Cults, occultists and Stella Gibbons: Part III

A few of the common elements in Stella Gibbons’s Shadow of a Sorcerer and the Madeleine L’Engle books in which Zachary Grey appears have been mentioned in the first two articles.

There are more similarities to come, but first here is a summary of the remainder of the Sorcerer story:

How the story ends

The arrival at the language school of a young man called Humphrey gives Meg Lambert someone other than Esmé Scarron to think about. Humphrey is a worthy, dependable type and only 10 or so years older than Meg. Her mother likes him very much. Unfortunately he is engaged, and his fiancée Ruth soon comes out to join him at the guest house/language school in Austria.

Meg, her mother and some of the other students including Humphrey and Ruth take a short sightseeing trip to Venice.

An attempt by Ruth to make Meg see reason about Scarron backfires; her well-meaning criticism pushes Meg into doing something drastic. She tells Scarron on the phone that she will give him her final answer in person at his palazzo. Then, in revenge for the pressure to forget Scarron, she hits back by telling the others in her party a big lie: she says that she has just got engaged to him over the phone. This hurts her mother terribly and confounds the others.

Scarron sets out for Venice. He has asked his ex-wife and daughter to keep away from his palazzo, but this backfires and they go there to sabotage his plans. This is their big chance to take some revenge for what he has done to them. They reveal many of Scarron’s secrets to the Lamberts, including his age and his experiments on his son and daughter.

Scarron makes one last attempt to capture Meg by bombarding her with more waves of pity, but it doesn’t work.

103 years of John Buchan’s 39 Steps

Today is the 103rd anniversary of the first appearance of John Buchan’s classic spy thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps.

This exciting adventure story was first published in book form in October 1915, soon after it had run as a serial in Blackwood’s Magazine under the pseudonym H. de V. during July, August and September of that year.

Surprisingly, the very first appearance of The Thirty-Nine Steps was in the American magazine All-Story Weekly. It was published in two instalments, in the June 5th and June 12th 1915 issues.

The Thirty-Nine Steps was an immediate and great success.

John Buchan went on to write more books about the adventures of Richard Hannay. Unlike some of these later stories, The Thirty-Nine Steps does not contain much material that is directly relevant to this blog; it may however have some subtle messages for us.

All the world’s a stage

Perhaps there is a message in what Richard Hannay says about playing a part and how you have to think yourself into it. You must convince yourself that you are it and stay in part all the time, always behaving as if enemies were watching.

Cults, occultists and Stella Gibbons: Part II

Going through Stella Gibbons’s novel The Shadow of a Sorcerer in the light of what I have learned about cults, occultists, energy vampires and other relevant topics since I first read it has provided enough material for a whole series of articles.

I am particularly interested in the connections I can now see between some of the material in this book and material in previous articles about cults, very different books and very different people.

The first article introduced the two main characters and ended with a description of some of the harm Esmé Scarron had done by abusing his powers and knowledge.

The next topics to be covered are the dreadful effect that Scarron’s attempts to influence her have on his chosen disciple Meg Lambert and the cult leader/cult member aspect of their relationship.

Many of the unpleasant symptoms that Meg experiences are very familiar: they are typical of the negative effects that energy vampires and black occultists have on their victims.

The unbearably drab existence

Early on in the book, thinking about the delightful and exciting life that Scarron could offer her makes Meg’s life and future in England appear unendurably drab in comparison. It seems that there will be nothing for her back home but ordinary people and pastimes, ageing morons, a dull colourless existence with no beauty and no sense of romantic excitement and nothing to look forward to.

Many people have had a taste of this feeling, especially ambitious people of ability who feel trapped in a limiting environment and are desperate to escape from a godforsaken place full of deadbeat losers, but in Meg’s case there is something sinister at work.

Another look at Madeleine L’Engle’s Zachary Grey

I thought at the time that my article about Zachary Grey - or Gray - contained all the relevant material of interest; I have since found a few more significant points and incidents and noticed some intriguing connections.

The bad boys are a bad omen

In The Moon By Night, Vicky Austin and her family stay in a series of camping grounds as they travel across the USA. 

There are some unpleasant incidents during these stopovers. The first one happens just before Zachary Grey comes into Vicky’s life, and it could be interpreted as a bad omen.

Vicky feels edgy and rather scared when they arrive at one campsite, and these feelings are soon justified. As Vicky and her family are eating a meal, a car drives by very fast. It passes them again, and one of the occupants throws a glass bottle out of the window; it hits the side of the Austins' station wagon, shattering with a sound like a bomb going off. The car comes back again, and a gang of young ‘hoods’ gets out. One of them is wearing black trousers and a black leather jacket, a cheap copy of what Zachary Grey often wears.

Vicky’s father gets rid of them, but not long afterwards the Austins hear a vehicle approaching and are afraid that the gang of thugs is returning. This time, it is Zachary Grey and his parents. This is Zachary’s first appearance in Vicky’s life.

