404- BITE model 4 - Cult control over emotions

Steven Hassan's list is my current reference list for the BITE model used by cults to control their followers. 

BITE stands for the four control types, which are : Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotions. 

This series budded in my mind when I listened to Drew's video discussing MLM's and how they include many cultish aspects. I know that a lot of people don't really understand what that means, whilst others make jokes. As a survivor, I came to the conclusion that despite a few entries on the subject, I hadn't ever explained in full how cults function, hence this blog series, divided into 2 main sub-series:

•  general presentation of Steven Hassan's BITE model, using his original list and adding my comments. 
• mirror entries pertaining to the same BITE list, but applied to my own experiences. I call this second series Being Bitten, figuratively. 

The fourth and last family of controls that cults use to manipulate their followers, as listed by Steven Hassan is longer than the other types. It regards Emotional Controls.

There is a trigger warning to apply specifically in point 8. 

1. Manipulate and narrow the range of feelings – some emotions and/or needs are deemed as evil, wrong or selfish 

2. Teach emotion-stopping techniques to block feelings of homesickness, anger, doubt 
3. Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the leader’s or the group’s fault 
4. Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness, such as 
   a. Identity guilt ;    b. You are not living up to your potential  ; 

   c. Your family is deficient ;    d. Your past is suspect ;    e. Your affiliations are unwise 
   f. Your thoughts, feelings, actions are irrelevant or selfish ;    

g. Social & h. Historical guilts  
5. Instill fear, such as fear of: 
   a. Thinking independently ;  b. The outside world ; c. Enemies ;

   d. Losing one’s salvation ;  e. Leaving or being shunned by the group 

   f. Other’s disapproval 
6. Extremes of emotional highs and lows – love bombing and praise one moment and then declaring you are horrible sinner 
7. Ritualistic and sometimes public confession of sins 
8. Phobia indoctrination: inculcating irrational fears about leaving the group or questioning the leader’s authority 
   a. No happiness or fulfillment possible outside of the group 
   b. Terrible consequences if you leave: hell, demon possession, incurable diseases, accidents, suicide, insanity, 10,000 reincarnations, etc.
   c. Shunning of those who leave; fear of being rejected by friends, peers, and family 

   d. Never a legitimate reason to leave; those who leave are weak, undisciplined, unspiritual, worldly, brainwashed by family or counselor, or seduced by money, sex, or rock and roll 

   e. Threats of harm to ex-member and family

I'll pair 1 &2 together, 1. Manipulate and narrow the range of feelings 

+ 2. Teach emotion-stopping techniques to block feelings of homesickness, anger, doubt 

Because religions and cults share their disdain of certain emotions, calling them evil, wrong, selfish, or otherwise detrimental to a person's spiritual life and hence to their salvation, they also share the goal to rid humans of many otherwise natural emotions we all feel. Cults, much like abrahamic religions, aim to kill emotions at their root - together with thought control, a person has to control their emotions, through prayer, meditation, chanting and other repetitious, mind-numbing, behaviors and actions.

One must repress so-called negative emotions ; expressing any of the forbidden ones results in various punishements and humiliatingly asking for forgiveness.  

What they don't understand in this, is that all living creatures, humans included, experience emotions, as part of natural evolution. Even difficult emotions aren't negative, only actions hurting others, based on these emotions, can be negative - starting by a cult's massive control over these emotions, as their negation harms the person in many ways. 

Some cults find a flaw in sleep, calling it bad names and of the devil, so a lot of them will control sleep patterns, ordering folowers to get up really early (see Behavior Controls 1 & 6) , and limtiing the number of hours they are allowed to sleep. There is no such a thing as sleeping-in for such cults.

When cults narrow the field of emotions, negating homesickness, anger, doubt, but also envy/want, emotional and/or sexual attraction, surprise etc, they also highten your sense of fear - of them, the corps, the hierarchy, the soul's fate, your damantion if you don't comply to the rules ; they confuse you about sadness and joy - wanting you to feel the joy of being a 'good servant of god',  but sad if you miss out on your tasks to make him and/or the hierarchy unhappy... 

I'll also pair 3 and 4 with one another. 

3. Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the leader’s or the group’s fault + 4. Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness

Guilt tripping is a religious speciality, much like a restrautant might be known for a specific dish. Everything a cult follower does is scrutinized against doctrines, and guilt is rampant from all sources : it's either the person's identity that is flawed, his past is suspect and filled with sins so it must be the cause for his or her current failings. (There are only he's and she's, as strict gender norms are part of the dogmas).

Their affilitations, as in, friendships and family ties, are questiotionable, unwise, and tempting to sin - for these reasons, a follower has to either bring the others to the faith, or cut all ties with them and his or her own past.

