Wednesday, March 28, 2018

The Unquestioned Power of the Priest or Guru...


...as explained in Eric Fromm's Psychoanalysis and Religion (1950).

Those having reached the fourth level on the 10-Level Pyramid Model of Cult Organization (a.k.a.: the "Committed"), the cult member observably tend to fit the description of Hoffer's True Believer. And as such, appear to have been pre-conditioned, indoctrinated, instructed (as per Berger & Luckman, Asch, Burrow, Cooley, Gergen, Hoffer, Horkheimer, Johnston, Klaehn, Krishnamurti, LeBon, Lerner, Lippman, McDougall, Parsons, Riezler, Tart, and Woodward & Denton), socialized and normalized to ideas and concepts that predispose them to accepting without question an authoritarian (see Adorno et al, Altemeyer, Arendt, Fromm, Greenwald, Grunberger, Halslam et al, Henry, Hetherington & Weiler, Koonz, Kramer & Alstad, Milgram, Miller, and Popper), hierarchical concept of powerful and mysterious forces beyond their comprehension. The more "seriously" or "deeply" they subscribe to such notions as explanations of the challenges and frustrations they face in the course of normal life, the more likely it is that they will turn to those who seem (to them) to understand and be able to help them cope with such challenges and frustrations.

Fromm (1900-1980) was a social psychologist of the Frankfurt School and the psychoanalytic model, though he rejected a number of Freud's earlier explanations of human behavior. His many books include Escape from Freedom, widely considered to be one of the best explanations of authoritarianism in general and the rise of Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler in particular, as well as Psychoanalysis and Religion. I quote here from the latter book with the objective of attempting to further clarify the culture-wide, mental "set-up" in the West that makes it difficult for so many to see what they're getting into in the evangelical fundamentalist "churches" (and "mega-churches") that seem (at least a first) to be "perfectly normal" to them.... given their imersion in the common cultural, "consensus trance." 

Fromm's original text is in black below; my comments are bracketed and in dark red

"...at the root of the Judeo-Christian religion both principles, the authoritarian and the humanistic, are present."

"The beginning of the Old Testament [to this day, a fundament of both orthodox Jewish and Islamic religious belief] is written in the spirit of authoritarian religion. The picture of God is that of the absolute ruler of a patriarchal clan, who has created man at his pleasure and can destroy him at will. [God, according to whoever wrote the scriptures,] has forbidden [man] to eat from the tree of knowledge... and has threatened him with death if he transgresses this order. [Freud's position on this in The Future of an Illusion -- as well as Assman's (see bellow) -- is that severe measures may have been required to discipline the members of clans, and later tribes, and later residents of trading villages and then city states -- which is sturdily supported by the Code of Hammurabi laid down in what is now central Iraq in the early second millennium BCE -- for the sake of "self"-protection against raiders from other clans, tribes, trading villages, etc. One may consider, however, that the utility of such discipline also served the interests of those who began to amass wealth in such groups.] ...

"The text makes it very clear what man's sin is: it is rebellion against God's command; it is disobedience and not any inherent sinfulness in the act of eating from the tree of knowledge. ... The text also makes it plain what God's motive is: it is concern with his own superior role, the jealous fear of man's claim to be his equal. ...

"A decisive turning point in the relationship between God and man is to be seen in the story of the Flood. ...

"There is no question [in the text] that God has the right to destroy his own creatures; he has created them and they are his property [because, by this time, man is so many generations distant from his creation of "God," that -- save for the priests and gurus -- he no longer knows that "God" is man's invention (for the purpose of patriarchal social organization), and not the other way around; as the old saying goes, "too much of a good thing may not be, especially of one forgets why it was 'good' in the first place"]. ... Thus far the destruction of man and the salvation of Noah are the arbitrary acts of God. He could do as he pleased, as can any powerful tribal chief [, priest or guru].   

"That early Christianity [roughly 1500 to 1800 years subsequent to the advent of Abrahamic Judiasm] is humanistic and not authoritarian is evident from the spirit and text of all Jesus's teachings. ... But on a few hundred years later, after Christianity had ceased to be the religion of the poor and humble peasants, artisans, and slaves and had become the religion of those ruling the Roman Empire, the authoritarian trend in Christianity became dominant. ...

"While in humanistic religion God is the image of man's higher self, a symbol of what man potentially is or ought to become, in authoritarian religion God becomes the sole possessor of what was originally man's: of his reason and his love. The more perfect God becomes, the more imperfect becomes man. [See the Augustinian-Pelagian Controversy.] He projects the best he has into God and thus impoverishes himself. Now God has all love, all wisdom, all justice -- and man is deprived of these properties. [Man] had begun with the feeling of smallness, but he now has become completely powerless and without strength; all his powers have been projected onto God. This mechanism of projection is the very same which can be observed in interpersonal relationships of a masochistic, submissive character, where one person is awed by another and attributes his own powers and aspirations to the other person. It is the same mechanism that makes people endow the leaders of even the most inhuman systems with qualities of superwisdom and kindness [see Fromm: Escape from Freedom, pp. 158 ff]. ...

"Everything [man] has is now God's and nothing is left in him. His only access to himself is through God [, the priest or the guru]. He tries to get in touch with that part of himself which he has lost through projection. After giving God [, the priest or the guru] all he has, he begs God [, the priest or the guru] to return to him some of what originally was his own. But having lost his own he is completely at God's [, the priest's or the guru's] mercy. ...

"He becomes a man with faith in his... own power of reason. ...

