) => Topic started by: anythinganyone on September 06, 2009, 12:52:36 AM
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I literally can't read this.
I see the words, the words form concepts and images, and a piece of my brain says "Nuh-uh!" and it dissipates into nothing but half-formed nightmares. And I feel sorry for those of you who can make sense of this.
To whoever this happened to, words don't even describe it.
And whoever did it, their souls need to be vaporized and never reformed anywhere. Hell is too good for them.
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:notworthy: :notworthy: :peace: :peace: :peace: :rose: :'(
Such unspeakable evil
Robert Lichfield is a mass murderer
Karr Farnsworth is a mass murderer
ken kay is a mass murderer
jay kay is a mass murderer
The following are mass murderers:
CROSS CREEK PROGRAMS - 150 North State Street, La Verkin, UT 84745
435-635-0600 Fax 435-635-9055 http://www.crosscreekprograms.com (http://www.crosscreekprograms.com)
Karr Farnsworth 435-635-6003 Cell 435-229-5277 FAX 435-635-2331 karr@crosscreekprograms.
Kerry Gubler 435-635-6004 Cell 435-229-4724 jeni@crosscreekprograms.com (http://mailto:jeni@crosscreekprograms.com)
Riitta Nugent 435-635-6033 Cell 435-229-6706 riitta@crosscreekprograms.com
North Campus 435-635-4660
Dallas Willden Cell 435-229-7623
Academics Andrea Gardner 435-635-6016 FAX 435-635-1099
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Thanks guys, I ended up adding more stuff to the testimony and making some grammatical fixes and so forth. I keep remembering stuff randomly that I completely forgot; there's so much stuff to write, it's ridiculous. I'll try to make it clearer and fix the grammar if people find it difficult to comprehend.
Karr Farnsworth 435-635-6003 Cell 435-229-5277 FAX 435-635-2331 karr@crosscreekprograms.
Kerry Gubler 435-635-6004 Cell 435-229-4724 jeni@crosscreekprograms.com (http://mailto:jeni@crosscreekprograms.com)
Riitta Nugent 435-635-6033 Cell 435-229-6706 riitta@crosscreekprograms.com
North Campus 435-635-4660
Dallas Willden Cell 435-229-7623
Academics Andrea Gardner 435-635-6016 FAX 435-635-1099
Karr and Kerry are the owners of Cross Creek, but we rarely saw them, and they were not involved much with the students (more the upper levels). Kerry was almost never seen on campus, and they mostly dealt with the business side of things (as told to me by a staff).
Riitta Nugent is Ron Garett's wife. She's from some European country, (I believe Finland). She scheduled seminars and facilitated the seminar pre-meetings.
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The format makes it difficult to read in one sitting, though the content itself is quite clear in its descriptions. Break it up into smaller postings and elaborate on some of items that you didn't discuss in depth.
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I was going to comment on that, che. I originally read it double spaced in word format. It's very well written and the formatting here just doesn't do it justice. Without spacing between the paragraphs as reference points it's easy for they eye to get lost.
Content wise... There's so much that I can relate to.
I was then told that I would need to start a “confession letter”, which he and my parents would read. I would have to write two pages a day until it was finished, or it was a cat 4 refusal, and I was not allowed to omit anything. When I did not finish two pages for one day, my HOPE buddy was given permission by my therapist to read my handwriting in order to determine if my confession letter was honest, in-depth, and satisfactory for the day.
That's the real essence of disclosures in program. They aren't really looking for the truth. They're looking for trumped up confessions they can use against you. Use against you with your parents, with your peers, to shame you and beat you down, to cut you off, to give you only one way out (the program)... to make you think that maybe you do have a problem when you don't... to pressure until you agree... to pressure you until you believe. It's just class A mindfucking from beginning to end. It's not about helping a person to get better from any legitimate ailment, it's about convincing people they have problems they don't have in order to make money off a lengthy and costly snake oil "cure"... It's about turning a person into a billboard parroting "the program saved my life" without any real thought going on behind it.
What really hurts me about all this shit is that half these kids come away so deeply scarred that even when they *know* there was nothing wrong there's this little phobia... irrational fear... doubt constantly whispering in your ear "you'll fail without us" like a curse. Everything you're told rattles off again and again listening to the radio or watching I. I hear "fake it til you make it" on some song lyric and I can't help thinking about being forced to act like I believed in the bullshit and then slowly starting to believe it and become somebody else transparently. Sure there was a definite breaking point where I really lost it and swallowed the whole program hook line and sinker, but what's far more insidious is the influence I didn't notice until later. The subtle ways they changed kids, distracted by the larger stresses. Incremental compromises.
I suppose out of all of it I've learned to never give an inch of your values under pressure or you'll lose yourself. It's not so much what they take as much as what you don't realize you give until it's too late. I suppose hindsight is 20/20. Grow at your own pace and of your own free will, sure, but not to satisfy others, even if it makes your life easier.
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This reminds me of what we made the kids do at Three Springs. In order for them to get to the first step of the stage system the had to come clean with the reasons for why they needed to be in the program. Same shit, different wrapper.
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And of course somebody else who has no first hand knowlege is checking your "honesty"; the implication being that a perfect stranger knows you better than you know yourself, eroding your concept of self and replacing it with a group's perception of who you are. It's subtle and transparent but it's powerful.
