Thank you, wobble, for the recommendation last month. My library got the book in and I just finished reading it. Wow. I had to remind myself that this was written for the general public, not aimed solely at JWs. In fact, although JWs aren't mentioned by name, they certainly can be included when religions, or cults in general are spoken of. Of particular interest is Chaper 8, Pressing Your Buttons. It talks about the methods that are used by others to shape our beliefs. It reminded me so much of what Raymond Franz said in the final chapter of "Crisis of Conscience" about how to be genuine, our faith must be individually arrived at and not be the borrowed convictions of others. The subheading, Belief Shaping Mechanisms, points to the exact methods the Witnesses use: isolation, control, uncertainty, repetition, and emotion (fear in particular). (Ray talked about these methods in his book.) Pressing Your Buttons calls these ones "mindless and uncritical followers"...who are "immune to reason, trapped inside an Intellectual Black Hole at the mercy of those who control the ideas at its core". Sound like any organization we know?
As the others said, I don't think you could get a JW to read it. They would say they haven't the time with their own literature to keep up with, or if by a miracle they did read it, they probably wouldn't recognize any of it as applying to themselves. Thanks again for the recommendation, I really enjoyed this book.
