My temperature is 99.3. Sometimes I don't feel like I have one and am surprised to learn that I do, and other times I feel crumby but end out not having a fever, so since I've been fighting this apparent virus since December I haven't been able to predict when I have a fever or not.
Meanwhile I worked more on laundry, washed the dishes and puttered around in the garden a bit. I have one more definite cucumber on the way (you'd think I was getting ready to give birth or something).
I also think there might be a squash starting on one of my hubbard squash plants. The funny thing about that is that since I have very limited land to work with (just what's on either side of my entryway door), I've built this network of posts and strings for the cucumber and squash plants to grown on. I've been sort of afraid that I might have a squash start to grow 3 feet off the ground or something and then I'd have to figure out a way to support it so that it could grow to maturity. The thing is that hubbard squashes can be 10 to 15 lbs! The one that I think might be starting now is right on top of my window air conditioner unit! I guess there are worse places it could be. I'll have to take some pictures one of these days to show you.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand...
***
These next quotes are from this article:
Lynn, R. (1966). Brainwashing techniques in leadership and child rearing. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 5(4), p. 270-273.
***
"It used to be thought that brainwashing techniques for manipulating the beliefs of others were the sole prerogative of sinister interrogators behind the iron curtain. This view received something of a jolt from Sargant (1957), who argued that the essentials of the method - which lie in arousing anxiety in the victim and then offering an escape from it - are used by a variety of practitioners in the west, notably policemen, certain religious leaders, and psychoanalysts." (p. 270)
I remember those good ol' naive days, for me they were ante-Vienna, for psychologists it was ante-Sargant. At least the psychologists presumably didn't have to experience it first hand (but they may have been the ones using it, presumably for benevolent ends).
This experience of arousal of anxiety with the concomitant offer of relief sounds a lot like the socialization process in Vienna. The newcomer ends out having problems at work which make her feel inadequate and somehow at fault, although (in my experience) they are verbally assured their worries are unfounded, all while the problems continue. Finally, the person begins to discuss with her boss her feelings of inadequacy and that eventually leads to wise and loving council that helps the newcomer rise up from what Lynn calls "anxiety in the victim" and begin to grow spiritually while becoming all the while more useful to the mission.
In this scenario, according to my experience, the inadequacy/anxiety is artificial and engineered so that that the person can be properly socialized into the group.
***
In talking about Pavlovian classical behavior therapy, Lynn has this to say:
"[Classical behaviour theory] is simply that learning and and performance are greatly facilitated if there is both a drive and a reinforcement. The brainwasher provides both in his dual role: as a threatener he induces the drive (anxiety); as protector and friend he provides the reinforcement (anxiety-reduction)." (p. 271)
I remember first learning about Pavlov and his dogs in junior high and the teacher mentioning that you could actually use it to get something you want from your parents. I don't think I ever consciously used it, but that stuck with me. I wonder if the leadership in Vienna, even some of them, think consciously along these lines? They are an unusually educated bunch (the secretaries were the least educated; I think everyone else had at least a master's degree).
As my time in Vienna wore on I got fewer and fewer of the anxiety-reduction treatment.
***
"At an empirical level a case has been made out for the universality of the brainwashing law: a superior moulds the behaviour of an inferior most effectively by adopting the dual role of threatener and protector, that is to say by using the alternating signals technique of the brainwasher." (p. 272)
I wish I knew what some of the leadership were thinking in the process of how I was treated there. I think that they did use these methods though. They were also versed in techniques of East Bloc police, border patrols, etc. and knew how to effectively deal with them and try to avoid trouble while in East Bloc countries. So maybe this was part of training newbies experientially in this kind of thing. Or that could be part of it anyway.
I don't know that I'm a representative case, but from what I know of what was going on in Vienna, I think they did use both the threatener and protector roles, but the threatener role was used very benignly as long as you were reasonably moving along in the socialization process. If not it would get harsher and more and more predominant vis a vis the protector role.
Since I don't think I ever left the initial socialization stage in Vienna, I don't know so much about relations after that process is basically finished. I do know, however, that they could come together as a unified body in censoring an individual if need be. That would be me (the censored individual) I'm referring to specifically.
***
It really helped me and does still to find literature that could help explain what I was experiencing. It helped me try to find some concrete facts to validate my experience and sort out my thoughts about it. Apart from that the emotional could just take over, so these kinds of theoretical pinnings gave me something to hang my hat from, so to speak. It's hard to describe what a relief that is now and was when I was initially doing this research.
Enjoy the rest of your day...
~ Meg
Saturday, August 7, 2010
36. Cults & Brainwashing File, Pt. 5 (Sargant, pt. 1) (Was: More Articles)
After a good night's sleep I'm raring to go; I hope you are too! There's a fair amount still to go on this topic, but I'd like to finish it before going on to something else.
***
These next quotes are from this book:
Sargant, W. (1957). Battle of the Mind. Doubleday: Garden City, NY.
***
Chapter 5: Techniques of Religious Conversion
"By increasing or prolonging stresses in various ways, or inducing physical debilitation, a more thorough alteration of the person's thinking processes may be achieved. The immediate effect of such treatment is usually to impair judgment and increase suggestibility." (p. 92)
Socialization was taken pretty seriously at the mission in Vienna and I suspect that in the relatively short history of that organization I was one of the more difficult they had to work with. Of course, they did have the added advantage of having available to it the resources and experience of the 15 member missions, and there may have been one or more of those that had experience with cases like me. However, it still is not clear their intentions regarding how they treated me, whether it was to induct me into their fold or to get rid of me because of my father.
At any rate, the difficulties I faced in working with them increased over time, and they had 2 years to work their magic with me, which seems to me a relatively long period of time.
***
"But successful 'brain-washing' also demands the rousing of strong emotions, and these need not have particular relevance to the new faith, provided that they are sufficiently disruptive." (p. 102, same chapter)
Although I haven't used section of the previous sources dealing with this, it seems to be a common theme that emotions are key to religious conversions, and cults use this well. In my case, it is not "conversion" in the sense of conversion to a different faith that was sought, but conversion to the group's norms, values and ways of doing things.
In a real sense there was a surprise factor in this, because at least part of how I ended out with that group is because I agree with their theology, so who'd have guessed that their values and norms were so apparently divergent from those of the churches back home? It's not like walking into a cult meeting where you expect to find differences from your historical background.
Emotion was also used in the way social ties were formed, creating a sense of mutual (Christian/brotherly/sisterly) love for one another and a sense of share mission and the importance of the work. Also, admissions of "failings" and "erroneous" ways of thinking (according to their standards) were welcomed (generally in private discussions) and efforts to assist in overcoming such "sins" (by their standards) were handled lovingly and with the ostensible aim of helping the initiate become a "better" (by their standards) person.
In other words, there was a lot by way of emotional things going on there, and these things served, in diverse ways, to bond the novice ever closer to the group.
Some of these emotional gymnastics bound the person in a positive way to the group, some did so in a negative way, and some things had the potential to bind either positively or negatively. For example, admissions of "failings", for example, could bind the person to the group by making the person see how the group (or particular representative individuals in the group) can be trusted with private information and how that person helps overcome these personal problem areas, resulting in a sense of gratitude and, perhaps, debt owed to the person/group. But this could also be a negative bond if the initiate felt threatened with divulsion of these secrets or that these admissions would be used in ways not otherwise beneficial to the confessor. [These kinds of relations involving confessions were common with the secretaries, but they were probably also used with others.] Things that would just have been positive include sharing of collective and individual victories at group meetings, the creation of group memories, and the like.
Since we're talking about Christian groups here that claim to hold the Bible as their highest standard, I think it's fair to hold them accountable to that standard, and no matter what you call this, I don't think there's any room for this kind of (intentional) social and personal engineering. As we have seen, however, there may be other standards that likewise condemn this kind of treatment.
***
"The best way to avoid possession, conversion, and all similar conditions is to avoid getting emotionally involved in the proceedings. Too fierce an anger or contempt for the voodoo priest, or for the religious snake handler, may be as dangerous as to quake with fear when one or the other inaugurates a meeting." (p. 109, same chapter).
Of course, we're not dealing with snake handlers or other such groups in Vienna, but I think the premise of staying detached (that's my interpretation of "avoid getting emotionally involved...") also holds water in the Vienna situation. It's not that I wasn't at all affected by what has happening to me and around me at the mission, but I think I did for a long time take everything pretty much in stride and go along with the flow. It's almost like I was calling their bluff, seeing how far they'd go. But I was shocked when I really saw how far they'd go and it really shook me up to my very core and I guess somewhere about that time when I really became convinced that they were using the "enemy's" tactics (similar tactics to how believers were treated in the USSR) was when I realized what a behemoth I was facing. And if I was shocked, it's really scary to think that no one else will believe me either. But I just went along with the changing game rules, offices, responsibilities, etc. With each change I tried my best to do a good job, be a good employee, even take initiative at improvements in the position. I took them at face value, rather than responding to the insinuations and innuendos which I think really belied the truth about what was going on.
In the end, though, this tactic didn't work. It's as if I was at a 2-year snake handler meeting going through the motion of standing or sitting, singing or praying according to what was called for in the program at any particular time, but not getting emotionally wrapped up in it. But at some point maybe it's just best to leave. But I felt like that was my only chance for missions in that part of the world because, well, there were 15 of some of the most influential missions there, and it was not at all clear at that point that there were any missions that operated differently in that part of the world, and my experience in Vienna might have black-listed me anyway. And never being exactly sure what was going on, made things even more fuzzy. So the fulfillment of my life dream demanded that I stay there, even if I couldn't go along with what they were doing. This might sound irrational on a certain level, but I really had poured my life into preparing for this work and there I was in this horrible situation.
It is scary, which is why I'm dancing all around it and going through so much in the lead up to what happened in Vienna. You won't have so much trouble believing my experiences in the USSR/Russia because, well that the USSR/Russia, and those kinds of things happen there, right? But not in the good ole' pristine US of A! Whoa, no way, not on your life. Yes, on your life. I'm here to tell you that they do happen.
I don't know how many other people were able or motivated to play along with the socialization shenanigans (assuming that's what it was in my case), but I think you'd have to have a bit of knowledge background to be able to do it in the first place. There was one secretary who'd sort of seen a lot of life, but I don't think she particularly knew anything out of the run of the mill popular knowledge about the East Bloc. She might not have had the same convictions I did either about right and wrong.
***
I finished my morning stimulator and got breakfast. And while I was doing that I got to thinking that I shouldn't have gotten so sarcastic about people's blinders about the USA vs. the USSR/Russia. I honestly don't have much patience for such thinking, but perhaps the sarcasm was not especially appropriate there.
***
Chapter 6: Applications of Religious Techniques
"The personality can react only along limited lines to all environmental changes and to a life full of stresses. If stress be severe enough, the most secure and stable personality can show symptoms of anxiety, hypochondria, depression, hysteria, suspiciousness, excitement, anger or aggressiveness, and the list is then almost complete." (pp. 123-124)
If you doubt this statement I suggest you ignore any instructions you might come across for stress management. Also, if this is not true, that the life stress test is probably also invalid (cp. http://www.cliving.org/lifestresstestscore.htm).
Also, while we're on this topic, maybe I'll share this here so that it doesn't get overlooked. When I was out doing deputation (about 15 months 1986-1987) my primary care doctor, a long-time family doctor told me that I really can handle a lot of stress. I believe my Mom was at that appointment (although I don't know why, because I was by then in my mid-20s). The past few years I have consistently rated well over 300 on this life stress test, but have not had a nervous breakdown. I have proof of that, but I'm not ready to go there yet.
But let's have on the record that at least one social scientist (the author of this book) thinks that even otherwise bulwarks of stability can break down given enough stressors. And the discussion here (in the book and also regarding Vienna) is regarding intentionally induced stress, not the kind of life stressors provided in the life stress test that just happen by virtue of living and breathing in this imperfect world.
***
"We see then that religious excitement may exist without religious knowledge." (p. 132).
In the Vienna context we're not talking about "religious" excitement and knowledge, but excitement and knowledge vis a vis the work of the mission. As I understand this, it's a kind of blind, almost unthinking acceptance of the mission / religion. I think that's exactly what the mission in Vienna would have liked. After all, for the sake of the secretive ministry it was in (to "closed" countries) no one person could know everything about the mission anyway, so there had to be a faith that even without requisite knowledge there was complete faith in the mission, and therefore also the leaders and a believe in its work, including its modus operandi. Emotional bonding, irregardless of knowledge and facts, and identity with the mission was required so that the mission cold function with such a fractured, departmentalized information base. This left the leadership a lot of leeway, and only as you proved yourself trustworthy with at first inconsequential bits of information and then increasingly more meaningful and central knowledge would you work your way up and into the heart of the organization, although how high up and inward had its limits too depending on your role in the mission at any given time.
Therefore, under such circumstances, emotional bonding and trust had to practically come before knowledge. So this citation fits how the Vienna mission operated, if you consider it regarding the initiate already in the organization instead of how to gain new converts. Since I never was, evidently, trusted, I never had any (or much) reliable knowledge of any import, so had to go pretty much on emotion and emotional bonding, and inuendos and insinuations, which was like walking on quick sand: very unstable.
***
Chapter 7: Brain-Washing in Religion and Politics
"The evidence marshaled in Chapters 5 and 6 shows how various types of belief can be implanted in people, after brain function has been sufficiently disturbed by accidentally or deliberately induced fear, anger, or excitement. Of the results caused by such disturbances, the most common one is temporarily impaired judgment and heightened suggestibility. Its various group manifestations are sometimes classed under the heading of 'herd instinct,' and appear most spectacularly in wartime, during severe epidemics, and in all similar periods of common danger, which increase anxiety and so individual and mass suggestibility." (p. 145)
In the context of Vienna, the "common danger" was the enemy to the East, the harbinger of all ill intent to Christians (and other believers) of all stripes. But the enemy does not just hide himself behind the iron curtain, but also sends emissaries of destruction out into the West, especially Vienna, to wreak havoc among and topple the life-bringing work of missions such as ours.
Okay, that was a little dramatic, but you get the picture and that does bring in a bit of the attitude of the time towards The Red Scare.
So we were rallied together against this common enemy and were willing to put aside our usual critical thinking abilities to rally together for The Cause. Well, most of us were willing to do that. I'm not sure if I was the only one unwilling to completely trust the mission's benign intent towards me, as an individual, but I couldn't get myself to do that.
I think part of the problem was that I already had a history not just of some knowledge of the East and some experience there as well (but certainly not as much experience as the veterans in the mission), but also a history of questioning missions. I won't go into that now, but it was a bit of a process to finally (and, evidently, mistakenly) decide on the mission I did. That process involved questioning certain things about missions in that part of the world.
I might not have been a ready candidate for indoctrination into the world according to the mission, but I did feel the effects of (mission-induced) stress.
***
Today is laundry day and I had to take a little break to start on that. I want to at least finish this book though.
***
"The most kindly, generous, and humane of men have in fact been conditioned, throughout history, to commit acts which appear horrifying in retrospect to those who ahve been differently conditioned. Many otherwise sensible people cling to strange and cruel views merely because these have been firmly implanted in their brains at an early age, and they can no more be disabused of them by argument than could the generation that still insisted on the flatness of the earth, though it had been circumnavigated on several occasions." (p. 146-147).
How did the mission wind up the way it did? And since organizations are comprised of individuals, it then begs the question as to how these individuals, especially the leadership, wound up like they did? What sort of mental gymnastics did they have to go through to justify what seemed to me to be very wrong in their actions and approaches to organizational functioning? What kind of logic allowed them to operate as they did? What was the process that led to what I witnessed and experienced in Vienna? I wish I knew the answers to these questions and could tell you, but I don't. Like you, I can only surmise possible answers and scenarios, but I don't really know either.
What was going on there at that Vienna mission may not have been the worst thing ever as far as church malfeasance is concerned, but it was still hard for me to believe and I never expected anyone else to really believe me either. How it got that way was even further beyond my comprehension.
***
Here's something really scary...
"With their variety of temperaments, it was found that breakdown or dramatic change in patterns of behavior in animals could be caused, not only by increasing the strength of stimulus applied, but in three other important ways.
1. One could prolong the time between the giving of a preliminary signal and the giving or withholding of food or an unexpected electric shock; the prolongation of a state of tension and expectancy was found to be very disturbing. The result was protective inhibition, which might rapidly become 'transmarginal,' with chaotic effects on brain function.
2. One could alter behavior patterns by confusing the brain if positive and negative food-conditioning signals follow one another rapidly and are not followed by the expected food or shock. Most animals seemed to be able to adjust, within limits, to what they expected; but experienced great difficulty in coping with the unforeseen.