"In societies [or cults] ruled by a powerful minority which holds the masses in subjection, the individual will be so imbued with fear, so incapable of feeling strong or independent, that his religious experience with be authoritarian. Whether he worships a punishing, awesome God or a similarly conceived leader [, or priest, or guru] makes little difference. ... Early Christianity was a religion of the poor and downtrodden; the history of religious sects fighting against authoritarian political pressure shows the same principle again and again [in cyclical fashion, as reactive, anti-authoritarian energy waxes and wanes in relation to authoritarian control, much as one can easily observe in American culture in general during the era that began with the Declaration of Independence in 1776 through the evangelical, authoritarian religious revival of the mid 1800s onto the anti-religiosity of the turn of the 20th century, to yet another revival in 1930s to 1950s, to yet another swing towards humanism in the 1960s and '70s, to yet another revival in the 1990s and henceforth]. Whenever... religion allied itself with a secular power, the religion had by necessity become authoritarian. The real fall of man is his alienation from himself, his submission to power, his turning against himself even though under the guise of his worship of God [, the priest, or the guru].

- - - - -

Further recommended to grasp the authoritarian, hierarchal con-struct of both "God" and religion in the Abrahamic paradigm:

Karen Armstrong: A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam; New York: MJF Books, 1993.

Steven Arterburn & Jack Felton: Toxic Faith: Understanding and Overcoming Religious Addiction; Nashville: Oliver-Nelson, 1991.

Jan Assman: Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism; Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press, 1998.

Jan Assman: The Price of Monotheism; Palo Alto, CA: Stanford U. Press, 2009.

Sharon Beder: Selling the Work Ethic: From Puritan Pulpit to Corporate PR; London: Zed Books, 2001.

Peter Berger: The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, New York: Doubleday, 1967.

Boethius of Rome: Consolation of Philosophy, somewhere in what is now Switzerland or southern Germany: The Holy Roman Church, c. 524.

Jean Bottero, et al.: Ancestor of the West : Writing, Reasoning, and Religion in Mesopotamia, Elam, and Greece; Chicago: U. Chicago Press, 2000.

Jean Bottero: The Birth of God: The Bible and the Historian; orig. pub. 1986; Philadelphia: Penn State Press, 2010.

Emile Durkhem: The Elementary Forms of Religious Life; orig. pub. 1912, London: Allen & Unwin, 1915.

Sigmund Freud: The Future of an Illusion; orig. pub. 1927, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1961.

Jared Parker Friedman, Anthony Ian Jack: What Makes You So Sure? Dogmatism, Fundamentalism, Analytic Thinking, Perspective Taking and Moral Concern in the Religious and Nonreligious, in Journal of Religion and Health, 2017; DOI: 10.1007/s10943-017-0433-x

Ralph Hood, Jr.; Peter Hill; W. Paul Williamson: The Psychology of Religious Fundamentalism; New York: Guildford Press, 2005.

Jack Miles: God, A Biography; New York: Random House 1996.

Jack Miles: Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God; New York: Random House, 2001.

Pew Research: U.S. Religious Groups and their Political Leanings, February 2016, at

Milton Rokeach: The Open and Closed Mind: Investigations into the Nature of Belief Systems and Personality Systems; New York: Basic Books, 1960, 1973.

Jeff Sharlett: The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power; New York: Harper Perennial, 2008.

Huston Smith: The World's Religions: The Revised & Updated Edition of The Religions of Man; San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991. (First Ed. 1958.)

Charles Strozier, David Terman, James Jones, Katherine Boyd: The Fundamentalist Mindset: Psychological Perspectives on Religion, Violence, and History; London: Oxford University Press (April 19, 2010).

Barbara Tuchman: Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.

Max Weber, Talcott Parsons (translator): The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1930.


Theodor Adorno, Daniel Levinson, et al: The Authoritarian Personality: Studies in Prejudice; orig. pub, 1950, New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.

Robert Altemeyer: The Authoritarian Specter, Boston: Harvard University Press, 1996.

Robert Altemeyer: The Authoritarians, Charleston, SC: Lulu, 2006.

Hannah Arendt: The Origins of Totalitarianism (The Burden of Our Time), orig. pub. 1951, New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1973.

S. E. Asch: Effects of Group Pressure upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgments; in H. Guetzkow (ed.): Groups, Leadership and Men; Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press, 1951.

Peter L. Berger & Thomas Luckman: The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge; New York: Doubleday, 1966.

Trigant Burrow: The Social Basis of Consciousness; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1927.

Charles Cooley: Human Nature and the Social Order; Piscataway, NJ: Transaction, 1902, 1986.

Erik Fromm: Escape from Freedom; New York: Harper & Row, New York: Farrar & Reinhart: 1941.

Kenneth Gergen: An Invitation to Social Construction; Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 1999.

Alan Greenwald: The Totalitarian Ego: Fabrication and Revision of Personal History, in American Psychologist, Vol. 35, No. 7, July 1980.

Richard Grunberger: The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany 1933-1945; New York: Da Capo Press, 1971.

Alexander Haslam, Stephen Reicher: Contesting the "Nature" of Conformity: What Milgram and Zimbardo's Studies Really Show; in PLOS / Biology, Vol. 10, No. 11, November 2012.

Jules Henry: Culture Against Man; New York: Random House, 1963.

M. J. Hetherington & J. D. Weiler: Authoritarianism and polarization in American politics; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Eric Hoffer: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements; New York: Harper and Row, 1951, 1966.

Max Horkheimer: Authoritarianism and the Family Today, in R. N. Anshen, ed.: The Family: Its Function and Destiny; New York, Harper, 1949.

Christopher D. Johnston: Authoritarianism, Affective Polarization, and Economic Ideology, in Advances in Political Psychology, Vol 39, Issue Supplement S1, February 2018. DOI: 10.1111/pops.12483.

Claudia Koonz: The Nazi Conscience; Cambridge MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard U. Press, 2003.

Joel Kramer & Diana Alstad: The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power; Berkeley, CA: Frog , Ltd., 1993.

