Because I have never "technically" been a Mormon, I am quite curious on the methods of mind control all of you true ex-mormons had to endure.

From what I have read from a lot of you is they force you to confess all of your deepest darkest secretes in front of 12 or so elders or whatever they are called. Which I might add is a very effective mind control technique..break a person's self confidence/self esteem and build it up again how they may desire.

What else have they done to all of you?

Information is controlled, that is a form of mind control.

Eternal family, via only through the temple, which requires full activity and 10% of your income, playing with the emotions mind control.

You are told you are allowed to come to your own conclusions through prayer, but they better be in line with the brethren or your conclusions are wrong, giving up your thinking to authority.

Wow! That is some very scary stuff. How do they control 10% of your income?

That's scary that they tell you how to think too. How did they control what conclusions you would have through prayer?

> Wow! That is some very scary stuff. How do they
> control 10% of your income?

In order to get into the temple, among other things, you must be a full tithe payer (10% of increase/income). If you are an active member and aren't able to go to the temple, then people think that you're unworthy in some way - they can assume things like some kind of sexual sin. If you don't pay tithing, then you are breaking a commandment. So there is significant pressure to pay.

Ok. I am having enough doubts that I am reading and researching this site. (I am still a practicing member) But they do not CONTROL 10% of your income. No one passes a plate around or puts pressure on you to contribute. Only 30% of the church membership routinely tithes so if they use controlling behavior it's not very effective.

That said, it is not a place where one would feel comfortable expressing one's doubts because the inference then is that you are less than spiritual. That said, I do know one man who routinely did so in meetings and he was never ostrasized.

cinsan58 Wrote:
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> No one passes a plate around or puts
> pressure on you to contribute.

As rt said: "When my 9-year old sister collected bottles in the swimming pool all summer long and refused to pay tithing over the proceeds, she was sent to her room with some tithing-scripture to read and ponder, while being made aware how disappointed her mom was - but of course, it would be her choice."

Not much pressure indeed.

You made some good points. The church doesn't control your tithing per se. They just use a combination of shame and reward to get people to pay. The threat of losing your temple recommend and your eternal family, having to tell people you can't go to the temple trip because you don't have a recommend etc. And the promise of happy families, eternal life, lofty church positions if you do pay a full tithe. There is also tithing settlement where you have to face the bishop and be accountable.

Also, since only about 40 percent of the church is active, having 30 percent pay their tithing regularly is pretty good odds that if you are active, you are going to feel you have to pay. Even without being told you will "burn" when Christ comes again if you don't. If you are investigating the church though, the question isn't tithing being obligated or voluntary, the question is how do they spend it.

cinsan58 Wrote:
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> Ok. I am having enough doubts that I am reading
> and researching this site. (I am still a
> practicing member) But they do not CONTROL 10% of
> your income. No one passes a plate around or puts
> pressure on you to contribute. Only 30% of the
> church membership routinely tithes so if they use
> controlling behavior it's not very effective.

So you don't go to "tithing settlement," which is an annual assessment of your income, and how much tithing you've paid, which is used to determine your worthiness for a temple recommend?
Oh, no -- no "pressure to contribute." Just an annual accounting, and being threatened with the loss of full membership if you haven't paid your 10%.

They use guilt and veiled threats. Count how many times in conference they speak of tithing and then analyze the statement.

They use social pressure.

Really the tssc does not need to control the people. They use social pressure. The members make sure everyone else steps in line. It's like they are all children and are ruled by "it's not fair" if someone in the church does not do everything they do.

DH and I attended a church which passed a plate for seven years. We never once put money in the plate since it was our choice to pay by check each year in January. No one usually cares how anyone pays and the plate is a convenience for those who like to give something weekly.

BUT Mormons preach about paying regularly and don't let non-payers attend weddings or be considered in the "worthy" group of members.

I have never heard of another church which divides the congregation into categories of being worthy or unworthy. I think it's a despicable insult to call everyone such a bad name because they can't pay as much money as some other members of their church.

They start on children in diapers with the crap. I remember seeing many kids bearing testimonies saying "I know...." when EVERY WORD was coached by the parents in front of everyone.

Kids in diapers don't KNOW anything. Their parents should win the ROTTEN PARENTS of the century award too.

One goal keep everyone off balance. There is a thread here about the Handbook of Instructions, which has hundreds of pages of rules. Most Mormons don't know it exists until they break a rule.

They try to convince members that they should let the church replace their inner conscience. They take credit for anything you do right, and blame you for any problems. Used along with standard guilt and shaming techniques, It leaves members with little confidence in their own judgement.

