Ways to evaluate a group's control over person freedom

[From Chapter Four of Combatting Cult Mind Control (Park Street Press, 1990) by Steven Hassan]

Destructive mind control can be understood in terms of four basic components, which form the acronym BITE:

 

These four components are guidelines. Not all groups do every aspect or do them extremely. What matters most is the overall impact on a person's free will and ability to make real choices. A person's uniqueness, talents, skills, creativity, and free will should be encouraged, not suppressed. Destructive mind control seeks to "make people over"in the image of the cult leader. This process has been described as "cloning". This "cult identity"is the result of a systematic process to dissociate a person from his or her previous identity including important beliefs and values as well as significant relationships. The result is the creation of a dual identity, what I refer to "John-John"and "John cult-member".

I. Behavior Control

1.Regulation of individual's physical reality

2. Major time commitment required for indoctrination sessions and group rituals

3.Need to ask permission for major decisions

4.Need to report thoughts, feelings and activities to superiors

5.Rewards and punishments (behavior modification techniques- positive and negative).

5.Individualism discouraged; group think prevails

6.Rigid rules and regulations

7.Need for obedience and dependency

II. Information Control

1.Use of deception

2.Access to non-cult sources of information minimized or discouraged

3.Compartmentalization of information; Outsider vs. Insider doctrines

4.Spying on other members is encouraged

5.Extensive use of cult generated information and propaganda

6.Unethical use of confession

III. Thought Control

1.Need to internalize the group's doctrine as "Truth"

2.Adopt "loaded"language (characterized by "thought-terminating cliches").reduce complexities of experience into trite, platitudinous "buzz words".

3.Only "good"and "proper"thoughts are encouraged.

4.Thought-stopping techniques (to shut down "reality testing"by stopping "negative"thoughts and allowing only "good"thoughts);
rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism.

5.No critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy seen as legitimate

6.No alternative belief systems viewed as legitimate, good, or useful

IV. Emotional Control

1.Manipulate and narrow the range of a person's feelings.

2.Make the person feel like if there are ever any problems it is always their fault, never the leader's or the group's.

3.Excessive use of guilt

4.Excessive use of fear

5.Extremes of emotional highs and lows.

6.Ritual and often public confession of "sins".

7.Phobia indoctrination : programming of irrational fears of ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader's authority. The person under mind control cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group.