Brainwashing
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Responses to Brainwashing

Christian Brainwashing

While reading recently about the Elizabeth Smart abduction case (March 2003: happy ending) the articles mentioned that she had probably been brainwashed by her psychotically religious kidnappers (see glamour shots below). While I was very happy that she had been found alive after 9 months, it was the brainwashing part that really caught my attention.

Prophet Brian Mitchell and Ms Barzee abducted Elizabeth Smart on June 5, 2002, upon direct orders from Biblegod. Biblegod had ordered Brian to get himself an additional wife, and chose Elizabeth for him (or so the nutcase said). For several months the trio traveled around the western United States, and at no time did Elizabeth attempt to escape, even when wandering a grocery store by herself, the brainwashing had so well taken effect. According to Newsweek (#1), when the police finally detained the trio, Elizabeth told police "I know you think I'm that Elizabeth Smart girl who ran away, but I'm not."  The report goes on to say that "even as the police took her in a car, she denied her identity." According to Time (#2), "Three times she told them her name was Augustine and she insisted to them that she was traveling with her parents."

Another example of someone brainwashed out of touch with reality.  Elizabeth denied she was Elizabeth, and this Minister (can I call him Rev.?) denied the presence of Americans in Baghdad even as American tanks rolled past the building he was giving his press conference in. Were they both skilful liars, or merely brainwashed dupes???

Elizabeth passed by her chance to be set free from this bizarre religion several times, because an emotional bond had been formed. "Young victims are often in awe of the power of the kidnappers. They try to strip away layer by layer her identity and her belief system... Emotional bondage can be stronger than chains." (#1). Her emotional bonding to the nutcase prophet "overwhelmed any impulse to escape." (#2) The article goes on to note "How could Elizabeth feel such warmth for her tormentors?" and goes on to quote Mark Zelig, a forensic psychologist:

If you're in a situation where someone threatens your life and you can tell they're deliberating and they decide not to kill you, you're very gracious, and you start to form this bond. (#2)

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Revivals 

From about age six to maybe my mid-teen years, summertime used to always include going to "holy roller" crusades and tent revivals, and I don't mean "holy roller" in the figurative sense, either. [NOTE: This was before I joined "the TRUE church" (The Church of Christ, praise be to Alexander Campbell)] In these crusades, lasting sometimes up to two weeks long, with some crusades having services in the morning, afternoon, and late into the night, I would be subjected to day-after-day and late-night after late-night threats of hell fire roasting my bare flesh, threats of "if this were your last night alive...", threats of "Jesus could return before sunrise: are YOU ready?" and so forth. At the SAME time, hope was held out, for the angry god who had threatened to kill me could also be appeased into being my friend with a simple "I'm sorry Jesus". The level of stress would build up as the crusade wore on, and each evening would end with a very emotional appeal to an altar call, a chance to come to the front, kneel at the altar, and end the emotional stress by "giving your life to Jesus", thus placating the angry god (whose power we were in awe of), and who threatened to harm you, and resulting in my feeling much "warmth for my tormentor". This appeal would usually come late at night, after being stressed out by having my life threatened-again- and would always have as its background music the melodic strains of "Just As I Am" lulling all into an emotional trance-like state.

So picture if you will an emotionally charged atmosphere with sleep deprivation, fear, high stress, and dozens (sometimes hundreds) of people openly weeping, howling, emotionally breaking down, with "Just As I Am" being endlessly repeated. Now picture all this thru the eyes of a six year old. What do you see? Brainwashing. And if any other cult besides that of Christianity were doing it, it would be declared illegal and immoral, a form of child abuse. But since it's OUR "sacred cow", well then, that makes it ok, right??? And since we (as a nation) like the results (converts to Christianity), we can live with the means (child abuse). After all, when it comes to making converts, the ends justify the means, don't they??? Just like when Christianity took over the Roman Empire and burned pagans and their temples- that was ok for Christians and nobody apologizes for it nowadays, for "the ends justify the means" as long as it results in more converts.

