Exploitative Techniques

Psychological coercion often threatens the victim’s relationships with others. The most obvious example is blackmail, where the threat consists of the dissemination of damaging information. However, many other types are possible such as so-called “emotional blackmail”, which typically involves threats of rejection from or disapproval by a peer-group, or creating feelings of guilt/obligation via a display of anger or hurt by someone whom the victim loves or respects.

Coercive control indicates an abusive relationship that need not involve violence or force. The expression has taken on a legal meaning in the UK with regard to abusive intimate relationships. Prosecution can lead to up to five years imprisonment.

Evan Stark in his book Coercive Control argues persuasively that by focusing on domestic violence, the legal system has failed to address the circumstances under which such violence takes place. Violence is the consequence of coercive control, where one partner rules the other.

“Exploitative persuasion” was used by Singer and Addis to precisely define brainwashing, thought reform, coercive persuasion or mind control. Singer and Lalich give six conditions for exploitative persuasion in “Cults in Our Midst“:

1. Keep the person unaware that there is an agenda to control or change the person
2. Control time and physical environment (contacts, information)
3. Create a sense of powerlessness, fear and dependency
4. Suppress old behavior and attitudes
5. Instill new behavior and attitudes
6. Put forth a closed system of logic

Most conversions include an awe-infused peak experience that results in radical personal transformation. In a predatory group, the convert is attracted by flattery, offered some free gift to urge reciprocation, welcomed into a friendly group, and then given an experience of awe – usually an intense feeling of euphoria, achieved through repetition, fixation, mimicry or confusion, or a combination of these elements.

Religious conversions are usually experiences of awe, but manipulated conversions are easy to achieve. For instance, if people have never fixed their gaze, they will be unaware of the Ganzfeld effect, where visual perception is distorted as the brain tries to make sense of the lack of change (called “filling in” by neuroscientists). Any perceptual fixation can result in euphoria, which can be framed as a “sign” or somehow miraculous, and this is easily exploited by predators.

The source of the technique is immediately perceived as an authority, and usually as an authority on subjects beyond what brought about the experience of awe. The experience may be seen as a miracle, and the new authority figure as a miracle worker, whose opinions about all subjects are considered authoritative.

When the awe experience is accepted as solid proof of a worldview espoused by some person or text, and the person learns ways to induce further awe experiences, a feedback loop is established, maintaining the person in a state of fervor.

It is likely that awe experiences release “reward” chemicals in the brain, leading to a form of addiction. In this state, believers will bond strongly with the predator, and reject any evidence that disagrees with the predator. They will be eager to explore other techniques in the attempt to induce more awe experiences. Some people become “cult junkies” in their quest for bliss states. They will abandon worthwhile work and even neglect their family, just as drug, alcohol, sex and gambling addicts do.

Even in the grip of fervor, people are still capable of intelligent decisions, except where those decisions are in conflict with a domineering partner or leader. Destructive cults include members with high academic qualifications, including astrophysicists, surgeons, lawyers and scientists. Scientific understanding is not a defense against recruitment through awe.

Fervor is not necessarily bad: most campaigners for good causes experience fervor, which is a proper reward for their virtuous activity. However, fervor controlled by a predator is fundamentally harmful.

“Light trance” or “reverie” is a dreamlike state, in which the subject remains conscious but susceptible to suggestion. Most hypnotherapists use this state to help their clients to overcome unwanted behaviors and to instill desired behaviors. The master of this technique was Dr Milton Ericson, though he relied upon his preternatural perception to influence his clients, which probably cannot be taught.

Beyond light trance is “everyday suggestibility”, which is the normal state of almost everyone. We are “primed” by our surroundings, and most of our thoughts are influenced by unregistered sensory cues.

The English showman Derren Brown demonstrated the effect of everyday suggestibility by asking two graphic designers to make a poster advertising a pet cemetery. They were surprised when he showed them that he had sketched the design they eventually came up with, before they even began. He then showed them the images they had been exposed to on their way to the studio, which led them to make their “own” design.

Visualization is a hypnotic method believed in by many athletes to enhance performance. Many creative artists use guided imagination to produce new work. For instance, the novelist Aldous Huxley withdrew into a fantasy world to create new stories. He called this “deep reflection”.

Tremendous refinements to public manipulation were made in the early 20th century by American PR experts Edward Bernays, Walter Lippmann, and Ivy Lee. The US government’s Committee on Public Information adopted their methods during WWI, and Bernays later pointed out that Hitler’s propaganda minister Josef Goebbels had simply applied his own American PR techniques to the whole population of Germany.

