John Dehlin interviews Luna Lindsey Corbden, author of Recovering Agency: Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control, which employs the tools of social psychology to identify ways in which the Mormon Church uses coercive techniques often associated with high demand religions (also referred to as cults). Throughout the series, we will be asking: In what ways does the Mormon church behave in ways similar to other high demand religions (or cults), and what can it do to become less cult-like?
The primary goal of this series is to help people raised within the Mormon Church unpack and separate their own identity from church doctrine and policies. In their book. Luna explores 31 different mind control techniques used by high demand religions generally, and by the Mormon church specifically.
Luna Corbden (who also writes as Luna Lindsey) was born into the LDS Church and left the faith in 2001 at age 26. They now live in Washington State and write about psychology, mind control, culture, and autism. They also write science fiction and fantasy novels, and their work has appeared in Journal of Unlikely Entomology, Crossed Genres, and the Recognize Fascism anthology. When they’re not busy traveling to improbable worlds, they’re thinking hard about this improbable world.
- In Part 1, we explore the basics of cognitive dissonance, and cover the first six control techniques: Sacred Sciene, Demand for Purity, Doctrine Over Self, Black & White Thinking, Blame Reversal, and Guilt & Shame.
- In Part 2, we cover Love Bombing, Destabilization, Deception, Belief Follows Behavior, Public Commitment, Creating Dependency, and Emotion Over Intellect.
- In Part 3, we cover Mystical Manipulation, Milieu Control, Loading the Language, Totalist Reframing, Thought-Terminating Cliches, and Time Control.
- In Part 4, we cover Dispensing of Existence, Social Pressure, Elitism, Us-vs-Them Thinking, Double-Bind, and Confession.
- In Part 5, we cover Indirect Directives, Identification & Example, Induced Phobias, Trace Induction & Dissociative States, Euphoria Induction, and Proselytizing.
Show Notes:
- Recovering Agency: Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control by Luna Lindsey Corbden
- “Ideas on Singularity and Post-Human Intelligence,” by Luna Lindsey Corbden
- “The Psychology of Religion with Dr. James Nagel,” Mormon Stories
- “What the Mormon Church Can Learn from Cults to Do/Be Better,” Steven Hassan on Mormon Stories
- “How to Help a Loved One Who Believes in QAnon,” Steven Hassan on Mormon Stories
- Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults by Steven Hassan
- Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A study of “brainwashing” in China by Robert Jay Lifton
- A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger
- Escaping Utopia: Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over by Janja Lalich
- Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich and Madeleine Tobias
- Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Other Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich and Madeleine Tobias
- Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace by Margaret Thaler Singer
- Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse by Michael Langone
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
- International Cultic Studies Association
- When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger
- “Obedience Brings Blessings,” Thomas S. Monson, General Conference April 2013
- “An Open Letter to Students: On Having Faith and Thinking for Yourself,” by C. Terry Warner, New Era, November 1971
- “Using Our Free Agency,” by Delbert L. Stapley, Ensign, May 1975
- Losing My Mind Bit by Bit: A Story of Mormon Motherhood by Pam Kazmaier
- “Be Not Deceived,” Dallin H. Oaks, General Conference October 2004
- The Jonestown “Death Tape” (CW: Disturbing content)
- Mormon Stories interview with Mike Rinder
- John Dehlin on Scientology: Fair Game with Leah Remini and Mike Rinder
- The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball
- “The negative impact of perfectionism among Mormons,” by Kristine Doty-Yells, Utah State University 2013
- “If Thou Art Faithful,” Gordon B. Hinckley, General Conference October 1984
- “Listening to Shame,” Brené Brene Brown TEDTalk, March 2012
- “The Power of Vulnerability,” Brené Brown, TEDTalk, June 2010
- “Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain,” Ethan Kross, et. al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 2011
- “The pain of social rejection,” by Kirsten Weir, Monitor on Psychology, 2012
- Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves by Steven Hassan
- Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs by Steven Hassan
- Thinker of Thoughts with Jonathan Streeter
- “Undue Influence in General Conference,” with Jonathan Streeter and Luna Lindsey Corbden
- “Fellowshipping: A Priesthood Responsibility,” Lesson 10, Duties and Blessing of the Priesthood Manual
- The Pattern of Double-Bind in Mormonism by Marion Stricker
- Coercive Persuasion: A Socio-psychological Analysis of the “Brainwashing” of American Civilian Prisoners by the Chinese Communists by E.H. Schein
- “Put Off the Natural Man and Come Off Conqueror,” Neal A. Maxwell, General Conference October 1990
- “The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect,” Boyd K. Packer address at BYU in 1981
- “The Rise and Fall of BH Roberts with Shannon Caldwell Montez,” Mormon Stories
- “The Secret Mormon Meetings of 1912 with Shannon Caldwell Montez,” Mormon Stories
- No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie
- Influence: Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini
- “Full Conversion Brings Happiness,” Richard G. Scott, General Conference April 2002
- “Trial of Your Faith,” Neil L. Andersen, General Conference October 2012
- “Striving for Perfection,” Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Harold B. Lee, Ch. 21
