[This document, in substance, was presented to the U.S. Supreme Court as an
educational Appendix on coercive psychological systems in the case
Wollersheim v. Church of Scientology 89-1367 and 89-1361. The Wollersheim
case was being considered related to issues involving abuse in this area. In
this
document coercive persuasion is the professional term being used to describe
the nature of coercive psychological systems. Wollersheim case-specific
details
have been deleted.]
Coercion is defined as, "to restrain or constrain by force..." Legally it
often
implies the use of PHYSICAL FORCE or physical or legal threat. This
traditional concept of coercion is far better understood than the
technological
concepts of "coercive persuasion" which are effective restraining, impairing,
or
compelling through the gradual application of PSYCHOLOGICAL FORCES.
A coercive persuasion program is a behavioral change technology applied to
cause the "learning" and "adoption" of a set of behaviors or an ideology under
certain conditions. It is distinguished from other forms of benign social
learning or peaceful persuasion by the conditions under which it is conducted
and by the techniques of environmental and interpersonal manipulation
employed to surpress particular behaviors and to train others. Over time,
coercive persuasion, a psychological force akin in some ways to our legal
concepts of undue influence, can be even MORE effective than pain, torture,
drugs, and use of physical force and legal threats.
The Korean War "Manchurian Candidate" misconception of the need for
suggestibility-increasing drugs, and physical pain and torture, to effect
thought reform, is generally associated with the old concepts and models of
brainwashing. Today, they are not necessary for a coercive persuasion
program to be effective. With drugs, physical pain, torture, or even a
physically coercive threat, you can often temporarily make someone do
something against their will. You can even make them do something they hate
or they really did not like or want to do at the time. They do it, but their
attitude is not changed.
This is much different and far less devasting than that which you are able to
achieve with the improvements of coercive persuasion. With coercive
persuasion you can change people's attitudes without their knowledge and
volition. You can create new "attitudes" where they will do things willingly
which they formerly may have detested, things which previously only torture,
physical pain, or drugs could have coerced them to do. The advances in the
extreme anxiety and emotional stress production technologies found in
coercive persuasion supersede old style coercion that focuses on pain,
torture,
drugs, or threat in that these older systems do not change attitude so that
subjects follow orders "willingly." Coercive persuasion changes both attitude
AND behavior, not JUST behavior.
THE PURPOSES AND TACTICS OF COERCIVE PERSUASION
Coercive persuasion or thought reform as it is sometimes known, is best
understood as a coordinated system of graduated coercive influence and
behavior control designed to deceptively and surreptitiously manipulate and
influence individuals, usually in a group setting, in order for the
originators of
the program to profit in some way, normally financially or politically. The
essential strategy used by those operating such programs is to systematically
select, sequence and coordinate numerous coercive persuasion tactics over
CONTINUOUS PERIODS OF TIME. There are seven main tactic types found in
various combinations in a coercive persuasion program. A coercive persuasion
program can still be quite effective without the presence of ALL seven of
these
tactic types.
TACTIC 1. The individual is prepared for thought reform through increased
suggestibility and/or "softening up," specifically through hypnotic or other
suggestibility-increasing techniques such as: A. Extended audio, visual,
verbal, or tactile fixation drills; B. Excessive exact repetition of routine
activities; C. Decreased sleep; D. Nutritional restriction.
TACTIC 2. Using rewards and punishments, efforts are made to establish
considerable control over a person's social environment, time, and sources of
social support. Social isolation is promoted. Contact with family and friends
is
abridged, as is contact with persons who do not share group-approved
attitudes. Economic and other dependence on the group is fostered. (In the
forerunner to coercive persuasion, brainwashing, this was rather easy to
achieve through simple imprisonment.)
TACTIC 3. Disconfirming information and nonsupporting opinions are
prohibited in group communication. Rules exist about permissible topics to
discuss with outsiders. Communication is highly controlled. An "in-group"
language is usually constructed.
