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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Oct 15, 2009 7:23:17 GMT -5
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Post by anatheist on Oct 15, 2009 10:29:31 GMT -5
Your story is amazing, Tapati. I was wondering what you now think about deprogramming - is it a legitimate way for family to treat adult "cult" members?
If someone had succeeded in getting you out of those circumstances, from your perspective now as recognizing the patriarchy imbued in it as harmful, would you be grateful? Or would you still feel that you'd had your autonomy unrightfully taken away and that it was necessary for you to go through all you did - even the worst parts - on your own, through your own decisions, but then have left by your own decisions too?
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Post by km on Oct 15, 2009 10:51:09 GMT -5
Your story is amazing, Tapati. I was wondering what you now think about deprogramming - is it a legitimate way for family to treat adult "cult" members? If someone had succeeded in getting you out of those circumstances, from your perspective now as recognizing the patriarchy imbued in it as harmful, would you be grateful? Or would you still feel that you'd had your autonomy unrightfully taken away and that it was necessary for you to go through all you did - even the worst parts - on your own, through your own decisions, but then have left by your own decisions too? I was wondering these exact same things. I'm also curious whether or not you've seen the depiction of deprogramming in the Kate Winslet film, "Holy Smoke"? And if so, what you thought of it? It portrays deprogramming as a sort of...unregulated field, and one that might attract some rather unsavory characters...kinda like bounty hunting. If that's accurate (at least among some deprogrammers), it wouldn't surprise me to learn about widespread abuses like what you discuss. I also have to wonder if there's actually a wide range of practices within the field--ranging from, say, the activities of licensed psychologists to those of people with virtually no qualifications who go and kidnap believers against their will?
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Post by km on Oct 15, 2009 10:53:08 GMT -5
It also strikes me that some of the deprogramming activity that you discussed is blatantly illegal, and I wonder if there has been a move to reign in some of the abuses over the years? Either within the field itself or among law enforcement agencies?
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Post by tapati on Oct 15, 2009 10:58:16 GMT -5
Your story is amazing, Tapati. I was wondering what you now think about deprogramming - is it a legitimate way for family to treat adult "cult" members? If someone had succeeded in getting you out of those circumstances, from your perspective now as recognizing the patriarchy imbued in it as harmful, would you be grateful? Or would you still feel that you'd had your autonomy unrightfully taken away and that it was necessary for you to go through all you did - even the worst parts - on your own, through your own decisions, but then have left by your own decisions too? If I had been deprogrammed, I wouldn't have my children and grandchildren. I doubt it would have been successful, given what I had to return to. I disagree with the deprogrammer mentality that I had been brainwashed so they had to use the same techniques to liberate me. No coercive methods were used to convert me--I was many miles away from the nearest devotee when I came to believe in Gaudiya Vaishnavism. I came to it out of my spiritual and material needs at the time, and when I was ready to move on I did so. I see it as a developmental phase for me, though others may experience it differently. When it's purpose had been served, I was able to let go and move into a different type of spirituality, more autonomous and less group oriented. I think it is never appropriate to kidnap adult children, no matter what you think of their choices. Good or bad, once they are adults, unless you can go to court and prove they are mentally incompetent, you have to let them make their own choices. Anything else will drive them away. I'm not saying it's easy, though.
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Post by tapati on Oct 15, 2009 11:02:18 GMT -5
I was wondering these exact same things. I'm also curious whether or not you've seen the depiction of deprogramming in the Kate Winslet film, "Holy Smoke"? And if so, what you thought of it? It portrays deprogramming as a sort of...unregulated field, and one that might attract some rather unsavory characters...kinda like bounty hunting. If that's accurate (at least among some deprogrammers), it wouldn't surprise me to learn about widespread abuses like what you discuss. I also have to wonder if there's actually a wide range of practices within the field--ranging from, say, the activities of licensed psychologists to those of people with virtually no qualifications who go and kidnap believers against their will? There were some unsavory characters doing deprogramming. Ted Patrick comes to mind. I've heard there are licensed people who will do a milder form of deprogramming but I assume they don't engage in kidnapping, not if they want to keep their license! Kulapriya's family was brought to court and at the initial hearing they just kept pleading the fifth. I watched through the doorway. It was disgusting. I don't know if she ever reconciled with them, either. She eventually did escape and ISKCON threw her a big wedding ceremony because she was in the media spotlight. I hope her marriage worked out.
