DR. ROBERT J. LIFTON'S CRITERIA FOR THOUGHT REFORM
THOUGHT REFORM: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TOTALISM - CHAPTER 22 (Chapel
Hill, 1989) THE FUTURE OF IMMORTALITY - CHAPTER 15 (New York 1987)
Any ideology --
that is, any set of emotionally-charged convictions about men and his
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 you will find 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.
(BRIEF OUTLINE)
1. 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
or 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, and sometimes-physical pressure, often a sequence
of events, such as seminars, lectures, and 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)
2. 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. It legitimizes the deception used to recruit new members and/or
raise funds, and the deception used on the "outside world"
3. 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
4. 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 young person confessing to various sins of
pre-cultic existence can both believe in those sins and be covering over other
ideas and feelings that she/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"
Insertion by
me: (Another term that is used sometimes today is “Sensitivity Training” and if
someone is lured into these “workshops” they are submitting to a dangerous type
of mind control.)
5. 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.
6. LOADING THE LANGUAGE
The language of the
totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating clichés
(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.
7. 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
8. 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 and 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.