Posts by paranoia agent

14

Do Jehovah's Witnesses, suffer from Stockholm Syndrome? What do you think?

by LoisLane looking for Superman in

.

i believe they do.. loislane.

paranoia agent

I don't know about Stockholm but I have met elders with the dunning-kruger effect.

86

A House Divided Against Itself Falls-Luke 11:17

by Stand for Pure Worship in

jw
friends

that text reminds me of one of a handful of problems peculiar to the ex-jw community.

second only to the wild beast's internal divisions, is the divided makeup of the ex-jw populace.

you know the one thing that indicates jehovah's blessing upon the worldwide association of kingdom proclaimers, is not only the continued success of the preaching work, but along with it the unity and love amongst the brothers and sisters.

paranoia agent

No, I haven't backed out, I just haven't had a moment to read everything. Have to admit I'm surprised by some of the comments. Some of you have legitimate gripes with the way you were treated by individuals within the organization. Some of you I believe Armageddon didn't come on your stopwatch and so you gave up. It was all about petting a Panda bear for you or having a wildebeest farm. Back to those treated poorly by a few individuals, I was treated poorly by someone on my job, does that mean I should look for other employment as a result?

I think that you are making some assumptions, assumptions that I made when I was in about ex members, that things didn't go our way so we are rebelling. That would be the case to some, not I thought, I simply started reading more on this thread, then some books and then came to the conclusion that the fruits are rotten, in accordance to watchtower doctrine, but it is understandable that we have ex members who are angry. For example let's say you are brought up spending many hours as a jw only to find later in your life that it's a lie, you want answer and start to dialogue with elders only to be marked, you push on with your un-answered question so to be silenced again, if you are not too careful you will be disfellowshipped and the same applies if you simply change religion, and anyone including family who are jw's will shun you. Would you be angry then? I can change employment but I can not change my family or my 28 years of service, some have put themselves in harms way, others have died because of no blood or decided for others, some don't se their kids, others don't see their parents, some spend 2/4 to 3/4 of their life converting others to become jw's only to regret ever doing so. You might not agree with me on the doctrine issue but I hope, at least where this anger comes from makes sense.

17

Email conversation with a colleague

by zakharijah in

i just wanted to share this conversation i had by email with a jw colleague last year at easter.

(on my professional email address).

or how can you say to your brother, allow me to extract the straw from your eye; when, look!

paranoia agent

It's also true that jw's are more like work colleagues than brothers/sisters. She certainly does not care for you, she cares for Jehovah incorporated.

29

Child indoctrination explained by transactional analysis

by paranoia agent in

the purpose of psychology is to explain and help others to change, if suffering from depression or anxiety or we just want to understand the other or improve ourselves there are different types of psychological therapies to help us.

we are aware that psychologists have the know-how, just has mechanics know cars and astronauts know space shuttles and psychics, but we know they know a lot but we know very little possibly because its too complicated, it doesn't make rational sense, we don't have enought time or just like my diploma in accounting if its not put to good use it will turn into a vague memory.. look at my previous thread in cognitive dissonance, it sounds alien to many, it sure sounds to those that i explained it to, that is because its not something we normally hear about so explaining it to others these words and their context also requires a connotation from the listener for cognitive dissonance to make any sense.. my very first assignment was on cognitive dissonance in a paper titled media illiteracy or cognitive dissonance which discussed statistical discrepancies between what people said regarding their preferred news media output -tv or newspapers- and the actual sales/view/quality figures of those two media outlets, in the usa during the 70's and 80's.

it turns out that people lied about tv news medium being higher quality than newspapers because the quality is lower than newspapers (local news recorded in many states), the truth is that nobody wants to admit (during the questionnaires for this empirical data) that watching news on tv is easier and lazier than reading.

paranoia agent

Part 9

Many who have tried to reason with those who have delusions and prejudices, if reasoning simply involved demonstrating contradictory evidence then cults wouldn’t even exist by now, but the reality is that we usually end up at a loss and or the process just takes too long, because we are not dealing with normal people (fig.4) we are dealing with people with P and C fused to A, so in theory while I have been advocating to transact in A considered productive than P or C, A can backfire. (fig.5)8

Transacting in A a contradictory belief of their prejudices/delusions, as discussed in Part 8 regarding the conflict between P and A, will cause a form of mental anxiety known by Leon Festinger as cognitive dissonance (CD), the stronger the prejudice/delusion described below, the stronger dissonance will be required.

