# The Cult Phenomenon in the United States (1979)/Patrick

INFORMATION MEETING ON THE CULT PHENOMENON IN THE UNITED STATES, February 5, 1979, 318 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. P.62-68. of Transcript of Proceedings.
Senator Dole. Thank you, Mr. Delgado.
We will have questions.
Our next witness is Ted Patrick.
I would just say as he's being seated that he has been involved in the civil rights movement in San Diego, Southern California area in the 1950s. Active in Democratic politics, and numerous other activities.
I think perhaps you are known by most in the audience, Mr. Patrick.
STATEMENT OF TED PATRICK.
Mr. Patrick. Mr. Chairman, members of the panel, I would like to express my appreciation for allowing me to be here today and I would also like to thank you for having this hearing.
This is something that should have happened years ago; but for the last eight years, I have been investigating and involved in the movement -- a movement that I consider one of the most dangerous and most vicious wars in the history of mankind: a psychological warfare.
These cults in the United States are increasing by the day; and they are one of the most dangerous threats in the history of this country. They destroy a person's free will, the ability to think; and then they make it impossible for the person to think throughout the rest of their lives.
They make willing slaves out of them. During this process, I would get into deprogramming. I don't have enough time to explain to you fully about the process of programming a person in the cult movement in this country; but I will give you a brief outline or statement of what they do to the human mind.
We talked about natural resources, energy crisis. These cults are destroying some of the most important natural resources in the world: our youth and future leaders of tomorrow.
If we don't put a stop to it, they are going to destroy this country. This is what most of the cults are out to do, is to destroy this country and turn this country into a totalitarian nation.
Deprogramming is a process I developed in 1971, after my own son was caught up in a cult, a psychological kidnap by a group called The Children of God.
After this happened, I started an investigation into this cult movement; and after talking to 52 people that had been in and gotten out, husband, wife, mothers and father who had lost their relatives in a cult, I went in to see for myself. It was unbelievable what I heard from these interviews with my own son.
I went in to infiltrate; I went in to stay a week. I stayed four nights and three days. If I had stayed a few more hours, I would never have left. I was hooked. I was so confused for six days, I left home going to the office at 8:30 and ended up 70 miles away; didn't know how I got there; didn't know what I was doing there. It took me over an hour to find my way back home.
This is how powerful this technique is. Deprogramming is just simply telling the truth, getting the person's mind to working again.
I would describe deprogramming as the same as if you had a five-gallon container with the top screwed on tight. Now you can put this container under a faucet and run it for a year and nothing will go in; but once you take the cap off of it, then something can go in other than what the cult put into the person's mind.
The mind is the same way. What I have to do in deprogramming is to open up a person's mind so the mind can start working again, where that person can start thinking, because the most painful thing for a cult member to do is to think.
They have been brain-washed that their mind is of the devil; the mind is evil; thinking is the machinery of the devil. This is the reason it is very, very painful for them to think; and this is the only way they can control the person's mind, by preventing them from thinking, because if they start thinking, they won't go for the lies and deception that they have been brain-washed to believe.
The only thing I do is to get a person, sit them down, take the self-hypnosis away from them, and then challenge the person that I know if psychologically impossible for the person to respond to.
The mind is the oldest and greatest computer in the world. The only thing that will come out of a computer is what you put into it. I have to hit them, challenge the person that I know that they haven't been programmed to respond to.
Then the technique is to open up the mind with something other than the cult -- so something other than the cult can be in the mind.
Once we get the mind open for the first time in so many days, weeks, months, or years, they have something to compare with. When they start comparing, they start evaluating. When they start evaluating, they start thinking.
This is the key to deprogramming: the person himself has to deprogram himself once he starts thinking. Once they start thinking, the mind starts working again, they realize they have been deceived and all the lies they have bee programmed to believe.
They come out of it and they thank God, their parents, everybody else that had anything to do with getting them out. Then they tell their story on radio, television, or anywhere.
I got the proof. I got proof. Even if you investigate for the next 25 years what I got already at hand, you wouldn't be able to get this much material and proof.
I feel if a person talked, they should know what they are talking about and be able to back it up with facts. I have those facts. I have the proof.
Then I welcome an investigation against me. If you don't investigate the cult, I would welcome investigating me, a Congressional investigation against me.
I would welcome taking around with me 24 hours a day, seven days a week, three or four FBI to see what I am doing.
If I was doing something wrong, I wouldn't have Walter Cronkite have a team with me for ten days, running a three-day special, 10 minutes a day on the news, New York Times, Boston Globe, and a lot of other publications.
I feel if I can just have one of these people like the people I get out of the cult, I will truly feel that my living has not been in vain.
I beg of you to please do something to eliminate these cults, because what is involved here is our nation is at stake.
I feel there is a conspiracy to turn this country into a totalitarian nation.
I hope this hearing will do some good. Like I say, again, I invite any group, law enforcement agencies, to investigate me, which I know I can prove every word I am telling here today and more, because the people I deprogram, over 1600, we are not talking about skid row bums, we are talking about some of the most brilliant minds in the world, legislators' sons and daughters, policemen, doctors, attorneys, nurses, teachers, you name it.
I have deprogrammed people anywhere from 13 years old to 81 years old. There's more people over 40 in cults than young people. The reason they are so popular among young people is it just began to happen to the young people in the last 15 years.
Again I thank you for this opportunity to come before you today to speak on this issue to try to get something done to save our country from being taken over by these cults.
Thank you.
(Applause.)
Senator Dole. You will be able to stay, Mr. Patrick, for questions?
Mr. Patrick. Yes.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
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## See also

* United States Congressional investigation of the Unification Church (1978)
* The Effects of Religious Cults on the Health and Welfare of Their Converts, (1977)
* Sun Myung Moon in Congressional Record (1976)