In a classic deprogramming, a cult member would be located and physically snatched off a street corner, hurled into a waiting car or van, and driven to some secret location, perhaps a motel room. There the security team would guard him twenty-four hours a day while the deprogrammer, former cult members, and family members presented information, and argued with him. Windows would be nailed shut or barricaded, because members have been known to dive out of a second-story window to avoid the so-called "faith breaking" process. The member would sometimes be accompanied to the bathroom in an effort to prevent suicide attempts. He would be held for days, perhaps weeks, until he "snapped out of" the cult's mind control or, in some cases, pretended to do so.

In the deprogramming I participated in during 1976 and 1977, the cult member was usually confronted while visiting home rather than grabbed off a sidewalk. Even so, when the cult member was told he or she couldn't leave, there was almost always a violent reaction (p. 113).

I decided not to participate in forcible interventions, believing it was imperative to find another approach. Legal and voluntary access to the cult member had to be found; family and friends were the key. But they needed to become knowledgeable about cults and mind control, and they needed to be coached in how to communicate with a cultist effectively (p. 114).

The non-coercive approach I have developed attempts to accomplish with finesse what deprogramming does with force. Family members and friends have to work together as a team and plan their strategy to influence the cult member (p. 114).

In December 1987, a Mr. O'Brien called me and expressed his concern about his son's involvement with a group known as the Boston Church of Christ (Also known as Multiplying Ministries, the Boston Church of Christ should not be confused with the mainline Church of Christ or with the United Church of Christ, an inheritor of the New England Congregational tradition.). He had gotten my name from Buddy Martin, an evangelist with the Cape Cod Church of Christ (a mainline church) who strongly denounces the authoritarian "shepherding/discipleship" cult tactics used by the group in Boston.

Mr. O'Brien told me he had grown more and more worried about his son's involvement. George had lost a great deal of weight, was always exhausted, had abandoned his plans to graduate from a small liberal arts college in upstate New York, and was becoming more and more incapable of making simple decisions. He always had to get his "discipleship" partner's advice before doing almost anything.

Mr. O'Brien asked about my own background and whether I thought this particular group was a destructive cult. I told him about my background, and that I had successfully counseled some thirty people out of this particular group in the past five years. He was very happy to hear this.

The O'Brien's wanted to know what makes a group a destructive cult, and asking several probing questions about my own values and ethics. I told them that, for me, encouraging the person to think for himself is paramount, and that I was careful not to impose my own belief system on a client. My role was to present information, to do individual and family counseling as needed, and to facilitate family communication.

We talked about about half an hour, and I agreed to mail information on my approach as well as a background questionnaire and photocopies of articles on the Boston Church of Christ. I also have them phone numbers of some other families I have worked with. I told them to answer the questions on my form as completely as possible. The more information the family and friends could supply about themselves, the better.

Getting written information from families is a good place to start. It forces the family to think through a variety of issues about the individual, themselves, the cult involvement, and how they have responded to it so far. It also gives me a good starting point for person-to-person discussions.

It matters to me how much effort a family will make to do a thorough job. The questionnaire elicits different responses from one-line answers to a forty-four-page, single-spaced typewritten response. Normally, six to eight pages are filled out.

Several areas are of special interest. What are the family relationships like between siblings and between them and the parents? What kind of person was the individual now involved in the cult? Did he have many friends? Use drugs? Have clear-cut life goals? Did he suffer any particular trauma or stress  during his life such as the death of a close friend or relative, parental divorce, or a difficult move to a new city? Did he have a well-formed political or social value system? The healthier his family relationships and the healthier his sense of identity before he was in the cult, the easier my job usually is.

In particular, I wanted to know about George. Who was he before he joined, and how had he changed, aside from weight loss and listlessness? I wanted to know who in the family he was closest to. I wanted to know his state of mind just before joining. I also wanted to know about his education, interests and hobbies, work experience, and religious background.