“Let us begin by stating the conditions under which we would expect to observe increased fervour following the disconfirmation of a belief. There are five such conditions.

A belief must be held with deep conviction and it must have some relevance to action, that is, to what the believer does or how he behaves.
The person holding the belief must have committed himself to it; that is, for the sake of his belief, he must have taken some important action that is difficult to undo. In general, the more important such actions are, and the more difficult they are to undo, the greater is the individual's commitment to the belief.
The belief must be sufficiently specific and sufficiently concerned with the real world so that events may unequivocally refute the belief.
Such undeniable disconfirmatory evidence must occur and must be recognized by the individual holding the belief.
The first two of these conditions specify the circumstances that will make the belief resistant to change. The third and fourth conditions together, on the other hand, point to factors that would exert powerful pressure on a believer to discard his belief. It is, of course, possible that an individual, even though deeply convinced of a belief, may discard it in the face of unequivocal disconfirmation. We must therefore, state a fifth condition specifying the circumstances under which the belief will be discarded and those under which it will be maintained with new fervor.
The individual believer must have social support. It is unlikely that one isolated believer could withstand the kind of disconfirming evidence we have specified. If, however, the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, we would expect the belief to be maintained and the believers to attempt to proselyte or to persuade non-members that the belief is correct.

These five conditions specify the circumstances under which increased proselyting would be expected to follow disconfirmation.” Leon Festinger, When Prophecy Fails, 2008, p. 19/20, Pinter & Martin Ltd

With my own interactions and hypothesis I came to the conclusion that it is more beneficial to a)to identify the strongest form of prejudice that the person has and b) provide stronger evidence to the contradictory, to create strong dissonance*, all while transacting in Adult (I cannot stress this enough, in A you are trying, in C or P not only are you wasting time but you can also be making matters worse, that means NO aggressive, punitive or try to induce guilt feelings through conversation). This might take time and various attempts, it is impossible to put everyone in one basket but with me I had success with my parents, now they aren’t out but they are more sceptical and see the GB more as a fallible human body than mini apostles.

In TA terms, what are doing by creating CD is for the cult member to seek cognitive consonant information that matches reality, so P and C merge out from A, becoming like fig. 4. These type of interactions in TA that are and change decision making are referred to as life positions:

I’m Ok, you’re OK; I’m Ok, you’re not OK ; I’m not Ok, you’re OK ; I’m not Ok, you’re not OK. They are below demonstrated by the cult member as.

1 - I’m Ok, you’re not OK – I know the truth and you are wrong

2 - I’m not Ok, you’re not OK – I may be wrong with certain things but so are you.

3 - I’m not Ok, you’re OK – I realise the mistakes that I have made and feel terrible

4 - I’m Ok, you’re OK – I have resolved my crisis and accepted your criticism as valid

Final thoughts.

TA is usually applied to business and therapy but rarely applied to understanding cult mentality, most capable of doing so as it is in complete harmony with other psychological perspectives, simplifying and presenting systematic sketches that can easily be applied. Of course what I presented here is just relevant to cults and it’s not even one quarter of TA. One other thing I find crucially important is before we understand others we need to understand ourselves, there is book out there that has sold many copies, How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnege, this book has helped me a lot making me less stressed and less angry because of the cult as I was not aware on how little control I had of myself and how little I understood others, I apply this book and many other books to TA. I wanted to share TA to others who are not familiar with it and to stress that it is better to understand all different perspective of psychology than just one. One last thing, it is human nature that we seek our own consistencies and avoid the inconsistencies of others, we do have cognitive blind spots that we only realise when someone else points it out to us, to understand the impact that this has done in politics and marriage I want to you to read Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me by Elliot Aronson, at least once in your life.

Next time watching your favourite show or a conversation unfolding think of which ego states they are in.

P.A.

