Cults in Our Midst

From Cults in Our Midst: The continuing fight against their hidden menace
by Margaret Thaler Singer

1. Milieu Control

This is the total control of communication in the group. In many groups, there is a "no gossip" or "no nattering" rule that keeps people from expressing their doubts or misgivings about what is going on. This rule is usually rationalized by saying that gossip will tear apart the fabric of the group or destroy unity, when in reality the rule is a mechanism to keep members from communicating anything other than positive endorsements. Members are taught to report those who break the rule, a practice that also keeps members isolated from each other and increases dependence on the leadership.

Milieu control also often involves discouraging members from contacting relatives or friends outside the group and from reading anything not approved by the organization. They are sometimes told not to believe anything they see or hear reported by the media ...

2. Loading the language

As members continue to formulate their ideas in the group's jargon, this language serves the purpose of constricting members' thinking and shutting down critical thinking abilities. At first, translating from their native tongue into "groupspeak" forces members to censor, edit, and slow down spontaneous bursts of criticism or oppositional ideas. That helps them to cut off and contain negative or resistive feelings.

Eventually, speaking in cult jargon is second nature, and talking with outsiders becomes energy-consuming and awkward. Soon enough, members find it most comfortable to talk only among themselves in the new vocabulary.

To reinforce this, all kinds of derogatory names are given to outsiders ...

3. Demand for purity

An us-versus-them orientation is promoted by the all-or-nothing belief system of the group: we are right; they (outsiders, nonmembers) are wrong, evil, unenlightened, and so forth. Each idea or act is good or bad, pure or evil. Recruits gradually take in, or internalize, the critical, shaming essence of the cult environment, which builds up lots of guilt and shame.

Most groups put forth that there is only one way to think, respond, or act in any given situation. There is no in between, and members are expected to judge themselves and others by this all-or-nothing standard. Anything can be done in the name of purity; it is the justification for the group's internal moral and ethical code ...

If you are a recruit, this ubiquitous guilt and shame creates and magnifies your dependence on the group. The group says in essence, "We love you because you are transforming yourself," which menas that any moment you are not transforming yourself, you are slipping back. Thus you easily feel inadequate, as though you need "fixing" all the time, just as the outside world is being denounced all the time.

4.Confession

Confession is used to lead members to reveal past and present behaviour, contacts with others, and undesirable feelings, seemingly in order to unburden themselves and become free. However, whatever you reveal is subsequently used to further mold you and to make you feel close to the group and estranged from nonmembers. (I sometimes call this technique purge and merge) ...

Through the confession process and by instruction in the group's teachings, members learn that everything about their former lives, including friends, family, and nonmembers, is wrong and to be avoided. Outsiders will put you at risk of not attaining the purported goal: they will lessen your psychological awareness, hinder the group's political advancement, obstruct your path toward ultimate knowledge, or allow you to become stuck in your past life and incorrect thinking.

5. Mystical manipulation

The group manipulates members to think that their new feelings and behaviour have arisen spontaneously in this new atmopshere. The leader implies that this is a chosen, select group with a higher purpose. Members become adept at watching to see what particular behaviour is wanted, learning to be sensitive to all kinds of cues by which they are to judge and alter their own behaviour.

Cult leaders tell their followers, "You have chosen to be here. No one has told you to come here. No one has influenced you," when in fact the followers are in a situation they cannot leave owing to social pressure and their fear. Thus they come to believe that they are actually choosing this life. If outsiders hint that the devotees have been brainwashed or tricked, the members say, "Oh, no, I chose voluntarily." Cults thrive on this myth of voluntarism, insisting time and again that no member is being held against his or her will.

6. Doctrine over person

As members retrospectively alter their accounts of personal history, having been instructed either to rewrite that history or simply to ignore it, they are simultaneously taught to interpret reality through the group concepts and to ignore their own experiences and feelings as they occur. In many groups, from the days of early membership on, you will be told to stop paying attention to your own perceptions, since you are "uninstructed", and simply to go along with and accept the "instructed" view, the party line ...

7. Sacred science

... Many leaders, for example, inflate their curricula vitae to make it look as though they are connected to higher powers, respected historical leaders, and so forth ...

