Manipulation Techniques of the MEK cult leaders

Implication of Change in MKO

As stated, a cult to form a totalitarian society needs to bring about a profound change in members for achieving oneness with cult. Depending on the cult’s sphere of activity, the change is programmed under a variety of identified values to create receptivity to a new ideology.

There are countless ways and different avenues, and usually no single motivation, that drives people with different predispositions into cults. Many go to cults through their heads and some other go through their heart and emotions. However, what is of worth notification is that when a person melts in a cult, his/her whole strategy of attribution undergoes a total change and comes to believe that the new adopted ideology is the truest one in the world. There are also those who pretend to be followers because of the fearsome atmosphere of the cult and the employed measures of castigation. As Hoffer describes the converts of a cult:

Both they who convert and they who are converted by coercion need the fervent conviction that the faith they impose or are forced to adopt is the only true one. With- Jut this conviction, the proselytizing terrorist, if he is not vicious to begin with, is likely to feel a criminal, and the coerced convert see himself as a coward who prostituted his soul to live. 1

It can well be argued that as the recruits are involved in a group over a longer period of time, through the structure of the group, through new disciplines, through new behaviors and so forth, they shape a new personhood. So, it has a lot to do with when they are evaluated, and how far they’ve come from where they were before. It is the value system of the cults that attracts people to choose the gate opening to the most desired and optimal option; being it an avenue to salvation or terrestrial utopia.

Being recognized a cult of personality after its recognition as a terrorist group, Mojahedin Khalq Organization, MKO/MEK/PMOI, has developed its own terminology of cult values to entrap new recruits and to subjugate the already activists. It borrows the characteristics of a leftist cult proselytizing under a variety of catchy mottos like revolution, social change, freedom, emancipation of women and much more. To achieve the goals, first the members have to undergo a change themselves and the change is enforced through a number of processes if they show signs of reluctance; only the leaders and high ranking cadres seem to have already been acclimated to the changes and the whole body of the rank and file had to suffer the crushing pressure of the changing processes.

Some may question that why MKO insists on compelling the members to adapt themselves to the required changes? It has to be pointed out that MKO’s theoreticians of the group’s internal ideological revolution believe that any system of value has to be tested in a miniature model of society, the organization itself, before being generalized for the actual, real society and overpowering the ruling political power. But the first organizational objectives can be numerated as:

1- To destabilize members’ power of thinking in the face of critical circumstances

2- To prepare for change in the exterior milieu

3- To block members’ contact with the outside world

4- To prevent internal antagonistic moves against the made decisions

5- To get members ready for committing whatever command

6- To grow in members the illusion of being on the right path

7- To detect suspected infiltrators

8- To enforce unquestionable submission and total devotion to the leadership

9- To detach members from all personal attachments

10- To instill into members that they are safe until they are consistent with collective organizational identity

The organization strongly believes that the authority of change is beyond questioning and it is the most urgent task to be accomplished because:

1. It is essential for any ideological alteration

2. It is to legitimize organizational identity

3. It is the criterion to determine ideological disobedience

4. Being passive against it equals to becoming passive and slanting to enemy

5. Any reluctance to undergo it means being overpowered by anti-revolutionary, bourgeois attributes

6. vAnd finally, submission to change means an everlasting attraction towards the pole of the ideological leadership

Once Massoud Rajavi said “the effect indicates the cause”. He meant to say that change sets up the base for the continuation and legitimacy of the organization and it has to be ascertained within the organization through a change in ideological principles and teachings. It eventually crystallized into a cult. The ideological revolution set the door open for the change and Rajavi insisted it was a rebirth that all members necessarily had to go through it:

All have to experience this rebirth. All the sins you have committed comes to an end. Either you leave or accent to change. Make sure nobody remains but revolutionized among the real Mojahedin. Except those who may have not be informed. 2

Rajavi would compare the ideological revolution to a forge wherein the members had to be melted and reshaped as he desired them:

This [ideological revolution] is to test you; we need iron men. We seek new versions of power and capacity. Those Mojahedin who pass through this forge will be more rough and resistant. 3

As stated earlier, it was not a change only intended for the organization but aimed to encompass a grater milieu out of the organization:

Because of the fundamental role of this value system [ideological revolution] in ideology in general, the extent of the consequent changes within it included all the reactions and the individual- organization relations with the widespread scene of social and political sphere. 4

Thus, the ideological revolution turns into a standard to measure the members’ fidelity and commitment to the organization and leadership:

It is the ideological gauge that decides how good you are, and you are bad to the extent of the criticism you receive, and your power of dynamism depends on the change you undergo. 5

The ideological revolution before being considered an extraordinary way of initiating change in Mojaheidn Organization can well be defined as an internal coup d’état to accomplish Rajavi’s own ambitions and promoting him to the highest and unbeatable status of a hegemonic leader and even above that. Explained by Anne Singleton:

It [ideological revolution] is now operating around a pseudo-religious ideology for which Rajavi is the deity. Was the change necessary? Did they have to change in order to survive? It is possible to argue that any organisation has a degree of organic and dynamic change built into it. Also, that it must be flexible enough to make pragmatic alterations to the way it operates as a consequence of both the world it exists in and the demands of the situation it is in direct relation to. But the Mojahedin has done almost the opposite of what could have been expected. Rather than change in response to external demands, the organisation has wilfully ignored these and instead, obeying its own internal dynamic, rendered itself more and more distant from any constituency it might possibly have previously had recourse to for support. This internal dynamic is controlled directly by Rajavi himself and it demands that the organisation, down to every last member, must be kept totally and unquestioningly obedient to him. 6

References:

1. Eric Hoffer; The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, New York: First Perennial Classics 2002, p. 99.

