Cult Indoctrination Techniques – Part Four

Continuing the series of entries that began here, I will be covering Points 8 through 11, and 5, today:

8. Control their behavior. (”Come live with us”, “Wear these clothes”, “Eat this food”, “All you need is two hours’ sleep”)

These sorts of points (and some others that aren’t listed here) were high on the list my sister and mother found in the book they bought about cult indoctrination.  At the time of our reconciliation, when they told me about the list, and even for several years afterward, I maintained the belief that it was merely a coincidence that some of the things on the list appeared to “fit”.  Only now, almost 14 years after our reconciliation, as I have begun to write this series of entries, am I realizing the full depth of  how insidious her behavior was.  It is as if she used the majority of these 22 points as her personal bible.

Something my parents have said for years, when talking about the months I spent on the phone with Jane while I lived with them, was, “You wouldn’t even eat with us.  Jane insisted that you ate only the food she sent you, and she wouldn’t even let you eat from our plates!”

She’d “sent” a place setting of her dishes to me, by way of our mutual friend, who served as deliveryperson whenever we “sent” anything to one another.

The story I was told was that this friend and Jane sent things overnight by Federal Express to and from wherever Jane happened to be working at the time.  It made things easier for Jane, she’d said, to be able to send items home when she wasn’t using them and have other items sent to her as she needed or wanted them, so that she didn’t have to pack so many things each time she went to a new location.  I didn’t know then that our mutual friend was merely picking-up-and-dropping-off to Jane at home, and this friend perpetuated the lies Jane told because, for her own reasons, she was also taken in by Jane and her small cult-like “family”.

Of course, she didn’t claim to have sent the plates from where she was; our friend was staying with Jane’s mother in Jane’s “absense” (she was actually living there with Jane and her mother until just before I moved in) and she brought the dishes to me.  

The reason Jane gave for sending the dishes was a romantic one.  She’d said she kept a place setting with her as she traveled, as well, because she tried to surround herself with belongings from home in order to help ease the loneliness and feelings of being so far from home for such long stretches of time.  Eating from matching dishes from the set that would be “ours” when we would finally live together, even though we were (supposedly) physically separated by so many miles, could help us to feel less lonely and more connected.  In other circumstances, without the other manipulation and unhealthy behavior, it might seem sweet.  That was the way I saw it for a long time.

She never “instructed” me to wear specific clothes (though she actually rarely “instructed” me to do anything; she was very gifted at persuasion, and often I thought the idea was mine).  She did, however, “send” me a couple of her favorite shirts and a couple ball-caps, which I wore.

She didn’t say that I only needed two hours’ sleep.  I believe the figure was “four to six”.  She used to tell me that, since I was in my child-bearing years, I didn’t need very much sleep, because nature programs young mothers (and women of child-bearing age) to be able to wake up multiple times in a night for feedings.

I will discuss sleep further in Point # 9, and food in Point # 10.

9. Prescribe a rigid schedule. Keep them active, and with as little sleep as possible.

My schedule was simple: I worked during the day all week, and if I wasn’t working, I was on the phone with Jane.  We talked all evening and into the night.  She bought a headset telephone for me so that I could talk for long hours without my neck hurting.  Many, many nights, I fell asleep with the headset on and the phone line still connected, and she would talk to me as I drifted off to sleep.  I would wake up during the night, to find that we were still on the phone and that she was awake, perhaps watching TV or reading.  I don’t know whether I’d naturally just woken up all those times or if she made some noise to wake me up, purposely causing interrupted sleep.  Once we were living together, she often woke me in the night to help her with one thing or another (she was disabled with multiple physical problems and sometimes needed a lot of help getting around).  To this day, I still have scars on my back from the bruises she left, poking me with her wooden back scratcher, to wake me up.

10. If you can, restrict their eating habits to low protein food.

She used to have food sent to me quite frequently while we were on the phone, via our mutual friend who introduced us.  It was a fun, “sharing” sort of thing.  (We both were overweight, both food addicts.  We “connected” in that way the same as two alcoholics might.)

The book that my sister and mother read not only mentioned restricting diets to low protein food; it specifically listed low protein, empty carbohydrate, junk food.  Jane often had our mutual friend pick up fast-food sandwiches and french fries for me, as that was my favorite type of food.  I also remember her sending candy somewhat frequently, and my sister remembers donuts or cookies also.

The thing is, this was the kind of food I ate fairly regularly anyway.  It has always been too easy for me to get into a junk-food-diet rut.  Jane wasn’t addicted to the same types of foods that I was, but she liked them sometimes, too.  For years, I mentally exempted the food-and-plates thing from what I considered to be her intentional manipulative behavior, but now, I can’t say she wasn’t also using my own inclination to eat that way to her advantage.

What my family interpreted as Jane “insisting that I eat only the food she sent” was really a case of my being all too eager to eat what she sent because (a) we were eating together, which felt romantic, and (b) it was the type of food I was already addicted to.  (Once my parents began to complain that I never sat down and ate meals with them anymore, Jane countered that by claiming that they were trying to control me and that they only wanted to have time alone with me so they could try to poison me against her.)

My family wondered if Jane may have drugged the food somehow, to enable her to more easily manipulate me, but she didn’t need to.  To someone who is addicted to that type of food, it offers “comfort”.  It seems that it will make everything better.  It also, especially when not combined with any healthy food to speak of, “dumbs down” the thought process, causes fatigue, and makes manipulation easier, as without proper nutrition the brain is not sharp enough to combat it.

11. Control their thoughts. (”Our ideology answers all questions to all problems”, “Let our doctrine think for you”)

I don’t recall Jane ever coming right out and saying that she wanted me to let her (or her ideology or doctrine) think for me, but that was obviously a big part of her objective.  It isn’t unreasonable to say that control-of-thoughts is often the result of repeating one’s ideology over and over to someone who is emotionally vulnerable and physically and mentally exhausted.

5. Don’t give them time to think. Diminish doubting commiseration by separating your new recruits from each other. Surround them with happy, true believers, so when in doubt, they will tend to do what everyone around them is doing and believe that is normal.

I definitely didn’t have time to think.  I was either working (and sometimes Jane would even call me at work) or at home, on the phone with her, until I was so exhausted I had no choice but to fall asleep.

As I explained before, Jane didn’t have a “cult” per se, by the definition most people attribute to the word, so there was no surrounding me with happy, true believers in the way the video suggests.  Our mutual friend, though, was (and still is, more than six years after Jane’s death in 2002) very pro-Jane.  And Jane did limit the amount of time our mutual friend and I saw each other, which I believe was to “diminish doubting commiseration”.  Our friend was to deliver whatever items Jane asked her to bring to me and then leave, so we could talk about the important plans we were making.

These important plans will be discussed next time, covering points 6, 3, 18, and 4.

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