8. Dispensing of existence

The cult's totalistic environment clearly emphasises that the members are part of an elitist movement and are the select of the world. Nonmembers are unworthy, lesser beings. Most cults teach their members that "we are the best and only one," saying, in one way or another, "We are the governors of enlightenment and all outsiders are lower beings."

This kind of thinking lays the foundation for dampening the good consciences members brought in with them and allows members, as agents or representatives of a "superior" group, to manipulate nonmembers for the good of the group. If you leave, you join nothingness. This is the final step in creating members' dependence on the group ...

Sorry for the long length of this post.

Hi Searcher, and thanks for this precious contribution that goes in the direction of unmasking the real nature of the BKWSU/" spiritual family".

No need to apologize, I think, when you say :

Sorry for the long length of this post.

It was smooth, easy reading, as the description fits perfectly the BKWSU and, therefore, both those who are still currently BKs, and those who were affiliated in the past and have moved on with their lives, will not fail to recognize similarities, or feel that "it rings". We know it all. Yes, we are very familiar indeed with certain methods.

We accepted them and tried not to question too much because we believed that "it was God" and everything emanated from the Supreme being. We were obeying beneficial, although sometimes clashing with our ethics, illogical for our buddhu's impure intellect "Godly directions".

When, due to various reasons and things we noticed and found difficult to turn a blind eye, (inconsistencies, lack of dharna from SS and sisters-in-charge, injusticies, corruption, materialism, lack of common sense, whatever each one of us spots and finds relevant ... and which the BKs refer to as "Maya", "manmat" or "parmat") that faith gets eroded and disappears, Baba's system becomes unhinged. The trick then no longer works. The spell is broken. Bye -bye!

No big deal: the vampires are anyway non-stop circling around doing service in search of new, fresh supply of blood. Readers of this Forum, those who intend to study meditation with the harmless BK Raja Yoga school, run for cover, before it's too late!!!

I suppose that even a brain-washed zombie or orthodox, die hard BKs that fears leaving them and returning to the "old world" ... if not consciously, even if he/she doesn't dare to think that, "OMG, I am/have been the member of a sect!" or speaking about it, subconsciously knows that unfortunately it is TRUE!

Tough ****, is not it?

One of the adoptions that takes place is a sort of joking acceptance of, "yes, yes, it is brainwashing ... Baba is washing our brains/souls ... Baba is the washerman ... all is good". The inconsistencies are belittled as "the dirt that has to come out when the carpet is beaten". They are sold as temporary things different from non-BK "dirt" because when the "dirt" comes out within the BK world it is "special" one way dirty that is not sticking around.

Those that leave are not around to remind newcomers of the patterns and failures. Anyone that does stick around has to fully adopt to the cultic personality in order to survive.

I found many of Dr Margaret Singer's comments very insightful and helpful. Especially the "Loading the language" sections.

I think it is very hard NOT to look at life in the Brahma Kumaris and see direct correlations with it. It is impossible not to!

Margaret, a clinical psychologist, an academician, recipient of various academic prizes, has been made a controversial figure within the whole new religious/cult religion/academic world because she pushed the "brain wash" model which many argue against. She called it "psychological coercion". There are many that argue there is no such thing as "brainwashing", especially those making a business-religion out of it!

Her point of view has many enemies from groups like the Moonies and Scientologists but, in fact, she was also a very spiritual woman. "Cults in Our Midst" was the book that brought her to public attention. She gave expert testimony in several cult-related trials including the trial of Patty Hearst.

Singer, and her family, endured harassment and death threats due to her cult awareness work, she occasionally found dead animals on her doorstep, cultist went through Singer's trash and mail, picketed her lectures, hacked into her computer and released live rats in her house etc. She also wrote in 1978 the book, "Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change".

Dr Robert Lifton's work is also related to this field. The studies went out of fashion as the intensity of the "cult wars" in the 70s declined but has continued to be studied.

There's no doubt about it. BK is one of the biggest international cult organizations. Can you provide me more specific facts to substantiate this further? I am now in the process of trying to prove to the Father of my colleague that he is under the canopy of a dangerous cult.

I need specific teachings, ways and attitudes that will attest that indeed it is a wicked group governed by evil leaders who are expert in manipulating the thoughts and money of their members. I hope that through this forum I can help in one way or another a lost sheep!

Thank you for your time and efforts.