ipl-logo

Deprogramming The Mind: The Psychological Effects Of The Unification Church

1434 Words6 Pages

Sun Myung Moon and his wife believe that God calls them to be the people of the earth's true parents. The Unification Church claims to be a branch of Christianity, but with the change, Jesus is not able to save you because he did not fulfill his mission. The ways they treat people, the events they host, and the testimonies of people who are former members contradict that they are a church. This solidifies the fact that they are, in fact, a cult. The Unification Church is a cult that uses many strategies to brainwash and manipulate its members into joining and staying. The psychological tactics the cult used on its members had a lasting effect on them, even. after they left the Unification Church. The Unification Church claims to be derived from Christianity and …show more content…

Once someone has gone through such severe psychological brainwashing and manipulation, they must go to a professional to get deprogrammed. Deprogramming entails undoing and reprogramming the brain to go back to its original state before brainwashing, manipulation, mind control, and other psychological techniques occur. There are two different types of deprogramming, one voluntary and the other involuntary. If a member chooses to leave a cult because of a circumstance or with help from an outside person, they typically go to a therapist who will help them unravel what they’ve been through. Throughout that process, they will reprogram their brains to their original state. If the deprogramming is involuntary, it’s usually more intense. Some even include kidnapping, isolation, and high confrontation. Most psychologists only condone safe deprogramming and do not agree with anything that has negative ideas. There are many approaches to deprogramming someone, but overall, it is essential to undo the brainwashing they went through so the aftermath is not even

Show More
Related
1624 Words | 7 Pages

The article goes into depth on the struggles of understanding cults. The author describes that oftentimes it is best to understand them from former members. This leads to ten warning signs given by former cult members. Manipulation and vulnerability tactics are discussed. Lastly, the author shares famous cults to share what it is like to keep someone aware of something similar but on a lower scale.

Read More
932 Words | 4 Pages

The Holy Ghost People by Peter Adair, was created in 1967. It exposes people of the Pentecostal religion, and their unusual rituals and ceremonies that they partake in. While watching the movie I kept on wondering why someone would want to sit through one of their services and participate in such odd rituals and behaviors. After reviewing the sociological theories we have learned in class, I concluded that Durkheim’s Social Consensus theory and Collins Interaction Ritual Chains theory both best explain the motivations for joining and staying in a religion that has such unusual rituals and extreme commitments.

Read More
1046 Words | 5 Pages

The cult was led by Marshall Applewhite, a music professor, who was recruited into the cult by Bonnie Lu Nettles. In 1975, Applewhite and Nettles persuaded a group of 20 people from Oregon to abandon their families and possessions and move to Colorado. They promised them that an extraterrestrial spacecraft would take them to the “kingdom of heaven.” They brainwashed people into believing that their human bodies were actually just containers that could be abandoned for a higher physical existence. The spacecraft never arrived and members were starting to realize that.

Read More
529 Words | 3 Pages

It then gradually became something people joined just to believe in something. Many people believe most people are religious because they want an explanation for the unexplainable. Many celebrities strided towards this religion bringing in a lot of money and followers. This change stirred the leaders of the religion. It is now seen that the leaders of this practice are using their power for all the wrong reasons such as using the funding for the church for their own personal use.

Read More
536 Words | 3 Pages

To begin, the Unification Church was developed with a variety of cult-like aspects, such as “purification rituals,” the belief that Reverend Moon was the new Messiah, and mass arranged marriage ceremonies. These “purification rituals” that occur within the Unification Church are called P’ikareun, Korean for “cleansing of the womb.” A brief description of the ritual is that the priests of any given parish within the church would have intercourse with select married women, in order to cleanse their wombs. The women then proceed to have intercourse with their husbands, using sexual rites in order to purify their husbands, so that they would bear “children free from sin” (Gordon para.1). In short, these rituals are similar to the kind of obscene rites that happen often within other cults, such as the Manson Family and the Branch Davidians.

Read More
1571 Words | 7 Pages

Krenwinkel describes her attraction to him being memorizing and charismatic, immediately feeling entranced by his brainwashing abilities and free spirited attitude, left her home, her car and her last paycheck to start a new life with Mason in San Francisco. This is the exact odd behaviour that makes me completely intrigued by this cult’s

Read More
936 Words | 4 Pages

A main theme of all religion is having faith in something or someone. Whether it is a large organized religion, a sect, or a cult, each group has their own beliefs and these beliefs should not be easily discounted. The leading reason why the Open Mind Forum was not taken seriously may have been their “outlandish” ideas and conspiracies, but mostly, this cult was not taken seriously based on their unqualified leader and the overall disorganization of the group. Jim, the leader of the cult was not charismatic, he was unable to expand the cult, and he was incapable to appeal to the general population.

