Both Robert Lifton and Steve Hassan list the use of 'loaded language' as a key element of cults. Every cult has terminologies that are unique to itself, and often the intent is to polarize the membership into a black and white language style. The cliches of cultish groups tend to stop thought, or restrict into a a single accepted viewpoint.
This is almost never recognized by the members while they are trapped inside - but is clearly evident the effects this had upon us once we exit the religion. Anyone reading Orwell's 1984 would see the 'Newspeak' as clear evidence of mind control. Words are twisted to mean precisely what the government wants them to mean - all leading to undisputed subservience to the leaders. When events changed in 1984, the subjects just adjusted to the 'new' meaning of the terminologies as if the 'old' meaning never existed at all. How chilling it is to us, once we have left a cult, to realize that this is precisely the way we reacted to 'new light' under the theocratic administration of the Governing Body.
Most current Jw's would literally argue with you if you suggested that they ever believed [as an organization] that the 'Superior authorities' mentioned prominently in the bible at Romans chapter 13 were identified as 'Jesus and Jehovah' for at least 34 years until 'newlight' replaced that interpretation with one that was 180 degrees change - when the 'Superior authorities' became the governments of the world. It is as if that 'old-speak' never existed, but passed out of existence at the moment that 'Mother' changed it.
It would be disturbing enough to recognize this power of control over us, if there had been only a few changes over time, and we had absorbed them as if nothing had changed. But when we look at the vast changes of the theological template of beliefs within this religion, it is truly staggering that so many could be convinced without argument.
I recall some very significant changes in my tenure as a Witness, and in retrospect I recall very little if any reaction from the Jw populace. The changes in 'scriptural understanding' of such serious matters as the use of blood in medicine, organ transplants, and the view of military alternates - all of these very important changes brought not so much as a hightened brow in the Watchtower studies or reading of the magazine's 'announcement' among those of us gathered together in a car-group in service. It was taken as something positive, that for some reason the organization had needed 'newlight' on the matter. But none of the disturbing nature of the past thinking ever was discussed. The potential millions who could have died without that new liver or kidney, or the thousands who had died in the past, were never mentioned. But in the case of significant doctrinal shifts, at least the opportunity to react, perhaps leave, was always present. Indeed, with every change some probably did leave - but not many. Most just washed out the old understanding, and replaced it with the new understanding - never to mention it again.
Nothing more clearly defines this religion than it's unique vernacular. The nomenclature is intrinsicly judgemental, and powerfully superficial. It is also perhaps far more deep reaching than any doctrinal matters, which almost by their nature invite at least some shallow thought upon acceptance. Conversely, Witness-speak seeks to drain complex relationships, ideas, and systems into singular terms - mostly carrying negative connotations. For example, the simple term "worldly" carries powerful emotional ammunition for Jehovah's Witnesses. The average human would attach a simple meaning that described an awareness of the world and it's makeup, generally a comlimentary opinion of someone who has experienced a wider viewpoint through his travel or education. One of Jehovah's Witnesses immediately upon hearing that term has a picture of someone who is sinful, evil, opposed to God and his organization. The term is often expanded to become adjective to dress, grooming, or choice of automobile, music, entertainment, or social contacts - and by insinuation, that such choices would mark a person as having fallen under the direct influence of Satan himself - has rejected God, at least on some level.
Time would fail one seeking to do an exhaustive study of the peculiar terms and their meanings among this group. Pioneer, service, convention, candidate, Bethel, missionary, fornication, divorce, society, worldly, love. All these terms and hundreds more carry, for Jehovah's Witnesses, a meaning or subtle undercurrent of thought, that is both exclusive to, and derived intentionally to a particular effect. These terms seek to control, not educate. THey seek to suspend thinking, to drive the mind to a single definition, typically with a judgemental mindset that elevates Jehovah's Witnesses by seeking to denegrate anyone who thinks along more typical lines of reason. It is the hyaena laughing at the work of the lion.
Think this is not effective? I have exited the religion now well over 5 years ago. Still, when I hear the term 'worldly' I have an immediate recoil before my thinking can adjust. I find myself in a defensive mode when the word is uttered - then within a moment I readjust and substitute the real meaning of the word into my thoughts about the conversation at hand. Still - I wonder how long I will have to redress my thinking in such a way to smother the embedded wrong meaning of these words? On some occasions I have actually used the word in conversation with others, then had to recant my sentence and rephrase it to meaningful terminology, often abashed that I had not yet driven the subjective perversion of this word from my memory banks.
This bit of thought on the matter highlights the beauty of language to me that is unspoiled by the cultures among us that seek to control by insidious conscription of the mind. Whilst we are all subject to parochial and regional inflection of words and accidence of terms, those who would deliberately seek to alienate, demonize, or artificially elevate by misleading use of words, are particularly despicable. They seek to catch us unaware by subtle influence rather than permitting or encouraging open discourse, opinion and conclusion. They trap the mind behind barbwire.
Jeff