* I made a video explaining in full detail what cognitive dissonance is. I can't seem to link the video so you will need to click on the link.

http://youtu.be/D3IgH_Y0l8I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3IgH_Y0l8I

223

Ancient Confession Found: 'We Invented Jesus Christ'

by Watchtower-Free in

http://uk.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11201273.htm.

ancient confession found: 'we invented jesus christ'biblical scholars will be appearing at the 'covert messiah' conference at conway hall in london on the 19th of october to present this controversial discovery to the british public.

london (prweb uk) 8 october 2013. american biblical scholar joseph atwill will be appearing before the british public for the first time in london on the 19th of october to present a controversial new discovery: ancient confessions recently uncovered now prove, according to atwill, that the new testament was written by first-century roman aristocrats and that they fabricated the entire story of jesus christ.

paranoia agent

Stand for Pure Worship wrote You gotta love it. A psuedo-scholar claims Jesus Christ was a fabricated character and all the atheists think they've hit the lottery. Just lookin for any excuse to tickle their own ears.

We don't need pseudo-scholars to believe that there is little evidence to support the claim that a man with super powers existed.

223

Ancient Confession Found: 'We Invented Jesus Christ'

by Watchtower-Free in

http://uk.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11201273.htm.

ancient confession found: 'we invented jesus christ'biblical scholars will be appearing at the 'covert messiah' conference at conway hall in london on the 19th of october to present this controversial discovery to the british public.

london (prweb uk) 8 october 2013. american biblical scholar joseph atwill will be appearing before the british public for the first time in london on the 19th of october to present a controversial new discovery: ancient confessions recently uncovered now prove, according to atwill, that the new testament was written by first-century roman aristocrats and that they fabricated the entire story of jesus christ.

paranoia agent

A lot of hypothesis going around about Christ, what we do know is this - there are historical documents that confirms that a well know Jewish man by the name of Jesus existed - what we don't have are any external sources at the time that confirms his super powers.

Bart Ehrman wrote about this subject in his book Did Jesus Exist?

15

Need some good thoughts....

by diana netherton in

it's been a tough year for me so far.

my grammy passed away in june and i haven't grieved her properly.

it was a jw funeral and that wasn't the platform to do that.

paranoia agent

All I have to say besides the great advice given here is listen to the most qualified psychologist that you can find.

And try to understand that these feelings are normal and will pass as time goes on.

When I lost my job (I know I Know it's nothing like what you're going through) I did a form of therapy that is usually done to those who might have a high risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, before going to bed I wrote down that I was upset and the reasons why, the next day I started feeling better.

29

Child indoctrination explained by transactional analysis

by paranoia agent in

the purpose of psychology is to explain and help others to change, if suffering from depression or anxiety or we just want to understand the other or improve ourselves there are different types of psychological therapies to help us.

we are aware that psychologists have the know-how, just has mechanics know cars and astronauts know space shuttles and psychics, but we know they know a lot but we know very little possibly because its too complicated, it doesn't make rational sense, we don't have enought time or just like my diploma in accounting if its not put to good use it will turn into a vague memory.. look at my previous thread in cognitive dissonance, it sounds alien to many, it sure sounds to those that i explained it to, that is because its not something we normally hear about so explaining it to others these words and their context also requires a connotation from the listener for cognitive dissonance to make any sense.. my very first assignment was on cognitive dissonance in a paper titled media illiteracy or cognitive dissonance which discussed statistical discrepancies between what people said regarding their preferred news media output -tv or newspapers- and the actual sales/view/quality figures of those two media outlets, in the usa during the 70's and 80's.

it turns out that people lied about tv news medium being higher quality than newspapers because the quality is lower than newspapers (local news recorded in many states), the truth is that nobody wants to admit (during the questionnaires for this empirical data) that watching news on tv is easier and lazier than reading.

paranoia agent

Part 8

Recall earlier that I explained how the Parent and Child ego state is developed, my own had elements that many here consider incorrect, I was told that god is Jehovah and that He wants the best for us, that I am not to become a non jw because they are bad, I was only taught the jw religion, association was exclusively to jw’s. At a very young age I saw mum being scolded by hot water from the 2 nd floor balcony during preaching reinforcing my Parent that my parents are right, Also “worldly” people were somewhat different to me. As a little child if a belief is presented to the contrary to what the parent said (thus part of the child’s Parent ego state) the tendency is that it is safer to believe in a lie of the parent than in the child’s own eyes and ears.