Mind control programs endorsed by US, British and Canadian intelligence agencies affected thousands of innocent citizens. LSD was introduced to the student population through these programs. The drug BZ, now a prohibited substance under the Chemical Warfare Convention, leaves the victim prone to crippling psychotic flashbacks that can last for days, was given to thousands of military personnel. An article referring to a declassified report “The Story of the Drug BZ” alleges that drug trials were carried out on “hundreds of thousands” of people. See also “The Mind Manipulators: A Non-Fiction Account”.

Mind control and behavior modification programs were run by eminent psychiatrists. In Canada, Ewen Cameron, head of both the American Psychiatric Association and the World Psychiatric Association, violated the rights of mental patients, using electric shocks to destroy memory as part of Project MKUltra.

In South Korea, Sun Myung Moon developed a “de-brainwashing” program based upon Chinese methods for his group Victory Over Communism. He would later create the Unification Church – or Moonies – along with officers of the Korean CIA. Other cult leaders have undoubtedly studied and applied these techniques.

The term “mind control” was adopted by the counter-cult movement in the 1970s, and popularized through Steven Hassan’s highly-influential book,
Combating Cult Mind Control.

Dr Frank Lutz, consultant to the Republican Party in the US, wrote a remarkable exposé “Words that work” about his profession, including some of his own stirring words as they were voiced by politicians. Lutz gives many examples of wrong and right words, for instance: never say “government”, instead say “Washington”; for “undocumented workers” say “illegal immigrants”; for “capitalism” say “free market economy”; for “wiretapping” say “electronic intercepts”.

Lutz understands the immediate emotional power of words. There are “snarl” words and “purr” words that are readily used to channel thinking, creating the desired emotions in the listener through the words used to describe the situation.

The true propagandist is a special form of predator, at times a fervent believer in a cause, though most make the mistake of boasting about their sleight of hand. Our present distrust of politicians is a direct result of the memoirs of spin-doctors, who cheerfully admit their attempts to manipulate the public at every possible opportunity.

Propaganda diverts from the negative and amplifies the positive. Hitler said that the Allies won the First War because of British propaganda rather than military strategy. He was able to control almost all available media through his own propaganda minister Josef Goebbels.

A glance at Allied propaganda in World War Two shows how easily images are manipulated: both China and Russia are characterized by strong, handsome people, whereas the Japanese enemy are characterized by buck-toothed, under-nourished, frail images with malevolent eyes.

The distinction between honest public relations and propaganda is often hard to make: Edward Bernays insisted that Goebbels had simply applied his American advertising techniques to the control of a whole population.

Propaganda can be used to deceive and to create hatred. It is a tool very effectively used by contemporary terrorist cults to attract recruits.

It is best to fight propaganda with truth. The Internet has given us both fact-checking and fake news. We need to learn to differentiate between them. A good start is Pratkanis and Aranson’s book, Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion.

The term “mind control” was adopted by the counter-cult movement in the 1970s, and popularized through Steven Hassan’s highly-influential book,
Combating Cult Mind Control.

And yet, less than half a per cent of Muslims are followers of the Salafi or Wahhabi faction of Sunni Islam, and most of these are not militant, but the acts of the few thousand followers of Daesh and Al Qaeda have stirred hatred towards all Muslims. This hatred has swelled support for the militant Wahhabis, just as they intend.

The Troubles in Northern Ireland became an internecine war between Protestants and Catholics. Extremists on both sides believed that they were the true Christians, with little thought for the teachings of the Prince of Peace they claimed to be following.

Destructive bigots have frequently used religious belief as an excuse for vicious anti-social behaviour throughout history. Christian extremists destroyed the greatest library of the ancient world at Alexandria. The Iconoclasts destroyed great art, as did the English Puritans of the 17^th century. Muslim extremists have destroyed much great art due to their fundamentalist misinterpretation of the Qu’ran.

The Crusades, the Inquisition, the Huguenot wars, the witch-hunts and many persecutions have stigmatized Christianity. But extremism is not limited to any particular religion: after partition in India in 1947, as many as two million people may have died in conflicts between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.

In the lead up to WWII, unthinking obedience was fostered in the Japanese public with the cult of the Emperor and “Soldier Zen“. Leading Zen Buddhist teachers have acknowledged the error of this teaching, and apologised for it.

In the West, second generation offspring of Muslim parents often feel isolated from their roots and are prey to radical groups that apply thought reform techniques to instill new beliefs and behaviors. Sometimes they are rebelling against their parents’ moderate beliefs.

The “slippery slope” addresses gradual radicalization through retreat into a like-minded group and withdrawal from the larger society. Resentment is amplified slowly, and the recruit is encouraged to bond with fellow-believers while disparaging outsiders. This may begin with something as laudable as charity towards the victims of prejudice but can escalate into “dispensing of existence”, where outsiders are perceived as demonic and evil, without human rights.

