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In Reply to: Re: Brainwashing (Thought reform is different) posted by Chain breaker on July 28, 2005 at 18:41:23:
Thank you for this. What you say actually supports what I meant when I said:
"Now, I can understand and go along with this; but I haven't yet come across any research which talks about a threat to ones existance [spiritual]and if one is in a religious cult, quite often this is either an explict or implict threat."
What I meant was that the implict or explict threat to ones existance is often disregarded when researchers examine the phenomenon of cults. If you are not at risk of severe beatings, torture or death [physical threats] they discount this. However, the belief in extinction of ones afterlife or eternal punishment or shame for failure I would suggest is probably a more powerful threat than a physical threat. With the physical there is the belief that this can stop. But, if you believe in an all powerful, vengeful God there is no hope of an ending.
