‘Destructive and Terrorist Cults:

A New Kind of Slavery’

Al Qaeda, Daesh (IS, ISIL), MeK;
How they recruit and change
ordinary young people into a
new slave or a human bomb
When ever we think of slavery we remember physical chains and
lashes of slavery in the ancient world and in America; forgetting
invisible chains and lashes of mind manipulation which is more
difficult to see and fight against
 What is a slavery
• The League of Nations Committee on Slavery defines slavery as ‘the status
or condition of a person over whom any or all the powers attaching to the
right of ownership are exercised.’
• The MeK leader Masoud Rajavi, describing the disciple’s relation with
himself and his wife, Maryam, wrote in the same vein, ‘Your skin, flesh and
bones are Maryam’s and your mind, heart and soul are mine.’ Our actions
were to be controlled absolutely by Maryam, while Masoud was master of
our beliefs, thoughts and emotions. Here we see the difference between
the MeK destructive cult and those of old slavery, which were never able
to control slaves’ thoughts and feelings or demand that they repent
because of their dreams.
• Edward Hunter, CIA operative, writes of brainwashing: ‘The intent is to
change a mind radically so that its owner becomes a living puppet – a
human robot – without the atrocity being visible from the outside. The
aim is to create a mechanism in flesh and blood, with new beliefs and new
thought processes inserted into a captive body. What that amounts to is
the search for a new slave race that, unlike the slaves of olden times, can
be trusted never to revolt, always to be amenable to orders, like an insect
to its instincts.’
 Slavery is much more than physical chains and
lashes
Old versus new slavery:
• Natal alienation versus milieu
• No one-to-one relations except with the leader/Master
• No sanctity for Marriage and family
• No legal existence
• No honor
• Dehumanization: lashes versus criticism
• No ownership, no power, nobody
• Slavery for life (Defectors are traitors who deserve to die)
• Symbolic death and rebirth
 Question of Freedom of choice
• Boiling alive frog in a pot. Changing recruits step by step.
• Freedom of choice versus Will power. Will power will grow but its driver
will change from self to cult
• Death or freeze of reactance in cults. Or Illusion of freedom and freewill
:One in a cult doesn’t feel that he is forced to do things that he does. He
or she thinks whatever he or she does is on his or her free will.
• Freedom of choice when there is no choice! They show you different exit
doors, then by creating phobia and paranoia toward outside world, they
will close all exit doors and as a result you are trapped inside
• Freedom of choice without Self confidence : with financial dependency,
control of information, control of behaviour and control of thought and
even feeling ; a member will gradually loose his self confidence
• Freedom of choice and Shaky individuality and identity or loss of them:
Doubt if you are right or wrong
• Freedom of choice versus the exit’s cost: You have spend so much for
being in the cult that you cannot leave
 HOW
But how can they change of a person who was born in a Liberal minded
educated family into a member of a destructive cult, a new kind of slave