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Post by anatheist on Oct 15, 2009 11:29:43 GMT -5
It's ironic to me that in my experience, Christians were some of the biggest advocates for deprogramming, because obviously someone in a "cult" was too brainwashed to think for themselves.
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Post by km on Oct 15, 2009 11:51:06 GMT -5
Yeah, agreed. It doesn't seem that kidnapping is really ever acceptable. In a situation in which children are being abused (as among the Branch Davidians, say, or the FLDS) or where coercion is taking place (as is said to happen among Scientologists and others), there are outlets in place for the involvement of social services and law enforcement. Otherwise, though, in a country that espouses a commitment to religious liberty, it seems to me that adults should have the freedom to join new religious movements and/or cults if they choose to do that.
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Post by km on Oct 15, 2009 11:51:32 GMT -5
By the way, what happened with your friend's family sounds horrible.
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Post by km on Oct 15, 2009 12:00:07 GMT -5
I also have the impression that more of this deprogramming activity has been directed at people involved in sects that are related to Eastern spirituality than at people involved in Christian cults? I wonder if this is accurate?
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Post by rosa on Oct 15, 2009 16:08:17 GMT -5
I'm sure it has, but there are types of Christians (Mormon variants, some of the Apostolic folks, some of the Adventist offshoots) whose practices are far enough outside of normal that they get targeted - plus of course organizations like MOVE which had Christian elements. Basically anyone who doesn't act like everybody else - which means you can treat your children pretty awfully, or practice serious racial or sexual hierarchy, and be fine, but if your food/clothes/sexual habits are out of the mainstream, watch out. And if the person you're having kidnapped is under 18 it's totally legal for their parents to have that done. I wonder if you could even get the raw data to analyze the whole deprogramming thing, though - I bet it's not just skewed by what kind of religion the person converted to, but also by age and gender. And it seems like it's a lot rarer these days, but maybe just becaues it's not getting as much publicity. That would be a really interesting study.
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Post by rosa on Oct 15, 2009 16:37:14 GMT -5
..and what I came over to say was, he didn't want to have a baby but he wouldn't use birth control? WTH?
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Post by tapati on Oct 15, 2009 16:50:35 GMT -5
Links with more information about deprogramming: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deprogrammingwww.rickross.com/deprogramming.htmlI have an account by Krsna devi dasi (on the flip side of some recipes from Back to Godhead magazine) where she talks about her attempted deprogramming, instigated by her mother and stepfather. ...a van pulled up to the curb in front of me. Two large, rough-looking men burst out of the doors and ran toward me...They grabbed me and pulled me back to the van, scraping my ankles and bruising my ribs. They threw me in the van, lay on top of me, and gagged me. From the back of the van my mother and stepfather came forward and said, "It's all right, Kim, you've been brainwashed by the Hare Krsnas, and these men are going to help you return to normal life."
...We drove straight to Ohio--about a ten-hour drive. They wouldn't even let me stop to go to the bathroom. They made me use a bucket in the van...I was locked in a room so small that the bed practically filled it, and all the windows were boarded up. They kept me in that cabin more than two weeks--in 90-degree weather with no ventilation.
