Indoctrination

Willa Appel described how cult indoctrination progressively changed members' minds:

Banishing thought strips away another layer of the personality, another hunk of the individual's mode of operation developed in response to long-term interaction with the "real" world. The granting and withholding of approval comes to replace the complex evaluation system that serves as the basis for behavior and determines action. Subjects become more willing to act on command from an external authority and less able to act independently. "Each time they'd ask me to do something more," David Wallace said of the Divine Light Mission, "I'd sort of swallow my pride and try it. Witnessing and soliciting are things I always felt queasy about. But you do it. You eventually lose your gut feelings. You're given directions and you follow them even though you know they're wrong. Like the special charitable projects, when you knew all the money was going for new toys for the Guru. You know it's wrong, but you do it anyway." Cults in America; Programmed for Paradise, Willa Appel, page 90.