3. If all these means fail to produce alteration or breakdown one can resort to physical debilitation, fevers, etc., which are effective when the same stimuli are later repeated." (p. 147)
Regarding the first method, I was repeatedly given reason to believe, even by direct admission, that the mission had this or that great plan for me, and they would commend me on one thing or another to seemingly back this up. But nothing much ever materialized. There might have been token follow-through, such as move to a better office (unaccompanied by more meaningful work), and these little token moves were enough to leave me hanging. But as things went on, there got to be more and more negative signals, direct or otherwise.
As to the second approach, I remember this as being especially confusing and detrimental to my coping in the situation. But I see this not so much as isolated, although it might be somewhat helpful to point it out on its own right, as part of the huge ambiguity that I faced there. It was really the only time in my life that I've felt such tremendous ambiguity and uncertainty as to what was really going on and what was what. Towards the end I was sidelined enough that it was hard for me to figure out who was in what position even as things seemed to, at least on the surface, be shuffled around so much. That ambiguity was very horrible, and I'll deal with that when eventually I discuss articles in a different file.
***
This next citation is in the context of a discussion of Jonathan Edwards, the famous early American preacher, and his practice of inducing guilt to convert people, which sometimes drove someone "already suffering from religious melancholia" (p. 150) to suicide.
"So occasional cases of suicide and insanity had to be put to the debit side of his conversion ledger..." (p. 151)
I felt like this when I left Vienna, that I was just a 'casualty of war', but the war must go on... these kinds of things are among the types of risks one takes in this kind of ministry. I'm putting words in the mouths of the workers (and especially the leaders) in Vienna. Whether there actions towards me were just a part of their standard modus operandi (or with the realm of possibility given cases like myself), or whether it was because I was the daughter of my dad and they had to find an indirect way to get me out of there, or a combination or the two, they could have taken the perspectives I hypothesize here.
***
"In brain-washing and the eliciting of confessions, the psychological importance of inducing a sense of guilt and conflict can hardly be overemphasized. The prisoner may be bombarded with accusations and continually cross-examined until anxiety confuses him and he contradicts himself on some small point. This is then used as a stick to beat him with; presently his brain ceases to function normally, and he collapses. In a subsequent highly suggestible state, with old thought patterns inhibited, he may readily sign and deliver the desired confession." (p. 154)
This describes, as it seems to me, applies most directly to prisoner of war camps and corrupt police interrogations, but I think there's also a parallel in the context I was working in in Vienna. I'm not sure if this is true for the male induction process, but at least for the female secretaries (all the secretaries were female, but not all the working women were secretaries) and at least some of the female spouses (there weren't any married working women at the mission, so there were no male spouses of workers - homosexuals would not have been part of the work because of the theological beliefs of the organization) and possibly some of the wives the use confessor-confessee relationship was used pretty effectively, as the benevolent mentor assisted the novice out of the quagmire of sin and ignorance into the light and spiritual growth and maturity befitting an effective and trustworthy member of the group.
The negative part of accusations and the like was much more subtle, nothing like what is suggested in this quote. In my experience it was handled in private and was a matter of the strictest confidence. Generally the aim seemed to be to engender complete, unguarded trust in the inductee rather than to break her down interrogation-style. However, there are also different styles of interrogation, and this could fit one of them. I think I come to this also in another text in a different folder.
If a "confession" could be garnered, then the relationship could evolve to complete mutual trust, but without this confession such a relationship was stymied. That's how it appeared to me... as it related to the secretaries there.
***
This next citation follows a fairly lengthy discussion about how the religious conversion tactics discussed in the book have also been applied in political contexts:
"The Chinese Communists spread their gospel by similar methods. They had had the sense to avoid a purely intellectual approach, and to arouse political anger by continually reporting and emphasizing the United States' hostile attitudes towards the new China." (p. 160)
At first glance this text seems hardly to apply to the situation in Vienna, but it does sort of in a round about way. What I want to say about this text is that this is the kind of thinking vis a vis the East Bloc Communist governments that kept us (and the supporters back home, too) aroused in a special sense of us vs. them guardedness and urgency and importance of mission. Without this common view of the enemy I think a lot of what happened in Vienna would not have happened because, 1) the people back home would have demanded more transparency; and 2) it bonded us more closely together against a common enemy, and not just a religious "enemy", but also a very real political one.
***
Continuing in the same vein in his discussion:
"Fear of continued civil war, or foreign intervention, or both, convinced the Chinese Communist leaders that they must use shock tactics to convert the masses. A more intellectual approach migh have resulted in a more stable type of conversion, but it would have taken dangerously long, and been consummated only with the gradual dying off of those brought up in the old ways of thought, and the growing up of the children educated in the new. To make a new China overnight, emotional disruption was essential; and so effective were the methods used that thousands killed themselves in despair, a sense of guilt artificially implanted in them being so strong that they felt unworthy to accept the proffered Communist salvation; leaving the more resilient millions to dance, dance, dance for joy at their liberation from millenniary bondage - until they learned to termble at the periodic visits of the Household Police who now keep a dossier on the history and activities of every household." (p. 163; Remember, this was written in 1957).
You could say that the process of socialization into the work in Vienna was also under some time constraints, although not exactly like those facing the entire country of China.
In a sense all places of employment want their new employees to become fully functional members of their crew as quickly as possible. But few employers have the "luxury" of being able to require virtually the whole of the person (24/7, all aspects of their life, etc.) be under their tutelage and care. To garner such a comprehensive relationship in a short time with the new member, who wasn't even hired directly by the mission, but by a separate member mission who had handled the initial induction process until the person's arrival in Vienna, it was advantageous to use emotional sensibilities at least as a starting point. The usual 2 year commitment, as mine was also, goes by quickly and the bulk of that time needed to be spent productively; hence the time constraints.
I don't know that there was a mission equivalent to the Chinese Household Police... the similarities only go so far. I think (though I can't say I'm 100% sure) that once you're past the trust test and you're "in" and don't do anything really stupid, there's not exactly a police/spy system set up to monitor you, but I do think there is a (formal, informal or both) system of accountability within the mission. Since I never got that far, I can't really speak with any certainty about this, but I do think there was some type of mutual accountability even once you passed the initial trust test. I suspect that this mostly felt pretty benign though, unless you somehow did something out of line.
***
In this next section Sargant discusses how China trains those who lead indoctrination groups.
"This special training course usually lasts from nine to twelve months, and the same general program is everywhere used, though with variations that allow for intellectual level of the trainee. [Richard L. Walker, in China Under Communism] describes the six factors present throughout the period of training. First, the training takes place in a special area or camp, which almost completely severs all ties with the trainees' families and former friends; and facilitates the breakup of old behavior patterns.
'A second constant factor is fatigue. Students are subjected to a schedule which maintains physical and mental fatigue throughout the training. There is no opportunity for relaxation or reflection; they are occupied with memorizing great amounts of theoretical material and are expected to employ the new terminology with facility. Coupled with the fatigue is a third constant: tension.... Uncertainty is a fourth factor throughout the process... Trainees who conspicuously fail to comprehend the camp pattern in the first few weeks disappear overnight, and there is usually a well-sown rumour concerning their fate.... A fifth constant factor is the use of vicious language.... The final factor is the seriousness attached to the whole process. Humour is forbidden.' p. 58 (p. 165-166)
Not all of these things apply to the Vienna context, but some do. I'll take them in order:
1. I've already touched a bit on isolation from friends and families, and I don't know that there's much more to say about that, except that contact that is continued is expected to support the mission's desired image and to further the mission's work, such as by promoting a good p.r. base for the mission.
2. I don't think I really experienced fatigue, but it may well be that someone coming to the work in Vienna with much less experience abroad than me might find it very fatiguing to just orient herself to living there and setting up life there. For me I pretty much started out running, although there were a few technical things, like how and where to register as a resident once you arrived there, that I needed help with. So I wouldn't be surprised if the initial regimen I experienced there might have been fatiguing to someone else. It wasn't to me though. I wasn't given much settle-in time before I was expected to begin work though.
3. I actually didn't feel the tension until after I met the full fury of the mission, which was several months into my being there. That was probably a function of my not allowing myself to be totally under their tutelage. I'm sure that other new-comers probably experienced initial tension, though, if the mission was the only thing they knew in this strange new world.
4. Now the 4th one really hits home. I've sometimes wondered what was said about me. Was I held up as a negative example? Did my experience serve as a threat to anyone else like me who might come along? Some things I wrote in my journal the year after returning home from Vienna made me wonder even more about how the mission (and all 15 of the member missions?) responded to me afterward and what lessons, if any, were learned by the mission's relationship with me.
At any rate, initially I appeared to "fail to comprehend the camp pattern" at first, but later on I really and truly did not understand as things there became more and more ambiguous and it became harder and harder for me to make heads or tails of what was really going on there.
5. I don't think there was any "vicious language" in Vienna. I would be surprised to learn there was, but then again, after what I experienced maybe I wouldn't be surprised. At any rate, I didn't know of any use of vicious language or the threat of it.
6. On the surface of things, there was certainly humour and good-naturedness that permeated the work in Vienna, and anything negative was explained as being intended to be helpful, as a loving parent or tough love or something along those lines.
However, I also think that the humour belied how serious they were of certain things. I tended to take them at face value, though, and respond to that rather than any apparent insinuation. By doing so I was, in effect, indicating a a noncomprehension of "the camp pattern". That's how I see it anyway.
***
Continuing on in this vein, Sargant describes the trainees in these Chinese groups had to write detailed autobiographies and diaries. In speaking of these he says:
"Such detailed confessions then became public property, and they could be used by directors in finding a 'sore spot' to work upon." (p. 166)
I don't know if this was widespread or not in Vienna, but I sometimes felt like they knew a lot about me, mainly things they could have known from my work with the Slavic Gospel Association, who was one of the founding 5 missions that started our mission. These things were always nebulous, though, and it was never clear if this was really so or not, although it's possible I'll find something in my journals or correspondence that says otherwise; I'm just starting to do that as I write this blog.
***
"An important part of the process is the stimulation of fear and doubt. Shall he tell all to his group? If so, will it then be used against him? The trainee has to wrestle silently and alone with all these anxieties and conflicts, until he finally breaks down and decides to confess all; and this is the beginning of his end as an individual." (p. 167).
I don't know how many people at the mission there went through this kind of struggle, and some may well have gone through something like it in work with their sending mission prior to being sent to joint mission. I think, though, that most relations in life don't require this kind of complete trust and for inductees unfamiliar with it and not expecting this kind of thing, it may have been very difficult.
I think I wasn't phased by this kind of thing because I didn't feel like I was lost in a new world without the mission, even though my career was dependent on them, in a very real sense. After a while I thought that my relationship with the mission was tenuous enough that I wasn't sure that they wouldn't really use information about me for my detriment. I'm not sure that was very common though. They did have information about me that could easily serve as a hammer against me, which is at least partially why I haven't written about this before and why it still feels so risky.
[As an aside here, you may wonder why I then find it so necessary to write about my life. That's really a good question and there are several reasons. One is I think people should know about what went on in those missions and even though the world has changed and the specific people in specific positions have changed, I would be surprised if this kind of thing weren't still happening in missions working in "closed" countries. Also, it's hard to life a life where you feel like no one understand you, and I've been through so many things that that's how it feels. By writing about my life that's not a guarantee that I will all of a sudden be understood, and even if I were understood the emotional reaction might not be kindly. But since I don't believe in the use of force, I have to give you the right to come to your own conclusions.]
***
This book is taking longer to work through than I thought!
"The first phase of the conversion process is called 'the phase of physical control' and lasts about two months. Novices are allotted all sorts of routine physical tasks, often of a demeaning nature." (p. 167)
Whoa Nellie!! According to how the Chinese training went, I got stuck on phase 1 for 2 years? Am I incorrigible or what? You'll see when I get into the details of my Vienna experience that my work (when I had any to do) was exactly menial and demeaning. It never was otherwise... for two years... Try explaining that to your supporters back home... telling them by means of a censored prayer letter. I'm not talking insinuations and opinions here, I'm talking physically and concretely how things were. I can't do be that dogmatic about everything in Vienna, but on this score I can. [4/6/2011 correction: There were a few isolated instances where I was given something more meaningful to do, but the context of it was still demeaning to me. For example, the fact that I took a few English teaching trips to Bratislava just engrained further my identity as a secretary. The whole time I was with the mission that was my all and end-all identity to them and as far as they were concerned I was nothing more, nothing less. And I was also denied the right to use the other gifts and knowledge I did have.]
***
The second phase of "intense indoctrination" in the Chinese setting is characterized by tempers being short and social competition among the cohort of trainees. Since there's not exactly a cohort of new inductees, just new recruits straggling in one-by-one as positions open up, so I don't think this fits Vienna. This is another phase where some are dismissed though as being less promising among the group.
The next stage of crisis and breakdown happens about the 6th month of training. About this time I also had a crisis, but I didn't quite breakdown, despite the horrendousness of it. This is when...
"ties [are cut] with the old society, such as family, friends, old values, and so forth. With this total disruption of old behavior patterns, the new ones become much more firmly implanted, as in the cases of sudden religious conversion." (p. 168]
This doesn't exactly happen in the mission, but I suppose it is when one comes to internalize the ways of doing things and perhaps becomes good enough at doing things the mission's way that even prayer letters hardly need censoring. I think that once you reach this stage you have a lot of positive reinforcements that really feels good and confirming, especially coming from such highly regarded leaders in the church.
***
The next stage in the Chinese process is to build on and reinforce the new convert's young faith. After that his zeal for the new faith is effectively channeled toward the training work he has been preparing for this whole time. (Summarizing much of p. 168)
This is similar to what I said earlier about an early test of loyalty after certain barriers have been overcome is to be involved in the induction of newer arrivees.
***
Half my day is gone and I haven't even checked on my plants outside!
I can't imagine who on earth would read this, as I cover such a range of topics and require so much of the reader. And when you consider that the average American reads on something like the 3rd grade level, well it quickly becomes clear that I am either talking to a very, very limited audience base, or I am virtually talking to myself. Be that as it may, I feel like I need to document these things in the hopes that it will be helpful to someone somewhere.
I hear my plants calling...
~ Meg
***
These next quotes are from this book:
Sargant, W. (1957). Battle of the Mind. Doubleday: Garden City, NY.
***
Chapter 5: Techniques of Religious Conversion
"By increasing or prolonging stresses in various ways, or inducing physical debilitation, a more thorough alteration of the person's thinking processes may be achieved. The immediate effect of such treatment is usually to impair judgment and increase suggestibility." (p. 92)
Socialization was taken pretty seriously at the mission in Vienna and I suspect that in the relatively short history of that organization I was one of the more difficult they had to work with. Of course, they did have the added advantage of having available to it the resources and experience of the 15 member missions, and there may have been one or more of those that had experience with cases like me. However, it still is not clear their intentions regarding how they treated me, whether it was to induct me into their fold or to get rid of me because of my father.
At any rate, the difficulties I faced in working with them increased over time, and they had 2 years to work their magic with me, which seems to me a relatively long period of time.
***
"But successful 'brain-washing' also demands the rousing of strong emotions, and these need not have particular relevance to the new faith, provided that they are sufficiently disruptive." (p. 102, same chapter)
Although I haven't used section of the previous sources dealing with this, it seems to be a common theme that emotions are key to religious conversions, and cults use this well. In my case, it is not "conversion" in the sense of conversion to a different faith that was sought, but conversion to the group's norms, values and ways of doing things.
In a real sense there was a surprise factor in this, because at least part of how I ended out with that group is because I agree with their theology, so who'd have guessed that their values and norms were so apparently divergent from those of the churches back home? It's not like walking into a cult meeting where you expect to find differences from your historical background.
Emotion was also used in the way social ties were formed, creating a sense of mutual (Christian/brotherly/sisterly) love for one another and a sense of share mission and the importance of the work. Also, admissions of "failings" and "erroneous" ways of thinking (according to their standards) were welcomed (generally in private discussions) and efforts to assist in overcoming such "sins" (by their standards) were handled lovingly and with the ostensible aim of helping the initiate become a "better" (by their standards) person.
In other words, there was a lot by way of emotional things going on there, and these things served, in diverse ways, to bond the novice ever closer to the group.