Jiddu Krishnamurti: Education and the Significance of Life; San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco (1953) 1975.

Jiddu Krishnamurti: The First & Last Freedom; New York: HarperCollins, 1954.

Jiddu Krishnamurti: Freedom from the Known; New York: HarperCollins, 1969.

Gustav LeBon: The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind; orig. pub. 1895, Minneola, NY: Dover Publications, 2002.

Melvin Lerner: The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion; New York: Springer, 1980.

Walter Lippmann: Public Opinion; orig. pub. 1922, New York: Simon & Schuster / Free Press, 1997.

William McDougall: The Group Mind: A Sketch of the Principles of Collective Psychology; orig. pub. 1920, North Stratford: Ayer Company, NH, 1973.

Stanley Milgram: Obedience to Authority; New York: Harper, 1974.

Arthur G. Miller: The Obedience Experiments; New York: Prager, 1984.

Talcott Parsons: Social Systems and The Evolution of Action Theory; New York: The Free Press, 1975.

Karl Popper: The Open Society and Its Enemies; orig. pub. 1945; Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013.

Kurt Riezler: The Social Psychology of Fear, in Maurice Stein et al (editors): Identity and Anxiety: Survival of the Person in Mass Society; Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1960.

Milton Rokeach: The Open and Closed Mind: Investigations into the Nature of Belief Systems and Personality Systems; New York: Basic Books, 1960, 1973.

Charles T. Tart: Waking Up: Overcoming the Obstacles to Human Potential; New York: New Science Library, 1987.

Gary Woodward & Robert Denton: Persuasion & Influence in American Life, 4th Ed.; Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2000.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Psychiatric Casualties of Thought Reform Programs I


I would like to offer a commentary updating a very significant paper by a pair of leading experts in the field with the intention of introducing some of the many results and insights of neuropsychological and neurobiological research produced since the text was originally delivered as a lecture a bit over 30 years ago. The original text is in black; my hopefully useful comments are in dark red. For those who wish to understand the nature of the "casualties," please see the posts at this link.   

Thought Reform Programs 
and the 
Production of Psychiatric Casualties

Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph. D. and Richard Ofshe, Ph. D.
Psychiatric Annals 20:4/April 1990


The term "thought reform" was introduced into the psychiatric literature by Lifton and the term "coercive persuasion"' by Schein. Both described the organized "ideological remolding" programs introduced by the Chinese Communists after their 1949 takeover. Thought reform programs were used in the "revolutionary universities," other educational settings, and prison environments. Lifton, Schein, and other authors wrote about psychological effects in military and civilian prisoners, as well as in individuals exposed to thought reform programs in non-prison settings. These authors called attention to the manipulation processes that had been organized into effective psychological and social influence programs aimed at changing the political beliefs of individuals.

As early as 1929, Mao Tse-tung [a.k.a. Mao Zedong] was waging a "thought struggle" to achieve unity and discipline in the Chinese Communist Party. Following the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, hundreds or thousands were exposed to thought reform programs to achieve "ideological remolding." "Group struggle sessions" convinced individuals to denounce their past political views and to adopt the new state-approved political outlook.

[Gao Wenqien's Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary (New York: Perseus Books, 2007) provides an extraordinary look into the mechanics of thought reform and the maintenance thereof during Mao's reign of terror, especially during the "cultural revolution" era of the late 1960s. Mao was an astonishingly adept and adroit manipulator who managed to build the world's largest cult, albeit one that is now (in 2018) somewhat less invasive and more tolerant than the one the Kim family continues to operate from government headquarters in Pyongyang, North Korea.

What Singer, Ofshe and others have failed to note in any of their work -- so far as I know at this time -- is that the Red Chinese / North Korean thought reform / mind control model is almost precisely that of the hyper-authoritarian hijacking of the "mental discipline" for "mind-emptying" methods of Zen Buddhism in Japan during the Edo dynasty in the 17th through 19th centuries. Unlike other forms of Buddhism (including the large Tibetan and Southeast Asian schools), Zen is highly personal and authoritarian, requiring strict, undeviating and absolute adherence to the pronouncements and techniques of one's teacher. Further, Zen instruction depends heavily upon isolation from mainstream culture and internal group dynamics, whereas "serious" Buddhists in the other main traditions are free to engage with the rank and file while carefully observing their reactions to such interaction.] 

Neither mysterious methods nor arcane new techniques were involved; the effectiveness of thought reform programs did not depend on prison settings, physical abuse, or death threats. Programs used the organization and application of intense guilt / shame / anxiety manipulation, combined with the production of strong emotional arousal in settings where people did not leave because of social and psychological pressures or because of enforced confinement. The pressures could be reduced only by participants' accepting the belief system or adopting behaviors promulgated by the purveyors of the thought reform programs.

["Accepting the belief system" is a fundamental element in the diversion of "thought reform" from Buddhism in general, and even Zen Buddhism in particular. Those who have "gotten it" via Buddhist meditation practice are able to see that belief of any sort is "the problem." They are not so much anti-belief, however, as they are aware of belief and its culturally conditioned role in the operation of the mind (or, as Freud called it, the "ego"). The Buddhist says, "Belief is there. But it's content is not real. It is simply the illusory product of conditioning, instruction, indoctrination, socialization and normalization. And it is the diametric opposite of direct comprehension of what is actually so via the five senses."

Anyone who has studied cults -- and moreover had direct experience in them -- knows that cults are about implanting, inscribing, embedding and in-form-ing beliefs into the mind, as opposed to assisting members to see, hear and otherwise sense for themselves what is actually so in any given context. (See Batchelor, Fronsdal, Goenka in Hart, Goleman, Kabat-Zinn, Kelly, Klein, Kramer, Krishnamurti, Levine, Maharshi in Goodman, Siegel, Tart, Tolle, Trungpa, and Watts.)]

