Toppling Pedestals

First impressions are important, we all know that. In my experience, they have not just been important, but crucial and very long-lasting. Starry-eyed believer that I was (and still tend to be, due to the habits I have built up over the years) my first impressions of leaders in the cult, or even of other members, were almost exclusively favorable. They were the "samples" I was to emulate.  

For example, take the father of my first child. A married man, smart, witty, and full of Bible and Mo Letter knowledge, I felt he could do no wrong. I was enamored with him, expecting to spend my life with him and his wife after our son was born. (Deluded much?) When they suddenly moved away to work with Berg, I was shattered. Still, I "knew" he was a wonderful man. It was I that was just not worthy.  

Next came my husband - was he the perfect man? He was gentle, romantic, polite, and handsome. As the years passed, I explained away his angry outbursts and violence, and his lack of desire for me was "all my fault." I was like one of Skinner's pigeons, conditioned to hope and persevere. 

Vital to taking off those rosy glasses to see others more clearly was pulling out of the negative view of myself. I am not as "bad" as I have believed, and others are not as "good" as I have believed. People are people with all kinds of inherent weaknesses and mistaken perceptions.

The biggest pedestal to crash down were those on which Berg and Zerby stood. The confirmation bias that ruled my mind protected their image during my years in the cult. When anything negative about either of these wonderful "prophets" came to light, the cognitive dissonance that it caused had to be dealt with quickly. Dissonance is so uncomfortable; we called it "doubt." Rationalizations and explanations came to the rescue. All great men have weaknesses - but they were still God's anointed. Look at King David in the Bible - he even had Uriah killed to steal his wife, but God called him "a man after mine own heart." We COG members were very good at rationalizing. Seriously good, with plenty of help from Berg, who wrote, If God can use a sinner like me, he can surely use you!  

Of course, Berg and Zerby are most definitely not the "End-time Prophets" and sacrificial servants of God they claimed to be. Crashing right along with that delusion came my faith in the cult and all its beliefs. And that brings me back to the start of my journey to understand the whys.

"Others"

After reading what I wrote in "My Life in the Cult...," a psychologist friend commented, 

"I was struck by how much your life was centered on self-sacrifice. You were always giving to others and not to yourself. I imagine that you must have struggled with the sense of betrayal when you finally were able to see reality of the situation. Moving to [the tropics] must have been so disorienting that you would have been less able to see the sham. I am so glad that you came back and are patiently navigating yourself back into the Western world."

"Always giving to others and not to yourself." No kidding! My life, 24/7 for 30 years, was dedicated to doing things for others.

But isn't that the idea? Isn't that how true Christians are to strive to live? Isn't it sinful to do things to please yourself? "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily," right?  (Luke 9:23)

Among the thousands of Bible verses and Mo Letter quotes that I committed to memory over the years, my friend's words dredged up this poem that I must have memorized while still in my teens.

“Others”

By Charles D. Meigs

Lord help me live from day to day

In such a self-forgetful way

That even when I kneel to pray 

My prayer shall be for – Others.

Help me in all the work I do

To ever be sincere and true

And know that all I do for you

Must needs be done for – Others.

Let “Self” be crucified and slain

And buried deep; and all in vain

May efforts be to rise again

Unless to live for – Others.

And when my work on earth is done

And my new work in heaven’s begun

May I forget the crown I’ve won

While thinking still of – Others.

Others, Lord, yes others

Let this my motto be

Help me to live for others

That I may live like Thee.

(found at: http://blindbeggar.org/?p=1088)

This attitude became a part of me and naturally carried on after leaving the cult - even more so then, because I was facing the horrible reality of having given my children a crap childhood. The guilt. The burning desire to make things right. I wanted to do my utmost to help them, although I was clearly spread too thin. I'm afraid it was too little, too late for the older ones; the jury is still out on how the younger ones will fare.

This "normal" behavior for me is further COG residue that I have only just now become aware of.

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.

Overcoming Perfectionism

Be the very best you can be for Jesus.

That is just one of many TFI teachings that sound kind of sweet and innocent, but it sows the seed for a mind-trapping perfectionism.

That's the thing with so many doctrines of the cult. They seep into our minds sounding so "good," so "right," so "holy," that we readily accept them - but their actual practice takes a whole new form. "Make disciples of all nations" translates to "travel around the world annoying people by trying to foist your questionable religious beliefs on them." "Live by faith" to "beg on the streets and from door-to-door." And the quintessential, "God's only law is love" to "indiscriminate sex with multiple partners - as long as it is motivated by 'God's pure' love."

