CONDITIONS FOR MIND CONTROL
DR. MARGARET SINGER

(Margaret T. Singer, Ph.D., Emeritus Prof. of Psychology, Univ. of CA, Berkeley)
 
THOUGHT REFORM = LANGUAGE + SOCIAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCE

In a thought reform program:
 
The self-concept is destabilized.
The group/leaders attack one's evaluation of self.
 
SELF: There are two elements in one's self-concept:
 
1. Peripheral Sense: adequacy of public & judgmental aspects, social status, role performance, and conformity to 
social norms.
 
2. Central Sense of Self: adequacy of intimate life, confidence in perception of reality, relations w/family, goals, 
sexual experiences, traumatic life events, religious beliefs, basic consciousness and emotional control.
 
When you attack a person's self-concept, aversive emotional arousal is created.
 
SIX CONDITIONS THAT NEED TO BE PRESENT IN ORDER TO CONSTITUTE MIND CONTROL:
 
1. CONTROL OVER TIME - Especially thinking time. Use techniques to get a person to think about: 
a. the group and -
b. beliefs of the group as much of their waking time as possible
 
2. CREATE A SENSE OF POWERLESSNESS - Get people away from normal support systems for a period of time.
 
Provide models of behavior (cult members)
 
Use in-group language
 
Use of songs, games, stories the person is unfamiliar with or they are modified so that they're unfamiliar
 
New people tend to want to be like others (acceptance, feeling part of a group)
 
MANIPULATE REWARDS, PUNISHMENTS, EXPERIENCES IN ORDER TO SUPPRESS OLD 
SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
 
Manipulate: social rewards - intellectual rewards
 
REWARDS: support positive self-concept for conformity to new thought system
 
PUNISHMENTS: attack person's self-concept for non-conformity
 
Effects of behavioral modification (reward/punishment):
 
DEPLOYABLE AGENT:
 
1. Accept a particular worldview
2. Procedures for peer monitoring w/feedback to group
3. Psychological, social & material sanctions to influence the target's behavior
 
When there is control of external feedback, the group becomes the only source -- there are no reality checks
 
BEHAVIORS REWARDED: participation, conformity to ideas/behavior, zeal, personal changes
 
BEHAVIORS PUNISHED: criticalness, independent thinking, non-conformity to ideas/behavior
 
PUNISHMENTS: peer/group criticism, withdrawal of support/affection, isolation, negative feedback
 
THE PERSON IS DEPENDENT UPON THE GROUP FOR EXTERNAL VALIDATION OF SOCIAL IDENTITY
 
RESULTS: confusion, disorientation, psychological disturbances
 
Manipulate experience: altered states of consciousness (trance) hypnosis
 
Hypnosis: (see Ericksonian hypnosis)
 
Speaking patterns – 
Guided imagery – 
Pacing of voice to breathing patterns – 
Parables, stories with imbedded messages –
Repetition – 
Boredom – 
Stop paying attention to distractions, focus inwardly to what's going on inside you - the use of one's voice to get
People’s attention focused – 
 
Chanting, Meditation 
 
Teach thought-stopping techniques 
 
Work them up emotionally to a negative state:
 
Re-experience past painful events – 
Recall negative actions/sin in past life
 
Then rescue them from negative emotion by giving them a new way to live
 
4. MANIPULATE REWARDS, PUNISHMENTS, EXPERIENCES IN ORDER TO ELICIT NEW BEHAVIOR
 
Models will demonstrate new behavior
Conformity: dress, language, behavior
 
Using group language will eventually still the thinking mind.
 
5. MUST BE A TIGHTLY CONTROLLED SYSTEM OF LOGIC
 
No complaints from the floor
 
Pyramid shaped operation with leader at the top
Top leaders must maintain absolute control/authority
Persons in charge must have verbal ways of never losing
Anyone who questions is made to think there is something inherently wrong with them to even question 
 
Phobia induction:
 
 Something bad will happen if you leave the group
 If you leave this group, you're leaving God
 
Guilt manipulation
 
6. PERSONS BEING THOUGHT REFORMED MUST BE UNAWARE THAT THEY ARE BEING 
MOVED THROUGH A PROGRAM TO MAKE THEM DEPLOYABLE AGENTS, TO BUY 
MORE COURSES, SIGN UP FOR THE DURATION, ETC.
 
You can't be thought reformed with full capacity, informed consent
You don't know the agenda of the group at the beginning or the full content of the ideology
 
THOUGHT REFORM SYSTEM:
 
Coordinated programs of coercive influence and behavior control
Use of pop psychology techniques found in sensitivity training and encounters groups
 
2nd Generation Thought Reform Systems (attacks on central elements of self):
 
1. Enlist recruit's cooperation, offer something they want (personal growth, salvation, etc.)
 
2. Obtain psychological dominance by making the target's continuing relations contingent upon 
continuing membership
 
3. Use seduction by developing bonds and encouraging targets to believe the group can provide something
 
4. Develop dependency by direct social pressure to influence a decision that the group has special power 
or knowledge or can solve a problem; the people in the group are made to seem interested in what is best for the
target -- then they "up the commitment level"
 
5. Shift the target's social and emotional attachments to individuals who have already accepted high commitment 
and are conforming to the behavior
 
WHILE - decreasing the targets outside relationships
 
6.  Increase the CHANGES in the targets:
 
income
employment
personal friends/social life
finances
sexuality
 
THIS INCREASES THE THREAT TO THE PERSON IF THEY WANT TO LEAVE THREATS: ARE TO 
THE INDIVIDUAL'S - 
 
stability of identity
emotional well-being
 
The community standards become the ONLY standards available for self-evaluation
 
CULTS AND CULTIC RELATIONSHIPS
 
CULT - the political and power STRUCTURE of a group
 
CULTIC RELATIONSHIP - those relationships in which a person intentionally induces others to become totally 
or nearly totally dependent on him/her for almost all major life decisions and inculcates in these followers a belief 
that he has some special talent, gift or knowledge
 
PRIMARY IN OUR DISCUSSION OF CULTS IS THE “PRACTICE AND CONDUCT” OF THE GROUP, NOT IT’S BELIEFS 
 
Further references:
 
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. Robert J. Lifton, M.D., University of N.C., Chapel Hill, 
1989 Chapter 22 
 
"Attacks on Peripheral versus Central Elements of Self and the Impact of Thought Reforming Techniques" Richard 
Ofshe and Margaret T. Singer, The Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 3 #1, Spring/Summer 1986; American 
Family Foundation, P.O. Box 1232, Gracie Station, New York, NY 10028 (212) 533-0538 
 
"The Utilization of Hypnotic Techniques in Religious Conversion" Jesse S. Miller, The Cultic Studies Journal, 
Vol. 3 #2, Fall/Winter 1986 
 
Recovery from Cults. ed. Michael Langone, Ph.D., W.W. Norton, 1994 
 
http://www.ex-cult.org/General/singer-conditions
 

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