1.Recognize that programming is everywhere, and it isn't all bad.
Your programming started with your parents teaching you things, and both consciously and
unconsciously programming you with all of their beliefs and attitudes. That is not necessarily
bad -- it is usually good. You are better off for having had parents who cared about you and
wanted to teach you. But unfortunately, you also inherited all of their misinformation,
superstitions, mistakes, and irrational and untrue beliefs.
And you also inherited your "culture", which includes all of the false, irrational, and wrong
beliefs of your entire society. And you are left with the job of figuring out which of those beliefs
are good and true, and which are stupid and crazy.
And you are always vulnerable to pressure from your peer group, which will always try to make
you conform to their beliefs, standards, and behavior, even if your friends are not even really
aware of the fact that they are doing it.
2.Recognize that programming and deprogramming are constant, on-going processes.
Even while you are trying to deprogram and clear your mind, television commercials will be
trying to program you into believing that you really should buy their product; you will be so
happy if you do, and you'll be beautiful and get laid too. And the politicians will always be
trying to make you believe that they are wise and right about everything, and if you are patriotic
you will never criticize them.
3.Want to know the truth.
This is essential. This is the whole ball game. If you don't want to learn the truth, then you
probably won't.
Love the truth, even if it is sometimes inconvenient or unpleasant. Respect the truth, cherish the
truth, seek the truth above all.
People stay trapped in cults, or trapped in illusions, because they don't really want to know the
truth:
•Sometimes, they are afraid to know the truth --
•They fear that their world will fall apart if they stop believing certain things, or
admit the truth of other things. That is one of the beliefs with which they got
programmed -- the idea that if they don't believe the right things, something really
bad will happen to them. One of the things that cults do is implant phobias about leaving the cult, or learning the truth about the cult.
•They are afraid of losing their status or membership in the group -- they are
afraid that they will be shunned and ostracized if they don't believe the same
things as the other people around them. And they are just plain afraid of being
alone.
•They fear that they will have to leave the cult if they stop believing in it, and they
will stop believing in it if they learn a bunch of negative things about it. ("Then
what will I do with my life?!" So they plug their ears and close their eyes, and
play "Hear no evil, see no evil..."
•Some people just don’t want to see that they were fooled.
•"I refuse to believe that I spent twelve years of my life in a cult. It isn't a cult. It
can't be a cult. It's a wonderful movement."
As they say in A.A., "Denial isn't just a river in Egypt."
•Some people just don't want to give it up.
•"If I leave the group, I will be lonely because I won't have any friends. So shut
up and quit telling me disturbing things about it."
•"I have lots of time invested here. I'm a respected elder. If I quit the organization,
I'll be a nobody."
4.Don't condemn yourself.
Self condemnation and self-criticism are part of the brainwashing and indoctrination process,
and they are counter-productive when it comes to deprogramming. If you find that you have been
programmed to believe some goofy idea, then just recognize that it is an irrational, illogical,
goofy idea, and reject it, but do not condemn yourself for having believed it for a while.
It's just like, if, while exploring the Wild West, you find that you have an arrow stuck in your
back, pull it out.
• Don't wallow in self-contempt and guilt, condemning yourself for having stupidly
gotten an arrow stuck in your back.
• Don't imagine that you are somehow all bleeped up for having gotten stuck with an
arrow.
• Don't imagine that finding an arrow stuck in your back proves that you are somehow
inferior.
Just pull the arrow out and then get on with your life.
Now that doesn't mean that you shouldn't examine your behavior, and change it if you are doing
something wrong. But be wary of excessive fault-finding and self-criticism. Cults will teach you
to do that, and will even try to convince you that you will make yourself more holy by constantly
condemning yourself and putting yourself down and feeling guilty about everything. All that
really accomplishes is messing up your mind, destroying your self-confidence and self-respect,and making you unable to think clearly or act decisively.
5.Watch out for other people condemning you.
People who want to control you will try to make you feel stupid, inferior, flawed, and mentally
incompetent for disagreeing with them.
As mentioned above, self condemnation and self-criticism are a major part of the brainwashing
and indoctrination process, so those who would like to control you would also like to get you
criticizing yourself and being down on yourself. And Margaret Thaler Singer added that
inducing feelings of powerlessness, covert fear, guilt, and dependency in the victims was also a
part of the brainwashing process.
So don't let them make you believe that you are flawed and inferior. When someone is reading
your beads and listing your faults, it almost always means that they want to control you -- to
change your behavior to something that they want.
6.Also watch out for other people trying to clip your wings, and keep you from being your
whole self.
For example, one of the commonest crippling stunts that cults pull on people is demanding that
they not feel their feelings. "You must only feel Eternal Bliss" or "You must only feel Serenity
and Gratitude". Anger, especially anger at the evils of the cult and its leaders, is supposedly very
bad.