Straight out of Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism (http://http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing19.html#The%20Cult%20of%20Confession)
Closely related to the demand for absolute purity is an obsession with personal confession. Confession is carried beyond its ordinary religious, legal, and therapeutic expressions to the point of becoming a cult in itself. There is the demand that one confess to crimes one has not committed, to sinfulness that is artificially induced, in the name of a cure that is arbitrarily imposed. Such demands are made possible not only by the ubiquitous human tendencies toward guilt and shame but also by the need to give expression to these tendencies. In totalist hands, confession becomes a means of exploiting, rather than offering solace for, these vulnerabilities.
The totalist confession takes on a number of special meanings. It is first a vehicle for the kind of personal purification which we have just discussed, a means of maintaining a perpetual inner emptying or psychological purge of impurity; this purging milieu enhances the totalists' hold upon existential guilt. Second, it is an act of symbolic self-surrender, the expression of the merging of individual and environment. Third, it is a means of maintaining an ethos of total exposure - a policy of making public (or at least known to the Organization) everything possible about the life experiences, thoughts, and passions of each individual, and especially those elements which might be regarded as derogatory.
The assumption underlying total exposure (besides those which relate to the demand for purity) is the environment's claim to total ownership of each individual self within it. Private ownership of the mind and its products - of imagination or of memory - becomes highly immoral. The accompanying rationale (or rationalization) is familiar, the milieu has attained such a perfect state of enlightenment that any individual retention of ideas or emotions has become anachronistic.
The cult of confession can offer the individual person meaningful psychological satisfactions in the continuing opportunity for emotional catharsis and for relief of suppressed guilt feelings, especially insofar as these are associated with self-punitive tendencies to get pleasure from personal degradation. More than this, the sharing of confession enthusiasms can create an orgiastic sense of "oneness," of the most intense intimacy with fellow confessors and of the dissolution of self into the great flow of the Movement. And there is also, at least initially, the possibility of genuine self-revelation and of self-betterment through the recognition that "the thing that has been exposed is what I am."
But as totalist pressures turn confession into recurrent command performances, the element of histrionic public display takes precedence over genuine inner experience. Each man becomes concerned with the effectiveness of his personal performance, and this performance sometimes comes to serve the function of evading the very emotions and ideas about which one feels most guilty - confirming the statement by one of Camus' characters that "authors of confessions write especially to avoid confessing, to tell nothing of what they know." The difficulty, of course, lies in the inevitable confusion which takes place between the actor's method and his separate personal reality, between the performer and the "real me."
In this sense, the cult of confession has effects quite the reverse of its ideal of total exposure: rather than eliminating personal secrets, it increases and intensifies them. In any situation the personal secret has two important elements: first, guilty and shameful ideas which one wishes to suppress in order to prevent their becoming known by others or their becoming too prominent in one's own awareness; and second, representations of parts of oneself too precious to be expressed except when alone or when involved in special loving relationships formed around this shared secret world. Personal secrets are always maintained in opposition to inner pressures toward self-exposure. The totalist milieu makes contact with these inner pressures through its own obsession with the expose and the unmasking process. As a result old secrets are revived and new ones proliferate; the latter frequently consist of resentments toward or doubts about the Movement, or else are related to aspects of identity still existing outside of the prescribed ideological sphere. Each person becomes caught up in a continuous conflict over which secrets to preserve and which to surrender, over ways to reveal lesser secrets in order to protect more important ones; his own boundaries between the secret and the known, between the public and the private, become blurred. And around one secret, or a complex of secrets, there may revolve an ultimate inner struggle between resistance and self-surrender.
Finally, the cult of confession makes it virtually impossible to attain a reasonable balance between worth and humility. The enthusiastic and aggressive confessor becomes like Camus' character whose perpetual confession is his means of judging others: "…practice the profession of penitent to be able to end up as a judge…the more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you." The identity of the "judge-penitent" thus becomes a vehicle for taking on some of the environment's arrogance and sense of omnipotence. Yet even this shared omnipotence cannot protect him from the opposite (but not unrelated) feelings of humiliation and weakness, feelings especially prevalent among those who remain more the enforced penitent than the all-powerful judge.
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Okay, I put it in CODE format, and I spaced out the paragraphs. Does that help any?
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Thank you Anythinganyone,
I don’t have adequate words to describe how moved I am by this. I’m sorry this was done to you and everyone else this has been done to.
I’m impressed by how much it must have required of you to revisit this, and to have told it so resoundingly.
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Okay, I put it in CODE format, and I spaced out the paragraphs. Does that help any?
Very much.
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That really doesn't sound all that bad, I wouldn't have any issues sending my kid there if needed.
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That really doesn't sound all that bad, I wouldn't have any issues sending my kid there if needed.
Mmmm. Sounds like you read anythinganyone's story real carefully. Tell us, Guest, specifically, what portions of that ordeal you found especially acceptable!
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That really doesn't sound all that bad, I wouldn't have any issues sending my kid there if needed.
That's because you have not been indoctrinated into the fornits cult. To regular people programs are a useful tool to help a troubled teenager solve their issues and move on with their life. To the people posting on fornits, programs are an evil force worth dedicating their worthless lives to spend all day on an internet site. IT doesn't make any sense, I wouldn't try to understand it though because they are mostly crazy.