In all my cases, I want to know how long it took the person to be recruited. Did he go straight in when approached one afternoon, or did it take months or a year before he became fully involved? What was it that he thought he was joining, and does it bear any similarity to what he now thinks he is in? How long has he been in? Where has he been living- with other members, alone, or with non-members. What has he been doing? Has he ever expressed doubts, or difficulties about his membership?

Lastly, I want to know how family members and friends have reacted: what they have said or done about his being in the group. What books or articles have they read; what people (including professionals) have they contacted? I need to know who is willing and who is not willing to help rescue him. Interestingly, a close sibling who starts out unwilling to help often becomes the most important element in a successful case.

Once I get the questionnaire back, the next step is to talk again on the telephone. Now I can ask more specific questions to round out the picture and assess what to do next. In most cases, I ask the family to talk with other people for information and sometimes obtain additional counseling. It is important during this preparation period that the family meet and talk with others who have the same problem, especially others who have successfully rescued someone. It is also good for the family to talk to former members of the group to gain insight into their loved one's mindset.

Next I set up a meeting with as many family members and friends as possible, usually in the family's home. Here I try to observe how the various personalities relate to each other. I spend a lot of time at this meeting teaching about cults and mind control and coaching people on the parts they will need to play. It is crucial that people understand exactly what the problem is and what they can do to help.

I discuss communication strategies: ways to connect with the person and get him to open up. We also may review various plans for an intervention. This meeting is often taped so concerned friends and relatives not able to attend can also benefit from it.

One thing I stress is that every one must pull together and look at the rescue as a team effort. This takes the load off any one person's shoulders and guarantees that the cult member will be influenced by as many people as possible. I urge them to contact other family members and friends and persuade them to help; to study books, articles, and videotapes; and to keep files.

If I am contacted within the first few months or a recruitment, that prognosis for a successful exit within a year is extremely good. On the other hand, if the person has been in the group for ten years when I am contacted, it might be quite some time before an intervention can be successfully attempted (depending upon the state of the family's relationship). But long-term members are by no means hopeless. They just require a lot of patience and continued effort. In fact, I have discovered that in many ways it is easier to counsel someone out of a long-term membership. Such a person knows the harsh realities of life in the group- the lies, the manipulations, the broken promises of cult leaders- whereas the new member may still be walking on air during the honeymoon stage. ...

By the time George's parents decided on an intervention, they had long since realized that the oppositional approach was getting them nowhere. George's father decided to try the opposite tack. He asked George if he could attend a Bible study, and even went to a couple of Sunday services. Of course, George and his discipleship partners interpreted his father's attendance as a sign that "God was moving" in his father's life. Strategically, it was an important step to repairing George's relationship with his family.

Mr. O'Brien explained to him that he wanted to learn more about his son's church because he loved his son. This was true. He could honestly refrain from saying he wanted to join, because he didn't. What he wanted was to do more research and rebuild his relationship with his son. In fact, not only George's father but everyone in the family was deeply involved in trying to learn as much as they could about the group. George never doubted his parents' love for him, nor, deep down, his love for them. He was just taught that people were either part of God (in the church) or on the side of Satan.

After numerous meetings and phone calls, the family and I began to make plans. George has no idea that his family was in touch with me or Buddy Martin. The issue of whether to be deceptive, was, as always, important and thorny. The O'Brien's had to come to terms with a variety of options. Should they simply tell George what they had learned and ask him to speak with us? Ethically, this is what they wanted to do. And yet they were dealing with a mind-control cult. If they told him they wanted him to meet people critical of the group, would he get upset and break off contact?

I encouraged the family to speak with several former members and ask them how a group member would respond to the straightforward approach. Without exception, the ex-members told the family that if they did that, George would immediately consult his discipleship partner for advice. From that moment on, the group would be forewarned and would do everything in its power to convince him to avoid contact with a family obviously controlled by Satan.

My preference is always to have someone ask the cult member if he would be willing to do research on "the other side of the story,"  and see what reaction this elicits.  Such a request should be done by a sibling or friend rather than a parent. If it is done this way, it is much less threatening.