History of thought reform programs

There have been two generations of interest in extreme influence and control programs. The first generation of interest was in Soviet and Chinese thought reform and behavior control practices that were studied [in the 1950s and '60s]. The second generation of interest is in thought reform programs either currently operating or that have been in existence during the last decade in the United States and the Western world.

Far more of these programs exist than most non-specialists realize, and these newer programs are more efficient and effective. They also may be more psychologically risky for individuals exposed to them than research suggests first-generation programs to have been. Second-generation programs use influence techniques long recognized as essential elements of thought reform programs, as well as a variety of new influence techniques.

[See Lifton's, Ofshe's and Hassan's lists of cult characteristics in the latter half of Coercive Persuasion and Attitude Change: A Commentary.]

Such programs can and regularly do produce psychiatric casualties.

Psychiatric casualties appear to result from errors in the application of these attitude-change programs. The subject person's motivation to adopt the manipulator's position and to become obedient is manufactured by inducing extreme anxiety and emotional distress. Lifton reported that the managers of first-generation programs attempted to closely monitor subjects so that when they reached the brink of decompensation, pressures could be reduced. The goal was to hold the subject at the point of maximum stress without inducing psychosis. Second-generation programs have increased room for error because subjects tend to be less well monitored, the techniques used to induce anxiety and stress are more powerful and less predictable in the magnitude of their effects on an individual, and often these programs attempt to induce conformity more rapidly than did first-generation programs.

[I never saw an est training in the mid-'70s that did not produce a small number of immediate "casualties" laying about some carpet-covered hotel or convention center ballroom after the four-hour-plus guided meditation on the second day of the first weekend. But, because the vast majority of the 250 attendees were so "blitzed" by the experience, few -- if any -- seemed to notice or be concerned about their "comrades." The training supervisor and his assistants removed the "victims" from the room in a few minutes, and the session reconvened, usually without question or comment, thought the trainer had a rehearsed spiel if anyone did comment.]

Second-generation thought reform programs also pose psychological risks to subjects because of the sophistication of the influence tactics employed. Attacking a person's evaluation of the self is a technique present in both older and newer programs. However, in first-generation programs, primary attack was made on the political aspects of an individual's self-concept -- a peripheral aspect of most people's sense of self. 

In the newer thought reform programs, attacks appear to be designed to destabilize the subject's most central aspects of the experience of the self. The newer programs undermine a person's basic consciousness, reality awareness, beliefs and world view, emotional control, and defense mechanisms. We suggest that attacking the stability and quality of evaluations of self-concepts is the principal effective technique used in the conduct of a coercive thought reform and behavior control program.

Second-generation programs induce changes in expressed behavior and attitudes much as the earlier versions did by manipulating psychological and social influence variables within a format that generally follows a symbolic death and rebirth theme. Second-generation programs often include techniques similar to those found in first-generation programs, e.g., group pressure, modeling, accusations, and confessions. Additional sophisticated techniques to destabilize a person's sense of self and to induce anxiety and emotional distress are also employed. Second-generation programs often incorporate technical advances in influence production, such as hypnosis to intensify recalled or imagined experiences, emotional flooding, sleep deprivation, stripping away of various psychological defense mechanisms, and the induction of cognitive confusion. Second-generation programs are illustrated by certain cults, in therapeutic communities gone astray, and in some large-group awareness programs.

What is a thought reform program?

In essence, a thought reform program is a behavioral change technology applied to cause the learning and adoption of an ideology or set of behaviors under conditions. It is distinguished from other forms of social learning by the conditions under which it is conducted and by the techniques of environmental and interpersonal manipulation employed to suppress particular behavior and to train others .

Six conditions are simultaneously present in a thought reform program:

1) obtaining substantial control over an individual's time and thought content,

2) typically by gaining control over major elements of the person's social and physical environment,

3) systematically creating a sense of powerlessness in the person,

4) manipulating a system of rewards, punishment. and experiences in such a way as to promote new learning of an ideology or belief system advocated by management,

5) manipulating a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in such a way as to inhibit observable behavior that reflects the values and routines of life organization the individual displayed prior to contact with the group, and

6) maintaining a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure in the organization and
maintaining a non-informed state existing in the subject.

The last two conditions work because

1) there is no effective way for the subject to influence the system and

2) because the program moves along in such a way that the subject is unaware of being changed for a hidden organizational purpose.

In a closed system of logic, criticism or complaints are handled by showing the subject that he or she is defective, not the organization.

Observations may be turned around and argued to mean the opposite of what the critic intended. When a subject questions or doubts a tenet or rule, attention is called to factual information that suggests some internal contradiction within the belief system or a contradiction with what the subject has been told: the criticism or observation is "turned around" and the subject made to feel he or she is wrong. In effect the subject is told, "You are always wrong; the system is always right." The system refuses to be modified except by executive order.

In addition, by keeping a subject in a non-informed state, he or she functions in an environment to which he or she is forced to adapt in a series of steps, each sufficiently minor so that the subject does not notice change in him- or herself and does not become aware of the goals of the program until late in the process (if ever).

The tactics of a thought reform program are organized to destabilize individuals' sense of self by getting them to drastically reinterpret their life's history, radically alter their world view, accept a new version of reality and causality, and develop dependency on the organization, thereby being turned into a deployable agent of the organization operating the thought reform program.

[Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 Best Picture Oscar winner, "The Last Emperor" includes a striking presentation of almost ever single concept described by Singer and Ofshe in the preceding section. Raised to see himself as a demi-god, imperial China's final monarch is successfully re-conditioned, re-socialized and re-normalized to see himself as just another peasant in Mao's new order.