2. Massoud Rajavi’s speech in Paris, 1985.

3. Ibid.

4. Niyabati, Bijan; A different look at the internal ideological revolution within MKO, Khavaran publication.

5. Mahdi Abrishamchi’s speech on ideological revolution, 1985.

6. Anne Singleton; Saddam’s Private Army, Iran-Interlink, 2003.

August 11, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

The Cultic Change Enforced Through Letters

As discussed, the initiated change within MKO following the internal ideological revolution in 1985 aimed mainly on securing Rajavi’s permanent leadership and transforming the members into his absolute devotees and, in general, crystallizing the whole organization into a cult of personality. Of course, it was not so easy a task to compel members to surrender to the Rajavi’s selfish ambitious on their own will and to dissolve in a leader whom many believed to be inadequate to assume the status.

Since MKO is heavily built on a hierarchical structure, the members are controlled and organized under the command of higher ranks who in turn receive orders from higher command echelon. It made it much easier for the The Cultic change enforced through letters organization to impose the change on the members through such a forced stratum either through persuasion or designed processes of penalization. As the members would be provoked by persuasive heroic deeds of the responsible ranks, the statements of submission had to be first made by them.

In this way, the rational thinking power of the rank and file would be paralyzed under the impact of the impressive expressions of emotional parodies. Consequently, in a systematic fashion of letter writing, they began to write open letters of congratulation to the newly wed Rajavis, and Massoud Rajavi himself in particular, for the heroic move and the initiated new phase in MKO.

A look at the countless volume of these letters, known as the letters of ideological revolution, with identical themes of expressing total devotion to the leadership and his novel ideological revolution well indicates the organization’s resort to crafts to subjugate its own insiders regardless of its hypocritical wearing in the political scene. Let’s go through a number of these letters all published in the organization’s official gazette Mojahed soon after the unconventional marriage of Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Azodanloo. Writing of her unconditional dedication to ideological revolution, Mina Khyabani, Mahdi Abrishamchi’s second wife and sister of Musa Khyabani, in her letter addressed to Rajavi stated:

I hope to be close behind you now attaching to your emancipating revolution with my soul. To be liable to follow the path, I need to be cleaned of whatever evil and element of filth. I bow to you to the extreme of my comprehension of your high status, and appreciate your miraculous move of self-sacrifice, that is far above the martyrdom of many thousands, that has guaranteed a history. Now I believe to be all blameworthy before this revolution. I hope this revolution will act as a motivation to reinforce iota of values within me to make me capable of being under your command as once I was. *

Mohammad Seyyedi Kashani is one of the oldest, experienced veterans whose organizational activities even exceed that of Rajavi. He, too, addressing Rajavi has stated:

Dear Massoud, Iwill call you brother no more. You are my sage. Dear to my heart. You are my teacher…. many things have undergone a change in the organization and the world within us. I am sure that the last rusted layers of the old world would be eliminated from within the forces and sympathizers. Obviously, in our most favourite organization the real Mojahed is the one who is more unselfish and capable and also most cherished before God.

In another letter from Mohammad Hayati, another member of MKO, we read:

I congratulate the blessed marriage of my ideological leader Massoud and Maryam. Definitely and knowingly I recant for failing to understand the grandeur of this leadership.

In the letter of Hussein Abrishamchi, Mahdi Abrishamchi’s junior brother and a commander in chief of the organization, addressed to the Rajavis it is stated:

I wish I could kneel before you [Maryam] and Massoud as the forerunners of this great revolution and take my oath of allegiance.

Mohsen Rezai a member of central cadre in his testament of allegiance to Rajavi earnestly supplicated salvation from him:

Great men have marvellous power of draw and repulsion. Now I see it in you and you can influence all. Anybody endowed with an iota of humanism and nobility falls in your love and you repel whoever walks in the wrong path. I am sure that you will be among those closest to God in the Day of Judgment and I am also sure that you will take my hand for my salvation.

Mahdi Abrishamchi, playing his own influential role in the ideological revolution, was one of the most enthusiastic espouses of the move started by his ex-wife and Rajavi:

This ideological move shed light on all of us. We were purged of our filth and dirt by passing through the kiln Rajavi indicated. Now our ideology is shining and we are not the ones we were in the past. We have the honour of surpassing all those that ceased to follow the path. Now I dare say, after this revolution, that we are true members of Mojahedin, aren’t we? We pride ourselves on being his [Rajavi] followers and disciples; he is our instructor who has trained us and we hope he will do in future, and he will. We praise God for leading us to the right path through Massoud and Maryam, otherwise we would have gone astray.

As seen, in all these letters the ranking members insist to state that the crystallized ideological revolution has led to great changes within them and the structure of the organization as well. According to many assertions made by Rajavi, Mojahedin are engaged in a never-lasting change until all intended objectives of leadership have been accomplished.

*The quotes are all from Mojahed issues 241, 242, 247 published in 1985.

