Cults & isms

The BITE model is a framework for evaluating the use of mind control in cults and dubious sects.

Steven Hassan developed the BITE Model to describe specific methods used to recruit and maintain control over people. "BITE" stands for Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotional control.  Read the PDF

What does BITE stand for?

Behavior Control
Information Control
Thought Control
Emotional Control

How does the BITE model work?

If you see any element of behavioural, informational, thought and emotional control, then you're probably dealing with a cult.  They typically work by:

Isolation separating you from your community
Elimination arguing away rational thought
Unfreezing breaking down a person's identity
Changing indoctrinating the person with false information through "education"
Refreezing build a new identity for the person, often by denigrating their past self.


True Christianity 

Since Jesus came, taught, healed, died, rose again and returned to heaven, history has been riddled with numerous subtle lies and deceitful belief systems that try to derail His teaching and the truth of God's word.  

Intelligent evil has corrupted the message in very subtle and insidious ways.  You will find obvious examples in Freemasonry, Islam, Mormonism (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) and New Age variations.  You will find more subtle lies in Jehovah's Witnesses. You will find very subtle lies in Exclusive Brethren, Independent Baptists, Seventh Day Adventist, New Thought and Word of Faith sects.  Some Pentecostal groups eg. Bethel and Joel Olsteen, actively promote New Thought and Word of Faith lies with their "Physics of Heaven" teaching.

Remember, Jesus came to set us free to enter into a personal relationship with Him, not tie us up in religious gobble de gook and super-spiritual practices. 

IF you are going to survive as a Christian, THEN you must read and know God's word.

John 1:1-5

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 8:31-32

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.  From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Remember - the Bible is open to full scrutiny.

Cults are not always obvious. Some are very insidious in the way they control their followers. Examples include Exclusive Brethren, Independent Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists.  Cults will engage in some of the following practices to ensure their continuity and control.

1.   Instil dependency and obedience

2.   Regulate individual's physical reality

3.   Impose rigid rules and regulations

4.   Dictate where, how, and with whom the member lives and associates or isolates

5.   Control types of clothing and hairstyles

6.   Regulate diet - food and drink, hunger and/or fasting

7.   Manipulation and deprivation of sleep

8.   Financial exploitation, manipulation or dependence

9.   Restrict leisure, entertainment, vacation time

10.   Major time spent with group indoctrination and rituals and/or self indoctrination including the internet

11.   Permission required for major decisions

12.   Rewards and punishments used to modify behaviours, both positive and negative

13.   Discourage individualism, encourage group-think

14.   When, how and with whom the member has sex

15.   Punish disobedience by beating, torture, burning, cutting, rape, or tattooing/branding

16.   Separation of Families

17.   Threaten harm to family and friends

18.   Encourage and engage in corporal punishment

19.   Kidnapping

20.   Beating

21.   Torture

22.   Rape

23.   Imprisonment

24.   Murder

Cults are not always obvious. Some are very insidious in the way they control their followers. Examples include Exclusive Brethren, Independent Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists.  Cults will engage in some of the following practices to ensure their continuity and control.

1.  Deception:

a.  deliberately withhold information

b.  distort information to make it more acceptable

c.  systematically lie to the cult member

2.  Minimize or discourage access to non-cult sources of information, including:

a.  internet, TV, radio, books, articles, newspapers, magazines, media

b.  critical information

c.  former members

d.  keep members busy so they don't have time to think and investigate

e.  control through cell phone with texting, calls, internet tracking

3.  Compartmentalize information into Outsider vs. Insider doctrines

a.  ensure that information is not freely accessible

b.  control information at different levels and missions within group

c.  allow only leadership to decide who needs to know what and when

4.  Encourage spying on other members

a.  impose a buddy system to monitor and control member

b.  report deviant thoughts, feelings and actions to leadership

c.  ensure that individual behavior is monitored by group

5.  Extensive use of cult-generated information and propaganda, including:

a.  newsletters, magazines, journals, audiotapes, videotapes, YouTube, movies and other media

b.  misquoting statements or using them out of context from non-cult sources

6.  Unethical use of confession

a.  information about sins used to disrupt and/or dissolve identity boundaries

b.  withholding forgiveness or absolution

c.  manipulation of memory, possible false memories

Cults are not always obvious. Some are very insidious in the way they control their followers. Examples include Exclusive Brethren, Independent Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists.  Cults will engage in some of the following practices to ensure their continuity and control.

