Cults and the cutting of personal connections: Part II

The previous article described in general terms the cutting of personal connections by cult members. 

This specific example, which speaks for itself, comes from an ex-member of a religious cult:

“When my sister got married I was not allowed to go to the wedding. My biological family did not matter anymore; it was all merged into a greater unity. Secretly I thought it was terrible not to be able to attend the wedding. I found out later that my sister had also been deeply wounded by my absence.

It was even worse when my grandmother died. On her deathbed, she had specially asked for me. But Lella, who was  to bring me there, delayed everything so long that, when we eventually reached the hospital, my grandmother had already passed away. Other family members had been there on time—only I was too late. I felt an intense anger and pain inside. But I immediately knew to put a smile on my face, because my feelings did not matter. I knew that, didn’t I?”

https://web.archive.org/web/20200618084714/https://www.icsahome.com/articles/i-really-believed-that-this-way-of-living-was-right-goudsmit-it-2-3

'Lella' obviously delayed everything deliberately. Subtle sabotage and undermining are common practices in cults.

I said this on the old forum:

“It is a very sad subject. The members who cut connections with their families might have a terrible awakening one day when they realise how much suffering they have caused and that it was all for nothing.”

I might add that it is just as excruciatingly painful when they realise how much of the suffering that they have endured was all for nothing.

Cults and the cutting of personal connections: Part I

Another member of the old Conservative Conspiracy Forum highlighted a feature that is often found in cults when she said this: 

“Personal loyalty and love must be sacrificed for 'the cause'.”

This is very true. Such sacrifices are standard practice in many sinister organisations. 

The article about the inversion of values in cult members contains some examples of people ignoring their personal responsibilities in favour of working for the cause; it is even worse when cult members cut their personal connections altogether. I have seen some examples and been on the receiving end of this myself. Many more examples can be found online, including admissions from ex-members. 

This article contains more recycled material from my posts on the old forum.

Why do cult members cut off contact with family and friends?
“So why would a cult member cut all contact with you? There are several possible reasons. We know that a non-member might be dropped for rocking the boat by saying the wrong thing, criticising the organisation, the lifestyle or the leader or asking awkward questions. This is unforgivable in their eyes.”

This applies to individuals who question various aspects of the organisation rather than a member's entire network of connections; it is what happened to me when I asked about some disturbing information I had read.

“They may be telling you indirectly that they have better, higher, more important things to do than socialise with an unbeliever. 

Another look at Beverley Nichols's witch Miss Smith

Miss Smith, the cruel and evil witch with a very deceptive appearance, is a character in Beverley Nichols's Woodland Trilogy and its sequel. She first appeared on here in the article about three fictional modern-day witches and has been referred to in a few other articles. 

I read the four books one last time before donating them, and I found some more material to comment on. 

The Tree That Sat Down (1945), The Stream That Stood Still (1948), The Mountain of Magic (1950) and The Wickedest Witch in the World (1971) are intended for readers of 9 years and upwards. The younger readers will concentrate on the story and enjoy reading about the talking animals and the adventures of the children; I am interested in the incidental references to evil and the characteristics of witches. 

I would not have noticed such things when I first read the stories as I was very young at the time, but now they are the main attraction. They provide yet more independent support for ideas mentioned in many other articles.

Good and evil
The Tree That Sat Down, the first book of the Woodland Trilogy, has something to say about good and evil:

“Evil is a very powerful force; there is only one force more powerful, which is Good. Evil is infectious; it spreads itself far and wide. If there is anything evil at large, all the other evil things know it by instinct; they rejoice and grow strong.”

“Miss Smith shivered and felt quite sick; real goodness always had that effect on her.”

Goodness and evil often do attract like and repel their opposite.

“Miss Smith...felt somebody coming, somebody very good, somebody so good that he might do her a lot of harm. She must go quickly, before it was too late.”

Miss Smith is very wary of anyone who isn't evil. 

Some characteristics of witches
Witches dislike  inquisitive people; they live in fear that their crimes and their deficiencies and differences from normal people will be exposed. They are always on the alert for threats. 

They can sometimes get themselves off the hook by improvising cover stories and casting spells to distract and silence people, but they are not always able to raise the necessary power and they just dig themselves in deeper in the long run.

Jean Rhys and her witchlike personality

Just as psychological black magic is a major topic in this blog, so are witches, fictional or otherwise, unconscious or otherwise.

Carole Angier's biography Jean Rhys: Life and Work, which is generating a whole string of articles, contains material that suggests that Jean Rhys was witchlike in many ways. This material includes the devastating effect that she had on people close to her and her attitude, behaviour and experiences throughout her life. 

It was interesting to learn that in later years she became completely bent over, like an old witch in a fairytale.

This picture makes her look rather sinister:

A witch for a neighbour
Jean Rhys said herself that her neighbours in Holt in Norfolk called her crazy and a witch, and that her neighbours in the Devon village of Cheriton Fitzpaine also called her a witch. She said that one of these neighbours was a witch herself, and that there was black magic in the village!

