Brainwashing, Shunning, and Control: Recognizing the Patterns  🔗 **Source:** [Brainwashing, Shunning, and Control: Recognizing the Patterns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEUJr_b6wbQ) [00:00:00] There's so many people that have been impacted by not only the religious group that I came out of and you came out of, but in general, the broader [00:00:12] the broader scope of people impacted by this movement and its affiliates is widespread and so many people have sent questions asking us what where do I go [00:00:23] next? What do I do next? And I thought it'd be good to have you on the show and start you know, talking through how do we move on from all of [00:00:31] this? >> There's a lot of paths to recovery and each person can find their own individual path. Uh just a little bit of background, I [00:00:44] was actually raised in the Branham Tabernacle. And [clears throat] um my father, uh Clyde Collins, was a deacon there and my uncle Willard was a pastor there for many, many years. [00:00:58] And I remained part of that of organization until I uh I left home at 18 and about uh 20 I joined the military, US Army, and [clears throat] decided to uh [00:01:16] leave that organization for a lot of the reasons that we can touch on, but uh um I unfortunately have lost friends to this and I've talked to many people [00:01:31] about uh recovering from having been indoctrinated and basically brainwashed by different organizations, not just this one. And um I'm happy to report that you can escape these organizations. You [00:01:49] can recover to a life of health, a life of hope, a life of beauty, the life you wanted and you dreamed of having. It is entirely possible, [00:02:01] although sometimes it may seem like a distant dream. I assure your listeners, the listeners here today, that they can find peace and joy and happiness outside of these [00:02:15] organizations after they leave. >> You mentioned brainwashing, and we've recently had an event that I have to mention um on the show, but several people have committed mass suicide [00:02:28] recently in Kenya who were a part of the same message sect that we were in. They were in a basically a splinter group of this, it appears from the [00:02:39] from the resource materials that the pastor was using. They were William Branham sermons, but they obviously he was radicalized, and the people committed mass suicide. It's a very tragic event, but [00:02:52] um could you talk a little bit more about the brainwashing and the impact that it has on a person, not just the people who are you know, the rank and file members of [00:03:06] whatever sect they're in, but even in respect to the minister who's presenting, you know, God's information to the people if as he claims, and the impact that the radicalization has on him as [00:03:21] part of the group think or the mind control. >> John, um cultism is all about control. Uh control of the members' um daily behaviors, control of how they [00:03:36] dress. In this case, control even what they eat to the point of intentional death. Um others, uh the famous Jonestown massacre uh was control of them to get them [00:03:53] uh to drink on command. Uh they went through that drill many times with regular Kool-Aid before they uh went through the drill with [clears throat] uh arsenic-laced Kool-Aid [00:04:07] um and killed over 900 people in that case. Uh the bottom line is it's about control. Even if it's not control to death, um >> [clears throat] [00:04:18] >> clearly uh in the Branham Tabernacle and most of the Tabernacle uh oriented churches, it's not about control to death. It's about control, period, and control of money, [00:04:32] control of the believers' lives, uh what decisions they make, how they dress, how they don't dress, um and to some extent what they do eat or don't eat. Uh but mainly it's about [00:04:46] control over their money and their behavior. Um and that way they the church or organization, whatever the organization is, uses God as the ultimate authority um because it's easy to argue about [00:05:06] legislative priorities and whether or not Congress or the state or the local policies are proper or not proper. But when you start talking about God said X, [00:05:18] well, who can argue with that? That's that's an ultimate authority, and so you must obey because God said to do it, so there's no arguing over a [00:05:29] legislative priority or somebody thought this or that. Uh this is used by many religious organizations uh as ultimate authority to justify their control stance over [00:05:44] their membership, certainly not just in this organization, but many organizations use that as ultimate authority to >> [clears throat] >> basically bludgeon the minds of the followers into [00:05:58] submission. >> Yeah. And for our listeners, a lot of people won't realize this, but Jesse and I were estranged for years. Um I knew who [clears throat] Jesse was. [00:06:11] He was part of my family, but in the cult that we escaped, there's a deep level of shunning and it's very strange because whenever you think about shunning, you often think [00:06:24] about the way the Amish do it where there is no permission of seeing the person. But in these types of cults that we came out of, there [00:06:34] are varying levels of shunning. Sometimes it's emotional shunning or other times it's um you know, just cutting people off from getting close you know, close to the family. That that [00:06:47] type of shunning. For Jesse and I, we I think we saw each other at a couple of family events, but not many. But as Jesse mentioned, he grew up in the [00:06:58] Branham Tabernacle, which I came out of and I'm curious, Jesse, I know that there were Now that I'm looking back at my time there, I see clear evidence of [00:07:11] manipulation that is used for not only indoctrination, but mind control techniques. I see them clearly. And I'm curious what your perspective is on how to establish the mind control. [00:07:25] How What are the some of the things that you remembered as a child or teenager as the techniques that they used? >> The shunning or blocking of others [00:07:35] who are particularly um in [clears throat] the organizational uh dominance is done to limit outside influence. It's very similar to domestic violence. Often, a domestic violence or abuser [00:07:53] will uh cut the victim away from their family and other friends that support that victim emotionally so that they can establish psychological dominance over the victim. I'm the only one that cares about you. [00:08:10] No one else cares about you. You're lucky I love you because no one else would love you and that they can continue the abuse. In this case, the church cuts out [00:08:22] other people, cut me off uh from b- active believers because they didn't want me to influence them and say, "Wait a minute. That It doesn't stand [music] up to critical [00:08:34] thinking.", Brainwashing, Shunning, and Control: Recognizing the Patterns, Leaving the Message, 01m2705gk0b43hd8hvpnr09kaz.