Jehovah's Witnesses Are Under Mind Control

by minimus 207 Replies latest jw friends

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  garybuss

  
  
  Heathen, You wrote:
  
  

  garybus--- I would think to control the body one must first control the mind as it is the mind that puts the body in motion . I think the first thing they do is use guilt and then the fear that armageddon is just around the corner to manipulate the people within the organization.

  That's the fallacy. I used to think the Witness people were under mind control because the Society uses techniques that parallel thought reform tactics. Do I think these techniques are used? Yes! Do I think the Witness people are under mind control? No!
  
  I was raised as a Witness. I was a Witness on different levels until I was 30 years old. I have interviewed hundreds of current and former Witnesses. I have studied the Corporation and the tactics. I am convinced the Witness people do all they do by their own choice of their own free will. Does that put more burden on them personally to account for their behaviors? You bet!
  
  There is manipulation and coercion and intimidation used by the Witness people on the Witness people. They do that with free will and they receive it with free will. They are coached and educated by the Society on how to behave but they do those behaviors by their own choice. They have been telling me this for years and I did not believe them. Now I believe them. Now I judge them harsher. Now I don't accept excuses for them nor do I grant them any leniency. All they get from me, they must earn. So far those who shun and snub me have worked hard to earn my contempt and there are none at this present time in the earn respect line. GaryB
  
  
  
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  heathen

  Garybus--- Let's see if I'm with you here , you are saying that these people are simply conditioned like pavlovs dog to react to situations and can't reason for themselves ? Using fear as means to manipulate is mind control. IMO
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  Odrade

  I wouldn't have such great appreciation for dissent and sarcasm and honest communication were I not cut off from these things. I wouldn't so appreciate the fact that I don't have it all figured out. That I will never have it all figured out. That the mind can be dynamic, constantly changing it's ideas and beliefs. That I am not required by anyone to think a certain way. That I cannot be confined.

  Wow Shawn, that's beautiful. Welcome to the board by the way.

  Odrade
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  Odrade

  Heathen, I think I know what GaryBuss is saying. I was just that way. You have all this "teaching" and though you know there are conflicting viewpoints out there, you CHOOSE to act the way you do as a JW. You choose not to feel bad about shunning, though every instinct tells you it is despicable. You choose to not feel bad as you are deprived of your non-JW family. After all you are only protecting yourself from "worldly influences."
  

  Yes, there is indoctrination, but as a member of the human race, any JW who stops and thinks for just a moment KNOWS in his heart that his actions are not only unkind, but unchristian and unacceptable. Yet he CHOOSES to sublimate those moral and instinctive feelings. Instead he makes the decision to "remain pure" and follow an organization that controls his every move. Willingly. I knew exactly what I was doing when I was "in." And when my instincts told me what I was doing was cruel or wrong, I just ignored it. Deliberately.

  For that, they are ultimately individually responsible for their actions. People can get out, and do. Unlike some very extreme cults, many, if not most JW knowingly subject themselves to the isolation and "mind control," because it feels good to believe that they alone have "the truth." I think many people do get trapped unwittingly, but to stay there is to stick your head in the sand. Sometimes that feels safer than making up your own mind, but refusing to find out the truth because some men in Brooklyn tell you to "Beware the Voice of Strangers" is as much a choice as knowing it and ignoring it.

  Odrade
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  heathen

  odrade--- That is indeed a very disturbing and unjustifiable way for people to act . I did notice they do use fear of rejection and that can make people act irrationally but what you are saying is that you made a conscious decision to behave in a way that others dictated to you. I know the watchtower goes beyond what is written so if you really did have this bible trained conscience you would have acted differently . Let he who is without sin cast the first stone .
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  garybuss

  
  
  Heathen, I am just posting my observations and conclusions. If you are implying that all education and all training is a form of mind control, then I have little interest in perusing that topic with you. If that's your model, every second grader and every employee of every company is under mind control. I just don't buy it.
  
  Education, influence and free will are different things. One popular opinion here is that the Witness people have no free will. I disagree with that. I made every decision to do every action as a Witness of my own free will. Was I deluded? Often, yes! Were my actions pragmatic? Many were not. Did I have choices? Yes!
  
