Cults and the inversion of values

This article contains two examples of people who neglected or abandoned personal responsibilities in favour of working for the cause. Both cases involve the same, Catholicism-based, cult. 

The material is based on posts on the old Conservative Conspiracy Forum; it consists of extracts that I found online and comments that I made at the time together with a few afterthoughts.

Abandoning the sick and dying
“...I slowly realized that behavior opposite to my natural self was the most rewarded....When I as a devoted physician would leave my duties for a weekend, to cook for 80 people on a weekend meeting, that seemed to be the ultimate proof of my trust in the voice of Jesus in our midst. 

When I left a dear person who was dying and I had promised to assist, to help out practically in the movement and that person died when I was absent, that was the proof of my love for the forsaken Jesus.”

This is very horrific indeed, all the more as Christians are enjoined to heal the sick and comfort the dying.  Where are the Christian values of love and compassion here? 

The worst aspect is that not only are members encouraged or ordered to perform such actions, they are commended for it. They are told that it shows how superior and committed they are; it really shows how far under the evil influences they are. 

Neglecting children 
“We missed our son's confirmation, left a teenager for 3 weeks alone while we went to school in Rome because we were told it was the will of God. We missed so many family events and were told that 'we had to leave the family in order to follow God. We would find them again in Heaven.'”

This is typical of many cults. It confirms what I have seen and experienced for myself: “We must make sacrifices.”

The great and positive influence of Everyman's Library

While working on articles about Stella Gibbons's romance My American and the life of the novelist May Sinclair recently, I came across some references to Everyman's Library. 

The first was in J. B. Priestley's introduction to his novel Angel Pavement, which I suggested was the inspiration for My American; the second was in some online information about May Sinclair: she wrote introductions for the Everyman editions of the Brontë sisters' works.

J. B. Priestley: from Everyman reader to Everyman writer
J. B. Priestley is yet another voracious reader who later became a writer. This is an extract from his introduction to the Everyman's Library edition of his novel Angel Pavement:

“It was when I was in my middle teens that I began buying books...I had very little money indeed, and the problem was, how to buy books out of it? I managed this chiefly by economising on my lunches. In a shop in the covered market you could buy a bag of stale buns for tuppence...Out of what I saved, I bought books, and most of these books belonged to the old shilling Everyman series. I have some of them, chiefly the green volumes of the poets, to this day. 

No bits of silver ever bought more enduring enchantment. I wish it were possible to go back to that youth from the office, as he stands looking at the Everyman volumes in Mr. Power's bookstall in the Bradford market, to whisper to him that the day will come when he will write a novel that will find its way into Everyman’s Library...”

One shilling was the official price, so one brand-new volume cost the equivalent of six bags of stale buns!  

Louisa M. Alcott, Jane Eyre and the public library

These words about Jean Rhys and L. M. Montgomery also apply to Louisa M. Alcott:

“...were great readers and had access to a public library when young. As girls they read Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, which made a big impression on them and later influenced their writing.”

Unlike some of the other writers mentioned on here, Louisa M. Alcott was encouraged to read. As a girl, she 'lived in books'. Jane Eyre, which was first published in 1847 when she was 14 years old, was one of her favourite novels. She was inspired by the Brontë sisters' lives and achievements. 

She wrote this in her journal just after reading Mrs Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë:

“Read Charlotte Brontë’s life. A very interesting, but sad one. So full of talent; and after working long, just as success, love, and happiness come, she dies. Wonder if I shall ever be famous for people to care to read my story and struggles. I can’t be a C.B., but I may do a little something yet.” 

From the journal entry dated June, 1857

Louisa M. Alcott and the Concord Free Public Library
Louisa M. Alcott had access to private libraries as a girl. She may have made use of public libraries too: her father Bronson certainly did. I am not sure when her involvement with the Concord Free Public Library started, but she is mentioned in connection with book censorship early in 1885:

“As the home of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts, the very name of Concord, Massachussetts, connotes sophisticated literary dissent. Yet a month after the publication of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the committee in charge of Concord's public library voted to remove the book from its shelves, fearing that Huck Finn's irreverence would undermine the morals of young readers. In full agreement, Louisa May Alcott proposed a more radical ban: “If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses,” she advised, “he had best stop writing for them.” “

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-mark-twain/banned-in-concord/6B50F2DD0F1276E8CB393B96DBDD4FC8

The Concord Free Public Library, which was opened in 1873, now holds a large collection of Alcott family material. It also contains a bust of  Louisa M. Alcott:

May Sinclair, Jean Rhys, L. M. Montgomery and the Brontës

After producing some articles about May Sinclair's novella The Flaw in the Crystal, I decided to investigate her background in the hope of finding some more material of interest. 

I found some very familiar biographical elements and other connections when reading about her life. I mentioned a blueprint for writers in an article in the Context and the Total Picture series; if I created a template for writers of interest, May Sinclair would tick many of the boxes.

I have seen, for example, the Celtic Connection in the biographies of many novelists, so it was no surprise to learn that May Sinclair had an Irish mother and a Scottish father.

It also came as no surprise when I found that she had some other things in common with Jean Rhys and L. M. Montgomery. May Sinclair too was interested in and inspired by the Brontës, whose works she may have first encountered in her father's private library rather than the local public library.

May Sinclair and Jean Rhys
May Sinclair was a very different person from Jean Rhys, but they had a few things in common:

They both wrote under assumed names. 

Both novelists lived for a while in Devon.

They both read voraciously as girls, partly for escape, and both later wrote Brontë-inspired books. 

They both had unsympathetic mothers who tried to force them to conform to the norm. They had some things to say about their childhood experiences that sound uncannily similar. 

Just as Jean Rhys's work is mostly autobiographical, so are some of May Sinclair's novels, Mary Olivier in particular. Mary Olivier's mother wants her to behave like a 'normal' girl:

“...you should try and behave a little more like other people.”

"You were different," she said. "You weren’t like any of the others. I was afraid of you.”