And the problem does not stop here, you are taught early on who to listen to, who to associate, what to read, applying rules of conformity on how you should dress, how you should behave and how you should think, while dedicating a lot of your time on the beliefs that your parents has passed to your Parent.

As we get older we may confront situations that contradicts our Parent ego state, let’s say you meet a person from school and his parents in which they are nothing like what jw’s described as worldly (swearing drunkards, gamblers etc). There is a discrepancy of beliefs. An internal conflict occurs, the Parent tells you one thing and the Adult another, while the Parent strong influence threatens the Child in a continuing dialogue that the Adult shuts up, so you continue to believe that jw’s are the nicest people in the world. This discrepancy is the Parent externalised as true overlapping the Adult, a contamination referred to as prejudice. (Fig. 5.5)

Prejudice as the word implies are judgements on worldly people, apostates, homosexuals, adulterers, fornicators, gamblers, liars, drunkards, concerned as they want to follow Jehovah’s rules, but once you remove God or a version of god out of the picture these views are all understood by what they really are, prejudices.

As Thomas Harris wrote: “ We all know how difficult it is to reason with a prejudiced person. With some people one can present a logical and evidential case regarding racial issues or left-handedness or any other subject that the person holds a prejudice about; yet, the Parent in these people steadfastly dominates a portion of the Adult, and they will surround their prejudicial cases with all kinds of irrelevant arguments to support their position. As illogical as their position may seem, the rigidity of their position is in its safety.” I’m OK – You’re OK, 1995, chp 6 p. 96, Arrow books.

When the Child contaminates the Adult, TA refers this as delusions, irrational fears like the fear I had before of reading this forum as I feared losing my faith because the watchtower magazine warned me so, or the fear of Armageddon, the idea that the world is an evil place under Satan’s control, etc. (Fig. 5.5)

29

Child indoctrination explained by transactional analysis

by paranoia agent in

the purpose of psychology is to explain and help others to change, if suffering from depression or anxiety or we just want to understand the other or improve ourselves there are different types of psychological therapies to help us.

we are aware that psychologists have the know-how, just has mechanics know cars and astronauts know space shuttles and psychics, but we know they know a lot but we know very little possibly because its too complicated, it doesn't make rational sense, we don't have enought time or just like my diploma in accounting if its not put to good use it will turn into a vague memory.. look at my previous thread in cognitive dissonance, it sounds alien to many, it sure sounds to those that i explained it to, that is because its not something we normally hear about so explaining it to others these words and their context also requires a connotation from the listener for cognitive dissonance to make any sense.. my very first assignment was on cognitive dissonance in a paper titled media illiteracy or cognitive dissonance which discussed statistical discrepancies between what people said regarding their preferred news media output -tv or newspapers- and the actual sales/view/quality figures of those two media outlets, in the usa during the 70's and 80's.

it turns out that people lied about tv news medium being higher quality than newspapers because the quality is lower than newspapers (local news recorded in many states), the truth is that nobody wants to admit (during the questionnaires for this empirical data) that watching news on tv is easier and lazier than reading.

paranoia agent

Part 7

Had the non-member responded back in Adult by saying something like ‘I appreciate your time and I don’t mean to sound rude but I have made my decision and it would be very grateful if you could stop reaching this household’ and ending the conversation with ‘thank you’, or ‘I have some queries in relation to the bible, I am not very familiar with your publications so if you could, when you have some free time we could discuss the bible’. This is maintaining the exchange as an Adult to Adult conversation and the wisest manner to converse as it hallows a bridge to discussed or inform in a manner that will not offend, strike fear or cause judgement. (Fig.5.3)

As well with the elder scenario, fader knew the elder’s intentions and did something that he may regret that he had done it, had he responded as Adult like ‘I understand your concern but try to understand that I no longer am a believer of this religion and there are certain things that my conscious does not permit me doing’ the transaction would still be crossed and fader would still regret saying that the following day. Or if fader had lied ‘you know, just been too busy lately’ another Adult response is again crossed but not as bad as his other Adult response. If fader is really concerned about elder’s reaction the best response would be fader as Child like ‘Time just fly’s and I am very sorry, I will try to make a habit of attending again’ (Fig. 5.4), and fader’s Child will reinforce elder’s Parent ‘That’s excellent, I know times are taught but this is Satan’s system and the end is so near’.

