12 Phrases you cannot say as a JW

1. I don’t believe only JWs will be saved.
2. I don’t believe the GB is guided by God.
3. I have doubts about 1914.
4. I think Armagedon won’t happen (soon).
5. I want to be close friends to someone outside the organization.
6. I celebrated my child’s birthday.
7. I read a book or watched a video critical of the organization.
8. I don’t agree with the blood transfusion prohibition.
9. I think Ellen White or other religions might have some truth.
10. I’m tired of attending all the meetings.
11. I don’t want to preach door-to-door.
12. I don’t believe this is the truth anymore.

Techniques for controlling people

1. Information control
2. Social isolation
3. Thought-stopping
4. Fear based motivation
5. Punishment of dissent

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Steven Hassan’s BITE model

• Behavioural control
• Instill dependence and obedience
• Mody your behaviour with rewards and punishments
• Dictate where and with whom you live
• Restrict or control your sexuality
• Control your clothing and hairstyle
• Regulate what and how much you eat and drink
• Deprive you of 7-9 hours of sleep each night
• Exploit you financially
• Restrict your leisure time and activities
• Require you to seek permission for major decisions
• Require you to spend major time on group indoctrination and rituals, including self-indoctrination on the internet
• Information control
• Deliberately withhold and distort information
• Forbid you from communicating with ex-members and critics
• Restrict access to non-cult sources of information
• Compartmentalize information into Insider vs. Outsider doctrine
• Generate and use propaganda extensively
• Use information gained in confession sessions against you
• Gaslight to make you doubt your own memory
• Require you to report your thoughts, feelings, and activities to superiors
• Encourage you to spy on and report on others' “misconduct,” often using a buddy system
• Use “Big Brother” surveillance methods
• Thought control
• Teach you to internalize group doctrine as “Truth” (“sacred science”)
• Instill Black vs. White, Us vs. Them, and Good vs. Evil thinking
• Change your identity, possibly even your name
• Use loaded language and clichés to stop critical/complex thought
• Induce hypnotic or trance states to indoctrinate
• Teach thought-stopping techniques to prevent critical thoughts and reality-testing
• Allow only positive thoughts (toxic positivity)
• Use excessive meditation, singing, prayer, and chanting to block thoughts
• Reject rational analysis, critical thinking, and constructive criticism
• Emotional control
• Instill irrational fears of questioning or leaving the group (phobia indoctrination)
• Make you feel elitist and special (“love bombing”)
• Promote feelings of guilt, shame, and unworthiness
• Elicit extreme emotional highs and lows
• Label some emotions as evil, worldly, sinful, or wrong
• Teach emotion-stopping techniques to prevent anger or homesickness
• Threaten and harass your friends and family
• Shun you if you disobey or disbelieve
• Teach you that there is no happiness or fulfillment outside the group

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10 Mind Control or Manipulation Phrases used by the Watchtower

• Undeserved Kindness. JWs are receipients of undeserved kindness, but then you have to show appreciation for this gift. You now have to do everything that the organization tells you. You end up having to work for your salvation.
• Unclean. It is used to refer to anything that defile or oppose their way of worship. So anyone who would believe differently to what they believe or teach. Moral defects such as sexual sins. By focussing on these sins makes people more likely to think about these things. This creates a bigger problem than would otherwise be.
• God doesn't want anyone to be destroyed. (But he will.)
• True Worship. We're the only one who does it. Just because you constantly say it, doesn't make it true. You call every other believer false.
• Jehovah's happy people. We are happy (regardless of how we actually feel.) Best life ever.
• Pray about it.
• Demonstrate humility. Another thought-stopping expression. But it only applies to the followers, not the leaders. It keeps you in a docile and passive state.
• Encouragement. It always has an ulterior motive. An intrusive controlling strategy. Its used to pull someone back in who you think is harbouring subversive thoughts. If you don't respond correctly, then others will either abandon you or report on you.
• Selfish. Prov 18:1 - The one isolating himself is seeking his own selfish advantage. "Selfish" is anything you might want (goals, hobbies, dreams, desires, etc.) that don't benefit the organization.