Status is achieved by participation in the cause. Killing an enemy in war is viewed differently from murder in almost all societies. Killing an enemy is praiseworthy, and increases the status of the perpetrator. Risk-taking becomes a positive activity in a radical group. In groups that perform suicide bombing, a high status attaches to successful bombers and their surviving families. In some parts of the world, billboards have shown images of smiling “shahida” or “martyrs”.

Existing concerns and beliefs are put aside for transformation as a member of the group, which, in effect, becomes a larger self – a set of values to be defended at all costs. “Unfreezing” of existing beliefs leads to changing of beliefs and then the “refreezing” process, where the new concerns and beliefs become central to a new sense of being and purpose.

Belonging to a group often means accepting all of the values of the group, whether they are understood or not. Recruits submit to the higher authority of the leader or doctrine and demand purity – compliance with that authority.

Polarization will happen, once group values have been accepted: you are either with us, or against us. There is no longer any middle ground. Those who disagree are the enemy. This argument is used to justify the murder of “enemy” children.

Isolation strengthens the bond to the group in line with Hassan’s BITE model – control of behavior, information, thought and emotion will take place as an aspect of separation from the society beyond the group. Access to conflicting information is completely cut off: the media is under the control of hostile forces, anyone who disagrees with the leader is diabolic. Thought-stopping will prevent true believers from even listening to criticism.

Competition can also escalate into radicalization. This is seen in left-wing groups that compete to show that their doctrine is more pure than that of rival groups.

Ju-jitsu politics indicates the use of provocation to make governments act against minorities and create oppressive legislation that will ultimately strengthen the radicals’ cause. This strategy is aimed at isolating moderates to cause social polarization. Al-Qaeda wanted First World countries to invade Muslim countries, to support their effort to create a united opposition. Their numbers grew from less than 500 at the time of 9/11, into tens of thousands after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. They want westerners to believe that all Muslims are militant Wahhabis and persecute them, so that there are even more persecuted Muslims, now eager to join the cause.

An “Us and Them” mentality is fundamental to all cults; it is essential to terrorist groups. Opponents are seen as demons or even vermin – just as in genocides.

Extensive investigation has shown that terrorists do not suffer from mental illness. Ariel Merari has provided a significant survey of the psychology of suicide bombers in the Israel-Palestine conflict. He did find a higher proportion that is usual of dependent and avoidant personality types, but suicide bombers in Palestine come from a community that needs no radicalization. His book “Driven to Death: Psychological and Social Aspects of Suicide Terrorism” gives a lot more detail.

In contrast, western terrorist recruits are often from moderate Muslim families and have a university education. They have fairly normal personality profiles. Marc Sageman challenges conventional wisdom about terrorism, observing that the key to mounting an effective defense against future attacks is a thorough understanding of the networks that allow these new terrorists to proliferate in his book “Understanding Terror Networks“.

Some experts prefer to avoid any suggestion of thought reform, but fail to explain what they mean by “radicalization”, which most certainly contains elements of manipulation and the use of undue influence.

Thought reform has a deliberate and hidden agenda to remold a person’s identity. It differs from education or rehabilitation, because the person undergoing thought reform is not told the real aims of the program, nor warned of the potential dangers.

Education and rehabilitation encourage personal development and independent decision-making, where thought reform reduces personal authority to bring about obedient compliance.

Even ethical military and religious training can verge on thought reform, but pseudo-religious cults, terrorist groups and criminal gangs have no hesitation in using techniques that result in unthinking obedience.

Hitler expressed his own totalitarian view in the statement, “One Empire, One People, One Leader” (Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Führer). The last totalitarian regime in western Europe ended with the death of General Franco in 1975. Franco ruled Spain and its colonies for almost 40 years, as a totalitarian, fascist dictator.

Most supposedly communist countries – such as Russia under Stalin – have also been totalitarian, in complete opposition to the basic tenets of Marx’s ideas. All dictatorships are totalitarian by definition.

“Totalism” is a contraction of “totalitarianism”, and Robert Jay Lifton extended the expression beyond state totalitarianism to all authoritarian relationships. To be “totalitarian” or “totalist” means to demand control. It describes dictatorship in all its many forms – whether in politics, religion, business, therapy, or even personal relationships. Totalitarianism sacrifices individual rights and freedoms, with the argument that only the greater good of society matters.

Robert Jay Lifton provides the basic model used by many in the counter-cult world to understand the submission to irrational ideas and anti-social practices that define destructive cult groups. Lifton’s model is the “thought reform” model, derived from his study of returnees from Chinese “brainwashing” camps and discussed in detail in his book “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China”.