August 11, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Mojahedin Khalq Coercive Cult Techniques

Mojahedin Khalq Coercive Cult Techniques for Manipulation of Insiders Finding out members certain personal potentialities and capacities Any organization when recruiting new members tries to discover certain MEK coercive cult techniques potentialities and capacities in them for a better professional classification. As a result, the new recruits are appointed to the same jobs that suit their abilities and qualify them physically and psychologically for the responsibilities. They are usually required to fill out questionnaires and to write a resume of their past responsibilities and professional proficiencies that may nominate them for a position that best fulfill the interests and goals of the organization.

The same process is followed in many cults in spite of their being unsocial. Since the initial desire of the cults is to benefit from the individuals certain abilities to manipulate them in anti-social missions that may even threaten the social security or the insiders’ own life, the recruits have to undergo an initial process of writing down or talking of their past biography that digs up untold truths. It happens that a recruit may not be fully aware of his own abilities that best suit him for a cult activity. An analysis of a recruit’s life history by the cult best nominates him/her for an aggressive activity which he/she may have never dreamed of in life but proves to be capable of accomplishing most appropriately.

In the same way that a cult’s ideology works to set the spiritual or political route of the leaders ambitions, recognition of members’ abilities works as the practical means without which no goal is ever expected to be fulfilled. Thus, recruits with inappropriate abilities and inclinations are rejected from the very beginning since they will be much troublesome elements that fail to be or become as they should. They are the ones that jeopardize the safety of the cults and make them vulnerable to irreparable coups. Singer calls them "bad actors":

And most cults weed out "bad actors" at the point of recruitment: the disobedient, the unruly, the delinquent, the hard to handle and difficult to influence are turned away. They take too much time and thus are not cost effective to change, and they break up the atmosphere the leader wants to keep in place, the ambience that by fitting in things will go better. 1

However, as the life of cults depend on the multiplicity of members and continuation of recruiting new members, they have to let unqualified members in as well. But in political cults, and in MKO in particular, the suspicious members are recognized to be purged or forced to adapt themselves to principles through a especially contrived process. In MKO it is done through going over the life history of the members to find out their weak-points to be utilized against them if they ever showed signs of antagonism against the organization and the leaders. In fact, the personal and private information that has to be kept confidential are used against the providers. The critic and dissident members have no other choice but to submit to organizational demands to safeguard the privacy which is the organization’s strongest winning card. As a defector explains:

Members afraid of their secrets being unveiled accented to anything. A never ceasing stress of secrets revelation would disturb and traumatize members and deprived them of the necessary self-confidence and the free-will. 2

That is sheer blackmail and heavily practiced by illegal and underground organizations. No legal and authorized party and organization forces its members into cooperation; the adopted process by MKO verifies illegitimacy of the organization as a political organization and best lists it as a cult of personality. Thus, the process becomes known as a technique of persuasion.

In Mojahedin organization, they employ a variety of techniques to change a member’s personality. It is common that a free man has a pile of different point of views and personal tastes and experience of his own career. But thoughtfulness and having the power of reasoning and understanding is in contradiction with the dominant hegemonic leadership within the organization. A unanimous thinking route is believed to decrease any objection, disagreement and criticism and makes all liable to obedience. Thus, any member had to pass a long process of personality change. 3

It has to be pointed out that such a process of cutinizing members’ life-history is most common in political cults that live on the founded ideologies of certain magnitude. All the members have to be dispossessed of whatever antagonistic ideologies that have spoiled them in their past social and political career to adapt themselves to the cult ideology. It is a hard examination to pass since all those they would be closely associated in the past are viewed as foes unless they fall in with the cult’s ideology:

In some political cults, members repeatedly had to go over their backgrounds as part of examining their "class history." Each person’s life was orally inspected and reviled. Members were told their thinking was totally determined by the bad class they had been reared in. Even working-class members had their thinking pulled apart and attacked as still reflecting "the training and education that is controlled by the ruling [bourgeois] class." Some leftist groups rebuke their members with Chairman Mao’s words that "every kind of thinking is stamped with the brand of class." In some rightist groups, members have to "purify" their personal histories by not mentioning relatives, friends, or "connections" who are not of the right political persuasion in their outlook or who are, for example, of color or foreign born. 4

Obtaining even the least information about a member’s conflicting social class and status, MKO value it as working tool to reproach a member when it becomes conscious of any form of objection. For instance, a member might be heavily attacked and criticized for having strong inclination to bourgeoisie while the objection and disobedience has nothing to do with the class at all. An excerpt from Massoud Banisadr’s memoirs sheds much light on the issue:

Then she asked me to leave everything and think about my bourgeois tendencies and write about them. In this meeting any time she wanted to call me unlike before and despite everybody else, she was using my both name, first and family name, reminding me of my family tendencies and my relation tendency toward ‘Banisadr, the president.’ Soon it became her custom to name me by my first name and family name at the same time and in no time I could see every body else is naming me in the same manner. So from then on even I had to suffer from my own name not only from my own masouls but from any body else including people under my own responsibility. As I was told to see my self as a bourgeois and see all my behaviour, including my ‘kindness’, ‘understanding’, ‘caring’ and ‘helping’ toward others as a ‘bourgeois tricks ‘for “fooling people and keeping them within chains of its own trap.” I was trying very hard not to show any affection toward any body and even more, create some dislike and hate toward myself. 5

Similar to other cults, the Cult of Mojahedin, tolerating no disobedience on the part of members, masterminds coercive techniques so cleverly that members feel to be in the organization’s debt rather than its antagonist.

