A few thoughts about cult leaders

As I have said before, there is a huge amount of information available both online and in books about cults, cult members and cult leaders. Although I can’t add very much to it, I can certainly confirm some of it from personal experience; I can also give my take on some aspects, provide supporting material and make some connections.

After producing some articles about cult members, I now have a few things to say about cult leaders.

The godlike cult leader

No matter what type or size of cult is being investigated, religious, political, lifestyle or other, it will have many features in common with other cults.

Similarly, the leader will have attributes in common with most other cult leaders, no matter what their nationality or ideology is.

The most significant of these is the messiah complex.

Only they can save us all; they must be worshipped and obeyed without question. They expect to be treated with respect and even reverence as great spiritual masters, heroes who are going to save the world or model examples of what highly-evolved people should be, depending on what sort of cult they are leaders of.

They may claim a direct connection to and do everything using the authority of some god.

Elizabeth Taylor’s Angel: some miscellaneous thoughts

This final article in the series inspired by Elizabeth Taylor’s novel Angel includes some more connections and a few miscellaneous points of interest.

Angel Deverell and Esmé Scarron the sorcerer

These two people have generated many articles between them; it would be very easy to produce some more, but enough is enough!

By coincidence, Esmé is the name of Angel’s debt-ridden wastrel of a husband, but she bears more resemblance to Stella Gibbons’s villain Esmé Scarron from The Shadow of a Sorcerer than he does!

Angel shares Scarron’s arrogance and preference for having admiring followers or even worshippers rather than real friends.

She too has a bad effect on the people around her, her mother and husband in particular.

Angel could have improved her inner state and become a better person, but just like Scarron she lacks the necessary humility.

Brothers and sisters

Angel’s husband’s full name is Esmé Howe-Nevinson. He is the brother of Nora Howe-Nevinson, Angel’s companion and assistant.

It is not just Esmé’s name that has a connection to Stella Gibbons: his personality and behaviour resemble those of her younger brother Lewis.

As mentioned in the first article in the series, the novelist Marie Corelli was one of the inspirations for Angel. Corelli’s half-brother Eric was a wastrel who was always demanding money from her; Elizabeth Taylor probably created Esmé from what she knew of Eric, but he is also a classic, textbook case.

Many of us will encounter people like Esmé, who go through life leaving a trail of failures, debt and destruction behind them and who are forever taking on new initiatives without the resources and reserves to back them up. They make life hell for anyone they can get a hold over.

Both Stella and the fictional Nora kept house for their brothers;

Both Stella Gibbon’s brother Lewis and the fictional Esmé were unstable; they got into financial and other messes and left it to their sisters to sort it all out.

Same game, different players yet again.

Today’s birthdays: Georgette Heyer and Diana Wynne Jones

Georgette Heyer was born on August 16th 1902.

Diana Wynne Jones was born on August 16th 1934.

There is nothing in Georgette Heyer’s novels relevant to the themes of this blog, although she has been featured here because of some similarities in her and Stella Gibbons’s lives. 

Diana Wynne Jones is very different: her life and her books have been mentioned in several articles and there is still more material to come. 

While Georgette Heyer never wrote about magic, witches or anything occult, Diana Wynne Jones wrote about little else. I wonder whether Georgette’ Heyer’s happy childhood and Diana Wynne Jones’s awful one had anything to do with this.

These two writers have only a few things in common.

They were both born in London and both moved around a lot - at least for a while. They were both heavy smokers, and both died from lung cancer.

While both were very tall, they were very different in appearance. Georgette Heyer was elegant, stylish and kept up with the fashions; Diana Wynne Jones was wild-haired and rather witch-like.

One of the biggest differences is their attitude to publicity.

Georgette Heyer kept herself from the world for most of her life. She is described as ‘ferociously reticent’.

Diana Wynne Jones gave interviews and talks; she visited schools; she wrote articles and spoke about the creative process and her life.

The two authors were usually treated very differently by people they met, as these two amusing anecdotes show:

Elizabeth Taylor’s Angel: wanting and getting

A further article or two about Elizabeth Taylor’s novel Angel has been outstanding for a long time now.

Angel has inspired three previous articles. I have described her imagination, her life and personality and her resemblance to various witches. So what more can there be to say about this strange and impossible woman?

There are some more familiar features and scenarios in her story to be described, and more details to come about the way she wants and gets things.

Wants and obsessions

Angel is an all-or-nothing person; she wants what she wants, how and when she wants it, on her own terms.

People like Angel are so single-minded in the pursuit of what they want that they may behave like addicts desperate for their next fix. They want nothing and no one except whatever they are currently obsessed with; if they are offered anything else they behave as if they have been given a stone when they wanted bread.

I have already mentioned Angel’s visit to her publisher in which she ignores his wife. Angel mostly ignores her aunt, except when she hears her say something interesting about life in the big house, something that she can use in her fantasies.

As a schoolgirl, Angel spends as much time as possible in her imagination, dreaming about living a life of luxury as a member of the family that owns the local big house. She surprises her aunt by actually asking her some questions after hearing her say something that catches her interest and provides food for her imagination. I have seen this behaviour in real life; it is not a good sign. The perpetrator blocks someone completely, then suddenly pounces on them if there is a chance of getting something they want from them.

Bureaucrats behaving like cult members again

I said in previous articles that it is uncanny how history is repeating itself in that bureaucrats are now saying and doing the same things to me that cult members did in the past.

I gave some examples of similar past and present features, elements, incidents and conversations. For example, just as a cult member made arrangements on my behalf without first consulting me, so did the bureaucrats.

As I said, I learned from my previous painful experiences so now know what to expect. The latest development is not at all surprising.

Meetings and gatherings

My colleagues and I walked out of a meeting with the enemy earlier this year.

Cults, occultists and Stella Gibbons: Part VII

The material inspired by Stella Gibbons’s novel The Shadow of a Sorcerer has stretched to one more article.

Her occultist villain Esmé Scarron is a classic, textbook case. Much of what he says and does is scripted; it is all very predictable. Changing for the better is not part of the script, but it is an interesting exercise to think about things that he could have done and people who could have shown him the way.

What does Esmé Scarron really need?

Scarron needs to think about the inner differences between him and healthy, wholesome, decent human beings. He may be far above most people in some ways - wealth and scholarship for example - but he is far below in others.

Scarron needs to learn how to get what he wants using normal methods, not manipulation, psychological black magic and the ‘neutral force’ that he allows to run through him. He says that this force gives him his power and enables him to heal people, but he uses it to influence them against their will and best interests and to damage them.

He needs to realise that this force is a two-edged sword. Using it may have a damaging effect on him. For example, by influencing people around him so that they can’t make connections, he may be blocking himself from making some key connections.

Esmé Scarron needs to realise that he is on a path that leads to Hell.

In theory, he could redeem himself by losing some arrogance, showing some humility and looking at what other people have done to get off this path. People like him rarely do this though. In any case, he is a prisoner and hostage. The evil forces he has called up may not let go of him that easily.

Some positive role models

Esmé Scarron could have learned a lot from people he probably wouldn’t have given the time of day to. It is amusing to imagine him taking tea with and advice from a few fictional witches - not that he 

ever would.