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That really doesn't sound all that bad, I wouldn't have any issues sending my kid there if needed.
That's because you have not been indoctrinated into the fornits cult. To regular people programs are a useful tool to help a troubled teenager solve their issues and move on with their life. To the people posting on fornits, programs are an evil force worth dedicating their worthless lives to spend all day on an internet site. IT doesn't make any sense, I wouldn't try to understand it though because they are mostly crazy.
You are awfully busy today!
BTW, I think Im officially stalking you at this point.
I can't help it. I have no life, no job, the program turned my cerebellum into marmite. But I like you. You sound so strong and forceful. It makes my one inch cock twitch.
Also, I really like what you are wearing today. Or at least, what I can see through my binoculars.
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To regular people programs are a useful tool to help a troubled teenager solve their issues and move on with their life.
Now there's an original idea I don't think anyone's tried before. Does that "help" entail any facsimile of "informed consent?" What could possibly go wrong?!
Again, do tell us, Guest, specifically, what portions of anythinganyone's ordeal you found especially acceptable!
(Hint: actually reading it might give you some ideas.)
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Mmmm. Sounds like you read anythinganyone's story real carefully. Tell us, Guest, specifically, what portions of that ordeal you found especially acceptable!
I read it plenty carefully, be careful what you assume about people because it's probably wrong. What portion's did I find especially acceptable. Hmm. Give me a moment. OK, how about this?
I was forbidden to masturbate, along with all other suicide watches, staff buddies, and hygiene watches. It was very difficult, and I would often spend time in class sitting in my desk fantasising about sex. It was a cat 5 to masturbate in bed or anywhere else unless you had the privilege of using the dorm showers, in which case you could in those. My therapist said many times that masturbation was “unhealthy”, and he once told me that it was good for me to have a break from it.
I bet you found that especially acceptable, right, Ursus? Don't deny your rising sexual excitement as you imagine sex starved teenage boys, sleeping together half nude every night. Admit it, Ursus, this turns you on, doesn't it?
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Mmmm. Sounds like you read anythinganyone's story real carefully. Tell us, Guest, specifically, what portions of that ordeal you found especially acceptable!
I read it plenty carefully, be careful what you assume about people because it's probably wrong. What portion's did I find especially acceptable. Hmm. Give me a moment. OK, how about this?
I was forbidden to masturbate, along with all other suicide watches, staff buddies, and hygiene watches. It was very difficult, and I would often spend time in class sitting in my desk fantasising about sex. It was a cat 5 to masturbate in bed or anywhere else unless you had the privilege of using the dorm showers, in which case you could in those. My therapist said many times that masturbation was “unhealthy”, and he once told me that it was good for me to have a break from it.
I bet you found that especially acceptable, right, Ursus? Don't deny your rising sexual excitement as you imagine sex starved teenage boys, sleeping together half nude every night. Admit it, Ursus, this turns you on, doesn't it?
Lol. Well, no, actually. I can't say that it does. But I do find it curious that this particular passage, out of all the passages in that very l-o-n-g personal statement, is the one that resonated with you the most. It makes me wonder -- in light of your other comments -- whether you are a closeted self-hating homophobic gay old goat, or whether you have a kid who just happens to be homosexual, and who you think you can ship out to be "cured."
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Lol. Well, no, actually. I can't say that it does. But I do find it curious that this particular passage, out of all the passages in that very l-o-n-g personal statement, is the one that resonated with you the most. It makes me wonder whether you are a closeted self-hating homophobic gay old goat, or whether you have a kid who just happens to be gay, and who you think you can ship out to be "cured."
How did you guess? You must be some kind of psychic, you can be honest, Ursus. I am actually program shopping right now to find a good program to gay-cure my son. Luckily I found CCM which seems to be the right place, "The Gay Agenda" book is a sure sign this is the right place for my son. Thank you Ursus for showing me how foolish I am, as a closeted self-hating homophobic gay old goat, I have learned my lesson.
I also got a kick out of nitpicking rules, and snitching on people, and writing SOFs. I felt it nearly my duty to point out every single tiny rule someone broke, and partially it was. It was a requirement to snitch on people; if you witnessed something happen and didn’t say anything, it was withholding information, hence a cat 4 insubordination.
The power of brainwashing! Hee, hee.
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That really doesn't sound all that bad, I wouldn't have any issues sending my kid there if needed.
That's because you have not been indoctrinated into the fornits cult. To regular people programs are a useful tool to help a troubled teenager solve their issues and move on with their life. To the people posting on fornits, programs are an evil force worth dedicating their worthless lives to spend all day on an internet site. IT doesn't make any sense, I wouldn't try to understand it though because they are mostly crazy.
You are awfully busy today!
BTW, I think Im officially stalking you at this point.
I can't help it. I have no life, no job, the program turned my cerebellum into marmite. But I like you. You sound so strong and forceful. It makes my one inch cock twitch.
Also, I really like what you are wearing today. Or at least, what I can see through my binoculars.
which troll is this?
Any, as has been said before--these people who did this to you are below josef fritzl on the humanity scarle. I am outraged and saddened you even had to be in the same room as them, let alone get forced into an abusive relatinship with them. They are absolute souless monsters.
