All cults are alike; each cult is unhappy in its own way

I just finished reading Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology. I had never heard of Leah Remini, never seen her on TV. I was in a cult. We didn't watch TV. Then after leaving, I had no interest in television, as I had such a hunger to study and learn after years in the intellectual desert that was life in the Children of God. Like Leah, I needed to rewire my brain. But unlike Leah, I had no support system, no therapists, no friends nor family nearby, just my own large brood of children that needed care and attention and money.

Reading Leah's story, I marveled at the similarities. Groupthink, which I.L. Janis defined as “a deterioration in mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgments as a result of group pressures," is an essential feature in all cults. Scientologists, just like their COG counterparts, are “the enlightened ones,” the ones with privileged insight into The Truth. This privilege obliges members to spend hours and hours “improving themselves” through daily reading, frequent counseling, self-criticism, and criticism from leaders, with its resultant required confessions and, in the COG, united prayer sessions. Voicing doubts or criticizing leaders was cause for censure and punishment, demotion, hard-labor, humiliation, silence restriction, and/or wearing headphones listening to group publications.

I was horrified to read of the extent of the abuse that was heaped upon adults in Scientology, and its accompanying psychological warping so that the victims believe they are deserving of such ill-treatment. In the Children of God, although adults were subject to various types of abuse and constant exploitation, the real victims were the children. Especially the first generation born in the COG were subject to physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse, coupled with educational and medical neglect. Like Leah explained about Scientology, the group's publications were deemed more important than mere academic education.

Scientology, with its courting of rich and famous celebrities, is wealthy, yet the rank-and-file members can find themselves bankrupt because of the amount of money the cult requires them to pay. Children of God members lived in poverty after giving up everything to the cult, being forbidden to hold regular jobs because they were too busy “doing the work of winning the world, that only they, as the chosen of God, could do,” and tithing at least 15% of the donations they raised. The very dedicated gave more.

I feel a kindred spirit to Leah, and I commend her strength and resolve in coming out of such a strong mindset as was instilled during her formative years growing up in Scientology.

Free Love and Guilt

I wonder if I had not been so wrapped up in the guilt I carried for being the supposed cause of all our relationship woes, I may have just seen the light of the cult's delusion earlier. And I wasn't the only one dealing with relationship issues, although mine may have been different from most.

Maybe there was something to all these internal issues taking time, and emotional and mental bandwidth.

The arbitrary and frequent splitting up of couples by leadership ("for the Lord's work"), as well as the doctrine of the Law of Love, no doubt, wreaked havoc in any and all relationships in the group. The indiscriminate "sharing" (cult euphemism for having sex) among members "as long as it was done in love," and the shaming of the jealous, made for much introspection, insecurity, and misery. Those who were jealous were "old bottles," "selfish," or "not yielding to God's will," etc., and in need of prayer, extra "word time," and deliverance. In extreme cases, exorcism.

Accordingly, we had a group of people who were so busy fighting personal battles with "sin and self," that no one had the energy or initiative to lift their heads above the clouds and look around and question.

Who can say what would have been? The techniques the cult used to keep its members were (and still are) many and powerful. But surely the distraction of the Law of Love, along with the myriad absurd requirements placed on the shoulders of cult members, was a strong force in keeping us unquestioning and in the fold.

Polarization

Scrolling down facebook, I marvel with irritation at the pro-Trumpers who post astounding conspiracy theories. Why does this bother me? They are entitled to their opinion, of course.

It bothers me, not just because it's stupid, imho, but because it reeks of cult-like "inside information" that only the privileged elite are privy to. They, the select few, really know what's going on in the world. They are the special few who have access to this information that the rest of the world is in the dark about.

It's sickeningly familiar.

It's not just pro-Trump people, either.

Today we have polarization like I've never seen before (not having lived through WWII), fueled and fanned by people's confirmation biases. Any and all news feeds the flame of enthusiasm for the candidate of choice, no matter whether it's bad or good. Just like loyal cultists, the bad news is rationalized and explained away - perhaps as part of that "anti-my-candidate" conspiracy, inspiring a defensive reaction that strengthens loyalty - and the good news simply bolsters their devotion.

Our natural tendency as humans is to feed on information that confirms and reinforces our beliefs. It's mentally rewarding to find confirming evidence, and it easily turns into a continuous cycle that grows more and more, nourished by hyperbole and baseless claims.