During that time I couldn't wear my religious clothes or pray (they took everything from me the first night and burned it: clothes, neck beads, prayer beads, etc.). They made me change all my personal habits--how I ate, how I went to the bathroom, how I spoke, even how I sat and walked--in an effort to destroy the person I'd been before they kidnapped me. They constantly blasphemed my religious doctrines twelve to fourteen hours a day, reducing me to tears and depression. They even threatened to commit me to a mental institution. They deprived me of sleep and repeatedly threatened to keep me locked up. They verbally abused me, calling me things such as "slave," "selfish arrogant bitch," and "whore." They even tried sexual aggression to dehumanize me and destroy my religious beliefs and lifestyle.
I was forced to eat non-vegetarian foods, gamble and drink wine, all of which are against my religious principles. One of my captors tried several times to seduce me. That was "an important part of the rehabilitation," he said.
They made me write letters, sign papers, and confess to things I had never done. When they forced me to read a book on brainwashing, I found that the methods I was reading about were the things they were doing to me!
The thugs said they wouldn't release me until they were satisfied I had completely severed my involvement with Krsna consciousness. They said they would keep me locked up until I made a "free" decision to leave Krsna. Although I refused to give up struggling for my rights and beliefs, I decided the only way out would be to play along with them until I could get away.
After about seventeen days they began to trust me (actually, another case came in and they needed the "deprogramming cabin" for her). So they moved me to another cabin, with chains on the windows, where I was either closely guarded or locked in. All together I spent one month in captivity before I was able to escape.
I have never been treated in such a demeaning way in my entire life....law enforcement officials have been incredibly slow to respond to my complaints. Indeed, they've advised me to just forget about the whole episode. A city police officer and even an FBI agent said if they had a child like me they would also kidnap and deprogram him. But they have no idea what a horrible experience it was, and still is. I still wake up crying from nightmares brought on by that hellish month. I'm filled with fear that what happened then might happen again. It will take a long time before the mental scars are healed.
My parents were exploited and misinformed by these men, who induced them to pay more than $15,000 for my kidnapping and abortive "deprogramming." I have asked my parents for their cooperation in bringing these criminals to justice, but they have refused. I don't want to prosecute my parents, but I have to in order to get to these deprogrammers.
I appeal to the parents of Hare Krsna devotees all over the world: Don't ruin a cherished relationship with your son or daughter by putting them through an experience like mine. And I also appeal to law agencies to act decisively to bring these criminals to justice.
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Post by tapati on Oct 15, 2009 17:11:38 GMT -5
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Post by km on Oct 15, 2009 17:45:23 GMT -5
Tapati: *reading the links you posted* Sheesh... The narrative that you posted here is horrifying--surely tantamount to torture. I really, really hope that law enforcement agencies have changed their attitudes about this since then...
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Post by pandapaws on Oct 15, 2009 18:08:08 GMT -5
I survived an attempted deprogramming. It was horrible and I don't wish it on anyone. It left me a shattered person for many years.
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Post by coleslaw on Oct 15, 2009 18:13:49 GMT -5
I remember how people viewed so-called cults back in the day. They were seen to have almost magical powers of mind control, beyond mere persuasion. The cold war and the experiences of Korean War POWs made people sensitive to the dangers of "brainwashing". There was also a lot of parent-child alienation between my generation and our parents and it was probably easier to believe your child had been brainwashed than that your child rejected you of his or her own free will.
I read a really good book on the subject, written in the late 70's, that put the whole "cult" idea in perspective, and wish I could remember the title.
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Post by km on Oct 15, 2009 18:22:45 GMT -5
I remember how people viewed so-called cults back in the day. They were seen to have almost magical powers of mind control, beyond mere persuasion. The cold war and the experiences of Korean War POWs made people sensitive to the dangers of "brainwashing". Right. A lot of it had to do with the Soviet style mass confessions. The CIA was intrigued by the fact that alleged "enemies of the state" could be coerced into confessions without actually leaving any visible marks on their bodies. So, massive studies were undertaken (most notably at McGill University in Montreal) to figure out how the Soviets were doing it (That's where most of the techniques used at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib originated--especially sensory deprivation.). In one of the links Tapati provided, it didn't surprise me that some of these deprogrammers had been hired by US intelligence officers for use at Guantanamo--for the purpose of making prisoners break. I'm sure that some of the techniques that we've all read about in these prisons has some links to the deprogramming craze (just as it's linked to some of the CIA "mind control experiments" of the Cold War.)--from Muslim prisoners being forced to eat pork to patterns of sensory and sleep deprivation.