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I bet you found that especially acceptable, right, Ursus? Don't deny your rising sexual excitement as you imagine sex starved teenage boys, sleeping together half nude every night. Admit it, Ursus, this turns you on, doesn't it?
While some students could gain the privilege of sleeping without a shirt, we did not sleep together, and it was a cat 5 to even touch someone when they were lying in bed. Sorry to ruin your fun.
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I also updated it to a newer revision I made.
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What you went through seems like a concentrated version of all the programs that came before. Frightening to think these programs are becoming even more abusive as the years go by. Lack of oversight and regulations I suppose.
I could not imagine being in constant fear of endless punishments. It sounds like they had so many punishment-based rules because they never wanted you to feel like you were safe from punishment. I went to RMA and we had two punishments. Work Details and Full Times. They were horrible, humiliating experiences, but nothing compared to the evil you had to endure.
It really sounds, from your description, that they have refined these programs to make them as abusive and demeaning and destructive as they could possibly make them. But we live in a society that now considers torture to be acceptable, so it is no wonder there's no concern about how vile these programs are becoming.
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bump. Great thread.
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It is a great thread. Difficult to read though....brings back many horrible memories. This could have been written by a Straight survivor, changing just a bit of the cultspeak/loaded language. It never ceases to amaze me that people think this kind of crap is useful, let alone safe. Especially to a child and one who's considered "troubled" to begin with. This is why I say that programs that use these methods of "therapy" (read, quackery) are inherently and systemically dangerous.
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programs that use these methods of "therapy" (read, quackery) are inherently and systemically dangerous.
Why?
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programs that use these methods of "therapy" (read, quackery) are inherently and systemically dangerous.
Why?
Because that isn't therapy. It's thought-reform and mind control, detailed below. Did you read that (OP) and honestly not see anything abusive in it?
http://www.ex-cult.org/ (http://www.ex-cult.org/)
# Lifton's Criteria for Thought Reform (see below)
# Conditions for Mind Control (Margaret Singer)
# Mind Control - The BITE Model (Steven Hassan)b (see below)
# A Behavioral Definition (of 'cult') (Kevin Crawley)
# Identifying a Cult (Jan Groenveld)
# Totalism & Group Dynamics (Jan Groenveld)
DR. ROBERT J. LIFTON'S CRITERIA FOR THOUGHT REFORM
THOUGHT REFORM: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TOTALISM
CHAPTER 22
(Chapel Hill, 1989)
THE FUTURE OF IMMORTALITY
CHAPTER 15 (New York 1987)
Any ideology -- that is, any set of emotionally-charged convictions
about men and his relationship to the natural or supernatural world
-- may be carried by its adherents in a totalistic direction. But
this is most likely to occur with those ideologies which are most
sweeping in their content and most ambitious or messianic in
their claim, whether a religious or political organization. And
where totalism exists, a religion, or a political movement becomes
little more than an exclusive cult.
Here you will find a set of criteria, eight psychological themes against
which any environment may be judged. In combination, they create an
atmosphere which may temporarily energize or exhilarate, but which at the
same time pose the gravest of human threats.
(BRIEF OUTLINE)
1. MILIEU CONTROL
the most basic feature is the control of human communication within
and environment if the control is extremely intense, it becomes
internalized control -- an attempt to manage an individual's inner
communication control over all a person sees, hears, reads, writes
(information control)
creates conflicts in respect to individual autonomy
groups express this in several ways: Group process, isolation from
other people, psychological pressure, geographical distance or
unavailable transportation, sometimes physical pressure
often a sequence of events, such as seminars, lectures, group
encounters, which become increasingly intense and increasingly
isolated, making it extremely difficult-- both physically and
psychologically--for one to leave.
