Faith, empathy, pain, and my life after the Watchtower (plus medical info)

Dogpatch

Hi friends, A lot is said on this board about religion, mind control, fantasies and debunking things that are scientifically false, etc. But one subject I don't remember seeing addressed is that of the positive value of faith and empathy for others, and its effect on "pain." Of course, you can have empathy for others without religion, but for those who have "lost their religion," (such as many ex-Witnesses) they often question the value of living by the ethics of the Christian scriptures. Many leave a authoritarian religion and temporarily or permanently abandon much of the kindness and generosity they may have felt towards others in the past, just to become hedonists. "What's the point, I have no faith in a reward any longer," I have heard some ex-Witnesses say. "They (WT) have taken everything from me and I need to catch up before it's too late." Many who leave behind a world view of "giving is better than receiving" and having concern for the poor, lonely and downtrodden because they now believe that life is basically "survival of the fittest" may soon find that they become depressed, lose hope for the future, and no longer want to associate with those who continue to have such a worldview (usually, but not always, people of faith or religion). I have had my belief struggles over the years since I left the Watchtower as well. But in my lowest times I always remember the value of faith (for me in the words and power of Jesus' life). Faith for me means comfort, peace of mind, and joy, coupled with sharing the sadness of others. When I give, I feel good. I do not often get depressed when I help others. It gets my mind off of myself and my pains (including the physical pains of aging, chronic disease, etc.) When I left the Watchtower I continued to be involved in ministry to others through churches and through my non-profit Free Minds, Inc. I found that I could not be a hedonist for long or I would miss the "high" of giving and caring for others. Bethel, although an undesirable place to be in many ways, was like being in the "boot camp" of giving to others. Sure, in many ways it was just another "drug" that produces another high, but it was the best drug I've ever found. The good feelings continued, only even better, in ministering to others via Christian churches. (Unburdened by all the "rules" of the Watchtower, and living in an environment of much greater freedom.) Sooo... (where is he going with this?) I found a medical-related article online (under St. John's Wort" info) that partially explained the actual physical mechanism behind the brain and how empathy affects it (as well as pain, the main theme of the article). Read it for what it's worth, it might re-energize you like it did me. :-)) Randy from: http://hbcprotocols.com/misery.html Studies Suggest the Mind Makes, Breaks its Misery Brain research indicates that people are hard-wired for empathy, and that faith affects the experience of their own agony and that of others. Feburary 20, 2004 By Robert Lee Hotz, LA Times Staff Writer Pain, like beauty, is in the mind's eye. It is altered by empathy and tempered by faith, three new brain-imaging studies suggest. The bewitching effect of belief can alter directly how strongly people feel pain, causing measurable changes in brain cells and synapses whether the torment is theirs or a loved one's. The new findings, made public today by independent research teams at the University of Michigan, Princeton University, UCLA, and University College London, offer the strongest evidence yet of how the brain thinks about pain.

Mapping the neural anatomy of pain, the researchers documented the ways in which the brain created a world of its own from the raw material of physical sensation. Using medical imaging scanners to monitor brain activity, researchers at Michigan, UCLA and Princeton revealed that simple faith in a placebo could alter the neural circuits that process pain, easing the agony.

In a separate experiment, the researchers at University College showed that the brain was a mirror of suffering, reflecting through many of the same neural circuits the pain that others feel, much as if the sensation were its own genuine torment. Indeed, the brain's ability to share another's response to pain at such a fundamental cellular level may be the key to a sense of empathy, the personality trait that underpins so many human relationships, researchers said. "These brain regions are critical to the interplay between the outside world and you," said neuropsychologist Helen Mayberg at Emory University in Atlanta. By directly monitoring mental activity, the researchers showed how expectations and anticipation molded the brain's response to the physical sensation of pain. To a certain degree, pain is an act of imagination. "We are zeroing in on some pathways where our thoughts and beliefs are changing our physical and emotional experience," UCLA psychologist Matthew Lieberman said. "We don't typically think of those as things we can control." Each team used brain mapping techniques to survey the same neural terrain from three slightly different perspectives.

