Are 1970s' cult/religious brainwashing techniquies still practised?

Interestingly human trafficking for the sex industry, especially amongst teens, seems to be a growing global problem, including in the US.

Here there seems some use of the cult brainwashing techniques, including deliberate debilitation through exhaustion and fatigue.

www.sanctuaryforfamilies.org...

A very disturbing documentary: Scientology, the CIA and MIVILUDES.



The documentary casts a wide net across elite and secret service organizations, cults and black magic (in the sense of controlling people).

It questions the cover-up in Belgium of elite links to child sexual abuse, and an organization in France called MIVILUDES, which claims to fight cults under the guise of attacking vitamins and organic farming, while it ignores real cult abuses.

Eventually it implies links between Aleister Crowley, the CIA and cults.

Considering the clergy abuse, the widespread religious links to politics and occult rituals, and the mind control in some wider religions today, its scope may be a bit limited?
Nevertheless, a very thought-provoking documentary.

Disillusioned young people in the seventies? I'm disillusioned? really I learn something new every day

Why do you think we were disillusioned? Just because we chased a Frisbee? Just because we had big outdoor parties standing around a campfire and staying out of trouble in town? Because we ate hotdogs and hamburgers made over a grill or outdoor fire? Because we worked and blew all our money having fun?: I thought we were just teenagers I suppose you are right, I went to college and learned to go to Frat parties and bars and other normal things. Then I went on to work way to much to support capitalism.

What do normal people do anyway, I suppose I might be missing something here.

Yes it's called democracy

As a nation we have no problem invading or killing people for democracy.

reply to post by rickymouse

Good point, and thanks for pointing that out.
It is a generalization, but at least in hindsight the 1970s in the Western countries are often seen as the era of "the cults" (or, as they were more politically correctly termed towards the 1980s: "The new religions").

Cults certainly didn't begin or end in the 1970s, but many young people did turn to alternative religions. Even mainstream religions today like the New Age Movement or the charismatic Jesus Movement were revitalized at that stage.

There are many sociological, economic and numerical explanations (anything the baby boomers did seemed huge, because they were so numerous), but the challenge to orthodoxy by the counter-culture is often seen as a main impetus.

It just means a trend became very noticeable, but it certainly doesn't mean that all people from that generation were in cults.

Far from it, many cultists were forced to beg or sell trinkets by their leaders, and without money flowing in from the wider society it wouldn't have worked.

I guess it's a bit like associating the 1960s with the hippies and flower children.
My parents just worked through that decade, and never knew much about the hippies, and that's really a localized and cultural extreme that the knowledge/power industry promotes.
It doesn't represent the majority of people, but for those coming out of many cults, a lot of them came from that era. Cults were also first discussed as a social problem and a danger to the young.
Such anti-cult warnings from religious groups at times seemed ironic, and some academics were prompted to ask: "What is a cult, and what is a religion"?
So all that went with streams in academia that undermined "privileged discourses".

To the sensationalist press the decade started with Manson and ended with Jim Jones.
Perhaps to conspiracy theorists the plethora of smaller cult groups were just the next logical phase in long-standing mind control research to pave the way for mass political religions.

Yeah, sure, it didn't affect the majority.
Cults are not really mainstream, and apparently a good cult leader or recruiter knows exactly which vulnerable people to target.

PS. If you're missing something watch the movie in my opening post.
My short intro context is about the film Ticket to Heaven.

reply to post by someguy0083

Mind-control is democracy?

You have a solid wider political argument, but after watching the first 30 minutes of my OP movie, is that young man still capable of "democracy" or democratic action?

In that sense you've hit the nail on the head in a somewhat obscure way.

You bet your " BIPPY ' it is! lol

hehaw

I'll buy that for a dollar! honk,honk,

If i had a nickle for every dollar i've lost ,,well..,,

Sounds like deja view,,, all over again.

nope don't think so ,,

that's all folks,,,,

One conspiracy angle is that the mind-control cults sometimes have covert relationships with mainstream religions that openly condemn their teachings.

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon who founded the Unification Church from the OP film was known for his anti-Communist stance, and later funding Christian interests in the US through front organizations.
It seemed that the person who was blamed for tearing families apart, and brainwashing kids had some unofficial blessings.
www.jesus-is-savior.com...

Allegations of financial bailouts for failed fundamentalist Christian projects were hardly contained by pictures of the Rev Moon in friendly embraces with Jerry Falwell:
(See www.rickross.com...)

This certainly lends fuel to the suspicions that significant cults and mainstream religions are somehow connected, and the cash they raise possibly partly ends up in covert operations and political manipulation.

Part 1 of a documentary on the Unification Church:

A very good lecture by Dr. Doni Whitsett on cults, with a focus on cults that recruit on college campuses, most of whom are nowadays Eastern or Bible-based.

Because university and college students are open-minded, and likely to go through transitions, they are especially vulnerable.

Dr. Whitsett uses a lot of basic research from 1970's cults to examine current groups, although she is slow to pin-point specific cults in a current context, and prefers to speak in general terms, thus allowing her audience to decide for themselves.
Most of these groups have surprising over-laps in their techniques and structures.

Some universities have banned certain cults from campus, however issues of freedom of speech make this quite difficult.

The advice to parents, friends and families is very valuable.

The main thing is to encourage criticism, because cult leaders and their teachings are usually not questioned, and adherents tend to load the language with repeated thought-stopping phrases.
I hear this often these days.
For example, if you criticize Angus Buchan and his supposed miraculous "resurrection" (apparently just a minor heat-stroke) then they will end the discussion with: "Don't judge!"
Of course they go around judging everybody else, but don't judge the cult leaders!

