This is a recording of my presentation at the 2023 International Cultic Studies Association annual convention in Louisville, Kentucky. It was recorded on Friday July 30 in front of a live audience, as well as streamed online for those with tickets to the event. The theme of the conference was “The Cult Phenomenon in the Covid World”. My presentation was about the cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses and their response to the pandemic.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are a doomsday cult. They believe that this world is getting nothing but worse every day and that it will devolve into a period of time known as the Great Tribulation for mankind that will be followed by a fiery Armageddon in which their god will have the wicked (or basically non-Jehovah’s Witnesses) killed so that the righteous (or Jehovah’s Witnesses) can live at peace in a world that will be turned back into the Garden of Eden.
While prosocial behavior is about helping and comforting and having empathy for others, Jehovah’s Witnesses were busy hoping that this calamity was going to usher in even more calamity so that they could get their promised reward of salvation at the expense of everyone else.
Jehovah’s Witnesses took a very firm stance on the virus itself from the beginning. They shut down their in-person meetings and also the door to door preaching work that they’re known all over the world for. But what makes Jehovah’s Witnesses different than most others is the length of time that they remained shut down. They didn’t go back to their Kingdom Hall gatherings until April 1 of 2022. For all of that time they had been having their meetings, their conventions, everything on Zoom and on their JW.org website. That was their only real attachment to the indoctrination they received.
Instead of knocking on doors, Jehovah’s Witnesses were writing form letters to individuals to spread their message. Just to show that the real reason for their preaching work is to reinforce beliefs and keep their members busy so that they can’t think about what they’re taught or get into other things, these letters were hand written. If the goal was really to reach as many people as possible, we know that they could type out one letter, print copies, and spend their time envelope stuffing. Rather than do that, the members spend their time hand writing these letters to send.
The cult also had another trick up their sleeve that I don’t think anyone saw coming.
https://thecounter.org/churches-usda-…
Jehovah’s Witnesses never let a tragedy go to waste. They can always find some way to exploit it for their own benefit, in this case taking food for the needy and using it for their own interests. The guise of prosocial behavior, the reality being very distanced from that.
The last couple of years had made it easy on them to be what we call PIMO, or physically in but mentally out, because they could just turn on a Zoom meeting and be present with their camera off while playing video games or doing anything else, all to keep some sort of status in the congregation that would prevent shunning from friends and family. The pandemic gave them great cover, but it was also false cover, shoving the harsh realities of what they were involved in into their face when they weren’t expecting the inevitable.
At times it was the fact that they started questioning things on the outside that led them to questioning things on the inside. For instance:
Some were upset that the cult was pushing the vaccines because they had concerns about it. How could “The Truth”, as Jehovah’s Witnesses refer to themselves, be promoting something that they personally saw as a lie.
Others saw the messaging around masking and vaccines as propaganda, and in their eyes it helped them to see propaganda that they had already been exposed to.
Some started looking more into science in general, and that led them to questioning other things that they had been taught.
Still others saw a fervor for science as “The Truth” and the disavowing of anyone, including other scientists, that disagreed as a reflection of the fervor for their religious truth and shunning in their religion.
There are takeaways from all of this.
We can see how an external event that cost the cult their current control led many individuals to take control back and to find freedom. We can see that it helps if we can get people that are currently invested in a cult to find time and space from that constant pressure of indoctrination. We can see that many are still stuck in cults that don’t want to be there. There are untold numbers of people inside the cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses that don’t want to be there, but it is a captive organization, one that will gaslight and extort you in every way possible to get you in and to keep you there. We need to see how these cults capitalize on tragedy for their own designs so that we can understand what these people are up against. We need to understand all of the hooks that these organizations use to keep people stuck in order to help provide resources that they could seek out when they are ready to start shaking free.
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