The black bear is a bad sign

I described Vicky’s symbolic encounter with a skunk and its connection with a letter from Zachary in the first article; this time around I noticed an incident involving a black bear.

Soon after meeting Zachary for the first time, Vicky walks around the campsite with him and hears his cynical and pessimistic philosophy of life. Later that evening, while walking back from the wash-room, she sees something dark behind her. At first she thinks it is one of the gang, but then realises that it is an animal, probably a bear. Her family don’t believe that she saw a bear.

Twice during the night they are wakened by a loud crash: something keeps knocking their ice-box over. In the morning they see large paw marks everywhere. The ranger tells them that it was a black bear and it was looking for food.

Cult members and the superiority syndrome

Yet another warning to people who are involved with cult members:

They consider themselves to be superior to anyone who is not part of their organisation.

It is standard practice for members of various groups to be told that they are superior to outsiders. This helps to enforce solidarity and institute an 'us and them' mentality.

This is something that acquaintances, friends and family of members of cults and cultlike organisations often have to deal with. All they can usually do is try to understand why the members believe it: trying to discuss the superiority syndrome or telling them a few home truths is useless if not counter-productive.

The Superiority Syndrome

Sometimes cult members are told that they are superior 'just because'; sometimes the stated reason is that they are part of an elite group of people who have left the mass of humanity behind and devoted their lives to a cause.

They are special because they have access to secret knowledge, knowledge that the herd would never be able to deserve, understand or make use of.

Sometimes members are told that they are superior because of their godliness and righteousness, which makes them the only people who will be saved from Hell. Everyone else is a lost soul.

Perhaps they think that they are superior because of what they sacrifice and what they endure.

It may also be that they are told that outsiders are inferior, tainted and unenlightened; outsiders live in the outer darkness while members reside in the inner light. The members have gone where the under-privileged outsiders are unable, unwilling and unworthy to follow.

Cults, occultists and Stella Gibbons: Part I

I have both learned about and been reminded of many things since I produced the article about white and black magic in the books of Stella Gibbons. 

While re-reading her biography recently, I saw something that prompted me to take another look at her novel The Shadow of a Sorcerer. I noticed a lot more relevant material this time around and made some new connections, so there is something to add to what I have previously written about this book.

First, what I saw that gave rise to this article:

Stella Gibbons and Aleister Crowley

When I first read Out of the Woodshed by Reggie Oliver, I was mainly interested in the details of Stella Gibbons’s early life. Much of the other information didn’t register, and I overlooked two references to infamous people. This time around, their names jumped out at me. One was Adolf Hitler - his connection with Stella Gibbons has been described elsewhere - and the other was the occultist Aleister Crowley. 

Her nephew tells us that Stella Gibbons once saw Crowley outside the Café Royal in central London. I don’t know the date, but guess that it was in the 1930s. 

Her impression was unfavourable. When her nephew asked hopefully if this was because of Crowley’s air of supernatural malignancy, she said no, what repelled her was that he had the look of a man who was desperately trying to attract attention. 

This is spot on. Such people have forfeited their inner sources of sustenance and are often disconnected and empty, so they need to live off others to fill the void. They may be prisoners and hostages too, desperate for someone or something to save them. 

After reading about this encounter, I remembered Esmé Scarron, the evil occultist in The Shadow of a Sorcerer, and wondered whether Stella Gibbons had used Crowley as the inspiration for this character. Her book was published in 1955, so there were many years after the sighting in which she could have talked to people and done some research.

Whatever the source, Esmé Scarron is a person of great interest.  

Cult members and the attack-dog syndrome

Here is yet another warning about what can happen when dealing with cult members.

They may automatically attack, with varying levels of viciousness, people who say or do something unacceptable to them, their ideology or their organisation. They may behave like attack dogs, sometimes just growling or snapping at people and sometimes going straight for the jugular.

I have already written about the phenomenon known as the attack-dog syndrome in this article, but want to add something to my original ideas and go into the topic more deeply and in greater detail.

Games, tricks and techniques

When cult members don’t want to talk about something or listen to what people are trying to tell them, they will use one or more of the standard techniques in their repertoire.

It is all automatic, and the goal is to silence people.

For example, cult members often avoid people who ask awkward questions and even cut off contact completely; they immediately change the subject when someone raises an unwelcome issue, ignoring what was said and talking very quickly about something else; they use robotic slogans and repeat official propaganda instead of having a real discussion; they use denial and dismissal to close the subject.

I have experienced all this for myself: “I am very busy”; “We must make sacrifices for the cause”; “They are lying”; “He is a traitor”; “You shouldn’t take any notice of these rumours” and much more of the same.

The use of these techniques demonstrates what sort of person the recipient is dealing with. An uncontrolled, on-the-level decent human being does not behave like this; people who habitually play these games may be prisoners and hostages. And what does the need to play them say about the cause and people that are being promoted and defended?