Brainwashing -- Why Your Family Won't Listen!

 "Brainwashing is the attempt to change the thoughts and beliefs of 

another person against their will." 

This post has been written in response to two frightening comments that came in 
on the previous post:

". . . his demonic hold over his members. . ." (PM)

". . . he's a brainwashing genius. . . " (PM)

After listening to a couple of his sermons he has posted on-line, it is obvious to me that brainwashing techniques are being employed at BVC on a regular basis.  This heightens the urgency for you and your family to leave BVC.  

How Brainwashing Works?

During the Korean War, Korean and Chinese captors reportedly brainwashed American POWs held in prison camps.  Several prisoners ultimately confessed to waging germ warfare -- which they hadn't -- and pledged allegiance to communism by the end of their captivity.  At least 21 soldiers refused to come back to the United States when they were set free.

The study of brainwashing, often referred to as thought reform, falls into the sphere of  "social influence."  It's the collection of ways in which people can change other people's attitudes, beliefs and behaviours.  For instance, the compliance method aims to produce a change in a person's behaviour and is not concerned with his attitudes or beliefs.  It's the "Just do it" approach.  Persuasion, on the other hand, aims for a change in attitude, or "Do it because it'll make you feel good/happy/healthy/successful."  The education method (which is called the "propaganda method" when you don't believe in what's being taught) goes for the social-influence gold, trying to affect a change in the person's beliefs, along the lines of  "Do it because you know it's the right thing to do."

Brainwashing is a severe form of social influence that combines all of these approaches to cause changes in someones way of thinking without that person's consent and often against his will.  

Because brainwashing is such an invasive form of influence, it requires the complete isolation and dependency of the subject, which is why you mostly hear of brainwashing occurring in prison camps or totalist cults.  The agent (the brainwasher) must have complete control over the target (the brainwashee). In the brainwashing process, the agent systematically breaks down the target's identity to the point that it doesn't work anymore.  The agent then replaces it with another set of behaviours, attitudes and beliefs that work in the target's current environment. 

Brainwashing Techniques

In the late 1950s, psychologist Robert J. Lifton studied former prisoners of Korean War and Chinese war camps.  He determined that they'd undergone a multi-step process that began with attacks on the prisoner's sense of self and ended with what appeared to be a change in beliefs.  Lifton ultimately defined a set of steps involved in the brainwashing cases he studied:

1. Assault on identity
2. Guilt
3. Self-betrayal
4. Breaking point
5. Leniency
6. Compulsion to confess
7. Channelling of guilt
8. Releasing of guilt
9. Progress and harmony
10. Final confession and rebirth

Each of these stages takes place in an environment of isolation, meaning all "normal" social reference points are unavailable, and mind-clouding techniques are typically part of the process.  There is often the presence or constant fear of rejection, which adds to the target's difficulty in thinking critically and independently.

We can roughly divide the process Lifton identified into three stages:  breaking down the self, introducing the possibility of salvation, and rebuilding the self.

Breaking Down the Self

• Assault on identity:  You are not who you think you are.  This is a systematic attack on a target's sense of self (also his identity or ego) and his core belief system.  The agent (PM) denies everything that makes the target who he is.  The target is under constant attack to the point that he becomes exhausted, confused and disoriented.  In this state, his beliefs seem less solid.

• Guilt:  You are bad.  While the identity crisis is setting in the agent (PM) is simultaneously creating an overwhelming sense of guilt in the target.  He repeatedly and mercilessly attacks the subject for any "sin" the target has committed, large or small.  He may criticize the target for everything from the "evilness" of his beliefs to the way he eats too slowly.  The target begins to feel a general sense of shame, that everything he does is wrong. 

• Self-betrayal:  Agree with me that you are bad.  Once the subject is disoriented and drowning in guilt, the agent (PM) forces him (with the threat of the continuance of the mental attack) to denounce his family, friends and peers who share the same "wrong" belief system that he holds.  This betrayal of his own beliefs and of people he feels a sense of loyalty to increases the shame and loss of identity the target is already experiencing.

