Article Re Dan Reynolds

[ZealouslyStriving]

19 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Hassan refers to “cult mind control” as any organization that psychologically manipulates people by controlling their Behavior, the Information they are exposed to, their Thoughts, and their Emotions

*** I didn't say the above, but I don't know how else to respond***

Let's see:

Behavior: A kid can't smart mouth a teacher he disagrees with.

Information: Try learning about Intelligent Design in PS 666

Thoughts: If a kid is only exposed to liberal scholarship... Well...

Emotions: There are children terrified that we are all going to die by 2030 and that it is the parents fault because of PS lessons.

Sounds like a cult to me.

Edited July 11, 2024 by ZealouslyStriving

[Analytics]

4 minutes ago, smac97 said:

And Hassan's definition of "cult" is, by orders of magnitude, broader and vaguer than Martin's.

If you make a good-faith effort to understand it and apply it, it isn’t vague at all. The results that come out of it are mixed and complicated, but that’s because the real world is a mixed and complicated thing. That is a feature of his model, not a bug.

The advantage it has over Martin’s is that Martin’s model is arbitrary (i.e. “Religions I don’t like are cults!”) while Hassan’s is not. Hassan isn’t geared towards making people believe certain things or behave certain ways. He is geared towards giving people informed consent when it comes to what they sign up for.

4 minutes ago, smac97 said:

But c'mon.  We all know Hassan's usage is far more akin to Martin's, likely even further away from clinical usage than that one.

That's simply not true. Regarding his personal beliefs, Hassan is much more aligned with secular people than he is with Martin’s conservative Christianity. Martin is concerned with making sure people don’t go to hell. Hassan is concerned with making sure people aren’t psychologically  manipulated. 

4 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Hassan's usage is worse than Martin's.  Per Dr. Mann's assessment: "Hassan’s theories are not genuinely informative in any factual sense."

This link is from the website CultExperts.net, which is from the company, "Thinking Agenda LLC.”

They say;

Thinking Agenda is a fully registered LLC that has divisions, one being an educational and research platform on cults and undue influence. 

Our goal is to expand this site showcasing exclusive interviews, podcasts and to be able to make good educational references. 

At this time we are open to speaking on educational platforms on cults and undue influence, utilizing the MIND model of cults. We can offer consultations as researchers and experts to attorneys or families. We do not offer any mental health or coaching or peer support services. We only refer to licensed qualified practitioners. We do not support deprogramming, exit counselling, or coaching. If you are an advocate, activist, researcher, journalist, a blogger you can email us and we can see how we can help get your story out, as we have a separate site dedicated to this.

Since you apparently think CultExperts.net is an authoritative source for information about these topics, I take it you subscribe the the MIND model of cults?

[SeekingUnderstanding]

21 minutes ago, Analytics said:

It's clear from reading that quote that the purpose is for all of the people involved to coordinate on convincing the missionary to stay. What’s interesting about Accidental Terrorist is that it shows how these tactics (and others that were made up ad hoc) were applied in Shunn's mission in the late 1980’s.

That's great to hear. I know more than most how heterogeneous mission presidents are, and I’m glad the church is evolving in positive ways.

The reason I struggled to craft something that was both practical and non-manipulative was because I was trying to create something to juxtapose with what was quoted from the Mission President Handbook, which was how to deal with a situation that was caused by manipulation in the first place. If I were asked to offer suggestions on reforming the whole thing so that there wouldn’t be any validity to the “cult mind control” criticism I’d suggest:

1- Don’t allow anybody (both born in the Church and investigators) to make serious commitments to the Church without knowing the full details of what they’re getting into (e.g. Joseph Smith’s polygamy, garments, tithing, the church’s finances, priesthood restrictions, temple recommend interviews, families separated in temple weddings, Book of Abraham, etc.). Completely immunize them against any valid reason somebody might have for not wanting to be a part of this or having serious doubts about the truth claims.

2- Don’t preach that God wants every young man to serve a mission, and don’t pressure people to go (e.g. don’t tell girls to only date returned missionaries)

3- Don’t oversell how close you’ll feel to God as a missionary, how powerful the priesthood will feel, and how wonderful the whole experience will be.

4- Give prospective missionaries some choice about whether they want to learn a foreign language or not and if so, which ones are they interested in.