I cannot overemphasize how highly I recommend seeing this stunning film not only for its considerable explanation of the China with which we deal today, but for the clarity with which the great director understood the use of the "six conditions" to not only remodel the mind of Pu Yi, but those of nearly a million rebellious and "treatment resistant" Chinese during the 1950s. Because it is the system used by all large group awareness trainings and (barring a few minor adjustments) many of the new, "high-tech group dynamic," multi-media, evangelical, fundamentalist "mega-churches" in the United States of America.]

Types of psychological responses

Not everyone who is exposed to a thought reform system is successfully manipulated nor does everyone respond with major reactive symptoms. Some authors described the psychological responses and casualties seen in the first-generation groups. No definitive figures about casualty rates for second-generation programs can be offered. However, scattered anecdotal reports in the psychiatric literature, the number of people seeking treatment, counseling, and other forms of help after leaving thought reform programs, and the growing number of persons seeking compensation for damages through litigation suggests that many experience different degrees and durations of distress, disability, and dysfunction following such programs.

Actual rates of damage may be far higher than estimations made from the sources cited above. The sole experimental study of the destructive potential of encounter groups reports psychological casualty rates higher than 10% for those groups that use intrusive and high confrontation techniques with aggressive leaders. These damaging techniques have much in common with the destabilizing techniques of second-generation programs. The full range of personality and situational factors that predispose individuals to become psychological casualties are not known at this time.

Second-generation thought reform programs expose participants to exercises and experiences that disrupt psychological defense systems, causing some individuals to be flooded with emotions and others to dissociate and split off parts of their awareness. Psychological decompensations and the onset of other symptoms appear related to the combined effects of features described earlier, especially to rapid, intense arousal of aversive emotional states and to dissociation-producing techniques.

[Dissociation and/or splitting off are the essential ego defenses of those who have become at least temporarily decompensated and psychotic.]

The analysis presented here is based on observations made since 1972 with over 3,000 people who have been exposed to thought reform programs in three types of closed restrictive groups: certain cults, some therapeutic communities, and certain large-group awareness trainings. At a surface level, these groups seem to be a varied lot. From the descriptions we have secured from people who participated in groups carrying out programs that met criteria for a thought reform program, we have begun to identify types of psychological responses. This work is in progress, and the following is an overview of our results to date.

At this point in our research we class the various thought reform programs into two main groupings that reflect the most characteristic negative psychological effects observed. The first cluster consists of those groups whose main effects are the product of intense aversive emotional arousal states: the second cluster is comprised of groups relying more on the [mis-] use of meditation, trance states, and dissociative techniques. The thought reform systems we have studied tend to use a variety of techniques and do not restrict themselves to only one or the other of our major categories.

A program relying heavily on meditation, trance, and dissociation techniques is likely to include elements of intense emotional arousal devices; the reverse also is true. Some of the most intense emotional arousal responses can be produced by guided imagery and other trance-inducing procedures. In our preliminary classification of thought reform techniques, we have used the division of "primarily emotional arousal" or "primarily dissociative" as our major division.

Our interviewees (all of whom were reporting some form of distress) were divided into six groups according to their responses after leaving the program. The first and largest group is the majority reaction group, and the remaining five groups are the induced psychopathologies.

The majority reaction

Degrees of anomie. The majority reaction seen in people who leave thought reform programs, almost regardless of the time spent with the group, is a varying degree of anomie -- a sense of alienation and confusion resulting from the loss or weakening of previously valued norms, ideals, or goals. When the person leaves the group and returns to broader society, culture shock and anxiety usually result from the theories learned in the group and the need to reconcile situational demands, values, and memories in three eras -- the past prior to the group, the time in the group, and the present situation.

The person feels like an immigrant or refugee who enters a new culture. However, the person is reentering his or her former culture, bringing along a series of experiences and beliefs from the group with which he or she had affiliated that conflict with norms and expectations. Unlike the immigrant confronting merely novel situations, the returnee is confronting a rejected society. Thus, most people leaving a thought reform program have a period in which they need to put together the split or doubled self they maintained while they were in the group and come to terms with their pre-group sense of self.

[During which many experience Heinlien's "Stranger in a Strange Land" effect... and many others rapproach rather like "true-believing" "psychological marines" storming ashore.] 

Induced psychopathologies

Reactive schizoaffective-like psychoses. These occur in individuals with no prior history of mental disorder and from families free of such history, as well as in individuals with no prior history of mental disorder, but whose families have members with affective disorders.

These psychotic episodes vary in length from days to nearly a year's duration, with most ranging from 1 to 5 months. The decompensation typically occurs in immediate response to a peak stress-inducing experience. Strong affective components, mostly of a hypomanic or manic quality, are noted near and after the decompensation. These components appear related to the behavior modeled in the group and to attitudes advocated by the group. 

[est, Psi, Eckankar and Silva Mind Control and the other mass, neurolinguistic re-programming intensives produced these "psychological marines" in battalion strength in the '709s. It was easy to see ho the same people could have been shouting "Long live chairman Mao."]

Certain programs appear to interact with personal histories and situational properties of the group to produce depressive reactions.

Posttraumatic stress disorders. This type of disorder is described in section 309.89 of the DSM-III-R.

Atypical dissociative disorders. This type of disorder is described in section 300.15 of the DSM-III-R.

Relaxation-induced anxiety. This is a type of atypical anxiety if one uses DSM-III-R classification, but is best described in the recently growing reports appearing in research literature.

[One has to wade through a mountain of misunderstanding to find anything peer-reviewed and journal-published on this topic. Suffice it to say that it has long been recognized that many -- though far from all -- point-of-focus (e.g.: mantra-reciting) meditators like those doing Transcendental Meditation have reported increasing anxiety as they continued their meditation practice... and decreased anxiety as they eased away from it. My observation is that this sometimes occurs as the result of participating in guided meditations that included indoctrination of discomfiting ideas and/or instruction in techniques obsessively perfectionistic practitioners found impossible to perform (e.g.: total and lasting "thought evaporation."