The end result is to have members who are as dependent and malleable as children. You can see it clearly with women in the Flds where it is more extreme. They never have to grow up and take responsibility for the terrible things that they do to their children, like marrying the girls off young to old men. The church has taken the role of deciding right and wrong for them.

Heresy Wrote:
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> They try to convince members that they should let the church replace their inner conscience. They take credit for anything you do right, and blame you for any problems. Used along with standard guilt and shaming techniques, It leaves members with little confidence in their own judgement.

If I had to name the one biggest problem of the Mormon church, this would be it. I didn't see that so much in the Catholic church of my youth and the mainstream Protestant churches (not the fundie churches which are another whole ball of wax.) Members in those denominations feel perfectly free to take a cafeteria approach and to disagree with the church leaders. One of the most profound church experiences of my youth was listening to my dad disagree under his breath with something the priest said in mass. It made me realize that it was okay to think differently. My relatives routinely disagreed with something or other that the pope said or with some church policy or doctrine.

Church was a part of my life growing up. It was not my entire life by a longshot. My family saw church as being in service to humankind, not the other way around.

"They take credit for anything you do right, and blame you for any problems."

That is the most succinct, but accurate description about the way TSCC makes people feel that I've probably ever read.

I like Heresy's answer.

They tell you that to be obedient and get the blessings of salvation, you must do certain things. You have to go to the temple and be endowed. To go to the temple, and to maintain a current recommend, you must be a full tithe-payer. Your food and beverages are controlled by the church (no coffee, tea, alcohol). You must wear the church issued underwear all the time.

Most people don't go in front of 12 men and confess their sins. Only the worst sins need to be confessed and that is usually to the bishop. If it's really bad (adultery), they may hold a church court, which is in front of more than 12 men if you are a man. If you're a woman, you just are judged by the bishop, his 2 counselors, and there will also be a secretary present.

Others have said this, but I want to reiterate. If you don't agree with church rules, you are told to pray about it until you have a "testimony" that they are true. If you don't receive that testimony, then you are doing something wrong--either you're sinful, or you aren't praying hard enough. Never is it acceptable to say the church or its leaders are wrong.

They do not teach critical thinking, they teach obedience.

The mind control for the ex-mormons obviously didn't stick.

It would be interesting for you to pose that question to a Board of active mormons. Interesting because you wouldn't get any answers about how the lds church controls their life. And it's not because nobody has an answer. There would be plenty of mormons that would want to answer your question, but they can't in a forum where their friends would see their answer. Because, well, mind control.

A Mormon child sings church songs with other children. Obedient children are praised. Secular learning is discredited and called "the knowledge of man." Mormon spuds are taught to eschew reason and rely on feelings. A burning of the bosom is said to be superior to empirical observation. This way the Mormon grows up relying more upon his emotional amygdala than his analytical frontal lobe.

An emotional mind is easier to control than a rational one. Adult Mormons are encouraged to idealize their (often miserable) formative years. Indeed, the adult member is told to become as a child. Children are emotive and can easily be frightened by invisible threats and the possibility of losing loved ones. This is some of what I've observed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2014 02:28AM by donbagley.

I too have been a bit uncomfortable with the "coached testimonies" SOME put their kids through. Never impressed with that. But not all do that.

I don't agree that secular learning is discouraged---there are plenty of Mormon doctors, physicists, engineers, etc.

But they DO discourage you from reading sources unfriendly to the church under the premise it will damage your testimony.

Some of the threats that are spoken of on this thread are clearly limited to certain folks who took things way too far, were unChrist-like, and would not have been sanctioned by the church. I do not believe they are mainstream examples. I have been in the church many years and never saw anyone retaliated against or threatened for leaving.

I can see the shunning thing happening, particularly in places where the Mormon population is high. If someone leaves the church they assume they are apostates or unworthy. I could see some parents not wanting their kids to hang around them. But there are exceptions too. I live in a state where the Mormon population is very low. My kids associated primarily with non-members. I would never have suggested they cease a friendship because their friend was not a member or left the church.

Even though I have many problems with the church, I want to be fair. Most of the folks are very nice people.

I have never seen a Mormon family that was okay with one of its members deciding to leave the faith. Not once, not ever.

Secular education has no value without a testimony to every single believing Mormon I have ever known. Perhaps I have somehow missed all these mysteriously enlightened saints?