5- Give missionaries some time every week to be alone and allow them to read whatever they want and call on the phone whoever they want.

6- Put in the back of The Missionary Guide (or whatever) instructions on how to resign from the mission if it isn’t working out for you.

To the extent the Church is already moving in that direction, that’s great.

I think it would be great for prospective missionaries to hear from more than people pushing the mission experience. Call in former missionaries who decided to come in early and hear from them too. Add in people who decided not to go in the first place.  Invite them into the youth’s quorum meetings. 

[Analytics]

According to @smac97, we should learn about cults from Thinking Agenda LLC rather than Steven Hassan’s organization. Thinking Agenda does specialize in offering expert witness services on this topic, while Hassan is geared more towards counseling. That aside, here are my notes on Thinking Agenda’s “MIND model of cults, persuasion, and undue influence.” 

M is for Manipulation: Manipulation refers to the act of influencing or controlling the thoughts, feelings, or behaviors of other people in order to achieve a desired outcome. It can take many forms, from subtle persuasion to more overt forms of coercion.

I is for Indoctrination: Indoctrination refers to the process of teaching someone to accept a particular set of beliefs or values without questioning them. It often involves the use of persuasion, propaganda, or other forms of manipulation to influence a person’s beliefs and behaviors.

N is for Negation: Negation can also refer to a psychological defense mechanism in which a person deals with anxiety or uncomfortable feelings by denying their existence. For example, a person who is afraid of flying may use negation to convince themselves that flying is safe and that their fear is unfounded.Z

D is for Deception: Deception refers to the act of deliberately misleading or tricking someone in order to gain an advantage or achieve a desired outcome.

I don’t see how Mormonism and the missionary experience are any less cultish under this model compared to Hassan’s BITE model, and in any case there is a ton of overlap. But if this is his preferred model, we can analyze the Church this way. 

Edited July 11, 2024 by Analytics

[bluebell]

41 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

My understanding is that these phones are loaded with a mandatory management app. Once loaded access is restricted to Facebook messenger and a handful of church approved apps and websites. 

They must have access to Facebook as well since they post often (sometimes daily).  And I know in the states missions anyway that each companionship has a sim card that they take turns using and when that's in then it works like a regular cell phone and you can do regular calls and texts (because only being able to use facebook messenger wouldn't work that well with contacting most people).

They didn't have wifi so no internet access on their phones.  

[bluebell]

17 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Add in people who decided not to go in the first place.  Invite them into the youth’s quorum meetings. 

Our stake has people who decided not to go speak sometimes at the Stake youth camps and conferences (or at least they did the last time I went to one).

[Analytics]

37 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Sure.  "Cult" can have some clinical usage.

But c'mon.  We all know Hassan's usage is far more akin to Martin's, likely even further away from clinical usage than that one.

Just because I think it is interesting...

When you say “clinical usage” I think you mean academic usage.  In Sociology, there is a theory that categorizes churches as either a church, denomination, sect, or cult. This is one of the definitions Peterson provided in that pdf you provided from his book. See this link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociological_classifications_of_religious_movements

That isn’t a clinical definition of cult. It is an academic and sociological definition. 

That is a completely different thing that what Walter Martin talks about, which is that cults are organizations that teach doctrines that will send their adherents to hell.

In contrast to both of those is the definition that are used by both Steven Hassan and the expert witness you called, Dr. Cathleen Mann, Ph.D. For both Dr. Hassan and Dr. Mann, they were opposed to cults because of their psychological manipulation, not because of where they fell on some post-modern sociological spectrum or whether or not their adherents would go to hell.

Dr. Mann passed away a few years ago, but her obituary is really insightful on these issues. Note that Dr. Mann is the co-author of the MIND model I briefly described above:

Dr Cathleen Mann’s passing on November 21, 2020, was more than a loss to her loved ones, it was a loss to the anti-cult community as a whole. She was monolithic. She is survived by her mother and three brothers. She had suffered from her health issues for six years before succumbing to the progression of end-stage renal disease at the age of 64. She was loved by many.

Cathleen Mann, PhD, was a qualified expert witness in 15 states. She had an independent practice in Lakewood, Colorado, where she consulted on hundreds of cases involving cults, undue influence, psychological influences, and related areas. Dr Mann had extensive experience with the expert qualification process. She held a PhD in psychology and a Colorado counselling license since 1994.