This topic is also addressed in "Abuse of Point of Focus Meditation for Mind Control."]  

Miscellaneous reactions. These include anxiety combined with cognitive inefficiencies, such as difficulty in concentration, inability to focus and maintain attention, and impaired memory (especially short-term); self-mutilation; phobias; suicide and homicide; and psychological factors affecting physical conditions (described in section 316.00 of the DSM-III-R) such as strokes, myocardial infarctions, unexpected deaths, recurrence of peptic ulcers, asthma, etc.

[The concept of "Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" -- now awaiting "officializing" publication in the first revision of the APA's Diagnostic & Statistical Manual (DSM) V -- had not yet been devised when Singer and Ofshe wrote this paper. (The next ICD will also include the diagnosis, we are told.) A considerably more fleshed out and complicated version of the largely combat-, severe-conflagration- or rape-induced PTSD known at that time, it is far more than the behavior that results from prolonged stress: It is the inflammatory, "allostatic load" on the brain and the fight-flight-freeze response of autonomic nervous system that may linger (especially if further "agitated") for weeks, months, years... or even decades.

The specific version of CPTSD I have seen in many cult exiters usually includes such symptoms as paranoia with expectation of abuse by others, hypervigilance and exaggerated startle response, as well as rebounding from both over-trust to intense distrust of others motives and behaviors, and from learned-helplessness-driven depression and/or anxiety to pseudo-narcissistic, hypomanic impulsivity (see my reply on that reddit thread). 

According to Kramer & Alstad, medically and psychologically educated critics of cultic methods in both India and China began to write about such observed effects and take issue with such manipulations as long as 2,000 years ago.

Vis CPTSD, please see Courtois, Lupien et al, McEwen, Sapolsky, Selye, van der Kolk, Walker, and Wolpe.]

Case Examples

Both of the following cases illustrate the production of psychiatric casualties in individuals exposed to thought reform programs. Neither individual described below had a history of personal or family mental disorder.

Kirk illustrates the splitting or doubling of the self that occurs when one drops an ordinary world view and accepts the alternative world view trained through exposure to a thought reform program. Professionals who treated Kirk diagnosed his condition as relaxation-induced anxiety that evolved into panic attacks and atypical dissociative states.

He affiliated with a mantra meditation group, initially attempting to "empty the mind" of all reflective thoughts for a few minutes each morning and evening. The mantra, supposedly a meaningless word, is the Sanskrit name of a Hindu deity.

Kirk has an advanced degree in a physical science from a prestigious university. A friend took him to a free lecture on how to reduce stress in one's life. Kirk was not stressed, but responded favorably to the lecturer's charts and graphs alleging scientific proof that meditation was accomplishing feats unknown to mankind -- except through the group leader's methods.

Because of its seemingly scientific basis, Kirk paid his fees and began meditation lessons. These lessons began with short periods of meditation, which soon lengthened and were combined with prolonged periods of chanting and hyperventilation.

After a few months he began to have bouts of chest pains, fainting spells, palpitations, and lassitude. When he complained at the meditation center of his symptoms, he was assured these were normal signs of "unstressing" and evidence that he was reaching a higher state of consciousness. Hence, Kirk discounted his distress, accepting it as the price he had to pay to reach the leader's promised goal. Had Kirk not been following the meditation practice with simultaneous involvement with the group, he probably would have abandoned the practice as soon as he started having these adverse reactions.

During one panic attack, he was taken to an emergency room where a physician attributed his condition to "stress and pressure." He stopped meditating for a few days, and the symptoms disappeared. However, the group instructed him to increase the time he chanted, hyperventilated, and meditated.

Over the years his condition worsened. Panic attacks continued; he reported he felt "spaced out" and forgetful, and he began to let his career, social life, and intellectual development decline. Upon advice from the group leader, to help his deteriorating condition, he frequently spent 8 hours a day for an entire week, chanting, hyperventilating, and meditating. He spent several individual months on such a regime. His distress increased. He was markedly dizzy and objects seemed swirl, float, and waver in the air. He felt nauseous, disoriented, distraught and confused. At work he began to lose confidence in his abilities and worried that he had slipped into insanity.

He soon found himself unable to focus on his surroundings: when he did, things appeared distorted, obscure, and foreign. He felt overwhelmed by anxiety, depression, nausea, and debilitation. He took a week off from work and sat crying in his apartment in an apparent state of depersonalization and derealization, accompanied by a multitude of odd sensations and mental contents. He visited several general practitioners who could not diagnose his symptoms.

One day while driving he lost his memory. He was unable to recall who he was or where he was going. He parked and went into a restaurant. When he left, it took him 2 hours to find his car because he had forgotten where he had parked. Soon after this transient but alarming amnesic episode, he resigned from his job because he could no longer instruct workers as part of his technical job. When he had to speak he felt faint, lost track of what he was saying, and was unable to function.

Beverly, now 27, was in a cult from ages 15 to 24. For 2 years after leaving the cult, she was too frightened to seek help or tell anyone what had happened during the years she was in the group. Finally, she saw a psychologist over a prolonged period. Initial symptoms were severe depression., anxiety, multiple phobias and identity diffusion. As her story unfolded during therapy, a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder was made. The following is abstracted from a report written by her therapist.

The group Beverly joined was started by an immigrant who conferred upon himself the titles of guru, yogi and teacher after reaching the United States. He began to collect a small following by advertising himself as an exercise and diet specialist.

