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.

Cults, occultists and Stella Gibbons: Part VI

This is yet another article in the series inspired by Stella Gibbons’s novel The Shadow of a Sorcerer.

Even though this book has already generated a lot of material, there are still a few more connections to be made, a few more ideas to be explored and a few more familiar scenarios to be described.

Esmé Scarron: energy vampire

It is not just Scarron’s victims who become cold, pale, tired and drained.

Stella Gibbons tells us that Scarron becomes cold and pale after expending energy cursing the group of young soldiers who made fun of him. Just like Helen Penclosa in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story The Parasite, he has temporarily used up all his resources.

He soon recovers and returns to normal after holding Meg’s hand for a short time.

He has to live off other people: no wonder he cannot bear to be alone; no wonder he fills his house with ‘friends’ and followers. Perhaps the extra work this involves is why his subordinates always look sulky!

Providential interventions

The above reference to Conan Doyle’s story has reminded me of another connection:

The anonymous traveller who delays Esmé Scarron reminds me of the talkative vicar in The Parasite who makes Agatha late for her meeting with Austin Gilroy.

She thought that the vicar would never go, but he is her unwitting saviour: by preventing her from going to Gilroy, he saves her from having acid thrown over her. His intervention was providential.

Rafael Sabatini: equality is a by-product of envy

I recently came across a quotation from one of Rafael Sabatini’s historical novels that is very relevant today:

“The idea of equality is a by-product of the sentiment of envy. Since it must always prove beyond human power to raise the inferior mass to a superior stratum, apostles of equality must ever be inferiors seeking to reduce their betters to their level. It follows that a nation that once admits this doctrine of equality will be dragged by it to the level, moral, intellectual and political, of its most worthless class.”

- From Scaramouche the King-Maker by Rafael Sabatini

This quotation is sometimes said to come from Scaramouche: a Romance of the French Revolution, but it comes from the sequel. The two books were published in 1921 and 1931.

Rafael Sabatini, who died in 1950 so never lived to see what life in the 21st century is like, got it right. What he said about the lowest people trying to drag everyone down to the lowest level is very true. It is getting worse and worse.

Cults, occultists and Stella Gibbons: Part V

Four articles so far; what more can there be to say about Stella Gibbons’s novel The Shadow of a Sorcerer?

One element of particular interest is something I think of as the big anomaly, where people who seem to have everything behave as if they have nothing. They are the exact opposite on the inside of what they appear to be on the outside. They are a combination of glamorous image and empty desperation.

I have some ideas to explore about this phenomenon.

Only one thing to live for

I said in a previous article that it is perfectly natural for some people to feel that there is nothing for them but a life of unbearable drabness. Their lives may indeed be very restricted, and there may be little hope of any improvement in the future.

I also gave examples of cases where this feeling was not natural and not based on reality: it was induced by an unscrupulous black magic practitioner.

The feeling some people have that there is only one thing to live for and that if they lose it or don’t get it they will be destroyed is also understandable in some, perhaps extreme, cases. The last ship might really have sailed or be about to sail. Sometimes one chance is all we ever get. Some people may be devastated because they know very well that they could have made the world a better place for many others if they had only got what they wanted.

However, it is very strange when people with many options, people such as Madeleine L’Engle’s Zachary Grey and Stella Gibbons’s Esmé Scarron, feel this way and behave like desperate predators who have pounced and missed, howling in rage and disappointment because now they will starve to death.

What is going on here? We can only speculate.

Cults: they are all in on it

There is an important lesson to be learned and borne in mind when dealing with cults. This lesson can be applied to other areas too.

The lesson is, they are all in on it!

An example of what I mean comes from a horror film that I saw on TV ages ago. It is a good illustration of the point I want to make:

Some campers witnessed a sinister satanic ceremony in the woods late one night - people dancing round a bonfire, maybe a sacrifice, that sort of thing. They reported it to the local authorities - sheriff, police, the church - and were told that it would be looked into and taken care of.

Nothing was done, because, as the campers found to their increasing horror, they were all in on it. It was no good reporting people to authority figures, because everyone in the neighbourhood was a member of a satanic cult!

Not only that, it was dangerous to let them know that their activities had been discovered. Behaving like a good citizen resulted in retaliation.

Common goals

We may naïvely think that reporting bad behaviour to someone’s colleagues or senior manager or whatever will have good results, but if a cult or group of people with the same agenda is involved, nothing will be done.

I am involved in something like this at the moment. My neighbours and I sent a formal letter of complaint about someone we are being forced to interact with to the very senior bureaucrat who is in overall charge of the operation. Some of my neighbours actually expected our letter to be taken seriously; I knew better.

We got a patronising, dismissive response. Of course we did. 

These people are not interested in justice and establishing the truth. They don’t care about the bad effects they are having on us. They probably condoned or even encouraged the bad behaviour. These people are all working together towards the same goal.

We supplied evidence to support our claims, but it was ignored or explained away. Not only that, but the accused man made some counter-claims against one of us in revenge from being reported. They were all lies of course.

We let them know that we are on to them, and we are paying for it.

We have responded, but I doubt whether much will come of it. 

It was much the same when I was dealing with some cult members. As I found out the hard way, it was useless to report the bad behaviour of some to any of the others and expect them to do something about it. I was either ignored or attacked. They were all in on it.

Avoiding disappointment

Knowing about this may help to prevent much frustration and disappointment. It will stop people from expecting much in the way of results.

I remember a time when I blamed myself for not being able to get through to people. I thought that I had not explained myself well enough. I later realised that I was up against a wall; the lack of understanding was deliberate on their part.

So if there are no satisfactory results after reporting or complaining about something, it will not be because the case was not made well but because they are all in on it.

Cults, occultists and Stella Gibbons: Part IV

This article covers more elements that Stella Gibbons’s sorcerer Esmé Scarron and Madeleine L’Engle’s Zachary Grey have in common and goes into more detail about the final betrayal and showdown.

Zachary Grey, Esmé Scarron and the big anomaly

These two people are very different when it comes to attributes such as age, generation, nationality, background and lifestyle yet they both have the power to remotely influence people, they both have a similar bad effect on the girls they target and they both behave in much the same way when faced with the loss of the girl. Once again, the similarities are uncanny.

I described a big anomaly in Zachary Grey’s life here. Sometimes his glamorous image disappears and he becomes lost and frightened.

Scarron is much the same. He begins by appearing mysterious, glamorous and charming, then he is shown to be sinister and malevolent and finally he is seen as empty and pitiable.

Just as Zachary tells Vicky Austin that she is all that stands between him and chaos and she is his reason to live, Scarron begs Meg Lambert to help him and says that she is his only hope.

Describing this anomaly and making connections is much easier than finding answers to the questions it raises:

If they are so superior and their lives are so marvellous, why are they so desperate, why do they stake everything on one outcome and why are they destroyed when they lose?

I have had some ideas about this, which will appear in the next and final article in this series.