Objection: The Brainwashing Evidence
In addition to philosophical and logical problems with the cult mind control model, the evidence contradicts it. Neither brainwashing, mind control’s supposed precursor, nor mind control itself, have any appreciable demonstrated effectiveness. Singer and other mind control model proponents are not always candid about this fact: The early brainwashing attempts were largely unsuccessful. Even though the Koreans and Chinese used extreme forms of physical coercion as well as persuasive coercion, very few individuals subjected to their techniques changed their basic world views or commitments.
The CIA also experimented with brainwashing. Though not using Korean or Chinese techniques of torture, beatings, and group dynamics, the CIA did experiment with drugs (including LSD) and medical therapies such as electroshock in their research on mind control. Their experiments failed to produce even one potential Manchurian Candidate, and the program was finally abandoned.
Although some mind control model advocates bring up studies that appear to provide objective data in support of their theories, such is not the case. These studies are generally flawed in several areas: (1) Frequently the respondents are not from a wide cross-section of ex-members but disproportionately are those who have been exit-counseled by mind control model advocates who tell them they were under mind control; (2) Frequently the sample group is so small its results cannot be fairly representative of cult membership in general; (3) It is almost impossible to gather data from the same individuals before cult affiliation, during cult affiliation, and after cult disaffection, so respondents are sometimes asked to answer as though they were not yet members, or as though they were still members, etc. Each of these flaws introduces unpredicatiblity and subjectivity that make such study results unreliable.
Objection: Low Recruitment Rates
The evidence against the effectiveness of mind control techniques is even more overwhelming. Studies show that the vast majority of young people approached by new religious movements (NRMs) never join despite heavy recruitment tactics. This low rate of recruitment provides ample evidence that whatever techniques of purported mind control are used as cult recruiting tools, they do not work on most people. Even of those interested enough to attend a recruitment seminar or weekend, the majority do not join the group. Eileen Barker documents that out of 1000 people persuaded by the Moonies to attend one of their overnight programs in 1979, 90% had no further involvement. Only 8% joined for more than one week, and less than 4% remained members in 1981, two years later:
“. . . and, with the passage of time, the number of continuing members who joined in 1979 has continued to fall. If the calculation were to start from those who, for one reason or another, had visited one of the movement’s centres in 1979, at least 999 out of every 1,000 of those people had, by the mid-1980s, succeeeded in resisting the persuasive techniques of the Unification Church.”
Of particular importance is that this extremely low rate of conversion is known even to Hassan, the best-known mind control model advocate whose book is the standard text for introducing concerned parents to mind control/exit counseling. In his personal testimony of his own involvement with the Unification Church, he notes that he was the first convert to join at the center in Queens; that during the first three months of his membership he only recruited two more people; and that pressure to recruit new members was only to reach the goal of one new person per member per month, a surprisingly low figure if we are to accept the inevitable success of cult mind control techniques.
Objection: High Attrition Rates Additionally, natural attrition (people leaving the group without specific intervention) was much higher than the self-claimed 65% deprogramming success figure! It is far more likely a new convert would leave the cult within the first year of his membership than it is that he would become a long term member.
This data, confirming low rates of conversion and high rates of disaffection, is deadly to the mind control model. The data reveals that the theory of cult mind control is not confirmed by the statistical evidence. The reality is that people who have very real spiritual, emotional, and social needs are looking for fulfillment and signficance for their lives. Ill-equipped to test the false gospels of this world, they make poor decisions about their religious affiliations. Poor decisions, yes, but personally responsible decisions nontheless.
As Barker summarizes, “far more people have left the very NRMs from which people are most commonly deprogramed than have stayed in them, and the overwhelming majority of these people have managed to leave without the need for any physical coercion.”
Objection: The Anti-Religious Bias Of Mind Control Assumptions
Although most secular mind control model advocates deny that they are critical of any particular beliefs, but only of practices, Shupe and Bromley note, “It quickly became apparent that brainwashing served as a conclusionary value judgment rather than as an analytic concept.”
A look at the historical evidence underscores the anti-religious basis of the brainwashing/mind control model. As sociologists Anthony and Robbins note,
[I]n a sense the project of modern social science, particularly in its Enlightenment origins, has been to liberate man from the domination of retrogressive forces, particularly religion, which has often been seen as a source of involuntariness and a threat to personal autonomy, from which an individual would be liberated by “the science of freedom” (Gay, 1969). This view of religion had been present in the cruder early models of brainwashing such as Sargant (1957), who saw evangelical revivalism as a mode of brainwashing, and who commenced his studies after noting similarities between conversions to Methodism and Pavlovian experiments with dogs . . . (Robbins and Anthony, 1979).
William Sargant, approvingly cited by many cult mind control model advocates, also made statements arguing that Christian evangelistic preaching techniques are similar to communist brainwashing methods. As Sargant wrote in his Battle for the Mind:
Anyone who wishes to investigate the technique of brain-washing and eliciting confessions as practiced behind the Iron Curtain (and on this side of it, too, in certain police stations where the spirit of the law is flouted) would do well to start with a study of eighteenth-century American revivalism from the 1730s onward. The physiological mechanics seem the same, and the beliefs and behavior patterns implanted, especially among the puritans of New England, have not been surpassed for rigidity and intolerance even in Stalin’s times in the U.S.S.R.
