Antonia White, cults and independent thinking

This article was inspired by something very disturbing that I read in As Once in May, a collection of Antonia White’s autobiographical writings.

While taking time out to work on a different article, I had occasion to return to Sheri S. Tepper’s fantasy novel Marianne, the Magus, and the Manticore. A previously overlooked speech there is a very good counterweight to the offending passage. It puts what Antonia White tells us about her Catholic boarding school into context; it suggests that she was treated like a cult member.

Antonia White’s alarming school story
Antonia White said that while the nuns at the convent school she attended did not crush the spirits of the pupils - high spirits and general childish naughtiness were not discouraged - they cracked down hard on any attempts to show independence of mind and tried to stamp it out:

“Through years of training, the nuns had learned to recognise the faintest signs of such an attitude, and it was severely repressed. They could detect it the slightest thing...an inclination to answer back, and, most of all, in the faintest speculation in matters of faith. The world was waiting for us outside, with its Satan-set traps of heresy, free thought and easy morals, and the whole object of our education was to arm us against its snares...Mental pride... the most dangerous of all our temptations.”

Many people will be outraged by this, and for several reasons.

Distress signals attract predators yet again

A painful incident from last June has given me something to add to the article about distress signals attracting predators and the article about physical damage caused by energy vampires. It also provides a good example of how evil operates by the rulebook.

It happened just after I had become so upset while thinking about the past and the loss of some prospects for the future that I crossed over into the danger zone. I knew very well that it is best to stay at home when feeling this way, but I wanted to get some supplies in first so went on a shopping trip. My distress signals attracted a predator and I was too overwhelmed to be able to defend myself. 

As always, if I had been able to detect a potential attacker and take evasive action I wouldn’t have needed to!

I was on the return journey when someone asked me to help her lift her pushchair off the bus. I reacted automatically; I said, “Of course” and lifted one end. It was extremely heavy, and I soon realised that I had badly injured my lower back. 

My life was sabotaged. It took months before I was back to normal. All my plans for the summer, including some day trips to the seaside that I was really looking forward to, had to be abandoned.

Being mostly housebound once again - this time because of the coronavirus restrictions - has brought it all back. I have been replaying this incident in my mind and think it worth recording on here, not because of new insights and more lessons learned but because there are some familiar elements and it provides further confirmation of existing theories. 

Warning signals seen retrospectively
This woman asked for help. This is not usually necessary: as I have seen many times, people will offer to help get prams, shopping trolleys etc. on or off the bus without being asked. 

She asked me rather than any of the other, more suitable people who were standing around.

She homed in on and spoke to me when I was feeling very under the weather and was in a strange, detached state.

She sounded sour, gloomy and disapproving. She gave me the impression of being under a cloud of negativity.

I now see her as a disconnected person. I have the idea that she was a strategically placed pawn and that this episode was no accident.

Sheri S. Tepper’s witch: Madame Delubovoska

Positive paranoia: this is when we believe that people are conspiring to help us and events are being arranged in our favour. This happened to me in the case of The Marianne Trilogy by Sheri S. Tepper, which I wanted to re-read but could not find anywhere. I visited many second-hand bookshops before giving up the hunt. 

I had done everything I could without success, so the universe took a hand. One morning, I experienced a strong inner prompting to visit a small Kentish town with historic associations. I wandered around the back streets, and found a charity shop with a big pile of Sheri S. Tepper’s books in the window.  An omnibus volume of The Marianne Trilogy was among them! I bought the lot for a very reasonable price. Not only did I have some good reading material, I also gained some more inspiration for articles.

Marianne, the Magus, and the Manticore introduces a very unpleasant character called Madame Delubovoska, who also appears in Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods, the second book in the trilogy. Before she even comes on the scene we learn that she is a sociopath, a psychopath, someone who uses people and doesn’t care about anyone.