Dr Mann was an enigmatic individual with a sharp scientific-analytical mind and a very outspoken personality. She educated lawyers about cults and undue influence and often won cases against cult leaders. For the last six years of her life she helped and was behind the scenes with Thinking Agenda, LLC an organization founded by Dr Mann and I, to educate on cults and undue influence. She agreed to be our expert on cults and our educator. She continued to work on cases, speak and lecture until she passed.

The MIND model of cults was the last thing we worked on. It is a model that we created for public education. Thinking Agenda launched the MIND model before the pandemic in January and in March of 2020. The series was intended to develop presentations for schools, churches or any groups. Dr Mann left behind a large repository of her work to Thinking Agenda for educational purposes and for us to continue our work. Thinking Agenda launched it before the pandemic in January and in March of 2020. Dr Mann left behind a large repository of her work to Thinking Agenda for educational purposes.

Catherine Oxenberg’s interview with Dr Mann was Dr Mann’s favourite piece and collaboration with Thinking Agenda. It was an excellent interview and an opportunity to learn more about her expertise in cults. Although Dr Mann’s passing is devastating to me personally, her education and ethics will continue to serve as the foundation for Thinking Agenda. Dr Mann will be remembered with love, honour, and respect for generations to come as her MIND model flourishes and sprouts the seeds of education, hope and self-awareness. I was honoured to have worked with her and we will continue, she will always remain our cult expert and loved by all of us at Thinking Agenda.

 

[Calm]

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

These missionaries are online by bypassing mission rules. Perhaps by visiting the library. All possible assuming your companion is willing. But certainly not church supported or approved. 

I realize it’s not church approved or supported.  I am just saying with the easy to find comment the Church doesn’t need to put any effort into finding these voices and shouldn’t be expected to.  (Analytics appeared to be suggesting for the conversation the Church provide a range of counselors that included the anti or highly critical, which are not always the same, voice.)

I don’t think it should be expected or even just encouraged to do so in the sense of active approval/support as I don’t think institutions or individuals should have to support things they believe are not good for others (though when that comes to government and taxes, that gets tricky as we may be paying for services we neither use nor want).  I do think church leadership could open the door enough to say  something like ‘while we see such things usually as a waste of time and often misleading and even at times harmful, we recognize that some feel more secure if they can examine opposition viewpoints as well as faithful ones and so if after careful thought and hopefully prayer a missionary still feels the need to investigate these viewpoints, we will not forbid it…but please don’t let time spent there cut into your work or much of your personal study time.  And please don’t forget to balance opposing views with faithful perspectives as well in order not to create a negative viewpoint which can happen if spending lots of time reading critical comments.’

Again this is a thought experiment to me and I am not seeing this as something the Church should provide or thinking Analytics is pushing to do so either.  I am just creating a ‘what if’ construction.

Edited July 11, 2024 by Calm

[smac97]

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

But c'mon.  We all know Hassan's usage is far more akin to Martin's, likely even further away from clinical usage than that one.

Just because I think it is interesting...

When you say “clinical usage” I think you mean academic usage.  

No, I mean "clinical," as in "extremely objective and realistic; dispassionately analytic; unemotionally critical."

I think much of academia has been subverted, biased by and partial to political and ideological influences (and/or against other political and ideological influences).

Again, we know Hassan's usage is far more akin to Martin's pejorative/polemical usage, likely even further away from clinical (or even "academic") usage.

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

In Sociology, there is a theory that categorizes churches as either a church, denomination, sect, or cult.

This is one of the definitions Peterson provided in that pdf you provided from his book. See this link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociological_classifications_of_religious_movements

That isn’t a clinical definition of cult. It is an academic and sociological definition. 

"Academic" usage is supposed to hew toward "clinical ("extremely objective and realistic; dispassionately analytic; unemotionally critical").

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

That is a completely different thing that what Walter Martin talks about, which is that cults are organizations that teach doctrines that will send their adherents to hell.

I quite agree.  That was, in fact, my point.  Hassan's usage of "cult" is not "clinical" (nor, for that matter, is it "academic").