You know what the worst part is: they make our own brothers and sisters enforce the whole process on each other. We bust our asses for this multibillion dollar corporation that doesn't have to compensate a single peon for minute of their mandatory 20-30 hours a week. Where the F#$% does all that money go? The church wasn't always building a temple on every corner. We know not all of it goes to humanitarian aid.

They tell you angels and your ancestors are all watching you all the time, so if you do anything wrong, everyone will be judging you right there and then.

Read this... It will blow your mind https://atrueott.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/mormonism-the-absolute-king-of-satans-mind-control-cults/

The Mormon cult's false promises aren't enough.

They use fear and threats!

My children were afraid they would "burn in the second coming," because they were not perfect (What child doesn't make mistakes?) At the time, they were taught that the Second Coming was imminent.

All of my children were threatened that they would be alone in the hereafter, because their father and I weren't married in the temple. My little ones were taught that they, their brothers and sisters, and Mom and Dad would all "pass by each other as strangers." This was (and probably still is) in the Primary manual.

The threat of being marginalized.

The threat of shunning. The Mormons really did shun me, when I resigned. Mormon neighbors of 15 years would not say hello, or even make eye contact with me--and their children had played with my children, and I had been good friends to some of them.

The threat of gossip. Lies were spread about us, even when we were members. One of my children did not take seminary, so the seminary president--a boy she turned down for a date--spread the lie that she was immoral. When I resigned, I was afraid the Mormon slander would hurt my career.

Judgments. Thingsthink is right about the temple. If you don't go to the temple, you are judged to be "unworthy."

Degradation of women. Not allowing them to have the priesthood. In Relief Society, all those years, every other lesson was on "honoring the priesthood." Women were subservient to men.

Mormonism robbed me of my self-esteem. I was nothing. I had a fairly important and very time-consuming calling, but I was never thanked for all the overtime, because it was expected. It was not volunteer work out of my generosity or goodness, but a calling that I was obeying, on the threat of being rejected and even punished.

When I quit my callings, the bishop, my HT, and the stake president all threatened me! They said that God would withdraw His blessings if I quit, and that I would get sicker. When I stopped paying tithing, they threatened me that I would fail financially. They all threatened that my children would fail in life. I was actually afraid of these threats, and it took me several years to relax and finally realize that it was only superstition, and mind control, from a hoax cult.

The Mormon cult is very unpleasant when you are in it, and when you first try to leave. The Mormons actually physically abused all of my children, and they are good kids. That's why I left. I found out about all the lies, after I was out.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2014 05:28AM by forestpal.

As verilyverily mentioned, they begin telling children what to believe right from infancy. But they put it in a way which is like, "This is what you believe."

Cattibree Wrote:
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> I am quite curious on the methods of mind control
> all of you true ex-mormons had to endure.

For me, it began when I was 2 years old and my parents converted to Mormonism. As long as I can remember, everything in our house, our family, our life, our thinking and our behaviour revolved around "the church" and "the gospel".

Everything - I'll let that sink in for starters.

Let me give you an example: we would be watching the news and some natural disater would be covered. This was God preaching to evil mankind in the last days. Or a corruption scandal: just as foretold in the Book of Mormon, the world will come undone because of "secret combinations".

When a rainbow would appear, my mom used to say that we would have another year yet before Jesus would come back and destroy the evil world, because this was promised to Noah.

Of course, I was taught that God created the world and evolution was all false. Entropy and the second law of dynamics and other stuff a 10-year old knows nothing about (nor his parents, obviously). Scientists know nothing, prophets know everything.

When I was away at summer camp, my dad would erase my cassette tapes with evil pop music recorded from the radio.

When my 9-year old sister collected bottles in the swimming pool all summer long and refused to pay tithing over the proceeds, she was sent to her room with some tithing-scripture to read and ponder, while being made aware how disappointed her mom was - but of course, it would be her choice.

When a catholic priest would be observed in colourful holy robes, that would be dissed as priestcraft, these guys are in it for the money only and belong to the great whore of the earth. Only the Mormon priesthood was the true power of God.

I could tell you hundreds of examples like that. Nothing much in themselves, but over the years a steady flow of manipulation through guilt, shaming, ridiculing, forcing and reinforcing - all in a context of the world coming to an end soon and everything not-Mormon dangerous and evil.

This kind of upbringing leaves you completely isolated from, and afraid of the world around you without even knowing it. Everything I did and thought revolved around the church: the music I listened to, the books I read, the friends I had, what I would do in my spare time, my educational choices, my professional choices, my wife, my underwear, my personal grooming, the movies and TV-programmes I would see, the way I interpreted the world around me, the way I made decisions, the way I thought about others, the way I treated extended family members, everything, everything tainted by the cancer that is Mormonism.

And then you leave the church and are left with nothing. No friends, no family, no outlook on life, no purpose, no clue how to behave in social situations, no idea what to do with your free time, no hobbies, no identity, no skills to deal with ambiguity, uncertainty and doubt, no hope, no future.

So you start from scratch and reclaim your life. Hapless, helpless, stunted, naive, clueless, embarrasing - but this time it's OK. You learn and you grow and experience a freedom you never thought possible, an incredible connection to the entire human family and the intensely liberating realization that "I don't know" is as good an answer as any.

I wouldn't wish the experience on my worst enemy (if I had one) but it has made me who I am today and I wouldn't want to have missed it for the world. I met my wife in church and I am very happy with my little exmo family.

I only wish it dawned on us 15 years earlier. We could have had so much more fun hiking through Norway and cuddling up in a tent at night without the unnatural restraint and the immense feelings of guilt and shame.

My wife would have finished her education, have a career and we would probably have had our kids like 10 years later.

Our financial position would have been better. We would have seen more of the world besides Europe where we grew up and the western US (with a stop-over in St. Louis to drive up to Nauvoo).

We would have had college friends and a normal relationship with our extended families. We would have been less alone.

So there's my story. It's anecdotal and emotional and incoherent but I hope it gives you an idea of the damage the Mormon cult does to ordinary people.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2014 08:04AM by rt.

There is nothing nice about Mormonism, as practiced.

It sounds familiar to my emotions right now. I haven't left the church yet and only came to a realization some months ago what tssc really was. Thanks for sharing.

A lot of it is about the power of social influence. The deceived become the deceivers. If you are hanging out with a bunch of mormons who are well primed with all the propaganda, that provides the fake social proof for "believing" in all the nonsense (in fact, with cult tactic groups, the weirder the nonsense the better because that ultimately reinforces an us versus them mentality and solidifies commitment to the group) and shutting down critical thinking.

Google the Asch Conformity Experiment, the Smoke Filled Room Experiment, the Stanley Milgram Experiment, and the Stanford Prison Experiment. Social Influence is an incredibly powerful thing.

Also Google Steve Hassan or Phillip Zimbardo for general information on cult tactics and coercive social influence.

by raising a right hand in open meetings and saying "aye." Those who don't do this are called out for reeducation.

Weepy, public confession has long been used by the Chinese communist party as a tool to control locals.

Testimony meeting, anyone?

If you want a great, current example of mind control from the top watch this video of one of the Apostles, Neil L Anderson in the most recent General Conference in October. Go to about 10:40 in his talk and wait for what he tells the youth of the church to do. For those who don't want to watch it he tells the youth to read Joseph's Smiths account of the first vision and then record themselves telling his story in their own voice and then listen the recording over and over!!!!! Yikes! Scary mind control there!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qqAzNHccls8

The confession before 12 elders is only for adult men who are accused of grave sins - adultery, child molesting, preaching lies about the LDS church.... Women and children and those with lesser sins confess alone in an office to their bishop. Still effective mind control, but less intimidating and often it does help faithful believers to feel fully forgiven.

Dang - you all are talking about one of my favorite subjects re: Mormonism and I'm late to work. Here are two excellent links on the subject if you want to read more because everyone who posted made great points. I particularly like both these and the book deserves a shout out because it's excellent. All exmos should read it.

http://www.howcultswork.com/

http://smile.amazon.com/Recovering-Agency-Lifting-Mormon-Control-ebook/dp/B00LU44P2O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416676577&sr=8-1&keywords=mormon+mind+control

"I have never seen a Mormon family that was okay with one of its members deciding to leave the faith. Not once, not ever." -
I never have either, not ever.

Every CULT family I have ever known was very angry and upset when a family member left the CULT. The shunning begins then.

I am not saying the EVERY cousin of mine shunned me. Some certainly did not, but they were all angry and upset about it.

Not to mention "being burned at the last day" if you don't pay your tithing. Some people call it "fire insurance". The doctrine is that when Jesus comes, the unrighteous will be burned up. If you're a full tithe payer, you're guaranteed to not be burned. Joseph Smith said so, so it must be true.

I promise, I'm not making this up. TSCC is an apocalyptic cult. The more rapidly the world changes, the more sure they are that massive destruction is just around the corner. Get in good with "the lord" before it's too late.

So, you have a choice to not pay tithing. Do you feel lucky?