I was born the year, when first democratic prime minster of Iran Mosadegh was violently overthrown by a CIA coup.
I was 18 years old when I fall in love and married my ex- wife.
1976, after I got my BSc in Mathematics, to continue my postgraduate studies we moved to UK.
I was in my final year of PhD studies that revolution in Iran began. Then everyone had to have
a political stand & we were unfortunate enough to be recruited by Mujahedin e Khalegh, an Islamic–Marxist
guerrilla organisation that changed into a clandestine terrorist group and finally in 1984 transformed into a
destructive cult.
MeK forced us to surrender our wealth, job, study, parents, divorce our loved ones, accept celibacy for life, and
finally give up our individuality and our personality.
 To know about MEK
• Ervand Abrahamian; 'The Iranian Mojahedin'; Yale University
Press; 1989;
• My memoirs: ‘Masoud, Memoirs of an Iranian Rebel'
Saqi; 2004.
• My new book: ‘Destructive and Terrorist Cults: A New
Kind of Slavery’; 2014 -
https://www.facebook.com/DestructiveCults
• RAND report about MEK; This report; titled: ' The Mujahedin-e
Khalq in Iraq; A Policy Conundrum 2009' was sponsored by
Office of the Secretary of Defense of the United States of
America. The full report can be found in:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG871/
• To contact me: SMBanisadr@hotmail.com
• To visit my web site www.banisadr.info , www.ridc.info
Three open gates toward minds of young Muslims/or
their three vulnerabilities toward being recruited by
Destructive/Terrorist cults:
1-They see and understand Injustice, discrimination,
double standards against an individual or a
community or a nation and want to fight against it.
2- Lack of knowledge about Islam and methods of mind
manipulation
3- Ideology: They are looking for an Ideology, that gives
a meaning to their life, will give them sense of
identity, belonging and comradeship/brotherhood.
Destructive/terrorist Cults will change any religion or
philosophy into a totalistic ideology (in case of Islam
they have changed it into Wahhabism/Sallfism)
 Change of religion of Islam into ideology of Wahhabism
Five traditional sect of Islam, Hanafi, Malki, Shafai, Shia’a and Hanbali. & concept of Jihad and
Martyrdom: All believe time for aggressive Jihad has ended after the fourth rightly guided Caliph
in 7 ac, so only defensive Jihad is viable in their view and only those who are killed in a defensive
Jihad are considered as martyrs(not a suicide bomber) Wahhabi sect changed everything. They
believe in aggressive Jihad and even they call a suicide bomber a martyr. Some Wahhabi
preachers even believe in slavery of enemies and their families captured in a war.
• Abd al Wahhab founder of Wahhabism/ Sallfism (B.1701) recruited Muhammad Ibn al Saud,
Emir of the main tribe of Nejd, and jointly they conquered all the different tribes of Nejd.
• During first world war, with the help of the British they created modern Saudi Arabia with official
religion of Wahabism, sometime called Sallafid.
• Another classmate of Abd al Wahhab was called Shah Walliullah of Delhi (b1703)
• Seyed Ahmad of Rae Bareli (1786-1831) unified the idea of Abd al Wahhab with Shah Walliullah
in India
• Deo Bandis formed in India in the mid 19th century with the same kind of ideology and they
created Medresas to educate children and young Muslims -> Medressas, or religious schools, the
students being known as Taliban, meaning seekers of knowledge.
• In 1879 there were only 12 Deobandi Medressas in whole India and Afghanistan.
• By 1967 with the help of petrol dollars of Saudi Arabia the number of Medressas reached 9,000
across South Asia.
• By 1988 nearly 400,000 boys and young men were being educated by Deobandi in Pakistan
• Now days all Terrorist groups, Al Qaeda, Daesh (IS/ISIL), Al shabab, Al Norsera, Booko Haram, ... All
have Ideology of Wahabism and enjoy unofficial financial support of Saudis and Qataris.
 To change a person, one has to change victim’s beliefs
Bn= Bo + ∑Bi ± Fo × T + E × T2
In this formula (Bn) is new belief. (Bo) is old related belief. (∑Bi) is collection of
unrelated beliefs that makes up our personality, character, and individuality; … (Fo) is
our feelings toward the old belief. And T is the length of time that our feeling is active
while the change in our belief is happening. E is our emotion at the time of the
change. And again T is the length of the time that our emotion is active.

Stage Component What is it? How can it be altered

1- Influence Bo Our old related belief. Rational and influence

techniques.

2- Mind control ∑Bi ± Fo × T Our personality + Our Control of behavior and

old feeling multiply control of environment
By the length of the
time
3- Brainwashing E × T2 Our Emotion at the Creating strong emotion
time multiply by &
square of the length of Keeping it alive as long
the time as possible.
 1a- Rational techniques:
• MeK example: Injustice in Iran; change of Belief that
‘we are responsible toward ourselves and our
family’ into ‘Joining MEK and sacrifice everything for
the cause’ – Good action versus Best action.
• Al –Qaeda example: Rationalization of war against
Western countries that have no common border
with Islamic one. Friend of my enemy is my enemy.
Offensive Jihad versus defensive ones.
• Daesh (ISIS) example: Rationalization of killing
innocent ordinary Muslims: Qutb and concept of
Jahillyya.
 1b-Influence Techniques
Use of different Influence techniques, most of them have been described in
a book written by Dr. Robert B. Cialdini, under title of ‘The Psychology,
Influence of Persuasion’.
• Commitment and Consistency: Many respect consistency and
commitment more than being right
• Foot in the door: Start small and build
• Big Picture Technique: If you go far enough in time or space or emotion,
anything will become so small that it can be negligible
• Economizing or Lazy Brain: When we are bombarded with a lot of
information, our brain starts economizing the received information by
referring to our memory and preloaded programs to find proper answers
for some of those repeated information to be able to analyze newer ones.
This is why cult leaders and con artists when they talk with us first they
bombard us with several lengthy, complicated, agreeable statements or
fascinating story.
2- Mind control: control of Environment and control of Behaviour
How they neutralize the effect of old feelings and personality of the victim
on his/her new set of beliefs that has been seeded/changed in the cult:
1- Control of Environment, psychological and physical isolation from wider
society will stop new members to remember their old way of life and
feelings. (Paranoia, Phobia, Disgust, Secrecy, Surveillance, Superiority)
2- Control of Behaviour, change of behaviour will neutralize the effect of old
personality and eventually will change the personality of the victim.
(very restricted discipline/daily program, control of information, hard
work, lack of sleep or food, change of appearance and cloth, change of
language, ...)
Catalysts:
• Hypnotism and Hypnotic environment
• Symbols and Uniform
• Authority and Obedience: Obedience to Authority written by Stanley
Milgram
• Conformity - Social proof or Acceptance: action of a subject when he goes
along with his/her peers
 Change of appearance after joining MEK

1979 ; UK; Beside MEK’s emblem . Then having an army

overcoat was MEKs fashion inside and outside of Iran. This
small change in appearance gradually isolated us from our
neighbors and eventually forced us to live in the base of MeK
New Jihadist who were born and raised in the Western countries
in a normal family and soon have changed into a human bomb