Some of these emotional gymnastics bound the person in a positive way to the group, some did so in a negative way, and some things had the potential to bind either positively or negatively. For example, admissions of "failings", for example, could bind the person to the group by making the person see how the group (or particular representative individuals in the group) can be trusted with private information and how that person helps overcome these personal problem areas, resulting in a sense of gratitude and, perhaps, debt owed to the person/group. But this could also be a negative bond if the initiate felt threatened with divulsion of these secrets or that these admissions would be used in ways not otherwise beneficial to the confessor. [These kinds of relations involving confessions were common with the secretaries, but they were probably also used with others.] Things that would just have been positive include sharing of collective and individual victories at group meetings, the creation of group memories, and the like.
Since we're talking about Christian groups here that claim to hold the Bible as their highest standard, I think it's fair to hold them accountable to that standard, and no matter what you call this, I don't think there's any room for this kind of (intentional) social and personal engineering. As we have seen, however, there may be other standards that likewise condemn this kind of treatment.
***
"The best way to avoid possession, conversion, and all similar conditions is to avoid getting emotionally involved in the proceedings. Too fierce an anger or contempt for the voodoo priest, or for the religious snake handler, may be as dangerous as to quake with fear when one or the other inaugurates a meeting." (p. 109, same chapter).
Of course, we're not dealing with snake handlers or other such groups in Vienna, but I think the premise of staying detached (that's my interpretation of "avoid getting emotionally involved...") also holds water in the Vienna situation. It's not that I wasn't at all affected by what has happening to me and around me at the mission, but I think I did for a long time take everything pretty much in stride and go along with the flow. It's almost like I was calling their bluff, seeing how far they'd go. But I was shocked when I really saw how far they'd go and it really shook me up to my very core and I guess somewhere about that time when I really became convinced that they were using the "enemy's" tactics (similar tactics to how believers were treated in the USSR) was when I realized what a behemoth I was facing. And if I was shocked, it's really scary to think that no one else will believe me either. But I just went along with the changing game rules, offices, responsibilities, etc. With each change I tried my best to do a good job, be a good employee, even take initiative at improvements in the position. I took them at face value, rather than responding to the insinuations and innuendos which I think really belied the truth about what was going on.
In the end, though, this tactic didn't work. It's as if I was at a 2-year snake handler meeting going through the motion of standing or sitting, singing or praying according to what was called for in the program at any particular time, but not getting emotionally wrapped up in it. But at some point maybe it's just best to leave. But I felt like that was my only chance for missions in that part of the world because, well, there were 15 of some of the most influential missions there, and it was not at all clear at that point that there were any missions that operated differently in that part of the world, and my experience in Vienna might have black-listed me anyway. And never being exactly sure what was going on, made things even more fuzzy. So the fulfillment of my life dream demanded that I stay there, even if I couldn't go along with what they were doing. This might sound irrational on a certain level, but I really had poured my life into preparing for this work and there I was in this horrible situation.
It is scary, which is why I'm dancing all around it and going through so much in the lead up to what happened in Vienna. You won't have so much trouble believing my experiences in the USSR/Russia because, well that the USSR/Russia, and those kinds of things happen there, right? But not in the good ole' pristine US of A! Whoa, no way, not on your life. Yes, on your life. I'm here to tell you that they do happen.
I don't know how many other people were able or motivated to play along with the socialization shenanigans (assuming that's what it was in my case), but I think you'd have to have a bit of knowledge background to be able to do it in the first place. There was one secretary who'd sort of seen a lot of life, but I don't think she particularly knew anything out of the run of the mill popular knowledge about the East Bloc. She might not have had the same convictions I did either about right and wrong.
***
I finished my morning stimulator and got breakfast. And while I was doing that I got to thinking that I shouldn't have gotten so sarcastic about people's blinders about the USA vs. the USSR/Russia. I honestly don't have much patience for such thinking, but perhaps the sarcasm was not especially appropriate there.
***
Chapter 6: Applications of Religious Techniques
"The personality can react only along limited lines to all environmental changes and to a life full of stresses. If stress be severe enough, the most secure and stable personality can show symptoms of anxiety, hypochondria, depression, hysteria, suspiciousness, excitement, anger or aggressiveness, and the list is then almost complete." (pp. 123-124)
If you doubt this statement I suggest you ignore any instructions you might come across for stress management. Also, if this is not true, that the life stress test is probably also invalid (cp. http://www.cliving.org/lifestresstestscore.htm).
Also, while we're on this topic, maybe I'll share this here so that it doesn't get overlooked. When I was out doing deputation (about 15 months 1986-1987) my primary care doctor, a long-time family doctor told me that I really can handle a lot of stress. I believe my Mom was at that appointment (although I don't know why, because I was by then in my mid-20s). The past few years I have consistently rated well over 300 on this life stress test, but have not had a nervous breakdown. I have proof of that, but I'm not ready to go there yet.
But let's have on the record that at least one social scientist (the author of this book) thinks that even otherwise bulwarks of stability can break down given enough stressors. And the discussion here (in the book and also regarding Vienna) is regarding intentionally induced stress, not the kind of life stressors provided in the life stress test that just happen by virtue of living and breathing in this imperfect world.
***
"We see then that religious excitement may exist without religious knowledge." (p. 132).
In the Vienna context we're not talking about "religious" excitement and knowledge, but excitement and knowledge vis a vis the work of the mission. As I understand this, it's a kind of blind, almost unthinking acceptance of the mission / religion. I think that's exactly what the mission in Vienna would have liked. After all, for the sake of the secretive ministry it was in (to "closed" countries) no one person could know everything about the mission anyway, so there had to be a faith that even without requisite knowledge there was complete faith in the mission, and therefore also the leaders and a believe in its work, including its modus operandi. Emotional bonding, irregardless of knowledge and facts, and identity with the mission was required so that the mission cold function with such a fractured, departmentalized information base. This left the leadership a lot of leeway, and only as you proved yourself trustworthy with at first inconsequential bits of information and then increasingly more meaningful and central knowledge would you work your way up and into the heart of the organization, although how high up and inward had its limits too depending on your role in the mission at any given time.
Therefore, under such circumstances, emotional bonding and trust had to practically come before knowledge. So this citation fits how the Vienna mission operated, if you consider it regarding the initiate already in the organization instead of how to gain new converts. Since I never was, evidently, trusted, I never had any (or much) reliable knowledge of any import, so had to go pretty much on emotion and emotional bonding, and inuendos and insinuations, which was like walking on quick sand: very unstable.
***
Chapter 7: Brain-Washing in Religion and Politics
"The evidence marshaled in Chapters 5 and 6 shows how various types of belief can be implanted in people, after brain function has been sufficiently disturbed by accidentally or deliberately induced fear, anger, or excitement. Of the results caused by such disturbances, the most common one is temporarily impaired judgment and heightened suggestibility. Its various group manifestations are sometimes classed under the heading of 'herd instinct,' and appear most spectacularly in wartime, during severe epidemics, and in all similar periods of common danger, which increase anxiety and so individual and mass suggestibility." (p. 145)
In the context of Vienna, the "common danger" was the enemy to the East, the harbinger of all ill intent to Christians (and other believers) of all stripes. But the enemy does not just hide himself behind the iron curtain, but also sends emissaries of destruction out into the West, especially Vienna, to wreak havoc among and topple the life-bringing work of missions such as ours.
Okay, that was a little dramatic, but you get the picture and that does bring in a bit of the attitude of the time towards The Red Scare.
So we were rallied together against this common enemy and were willing to put aside our usual critical thinking abilities to rally together for The Cause. Well, most of us were willing to do that. I'm not sure if I was the only one unwilling to completely trust the mission's benign intent towards me, as an individual, but I couldn't get myself to do that.
I think part of the problem was that I already had a history not just of some knowledge of the East and some experience there as well (but certainly not as much experience as the veterans in the mission), but also a history of questioning missions. I won't go into that now, but it was a bit of a process to finally (and, evidently, mistakenly) decide on the mission I did. That process involved questioning certain things about missions in that part of the world.
I might not have been a ready candidate for indoctrination into the world according to the mission, but I did feel the effects of (mission-induced) stress.
***
Today is laundry day and I had to take a little break to start on that. I want to at least finish this book though.
***
"The most kindly, generous, and humane of men have in fact been conditioned, throughout history, to commit acts which appear horrifying in retrospect to those who ahve been differently conditioned. Many otherwise sensible people cling to strange and cruel views merely because these have been firmly implanted in their brains at an early age, and they can no more be disabused of them by argument than could the generation that still insisted on the flatness of the earth, though it had been circumnavigated on several occasions." (p. 146-147).
How did the mission wind up the way it did? And since organizations are comprised of individuals, it then begs the question as to how these individuals, especially the leadership, wound up like they did? What sort of mental gymnastics did they have to go through to justify what seemed to me to be very wrong in their actions and approaches to organizational functioning? What kind of logic allowed them to operate as they did? What was the process that led to what I witnessed and experienced in Vienna? I wish I knew the answers to these questions and could tell you, but I don't. Like you, I can only surmise possible answers and scenarios, but I don't really know either.
What was going on there at that Vienna mission may not have been the worst thing ever as far as church malfeasance is concerned, but it was still hard for me to believe and I never expected anyone else to really believe me either. How it got that way was even further beyond my comprehension.
***
Here's something really scary...
"With their variety of temperaments, it was found that breakdown or dramatic change in patterns of behavior in animals could be caused, not only by increasing the strength of stimulus applied, but in three other important ways.
1. One could prolong the time between the giving of a preliminary signal and the giving or withholding of food or an unexpected electric shock; the prolongation of a state of tension and expectancy was found to be very disturbing. The result was protective inhibition, which might rapidly become 'transmarginal,' with chaotic effects on brain function.
2. One could alter behavior patterns by confusing the brain if positive and negative food-conditioning signals follow one another rapidly and are not followed by the expected food or shock. Most animals seemed to be able to adjust, within limits, to what they expected; but experienced great difficulty in coping with the unforeseen.
3. If all these means fail to produce alteration or breakdown one can resort to physical debilitation, fevers, etc., which are effective when the same stimuli are later repeated." (p. 147)
Regarding the first method, I was repeatedly given reason to believe, even by direct admission, that the mission had this or that great plan for me, and they would commend me on one thing or another to seemingly back this up. But nothing much ever materialized. There might have been token follow-through, such as move to a better office (unaccompanied by more meaningful work), and these little token moves were enough to leave me hanging. But as things went on, there got to be more and more negative signals, direct or otherwise.
As to the second approach, I remember this as being especially confusing and detrimental to my coping in the situation. But I see this not so much as isolated, although it might be somewhat helpful to point it out on its own right, as part of the huge ambiguity that I faced there. It was really the only time in my life that I've felt such tremendous ambiguity and uncertainty as to what was really going on and what was what. Towards the end I was sidelined enough that it was hard for me to figure out who was in what position even as things seemed to, at least on the surface, be shuffled around so much. That ambiguity was very horrible, and I'll deal with that when eventually I discuss articles in a different file.
***
This next citation is in the context of a discussion of Jonathan Edwards, the famous early American preacher, and his practice of inducing guilt to convert people, which sometimes drove someone "already suffering from religious melancholia" (p. 150) to suicide.
"So occasional cases of suicide and insanity had to be put to the debit side of his conversion ledger..." (p. 151)
I felt like this when I left Vienna, that I was just a 'casualty of war', but the war must go on... these kinds of things are among the types of risks one takes in this kind of ministry. I'm putting words in the mouths of the workers (and especially the leaders) in Vienna. Whether there actions towards me were just a part of their standard modus operandi (or with the realm of possibility given cases like myself), or whether it was because I was the daughter of my dad and they had to find an indirect way to get me out of there, or a combination or the two, they could have taken the perspectives I hypothesize here.
***
"In brain-washing and the eliciting of confessions, the psychological importance of inducing a sense of guilt and conflict can hardly be overemphasized. The prisoner may be bombarded with accusations and continually cross-examined until anxiety confuses him and he contradicts himself on some small point. This is then used as a stick to beat him with; presently his brain ceases to function normally, and he collapses. In a subsequent highly suggestible state, with old thought patterns inhibited, he may readily sign and deliver the desired confession." (p. 154)
This describes, as it seems to me, applies most directly to prisoner of war camps and corrupt police interrogations, but I think there's also a parallel in the context I was working in in Vienna. I'm not sure if this is true for the male induction process, but at least for the female secretaries (all the secretaries were female, but not all the working women were secretaries) and at least some of the female spouses (there weren't any married working women at the mission, so there were no male spouses of workers - homosexuals would not have been part of the work because of the theological beliefs of the organization) and possibly some of the wives the use confessor-confessee relationship was used pretty effectively, as the benevolent mentor assisted the novice out of the quagmire of sin and ignorance into the light and spiritual growth and maturity befitting an effective and trustworthy member of the group.
The negative part of accusations and the like was much more subtle, nothing like what is suggested in this quote. In my experience it was handled in private and was a matter of the strictest confidence. Generally the aim seemed to be to engender complete, unguarded trust in the inductee rather than to break her down interrogation-style. However, there are also different styles of interrogation, and this could fit one of them. I think I come to this also in another text in a different folder.
If a "confession" could be garnered, then the relationship could evolve to complete mutual trust, but without this confession such a relationship was stymied. That's how it appeared to me... as it related to the secretaries there.
***
This next citation follows a fairly lengthy discussion about how the religious conversion tactics discussed in the book have also been applied in political contexts:
"The Chinese Communists spread their gospel by similar methods. They had had the sense to avoid a purely intellectual approach, and to arouse political anger by continually reporting and emphasizing the United States' hostile attitudes towards the new China." (p. 160)
At first glance this text seems hardly to apply to the situation in Vienna, but it does sort of in a round about way. What I want to say about this text is that this is the kind of thinking vis a vis the East Bloc Communist governments that kept us (and the supporters back home, too) aroused in a special sense of us vs. them guardedness and urgency and importance of mission. Without this common view of the enemy I think a lot of what happened in Vienna would not have happened because, 1) the people back home would have demanded more transparency; and 2) it bonded us more closely together against a common enemy, and not just a religious "enemy", but also a very real political one.
***
Continuing in the same vein in his discussion:
"Fear of continued civil war, or foreign intervention, or both, convinced the Chinese Communist leaders that they must use shock tactics to convert the masses. A more intellectual approach migh have resulted in a more stable type of conversion, but it would have taken dangerously long, and been consummated only with the gradual dying off of those brought up in the old ways of thought, and the growing up of the children educated in the new. To make a new China overnight, emotional disruption was essential; and so effective were the methods used that thousands killed themselves in despair, a sense of guilt artificially implanted in them being so strong that they felt unworthy to accept the proffered Communist salvation; leaving the more resilient millions to dance, dance, dance for joy at their liberation from millenniary bondage - until they learned to termble at the periodic visits of the Household Police who now keep a dossier on the history and activities of every household." (p. 163; Remember, this was written in 1957).
You could say that the process of socialization into the work in Vienna was also under some time constraints, although not exactly like those facing the entire country of China.
In a sense all places of employment want their new employees to become fully functional members of their crew as quickly as possible. But few employers have the "luxury" of being able to require virtually the whole of the person (24/7, all aspects of their life, etc.) be under their tutelage and care. To garner such a comprehensive relationship in a short time with the new member, who wasn't even hired directly by the mission, but by a separate member mission who had handled the initial induction process until the person's arrival in Vienna, it was advantageous to use emotional sensibilities at least as a starting point. The usual 2 year commitment, as mine was also, goes by quickly and the bulk of that time needed to be spent productively; hence the time constraints.
I don't know that there was a mission equivalent to the Chinese Household Police... the similarities only go so far. I think (though I can't say I'm 100% sure) that once you're past the trust test and you're "in" and don't do anything really stupid, there's not exactly a police/spy system set up to monitor you, but I do think there is a (formal, informal or both) system of accountability within the mission. Since I never got that far, I can't really speak with any certainty about this, but I do think there was some type of mutual accountability even once you passed the initial trust test. I suspect that this mostly felt pretty benign though, unless you somehow did something out of line.
***
In this next section Sargant discusses how China trains those who lead indoctrination groups.
"This special training course usually lasts from nine to twelve months, and the same general program is everywhere used, though with variations that allow for intellectual level of the trainee. [Richard L. Walker, in China Under Communism] describes the six factors present throughout the period of training. First, the training takes place in a special area or camp, which almost completely severs all ties with the trainees' families and former friends; and facilitates the breakup of old behavior patterns.
