Cultic Confession

Comment now » // March 1st, 2010

This week I thought I’d excerpt a few sections from Cult, A Love Story, because I’d like to give you blog readers a sense of what the book contains. And because I’m too lazy to come up with new blog entries

From Chapter 4: Canadian Ashram

Limori began by tuning in and channeling to us about the spiritual work that would be done that week, a theme continued from the night before, only now in a less warm and welcoming tone. We were getting down to business and it was impressed upon us that this week held enormous significance in God’s plan and in order for that plan to come to fruition we would have to be willing to step up and do whatever was required of us. As usual there was a tenor of gravity to what Limori was saying, and I was filled with the now-familiar twin feelings of urgency and self-doubt. There wasn’t enough time to get everything done that God wanted done and, even if there were, I was probably not up to the task. This always left me feeling that I must work as hard as possible and go to whatever lengths were required to meet this bar that had been set so high, which of course, was how the message was supposed to make me and everyone else feel. We were it. The twenty or twenty-two people here in the room with Limori were God’s only true servants on Earth and if we couldn’t face the darkness within ourselves in order to bring more light to the world, then all was lost.

So, with that twisted bit of logic firmly in place, we were assigned our task for the day. We were each given a pad of paper and a pen, and instructed to go off on our own and write down all the secrets we held in our hearts and minds and anything we were ashamed of having done, large or small.

“The only way to serve God,” Limori instructed, “is to clear yourself of these things that you are holding onto. Write down what you are ashamed of and what you hide from others. Get these things out of your body and onto the paper and you will be free of them. In this way you will become a clearer vessel for God to work through. Secrets and shame that hide in the darkness are magnets for the Devil. He will use every bit of darkness that hides inside you to thwart God and to ensure that God’s plan can never be fulfilled. We must remove these hooks from inside you so that they cannot be used in such a way. Bring everything into the light and it will no longer have a hold on you.”

We were given three hours. There was to be no talking amongst us, but we could go anywhere on the property. I wrote earnestly, searching every nook, cranny and memory inside me and dragging up whatever I could think of that was shameful or secret. As did everyone else, it seemed: all around the grounds, on lawn chairs by the water and on porches and at kitchen tables, we wrote until our wrists ached. After lunch, as we settled back into our seats around the living room, I felt that I could see pride and relief on everyone’s faces. Some chagrin too, but mostly pride. Limori asked us how the experience was and a few of us chimed up with explanations of what the exercise had been like. She listened and nodded sagely, as always, and then dropped the bomb.

“Now, you will all read out loud to the group what you have written.”

“What?!” Amber exclaimed. “I didn’t know we would be sharing this information.” Her face was deeply flushed and she moved restlessly in her seat, eyes wide and shocked.

“I know,” Limori said. “I didn’t say earlier that you would be sharing what you’ve written but Azeen says that in order to completely clear out the shadows from within you, each of you must do exactly that.”

More of us shifted in our seats and squirmed with discomfort.

“Who wants to go first?” Limori looked around the room, her eyes passing over each one of us until one brave soul volunteered to do what each of us was dreading.

And so the afternoon passed. And then we continued for the duration of the following day. It took up to an hour (sometimes more) for each person to read aloud what they’d written and then have Limori/Azeen respond to what had been shared. We confessed to everything from shoplifting chocolate bars as a seven-year-old to adultery and more. We heard about children given up for adoption and abortions. Norman, whose wife Nelly was also a member of the group but not there among us at the workshop, volunteered that he’d insisted on having anal intercourse with his wife. I am a fairly private person so the experience of listening to everyone’s deepest, darkest secrets hour after hour was agonizing. When it was my turn to read what I’d written, my secrets and shameful events paled in comparison to some of the others in the group; I wasn’t perfect by any means, just young. I hadn’t had as much time or inclination to accumulate secrets, though I still flushed to my roots while I read what I had written. I was very happy when the chore was over. Limori/Azeen didn’t have much to say to me afterwards, much to my relief.

In hindsight, it wouldn’t have mattered what any of us had shared. This was simply an exercise in confession (Robert J. Lifton’s 4th Criteria for Thought Reform). We were baring our souls in an exercise that bound us to Limori and increased that false sense of intimacy between us. (I really did not want to know about Norman and his intimate relationship with his wife – that’s an image I will never be able to scour from my brain.)

**

For more on this topic please see Cult, A Love Story.