5 VOLUME 8 |ISSUE 2 |2017
The use of thought reform has been identified in many settings,
including cults and totalitarian governments such as China and
Nazi Germany. Rarely, if at all, has it been suggested that the
United States government might use such a tactic. In this paper,
however, I demonstrate how in my opinion thought reform was
used against Native peoples in this country, and in particular,
during what is known as the Boarding School Era. I describe
the techniques that were used in terms of the United Nations’
definition of genocide (UN, 1948), Robert Lifton’s criteria of
ideological totalism (Lifton, 1969), and the tactics of a thought-
reform program identified by Margaret Singer (1995). I also
discuss how those practices spread to other parts of the world.
My Connection to the Story
I am a cult survivor. I was involved with the Emissaries of Divine
Light for 13 years, from age 19 to age 32. I was involved in
several communal settings and married during this time, and
was divorced after I left the group. Upon leaving the group, I
went through several years of recovery, therapy, and rebuilding
my life. I did manage to get my bachelor’s degree in 1975
while in the cult and taught one year. I left the cult in 1984. I
returned to school in 1990 and obtained my master’s degree
in counseling psychology in 1993. I have been practicing as a
counselor since then, including 24 years as a facilitator of the
Colorado Cult Recovery Workshop with ICSA (Giambolvo &
Henry, 2010). I remarried in 1997, and our life took my husband
and me to Southern Colorado, where he began working with
the Jicarilla Apache Nation in northern New Mexico. I began
working there a couple years later. In 2008, we moved to the
reservation, where I have now worked for 14 years.
In many ways, this experience has been the most amazing and
fulfilling of my life. It has been like moving to a foreign country,
learning a different culture, different beliefs and practices,
and even a little of a new language. I have come to love the
people and community here. I have learned that the people
are survivors, and I have gained a very different perspective
on my own cultural background of Western European origin. I
have learned that the history I was taught about this country
was, at best, incomplete, and, at worst, full of lies and lack of
information about inhumane treatment and thought-reform
techniques that untold numbers of indigenous people have
experienced in this country since the arrival of the Europeans. I
am here to share some of that story with you, because I believe
you will understand better than many others the implications
of what follows.
Overview of Native History
The Native population of the Americas (north and south) prior
to 1491 is currently estimated to have been 100 million. In 1491,
More than 500 distinct tribes lived in North America,
speaking more than 300 languages from 29 language
families. They built massive metropolitan complexes
at Cahokia (Illinois) and Tenochtitlan (central Mexico),
formed powerful confederacies in the Great Lakes,
developed complex social, religious, and political
systems, and occupied every corner of the continent
not sheathed in ice. The cultural and linguistic
diversity of the indigenous peoples of North America
dwarfs that of Europe and many other places....
The cultures of North America were dynamic and
changing long before European contact. (Treuer,
2013, p. 9)
Most current estimates of the Native population within just
the United States and Canada before this period range from
10 million to 20 million (Loewen, 2007), with estimates of the
population of Europe at that time at about 70 million (Loewen,
2007).
By 1880, however, Native numbers had dropped to 250,000,
a decline of about 98 percent (Loewen, 2007). A contributing
factor to this decline was the dissemination of disease, which
was in some measure inadvertent because Europeans brought
illnesses to this country to which the indigenous people had
no prior exposure. But once colonizers realized the effect, they
often deliberately gave blankets exposed to smallpox and
other diseases to the indigenous people. This practice killed
many people and destabilized communities because elders,
who were the bearers of the oral histories of many tribes, were
especially susceptible to disease. Children also were vulnerable,
as were adults who could not provide for the community when
they too were sick and dying. We would now call this deliberate
exposure to disease biological warfare (Stone, 2005).
Another huge factor in the destruction of Native communities
was the Doctrine of Discovery. This policy began in 1455, with
the Catholic Church declaring war against all non-Christians
throughout the world, and specifically sanctioning and
promoting the conquest, colonization, and exploitation of non-
Christian nations and their territories.
Pope Nicholas V issued an edict, ...granting “the right of
conquest” to Alfonso, King of Portugal, and authorizing
him “to invade, search out, capture, vanquish and
subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever and other
enemies of Christ ...and immovable goods ...possessed
by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual
slavery.” (Toensing, 2011, p. 20)
Spain, Portugal, England, France, and Holland subsequently
carried out the policies. And when Columbus sailed in 1492,
this doctrine to take possession of any lands he discovered
that were not under the dominion of Christian rulers was well
established.