Bill Wilson wrote:
It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter
what the cause, there is something wrongwith us. If somebody
hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also. But are there
no exceptions to this rule? What about "justifiable" anger? If
somebody cheats us, aren't we entitled to be mad? Can't we be
properly angry with self-righteous folk? For us in A.A. these are
dangerous exceptions. We have found that justified anger ought to
be left to those better qualified to handle it.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William Wilson, page 90.
What rot. You are wrong to get mad when somebody hurts you or commits crimes against you?
Such anger should be "left to those better qualified to handle it"? And just who is that?
Nobody.
All it means is, you can't feel your anger. You have to "stuff your feelings."
Pseudo-religious garbage like that will do a good job of crippling you, and keeping you from
making trouble for your oppressors.
Another common crippling stunt that cults pull on their members is demanding that members
stop thinking critically -- stop what they call "having doubts":
"If you are really holy, then you won't have any doubts."
Nonsense. Normal, sane, healthy people have lots of doubts when con-men and phony holy men,
try to foist a stupid illogical hoax on them. Those doubts are your remaining sanity warning you
that something sounds fishy.
Similarly, cults and other mind-manipulators will tell you that you cannot trust your own mind
and your own thinking (so you should let them do your thinking for you). If you buy into that
idea, it will really cripple you. You won't be able to think anything without also thinking that it
must be wrong, because you thought it. (But then the thought that your thinking is wrong should
also be wrong... So your thinking must be right... But if your thinking is right, then it must be
wrong... Now you are trapped in one of the classic Greek paradoxes.)
7. Beware of wanting to believe.
On the TV show "The X-Files", Mulder had a poster on the wall of his office that said, "I Want
To Believe". That's okay for the X-Files and stories about flying saucers, but it leads to disaster
in real life.
Instead of wanting to believe, want to know the truth.
Wanting to believe is perhaps the most powerful dynamic initiating
and sustaining cult-like behavior.
The Wrong Way Home: Uncovering the Patterns of Cult Behavior in American
Society, Arthur J. Deikman, M.D., page 137.
8. Watch out for self-deceptive ego games.
For example, in some cults or religions, they will flatter you and tell you that you are very
important, and involved in very important work, for example “saving the world” or “saving the
children, if you believe what they say and do what they say. But if you buy into their game, it is
you who is allowing yourself to be deceived, and it's you who is enjoying the big ego game.
Part of the attraction of believing the leader's views and actions to
be of paramount importance is that the follower's own sense of
importance is heightened.
The Wrong Way Home: Uncovering the Patterns of Cult Behavior in American
Society, Arthur J. Deikman, M.D., page 67.
"If the leader and his religion are saving the world, and I follow the leader, then I am saving the
world, which makes me very good and very important."
Conversely, if someone criticizes the cult, its leader, or its teachings, then that reflects badly on
the member. If the cult member believes the criticisms to be true, then he will go from being a
noble savior of the world to being just a foolish follower of an evil charlatan. So the member has
a vested interest in rejecting any criticism of the group or its leader -- all based on his own
egotism. Thus he will resist learning the truth, out of purely selfish interests. 9.Beware of comparing apples and oranges. Beware of equating things that are not equal.
For example, many people say that they really like the A.A. program because it is such a
wonderful social club with such brotherhood and fellowship. Excuse me, but it is supposed to be
an alcoholism treatment program -- something that would make more people quit drinking. They
seem to forget that it doesn't actually work to cure alcoholism, and just proclaim that it's great
because they like the social life, the brotherhood and the "spirituality". That's mixing apples and
oranges. When I go to the doctor to get some medical care, I don't expect a big party in the
waiting room. I just go get the pills, and then go home. If I want a party, I go someplace else.
10.Watch your own mind.
Watch your thoughts, attitudes, and slogans. Also watch your desires and fears.
This is the heart of the deprogramming program. This is a constant, never-ending task. Watch
your mind all day long, or as much as you can remember to.
You have to not only watch what people are telling you, but watch how you react to it, and what
it makes happen inside your head. Watch what you are thinking, and if you can, understand why
you are thinking that.
Notice your desires, and how certain statements can arouse them. I'm not knocking desires, or
asking you to. Just look at them and make a note of what it is you actually want: love, approval,
status, importance, power, security, sex, youth, beauty, wealth, possessions, knowledge, wisdom,
intelligence, compassion, virtue, goodness, spirituality, whatever. Then notice how certain ideas
or statements can arouse certain desires. And then notice how some people (especially
politicians) are skilled in tossing out buzz-words, phrases, and slogans that will arouse certain
desires in you. They are messing with your mind by manipulating your feelings.
Likewise, watch your fears, and see how politicians and preachers are good at arousing them to
manipulate your thinking.
•"If you don't suspend the Bill of Rights and let the Homeland Security Force violate
everybody's privacy and spy on everybody, then the nasty Arabs will get you."
•"If you don't give the oil billionaires a big tax cut, and let them drill for oil in every
wilderness and wildlife preserve in the world, then they will go broke and run out of oil
and you will freeze in the dark."
11.Watch out for commonly accepted fallacies -- the things that “everybody knows” are true, but
which aren't, like "Everybody knows that the world is a globe".
