Three cult-related exercises with a wider application

Steven Hassan's books Combating Cult Mind Control and Freedom of Mind contain much good advice about supporting and rehabilitating people who have escaped from destructive cults. People who want to help cult leavers and cult leavers who want to help themselves will find these books very useful.

I have mentioned some of Steve Hassan's suggestions in previous articles inspired by his books. Some of the techniques and practices that he promotes have a wider application: for example, people who have escaped from dysfunctional families - some of which can be very cultlike - and are trying to process the past and rehabilitate themselves may also find them worth trying. 

This article features and expands on three pieces of advice that are best followed in sequence: tell the story, rework the story and salvage as much as possible from the time spent in captivity. 

1) Telling the story
Steve Hassan says that cult leavers are stronger for being able to share their personal stories. He also says that the written word is a powerful medium of communication, and that writing the entire story down helps the writer to process and gain a better perspective on the experiences.

This is all very true, but the story-telling exercise may be very time consuming and it may be difficult to know where to start. 

This applies even more to people who are trying to come to terms with and move on from many years of neglect and ill-treatment at the hands of their families. People who are both cult leavers and members of dysfunctional families will have a lot of material to process.

A spreadsheet for topics and timelines provides a good structure and framework for the narrative, and using it to record key elements in someone's life may save time in the long run.

There are so many variables and different stories to tell that it is impossible to design a 'one size fits all' template. 

A good way to get the ball rolling is to set up column headings and sub-headings for basic, useful and important information. It is advisable to start with key items such as people, addresses, dates and milestones. Lists of elements such as food and clothes, schools and jobs, toys and pets, books and music, entertainment, outings and travel will help to fill out the picture of the past. Other categories could include accidents, illnesses and painful incidents such as a family breakup. Political events and news items that made a big impression may also be worth recording.

It is best to concentrate on one aspect at a time and follow it through in sequence over the years of dependency and captivity.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the poisonous old green book covers

When I first trawled through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's essay collection Through the Magic Door in search of article-inspiring material, I noticed that there were many references to the colour green.  After taking time out to create a whole string of articles about this colour using material from other sources, I returned to the Magic Door to have another look at the green items. 

Conan Doyle several times invites visitors to his library to make themselves comfortable on his old green settee while he talks them through his book collection, many volumes of which have green covers.

This may seem harmless enough, but I recently found some unexpected and alarming information: it is not just green shirts and green kirtles that have both good and bad aspects and associations, green book covers do too.

The good side of green book covers
Conan Doyle knows how just looking at the cover of an old book can trigger associations and trains of thought and bring back fond memories of what is inside.

He says this about the books in his library in general:

“There is not a tattered cover which does not bring its mellow memories to me.”

He says this about a book of short stories by Edgar Allen Poe:

“And all this didactic talk comes from looking at that old green cover of Poe.”

He calls his books his noble, silent comrades, his dear personal friends, and is very grateful for what they have done for him:

“...and so, at last, you can look, as I do now, at the old covers and love them for all that they have meant in the past.”

He is not the only one to feel this way; I felt very nostalgic after looking at an online image of the old green cover of the copy of Treasure Island that I once owned.

Conan Doyle has a lot to say about Sir Walter Scott and his works, which he thought very highly of. He makes several references to his collection of books by Scott; he mentions a line of olive-green volumes and the long green ranks of the Waverley novels. 

Here are a few early-edition volumes from the Waverley series:

More quotations from Dion Fortune's occult novels

I have found Dion Fortune's occult novels worth reading more for the occasional neat summaries and thought-provoking, commentary-inspiring remarks than for the plots and people and elements such as robes and rituals, magic and mystery, temples and ceremonies and the Old Gods. 

The quotations in this article come from The Goat-foot God (1936), in which there are descriptions of both occult and everyday activities. The contrast can be very amusing: people invoke the god Pan and fry sausages for example!

Some spot-on comments 

“An empty mind's as uncomfortable as an empty stomach.”

Some people's unsatisfied hunger for knowledge, for food for their minds, does indeed make them very unhappy. The article about the 'eat or buy books' dilemma is relevant here.

“You don’t know what you do want, but you do know what you don’t want.”

This is exactly how many dissatisfied people feel, and not just when  they have not got the right people to interact or share their lives with: it could apply to someone who is trying to find suitable work or the right place to live for example. They don't know what they want because they have never seen or experienced it, but they do know that whatever is currently available to them is not what they want.

The Goat-foot God describes how it feels when someone starts to get an idea of what it is that they have been wanting all this time:

“Doing your best to carry on on wrong lines till you feel you will burst, and then suddenly getting the clue that opens everything out to you.“

I know from experience how liberating it is when the answer finally comes and an escape route from a life that is all wrong opens up: “That's it! That's what I'll do! That's what I want!”  

Green shirts and green kirtles: some good and bad associations

Oscar Wilde's proposition that favouring the colour green is a sign of creativity in individuals but of moral laxity and decadence in nations has made me think of a few green items that have both positive and negative aspects and associations. 

Green shirts and green kirtles for example are worn by both good and bad people.

A few of John Buchan's books are relevant here, and so is one of C. S. Lewis's Narnian books.

Good and bad real-life Greenshirts
John Buchan's fictional Evallonian Greenshirts, who appear in The House of the Four Winds, were described earlier. 

There are some interesting connections here involving an unusual character called John Gordon Hargrave (1894 – 1982), who was an artist, a pagan cult leader, a Utopian thinker, a believer in both science and magic, and many other things. His life story is fascinating, but only a few elements are relevant here.

