Cults and the cutting of personal connections: Part IV

As mentioned in Part III, the cutting of personal connections between cult members and non-members works both ways: it is not always the members who do the dropping.  

This breaking of bonds can cause problems and dilemmas no matter which side does it. This article covers a few more aspects of this painful subject.

Problems on the cult side
The most obvious problem here is that cult members who are forbidden from associating with their families and friends will not be able to get financial or other forms of support for the cause or movement from them.

One way round this is for the cult to arrange supervised phone calls or meetings. Selected members are told what to say and ask for, and another member listens in or is present to ensure that they follow instructions and stick to the script. This may work, at least for a while, if the family wants contact on any terms.

A compromise solution is to apply the strictest rules and the tightest controls only to hard-core members, the upper levels or the inner circle, with less-dedicated members, supporters and other 'inferiors' free to associate with anyone they want to.

Public relations are another problem. I used to wonder why a particular cult-like organisation would order many of its senior members to stop seeing their families when this would entail making enemies out of former friends, give ammunition to opponents and result in bad publicity that might alienate potential supporters and damage the cause. 

One tactic cults use here is denial. They may insist for example that it isn't true that members are forced to cut all outside relationships. Such blatant lying may work for a while – I fell for some of it myself in the early days – but people now have access to social media, defectors' stories and the Internet so are more educated and less likely to be fooled.

Cults and the cutting of personal connections: Part III

The previous article gives examples of members of cult-like organisations who were ordered to cut their personal connections so that they could dedicate themselves to the cause. There is another angle to broken relationships between members and non-members: sometimes it is the non-members who cut the ties. They may feel that enough is enough when it comes to being treated badly; they may do it to protect themselves. 

From another old post of mine:

“There is another side to this. It could be that it is the family and friends who do the avoiding – or dropping. They may come to hate the pressure to accept the ideology, the recruitment attempts, the lectures and the preaching; they may get tired of being pestered for money while at the same time being told how inferior they are. There may be nothing in in for them.”

They may also not appreciate being frequently stood up or let down by unreliable people: cult members are not their own bosses and are often given errands or sent away somewhere with little notice. 

Someone who has been involved with a cult member may come to understand that they have been cheated, lied to and made a fool of: misrepresentation is common cult practice.

They may feel resentful when they realise that they have been exploited and angry when they discover that they have been tricked and used. For example, they may have been invited somewhere under false pretences just to get the numbers up and make it look as though there are many supporters. 

The cult members know very well that people wouldn't go if they knew the true purpose of and ulterior motive behind an invitation, so they bait the hook with something attractive.

I remember an occasion when people were lured to a venue by the prospect of hearing good music; they got political speeches instead! Some of them got up and walked out in disgust.  

Just as some members decide to leave a cult after a last straw moment, some people decide to stop seeing their member friends after experiencing the final straw. 

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. 

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.”

Something about Walter de la Mare's Return

I like WaIter de la Mare's children's stories and poems very much indeed. I feel much the same about them as I do about the works of Eleanor Farjeon and Nicholas Stuart Gray. 

As is the case with many other poets and writers I like, nothing relevant about WaIter de la Mare came to mind when I was mining the past for people, books and other material of interest. However, I recently learned that he wrote a supernatural novel called The Return, a horror story about possession of the living by the dead that was first published in 1910. I am not a great reader of ghost and horror stories, but this one seemed worth investigating. 

I found a copy and soon saw that while The Return is not a particularly good read, it does contain a small amount of material of interest. There are some elements in it that remind me of May Sinclair's Flaw in the Crystal, and there are a few points and connections that inspire commentary. The Return rambles a bit and the story fades away; the quotable material comes mostly from the early chapters. 

The main character is called Arthur Lawford, who is a rather dull and conventional man. He is the object of psychic possession with its associated horrors.

How the horror starts

Arthur Lawford has been suffering from ongoing ill-health. He has taken to solitary ramblings because he senses that his wife Sheila has been finding his presence irksome and would welcome his absence from the house.

He wanders around in a churchyard and reads some of the inscriptions on the headstones. An unusual grave attracts his attention; the inscription is almost illegible but he tries to decode it. The grave appears to contain the remains of a French stranger called Nicholas Sabathier who died by his own hand in 1739. He kneels down to get a closer look; his heart starts to beat in an unusual way; he feels ill and weak. He decides to go home but falls asleep instead.

Psychic powers in May Sinclair's Flaw in the Crystal: Part II

Agatha Verrall, the main character in May Sinclair's novella The Flaw in the Crystal, discovers that she has a psychic gift: she can improve the mental states of both herself and other people by tapping into an internal power source. 

As often happens, this activity starts well but ends badly. As we have seen from what happens to Austin Gilroy in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Parasite, even actions taken with good intentions sometimes backfire on the originator. 

Rodney's Lanyon's recovery

The first recipient of Agatha's healing attempts is her friend Rodney Lanyon. He is in a terrible state because of the effect his disturbed wife Bella has on him. Not only does he improve out of all recognition after Agatha's secret interventions, Bella incidentally becomes much better too.

Agatha is delighted to hear from Rodney about this unexpected development:

“It was another instance of the astounding and mysterious way it worked. She must have got at Bella somehow in getting at him. She saw now no end to the possibilities of the thing. There wasn't anything so wonderful in making him what, after all, he was; but if...Bella...had been, even for a week, a perfect angel, it had made her what she was not and never had been.“

The future may seem bright, but what looks like the start of something big at the time often turns out to have been as good as it gets. This was the high point in Agatha Verrall's career as a healer.

The arrival of some more friends

Agatha Verrall has come to live in a remote place, one that Rodney can easily get to, so that she can concentrate on using her gift to heal him to the exclusion of everything else. 

Agatha has told two of her friends, the Powells, that she moved to the area for her health. What a tangled web we weave...