Back to "being your best." That morphs into never ever being satisfied with anything you do. So there is the never-ending, yet pointless, quest for perfectionism, that is further confused by the constant knowledge that we can never be good enough. (Only Jesus is good, right?)

This makes decision-making an endless nightmare of self-doubt. "What should I do? What is best?" Even simple things take on time-wasting dimensions, "What should I get for so-and-so for Christmas? What is the 'perfect' gift?"

This is something I've conquered in some areas, but I am still plagued by indecision about important things. I can settle for getting someone a gift that is "nice" or "good enough," but oh, how the big decisions plague me. "Where to spend my future? How to survive with no retirement funds? What to do?" 

Cult members answer that one easily, with a blithe "Jesus will take care of me." I can no longer do that, and I long for the clarity that a clear future plan will bring me.

"It's Only Jesus"

Only Jesus is good. If there's anything good you ever do, it's only Jesus. Don't accept when people praise you, say "It's only Jesus. Thank Jesus."

That sounds innocent enough.

But let's think.

You're a child born into the cult where you may even have been lucky enough to have heard praise for your accomplishments, but you were taught to dismiss those words and instead "give all the credit to Jesus." Nothing you can do is good enough, because only Jesus is good. We are "altogether born in sins" (John 9:34). Any encouraging words wash right off because you know in your heart that you are bad and unworthy.

All your life you are taught that you are bad, a sinner. Replay that thought over and over and the loop becomes a habit, and the habit becomes a snowball growing in strength and intensity into full-blown self-loathing.

Now, coat this with a smile. "Jesus chose me." "We are the happiest people on earth."

A bandaid over the psychological damage.

Our brains already have a negativity bias. This has evolutionary roots. If our ancestors had a happy experience, it did not have much effect upon their survival. Daily threats of predators were what they needed to attend to, remember, and learn from.

But the "use it or lose it" quality of brain cells can come to the rescue. As we all know, our brains are plastic, and according to Dr. Norman Doidge, they are competitively plastic. "There is an endless war of nerves going on inside each of our brains. If we stop exercising our mental skills, we do not just forget them: the brain map space for those skills is turned over to the skills we practice instead." (The Brain that Changes Itself)

Albeit "unlearning" is more challenging than learning. The analogy of brain pathways provides an easy picture. We have been walking down the self-hate pathway for years. We've nearly paved it, we've worn it so smooth from daily passage. Now we want to make a new path. We beat our way through the forest the first time. Then as we repeat that thought, fashioning a new pathway - a new habit - day by day, the old pathway gradually gets grown over and fades.

It's not easy, but knowing that it is possible is already the first step down that more healthy path.

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.

Future Flippancy

"Living by faith" has severe drawbacks. Most obviously, future planning becomes a "lack of faith." ("Take no thought for the morrow," you know.)

Therefore, one wonders about how TFI members will live their later years? How will they survive when they are not able to actively fundraise? With no provision whatsoever made for retirement, cult members have come up with some fanciful ideas. 

Plan A: Their children. Most older TFI members have had many children, the large majority of whom have left the group, fought against the difficult circumstances of being raised in the delusional bubble of cult life, and with little education, no diplomas, no credit history nor networks of support have now managed to establish themselves in their home countries or elsewhere. Kudos to them!

What a brilliant idea to live off of them! These falsely entitled parents will simply ask their children to be sure to have an extra room for them in their houses. Then, the parents can travel around (on whose money, one wonders - oh, of course - their kids') and stay for two months with each of their adult children, fit-as-a-fiddle until the suddenly drop dead. It's a good thing they aren't planning on succumbing to any debilitating diseases.

"Oh, really? But isn't that plan just a bit presumptuous?" Yet this is what I have heard from many first generation TFI members.

Wouldn't they be foolish, though, to not to have a plan B? This one hearkens back to the days of COG training for how to survive during the antichrist's reign: "live off the grid." Buy some land (again, with what money?), dig a well (simple), install solar panels, plant some vegetables, and enjoy the easy life of retirement. I think we can all see possible difficulties with this scenario.

To quote the "prophet," Berg:

So let me dream on if I'm dreaming!

I'd rather be glad though insane!