Reading along with Prudence, Part 5A: Constructing a new cult identity, and how Robin tapped into Will's old one.

The last third of Chapter Four looks at a three-step process by which a new identity is created in cult mind control.

1. Unfreezing:  Breaking a person down.
2. Changing: Indoctrination.
3. Refreezing: Building up and reinforcing a new identity. 

The unfreezing part involves disrupting the person's sense of reality, using confusion and disorientation. This can happen physiologically through sleep deprivation and enforcing a nutrient-poor diet, as seen in the UHC. Another technique is  repeatedly presenting confusing information, so as to induce a hypnotic trance. Robin certainly recognized this method, as she told Flora, "They force you to agree up's down and black's white. It's part of the way they control you." 

Group situations are also prime times for creating unbalance. 

Exercises, such as guided meditation, personal confessions, prayer sessions, vigorous calisthenics, and even group singing, can also aid in unfreezing, Typically, these activities start out quite innocuously, but gradually become more intense and directed. They are almost always conducted in a group. This enforces privacy deprivation and thwarts a person's need to be alone, think and reflect. At these stage of unfreezing, as people are weakening, most cults bombard them with the idea that they are seriously flawed. incompetent, mentally ill, or spiritually fallen... Some groups can be quite vicious on their attacks at this stage. 

The small-group lectures and chanting sessions at the UHC eventually turned into the abusive confrontations of Revelation. 

Reading along with Prudence, Part 5: Who is the only genuinely brainwashed person at Chapman Farm? The answer will surprise you.

Chapter Four of Hassan's Combating Cult Mind Control aims to explain how mind control works, and how genuine "brainwashing" differs from undue influence. Hassan states that, as a member of the Unification Church who regarded communism as the enemy, he was ultimately inspired to leave the group when he saw that they used techniques similar to those used by Communist China in the 1950's. He was advised by his deprogrammers to read another of Prudence's book recommendations, Lifton's Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, and recognized that all eight techniques (milieu control, mystic manipulation, demand for purity, confession, sacred science, loading the language, doctrine over person and dispensing of existence) described in that book were part of Moon's recruiting strategy. As we will see, they were also part of Jonathan Wace's toolkit, as he disrupted the authentic identity of his followers and made them ever more dependent on the UHC. Readers of The Running Grave can certainly see this influence in characters like Will Edensor and Emily Pirbright. 

Most ominously for Robin in her undercover mission, Hassan says:

Even if the person gets along with deliberate play-acting at first, the act eventually becomes real. They take on a totalistic ideology, that, when internalized, supersedes their prior belief system. 

Hassan also speaks of children born into such organizations:

Children unfortunate enough to be born to members of a destructive cult are deprived of a healthy psychological environment in which to mature optimally. That said, children are remarkably resilient, and I have met many who described never completely buying into the crazy beliefs and practices. Most ran away or found a way to escape before they became an adult. Yet, for others, it took decades to find the strength and the courage to be true to themselves. 

Kevin Pirbright was probably the best example of such a resilient character in TRG, although we also see echoes of that trait in Linn Doherty, with her wish to run away with Qing and Emily Pirbright, who was ready to leave the group to be with her lover. 

What is true brain-washing?

Hassan cautions that using the terms "mind control" and "brainwashing" synonymously is a mistake, although many do, including Strike and Robin in this book: for instance, when Robin calls the education of the cult children, "being brainwashed."  Ironically, there is only one character who briefly can be considered "brainwashed" and that is Robin herself.  How can that be?  Find out after the jump. 

Real-Life Fantastic Beasts #19 and #20: Meet Cis occamy and Leptanilla voldemort!

One of my favorite talks to give at Potter festivals, particularly when addressing child audiences,  is on the topic of Real-Life Fantastic Beasts:  newly discovered species that have been given scientific names inspired by the wizarding world.  The last time I spoke on this topic, there were eighteen such critters, ranging from dinosaurs to tardigrades, all with amazing stories from their discoverers about why they were inspired by Harry Potter.  My pipe dream is to produce a children's natural history book about these beasties and happily, thirteen of the discoverers have so far agreed to be interviewed for it. 

The downside of this book project is that it keeps getting longer.  The last year has added two more species to the list, for a grand total of twenty.  Cis occamy, a beetle from Brazil, joins corinnid sac spider Attacobius demiguise and stink bug Graphorn bicornutus in the subset of species named for Newt Scamander's friends from the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movie franchise, rather than Harry Potter series itself. Leptanilla voldemort is the first ant species to bear a Harry Potter-inspired name, joining two stink bugs, two beetles and three wasps as insects in this unique group. 

Learn more about these magical creatures after the jump. 

Reading along with Prudence, Part 4: A look at the UHC through the Lens of Modern Cult Practices.

Hassan begins Chapter Three by explaining that destructive cults do not refer only to religious organizations but to any group that uses mind control methods to exert undue influence; these can include political organizations, human trafficking groups, psychotherapist groups and even multi-level marketing companies. For example, in 2019, Hassan published a book called The Cult of Trump. What distinguishes a destructive cult from a legitimate organizations is consistent and unethical use of what Hassan calls the BITE model: the group leadership maintains excessive control of the recruits' Behavior, Information, Thoughts and Emotions. Hassan makes it clear that he supports freedom of religion and peoples' rights to affiliate as they please, evoking the name of another real-life cult leader mentioned in The Running Grave as one who "differed from the UHC only in laying slightly more emphasis on murder and a lot less on generating revenue:"

If people want to believe Sun Myung Moon, or Charles Manson, or their dog is the messiah, that is their right. However, and this is the crucial point: people need to be protected from processes that make them believe Manson or Moon is the messiah... If deception, hypnosis or other mind-control techniques are being used to recruit and control followers, then peoples' rights are being infringed upon. 