TACTIC 4. Frequent and intense attempts are made to cause a person to
re-evaluate the most central aspects of his or her experience of self and
prior
conduct in negative ways. Efforts are designed to destabilize and undermine
the subject's basic consciousness, reality awareness, world view, emotional
control, and defense mechanisms as well as getting them to reinterpret their
life's history, and adopt a new version of causality.
TACTIC 5. Intense and frequent attempts are made to undermine a person's
confidence in himself and his judgment, creating a sense of powerlessness.
TACTIC 6. Nonphysical punishments are used such as intense humiliation,
loss of privilege, social isolation, social status changes, intense guilt,
anxiety,
manipulation and other techniques for creating strong aversive emotional
arousals, etc.
TACTIC 7. Certain secular psychological threats [force] are used or are
present:
That failure to adopt the approved attitude, belief, or consequent behavior
will
lead to severe punishment or dire consequence, (e.g. physical or mental
illness, the reappearance of a prior physical illness, drug dependence,
economic collapse, social failure, divorce, disintegration, failure to find a
mate,
etc.).
Another set of criteria has to do with defining other common elements of mind
control systems. If most of Robert Jay Lifton's eight point model of thought
reform is being used in a cultic organization, it is most likely a dangerous
and
destructive cult. These eight points follow:
Robert Jay Lifton's Eight Point Model of Thought Reform
1. ENVIRONMENT CONTROL. Limitation of many/all forms of
communication with those outside the group. Books, magazines,
letters and visits with friends and family are taboo. "Come out and
be
separate!"
2. MYSTICAL MANIPULATION. The potential convert to the
group
becomes convinced of the higher purpose and special calling of the
group through a profound encounter/experience, for example,
through
an alleged miracle or prophetic word of those in the group.
3. DEMAND FOR PURITY. An explicit goal of the group is to bring
about some kind of change, whether it be on a global, social, or
personal level. "Perfection is possible if one stays with the group
and
is
committed."
4. CULT OF CONFESSION. The unhealthy practice of self
disclosure
to members in the group. Often in the context of a public gathering
in
the group, admitting past sins and imperfections, even doubts
about
the group and critical thoughts about the integrity of the leaders.
5. SACRED SCIENCE. The group's perspective is absolutely true
and
completely adequate to explain EVERYTHING. The doctrine is not
subject to amendments or question. ABSOLUTE conformity to the
doctrine is required.
6. LOADED LANGUAGE. A new vocabulary emerges within the
context of the group. Group members "think" within the very
abstract
and narrow parameters of the group's doctrine. The terminology
sufficiently stops members from thinking critically by reinforcing a
"black and white" mentality. Loaded terms and clichés prejudice
thinking.
7. DOCTRINE OVER PERSON. Pre-group experience and group
experience are narrowly and decisively interpreted through the
absolute doctrine, even when experience contradicts the doctrine.
8. DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE. Salvation is possible only in the
group. Those who leave the group are doomed.
COERCIVE PERSUASION IS NOT PEACEFUL PERSUASION
Programs identified with the above-listed seven tactics have in common the
elements of attempting to greatly modify a person's self-concept, perceptions
of reality, and interpersonal relations. When successful in inducing these
changes, coercive thought reform programs also, among other things, create
the potential forces necessary for exercising undue influence over a person's
independent decision-making ability, and even for turning the individual into
a deployable agent for the organization's benefit without the individual's
meaningful knowledge or consent.
Coercive persuasion programs are effective because individuals experiencing
the deliberately planned severe stresses they generate can only reduce the
pressures by accepting the system or adopting the behaviors being
promulgated by the purveyors of the coercion program. The relationship
between the person and the coercive persuasion tactics are DYNAMIC in that
while the force of the pressures, rewards, and punishments brought to bear on
the person are considerable, they do not lead to a stable, meaningfully
SELF-CHOSEN reorganization of beliefs or attitudes. Rather, they lead to a
sort
of coerced compliance and a situationally required elaborate rationalization,
for the new conduct.
