"Mind Control" has a negative connotation to it, but if you reflect on the concept honestly, it's used ALL the time.
Take a look at the advertising industry. Most soaps are just soap. Some have this fragrance, some have fragrance masked. But people are led to believe that one brand is better than another by advertising. If they have a mum who used Brand A, and it was good enough for her, it's more than likely that the daughter will also use Brand A.
Perhaps you could start with that rather innocuous and more or less harmless type of mind control. How does advertising make people change a brand of soap? Is it a free sample in their mailbox? or a demonstration at the market that will get them to try Brand B? or substantial monetary savings?
Then you could delve into the realm of social psychology. What kinds of things make people vulnerable to groups like JWs? Generally, and we know this from our experience as JWs, JWs are looking for a very specific kind of person to target with "the good news". These are people who may be down on their luck, or going through a major transitional phase in their life. This is usually the time when people experience feelings of self-doubt and conflict about their future. Things like losing a job, getting married or divorced, having a new child, financial problems, a death in the family or of a friend, just to name a few, all give us pause to what place we hold in the scheme of things. Along come the JWs with pat answers and a hope for the future...... and you have someone primed for indoctrination.
Now, most people don't think of JWs as anything more than a bunch of religious nutters, mostly harmless. But these are basically the same techniques that were used by the Hitlers and Mussolinis and Bin Ladens of the world. What's to stop the WTS from becoming another Jonestown or Waco? Or what's to stop the JWs from acting on an order from the WTS that Armageddon is going to happen on such and such a date, and each JW is going to participate in executing Jehovah's judgement?? They are ALREADY desensitised to emotionally "killing" their outcasts. They are ALREADY desensitised to allowing their own children to be sacrificed for the sake of their own salvation. It's the unquestioning obedience to these kinds of reprehensible behaviours that makes them potentially extremely dangerous. That is where things become scary, celty.
Just my tuppence
Love, Scully