Hassan reviews research on mind control that began in the 1950's. Some was conducted by the CIA; some by psychotherapist with good intentions to use the methods to empower people and get them out of "mental ruts." He describes a form of group therapy, "sensitivity training" that arose in the 1960's and morphed into something that very much resembles the UHC's "revelation." 

One technique, widely popular at that time, was the "hot seat," which was first used by the drug rehab cult, Synanon.  A member of the group sat in the center of the circle, while other members confronted them with what they considered to be the person's shortcomings or problems. Needless to say, without the supervision of an experienced therapist, and sometimes even with it, such a technique opens up considerable possibilities of abuse. 

 Continued...

Reading Along with Prudence, Part 3: Entering and Exiting a Cult.

Dr. Hassan spends much of Chapter 2 of Combatting Cult Mind Control sharing his own story of recruitment into and eventual deprogramming from the Unification Church. The year was 1974, the same year our favorite one-legged fictional detective was born. Hassan was a senior in college, an aspiring poet and uncertain about his future when some young people from the "One World Crusade" --an international organization that claimed they absolutely, positively weren't a religious group, approached him in the university cafeteria and invited him to visit their house. Finding a few of the young women attractive, he went. Hassan describes a welcoming group who insisted he return multiple times, "loved-bombed" him with flattery and compliments, and impressed him with their apparent happiness and unity. We can easily imagine a similar thing happening to Will Edensor, whom we are told became friendly with some UHC members after attending a lecture at his university. A chance weekend off work led Hassan to accept an invitation to a weekend retreat, where his indoctrination began. 

Only when Hassan was away at a Tarrytown estate and dependent of the group members for a ride back to Queens did he learn that the "retreat" was actually a three-day workshop run by the Unification Church. Having no transportation back to his university, he was forced to stay for three days of lectures on the "Divine Principle." It is easy to see why Henry Worthington-Fields was grateful he brought his own car to Chapman Farm.

Hassan also describes the use of personality tests on potential recruits, although in his case the attendees were asked to draw pictures instead of taking the pencil-and-paper test given to Robin and her cohort. As with the Chapman Farm recruits, the sleep deprivation began almost immediately, as did the segregation into groups and the lack of any solitude or free time. Just as the UHC recruits were asked to record on their feelings in nightly journals, the prospective Moonies were asked to fill out "reflection papers" at the end of a grueling day. The major difference between Hassan's weekend retreat and the first week of UHC indoctrination was the lack of manual labor, though the group was subjected to calisthenics in the morning before breakfast. 

Contined....

Cover Story for April's The Rowling Library: Tweets, emojis, genetics and The Hallmarked Man

We interrupt the review of Steven Hassan's Combatting Cult Mind Control for a special announcement!

Regular readers of this blog will see something familiar in this month's Rowling Library Magazine. Editor Patricio Tarantino asked me to write the cover story after reading my emoji code blog post. 

Only the magazine has way cooler illustrations.  Check it out. 

Reading Along With Prudence, Part 2: An Introduction to Destructive Cults, and the basis of the UHC

Chapter 1 of Combating Cult Mind Control begins with a description of what Hassan calls a "relatively easy case" involving a young man on the verge of joining the Unification Church (aka the Moonies), the same cult in which Hassan himself spent two and a half years. The young man had attended 3 and 7 day workshops and was on the verge of committing to a three-week program after which many choose to abandon their old lives for full-time cult involvement, just as many of Robin's peers did after their week at Chapman Farm.

Hassan also stresses the importance of educating the public about the dangers of cults that practice undue influence. This knowledge can serve as an "inoculation" against mind control; as he states, "People's resistance is higher when they are aware of the danger."  Prudence echoes this exact idea when she recommends Hassan's book and warns Robin to be careful when going undercover: "Being able to identify their techniques will help you resist them." Indeed, when Prudence describes getting professional support with her ex-UHC patient from "an American therapist who's worked with a lot of cult survivors," it is not a stretch to imagine that she contacted Hassan himself. 

When describing the "nightmare reality" of abusive cults, Hassan describes his clients as:

people who have been systematically lied to, physically abused, separated from their families and friends, and forced into servitude.

He evokes another work of fiction, George Orwell's 1984, set in 

a world where thought police maintain complete control over people's mental and emotional lives, and where it is a crime to act or think independently, or even to fall in love.

Hassan maintains that modern day abusive cults resemble Orwell's dystopia:

In these groups, basic respect for the individual is secondary to the leader's whims and ideology. People are manipulated and coerced to think, feel and behave in a single "right" way. Individuals become totally dependent on the group and lose the ability to act or think on their own. They are typically exploited for the sake of the group's economic or political ends. 

Those of us who spent four grueling months with Robin in Chapman Farm will recognize every one of those elements. I was reminded particularly of Becca Emily Pirbright and her forbidden "pure materialism" love affair. Despite knowing that the story of the Drowned Prophet was a lie, was unable to break away, even when the opportunity presented itself in Norwich. 

Continued...