Reading Along with Prudence, Part 6: The Psychological Blueprint of the UHC.

Hassan begins Chapter Five of Combating Cult Mind Control  by stressing the same thing Prudence did: being clever does not immunize a person against cult indoctrination; in fact, cults often intentionally target bright, affluent or well-educated people. Nor is there a particular family type that is vulnerable: people like Will Edensor from stable, loving homes can be ensnared just as drifters like Jordan, or runaways like Cherie are. However, people under stress, or in the midst of major life transitions can be especially vulnerable. That's probably one reason college campuses are such fertile recruiting grounds. 

Hassan identifies ten common denominators shared by destructive cults. As TRG readers will quickly note, these form an apparent blueprint for the creation of the UHC. 

1. The doctrine is reality. There is no room for questioning cult teachings, which are often too convoluted to be verified or challenged. Hassan spells out step six: the one that Will consistently faltered on: "Doctrine is to be accepted, not understood..... doctrine becomes the master program for all their thoughts, feelings and actions."  Small wonder that Will fell back to incessantly quoting The Answer when challenged on any aspect of his UHC beliefs. 

2. Reality is black and white: good versus evil.  In the UHC, this takes the form of the group, with its supposed special link to the "Blessed Divinity" and the spiritual world, versus the materialistic, or "bubble" world. Groups have their own "devils": political institutions, mental health professionals, spiritual entities or simply the cruelness of human nature. The UHC villifies capitalism, modern medicine, government, and the "materialistic" nature of all people outside the group, who are blamed for poverty, bigotry, violence, and environmental destruction. All of these institutions, along with any critical ex-members, family members or journalists, are characterized as "Agents of the Adversary." According to Hassan, "Some groups cultivate a psychic paranoia, telling group members that spirit beings are constantly observing them." The Drowned Prophet plays this role in the UHC, with members like Will and Flora continuing to fear her presence even years after they are out of the cult. 

3. Elitist mentality. Members are made to feel like the "chosen few," hand-picked to make earth-shattering changes.  Witness Papa J's speech to the recruits, in the final pitch to persuade them to be baptized:

You are remarkable. Extraordinary people, and you have no idea of it, do you? You don't realize what you are. A truly remarkable group of recruits. We've noticed it from the moment you arrived. Church members have told me, "These are special. These might be the ones we've been waiting for." The world teeters on a precipice. It's ten to midnight, and Armageddon beckons. The Adversary may be winning, but the Blessed Divinity hasn't given up on us yet. The proof? They sent you to us, and with you, we might have a chance.

4. The group will over individual will. "In any group that qualifies as a destructive cult, thinking of oneself, or for oneself, is wrong. The group comes first." In the UHC, any attempt to exert one's own will is denounced as "egomotivity."  As Taio said to "Rowena" when she resisted his request to "spirit-bond:" 

You're currently displaying high levels of egomotivity, You think you know better than I do. You don't....There is no self, only fragments of the whole. You must surrender to the group, to union.

Hassan elaborates:

Leaders of different cults have come up with strikingly similar tactics for fostering dependency. They transfer members frequently to new and strange locations, switch their work duties, promote them, then demote them on whims, all to keep them  dependent and off-balance. 

Robin certainly saw this tactic when the cult began to question her sincerity: she was placed with the elite group one day, demoted to manual labor the next. Though Robin herself was never threatened with transfer to a different center, probably because that would have foiled Taio's spirit-bonding aspirations, other members who resisted the leadership's commands, like Lin and Emily, certainly were. 

 5. Strict obedience: modeling the leader. Jonathan Wace's tracksuits may be silk instead of cotton, but all the members follow his lead of dress. Even when the church principals don their lavish robes, the members wear the same color. Robin, though she tries to resist it, finds herself chanting under her breath and thinking in the church's language, even to the point of having to rewrite her letters to Strike when she slips into using cult phrases. Hassan explains that cult members often seem "weird" because "what the outsider is seeing is the personality of the leader, passed down through several layers of modeling." This is particularly evident in Becca Pirbright, groomed by Papa J from a young age, and unfazed in her loyalty by book's end, even with very clear evidence of the Wace's criminal natures. 

