Hassan discusses cult conversion in two ways: with a three-fold process of conversion with the labels "unfreezing, changing and freezing" and then with a discussion of "dual identity: the key to understanding cult members."

I have provided liberal excerpts from his discussion of these items (p. 67-75); what follows is a discussion of these concepts from a Scriptural point of view.

Unfreezing
To ready a person for radical change, his reality must be shaken up. His indoctrinators must disorient him. His frames of reference for understanding himself and his surroundings must be challenged and broken down. Upsetting his view of reality disarms his natural defenses against concepts that challenge his reality.

Unfreezing can be accomplished by using a variety of approaches. Disorienting a person physiologically can be very effective. Sleep deprivation is one of the most common and powerful techniques for breaking a person down. In addition, new diets and eating schedules also can have a disorienting effect. ... Unfreezing is best accomplished in a totally controlled environment, like an isolated country estate, but can be accomplished in more easily accessible places like a hotel ballroom.

Hypnotic processes constitute another powerful tool for unfreezing and side-stepping a person's defense mechanisms. One particularly effective hypnotic technique involves the deliberate use of confusion to induce a trance state....

Sensory overload, like sensory deprivation, also effectively disrupts a person's balance and makes him more open to suggestion. A person can be bombarded by emotionally laden material at a rate faster than he can digest. The result is a feeling of being overwhelmed. The mind snaps into neutral and ceases to evaluate the material pouring in. The newcomer may think this is happening spontaneously within himself, but the group has intentionally structured it that way.

Exercises such as guided meditations, personal confessions, prayer sessions, vigorous calisthenics, and even group singing can also aid unfreezing. Typically, these activities start out quite innocuously but gradually become more intense and directed as the workshop or seminar progresses. They are almost always conducted with groups. This enforces privacy deprivation and thwarts the person's need to be alone, think, and reflect.

At this stage of unfreezing, as people are weakening, most cults bombard them with the idea that they are badly flawed-- incompetent, mentally ill, or spiritually fallen. Any problems that are important to the person, such as doing poorly in school or on the job, being overweight, or having trouble in a relationship, are blown out of proportion to prove how completely messed up the person is. Some groups can be quite vicious in their attacks on individuals, often humiliating them in front of the whole group.

Once a person is broken down, he is ready for the next phase. (p. 67-69)

Changing
Changing consists of imposing a new personal identity-- a new set of behaviors, thoughts and emotions-- to fill the void left by the breakdown of the old one. Indoctrination in this new identity takes place both formally (as in seminars and rituals) and informally (by spending time with members, reading, and listening to tapes and videos). Many of the same techniques used in the unfreezing phase are also carried into this phase as well. ...

During this changing phase, all the repetition focuses on certain central themes. The recruits are told how bad the world is and that the unenlightened have no idea how to fix it. This is because ordinary people lack the new "understanding" that has been brought by the leader. The leader is the only hope of lasting happiness. Recruits are told, "your 'old' self is what's keeping you from fully experiencing the 'new truth.' Your 'old concepts' are what drag you down. Your 'rational' mind is holding you back from fantastic progress. Surrender. Let go. Have faith."

Behaviors are shaped subtly at first, then more forcefully. The material that will make up the new identity is doled out gradually, piece by piece, only as fast as the person is deemed ready to assimilate it. The rule of thumb is "Tell him only what he can accept."

Another potent technique for change is the induced "spiritual experience." This is often contrived in the most artificial manner. Private information about the recruit is collected by his closest buddy in the group and is secretly passed to the leadership. Later, at the right moment, this information can be pulled out suddenly to create an "experience."

Perhaps the most powerful persuasion is exerted by the other cult members themselves. For the average person, talking with an indoctrinated cultist is quite an experience. You probably have never met anyone else, friend or stranger, who is so absolutely convinced that he knows what is best for you. A dedicated cult member also does not take no for an answer, because he has been indoctrinated to believe that if you don't join, he is to blame. This creates a lot of pressure on him to succeed. ...

The changing process involves... numerous "sharing" sessions with other ordinary members, where past evils are confessed, present success stories are told, and a sense of community is fostered. These group sessions are also very effective in teaching conformity, because the group vigorously reinforces certain behaviors by effusive praise and acknowledgment, while punishing non-group ideas and behaviors with icy silence.

Human beings have an incredible capacity to adapt to new environments. Destructive cults know how to exploit this strength. By controlling a person's environment, using behavior modification to reward some behaviors and suppress others, and inducing hypnotic states, they may indeed reprogram a person's identity. Once the person has "changed," he is ready for the next step.

Refreezing
After someone has been broken down and indoctrinated into the new belief system, he must be built up again as the "new man" (or "new woman," as the case may be). He must be given a new purpose in life and new activities that will solidify his new identity. Again, many of the techniques from the first two stages are carried over into the Refreezing phase. Cult leaders must be reasonably sure the new cult identity will be strong when the person leaves the immediate cult environment. So the new values and beliefs must be internalized by the new recruit.

