by Dawn 16 Replies latest jw friends
Planting the persecution complex as early in the game as possible is the key to many getting sucked in, wanting to believe their tutors are right, they then demonize everyone else. Eliminate this step, and it is much harder to get a zealous convert.
Randy
Net Soup!
It's a self-fulfilling "prophecy". Of course relatives and friends are going to get worried and possibly voice concerns about studying with jws. And as already mentioned, the objection is not the Bible most times, it's the jw religion. People naturally get worried about what is going to follow - a distancing (and possibly worse) from the family as the person gets more and more involved in the jw religion. As Shamus mentioned, it's a classic cult tactic.
The title itself plants a hook in susceptible people. The thought that god is waiting there, w his hand out, 'requiring' something from mankind can cause self doubt, guilt, fear; and if a person already has those feelings, it could increase them. These feelings are generally, mankind's enemies.
SS
hypnosis 101:
most people associate hypnosis with being some sort of trance state.. but the key to hypnosis is not that at all, its the ability to get someone to accept a SUGGESTION. a post hypnotic suggestion is one that has been slipped into your mind without your conscious challenge and often without anything to make you remember you even heard it as a suggestion.
a prime example is when someone like a JW or a Mormon asks a doubter to PRAY TO GOD AND ASK HIM IF THESE THINGS ARE THE TRUTH.... sound simple and straight forward and without any sign of hypnosis, but it makes a lot of assumptions which do the trick.
1st. it assume there is a god that one can ask and get answers from... and this part is where the con job begins, since this is where few challenge what is going into their head. Any idea NOT challenged is stored in memory as a valid statement or a truth... assuming for a moment that there is NO real god[s]... you have programmed your own subconscious with the idea that God is real anyway.
2nd if you ask your subconscious any question it is going to respond with whatever is stored in it....and if it does not know it will still make something up based on what is already there. ARE THESE THINGS TRUE?? key point, you are NOT challenging these things at this point, and thus they have been programmed as valid ideas which have nothing saying they ARE wrong... so the answer is likely to come back to you in the form of a deep feeling not necessarily in words, that indicates that YES THESE THINGS ARE TRUE.
The more they help you program the ideas associated with the god they preach, the more your subconscious builds this god into you and allows you to FEEL its presence and will whenever you ask for it.
after many years of being a JW, scriptures would just pop into my head relevant to whatever question was on my mind, GOD was speaking to me through his word, but I always felt something a miss in that... why couldn't god simply speak to me directly instead of making such an odd system? why did I have to rely on static words if there was a living dynamic god? there were plenty of excuses for why god did not work that way, but deep down none of them were really satisfying to me... and I always felt that there was a strong possibilty that I could not prove, that there really was no god at all.
A person who is susceptible enough to cult activity to unquestioningly accept the sort of subtle programming evident in the brochure is a perfect candidate for the JWs. Thankfully, most people have enough sense to understand or feel that something is wrong with the picture.
Someone who is studying that brochure and experiences negative reaction from relatives, and who then attributes that reaction to "persecution from Satan", is simply not thinking. They've already accepted the tacit assumption that the Watchtower = Jehovah, and a host of other assumptions as well.
AlanF
and I always felt that there was a strong possibilty that I could not prove, that there really was no god at all.
True - likewise, there is a strong possibility that you can not prove the alternative.
True - likewise, there is a strong possibility that you can not prove the alternative.
Which is why its hard to fight a faith.... but adopting SUGGESTIONS is how the road to hypnosis is paved.
after all, you find the first suggestion reasonable, there is some entity with intellegence behind the apparent design you find in nature... then the second suggestion becomes easier to swallow that this very entity had the desire to communicate its intention via a book to mankind... and the third suggestion becomes easier, there is one group which represents this intention to mankind by following the books instructions... each suggestion leads to less and less options until you find yourself agreeing with whatever you are being told because you have accepted all the premises so far... after a while you do not even see any alternatives.
entrancement is not nearly as hard as people wish you to believe.