Sargant’s anti-Christian bias is also reflected by Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, 1970s popularizers of the cult mind control theory. Expressions of offense at the exclusive claims of Christianity appear in their bestselling book, Snapping. Some born-again Christians “shocked us considerably,” they state, for telling us that “we would be condemned to Hell for the opinions we expressed and the beliefs we held.” Among groups cited as suspect by Conway and Siegelman was Campus Crusade for Christ. The two miscontrues as a threat what Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright describes as conversion to Christ: “surrender of the intellect, the emotions, and the will — the total person.” Conway and Siegelman conclude: “In its similarity to the appeals of so many cult recruiters and lecturers, this traditional Christian doctrine — and the suggestion contained within it — takes on new and ominous overtones.”
“What is the line between a cult and a legitimate religion?” Conway and Siegelman ask. “In America today that line cannot be categorically drawn. In the course of our investigation, however, it became clear to us that many Born Again Christians had been severed from their families, their pasts, and society as a whole as a result of a profound personal transformation. It is not in keeping with the purpose of this investigation to comment on the far-flung Evangelical movement in its entirety, but our research raised serious questions concerning the techniques used to bring about conversion in many Evangelical sects.”
Conway, Siegleman, and many other anti-cult workers presuppose the harmfulness of any religious allegiance that includes exclusivity and total commitment. Looking back in history, such anti-religious bias is not uncommon. There were those who thought Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi were mentally incompetent to make their religious commitments.
In short, there is no objective, evidential way to define groups that are “good” (not using mind control) versus groups that are “bad” (using mind control). Without evidence, the accusation of mind control against any group or individual becomes a matter of personal bias. Once one points to particular doctrines, teachings, or practices as inherently bad, one has abandoned the supposedly religiously “neutral” position of the cult mind control advocates and must make religious judgments. Although this is not the focus of this article, we note here that as evangelical Christians we openly admit that we make religious judgments regarding the cults, and that those religious judgments are based on the Bible, not on our own subjective opinions or some concensus of social science professionals.
Objection: Creating Victims
Many people who join cults want to help the needy, forsake materialism, or develop personal independence from their families, not necessarily bad goals, although misguided by false cult teachings. The cult mind control model, however, attributes cult membership primarily to mind control and thereby denigrates or discounts such positive activities and goals, misaffiliated to cults as they are.
The mind control model also fails to give proper weight to the role natural suggestibility plays in making one vulnerable to the cults. Highly suggestible people are especially susceptible to religious salesmanship as well as many other “sales pitches.”
The cult mind control model instead focuses on victimization, that a cult member joins as a result of mind control and not as the result of personal choice. Adopting a “victimization” perspective actually strips the cult member of his capacity for rational activity. The cult mind control model epitomizes a “victim” mentality. Hassan explains his approach to counseling a cult member:
First, I demonstrate to him that he is in a trap — a situation where he is psychologically disabled and can’t get out. Second, I show him that he didn’t originally choose to enter a trap. Third, I point out that other people in other groups are in similar traps. Fourth, I tell him that it is possible to get out of the trap.
This kind of victimization is very popular in our society today, although it has not demonstrated any evidential validity nor any ability to set the foundation for emotional or mental health.
Problems with the cult victimization idea can be illustrated by looking at other areas outside the new religous movements. We have the Bradshaw “model” of adults as “inner children” who never grew up because of their “dysfunctional” families. We have the many twelve-step spawned derivative groups where members seem to focus more on their powerlessness against whatever addictive “illness” they have than on another twelve-step maxim: personal responsibility. And we have the many “Adult Children” support groups where members uncover the sources of all their problems — dysfunctional parents.
One of the most visible applications of the mind control model today is in the area of repressed memories of early childhood abuse (of satanic ritual abuse, simple child abuse, alien or UFO abduction, past lives, etc.). Amazingly, the mind control model is used to describe two contrasting portions of this problem. First, therapists and clients who believe they have uncovered previously repressed memories of early childhood abuse believe that the original abusers practice mind control on their victims. One of the most extreme examples of this is psychologist Corry Hammond, who postulates a sophisticated system of mind control he believes was developed from experimental Nazi systems.
Second, falsely accused parents and other family members often believe the mind control model, applied to the relationship between the therapist and the accusing client, explains how adult children could sincerely believe and accuse their own fathers, mothers, brothers, uncles, and grandparents of performing unspeakable horrors on them as children, including human sacrifice, rape, incest, mutilation, etc. Many times these adult children have publicly denounced their parents and refused any contact with them for years. Surely to believe such outrageous fictions, they must be under therapeutic mind control! Finally, once adult “survivors” come to the realization that their memories are false, they must deal with the reality that they have accused their loved ones of horrible atrocities. One alleged survivor, struggling to maintain belief in her alleged recovered memories, acknowledged this painful responsibility:
I wish I could say that I knew [my memories] were 100 percent true. But I can’t. If they are all based on falsehoods, I deserve to be damned, and that is really tough. I’ve made some really important decisions that have affected a lot of people. I still get back to [the feeling that] the essence of the belief has to be true.”