'A second constant factor is fatigue. Students are subjected to a schedule which maintains physical and mental fatigue throughout the training. There is no opportunity for relaxation or reflection; they are occupied with memorizing great amounts of theoretical material and are expected to employ the new terminology with facility. Coupled with the fatigue is a third constant: tension.... Uncertainty is a fourth factor throughout the process... Trainees who conspicuously fail to comprehend the camp pattern in the first few weeks disappear overnight, and there is usually a well-sown rumour concerning their fate.... A fifth constant factor is the use of vicious language.... The final factor is the seriousness attached to the whole process. Humour is forbidden.' p. 58 (p. 165-166)
Not all of these things apply to the Vienna context, but some do. I'll take them in order:
1. I've already touched a bit on isolation from friends and families, and I don't know that there's much more to say about that, except that contact that is continued is expected to support the mission's desired image and to further the mission's work, such as by promoting a good p.r. base for the mission.
2. I don't think I really experienced fatigue, but it may well be that someone coming to the work in Vienna with much less experience abroad than me might find it very fatiguing to just orient herself to living there and setting up life there. For me I pretty much started out running, although there were a few technical things, like how and where to register as a resident once you arrived there, that I needed help with. So I wouldn't be surprised if the initial regimen I experienced there might have been fatiguing to someone else. It wasn't to me though. I wasn't given much settle-in time before I was expected to begin work though.
3. I actually didn't feel the tension until after I met the full fury of the mission, which was several months into my being there. That was probably a function of my not allowing myself to be totally under their tutelage. I'm sure that other new-comers probably experienced initial tension, though, if the mission was the only thing they knew in this strange new world.
4. Now the 4th one really hits home. I've sometimes wondered what was said about me. Was I held up as a negative example? Did my experience serve as a threat to anyone else like me who might come along? Some things I wrote in my journal the year after returning home from Vienna made me wonder even more about how the mission (and all 15 of the member missions?) responded to me afterward and what lessons, if any, were learned by the mission's relationship with me.
At any rate, initially I appeared to "fail to comprehend the camp pattern" at first, but later on I really and truly did not understand as things there became more and more ambiguous and it became harder and harder for me to make heads or tails of what was really going on there.
5. I don't think there was any "vicious language" in Vienna. I would be surprised to learn there was, but then again, after what I experienced maybe I wouldn't be surprised. At any rate, I didn't know of any use of vicious language or the threat of it.
6. On the surface of things, there was certainly humour and good-naturedness that permeated the work in Vienna, and anything negative was explained as being intended to be helpful, as a loving parent or tough love or something along those lines.
However, I also think that the humour belied how serious they were of certain things. I tended to take them at face value, though, and respond to that rather than any apparent insinuation. By doing so I was, in effect, indicating a a noncomprehension of "the camp pattern". That's how I see it anyway.
***
Continuing on in this vein, Sargant describes the trainees in these Chinese groups had to write detailed autobiographies and diaries. In speaking of these he says:
"Such detailed confessions then became public property, and they could be used by directors in finding a 'sore spot' to work upon." (p. 166)
I don't know if this was widespread or not in Vienna, but I sometimes felt like they knew a lot about me, mainly things they could have known from my work with the Slavic Gospel Association, who was one of the founding 5 missions that started our mission. These things were always nebulous, though, and it was never clear if this was really so or not, although it's possible I'll find something in my journals or correspondence that says otherwise; I'm just starting to do that as I write this blog.
***
"An important part of the process is the stimulation of fear and doubt. Shall he tell all to his group? If so, will it then be used against him? The trainee has to wrestle silently and alone with all these anxieties and conflicts, until he finally breaks down and decides to confess all; and this is the beginning of his end as an individual." (p. 167).
I don't know how many people at the mission there went through this kind of struggle, and some may well have gone through something like it in work with their sending mission prior to being sent to joint mission. I think, though, that most relations in life don't require this kind of complete trust and for inductees unfamiliar with it and not expecting this kind of thing, it may have been very difficult.
I think I wasn't phased by this kind of thing because I didn't feel like I was lost in a new world without the mission, even though my career was dependent on them, in a very real sense. After a while I thought that my relationship with the mission was tenuous enough that I wasn't sure that they wouldn't really use information about me for my detriment. I'm not sure that was very common though. They did have information about me that could easily serve as a hammer against me, which is at least partially why I haven't written about this before and why it still feels so risky.
[As an aside here, you may wonder why I then find it so necessary to write about my life. That's really a good question and there are several reasons. One is I think people should know about what went on in those missions and even though the world has changed and the specific people in specific positions have changed, I would be surprised if this kind of thing weren't still happening in missions working in "closed" countries. Also, it's hard to life a life where you feel like no one understand you, and I've been through so many things that that's how it feels. By writing about my life that's not a guarantee that I will all of a sudden be understood, and even if I were understood the emotional reaction might not be kindly. But since I don't believe in the use of force, I have to give you the right to come to your own conclusions.]
***
This book is taking longer to work through than I thought!
"The first phase of the conversion process is called 'the phase of physical control' and lasts about two months. Novices are allotted all sorts of routine physical tasks, often of a demeaning nature." (p. 167)
Whoa Nellie!! According to how the Chinese training went, I got stuck on phase 1 for 2 years? Am I incorrigible or what? You'll see when I get into the details of my Vienna experience that my work (when I had any to do) was exactly menial and demeaning. It never was otherwise... for two years... Try explaining that to your supporters back home... telling them by means of a censored prayer letter. I'm not talking insinuations and opinions here, I'm talking physically and concretely how things were. I can't do be that dogmatic about everything in Vienna, but on this score I can. [4/6/2011 correction: There were a few isolated instances where I was given something more meaningful to do, but the context of it was still demeaning to me. For example, the fact that I took a few English teaching trips to Bratislava just engrained further my identity as a secretary. The whole time I was with the mission that was my all and end-all identity to them and as far as they were concerned I was nothing more, nothing less. And I was also denied the right to use the other gifts and knowledge I did have.]
***
The second phase of "intense indoctrination" in the Chinese setting is characterized by tempers being short and social competition among the cohort of trainees. Since there's not exactly a cohort of new inductees, just new recruits straggling in one-by-one as positions open up, so I don't think this fits Vienna. This is another phase where some are dismissed though as being less promising among the group.
The next stage of crisis and breakdown happens about the 6th month of training. About this time I also had a crisis, but I didn't quite breakdown, despite the horrendousness of it. This is when...
"ties [are cut] with the old society, such as family, friends, old values, and so forth. With this total disruption of old behavior patterns, the new ones become much more firmly implanted, as in the cases of sudden religious conversion." (p. 168]
This doesn't exactly happen in the mission, but I suppose it is when one comes to internalize the ways of doing things and perhaps becomes good enough at doing things the mission's way that even prayer letters hardly need censoring. I think that once you reach this stage you have a lot of positive reinforcements that really feels good and confirming, especially coming from such highly regarded leaders in the church.
***
The next stage in the Chinese process is to build on and reinforce the new convert's young faith. After that his zeal for the new faith is effectively channeled toward the training work he has been preparing for this whole time. (Summarizing much of p. 168)
This is similar to what I said earlier about an early test of loyalty after certain barriers have been overcome is to be involved in the induction of newer arrivees.
***
Half my day is gone and I haven't even checked on my plants outside!
I can't imagine who on earth would read this, as I cover such a range of topics and require so much of the reader. And when you consider that the average American reads on something like the 3rd grade level, well it quickly becomes clear that I am either talking to a very, very limited audience base, or I am virtually talking to myself. Be that as it may, I feel like I need to document these things in the hopes that it will be helpful to someone somewhere.
I hear my plants calling...
~ Meg
Friday, August 6, 2010
35. Cults & Brainwashing File, Pt. 4 (Coleman, pt. 1) (Was: Responses to Articles, Cont'd.)
When I've been at the computer today it's just been to write in this blog... at some point I need to check my e-mail too. But for now...
on with the show!
***
This next quote is from an opinion piece in a professional journal:
Coleman, Lee. (1984) New religions and the myth of mind control. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 54(2), p. 322-325.
"People who conform to behavioral expectations of a group have made a choice to do so. Even when imprisoned (as, for example, during a 'deprogramming') an individual who conforms is demonstrating behavior control, not mind control. Behavior control is not difficult to achieve with a person who is confined and subjected to sufficient pressure to overcome any resistance. When an individual in such circumstances chooses to conform, it is not a free choice; it is coerced, it is unethical, and it may be illegal. But an individual who has been intimidated has not thereby lost his mind." (p. 323)
In this section Coleman differentiates between mind control and behavior control. Although I'm not a professional in the field of psychology, this does seem like a reasonable distinction. However, I would like to add that from my standpoint, as the recipient of this kind of thing, it sure felt like mind control. When I get into the details of what happened in Vienna I have an especially poignant example of this.
I'm not sure exactly what Coleman would include as "behavior" in "behavior control", my understanding is that that that's a pretty broad word in that field. In Vienna attitudes were definitely part of the whole induction process, and I think it's pretty difficult to mask attitudes, unless one is an especially gifted actor, perhaps. But if attitudes are included in the term "behavior" here, then is there a differentiation between apparent attitudes and what's actually going on in the person's head? If the group is able to effectively change apparent attitudes, but not what's actually going on it the person's head, then perhaps that really is "behavioral control". BUT, if it's virtually impossible to differentiate the two or the organization succeeds in molding the actual attitudes, is that "mind control"? Or is that part of the non-free choices made by the individual.
Then, if the individual knows that these are non-free, coerced behavior modifications, does that create a dissonance in the individual's head that might result in his "losing his mind"? I imagine it might be easier for the person who doesn't appreciate what's going on, as they might not have that kind of dissonance and therefore be none the wiser for it, perhaps along the lines of Algernon in the book "Flowers for Algernon" when he understood how people were responding to him when his intelligence temporarily increased then decreased again.
I think if Coleman's position is taken seriously, I can't imagine how mind control is possible, outside of some science fiction notion of it. In the very first sentence of this position paper, Coleman seems to equate brainwasing and mind control ("The controversy about 'cults' centers around the accusation that they use brainwashing or mind control to win converts." p. 322). I'm not sure I agree with him that brainwashing and mind control are the same thing.
Of course I say this as a layperson, not a professional in the field, but my impression of mind control, as Mr. Coleman suggests gives the idea of sort of robotic control or the image of a mad hypnotist sending people off in trances to do dastardly deeds. In contrast, I think of brainwashing as a process that confuses a person and induces new ideas that s/he might not otherwise freely adhere to. In such cases, they might be sent off to do dastardly deeds, but not in a trance, but as part of this process where they made decisions/accepted tenets more or less under duress. I don't think of brainwashing, however as a mundane thing, but one that is pretty well engineered and intentional in somewhat extraordinary, by societal standards, circumstances, such as isolation.
Well, this is all pretty cerebral, but in short, I think that brainwashing is not mind control but does involve behavior control, although I'm not sure exactly about the bounds of "behavior", and that it is unethical. So I partially agree with Coleman.
***
This next article, a book chapter, is only partially relevant to my experiences in Vienna, because that organization wasn't a cult in the standard sense of the word; they just had some cult-like characteristics.
Galanter, M. (1989). Cults: Faith, Healing & Coercion. New York: Oxford University Press. Chapter 6: The Cult as a Social System, pp. 98-116.
"Since an intensive mobilization of a charismatic group's psychological and material resources may be directed at the conversion of new members, they can create deep turmoil in the individual convert. On the one hand, the group is intensely seductive in its attempt to attract new members; on the other,l it demands a disruption of antecedent social ties and a metamorphosis in the convert's world view. Thus, when the full resources of the group are focused on a recruit, the potential for tearing the fabric of that individual's psychological stability is considerable. The result may be psychiatric symptoms in people with no history of mental disorder or psychological instability. The genesis of these symptoms may lie more in the conflict between the convert's needs and the group's demands than in an underlying psychological impairment of the convert... Among the illnesses to be considered from [the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association] are dissociative disorders, pathologic adjustment reactions, major depressive disorders, brief reactive psychoses, and paranoid disorders of a psychotic nature. Each can be generated by the charismatic group as its forces are mobilized to implement the transformative function." (p, 99-100)
It's clear that the recruitment part of this quote isn't directly applicable to the mission, but I think that if we substitute it for the socialization of new members, then we'll find a fair amount of relevant information in this text. I think that the socialization practices at the mission in Vienna caused some of these reactions in new inductees (myself included) and it would have been very interesting to have a neutral psychologist study that issue there. Of course, the vast majority of people there had been there quite some time before I arrives and so had presumably long since completed this initiation process.
***
"Suppression of concerns that might detract from the primary task of an intensely committed social system is actually quite common. In time of battle, for example, an army may be mobilitzed to achieve its immediate military objectives, and its primary task is therefore the transformation of all personnel and material into a fighting force. The psychology of the troops is bent to this mission to the exclusion of all else since victory in battle is paramount. Concern for the needs of the wounded may be secondary, since this could detract from the thrust into battle. In a similar way, mobilization for the transformation process in the charismatic sect cannot be deflected by the difficulties experienced by individual converts because the usual constraints on exerting social pressure are suppressed." (p. 103).
I think this is a reasonably good fit for my experiences in Vienna. This is along the lines of what I said in an earlier post about how leaders, even though they may be charismatic, are expendable - the work would continue without the participation of any specific individual in it. So the choice for the newly arrived was to succumb to their way of thinking and doing things, or just become a casualty.
The other thing here that I'd like to point out is right at the end of this quote about usual constraints on social pressure being suppressed. Since the mission was so far away from the potential scrutinizing eyes of supporters back home, and they could easily pull the wool over visitor's eyes about the day-in-day-out operations, so there were few constraints on what they could do regarding the exertion of social pressure on members.
***
"For a social system to regulate its functioning effectively, it must have the capacity to suppress members' deviation from its implicit or explicit goals. In charismatic groups, the penalty for those who deviate from norms is psychological distress; overt coercion usually is not necessary to induce compliance. How is this penalty exacted? We have seen that there is a decrease in psychological well-being among those who felt less closely associated with the group. Furthermore, members who were considering leaving the sect had attitudes most clearly at variance with those of the group, and their scores fell into the clinically depressed range. Indeed, 36% of those who dropped out of the Unification Church reported the emergence of "serious emotional problems" in the period following their departure." (p. 107)
I think this is a good depiction of some of the activities I witnessed and experienced in Vienna. Those most in tune with the group were happier, and enjoyed the privilege of more meaningful work, increased access to privileged knowledge and the good favor of the leadership in general. Unfortunately, I wasn't one of those people.
***
I finished my evening stimulator session and it's time for me to do more chores.
Have a pleasant evening.
~ Meg
on with the show!
***
This next quote is from an opinion piece in a professional journal:
Coleman, Lee. (1984) New religions and the myth of mind control. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 54(2), p. 322-325.
"People who conform to behavioral expectations of a group have made a choice to do so. Even when imprisoned (as, for example, during a 'deprogramming') an individual who conforms is demonstrating behavior control, not mind control. Behavior control is not difficult to achieve with a person who is confined and subjected to sufficient pressure to overcome any resistance. When an individual in such circumstances chooses to conform, it is not a free choice; it is coerced, it is unethical, and it may be illegal. But an individual who has been intimidated has not thereby lost his mind." (p. 323)
In this section Coleman differentiates between mind control and behavior control. Although I'm not a professional in the field of psychology, this does seem like a reasonable distinction. However, I would like to add that from my standpoint, as the recipient of this kind of thing, it sure felt like mind control. When I get into the details of what happened in Vienna I have an especially poignant example of this.
I'm not sure exactly what Coleman would include as "behavior" in "behavior control", my understanding is that that that's a pretty broad word in that field. In Vienna attitudes were definitely part of the whole induction process, and I think it's pretty difficult to mask attitudes, unless one is an especially gifted actor, perhaps. But if attitudes are included in the term "behavior" here, then is there a differentiation between apparent attitudes and what's actually going on in the person's head? If the group is able to effectively change apparent attitudes, but not what's actually going on it the person's head, then perhaps that really is "behavioral control". BUT, if it's virtually impossible to differentiate the two or the organization succeeds in molding the actual attitudes, is that "mind control"? Or is that part of the non-free choices made by the individual.
Then, if the individual knows that these are non-free, coerced behavior modifications, does that create a dissonance in the individual's head that might result in his "losing his mind"? I imagine it might be easier for the person who doesn't appreciate what's going on, as they might not have that kind of dissonance and therefore be none the wiser for it, perhaps along the lines of Algernon in the book "Flowers for Algernon" when he understood how people were responding to him when his intelligence temporarily increased then decreased again.
I think if Coleman's position is taken seriously, I can't imagine how mind control is possible, outside of some science fiction notion of it. In the very first sentence of this position paper, Coleman seems to equate brainwasing and mind control ("The controversy about 'cults' centers around the accusation that they use brainwashing or mind control to win converts." p. 322). I'm not sure I agree with him that brainwashing and mind control are the same thing.