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Anyway, back to the abduction. In reading of what Elizabeth Smart had been subjected to, a sickening realization came upon me that it was eerily similar to what I myself, and millions more like me, had been subjected to growing up in Fundamentalist churches. Like Elizabeth, we too had been in a situation where "someone threatened our life", our ETERNAL life, and then, like Elizabeth, we had managed to placate this overwhelming authority figure into NOT destroying us, thus forming a close emotional bond. Like Elizabeth, we too had been "in awe" of the power of this being. Like Elizabeth, we too had had our real identity "striped away layer by layer" and replaced with an artificial construct imposed from without. And like Elizabeth, we began to feel "warmth for our tormentor" which removed any "desire to escape"  the cult of Christianity.

Reading about the brainwashing of this poor young girl, with point after point of similarity jumping out, I think I have begun to understand better why so many religionists are so blinded and bondaged to their religions: they have been brainwashed, and evidence and facts just wash off them as water off a duck's back. Remember: Elizabeth continued to deny to the police that she was Elizabeth, even when facing a photo of herself on a wanted poster- that is the power of religious brainwashing. If she could straight into a photograph of herself and not see that it was her in the photo, how much more could a Baptist or Mormon look into more obscure facts and not see them as well??? In a five minute discussion between an Atheist and a religionist, what chance do logic and reasoning have going up against years and years of  intense daily brainwashing? You do the math.

A drunk will argue with you up and down that he is not drunk. And what a coincidence that in Acts 2:13-15, at the birth of Christianity, some in the crowd thought the Christians were drunk. Imagine! A religion born in an alcoholic stupor! Peter, like a good alcoholic, argued with them that they weren't. Likewise, the brainwashed, as experience has shown, will not admit they are brainwashed. As hypnotist Dick Stuphen writes,

In the entire history of man, no-one has ever been brainwashed and realized, or believed, that he had been brainwashed.^(#4)

 However blinded they are to their own brainwashing, they have no problem seeing and pointing out others who are thus inflicted. A Jehovah Witness can easily see the brainwashing that has taken hold of a fanatical Pentecostal, and visa versa, but neither can see it in himself. Gather together into a room one hundred members of one hundred different denominations, and each one can see in the 99 others the brainwashing; but they can't see it in themselves. They all marvel at how blinded the 99 others are to admitting new facts even in the face of mountains of evidence, yet think themselves not brainwashed, but rather "steadfast and true" when themselves, faced with such evidence against their own peculiar beliefs, ignore it and continue believing whatever tripe they specialize in. They not only ignore it, they actually feel they deserve some kind of medal for having been brain-dead and stubborn enough not to be affected by better evidence. In their world view, being closed minded and thick-headed is a virtue, not a vice.  "Look at me, ma! I spent 4 hours with an Atheist and didn't learn a damn thing- praise Gawd!!!"  "Good boy, son!"

Christian School Brainwashing

Below is an actual untouched copy of a paper^#3 I found left behind on a xerox machine at a Kinko's in Roland Heights, California, back in July of 1995. I had gone in to do some copying, and the person who used the machine before me had forgotten to take out their original. As I read the paper to pass the time as my own papers were being xeroxed, my anger began to rise. Here was the gameplan for some unknown Christian grade school, in which the teachers were plotting how to mess with the brains of little innocent kids, replacing their healthy self-esteem with heaping portions of Christian guilt. Read the paper for yourself now, and I'll continue below it.

These adults, these Christian elementary school teachers, have it all laid out for the kids for their whole school year. In short, and excuse my French, they plan to fuck up their lives.  They plan to infect these innocent happy eyed children with a fictitious disease called "sin", then turn around and offer the fictitious snake-oil cure: Jesus. They plan to depress and frighten all these kids with a month after month saturation of death and dying. Little kids, for whom death should be the last thing they think about, instead have it thrust in their face day after depressing day. And when they're at the point of emotional breakdown (as any healthy human mind would be after being subjected to such brainwashing drivel) the last two months of the school year are spent "harvesting".  And remember, this harvest season is not just the final culmination of the past school year, but also the EIGHT YEARS prior leading up to this, as the paper says "we are reaping the harvest of the last eight years".