References:

1. Thaler Singer, Margaret; Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace, p.168.

2. Shams-e Haeri, Hadi; The swamp, vol. II.

3. Ibid.

4. Thaler Singer, Margaret; Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace, 166.

5. Masoud Banisadr; Memoirs of an Iranian Rebel.

July 28, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Implementation of Violence in the Cult of Mojahedin

Potential for violence exists in many cultic groups particularly if they are engaged in underground activities or follow a Machiavellian philosophy of ‘ends justify the means’. Obviously, there is no easy way to predict which group may become involved in terrorism, violence, or suicide operations unless there is a record of already perpetrated instances of violence by the cult even if such deeds might have been ceased temporarily for certain reasons. Horrifying testimonies of some arrested or ex-members of cultic groups to their connection in violent operations and self immolation activities or being witnesses to instances of violence against the groups’ own insiders signify that inborn terrorist and violent groups, if they make some temporal accommodation with the outside world, may resort to indirect application of violence, namely, utilizing outwardly peaceful and pro-democratic measures that promote direct violence.

Cults and violence are commonly bound inextricably together in the public mind since much public understanding about cults is accounts of violence in a variety of forms. The shocking reports of sarin gas release into the Tokyo underground by Aum Shinrikyö cult, the recent news of rescuing children from a polygamist remote compound Ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and above all, the terrible and nightmarish terrorist attack of al-Qaeda are all instances of awful truth about the violent nature of some cults. Talking on the varying degrees of cults’ abusive and destructive nature Thaler Singer states:

Cults are abusive and destructive to varying degrees. Some abuse only their own members; others project the violence outward. Still others have it both ways. Cult members, at the direction of their leaders, have shot at law enforcement officers, engaged in drug dealing and prostitution, stockpiled illegal weapons, practiced repeated sexual abuse, beaten child members to death, enforced a variety of punishments against their own, and murdered dissident members. 88

It is hard to answer the question that why some cults, when facing with opposition and even outright persecution, react by resorting to violence. But one thing is for certain that their violent conducts towards the outside world is either direct or indirect:

Not only have cultic groups engaged in openly violent behavior, but they have also engaged in other activities that have led to members’ being convicted of crimes ranging from conspiracy to tax evasion, spying on governments, and fraud. 89

If we come to believe, as Singer explains, that espionage activities of a political cult are considered as indirect activities of violence, then, MKO’s claimed disclosures on Iran’s nuclear activities that may lead to nothing but escalating global tension and even military conflict can be regarded as instances of inciting violence. Violence is interwoven in MKO and in spite of its claims to have abandoned terrorism, the group can only survive out of violence and engaging in direct and indirect violent activities regardless of the heavy cost imposed only on Iranian people.

MKO is an example of leftist political cults. In many political cults of the contemporary history violence in a variety of forms has dominated. During Stalin’s reign over the Soviet Unions’ Communist Party, for instance, a new form of violence was formed in the course of harsh, internal purges. The purges, a combination of physical and psychological violence, are yet thought to have been the most unusual and eccentric techniques applied. It was only after Stalin’s death that some instances of the applied violence was revealed for the public through a number of novels and made movies.

Somehow it can be said that, among active political cults, it is only MKO that, as a leftist group, is charged with multitude instances of violence working against its own insiders as revealed by Human Rights Watch report and the memoirs of its detached members. In addition to application of physical violence as a method of internal punishment against dissatisfied and disobedient members, there are further indirect ruthless routines of regular self-criticism sessions, cultivating malevolence and spite amongst the members, separating the families and much more. A more detailed study of different forms of internal and external violence employed by MKO will give a broader understanding of the cult.

References:

1. Thaler Singer, Margaret; Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace, p. 88.

2. Ibid, 89.

Research Bureau,Mojahedin.ws, June 25, 2008

http://www.mojahedin.ws/article/show_en.php?id=2777

June 26, 2008 0 comments

Massoud Rajavi The cult of Rajavi

Rajavi, the absolute cult authority

No cult begins unless lead by a charismatic religious or political entrepreneur and hardly a cult can survive following the death of its charismatic founder unless succeeded by another charismatic successor. A charismatic leader does not appear in a vacuum and is in part the product of a larger social or political trend. To build a hierarchical authority with him atop, a charismatic leader claims divinity or special knowledge and demands unquestioning obedience and devotion from the followers. Doubting or questioning the leader’s authority is not at all tolerated and the leader may be aided by one or more core of leaders.

The guru in a cult plays the key role to lead and influence the followers. In fact, the process of brainwashing in a cult can be carried out within a structure of an absolute charismatic authority. Besides, in facing the outsiders, the built courage within the insiders originates out of the charismatic impact of the guru before whom they cringe and bow. Thus, first the recruits have to be convinced to put all trust in the leader before anything else and as Singer analyses:

Legend has it that all cult leaders are charismatic. In reality, charisma is less important than skills of persuasion and the ability to manipulate others. In order to start a group, a leader has to have ways of convincing others to follow him or her, and such leaders tend not to relinquish their control. Cult leadership can be a heady role when the leader comes to see the amount of control he or she holds and how easily he or she can influence followers. 1

Unquestionably, the spirit of self-sacrifice within a cult is fostered by devotion and absolute faith in a leader. As a result, the first step following the entry of a new recruit is to build in him/her a sense of devotion to a specific and exceptional sanctity or exemplary character by whose authority instructions or orders are revealed or ordained:

