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Janine, wonderful piece. You may find some of your answers about why we are not allowed to talk in a book called "Combatting Cult Mind Control", by Steven Hassan, written in the 1980's. I read that book after leaving my childhood church for good, and was... quite literally... "saved"!

But you already know if you know about the mass psychosis. In my church, we were taught that looking at contrary information was a sure path to apostasy. In this modern day cult, we are taught that to look is to be extreme, bigoted, or whatever. It's called "phobia indoctrination".

That people believe that is hard to fathom, especially educated people, but Hassan's book makes in clear that all things being equal, the more educated, the more susceptible people are to these techniques. He deals with how to "help" people caught in the web of subtle mind control at length in his book. No simple task though!

Thanks for always shining a light. <3

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i'll check the book out, orion, thanks for the recommendation. and appreciation for your light too !

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