Of course I say this as a layperson, not a professional in the field, but my impression of mind control, as Mr. Coleman suggests gives the idea of sort of robotic control or the image of a mad hypnotist sending people off in trances to do dastardly deeds. In contrast, I think of brainwashing as a process that confuses a person and induces new ideas that s/he might not otherwise freely adhere to. In such cases, they might be sent off to do dastardly deeds, but not in a trance, but as part of this process where they made decisions/accepted tenets more or less under duress. I don't think of brainwashing, however as a mundane thing, but one that is pretty well engineered and intentional in somewhat extraordinary, by societal standards, circumstances, such as isolation.
Well, this is all pretty cerebral, but in short, I think that brainwashing is not mind control but does involve behavior control, although I'm not sure exactly about the bounds of "behavior", and that it is unethical. So I partially agree with Coleman.
***
This next article, a book chapter, is only partially relevant to my experiences in Vienna, because that organization wasn't a cult in the standard sense of the word; they just had some cult-like characteristics.
Galanter, M. (1989). Cults: Faith, Healing & Coercion. New York: Oxford University Press. Chapter 6: The Cult as a Social System, pp. 98-116.
"Since an intensive mobilization of a charismatic group's psychological and material resources may be directed at the conversion of new members, they can create deep turmoil in the individual convert. On the one hand, the group is intensely seductive in its attempt to attract new members; on the other,l it demands a disruption of antecedent social ties and a metamorphosis in the convert's world view. Thus, when the full resources of the group are focused on a recruit, the potential for tearing the fabric of that individual's psychological stability is considerable. The result may be psychiatric symptoms in people with no history of mental disorder or psychological instability. The genesis of these symptoms may lie more in the conflict between the convert's needs and the group's demands than in an underlying psychological impairment of the convert... Among the illnesses to be considered from [the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association] are dissociative disorders, pathologic adjustment reactions, major depressive disorders, brief reactive psychoses, and paranoid disorders of a psychotic nature. Each can be generated by the charismatic group as its forces are mobilized to implement the transformative function." (p, 99-100)
It's clear that the recruitment part of this quote isn't directly applicable to the mission, but I think that if we substitute it for the socialization of new members, then we'll find a fair amount of relevant information in this text. I think that the socialization practices at the mission in Vienna caused some of these reactions in new inductees (myself included) and it would have been very interesting to have a neutral psychologist study that issue there. Of course, the vast majority of people there had been there quite some time before I arrives and so had presumably long since completed this initiation process.
***
"Suppression of concerns that might detract from the primary task of an intensely committed social system is actually quite common. In time of battle, for example, an army may be mobilitzed to achieve its immediate military objectives, and its primary task is therefore the transformation of all personnel and material into a fighting force. The psychology of the troops is bent to this mission to the exclusion of all else since victory in battle is paramount. Concern for the needs of the wounded may be secondary, since this could detract from the thrust into battle. In a similar way, mobilization for the transformation process in the charismatic sect cannot be deflected by the difficulties experienced by individual converts because the usual constraints on exerting social pressure are suppressed." (p. 103).
I think this is a reasonably good fit for my experiences in Vienna. This is along the lines of what I said in an earlier post about how leaders, even though they may be charismatic, are expendable - the work would continue without the participation of any specific individual in it. So the choice for the newly arrived was to succumb to their way of thinking and doing things, or just become a casualty.
The other thing here that I'd like to point out is right at the end of this quote about usual constraints on social pressure being suppressed. Since the mission was so far away from the potential scrutinizing eyes of supporters back home, and they could easily pull the wool over visitor's eyes about the day-in-day-out operations, so there were few constraints on what they could do regarding the exertion of social pressure on members.
***
"For a social system to regulate its functioning effectively, it must have the capacity to suppress members' deviation from its implicit or explicit goals. In charismatic groups, the penalty for those who deviate from norms is psychological distress; overt coercion usually is not necessary to induce compliance. How is this penalty exacted? We have seen that there is a decrease in psychological well-being among those who felt less closely associated with the group. Furthermore, members who were considering leaving the sect had attitudes most clearly at variance with those of the group, and their scores fell into the clinically depressed range. Indeed, 36% of those who dropped out of the Unification Church reported the emergence of "serious emotional problems" in the period following their departure." (p. 107)
I think this is a good depiction of some of the activities I witnessed and experienced in Vienna. Those most in tune with the group were happier, and enjoyed the privilege of more meaningful work, increased access to privileged knowledge and the good favor of the leadership in general. Unfortunately, I wasn't one of those people.
***
I finished my evening stimulator session and it's time for me to do more chores.
Have a pleasant evening.
~ Meg
34. Cults & Brainwashing File, Pt. 3 (Alper, pt. 3) (Was: Alper, 3rd Installment)
I'm really frustrated right now because none of the doctors offices returned my calls and I can't do anything about the insurance until Monday. I feel like everything is so hard, like pulling teeth. It seems like the exception to the rule when something goes smoothly, and just when you think everything is going smoothly the rug is pulled out from under you. There's nothing I can do now, though, until Monday.
Yesterday I cut up a pineapple I'd bought something like a week prior and froze it on trays and then put them in containers for use in smoothies. I got to thinking that it's a shame to just throw out the hard centers, so I dehydrated them and then ground them up into powder. They weren't quite dehydrated enough the first time, so I ground them up a bit, put the semi-ground pieces on a coffee filter in the dehydrator and dehydrated them further before grinding them again. It worked and I think they'll add nice flavoring to hot cereal, smoothies or baked goods, for example. I got the idea because the other day when I went to BJs I also stopped by an Asian store there and found a packet of coconut powder. The instructions are for mixing it with water to make coconut milk. So that's what gave me the idea for the pineapples. I don't see why it wouldn't work with other things too, but these pineapple centers would have been thrown out otherwise, and not used at all.
So I'm going to work on this a bit more before taking a break to do some housecleaning before dinner. (Yikes! It's already 5:40?! That's how my day goes... nothing's on schedule it seems.)
I had 100 degree temperature a while ago. Next week I see the infectious disease doctor, so I hope she can figure out what's going on.
***
"There is a sense upon returning to the real world, that what has really happened is that one has been swindled... But there is much more than disenchantment, self-flagellation, and recrimination. There is identity diffusion and identity crisis." (pp. 129-130)
I think this pretty succinctly describes, in about as few words is seems justifiably possible, what I felt like after leaving Vienna in 1989. You'll see some of this when I share some of my journal entries from the year after my return home.
***
"...[T]here is no real framework in America within which to acknowledge the battered survivors of cult indoctrination, as there for other kinds of victims..." (p. 132)
At least with real cults there are groups that acknowledge that such indoctrination exists, but for my experience I don't think there are any such support groups, networks or public acknowledgment of the kind of thing I experienced with a mission group. I really turned inward, and although I've since become stronger, I've had enough years with difficult situations that I don't think I'll ever be as free and easy going as I was before Vienna. I think I'm pretty hard to get to know because of all the many layers of unusual experiences I've had that people can't relate to. It's had an effect on me for sure.
***
This book addresses some other examples of "behavioral puppetry" that don't seem very relevant, but book ends with this statement, to which I'd like to respond:
"However appealing, compelling, or magnetic the idea of control may superficially appear to be, it seems to me that it is always worth resisting." (p. 225)
Amen! Preach it, brother!! I'm with you all the way on this one. I think Jesus would be too. I mean, if you really think about it, He was firm in His preaching, but He did NOT force anyone to believe. He did NOT play any power or manipulation games to gain converts. You won't find any social engineering coming from Him. I find that, among other things, very appealing.
***
Here's a short and sweet text from...
The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., v. 4. (1994). Encyclopedia Britannica: Chicago, p. 467.
Brainwashing, also called coercive persuasion, systematic effort to persuade nonbelievers to accept a certain allegiance, command, or doctrine. A colloquial term, it is more generally applied to any technique designed to manipulate human thought or action against the desire, will, or knowledge of the individual. By controlling the physical and social environment, an attempt is made to destroy loyalties to any unfavourable groups or individuals, to demonstrate to the individual that his attitudes and patterns of thinking are incorrect and must be changed, and to develop loyalty and unquestioning obedience to the ruling party.
The term is most appropriately used in reference to a program of political or religious indoctrination or ideological remolding. The techniques of brainwashing typically involve isolation from former associates and sources of information; an exacting regimen requiring absolute obedience and humility; strong social pressures and rewards for cooperation; physical and psychological punishments for noncooperation ranging from social ostracism and criticism, deprivation of food, sleep and social contacts, to bondage and torture; and continual reinforcement..."
I think it's obvious that we didn't have deprivation of food and sleep, but when I go into more detail about what happened in Vienna, you'll see that I clearly was ostracized and deprived of social contact, especially towards the end of my time there.
We were cut off from former associates by being geographically distanced and also by the mission's censoring of our prayer letters (that's - censoring - what it amounted to in my opinion). So basically it would be our single little voice versus that of the monolith mission as to who's perspective on things would be heard and believed back home. There were also other extraordinary things that I experienced that I won't go into here just yet.
~ Meg
Yesterday I cut up a pineapple I'd bought something like a week prior and froze it on trays and then put them in containers for use in smoothies. I got to thinking that it's a shame to just throw out the hard centers, so I dehydrated them and then ground them up into powder. They weren't quite dehydrated enough the first time, so I ground them up a bit, put the semi-ground pieces on a coffee filter in the dehydrator and dehydrated them further before grinding them again. It worked and I think they'll add nice flavoring to hot cereal, smoothies or baked goods, for example. I got the idea because the other day when I went to BJs I also stopped by an Asian store there and found a packet of coconut powder. The instructions are for mixing it with water to make coconut milk. So that's what gave me the idea for the pineapples. I don't see why it wouldn't work with other things too, but these pineapple centers would have been thrown out otherwise, and not used at all.
So I'm going to work on this a bit more before taking a break to do some housecleaning before dinner. (Yikes! It's already 5:40?! That's how my day goes... nothing's on schedule it seems.)
I had 100 degree temperature a while ago. Next week I see the infectious disease doctor, so I hope she can figure out what's going on.
***
"There is a sense upon returning to the real world, that what has really happened is that one has been swindled... But there is much more than disenchantment, self-flagellation, and recrimination. There is identity diffusion and identity crisis." (pp. 129-130)
I think this pretty succinctly describes, in about as few words is seems justifiably possible, what I felt like after leaving Vienna in 1989. You'll see some of this when I share some of my journal entries from the year after my return home.
***
"...[T]here is no real framework in America within which to acknowledge the battered survivors of cult indoctrination, as there for other kinds of victims..." (p. 132)
At least with real cults there are groups that acknowledge that such indoctrination exists, but for my experience I don't think there are any such support groups, networks or public acknowledgment of the kind of thing I experienced with a mission group. I really turned inward, and although I've since become stronger, I've had enough years with difficult situations that I don't think I'll ever be as free and easy going as I was before Vienna. I think I'm pretty hard to get to know because of all the many layers of unusual experiences I've had that people can't relate to. It's had an effect on me for sure.
***
This book addresses some other examples of "behavioral puppetry" that don't seem very relevant, but book ends with this statement, to which I'd like to respond:
"However appealing, compelling, or magnetic the idea of control may superficially appear to be, it seems to me that it is always worth resisting." (p. 225)
Amen! Preach it, brother!! I'm with you all the way on this one. I think Jesus would be too. I mean, if you really think about it, He was firm in His preaching, but He did NOT force anyone to believe. He did NOT play any power or manipulation games to gain converts. You won't find any social engineering coming from Him. I find that, among other things, very appealing.
***
Here's a short and sweet text from...
The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., v. 4. (1994). Encyclopedia Britannica: Chicago, p. 467.
Brainwashing, also called coercive persuasion, systematic effort to persuade nonbelievers to accept a certain allegiance, command, or doctrine. A colloquial term, it is more generally applied to any technique designed to manipulate human thought or action against the desire, will, or knowledge of the individual. By controlling the physical and social environment, an attempt is made to destroy loyalties to any unfavourable groups or individuals, to demonstrate to the individual that his attitudes and patterns of thinking are incorrect and must be changed, and to develop loyalty and unquestioning obedience to the ruling party.
The term is most appropriately used in reference to a program of political or religious indoctrination or ideological remolding. The techniques of brainwashing typically involve isolation from former associates and sources of information; an exacting regimen requiring absolute obedience and humility; strong social pressures and rewards for cooperation; physical and psychological punishments for noncooperation ranging from social ostracism and criticism, deprivation of food, sleep and social contacts, to bondage and torture; and continual reinforcement..."
I think it's obvious that we didn't have deprivation of food and sleep, but when I go into more detail about what happened in Vienna, you'll see that I clearly was ostracized and deprived of social contact, especially towards the end of my time there.
We were cut off from former associates by being geographically distanced and also by the mission's censoring of our prayer letters (that's - censoring - what it amounted to in my opinion). So basically it would be our single little voice versus that of the monolith mission as to who's perspective on things would be heard and believed back home. There were also other extraordinary things that I experienced that I won't go into here just yet.
~ Meg
33. Cults & Brainwashing File, Pt. 2 (Alper, pt. 2) (Was: Alper Citations, Cont'd.)
I'm back! I got a few things done, but I'm stuck at home now because a repairman is coming. I'm also waiting to hear back from a couple doctor's offices. I need to take care of some urgent business (in person), but it will have to wait until Monday now. I do have things to do at home, but it's almost time for lunch anyway. That's how my mornings go:
1) get up, take my first meds/supplements and sit down to coffee and water while I do my 45-minute stimulator session. (That's what I was doing for most of the earlier posting today).
2) get breakfast (which I can't have till some time after I've taken my first round of meds/supplements) and take my regular breakfast meds/supplements.
3) after that I do the regular things people do to get ready for the day like wash up and make the bed and the like.
By the time I've finished these things 2+ hours has lapsed and I'm well into the day, especially if I didn't get to bed until late, which is quite often, and consequently get up after 9:00. This is why I try not to make morning appointments, but if I have to I can manage it.
My one little incipient cucumber is definitely looking more like a baby cucumber today, but the other rosemary plant, the one I hadn't transplanted outside yet, keeled over and I think it gave up the ghost. My impression is that they both were straining so much to get the sunlight coming through the window (although I did try to position them favorably by the window) that they were practically growing horizontal and eventually they just completely fell over.
Now back to what I was writing about earlier...
***
The title of this chapter is titled "Charisma" and is about cult leadership. The mission I was with doesn't exactly fit the type of cult organization described in this book in that it wasn't charismatic leader(s) that started it. Rather, once they were chosen for the positions in the organization charisma was one of the tools used to create unity, bonding and a sense of obligation to the organization. I think cult organizations can develop leaders like this, but we're not talking here (vis a vis the mission in Vienna) along the lines of founding leaders like Sun Myung Moon or the like. The organization in Vienna was found rather intentionally by the joint effort of 5 initial organizations, to which others later were added. I don't know if the charisma part was decided on intentionally, if that's the way things are done in other missions (especially to "closed" countries) and so it was an easy carry over, or if it just developed because of the personalities of those put in leadership positions, or a combination of these things. But however this charisma of leadership things developed, it was there and soundly in place by the time I got to Vienna.
"In its ability to make one feel good, charisma (in the mind of the believer) can seem a high, and part of the addiction of members to a cult is an addiction to the charisma of the cult. It is easy, then, for the initiate to feel that should he leave, he will be unable autonomously to supply the highs to which he has become habituated. Yet sooner or later, the initiate will leave, (almost all do), and when he does, a pattern of behavior may ensue that will be difficult to distinguish from the withdrawal symptoms of a recovering substance addict: disorientation, paranoia, depression, demoralization, and acute identity crisis." (p. 114)
I don't know what the more recent research about this kind of things is, and it probably would be a good idea to find out if I were to pursue this line of my autobiography further, but here I'm just going to respond to what Alper says.
I really can relate to this statement. It was very difficult for me to disentangle myself from the group emotionally and my journal the year afterward conveys a lot of this - I'll share portions of my journal with you later on at some point. It was a kind of a high too, and there was always a carrot hung out regarding rewards to be had by becoming an insider and wholehearted member. On the other hand, the stick of not completely abandoning oneself to the will of the group and the charismatic leadership was to have these elusive and purported rewards withheld, which emotionally was a terrible thing. Part of the socialization, and I am the most familiar with the socialization of secretaries on the staff, is the complete devotion to one's boss, who was especially to be trusted. And since information in the organization was departmentalized for security purposes, it was by far most important to have this devotion to one's boss, which was quite a complex relationship. Only department heads had secretaries, although some departments had secretaries that also served other members, so the power and charisma of the department head was shared with the secretary also. At group meetings the charisma of the leaders, as well as stories that bonded us together, were highlighted and no one, that I knew of, questioned the leaders. They were sort of above that, and in any case, they were thought of as benevolent and also had information to which others weren't privy, so I don't think there was thought to be any reason one wouldn't acquiesce before them, and recognize their charisma and leadership. On the other hand, I'm not aware that there was anyone who was considered unexpendable. So even though the leadership had this unquestioning following, if something ever happened to any one of them someone else would be able to fill their shoes and the same acceptance would presumably be expected towards the new leader(s).