• Breaking point:  Who am I, where am I and what am I supposed to do?  With his identity in crisis, experiencing deep shame and having betrayed what he has always believed in, the target may undergo what in the lay community is referred to as a "nervous breakdown."  In psychology, "nervous breakdown" is really just a collection of severe symptoms that can indicate any number of psychological disturbances.  It may involve uncontrollable sobbing, deep depression and general disorientation.  The target may have lost his grip on reality and have the feeling of being completely lost and alone.  When the target reaches his breaking point, his sense of self is pretty much up for grabs -- he has no clear understanding of who he is or what is happening to him.  At this point, the agent (PM) sets up the temptation to convert to another belief system that will save the target from his misery.

The Possibility of Salvation

• Leniency:  I can help you.  With the target in a state of crisis, the agent (PM) offers some small kindness or reprieve from the abuse.  He may offer the target a time of rest.  In a state of breakdown resulting from an endless psychological attack, the small kindness seems huge and the target may experience a sense of relief and gratitude completely out of proportion to the offering, as if the agent (PM) has saved his life.

• Compulsion to confession:  You can help yourself.  For the first time in the brainwashing process, the target is faced with the contrast between the guilt and pain of identity assault and the sudden relief of leniency.  The target may feel a desire to reciprocate the kindness offered to him and at this point, the agent (PM) may present the possibility of confession as a means to relieving guilt and pain.

• Channeling of guilt:  This is why you're in pain.  After weeks or months of assault, confusion, breakdown and moments of leniency, the target's guilt has lost all meaning -- he's not sure what he has done wrong, he just knows he is wrong.  This creates something of a blank slate that lets the agent (PM) fill in the blanks:  He can attach that guilt, that sense of  "wrongness" to whatever he wants.  The agent (PM) attaches the target's guilt to the belief system the agent (PM) is trying to replace.  The target comes to believe it is his belief system that is the cause of his shame.  The contrast between old and new has been established:  the old belief system is associated with psychological (and usually physical) agony; and the new belief system is associated with the possibility of escaping that agony.  

• Releasing of guilt:  It's not me; it's my beliefs.  The embattled target is relieved to learn there is an external cause of his wrongness, that it is not he himself that is inescapably bad -- this means he can escape his wrongness by escaping the wrong belief system.  All he has to do is denounce the people and institutions associated with that belief system, and he won't be in pain any more.  The target has the power to release himself from wrongness by confessing to acts associated with his old belief system.  With his full confessions, the target has completed his psychological rejection of his former identity.  It is now up to the agent (PM) to offer the target a new one.

Rebuilding the Self

• Progress and harmony:  If you want, you can choose good.  The agent (PM) introduces a new belief system as the path to "good."  At this stage, the agent (PM) stops the abuse, offering the target physical comfort and mental calm in conjunction with the new belief system.  The target is made to feel that it is he who must choose between old and new, giving the target the sense that his fate is in his own hands.  The target has already denounced his old belief system in response to leniency and torment, and making a "conscious choice" in favour of the contrasting belief system helps to further relieve his guilt:  If he truly believes, then he really didn't betray anyone.  The choice is not a difficult one:  The new identity is safe and desirable because it is nothing like the one that led to his breakdown.

• Final confession and rebirth:  I choose good.  Contrasting the agony of the old with the peacefulness of the new, the target chooses the new identity, clinging to it like a life preserver.  He rejects his old belief system and pledges allegiance to the new one that is going to make his life better.  At this final stage, there are often rituals or ceremonies to induct the converted target into his new community.  This stage has been described by some brainwashing victims as a feeling of  "rebirth."  

Certain personality traits of the brainwashing targets can determine the effectiveness of the process.  People who commonly experience great self-doubt, have a weak sense of identity, and show a tendency toward guilt and absolutism (black-and-white thinking) are more likely to be successfully brainwashed.

This information was taken from a book written by Denise Winn titled The Manipulated Mind, Brainwashing, Conditioning and Indoctrination.  The book is available at www.amazon.com.

The book deals with various topics such as brainwashing, unquestioned beliefs, and the influencing effects of feelings.

For more information on Victory Churches and the Faith Movement, go to the Reference Library.  Click on any book title to get a brief overview of the book.  All books on the list are available through www.amazon.com.