1.  Rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism

2.  Forbid critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy allowed

3.  Labelling alternative belief systems as illegitimate, evil, or not useful

4.  Require members to internalize the group's doctrine as truth

a. Adopting the group's 'map of reality' as reality

b. Instil black and white thinking

c. Decide between good vs. evil

d. Organize people into us vs. them (insiders vs. outsiders)

5.  Change person's name and identity

6.  Use of loaded language and cliches which constrict knowledge, stop critical thoughts and reduce complexities into platitudinous buzz words

7.  Encourage only 'good and proper' thoughts

8.  Hypnotic techniques are used to alter mental states, undermine critical thinking and even to age regress the member

9.  Memories are manipulated and false memories are created

10.  Teaching thought-stopping techniques which shut down reality testing by stopping negative thoughts and allowing only positive thoughts, including:

a.  Denial, rationalisation, justification, wishful thinking

b.  Chanting

c.  Meditating

d.  Praying

e.  Speaking in tongues 

f.  Singing or humming

11.  Instil a new “map of reality”

Cults are not always obvious. Some are very insidious in the way they control their followers. Examples include Exclusive Brethren, Independent Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists.  Cults will engage in some of the following practices to ensure their continuity and control.

1.  Manipulate and narrow the range of feelings – some emotions and/or needs are deemed as evil, wrong or selfish

2.  Teach emotion-stopping techniques to block feelings of homesickness, anger, doubt

3.  Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the leader's or the group's fault

4.  Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness, such as

a.  identity guilt

b.  you are not living up to your potential

d.  your past is suspect

e.  your affiliations are unwise

f.  your thoughts, feelings, actions are irrelevant or selfish

g.  social guilt

h.  historical guilt

5.  Instil fear, such as fear of:

a.  thinking independently

b.  the outside world

c.  enemies

d.  losing one's salvation

e.  leaving or being shunned by the group

f.  other's disapproval

6.  Extremes of emotional highs and lows – love bombing and praise one moment and then declaring you are horrible sinner

7.  Ritualistic and sometimes public confession of sins

8.  Phobia indoctrination: inculcating irrational fears about leaving the group or questioning the leader's authority

a.  no happiness or fulfillment possible outside the group

b.  terrible consequences if you leave: hell, demon possession, incurable diseases, accidents, suicide, insanity,

10,000 reincarnations, etc.

c.  shunning of those who leave; fear of being rejected by friends and family

d.  never a legitimate reason to leave; those who leave are weak, undisciplined, unspiritual, worldly, brainwashed by family or counselor, or seduced by money, sex, or rock and roll

e.  threats of harm to ex-member and family

There are lots of books and testimonies warning people NOT to get involved with this cult.  It is insidious ... not as insidious as Independent Baptists, Exclusive Brethren, Christian Scientists and New Thought believers ... as it's faults soon become obvious with any closer examination of the Bible.

Caution

You are advised not to take on JWs in debate. You will waste your time.  They are indoctrinated in their beliefs with well-rehearsed arguments and counter arguments.  They will tie you up in deceitful theology with verses taken out of context from a doctored version of the Bible.

Look deep into the blackness of their eyes, pray God's love into their hearts and remember they are lost souls seeking a personal connection with our loving Heavenly Father.

Pray for an opportunity to invite them to a Bible-teaching church.

Founders

Charles Taze Russell was a Pastor and founder of Zion's Watch Tower and the Bible Student Movement.

Russell was a charismatic figure and made numerous claims that his studies and commentaries were more reliable than the Bible.  He viewed himself as God's mouthpiece and discredited Christian creeds and traditions.

Russell and his publishing company inaccurately promoted the dates of Christ's return in 1870, 1874 and 1914.

His credibility was destroyed when:

(i)  a defamation court case found that he did not know Latin, Hebrew or Greek and had not been ordained by any bishop or minister.  

(ii)  his "Miracle Wheat" product had no verifiable test results. 

(iii)  his wife divorced him over her right to share in control of the WatchTower magazine.

After his death in 1916, The Watchtower organisation went through several theological splits with the Jehovah's Witness cult emerging in 1931 under the leadership of Jospeh Franklin Rutherford.

Today the "Governing Body" of The WatchTower has a moveable body of beliefs with rear-guard shifts in public teaching called "adjustments" as "new light" comes from God and the angels.

Flawed/twisted beliefs:

1. JWs have their own translation of the Bible known as the New World Translation but curiously its producers are anonymous and there’s no way of knowing the credentials of the translators. 

2. JWs deny the deity of Jesus Christ, and even the Holy Spirit in their translations. In fact, they distort the pronouns calling Him an ‘it‘, ‘which‘ or ‘that‘, but never as coequal, or a person or a part of the Godhead.

3. JWs deny Christ’s bodily resurrection and second coming. In fact they deny the Trinity all together and even claim that Satan was the originator of it!

4. JWs assert that Christ isn’t the son of God, but he’s merely an incarnation and was previously known as, the archangel Michael, the captain of Jehovah’s hosts.