Being part of the group you had an instant mega family that was loving and caring and took care of each other. And at some point I began to see that they also had a hold on people because of the knowledge thing, and that there was some commonality between their use of knowledge and the gnostic religions and organizations, like the Mormons and Masons, where the members are awarded with more and more secret knowledge the deeper one goes into the group. I believe this theme will come up again in some literature on how certain organizations and businesses operate.
Certainly, however, can understand how some of the withdrawal symptoms mentioned by Alper could apply to the Vienna situation. The thing is, though, that if you leave there in their good graces and on good terms you might not really have to go through this so much because you'll keep in touch with the members and may even help out with things like fund-raising and public relations with the churches back home. I think it was somewhat different for me in lieu of the fact that I had put some 7 years into preparations to work in that field, whereas, for examples, the other secretaries hadn't really put in any such preparation, except they had secretarial experience and their Christian faith, of course. Certainly, I was given a harder time than any of the other secretaries. In fact, I'm not aware of anyone else who really got the level of treatment I did, although there were 2 others with a little similarity.
***
The next chapter in this book deals with the seductive personality of cult leaders. I don't know that in the context of the mission in Vienna any of the leadership innately had this quality, but I think it was developed in the organization. I'm not sure how the relationships were handled in other positions in the organization, so mainly I'm just going to describe what seemed to be a modus operandi with the secretaries and their bosses.
"The seductive person does not seem interested in relating for the sake of relating, in wanting to be with the other person in order to experience intimacy; rather, he is intent on gaining something private, narcissistic, and decidedly nonmutual. Seductiveness... implies that if what is desired were openly asked for, it would not be given. It follows that trickery and misdirection are tools of the trade... Getting what he wants is synonymous with corrupting the other person." (p. 117)
In this case, I think the bosses wanted to know they could completely trust their secretaries and that's what they wanted. It could be a carrot, and if that all that was required for the initiate, the new secretary, to become completely trusting and transparent with her boss, then it may have ended there. But if that wasn't enough, as in my case, a stick was also used. These things weren't as explicit as I'm making them seem though.
The corruption part, I think, included getting the initiate to wholeheartedly internalized the logic of why they used the tactics they did and how it was really spiritually justified, etc. I'm talking here about the half-truths, ends-justifies-the-means and other such ethical issues.
***
There is a lot in this chapter that doesn't fit my experience of the mission in Vienna. Here is one sentence that I find helpful, although the surrounding text doesn't fit:
"... [S]eductive behavior is opposed to mutuality, and can be more suitably described as a contest, a game, or a zero-sum power struggle, in which there essentially can be only one winner and one loser." (p. 118)
This was definitely a one-way win-lose relationship. The organization was very hierarchical. I suppose that anyone who easily went along with it would disagree that they "lost" by conceding.
***
"[T]he seductive person tends to view relating as an operational, externalized, step-by-step stragety, and relationships are accordingly judged on the merits of the particular strategy: i.e., a relationship that is failing - a person who is not being successfully seduced = a miscalculation or the application of the wrong strategy." (p. 118)
This is one possible understanding of some of what happened to me in Vienna, but I'm not sure what the leadership (and in a trickle-down way the others also) were thinking at various stages of my time there. I certainly do think that there was an element of deliberateness, though, and also that they misjudged me, although I can't be completely sure at what points they misjudged me, because I'm not sure what they intended for me. There were a lot of ambiguities and seemingly contradictory signals for me.
***
"So potent and persuasive is the seductive power of cults and cult leaders that on occasion it has been likened to brainwashing. Yet the association with the terror and force used to brainwash POWs is tenuous at best. Most cults do not come close to equaling the absolute physical control of their members that can be achieved in prisons and concentration camps. Accordingly, the indoctrination tactics are vastly more psychological, In a cult, the main threat seems to be, in one form or another, expulsion." (p. 126)
Although I did look at some brainwashing literature, and may delve into this later, I agree with this statement. And I need to reiterate here that the mission I was with was not a cult, it was pretty sort of an arm or one expression of mainstream Western evangelical Christianity, and the workers entered it quite willingly, if perhaps not completely knowingly. But then it's not unusual to start work with a new organization and find out it's not what you expected. But I do think that the isolation (away from the home churches) and nature of the ministry somehow led to some cult-like characteristics in the organization. I'm not aware of anyone else besides me who left the mission with such bad relations with them. I'm not saying there never was anyone else, but that I'm not aware of anyone else, and I'm sure I was the only one the 2 years I was there. I did work out my full 2 years (the initial commitment), but it may have been foolish to stay on that long given the circumstances and what was going on. I had a lot at stake though, considering everything I put into preparing for that ministry. I don't know if expulsion or isolation were used as sticks with others or not, but if so, it would have had to have worked to bring him/her in line, at least if it was used with anyone I knew there.
***
"In the cult, the psychological equivalent of 'brainwashing' seems to occur in a fairly orderly sequence of steps. First, there is the concentrated seduction and indoctrination of the potentially new member. Almost simultaneously, there is a universal devaluation of everything in the world outside the cult: society, friends, parents, teachers, culture, religion. Concomitantly, there is a continuous attempt to supply substitute gratifications for what one has been asked to reject in the normal world: new philosophical teachings, pleasure, socializing, sexual partners, creative outlets, a system of reward and recognition -- all are offered, and are supposed not to come only from the inner world of the cult. When this has taken hold in the mind of the disciple, he is hooked, and the ultimate threat, expulsion, will be as devastating to him as enforced physical withdrawal is to the drug addict." (p. 127)
Again, this doesn't exactly apply to my situation in Vienna, but I think there are some helpful aspects of these insights nonetheless. This basically, as I understand it, is the socialization into the mission fold. For those who had no other interests and were like a blank slate in this new country where they knew nothing and nobody, this was an easy and mostly painless process. However, while my secretarial background was limited, I was overqualified otherwise and set about using my free time in ways that, while perhaps harmless, interfered with the mission's attempts to properly socialize me into their fold.
I might have neglected to point this out earlier, but I don't take well to being forced into a mold. (E.g., how as early as in junior high I enjoyed flitting between social groups.) There were several things that seemed illogical to me at the beginning, and a few of them included things like 1) If I completed my job and was free in the evenings or weekends, couldn't I just do as I like, especially if it wasn't contrary to the explicit interests of the mission? 2) If not, did they want to control me 24/7? 3) Did I have to limit my social life and relations to only people in the organization? If so, why?
Now I'm being fairly explicit here, but this was actually played out in the realm of the (mostly) unspoken. I had no idea I was entering such a totalitarian organization, and if I had I might not have gone.
But if I'm right and there were cult-like elements, then I was definitely acting/thinking outside the realm of the {mostly implied or unspoken) acceptable.
***
"An important part of this process, which greatly reinforces it, is the rites of passage. At some point the disciple will be asked to provide proof of commitment by performing a difficult service... On one level, such a rite of passage is meant to represent, in the mind of the disciple, a kind of burning of bridges. On another level, in the mind of the leader of the cult, it is perhaps a test of unconditional love: Will you never abandon me no matter what I demand of you?" (p. 128)
In the context of the mission in Vienna, I think the "rite of passage" is being given the assignment to turn around and be involved in the initiation of a newer arrival to the group. To be able to do that, one has to have internalized the norms and values of the organization to be able to guide someone else in it. There may have been other rites, but that's the one I'm aware of, and I do think it's a pretty strong one. Once you've begun passing these things on to someone else then you have a stake in it too and it would be hard to turn back at that point. Supposedly, if you pass that (and subsequent test then your boss will entrust more and more of the insider knowledge and responsibility to you.
***
I'm not done with this book yet, but I have to go again. The repairman came, but by the time he left it was 2:15 and the person I need to see about this other problem is most reliably caught before 3:00, and I thought by the time I got there it would be hit or miss if I was successful, especially on a Friday. So I have to take care of that Monday as a top priority; it's regarding my health insurance.
I'll continue this later. Bye for now...
~ Meg
1) get up, take my first meds/supplements and sit down to coffee and water while I do my 45-minute stimulator session. (That's what I was doing for most of the earlier posting today).
2) get breakfast (which I can't have till some time after I've taken my first round of meds/supplements) and take my regular breakfast meds/supplements.
3) after that I do the regular things people do to get ready for the day like wash up and make the bed and the like.
By the time I've finished these things 2+ hours has lapsed and I'm well into the day, especially if I didn't get to bed until late, which is quite often, and consequently get up after 9:00. This is why I try not to make morning appointments, but if I have to I can manage it.
My one little incipient cucumber is definitely looking more like a baby cucumber today, but the other rosemary plant, the one I hadn't transplanted outside yet, keeled over and I think it gave up the ghost. My impression is that they both were straining so much to get the sunlight coming through the window (although I did try to position them favorably by the window) that they were practically growing horizontal and eventually they just completely fell over.
Now back to what I was writing about earlier...
***
The title of this chapter is titled "Charisma" and is about cult leadership. The mission I was with doesn't exactly fit the type of cult organization described in this book in that it wasn't charismatic leader(s) that started it. Rather, once they were chosen for the positions in the organization charisma was one of the tools used to create unity, bonding and a sense of obligation to the organization. I think cult organizations can develop leaders like this, but we're not talking here (vis a vis the mission in Vienna) along the lines of founding leaders like Sun Myung Moon or the like. The organization in Vienna was found rather intentionally by the joint effort of 5 initial organizations, to which others later were added. I don't know if the charisma part was decided on intentionally, if that's the way things are done in other missions (especially to "closed" countries) and so it was an easy carry over, or if it just developed because of the personalities of those put in leadership positions, or a combination of these things. But however this charisma of leadership things developed, it was there and soundly in place by the time I got to Vienna.
"In its ability to make one feel good, charisma (in the mind of the believer) can seem a high, and part of the addiction of members to a cult is an addiction to the charisma of the cult. It is easy, then, for the initiate to feel that should he leave, he will be unable autonomously to supply the highs to which he has become habituated. Yet sooner or later, the initiate will leave, (almost all do), and when he does, a pattern of behavior may ensue that will be difficult to distinguish from the withdrawal symptoms of a recovering substance addict: disorientation, paranoia, depression, demoralization, and acute identity crisis." (p. 114)
I don't know what the more recent research about this kind of things is, and it probably would be a good idea to find out if I were to pursue this line of my autobiography further, but here I'm just going to respond to what Alper says.
I really can relate to this statement. It was very difficult for me to disentangle myself from the group emotionally and my journal the year afterward conveys a lot of this - I'll share portions of my journal with you later on at some point. It was a kind of a high too, and there was always a carrot hung out regarding rewards to be had by becoming an insider and wholehearted member. On the other hand, the stick of not completely abandoning oneself to the will of the group and the charismatic leadership was to have these elusive and purported rewards withheld, which emotionally was a terrible thing. Part of the socialization, and I am the most familiar with the socialization of secretaries on the staff, is the complete devotion to one's boss, who was especially to be trusted. And since information in the organization was departmentalized for security purposes, it was by far most important to have this devotion to one's boss, which was quite a complex relationship. Only department heads had secretaries, although some departments had secretaries that also served other members, so the power and charisma of the department head was shared with the secretary also. At group meetings the charisma of the leaders, as well as stories that bonded us together, were highlighted and no one, that I knew of, questioned the leaders. They were sort of above that, and in any case, they were thought of as benevolent and also had information to which others weren't privy, so I don't think there was thought to be any reason one wouldn't acquiesce before them, and recognize their charisma and leadership. On the other hand, I'm not aware that there was anyone who was considered unexpendable. So even though the leadership had this unquestioning following, if something ever happened to any one of them someone else would be able to fill their shoes and the same acceptance would presumably be expected towards the new leader(s).
Being part of the group you had an instant mega family that was loving and caring and took care of each other. And at some point I began to see that they also had a hold on people because of the knowledge thing, and that there was some commonality between their use of knowledge and the gnostic religions and organizations, like the Mormons and Masons, where the members are awarded with more and more secret knowledge the deeper one goes into the group. I believe this theme will come up again in some literature on how certain organizations and businesses operate.
Certainly, however, can understand how some of the withdrawal symptoms mentioned by Alper could apply to the Vienna situation. The thing is, though, that if you leave there in their good graces and on good terms you might not really have to go through this so much because you'll keep in touch with the members and may even help out with things like fund-raising and public relations with the churches back home. I think it was somewhat different for me in lieu of the fact that I had put some 7 years into preparations to work in that field, whereas, for examples, the other secretaries hadn't really put in any such preparation, except they had secretarial experience and their Christian faith, of course. Certainly, I was given a harder time than any of the other secretaries. In fact, I'm not aware of anyone else who really got the level of treatment I did, although there were 2 others with a little similarity.
***
The next chapter in this book deals with the seductive personality of cult leaders. I don't know that in the context of the mission in Vienna any of the leadership innately had this quality, but I think it was developed in the organization. I'm not sure how the relationships were handled in other positions in the organization, so mainly I'm just going to describe what seemed to be a modus operandi with the secretaries and their bosses.
"The seductive person does not seem interested in relating for the sake of relating, in wanting to be with the other person in order to experience intimacy; rather, he is intent on gaining something private, narcissistic, and decidedly nonmutual. Seductiveness... implies that if what is desired were openly asked for, it would not be given. It follows that trickery and misdirection are tools of the trade... Getting what he wants is synonymous with corrupting the other person." (p. 117)
In this case, I think the bosses wanted to know they could completely trust their secretaries and that's what they wanted. It could be a carrot, and if that all that was required for the initiate, the new secretary, to become completely trusting and transparent with her boss, then it may have ended there. But if that wasn't enough, as in my case, a stick was also used. These things weren't as explicit as I'm making them seem though.
The corruption part, I think, included getting the initiate to wholeheartedly internalized the logic of why they used the tactics they did and how it was really spiritually justified, etc. I'm talking here about the half-truths, ends-justifies-the-means and other such ethical issues.
***
There is a lot in this chapter that doesn't fit my experience of the mission in Vienna. Here is one sentence that I find helpful, although the surrounding text doesn't fit:
"... [S]eductive behavior is opposed to mutuality, and can be more suitably described as a contest, a game, or a zero-sum power struggle, in which there essentially can be only one winner and one loser." (p. 118)
This was definitely a one-way win-lose relationship. The organization was very hierarchical. I suppose that anyone who easily went along with it would disagree that they "lost" by conceding.
***
"[T]he seductive person tends to view relating as an operational, externalized, step-by-step stragety, and relationships are accordingly judged on the merits of the particular strategy: i.e., a relationship that is failing - a person who is not being successfully seduced = a miscalculation or the application of the wrong strategy." (p. 118)
This is one possible understanding of some of what happened to me in Vienna, but I'm not sure what the leadership (and in a trickle-down way the others also) were thinking at various stages of my time there. I certainly do think that there was an element of deliberateness, though, and also that they misjudged me, although I can't be completely sure at what points they misjudged me, because I'm not sure what they intended for me. There were a lot of ambiguities and seemingly contradictory signals for me.
***
"So potent and persuasive is the seductive power of cults and cult leaders that on occasion it has been likened to brainwashing. Yet the association with the terror and force used to brainwash POWs is tenuous at best. Most cults do not come close to equaling the absolute physical control of their members that can be achieved in prisons and concentration camps. Accordingly, the indoctrination tactics are vastly more psychological, In a cult, the main threat seems to be, in one form or another, expulsion." (p. 126)
Although I did look at some brainwashing literature, and may delve into this later, I agree with this statement. And I need to reiterate here that the mission I was with was not a cult, it was pretty sort of an arm or one expression of mainstream Western evangelical Christianity, and the workers entered it quite willingly, if perhaps not completely knowingly. But then it's not unusual to start work with a new organization and find out it's not what you expected. But I do think that the isolation (away from the home churches) and nature of the ministry somehow led to some cult-like characteristics in the organization. I'm not aware of anyone else besides me who left the mission with such bad relations with them. I'm not saying there never was anyone else, but that I'm not aware of anyone else, and I'm sure I was the only one the 2 years I was there. I did work out my full 2 years (the initial commitment), but it may have been foolish to stay on that long given the circumstances and what was going on. I had a lot at stake though, considering everything I put into preparing for that ministry. I don't know if expulsion or isolation were used as sticks with others or not, but if so, it would have had to have worked to bring him/her in line, at least if it was used with anyone I knew there.
