Gaslighting: emotional abuse and manipulation

for concern over cult-related damage, institutional abuse & psychological problems.
  • Message
  • Author
User avatar

ex-l

ex-BK

  • Posts: 10661
  • Joined: 07 Apr 2006

Gaslighting: emotional abuse and manipulation

Post07 Feb 2017

From, a BK victim's story here.
Gaslighting ... a form of manipulation or emotional abuse that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make the targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity.

In a way, the entire modus operandi of the BKs might be a kind of gaslighting ... causing victims to question reality as we know it, allowing the BKs to replace it with their unreal, delusional world ... and completely control them, as they control the language and the every modifying ideas that BK victims use to understand and express themselves.

Limit the language, limit the ideas, limit the expression, limit the access of others influences ... and you completely control someone.

You don't need a prison to trap them, because the prison is in the victims' minds. Once they are properly cooked, you can even send them out like robots to repeat and carry out your will ... as well as finance you and carry out all your menial duties you don't care or have time for.

There's a lot of material to follow up on this topic and how it applies within BKism ... here's a pop psychology blog post (but from a PhD at Columbia University ... not a bogus fake one like the BKs') which is good enough to start with, including take one through the usual stages, the first of which is disbelief.

I think a *lot* of people get stung by disbelief when dealing with the BKs and BKism.

Robin Stern also wrote, 'The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulations Other People Use to Control Your Life', and 'Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life'.

Might be worth reading over?

sandoc kumar

  • Posts: 30
  • Joined: 26 Jan 2017

Re: Gaslighting: emotional abuse and manipulation

Post07 Feb 2017

Human Society will always have troubled and weak people. Targeting them to day dreaming, hallucinations of materialistic achievements and positions in so called Satyug, auto suggestions - Delusions of Grandeur, fantasizing, fatalistic views of 'End of the World' in near future and so giving up all personal ambitions and will to progress, even worldly responsibilities.

Forgetting all which you hard earned; Renounce and Surrender; Serve the BK clan with all you have to fulfil god's purpose;
Keep visiting Shantivan for Brahma Baba Milan, sorry combined BapDada Milan; have Toli and get Intoxicated.

Fool yourself to the Core and Dump the Realities of Life.
User avatar

Pink Panther

  • Posts: 1885
  • Joined: 14 Feb 2013

Re: Gaslighting: emotional abuse and manipulation

Post08 Feb 2017

because the prison is in the victims' minds.

To understand why the person allows this to happen to them - to become another’s ”prisoner”, understanding the origin of the term ”gaslighting” is useful.

It comes from a play / two films called Gaslight - the most famous version is the film from 1944 starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer - in which the husband gradually convinces his wife that she is losing her mind.

She wants to believe he loves her and has her best interests at heart, so she does not see through his fairly obvious ‘tricks’. Rather, he convinces her to isolate herself from the world and he becomes the only person she dares to trust, following his directions ever more willingly, convinced of her ailment and that her dependence on him is the best option.

The term ”Gaslight” is the title of the movie because one of the regular tricks he plays, among others, is turning the gaslight up and down, and if she asks him if he witnessed the flickering, he denies he saw it, that it never happened, and it must be part of her delusions.

A variant on "Stockholm Syndrome”.
User avatar

ex-l

ex-BK

  • Posts: 10661
  • Joined: 07 Apr 2006

Re: Gaslighting: emotional abuse and manipulation

Post08 Feb 2017

To take that even further, or deeper, I think we also have to understand the 'evolutionary benefit' in it, that is to say, how and why we have evolved to carry them in us and to accept them.

I think the key to that is in the quote, "We defend on that we depend".

In short, for most of humanity's existence, it has been to our social or evolutionary benefit, to be accepted and protected by a strong group or leader.

To this day, the BKs are still sell this, e.g. with the concept of BK centres becoming safehavens of peace once Destruction happens ... even though they are *also* selling the fear factor they are offering the solution or safety from! This is the unhealthy part of individuals attachment to the BKs, as in the movie.

Take that third part of your posts ...
We want to believe that the Brahma Kumaris loves her and have our best interests at heart, so we do not see through their fairly obvious ‘tricks’.

Rather, we convince ourselves to isolate ourselves from the world and they become the only people we dare to trust, following their directions ever more willingly, convinced of our [imagined] ailment and that our dependence on them is the best option.

Fits perfectly.

Fits even better if you are a women in India and the other options are unwanted arranged marriages, hard labour, begging or prostitution ... ("Vinash" in those cases being an imminent, real personal experience). One that Lekhraj Kirpalani exploits in his Sakar Murlis with all the talk of the poisons of lust etc.

Return to Abuse & Recovery

cron