Repetition of information does not create understanding

for concern over cult-related damage, institutional abuse & psychological problems.
Post Reply
User avatar
fluffy bunny
ex-BKWSU
Posts: 5365
Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Affinity to the BKWSU: ex-BK
Please give a short description of your interest in joining this forum.: ex-BK. Interested in historical revisionism, failed predictions and abuse within the BK movement.

Repetition of information does not create understanding

Post by fluffy bunny »

"Repetitions of the same information do not create understanding, but merely listener acceptance."

BapDada and the SS drone on the same information again and again. The Brahma Kumari mind is taught to relax and “absorbs the Knowledge” without question. With repeated exposure, this can conflict with individual autonomy leading the individual to relinquish critical analysis.

From (without the direct relationship to BapDada and the Senior Sister Brahma Kumari leaders naturally) with my appraisal of existence with the BKWSU.
Dr. Robert J. Lifton wrote:Any ideology - that is, any set of emotionally-charged convictions about human relationship to the natural or supernatural world - may be carried by its adherents in a totalistic direction. But this is most likely to occur with those ideologies which are most sweeping in their content and most ambitious or messianic in their claim, whether a religious or political organization. And where totalism exists, a religion, or a political movement becomes little more than an exclusive cult.

Here are a set of criteria, eight psychological themes against which any environment may be judged. In combination, they create an atmosphere which may temporarily energize or exhilarate, but which at the same time pose the gravest of human threats.

MILIEU CONTROL
  • The most basic feature is the control of human communication within an environment
    If the control is extremely intense, it becomes internalized control -- an attempt to manage an individual's inner communication
    Control over all a person sees, hears, reads, writes (information control) creates conflicts in respect to individual autonomy
    Groups express this in several ways: Group process, isolation from other people, psychological pressure, geographical distance or unavailable transportation, sometimes physical pressure
    Often a sequence of events, such as seminars, lectures, group encounters, which become increasingly intense and increasingly isolated, making it extremely difficult - both physically and psychologically - for one to leave
    Sets up a sense of antagonism with the outside world; it's "us against them"
    Closely connected to the process of individual change (of personality)
MYSTICAL MANIPULATION (Planned spontaneity)
  • Extensive personal manipulation
    Seeks to promote specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such a way that it appears to have arisen spontaneously from within the environment, while it actually has been orchestrated
    Totalist leaders claim to be agents chosen by God, history, or some supernatural force, to carry out the mystical imperative
    The "principles" (God-centered or otherwise) can be put forcibly and claimed exclusively, so that the cult and its beliefs become the only true path to salvation (or enlightenment)
    The individual then develops the psychology of the pawn, and participates actively in the manipulation of others
    The leader who becomes the center of the mystical manipulation (or the person in whose name it is done) can be sometimes more real than an abstract god and therefore attractive to cult members
    Legitimizes the deception used to recruit new members and/or raise funds, and the deception used on the "outside world"
THE DEMAND FOR PURITY
  • The world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure, the absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely evil (everything outside the group)
    One must continually change or conform to the group "norm"
    Tendencies towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for the group's controlling and manipulative influences
    Once a person has experienced the totalist polarization of good/evil (black/white thinking), he has great difficulty in regaining a more balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human morality
    The radical separation of pure/impure is both within the environment (the group) and the individual
    Ties in with the process of confession -- one must confess when one is not conforming
CONFESSION
  • Cultic confession is carried beyond its ordinary religious, legal and therapeutic expressions to the point of becoming a cult in itself
    Sessions in which one confesses to one's sin are accompanied by patterns of criticism and self-criticism, generally transpiring within small groups with an active and dynamic thrust toward personal change
    Is an act of symbolic self-surrender
    Makes it virtually impossible to attain a reasonable balance between worth and humility
    A person confessing to various sins of pre-cultic existence can both believe in those sins and be covering over other ideas and feelings that s/he is either unaware of or reluctant to discuss
    Often a person will confess to lesser sins while holding on to other secrets (often criticisms/questions/doubts about the group/leaders that may cause them not to advance to a leadership position)
    "The more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you"
SACRED SCIENCE
  • The totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence
    Questioning or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited
    A reverence is demanded for the ideology/doctrine, the originators of the ideology/doctrine, the present bearers of the ideology/doctrine
    Offers considerable security to young people because it greatly simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying the truth about human behavior and human psychology
LOADING THE LANGUAGE
  • The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliche (thought-stoppers)
    Repetitiously centered on all-encompassing jargon
    "The language of non-thought"
    Words are given new meanings -- the outside world does not use the words or phrases in the same way -- it becomes a "group" word or phrase
DOCTRINE OVER PERSON
  • Every issue in one's life can be reduced to a single set of principles that have an inner coherence to the point that one can claim the experience of truth and feel it
    The pattern of doctrine over person occurs when there is a conflict between what one feels oneself experiencing and what the doctrine or ideology says one should experience
    If one questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group, one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to even question -- it is always "turned around" on them and the questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than the questions answered directly
    The underlying assumption is that doctrine/ideology is ultimately more valid, true and real than any aspect of actual human character or human experience and one must subject one's experience to that "truth"
    The experience of contradiction can be immediately associated with guilt
    One is made to feel that doubts are reflections of one's own evil
    When doubt arises, conflicts become intense
DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE
  • Since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not saved, and do not have the right to exist
    "Being verses nothingness"
    Impediments to legitimate being must be pushed away or destroyed
    One outside the group may always receive their right of existence by joining the group
    Fear manipulation -- if one leaves this group, one leaves God or loses their transformation, for something bad will happen to them
    The group is the "elite", outsiders are "of the world", "evil", "unenlightened", etc.
Excerpted from: Thought Reform And The Psychology of Totalism, Chapter 22, (Chapel Hill, 1989) & The Future of Immortality, Chapter 155 (New York 1987).
User avatar
jannisder
Friends and family of
Posts: 454
Joined: 29 Jan 2007
Affinity to the BKWSU: ex-BK
Location: europe

