A few points about helping cult leavers

This is the fourth and final article inspired by exit-counsellor Steven Hassan's thought-provoking book Combating Cult Mind Control, his illuminating 'Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults'. 

The first article covers some of the interesting things that Steve Hassan has to say about how cults recruit people. 

The second article contains disturbing information about life inside cults.

The third article features a few of the useful points that he makes in connection with getting people out of cults.

I now want to highlight a few of his ideas about helping people who have left a cult. I have already produced an article about life after leaving a cult, but Steve Hassan's book has inspired some more commentary. 

Would-be helpers need to understand what they are up against and dealing with; Steve Hassan has some distressing and depressing information about this. 

Helpers also need to learn what to do about it; the book has some useful and encouraging suggestions about what works best when helping cult leavers rediscover and live from their real selves, recover from the abuse they have endured and make new, productive lives for themselves.

The worst comes first
Steve Hassan has a lot to say about the many and severe problems faced by cult leavers, the biggest of which is loss of identity. They may also be suffering from arrested development, they may behave in an inappropriately dependent way, their self-esteem may have been destroyed, their critical faculties may be atrophied, they may have memory loss and find it difficult to concentrate, they may have trouble making decisions and they may have serious adjustment problems.

They may also be living in fear of some kind of retaliation by the cult.

Rudyard Kipling and some green connections

Posts about Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle are very popular, so I am always looking for inspiration for more articles. 

After writing about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and the colour green, I decided to investigate occurrences of this colour in the life and works of Rudyard Kipling. 

I didn't find anything amazing, but some connections are worth mentioning. The people and places that Kipling has in common with Conan Doyle are particularly interesting.

Roger Lancelyn Green
Writer Roger Lancelyn Green (1918 – 1987) was the father of Richard Lancelyn Green, the previously mentioned authority on Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. He was editor of the Kipling Journal and wrote and edited books about Kipling: 

The school in Green Road
When Rudyard Kipling was staying in the House of Desolation in Southsea, he attended what he called 'a terrible little day-school'. 

Roger Lancelyn Green identified the school as Hope House in  Green Road, the same road that Conan Doyle's house stood opposite. Conan Doyle's younger brother Innes later came to live at this house and became a pupil at Hope House school. 

The Green, Rottingdean
Conan Doyle lived in Bush Villas, Elm Grove, Southsea; Rudyard Kipling stayed with his family at The Elms, The Green, Rottingdean near Brighton for a few years. The large garden and grounds of this house have been preserved, and as Kipling Gardens are now open to the public:

Greenhow Hill

Greenhow Hill is a village in North Yorkshire.

Rudyard Kipling's short story On Greenhow Hill was first published in Harper’s Magazine in 1890. It also appeared in Life's Handicap, a collection of Kipling's stories. 

What makes the story of additional interest is that Conan Doyle's editor at the Strand Magazine was Herbert Greenhough Smith; by coincidence the name Greenhough is derived from Greenhow Hill.

A few workplace memories with a wider application

A few comments that were made by colleagues in companies I worked for many years ago suddenly surfaced in my mind recently and inspired an article. At the time, I just accepted the remarks at face value; now, they seem more significant and to have a wider application. 

Settling for far too little
I remember a time when a new IT manager was taken on. One of his first tasks was to go round to each workstation in turn and speed it up.

The boss said that he had no idea what had been done, but he wanted everyone to know how amazed and delighted he was with his workstation's performance after the upgrade. 

The IT man told me that he was amazed to see what the workstation users had been living with for a long time in terms of a very slow service. He said that he had seen similar situations in his previous job and couldn't believe what people had been putting up with until he arrived to sort things out.

I have often felt amazed for similar reasons myself, and in many different scenarios. How can some people put up with what they are getting? How can they settle for so little?  Do they not know how much better things could be? Probably not; Who having known the Diamond and all that.

Or maybe they are aware that what they have is of low quality, but assume that for them a better deal is unattainable.

It is always advisable to monitor what is out there and investigate the chances of moving on to something better. It is also a good idea to seek advice and assistance from someone more knowledgeable and experienced.

Seeing with new eyes
A memory that comes to mind in a similar connection is of a colleague who resisted wearing glasses for a long time - contact lenses were not an option for some reason. She finally bought some, and was amazed at how much clearer and stronger her vision was.

She told me that she wanted to cry when she realised how much better things could have been and how much she had been missing all this time.

Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and the colour green

While trawling through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's essay collection Through the Magic Door, I noticed that he mentions the colour green many times. 

This gave me the idea of looking for occurrences of this colour in Conan Doyle's life. I found more green connections than I was expecting, including some for Sherlock Holmes, and have summarised my findings here. The people, places and other items in the list may not seem particularly significant, but they certainly are interesting. 

Could it be more than just coincidence that some of Conan Doyle's work was probably inspired well before it started by someone called Green, was definitely documented long after after it ended by another person with the name of Green, and during the productivity period in the middle was edited by a man with Green in his name and published by a company with Green in its name?