Day one is usually devoted to demonstrating the leader’s absolute authority. The leader, often called a facilitator or trainer, immediately takes control of the setting with a demeanor that suggests he is a powerful, in-charge person and no one is to challenge what he says.”This program works,”the trainer proclaims.”It’s all up to you to obey and get the maximum benefits.”He remains totally in charge, acts knowledgeable, and is practiced in verbal skills, so that he never loses an encounter. Anyone who challenges the trainer will be humiliated and verbally mashed. 2

The idea is strongly infused into the members and, going through the totalitarian authority of Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization or the cult of Mojahedin’s leadership, one can easily notice the cult-like leadership in its most excessive practice in the group. The complexity of leadership relations within MKO requires a study of its own which comes in the category of a variety of phases. There are also differences in the hegemonic styles in each phase as the members’ impression of the leader changed continually as each phase came to engage the organization in a different enterprise according to circumstances. In any case, it was the hegemonic authority of the leadership that compelled the members to take on ventures that were doomed to failure from the very beginning and no logic advocate them. Explaining the authoritative relationship between the leader and the followers in a cult Hoffer states:

It is somewhat terrifying to realize that the totalitarian leaders of our day, in recognizing this source of desperate courage, made use of it not only to steel the spirit of their followers but also to break the spirit of their opponents. In his purges of the old Bolshevik leaders, Stalin succeeded in turning proud and brave men into cringing cowards by depriving them of any possibility of identification with the party they had served all their lives and with the Russian masses. 3

Notwithstanding the deception and cult manipulation within MKO, Rajavi’s authoritative leadership has played a totally influential role in the nature of converting a political group into a destructive cult of personality. Rajavi’s hegemonic leadership can be discussed in two aspects; a) employing leadership absolutism to subjugate high-ranking members and b) to deploy the relationship between the charismatic authority and followers to establish an organizational leadership hegemony entailing absolute devotion.

References:

1- Thaler Singer, Margaret; Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace, introduction..

2- Ibid, 193.

3. Eric Hoffer; The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, New York: First Perennial Classics 2002, p. 62.

Research Bureau – Mojahedin.ws – May 24, 2008

May 24, 2008 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Rerepsentavie of Anjomane Solh in Oslo meets with Ms.Erika Man MEP

Oslo, Friday, 11.04.2008 — Mr.Ghasem Ghezi, the representative of Anjomane Solh Norway along with his delegation met honourable member of European Parliament, Ms.Erika Man at the sideline of Peace Conference on South Asia recently held in Oslo, the capital of Norway. The purpose of the talks was to introduce the organization specially activities of the Anjoman with regard to human rights and secondly, explaining about disaffected people from Mojahedin Khalig (MOK) in Iraq. Mr.Ghasem Ghezi presented a document about the issue and urged for necessary assistance to the people

Mr.Erika Mann welcomed the delegation of Anjomane Solh and paid essential overview on the document and assured that she would forward it to the relevant people at the EU parliament. She also appreciated the work of Anjomane Solh specially helping the disaffected people by highlighting their issue.

Solh Association, Oslo,

April 21, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

What is a Destructive Cults?

There are many different types of destructive cults, and the diversity of cult beliefs and practices sometimes makes it hard for family members and friends to decide whether their loved one is in trouble or not. Although there are still groups whose followers cut their hair short and wear identical clothing, like the member of Heaven’s Gate, this is by no mean the case with most modern-day cults group. Today, for example, many cults require their members to wear business suits so that they blend in with their environment. All cult members may not look alike, but I have found that destructive cults follow specific behavior patterns that set them apart from other groups. By learning to identify the these patterns you will be better qualified to determine if someone you care about is actually involved with a cult. A group should not be considered a “cult” merely because of its unorthodox belief or practices. Instead, destructive cults are distinguished by their use of deception and mind control techniques to determine a person’s free will and make him dependent on the group’s leader. Authoritarian Leadership In essence a destructive cult is an authoritarian group that is headed by a person or group of people that has near-complete control. Charismatic cult leaders often make extreme claims of divine or “otherworldly” power to exercise influence over their members. Many legitimate religions have had powerful figures who have inspired enormous dedication in people. Being a powerful leader is not inherently wrong , though it carries a high potential for abuse. A group becomes destructive when its leader actively uses such power to deceive members and to rob them of their individuality and free will. For example, I was told to surrender my free will (viewed as Satanic) to God’s representative, Moon, and his subleaders. Marshall Applewhite told followers that an alien entity was speaking through him, and used his message to justify his absolute control over their lives. Deception Destructive cults also use deception to recruit new members. When I was first approached by Moonie recruiters, they told me they were part f the “One World Crusade,” which I later learned was one of many front groups for the Unification Church . They claimed to be students who were involved with a small community of young people struggling to overcome cultural barriers. It was not until much later that I found what its members really believed, and what would be expected of me. What makes this all so insidious is that members often speak and act with the greatest sincerity because they have been subjected to the same mind control techniques that they used to recruit others. Destructive Cult Destructive Mind Control Finally, destructive cults use mind control techniques to keep members dependent and obedient. You will learn the specific criteria that define mind control in later but, generally, speaking, cult mind control can be understood as a system of influence that is designed to disrupt a person’s authentic identity and replace it with a new identity. By immersing people in a tightly controlled, high pressure social environment, destructive cults gain control of their members’ behavior, thoughts, emotions and access to information. They take over their mind.