***
"In the cult, the psychological equivalent of 'brainwashing' seems to occur in a fairly orderly sequence of steps. First, there is the concentrated seduction and indoctrination of the potentially new member. Almost simultaneously, there is a universal devaluation of everything in the world outside the cult: society, friends, parents, teachers, culture, religion. Concomitantly, there is a continuous attempt to supply substitute gratifications for what one has been asked to reject in the normal world: new philosophical teachings, pleasure, socializing, sexual partners, creative outlets, a system of reward and recognition -- all are offered, and are supposed not to come only from the inner world of the cult. When this has taken hold in the mind of the disciple, he is hooked, and the ultimate threat, expulsion, will be as devastating to him as enforced physical withdrawal is to the drug addict." (p. 127)
Again, this doesn't exactly apply to my situation in Vienna, but I think there are some helpful aspects of these insights nonetheless. This basically, as I understand it, is the socialization into the mission fold. For those who had no other interests and were like a blank slate in this new country where they knew nothing and nobody, this was an easy and mostly painless process. However, while my secretarial background was limited, I was overqualified otherwise and set about using my free time in ways that, while perhaps harmless, interfered with the mission's attempts to properly socialize me into their fold.
I might have neglected to point this out earlier, but I don't take well to being forced into a mold. (E.g., how as early as in junior high I enjoyed flitting between social groups.) There were several things that seemed illogical to me at the beginning, and a few of them included things like 1) If I completed my job and was free in the evenings or weekends, couldn't I just do as I like, especially if it wasn't contrary to the explicit interests of the mission? 2) If not, did they want to control me 24/7? 3) Did I have to limit my social life and relations to only people in the organization? If so, why?
Now I'm being fairly explicit here, but this was actually played out in the realm of the (mostly) unspoken. I had no idea I was entering such a totalitarian organization, and if I had I might not have gone.
But if I'm right and there were cult-like elements, then I was definitely acting/thinking outside the realm of the {mostly implied or unspoken) acceptable.
***
"An important part of this process, which greatly reinforces it, is the rites of passage. At some point the disciple will be asked to provide proof of commitment by performing a difficult service... On one level, such a rite of passage is meant to represent, in the mind of the disciple, a kind of burning of bridges. On another level, in the mind of the leader of the cult, it is perhaps a test of unconditional love: Will you never abandon me no matter what I demand of you?" (p. 128)
In the context of the mission in Vienna, I think the "rite of passage" is being given the assignment to turn around and be involved in the initiation of a newer arrival to the group. To be able to do that, one has to have internalized the norms and values of the organization to be able to guide someone else in it. There may have been other rites, but that's the one I'm aware of, and I do think it's a pretty strong one. Once you've begun passing these things on to someone else then you have a stake in it too and it would be hard to turn back at that point. Supposedly, if you pass that (and subsequent test then your boss will entrust more and more of the insider knowledge and responsibility to you.
***
I'm not done with this book yet, but I have to go again. The repairman came, but by the time he left it was 2:15 and the person I need to see about this other problem is most reliably caught before 3:00, and I thought by the time I got there it would be hit or miss if I was successful, especially on a Friday. So I have to take care of that Monday as a top priority; it's regarding my health insurance.
I'll continue this later. Bye for now...
~ Meg
32. Cults & Brainwashing File, Pt. 1 (Alper, pt. 1) (Was:Trying to Make Sense of My Time in Vienna)
A few years (ca. 5) after leaving Vienna, as my difficulties working in that part of the world (Eastern Europe & USSR/Russia) didn't abate, I tried to make sense of what had happened to me. I looked at literature on different topics hoping to find something that would help me sort things out. Some of the approaches I took weren't an exact fit, but bore enough similarity to the topic that I found it helpful. Today's topic is one such comparison.
I'm not saying here that the group(s) - one group formed of individuals from many groups (i.e., a mission effort made up of workers from various individual missions) - is exactly a cult, but rather that it had some cult-like aspects to it. It shared enough cult-like qualities, that I'm going to use some of the research literature on cults as my basis for some comments on my time in Vienna.
This morning's citations come from the book...
Alper, Gerald. (1994). The Puppeteers: Studies of Obsessive Control, 1st U.S. ed. New York, NY: Fromm International.
***
"No fact of cult life is more important, when it comes to the successful indoctrination of new members, than its isolation... On one level, then, cults are founded upon the same psychology that binds adolescent or delinquent gangs together: the stubborn division of the world between everything out there and the family-like group." (p. 105)
I experienced this as a gradual strangle-hold (noose?) that eventually damaged a lot of my relationship, including family and some long-time friends. I know more pressure was put on me than arguably anyone else there, with the possible exception of some at the top of the organization, although they would have gone through this long before I arrived on the scene there. Why more effort was put out to isolate me is another discussion, and there may have been multiple reasons, with my dad's work being just one possible contributing reason for it.
I will say that on my end of things, I had some qualities in my personality, as well, that may have required the increased effort to "socialize" me. I remember ever since junior high (13-15 years of age) being conscious of enjoying the freedom of being able to sort of fit in multiple social groups, so that none had a complete stranglehold on who I was and what I wanted to do. I was able to do this and still be an insider in some groups, and not just be on the edges of all of them. So this was sort of a basic quality in my personality, that I didn't take well to being pigeon-holed into one tight knit group.
One opportunity this offered me was a better ability to judge things for myself and not be completely swayed by one group's norms and values. If my perspective fit the group's then fine, I'd be more of an insider, but if not I'd remain on the edges and I wouldn't be likely to be changed by they group because I didn't really need the group anyway since I belonged to others too. I liked that freedom and the ability to make my own decisions and form my own values.
Another thing about me was that I knew some German and had enough prior experience of Europe, and even Vienna in particular, that I just hit the ground running, so to speak, where I almost immediately began to scope out the land and see where I could take advantage of some opportunities there. I was to be a secretary at the mission, so outside of the occasional mission-related travel and occasional after-hours responsibilities, I would have time to myself where I could perhaps have a ministry in Austria. I mean, certainly there could be nothing wrong with that, right? WRONG!
But if part of the socialization into that work in Vienna involved isolation, similar to the indoctrination into some cults, then this alone was a prescription for trouble. But I don't think my personal qualities, as described above, can explain everything and I think there was more going on than that, despite what my dad would have me believe: He later told me I was too independent. Others, including other mission workers had other opinions and insights about what may have caused my problems, all of which involved problems because of my dad's work. There may be some truth in both views, but the source of each explanation should also be taken into account: My dad pointed the finger at me, at my qualities, while other missionaries to Eastern Europe pointed the finger at dad and his work. Hmmm... Food for thought, for sure.
There was a certain amount of isolation experienced on the part of virtually all members of the mission, mostly as regards contacts in Vienna and Eastern Europe, though, and not relations in North America (or other homelands of various workers). The mission did insist on reading and approving circular letters ("prayer letters") that any of us sent out, which may have had some affect on relations back home, though. But the mission was pretty controlling regarding any possible leaks of information, including locally, that might hinder their work, so the mission tended to be like a "big, happy family" and rather in-grown. I know that expat communities elsewhere can be like that to a certain extent, but this was a highly educated group that could easily have had freer relations in Vienna, except for those controls. My perception is that most of their relations outside the group were with organizations where there were a lot of others from the group, so that the group wielded an inordinate leverage of power, such as with certain English speaking churches and schools. One reason given for this was that travel (to the East) schedules prohibited a lot of outside contact in Vienna. This is true for some workers, but far from all of them.
I think that's enough on that for now, and I'll more than likely come back to it later.
***
"It becomes apparent to anyone being initiated into a cult that there are consequences to be faced for such a choice, and a price to be paid; and it is almost a matter of course that the radical isolation requisite for entry into a cult will carry with it a varying but predictable degree of schizoid detachment, impaired reality testing, and a certain antisocial behavior easily rationalized as idealistically motivated civil disobedience." (p. 106)
At this point I just want to show, first of all, how missions and individual missionaries could come to the "ends justifies the means" rationale for some of the things they did, including, but not limited to, apparent cooperation with government entities, such as taking money from the CIA and having military chaplains in key positions.
Also, by the time a missionary actually lands at the doorstep of the mission in Vienna, that person has gone through various amounts of preparation and also the grueling task of raising one's support. So a lot is at stake at that point, and hypothetically, the novice should be more open to the induction process than someone who'd just walked in from the street (possibly an over-simplification, but I'm referring here to those joining real cults). Also, the inductee has already demonstrated a certain level of trust of the mission to go through all that before actually arriving on the scene. Perhaps unfortunately for me (depending on how you look at it), I already had a history of having qualms about specific missions, which may have been somewhat unique.
So, in getting back to this citation, there's a HUGE price to be paid if the new missionary isn't willing to pay the price (a price which may or may not have been clear before arriving, or perhaps only partially understood prior to arrival in Vienna). Long before actually starting the process of indoctrination, then, the new member has already crossed the threshold of entry and it's much harder to leave, especially unscathed, than it usually would be to leave a regular cult. Plus, entering a cult at least has the advantage that the cult may well already be recognized as a cult, whereas the mission is not and was clever enough to have a fairly high profile back home. That profile, of course, was as the mission and its entrenched members had painted it. So the cult inductee would likely faced more credibility in their retelling of events that I would. Plus, special precautions were taken (as I see it) to make sure my account wasn't credible. More on that eventually.
***
Alper precedes this next citation with a fairly lengthy discussion about the cult's development of symbiosis, what that is, and how it is achieved. A lot of this discussion doesn't related that closely to my experience in Vienna, but on a certain levels shadows of it do.
"If symbiosis is what is being sought and created, it is understandable... [t]hat cults will often depend on hyper-stimulation... to cover up inner loss and deadness. And it follows that cults, to protect the symbiosis they have arduously cultivated, will seek to mask the underlying enslavement of their members by glorifying and shamelessly flattering their autonomy in whatever way possible." (p. 109)
Now I doubt that many members of the mission in Vienna would consider themselves enslaved; in fact, it's possible I'm the only one. But I think any of them would be hard-pressed to deny the symbiosis aspect. Now, Alper doesn't discuss different types of symbiosis, which would probably be outside the scope of his primary topic, and I would be remiss if I gave the impression that all forms of symbiosis are necessarily evil or manipulative or abusive. But I do think that the symbiosis of that group in Vienna had some cult-like similarities, namely unhealthy aspects to it.
The work in Vienna, at least how the leadership seemed to think, was dependent on all the workers (and their family members) being completely 100% trustworthy. Efforts to develop this level of trustworthiness felt to me like social engineering and the complete and full openness with specifically appointed others (who these people were varied depending on the individual and their position in the mission).
The goodness of the mission and their good intention towards their members and their well-being was extolled wherever and whenever possible. And personal revelation and confession (not necessarily to everyone but to the specific "appointed others"), would remain well-kept secrets and result in efforts to help the initiate grow spiritually and adjust to their new life in Vienna and with the mission. Of course, there had to be incredible trust that such secrets would remain well-guarded and that the mission and those individual in receipt of personal divulgences were well-intentioned and had only the confessee's best interests at heart. But how I was treated eventually confirmed my worst suspicions and lack of trust of them.
***
"It is a commonplace observation that it is almost impossible to encounter anyone immersed in a cult who isn't grandiose in some transparent and typically intrusive way." (p. 110)
Before this statement, the author suggests several characteristics that this grandiosity summarizes.
I don't want to insinuate that members of the mission I was with were exactly grandiose in the way Alper describes, but I will say that there was a certain amount of this in that the mission was seen as something cutting edge and requiring especially high security because if that mission were compromised through indiscretion it would not only would it affect the mission (and possibly some people behind the Iron Curtain), but also the 15 or so missions that comprised our work. For example, I was actually sent out through another mission on loan to the work in Vienna, and my home mission could be affected, as could the home missions of all the other workers. This kind of thinking justified, at least ostensibly, the need for high levels of security and unusual precautionary measures (although one of the military chaplains told me that they really weren't "professionals" in this espionage-type security; take that as you will.)
I do think, though, that it was somewhat a matter of pride to be involved in such a work that was so highly regarded by so many missions. We were, in a sense, the elite of the elite. In this sense I think there was a certain amount of this grandiosity of thinking that Alper refers to.
***
I'm ending a chapter now, so I have to take a break to take care of my day's activities. I'll come back to this though later on today; I haven't finished yet with this book.
Tschuss!
~ Meg
I'm not saying here that the group(s) - one group formed of individuals from many groups (i.e., a mission effort made up of workers from various individual missions) - is exactly a cult, but rather that it had some cult-like aspects to it. It shared enough cult-like qualities, that I'm going to use some of the research literature on cults as my basis for some comments on my time in Vienna.
This morning's citations come from the book...
Alper, Gerald. (1994). The Puppeteers: Studies of Obsessive Control, 1st U.S. ed. New York, NY: Fromm International.
***
"No fact of cult life is more important, when it comes to the successful indoctrination of new members, than its isolation... On one level, then, cults are founded upon the same psychology that binds adolescent or delinquent gangs together: the stubborn division of the world between everything out there and the family-like group." (p. 105)
I experienced this as a gradual strangle-hold (noose?) that eventually damaged a lot of my relationship, including family and some long-time friends. I know more pressure was put on me than arguably anyone else there, with the possible exception of some at the top of the organization, although they would have gone through this long before I arrived on the scene there. Why more effort was put out to isolate me is another discussion, and there may have been multiple reasons, with my dad's work being just one possible contributing reason for it.
I will say that on my end of things, I had some qualities in my personality, as well, that may have required the increased effort to "socialize" me. I remember ever since junior high (13-15 years of age) being conscious of enjoying the freedom of being able to sort of fit in multiple social groups, so that none had a complete stranglehold on who I was and what I wanted to do. I was able to do this and still be an insider in some groups, and not just be on the edges of all of them. So this was sort of a basic quality in my personality, that I didn't take well to being pigeon-holed into one tight knit group.
One opportunity this offered me was a better ability to judge things for myself and not be completely swayed by one group's norms and values. If my perspective fit the group's then fine, I'd be more of an insider, but if not I'd remain on the edges and I wouldn't be likely to be changed by they group because I didn't really need the group anyway since I belonged to others too. I liked that freedom and the ability to make my own decisions and form my own values.
Another thing about me was that I knew some German and had enough prior experience of Europe, and even Vienna in particular, that I just hit the ground running, so to speak, where I almost immediately began to scope out the land and see where I could take advantage of some opportunities there. I was to be a secretary at the mission, so outside of the occasional mission-related travel and occasional after-hours responsibilities, I would have time to myself where I could perhaps have a ministry in Austria. I mean, certainly there could be nothing wrong with that, right? WRONG!
But if part of the socialization into that work in Vienna involved isolation, similar to the indoctrination into some cults, then this alone was a prescription for trouble. But I don't think my personal qualities, as described above, can explain everything and I think there was more going on than that, despite what my dad would have me believe: He later told me I was too independent. Others, including other mission workers had other opinions and insights about what may have caused my problems, all of which involved problems because of my dad's work. There may be some truth in both views, but the source of each explanation should also be taken into account: My dad pointed the finger at me, at my qualities, while other missionaries to Eastern Europe pointed the finger at dad and his work. Hmmm... Food for thought, for sure.
There was a certain amount of isolation experienced on the part of virtually all members of the mission, mostly as regards contacts in Vienna and Eastern Europe, though, and not relations in North America (or other homelands of various workers). The mission did insist on reading and approving circular letters ("prayer letters") that any of us sent out, which may have had some affect on relations back home, though. But the mission was pretty controlling regarding any possible leaks of information, including locally, that might hinder their work, so the mission tended to be like a "big, happy family" and rather in-grown. I know that expat communities elsewhere can be like that to a certain extent, but this was a highly educated group that could easily have had freer relations in Vienna, except for those controls. My perception is that most of their relations outside the group were with organizations where there were a lot of others from the group, so that the group wielded an inordinate leverage of power, such as with certain English speaking churches and schools. One reason given for this was that travel (to the East) schedules prohibited a lot of outside contact in Vienna. This is true for some workers, but far from all of them.
I think that's enough on that for now, and I'll more than likely come back to it later.
