Posted by Wesley Fager (207.172.11.147) on March 18, 2000 at 16:21:08:
I was a chubby 210, Andy G. was a strapping, muscular 240 pound 16 year-old. Andy loved and respected me, but one night my wife made me confess to GROUP at our Wednesday night home meeting that I had drunk beer at my office Christmas party that day. I was within the six hour time threshold, but Andy, a 4th phasor in my home went off on me--screaming, yelling for 60 seconds. The violence in his voice was terrifying. He never physically touched me, yet I feared for my life and was preparing to knee him in the groin if he got within another millimeter of my face.
One method Straight has of control is chain-of-commands and dishonesty lists. These are revelaing confessions clients make, the contents of which, can be used to control. Another is that Straight makes everyone participate in the therapy. In other words one can not progress unless he confronts those under him. It's all brasinwashing. The whole peer pressure thing is part and parcel of brainwashing as in no one gets out of the eight man re-education cell until we all do whatever it is they want.
There is a scientific basis on why people can be reduced into joining in on that which they are trying to resist. Food and sleep deprivations, fear, isolation, hopelessness. Look at the Jews in concentration camps who did tasks for their captors. Look at Patti Hearst (who's father capitulated in reporting the horrows of Synanon Church after a losing court case.) There's the cult of confession where people will confess to things they haven't done so as to be part of the GROUP (see Dr. Margret Singer). Then there's the Jerry Vancil story. Jerry escaped from Straight at its very beginning and made it to the local papers. He tells the same story that Ginger tells, except Jerry had been on the receiving end. There was a state investigation, except Jerry Vancil vanished. No complainant, no investigation.
I was on the receiving end but for only 60 seconds. There is no way I, or anyone else, can withstand that kind of pressure indefinitely, more especially a skinny little girl. Later Andy escaped from Straight and you know where he went. He went to my house asking for asylum. I told him I didn't think it was a good idea. I took him to dinner and gave him some money, and you know what he told me. He said of the night that he confronted me, "I had to do it because I knew, he said, that the next day the phasors would bring up the incident and everyone would want to know what I did. "I had to do it don't you see, or else they'd go for me."
This is all a really big issue with me, enough to cover an entire chapter, but I've got 100 pages of Oracle to read and memorize for an upcoming exam, so that's all I'm saying for now, except that we would have all done the same thing that Ginger did. Now there's work to be done.
Wes Fager