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

In contrast to both of those is the definition that are used by both Steven Hassan and the expert witness you called, Dr. Cathleen Mann, Ph.D. For both Dr. Hassan and Dr. Mann, they were opposed to cults because of their psychological manipulation, not because of where they fell on some post-modern sociological spectrum or whether or not their adherents would go to hell.

Dr. Mann, unlike Hassan, uses "cult" in a clinical way.  She faults Hassan for his derivative and ad hoc and vague usage:

• "It is important to note that within his third book Hassan has added new ingredients to his definition of a cult. He claims in the first chapter that a cult uses (1) authoritarian leadership, (2) deception, and (3) destructive mind control. The title of his new book now mentions 'beliefs,' but this is not in his definition. It is troubling that a book was supposedly written to educate the public about cults would even enter into the area of 'beliefs,' when almost all cult educators and experts don’t focus on beliefs, but rather on harmful practices."
• "The definition of cult put forth by Mr. Hassan could be applied to many groups. He offers insufficient distinctions between what he considers a cult and what might be considered an ordinary group. The message in this book seems to be that Steve Hassan has somehow become the final arbiter who will define such things for everyone."
• "The BITE model he now proposes is so broad that it could be applied a very wide array of groups. What is troubling is that Hassan has not provided any guidelines to separate out the groups, which might warrant the cult label and those that do not. The BITE model, as now applied by Hassan, has become a kind of philosophic construct not grounded in facts, but rather theories, many of them borrowed from others."
• "This composite philosophical approach as now devised by Mr Hassan might be called 'Hassanology'. In the world of cults, Hassanology essentially depicts Steve Hassan as the ultimate saviour. He is a hammer, and there is an ever-expanding list of groups to be seen as nails."

Popular usage of "cult" is often, but not always, pejorative/polemical.  Here, Dr. Mann's usage was popular but still clinical, whereas Martin and Hassan are two peas in the same polemical/pejorative pod.

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Dr. Mann passed away a few years ago, but her obituary is really insightful on these issues.

Indeed. 

"Cathleen Mann, PhD, was a qualified expert witness in 15 states."  Hassan, meanwhile...

Dr. Mann was notably - and quite publicly - critical of Dr. Hassan on the very issue at hand.

Thanks,

-Smac

[The Nehor]

On 7/9/2024 at 8:04 PM, smac97 said:

The same "Philip G. Zimbardo" who crafted the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment?  

When people do this to your supporters you scream “ad hominem” endlessly.

Just thought I would point this out.

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

According to @smac97, we should learn about cults from Thinking Agenda LLC rather than Steven Hassan’s organization.

I have not said this.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

I don’t see how Mormonism and the missionary experience are any less cultish under this model compared to Hassan’s BITE model, and in any case there is a ton of overlap. But if this is his preferred model, we can analyze the Church this way. 

If you can find Dr. Mann providing an assessment of the Church, please post it.

Otherwise, I am not inclined to view her theories through the ugly, yellowed, cracked, distorted lens through which you train on our faith.

Thanks,

-Smac

[let’s roll]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

It's clear from reading that quote that the purpose is for all of the people involved to coordinate on convincing the missionary to stay.

Coming full circle to my There Is A Green Hill Far Away comment, while it may be clear to you that the purpose of the guidelines is to convince the missionary to stay, that’s not what the guidelines say and in my informal poll over the last 90 minutes of 2 AMHAs, one current MP, one former MP and one Family Services counselor who counsels missionaries, the SP hasn’t returned my call 🙂, none of them think that is the purpose.  They agree that the purpose of the guidelines and the intended result of the process is to help the missionary make an informed decision.  My calls did result in some interesting conversations.

My best to you.

 

[Rain]

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Do missionaries have open access to the internet?

 

My son came home in 2021 so I don't know how it is currently. Within the 7 or so years, especially 2019-2021, before that though it entirely depended on the mission president. Some MPs allowed Facebook and some didn't.   Some allowed Instagram and some didn't.   The same with other sites.  Some MPs allowed certain apps and some didn't.  Some sites were blocked even though they may have been practical in nature - for example for awhile the missionaries in this area could not access Google Docs for awhile.  My son was involved with some tech/media stuff so he got permission to do some things that others in his mission were not allowed to do.  Service missionaries can often access things proselyting missionaries could not.

Basically, one size does not fit all and I would assume that is still the case. 

