Essential Viewing/Listening

SHORTER Videos  ~  Minimal and Essential Viewing
for Understanding Manipulation, Authority and Group Think:

•  Asch Conformity Study    (Study evaluating how subjects respond to social influence and popular opinion as a force that powerfully affects perception)

• The Milgram Study    (Study evaluating willingness of subjects to follow instructions given by a perceived authority figure)

• **Derren Brown Videos  (Mentalist uses tricks to surreptitiously implant ideas and suggestions)

• The Power of the Situation     (A documentary reviewing conformity studies and the powerful effect that social pressures, authority figures and circumstances impose upon individuals)

Longer Video Sessions:

• **Bad Apples or Bad Barrels:  Videos About  Zimbardo’s Lucifer Effect:  Why good people become evil.   (Philip Zimbardo lectures on how systems of control and social pressure promote evil behavior and encourages individuals to become “everyday heroes” in the face of social and environmental pressures.)

• **The Wave    (A film that depicts the disturbingly true story of a classroom experiment in a history class in a California high school.  The teacher sought to demonstrate to the students how German citizens so readily accepted the Third Reich to his class by exposing them to some of the behavioral techniques used.)

• Complementarianism and Undue Influence (Good overview of the dynamics of manipulation in evangelical churches with a focus on complementarianism/patriarchy.)

• **Patriarchy Workshop   (2008 Seminary workshop rerview of "Biblical Patriarchy")

• Battle of the Minds -- Note that the first minute of the video includes an on-screen test pattern with unpleasant tone followed by a black screen.  (1990s documentary about the movement within the Southern Baptist Convention to remove women from positions of autonomy and ministry.)

• **Discussing Cults on the Geraldo Show (Many guests share their personal accounts)

• Steve Arterburn on Spiritual Abuse

• Steve Hassan's Account and How to Talk to People in Cults

• The Marks of a Cult

• Personal Testimony of a Former Member 

• Stanford Prison Experiment  (The Hierarchy Effect?)   (How an investigative study produced disturbing behaviors among a group of students at Stanford University)

• Link to Google
  Video:  Cult Recovery 101  (Former member discusses thought reform)

• Cult Recovery 201 (Interview with Madeline Tobias)

• Cult Recovery 202  (Second portion of the interview with Tobias)
  

AUDIO Resources

Radio Interviews by Jan Markell with Apologists Christopher Lawson and Eric Barger discussing Spiritual Abuse, courtesy of the Spiritual Research Network and Olive Tree Ministries on "Understanding the Times" Radio:

• Part I:   General aspects of spiritual abuse with Christopher Lawson
• Part II:  Interview with Eric Barger of "Take a Stand Ministries"

Spiritwatch Ministries Audio:

• "Rise of the Cults": Dr. Walter Martin at Lee College Chapel, 1979
• "Understanding Cult Mind Control": Michael Spencer