I gathered the courage to attempt reading information from other groups that I understand are classified as possibly using mind control. I started with the one people always associate with JWs--the 7th Day Adventists.
In reading their official site, I was pleased at first to hear some noble statements about freedom and about respect for the Bible. Then, I read something that sounded like an echo of whichever Watchtower article you want to pull from, to paraphrase, 'you can't understand the Bible without [Jehovah's organization, the 7th Day Adventist Church, fill in the blank] in mind.' "Ah," I said to myself.
Then there was that little mention of 1844 as Jesus' second advent, something to that effect? I'm probably a little off there. But I remembered that the Second Adventists, from whom C.T. Russell got his wacky ideas about chronology, also bought into that 1844 thing, based on 2,300 prophetic days. And the specific mention of the writings of Ellen G. White, I believe, mentioned almost as if they were part of the Bible. Hmm..."they are practically the Bible itself in rearranged form." Sound familiar? So, I get it.
The Unification Church's Divine Principle was much more subtle. The True Parents and the marriage thing were clearly set up, along with subtle prodding towards obedience to God which would no doubt be shifted to obedience to Moon, and somewhere in there they quoted a scripture, was it a Hindu scripture or...I don't know, I'm not familiar with anything apart from the Bible, but it mentioned "moon" in there. Nice subtlety, on their part. The particularly creepy thing? The introduction to the Divine Principle was IDENTICAL to the introduction that could easily be found in any public edition Watchtower or Awake! magazine. That was very, very creepy to me.
It was scary, this moment, sort of like Yoda probing the dark side of the Force in the Attack of the Clones novelization. Another story altogether. But so far, I'm still in reality, I think. It was scary, though. I call on the combined mental powers of All Time Jeff, Wobble, Outlaw, Jamiebowers, Isaacaustin, PSacramento, Blondie, BabaYaga, and the person who signs her name Sylvia but whose username I forget! MIND POWERS ASSEMBLLLLLLLE!!!! Okay, that was crazy. Apologies...fire away.
SD-7