Lucy M. Boston, her birthday and her memoirs

The English novelist Lucy M. Boston, who is often known as L. M. Boston, was born on December 10th 1892. She was over 60 when her first book was published, and she lived to the age of 97.

She is of interest to me mainly because of her book An Enemy at Green Knowe. The enemy in the title is the scholar, black magician and demon-possessed witch Dr. Melanie Powers, who has been mentioned in passing in a few articles. This is the only book in which Lucy M. Boston writes at length about the battle between good and evil.

There is little in Lucy M. Boston’s life to explain where Melanie Powers and her very familiar characteristics and behaviour came from; unlike Nicholas Stuart Gray’s and Diana Wynne Jones’s witches, she was not based on the author’s mother: Lucy M. Boston’s mother was unhappy and neglectful, but not cruel and evil.

However, the magical house Green Knowe, whose name appears in the titles of her series of children’s fantasy books, is taken directly from Manor House, which was built by the Normans around the year 1130 and was her home for almost 50 years.

Manor House is still in the Boston family and is now open to the public. Maybe I will go to see it some time.

Upton Sinclair and the difficulty in getting through to people

The starting point for this article is the well-known proposition from the American novelist Upton Sinclair:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

While true up to a point, this seems both incomplete and partly off the mark.

In some cases there is a lot more than a salary at stake, and it may be less a matter of a man’s not understanding something than of his understanding it only too well but refusing to accept it or admit that he knows it.

If someone did accept or admit that they know and understand an inconvenient truth, they might be expected or forced to do something about it. This might entail taking a stand; it might mean the loss of their existing role and plan of action; it might mean the loss of acceptance, credibility, any chance of promotion and even their professional reputation.

Ignorance really is bliss in many cases.

Cult leaders and Call No Man Master

Author and journalist Joyce Collin-Smith’s autobiographical book Call No Man Master is a good source of information about some specific cult leaders.

It may be seen as rather superficial and subjective, but it is still useful for both educating people and confirming what they already suspect or know.

Although her main interests and involvements were in the areas of consciousness raising practices, spiritual development movements, esoteric sects and Eastern religions, much of what she has to say can be applied to cults and cult leaders of any kind.

I am particularly interested in Joyce Collin-Smith’s account of her dealings with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Transcendental Meditation man who was spiritual guru to the Beatles. I can see some very familiar syndromes and connections in this case.

Before we get to the Maharishi, here are some commentaries and ideas inspired by other material of interest in this book:

Call No Man Master

Joyce Collin-Smith chose this title after having spent much of her very long life investigating groups and cults and in the company of various messiahs, spiritual teachers and gurus.

She became disillusioned with most of them, and with good reason. 

Many were found to be hypocritical, self-indulgent and a danger to their followers.

A few thoughts about cult leaders

As I have said before, there is a huge amount of information available both online and in books about cults, cult members and cult leaders. Although I can’t add very much to it, I can certainly confirm some of it from personal experience; I can also give my take on some aspects, provide supporting material and make some connections.

After producing some articles about cult members, I now have a few things to say about cult leaders.

The godlike cult leader

No matter what type or size of cult is being investigated, religious, political, lifestyle or other, it will have many features in common with other cults.

Similarly, the leader will have attributes in common with most other cult leaders, no matter what their nationality or ideology is.

The most significant of these is the messiah complex.

Only they can save us all; they must be worshipped and obeyed without question. They expect to be treated with respect and even reverence as great spiritual masters, heroes who are going to save the world or model examples of what highly-evolved people should be, depending on what sort of cult they are leaders of.

They may claim a direct connection to and do everything using the authority of some god.

Georgette Heyer and Stella Gibbons: some coincidences

For me, even the best of Georgette Heyer’s books are, or rather were, mere escape material and comfort reading. I have not read any of them for a very long time as they have lost much of their earlier appeal. I don’t remember seeing anything in any of them that would be relevant to the themes of this blog.

Stella Gibbons’s novels are primarily a source of material for articles about unseen influences: there are references to Stella Gibbons and her books in a few articles on here.

These two novelists have more elements of their lives in common than I would have expected, considering how very different their novels are. I looked at the major similarities and differences in their lives and personalities to see if I could see any patterns and detect any unseen influences at work. Although I found much fascinating and informative material, most of it is not very relevant to this blog. I did find a few interesting coincidences however. 

It is customary to leave the best till last, but I want to start with the most bizarre and unexpected material that I found while researching the two authors:

Novels and the Nazis
It is quite a coincidence that the names of both writers were known to the Nazi regime - for very different reasons.

Georgette Heyer had some of her books banned in Nazi Germany, whereas one of Stella Gibbons’s was translated into German and presented to Adolf Hitler!

Cults and the sole supplier syndrome

This article contains a few thoughts about a feature of many cults and cult-like organisations, a feature that I think of as the sole supplier syndrome.

Cult leaders and members may push the message that they and their organisation are the sole source of something - for example, information, hope for the future, democracy for an oppressed nation or even salvation. You will never get what you want without their help; only they can inform you about and explain something; only they have the answers; they are the elite and nothing and no one else is any good to you.

It is best to beware of anyone who tries to attract your interest and recruit you by playing the sole supplier game. You can expect to hear a lot of this sort of thing:

“We are your only hope.”  “We are the only ones who can tell you what is really going on.” “Without us, the evil regime will never be overthrown.” “When civilisation collapses, you will die unless you join us now and learn survival skills.”

It is important to understand that this is what they all say. It is a case of same game, different players.

If you buy their messages, they may try to get you to support or even commit everything that you have to their cause or movement.

Cults and their representatives want your money; they want to fool, manipulate and intimidate you. If you seem suitable for membership, they will want to draw you in and control you, your life and your thoughts. They will want you to reply on them for everything and depend on them alone.

In order to avoid being taken advantage of, it is essential to research everything and to expose the implied messages, subject them to reality testing and determine what the ulterior motives and hidden agenda are.

Dealing with cult members: some beneficial by-products

Some of the warnings I have been giving about what to expect when dealing with cult members and cult-like organisations apply to and can be useful for dealing with other, often very different, people and organisations.

There may not be a cult in the case, but some people speak and behave in similar ways to cult members.

For example, I have recently encountered some very familiar elements while engaged in a war with my local council:

Lying and hypocrisy, cover stories, tricking people, treating people as if they were theirs to command, denying allegations, dismissing complaints, ignoring people’s views and points they make, inviting people to meetings under false pretences, harassing people, talking like script-ridden robots, leaving people stranded ... I have seen it all before: same game, different players!

It was devastating the first time around, but the work I did afterwards has definitely helped me to cope better with the current, potentially devastating, situation.

Understanding what I am up against and knowing what to expect has helped me to stay on top of things and even get ahead of the game.