Recognizing Con Artists, Tyrants, and Spiritual Abusers in Leadership Stephen Martin Copyright © 2007, 2009, 2012 by Stephen Martin Published by ACW Press Nashville, Tennessee 37222 Printed in the United States of America ISBN 978-1-934668-18-4 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author. DEDICATION To those who seek a remedy against authoritarian control and terrorism INTRODUCTION Just Suppose Suppose you move to a different area and are keeping your eyes open for a good group to belong to (a social club, a church, a synagogue, or service organization). You visit one such group where the people are very friendly, loving, and give you individual attention. The group has a variety of programs: a rehabilitation program for drug addicts, services and nursing homes for the elderly, help for the poor, and free clinics. The leader inspires the disillusioned, the disenchanted, and those who have been rejected elsewhere. He is well-known and respected in the area, and the mayor gave him a position as director of the City Housing Authority. Would you join this group? Suppose you spend four years in college and nearly two years in graduate school to prepare for a career in Christian music. Then the ministers of your home church tell you that you are not needed in their music program. Shortly afterward, you find a new group that welcomes you with open arms. They really care for people. The leader of this group has fascinating Bible studies. You and everyone else are able to sit and listen to him for several hours at a time. Would you stay in this group? If you answered “yes” to the first situation, you joined the church led by Jim Jones who led over 900 of his followers into a mass suicide murder. 1 If you liked the second group, you became a follower of David [10] 11 The Heresy of Mind Control • Stephen Martin Koresh 2 who led over eighty of his followers to die in a blaze of fire. A wolf in sheep’s clothing is a short and simple description of a cult leader—as these men were. Are there any warning signs that a group and its leader are dangerous? That’s largely what this book is about. Taken in Unawares You may be in a cultic group and not be aware of it. You may join a cultic group and not know it. Or you may be one who has come out of a cultic group and are distressed by your experience and looking for help. In any of these cases, this book is for you. One reason that many do not realize they are in a cult is because very little education exists about the nature of mind control or brainwashing. This book is one that helps to fill the void. If we don’t recognize our vulnerabilities, it can lead us to the assumption that we can’t be deceived and eventually manipulated through a brainwashing process. We can be unaware of the subtle process that can pull us into a harmful group unwittingly. So many simply believe that it is some other poor “sap” that gets suckered into a cult. What is a Cult? The word cult, to many people, brings up the idea of “unorthodox belief” or “heresy.” Others think of “mind control” or “brainwashing.” Both concepts are correct. Additional terms such as “totalitarianism” (or “totalism”), “authoritarianism,” “spiritual abuse,” and “abusive churches” are also included in the entire cult phenomenon and involve mind control as well. In general, correct belief is considered of high importance in churches. What is of equal importance is how groups, churches, and their leaders treat people. Whereas unorthodox doctrine can be labeled as heresy of belief, this book will focus on a heresy of practice—namely 12 Introduction • Just Suppose mind control. I will expand on a classic work by Robert J. Lifton, M.D., Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, particularly chapter 22 on Ideological Totalism. In his book, Dr. Lifton studied and exposed the psychological themes of mind control or “thought reform” as he calls it. His study began in 1954 as an investigation of brainwashing in China after the Communists took over that country with these thought reform techniques beginning in 1948. He examined the experiences of forty people as his subjects, both Chinese and Westerners who were in China at the time of the takeover. In chapter 22, he draws together eight psychological themes of thought reform that are grouped under the heading of ideological totalism—an extremist meeting ground between people and ideas to which everyone is vulnerable regardless of their background. Since the first edition of his book in 1961, evidence has come to light from many cult researchers and former cult members that these same dynamics of thought reform or mind control exist in cults today. It is simply that they take place within a different context than the political context of Communist China, and in slightly different forms—often more subtle. As a result of discovering these parallels, Dr. Lifton’s book has become a classic text and standard criteria among cult experts for identifying mind control in a cult or totalist system. Victims of mind control frequently experience emotional and psychological harm. Therapeutic help is available at Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center near Albany, Ohio, for those who have left cults and other abusive environments. I served as a workshop leader at Wellspring for many years. Almost without exception, our clients— as well as numerous other ex-cult members we know of—point out numerous examples, revealed in this book 3 , of how they experienced most or all of the eight points Dr. Lifton describes. Regardless of which particular cult the victims have been affiliated with, these points appear to be universal to all mind control cults, authoritarian rulers, and terrorist organizations. How did Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse- Tung, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Jim 13 The Heresy of Mind Control • Stephen Martin Jones, David Koresh, and Marshall Applewhite control their followers? Their methods all resemble the same pattern. Dictators of nations are examples of political totalism. Controllers of religious or secular cults are examples of religious totalism and ideological totalism. The religious and ideological totalisms will be the main focus of this book, although examples from some of the others are included as well. Terrorist Groups, Cults, and Abusive Relationships There are striking parallels between cults, al-Qaida and the Taliban of Afghanistan. In both types of groups, the processes of recruitment, group dynamics, thought reform, and resulting personality changes are very similar. Whereas all cults are different from one another in many ways, their striking similarity lies in their use of the same mind control techniques. Each cult simply does it in a little different way. Some cult leaders use these techniques consciously. Others use them in an inadvertent and uncalculated manner. But it’s as though they all come from the same school! These techniques and characteristics can exist in any group or infiltrate any group—large or small: an entire nation or even as small as a one-on-one relationship—religious or secular, Christian or non- Christian. Even some pastors of mainline Christian churches have fallen into these practices, thinking they are doing the will of God and acting in the best interests of their members. Many leaders of cults and abusive churches quote the Bible to support their ways. But actually they twist the Bible, thus deceiving their followers. And there are plenty of Bible passages that speak against their practices. By examining the practices and characteristics that are described in this book, you can discern if you are in such a group or one-on-one relationship. 14 Introduction • Just Suppose In Unexpected Places These practices and characteristics are not just those of the autocrats named above; they are the traits that define any cult. Furthermore, these kinds of groups are in far more places than most people realize, and in unexpected places even as the Bible warns about (e.g.: Ezek. 34:1-4; Acts 20:29-31; Matt. 7:15; 2 Pet. 2:1-3). Even in my own small town area, I would keep learning of various groups and churches that had these traits. One time I was given the opportunity to serve as an interim pastor at two small churches of a mainline denomination. The members told me of their previous pastor and how he had wounded them. I could tell they had been under a cultic authoritarian leader. As I gave messages and Bible studies, they could see how nearly all eight of these traits described the rulership of this pastor. This book is based on my own experience of listening to people like these, and primarily the stories of our clients at Wellspring. Together, the clients and I would see how their stories fit these eight characteristics that Dr. Lifton describes. Together we would look at the Scriptures that oppose these practices, and in so doing the clients experience a liberation of their minds and emotions. In cult education programs that I do, people often come up to me and make statements such as, “Your presentation describes the same things I went through in a group I was in,” or “I know people right in this area who are in a group just like that.” The Meeting Ground of Psychology, Sociology, and Theology There are psychological, sociological and theological aspects of cults.