How JW are controlled

by swiftbreeze 17 Replies latest jw friends

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  swiftbreeze

  Hello everyone,

  I was raised around the "truth" all my life. I'm not disfellowshipped nor have i dissassociated myself. Some of you have had some interesting experiences

  Here's one of Many:

  I had just got babtized and everyone was so happy for me and said how i was progressing. One of the elders decided he wanted to use me on a assembly program to do a demonstration. Well at the time i had just graduated from HS and had started working (college was a spiritual no no) so when i had some free time, i would hang out with other young people from the KH. Well my aunt went to the elders and told them that she thought i was coming in too late. so they formed a committee and we had a meeting about me coming home after 11:00. I told them that i wasnt getting into trouble but i was just going to the movies, bowling and the beach etc...they told me that maybe my friends were bad associates and even if i wasnt getting into trouble it was sure to come. but i went on to explain how my friends attended all of their meetings went in field service and were in good standing. we were out of school and working most of us didnt get off work until after 6:00 so that didnt leave us alot of time to go out that is why we would not get home until around 11:00 or 12:00 at night.

  They told me that it didnt look good for one of Jehovah's people to come home that late and what would my neighbor's think. I said they wouldnt think anything i'm a young person, young people go out to social functions...but that i would make an effort to come home earlier and maybe restrict my social activities to the weekend. They said i needed to dedicate more time to field service. well later that week he told me that he wasnt going to use me for the demonstration. I asked him why but he never gave me a reason. I was really hurt by that. not because i wasnt going to be in the demonstration but i knew why he took me off and i knew that i wasnt doing anything wrong. Who's business is it anyway what time i came home? What happened to having and being in control of your own life? i wondered if the christian's In Jesus time was this watched, checked and controlled in this manner.

  I told my husband this story and his reply was: "Thats real crazy.. why did you allow this type of control over you?"

  The thing is when you are raised in this environment you don't know anything else. This is the way it is.

  You abide by the instructions given and if you don't, you are considered rebellous and bad even if you're not disfellowshipped there are always underline actions taken to punish you somehow...like you won't get called on to give comments, you won't get talk assignments, the friends will gossip and say you're not good association then you won't get invited to social gatherings...You don't have "worldly" friends because that a (spirtual no no) you don't associate with your "worldly" family because that a (spiritual no no) so what do you do? Fall in line.
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  kls

  Welcome , with out a doubt the jws control every aspect of ones life and if you do not abide by their control you are weak and not to their playing God standards.
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  jula71

  Welcome Swiftbreeze
  Your experience happened to me as well when I was a teen. So in the past I?ve been ?marked? as well as announced as ?bad association? that was before the ?un-baptized publisher? was thought up of. All of it is very controlling, but controlled by men not God. I don?t believe God has set curfews. But welcome to the board, I look forward to your thoughts and postings.
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  kwintestal

  You're right. The JW's are controlling, but that's what you can expect from a cult. Welcome to the forum!

  Kwin
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  Dogpatch

  Eight Marks of a Mind-Control Cult

  by Randall Watters

  Brainwashing has become almost a household word in the last two decades or so. In 1961, Robert J. Lifton wrote the definitive book on the subject, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, after studying the effects of mind control on American prisoners of war under the Communist Chinese. Lifton outlines eight major factors that can be used to identify whether a group is a destructive cult or not. Any authoritarian religion should be held up to the light in order to determine just how destructive their influence is on their members. Judge for yourselves.

  Milieu Control

  "Milieu" is a French word meaning "surroundings; environment." Cults are able to control the environment around their recruits in a number of ways, but almost always using a form of isolation. Recruits can be physically separated from society, or they can be warned under threat of punishment to stay away from the world's educational media, especially when it might provoke critical thinking. Any books, movies or testimonies of ex-members of the group, or even anyone critical of the group in any way are to be avoided.

  Information is carefully kept on each recruit by the mother organization. All are watched, lest they fall behind or get too far ahead of the thinking of the organization. Because it appears that the organization knows so much about everything and everyone, they appear omniscient in the eyes of the recruits.

  Mystical Manipulation

  In religious cults, God is ever-present in the workings of the organization. If a person leaves for any reason, accidents or ill-will that may befall them are always attributed to God's punishment on them. For the faithful, the angels are always said to be working, and stories circulate about how God is truly doing marvelous things among them, because they are "the truth." The organization is therefore given a certain "mystique" that is quite alluring to the new recruit.

  Demand for Purity

  The world is depicted as black and white, with little room for making personal decisions based on a trained conscience. One's conduct is modeled after the ideology of the group, as taught in its literature. People and organizations are pictured as either good or evil, depending on their relationship to the cult.