In this paper, however, I
demonstrate how in my opinion
thought reform was used against
Native peoples in this country…
The use of thought reform has been identified in many settings,
including cults and totalitarian governments such as China and
Nazi Germany. Rarely, if at all, has it been suggested that the
United States government might use such a tactic. In this paper,
however, I demonstrate how in my opinion thought reform was
used against Native peoples in this country, and in particular,
during what is known as the Boarding School Era. I describe
the techniques that were used in terms of the United Nations’
definition of genocide (UN, 1948), Robert Lifton’s criteria of
ideological totalism (Lifton, 1969), and the tactics of a thought-
reform program identified by Margaret Singer (1995). I also
discuss how those practices spread to other parts of the world.
My Connection to the Story
I am a cult survivor. I was involved with the Emissaries of Divine
Light for 13 years, from age 19 to age 32. I was involved in
several communal settings and married during this time, and
was divorced after I left the group. Upon leaving the group, I
went through several years of recovery, therapy, and rebuilding
my life. I did manage to get my bachelor’s degree in 1975
while in the cult and taught one year. I left the cult in 1984. I
returned to school in 1990 and obtained my master’s degree
in counseling psychology in 1993. I have been practicing as a
counselor since then, including 24 years as a facilitator of the
Colorado Cult Recovery Workshop with ICSA (Giambolvo &
Henry, 2010). I remarried in 1997, and our life took my husband
and me to Southern Colorado, where he began working with
the Jicarilla Apache Nation in northern New Mexico. I began
working there a couple years later. In 2008, we moved to the
reservation, where I have now worked for 14 years.
In many ways, this experience has been the most amazing and
fulfilling of my life. It has been like moving to a foreign country,
learning a different culture, different beliefs and practices,
and even a little of a new language. I have come to love the
people and community here. I have learned that the people
are survivors, and I have gained a very different perspective
on my own cultural background of Western European origin. I
have learned that the history I was taught about this country
was, at best, incomplete, and, at worst, full of lies and lack of
information about inhumane treatment and thought-reform
techniques that untold numbers of indigenous people have
experienced in this country since the arrival of the Europeans. I
am here to share some of that story with you, because I believe
you will understand better than many others the implications
of what follows.
Overview of Native History
The Native population of the Americas (north and south) prior
to 1491 is currently estimated to have been 100 million. In 1491,
More than 500 distinct tribes lived in North America,
speaking more than 300 languages from 29 language
families. They built massive metropolitan complexes
at Cahokia (Illinois) and Tenochtitlan (central Mexico),
formed powerful confederacies in the Great Lakes,
developed complex social, religious, and political
systems, and occupied every corner of the continent
not sheathed in ice. The cultural and linguistic
diversity of the indigenous peoples of North America
dwarfs that of Europe and many other places....
The cultures of North America were dynamic and
changing long before European contact. (Treuer,
2013, p. 9)
Most current estimates of the Native population within just
the United States and Canada before this period range from
10 million to 20 million (Loewen, 2007), with estimates of the
population of Europe at that time at about 70 million (Loewen,
2007).
By 1880, however, Native numbers had dropped to 250,000,
a decline of about 98 percent (Loewen, 2007). A contributing
factor to this decline was the dissemination of disease, which
was in some measure inadvertent because Europeans brought
illnesses to this country to which the indigenous people had
no prior exposure. But once colonizers realized the effect, they
often deliberately gave blankets exposed to smallpox and
other diseases to the indigenous people. This practice killed
many people and destabilized communities because elders,
who were the bearers of the oral histories of many tribes, were
especially susceptible to disease. Children also were vulnerable,
as were adults who could not provide for the community when
they too were sick and dying. We would now call this deliberate
exposure to disease biological warfare (Stone, 2005).
Another huge factor in the destruction of Native communities
was the Doctrine of Discovery. This policy began in 1455, with
the Catholic Church declaring war against all non-Christians
throughout the world, and specifically sanctioning and
promoting the conquest, colonization, and exploitation of non-
Christian nations and their territories.
Pope Nicholas V issued an edict, ...granting “the right of
conquest” to Alfonso, King of Portugal, and authorizing
him “to invade, search out, capture, vanquish and
subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever and other
enemies of Christ ...and immovable goods ...possessed
by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual
slavery.” (Toensing, 2011, p. 20)
Spain, Portugal, England, France, and Holland subsequently
carried out the policies. And when Columbus sailed in 1492,
this doctrine to take possession of any lands he discovered
that were not under the dominion of Christian rulers was well
established.
In this paper, however, I
demonstrate how in my opinion
thought reform was used against
Native peoples in this country…