April 13, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Getting to know the Cult of Mojahedin

A cult, particularly a destructive one, is almost any kind of organization whose followers have been deceptively and unethically recruited and retained. They use manipulative techniques, which are imposed without the informed consent of the recruit and are designed to alter personality and behavior. These groups are only concerned about advancing the mission or business of the group, and not the well being of the individual members. They pose great dangers not only against the society among whom they live but also against their own followers. Our modern history contains records of cults’ threats and human tragedies that have shaken the world. Talking on the tragic end the followers of a destructive cult might be led to Margaret Thaler Singer has said: Twice in less than fifteen years we have been shown the deadly ends to which cult followers can be led. In 1978, aerial photos of 912 brightly clad followers of Jim Jones, dead by cyanidelaced drinks and gunshots in a steamy Guyanese jungle, were shown in magazines and on television, reappearing with each subsequent anniversary of the end of Jonestown. And in early 1993, television news programs showed the Koresh cult’s shoot-out, then several weeks later its flaming end on the Texas plains. 1 They are only an example of many countless instances. As reported recently, Texas police raided a gated compound outside the tiny Texas cattle town of Eldorado built and run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Reportedly, more than 400 children and teens had been rescued and taken into temporary state custody while the authorities continued investigating allegations that girls at the compound were being sexually abused by men. The number of active cults only in the US is estimated to range from 3,000 to 5,000. It is hard to get a precise number as cults change their names, splinter off into other groups, or shut down in one area only to open back up in another. Unfortunately, there are approximately 180,000 new cult recruits every year and the cults are developing more sophisticated techniques to form and establish new aliases. They originally start under religious and political covers and it is only after getting totally involved in the cults that the followers come to recognize the real intention of the cults. One way to avoid being entrapped by the cults is to learn to recognize common cult-recruitment tactics and situations. The people who have suffered tensions or are in search of Utopia are most vulnerable to be recruited by the cults. In general, cults follow nearly the same tactics for deception and misrepresentation to recruit, retain and achieve cult-related ends. Today, it is really a hard task to distinguish a cult from another legal group but in the past decades there have been attempts to help people in cult prevention. There are identical factors shared by majority of cults which can be of great help to recognize a cult. Referring to important characteristics of a cult Robert Jay Lifton observes: First, all cults have a charismatic leader, who himself or her- self increasingly becomes the object of worship, and in many cases, the dispenser of immortality. Spiritual ideas of a general kind give way to this deification of the leader. Second, in cults there occurs a series of psychological processes that can be associated with what has been called”coercive persuasion”or”thought reform,”as described in some detail in this book. And third, there is a pattern of manipulation and exploitation from above (by leaders and ruling coteries) and idealism from below (on the part of supplicants and recruits). 2 Thus, the characteristics to mark a cult are three: 1. Charismatic and self-appointed leader who claims divinity or special knowledge and demands his followers unquestioning and total loyalty and obedience. 2. An organized structure of totalitarian hegemony with the leader at the top

3. Planned thought reform and brainwashing techniques to induce a state of high suggestibility and dependency on the group and self-alienation.

To determine how dangerous a cult might be, Bonewits draws a Cult Danger Evaluation Frame which can be a good help to determine just how dangerous a cult or group might be in comparison with other groups. The factors indicated by Bonewits include:

1. INTERNAL CONTROL 2. WISDOM CLAIMED by leader(s3. WISDOM CREDITED to leader(s) by members 4. DOGMA 5. RECRUITING6. FRONT GROUPS 7. WEALTH 8. POLITICAL POWER 9. SEXUAL MANIPULATION 10. CENSORSHIP11. DROPOUT CONTROL 12. VIOLENCE13. PARANOIA 14. GRIMNESS 15. SURRENDER OF WILL16. HYPOCRISY 3

It seems that Bonewits has developed a good understanding of cults’ menace in the modern world which is shared with other researchers. A look at Dr. Robert Jay Lifton’s criteria for a destructive cult is a precise approbation:

1. Authoritarian pyramid structure with authority at the top

2. Charismatic or messianic leader(s) (Messianic meaning they either say they are God or that they alone can interpret the scriptures the way God intended.

3. Deception in recruitment and/or fund raising

4. Isolation from society — not necessarily physical isolation, but this can be psychological isolation.

5. Use of mind control (Mileu Control, Mystical Manipulation, Demand for Purity, Confession, Sacred Science, Loading the Language, Doctrine Over Person, Dispensing of Existence) 4

Considering signs that distinguish a destructive cult, a precise evaluation of MKO well crystallizes it as one of the most destructive and visible examples of a cult that jeopardizes the security and thought well-being of the people among whom it takes refuge under the cover of a pro-democratic, political group. Far beyond being recognized as an alternative to Iranian regime as MKO claims, it is an alternative to a destructive cult sharing their characteristics. For sure, no sensible people consent to a dangerous cult to steer the country.

References: 1- Thaler Singer, Margaret; Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace, p. 3.

2- Ibid, XII.