Once again, in order to maintain the new attitudes or "decisions," sustain the
rationalization, and continue to unduly influence a person's behavior over
time, coercive tactics must be more or less CONTINUOUSLY applied. A fiery,
"hell and damnation" guilt-ridden sermon from the pulpit or several hours
with a high-pressure salesman or other single instances of the so-called
peaceful persuasions do not constitute the "necessary chords and
orchestration" of a SEQUENCED, continuous, COORDINATED, and carefully
selected PROGRAM of surreptitious coercion, as found in a comprehensive
program of "coercive persuasion."
Truly peaceful religious persuasion practices would never attempt to force,
compel and dominate the free wills or minds of its members through coercive
behavioral techniques or covert hypnotism. They would have no difficulty
coexisting peacefully with U.S. laws meant to protect the public from such
practices.
Looking like peaceful persuasion is precisely what makes coercive persuasion
less likely to attract attention or to mobilize opposition. It is also part of
what
makes it such a devastating control technology. Victims of coercive persuasion
have: no signs of physical abuse, convincing rationalizations for the radical
or
abrupt changes in their behavior, a convincing "sincerity, and they have been
changed so gradually that they don't oppose it because they usually aren't
even aware of it.
Deciding if coercive persuasion was used requires case-by-case careful
analysis of all the influence techniques used and how they were applied. By
focusing on the medium of delivery and process used, not the message, and on
the critical differences, not the coincidental similarities, which system was
used becomes clear. The Influence Continuum helps make the difference
between peaceful persuasion and coercive persuasion easier to distinguish.
VARIABLES
Not all tactics used in a coercive persuasion type environment will always be
coercive. Some tactics of an innocuous or cloaking nature will be mixed in.
Not
all individuals exposed to coercive persuasion or thought reform programs are
effectively coerced into becoming participants. How individual suggestibility,
psychological and physiological strengths, weakness, and differences react
with the degree of severity, continuity, and comprehensiveness in which the
various tactics and content of a coercive persuasion program are applied,
determine the program's effectiveness and/or the degree of severity of damage
caused to its victims. For example, in United States v. Lee 455 U.S. 252,
257-258
(1982), the California Supreme Court found that "when a person is subjected to
coercive persuasion without his knowledge or consent... [he may] develop
serious and sometimes irreversible physical and psychiatric disorders, up to
and including schizophrenia, self-mutilation, and suicide."
WHAT ARE THE CRITERIA OF A COERCIVE PERSUASION PROGRAM?
A). Determine if the subject individual held enough knowledge and volitional
capacity to make the decision to change his or her ideas or beliefs. B).
Determine whether that individual did, in fact, adopt, affirm, or reject those
ideas or beliefs on his own. C). Then, if necessary, all that should be
examined
is the behavioral processes used, not ideological content. One needs to
examine only the behavioral processes used in their "conversion." Each alleged
coercive persuasion situation should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. The
characteristics of coercive persuasion programs are severe, well-understood,
and they are not accidental.
COERCIVE PERSUASION IS NOT VOLUNTARY, PEACEFUL, RELIGIOUS
PRACTICE OR CENTRAL TO ANY BONAFIDE RELIGION.
Coercive persuasion is not a religious practice, it is a control technology.
It is not a belief or ideology, it is a technological process. As a PROCESS,
it can be examined by experts on its technology COMPLETELY SEPARATE from any
idea or belief content, similar to examining the technical process of hypnotic
induction distinct from the meaning or value of the post-hypnotic suggestions.
Examining PROCESSES in this manner can not violate First Amendment
religious protections. Coercive persuasion is antithetical to the First
Amendment. It is the unfair manipulation of other's biological and
psychological weaknesses and susceptibilities. It is a psychological FORCE
technology, not of a free society, but of a criminal or totalitarian society.
It is certainly not a spiritual or religious technology. Any organization
using coercive persuasion on its members as a CENTRAL practice that also
claims to be a religion is turning the SANCTUARY of the First Amendment into a
fortress for psychological assault. It is a contradiction of terms and should
be "disestablished." Coercive persuasion is a subtle, compelling psychological
force which attacks an even more fundamental and important freedom than
our "freedom of religion." ITS REPREHENSIBILITY AND DANGER IS THAT
IT ATTACKS OUR SELF-DETERMINISM AND FREE WILL, OUR MOST
FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL FREEDOMS.