[smac97]

20 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Quote

The same "Philip G. Zimbardo" who crafted the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment?  

When people do this to your supporters you scream “ad hominem” endlessly.

Noting Dr. Zimbardo's role in the creation of the Stanford Prison Experiment is a fair point to raise as regarding his credibility as an expert, his ethics, etc.

I am not saying Dr. Zimbardo's competency on ethics is question because he is male, or Italian, or any other irrelevant factor.  Rather, I question his competency based on his creation of the SPE.  The results of the experiment were pretty bad, and the cause of those bad results was . . . Dr. Zimbardo:

Quote

By the end of the study, the guards had won complete control over all of their prisoners and were using their authority to its greatest extent. One prisoner had even gone as far as to go on a hunger strike. When he refused to eat, the guards put him into solitary confinement for three hours (even though their own rules stated the limit that a prisoner could be in solitary confinement was only one hour). Instead of the other prisoners looking at this inmate as a hero and following along in his strike, they chanted together that he was a bad prisoner and a troublemaker. Prisoners and guards had rapidly adapted to their roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to dangerous and psychologically damaging situations. Zimbardo himself started to give in to the roles of the situation. He had to be shown the reality of the study by Christina Maslach, his girlfriend and future wife, who had just received her doctorate in psychology.^[14] Zimbardo reflects that the message from the study is that "situations can have a more powerful influence over our behaviour than most people appreciate, and few people recognize [that]."^[15]

At the end of the study, after all the prisoners had been released and the guards let go, everyone was brought back into the same room for evaluation and to be able to get their feelings out in the open towards one another. Ethical concerns surrounding the study often draw comparisons to the Milgram experiment, which was conducted in 1961 at Yale University by Stanley Milgram, Zimbardo's former high school friend.^[16] Zimbardo and Maslach married in 1972, a year after the study.^[17]

More recently, Thibault Le Texier of the University of Nice has examined the archives of the experiment, including videos, recordings, and Zimbardo's handwritten notes, and argued that "The guards knew what results the experiment was supposed to produce ... Far from reacting spontaneously to this pathogenic social environment, the guards were given clear instructions for how to create it ... The experimenters intervened directly in the experiment, either to give precise instructions, to recall the purposes of the experiment, or to set a general direction ...In order to get their full participation, Zimbardo intended to make the guards believe that they were his research assistants.".^[18] Since his original publication in French,^[19] Le Texier's accusations have been taken up by science communicators in the United States.^[20] In his book Humankind - a hopeful history (2020)^[21][22] historian Rutger Bregman points out the charge that the whole experiment was faked and fraudulent; Bregman argued this experiment is often used as an example to show people easily succumb to evil behavior, but Zimbardo has been less than candid about the fact that he told the guards to act the way they did. More recently, an APA psychology article reviewed this work in detail ^[23] and concluded that Zimbardo encouraged the guards to act the way they did, so rather than this behavior appearing on its own, it was generated by Zimbardo.

(Emphases added.)

If a doctor commits malpractice, and then thereafter presumes to speak as an "expert," it is not ad hominem to point to his malpractice so as to dispute his competency as an expert.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Analytics]

43 minutes ago, smac97 said:

No, I mean "clinical," as in "extremely objective and realistic; dispassionately analytic; unemotionally critical."

Okay, thank you for clarifying the definition you were using. 

Personally, I’m not a fan of the word “cult” using any definition, and the only reason I brought it into the conversation is because Hassan uses that word in the way he describes the way religions can potentially manipulate people, which is what this conversation is about.

43 minutes ago, smac97 said:

"Cathleen Mann, PhD, was a qualified expert witness in 15 states."  Hassan, meanwhile...

Great! I hereby stipulate that Cathleen Mann is more qualified to talk about cult mind control than Steven Hassan. I don’t really care; I’m not a Steven Hassan apologist, but if you’d like to go with Dr. Mann that’s great. Touché.

43 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Popular usage of "cult" is often, but not always, pejorative/polemical.  Here, Dr. Mann's usage was popular but still clinical...

