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Showing content with the highest reputation on 04/11/2021 in Posts

  1. Thanks for the link, Penworks that is a very engrossing paper you wrote; I think you still have an overstuffed quiver of arrows to arm folks against harmful cults – if we were talking a superhero franchise your Undertow book is like an origin story, only the beginning – so hopefully more books are in the works . Here’s a few of the things your paper got me thinking about...You wrote: “…cult leaders use symbols to control followers and how we can break the power of those symbols. As an example, I’ll use The Way International,™ the fundamentalist cult I escaped in 1987. High-control groups like The Way use insignias, catch-phrases, and other imagery to recruit, manipulate, and retain believers. These emotionally charged symbols contribute to how hard it is for followers to leave the cults that captured them. Understanding what a cult’s symbols mean, and the ways they affect followers, can contribute to cult recovery.” I’ve never really given much thought to the power of symbolism – so your paper inspired me to look further into it. One thing I found was an article titled “Symbols are short cuts for our brain” which starts off “We are surrounded by symbols, they are woven into society so inextricably that we don’t even notice them. And yet everyday we see them, understand them and they guide our behaviour. Tricky little devils. The Changing Minds Organisation explains, “Symbols are communications that have specific meaning. Usually visual, symbols act as communication short-cuts that convey one or more messages that have been previously learned by both the sender and the recipient.” (from Thoughts drawn out website – symbols are short cuts for our brains ) You talked about traditional religions use of symbols compared to what cults use – like the cross, reminding Christians of Jesus’ sacrificial death. I remember one TWI leader explaining why the ministry doesn’t have any crucifixes around – he said the cross focused on the means of Jesus’ death and went on to ridicule that notion by saying what if he was killed by a machine gun – would everyone wear a little golden machine gun around their neck? Thinking back on that now is a real mindblower of how cults can treacherously subvert traditional symbols – because it ignores and minimizes the meaning of his death. Another point you made resonated profoundly with me. You wrote: “Emotions and creativity were abused. Emotions were constricted and creativity was enlisted for propaganda. Emotional and sexual abuse often proliferated because we were told our feelings did not matter and could not be trusted; only The Word mattered.” I’ve shared this on Grease Spot elsewhere - before I went into the way corps I was fairly involved with a band made up of way believers – we wrote most of our own songs, made cassette tapes and played at ministry coffee houses. Fast forward to when I was in residence at Rome City and allowed to pick up my instruments again. I submitted for approval a song to the assistant way corps coordinator that I hoped our in-residence band could perform in the chapel. Admittedly my song was already chock-full of TWI-propaganda – but the assistant corps coordinator with a knack for moving the goalpost critiqued my song in front of the rest of the band all the verses that needed revising – I guess it wasn’t propaganda-enough for him... I was so flabbergasted and never did comply and so I dropped the whole thing...Oh well… but ultimately this incident led to their loss and my gain. I never attempted to write another song promoting TWI’s ideology. I think the incident caused one of the biggest rifts in my TWI-belief system…perhaps the beginning of the end to cult tyranny in my life. If it was made into a cheesy music video – it would be like one of those stories about a musician who refused to sellout to commercialism.
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  2. Ever think about how being regularly faced with symbols in TWI like the old official logo of a globe with PFAL written on it, and hearing slogans such as "The Word over the World" and "The accuracy of God's Word" over and over and over ... helped VPW gain power over us? I have. A few years ago, I thought about this so much that I submitted it as a topic for a paper I could present at an annual cultic studies conference sponsored by ICSA (mentioned above): their international conference, 2017, in Bordeaux, France. They accepted it, and I delivered it. After my session, you can be sure I totally enjoyed a wine tour through the countryside with my husband :-) To read my paper, "Breaking the Power of Cult Symbols" click here. Cheers.
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