Not only the person isn't a person but a vessel and must get rid of his or her past, but also the entire process of thinking, feeling and acting have been flawed, irrelevant, selfish and sinful, because they weren't directed to the cult's leaderships and to god. The only ways to fix these oversights are not only to follow the teachings, dogma, rules, regulations, but to also be reminded that without the cult, the person is left to these flaws and jeopardizes their soul's salvation. Without the cult, the soul is doomed to eternal damantion. This is the most common guilt tripping of all, and abrahamic religions also do that to their own versions and extents. 

As for social (4g) and historical (4h) guilts, they pertain, respectively, to the way one interacts with the outside world, or not enough within the group/family that is the cult (social), or the person's past social associations. The cult wants your absolute and undivided attention. It wants your total submission and loyalty. No interaction with others, except for proseletizing to get more followers, and be a whole, integral part of the group, in its other activities such as praying and slaving in the cult's abode. Whatever else, the first and foremost imprtant is to always following orders to the letter. 
They want to maintain you in captivity, after destroying your emotions (Thought, Behaviors and information controls included). 

Speaking of one's past, this time his or her history, for example one's ancestors, or nationality, have participated in wars, slavery and so on : the person, even not guilty of anything, will be blamed and shamed for the guilt incurred by the others, in the spirit of "sins of the father" that are perpetuated over generations. 

5. Instill fear, such as fear of: 
   a. Thinking independently ;  b. The outside world ; c. Enemies ;

   d. Losing one’s salvation ;  e. Leaving or being shunned by the group 

   f. Other’s disapproval 

5. Instill fear has similarities in Thought and Behaviour controls seen before. 

5b. The outside world ; 5c. Enemies & 5e. Leaving or being shunned by the group 

are much like Thought control 1a to 1d.

5a. Thinking independently is a blend of Behaviour control 15. Instill dependency and obedience and 10. Permission required for major decisions. 

5e. Leaving or being shunned by the group &5f. Other’s disapproval are also echoed, again in Behavior 10 (permissions) and 11. thoughts, feelings, and activities (of self and others) reported to superiors. 

The differences are, in each of these cases, that not only thoughts are controled, but also the emotional responses are shunned, diminished, forbidden, punished, in increments and in unexpected moments, with no real pattern. This is why emotional control 6:
6. Extremes of emotional highs and lows – love bombing and praise one moment and then declaring you are horrible sinner.

One moment, the person is told he or she is loved by the hierarchy, the brotherhood (and sisterhood if the cult is slightly less sexist), the prophet/s, god/s. Another moment, the person is flawed, sinful, disrespectful of the teachings, unworhty of them and of his or her position of elite in the saved souls...  This extreme, unexpected alternation between love bombing and humiliation deprives the person of stable recognition and confuses both thoughts and emotions. He or she cannot perceive what is wrong, and strives to correct it by any additional labor the cult requires,  in order to save their soul and position. 

The mix of 5 and 6 may create enduring phobias, anxiety disorders, emotional disorders and/or difficulties of all kinds, to all members, even and especially outside of the cult, for those who manage to escape/leave. Interrelationships are often foreign and it can be tough to bond with others, and maintain relationships as a result of one's traumatic experiences in a cult. 

His or her fear is excarbated by 7. Ritualistic and sometimes public confession of sins, which can be also used unethically to further this inner terror, sa seen in Information control 6. The cult member then redoubles efforts, as these confessions are dreaded like the plague. 

However, these fears aren't the only ones as 8. Phobia indoctrination: inculcating irrational fears about leaving the group or questioning the leader’s authority.

This is where a person is told that he or she depends solely on the "big, happy family" that is the cult (even if most cults don't self-label as such). That there would be terrible, irriversible consequences to any departure, such as burning in hell, being possed by demons or the devil or satan or any other such "foul being"; that the person would get severely ill with incurable diseases as a divine retribution, or suffer accidents, natual disasters, suffer for thousands of reincarnation, lose themselves, their soul and their sanity, or any mixture of these doom scenerios. 

(repetition of trigger warning:) 
Sometimes suicide would be brought up, either as a better solution to their doubts, or as punishement, or that they risk commiting it in their "spiritual confusion". 

Before any such terrible consequences would even begin, the first effects of leaving would be social isolation, through being shuned by friends, peers, family, and especially the members who remained. 

To pretend they care about you, dear member, they'll tell you that there is no real, legimate reason to leave the group and spiritual family, that if you wish or do so, you are weak, undiscipled, lost sight of your spiritual goals, lost to materialism and became wordly and mundane like unbelievers and disbelievers. 
Or, maybe you followed advice given by sinners and such unbelievers, who are outside of the faith and they brainwashed you to doubt the cult's teachings. Maybe they seduced you with money and false promisses of wealth, or sex, or fame, which are all pale in comparison to the glory of remaining in the cult, keeping your faith and service the deity or deities. 

One additional proactive tool cults use in attempting your depature is by threating to harm your family and any ex-member, that you'd be if you left. 

(1973 words)