sets up a sense of antagonism with the outside world; it's us
against them
closely connected to the process of individual change (of personality)
2. MYSTICAL MANIPULATION (Planned spontaneity)
extensive personal manipulation
seeks to promote specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such
a way that it appears to have arisen spontaneously from within the
environment, while it actually has been orchestrated
totalist leaders claim to be agents chosen by God, history, or
some supernatural force, to carry out the mystical imperative
the "principles" (God-centered or otherwise) can be put forcibly and
claimed exclusively, so that the cult and its beliefs become the only
true path to salvation (or enlightenment)
the individual then develops the psychology of the pawn, and
participates actively in the manipulation of others
the leader who becomes the center of the mystical manipulation (or
the person in whose name it is done) can be sometimes more real than
an abstract god and therefore attractive to cult members
legitimizes the deception used to recruit new members and/or raise
funds, and the deception used on the "outside world"
3. THE DEMAND FOR PURITY
the world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure, the
absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely evil
(everything outside the group)
one must continually change or conform to the group "norm"
tendencies towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for
the group's controlling and manipulative influences
once a person has experienced the totalist polarization of good/evil
(black/white thinking), he has great difficulty in regaining a more
balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human morality
the radical separation of pure/impure is both within the environment
(the group) and the individual
ties in with the process of confession -- one must confess when one
is not conforming
4. CONFESSION
cultic confession is carried beyond its ordinary religious, legal
and therapeutic expressions to the point of becoming a cult in itself
sessions in which one confesses to one's sin are accompanied by
patterns of criticism and self-criticism, generally transpiring within
small groups with an active and dynamic thrust toward personal change
is an act of symbolic self-surrender
makes it virtually impossible to attain a reasonable balance between
worth and humility
a young person confessing to various sins of pre-cultic existence can
both believe in those sins and be covering over other ideas and
feelings that s/he is either unaware of or reluctant to discuss
often a person will confess to lesser sins while holding on to other
secrets (often criticisms/questions/doubts about the group/leaders
that may cause them not to advance to a leadership position)
"the more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you"
5. SACRED SCIENCE
the totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic
doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision for the
ordering of human existence
questioning or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited
a reverence is demanded for the ideology/doctrine, the originators of
the ideology/doctrine, the present bearers of the ideology/doctrine
offers considerable security to young people because it greatly
simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a
sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying
the truth about human behavior and human psychology
6. LOADING THE LANGUAGE
the language of the totalist environment is characterized by the
thought-terminating cliche (thought-stoppers)
repetitiously centered on all-encompassing jargon
"the language of non-thought"
words are given new meanings -- the outside world does not use the
words or phrases in the same way -- it becomes a "group" word or
phrase
7. DOCTRINE OVER PERSON
every issue in one's life can be reduced to a single set of principles
that have an inner coherence to the point that one can claim the
experience of truth and feel it
the pattern of doctrine over person occurs when there is a conflict
between what one feels oneself experiencing and what the doctrine or
ideology says one should experience
if one questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group,
one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them
to even question -- it is always "turned around" on them and the
questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than the questions answered
directly
the underlying assumption is that doctrine/ideology is ultimately more
valid, true and real than any aspect of actual human character or
human experience and one must subject one's experience to that "truth"
the experience of contradiction can be immediately associated with guilt
one is made to feel that doubts are reflections of one's own evil
when doubt arises, conflicts become intense
8. DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE
since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who
are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not
saved, and do not have the right to exist
"being verses nothingness"
impediments to legitimate being must be pushed away or destroyed
one outside the group may always receive their right of existence by
joining the group
fear manipulation -- if one leaves this group, one leaves God or loses
their transformation, for something bad will happen to them
the group is the "elite", outsiders are "of the world", "evil",
"unenlightened", etc.
ex-cult Resource Center
Mind Control - The BITE Model
From chapter two of Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves
© 2000 by Steven Hassan - published by Freedom of Mind Press, Somerville MA
Destructive mind control can be understood in terms of four basic components, which form the acronym BITE:
I. Behavior Control
II. Information Control
III. Thought Control
IV. Emotional Control
I. Behavior Control
1. Regulation of individual’s physical reality
a. Where, how and with whom the member lives and associates with
b. What clothes, colors, hairstyles the person wears
c. What food the person eats, drinks, adopts, and rejects
d. How much sleep the person is able to have
e. Financial dependence
f. Little or no time spent on leisure, entertainment, vacations
2. Major time commitment required for indoctrination sessions and group rituals
3. Need to ask permission for major decisions
4. Need to report thoughts, feelings and activities to superiors
5. Rewards and punishments (behavior modification techniques- positive and negative).
5. Individualism discouraged; group think prevails
6. Rigid rules and regulations
7. Need for obedience and dependency
II. Information Control
1. Use of deception
a. Deliberately holding back information
b. Distorting information to make it acceptable
c. Outright lying
2. Access to non-cult sources of information minimized or discouraged
a. Books, articles, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio
b. Critical information
c. Former members
d. Keep members so busy they don’t have time to think
3. Compartmentalization of information; Outsider vs. Insider doctrines
a. Information is not freely accessible
b. Information varies at different levels and missions within pyramid
c. Leadership decides who "needs to know" what
4. Spying on other members is encouraged
a. Pairing up with "buddy" system to monitor and control
b. Reporting deviant thoughts, feelings, and actions to leadership
5. Extensive use of cult generated information and propaganda
a. Newsletters, magazines, journals, audio tapes, videotapes, etc.
b. Misquotations, statements taken out of context from non-cult sources
6. Unethical use of confession
a. Information about "sins" used to abolish identity boundaries
b. Past "sins" used to manipulate and control; no forgiveness or absolution
III. Thought Control
1. Need to internalize the group’s doctrine as "Truth"
a. Map = Reality
b. Black and White thinking
c. Good vs. evil
d. Us vs. them (inside vs. outside)
2. Adopt "loaded" language (characterized by "thought-terminating clichés"). Words are the tools we use to think with. These "special" words constrict rather than expand understanding. They function to reduce complexities of experience into trite, platitudinous "buzz words".