The harvest season consists of a daily emotional guilt-fest, where one teacher dishes out Christian crap while the other scans the audience to see which kid is on the point of an emotional breakdown. As Dick Stuphen writes, concerning early religious revival meetings: "By inducing guilt and acute apprehension and by increasing the tension, the "sinners" attending his revival meetings would break down and completely submit."^(#4) This ties in with what the school paper says, "when they are touched, their eyes tear or something. You can tell when they're ready. Then we deal with them one by one." Translated, that means a little kid gets isolated from the herd, away from his parents and peers, and is pressured by a trained professional salesman of religion into buying the Christian worldview. Dick Stuphen mentions this same tactic of isolation is used by cult recruiters when he writes: "The meeting or training takes place in an area where participants are cut off from the outside world."^(#4) Given the isolated nature of Christian school to start with, along with the eight year setup leading to the two month harvest season, and remembering also that in ADDITION to this five day a week indoctrination they ALSO get one day MORE each and every Sunday morning in Church, what chance does a little sixth grader have of NOT "accepting Jesus as his personal savior" when dragged into the little private room for an afternoon of one-on-one religious brow-beating??? The proverbial snowball's chance, that's what. 

Some one pointed out, regarding the above, it's something like the arsonist who sets the fire, in order to be the hero in rescuing people from the fire. The Christians start the guilt trip, in order to come in later with the cure for the guilt trip, when there wouldn't BE a guilt trip in the first place if not for them.

It is also similar to Munchausen By Proxy Disease, in which the adults cause the symptoms so that they can act the role of loving parent in healing the child. Reading from the Rare Diseases website, we find the following:

Some mothers may severely hurt their children in order to cause symptoms. A mother may poison her child with medications, chemicals, or salt, give laxatives to cause diarrhea, or syrup of ipecac to cause vomiting. Some may go as far as suffocating the child for brief periods of time to cause respiratory and nervous system problems.
http://rarediseases.about.com/cs/munchausensynd/a/091402.htm

Just like these abusive adults, so too the leaders of the Christian school. They create the "disease" in the child, just so they can act the "hero" in curing it. Disgusting, yet true.

QUESTION:

If Christianity has to use years of brainwashing 
to emotionally badger people into the kingdom, 
WHAT CHANCE DO REASON AND LOGIC 
HAVE of CONVINCING THEM OUT OF THE KINGDOM ???

ANSWER:

 

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---Final Summation--- A Side by Side Comparison:  YOU  Do The Math! "Conversion is a 'nice' word for brainwashing" --Dick Stuphen(#4)
Victim of Brainwashing	Victim of Christianity
In AWE of the Brainwasher's power.	In AWE of the Brainwasher's power.       "We worship an awesome God!" -Christian Bumper Sticker
No desire to escape.	No desire to escape.      "Lord, where would we go? Only you have the words of life."  -Peter
Old personality stripped away.	Old personality stripped away.      "Unless a man be born again..." -Jesus
New personality superimposed.	New personality superimposed.      "And put on the NEW man..." -Paul
An emotional bondage stronger than chains.	An emotional bondage stronger than chains.      "Love God with all your heart..." -Jesus
Rejection of parents	Rejection of parents.       "Unless you hate your mother and father, you can not be my disciple"  -Jesus  (Luke 14:26)
Old belief system stripped away.	Old belief system stripped away.       "Behold, all things are become new!" -Apostle John
Warmth for the brainwasher.	Warmth for the brainwasher.      "Jeeesus. Jeeesus. Jeeesus. There's just something, about, that naaaaame." -Christian Hymn
Victim's life threatened.	Victim's eternal life threatened.       "There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" -Jesus
Victim granted a reprieve.	Victim granted an eternal reprieve.      "Unless you repent, ye shall all likewise perish" -Jesus
Immense gratitude towards the brainwasher.	Immense gratitude towards the brainwasher.      "Praise God. Praaaaaise God. Thank you, Jesus!" -Almost any Christian high on Jeeeesus.

 

 

 

1) Newsweek Magazine, March 24, 2003,  page 34+

2) TIME Magazine, March 24, 2003, page 44+

3) Doing a google web search for the name of Gene Gruhler, mentioned in the paper as the author of the ideas contained therein, resulted in "The Living Stream Ministry" audio and video tapes, class lectures entitled "Children and Students" given in 1989 - 1991, at The Church in Anaheim,  California. The lecture tapes are available at:  http://members.aol.com/socalypwrk/otc.htm 

4) Dick Stuphen, World Congress of Professional Hypnotists Convention, Las Vegas, NV, transcript at: http://www.dcd.net/NBP/persuasn.html   By and copyright Dick Sutphen