- “As Good As Our Bond,” Sheldon F. Child, General Conference April 1997
- “LDS Church leaders cut mic when young girl talks about being gay”
- “Pure Testimony,” M. Russell Ballard, General Conference October 2004
- “How Do I Help People Make and Keep Commitments?” Preach My Gospel, Ch. 11
- “The Atonement,” Gospel Principles, Ch. 12
- The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
- “Personal Revelation: The Gift, the Test, and the Promise,” Boyd K. Packer, General Conference October 1994
- “The Lifespan of a Lie: The most famous psychology study of all time was a sham. Why can’t we escape the Stanford Prison Experiment?” by Ben Blum
- Street Epistemology
- The Godmakers: A Shocking Expose of What the Mormon Church Really Believes by Ed Decker
Film
Book - “Make Peer Pressure a Positive Experience,” The Presidents of Church Teachers Manual Ch. 19
- Under the Influence by John Goldhammer
- Spiritual Perversion by Steve Sanchez
- “The How and Why of Faith-Promoting Stories,” by Bruce R. McConkie, New Era, 1978
- “Obedience to Law is Liberty,” L. Tom Perry, General Conference April 2013
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Suddenly Strangers by Brad and Chris Morin
- “Gaining a Testimony Through the Holy Ghost,” Family Home Evening Resource Book, Ch. 16
- The Mormon Cult: A Former Missionary Reveals the Secrets of Mormon Mind Control by Jack B. Worthy
- Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
- Saintspeak: The Mormon Dictionary by Orson Scott Card
- “Let Mercy Temper Justice,” Theodore M. Burton, General Conference October 1985
- “The Fable of the Camel,” by Spencer W. Kimball
- Origin of the “Camel’s Nose” story
- “Temptation,” by Rulon G. Craven, Ensign, May 1996
- Camilla: A Biography of Camilla Eyring Kimball by Caroline Miner
- “Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments,” Asch, S. E., Groups, leadership and men; research in human relations, 1951
- “Attacks on peripheral versus central elements of self and the impact of thought reforming techniques,” Ofshe, R., et. al., Cultic Studies Journal, 1986
- “Mormon Women, Prozac, and Therapy,” by Kent Ponder
- “For the Strength of Youth”
- Motivational Interviewing Values Cards
- Mixed Emotions Oracle Cards by Petra Martin and Kris Wiltse
- Cults 101: Checklist of Cult Characteristics by Janja Lalich and Michael Langone
- “The Noble Calling of Parents,” Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: David O. McKay Ch. 16
- “The Governing Ones,” William R. Bradford, General Conference October 1979
- “A New Aristocracy,” by James E. Faust, Ensign, November 1974
- “The Essential Role of Grief in a Mormon Faith Crisis,” The Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis
- A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
- Russell M. Nelson on Facebook saying members will be persecuted for their beliefs
- “Balancing Church History,” by Steven E. Snow, New Era, June 2013
- “The Mormon Moment,” by Walter Kirn, Newsweek, June 5, 2011
- Gordon B. Hinckley 1967 quote on virtue (original source has been removed from the Church’s online archives)
- Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith by Martha Beck
- “Q&A: There is something in my past that I know I should confess to the bishop,” New Era, October 1989
- “The Unwritten Order of Things,” a BYU devotional on October 15, 1996
- “Kingdom Come,” by David Van Biema, Time, August 4, 1997
- “All-Church Coordinating Council Meeting,” Boyd K. Packer, May 18, 1993
- “Examples of Righteousness,” Thomas S. Monson, General Conference April 2008
- The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
- “A Fence at the Top or an Ambulance at the Bottom?” by Tad Callister, The Church News, May 28, 2021
- “Now is the Time to Prepare,” Russell M. Nelson, General Conference April 2005
- The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
- “Fit2Fat2Fit,” Drew Manning on Mormon Stories
- “This Is Your Brain on God,” Michael Ferguson’s TEDTalk
- “The Spiritual Brain,” by Michael Ferguson, Sunstone, January 1, 2017
- “Planning for a Full and Abundant Life,” Spencer W. Kimball, General Conference April 1974
- “Every Member a Missionary,” Teachings of Presidents of the Church: David O. McKay, Ch. 6
- The Red Book by Carl Jung
- Luna’s Twitter
- Luna’s Facebook
- Luna’s website
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Part 5:
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Dr. Dehlin, first I want to thank you for all you’ve done to help me process the trauma that has been waking up from and working towards leaving the LDS church. Second, I’ve just begun listening to your podcast with Luna and I felt compelled to share an experience. I was born into the church, married my husband in the temple, and have been a member for nearly 30 years. As I’m listening to your podcast I clearly remember my both my Sunday school and seminary teachers (in Salem, Oregon, around 2009) teaching our classes on how we should respond if/when someone tells us we are in cult. We were supposed to respond by essentially explaining what is defined as a cult, and then tell the person that therefore all religions are cults, including whichever one they believed in. I’m sitting with this memory just shocked and horrified that this was taught AND accepted as normal and an appropriate response. By AT LEAST two teachers with large, impressionable classrooms. I remember at the time thinking, “that’s a little weird, but they probably tell all youth in different churches something similar”… Looking back, I don’t think that’s the case. It’s one of those personal experiences that your podcast has helped to process and clarify for me. I wouldn’t have made it through this process without people like you helping me to work through everything. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much. Please, keep up the good work!!