How nice it would be if there were actually unbiased reporting of facts and critical thinking utilized by us all. But since that is a dream, at least being aware of this phenomenon and our own biases can help us to see through the noise.

More on Abuse

There has been attention drawn to the most egregious of abuses of minors in TFI: the sexual abuse, the depriving of education, the child labor, etc. But what of other abuses?

How do children handle being raised with no prospect of personal space? How could they develop a sense of personal control when it was virtually impossible to exert control over their environments and behavior, their lives being fully scheduled and controlled by outside sources - the arbitrary whims of their Shepherds and even more nebulously and frighteningly, almighty God?

Landmark studies conducted in the late 1970s to early 1980s by Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin on perceived control in nursing home residents showed that giving elderly people even the simplest autonomy, such as the freedom to rearrange their furniture, care for a plant in their room, etc., served to enhance their health and well-being significantly.

But isn't that a given? Did this really need to be the subject of studies?

The freedom to control our own environment to an age-appropriate degree is obviously necessary for mental, and even physical, health. Even very young children blossom when given the respect of allowing them a measure of personal control.

As well, how powerless were cult-raised children made to feel when cases of abuse that were reported went nowhere?

One case was of a prone-to-anger step-father who used to beat his son. When local Shepherds remained in denial about it, the concerned mother wrote to the leader of the country. That leader wrote back to the abuser, asking for his side of the story. He did nothing. When the mother confronted him with the letter from the big leader, his only response was to say, "Ha!"

And that was the end of Shepherd intervention. There was no follow-up at all. The abuse continued and escalated.

That was emblematic of how abuse in TFI was handled.

How could it have been otherwise? To step in and do something would have been hypocritical.

As an illustrative example: The "mate" of another country-wide leader was notorious for sneaking into the teen girls' room at night to "say goodnight" to his step-daughters. Kneeling down beside them, he would quietly demand, "Show me your breasts." Yet another big leader impregnated a 14-year-old. Too many cult-born girls were raised with such disregard for their personal boundaries.

What recourse was given to these girls? What personal control did they have? How could they not think that giving in to the whims of men was what "God" required of them?

Were they forced to seek their own, private, methods of control, resulting in anorexia or anxiety disorders, and having left the cult, eventual substance abuse?

It is a tribute to the resilience of the SGA's (Second Generation Adults) that they have grown into self-sufficient adults, with the intelligence and finesse to navigate a world in which they had little contact as children, and that, only from a twisted, paranoid viewpoint. Hats off to them.

Maltreatment in childhood is associated with a significantly increased likelihood of psychiatric disorder that endures across the lifespan. If disorders emerge they tend to be more severe and less responsive to treatment.*

*"The theory of latent vulnerability: Reconceptualizing the link between childhood maltreatment and psychiatric disorder," by Eamon J. McCrory and Essi Viding, University College London

The Ragman Fallacy

Throwing things away has been hard for me for years. I felt I almost had a moral imperative to keep things that were still in a usable condition, whether I needed them or not. I was not a hoarder - I didn't have that much stuff - but the consumer mentality was very far from my mind.

"Waste not, want not." "Be a good 'Ragman,'" Berg admonished in his Letter of that name. In it, he went so far as to say, "God will hold you accountable not only for every word and deed wasted, but everything you wasted and threw away which you could have saved or given to somebody else who needed it!"

Is that where this idea came from? More dregs of cult teachings rising to the surface?

Only this past month have I realized how ingrained that attitude of scarcity was. I was downsizing, and I needed to get rid of years of accumulated things.  

First, I wanted to sell or give things away. That worked for a while. Then, when I had no more takers, I started to think... I live in a wealthy country where if someone needs something, they usually just go to the store and buy it. Not so much me. I rummage about and make do with what I have: a daughter's left behind clothes, a son's old track suit, 20-year-old kitchen utensils, etc.  

Finally, the light dawned. If I don't need it, if I'm not going to use it, throw it away. I made numerous trips to the dump, where I witnessed other people throwing things away as if it was completely normal. Something no longer needed? No need to keep it.

Such a basic concept. But not a basic concept for one coming out of years of cult-imposed poverty and scarcity.

This is not to cast aside all frugality. In the cult, we had very few personal belongings. I lived out of a suitcase, and I learned to improvise. Economizing, saving, and avoiding unnecessary waste are still worthy qualities. But no more unwittingly clinging to over-the-top parsimony and being weighed down with unneeded stuff.

