On Groucho Marx's show, You Bet Your Life, if you said the magic word a duck descended from the Heavens and you won $50. In a cult, if you say the magic words, God will descend from the Heavens and all of life's complicated problems will be solved--or so a successful cult leader will have his followers believe. This is what Dr. Lifton refers to as "loading the language."
"The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought terminating cliché," Lifton writes. "The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive sounding phrases easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis. . . . For an individual person, the effect of the language of ideological totalism can be summed up in one word: constriction. He is, so to speak, linguistically deprived; and since language is so central to all human experience, his capacities for thinking and feeling are immensely narrowed. . . [his] uneasiness may result in a retreat into a rigid orthodoxy in which an individual shouts the ideological jargon all the louder in order to demonstrate his conformity, hide his own dilemma and his despair, and protect himself from the fear and guilt he would feel should he attempt to use words and phrases other than the correct ones."
In Creffield's world the phrases that seemed to have been most often repeated were, "Be ye holy!" and, "It is either holiness or Hell!" If you chant these for a few hours and God speaks to you and/or all of your problems are solved, please e-mail us
Information about Brainwashing & Thought Reform
Lifton's eight 'psychological themes' that can be found in totalist groups like the Holy Rollers:
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Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority
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Think You Can't be Lured into a Cult? Think Again.
The Oregon State Insane Asylum in 1907
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Relevant Newspaper Articles:
October to December 1903: Holy Rollers Burn Furniture & Pets
April to June 1904: Holy Rollers are Committed to the Asylum
Chapters from
Holy Rollers: Murder & Madness in Oregon's Love Cult
Part 1: The Seduction
Chapter 1: Trust Me, Brothers And Sisters
(Life Before Creffield [B.C.])
Chapter 2: God, Save Us From Compromising Preachers
(Creffield's Preachings)
Chapter 3: The Flock
(Profiles of the Holy Rollers Were)
Chapter 4: The Holy Rollers
(Things Start to Get Wild on on Kiger Island)
Chapter 5: Housecleaning
(There's a Sacrificial Bonfire)
Chapter 6: Community Concerns
(Officers Visit)
Chapter 7: Esther, The Chosen One
(Creffield Plans to Marry 16-Year- Old)
Chapter 8: Tar and Feathers
(The Men of Corvallis Act)
Chapter 9: Sane People Don’t Go Bareheaded
(Holy Rollers are Committed to the Asylum)
Chapter 10: More Beast Than Man
( Creffield is Arrested)
Chapter 11: God Will Plead Creffield's Case
(Creffield in Court)
Chapter 12: Scandal
(Shocking Testimony at the Trial)
Chapter 13: Calm Before the Storm
(The Holy Rollers Resume their Lives)
Chapter 14: Giving Up The Ghost
(Men are Gunning for Creffield)
Part Two: The People V. Creffield
Chapter 16: The Widow Creffield
Chapter 19: An Inherited Streak of Insanity
Part Three: The Madness
Chapter 23: Seeking Reconciliation
Chapter 24: Another Holy Roller Page One Murder
Chapter 25: What Can Papa Do For You?
Chapter 26: Human Life is Too Cheap In This Community
Chapter 30: The Final Chapter
(What Happened to Everyone Afterwards)
The Epilogue
(Heaven's Gate)