The worst is that all these vulnerable and good people think they are going to get some advancement or "happy life" from these cult leaders and teachings, but they are really just taken advantage of, and when they snap back they have to face the existential issues all over again, along with even more guilt, regret and financial troubles.

Although I'd also urge caution in labeling certain groups as "cults", in South Africa the Shofar church, Angus Buchan and Desteni certainly employ a lot of these methods.
They might not always keep people in compounds, however some do have camps with very intensive mind-control methods, and Whitsett says just one of these intense camps can snap people into cults, and in more extreme cases people come back manic, and need to be hospitalized after a single weekend.

Many of these cults also infiltrate the business community, and target older people for recruitment and "seminars".

As Whitsett points out, society agrees that drugs and booze are bad for youngsters (or at least a vice), but society is far more divided on cult-leaders, and the media celebrates some of them unconditionally, often with little or no research and objectivity. There is however never any proof that any of it is good for society, except for the leaders and their pockets.

To me it seems that nowadays cults vary considerably, and only minority groups will actually resort to kidnapping and confining people physically.
However, it's not unusual for a normal church-group with some cult-like attributes to develop into a full-blown cult.

Benny Hinn - occult and black magic, or a harmless ministry?
Most "cult websites" today would include him and many other preachers, and the the whole TBN scheme.

The fiercest critics however are other Christians:

Benny Hinn secret ties to occult are exposed, as well as fake miracles, fake healing, greed and financial money deception. In this video Trey Smith exposes Benny Hinn Free Mason roots and occult practices. Also, Benny Hinn's childhood experience with Howie Mandel and the time that Benny Hinn wanted to punch Houston, Texas, Lakewood Church pastor, Joel Osteen, in the face. Finally, a dedication to David Wilkerson who spent his last days praying for exposure of Benny Hinn (and others in Prosperity Gospel) and that the Lord would open the church's eyes. Some clips in this footage also contain Mike Murdock, Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Bill O'Reilly, Fox News, CNN, Yahoo News, Google News, Ole Anthony, Trinity Foundation and music of Enya. This interview was conducted on January 24th 2012 between Thieves author Trey Smith and Benny Hinn high school friend, Trish Erconner.

www.youtube.com...

Hi OP. Interesting thread. It seems, over time, the meaning of "cult" has been changed from a thing of "care, labor; cultivation, culture; worship, reverence". Today, in 2012, the word "cult" can be affixed to just about any group of people or set of doctrines that exist outside of our own experience.

So what I'd like to contribute is the etymology.

To wit,

to Cult : etymology

The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a new religious movement or other group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre.[1] The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices. The word was first used in the early 17th century denoting homage paid to a divinity and derived from the French culte or Latin cultus, ‘worship’, from cult-, ‘inhabited, cultivated, worshipped,’ from the verb colere, 'care, cultivation'. Source Wikipedia

cult :

1610s, "worship," also "a particular form of worship," from Fr. culte (17c.), from L. cultus "care, labor; cultivation, culture; worship, reverence," originally "tended, cultivated," pp. of colere "to till" (see colony). Rare after 17c.; revived mid-19c. with reference to ancient or primitive rituals. Meaning "devotion to a person or thing" is from 1829.

Source www.etymonline.com...

The main problem with modern usage of the word "cult" is that it ignores the positive and clings to the negative.

Today in 2012 we often only hear the negative use of the word.

There is always the temptation to use the word "cult" against our ideological enemies in order to diminish the credibility of the the "other group" which threatens our own group ideology

It pertains only to an external or existential threat.

Therefore, the word is no longer used to infer "care, cultivation; reverence and worship" but instead the word is used as in direct opposition - it becomes a superficial insult.

Are 1970s' cult/religious brainwashing techniquies still practised?
Yes. Techniques are practiced in every modern corporate culture, in the culture of every government, in the culture of every industry.

For example, to gain employment with a modern corporation or government, one must adhere to a strict period of ritual indoctrination. Background checks, urinalysis, interviews, orientation training, et cetera.

Once a new member has been indoctrinated into the corporate culture the next level is to formalize and legalize the individual's corporate loyalty through "Codes of Conduct", "Corporate Compliance", "Conflict of Interest" and "Non Disclosure Agreements", et cetera, ON A YEARLY BASIS.

This is all a corporate ritualized process, enforced by the cult corporation, for the benefit of the cult. The government works in exactly the same way, except that the process begins upon being born. Capitalism is a cult. Democracy is a cult.

The employees or "cult members" who failed to uphold these rituals of loyalty run a risk of being excommunicated from the cult. This amounts to psychological coercion by a threat of alienation. Burning a draft card in 1970 has many ritual connotations, some positive, some negatives.

These things remain powerful because everyone wants to belong in a successful group!

reply to post by SayonaraJupiter

Interesting points.

Traditionally cults were religious, but now we also have commercial cults, political cults, or even "Internet cults" (even ATS has been labelled an Internet cult).

I cannot give a clear explanation, but certain movements set themselves up as "good".
If they set themselves up on false pretenses, and they only communicate with people as far as they want money or power, then that is cult-like behavior.

If you cannot criticize the cult leader and the teachings, then the alarm bells also start ringing.

Otherwise various things might be called a "cult", but it's not likely to necessarily be the case.
At least that's my reading of the situation.