***
"It becomes apparent to anyone being initiated into a cult that there are consequences to be faced for such a choice, and a price to be paid; and it is almost a matter of course that the radical isolation requisite for entry into a cult will carry with it a varying but predictable degree of schizoid detachment, impaired reality testing, and a certain antisocial behavior easily rationalized as idealistically motivated civil disobedience." (p. 106)
At this point I just want to show, first of all, how missions and individual missionaries could come to the "ends justifies the means" rationale for some of the things they did, including, but not limited to, apparent cooperation with government entities, such as taking money from the CIA and having military chaplains in key positions.
Also, by the time a missionary actually lands at the doorstep of the mission in Vienna, that person has gone through various amounts of preparation and also the grueling task of raising one's support. So a lot is at stake at that point, and hypothetically, the novice should be more open to the induction process than someone who'd just walked in from the street (possibly an over-simplification, but I'm referring here to those joining real cults). Also, the inductee has already demonstrated a certain level of trust of the mission to go through all that before actually arriving on the scene. Perhaps unfortunately for me (depending on how you look at it), I already had a history of having qualms about specific missions, which may have been somewhat unique.
So, in getting back to this citation, there's a HUGE price to be paid if the new missionary isn't willing to pay the price (a price which may or may not have been clear before arriving, or perhaps only partially understood prior to arrival in Vienna). Long before actually starting the process of indoctrination, then, the new member has already crossed the threshold of entry and it's much harder to leave, especially unscathed, than it usually would be to leave a regular cult. Plus, entering a cult at least has the advantage that the cult may well already be recognized as a cult, whereas the mission is not and was clever enough to have a fairly high profile back home. That profile, of course, was as the mission and its entrenched members had painted it. So the cult inductee would likely faced more credibility in their retelling of events that I would. Plus, special precautions were taken (as I see it) to make sure my account wasn't credible. More on that eventually.
***
Alper precedes this next citation with a fairly lengthy discussion about the cult's development of symbiosis, what that is, and how it is achieved. A lot of this discussion doesn't related that closely to my experience in Vienna, but on a certain levels shadows of it do.
"If symbiosis is what is being sought and created, it is understandable... [t]hat cults will often depend on hyper-stimulation... to cover up inner loss and deadness. And it follows that cults, to protect the symbiosis they have arduously cultivated, will seek to mask the underlying enslavement of their members by glorifying and shamelessly flattering their autonomy in whatever way possible." (p. 109)
Now I doubt that many members of the mission in Vienna would consider themselves enslaved; in fact, it's possible I'm the only one. But I think any of them would be hard-pressed to deny the symbiosis aspect. Now, Alper doesn't discuss different types of symbiosis, which would probably be outside the scope of his primary topic, and I would be remiss if I gave the impression that all forms of symbiosis are necessarily evil or manipulative or abusive. But I do think that the symbiosis of that group in Vienna had some cult-like similarities, namely unhealthy aspects to it.
The work in Vienna, at least how the leadership seemed to think, was dependent on all the workers (and their family members) being completely 100% trustworthy. Efforts to develop this level of trustworthiness felt to me like social engineering and the complete and full openness with specifically appointed others (who these people were varied depending on the individual and their position in the mission).
The goodness of the mission and their good intention towards their members and their well-being was extolled wherever and whenever possible. And personal revelation and confession (not necessarily to everyone but to the specific "appointed others"), would remain well-kept secrets and result in efforts to help the initiate grow spiritually and adjust to their new life in Vienna and with the mission. Of course, there had to be incredible trust that such secrets would remain well-guarded and that the mission and those individual in receipt of personal divulgences were well-intentioned and had only the confessee's best interests at heart. But how I was treated eventually confirmed my worst suspicions and lack of trust of them.
***
"It is a commonplace observation that it is almost impossible to encounter anyone immersed in a cult who isn't grandiose in some transparent and typically intrusive way." (p. 110)
Before this statement, the author suggests several characteristics that this grandiosity summarizes.
I don't want to insinuate that members of the mission I was with were exactly grandiose in the way Alper describes, but I will say that there was a certain amount of this in that the mission was seen as something cutting edge and requiring especially high security because if that mission were compromised through indiscretion it would not only would it affect the mission (and possibly some people behind the Iron Curtain), but also the 15 or so missions that comprised our work. For example, I was actually sent out through another mission on loan to the work in Vienna, and my home mission could be affected, as could the home missions of all the other workers. This kind of thinking justified, at least ostensibly, the need for high levels of security and unusual precautionary measures (although one of the military chaplains told me that they really weren't "professionals" in this espionage-type security; take that as you will.)
I do think, though, that it was somewhat a matter of pride to be involved in such a work that was so highly regarded by so many missions. We were, in a sense, the elite of the elite. In this sense I think there was a certain amount of this grandiosity of thinking that Alper refers to.
***
I'm ending a chapter now, so I have to take a break to take care of my day's activities. I'll come back to this though later on today; I haven't finished yet with this book.
Tschuss!
~ Meg
Thursday, August 5, 2010
31. Vienna: Control
Okay, my approach to this is not going to be befitting of my educational background (2 graduate certificates, 2 master's degrees and 60 credits towards a doctorate), but fibromyalgia has affected my mental capacity and other health issues don't help.
Before I jump into the main body of this post, I want to present an aside here, that's fully in the present, rather than the distant past.
I just found the first start of a cucumber on one of my 3 cucumber plants! I'm so excited. A few days ago I also noticed that one of my hubbard squash plants has buds on it too. The bees have to cross-pollinate them though, as they have male and female flowers and only the female ones develop into squash if they're pollinated from the male blooms. This and cooking are my little diversions.
I'm not exactly sure how to preface this series (it undoubtedly will not be covered completely in this one post), but it's going to cover things related to my missions experience in Vienna along the lines of socialization, which is (according to Wikipedia):
"Socialization is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, politicians and educationalists to refer to the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies. It may provide the individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their own society; a society itself is formed through a plurality of shared norms, customs, values, traditions, social roles, symbols and languages. Socialization is thus ‘the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained’."
I'll still need to later on cover some things from before Vienna, but this will begin to set the stage for my Vienna experience.
Because I'm not cognitively up to Bloom's higher levels of learning, namely, synthesis and evaluation, I'm going to take this piecemeal, which unfortunately puts the onus of synthesis and evaluation on the reader. At least I picked out the texts to base my comments on, so I did that much of the grunt work for you. I did that about 15 years ago on a return visit to the States in which a friend kindly put me up which allowed me to do this research. It would be harder for me to do now.
Also, last night I reread all my journal entries from the year after Vienna and also a small part of the human rights report I mentioned in an earlier post and it was almost like reading about someone else's life - so much has happened since then that it's hard to believe that I've been through everything I have. The last year I've sort of become myopic as I just try to keep myself together somehow, so anything that involves a bigger picture outside my immediate present life has been virtually sidelined.
I'm just going to take the texts in order, picking out sections to cite and comment regarding how they fit into my experience in Vienna.
The first citations are from:
Friedman, M.I. & Lackey, Jr., G.H. (1991). The Psychology of Human Control: A General Theory of Purposeful Behavior. Praeger: New York, NY.
After demonstrating that humans seek control and that this is done by purposeful behavior that is based on the ability gained from past experience to accurately identify behavior -> outcome chains of causality, they say this:
***
"In a nutshell, we decided that predictive ability (accurate prediction) is the factor most responsible for humans' superior control." (p. 25)
In Vienna, I didn't feel like I could accurately predict outcomes of behavior... but ONLY as it related to my connections with the mission, NOT with others, although there were a couple exceptions which I might get into later. This seems strange to me because these were not only mainly North Americans (with a few Europeans and one Australian in the mix). And they were also Evangelical Christians, and I'd had a lot of contact with Evangelical Christians in different places, denominations, and contexts (conferences, Bible school, talking at churches - "deputation", etc.). S
This inability to accurately predict consequences of actions was very debilitating to me.
***
"After probing the literature on learning, we came to the conclusion that two conditions need to be present for cause-effect learning to occur. As indicated, cause-effect learning required the making and testing of predictions. It would follow, then, that for learning to occur people must be in a situation sufficiently familiar and stable to allow them to make and test predictions. If the situation were totally unfamiliar or chaotic they would be unable to make and test predictions." (p. 64)
My situation in Vienna, certainly most of the time if not all of it, was exactly chaotic, especially, but also unfamiliar in many ways. So at a time when I should have been being socialized into the organization (even benign socialization, such as getting to know the ins and outs of any new job), this was being thwarted by the seeming unpredictability of responses and expectations. This will come up again, I'm sure, in a couple other ways of looking at it (from other sources, not just this book).
***
"When situations are optimally predictable they are familiar and stable enough to predict outcomes and novel enough to allow us to improve predictability. When outcomes are either too predictable or too unpredictable motivation is frustrated." (p. 67)
I don't think I'd been there very long before I figured out some kind of "game" was going on, with some intentional testing and the like. I did sort of take a risk (and lose) by figuring they'd eventually "play straight" with me, and so I got my grounding mostly outside the organization, such as my participation in an Austrian (German-speaking) church and taking an after-hours German class and also Spanish cooking class, both at a Volkshochschule (adult education center). I thought I had too much to offer for them to just spit me out - after all leadership in one of the leading missions to Eastern Europe (the Slavic Gospel Association) had courted me! I was dead wrong on that assumption. So I don't think I was ever an "insider" in the mission in Vienna. So my observations about the mission are as from someone who was basically an outsider there for 2 years.
***
"We redirect our pursuit of control because control is impossible due to physical or mental limitations." (p. 69)
I think I might add to this that in my case it was against my values to act in such a manipulative controlling manner, which is what the unpredictability smacked of to me. It wasn't because of physical or mental limitations that control was impossible to me in that context.
I think my discussion of the previous citation deals with the redirecting of pursuit of control part of this quote. I guess that's what I did - redirect my pursuit of control to something more controllable, namely Austria and Austrians, rather than 60 expats and their families (i.e., the mission).
***
"Self-confident people are more able to tolerate delay in achieving control, are more willing to take calculated risks, and are more persistent in pursuing control, all of which make it more probable that they will improve their scope, degree, and reliability of control. Self-confident people tend to be dogged and venturesome in their pursuit of control and don't lose heart when obstacles delay their progress. Their confidence leads them to believe that sooner or later they will be successful in improving their control." (p. 73)
This is like music to my ears! After reading my journal entries last night from the year after Vienna, it's encouraging to think that maybe I really did have self-confidence even through all the heart-wrenching events that really shook me up and turned my whole life upside-down.
I've definitely been dogged and persistent in my adult life. I had this idea that no one could tell me it's impossible to work in the USSR/Russia. No one. A year after Vienna I decided on another route and, by golly, I did it. I went for it and... well that's getting too far ahead of my story though. I was down but not out, as the saying goes.
***
That's all for tonight. It's 12:34 a.m. according to my computer clock, so it's time for me to go to bed. Maybe after that last thought I'll have good dreams, although I hardly ever remember my dreams.
Good night!
~ Meg
Before I jump into the main body of this post, I want to present an aside here, that's fully in the present, rather than the distant past.
I just found the first start of a cucumber on one of my 3 cucumber plants! I'm so excited. A few days ago I also noticed that one of my hubbard squash plants has buds on it too. The bees have to cross-pollinate them though, as they have male and female flowers and only the female ones develop into squash if they're pollinated from the male blooms. This and cooking are my little diversions.
I'm not exactly sure how to preface this series (it undoubtedly will not be covered completely in this one post), but it's going to cover things related to my missions experience in Vienna along the lines of socialization, which is (according to Wikipedia):
"Socialization is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, politicians and educationalists to refer to the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies. It may provide the individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their own society; a society itself is formed through a plurality of shared norms, customs, values, traditions, social roles, symbols and languages. Socialization is thus ‘the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained’."
I'll still need to later on cover some things from before Vienna, but this will begin to set the stage for my Vienna experience.
Because I'm not cognitively up to Bloom's higher levels of learning, namely, synthesis and evaluation, I'm going to take this piecemeal, which unfortunately puts the onus of synthesis and evaluation on the reader. At least I picked out the texts to base my comments on, so I did that much of the grunt work for you. I did that about 15 years ago on a return visit to the States in which a friend kindly put me up which allowed me to do this research. It would be harder for me to do now.
Also, last night I reread all my journal entries from the year after Vienna and also a small part of the human rights report I mentioned in an earlier post and it was almost like reading about someone else's life - so much has happened since then that it's hard to believe that I've been through everything I have. The last year I've sort of become myopic as I just try to keep myself together somehow, so anything that involves a bigger picture outside my immediate present life has been virtually sidelined.
I'm just going to take the texts in order, picking out sections to cite and comment regarding how they fit into my experience in Vienna.
The first citations are from:
Friedman, M.I. & Lackey, Jr., G.H. (1991). The Psychology of Human Control: A General Theory of Purposeful Behavior. Praeger: New York, NY.
After demonstrating that humans seek control and that this is done by purposeful behavior that is based on the ability gained from past experience to accurately identify behavior -> outcome chains of causality, they say this:
***
"In a nutshell, we decided that predictive ability (accurate prediction) is the factor most responsible for humans' superior control." (p. 25)
In Vienna, I didn't feel like I could accurately predict outcomes of behavior... but ONLY as it related to my connections with the mission, NOT with others, although there were a couple exceptions which I might get into later. This seems strange to me because these were not only mainly North Americans (with a few Europeans and one Australian in the mix). And they were also Evangelical Christians, and I'd had a lot of contact with Evangelical Christians in different places, denominations, and contexts (conferences, Bible school, talking at churches - "deputation", etc.). S
This inability to accurately predict consequences of actions was very debilitating to me.
***
"After probing the literature on learning, we came to the conclusion that two conditions need to be present for cause-effect learning to occur. As indicated, cause-effect learning required the making and testing of predictions. It would follow, then, that for learning to occur people must be in a situation sufficiently familiar and stable to allow them to make and test predictions. If the situation were totally unfamiliar or chaotic they would be unable to make and test predictions." (p. 64)
My situation in Vienna, certainly most of the time if not all of it, was exactly chaotic, especially, but also unfamiliar in many ways. So at a time when I should have been being socialized into the organization (even benign socialization, such as getting to know the ins and outs of any new job), this was being thwarted by the seeming unpredictability of responses and expectations. This will come up again, I'm sure, in a couple other ways of looking at it (from other sources, not just this book).
***
"When situations are optimally predictable they are familiar and stable enough to predict outcomes and novel enough to allow us to improve predictability. When outcomes are either too predictable or too unpredictable motivation is frustrated." (p. 67)
I don't think I'd been there very long before I figured out some kind of "game" was going on, with some intentional testing and the like. I did sort of take a risk (and lose) by figuring they'd eventually "play straight" with me, and so I got my grounding mostly outside the organization, such as my participation in an Austrian (German-speaking) church and taking an after-hours German class and also Spanish cooking class, both at a Volkshochschule (adult education center). I thought I had too much to offer for them to just spit me out - after all leadership in one of the leading missions to Eastern Europe (the Slavic Gospel Association) had courted me! I was dead wrong on that assumption. So I don't think I was ever an "insider" in the mission in Vienna. So my observations about the mission are as from someone who was basically an outsider there for 2 years.
***
"We redirect our pursuit of control because control is impossible due to physical or mental limitations." (p. 69)
I think I might add to this that in my case it was against my values to act in such a manipulative controlling manner, which is what the unpredictability smacked of to me. It wasn't because of physical or mental limitations that control was impossible to me in that context.
I think my discussion of the previous citation deals with the redirecting of pursuit of control part of this quote. I guess that's what I did - redirect my pursuit of control to something more controllable, namely Austria and Austrians, rather than 60 expats and their families (i.e., the mission).
***
"Self-confident people are more able to tolerate delay in achieving control, are more willing to take calculated risks, and are more persistent in pursuing control, all of which make it more probable that they will improve their scope, degree, and reliability of control. Self-confident people tend to be dogged and venturesome in their pursuit of control and don't lose heart when obstacles delay their progress. Their confidence leads them to believe that sooner or later they will be successful in improving their control." (p. 73)
This is like music to my ears! After reading my journal entries last night from the year after Vienna, it's encouraging to think that maybe I really did have self-confidence even through all the heart-wrenching events that really shook me up and turned my whole life upside-down.
I've definitely been dogged and persistent in my adult life. I had this idea that no one could tell me it's impossible to work in the USSR/Russia. No one. A year after Vienna I decided on another route and, by golly, I did it. I went for it and... well that's getting too far ahead of my story though. I was down but not out, as the saying goes.
***
That's all for tonight. It's 12:34 a.m. according to my computer clock, so it's time for me to go to bed. Maybe after that last thought I'll have good dreams, although I hardly ever remember my dreams.
Good night!
~ Meg
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