Hassan's New Book: Chapter 2- What is Destructive Social Influence ?

by flipper 55 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  sizemik

  Hassan is actually another cult leader. And you are in his cult.

  I just want to warn people here that Hassan is f.o.s.

  I guess that explains everything.
• 

  flipper

  SIZEMIK- Good points. There are crazy practices in religious AND non-religious organizations
• 

  scotoma

  Sizemik:

  "No difference". Yeah! No two snow flakes are alike either. Who cares. I'm talking about really significant differences. Differences that make a difference.

  I agree that there are non-religious organizations that have authoritarian structures and leaders also.

  My main point is that cult fighters are not exempt from scrutiny. They have an even greater responsibility to defend their practices based on peer reviewed evidence.
• 

  rip van winkle

  I don't want to overstep my boundaries, Flipper, as it is your thread.

  I would just like to point out, that prior to the BITE model, it was Margaret Singer who provided a list of 6 conditions of "thought reform"; wording, at the time they thought more appropriate to "brainwashing". (The wording "Social Influence" is the more appropriate used wording today, in lieu of "brainwashing"

  Margaret Singer was a senior psychologist at Walter Reed Army Hospital who studied the effects of "thought reform"*.And she listed 6 conditions for thought reform:

  1- Gain Control over a person's time, especially his thinking time and physical environment.

  2-Create a sense of powerlessness, fear and dependency, while providing models that demonstrate the new, ideal behavior.

  3- Manipulate rewards, punishments and experiences to suppress the recruits former social behavior and attitudes, including the use of altered states of consciousness to manipulate experience.

  4- Manipulate rewards, punishments and experiences to elicit behavior and attitudes desired by leadership.

  5- Create a tightly controlled system with a closed system of logic, wherein dissenter's feel their questioning indicates something is inherently wrong with them.

  6- Keep recruits unaware and uninformed that there is an agenda to control or to change them. Thought-reform is impossible when a person is functioning at full capacity with informed consen

  *Beginning on page 19, under the sub-heading: Mind Control Or Brainwashing it speaks about how captured Americans during the Korean war in the 1950's had confessed to fictional war crimes.Several military psychologists and psychiatrists started their research on "thought reform" as a preventative measure for future soldiers against brainwashing.
• 

  flipper

  RIP VAN WINKLE- I appreciate your input ! You aren't overstepping any boundaries . Thanks for bringing out those pints by Margaret Singer. Very insightful. Her points certainly remind us of what it was like inside the Jehovah's Witness cult for sure ! Thanks for sharing
• 

  ziddina

  "... Hassan continues, " it is essential that you recognize the differences between the pre-cult identity (before recruitement), the cult identity ( during membership ) , and the persons authentic self, which stays unchanged. EVEN people who are born into cults HAVE AN AUTHENTIC SELF that makes it possible to rescue people from cults many years, even decades after they join. ..." OP

  Oh, if only that were true...

  I'm not struggling to get anyone out, but from what I've read on this board, it seems that there are some people who develop an ironclad resistance to reality - resistance to any information that would free them from this cult.
• 

  00DAD

  Scotoma: Hassan is actually another cult leader. And you are in his cult.

  Oh puh-leeze!

  That is sofa king stew pit!
• 

  breakfast of champions

  ZID - I am living evidence that his statement IS true! Yes, it takes a lot of honesty, pain, and frankly, hard work to discover your true, authentic self after being raised in this cult, but it is certainly possible.
• 

  flipper

  ZIDDINA- Very true what you say. Some people stay stuck, like caught in a door jammed between wanting to move forward, yet out of fear and guilt imposed and seeped into them by the WT society - they stay stuck in the cult and even get back into it because of that controlling fear and guilt within them. It's like psychological oppression in my opinion imposed on these people by WT leaders. Very insidious in it's deceptive power over these people. That's one of the many reasons cults like this are so dangerous.

  00DAD- Yeah, it doesn't make sense that Hassan would escape a cult and preach about " freedom of mind " to free people - and then start a cult to control people. Jesus h. Christ. LOL ! Amazing. Unless we all get paranoid and think Hassan has unscrupulous motives ! Which I highly doubt . I feel he's pretty straightforward in his motives to help people
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Steve Hassan may not be much of an expert compared to those who wrote Scotoma's 2000 books on psychology and I am even pretty sure Scotoma's points on MBTI have merit. It may just be that Steve Hassan was piling on by using MBTI data to support Hassan's own ideas about genuine self.

  Expert psychology can't even get a roomful of people to agree on what a cult is, and which groups fit the definitions. And while there are tons of people on JWN who will disagree with me (or Scotoma), I feel that many many many religious groups are cultish to large degrees. I don't feel that mainstream Christianity is anywhere as cultish as Jehovah's Witnesses but I do feel that Islam is. (I hope no riots start over my saying that.)

  I view Steve Hassan as a experienced man from the trenches instead of a doctor who has done studies on indoctrinated people. It's kind of like comparing kindergarten teachers to child psychologists. One group has experience that the other, despite education, may not be able to match when it comes to what is best for 5 and 6 year olds. But the child psychologists shouldn't be ignored either. They make great points and have evidence from studies. If the individual 5 year old is extremely disturbed, I would want to consult with the psychology doctor before doing what the kindergarten teacher said.

  But when some study wasn't meant to be used one way, that doesn't mean that we can't read about it and decide how much validity it has for ourselves. I can see where "answer the way you would have before joining the group" wouldn't have much value because the very idea is polluted by current thinking that wasn't available those many years ago. But as someone from the trenches (as most people on JWN are), I feel that saying "The third test showed an almost universal move toward the projected leader's personality type" is hugely true.

  But hey, many kindergarten teachers have different styles and opinions from each other. Steve Hassan is not your cup of tea. Thanks for letting us know more about MBTI. I think Steve Hassan speaks right to me. If that will make you say I am in his "cult," well let me say that he hasn't asked me to go to weekly, monthly, or even yearly meetings. Sure, he's sold me three books, but tons of fiction authors have done that too.