As mentioned in Part III, the cutting of personal connections between cult members and non-members works both ways: it is not always the members who do the dropping.
This breaking of bonds can cause problems and dilemmas no matter which side does it. This article covers a few more aspects of this painful subject.
The most obvious problem here is that cult members who are forbidden from associating with their families and friends will not be able to get financial or other forms of support for the cause or movement from them.
One way round this is for the cult to arrange supervised phone calls or meetings. Selected members are told what to say and ask for, and another member listens in or is present to ensure that they follow instructions and stick to the script. This may work, at least for a while, if the family wants contact on any terms.
A compromise solution is to apply the strictest rules and the tightest controls only to hard-core members, the upper levels or the inner circle, with less-dedicated members, supporters and other 'inferiors' free to associate with anyone they want to.
Public relations are another problem. I used to wonder why a particular cult-like organisation would order many of its senior members to stop seeing their families when this would entail making enemies out of former friends, give ammunition to opponents and result in bad publicity that might alienate potential supporters and damage the cause.
One tactic cults use here is denial. They may insist for example that it isn't true that members are forced to cut all outside relationships. Such blatant lying may work for a while – I fell for some of it myself in the early days – but people now have access to social media, defectors' stories and the Internet so are more educated and less likely to be fooled.
I remember thinking at the time about the counter-productive effects of a refusal to let a member I knew speak to his well-connected and influential wife. I realised that the members just obeyed orders as opposed to thinking things through, but I thought that surely the leaders must have considered the consequences of their policies and actions.
Making the cause top priority on the one hand and undermining it on the other does not make sense – unless we think in terms of evil forces with an agenda of their own. I now suspect that the leaders were controlled by malign unseen influences and were just obeying orders themselves.
Part III gives some reasons why people might decide to stop seeing a cult member even when the latter is permitted to associate with them.
Many of these reasons apply more to slight acquaintances or not particularly close friends and people who are being targetted for money and recruitment than to cases where the ties are much stronger. People may decide for example to avoid members they barely know who pester them for support; others who are closer but feel sidelined and rejected may decide to cut their losses. Who wants to be continually avoided or brushed off and told how busy the member is and that they have important work to do? Who wants to be made to feel like an unwanted nuisance or even a stalker?
The targetted people may feel relieved when the pestering members get the message and there is no more contact, the acquaintances may feel saddened but think, “It's their loss not mine” and get on with their lives, but close friends and family may feel very ambivalent and experience much pain.
The dilemma for some people is that while they may still want to keep in touch with a cult member, they want to deal with a real person rather than a robot and they want to have conversations about normal and personal things not just the cause. When they do discuss the organisation and the ideology, they want to be able to make sceptical comments, express alternative viewpoints and ask questions without stirring up the attack dog.
They may give up when they realise that this is not going to happen. Who wants to keep on hearing the same old slogans from someone who sounds like a tape-recorder? Who wants to be ignored, insulted, lectured, preached at or even attacked by someone who has become a different person, a virtual stranger?
What members' families really want is to cut themselves off from the robot but keep in touch with the - former - real person; they want to lose the toxic aspects of the relationship while retaining the good ones.
One tactic that sometimes works is to get the members alone, away from their colleagues and the cult atmosphere. This may result in their being more like their old selves and much better company. Someone on the old forum said this:
“But there have been times when I've got her away from it all, and she's a normal fun person.“
My response:
“Yes.
I too have experienced this. Giving them a break is one thing you can do for them. They are free from surveillance and the demands of their organisation and can relax a bit. They enjoy getting a taste of normal life.
One women who made offensive, borderline abusive, phone calls to me from her office where others were listening was much better when her colleagues were not around. They need to put on an act for each other, but it softens when they are with outsiders. Provided that you keep off certain subjects of course!”
That last sentence will be expanded on in a future article.