Two of the studies were published today in the journal Science. The third will be published next month in Neuroimaging. To better understand pain and empathy, a team led by social psychologist Tania Singer at the Institute of Neurology at University College tested 19 couples who, because they were romantically involved, could be expected to be attuned to each other. One woman from each pair was monitored with a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. Her neural activity was recorded first as researchers gave her a brief electric shock, then as her partner received the same shock. The researchers discovered that the same critical brain regions involved in processing the physical sensation of pain were activated in each case. Feelings of empathy for another's pain triggered regions of the brain responsible for processing pain, much as if it were a direct sensation, researchers discovered.

To Singer and her colleagues, it strongly suggested that humans were hard-wired for empathy."We are pretty sure that it is a universal mechanism," Singer said. "It is how we can put ourselves emotionally in another's shoes." To investigate how belief affects the brain's response to pain, Lieberman and his UCLA colleagues conducted brain scans of 14 patients given a placebo to treat their chronic abdominal pain. The experiment revealed that the patients' faith in the substance they were given eased their symptoms and also produced physical changes in areas of the brain that processed pain. The greater the brain changes, the greater the reduction in pain, the researchers determined.

At Michigan and Princeton, researchers produced even more compelling evidence that the expectation of relief caused physical changes in how the brain handled pain. They tested dozens of volunteers by giving them shocks while monitoring their neural activity in a brain scanner. Then researchers gave all the volunteers a placebo in the form of a harmless cream the patients were told would prevent the pain. Then the scientists conducted another round of shocks. The expectation of relief was enough to cause physical changes in those pain-processing areas of the brain, offering evidence of the placebo effect. "We actually see physical changes in the brain that correspond closely to changes in symptoms that the patients report," said psychologist Tor Wager, who led the Michigan research team. The researchers determined that pain depended not only on the actual sensory signals from nerves that the brain received but also on a person's emotional state.
Gopher

There's an old saying, "What goes around comes around". If you give of yourself unselfishly, you will feel better about yourself, and you'll have the hope that sometime someone somewhere will give to you when you need it.
It's interesting to see scientific proof that we feel better when we give.
I am a great believer in being empathetic and helpful to others to the extent one reasonably can. This is altruism.
When you say "Many leave a authoritarian religion and temporarily or permanently abandon much of the kindness and generosity they may have felt towards others in the past, just to become hedonists", I cringe. This sounds like something the WTS teaches about ex-JW's. I'm sure it's true of some, but how many is "many"?
I'd hope that when people leave a high-control group that they still take the best part of themselves along for the rest of their life's journey, rather than doing a complete 180-degree turn. Just because you leave a cult you don't have to fulfill that cult's prophecy that you will become Satan's spawn.
Rather than doing good because you do or don't belong to a cultish religion, why not just do good because it helps others and also (as scientifically proven) it helps you feel better?
Why is it necessary to be motivated by a fearsome God who may punish you if you DON'T do good for your fellow man? Why not just do good because you've decided to be a basically good person?
Edited to add: This is no way intended to deride anyone's faith. If someone has a religious faith and it works for them, as long as they don't force it on me -- I'm fine with it.
Also -- I really appreciate the Freeminds site. It was of tremendous assistance to me when I was trying to determine the reality about the Jehovah's Witness religion.

Undaunted Danny

Good read Dogpatch.
The Message (MSG) 1 Corinthians 13 {aka the 'love chapter'}

1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2 If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.
3 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

4 Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
5 Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
6 Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
7 Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

8 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. 9 We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. 10 But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
11 When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12 We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love."" I Love You Mug 2 { footnote from Danny: the 13th chapter of 1 Corn. is attributed to St.Paul and is a sublime masterpiece of eloquent expression.This is a bit of a paradox as Paul was a hardass }

LOVE BOMBING Bomb

HOW DO CULTS SEDUCE THEIR PREY ?

"" ......A tactic used most often is the "LOVE BOMBING"...They swarm over you in a sort of ,"COCOONMENT".

All of a sudden,,you have,,INSTANT FAMILY,,INSTANT PURPOSE,,INSTANT COMMUNITY,,INSTANT FRIENDS.....And you don't have to look inside yourself for answers anymore,,.. because cult leaders, or their designated high disciples,,dispense all your spiritual needs..

