BITE

The Model Developed by Steve Hassan

The BITE Model, developed by Steve Hassan, posits that there are four characteristics of authoritarian control:

a. Behavior control

b. Information control

c. Thought control

d. Emotion control

Hassan’s model has become the litmus test for determining whether a group is cultic. Today I’ll give just a few examples of how JPAC stands against the BITE Model.

Exhibit A (Behavior control):

My fingers barely touched the concrete, my body hovering in a squat for just a moment before turning to sprint in the opposite direction. I enjoyed the running – the feeling of my calves flexing, of my lungs burning. I was getting the feeling that this might be part of my new routine – just two weeks before, T. had all of the teachers take the students in their cars to line up in the grass in front of his house to do jumping jacks. Choir seemed to be a place where one could slip into trouble without even realizing. T. said that the purpose of choir was to create a sense of community among the students – a sense of interdependence akin to a spider’s web. If we were to succeed as a school, we would need to succeed in choir. The behavior and the voice of the person next to you was just as important as your own. Indeed, some students would be assigned another student to help and “make sure they did right” and would be punished for that person’s failures.

Exhibit B (Information control):

It was my first school dance. Being homeschooled for the first 10 years of my school career, I had assumed that school dances were something outside of my grasp. I saw the tropes portrayed on Disney Channel and early aughts movies. Dances sounded like something stressful, but also inherently magical. When else would I be able to justify combing through every thrift store in McComb for the right dress? In the movies there was always sweating, tears, and betrayal for at least one hour – but in the final moments some hard-won romantic gesture would make the whole carnival of emotions worth it.

The week leading up to the dance was uncanny – the choir teacher at the time, E. who made a pastime out of throwing markers at the people who sang flat – reminded everyone that if they wanted to bring someone from outside the school to the dance that we would need get he and T.’s approval first.

I, in the teal dress that still hangs in my closet, assumed that this measure was introduced to ensure the safety of the students, and awkwardly attended the dance anyway. Not that I had a choice. T. assured my mother that all students were required to attend the dance, that it would count towards a social studies grade.

I wasn’t dumb enough to think that was an appropriate use of the academic term “social studies,” but understood that I needed more social exposure. My few months at JPAC had already taught me that I had difficulty being likable. So, I went out to eat with some friends, donned my teal dress, and suffered awkwardly through the evening.

What I didn’t realize then was that it wasn’t just the dances that were surveilled. T. told us he had a burner Instagram account, and he had secretly followed each of us to make sure that we were “living right.” I smugly decided not to tell him that my account was private.

In Morning Meetings, students were chastised for spending too much time with people outside of the school.

“I don’t know why you keep spending time with these people who don’t understand you.”

“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”

“You are poisoning your mind.”

Exhibit C (Thought Control):

T. seemed to know everything that we did.

He knew what our pastors taught, what we did on the weekends, and even our very family’s failures. He had an all-seeing eye like an icepick.

He told us that this was a gift from the Lord, the gift of prophecy.

He told us that he knew which of us were True JPAC Students and who was just going through the motions.

If anyone tells you something enough times, then eventually you’ll start to believe it. A cult leader like T. knows how to leverage that. During Soul Projects, (which I describe in detail here) he would ask us to explain each part of our projects – but he often would interject, opposing the student’s own interpretation. Something the student claimed to be meaningless, he would claim was a subversive message about the student’s sexuality, relationship with their parents, etc. If that seed is planted enough times, pressed enough, then eventually the student would be forced to accept that there was a complex issue at the heart of this project that was supposed to represent the condition of their soul.

Exhibit D (Emotion Control):

“We can’t waste time being sad about this,” T. sat on a stool in front of students in one of the small t-buildings outside of his home that we had class in. “The truth is, there’s nothing more that we can do. Our energy has to go into the funeral now – and it will be a celebration for us. All these people will go to church and say they believe in God, but they don’t act like it. She is in Heaven now and those who really understand that will be able to go on about their lives.”

Just that afternoon, T. had made the decision to take his wife off life support. Days before she had been in a car accident and had been in a coma since. T., according to eyewitnesses, only visited her bedside once.

My mother says that the day T.s wife died, she picked me up from school and he was sitting placidly outside, as if he were enjoying another spring day. There were never any tears, he never took a day off.

The funeral was huge. He asked for all the students to perform in the choral service and to wear bright, jewel toned shirts with black bottoms.

I tried to take T.’s advice. During high school, my grandmother, great-grandmother, great-grandfather, and step grandfather all passed away within a year. Yet, I didn’t allow myself to feel the grief of these losses – instead I chose to take these moments as a reaffirmation of my own spiritual understanding. Instead, I crawled into myself, writing more, fasting, and hovering over the pages of my Bible.

Just two months after his wife’s death, T. led a schoolwide trip to New York City. During this season was when I believe that his patterns of sexual abuse become overt – barely cloaked with messages such as “some people will say ‘Oh, his wife died. He’ll probably get his fixings from those kids.’”

I have reason to believe that each of these offhand confessions correlate to incidents of abuse, as if he wanted us to know what he had done and what he was capable of. But we shook our heads, angry that this troubled world could treat a man of God so bitterly.