3. Only "good" and "proper" thoughts are encouraged.
4. Thought-stopping techniques (to shut down "reality testing" by stopping "negative" thoughts and allowing only "good" thoughts); rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism.
a. Denial, rationalization, justification, wishful thinking
b. Chanting
c. Meditating
d. Praying
e. Speaking in "tongues"
f. Singing or humming
5. No critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy seen as legitimate
6. No alternative belief systems viewed as legitimate, good, or useful
IV. Emotional Control
1. Manipulate and narrow the range of a person’s feelings.
2. Make the person feel like if there are ever any problems it is always their fault, never the leader’s or the group’s.
3. Excessive use of guilt
a. Identity guilt
1. Who you are (not living up to your potential)
2. Your family
3. Your past
4. Your affiliations
5. Your thoughts, feelings, actions
b. Social guilt
c. Historical guilt
4. Excessive use of fear
a. Fear of thinking independently
b. Fear of the "outside" world
c. Fear of enemies
d. Fear of losing one’s "salvation"
e. Fear of leaving the group or being shunned by group
f. Fear of disapproval
5. Extremes of emotional highs and lows.
6. Ritual and often public confession of "sins".
7. Phobia indoctrination : programming of irrational fears of ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader’s authority. The person under mind control cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group.
a. No happiness or fulfillment "outside"of the group
b. Terrible consequences will take place if you leave: "hell"; "demon possession"; "incurable diseases"; "accidents"; "suicide"; "insanity"; "10,000 reincarnations"; etc.
c. Shunning of leave takers. Fear of being rejected by friends, peers, and family.
d. Never a legitimate reason to leave. From the group’s perspective, people who leave are: "weak"; "undisciplined"; "unspiritual"; "worldly"; "brainwashed by family, counselors"; seduced by money, sex, rock and roll.
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programs that use these methods of "therapy" (read, quackery) are inherently and systemically dangerous.
Why?
Because that isn't therapy. It's thought-reform and mind control, detailed below. Did you read that (OP) and honestly not see anything abusive in it?
OK, lets just say someone instinctively understands this to be going on, thought reform/cult indoctrination and chooses to not allow this to happen, subtly within the group. In your opinion is this possible or unconsciuosly it is still going on.
I am not saying I was a bad ass or others were but the effect your describing Anne, I just did not feel. I knew it existed at Elan, the Marine Corp, Workshops/seminars, Clubs I belong to, Football teams and Fraternities, damn it went on in my house with my Mom. I think that is why I was somewhat prepared. I identified it as manipulating me into doing what you want or your way of thinking.
Somehow my intimacy button was shut off, for years every time I tried to go there, it felt so unsafe because of the paranoia. What do you want, are you setting me up, you just want to hurt me.
Ya see...Elan never had a chance to indoctrinate me that was already done before I got there, just a different dynamic or the same, maybe.
I know one thing I did learn from Elan was being overly aggressive at the worst time.
http://www.ex-cult.org/ (http://www.ex-cult.org/)
# Lifton's Criteria for Thought Reform (see below)
# Conditions for Mind Control (Margaret Singer)
# Mind Control - The BITE Model (Steven Hassan)b (see below)
# A Behavioral Definition (of 'cult') (Kevin Crawley)
# Identifying a Cult (Jan Groenveld)
# Totalism & Group Dynamics (Jan Groenveld)
DR. ROBERT J. LIFTON'S CRITERIA FOR THOUGHT REFORM
THOUGHT REFORM: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TOTALISM
CHAPTER 22
(Chapel Hill, 1989)
THE FUTURE OF IMMORTALITY
CHAPTER 15 (New York 1987)
Any ideology -- that is, any set of emotionally-charged convictions
about men and his relationship to the natural or supernatural world
-- may be carried by its adherents in a totalistic direction. But
this is most likely to occur with those ideologies which are most
sweeping in their content and most ambitious or messianic in
their claim, whether a religious or political organization. And
where totalism exists, a religion, or a political movement becomes
little more than an exclusive cult.
Here you will find a set of criteria, eight psychological themes against
which any environment may be judged. In combination, they create an
atmosphere which may temporarily energize or exhilarate, but which at the
same time pose the gravest of human threats.
(BRIEF OUTLINE)
1. MILIEU CONTROL
the most basic feature is the control of human communication within
and environment if the control is extremely intense, it becomes
internalized control -- an attempt to manage an individual's inner
communication control over all a person sees, hears, reads, writes
(information control)
creates conflicts in respect to individual autonomy
groups express this in several ways: Group process, isolation from
other people, psychological pressure, geographical distance or
unavailable transportation, sometimes physical pressure
often a sequence of events, such as seminars, lectures, group
encounters, which become increasingly intense and increasingly
isolated, making it extremely difficult-- both physically and
psychologically--for one to leave.
