Addendum 9/15/10 to reflect some of the discussion given by Keith Stump.

The late Dr. Margaret Singer (left) hated the term ‘brainwashing.’ Instead, she preferred the term ‘thought-reform,’ which is a more accurate description of the process, when you think about it. She was one of the top psychologists dealing with this subject, a court-qualified expert who testified on behalf of many ex-members and their families.

In looking at my friend Tiffany’s situation, it’s important to know how she got there. Dr. Singer has given us a roadmap of six basic conditions needed for thought reform to occur. The New York Church of Christ exhibited all of these in spades. For example, Dr. Singer wrote:

Control the person's social and/or physical environment; especially control the person's time.

Controlling the recruit’s environment is key, especially in the early stages. As Rev. Rick Bauer, a former leader of the International Church of Christ explained in a 1993 20/20 exposé (click here to watch it), the first step of its indoctrination process requires isolation. Often the targeted recruit is approached by someone acting friendly and helpful. After building up a decent comfort level, the ICoC member invites the recruit to a seemingly harmless function: a Bible study, a concert, a study klatch, a basketball game, or something else that would interest the target. These activities are scheduled so that only one non-member attends at a time, and is thus completely surrounded by other ICoC members. In some cases, retreats to geographically and culturally isolated places are ideal for these purposes. Other former ICoC leaders admit to going so far as locking recruits into basements for up to two weeks at a time.

The initial isolation serves to break down former thought patterns and belief structures. In this particular case, Tiff invited me to concerts (note plural), parties and other events, and in each of these, I was the only non-member. She even invited me to a retreat.

The isolation cannot occur to the same degree once the initial indoctrination has taken place, but it still goes on. As Dr. Singer wrote, “Through various methods, newer members are kept busy and led to think about the group and its content during as much of their waking time as possible.” All ICoC members accepted a rigorous schedule of activity that required them to spend time in a number of different pursuits, among them outreach to outsiders, counseling with a discipler, Bible study, church maintenance, et cetera. Thus, they’re too busy and/or too tired to keep up their relationships with family and non-cult friends.

The cult also isolated by regulating communication with outsiders. After Tiff announced her wedding to me, my access to her dropped sharply. She shared a Brooklyn apartment with three other church members, who from that day on, erased my telephone messages to her (I’ll tell you how I found out about this later).

Systematically create a sense of powerlessness in the person.

By keeping recruits isolated from sources of support, their confidence level drops. The group then uses the opportunity to attack the recruit’s thoughts and beliefs. In the aforementioned 20/20 piece, Rev. Bauer gives some excellent examples of how he did this. The recruit might think about countering the onslaught, but feels that it won’t do any good, since no one is there to back him up.

Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments and experiences in such a way as to inhibit behavior that reflects the person's former social identity.

The ICoC didn’t just attack spiritual beliefs. They attacked anything that smacked of individual initiative. Former members report that they got yelled at by other church members for so much as getting a haircut “without discussing it with them first” (read: “without permission”). The group dictated such things as job choices, family status, hair and clothing styles, what to consume, and what to like on TV. This had nothing to do with church doctrine. But it had everything to do with shaking the subject's confidence in making decisions, and distancing her from her previous identity.

Tiff said she had to get married.* What’s clear to me now is that she usually could only do what the church elders told her to do. Obviously, they told her that at her age she “needed” to find a husband. Because she lived under a tight schedule with other church members, and worked at a corporation with other people in the NYCoC, there was adequate opportunity to reward obedient behavior, and punish “pride and rebelliousness” (read: individuality).

So on top of isolating her from her family, her friends, and even from me, her lost recruit, the NYCoC did its damnedest to isolate Tiffany from herself.

Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in order to promote learning the group's ideology or belief system and group-approved behaviors.

This one is easily demonstrated in the post titled “A Walk through Greenwich Village: The Submission of the Lamb.” This time, however, it wasn’t Tiff who succumbed to the psychological manipulation, but me. I didn’t bother to take notes or do the other things the ushers thought I should until halfway through the Easter service. Even then, I wouldn’t do it until one of them came close to making a scene, which you can construe as my punishment. My reward for complying with the required behavior consisted of getting him out of my hair.

Tiff, no doubt, received such reinforcement on a continual basis many times a day.

Put forth a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure that permits no feedback and refuses to be modified except by leadership approval or executive order. The group has a top-down, pyramid structure. The leaders must have verbal ways of never losing. Members are not allowed to question, criticize or complain -- if they do, the leaders allege that the member is defective -- not the organization or the beliefs. The individual is always wrong -- the system, its leaders and its belief are always right.

Figure 1. A Diagram of the International Church of Christ governance structure.

The above figure, from the Reveal website, illustrates how the church distributes authority amongst its members. At the time of my involvement with Tiffany, the person at the very top of this pyramid would have been Kip McKean.

The bottom two sections merit closer examination. The most controversial aspect of the Crossroads approach was discipling. You see, most outsiders see this as a one-on-one relationship, with one person spiritually shepherding another until they are both peers. But discipling is actually a one-over-one relationship. The discipler does address some spiritual concerns, but for the most part tells the recruit what to do, all the time. This is the person whose permission the recruit would need to get a haircut, or buy a new pair of jeans. This is the person who would direct the recruit’s social life. This is the person who would report your “progress” (or lack thereof) up the ranks of the pyramid.

As you probably have determined by now, disciplers and other ICoC leaders used the terms ‘rebelliousness’ and ‘pride’ to keep the flocks from entertaining any independent thought, especially those that conflicted with the party line. The church also prohibited literature that conflicted with its belief and goals as “spiritual pornography” (e.g., The X-Spot), especially if that conflict were fact, research, or scientifically based. Without knowledge, the member might feel like challenging the dogma spewing from her “superior’s” (ahem!) lips, but has nothing to counter with. Couple this with constant pounding from scripture of how inferiors were to obey earthly masters, and you could see the recruit or neophyte member had little hope of winning an argument against a superior opponent, and couldn’t even get out of the argument until he or she had capitulated completely.

Tiff always had a ready answer for most of the things I could throw at her. She never won me over with anything she said. But it had become clear to me that she had internalized the whole power mechanism of the church. She believed in the infallibility of authority. In fact, she had bet her life on it.

Keep the person unaware of what is going on and how she or he is being changed a step at a time.

The most basic tenet. You see, no one would ever join a mind-control cult. So, the cult deceives the recruit with respect to its purpose and agenda. In order to maintain the deception, the group has to indoctrinate little by little. In fact, the behavioral and psychological steps happen so slowly, that the recruit usually doesn’t notice how she has changed.

It starts with simple things. Little things. Tiff, for example, always tried to get me to stop swearing. I don’t mean just in her presence. But everywhere, and at all times. In our telephone conversations, she would ask if my “use of language improved.” Most of the time, I’d simply tell her my vocabulary hadn’t changed without saying anything to upset her.

Once though, I answered, “What the fuck do you think?”

_________________

*In the comments section of the following post, Stump points out that the situation that I depict here would be somewhat unusual as stated. The pressure on whom to marry would normally be more subtle than depicted here, for one thing. A timetable, as such, would be less likely than an attempt to draw someone into the cult in order to continue a relationship--whatever that relationship is. She thus wouldn't have been a "lure" in the same vein as those utilized by other cults. As Stump notes, the risk for extramarital sexual relations (and thus less control over the member already in the cult) would be too great. It's possible that I misremembered what happened, but I'm quite certain that I did not. It would be more likely that I misunderstood her sense of urgency, but she herself gave me the timetable. My best guess is that she gave me a deadline in order to test my reactions; to see if I would commit to her, and ultimately to the cult.