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 organization 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...

Although cults can center around political, psychotherapeutic or educational and business operations, religious cults remain the most numerous. Hassan states:

Some use the Bible or Koran, some are based on an Eastern religion, others draw on occult lore and some are purely the inventions of their leaders. Although most claim to involve the spiritual realm, or to follow a strict code of religious principles, it is mre common than not for these cult leaders to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle, with the groups owning millions of dollars of real estate, and/or running extensive business enterprises. 

The fictional UHC, interestingly, draws on multiple religious traditions, claiming that it encourages study of all faiths' holy books, but exercises most of its coercive control through its unique mythology of the Stolen, Wounded, Healing, Golden and Drowned Prophets. These myths that seem to have largely been invented by Jonathan Wace, with a little help from his most imaginative followers. like Cherie Gittins. 

The UHC also employed many of the recruitment methods that Hassan describes, such as putting their happiest, brightest and most attractive young people on the front lines to target intelligent, wealthy and impressive new members. Hassan describes a four-part personality classification system that he used as a Moonie recruiter, sorting his potential recruits into Thinkers, Feelers, Doers and Believers, and tailoring the recruitment procedure to match each type. The UHC's variation on this practice was a five-part typology test that grouped members into two of the five types personified by each Prophet: Warrior, Gift-bearer, Healer, Mystic and Martyr. Although these typologies are not as salient to the day-to-day lives of the cult members as were the Houses of Hogwarts-- we know very few recruits' classifications other than Robin's--- we can't miss the Sorting-hat aspect of all of this. The major difference seems to be that everyone is a hybrid, which 1) increases the total to 10 possible classifications, reducing the possibility of groups with the same classifications uniting and 2) reduces the connection of an individual to any one of the five types. In a group where friendships and romantic couplings are deemed undesirable, the last thing any of the leaders want is any sort of "house unity." 

Hassan lists three reasons that cult recruitment is so successful:

• The prevailing belief that humans are rational and in control of their actions makes it hard to acknowledge that mind control exists; therefore there is an assumption that cult members joined of their own free will. 
• We saw this attitude from Mr. Team Rational himself: Strike, when he said, "Taking cash from idiots isn't a crime, unfortunately." 
• People believe they are invulnerable and would never fall for any mind-control trickery. TRG readers certainly saw this in our detectives; Prudence, thanks to her work with Flora Brewster, knew better:
• "Robin's smart," said Strike. "She's not going to by whatever they're selling."
• "Being clever's no protection, not on its own,"  said Prudence. "Restricted food, enforced chanting, rigid control over your physical environment, digging into yur psyche for the places they can apply most pressure, love-bombing you one minute, tearing you down the next...nobody's invulnerable to that, clever or not." 
• Because being influenced by the environment and people it in is a normal part of life, it is easy to view mind-control as just a variation on that theme. Hassan counters that argument by drawing an analogy to sex: voluntary couplings are normal part of life, but rape is not. We see a clear difference between the exposure to Christian practices that Strike had as a boy with Ted and Joan, compared to the coercion exerted on adults by Wace's cult. Strike was required to attend Sunday School as a child, but certainly did not become "brainwashed" into the faith. A non-believer as an adult, he nonetheless can draw comfort from his chapter 64 church visit in the aftermath of Charlotte's death. 
• "He opened his damp eyes again to stare at the cross on the altar. He might not believe, but the cross meant something to him, nonetheless. It stood for Ted and Joan, for order and stability, but also for the unknowable and unresolvable, for the human craving for meaning in chaos, and for the hope of something beyond the world of pain and endless striving."
• It is clear that the UHC, as an organization, has most, if not all of the traits that Hassan places on the dangerous end of the influence continuum. 
• No informed consent
• Information is manipulated and controlled
• Top-down structure, with a single leader at the top and a small inner circle
• Authoritarian, with orders issued from the top, with explanation or rationale; members must follow without question
• No guiding ethical principles; all goals justify the use of any means
• Focus is on acquiring and maintaining power and information, but little is shared with ordinaty members snd none with outsiders. 

Other points that Hassan makes in this chapter:

Dangerous cults install phobias about leaving the group.  We certainly saw this in characters like Kevin Pirbright, Alexander Graves, and Will Edensor, who all believed death, jail or some other horrible consequence would be the inevitable result of leaving the UHC. 

The conscious mind has a narrow range of attention; the unconscious mind manages both our bodily responses and our information stores. Our imaginative brain allows use visualize fantasies such as winning the lottery, but processes like hypnosis can hijack those processes in a way that limits free choice, and enslaves the mind. Both sensory deprivation (as in The Box) and sensory overload (as in the lengthy chanting sessions) induce a child-like state of dependency, in which the person is more vulnerable to suggestion. The fact that the UHC members are required to call the leaders "Papa" and "Mama" is evidence of this infantilization. 

Recall the "strange calm" and "pleasant trance-like state" that chanting induced in Robin, and how she had to resist the urge to chant in order to find the strength to escape in the farmhouse attic. Indeed, these practices can produce a release of brain chemicals similar to those induced by substance abuse, leaving the person dependent on those practices.  Robin forced herself to have mental conversations with Strike to keep herself from falling into a chanting practice, and Will continued to chant under his breath for weeks after his escape from the cult. 

The mind needs a coherent frame of reference to structure reality; changing the frame of reference changes peoples perception of reality. Since most people have no frame of reference for mind-control techniques, they will accept the cult's version of reality, particularly if placed in an emotionally vulnerable state. Both con artists and cult recruiters act in charming ways to upset the balance between naivte and skepticism: Jonathan Wace's appeal and charisma is apparent in his every public appearance. While the con artist will simply dupe the person out of their money and leave, the cult tries to lure them into the group so they can capture both mind and money. 

People are typically recruited in to cults by 1) friends and relatives who are members 2) a stranger who appears as a new friend, or potential sexual partner 3) cult-sponsored lectures or other events or 4) social media. Hassan describes "small online armies that bury critical information or mount disinformation campaigns against critics." Cults also specialize in approaching people at vulnerable times in their lives, like college students Will and Amendeep, runaway Cherie Gittins, fugitive Jordan Reaney, lonely widow Marian, homeless Wan, and drug addict Danny. 

Like a lot of modern cults, the UHC recruits a diverse variety of people, of all ages and races, although there is a focus on young people, who are best equipped for hard work. They avoid recruiting people with physical disabilities or emotional or mental health issues who are perceived as a burden rather than an asset, and will often rid themselves of people who develop such conditions or who are born with them. In the UHC, examples of this include the group expelling Flora Brewster because of her mental illness, and their cruel disposal of the severely disabled child Jacob. Fully indoctrinated members, like Margaret Cathcart-Bryce, may donate all they have to the group, expecting care for life, then face medical neglect when their health fails. 

Communal rearing of children and weakening or elimination of the parent-child bond in favor of the child's devotion to the cult leader is also a trait of destructive cults. In the UHC, Kevin Pirbright was raised to think of Jonathan Wace as his father, while Will and Lin were accused of materialism for their attachment to their child, Qing. The UHC children also suffer the typical cultic trait of a poor education, with little taught beyond church doctrine.

Chapter Four will delve deeper into the specifics of undue influence and how it works.