Anna Katharine Green: the inspirer

Anna Katharine Green (1846 – 1935) was an American writer of pioneering detective fiction. She invented many standard features of the modern detective story; she has been called the mother of the detective novel. Her first, and best-selling, book The Leavenworth Case appeared around nine years before the first Sherlock Holmes story was published. She is believed to have inspired Conan Doyle, who was a fan of hers and corresponded with her.

Mystery writer Patricia Meredith has written and spoken about this connection:

Richard Lancelyn Green: the documenter
Richard Lancelyn Green (1953 - 2004) was considered to be the world's foremost scholar and leading authority on the topics of Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He collected much material and produced extensive notes for a three-volume biography of Conan Doyle, but died in mysterious circumstances before it was finished.

He collected and introduced some Sherlock Holmes tribute stories: 

A few points about getting people out of cults

This is the third article inspired by exit-counsellor Steven  Hassan's book Combating Cult Mind Control, his 'Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults'. 

After covering some of the interesting things that Steve Hassan has to say about how cults recruit people and his disturbing information about life inside cults, I now want to highlight a few of the useful points that he makes in connection with getting people out of cults.

I have already produced an article about the difficulties of leaving a cult, but Steve Hassan's book has inspired some more commentary.

Three ways to get out of a cult
Steve Hassan comes straight to the point here:

“People leave a group in three basic ways: they walk out, they get kicked out (often in a very “burned-out" condition, both psychologically and physically), or they get counseled out.”

This summary is spot on. In addition, perhaps some people who are temporarily out from under the influence and away from other members may just decide not to go back. This is similar to but not quite the same as walking out; it could be that they mentally defected a while back and just waited for the right opportunity to cut the connection! 

Incidentally, Steve Hassan says that 'walk-aways' are often members who have been able to maintain contact with people outside the destructive cult; he also says that walk-aways make up the majority of cult leavers.

Counselling out: newcomers versus old-timers
When it comes to counselling people out, it may at first seem likely that the easiest candidates are those who have been members for only a short time and the most difficult those who have committed many years of their lives to the cause. 

Steve Hassan supports this idea:

“If I am contacted within the first few months of a recruitment, the prognosis for a successful exit within a year is extremely good. On the other hand, if the person has been in the group for ten years when I am contacted, it might be quite some time before an intervention can be successfully attempted...” 

Acting unprofessionally and out of character revisited

A few examples of people causing damage by acting unprofessionally and out of character have been given in the past; the time has now come to go into this phenomenon in a little more detail. 

The multi-level approach to finding explanations article mentions some of the influences that might cause people who are normally professional and efficient to behave uncharacteristically and make serious mistakes; this article revisits the issue, expands on these influences and includes some supporting material from previous articles.

The cases of interest here are those that occur at the third level down, the dimension where unseen influences such as energy vampires, people with witch-like personalities, psychic crime and psychological black magic operate.

There are questions to ask and possibilities to eliminate at each level before descending to the one below; there are also some points to be made before starting the exercise.

The definition of the problem
It is important to understand that examples of people doing something wrong are worth investigating only where two elements appear together i.e. when someone acts both unprofessionally and out of character. After all, some people will act unprofessionally because this is their usual mode of operation; not only that, a few of these incompetents might act out of character by doing a good, professional job for once! Neither of these groups is relevant here.

Acceptable margin of error
People are not machines; they sometimes have off days. Occasional errors will be made and should be allowed for, but an investigation into the cause is called for when so much damage has been done that the mistake cannot be overlooked, excused or explained away.

This is where the multi-level approach comes in.

Level 1: the person and the job
On this, the top, level, it is best to work systematically through a list of the most obvious and likely explanations for a damaging, out of character action. The possibilities fall into two groups: one is of factors in the life of the person who made the mistake and the other of common and typical problems with the job.

Frances Hodgson Burnett and Isaac Asimov: feeling different and getting angry

The previous article about Frances Hodgson Burnett mentions the low return on investment in terms of the time and effort that I spent investigating her life and works and the small amount of article-inspiring material that I found.

Since then, I have followed up a few more leads and read a biography or two. I have found enough material for a few short articles, which just about makes the exercise worthwhile.

This article highlights some comments in Gretchen Gerzina's biography Frances Hodgson Burnett (2004) that remind me of material in the autobiography of a very different writer.

Feeling different
Frances Hodgson Burnett's sister Edith said something very significant about her:

“I always knew that my sister Frances was different, even when we were children, though, of course, at the time I could not have told you why...there was something about her that set her apart from other people.”

This applies to most of the other writes featured on here. Isaac Asimov for example said this in his autobiography In Memory Yet Green:

”I had begun to suspect that I was not as other children were even before I went to school. Once I was in school, there was no way in which I could avoid the knowledge.“

This is not the only element that Frances Hodgson Burnett had in common with Isaac Asimov.