Great! Using Dr. Mann’s model of cults, persuasion, and undue influence, which "has been accepted as a proper definition of undue influence in a court of law”, we should be looking at whether the group engages in:

• Manipulation
• Indoctrination
• Negation
• Deception

I think her points about Negation are important, and the inclusion of that is the only material think I see differently than Hassan’s. Another advantage of Mann’s model is that she calls it “indoctrination” rather than “thoughts”, but it is still a similar concept, and I think that Dr. Mann’s is more clear. 

Regarding “Manipulation,” the concept that started this thread, she says:

Manipulation refers to the act of influencing or controlling the thoughts, feelings, or behaviors of other people in order to achieve a desired outcome. It can take many forms, from subtle persuasion to more overt forms of coercion.

Manipulation can be used for both positive and negative purposes. For example, a skilled negotiator may use manipulation tactics to reach a win-win agreement that benefits both parties, while a con artist may use manipulation to deceive and defraud their victims.

Some common tactics used in manipulation include:

1. Emotional appeals: appealing to a person’s emotions, such as fear, guilt, or sympathy, in order to get them to do something.

2. Gaslighting: manipulating someone into doubting their own perceptions or memory of events, in order to gain control over them.

3. Isolation: cutting a person off from their support network, in order to make them more vulnerable to manipulation.

4. Flattery: using compliments or praise to make a person more receptive to the manipulator’s requests.

5. Threats: using fear of harm or punishment to control a person’s behavior.

It is important to be aware of the signs of manipulation and to set healthy boundaries in order to protect yourself from being manipulated. If you suspect that you or someone you know is being manipulated, it may be helpful to seek the assistance of a trusted friend, family member, or professional counselor. 

Note that she says “cults” exercise “undue influence” by “controlling the thoughts, feelings, or behaviors” of others. The overlap between this and the elements of Hassan’s model are stark. It’s amazing you think it is “clinical” to say a cult controls your "thoughts, feelings or behaviors,” but it is polemic to say cults control your Behaviors, the Information your are exposed to, your Thoughts, and your Emotions.

What is the difference? Why is one clinical and the other is not? Apparently “feelings” is a clinical word and “emotions” is not. 

In any case, this supports my original point better than the Hassan model, so thank you for bringing it to our attention. Reynolds doesn’t want to manipulate his kids, and in what I quoted above, Dr. Mann explains what “manipulation” is. Given that Reynolds didn’t want his kids to be manipulated, getting them away from Mormonism was exactly the right decision.

Whether Mormonism is also guilty of Indoctrination, Negation, and Deception are beyond the scope of my point, and the fact that they all reveal some cultishness (as defined by Dr. Mann), is outside the scope of what I wanted to talk about. 

Edited July 11, 2024 by Analytics

[Analytics]

30 minutes ago, let’s roll said:

Coming full circle to my There Is A Green Hill Far Away comment, while it may be clear to you that the purpose of the guidelines is to convince the missionary to stay, that’s not what the guidelines say and in my informal poll over the last 90 minutes of 2 AMHAs, one current MP, one former MP and one Family Services counselor who counsels missionaries, the SP hasn’t returned my call 🙂, none of them think that is the purpose.  They agree that the purpose of the guidelines and the intended result of the process is to help the missionary make an informed decision.  My calls did result in some interesting conversations.

That's great to hear, but I’d love to cross examine them with questions such as, “is the purpose to help them make what you think is the right decision, or is the purpose to help them make their own independent decision?"

In any case, I appreciate the data. I haven’t thought about the missionary program very much in years, and I know it is changing for the better.

[smac97]

7 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Okay, thank you for clarifying the definition you were using. 

Personally, I’m not a fan of the word “cult” using any definition, and the only reason I brought it into the conversation is because Hassan uses that word in the way he describes the way religions can potentially manipulate people, which is what this conversation is about.

Great! I hereby stipulate that Cathleen Mann is more qualified to talk about cult mind control than Steven Hassan. I don’t really care; I’m not a Steven Hassan apologist, but if you’d like to go with Dr. Mann that’s great. Touché.

Great! Using Dr. Mann’s model of cults, persuasion, and undue influence, which "has been accepted as a proper definition of undue influence in a court of law”, we should be looking at whether the group engages in:

• Manipulation
• Indoctrination
• Negation
• Deception

I think her points about Negation are important, and the inclusion of that is the only material think I see differently than Hassan’s. Another advantage of Mann’s model is that she calls it “indoctrination” rather than “thoughts”, but it is still a similar concept, and I think that Dr. Mann’s is more clear. 