5. JWs surmise (the Watchtower Society) to be the only source of truth on earth today and your soul will be destroyed if you refuse their organization and its followers who are all prophets of God and the Governing Body is directed by angels from God.

6. JWs also believe that to salute the flag is an act of idolatry.

7. Since 1945 they don’t believe in taking any kind of blood transfusion even at the point of death.

8. Participation in any civil holidays, Mother’s day, birthdays brings condemnation from God.

9. JWs also claim that Christ’s second coming to the earth has already taken place! It happened in three stages. Firstly in 1874, Christ came to the upper air and later caught the apostles and dead members of the 144,000 who will become immortal. Then in 1914, Christ ended the times of the Gentiles and began to reign, and finally in 1918, Christ came to the spiritual temple and began judgment of the nations. 

10. JWs believe in a works system of salvation, also known as auto-salvation and even go as far as to say that anyone who dies gets a second chance to receive ‘Jehovah’ during the Millennium reign.

11. JWs deny conscious punishment and argue instead for painless extinction, but the Bible simply does not teach this. They deny a literal hell and choose to believe in annihilationism or the full destruction of man. We know clearly from the scriptures however, that Hell is a place of eternal torment, originally created for the devil and demon forces but man chose to go there because of his rejection of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This is clear from scriptures like Matt 8:11-12, Matt 13:42, Matt 22:13, Luke 13:24-28, Luke 16:19-31 and finally Rev 14:9-11.

12. JWs teach that salvation is possible through Christ's ransom sacrifice and that individuals cannot be saved until they repent of their sins and call on the name of Jehovah.  Salvation is described as a free gift from God, but is said to be unattainable without good works that are prompted by faith. The works prove faith is genuine.  Preaching is said to be one of the works necessary for salvation, both of themselves and those to whom they preach. 

13. JWs hate the cross of Christ.

14. JWs don't baptise in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit

15. JWs believe that they have the truth and anyone who doesn't believe their truth is a follower of Satan .

N.B.  Jehovah/Yehovah is an inaccurate translation of the tetragrammaton YHWH, pronounced yahwey, by breathing in on "yah", and out, on "wey".

Useful Links

Jehovah's Witnesses - Wikipedia

History of Jehovah's Witnesses - Wikipedia

Jehovah's Witness Beliefs - Wikipedia

Jehovah's Witness Doctrine - Wikipedia

Criticisms of Jehovah's Witnesses - Wikipedia

Source Text

Bryan McAnally - World Religions and What People Believe - Good Reads

Ron Rhodes - Reasoning from Scripture with Jehovah's Witnesses  -  Amazon

Coming soon

The "New" Age has its roots in ancient Buddhist and Hindu beliefs that embody 'the Serpent's lie" ... i.e. you are God, you can become God, you are not answerable to anyone else.  You are encouraged to follow your own heart which the Bible tells us is deceptive. The ancient teachings were repackaged by Californians in the 1960s and 70s as free love and counter-cultural beliefs to Christianity and called The New Age a.k.a. the age of Aquarius.

The New Age titillates followers with a grab-bag of spiritual practices taught by the corrupt Watchers (see the Book of Enoch and Deuteronomy 18) with increased personal power,  indulgence of personal desires and freedom from responsibility.

It includes:

• ancient aliens

• astral projection

• chakras

• horoscopes

• karma

• mother earth

• pantheism - everything is God

• psychic mediums and psychic readings

• psychedelic trips to find deeper spiritual trips 

• reincarnation and past lives

• sacred geometry

• spirit guides

• tarot cards

• third eye (pineal gland)

The new age endorses the Nacash lie in Genesis 3 - you can become like God -  you can become a god.

Good luck with that lie.  It won't end well.

New Thought is the redefinition of every Christian term into modern metaphysical language with the goal of deceiving you into discovering your personal Christ power.  "You too can become a Christ with Christ consciousness!"  It is the serpent's lie repackaged in post-modern gnosticism - secret knowledge. 

It includes:

• affirmations

• discovering my own personal Christ consciousness

• discovering my own dormant divinity 

• learning to recognise and operate at higher frequencies

• positive thinking

• pseudo qantum mechanics

• speaking things into existence - manifestations

• personal prayers are actually me-centred affirmations

  • I am strong

  • I am capable

  • I have all I need to succeed

  • I will become healthy and wealthy

  • I will speak my own success into existence becuase my words have power

• the law of attraction

• visualisations

• word of faith power

Love is the most powerful vibrational frequency in the universe.  Love has no criticism ... only positive affirmations.

There is no sin,  just unnecessary guilt,  introduced by lesser controlling belief systems.  You can be set free from  the guilt of sin by recognising and owning your own divinity.

Good luck with that lie, too.