SBF there was a discussion of the article at http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/242705/1/A-Mormon-becomes-a-JW-in-the-Feb-2013-Watchtower
A Mormon manages to awaken from mind control with a little help from Jehovah's Witnesses...
by cedars 45 Replies latest jw friends
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fresh prince of ohio
Loved this. Thanks for sharing. "unloving and irrational" - bullseye
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Cold Steel
People have their own views and tend to convert to and from one religion to another for reasons that are important to them. There also are those who have lost faith in all religions, including ancient Christianity (which, by the way, was considered by both Jews and Romans to be a “cult.”)
The people who made the video of the Mormon who used the Jehovah's Witnesses to realize that his own church was essentially the same in its hierarchal structure, claims and expectations clearly have an agenda.
Qcmbr writes that “The common factor between all religions is faith. All that changes is the order the ingredients are mixed and the presentation of the final product.”
But there is more to it than that. The LDS faith puts family first. We don’t shun, nor do we try to dictate who our members associate with; we don’t dictate what our members read or don’t read, and we encourage education and learning. We have a top-down organization where people are called to positions from upper levels, as done in the ancient church. And while the JWs speak of “new light” revealed by Jehovah, they deny revelation via angels, visions, prophecy and other means. The problem is, “new light” is revelation, no matter how one looks at it.
Again, the issue is not the few superficial similarities between the LDS and JW sects, as the video purports. It’s the differences. No argument is made in the video on why the LDS faith exerts mind control, or how.
In short, the video was a puff piece. Slick, nice voice, music, script, editing and absolutely no substance or value other than to demean Mormonism.
Qcmbr also observed that “Mormonism and Witnesses are cut from the same cloth simply because they are a product of the same culture albeit separated by a few decades.” Even here the differences are overlooked. Certainly both originated in the U.S.; however, the JW and Adventist movements have more in common that the JW and LDS. The doctrines are closer, and even some of the same people were involved. But the greatest evidence backing up the LDS not only was the Book of Mormon, which no one has explained or debunked, but the many witnesses. Just as with Moses and the ancient Christian church, the LDS have many witnesses—people who not only witnessed the many miracles of the dead raised to life, the blind made to see, but the appearances of angels, like Moroni, but the conferral of keys of authority by Elijah, Moses, John the Baptist and Peter, James, John and others. It wasn’t just one guy making all sorts of fabulous claims in his time, but many other apostles and prophets—men who bore witness to the events of the Restoration.
You don't need to tell a forum of ex-JWs that their former religion is different to that of Mormons. ... What is the same, between both groups, is that vocal opponents are stigmatized as representing satanic persecution of the one true faith. Also, both groups use mind control techniques to varying degrees. If you can't see that, maybe you are under the influence of these techniques.
Okay, point one about the stigmatization of vocal opponents is true. In the early days of the church, vocal opposition always led to contention and contention always led to violence. Our people were driven from place to place, from state to state, often leaving their homes and wealth behind. We also had an extermination order issued against us by the state of Missouri. Our people were raped and murdered, including children. Even pets and livestock were brutally killed. I think applying the term “satanic” to these things isn’t over the top.
I suppose any religion can be accused of using mind control, even the ancient church. I’ve watched Darren Brown do incredible things, as well as the Amazing Kreskin, but I haven’t seen mind control used within the LDS faith.
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cedars
Cold Steel
I haven’t seen mind control used within the LDS faith.
Mind control wouldn't be very effective if those under its influence were able to notice it.
Cedars
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Qcmbr
Cedars - excellent point
Cold Steel - I'm not going to try and point out places where the BoM has been refuted, where those supposed miraculous healings didn't occur ( they really didnt) and where those eye witnesses you cite are mythical retellings of less impressive events. Metaphorically I hold cast iron evidence of your 'spouse' cheating on you but I absolutely understand why you wouldn't want to see the pictures, if that ever changes pm me and I'll be there for you. What I do want to address is the methods the LDS church and it's members use for brainwashing/habit forming.
1/ Children are taught biblical stories ,Book of Mormon Stories and foundational LDS stories as fact. They are praised for their acceptance of this information. They are regularly asked to repeat it in talks , primary songs, presentations and in family settings. There is naturally no access to or time given to alternate explanations . Several early concepts of wickedness, the world , Satan and fear are taught as opposition to the truth and that they must fight these things. Primary songs repeat concepts like :
Follow the prophet, follow the prophet,
Follow the prophet; Don't go astray.
Follow the prophet, follow the prophet,
Follow the prophet; He knows the way.
Finally they are habituated into Mormon practises like giving ten percent of their pocket money as tithing, praying about everything, blessing food at the tables and so forth.