Regarding “Manipulation,” the concept that started this thread, she says:

Manipulation refers to the act of influencing or controlling the thoughts, feelings, or behaviors of other people in order to achieve a desired outcome. It can take many forms, from subtle persuasion to more overt forms of coercion.

Manipulation can be used for both positive and negative purposes. For example, a skilled negotiator may use manipulation tactics to reach a win-win agreement that benefits both parties, while a con artist may use manipulation to deceive and defraud their victims.

Some common tactics used in manipulation include:

1. Emotional appeals: appealing to a person’s emotions, such as fear, guilt, or sympathy, in order to get them to do something.

2. Gaslighting: manipulating someone into doubting their own perceptions or memory of events, in order to gain control over them.

3. Isolation: cutting a person off from their support network, in order to make them more vulnerable to manipulation.

4. Flattery: using compliments or praise to make a person more receptive to the manipulator’s requests.

5. Threats: using fear of harm or punishment to control a person’s behavior.

It is important to be aware of the signs of manipulation and to set healthy boundaries in order to protect yourself from being manipulated. If you suspect that you or someone you know is being manipulated, it may be helpful to seek the assistance of a trusted friend, family member, or professional counselor. 

Note that she says “cults” exercise “undue influence” by “controlling the thoughts, feelings, or behaviors” of others. The overlap between this and the elements of Hassan’s model are stark. It’s amazing you think it is “clinical” to say a cult controls your "thoughts, feelings or behaviors,” but it is polemic to say cults control your Behaviors, the Information your are exposed to, your Thoughts, and your Emotions.

What is the difference? Why is one clinical and the other is not? Apparently “feelings” is a clinical word and “emotions” is not. 

In any case, this supports my original point better than the Hassan model, so thank you for bringing it to our attention. Reynolds doesn’t want to manipulate his kids, and in what I quoted above, Dr. Mann explains what “manipulation” is. Given that Reynolds didn’t want his kids to be manipulated, getting them away from Mormonism was exactly the right decision.

Whether Mormonism is also guilty of Indoctrination, Negation, and Deception are beyond the scope of my point, and the fact that they all reveal some cultishness (as defined by Dr. Mann), is outside the scope of what I wanted to talk about. 

Again, if you have a reference to Dr. Mann critiquing the Church, let's have it.  Otherwise, the the your neophyte "No, I'm not a psychologist, but I play one on TV" routine doesn't do much.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I think it would be great for prospective missionaries to hear from more than people pushing the mission experience. Call in former missionaries who decided to come in early and hear from them too. Add in people who decided not to go in the first place.  Invite them into the youth’s quorum meetings. 

I agree.  I do think hearing variety of voices from faithful members would be helpful,  At the very least, imo missionaries need to know just because they don’t love every part of their mission or perhaps any part of it doesn’t mean there is something wrong with them or what they are doing.  If they know ahead of time there may be struggles and massive dislike of some aspects of it (it would be so hard for me to eat at people’s homes, tracking, rigid schedule, but I would likely love the teaching and interaction), the difficulty won’t be inflated and unnecessarily stressful.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Noting Dr. Zimbardo's role in the creation of the Stanford Prison Experiment is a fair point to raise as regarding his credibility as an expert, his ethics, etc.

I am not saying Dr. Zimbardo's competency on ethics is question because he is male, or Italian, or any other irrelevant factor.  Rather, I question his competency based on his creation of the SPE.  The results of the experiment were pretty bad, and the cause of those bad results was . . . Dr. Zimbardo:

(Emphases added.)

If a doctor commits malpractice, and then thereafter presumes to speak as an "expert," it is not ad hominem to point to his malpractice so as to dispute his competency as an expert.

Thanks,

-Smac

No, you are correct that it is credible.

You just scream "ad hominem" any time I question the credibility of anyone even if it does make them less credible. Just pointing out your weird double standard.

Will yoink this for future discussions. Thanks.

Carry on.

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Again, if you have a reference to Dr. Mann critiquing the Church, let's have it. 

I don’t have a reference to Dr. Mann critiquing the Church.

Likewise, I don’t have a reference to Dr. Hassan critiquing the Church.