....A mass delusion,,mass hysteria,,operating under the illusion of a master plan...In military jargon this is known as ,"Cluster F**k"...

Beware of Love Bombing.... Leonard Brenner Love-bombing is characteristic of most cults. Prospects, recruits and members are drowned in a sea of love and caring. Recently in an evangelical church I heard the pastor describe his visit to two cultic groups in which he praised their love-bombing and urged that his church adopt the same loving attitude towards visitors and members.

Should the evangelical church practice love-bombing? Is this what Christ meant when he said, "By this will all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another," (John 13:35)? I've heard cult members say, "Of course we practice love-bombing: Who'd want to be in a group or church that practiced hate-bombing?" This attitude highlights a common misconception. >>>Hate-bombing is not the opposite of love-bombing.<<< The opposite of love-bombing is unconditional love. Love-bombing is highly conditional. The cults will love you to death while you represent a prospective convert to their group.

As a member a tight family love will surround you as you faithfully promote their cause. However, when it is clear that a prospect will not join the group or a member voices doubts, create waves, or leaves the group, all love ceases. Indeed scorn is immediately heaped on these individuals and remaining members are told not to have any contact with them. All time, effort and love-bombing is then directed towards new prospects and the faithful members. Is this the love evangelical churches should practice? Unconditional love is what God practiced when he sent his Son to die for us..... I Love You Mug 2

What is Love?Danny sez: Altruism (alter-ism or alter-self) as opposed to egotism (ego-ism or ego-self)

noun: the quality of unselfish concern for the welfare of others

Quick definitions ( Altruism)

Encyclopedia article
Altruism is an unselfish interest in helping someone else. It is a motivation that emphasizes the welfare of others while minimizing or ignoring the individual's own welfare. The concept has a long history in philosophical and ethical thought, and has more recently become a topic for psychologists, sociologists, evolutionary biologists, and ethologists

Final Impressions,you and I can be honorable humanitarians all on are own,because it's the right thing to do.Undaunted Danny www.DannyHaszard.com

Undaunted Danny

Check out these links I don't have time.
Oxytocin the love(cuddle,nuture) hormone.
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Dogpatch