3- www.qed.net/bonewits/ABCDEF.HTML

4- www.refocus.org Research Bureau, Mojahedin.ws, April 9, 2008

April 10, 2008 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

No way out for former Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq member in Iraq

Escape from a guerrilla-cult organisation blocked

In Europe, the Iranian Mojahedin presents itself as a democratic alternative to NZZ the mullahs in Tehran. But the camp, which the organization established in Saddam’s Iraq, is beset by reports of dissidents escaping the gulag. The Iraqi government wants to get rid of the former fighters, but find this avenue blocked. IRO. Baghdad, in early March Hoshiar Esmail says the biggest mistake of his life was to leave his safe exile in Switzerland and to return to the Mojahedin-e Khalgh (Volksmujahedin). In 1998, he went to Iraq, where the armed Iranian opposition group, equipped with weapons and money from the former Iraqi regime, led the struggle against the mullahs’ regime. But since then the political situation in Iraq has changed fundamentally. The Shiite and Kurdish-dominated government is pursuing a course of rapprochement with the former enemy Iran, which culminated in the recent visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian opposition members are regarded as terrorists who threaten Baghdad. Locked borders

Hoshiar separated from those [loyalists] interned in the Mojahedin-e Khalq camp. But the Iraqis make no difference between those who are loyal to the organization, and those who have separated. Equipped with Iraqi travel documents, he wanted to leave Iraq as soon as possible. In mid-December [2007], together with two other former Mojahedin-e Khalq fighters he made his way to the Turkish border. The journey, and with it the hope of a new beginning floundered at a checkpoint of the Kurdish state in northern Iraq. The Kurdish security forces monitor its border with the rest of Iraq, as if it were a state border. They took the three Iranians, and they were stuck in prison for nearly three weeks. Finally, the three were left stranded in Erbil. Hoshiar found temporary shelter in an inconspicuous building in a secluded quarter in Erbil. On the floor of his bare room is a carpet, in the corner a mattress, the curtains are also drawn in the bright daylight to fend off the curious glances of outsiders. Hoshiar crouches next to the stove. In the year 1979 – Iran had just won the Islamic revolution – he joined the Mojahedin-e Khalq. Fighting alongside the Ayatollah Khomeini against the Shah’s regime, and inspired by the revolutionary zeal of the time, these young Iranians believed in the Islamism and Marxism … doctrine of salvation that Massoud Rajavi, the leader of the group, preached. But early on in the revolution dissident voices were stifled as mercilessly as before under the Shah by the regime which came to power. The Mojahedin-e Khalq was again pushed back, thousands of its members were jailed or executed. Aged 17 years, Hoshiar landed in the Evin prison in Tehran, was later freed and was arrested again. After his release in 1984, he fled to Pakistan, from where he found his path led to Switzerland, which granted him political asylum. "The years in Switzerland were the best of my life," says Hoshiar in retrospect. But like so many exiles he felt torn between the comfort of his country and loyalty to the cause. And the propagandists of the beleaguered Mojahedin-e Khalq told him: If he really wants to change the political situation in Iran, he should go to Iraq. In the Mojahedin-e Khalq gulag

Meanwhile, the Iranian regime’s opponents struck a diabolical pact with Saddam Hussein, who supported it [Mojahedin] generously with weapons and money. In five bases the group planned and rehearsed the storming of Tehran. In Europe Massoud Rajavi’s charismatic wife Maryam acted the part of Jeanne d’Arc of Islam. In 1998, Hoshiar… went to Iraq where he was placed in Camp Ashraf in Baquba, the largest camp of the Mojahedin-e Khalq. Soon, he realized that their talk of an Islamic state with a democratic face was just hollow rhetoric.

The group was acting as a sect, Hoshiar reported. "All we got to hear and see was Rajavi this, Rajavi that," he recalls. But that was not enough. Couples were separated and … in rituals of self-criticism the fighters had to reveal intimate details about themselves before the camp leadership. In this way every individual has been made compliant. Whoever has not complied has felt humiliation. "One veteran fighter wanted to get out. He was with 400 of us in a locked room. We had to swear at and insult him,” Hoshiar reported. Another former fighter who does not want to be named, said: "It was like a Stalinist gulag." Leaving was out of the question. In the autumn of 2002 after the American attack on Iraq Hoshiar finally said he wanted to separate from the Mojahedin. "They promised me that I would go to Europe," he says, "but instead they threw me in a secret prison in the camp." He spent eleven months in solitary confinement… Twice the now 44-year-old tried to take his own life.

The arrest has left serious effects since he now suffers from chronic headaches and tinnitus. In June 2004, Hoshiar, together with several hundred fighters, had left [the group]… Rather than leave Iraq he was admitted again into a camp, this time run by the Americans. The Iraqi government says the Mojahedin-e Khalq are mercenaries of Saddam’s regime and accused it, along with Saddam’s elite units of suppressing the Shiite and Kurdish uprisings in 1991. The Iraqis say they are terrorists, and Baghdad wants them sent back to Iran. But the leadership ranks of the Mojahedin-e Khalq handed their weapons to the Americans and offered them their services. [In 2003] The Americans interned the remaining Mojahedin-e Khalq in Camp Ashraf and put them under their protection.

Endless Odyssey?

