I recently finished the book Brainwashing - The Science of Thought Control by Kathleen Taylor (Oxford University Press Inc., New York, 2004). This presents an excellent summary of current research into the biology and psychology of the brain and identifies how organizations use this for the purposes of control. It discusses well known research such as by Lifton and Festinger, but also goes into a lot of scientific research into the biology of the brain. Some interesting discussion is made as to whether marketing is considered brainwashing, and identifies that though the techniques are the same, people are aware of the motives behind marketing, they are not when it comes to cults. Also, marketing presents a few specific beliefs, whereas cult leaders intend to impose an entire ideological system.
The mind is described very much like a river. As water flows down a river it erodes; the more water that flows down the river, the deeper it becomes. Likewise, the more a thought is repeated the stronger, the brains synapses supporting that thought become. Furthermore, just as a river gets larger the more tributaries feed it, a belief will become stronger and harder to give up the more other beliefs connect to it. For these reasons the key to brainwashing is repetition.
The reason a Witness has such strongly entrenched beliefs is directly related to:
- the regularity and repetitive nature of the Watchtower schedule
- the broad nature of this information, infiltrating all areas of a Witness belief, regarding topics are diverse as cosmology, morality, palaeontology, theology, the historic past, evaluation of current events and hope for the prophetic future.
- Prayer - Regular prayer to Jehovah
- Association - Regular meeting attendance
- Service - Regular Preaching
- Study - Regular study of Bible publications; that is, Watchtower publications
The Watchtower routine assists in understanding the conviction of a Jehovah's Witness.