Dr. Mann has a model she calls the MIND model that explains to lay audiences how “cults” (her word) use “undue influence” to achieve their desired outcome.

Likewise, Dr. Hassan has a model he calls the BITE model that explains to lay audiences how cults use “cult mind control” to achieve their desired outcome.

I have accurately summarized Dr. Mann’s model in this thread.

I have accurately summarized Dr. Hassan’s model in this thread.

The models are almost identical.

To the extent the Church is a cult under Dr. Hassan’s model, it is also a cult under Dr. Mann’s model.

[Analytics]

13 hours ago, smac97 said:

Noting Dr. Zimbardo's role in the creation of the Stanford Prison Experiment is a fair point to raise as regarding his credibility as an expert, his ethics, etc.

I am not saying Dr. Zimbardo's competency on ethics is question because he is male, or Italian, or any other irrelevant factor.  Rather, I question his competency based on his creation of the SPE.  The results of the experiment were pretty bad, and the cause of those bad results was . . . Dr. Zimbardo:

(Emphases added.)

If a doctor commits malpractice, and then thereafter presumes to speak as an "expert," it is not ad hominem to point to his malpractice so as to dispute his competency as an expert.

Thanks,

-Smac

Years after the SPE, the 150,000 members of the American Psychological Association elected Dr. Philip Zimbardo to be the president of the association. 

Years after the SPE, Dr. Zimbardo's expert witness testimony was admitted into court regarding how the military manipulated soldiers.

Do you think you’ve examined his credibility as carefully and objectively as the judge who admitted his expert witness testimony?

 

Edited July 12, 2024 by Analytics

[ZealouslyStriving]

6 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Likewise, I don’t have a reference to Dr. Hassan critiquing the Church.

Fortunately, smac provided this for you earlier.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

4 hours ago, bluebell said:

Our stake has people who decided not to go speak sometimes at the Stake youth camps and conferences (or at least they did the last time I went to one).

And do they represent their decision not to go as a mistake or as the right decision for them?

[bluebell]

37 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

And do they represent their decision not to go as a mistake or as the right decision for them?

The right decision for them.  One presented it as what the Spirit told them to do.  I thought it was an awesome talk.

[Teancum]

17 hours ago, smac97 said:

This presupposes a static an commonly-understood and -accepted meaning of "cult like behavior."

I have long valued this interesting portion of Daniel C. Peterson's and Stephen D. Ricks' Offenders for a Word: How Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack the Latter-Day Saints: 

Mormonism as "Cult": The Limits of Lexical Polemics

An excerpt:

Not knowing your son, it is difficult to ascertain whether he is using "cult" for its popular (that is to say, pejorative / polemical) sense, such as is described above, or for its clinical, objective, academic sense.  

Of the "necessity" of the purported "cult like behavior" obviates that negativeness of that behavior?

Is this one of those the ends justify the means sort of things?  Or do you (and/or your son) believe that "cult like behavior" is not intrinsically bad, and must be examined within its own context?

For example, I found Basic Training to be an understandably necessary "crash course" to re-orient young trainees away from whatever lifestyle and behavioral systems they came from, and directed toward life as enlisted men in the U.S. Army (my Basic Training was in 1991, when it was still sex-segregated).

18 months later, I found the MTC to also be an understandably necessary "crash course" to re-orient young men and women away from whatever lifestyle and behavioral systems they came from, and directed toward life as missionaries representing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I found neither to be inherently immoral or coercive environments.  Everyone had volunteered.

No doubt.  The Marines are, I understanding, considerably more hard core than the other branches.

I am curious if other Marines believe they are a "cult."

Thanks,

-Smac

On second thought I think I ought not delve into the topic of my Marine son's view on the military.  Given he is still serving airing things that may reflect negatively  on a public message board does not seem prudent.  

One comment about your opinions on whether Mormonism is a cult or employees cult like mind control tactics, those in a cult are usually the last to realize they are in a cult and admitting such things is a hard task.  Volunteering to do something with an organization does not negate that organization from being a cult or using cult like tactics.  

IMO I do not classify Mormonism as a cult but I do think it uses mind and behavioral control techniques that could be classified as cult like method. Cult like, or mind and behavioral control techniques can be fond in all sorts of organizations and even relationships. 

 

Edited July 12, 2024 by Teancum