Cult Tactics

In reading the post by AmyB and the emails from Heidi, I see cult tactics at their best. The evidence keeps mounting proving to others what has been a long held belief by many, Kimkins is a cult.

Coercive Mind Control Tactics

Coercion is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as:

1.To force to act or think in a certain manner
2.To dominate, restrain, or control by force
3.To bring about by force.

Force comes in many forms. Psychological force in a coercive way to cause the learning and adoption of an ideology or designated set of beliefs, ideas, attitudes, or behaviors.

How Do They Work?

The tactics used to create undue psychological and social influence, often by means involving anxiety and stress, fall into seven main categories.

TACTIC 1

Increase suggestibility and “soften up” the individual through specific hypnotic or other suggestibility-increasing techniques such as:Extended audio, visual, verbal, or tactile fixation drills, Excessive exact repetition of routine activities, Sleep restriction and/or Nutritional restriction.

TACTIC 2

Establish control over the person’s social environment, time and sources of social support by a system of often-excessive rewards and punishments. Social isolation is promoted. Contact with family and friends is abridged, as is contact with persons who do not share group-approved attitudes. Economic and other dependence on the group is fostered.

TACTIC 3

Prohibit disconfirming information and non supporting opinions in group communication. Rules exist about permissible topics to discuss with outsiders. Communication is highly controlled. An “in-group” language is usually constructed.

TACTIC 4

Make the person re-evaluate the most central aspects of his or her experience of self and prior conduct in negative ways. Efforts are designed to destabilize and undermine the subject’s basic consciousness, reality awareness, world view, emotional control and defense mechanisms. The subject is guided to reinterpret his or her life’s history and adopt a new version of causality.

TACTIC 5

Create a sense of powerlessness by subjecting the person to intense and frequent actions and situations which undermine the person’s confidence in himself and his judgment.

TACTIC 6

Create strong aversive emotional arousals in the subject by use of nonphysical punishments such as intense humiliation, loss of privilege, social isolation, social status changes, intense guilt, anxiety, manipulation and other techniques.

TACTIC 7

Intimidate the person with the force of group-sanctioned secular psychological threats. For example, it may be suggested or implied that failure to adopt the approved attitude, belief or consequent behavior will lead to severe punishment or dire consequences such as physical or mental illness, the reappearance of a prior physical illness, drug dependence, economic collapse, social failure, divorce, disintegration, failure to find a mate, etc.

These tactics of psychological force are applied to such a severe degree that the individual’s capacity to make informed or free choices becomes inhibited. The victims become unable to make the normal, wise or balanced decisions which they most likely or normally would have made, had they not been unknowingly manipulated by these coordinated technical processes. The cumulative effect of these processes can be an even more effective form of undue influence than pain, torture, drugs or the use of physical force and physical and legal threats.

While going through this list, I was going to highlight those things I felt pertained directly to Kimkins. Yet reading the list of tactics through again, they ALL apply to Kimkins.

Kimkins Cult Mentality
Kimkins Cult Mentality Revisited
Kimkins – A Cult
Reinforcing the Cult
Is Kimkins a Cult?
Is Kimkins A Cult?

Information obtained from :

FACTnet : Cult, Cults, Abuse by Religions, Abuse Recovery Discussion & Resources, Peer-Support, Legal support