Eight
Psychological Themes of a Thought Reform Program
Robert
Jay Lifton, M.D.
(a brief
outline)
1. MILIEU CONTROL
The
most basic feature is the control of human communication within
an environment
If the
control is extremely intense, it becomes internalized control
-- an attempt to manage an individual's inner communication
Control
over all a person sees, hears, reads, writes (information control)
creates conflicts in respect to individual autonomy
Groups
express this in several ways: Group process, isolation from
other people, psychological pressure, geographical distance
or unavailable transportation, sometimes physical pressure
Often
a sequence of events, such as seminars, lectures, group encounters,
which become increasingly intense and increasingly isolated,
making it extremely difficult-- both physically and psychologically--for
one to leave
Sets
up a sense of antagonism with the outside world; it's "us
against them"
Closely
connected to the process of individual change (of personality)
2. MYSTICAL MANIPULATION (Planned spontaneity)
Extensive
personal manipulation
Seeks
to promote specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such
a way that it appears to have arisen spontaneously from within
the environment, while it actually has been orchestrated
Totalist
leaders claim to be agents chosen by God, history, or some supernatural
force, to carry out the mystical imperative
The
"principles" (God-centered or otherwise) can be put
forcibly and claimed exclusively, so that the cult and its beliefs
become the only true path to salvation (or enlightenment)
The
individual then develops the psychology of the pawn, and participates
actively in the manipulation of others
The
leader who becomes the center of the mystical manipulation (or
the person in whose name it is done) can be sometimes more real
than an abstract god and therefore attractive to cult members
Legitimizes
the deception used to recruit new members and/or raise funds,
and the deception used on the "outside world"
3. THE DEMAND FOR PURITY
The
world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure,
the absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely
evil (everything outside the group)
One
must continually change or conform to the group "norm"
Tendencies
towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for the
group's controlling and manipulative influences
Once
a person has experienced the totalist polarization of good/evil
(black/white thinking), he has great difficulty in regaining
a more balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human
morality
The
radical separation of pure/impure is both within the environment
(the group) and the individual
Ties
in with the process of confession -- one must confess when one
is not conforming
4. CONFESSION
Cultic
confession is carried beyond its ordinary religious, legal and
therapeutic expressions to the point of becoming a cult in itself
Sessions
in which one confesses to one's sin are accompanied by patterns
of criticism and self-criticism, generally transpiring within
small groups with an active and dynamic thrust toward personal
change
Is an
act of symbolic self-surrender
Makes
it virtually impossible to attain a reasonable balance between
worth and humility
A person
confessing to various sins of pre-cultic existence can both
believe in those sins and be covering over other ideas and feelings
that s/he is either unaware of or reluctant to discuss
Often
a person will confess to lesser sins while holding on to other
secrets (often criticisms/questions/doubts about the group/leaders
that may cause them not to advance to a leadership position)
"The
more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you"
5. SACRED SCIENCE
The
totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic
doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision
for the ordering of human existence
Questioning
or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited
A reverence
is demanded for the ideology/doctrine, the originators of the
ideology/doctrine, the present bearers of the ideology/doctrine
Offers
considerable security to young people because it greatly simplifies
the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a sacred
set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying
the truth about human behavior and human psychology
6. LOADING THE LANGUAGE
The
language of the totalist environment is characterized by the
thought-terminating cliche (thought-stoppers)
Repetitiously
centered on all-encompassing jargon
"The
language of non-thought"
Words
are given new meanings -- the outside world does not use the
words or phrases in the same way -- it becomes a "group"
word or phrase
7. DOCTRINE OVER PERSON
Every
issue in one's life can be reduced to a single set of principles
that have an inner coherence to the point that one can claim
the experience of truth and feel it
The
pattern of doctrine over person occurs when there is a conflict
between what one feels oneself experiencing and what the doctrine
or ideology says one should experience
If one
questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group,
one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong
with them to even question -- it is always "turned around"
on them and the questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than
the questions answered directly
The
underlying assumption is that doctrine/ideology is ultimately
more valid, true and real than any aspect of actual human character
or human experience and one must subject one's experience to
that "truth"
The
experience of contradiction can be immediately associated with
guilt
One
is made to feel that doubts are reflections of one's own evil
When
doubt arises, conflicts become intense
8. DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE
Since
the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those
who are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened,
are not saved, and do not have the right to exist
"Being
verses nothingness"
Impediments
to legitimate being must be pushed away or destroyed
One
outside the group may always receive their right of existence
by joining the group
Fear
manipulation -- if one leaves this group, one leaves God or
loses their transformation, for something bad will happen to
them
The
group is the "elite", outsiders are "of the world",
"evil", "unenlightened", etc.
Excerpted from: Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism,
Chapter 22, (Chapel Hill, 1989) & The Future of Immortality,
Chapter 155 (New York 1987).
