I'm wondering if any of you have experienced this. We all know that the WTS blamed the R&F for being too anxious when it came to the 1975 issue, and a lot of them bought it.
I've had many experiences with my mother when it came to me relating a childhood memory, and my mother tells me "You don't remember that! You just remember seeing pictures of it, or what I've told you". In effect, she's trying to get me to deny my own memories.
Do you think that the WTS subconciously puts mind control techniques into it's members?
I agree with P.S. it's a parent thing, BUT Nos makes a good point. Do people in mind-control cults use the same manipulative methods on other people? I know I can be pretty damn manipulative when I want to... luckily, that's not often anymore. So...did I learn it naturally like lots of little kids do, just growing up? Or was it taught to me subtly, by being part of the Org, and being manipulated constantly by their doctrine and policies?
So when you say "mind control", is that the same as manipulation?
I think that if you're skilled at rationalizing your wacko religion, you're probably skilled at rationalizing your own behaviors, including manipulation. Nothing taught there. Plenty of Witnesses "learn" to go along with the flow and not try to manipulate anything, including their own material position - which is the diametrically opposite view. I would say that this is a tendency that is independent of JWs.
The top three doctrines which were changed and that I will always remember from the 90's are:
Generation
Attending College
Alternative Service
In another 20 years or so, these will be long forgotten by the current dubs and will probably be brushed off like 1975 is today. To me, the generation doctrine was more widespread than anything else over the past few decades. It affected everyone, not just kids or the elderly. Attending college was a huge no-no around the time I was in high school. A local two year community college was ok, but never a four year university, else you would be marked and eventually labeled as bad association.
During the first Gulf War, the alternative service doctrine had not yet changed. I recall vividly being at a sister's house with my mother and the three of us watching the news. I was over 18 at the time. The sister asked me what I would do if the draft was reinstated. I did not know then what the current understanding on alternative service was, but I told her that I would try to work in a hospital if at all possible. Both her and my mother both shook their heads in unison and said that would be wrong. They both explained to me that substituting any sort of work rather than going to war would be equivalent to compromising my faith. At the time, I could not understand why working in a hospital would be so wrong. I believe I remembered hearing about some other brothers in the past that did the same thing - that is why I felt that way. But after the both of them explained that it would be better to go to jail rather than doing an alternative service, I told myself OK - I'll go to jail instead. Once this doctrine changed in the mid-90's, I was pissed that my own mother would rather see me in jail because of what someone in the writing department wrote.