sets up a sense of antagonism with the outside world; it's us
against them
closely connected to the process of individual change (of personality)
2. MYSTICAL MANIPULATION (Planned spontaneity)
extensive personal manipulation
seeks to promote specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such
a way that it appears to have arisen spontaneously from within the
environment, while it actually has been orchestrated
totalist leaders claim to be agents chosen by God, history, or
some supernatural force, to carry out the mystical imperative
the "principles" (God-centered or otherwise) can be put forcibly and
claimed exclusively, so that the cult and its beliefs become the only
true path to salvation (or enlightenment)
the individual then develops the psychology of the pawn, and
participates actively in the manipulation of others
the leader who becomes the center of the mystical manipulation (or
the person in whose name it is done) can be sometimes more real than
an abstract god and therefore attractive to cult members
legitimizes the deception used to recruit new members and/or raise
funds, and the deception used on the "outside world"
3. THE DEMAND FOR PURITY
the world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure, the
absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely evil
(everything outside the group)
one must continually change or conform to the group "norm"
tendencies towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for
the group's controlling and manipulative influences
once a person has experienced the totalist polarization of good/evil
(black/white thinking), he has great difficulty in regaining a more
balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human morality
the radical separation of pure/impure is both within the environment
(the group) and the individual
ties in with the process of confession -- one must confess when one
is not conforming
4. CONFESSION
cultic confession is carried beyond its ordinary religious, legal
and therapeutic expressions to the point of becoming a cult in itself
sessions in which one confesses to one's sin are accompanied by
patterns of criticism and self-criticism, generally transpiring within
small groups with an active and dynamic thrust toward personal change
is an act of symbolic self-surrender
makes it virtually impossible to attain a reasonable balance between
worth and humility
a young person confessing to various sins of pre-cultic existence can
both believe in those sins and be covering over other ideas and
feelings that s/he is either unaware of or reluctant to discuss
often a person will confess to lesser sins while holding on to other
secrets (often criticisms/questions/doubts about the group/leaders
that may cause them not to advance to a leadership position)
"the more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you"
5. SACRED SCIENCE
the totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic
doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision for the
ordering of human existence
questioning or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited
a reverence is demanded for the ideology/doctrine, the originators of
the ideology/doctrine, the present bearers of the ideology/doctrine
offers considerable security to young people because it greatly
simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a
sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying
the truth about human behavior and human psychology
6. LOADING THE LANGUAGE
the language of the totalist environment is characterized by the
thought-terminating cliche (thought-stoppers)
repetitiously centered on all-encompassing jargon
"the language of non-thought"
words are given new meanings -- the outside world does not use the
words or phrases in the same way -- it becomes a "group" word or
phrase
7. DOCTRINE OVER PERSON
every issue in one's life can be reduced to a single set of principles
that have an inner coherence to the point that one can claim the
experience of truth and feel it
the pattern of doctrine over person occurs when there is a conflict
between what one feels oneself experiencing and what the doctrine or
ideology says one should experience
if one questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group,
one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them
to even question -- it is always "turned around" on them and the
questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than the questions answered
directly
the underlying assumption is that doctrine/ideology is ultimately more
valid, true and real than any aspect of actual human character or
human experience and one must subject one's experience to that "truth"
the experience of contradiction can be immediately associated with guilt
one is made to feel that doubts are reflections of one's own evil
when doubt arises, conflicts become intense
8. DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE
since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who
are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not
saved, and do not have the right to exist
"being verses nothingness"
impediments to legitimate being must be pushed away or destroyed
one outside the group may always receive their right of existence by
joining the group
fear manipulation -- if one leaves this group, one leaves God or loses
their transformation, for something bad will happen to them
the group is the "elite", outsiders are "of the world", "evil",
"unenlightened", etc.
ex-cult Resource Center
Mind Control - The BITE Model
From chapter two of Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves
© 2000 by Steven Hassan - published by Freedom of Mind Press, Somerville MA
Destructive mind control can be understood in terms of four basic components, which form the acronym BITE:
I. Behavior Control
II. Information Control
III. Thought Control
IV. Emotional Control
I. Behavior Control
1. Regulation of individual’s physical reality
a. Where, how and with whom the member lives and associates with
b. What clothes, colors, hairstyles the person wears
c. What food the person eats, drinks, adopts, and rejects
d. How much sleep the person is able to have
e. Financial dependence
f. Little or no time spent on leisure, entertainment, vacations
2. Major time commitment required for indoctrination sessions and group rituals
3. Need to ask permission for major decisions
4. Need to report thoughts, feelings and activities to superiors
5. Rewards and punishments (behavior modification techniques- positive and negative).
5. Individualism discouraged; group think prevails
6. Rigid rules and regulations
7. Need for obedience and dependency
II. Information Control
1. Use of deception
a. Deliberately holding back information
b. Distorting information to make it acceptable
c. Outright lying
2. Access to non-cult sources of information minimized or discouraged
a. Books, articles, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio
b. Critical information
c. Former members
d. Keep members so busy they don’t have time to think
3. Compartmentalization of information; Outsider vs. Insider doctrines
a. Information is not freely accessible
b. Information varies at different levels and missions within pyramid
c. Leadership decides who "needs to know" what
4. Spying on other members is encouraged
a. Pairing up with "buddy" system to monitor and control
b. Reporting deviant thoughts, feelings, and actions to leadership
5. Extensive use of cult generated information and propaganda
a. Newsletters, magazines, journals, audio tapes, videotapes, etc.
b. Misquotations, statements taken out of context from non-cult sources
6. Unethical use of confession
a. Information about "sins" used to abolish identity boundaries
b. Past "sins" used to manipulate and control; no forgiveness or absolution
III. Thought Control
1. Need to internalize the group’s doctrine as "Truth"
a. Map = Reality
b. Black and White thinking
c. Good vs. evil
d. Us vs. them (inside vs. outside)
2. Adopt "loaded" language (characterized by "thought-terminating clichés"). Words are the tools we use to think with. These "special" words constrict rather than expand understanding. They function to reduce complexities of experience into trite, platitudinous "buzz words".
