[Joshua]

Folks, we all need to understand better the personality of the indoctrinated member. Each of us on the outside of this can clearly see the changes that occure in a persons character because of the influences of being involved with this group. Most of the time the changes are very negative and not God like of inspirational at all. Our loved ones become self righteous, argumentative, insulting, judgemental, and defensive over even the smallest of things. In my studies I have come across many ideas that point to the conclusion that our loved ones may be suffering from a mild form of split personality disorder. In a couple of books that I have read concerning cults they describe a persons real self and their cult self. I have dealt with this exact problem in real life. The books just backed up my thoughts on the matter. How can we be effective with our loved ones when they are not really our loved ones at certain times? I hope you're sitting down for this. You could be having a normal conversation with your loved one and let's say that they get a phone call and you overhear a tell tale sign that it is a group member calling your loved one again for the fourth time today. The conversation begins with God Bless You and ends the same way. After the phone call you would like to pick up your conversation where you left off. You might have been suggesting doing a activity that your loved one used to enjoy doing when all of the sudden your faced with, "Why are you trying to take me away from my preaching time with my church?" Suddenly your pleasent conversation went from nice to confrontational. The cult version of your loved one somehow got triggered. Was it the phone call? Was it your suggestion? Was it something you said? Was it all of these things? The answer is probably yes. What do you do? Stop! Appologize right away! (You didn't do anything wrong so please don't think that I'm suggesting that.) Say something like, "Please forgive me. I didn't mean to try and do that. I was just hoping to spend a nice time with you. I'm sorry. (Don't be condecending when you say this. Be as honest and even humble as you can be.) I know this advice sucks but if you want to get back to dealing with your real loved one just do it. As these interactions become less frequent you will be able to talk to your real loved one more and more. Things will open up and you will be able to express your concerns more easily. The flare ups with the cult version will happen sometimes even years after your loved one comes out of the group. Just remember these tools. Finally, always always keep in prayer over this. I'm sure that there are plenty of people here who are willing to share their stories about dealing with cult personalities. Thanks for your time here, Joshua.

[Questioninginla]

[Questioninginla]

I do my homework and I concur with Joshua on this.

I'm of the opinion that this phenomenon is a man-made mental illness.  Not kidding here.  Think of it as a matrix we step into, perhaps.  It's built into all of us to play by a certain set of rules, and there is a deeper psychological conversation to be had on the matter, but here's a good video on the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4S1LLrSzVE&list=UUlQzKGw31DagWzBYebtltNg&index=9 

Notice that the man is the same, he is just dressed differently in the different scenarios.

We should have the choice to enter into different matrices in our lives, but as we can deduce from the video posted above, a lot of how we act is embedded in our species as it pertains to group behavior and also as individuals.  As for the latter, if we had to consciously think about every last bit of information we take in, well, we'd likely be autistic rather than "normal". 

Autistic people are simply unable to be recruited into destructive groups, one reason being the inability in many ways to feel and understand emotion, and emotion is a catalyst trigger in the snapping phenomenon.  This is why destructive groups don't recruit them – its a waste of time and resources when psychology matters.

The basics of the psychology of man is not an excuse for destructive groups to gain membership, but rather to approach from an educational context.  Ultimately, the question is, "does God need to use the deepest psychological secrets to obtain my love"?  Certainly not.  End justifies the means has a sad, sorry, history of poor behavior and abuse.

As for split behavior, I've noticed accents, humour, and manneurisms change on a dime.  Additionally, I have also noticed conversations being resistent for no particular reason for consistent time periods (for example about an hour) and after that a decent human being shows up.  Does it correlate to indoctrination sessions?  Perhaps, but not proven.

The good news is, people that are recruited into groups with ill-intent are "normal", everybody!