Watch this one looking for parallels to societal oppression & creeping fascism. It’s a little different from a regular cult in that Academy at Ivy Ridge wasn’t successful at brainwashing, only at physical control. They hadn’t captured the minds of their victims. There are a bunch of control techniques they missed, so cognitive dissonance pressures left the victim believing their situation unjust. Breaking free happened a little differently that breaking free of a cult where everyone else is mentally controlled.

Could be worth thinking about which mechanisms they missed. But you know, tired.

Mainly I wanted to say that there are lessons in this episode (E1) about how we break free of OUR oppressors. It’s the same old lesson: there are more of us than there are of them. We’re actually more powerful.

But in this larger society, at least half of us are mentally controlled, & that’s why we can’t unite.

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix

Oh, and here’s another measure of what our legal system values. These kids who rioted to escape one of the most oppressive institutions I’ve ever heard about, which was alerted to and ignored by lawmakers? The kids went to jail. (I don’t yet know if anyone running AIR were held accountable. But I’m guessing probably not. This plot is so predictable.)

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix

They’re getting into the mind control side a little more in the 2nd ep. But so far I’d say AIR sucked at actually changing minds. Partly they didn’t need to control minds, because the victims were forced to get there and there was no escape. This is a bit more like a prison situation, than say a cult in a free country where the cult has to 1. Convince a person to join (unless they’re born in like me), and 2. Get them to stay there when they have physical freedom to walk away. AIR didn’t have those constraints, so it’s attempts to actually change the victims’ minds seem more like pantomime, simply psychological abuse in disguise of manipulation. I’m still not seeing that these actually bought into any of it.

🧵

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix

And that’s what we saw when studying brainwashing attempts on political prisoners in Maoist China and Korea. (Edgar Schein, Robert J. Lifton) Those re-education camps that didn’t sufficiently bypass the cognitive dissonance resolution of, “I’m only saying this because they’ll starve and beat me if I don’t,” didn’t succeed in long-term or even short term brainwashing. But those which tricked the dissonance into resolving to “I guess they have a point, maybe I believe this now,” got longer term results of prisoners retaining altered beliefs after release.

One way was by convincing the prisoners to write essays say, arguing in favor of [tankie] communism or about how well they were treated, in exchange for a toothbrush.

🧵

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix

Under obvious duress, your mind will reason that you’re simply lying to avoid torture or because you hate your captors. But in trade for a very small favor, enough to get you to agree but not quite enough to seem worth it, then a switch in the mind goes, “Ah, this belief I’m writing feels better than the other stuff, so maybe I believe it now.” You become persuaded, not because it makes sense but in fact because it does not, and without even realizing it.

(All this is in my book btw: Recovering Agency: Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control)

🧵

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix

So this has me wondering about the US prison system, and how (setting ethics aside because that’s a PhD dissertation in and of itself) let’s say they could design it with this scientific information we’ve had for 80 years to affect real change in criminals to make them behave more pro-socially.

(Yes, I know how very complicated me stepping into the prison topic is, and I’m not recommending we do this, nor am I not, nor am I going to write said dissertation here tonight. It’s just a thought experiment (but omg trading a toothbrush for an essay entitled “Why I Won’t Beat Women Anymore” would be better than what we’re doing.)

*deep breath* But ANYWAY where was I.

🧵

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix

It’s very clear that those who ran these WWASP programs were not actually interested in inducing long-term change in those kids, that they were simply sadistic authoritarians. OR (that and) they were interested in changing the kids but just really fucking sucked at it. In part because they didn’t need to make the effort, because the doors were locked, there kids didn’t go there willingly, and the kids had zero outside contact.

🧵

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix

Ona personal note, it’s also wild how closely I brushed with this world. Little cultural artifacts that scream how this is a descendant of Mormonism. (The WWASP company started in Utah.) The LGAT program, Quest that my parents and I went through when I was 16, an intense 4-day “seminar” for personal improvement that checked a few boxes on the cult list. I’m seeing traces of that in the LGAT portion of AIR, and it’s creeping me out so hard.

It doesn’t help that one of the songs they played on repeat to these kids was Christfori’s Dream by David Lanz (who I don’t believe has connection to Mormonism other than that Mormons love them some pianos), amazing song, which I at one point could play pretty well myself. So, that’s playing while the victims are talking about what happened to them.

🧵

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix

They do go into the historical roots, good.

*taking notes* Synanon…

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#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix

Oh I see.

They weren’t brainwashing the kids.

They were brainwashing the parents.

Wow. Ok.

When you get to the drug test part in Ep2.

Cult Scientist Hat On: This one is such a unique case. Very thought provoking. The kids were just the product. Hostages. Not cult members, not even meant to be influenced. The parents were the cult members on the undue influence track to send in cash and forever believe that a WWASP school has cured their child.

I’ve not seen a cult or MLM that’s done THAT before. Now I’ll be on the lookout for that pattern.

(There’s always a pattern.)

🧵

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix

It’s the scapegoat model in a narcissistic abuse situation, right? Often children of malignant narcissists, one will be the Golden Child, and the other the Scapegoat. This smacks of that. 🧐

I’m also thinking about the role of lower-class citizens in a society, too. Outsiders who participate. Non-white, non-straight, nonconforming, etc. The real target of the influence control is, say the white middle class, where the money and power is milked from, by leveraging a lower class, say along race lines, that might see what’s up but doesn’t have the power to do anything about it.

Like, there’s no need to persuade folks who can’t do anything about it.

Could be, could be.

I’ll be stewing on this.

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix

The third episode of The Program gets into the genealogy of the WWASP schools organization tree. Started by a Mormon. I called it.

Satan saved one of the biggest mansions in hell for Joseph Smith.

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix

I’ll bet these evil fuckshits all had and still have temple recommends.

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix #TheProgram #WWASP

I watch these documentaries in part looking for patterns and testing red flags.

If someone says in an interview, “I’m either a sinner or a saint depending on who you ask,” it’s a HUGE tell. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard someone say something like that who didn’t turn out to be a huge asshole.

The logic of it reveals his worldview. He’s not describing himself as how HE sees himself. He’s defining himself first by other people’s standards, reflecting that his morality is based on how people see him, not by his own principles. And that he’s very focused on how people see him, over how he sees himself. He’s also saying he’s divisive, itself not always a problem, but added to the other flags, is suss.

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix #TheProgram #WWASP

And the guy who said that is basically the guy in this other thread, where he complains in the news that the documentary got him all wrong. (Yeah sure, now you want to be a saint).

So red flag verified. Yes, the docu is quite convincing that all level of hate leveled at this guy is justified and that he’s an outright abusive sadistic horrible man.

https://defcon.social/@corbden/112684289565733098

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix #TheProgram #WWASP

This fucker Narvin has the whole Mormon “countenance” thing going on, that voice, like a bishop offering a dinner table blessing over his wife’s famous macaroni casserole. While running a fucking torture camp for kids.

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix #TheProgram #WWASP

It IS human trafficking.

And I didn’t realize the numbers.

Hundreds of thousands of US kids are in one of these troubled teen programs at any given time.

Right now.

(As if we didn’t have anything else to worry about.)

But it’s all symptoms of the same thing. If a society lets billions of dollars over decades flow into the hands of people who would do something like this, well, as they say, you get what you pay for. *motions all around*

#exmo #cult #exmormon #AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #TroubledTeenIndustry #Netflix #TheProgram #WWASP