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Post by jadehawk on Oct 15, 2009 19:59:52 GMT -5
interesting opinions on "kidnapping". especially if you all remember from Vyckie's story that she, too, was "kidnapped" and brought to a shelter to get her to change her mind on her abusive first husband.
so, I guess the difference is to be "kidnapped" out of a violent, destructive situation, vs. being "kidnapped" out of a strange and potentially oppressive, but not immediately dangerous situation? or what do you guys think?
This is separate from the "deprogramming" methods, btw. though there too there is a major difference. Vyckie was "kidnapped", but then given a choice. deprogramming doesn't give you choices, and is basically torture. is that an important issue in whether this sort of "kidnapping" is ok? would "kidnapping" members of dangerous cults be ok if the methods to make them change their mind weren't this sort of cruelty?
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Post by kisekileia on Oct 15, 2009 20:13:02 GMT -5
WOW. That's absolutely disgusting that people who engaged in that level of torture were given legal immunity. I really think you pretty much lose the whole point of "deprogramming" if you torture people in the process. Trying to help people see beyond what they've learned in coercive religious groups is an admirable goal, but doing it using torture is far worse than not doing it at all!
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Post by rosa on Oct 15, 2009 20:20:55 GMT -5
The lack of threats and physical abuse, and the short duration of Vyckie's "kidnapping" make it completely different. It *might* be ethical to capture someone and keep them until they agreed not to go back into an immediately dangerous situation, though usually we say even that's not OK if you hit people, force feed them, or try to coerce them into sex could be ethical. One easy ground rule for an ethical relationship might be "not as bad as the prison system" and deprogrammers fail that on almost every level - no way to raise complaints with a higher authority, no communication with the outside, no allowance for religious beliefs (including food - jails and prisons are required to provide halal, kosher, vegetarian and vegan food to prisoners).
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Post by rosa on Oct 15, 2009 20:24:53 GMT -5
ARGH. I edited that too much and it got all garbled. There might be times when it's ethical to keep someone from going back into an immediately dangerous situation, but we usually don't think that's ethical unless the person is mentally ill or incapable. I can't imagine a situation where it would be ethical if you included hitting someone, or trying to coerce them into sex. That is what the first part of that is supposed to say.
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Post by tapati on Oct 16, 2009 1:38:05 GMT -5
Don't feel bad, Rosa, I completely forgot to write about getting initiated and being given a new name in March of 1977, along with my ex also getting initiated. At that point our names changed to Mahasraya and Tapati. I didn't mention it in the subsequent piece, either, leaving me to write later on "Oh yeah, back in March we got initiated." Awkward!
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Post by sargassosea on Oct 16, 2009 6:44:31 GMT -5
My brother-in-law (Dandy Deluxe's 'favorite' brother - mine too!) ran off with the Children of God way back in the day. DD's parents had the resources to have him kidnapped and deprogrammed. They imprisoned him in the in-house bomb shelter and stripped him of every emotion. There's that 'soul murder' again but from the other side... Of course, I'm not saying that CofG was/is all sunshine and lollipops but the deprogramming left brother X a shell of a person.
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Post by pandapaws on Oct 16, 2009 7:02:08 GMT -5
Deprogrammings are never ok. There is a never a situation that requires that. You have to let an individual have free will. It's emotional and mental rape.
Now they have gotten away from this style of intervention, thankfully. They do something called "exit counseling" and as far as I have heard, you do have the freedom to leave if you wish and the methods are not so harsh. They try to show you inconsistencies and reason with the person. It's more like a drug intervention, but can last several days.
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