Part II: Techniques

Thought Stopping

"Thought Stopping is a process that cults use to control the thoughts of followers. It is done through prayer, through speaking in tongues, though meditation, and through affirmations or sayings. All of those things are ways to go into a trance state, which makes you susceptible to suggestion. The leader tells you that negative thoughts are impure and should be ignored."

"When I was in the cult, I would stop negative thoughts all day long, even in my dreams. If I was walking down the street and suddenly it occurred to me 'Hey, Rama, the cult leader, said that we weren't supposed to wear red and then he came on stage with a red outfit.' I would then say, 'Wait a minute. That is a doubt and it couldn't be from me because my spirit is pure. It has to be an impression from a family member who is thinking about it or from the media.' Different groups blame it on different sources. Some groups say that it is Satan, others say it is the government planting thoughts. If you push out negative thoughts all day long, then eventually you can't think negative thoughts, especially about the group. Then, when a family member says 'I just read in the New York Times that this cult leader is a total lunatic,' you can't hear them."

Staring

"We used to just sit and stare into each other's eyes for hours. This would put us into a heavy, heavy trance state. I've talked to people who were previously in cults and now hardly blink. They've been in that trance for so long that they have what is called the 1,000-year stare. If you talk to these people, you go into a trance yourself. Looking into someone's eyes without blinking for minutes at a time makes you space out and makes you very susceptible to suggestion."

Emotional Manipulation

"The group rewrites your emotions. Feeling love equals having your cult leader yell at you. Or you feel love when you are able to recruit five people in a week. It's called loaded language. We use language to communicate, and we also use language to think. If you can redefine words, throw new semantics into a language, you can control how someone thinks and how they feel about things. Anger, you feel toward anyone who's against the group, toward Satan, toward your parents. You get a very black-and-white image of the world."

Shock

"Another technique they use is shock. One time I was eating dinner and the Rama came up behind me. He slammed the table. We all were startled and jumped. When we turned around, he said 'Is every one having a good time?' "

"When shocked, traumatized, or put in danger, human beings flee, fight or fall. If someone scares you, you immediately look for some signal that everything is okay or else you determine where you should flee. If someone slams a table and says 'Hey, is everybody having a good time?' it becomes a kind of directive in your mind, like, 'I'm having a good time.' Once I was siting with a friend, and she had a splitting headache for no reason. I thought it was stress, and I slammed the table right in the middle of my sentence. She jumped, and I said 'Your headache is gone' and she said 'Oh my God, you're right.' It's that easy."

Contradiction

"The cult leader would say: 'I really admire people who don't know everything, who don't understand everything, because if you understood everything, you'd have nothing more to learn, understand?' "

"This is a hypnotic technique, because it is self-contradicting, it puts you into a kind of infinite loop. You say to yourself, 'Yes, I understand. But wait, that means I don't understand. But wait . . .' Then you tell yourself you don't understand what he said and you decide to reserve your judgment until you hear the very next thing that he says. Cult leaders set up hours of logic like that, of statements that make sense, but don't quite make sense. You get to the point where you forego all critical judgment on what the leader is saying. If you do that in a deep enough trance, or even a light trance, you will eventually begin to rely on what he says to get an answer, without you even knowing it."