What is the key that unlocks the mental grip of the WT?

LennyinBluemont

I’ve wondered this from time to time, especially in trying to figure out how I finally broke free and in looking at the stories of others. If you asked me a few years ago, I probably would have said either seeing too much hypocrisy or suffering the last straw of spiritual and/or emotional abuse. But I know in my case and others, even that wasn’t enough to break the mental shackles. I think now, if it was one thing, it was when I stopped going to the meetings. After several months of no meeting attendance, even though my wife was still going, slowly my mind began to peek outside the box and consider other versions of reality. I really think the mind control is most readily maintained by demanding attendance for those five hours per week. Not only the steady drone of indoctrination with fully scripted meetings, but also the reinforcement of the idea just by the presence of so many we hold dear and respect. Even more than the literature and the field service, I really think it’s the meetings. What do you think?

AWAKE&WATCHING

My first response was KNOWLEDGE.

Then I read your post again.

I completely agree that it is getting away from the indoctrination of the meetings. It opens your mind up a little at a time.

I disassociated myself in 1990 and went back in 2001, always believing it was the truth. When I went back I saw thingsdifferently, I heard things differently, I felt things differently.

Something was wrong and I could tell I just couldn't put my finger on it. My mind was more open and I began to read things differently in the Watchtower lessons. The hypocrisy, control and arrogance began to seep into my consiousness.

I truly believe that being AWAY from the meetings is what saved me.

willyloman

A CO once told us, in talking about people who miss meetings: "They miss one, then they miss another one, pretty soon they don't miss them at all."

It got a nervous laugh. He meant it in a negative, disparaging way, but when I went through my exit phase I often thought of that phrase. I realized after missing three or four weeks of meetings that I didn't miss them very much! My mind cleared up, like a fog was lifted, and I began to see "normal" in a whole new light.

"The more you change the way you see things, the more the things you see change," somebody said. So true.

Jeffro

Apart from those who leave because they just find it too hard to obey all the regulations, the key point is knowledge. However knowledge on its own isn't enough. The fulcrum is when the emotional burden of going through the motions outways the stress of leaving and losing one's social network. After staying away from a few meetings, that social network starts to fail, and leaving gets that little bit easier.

coffee_black

The key is different for everyone. For some it's the lack of love. For some it's doctrinal inconsistancies. For some it's the crazy history of the wt. There are many reasons that brought us out... many similarities...but there is no one key. If there was, we'd all have all our loved ones out.

Coffee

Maddie

That's why they have so much meeting time every week because it is one of the main techniques used in mind control. The constant reinforcement of everything in the meetings i.e. unique language specific to the JW cult, the repetitive agenda and information control, the fear scenario, reward and condemnation scenario ("the good JW/the bad JW"), the separation of JW's from the " worldly people", the songs which are an indoctrination process in themselves.

While JW's keep attending all the meetings as well as everything else they haven't got much chance to think for themselves in a critical way. It's very powerful stuff that they use to try and keep us prisoners!

Maddie

journey-on

I think you are right. It's the getting out from under the constant mind manipulation of the meetings that helps clear your brain

from all the programming. I've mentioned this in some of my past posts, but I had occasion last year

to attend a couple of the meetings. I'm not df'd nor da'd...just a long-time fader. I did it to please an elderly sister that

love-bombed me into doing it. I'm a bit soft-hearted when it comes to certain people. Anyway, what shocked me back

into reality was this overwhelming spooky sensation I got while around them. They smiled, shook my hand, they offered

the standard phrases of courteous introductions, but they seemed so-o-o drone-like and eerily detached. Someone

on this board called them Stepford-like and that's exactly how I would describe it. I felt a sinister presence in the whole

experience and knew when I left and drove out the parking lot, I was never going to step foot in a Kingdom Hall again.

wha happened?

I totally agree that everything is diffferent after returning from a long absence at the KH. We veeeeery occasionally attend and the minute I walk in it feels different. It does not have the feeling of love for all. You can see who is in the corner alone, those who the elders ignore and those who they speak with. The standard answers at the WT study, The standard illustrations and rhetoric from the public talk. It just feels so mechanical.

jaguarbass

Even more than the literature and the field service, I really think it’s the meetings. What do you think?

I think the meetings are a key ingredient to the mind control, over and over again. They are consuming.

You ask what is the key that unlocks the mental grip.

What pops in my mind is that "confusicus say "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."

When one gets sick and tired of the monotony and zombie like trance of being a JW. In this information age with the innernet, teachers are all over the place.

For me, it was the lie of 1975. I was fortunate, or unfortunate to have been in the organization in the 60's and 70's and was able to see the unraveling of Watchtower lies regarding the big A right before my eyes.

I reasoned if they were wrong about armegedon, they were probably wrong about many other things. And time has proven they are.

oompa

Coffee Black is dead on. It is different for things for different people. Meetings stoked my furnace. Every meeting I kept getting more and more and more things that I felt the need to question or critisize. This went on for many many years and a lot of people knew I had a ton of doubts. The final straw that let me really start saying "bullshit" when a teaching was now what I knew to be that, was personally verifying the fraudulant NWT (Not Well Translated) of the Bible. Gosh they have some monster balls!

to each his own....oompa

What is the key that unlocks the mental grip of the WT?

Share this