Two years later, about 200 ex-fighters applied to become UN Refugees (UNHCR). Walpurga Engelbrecht of the UNHCR in Baghdad said, with the recognition of political persecution the ex-fighters were given refugee status. But no country was prepared to take the refugees. In European diplomatic circles in Baghdad, it is assumed that the Americans’ Camp Ashraf [TIPF and FOB Grizzly] will soon close and that they want to get rid of the separated Mojahedin-e Khalq fighters as quickly as possible. Now Hoshiar and several dozen former Mojahedin-e Khalq have travel documents. Some 50 of them are stranded in Kurdistan. One of them, Mohammed Rostam, has twice tried to get to Turkey but each time he was re-arrested and deported to Iraq where the Kurds also briefly put him into jail. His attempt to get to Baghdad also ended in prison. The security chief of Erbil, Ismet Ergushi, confirmed the arrests and gave assurance that the Government is trying to achieve a lasting solution.

Like many of their former comrades, Mohammed and Hoshiar fear not only the Kurdish authorities, but also the long arm Tehran… "We live in constant fear," says Hoshiar. While Maryam Rajavi poses in Europe as a democratic alternative to the present regime in Tehran, Hoshiar is looking for a new hiding place. The end of his temporary odyssey is not yet in sight.

NZZ online March 31, 2008 (Translated by Iran-Interlink)

http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/international /ehemalige_iranische_volksmujahedin_im_irak_ohne_ausweg_1.694952.html

March 31, 2008 0 comments

The cult of Rajavi

Why Are the Cults at War with the Media 1

Cults are complex phenomenon in the modern world because of their dubious positions towards the media and the sophisticated communication technology. They, based on their natural potentiality, misuse the media and modern means Why are the cults at war with the Media for censure, persuasion, distortion, brainwashing and mind-control activities against their insiders and sympathizers. Cults show diverse and double reactions in their dealing with the media that draw substantial public attention to accomplish a variety of objectives. Besides, the media in any form play a key role in the formation of public opinion and thought, life-style, and even the depiction of a nation’s destiny. For sure so important, versatile phenomena of the modernity never escape the attention of the cults. In the same way that the media can give warning against the threat and the evil nature of the cults, they can also be at their service, depending on the amount of revenue and how influentially they can master them, to instil noxious ideas into a society. However, since the media can hardly be an exclusive medium for the cults and in many occasions it is too expensive a means for propagation with the least expected outcome, and sometimes inflicts irreparable damages, the cults prefer not to invest much trust in the media. The case is sometimes different with the political cults. If we consider deliberate isolation tactic as one of the cults’ most common mechanisms of control and enforced dependency, then the social persuasion is the identical definition of the mechanism. The recruits are encouraged to disrupt their common lifestyle and leave whatever they are attached to behind to adapt themselves to the cult’s milieu in isolation. In this process, what is considered to be a threat in neutralizing the effects of the social persuasion will be the media which the cults favour to avoid. That is mostly because cults’ prompt of black-and-white thinking fails to be functional and productive in the media which has to be repelled. However, cults are not so powerful as the governments that can have total control over the media for social persuasion and people’s mind-control if they will. Quoting Orwell reasoning the effectiveness of the media coming under the complete control of the governments, Singer states: Orwell reasoned that if a government could control all media and interpersonal communication while simultaneously forcing citizens to speak in a politically controlled jargon, it could blunt independent thinking. If thought could be controlled, then rebellious actions against a regime could be pre- vented. 1 Milieu control, that is total control of members’ communication in the cults, is a mechanism to keep members from communicating anything other than what the cults approve and often involves discouraging members from contacting relatives or friends outside the cult and from reading, watching and listening to anything unapproved by the cult or the organization. Consequently, the effectiveness of the media in illuminating facts about the cults and active organizations is actually neutralized and the insiders are told not to believe and trust in anything they see or hear reported by the media that has to be accounted as an agent in the enemy’s front. In this way, the cults’ leaders blindfold members about historical facts: Milieu control also often involves discouraging members from contacting relatives or friends outside the group and from reading anything not approved by the organization. They are sometimes told not to believe anything they see or hear reported by the media. One left-wing political cult, for example, maintains that the Berlin Wall is still standing and that the "bourgeois capitalist" press war people to think otherwise in order to discredit communism. 2 As a result, cults’ hostile position against the media decreases the influence of the media on the members to a zero degree. Furthermore, cults exploit a variety of approaches and legal levers in the war against the media. Sometimes they use violent tactics such as threatening, intimidation and harassment to frighten away the critics, reporters, journalists and authors and to compel them cease anti-cult productions and programs: A metropolitan newspaper’s desk editor was harassed after he ran a piece critical of a local cult. He and his family had to move out of their home after receiving seventy-two hours of continuous phone calls from cult members. 3 As mentioned earlier, if possible, cults will set up complex networks of public relations and radio-TV stations to make a direct channel of communication and contact with the sympathizers rather than letting them refer to public media for information. Such a biased medium works as sufficient to hold the followers hooked onto the cult. As Singer explains: Cults have found many ways to restrict and control public information about them. Some groups have brochures, handouts for the press, and written overviews and endorsements of the group, often prepared by sophisticated public relations firms. In essence, these materials imply that "you need go no further. Here is who we are. Here is all you need to know to understand us perfectly. Take this material and use it. Everything is fine." The implication is that the material is objectively represented and relatively comprehensive. 4 As a leftist cult, Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) has adopted various tactics to muzzle and beat the media. It will be discussed in the following article. References: 1. Margaret Thaler Singer; Cults in Our Midst, JOSSEY-BASS, 2003, introduction. 2. Ibid, p. 70. 3. Ibid, p. 224. 4. Ibid, p. 226.

Mojahedin.ws – Research Bureau – March 26, 2008

March 30, 2008 0 comments

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