  Universal tendencies of guilt and shame are used to control individuals, even after they leave. There is great difficulty in understanding the complexities of human morality, since everything is polarized and oversimplified. All things classified as evil are to be avoided, and purity is attainable through immersion into the cult's ideology.

  The Cult of Confession

  Serious sins (as defined by the organization) are to be confessed immediately. The members are to be reported if found walking contrary to the rules.

  There is often a tendency to derive pleasure from self-degradation through confession. This occurs when all must confess their sins before each other regularly, creating an intense kind of "oneness" within the group. It also allows leaders from within to exercise authority over the weaker ones, using their "sins" as a whip to lead them on.

  The "Sacred Science"

  The cult's ideology becomes the ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence. The ideology is too "sacred" to call into question, and a reverence is demanded for the leadership. The cult's ideology makes an exaggerated claim for possessing airtight logic, making it appear as absolute truth with no contradictions. Such an attractive system offers security.

  Loading the Language

  Lifton explains the prolific use of "thought-terminating cliches," expressions or words that are designed to end the conversation or controversy. We are all familiar with the use of the cliches "capitalist" and "imperialist," as used by antiwar demonstrators in the 60's. Such cliches are easily memorized and readily expressed. They are called the "language of non-thought," since the discussion is terminated, not allowing further consideration.

  In the Watchtower, for instance, expressions such as "the truth", the "mother organization", the "new system", "apostates" and "worldly" carry with them a judgment on outsiders, leaving them unworthy of further consideration.

  Doctrine Over Person

  Human experience is subordinated to doctrine, no matter how profound or contradictory such experiences seem. The history of the cult is altered to fit their doctrinal logic. The person is only valuable insomuch as they conform to the role models of the cult. Commonsense perceptions are disregarded if they are hostile to the cult's ideology.

  Dispensing of Existence

  The cult decides who has the "right" to exist and who does not. They decide who will perish in the final battle of good over evil. The leaders decide which history books are accurate and which are biased. Families can be cut off and outsiders can be deceived, for they are not fit to exist!

  from http://www.freeminds.org/psych/lifton.htm

  Randy

  Net Soup!

  http://www.freeminds.org
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  swiftbreeze

  Thanks!

  I went to visit an old friend and she was like...what are you going to do? I told her "live my life, what else can i do? crawl under a rock?" She looked at me with so much fear and worry. The thing is her hair was falling out and her house was a complete wreck, she looked like she was on the brink of a nervous breakdown and she asked me what was i going to do. I feel like i've just stepped out of the matrix...i wasnt living life... i spent all my time creating a false reality.
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  Goldminer

  Welcome swiftbreeze and congratulations on taking control of your life.
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  PinTail

  In all conscious maters, to name just a few: Birthdays, Christmas, Blood, 4th of July celebrations, Working for the government in their armed service branches and their by employment, Hair stiles, Parties in ones own home or at work, school extra curricular activities, Halloween, New years day, Attending outside funerals that are in a church, Being close your friends or those living next to you, Attending block parties, Voting, (Talking to ones family members who are disfellowshiped and incidentally the Bible Students do not teach or (condone) most of these teachings and ideas about disfellowshiping and many others of these mentioned above.) Shane
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  swiftbreeze

  Oh here's another one:

  When i filed for divorce my ex husband was told by his elders what the divorce papers should state. I told him that the Law mandates how the divorce papers should be written up not the elders. Then they demanded to see the divorce papers. I told my ex he would be a fool to show them the papers...it's none of their business. They also told him to quit his job because he was missing meetings because of his work hours. I feel sorry for him i want to tell him what i've been learning but i know this will only cause more problems, he has custody of our son and i don't want him to give me problems on visitation. He'll say i'm an apostate and fear for our son's "spiritual safety".
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  95stormfront

  You abide by the instructions given and if you don't, you are considered rebellous and bad even if you're not disfellowshipped there are always underline actions taken to punish you somehow...like you won't get called on to give comments, you won't get talk assignments, the friends will gossip and say you're not good association then you won't get invited to social gatherings...You don't have "worldly" friends because that a (spirtual no no) you don't associate with your "worldly" family because that a (spiritual no no) so what do you do? Fall in line.

  Wow.....

  I don't think I could've described better the environment of control my SO grew up around and the control she tried inflicting upon both me and our children during the course of our marriage even subconsciously before she decided that she wanted back in the "troof", which only intensified it.

  Friends.....didn't want them over anymore.

  Family......everything they did met with suspicion if they weren't receptive to and didn't come into "da troof".

  School......forget it...no time.....too much money.......end coming soon, whatever it took to discourage. That time could be better spent pioneering.

  Sick or not Feeling well........go to the meetings anyway.

  Bleh!!!!