Stunted Maturation

Joining a cult, or making any serious life-decisions, at age 16 is a bad idea. Age sixteen is just at the end of the pruning stage of the brain, where “ineffective or weak brain connections are pruned in much the same way a gardener would prune a tree or bush.”* This is done in order to prepare the brain for adult maturity and growth, but this development will not be completed for another 5-9 years. So a 16-year-old possesses a brain that is stuck in the middle world of no longer a child/not yet an adult.

During this misfit time, emotions and hormones rage. Mood swings and irresponsible actions wreak havoc. 

Take this immature psyche, paint on a smile, add a touch of sparkle to the eyes, and finally paste on an overall façade of COG characteristics: zeal, "happiness," "faith," "love for the lost," lack of concern for their future on earth, only concern for "heavenly rewards" — all the pious catch-phrases that were the staple of the cult members' days.  

Fill that life with busyness from morning till night, driven by the self-important urgency of the cause and kept on by dread of the guilt felt when not "giving one's all." Bounce that life around from "serving" under one leader to another. Give constant reminders that she must be "like a child" to serve the Lord in the COG. "You gotta be a baby to go to heaven..." (as their theme-song went.)

When hardships came, depending on the severity, solace was found in prayer, in "looking for the good," or in escape by moving to another country or city. ("God never closes a door without opening a window.") No need to deal with harsh realities, just smooth them over and "keep on keeping on."

Then, add year upon year upon year. 

The result? An adult, who, in spite of living on this earth more than 50 years, is utterly lacking in real-world maturity, normal mental and psychological growth having been stunted for those years of deluded life in the bubble of the cult. 

That would be me.

* Alison Gopnik, Professor of Child Development at UC Berkeley.

Cults and Maslow

Image from:  http://spiritofpurpose.com/

Imagine yourself feeling isolated, unimportant, and unneeded. Unexpectedly you find yourself surrounded by sincere, happy people who hug you, say they love you, accept you, need your help, and make you feel part of their - rather, part of God's - family. When that happened to me, I was overwhelmed. Surely I had found where I "belonged." 

It's like falling into a well once such a decision is made, as in come the biases, protecting self-image, reinforcing the rightness of that decision. (See Commitment and Consistency)

Love and belonging: done.

Above that come the needs for esteem and purpose. We humans need to feel that we are making a difference - that our work has meaning. How much more valuable is a life of meaning?

In the cult, we were continually reminded in publication after publication that ours was the most important work in the world. Because that was nonsense, this artificial sense of importance was necessarily repeated ad nauseam. (Repetition feeds belief.) We were working directly for God himself - the only work with eternal rewards. We were always kept busy; we were so important, and there was so little time, so much to do, so few "called out ones" to do it, that we needed to "burn the candle at both ends," and "burn out fast and bright for Jesus."

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,"* or so cult members, with their elevated sense of self-importance, blissfully believe.

*Henry V, Shakespeare.

Time is Short

The world will end soon. Some catastrophe is around the corner. We must rush to get out the message. We must "press-in" to save lost souls so we won't have their blood on our hands when we face the Lord. 

Hurry, hurry, and whatever you do, don't stop to think. And if you do think, think about purifying your heart and purging yourself from sin and doubt. What do you need to confess? What hidden sins do you have that you need prayer for, before the little seed of sin grows into a tree of rebellion?

And always - the Home needs funds, and the distribution quotas must be met. We, "God's chosen End-time children," have the awesome responsibility of reaching the world "for Jesus." We don't want to fail the Lord.

Whatever the tack, the theme was the same: time is short. 

With time so scarce, there was always that lingering feeling of guilt: "I should have done that already. I'm such a failure. It's almost useless to try to do something now, as I'm so late in getting started - I'd better hurry."

There was no building for tomorrow. No looking to the future. Just rushing and living for the moment, in spite of all the holy-sounding talk of "doing things in the Lord's time," there was always that feeling of failure, that whatever we do is too little, too late. It was only mitigated by the delusion, "We are the happiest people on earth, because we are God's Chosen."

Even now, many years out, when I think of something I should do or get an idea about something, my intuitive reaction is that of subtle guilt - Why didn't I do that already? Yet another bad habit that was hard-wired into my psyche during those 30 years of nonsense.