by Dr. Janja Lalich | Sep 14, 2016 | Cults: The Basics, Essays
Cultic Techniques for Changing Someone In present-day thought-reform programs, there is an attack on the core self, the person’s central self-image. Attacking the inner person, the self, makes the person feel defective at his or her very core. In groups that use...
by Dr. Janja Lalich | Sep 14, 2016 | Blog, Essays
I was recruited into a cult in 1975 when I was thirty years old. The previous year I returned to the United States after having spent almost four years in exile abroad, where I lived the most serene life on an island in the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain. If...
by Dr. Janja Lalich | Sep 14, 2016 | Cults: The Basics, Essays
Eight Psychological Criteria for a Thought-Reform System This list is based on the work of Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., author of Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism (W.W. Norton, 1961). MILIEU CONTROL: The group controls all communication and information, which...
by Dr. Janja Lalich | Sep 14, 2016 | Cults: The Basics, Essays
How Cults Manipulate a Person’s Thinking and Behavior Many people who have been subjected to psychological manipulation and control selectively deny aspects of their experience. Some become angry and resistant at the mention of mind control, thought reform, or...
by Dr. Janja Lalich | Sep 14, 2016 | Cults: The Basics, Essays
Definition of “Cult”: A cult can be either a sharply-bounded social group or a diffusely-bounded social movement held together through shared commitment to a charismatic leader. It upholds a transcendent belief system (often but not always religious in...
by Dr. Janja Lalich | Sep 14, 2016 | Blog, Essays
Inside and Outcast This article, authored by Janja Lalich and Karla McLaren, was published in the Journal of Homosexuality. It is based on a research project that examined narratives of gay and lesbian former Jehovah’s Witnesses. Click on the link at the...