Read More
762 Words | 4 Pages

As a religion people work towards a goal of bettering themselves or bettering their environment. This idea can nearly be regarded as fact for some branches of religion have been around for thousands of years and have followers in every corner of the globe claiming that their ideology and faith of religion has helped them in the past and will continue to help them in the future. For cults, this goal is often illegal or immoral after all cults are almost always shrouded in mystery and details are often withheld from the public. Cults of some form or other have been around for as long as organized religion, during the first-century people of the Roman Empire began to reject Christianity because it was something new and instead valued Judaism as this had been around a long time. It was around this time that politicians began to spread vicious rumors that Christians were beginning to take part in “group sex acts” during what was called “love fests”, it was also thought that they took part in sacrificing infants to their god.

Read More
1518 Words | 7 Pages

Ex-members of numerous cults report not only physical abuse, but also psychological. Mental abuse of these innocent cult members has been proven to be just as harmful as physical abuse. A researcher acknowledges that cult leaders feed off their followers wish to fit in and their capacity to believe; that is what makes them professionals in psychological manipulation (Tamm). The author realizes that the religious cult leaders take advantage of the young growing minds of their followers. The leaders deceive the members into believing that they belong and give them that feeling of being wanted.

Read More
920 Words | 4 Pages

To combat this, Hubbard established the Scientology Navy: a group of early Sea Org members who traveled around the world by ship with the mission of, in the words of Hubbard “research, and spreading the eternal truth”. Many of those original members who recall accompanying Hubbard on this journey, remember the experience as difficult, but enlightening, commenting specifically on the

Read More
658 Words | 3 Pages

The same reasoning used to come to the conclusions reached so far have also led me to this church. Knowing that there is considerable passion against this church I am hoping that reason prevails over passion in seeking the truth, which is the journey that we have embarked upon. Early in this country’s history the passion against this church led to an extermination order against the members (see appendix). The members were driven from the country with the knowledge and general approval of the President and Congress of the United States. While human nature does not change, I am still hopeful that I am

Read More
1161 Words | 5 Pages

Beginning in the mind of a troubled and delusional science fiction author, Scientology has grown to become one of the most controversial body of beliefs since the dawn of its creation in 1960. The Church of Scientology uses marketing technics to lure men and women into its cult-like sector and, while doing so, ruins the lives of everyone in its wake. Although the Church of Scientology claims to help the human condition by ridding the minds of its followers of terrible past life experiences so that they may reach their untapped potential, the Church of Scientology is a profit-making cult driven by greed, power, and gaining a worldwide following and ultimately ruins the lives of its followers. Science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard created Scientology

Read More
710 Words | 3 Pages

Good evening teachers, students and anyone else who may be watching my presentation. Scientology… haven’t heard it before? Don’t blame you, I didn’t know what it was until I started this speech. Scientology is somewhat like Todd Strasser novella “the Wave”. It has some similarities… however it also has some differences.

Read More
478 Words | 2 Pages

Throughout history, members of cults have engaged in horrific activities, mainly including the suicide of themselves or murder and sacrifice of others. Researchers and the general public have always thought about what possesses people to do these types of things, and many times a reasonable answer cannot be found. Cults have one person, normally the leader, who they idolize and will do anything for. As soon as this person is established, members of the cult follow all the rules and ideas proposed by the leader. The truth of cults is that the people involved in them are simply conforming.

Read More
702 Words | 3 Pages

I usually tend to try and be more open minded when reading about others religious choices, but as I continue to learn more about this religion and the secrets it hides, I can’t help to feel it to be so disingenuous especially as it grows older and asks for more profit from its followers. I, honestly, chose Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health because I was hoping to find the reason so many people of different means, and fame were so invested into this organization. It is a religion where people pour enormous amounts of money into, sign billion year contacts and devote their lives to working for Scientology under horrible pay and atrocious conditions. I couldn’t help to think that maybe there is something there that is worth connecting to. What I ended up getting out of this is continued confusion to why people are drawn to this.

Read More

More about Deprogramming The Mind: The Psychological Effects Of The Unification Church

Open Document