3. Only "good" and "proper" thoughts are encouraged.
4. Thought-stopping techniques (to shut down "reality testing" by stopping "negative" thoughts and allowing only "good" thoughts); rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism.
a. Denial, rationalization, justification, wishful thinking
b. Chanting
c. Meditating
d. Praying
e. Speaking in "tongues"
f. Singing or humming
5. No critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy seen as legitimate
6. No alternative belief systems viewed as legitimate, good, or useful
IV. Emotional Control
1. Manipulate and narrow the range of a person’s feelings.
2. Make the person feel like if there are ever any problems it is always their fault, never the leader’s or the group’s.
3. Excessive use of guilt
a. Identity guilt
1. Who you are (not living up to your potential)
2. Your family
3. Your past
4. Your affiliations
5. Your thoughts, feelings, actions
b. Social guilt
c. Historical guilt
4. Excessive use of fear
a. Fear of thinking independently
b. Fear of the "outside" world
c. Fear of enemies
d. Fear of losing one’s "salvation"
e. Fear of leaving the group or being shunned by group
f. Fear of disapproval
5. Extremes of emotional highs and lows.
6. Ritual and often public confession of "sins".
7. Phobia indoctrination : programming of irrational fears of ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader’s authority. The person under mind control cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group.
a. No happiness or fulfillment "outside"of the group
b. Terrible consequences will take place if you leave: "hell"; "demon possession"; "incurable diseases"; "accidents"; "suicide"; "insanity"; "10,000 reincarnations"; etc.
c. Shunning of leave takers. Fear of being rejected by friends, peers, and family.
d. Never a legitimate reason to leave. From the group’s perspective, people who leave are: "weak"; "undisciplined"; "unspiritual"; "worldly"; "brainwashed by family, counselors"; seduced by money, sex, rock and roll.
-
OK, lets just say someone instinctively understands this to be going on, thought reform/cult indoctrination and chooses to not allow this to happen, subtly within the group. In your opinion is this possible or unconsciuosly it is still going on.
Sure, I guess it's possible. If you're sufficiently prepared and/or educated about the subject. In Straight, no....I don't think it was possible to 'choose not to allow it to happen', subtly or otherwise. I think, to one degree or another, it got us all. Some had a harder time dealing with it or coming out of it than others did.
I am not saying I was a bad ass or others were but the effect your describing Anne, I just did not feel. I knew it existed at Elan, the Marine Corp, Workshops/seminars, Clubs I belong to, Football teams and Fraternities, damn it went on in my house with my Mom. I think that is why I was somewhat prepared. I identified it as manipulating me into doing what you want or your way of thinking.
Good for you. I, and most every survivor I've talked to, were in no way prepared for that kind of emotional blackmail and mindrape. And it's not comparable to the service or a bunch of Frat boys knowingly and voluntarily joining up for what they already know is coming. Informed consent. And, the frat boys, football teams, clubs etc. can be "unjoined" at any time. Not so with kids in programs.
Somehow my intimacy button was shut off, for years every time I tried to go there, it felt so unsafe because of the paranoia. What do you want, are you setting me up, you just want to hurt me.
Me too, but Straight convinced me, for a while at least, that they "knew what was best", that I "didn't have any goddamned rights" (direct quote from Newton) and if I just "trusted the process" and "internalized my program" that I would "find my true potential".
Ya see...Elan never had a chance to indoctrinate me that was already done before I got there, just a different dynamic or the same, maybe.
I dunno.
I know one thing I did learn from Elan was being overly aggressive at the worst time.[/b][/color]
Me too.
-
DannyB II wrote:
I am not saying I was a bad ass or others were but the effect your describing Anne, I just did not feel. I knew it existed at Elan, the Marine Corp, Workshops/seminars, Clubs I belong to, Football teams and Fraternities, damn it went on in my house with my Mom. I think that is why I was somewhat prepared. I identified it as manipulating me into doing what you want or your way of thinking.
Anne wrote:
Good for you. I, and most every survivor I've talked to, were in no way prepared for that kind of emotional blackmail and mindrape. And it's not comparable to the service or a bunch of Frat boys knowingly and voluntarily joining up for what they already know is coming. Informed consent. And, the frat boys, football teams, clubs etc. can be "unjoined" at any time. Not so with kids in programs.
I don't think my comment above came out the way I wanted it to.
What I was trying to put forth is, I was intimidated to the point of paralysis during these aggressive "mindfuck games" and I understood what was happening (could feel it coming)at the same time. I could summon up enough resistance to not let the bullshit sweep me over.
I remember being confronted on my shit in groups and just zoning out in my head and pretending I was as stupid as a doornail when it came to emotions. Then shaking off the anxiety later in the bathroom. Thank god at Elan we never had to write down our progress or anything for that matter.
My biggest escape was being the Ass. delivery guy for Elan houses, I am not trying to shove that in anyones face but I do believe it kept me out of some potentially frosty situations.
I will agree with you I everyone of my examples except the Marine Corp/ Service no one can know what is coming down the line, trust me. Boot camp for 13 weeks was pure hell and then some, worse if your drill instructors escaped from the insane asylum down the road. Which, every battalion seemed to have "one" and I am not kidding. More drill instructors (men) are asked to resign from the service then any other enlisted MOS.