Reading Along with Prudence, Part 7: Real-Life Flora Brewsters

Chapter 6 of Combating Cult Mind Control presents the stories of a group of people for whom Hassan expresses high admiration: former cult members who came forward with their stories and have both helped other survivors escape and warned the public about the dangers of these organizations.  I'll list a few here whose stories have echoes to The Running Grave.

J.: a former Scientologist. Despite the fact that he reached the near-highest levels of the organization, he never developed the supernatural powers he was promised. The UHC people could probably relate to that. He was also subjected to defamation, including child abuse accusations, and decades of lawsuits. 

R.: Human trafficking victim. Forced sex with strangers and mental manipulation, with a behaviors controlled by rewards and punishments. 

M: Islamic terrorism cult: Members forced to cut all family ties, divorcing spouses and surrendering children for adoption. 

J:  Shasta Abbey, a Zen Buddhism cult. Told he would be jailed, committed to a psychiatric hospital or go broke if he left the community. Members were subjected to humiliating verbal attacks and sudden demotions. 

E: A former follower of Lyndon LaRouche. LaRouche, though a political rather than a religious leader, is described as narcissistic, and is a wealthy leader who proclaims himself to be at war with the world and who promotes his own doctrine above all. 

H: A male supermodel who was a member of the New Age cult Eternal Values, a group that believed that a geological apocalypse is eminent and that only their leader's contact with space aliens will save a remnant of humanity. This reminds us a bit of Shauna's odd beliefs about Wace. H's head was shaved to humiliate him, and he, like UHC members, was forced into slave labor. 

G: A member of a small (30 member) Christian cult. This group used the "Hot seat" technique that was depicted as the UHC's Revelation. This cult suffered a tragic loss when a young man with diabetes was persuaded to throw away his insulin, and subsequently died. G. was eventually expelled from the group for a "spirit of rebellion." This group, like the UHC, used physical beatings to punish members. 

G: Member of a group who focused on chanting a particular Japanese phrase for multiple hours per day, in the belief that wishes will be granted as a result. G. experienced a "high" from chanting, not unlike Robin. Conformity with the group doctrine was stressed, and G. and his wife, who were eventually expelled, were convinced terrible things would happen to them outside the group, if they stopped chanting. This group also had some notable celebrity members.  

R: A young man born into the Jehovah's Witnesses and felt his upbringing matched many of the cultic practices described in Hassan's book, including denigrating and forbidding contact with former members. Hassan credits R. and others born into cults who manage to leave with special courage, since they face losing all of their family and friends. TRG readers saw this in people like Linn Doherty and Kevin Pirbright. 

G: A woman who was caught up in a transcendental meditation cult. Like in the UHC, members were subjected to hours of meditation and questionable herbal medications. 

L and L:  Two other people raised in the Jehovah's Witnesses who where shunned by family after leaving. 

T: A leader in his LDS church, who had doubts about his faith despite his public practice. Like those in the UHC, Tom reported being taught that everything outside the faith was evil and "of the Devil." T's story is a lot like Will's, in that he gradually began to question the doctrine he had believed for so long. 

Hassan reiterates high praise for ex-cult members who have gone public with their stories, both to warn others about cult dangers and to help reduce the stigma associated with having been victimized by such groups.  As H. says, "We should be proud and hold our heads high.  Coming forward and telling out stories is one of the greatest gifts we can give to others."

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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. 

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. 

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...

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....

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...

Reading Along with Prudence, Part 1: Hassan's Combating Cult Mind Control

Like many serious Strike readers, I read the preview of The Running Grave last August. During Strike and Robin's first visit to Prudence, she gives them a copy of Steven Hassan's Combating Cult Mind Control (CCMC), urging them both to read it before Robin undertakes her mission. Interestingly, though we see Strike spending a couple of nights reading the book right after Prudence gives it to them, we never see Robin, the psychology student with an interest in mind control, reading the book, reacting to it, or recalling elements of it once she is undercover in Chapman Farm. Given how many techniques that Hassan describes that the UHC uses, it is odd that Robin never specifically recalls or recognizes any. It was clear from the earliest descriptions in the preview that JKR/RG drew heavily from Hassan's BITE model when designing the fictional cult. I listened to the audiobook of CCMC last September as a way of filling up some time between the preview and the actual book publication.  

Hassan's book both expands one's enjoyment of The Running Grave and teaches a lot about modern day abusive cults and what separates them from legitimate religious, political and business organizations. Dr. Hassan recently commented on TRG on his own Twitter read. This reminded me that I wanted to do a chapter-by-chapter review of CCMC, with a specific look at how parts of the The Running Grave were informed by this volume. In particular, multiple aspects of the fictional Universal Humanitarian Church (UHC) appear to be inspired by Hassan's recruitment into and rapid rise in leadership in Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, or, as they called themselves in Hassan's day, the Moonies. 

Strike and Robin likely read the 2015 edition, although it is possible that Prudence gave them an earlier edition. I listened to the audiobook of the most recent edition, published in 2018 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre. Readers can also access the original 1990 edition here. 

So, without further ado, let's start the read-along with Prudence.