Avoid Going back to the JW's - Educate Yourself about Mind Control

by flipper 94 Replies latest jw friends

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  flipper

  MAXIMUS G MAN- My statement was however you want to interpret it. Whatever works for you
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  villagegirl

  Someone used the word disorienting ? When you realize you believed something

  and were so convinced you did things that hurt your own family,

  or children, like not allowing your little girl to join, Brownies, and she cried,

  or not celebrating your own parents birthdays, when they had faithfully

  celebrated yours, and not give them Christmas presents, after all the

  wonderful Christmases they gave you; because now you found

  the "true religion" and you are right and they are wrong,

  and you have become, one of the "chosen people" and they

  will die in God's big slaughter, and you won't because your righteous,

  and then one day, something stips this all away, and you see yourself

  and you see others and you see the silly little men behind the curtain and

  their silly little rag of a magazine and all the numb people highlighting the

  study article and you suddenly realize the absolute insanity of it all.

  You are at first, confused, unwilling to accept the enormity of your mistake,

  you bargain for small pieces of what you think you can salvage, some dignity

  in something about it, because to see that you wandered into, the actual absurd

  reality of it , is overwhelming, its like opening a door and before you is nothing,

  nothing at all, and only a vast free fall into the unknown. The sheer terror

  of this is what drives some back. For those of us who survive this, we see

  a new and infinitely more interesting universe around us, and the freedom

  to move forward and connect to so many people on a deeper level

  we ever knew before.
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  flipper

  VILLAGEGIRL- Very well expressed and put by you. Thanks for your great analysis of the situation. Once we escape the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses we find so many more interesting things in life to pursue and it's wonderful meeting new people who understand our situation. One reason I get the Lake Tahoe gathering together each year. We can all vent and empathize with each other about dealing with our bat shit crazy JW relatives. I'm living life to the full now having much more peace than I could ever know. Take care, Peace out, Mr. Flipper
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  Gentledawn

  villagegirl, thank you for that summary. Reading what you wrote hurt but i'm still working thru some parts of it myself. Wish my husband would wake up, but it's starting to look more and more like he never will.

  OMG, what I put my biological family thru whilst getting waltzed into "da troof". They're all dead now, so there's no undoing or apologizing for any of it, either.

  Stages of grief.

  1. denial
  2. anger
  3. bargaining
  4. depression
  5. acceptance

  Never, ever, ever again.
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  Oubliette

  villagegirl, powerfully expressed.

  What this cult has done to us and our loved ones is criminal.

  As a result of my experience with JWs and the WTBTS I have lost all faith in a personal God. There are days, however, when I hope I am wrong, if only so that the leaders of this religion will be made to suffer for their sins.

  Most days I am a positive person living a happy life free (mostly free) from this cult. I would be completely free if it were not for the fact that my children, who I dearly love, are still stuck inside this destructive religion.

  I would do anything to rescue them. I was the one that taught them this shit; that bitter truth haunts me every day.

  ....
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  LV101

  Oubliette - ditto on everything you've stated above but I keep hoping I'm just weak/wrong in the "faith" area.
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  Heaven

  I think the school system needs to specifically teach critical thinking skills. Luckily, children have a natural built in BS meter. I started questioning what I was being told about God between the ages of 10 and 12. The claims did not match reality. I could see things that weren't correct or 'right' with the Witnesses as a teenager too. It would have been extremely helpful to have been taught critical thinking skills.

  Mr. Flipper, you are so correct about getting educated. Start with what signs a group exhibits when they are becoming cult-like or already are.

  Robert Jay Lifton's 8 criteria for thought reform is a good place to start:

  1. Milieu Control. This involves the control of information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.

  2. Mystical Manipulation. There is manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated by the group or its leaders in order to demonstrate divine authority or spiritual advancement or some special gift or talent that will then allow the leader to reinterpret events, scripture, and experiences as he or she wishes.

  3. Demand for Purity. The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here.

  4. Confession. Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; members' "sins," "attitudes," and "faults" are discussed and exploited by the leaders.

  5. Sacred Science. The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or for all humanity, is likewise above criticism.

  6. Loading the Language. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking.

  7. Doctrine over person. Member's personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group.

  8. Dispensing of existence. The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious and they must be converted to the group's ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also. (Lifton, 1989)
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  NotNew

  Great post Flipper:

  I remember when I was first awakening...I would say I know they got this wrong and made an adjustment however they the GB-JWs are still Jehovah's chosen religion! It took several months for me to start to realize they may not be... then one day it just hit me and the wall started to crumble.

  One too many wtf moments piled on top of each other.

  It felt good but then I started to realize everything I put my trust, faith and hope in had just vanished.

  I joined this site under the name SaysWho in April of 2010 and along with Jwfacts helped in keeping my sanity.

  I had to re-join under notnew when I forgot my password. I think my one laptop is stilled logded on under SaysWho so sometimes I still comment with that one. ( just to keep things straight, in cases anyone was wondering why I end my post with "SW"

  SW
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  cultBgone

  Villagegirl....amen. Beautifully expressed.

  (((hugs)))
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  flipper

  GENTLEDAWN- Don't feel alone my friend. All of us are " works in progress " after exiting such a controlling cult as Jehovah's Witnesses. But we all have our freedom of mind and no one can take that away from us now- unless we let them.

  OUBLIETTE- You are correct my friend. I agree with you , the WT society IS a criminal organization. I've been saying that for awhile now myself. If we look at all the scams they have pulled from the top down it becomes very obvious. Like yourself I do hope someday that the WT leaders will pay for these crimes against humanity- but I'm not betting the ranch on it. In the good old U.S.A. a lot of crimes are committed in the name of " religious freedom " which tends to allow organized religions get off scot free from ANY accountability to the laws of the land. I feel for you in regards to your children still being trapped inside the JW cult- so are my 2 daughters aged 27 and almost 26 . I share your same sadness over knowing that I originally trained my daughters up in the cult from birth too. All we can hope is that they will open their eyes to the truth about the truth in time and make sure we will continue to be there for them if and when the scales fall from their eyes. Hang in there buddy, hope you're doin' well.

  LV101- I feel it's not a crime to not believe in God or not have faith in him. The " God " of the Bible doesn't seem to be a very just or fair " God " to me if we observe how he treated people in the old testament. I think I have more faith in myself than I ever did in any " God ". And that's reality for me anyway.

  HEAVEN- Thanks for posting Jay Lifton's criteria on thought reform, it's very helpful in the discussion. I appreciate your doing that. I agree with you that in the early years of public school education there needs to be more training in critical thinking skills. It's like our government wants to make little clones out of all the young aged school kids so they are more easily controled and manipulated. In our society- it's not until college that young people are taught to REALLY use critical thinking and by that time many of these young folks already have ingrained in them thought patterns and prejudices put into them by their parents views or the environment they were raised up in. So by the age 18 to 20 the cows have already escaped from the barn so to speak inside these kids minds - which is one reason it can be so hard to change a JW kid's views if they were born and raised up in the cult from birth.

  However- that being said- statistics still show that 66 % of JW kids raised up in the cult eventually leave and exit the JW cult. So that's promising. While there's life there's still hope for freedom of mind for these young people.

  NOTNEW- Good points you make. It's amazing isn't it when the WT walss of illusion start to crumble in our minds and we see the WT Society for what it really is - the biggest scam this side of the Mississipi river from the onset of time. Of course history shows there has been lots of scammer organizations over the centuries, but we are more concerned with the WT Society because it hurt us personally. In the almost 11 years I've been out of it- I've had a ton of WTF moments myself.

  CULTBGONE- I agree Village Girl beautifully expressed what many of us feel