How could they have ever caused their families such anguish? They must have been victims of therapeutic mind control!
And yet, such a view fosters a crippling victimization that says, in effect, “you couldn’t do anything to prevent this insidious mind control” and, consequently, what could you possibly do to protect yourself or your loved ones in the future?
Speaking about cults, Barker makes this clear, saying,
Those who leave by themselves may have concluded that they made a mistake and that they recognized that fact and, as a result, they did something about it: they left. Those who have been deprogrammed, on the other hand, are taught that is was not they who were responsible for joining; they were the victims of mind- control techniques — and these prevented them from leaving. Research has shown that, unlike those who have been deprogrammed (and thereby taught that they had been brainwashed), those who leave voluntarily are extremely unlikely to believe that they were ever the victims of mind control.
An improper victimization model, whether used to understand cult recruitment, repressed memories, adult emotional distress, or false accusations of abuse does not provide the education, critical thinking apparatus, or coping mechanisms necessary to protect oneself from further victimization, and, most importantly, such theories do not focus on the life-transforming gospel as the ultimate solution.
Additionally, true victims, such as small children, victims of rape, robbery, or murder, those who truly are unable to predict or prevent their victimization, have their predicament cheapened and obscured by those who are not truly defenseless victims.
This model has become standard for many evangelical Christians who have therapists, attribute their current problems to “dysfunctional” relationships, and trace their personal inadequacies to emotionally harmful childhoods (everyone’s a dysfunctional “adult child” of alcoholism, or abuse, or isolationism, or authoritarianism). Everyone is a victim. One doesn’t need to be saved from one’s own sins as much as from the sins of others. Psychology and sociology have replaced Scripture for understanding human behavior and developing emotionally and spiritually healthy persons. Yet nowhere in Scripture do we find support for the idea complaint first voiced by Eve that “the devil — or the cult leader — made me do it.” One cannot remove human responsibility without also destroying human morality:
Some social scientists object to the idea that humans are free to choose. They claim that man is nothing but the result of biological, psychological, and sociological conditions, or the product of heredity and environment. Thus, B. F. Skinner holds that autonomous man is a myth. All of man’s so-called “decisions” are actually determined by previous experience. Even some Christians believe that all of men’s actions are determined by God . . . . , and that they have no free choice.
Such a view of man must be met head-on. If free choice is a myth, so is moral obligation. C. S. Lewis notes that a deterministic view brings about the abolition of man. In an impassioned plea he argues that you cannot strip men of autonomy without denuding them of responsibility: “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
Objection: Theological Inconsistencies
If the cult recruiter’s skill at manipulation is considered so coercive that members are not responsible for their own beliefs, actions, or even the decision to join/stay in the cult, then many biblical affirmations about personal responsibility and decision-making are jeopardized. To a secular mind control model advocate, this may seem a trivial objection. But several advocates are Christian evangelicals and must come to terms with the theological inconsistencies introduced when the cult mind control model is adopted.
For example, in the Garden, Satan personally appeared to orchestrate the temptation of Eve — and who could be more persuasive? Our first parents succumbed to the temptation and were cast out of the Garden, and all of humanity thereafter have been penalized by this primal sin. If our first parents could be held morally responsible when confronted by the Ultimate Tempter, how is it that we seek to excuse ourselves or our offspring when confronted by human tempters of far less power, skill, and charisma?
Moreover, we observe that both Adam and Eve were penalized alike, even though the temptation was very well different for each. Eve’s temptation was mediated by the direct approach of Satan; Adam’s temptation occurred via his wife, and we are not told that Satan appeared to Adam as he did to Eve. Yet, regardless of whether Satan’s presence was immediate or remote, firsthand or secondhand, both shared ethical culpability for their action.
It is also instructive to note that the second sin of Adam and Eve was blameshifting, the attempt to elude personal responsibility. Eve blamed the Serpent, and Adam blamed Eve. Though God loved them deeply, He did not accept this rationalization then, and He will not accept similar excuses made today for our own wrong beliefs and behavior.
Conclusion
This carefully focused evaluation has shown that the Bogey Man of cult mind control is nothing but a ghost story, good for inducing an adrenaline high and maintaining a crusade, but irrelevant to reality. The reality is that people who have very real spiritual, emotional, and social needs are looking for fulfillment and significance for their lives. Ill-equipped to test the false gospels of this world, they make poor decisions about their religious affiliations. Poor decisions, yes, but decisions for which they are personally responsible nonetheless.
As Christians who believe in an absolute standard of truth and religious reality, we cannot ignore the spiritual threat of the cults. We must promote critical thinking, responsible education, biblical apologetics, and Christian evangelism. We must recognize that those who join the cults, while morally responsible, are also spiritually ignorant. The power of the gospel (Romans 1:16) erases spiritual ignorance and provides the best opportunity possible for right moral and religious choices. “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
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