In his book, Combating Cult Mind Control, Steven Hassan outlines the three steps to gaining control of the mind as derived from Kurt Lewin’s work and originally described in Edgar Schein’s book, Coercive Persuasion.

Before moving to Delaware, I was instructed by my church leader to lie to get a job.

As mentioned in the previous post, the WMSCOG compares newly baptized members to babies, and continues to infantilize members throughout their church life. This is a dynamic common in relationships with narcissistic abusers.

The WMSCOG had a number of metaphors for the development path expected of members in the church. One compared newly baptized members to spiritual newborn babies.

My mindset right after leaving the cult was strange. I still didn’t have the courage to go online and look at all the critique of the church, nor did I have any interest in delving into the doctrine and deciding for myself whether each point was properly supported or not.