2/- Framing. As a child this was done to me and as a missionary I unwittingly used the same technique. Whenever I felt emotion, adrenaline, euphoria, awe, peace, extreme happiness, strong empathy or idealistic hope burnt in my chest - as long as I remember- my peers told me that that was the spirit, that was my testimony, that was god revealing to me his love. I began to associate all those beautiful parts of human emotion , especially the concentrated ones ( like the moment of the birth of my children, the first time one of my kids told me they loved me, when people did really kind things for me etc) as the results of the spirit. When I taught people on my mission I did the same,
'Mike, as we talk today, we're going to cover some special and important concepts and the spirit of god will be here <pause> it's going to feel different, you're going to feel different , in here <touch chest> and here <touch head> as we talk about the love you have for our Saviour and how he's working now in the world I want you to listen to those feelings of the Spirit.'
Low educated Mike would now have been anchored by my words to expect odd feelings and with a sense of expectation which I had framed such that, as long as he felt somewhat different to his usual self, I'd be able to claim was a divine affirmation of the whole presentation. Brainwashing / parlour trick/ neuro linguistic programming - call it what you will. It worked like a charm.
3/- Groupthink. Hymns, shared prayers, shared rituals ( blessings, baptisms, giving priesthood, sacrament, gift of the Holy Ghost etc.) , talks , lessons taught to each other, frequent visits by home teachers / visiting teachers, callings ( jobs within the church), regular administrative meetings , publically bearing testimony and so on are all behaviours that encourage certain patterns of thinking and acting ( and are repeated so frequently that they become unthought about second nature to seasoned members ) such that their is a truth that active Mormons across the world are very similar. It is almost impossible to gain acceptance in the group if you do not adhere to the phrasing, mannerisms, dress sense and ritualistic order of behaviour. Think of how uncomfortable we felt when someone did something 'incorrect' while bearing a testimony ( sang a song, went on too long, talked about something non- belief related, said something from another faith's language or cracked a joke) , people would possibly say afterwards that the spirit left the meeting or some other such idea. There is a 'hidden' set of LDS commandments more powerful than the written ones, it involves white shirts, facial hair, tattoos, earrings, musical instruments in sacrament meeting, skirt length, dancing distance, disco lighting, chaperoned lifts, missionary visit lengths, things you must not talk about, things you shoud talk about, what is gossip and what is not and so on.
4/- Double binds. Do not lie / if you don't have a testimony bear it till you get one, the first law of heaven is obedience / the spirit of the law, free agency / obey your leaders, the prophet speaks on behalf of god / sometimes the prophet speaks as a man.
TL:DR. Personal LDS examples of mind control.
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jj123jj123
Mormon experiences on shunning:
http://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/15dtd3/tbms_like_to_say_that_shunninglosing_friends_and/
My understanding is that Mormon shunning is not a formal process like with JW but more of a cultural thing.
Of course, just like with some JWs, some Mormons still associate with former members and some don't. -
cedars
jj123jj123
My understanding is that Mormon shunning is not a formal process like with JW but more of a cultural thing.
That's my understanding too. Shunning does happen in the LDS church - but not universally. There are no written commands as there are in Watchtower literature. It all seems to depend on what talks you listen to, or what the view of the local community (or the individual) is. If a family chooses to shun, that's fine by the church. That's my understanding anyway. Maybe Qcmbr can shed a little more light.
Cedars
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Qcmbr
Yep - that about sums it up. Shunning is also dependant on the person involved and the circumstances of their exit. Go out in a blaze of glory sending emails with damning church history details is a rapid way to get cultural shunning. If you exit slowly or just stop going you may well experience the opposite - very active attempts to reconnect and be involved from Home Teaching and missionary visits right through to being asked to do things at church (a calling such as teaching). If you make it clear you're an apostate you may get an official declaration made to avoid you but oddly enough even that is very patchy. I've not hidden my exit or antipathy and I get missionaries, member visits, big cheery smiles and chats in public and no real evidence of shunning. I think a lot of what goes for cultural shunning in the UK (I can't speak for other countries) is more the uncomfortableness of not knowing what to say to someone who has exited rather than a 'must not speak, god will punish me' JW doctrine. That said - as a kid - I shunned my school friend who exited but I didn't do it consciously , just didn't know how to handle it.
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moshe
Mormons don't shun? hahaha- maybe they call it the, cold shoulder treatment, instead. Of course that is an improvement from the Mormon's Mountain Meadows days in the 1800's-- back then they killed you with a musket ball to the head.
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Hillary
The Mormon religion does appear to be much less emotionally traumatic than JW, especially for children. If I had to choose one of the 2 religions when I was a kid, I would definitely choose Mormon. They're allowed to celebrate birthdays, holidays, can salute the flag, national anthem, plus a whole lot of other stuff.