  Witness after Witness come here and says they have free will and they are not forced to attend meetings or to comply with any directives issued by the Society whatsoever. I believe them. When I quit meeting attendance, I was not contacted by ANY Witnesses for 9 years. Instead of forced compliance, what I experienced was disinterest and avoidance. That seems a long way from any mind control models I have studied.
  
  I think It's time to start listening to the Witnesses who come here and write honestly and tell us they were not controlled. Many left the organization because they were ignored. They might have welcomed some attempt at control because that would have indicated somebody in the organization cared about them.
  
  It's a nice little excuse to hand my relatives who shun and snub me if I give them the excuse of not having control and being robots. The hard facts are they do their snubbing and shunning with control, with forethought, with purpose, and of their own free will. Are they forced by the Society to do that? No! There are way too many testimonies from people who are not shunned by their Witness relatives for me to believe my relatives are forced to shun me by a book publishing business. They have a choice and they made their decision. If they wanted to speak to me there are many ways available to them to be able to do that.
  
  To say that they have no choices available is to say none of us left under our own free will. I made my decision to leave. I suspect everybody else here did also. GaryB
  
  
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  ubiquitous

  Humans evolved as social beings. Therefore they are all highly sussceptible to group pressure. No one is immune or free of their milieu. Families, fraternal organizations, gangs, corporations, religious organizations, nations, military are all effective users of what is erroneously called "mind-control" .

  This is more anti-jw propaganda. There are pressures on this forum to conform to a certain viewpoint, too.

  True. I thought I was alone in this observation. Its good to see I'm not. "Mind-control" and conformity exist in every facet of human society.

  Witness after Witness come here and says they have free will and they are not forced to attend meetings or to comply with any directives issued by the Society whatsoever. I believe them. When I quit meeting attendance, I was not contacted by ANY Witnesses for 9 years. Instead of forced compliance, what I experienced was disinterest and avoidance. That seems a long way from any mind control models I have studied.

  True. Same here. My family and those of whom in teh cong were like family still talked to me, but given I had/have general disinterest towards many a person in my cong, it never really bothered me.

  The hard facts are they do their snubbing and shunning with control, with forethought, with purpose, and of their own free will. Are they forced by the Society to do that? No! There are way too many testimonies from people who are not shunned by their Witness relatives for me to believe my relatives are forced to shun me by a book publishing business. They have a choice and they made their decision. If they wanted to speak to me there are many ways available to them to be able to do that.

  VERY TRUE. I can attest to that. What annoys the hell out of me further about people is when parents get D*'d and people treat the babies/children like that too. It disgusts me actually. No matter how you slice it, it always comes down to personal choice in the end.
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  minimus

  Charles Manson's followers did not have a gun to their head, either. Jim Jones didn't threaten his people to drink the Kool-Aid. Yet, they were clearly influenced by mind-control. Most JW's are no different. Some may be more zealous than others in their application of the letter of the law. Some may just not like a person to begin with. Therefore it's easy to avoid them and purposely snub them. Most JW's, in my opinion are definetly under mind control.
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  blondie

  Actually, I thought Jim Jones' people did have a gun to their heads to make them drink. Autopsies found that more people died from gunshots than from poison.

  I will try to confirm that. The History Channel says "compelled" to drink the punch.
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  undercover

  I can understand Garybuss' reasoning up to a point. Minimus' point is also valid.

  No one "makes" a JW do what they do. They have free will. If they don't go to a meeting or out in service, no one comes over and berates them over it. No one threatens harm for not following normal procedures. (I know that some will have experiences that may show that it does happen, but I'm speaking in generealities here).

  But when a JW does not follow the norm, they feel guilt. Where does this guilt come from? The WTS. They continually press for more and more time and energy spent in the "kingdom work". This work is for Jehovah. If you're not willing to do it for him, then something is wrong. This is a form of trying to control their thinking and reasoning so I guess you can call it "mind control".

  Many of us that were raised in "the truth" have to know that mind control is what kept us as JWs even as adults. I have always been fairly independant and self-reliant, even as a JW. I could usually see through most bogus schemes and such. I like to think for myself and not accept something just because somebody said so. But, yet, I remained a JW for over 20 years of my adult life. Nobody made me. I could have walked away. But I thought I was doing the right thing. Despite all my self-independance and free-thinking, it took me years to realize something was amiss. I would have never bought into this religion by someone knocking on my door, but because I was "indoctrinated" from youth up, I bought it. I was controlled.