The first and most important task of the "new" person is to denigrate his previous self. The worst thing is for the person to act like himself-- unless it is the new cult self, which is fully formed after several months. An individual's memory becomes distorted, minimizing the good things in the past and maximizing the sins, the failings, the hurt, the guilt. Special talents, interests, hobbies, friends, and family must be abandoned-- preferably in dramatic public actions-- if they compete with commitment to the cause. Confession becomes another way to purge the person's past and embed him in the cult.

During the refreezing phase, the primary method for passing on new information is modeling. New members are paired with older members who are assigned to show them the ropes. The "spiritual child" is instructed to imitate the "spiritual parent" in all ways. This technique, too, serves several purposes. It keeps the older member on his best behavior  while gratifying his ego, and it whets the new member's appetite to become a respected model so he can train junior members of his own.

...The new member is typically assigned to proselytizing duty as soon as possible. Research in social psychology has shown that nothing firms up one's beliefs faster than trying to sell them to others. Making nw members do so crystallizes the cult identity quickly.

... After a few months of proselytizing and fundraising in the outside world, the member is often sent back for reindoctrination. This cycle can be repeated dozens of times over several years.

After a novice spends enough time with "older" members, the day finally comes when he can be trusted to train other newcomers by himself. Thus, the victim becomes the victimizer, to perpetuate the destructive system.

Dual Identity: The Key to Understanding Cult Members
Given freedom of choice, people will predictably always choose what they believe is best for them. However, the ethical criteria for determining what is "best" should be one's own, not someone else's. In a mind control environment, freedom of choice is the first thing that one loses. The reason for the loss is essentially simple: the cult member is no longer operating as himself. He has a new artificial cult identity structure which includes new beliefs and a new language. The cult leaders' doctrine becomes the master "map" for reality of the new cult member.

A member of a mind control cult is at war with himself. Therefore, when dealing a cult member, it is extremely important to always keep in mind that he has two identities..

At first, identifying these dual identities is often confusing for relatives of cult members, especially in the early weeks or months of the involvement when the new identity is most noticeable. One moment the person is speaking cultic jargon with a hostile or elitist know-it-all attitude. Then, without warning, he seems to become his old self, with his old attitudes and mannerisms. Just as suddenly, he flips back to being a stranger. This behavior is very familiar to anyone who works with cult members, as I do.

Such a stark description of a divided personality may seem too simplistic, but it is amazing accurate. It's an eerie experience to be talking with someone and sense that while you are in mid-sentence, a different personality has taken over his body....

As much as the cult indoctrination attempts to destroy and suppress the old identity, and empower the new identity, it almost never totally succeeds.

It is the "real" identity deep down inside that sees and records contradictions, questions, and disillusioning experiences. It still amazes me... that during the later stages of an intervention, my clients are able to verbalize very specific negative incidents that occurred while they were members. People are able to recall horrible things, like being raped by the cult leader or being force to lie, cheat, or steal. Even though they knew at the time that they were doing something wrong or were being abused, they couldn't deal with the experience or act on it while the cult identity was in control. It was only when their "real" self was given permission and even encouragement to speak that these things came into consciousness.
 

While Christianity needn't resort to the artificially contrived circumstances Hassan describes, in a very real sense a person about to become converted to Christianity is "open" because of something in his life. Perhaps it is curiosity, perhaps some hardship or difficult circumstance is forcing the person to re-examine his "map" of reality.  When people in such a circumstance study the Bible, it becomes evident that God's map of reality is better than theirs, and they may in fact choose to live according to God's map. Such study sessions may appear to have similarity to what Hassan calls "indoctrination sessions" but the objective of these is not to overload someone with more than they could handle, nor any of the other psychological tricks that Hassan suggests. Bible study is just that-- an examination of God's map for our lives.

People honestly searching for true Christianity, disillusioned by their previous experiences, find studying the Bible the way to solve the problem of their "map" of values and reality. They learn what God has said in the Bible and change their lives according to their beliefs about what God says in the Bible. Of their own free will, they reject their own map of reality and take the map of a follower of Jesus instead.

The New Testament is filled with examples of people who "unfreeze, change and freeze." Check any conversion example in Acts. People responded in faith to the message that was preached, changed their own maps accordingly and determined to live according to their new map.

Christianity and The Dual Identity
Anyone who has sought to live as a Christian knows that humans do in fact have a "dual identity" in a sense. There is the "sinful nature" (which is bent towards sin), and there is the spiritual self, desiring righteousness. Read Romans 7:14-25 (no doubt many other passages address this common theme) for a classic description of this phenomenon

For we know that the Law is spiritual; but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.   For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.  But if I do the very thing I do not wish to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that it is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin (Romans 7:14-25, NASB here and throughout).

Christians in the Bible indeed experienced a spiritual transformation and took on their spiritual identity to accompany their physical identity. Christians today are under no new dispensation, these things are part of the package of Christianity today as well. Christians today experience a conversion process where they throw off the map governed by their sinful nature and take on spiritual map governed by God and his word, and the live accordingly every day. This process is described in Colossians 3:1-10 and Ephesians 4:20-24:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator (Colossians 3:1-10).

You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:20-24).

Copyright © 1999 John Engler. All rights reserved.