Taelor, thanks for sharing this. I remember being taught the same thing in seminary in the 80s,and again as a missionary in the 90s. Something like “a cult is any group of people who follow a leader.” Looking back, I can’t believe I actually believed that! smh
Dear John and Luna,
Your series is groundbreaking in dissecting the mind control techniques used by the church. The multitude of expert social and psychological references with examples provided makes Luna’s work monumental and truly extraordinary.
At age 20 I was finally diagnosed with OCD (scrupulosity), and during this interview series I could map out the onset of my OCD and how my cognitive structures and personality collapsed under the weight of these mind control techniques.
Luna, you mentioned the fear of death early pioneers felt from the Brigham Young in Utah, and the social castigation by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo if they didn’t march in step with their dictates. Their legacy of intolerance is alive and well today. My scrupulosity was so severe as a teenager, I was ridiculed and lit of fire (with third degree burns) by our stake president’s son, the other teachers and priests in our neighborhood tried to hang me on the church flagpole but the linkage broke before they could hoist me more than a few feet into the air. If the linkage would have broke after being hoisted to the top I would be dead or paralyzed today.
The pressure on congregants in mind control groups is so severe that the mentally ill pay an especially high price. They are targeted and become victims of other people’s internalized shame. They become the sacrificial goats because these mind-controlled groups need to create social proof that others are more miserable than they are. They must punish those with disabilities because only they- the whole, pure and obedient deserve the rewards of the cult.
Hi! In part 2 of this series you mention that members of the church couldn’t resign from the church and could only leave if they were excommunicated. You referenced a Supreme Court precedence possibly in Arizona related to this. I was curious if you can direct me to that court case, or any information about that. Thanks! Keep up the great work! This was a SUPER powerful series :) Hat tip to Luba for all of their incredible work.
Thank you, Luna! For over a decade I’ve been angry with myself for allowing the church to control me. I could not understand how I’d been so blind and stupid.
But after listening to you, I finally understand. I can finally forgive myself. And I can forgive others too. There is a person from my previous ward who really hurt me. She has texted me periodically throughout the years and it would upset me. But when she texted me today, I felt nothing but love and compassion.
I’m off to by your book. Thank you so much!
Dear John and Luna,
What an impressive ground breaking series. It has given me permission to forgive myself and I can breath for the first time. I was raised with unbelievable shame and guilt. When I received my endowments in 1973 a week before my first marriage, it was the worst day of my life and I cried solid for days. I tried to get out of a moving car on my honeymoon because I was so depressed. I was taught to not ask questions and just accept everything. Discussions were not something that was allowed as you can’t make people uncomfortable. We were both so emotionally immature we had no right getting married. Our families were just relieved that we made it to the temple before having sex. A temple marriage was the only thing that mattered to them and sex was the only thing we could think about so we did what we had been indoctrinated to do. The marriage lasted 17 years with three children.
Three days ago my doctor diagnosed me with PTSD, ADD, and prescribed ritalin. With John’s podcasts and this series, the puzzle pieces have fallen into place. Thank you so much!!! I have bought your book and several others.
Luna’s work has been enormously helpful in my recovery from Mormonism! I’ve been one of those people who left the church, then stumbled into other cultish communities, not realizing what I was doing. No one who is “brainwashed” can see that they are being controlled. Examining every way the church and its culture hold back our free thinking has been liberating for me. If mind control tactics were obvious, people would see it. But Mormonism and other high-demand groups work subtlety. Being born in the church makes it even harder to think critically. Luna’s work is nothing short of enlightening!!
I just wanted to thank John and Achim in the first video at 2:47:00, for talking about “soft shunning” and for John to label it as abusive. As a trans person and an ex-Christian, I experience this from my family who are generic evangelical Christian, and it’s so hard to see past the basic facts of our social dynamic, of, “Oh, but they invite me over for dinner and they’re polite to me, why do I feel like crap.” But you’re so right that perpetually being treated like “a disappointment” is awful to experience.
Luna is extremely cool and their slideshows are super interesting and thoughtful! Thank you so much for all the work you put into this!
(I discovered Mormon stories because I wanted to hear the Tyler Glenn interview, but I relate to so much of the conversation here as a former Christian! Come for Tyler Glenn, stay for thoughtful fact-based dissection of religion, lol.)