If the cult member accepts the opportunity to meet with former members, the place and time should be agreed upon immediately. The person who is to ask for the meeting must also discuss the fact that if other group members find out,  they will try to convince him to break the agreement. "Will you fulfill your promise regardless of the group's pressure?" is a question he must be asked. Then a verbal contact is established.

This type of completely "overt" or open intervention works best with people who are not fully indoctrinated or who are having questions or doubts.

I wanted to know whether George had expressed any dissatisfaction or disillusionment with the group. No, the O'Brien's said: absolutely none. He was totally committed. He trusted only people within the group. He was programmed to think that all others were "dead," that is, "unspiritual." I advised George's family that the decision was theirs, but that there was only a small chance they would even get access to him if they tried the open approach.

We decided that the best course of action was to arrange for George to be away from the group by inviting him to his grandmother's eighty-sixth birthday party on Cape Cod. After the party on Sunday night, his parents would find some excuse to stay overnight and tell George they would drive back to Boston in the morning. The next morning, the family would tell him at the breakfast table that they were very sorry they had not told him before, but that they had arranged to spend the next three days with a Church of Christ minister, a counselor, and a former member.

I coached the family extensively on what to say and how to say it. I wanted them to make sure he didn't phone the group, and to try their best to talk him out of running way. They needed to reassure him that they were not trying to take him away from God, nor were they trying to hurt him. Indeed, all they wanted was for him to have access to information about the group that he would otherwise never have heard. They were to ask him to pray, and tell him they trusted that his faith in the power of God is stronger than his fear of Satan.

I instructed the family to ask George to agree to a three-day period of research in which he would be free to come and go, to take as many breaks as he wanted, and to decide what areas he wanted to concentrate on.

Monday morning found me in a Cape Code coffee shop with Buddy Martin and Ellen Queeney, a former member I had counseled out of the Paris branch of the group last summer.  We sat around a table and waited for four hours. Meanwhile, the family was trying to persuade George to agree to their terms. They called me a half dozen times for support and advice. The family tried everything I told them to do. George was adamant. He would agree to nothing beyond meeting us for a few hours. We decided to go ahead and do the best we could. Before we left the coffeeshop, a bunch of locals told us that we had just set a record for sitting in one spot. I laughed and thought to myself, "Boy, if they only knew what was going on!"

George was flushed, angry and hostile when we walked in and met him. It was the first time we had ever seen him in person. We introduced ourselves, and he was most surprised to meet Buddy. Here was a Bible-toting fundamentalist minister from a Church of Christ. George asked to speak alone with each of us: first myself, then Ellen, then Buddy. Naturally, he was scared and confused. We tried our best to make him as comfortable as possible. It was imperative that he realize that this situation was an opportunity for him- to learn, to grow, and to prove to his family that he wasn't under mind control and knew what he was doing. That was what I tried to tell him when he wanted to talk to me in private.

George proved to be as indoctrinated as anyone from his cult I have ever worked with. He was extremely resistant to the idea that he might benefit from anything that was being discussed.

Buddy Martin's participation was the key. In his turn alone with George, he began to cite specific Bible verses and asked George what he thought each meant. He began to show George that although the group claimed to be following the Bible, in fact they were taking passages out of context, deliberately ignoring other verses that affected their meaning. Since the group had programmed George to believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, he could hardly object to examining it. This was the opening by which he began to admit the possibility that the group might be less than perfect.

With that foothold established, George was willing to listen to me give the background of the cult's leader, Kip McKean, and his own recruitment and indoctrination by Chuck Lucas into Crossroads, a cult in Gainesville, Florida, back in the 1970's. It was there that McKean may have learned to use the mind control methods he now uses. George had never heard of Crossroads. We showed him a letter written by McKean in March 1986 to Crossroads Church leaders, and printed in their bulletin, saying he "owed his very soul" to them. George was shocked. We produced a letter by the elders of the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston, Texas, written to 1977 to announce why they were firing McKean as one of their ministers because of his un-Biblical teachings.