Re: Repetition of information does not create understanding

Post by jannisder »

From; Brainwashing & mind control techniques
1) HYPNOSIS - Inducing a high state of suggestibility, often thinly disguised as relaxation or meditation.
  • a. Repetitive Music (most likely with a beat close to the human heart 45 to 72 beats per minute). Most likely used during "study sessions" as the teacher will say the music helps you relax and concentrate better!

    b. Voice Roll -- A "voice roll" is a patterned, paced style used by hypnotists when inducing a trance. It is also used by many lawyers, several of whom are highly trained hypnotists, when they desire to entrench a point firmly in the minds of the jurors. A voice roll can sound as if the speaker were talking to the beat of a metronome or it may sound as though he were emphasizing every word in a monotonous, patterned style. The words will usually be delivered at the rate of 45 to 60 beats per minute, maximizing the hypnotic effect.

    c. Room "Feel" - The way a room feels is essential to hypnotizing unknowing subjects. It needs special lighting, florescent lights are best because they aren't too dim, but aren't too harsh. Also, Room Temp helps a bit, usually a little cooler than normal room temperature. You need to have the unknowing subjects very relaxed, perhaps even close to falling asleep.
2) PEER GROUP PRESSURE - Suppressing doubt and resistance to new ideas by exploiting the need to belong.

3) "LOVE BOMBING" - Creating a sense of family through physical touch, thought & feeling sharing and emotional bonding.

4) REJECTION OF OLD VALUES - Accelerating acceptance of new lifestyle by constantly denouncing former beliefs and values.

5) CONFUSING DOCTRINE - Encouraging blind acceptance and rejection of logic through complex lectures on an incomprehensible doctrine.

6) METACOMMUNICATION - Implanting subliminal messages by stressing certain key words or phrases in long, confusing lectures.

7) REMOVAL OF PRIVACY - Achieving loss of ability to evaluate logically by preventing private contemplation.

8) DISINHIBITION - Encouraging child-like obedience by orchestrating child-like behaviour

9) UNCOMPROMISING RULES - Inducing regression and disorientation by soliciting agreement to seemingly simple rules which regulate mealtimes, bathroom breaks and use of medications.

10) VERBAL ABUSE - Desensitizing through bombardment with foul and abusive language. (Physical abuse, such as torture, is the more extreme form of this.)

11) SLEEP DEPRIVATION AND FATIGUE - Creating disorientation and vulnerability by prolonging mental an physical activity and withholding adequate rest and sleep.

12) DRESS CODES - Removing individuality by demanding conformity to the group dress code.

13) CHANTING OR SINGING - Eliminating non-cult ideas through group repetition of mind-narrowing chants or phrases.

14) CONFESSION - Encouraging the destruction of individual ego through confession of personal weaknesses and innermost feelings of doubt.