Hargrave was getting assignments to illustrate books by the age of 12, including some of John Buchan's works!

Hargrave founded various organisations for social change, including one called The Green Shirts. They were dedicated to smashing fascism and campaigning for a universal basic income in the UK.

They may also have been the inspiration for John Buchan's Greenshirts.

Rather ironically, Hargrave's anti-Fascist Greenshirts were balanced by the Irish Greenshirts, a small off-shoot of the Blueshirts, Ireland's largest fascism-inspired movement. Green was chosen because it was the colour of Irish nationalism.

John Hargrave and his militaristic Greenshirts:

Hargrave's Greenshirts are mentioned on his gravestone:

A few quotations from Dion Fortune's occult novels

In addition to her non-fiction books, the occultist Dion Fortune wrote five novels. While the stories themselves don't inspire commentary, some of the expressions and observations in these novels really stand out and are worth highlighting. 

This article contains a few propositions that particularly resonated when I first came across them.

Beggars can't be choosers

“...it does not do to be angry with life unless one has private means...”

From The Winged Bull (1935)

These wise words may be painful to read and difficult to accept, but they are very true. This may be a bitter pill to swallow, but the difference between operating from a position of weakness and operating from a position of strength is often a matter of financial independence. 

Some people just can't afford to have any feelings or views; they would make things worse for themselves and lose what little they have by challenging someone or something. 

People who have private means, money that is not dependent on the employment market or the whims of other people, are very fortunate: they don't need to put up with the hardships, ill-treatment and injustices that wage slaves and penniless people are forced to endure. 

They can afford to take a stand and fight for their cause.

Independence of mind is another great advantage

“People who value public opinion are at a very great disadvantage in dealing with people who don't.”

From The Sea Priestess (1938)

This proposition complements the one above.  It can also apply to people who overvalue the opinions of the people around them.

People who value public opinion can indeed be greatly handicapped when both dealing and competing with people who don't. 

People pleasers and others who care very much what people in general think of them are operating from a position of weakness. They may feel that they can't afford to get angry, say what they really think or do what they really want to do. Fear of negative reactions and manipulations such as criticism, disapproval, reproaches and rejection may hold them back and keep them in their place while people who don't care what others think of them forge ahead. 

People who are indifferent to public opinion operate from a position of strength. They have independent means – on the inside. They can afford to be straight with other people. They have the courage of their convictions; they take their own path through life, going where the other lot can't follow. 

Anyone who has both financial and psychological independence is very fortunate indeed.

“Intelligent people don't join cults”

Steven Hassan's informative and thought-provoking book Combating Cult Mind Control, his best-selling 'Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults', has inspired a series of posts. The final article,  A few points about helping cult leavers, mentions his books Releasing the Bonds and Freedom of Mind as additional resources for people seeking information about cults and how to get members out of them. 

These books, which were published after Combating Cult Mind Control, appeared from their online descriptions to be more of the same, with much repetition of key points, advice and useful information and more case histories; I assumed that I wouldn't find anything that I would want to comment on in them. 

I have since read through Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs, which is a revised and updated version of Releasing the Bonds, and I came across a small amount of material that I want to highlight.

This article features more of Steve Hassan's wise words on the subject of people who join cults. 

A misconception about intelligence
Freedom of Mind lists some common cult-related misconceptions and errant beliefs held by many people, including the idea that intelligent people do not join cults. 

While this conviction may have come from personal experience - it may be the result of having encountered people from the lower levels of certain religious cults for example – it definitely does not apply in all cases. As Steve Hassan tells us, intelligent people do join cults:

“Many people have a hard time believing that bright, talented people— often educated, and from good homes-—could fall under the control of a cult. They fail to realize that cults intentionally recruit smart people who will work tirelessly for the cause. Many of the former cult members I have met are exceptionally bright and well educated. They have active imaginations and creative minds. They have a capacity to focus their attention and concentrate. Most are idealistic and socially conscious. They want to make a positive contribution to the world.”

All this makes sense. Such people may also be recruited because they are a good advertisement for the cause and may attract others of their kind into the cult.

Oscar Wilde's interesting words about the colour green

The many occurrences of the colour green in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's essay collection Through the Magic Door  inspired an investigation into green references and connections in Conan Doyle's life and works.

I came across an interesting statement about the colour green by the poet and playwright Oscar Wilde along the way. His words have inspired yet another article about this colour. 

Oscar Wilde on the colour green 
As mentioned in the article about Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and the colour green, Oscar Wilde, who incidentally often wore a green carnation, wrote an essay called Pen, Pencil, And Poison - A Study In Green about an art critic who was a secret poisoner. 

The artist, author and suspected serial killer in question was Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, who was mentioned by Conan Doyle in a Sherlock Holmes story and was a friend of Charles Lamb.

Wilde's descriptions of the man, his life and his crimes are mostly irrelevant here, but as a matter of interest Wainewright spent his boyhood at Turnham Green, he was educated at the Greenwich Academy, and he later had a pomona-green chair in his library.

Wilde's essay contains these thought-provoking words about Wainewright and the colour green:

“He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity, if not a decadence of morals.“

Green has always been my favourite colour. Why is this curious? I like the idea of the artistic temperament though! 

Two green-loving peoples
When it comes to the love of green in nations, Wilde is probably referring to various Islamic countries and what is now the Irish Republic. Both Muslims and Irish Catholics favour the colour green, and Conan Doyle, who like Wilde was an Irishman, was well aware of this.

In Conan Doyle's Green Flag, Arab tribesmen capture the Irish regimental flag. One of their sheikhs says that by its colour it might well belong to the people of the true faith - i.e. Islam.