With that as a starting point we could begin discussing the characteristics of destructive cults and mind control in general. Without this frame of reference it would be impossible to show George what had happened to him. At this point in the discussion I always talk about other groups. In my experience, most modern-day cultists have a negative view of the Moonies (Moonies excepted, of course), so I usually begin with my own story.

This point of departure helps to minimize thought-stopping and defensiveness. I lay out the specific behavioral components of mind control, making sure to point out Lifton's study of Chinese Communist thought reform. Next I explain what it's like inside another, similar group. In this way the parallels between groups become blatantly apparent, and it is more effective because the person makes the connections himself.

The information was very intense for George. He needed to regulate the flow of what he was hearing. Every couple of hours or so, he would stand up and announce that he needed to go for a walk and pray. This happened several times each day for the three days. At night I stayed at a nearby bed-and-breakfast place where I was able to rest and map out strategy. Each time George walked out the door, we were never quite sure whether he would return. It would be easy for him to stick his thumb out as he walked along the road and hitchhike back to Boston or phone the cult for a ride. But to try to stop him would ensured his lack of trust in us thereafter. We were in this for the long haul. If he walked out now, the family would simply have to continue the information giving process each time the saw or spoke to him. We had to trust he he wanted to do the right thing. Besides, the family knew that I would not participate if they tried any type of forcible intervention.

When George complained about the deception his parents had used to get him to his grandmother's house, they apologized profusely. I asked him to put himself in their shoes and suggest any other course of action they could have taken that would have been effective. He could think of none. He knew that if he had received any advance warning, he would indeed have gone straight to his superiors and they would have dissuaded him.

His parents told him he had turned down a previous offer to meet former members and read critical information. He was astonished; he didn't even remember it. They reminded him had had met his cousin Sally a month earlier. At the parents' request, she had made just such an offer. George had turned her down cold. His parents told him the felt they had no other choice but to proceed with this approach.

During those three days, I was able to do a good deal of counseling with the family on ways to communicate more effectively and work on some of their own issues and concerns quite separate from the cult involvement. In this way George could see that the whole family was learning and growing together and that his involvement could now be a stepping stone to developing closer relationships with everyone.

Even after the three days were over, George was not willing to say he would never return to the group. He did say he wanted more time to study and think about what he learned. He decided not to return to his apartment but stay with his parents. There he would read books and articles, watch videotapes of shows on cults, and continue to speak with and meet other former members.

Within a month, George declared to his family that he would never return to the Boston Church of Christ. He had attended services  and Bible studies at the Burlington Church of Christ, one of the eighteen thousand mainline Churches of Christ, where he met some sixty-five other refugees from the Boston group. He now says he feels far happier than when he was in the cult and had a much better understanding of the Bible. Since leaving, he has spent a good deal of time helping others understand the destructive aspects of this group (p. 115-121).

1. Planned ambush: When the father spills the beans by saying "we're sorry, but we've arranged for you to be able to spend three days  talking with these people," the son has no idea that he has been trapped in a conspiracy. The efforts of a dozen or more people, including experienced professionals, over the past months are all designed to corner and trap this person with one intended, unavoidable result. This shows complete disrespect for his beliefs and involvement in the church, and shows that those wanting him "out" of the church couldn't compete on level ground with ideas and Biblical discussion, so they resorted to a well-planned trap, complete with nightly, ad-hoc "strategy planning" from the mastermind of the operation. Frankly, it reminds me of a "hit" job from a movie.

2. Multiple layers of deceit. Deceit is all over this story. Several examples:

• Deceptive "interest": Deceptive "interest in the group" on the part of the father.
• Deceit about the circumstances: Making up excuses to justify the overnight say at the "grandmother's birthday party." Saying "we've arranged for you to spend the next three days talking with" these people, when in fact they've been conspiring for months planning this very session.
• Deceit about the purpose of the meeting: The son is offered "information" and "the other side of the story" but everyone else involved knows the objective is to get the son to leave the group, and that this ambush has been orchestrated for months. He is told "all we want you to do is have access to information you might not otherwise have." That is a haf-truth, a deception. The information is merely bait -- "prove you're not under mind control and talk to these people." What kind of absurd logic is that?
• Deceit justified: From Hassan, to the "minister," to the family, they all participate in the ambush and justify the deceit because "it is the only way to get the job done."

