Have you taken time to examine your own Way to Happiness book beliefs?
Here is an essay from the successful "Go Thunk Yourself!" book series. It tells you how to help anyone around you when they've become duped into some destructive thought-system, world-view, or religious ideology - aka "cult".
The trick in helping them is that every individual alive is always right. And their training in these organizations has reinforced that. So when you work to help them understand that the real world doesn't operate that way, you can hit some pitfalls. Your greatest tool is understanding...
How to “de-dupe” someone.
A dupe is a person who has been operating on questionable data as gospel truth. Perhaps you know one who has “sold himself upriver” to some “cult” or oddball quasi-religious sect. Otherwise the person seems sensible enough and in good health. If you wanted to get him/her out of that scene, it could be tricky. “De-programming” was a practice which was based on illegally grabbing and holding someone against their will while someone forcibly re-indoctrinated them.
This didn't work because of the phrase “against their will.” The only person who can change a person is the person him/herself.
When a person's beliefs are challenged, he/she sets up all sorts of defenses in action against the attacker. So it is no solution to simply deride or be critical of the person you would like to change. Snide comments only alienate them from you, such that anything you say is considered suspect.
Your tools in this case are application of the principles above: Prayer, Visualization, Action. Treat the person as you would want to be treated – friendliness, honesty, understanding. Understand where the person is coming from, understand the basis of his beliefs. Only then can you spot where that person is accepting illogical data on the basis of faith, only then can you understand how the person is using this belief to prop up his/her life beliefs.
That person has probably a complete set of data and patterned solutions which he/she has been given to deride or de-power the outside world. Much of this data is probably untrue. Asked what these data consist of, with a true aspect of understanding, they will tell you.
But when confronted with factual data of how the actual world works – that it isn't really as evil as one was led to believe – such views will shift.
Views are only as solid as the faith behind them. People are constantly re-evaluating data in their lives by comparing existing scenes to those they previously knew/witnessed/read about. People are reprogramming themselves all the time – it's called growing older.
People learn as they go on living. Non-positive thought can be considered thought which is incomplete in the thought process. Given enough time, one can work out more positive solutions to any problem. And so, old “hatreds” tend to resolve over time, as people find new and better solutions to cope with the problems they confront.
The short-hand of de-duping someone:
• “Prayerize, Visualize, Actualize”
• Treat them as you would like to be treated.
• Understand where they are coming from.
• Give them your data and help them understand it.
Eventually, given enough time, a person who moves out of such a “cult” environment will adjust and “blend in” with the new environment. If they know the above data and do their own research, they will eventually quit hating that group which they left, despite all the injustices which may have been committed on them (baring actual illegal activities which have their own recourse.)
One key point is that the person must take responsibility for his/her own actions, visualizations and thoughts which led him/her to chose that “cult” to live their life with. With this and active pursuit of real understanding, these people can then start living their lives. It will take some re-education, but will eventually happen regardless.
I give the above steps so that some might make the transition more easily, more quickly. It's been said that it takes some twelve years for a person to transition back to normal life after being in a “cult,” particularly if kicked out or forced to leave in self-defense. By doing the above actions, such a time period could be considerably shortened in duration.
Amicable education is the key.
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