Dr Margaret T Singer, a professor of psychology at Berkeley University California has studied the experiences of 700 cult members. ''Consciously and manipulatively, leaders and their trainers exert a systematic social influence that can produce great behavioral changes,'' said Dr. Singer.
One of the ways The JW organisation exerts so much influence over its members is because it has created a culture sustained by constant propaganda, which polices itself according to how the leadership has moulded it. Do you remember being a JW? One of the favourite subjects of conversation was to discuss the boundaries of what was, and what was not acceptable.
Let me give you a vignette showing the level of idiocy to which the Watchtower has sunk. About four years ago I steeled myself to view the JWTV and saw governing body member Tony Morris whose aim on this occasion was to decry “critical thinking”. The lack of critical thinking is the common objection to Watchtower indoctrination by its critics. Morris’s argument, if you can call it that, was that to examine a subject from different viewpoints was in itself “manipulative”! It takes very little education to see the crass illogicality of this comment but alas! JWs are discouraged from getting more than the minimum of education and worse still, they are made to feel socially compelled to believe what the organisation says “whether reasonable from a human standpoint or not".
“The systematic social influence” as Dr Singer called it, reached into every aspect of your life starting with defining approved people (those who believe the governing body) and the doomed outsiders (everyone else). It reached into what you said, what you thought, what you would wear what you did in the bedroom and virtually into every pore and molecule of your being. This is one reason why it is so hard to leave Jehovah's Witnesses and adopt a normal healthy viewpoint again. The other obstruction to making an easy exit is the threat of further social manipulation due to being shunned by your 'loving' family.
Surely an organisation which functions with these oppressive constraints should fail? The Watchtower cult has been predicting the end of the world since 1879 and never has had the slightest flicker of success, just a list of dire disappointments weathered manfully by the hapless membership.
The world is rapidly changing, we are vastly more informed and consequently are able to make balanced judgements ourselves, the old guide lines are being discarded and will leave 19th century Bible literalists like JWs as an appendage of religious history. The internet is giving access to a transparent appraisal of the workings of everything, including abusive and anti-social cults.
The JW organisation has no record of “divine” approval, it has lost credibility with repeated date failures, most especially the “generation of 1914”, it is intellectually bankrupt, the Bible is no longer seen by the majority as the ultimate guide for life and JW dirty washing is now being aired in public.
The JW organisation therefore is poised to fail?