3. Initial issues ignored: The initial reasons the father contacted Mr. Hassan was concern over the health and career plans of his son. Nowhere else in this whole episode are those questions addressed. Instead, they seem to be an excuse, a "hook" to pressure the son to terminate his church involvement.  We don't know what happened to the son's career plans or health, just as we don't know if there was any real connection between the observed issues and the son's church involvement. Apparently, the important part of this story is that the church was blamed for all of these things and that the son eventually left the church.

4. Mind control in action. Hassan says his role was to provide "information and counseling." What he really does, though, is conspire with family and others to design an ambush for this young adult, with the sole objective being the son's leaving the church. In this story alone (and his book contains still more examples), Hassan admits to many many things he claims that cults do in recruiting people:.

• Dispensing of existence (Referring to the son as a "cult member" or cultist, and thus justifying inhuman and dishonest treatment for a "higher purpose.")
• Love bombing (Making every effort to make him "feel loved.")
• Milieu control, indoctrination sessions (Using a benign event to get the son away from his normal environment for three consecutive days of marathon sessions, with no chance for rebuttal or defense on the part of those accused.)
• Emotional pressure to conform (family pressure, hustling and pressuring him to agree to a meeting without sufficient time for reflection. Sounds more like a health club sales pitch.)
• Mystical manipulation/planned spontaneity ("we've arranged for you to be able to speak with some people, and here they are ...."  Hassan's "counseling" to the family included discussing ways to communicate "effectively" with the cultist.)
• Unethical use of confession (Seeking to manipulate any expressed concerns as reasons to terminate involvement.)
• Use of the "hot seat" (or "struggle" in Lifton's terms) to browbeat him into submission. (The son was ganged up on by two professionals, a former member, and his entire family.)

No church is perfect, of course people are going to have "their issues" with a church. Is that a reason to leave a church? It is a simple matter to find a minister of one group who is critical of another group. This is hardly authoritative; it is likely to be extremely biased. Every church has its problems, and so does every church-goer. It is far wiser to consider identifying and solving specific problems rather than applying a reckless "shotgun" approach like pressured membership termination.

As I read through Hassan's book and considered whether I was indeed in a "destructive cult," I was appalled to find that his methods of "rescuing me" from those "evil cult leaders" were the very same ones that he claimed the cults used in recruiting people. I couldn't help think that these folks are two of a kind. Hassan wants people "out" of the group, and the "cult leader" wants them "in" the group. And each resorts to sneaky and manipulative methods to "get" people. What a depressing realization, if this is really the case in someone's life.

When deciding to trust someone with influence in my life, I want them to care about me, and not my organizational memberships one way or the other, and certainly not what's in it for them.  People that have ulterior motives or vested interests other than my well-being cannot be trusted and objective influences in my life. "Exit counselors" call themselves "exit counselors" and not "information counselors." Their objective is to get someone to exit a group, the "information" is 100% slanted towards that goal. This is an ulterior motive, despite whatever deceptions might be offered about "providing information." How can such a person be trusted to be out for my best interests?

If my friends or family had issues or concerns about my church involvement, I would appreciate them addressing me honestly and frankly and directly. I would be completely devastated if they they chose to contact others and pull some deceptive ambush (aka "exit counseling") instead of just dealing with me directly and honestly.

If you are considering getting involved in "exit counseling" I urge you NOT to do it. Speak honestly and directly with your loved one about your concerns. If there is any basis for your concerns, this dialog will absolutely be of enormous benefit to both of you.

Copyright © 2000 John Engler. All rights reserved.