AFP/Al Hayat Media Centre/AFP/File - French security services have

An image grab uploaded on June 19,
2014 by Al-Hayat Media Centre shows
Abu Muthanna al-Yemeni (C), believed
to be Nasser Muthana, a 20-year-old
man from Cardiff, Wales, … speaking
from an undisclosed location
identified one of the ISIL
militants seen in the video
showing the beheading of US aid
worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig
and 18 Syrian soldiers
3- Brainwashing: Use of emotion to change character,
personality and individuality of victims. Change from a
free person into a slave of a cult leader

• Any strong emotion can be used to change character of

victims.
• Fear and Joy: concept of martyrdom: Change of fear of death
into joy of paradise and eternity.
• Guilt, Shame, Hatred and Sympathy
• Use of Sex and Love as unlimited source of Guilt
• Use of Self preservation as another unlimited source of Guilt
under pretext of selfishness
• Confessions: lashes of the new Slavery and also as persistent
source of new emotions.
 Changing into a violent and even a destructive person

Iraq – camp Ashraf: ready to Kill

A suicide bomber ready for action

Ceremony of oath in Camp Ashraf
 Ideological meetings or Brain washing meetings of MeK in Iraq
MEK gathering in Ashraf camp in Iraq and leaders speech
Ceremony of making an oath with the organization and its leader
 Loyalty toward the group up to Killing others and even Self
immolation

Self immolation that took place in 2003 in several European cities as a protest
against arrest of Maryam Rajavi in Paris.
 Daesh and its new Caliphate
Recruiting young western girls for
Jihad of Marriage: Control of sex,
marriage and love.
New shared life, New destiny and no
return to the past life
Beheading of innocent people as a
way of creating strong emotions
such as fear, rage, dehumanizing
outsiders, violent way of changing
character, total psychological
isolation from outside, and finally a
no return ticket to the past life.
 Young children, victims of new terrorist cults

A father invites his child to hold a Beheading in front of young

head of a new victim and will take children. Their total alienation from
his photo. Can this child ever be the outside world.
able to return to nomality?
 Destruction of graves, Mosques and ancient sites as a way of
showing us versus the rest of the world and even history. Total
cultural, historical, ethical alienation of members from the
outside world
A still from the Isis video posted on Wahhabis, ancestor of Daesh destroying
YouTube shows a militant attacking an graveyards of Muslim saints. An Arabic
artefact with a sledgehammers. newspaper from almost 150 years ago
Photograph: AP
 Even an open door does not make leaving a destructive cult easy
1. Deception: Sophisticated level of deception makes it difficult to know what is true or
false
2. Commitment and Investment: After committing everything it is very difficult to give
up
3. Financial and emotional dependency to the cult
4. Phobia and Paranoia toward outside world, especially for followers of political cults
5. Loss of Belief: After believing that they are going to change the world, it is very
difficult to live without deep political belief
6. Authority: It is very difficult to reject a very strong authority that has shaped all
existence of a follower
7. Peer pressure: standing against all peers and friends and say: ‘you all are wrong and I
who wants to leave am right’.
8. Lack of confidence and doubt:
9. Guilt of Participation and fear of retribution from outsiders especially in case of
Terrorist cults.
10. Collective life and Collective self and problem of returning to solitude life.
11. The only way: Living in a cult will force members to accept that their way of life is the
only way toward happy and dignified life and leaving it is loss of life and after life.
12. Punishment of leaving: Defectors could be harmed or even killed
 What can be done?
• Destructive and Terrorist cults behave as some kind of virus that like any other has only two
objectives: first to survive and then reproduce or expand its territory.
• At the moment we have no cure for those affected by this virus but we can immunise people
not affected and help others who have survived or escaped.
• We can immunise young Muslims by closing three open gates mentioned before.
• We should face against injustice, discrimination, and double standards. We should stand
against Islam-phobia in the Western society that alienates Muslims from the rest of the society.
We should not call Terrorist organisations ‘Muslim Terrorists’. For example we should not call
Daesh, ‘Islamic State’. By associating them with Islam we help them to recruit from a pool of 1.6
billion Muslims. Soon or late young Muslims, due to the name of Islam feel , they have more in
common with these groups than their host countries. I wonder why Media in the West is so keen
to help Daesh, they didn’t translate Al Qaeda or Al Shabab or Booko Harem or name of any other
terrorist organisation into English but they insist calling Daesh, ‘Islamic State’ as leader of Daesh
wish so.
• We should educate our children about the real meaning of Slavery and freedom and different
interpretation of Islam and also about methods of Mind manipulation.
• We should stand against our politicians greed for petrol dollars of Saudis and put an stop in
export of Wahhabism by them to different parts of world. We should put an stop on Wahhabi
preachers who teach black and White world view, hate and intolerance, instead of telling young
Muslims that all chapters of Quran begins with the sentence of ‘In the name of God the most
compassionate and merciful’.
• We should help those who escape cults, instead of punishing them as they are victim of this
disease and need our help and also they can help us to immunise others.