6. Happiness through good performance. Desired behaviors are rewarded while deviations are harshly punished. Friendships are discouraged and loyalty is to be directed to leaders, not to peers. In the UHC, friends who arrive together are quickly separated and members who have genuine affection for each other, like Will and Lin, can only communicate that relationship in secret. Robin's concern and help for Emily in Norwich, which should have been as normal and innocuous as a child's toy, instead frightened Emily in the same way as the "pig demon" dolls did. 

7. Manipulation through fear and guilt.  Shaming for past, small or imagined sins began early in the UHC, such as when Penny was berated for dropping clean sheets, and reached a peak in Revelation, when the entire group joined in public lambasting. The UHC also instilled phobias of the outside world, leading members to believe they would kill themselves, or be taken by the Drawned Prophet if they left. As Hassan states, "Each group has its "devil," lurking around the corner, waiting for members so it can tempt and deduce them, to kill them, or drive them insane. The more vivid and tangible the devil, the more intense the cohesiveness it fosters." The UHC resorted to trickery and illusions to convince cult members that Daiyu was literally manifesting; fear of the Drowned Prophet was a powerful means of forcing allegiance. 

8. Emotional highs and lows. We certainly saw emotional manipulation from Wace, who could at times induce well-being through chanting or dances of joy, through his celebratory dinners and public praise of individuals. At other times, he reduced his followers to tears with emotional displays of starving and suffering children or erupted in fury at the horrors of the "material world." At this time, "Wace was no longer the mild-spoken, self-deprecating man they had first met, but was shouting in fury, raging at the screen and the world's venality. 

Some long-term members do burn out without actually quitting. These people can no longer take the burden or pressure of performance. They may be permanently assigned to manual labor in out-of-the-way places, where they are expected to remain for the rest of their lives. 

Louise Pirbright is an example of such a member, permanently laboring on the farm, broken from years of servitude. 

9. Changes in time orientation. Destructive cults warp members' perceptions of their previous lives, and are made to view their present tasks with a sense of urgency. The UHC teaches that only their work keeps "the Adversary" at bay and prevents further deterioration of society. This is similar to how Hassan recalls his time with the Moonies: "I remember well the constant feeling that a time-bomb was ticking beneath my feet, and that the world might become a heaven or a hell, depending on how well I performed in my current project...When you are kept extremely busy on critical projects, all the time, for days, weeks, or months, everything becomes blurred." The UHC amplifies this effect by forbidding its members access to timepieces or calendars. Like many cult leaders, Wace also foresees a vision for the future: the Lotus Way, an "earthly paradise that would descend once the UHC won its battle against the materialist world and which would segue smoothly into the afterlife." Unlike many cult leaders, Wace does not predict a specific date for this event, but teaches his followers that they must "hasten the day" even if it means "weeding out" people perceived as being "marked by the devil."

10. No way out. There is never any acceptable reason to leave a destructive cult, in the eyes of its leaders. Like the prisoners of Azkaban, cult members are "locked in a psychological prison." "Violent cults may take this to an extreme, to justify the killing of former members, and reinforce the notion that people have to stay." While it is unclear whether the UHC would actually resort to killing those who betray the cult, they certainly convinced Robin this was true, at her lowest point, and it coerced her into agreeing to torture.

Robin... remembered the stories of Kevin Pirbright and Niamh Doherty, of Sheila Kennett and Flora Brewster, all of which had taught her that if there were any safe, easy route out of Chapman Farm, it wouldn't have taken bereavement, mental collapse or night-time escape through barbed wire to free them.

 Hassan closes this chapter with praise for those who leave and warn others:

People who actually leave cults are extremely courageous and they can have a very important role. They can provide inspiration to those who are under mind control, especially if the former members are happy, accomplished, and open about their cult involvement. These heroic people, by speaking out about their experience, are a potent and dangerous force to cult leaders and mind controllers everywhere. When former members hide their cult involvement, whether from shame, doubt, fear or anger, they're missing a valuable opportunity to free themselves, and, by their example, to help free others. 

I think we are meant to admire the courage of people like Kevin Pirbright and Will Edensor, who managed to escape. But, this paragraph is probably most relevant to Flora Brewster, who, thanks to Robin, found the courage to reveal the horrors of the UHC, an act that was liberating not only for her, but for Will. Readers can only hope that, with Prudence's help, their stories will aid others like Lin Doherty and Emily Pirbright.