Description

From website and back cover:

If you're reading CCMC for the first time, please know that you've found a safe, respectful, compassionate place. This book can help you protect—or regain—your sanity, freedom, and health.

It can also help you protect others from the use of mind-control techniques. If someone you care about is already in the grip of such control, this book will help you support their efforts to make their way out.

If you've read an earlier version of Combating Cult Mind Control, welcome back! In this 25th anniversary volume you'll find much that's new and important, including:

• New stories of people who fell under the sway of cults and other forms of undue influence, but who were able to break free and find renewed hope, happiness, and sanity
• New information on the many sophisticated ways social media are now used for mind control—and how to spot and resist them
• Updates on the many types of organizations that often use mind control
• Information on the neuroscience behind mind control—and how to use that information to protect yourself and others
• A look at what legislators, courts, mental health professionals, and ordinary citizens can do to resist mind control and make our world a safer place!

The techniques of undue influence have evolved dramatically, and continue to do so. Today, a vast array of methods exist to deceive, manipulate, and indoctrinate people into closed systems of obedience and dependency.

Sadly, the essential information in this book is still not widely known or understood. People around the world remain largely unprepared for the new realities of mind control.

But you are far from helpless. There is a great deal you can do to stay safe, sane, and whole—and to help the people you care about to do the same. And if someone you love is already part of a mind-control group, there is much you can do to help them break free and rebuild their life. This book will give you the tools you need.

As you read this book, you'll learn to develop, use, and trust your critical thinking skills; your intuition; your bodily and emotional awareness; your ability to ask the right questions; and your skill at doing quick, useful research. You'll also learn to create a healthy balance of openness and skepticism. As you will see, the entire process begins and ends with discernment.

• Recognize the signs of a destructive organization.
• Protect yourself from psychological manipulation.
• Rescue a friend or loved one from a destructive cult — without coercion.
• Overcome the residual problems of former cult membership.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the 2015 edition
Foreword to the 1988 Edition
Preface to the First Paperback Edition

Chapter:

1. My Work as a Cult Expert
2. My Life in the Unification Church
3. The Threat: Mind Control Today
4. Understanding Mind Control
5. Cult Psychology
6. Courageous Survivor Stories
7. How to Protect Yourself and People You Care About
8. Curing the Mind Control Virus
9. How to Help
10. Unlocking Mind Control
11. Strategies for Recovery
12. Next Step

Appendix: Lifton's Eight Criteria of Mind Control
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index