Cult Uses Aspects of EMDR In Cult Torture; It Helps To Modify EMDR For Cult Torture (RAMCOA) Survivors

EMDR can be a powerful healing modality, but for many of us cult torture survivors (otherwise known as RAMCOA or ritual abuse survivors) it can contain a lot of triggers and even programming/mind control, since cult intentionally used aspects of EMDR during torture and mind control sessions. EMDR is not the only healing modality cult used; they used as many of the techniques commonly used in therapy as they could to interfere with our healing should we ever go to therapy, or once we started going to therapy but were still being tortured.

It may help other survivors, and the therapists who work with us, to understand ways that the cult used aspects of EMDR in our torture, so they are better prepared before using it, and so that they can work to modify EMDR so that it may work well for them or their cult torture survivor clients. I’ve drawn on my own torture and trauma experience to explain the ways I remember cult using aspects of EMDR in the torture and mind control; I may add to this article over time. The cults that tortured me included KKK, Nazi, Satanic, and Christian cults, among others, and were intergenerational and interconnected.

Although many aspects of EMDR were used in my own torture and mind control, I still find EMDR helpful and healing as long as the therapist is willing to modify it in the ways that work for me (discussed near the end of this article), and the therapist allows me as much control over my/our own process, and whoever inside with our DID who wants to be present, be present.

Cult used bilateral stimulation frequently in the torture to make the mind control messages go in deeper, as well as some other aspects of EMDR, and this was even before EMDR was created. But this makes sense to me because the cult had centuries of psychological and torture experimentation research from us victims and experimented on us as kids.

The ways that cult used EMDR in torture and programming:

Bilateral “stimulation” during torture and programming (which in EMDR would commonly be used in Phase 4 to help with desensitization):

• Cult used tiny lights running back and forth like a light bar (but it wasn’t a light bar) during torture and mind control and told us to watch it. They most commonly used red and white lights.

• Cult put headphones on us during torture, with sound moving back and forth between the left and right ears, using subliminal messages where we could barely hear the voices and could not make out the words, and at different times used tones, static, and other noises.

• Cult used electric shock rapidly between both sides of the body, so bilateral stimulation with torture.

• Cult would use needle torture on one side of the body, then the other, rapidly, while giving mind control messages.

• Cult also used hitting, slapping, or punching us from one side of the body to the other during torture while giving us mind control messages.

• Cult would intentionally remind us of past trauma and force us to rewatch it, showing us film of past torture such as child porn, torture porn, and murder while doing bilateral torture to make it go in deeper, while giving us negative and mind control messages such as that we were the perpetrator, evil, part of cult, etc. (Similar to how in EMDR phase 1 and 3 we are asked to target a specific memory and belief, only cult created them and then brought them back into consciousness with torture.)

These techniques were not used every time, but they did use them.

Other aspects of EMDR that cult used during torture:

Body Scan (Commonly used in EMDR in Phase 6):

Cult forced us to be aware of our body and all of our senses during the torture; to smell and taste and feel and hear and see, asking us, “Do you taste this?” while forcing us to ingest feces, blood, urine, vomit, or flesh, “Do you smell this?” while smearing our body with those substances, etc. They forced us to stay present in the torture (although most other times they let us dissociate and split).

Containers (Commonly used in Phase 2 of EMDR to help you temporarily park distressing emotions or memories until you have the support and resources to process them):

Cult created and used containers in mind control and forced visualization, especially locked boxes, rooms, vaults, filing cabinets, etc. to hold, hide, contain, and suppress folks inside, trauma memories, and information that they did not want the everyday fronting parts or the rest of the system to know about.

Creating (Safe/Calm) Place and People (Commonly used in Phase 2 of EMDR to build a mental toolbox of skills):

Cult intentionally directed and used creativity in our DID and our inner world by creating cult-created, cult trained personalities and programming, and the ways it would affect us, using mind control and torture. They built internal structures (rooms or buildings), and even lands (Candy Land), and specific personalities and jobs those personalities would do.

Identify and Develop a (Positive) Belief:

Cult repeatedly gave us negative messages, beliefs, and commands to hold on to or follow while they did bilateral stimulation through torture, to make those beliefs go in deeper, and they often gave them to specific personalities inside who they’d created.

Grounding Techniques (commonly used in Phase 2 of EMDR to help ground):

Cult used breathing techniques (and hypnosis) to take us into a dissociated state for both mind control and the creation of specific cult-created, cult-trained personalities; used all of our senses and demanded we notice them during torture; the visualization or actual beam of light (often red, but also white, blue, etc.) telling us they were putting pain or evil into our body, or reinforcing the specific messages or commands they’d given us, while torturing us; temperature shock (extreme heat or cold) as part of the torture or to bring us back to the present when dissociating out of the torture.

Ways I have had to modify EMDR that help EMDR be effective and healing for me/us:

I’ve found EMDR helpful and healing, but only after modifying it to get around the torture and mind control that the cult used, and make it a truly healing experience.

We need to be as self-directed as possible, since the cult directed us in so many ways through visualization during mind control.

We need to have our therapist be okay with whoever inside wants or needs to be there for the processing, or any part of the EMDR, to be there. We often have traumatized kids who need to process their own memories or those of others, and other folks inside who need or want to be witnesses, along with wise parts, healers, and many others inside who need to be part of the process. Because we are polyfragmented with thousands and thousands of fragments that make up recognizable groups inside us for our DID, who is fronting during the process or even one conversation will frequently change, and there will be many folks co-fronting and aware at the same time. This is normal for us, and to exclude anyone would interfere with our healing. We are not going to stay in one specific personality, the way someone who is not polyfragmented might, and that is okay. Most everyone inside is listening and either part of the processing or the witnessing.

We can’t use the light bar, bilateral audio, or hand buzzers at all (they all bring us back to either torture or mind control), but we can:

• watch a finger go back and forth;
• use tapping on our knees;
• tap ourselves on our chest or shoulders;
• and we would like to try the techniques that Garden System from A Couple of Multiples mentioned, such as using a pen or marker on paper, or a stick back and forth in sand.

We can’t rate emotion or trauma response by numbers. We can, however, use words such as less or more, a little or a lot.

We can’t use containers to hold trauma memories, emotion, or mind control. But we can visualize invisible force field bubbles around memories or emotion, or having mind control messages burst into harmless bubbles or confetti or turn the volume down, or put foam or water around memories, emotions, or mind control, or temporarily toss them into a black hole or up to the moon.

For a safe person or place, we must use folks and lands or places inside that we have already created, that we know the cult didn’t create.

Because there is so much torture and mind control, and so many of the experiences are connected through time, we can’t or don’t want to keep going through layer after layer of one target memory; there are too many that are connected over all the years of torture. Instead we just go to the particular memory or layer we need, and if more comes up on its own we allow it, but we won’t keep going through layers (years) of trauma and mind control unless we have a lot of time.  

How each cult torture survivor and DID system will need to modify EMDR to make it work for themselves may be different, and there may be more aspects of EMDR that were used in the torture and mind control that we have unintentionally left out, but we hope this article gives you a greater understanding of how it is used in cult and ways that we can safely modify EMDR to make it a truly healing and helpful experience rather than a triggering and potentially setting off mind control messages or torture memories.

If you prefer watching a video on this, I talked about this (in a less ordered manner) on TikTok, Instagram, Substack, YouTube, and more.

©Cheryl Rainfield, 2026

For more evidence that organized cult torture exists and happens, read the articles and resources at Survivorship and S.M.A.R.T.