A relative of Beverly's had lived for some time in the commune he developed. The relative asked I 5-year-old Beverly to spend the summer in the commune; she remained in the commune for 9 years. Beverly was an easy mark for the leader and his assistants to completely dominate. His indoctrination and influence program led her to believe all his claims, that he was the most learned man alive, that he knew hidden health and living secrets which he would reveal to her. The group preached bizarre and ever-changing diets. Beverly came to think the leader was omniscient, omni-present and omnipotent. He treated her as his protégé, subjecting her to endless sessions of indoctrination and withdrawing alternative sources of social support until she became totally dependent on him.

She believed that he knew all the secrets of the universe. She believed that he held the power of life and death over her and her family because he claimed that he was above the law and that he could order the execution of anyone who displeased him. He repeatedly stated that I he would have her and her family put to death if she ever left him. Eventually when she did attempt to leave after almost 9 years. he put her under armed guard and prevented her from leaving.

The most traumatic episodes with the leader began after Beverly had been in the group several years. He told her that he was going to cure her of what he termed her sexual neurosis. He proceeded to rape her while she was held down. After this event, she became stunned, depressed, withdrawn and suicidal for nearly 3 years, she was anally and genitally raped repeatedly and given gratuitous brutal beatings by the leader. She became pregnant twice: each time he leader ordered her to have an abortion. Hours after undergoing one of the abortions, he raped her.

Beverly eventually ceased to regard him as divine after she developed herpes and chronic kidney and bladder infections; she saw him only as a violent, brutal rapist. At this point, the leader assigned armed guards to restrain her from escaping. She remained virtual prisoner for over a year. She finally escaped several years ago, still believing the leader or his helper would find and kill her and her parents. This fear continues.

Beverly has a driving phobia. This appears related to the leader telling her that if she ever left him she would die in an automobile crash. After a year of treatment, she is able lo drive short distances, but only at the expense of considerable anxiety.

Beverly becomes excruciatingly anxious over what she calls "flashbacks" [the sure signs of any form of PTSD]. She vividly re-experiences how she felt when she had to sit for endless hours listening to the rambling, nonsensical lectures given by the leader. During those lectures she resented having to sit for so long yet she was unable to move or leave. She feared that the leader had magical powers and that it she incurred his disfavor, she would come to harm or even die as he claimed happened to those who defied him. Because of these negative associations with prolonged sitting, she has been unable to attend classes, church services, or similar events. Thus, her educational level remains as it was at age 15 when she entered the cult.

She has panic attacks with agoraphobia in which she has to abandon whatever she is doing and return to her apartment to feel safe. These attacks have prevented her from maintaining employment and reliably enjoying recreational activities. She has an ever-present free-floating sense of foreboding and dread.

Beverly has trouble going to sleep as fearful images of the leader intrude, arousing fear. When she does sleep she has nightmares involving his attacks on her. She sleeps fully dressed because she fears she may have to flee the leader's guards. This is not without foundation as such happened before she escaped from the commune. Her numbed, stunned state seen at the start of therapy has declined, but the rest of the posttraumatic stress syndrome remains. She feels her life is ruined and suffers generalized anhedonia.

Summary

The techniques used to induce belief, change, and dependency by various thought reform programs appear to be related to the type of psychiatric casualty the program tends to produce. Large group awareness training programs appear more likely to induce mood and affect disorders. Groups that use prolonged mantra and empty-mind meditation [a.k.a. "point of focus," as above] hyperventilation, and chanting appear more likely to have participants who develop relaxation-induced anxiety, panic disorder, marked dissociative problems, and cognitive inefficiencies.

[It may surprise some readers to learn that many members of these cults -- especially those who reach levels four to six of the 10-Level Pyramid Model -- fail to comprehend that their chronic anxiety, depression and/or general dysphoria was (and continues to be) induced by the cult practices... and become further enmeshed out of beliefs that the cults' practices are "functional," but that they are not doing them "correctly." (Jenna Miscavige made it clear as crystal in her expose that the Cynical- and Sociopathic- level hierarchy of the CoS counts on this, and manipulates it ruthlessly, even when the dysphoric are their own kin.) This becomes glaringly evident at Pyramid levels seven and eight: the "Gluttons for Punishment" and "Willful Slaves."] 

Therapeutic community thought reform programs appear more likely to induce enduring fears, self-mutilation, self-abasement, and inappropriate display of artificial assertiveness and emotionality. 

[To wit, widely in the SeaOrg of the CoS, as noted above.]

Many people subjected to thought reform programs of sufficient duration report transient to longer lasting cognitive inefficiencies with impaired concentration, attention, and memory. Most are self-reported observations; others come from family and friends who note the inefficiencies either were not present prior to the thought reform program or are exacerbations of preexisting tendencies.

[While much more typically the case at Pyramid levels one through five, I have to take issue with the widespread mis-apprehension at the time this article was written that most cult members were not preconditioned to at least semi-sadomasochistic levels of codependency in their families of origin or by some other means. Because it is irrefutably clear at Pyramid levels six and above that they were. (See "Understanding Codependence as 'Soft-Core' Cult Dynamics... and Cult Dynamics as 'Hard-Core' Codependence" for extensive details and explanations.

Anyone with decades of experience working with cult exiters, codependents and those in recovery from complex PTSD can see that very few people elect to be abused on any long-term basis unless they were conditioned, socialized and normalized to shame, guilt, worry, remorse, regret and morbid reflection in early life. I assert that because I know a "scapegoat" and a "duty victim" from a "mascot" and a "hero" in Bowen's scheme of "family systems," as well as a "rescuer" or "persecutor" from a "victim" on Karpman's Drama Triangle. I have known hundreds of them.] 

There is an interactional-transactional interplay between a program's philosophical contents, exercises, and practices, and each person exposed to it. The thought reform program impinges on cognition, defenses, affects, values, and conduct. Additionally, each person's genetic-biological make-up, life experiences, personality, and mental make-up interact with the stressors induced by the interface of the person's old value, belief, and behavior codes with the new beliefs and behavior promulgated by the program.