For example, it is commonly accepted that alcoholics can't or won't quit drinking until they
"bottom out or hit bottom”. That is completely untrue. People quit at all stages of alcoholism;
some even quit before they could even be called alcoholics, because they see a nasty problem
starting to develop.
So how did the idea that alcoholics must hit bottom come to be such a universally accepted piece
of folklore? Well, what happened is Bill Wilson found that ordinary, relatively-sane people
wouldn't join his cult religion or believe in his grandiose, bombastic sermons, or accept his
brain-damaged superstitious nonsense. Only the really sick, frightened, dying people who were
desperately grabbing at anything that might save their lives would swallow Bill's bullshit. So
Wilson made up a story about how alcoholics can't really quit drinking and start to recover until
they "hit bottom" and "the lash of alcoholism drives them to A.A." (see: Twelve Steps and
Twelve Traditions , page 24.) A.A. members have been spreading that particular piece of
misinformation for the last 60 years, and now, everybody who thinks he knows something about
alcoholism repeats it. But it is still untrue.
You can find plenty of similar examples, everywhere. "The common wisdom" often isn't wise or
knowledgeable.
12.Watch out for irrational beliefs. Our society is loaded with them, and you hear them often.
Some big red warning flags of irrational beliefs are key words like:
•Should
•Ought
•Must
•Have To
•Deserve
•Am Entitled
Statements that contain those words often contain assumed beliefs about values, like
•"Look at those kids, being so sexy. They shouldn't act that way."
•"It's Friday night, and I should be able to drink with my buddies. I deserve a drink. I
worked hard all week, and now I deserve to be able to relax and enjoy myself now."
•"The poor ought to go get a job, instead of complaining and wanting help."
•"I deserve the best of everything, because I was born a member of the better class -- I
come from a very old-money family. We really are royalty, you know."
•"The policians ought to tell us the truth. It's awful, the way that they habitually lie to
us."
•"I must pass this test or I'll go crazy."
(Beliefs about values may be true or untrue. They are not necessarily always wrong. The six
examples above were selected because they all contain erroneous assumptions -- even the one about politicians
Also notice the exaggeration of negativity – which Dr. Albert Ellis called "awfulizing":
•"It's so awful, I can't stand it."
•"It's absolutely terrible, and nobody should have to put up with it."
A good way to handle irrational beliefs is to dispute them with challenges like:
•"Who says?"
•"Since when?"
•"Is that really true?"
•"Where is it written in stone?"
•"Where is the evidence for that?"
And there is the technique of "I would prefer", as in:
•"I would prefer it if the politicians would tell the truth, instead of being a bunch of lying
sleeze-bags, but if they persist in their practices of deceit and deception, I can stand it. I
don't have to get all bent out of shape, and start drinking and doping, just because of
them."
•"I would prefer it if the American people were intelligent and wise enough that all
politicians could tell them the whole truth, and still win elections, but if the American
people persist in their stupidity, I can stand it."
13.Understand the games that the mind-programmers and brainwashers play on people's
heads, and the techniques that they use for mind control.
For instance, there is the phenomenon called "cognitive dissonance". What it means is: People
want to keep all of their beliefs, actions, thoughts, and feelings in harmony with each other.
People want to do what they believe is right and good, and if they do otherwise, they feel bad --
they feel "dissonance". The "dissonance" is just like musical dissonance -- it feels jarring and
discordant and wrong.
Brainwashers have discovered that they can use cognitive dissonance to change people's
behavior, beliefs, feelings, and thoughts -- force a change in one, and the others will follow. If
you force people to perform certain actions, they will eventually come to believe that it's okay --
it must be okay, because they wouldn't want to be doing bad things all of the time. If you force
people to say something out loud to a group over and over again, the speakers will eventually
come to believe that it is true, because they don't want to feel like they are habitual liars. The
subconscious mind's solution to the problem is: believe that it is all true, so now there is no
conflict. (That's why A.A. instructs newcomers to "Fake It Until You Make It."
Since we normally only reveal our innermost, most embarrassing and damaging secrets to our
closest and most trusted friends, if we confess everything to a room full of strangers, then
cognitive dissonance kicks in, and our subconscious minds will start to assume that those people. Also notice the exaggeration of negativity – which Dr. Albert Ellis called "awfulizing":
•"It's so awful, I can't stand it."
•"It's absolutely terrible, and nobody should have to put up with it."
A good way to handle irrational beliefs is to dispute them with challenges like:
•"Who says?"
•"Since when?"
•"Is that really true?"
•"Where is it written in stone?"
•"Where is the evidence for that?"
And there is the technique of "I would prefer", as in:
•"I would prefer it if the politicians would tell the truth, instead of being a bunch of lying
sleeze-bags, but if they persist in their practices of deceit and deception, I can stand it. I
don't have to get all bent out of shape, and start drinking and doping, just because of
them."
•"I would prefer it if the American people were intelligent and wise enough that all
politicians could tell them the whole truth, and still win elections, but if the American
people persist in their stupidity, I can stand it."