The point here is that complementary transactions can be necessary to avoid fruitless and sticky situations, the fader who does not want to be disfellowshipped and the concerned non-member that wants to make his point across. I have avoided losing my job by using Parent to Child transactions with my boss as he likes to play games wanting me to think that I am never good enough so he can keep pushing me to work harder but if I respond back as Adult or worse Parent may boss can easily get some other poor schmuck to do my job, but I have complete control on the outcome of the conversation and if ever I leave my job it is completely my choice in doing so, as YouTube user TheraminTrees puts it “Transactional Analysis or TA is a theoretical framework used in therapy and counselling which suggests that one of the overriding factors in the perpetuation of these situations is not the other person’s behaviour but our own state of mind”

29

Child indoctrination explained by transactional analysis

by paranoia agent in

the purpose of psychology is to explain and help others to change, if suffering from depression or anxiety or we just want to understand the other or improve ourselves there are different types of psychological therapies to help us.

we are aware that psychologists have the know-how, just has mechanics know cars and astronauts know space shuttles and psychics, but we know they know a lot but we know very little possibly because its too complicated, it doesn't make rational sense, we don't have enought time or just like my diploma in accounting if its not put to good use it will turn into a vague memory.. look at my previous thread in cognitive dissonance, it sounds alien to many, it sure sounds to those that i explained it to, that is because its not something we normally hear about so explaining it to others these words and their context also requires a connotation from the listener for cognitive dissonance to make any sense.. my very first assignment was on cognitive dissonance in a paper titled media illiteracy or cognitive dissonance which discussed statistical discrepancies between what people said regarding their preferred news media output -tv or newspapers- and the actual sales/view/quality figures of those two media outlets, in the usa during the 70's and 80's.

it turns out that people lied about tv news medium being higher quality than newspapers because the quality is lower than newspapers (local news recorded in many states), the truth is that nobody wants to admit (during the questionnaires for this empirical data) that watching news on tv is easier and lazier than reading.

paranoia agent

yadda yadda 2 : Thanks, gestalt and TA? Sounds interesting.

Part 6

Now that we understand the ego state symbols we can apply them to interactions with others, or transactions as it’s called. As you apply this in every situation it will become more and more natural to think of every interaction as ego states. Keep in mind that it’s only through A that our P and C change; likewise if we are speaking to someone the same principal applies.

There are three types of transactions, complementary, crossed and (complementary and crossed) ulterior transactions. Complementary are like [Father(P): Son, do your homework now or no ice cream. Son(C): Sorry I will] transactions that are parallel with each other, crossed are [Mr X(P): You shut up. Mr Z(P): No, you shut up] and ulterior is explained below. So that we can try to change a person’s beliefs, the futility and strength of transactions needs to be evaluated. We analyse not just what is said but the body language, tone of voice and context.

Let’s say you get a knock on the door to find a well-dressed JW who says ‘Good morning, we are in the neighbour’ and continues on with the sales pitch, you reply hastily ‘My cousin has been shunned by his family just because he decided to leave, what sort of stupid religion is this?’ JW starts as Adult but you respond as Parent because a judgement claim was made. Being that Parent is addressing Child , this transaction is crossed. (Fig. 5.1)

Another example would be that you bump into an elder somewhere and he says ‘Hey where have you been hiding! Why aren’t you attending the meetings?’ And you, a fader, you had a very bad day at work and angry at the religion at this point in time, responds ‘BECAUSE OF THE F*%^#$@ PROTECTING OF PEDOPHILES AND SHUNNING, retard’. It may seem at first that the elder is asking as Adult, just asking a question, but in context what the elder is asking is like a loaded question, a secondary communication, a shepherded protecting his flock following his elders manual to enquire so for disfellowshipping others. The elder is Adult addressing Adult but also Parent addressing Child. Your response is clearly Parent addressing Child so this is an ulterior transaction (Fig. 5.2)