All good points, this was not a preaching thread. I'm just sharing my own experience. And you all know, my being an exit-counselor and having worked often with Steven Hassan (who is Jewish) that I am well-acquainted with mind control.
Gopher: I agree with all of what you said. I use the term "many" in terms of quantity. We've all seen a few of them, which means tens of thousands are out there like that just due to the sheer number of ex-Witnesses. But it would be a small percentage of the whole. Witnesses should be aware of the variety of people who leave and how they turn out, and I will not deny it, even if it makes the WT seem right, they will find out in the end if they are disposed to leave. Witnesses know their own tendencies apart from Mother's rule, and often when they leave they do just what the WT said they would, whether it was conditioned guilt or whether they just wanted to do it. Not everything is conditioned by the WT's control.
Danny: That means also that not all Witnesses practice "love bombing." I did not, and never shunned a disfellowshipped brother or sister, or treated them as a lesser human being. Even as a presiding overseer I did not ever sit on a DF committee, wouldn't do it, I assigned other elders. :-))
I am quite a reserved person (as you know) and I did not play phony just to get some in the Borg. I also know that MANY Witnesses give out of their hearts, and not because of the Watchtower. My former congregation in Brooklyn was like that. They would have given me anything, just because they liked me. They liked me because I spent my weekends with them out in East New York, eating chicken and kale and all kinds of fine foods, going to their weddings and taking canoe trips with them, etc. I was grieved that none ever talked to me afterwards, even though I sent all my letter at: http://www.freeminds.org/history/gbletter.htm
Every one is unique. Witnesses are all under some form of control, but rarely in all ways. Some accept some of the control, others do not. If we make it seem like all Witnesses are brainwashed junkies then that's why they laugh us off.
When I would do an exit-counseling on a Witness, the first thing I have to do is to make friends with them. Respect them. I have 15 minutes or they are "out of here." I appeal to the things they have not handed over to the cult: their sense of humor perhaps, their love of diversity in life, a love for others. You find what they still have left of normal life outside the cult, and address that part of them, ignoring their efforts to bait you as some sterotyped apostate. Exactly the same with members of the Moonies, International Churches of Christ, etc. Exit-counseling them was no different than the JWs, it is all control issues, not really doctrine.
I remember one exit-counseling (we actually have it on videotape in review, after it was over). His name was Clary Walker, and his wife was going to leave him if he didn't leave the Witnesses (they also had a little girl). She hired Steve and I to go out to Michigan (zero weather cond.) and Steve was to talk to him the first day, then he would try to get Clary's permission to bring me in when he was not showing fear. Somehow, however, it had leaked that I was coming along with Steve. He had agreed to talk to Steve, but refused to see me. He even called me beforehand in Calif. and told me that even if I came out, he would never talk to me, as I was an "apostate." Steve said to come anyway.
After the first day, he said he would talk to me, then declined the next morning. I stay in the hotel again waiting. After the second day, he agreed to talk to me the third day, then again changed his mind. The third morning he was so nervous that I would show up that he backed his SUV out of the garage with the door still down! Crunch! Half a day of the intervention's third day goes by, and Clary would not see me. Steve had to leave soon for another destination, so he calls me and says "Come on over anyway!" So I go over to the room and knock and Steve lets me in, and Clary glowers at me. I talk friendly for about an hour and Steve says to me, "I've got to go, I'm leaving you two (me and Clary) together." :-))
He throws barbs at me for an hour, and then realizes by my expression that he has hurt my feelings by what he had said, and that I did not react according to the stereotype of apostates. That is the moment his real self came out, the part that lay buried under the WT facade. All Witnesses have some normality somewhere, you just have to locate it. So he says, "You are really hurt, aren't you?" and he felt empathy! He took me out to dinner and we talked for hours. When we got back to the hotel room, he was virtually out of the JWs. I never preached to him or tried to share my faith with him up to that point, as I consider that unethical (My hope is always to bring them back to where they were personality-wise BEFORE the cult, so they can start over and grow from that point forward, and deal with religion when they are ready, if they ever are.)
But Clary was a Bible believer Witnesses or not, and started asking me about the scriptures. I went to John and started reading some things to him about love and kindness (like Danny's posted scriptures above), and I felt led to share the hope of "Christ in you." He accepted the promises and to this day is an avid evangelical, more so than I am!
People are complex, they all have different needs. Some people would commit suicide if they left the Witnesses, others would be much less happy than as a Witness. Others (most of them probably) are MUCH BETTER OFF outside of that God-awful organization. I have been trained to spend just a few minutes with a person and to know which kind they are, and how to reach them.
It just so happens that most I have exit-counseled were interested in the Bible regardless, so virtually all became Christians. But it was not by my love-bombing or secret agenda. Personally, I would rather them clear their heads first, but I have to read what is best for them and point the way.
Randy
Net Soup!
http://www.freeminds.org
bebu

Randy, what would we do without you?
Your posts really inspire me. Thanks for ALL of them, and especially the ones above.
bebu
AuntieJane

Ditto Bebu, and More Dittos. Thanks Randy.
Dogpatch

Thanks Bebu and AuntieJane!
Randy
Blueblades

Randy,You have been a great help to me and my family. Thank you for posting this article.While I am not ready for the Lord or any kind of faith -- based religion. I agree that to give of one-self affects the physical well-being of the giver and receiver together.I know this from experience.
Blueblades
codeblue

Randy I have really enjoyed this thread that you have posted!!!
I enjoyed your comments on how you helped with exit-counseling!!! Wow...
Both myself and my husband are fading. I have read both of Steve Hassan's books.
I was such a great JW mom, and I want my adult children to understand it is a cult, but at the same time do it in the "right way"...
any tips from you would be helpful...IF you have time to address this.
They live thousands of miles away from me and only know of our terrible "welcoming shepherding visit"...they were both stunned and shocked at what happened. I am wracking my brains how to talk about it without "putting up walls"...I will be visiting them soon and I need discreet ammunition!!!
Codeblue

Faith, empathy, pain, and my life after the Watchtower (plus medical info)

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