BLUES BROTHER- Exactly. Once you know something, you cannot unknow it for sure. I could never go back to the JW cult for any reason
Avoid Going back to the JW's - Educate Yourself about Mind Control
by flipper 94 Replies latest jw friends
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LongHairGal
TwiceShy:
What you said applies to me: "Converts believe they are getting an education about religious /truth that has been withheld from them by christendom."......
The JW religion made itself out to have knowledge that other religions supposedly didn't have.
As you said: "The convert is usually ignorant of the bible and its teachings and laps up what the witness is telling him , not appreciating that scriptures are cherry picked to support their beleifs , while other scriptures may be completely ignored when they contradict or raise questions regarding their interpretation....."
So, instead of "truth" I got a head-full of garbage that I had to take a few years to de-program myself of.
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flipper
LONG HAIR GAL- I hear what you are saying. The WT Society filled our heads with so much garbage that it DOES take a few years to de-program ourselves. Some folks take longer than other folks. And very true what you say that the JW's act like they have this immense " wisdom " or " knowledge " that other people don't have - when truth be known - everything they know is a bunch of crap shoveled onto them from man made ideas of the WT Society. It's ridiculous. Take care, Peace out, Mr. Flipper
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flipper
Wanted to bump this thread up for newbies on JWN who may not be aware of mind control tactics of the WT Society in order to avoid returning to the WT organization. Feel free to comment
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flipper
Wanted to bump this up for newer members who may want to add something. Or anybody else
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kairos
Thanks for bringing this topic back to the top.
Very useful commentary.
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flipper
KAIROS- You are welcome. I figured this thread has a lot of first hand experiences from many people here which would assist newly exiting JW's. One reason I keep bumping it up fairly often. Take care. Peace out. Mr. Flipper
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apostrate
I haven't read every post on this subject, so excuse me if someone else has already covered what I'm about to say.
After learning TTATT, I thought about returning as a "spy". I attended a couple of meetings, but it is amazing how your brain reacts to what is being said from the platform once you know THE REAL TRUTH.
The scripture came to mind about "the dog returning to his own vomit"! I realized that I'm just not cut out to be a JW Spy!
By the way, not only does the WT use mind control tactics, if you study up on "magic tricks", illusions, psychics, cold reading, mind reading, et al, the WT employs a lot of that to control their members, probably without even being aware of it!
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sd-7
Well, Flipper, I'd like to say that there's nothing about all this that qualifies as 'easy'. I loved the JW belief system--particularly the idea of a world at peace, united under a single banner, free from fear (ha!). It was a very painful thing to find out it wasn't real. I had people I cared about on the inside and I knew I'd lose them if I left. Unfortunately I wanted one person more than I had any right to, and last week she told me that she hated me. I guess I had that coming. I got her, but...I came to see that she didn't really belong to me, she belongs to the WT.
I approached the issue of mind control with some trepidation at first, but after reading Steve Hassan's excellent books, I appreciate the concept far better. I think what proves challenging for me is that beneath the quiet and sometimes seemingly detached person I might appear to be, there's a lot of deep feeling for the people I care about. It's hard to feel disconnected from my wife and children in this matter of worship. It's hard to not see my big brother and my cousins anymore. I have avoided all family involvement, even funerals for non-JW family members, just to avoid dealing with seeing the JW members of the family again. It's not the best way to handle it, but I don't claim to be an expert on the application of any kind of how-to-live stuff.
But if you ever believed any of what you learned as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, then you gained an appreciation for the concept of 'truth'. And once you have established by proof that something is not true, your conscience compels you to reject it. Seeing that the Governing Body has a very loose definition of 'truth', seeing that they are capable of manipulating information and academic dishonesty, well, it becomes clear that I cannot be part of that. Even if I really, really wanted to, I can't. It's just not in me to accept as truth something that just isn't true.
Freedom of mind can be worth it, and even for me, despite my idiocy, it's been worth the sacrifices. It may never entirely stop hurting, but that's part of the struggle. I've come to see that freedom has to be guarded continuously above all else. Without it, little else will be sweet in life. I could go back, share a meal with 'family' and 'friends', but in my heart I would know that neither I nor they were free. It would eat me up inside, and I'd just end up back in a judicial committee again for finally saying what I was really thinking. Well, I wouldn't go a second time to a committee, of course. A terrible waste of a few hours, that last one was.
I've had to struggle with guilt a lot. I've had days where I hated myself. But my rational mind always corrects me, helps me to understand that it was never, ever because of leaving Jehovah's Witnesses that any of the bad stuff happened. If something bad happened, it was because I didn't make the sacrifice I needed to make to have the freedom I was hoping for. I didn't let go of the one person I no longer had a right to pursue.
I tried reading two Watchtower articles this morning, and I found that there was no way this could be 'the truth', the way they talked about the organization as if it was Jesus incarnate. Such self-important declarations just don't fit with Christianity. But beyond that, it was clear that what they wanted was to block off the intended audience's ability to think objectively about the scriptures being cited in the articles. I'm just too far gone from it all, and it really just isn't where I ever want to be again.
I've done a lot of reading in the 4 years since I left, and it's been amazing. Enlightening. I might even dare say empowering. Watchtower literature rarely ever had that effect on me, if at all, and certainly not in that deep, satisfying way that tells me I've explored something new and developed a richer perspective on life and the world around me. Once you begin researching Christianity and its history, you begin to realize that you were getting baby food from the Society. They'd probably read some of the same books in their research, but they made sure to sanitize it, remove anything that might get people to think too hard, and toss the rest. Once you've had steak, you don't go back to baby food. That's just how it is. They told you it was a 'banquet of well-oiled dishes', but if their literature is all you ever read, well, it'll always look like a banquet until you see other possibilities.
Everyone who has left the JWs needs to educate themselves about mind control, or the more modern term, destructive social influence. It is critical to helping you move on with life. No life is going to be easy, but a free mind has more possibilities, more options, than a mind in chains. Never stop learning, and never shy away from answering the next question that comes to mind. That's how we grow, and that's one of the best things freedom of mind can be used for.
--sd-7
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flipper
APOSTRATE- I agree with you- I could never go back to the organization, even to be a spy. The mind cannot unlearn what it knows after learning TTATT.
SD-7- I agree with everything you say. Very well written by you. I'm sorry you have suffered loss with your JW family- I have suffered the same losses especially in relation to losing my two daughters to the JW cult. I have a lot of empathy for what you're going through. Stay strong, we are here for you