Many comments are made that JW's are actually brainwashed. Do you think this is true?
Do You Feel That You Were Brainwashed Into Becoming A JW?
by minimus 34 Replies latest jw friends
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liquidsky
YES.
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hillary_step
Minimus,
I think that the WTS train us to 'brainwash' oursleves by providing all the tools and instructions that you need. It is true that they also provide the enivironment needed and some immediate help by way of those who study the WTS literature with us, but we generally complete this process ourselves.
For those of us not raised as JW's, an honest self-examination as to what reeled us into this religion often reveals some disturbing patterns in our own thinking. As it is, I have never seen so many idealists turned into mechanical cynics before my eyes as watching the dismal process from bright eyed Bible Study to battered and weary publisher, or should I say 'wordly' person to 'true Christian'.
Best regards - HS ( good question by the way ... )
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undercover
I was raised in the truth. No different than a Catholic being raised a Catholic and having parents making them toe the line in that religion. Catholics have their own share of guilt for not being good Catholics. Personnally I think I was fooled into thinking they were the right religion, but not brainwashed. I managed to think for myself and realize the problems with this organization. If you're totally brainwashed, I wouldn't think you could do that.
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Lady Lee
Brainwashed - don't like the word
Mind-controlled most definitely
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JamesThomas
I too was raised in the Org, my young mind washed clean of all but one narrow view of reality. I could be wrong but I feel that proof of "brainwashing" is automatic reactions similar or comparable to Pavlov's dogs. Where there are conditioned responses and behavior patterns triggered by a bell. The Society has created and uses a box full bells, words and phrases such as: Armageddon, New System, Honoring Jehovah, Demons, Wicked System, Disfellowship, Apostate, etc., etc., (such loaded words and phrases deserve their own thread). A dedicated Witness is exposed continually with written and spoken information copiously implanted with bells. Bells that would have no effect on people free from their brainwashing. Bells, that have a very deep and powerful effect on many Witnesses. Many of us carry brainwashing scars still. We hear a word...Jehovah, or Armageddon, or some other, and it's like a quick jab of ice on our soul. Ding! JamesT
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AlanF
"Brainwashing" is a loaded term and, like "cult", doesn't have much meaning unless you carefully define what you mean in a specific context. But in the common vernacular, I definitely class JWs as a cult and I know that many JWs are brainwashed. By "cult" I mean an organization that exercises undue influence on one's thinking and makes it overly painful to leave the organization (Steven Hassan's definition comes to mind here). By "brainwashed" I mean subjected to an extreme form of information filtering, along with social pressure, to get a person to accept a set of values -- i.e., what many call "mind control". This kind of control has much in common with the mindset so well described by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, where a person is influenced to self-police via "doublethink" and "crimethink" and "crimestop".
One has only to engage a typical Jehovah's Witness in conversation about the failings of his cult in order to see this mindset in action. He will have no trouble seeing that the Catholic Church has committed atrocities against molestation victims by its priests and so forth, covering up the molestation and doing all in its power to keep its image clean. They will admit that their main, or only source of information is the media. But when you point out that the JW organization is guilty of the same sort of covering up and abuse of victims, they refuse to accept anything the media says. Indeed, they will almost always even refuse to speak to eyewitnesses of abuse -- the victims themselves -- since to do so would be to upset their worshipful view of JW leaders, and force them to see that their organization is not divinely directed and has God's approval only to the extent that the Catholic Church does. A mark of a cult is to hold such double standards, and a mark of a brainwashed person is to do so and be unable to see it -- but more to the point, be unwilling to acknowledge seeing it.
AlanF
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Phil
My daughter was lured into JW by her then boyfriend.There was, without a doubt some sort of "mind control" used on her with the help of her boyfriend, now husband. He himself was controlling long before they were married.
The JWs, in the indoctrination, must stress the importance of not believing what other people outside the org. say. My daughter learned this very well as she lost complete confidence in what the rest of the family said, especially, me , her father. I suppose I was designated the biggest threat to her by the instructors in the organization.
She now, is in Patterson and has been there for several years. Being there gives her the maximum exposure to all the mind control offered. She does not want any children, which I assume is a product and indication of the amount of control they have on her life. Judging from past experiences of the people that experienced the 1914 thing, they too, in many cases did not have children in preparation for Armagedden.
Jws don't like to be referenced as "Cults" and being "Brainwashed". These are bad words to them.
I believe there are mental bombs that must go off in their brains to awake them to the reality of the situation there are in. That, of course must come from within themselves.
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minimus
I, too prefer "mind-control" over "brain-wash". I think that to a liberal Democrat, all followers of the Republican extreme "right" could be considered "brainwashed". Alan, Your definition may be paraphrased regarding "brainwashed" ones but nearly every rabid political party member could be "brain-washed", then.
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playdrums
JamesThomas:
What you noted is exactly what I see as an outsider. It is also obviously what I see when I examine my friend who is a JW. Those special words are also what causes a guard to immediate come up when you examine what they believe. You missed a big "key phrase" though - faithful and discreet slave. The use of language as a control just never ends with them.
Undercover:
I definitely think you're fortunate that you were able to see what was happening. I don't believe most JW's do. Through deceipt they have been trained for self deception to maintain their "system." It's very powerful. Being a Catholic I can tell you I've never faced anything like what JamesThomas describes. I don't think the guilt is the main ingredient as your post suggested. Just my opinion.
pd