Prediction of any one person's responses to any one thought reform regime is difficult, if not impossible. However, as with all stressful, conflict-inducing, and intense negative emotionally arousing situations, certain forms of behavioral pathology are more likely than other types to occur among individuals exposed to certain combinations of stressors.

[Which is precisely why modern treatment for complex post-traumatic stress disorder along the lines discussed in "Can People Truly Recover from Cult Indoctrination and Manipulation?" works for those who have moved past stage one of both Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief processing and Prochaska & DiClemente's five stages of therapeutic recovery... with ever increasing likelihood of improvement as they move up the five stages in both schemes. 

Dis-I-dentification with the sense of victimhood or delusional empowerment, as well as the group and its beliefs is, of course, crucial. Many find that difficult. But cult enmeshment operates very similarly to any form of behavioral addiction, including gambling, over-exercise, sex & romance, workaholism, pornography, smart phone texting, and social media. Thus, with application of the techniques of "motivational enhancement" originally developed for addiction treatment many years ago along with those of rational-emotive behavioral and other, belief-challenging, cognitive therapies, progress is highly likely.] 

Dr. Singer is Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Ofshe is Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley.

This article was presented as the Virginia Tarlow Memorial Lecture, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Illinois, June 1987.


Singer's & Ofshe's References

1. Lifton, R.J. Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. New York, NY: Norton; 1961.

2. Schein, E. H. Coercive Persuasion. New York, NY: Norton; 1961.

3. Chen, T.E.H. Thought Reform of the Chinese Intellectuals. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 1960.

4. Farber, I. E., Harlow, H.F., West, L.J. "Brainwashing, conditioning and DDD: debility, dependency and dread" Sociometry. 1956: 20: 271-285

5. Hinckle, L.E., Wolfe, H.G. "Communist interrogation and indoctrination of enemies of the state." Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry. 1956: 76:115-174.

6. Lifton, R.J. "Home by ship: reaction patterns of American prisoners of war repatriated from North Korea" American Journal of Psychiatry. 1954; 110: 732-739

7. Schein, E.H. The Chinese Indoctrination program for prisoners of war" Psychiatry. 1956; 19:149-172.

8. Segal, H.A. "Initial psychiatric findings of recently repatriated prisoners of war" American Journal of Psychiatry. 1958; 21:358-363.

9. Singer, M.T., Schein, E.H. "Projective test responses of prisoners of war following repatriation" Psychiatry. 1958; 21:375-385.

10. Strassman, H., Thaler, M., Schein, E.H. "A prisoner of war syndrome: apathy as a reaction to severe stress" American Journal of Psychiatry. 1956; 112:998-1003.

11. Ofshe, R., Singer, M.T. "Attacks on Peripheral versus central elements of self and the impact of thought reforming techniques" Cultic Studies Journal/ 1986; 3:3-24.

12. Glass, L.L., Kirsch, M.A., Parris, F.N. "Psychiatric disturbances associated with Erhard Seminars Training, I: a report of cases" American Journal of Psychiatry. 1977; 134:245-247.
13. Haaken, J., Adams, R. "Pathology as >personal growth=: a participant observation study of Lifespring Training" Psychiatry. 1983; 46: 270-280.

14. Higgett, A.C., Murray, R.M. "A psychotic episode following Erhard Seminars Training" Acta Psychiatr Scand. 1983; 67:436-439.

15. Hockman, J. "Iatrogenic symptoms associated with a therapy cult: examination of an extinct 'new psychotherapy' with respect to psychiatric deterioration and 'brainwashing'" Psychiatry. 1977; 134:1254-1258.

16. Kirsch, M.A., Glass, L.L., "Psychiatric disturbances associated with Erhard Seminars Training, II: additional cases and theoretical considerations." American Journal of Psychiatry. 1977; 134:1254-1258.

17. Ofshe, R., Eisenberg, N., Coughlin, R., Dolinajec, G., Johnson, A. "Social structure and the social control in Synanon" Voluntary Action Research. 1974; 3:67-76.

18. Ofshe, R. "Synanon: the people business." In: Glock, C., Bellah, R. Eds. The New Religious Consciousness. Berkeley, Calif: The University of California Press. 1976: 116-137.

19. Ofshe, R. "The social development of the Synanon cult: the managerial strategy of organizational transformation" Sociological Analysis. 1980; 41:109-127.

20. Singer, M.T., Ofshe, R. Thought Reform and Brainwashing. Document offered as proof of testimony, Queen's High Court, London, on behalf of the London Daily Mail: 1980.

21. Singer, M.T. "Group psychodynamics" In: Berkow, R., ed. The Merck Manual. Rahway, NJ: Merck Sharp and Dohme; 1987: 1467-1471.

22. Lieberman, M.L., Yalom, I., Mile, M. Encounter Groups: First Facts. New York, NY: Basic Books; 1973.

23. Yalom, I., Lieberman, M. AA study of encounter group casualties" Archives of General Psychiatry. 1971; 25:16-30.

24. Heide, F.J., Borkovec, T.D. "Relaxation-induced anxiety: paradoxical Anxiety enhancement due to relaxation training" Journal of Consulting Clinical Psychology. 1983; 51:171-182.

25. Heide, F.J., Borkovec, T.D. "Relaxation-induced anxiety: mechanism and theoretical implications" Behav. Res. Ther. 1984; 22:1-12.

26. Heide, F.J. "Relaxation: the storm before the calm" Psychology Today. April 1985; 19:18-19.

27. Lifton, R.J. "Doubling: the Faustian bargain" In: Lifton, R.J., ed. The Future of Immortality and Other Essays for a Nuclear Age. New York, NY: Basic Books; 1987; 195-208.

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