15) FINANCIAL COMMITMENT - Achieving increased dependence on the group by 'burning bridges' to the past, through the donation of assets.

16) FINGER POINTING - Creating a false sense of righteousness by pointing to the shortcomings of the outside world.

17) ISOLATION - Inducing loss of reality by physical separation from family, friends, society and rational references.

18) CONTROLLED APPROVAL - Maintaining vulnerability and confusion by alternately rewarding and punishing similar actions.

19) CHANGE OF DIET - Creating disorientation and increased susceptibility to emotional arousal by depriving the nervous system of necessary nutrients through the use of special diets and/or fasting. Also applying drugs for these purposes fall in this category.

20) GAMES - Inducing dependence on the group by introducing games with obscure rules.

21) NO QUESTIONS - Accomplishing automatic acceptance of beliefs by discouraging questions.

22) GUILT - Reinforcing the need for 'salvation' by exaggerating the sins of the former lifestyles.

23) FEAR - Maintaining loyalty and obedience to the group by threatening soul, life or limb for the slightest 'negative' thought, word or deed.
User avatar
fluffy bunny
ex-BKWSU
Posts: 5365
Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Affinity to the BKWSU: ex-BK
Please give a short description of your interest in joining this forum.: ex-BK. Interested in historical revisionism, failed predictions and abuse within the BK movement.

Lifton's themes

Post by fluffy bunny »

I am discussion here what are known as, "Lifton's Theme".

Among those themes which I think are common amongst Brahma Kumari followers is "psychic numbing" (the temporary separation of feelings and thought) under which all sort of illogical, deceptive or abusive activities can be carried on by the leadership, including as we have seen, the historical revision and creative financial benefits for the organization, e.g. taking a family's inheritance away from it at the point when the parent dies. Would that individual have managed to lived as a single person or did the family contribute to the family wealth?

The family experience the natural grief the Brahma Kumari profess not to have, the loss of the family inheritance and then having to ace the mixture of emotions that arise, a tortuous mixture of natural anger at the point of maximum sadness.

Robert Lifton, professor of psychology and psychiatry at the City University of New York, went on to write after the Aum Cult attacks in Japan. While, for many, the distinction between the word "religion" and "cult" remains unclear, Lifton thought that the distinction between what he calls "world-destroying cults" and everything else in the religious scenario was crucial for both theoretical and practical purposes.

Lifton lists seven characteristics of "world-destroying cults" here typified by Aum Shinri-kyo:
  • • "totalized guruism": the principle "no deity beyond the guru" is carried out to the extreme of "desymbolization", and loss of the perception of the difference between reality and metaphors for both guru and disciples (so that the guru is no mere con man or woman but to some extent believes his or her megalomanic claims)
    • "a vision of an apocalyptic event or series of events that would destroy the world in the service of renewal"
    an "ideology of killing to heal, of altruistic murder and altruistic world destruction" (before Aum Shinri-kyo, Lifton quotes "the Thugs of India" as a group who believed that their victims, strangled and robbed, will obtain "entrance to paradise" as reward);
    • "the relentless impulse toward world-rejecting purification"
    • "the lure of ultimate weapons" (here, Lifton returns to his longtime concern with "nuclearism")
    • "a shared state of aggressive numbing" (where scruples toward violent and illegal actions go away) and
    • "extreme technocratic manipulation", associated with both a "claim to absolute scientific truth" and the use of technical devices to transform disciples (in the case of Aum, hallucinogenic drugs).
If one was to apply these to the Brahma Kumari one, how would it fit?
  • • "totalized guruism" - loss of the perception of the difference between reality and metaphors for both guru and disciples - yes ... increasingly the Dadis (Senior Sisters) taking the place of the gurus but ultimately, the channelled spirit of the deceased Lekhraj Kirpalani.
    • "a vision of an apocalyptic event or series of events that would destroy the world in the service of renewal" - yes
    • "the relentless impulse toward world-rejecting purification" - yes
    • "the lure of ultimate weapons" (here, Lifton returns to his longtime concern with "nuclearism") - yes ... Baba tells the Brahma Kumari that all these nuclear weapons have been inspired for their benefit to sort out all the world's problems.
    • "a shared state of aggressive numbing" (where scruples toward violent and illegal actions go away) - yes ... its subtle and aimed mostly at, firstly, family relationships and, secondly, money but the PBKs have tasted the real blunt end of the stick.
    • "extreme technocratic manipulation" ... the use of technical devices to transform disciples - yes
Any wish to speak for the defence?
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest