Could It Be Brainwashing?

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[Janet Easson Martin]

Pulled Into The Flood of Words by Fear

Stopping Critical Thinking

As I read the beginning of the simplified explanation of brainwashing below by Layton & Hoyt, my mind stopped in its tracks - ‘Wait! I hadn’t given the motivation behind accepting preposterous ideas the heavy weight it deserves. The FEAR! The Fear, the Fear, the Fear!!! It is unbearably heavy to carry. So, the hearer of such outrageous ideas succumbs to them in order to AVOID risking the “eternal regret” he is threatened with by repeated flooding of many words disguised as “Bible teachings”. There is no room to analyze or critically think about these ideas when alarming loss seems at stake. THAT is the High Card played in Brainwashing —Fear. Scripture tells us that such coercive tactics are NOT of God. In fact, scripture warns us to flee such persuasion.

I’m talking about ridiculous notions like joining and staying for life with the “only church that is truly fulfilling the New Testament, otherwise you’ll have a wasted life”! If you don’t blindly follow your leaders specific direction you bring punishment upon yourself! They know God’s will for your life. Though there is no one threatening you with a gun, there is a deeper hidden fear of great spiritual failure. It was crystal clear “God would not be happy with you and want little to do with you unless you were ALL IN THE GCx WAY!” Talk about a heap of scary worry and shame to carry. It may not be a physical threat, but it’s even more insidious because it steals a part of our soul -our mind, our will, and our emotions.

I’m talking about legalistic and twisted evangelism or else God will not be pleased. Other spiritual gifts and activities were of little value unless you used them to serve the elders or promote the church. Other callings were dismissed. Other teachings outside evangelism and submission were little found, and those themselves were twistedly self-serving. Members were fed dried straw and dried up puddles rather fresh meadows and pools of water.

Still, the same attitude seems to prevail according to former members on this site, but with lesser adjectives. From “only” to “the more fruitful” or “more radical for Christ.” If you leave this culture it’s still “divorcing the church.” Holding up their flood of ravenous teachings to support abusive practices against the Truth of God’s Word on conducting oneself as Christian leaders and the body of Christ —convicts them of hogwash to put it mildly and Spiritual Abuse to put it biblically! They are in no way superior; they’re not even healthy Christianity! It doesn’t matter how high up or revered the leader is who boasts of their discipling, the Bible simply and verifiably condemns such teachings and practices. The fruit their fearful threats produce is horrifically wounding. Their spiritual abuse has hurt the relationship between many believers and their God. Their brainwashing of twisting verses to primarily benefit the leader or the superior group at the harmful cost of the member has often divided these members from their real help —their Jesus full of Grace and Truth.

Their practices fall within the definition of brainwashing from the American Psychological Association:

n. a broad class of intense and often coercive tactics intended to produce profound changes in attitudes, beliefs, and emotions. Targets of such tactics have typically been prisoners of war and members of religious cults.

Layton and Hoyt with “How Stuff Works” science site have a simplified break down of the steps in the brainwashing process, based upon Lifton’s Book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. Here is the first portion that is quite telling. McCotter seemed quite adept at these things. Ask yourself, “Is this how the great Apostle Paul would have approached believers or discipled Timothy to disciple them?

Each of these stages takes place in an environment of isolation, meaning all "normal" social reference points are unavailable... There is often the presence or constant threat of physical harm, which adds to the target's difficulty in thinking critically and independently [source : Changing Minds].

We can roughly divide the process Lifton identified into three stages: breaking down the self, introducing the possibility of salvation and rebuilding the self

Breaking down the self.

Assault on identity: You are not who you think you are. This is a systematic attack on a target's sense of self (also called his identity or ego) and his core belief system. The agent denies everything that makes the target who he is: "You are not a soldier." "You are not a man." "You are not defending freedom." The target is under constant attack for days, weeks or months, to the point that he becomes exhausted, confused and disoriented. In this state, his beliefs seem less solid.

Guilt: You are bad. While the identity crisis is setting in, the agent is simultaneously creating an overwhelming sense of guilt in the target. He repeatedly and mercilessly attacks the subject for any "sin" the target has committed, large or small. He may criticize the target for everything from the "evilness" of his beliefs to the way he eats too slowly. The target begins to feel a general sense of shame that everything he does is wrong.

Self-betrayal: Agree with me that you are bad. Once the subject is disoriented and drowning in guilt, the agent forces him (either with the threat of physical harm or of continuance of the mental attack) to denounce his family, friends and peers who share the same "wrong" belief system that he holds. This betrayal of his own beliefs and of people he feels a sense of loyalty to increases the shame and loss of identity the target is already experiencing.

Breaking point:Who am I, where am I and what am I supposed to do? With his identity in crisis, experiencing deep shame and having betrayed what he has always believed in, the target may undergo what in the lay community is referred to as a "nervous breakdown." In psychology, "nervous breakdown" is really just a collection of severe symptoms that can indicate any number of psychological disturbances. It may involve uncontrollable sobbing, deep depression and general disorientation. The target may have lost his grip on reality and have the feeling of being completely lost and alone.  When the target reaches his breaking point, his sense of self is pretty much up for grabs — he has no clear understanding of who he is or what is happening to him.


How Brainwashing Works - Layton & Hoyt
From:  https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/brainwashing.htm

You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise!
In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you
or exploits you or takes advantage of you or
puts on airs
or slaps you in the face.

2 Corinthians 11:19-20

[Janet Easson Martin]

...I started listening to some GCM sermons again, errrr, I mean GCC sermons.  Anyway, I just have to tell you my husband thought it was one pastor because of the cadence and tone, but it turned out to be his clone underling!  The imitation is unbelievable!  And of course, they figured out a way to get in the idea that there is an authority structure that we have to place ourselves under!  Sigh.  Don't they get tired of that sermon?  And only two verses.  And a whole lot of words. I know for a fact that people are aching for deeper learning, deeper conversations.

I guess occasionally I just need to remind myself that it really was brainwashing and group think.  And in looking back at my life and that big 8 year span of GCx, I am so glad that one day I decided to look up information and research it.
-AgathaL’Orange


They found the most likely group to be brainwashed.  The target group for their new pyramid scheme was 18 year old kids who were lonely freshmen in college.  Most of these kids had recently left their homes for the first time.  They were looking for some way to fit in with something at school. If you get 1% of the new students at a college with 20,000 students you now have 200 kids to use to recruit other kids. McCotter and crew made it seem like a good Christian youth group…with some cruel selfish twists…very clever.

Bible passages were interpreted to say that everyone had a responsibility to report members of the church who talked about disagreeing with the “McCotter Doctrine”. ... Everyone was supposed to spy on everyone.  That way anyone who would question the twisted teachings would be met with a penalty.  If a person did not “submit” to the church leaders, they would be excommunicated or shunned.  This penalty helped control the flock.

The methods used by McCotter are still used today. Parts of the Bible that go against GC teachings are Omitted (Great Omisson) from teachings by leaders.  Nobody in the GC is allowed to question what the leaders say or do.

The GC gives power to only those who blindly follow the "doctrine" and suck up to the leaders. ... These guys are like parrots who simply repeat the same things they hear in the GC leadership brainwashing sessions. The whole thing is wrong on so many levels.
-Neverbeengcm,  2012


...what I heard from McCotter was stern, implicating and even threatening teachings that followed the pattern of IDEALIZE - DEVALUE - DISCARD.  I never heard in my more than 10 years there between 1980 and 1991 from anyone inside this organization the truth that our thought patterns were repeatedly and deceptively trained to devalue and discard ANY opinion conflicting with McCotter and the GCx elders under him.
-Janet


This narrative open letter from my husband and I is a depiction of a bona fide concern about the Evergreen Community Church System, or “ECCS” as we call it. Many of us were taken advantage [of] by psychological manipulation, ... [3 GCx Leaders named]. And that we cannot, in good-conscience and in good-faithstand back and allow these wrongdoings to continue and let the same events happen to others in a community of good people we love so much.
-Anonamous X

[Janet Easson Martin]

Forgiving oneself seems like the hardest part. The thing that haunts me the most is how much I blindly led others in and into the GCM cult. I truly thought I was doing what God called me to do at that time, in those moments, but in the years since leaving have I only been able to see that I was regurgitating what they told me because the leadership was SO overpowering, it was hard to distinguish between the cult and God. And thus, the guilt of leading others astray in and into the cult breaks my heart.
-EscapeFromGCM2013



…I started to see the horrible "group think" that was at work. …

During that time I prayed, journaled, and kept to myself. This is where I first heard the "voices" in my head, not quoting scripture, but telling me what the scriptures meant.  These voices were all the teaching, all the conditioning, all the pressure, all the group think.  Only in solitude could I hear what I was thinking... and I didn't like it.

After this it took years of un-learning the GC ways of thinking. Then came the years of learning the real God given freedom in Christ.

 … I realize that I was persuaded against my will by the authoritarian teachings of the leaders in Ames [GCx Church].  I have been very angry about that for years.
-lone gone

[Janet Easson Martin]

Don’t know if this article on the GCx Campus Group at UNO has been cited here. They are connected with Candlewood [GCx] Church. Though it is from 2018, I felt it was from the same old GCx days with its restrictions. Here are a couple of brief excerpts.


“It’s not a physical threat, but I know from personal experience how much [The Rock] can damage someone emotionally and psychologically and the significant impact it can have on a student’s college experience,”

. . . “This was a new rule from last year—that you cannot text a member of the opposite sex for anything other than directions, so no personal stuff or deeper issues,”

-Kaitlin Epperly,   2018, The Gateway (Student Paper) University of Nebraska Omaha



Student raises concerns of campus religious group - The Gateway UNO

https://www.unothegateway.com/student-raises-concerns-campus-religious-group/

[Janet Easson Martin]

Out of curiosity I searched “GCM cult” on YouTube this evening and surprisingly came across this video. Though others may have seen it, somehow I missed this YouTube video about GCx. Guessing it was referenced on this site previously, but some of us might have missed it. Jason Oakes explains the mind control in plain terms and examples from Reliant/GCM/GCC. He has a good handle on the simple tricks played by those using mind control including a response back from GCx leadership to him arguing against his simply laid out evidence. He emphasizes that he considers GCx a cult based on their practices, not their doctrine. In another of his three videos on GCC [GCx] he reads the complaint letter to him from GCx which qualifies the mind control methods they are using. He feels a responsibility to expose cultic/brainwashing patterns used by churches.

What Does Reliant Mission (Great Commission Churches) Believe?

https://youtu.be/Kmt_yqtjk4I