The evil witch in action
Carole Angier tells us that in later life Jean Rhys had dreadful moods in which she became sinister, witchlike and cruel. As mentioned in the article about Diana Wynne Jones's evil witch Aunt Maria, in one of these episodes Jean terrified her nurse/assistant by locking the door to prevent escape. Carole Angier uses an interesting expression when recounting this incident:

“Janet had 'never been so frightened', 'she'd never wanted to get out of anywhere more'. As though by black magic, Jean had transferred her own worst feelings of terror and entrapment to another person. She had made someone suffer like her.” 

Cults and the inversion of values

This article contains two examples of people who neglected or abandoned personal responsibilities in favour of working for the cause. Both cases involve the same, Catholicism-based, cult. 

The material is based on posts on the old Conservative Conspiracy Forum; it consists of extracts that I found online and comments that I made at the time together with a few afterthoughts.

Abandoning the sick and dying
“...I slowly realized that behavior opposite to my natural self was the most rewarded....When I as a devoted physician would leave my duties for a weekend, to cook for 80 people on a weekend meeting, that seemed to be the ultimate proof of my trust in the voice of Jesus in our midst. 

When I left a dear person who was dying and I had promised to assist, to help out practically in the movement and that person died when I was absent, that was the proof of my love for the forsaken Jesus.”

This is very horrific indeed, all the more as Christians are enjoined to heal the sick and comfort the dying.  Where are the Christian values of love and compassion here? 

The worst aspect is that not only are members encouraged or ordered to perform such actions, they are commended for it. They are told that it shows how superior and committed they are; it really shows how far under the evil influences they are. 

Neglecting children 
“We missed our son's confirmation, left a teenager for 3 weeks alone while we went to school in Rome because we were told it was the will of God. We missed so many family events and were told that 'we had to leave the family in order to follow God. We would find them again in Heaven.'”

This is typical of many cults. It confirms what I have seen and experienced for myself: “We must make sacrifices.”

May Sinclair, Jean Rhys, L. M. Montgomery and the Brontës

After producing some articles about May Sinclair's novella The Flaw in the Crystal, I decided to investigate her background in the hope of finding some more material of interest. 

I found some very familiar biographical elements and other connections when reading about her life. I mentioned a blueprint for writers in an article in the Context and the Total Picture series; if I created a template for writers of interest, May Sinclair would tick many of the boxes.

I have seen, for example, the Celtic Connection in the biographies of many novelists, so it was no surprise to learn that May Sinclair had an Irish mother and a Scottish father.

It also came as no surprise when I found that she had some other things in common with Jean Rhys and L. M. Montgomery. May Sinclair too was interested in and inspired by the Brontës, whose works she may have first encountered in her father's private library rather than the local public library.

May Sinclair and Jean Rhys
May Sinclair was a very different person from Jean Rhys, but they had a few things in common:

They both wrote under assumed names. 

Both novelists lived for a while in Devon.

They both read voraciously as girls, partly for escape, and both later wrote Brontë-inspired books. 

They both had unsympathetic mothers who tried to force them to conform to the norm. They had some things to say about their childhood experiences that sound uncannily similar. 

Just as Jean Rhys's work is mostly autobiographical, so are some of May Sinclair's novels, Mary Olivier in particular. Mary Olivier's mother wants her to behave like a 'normal' girl:

“...you should try and behave a little more like other people.”

"You were different," she said. "You weren’t like any of the others. I was afraid of you.”

Cults and the restricted reading scenario

 A distressing article that I came across recently reminded me of yet another feature that is often found in cults of all kinds. 

This is the discouragement or even prohibition of the reading of unauthorised material. In some extreme cases, members are allowed to read only a few 'bibles' or the writings of the founder. 

By imposing such rules and practices, cult leaders make themselves into Sole Suppliers of information.

Censorship of a few controversial works is one thing; not permitting members to read anything much apart from the organisation's propaganda and other material that the cult is based on, generates, approves of, endorses and promotes is something else. It is criminal when any information Not Invented Here is banned because it is considered to be useless, irrelevant, distracting, dangerous or corrupting. 

Discouraged from reading literature

First, some past coverage. This is from one of my cult-related posts on  the old CC Forum:

This extract from an old blog by an ex-member is very upsetting:

“When I was a young girl, I was very interested in literature and poetry and I loved reading everything by many different authors, which, over time, gave me a lot in terms of maturation and culture. I wanted to talk a lot about this and I remember when, at one of my first meetings with pre-GEN (when I did not know to be a pre-GEN), I told that I read one of these books. I think it was a text by Erich Fromm. 

The girl who was the "white" smiled, almost casually, then dropped the subject and immediately turned to another girl. Over time, I realized that this was the way they were taking control of our interests. They encouraged us to read books by Chiara and the other members of the movement, while they subtly discouraged all the others.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920023204/http://blogfocolare.blogspot.com/

This has been translated from Italian, but the meaning is very clear. This is evil, just like their insistence that an enquiring mind is a handicap. 

Luckily the author got out at the age of 24, so there was plenty of time for her to make a life for herself in the real world and catch up with her reading.

Changing or dropping the subject and ignoring what was said are very familiar techniques.