Author reading 7 May 2011

Comment now » // May 21st, 2011

I just wanted to share a few photos from the author reading my friend Sharon organized a couple of weeks ago. It was a great day with lots of fantastic questions from the crowd.

I’m coming to realize (very belatedly) that there are many parallels to the cult experience in the lives of those who haven’t been in a cult. When I finished writing the book I didn’t even bother sending it to “publishers” partly because I thought it was a story that had such a limited audience. I’m discovering that that assumption is not true.

Those who I’ve encountered both at the readings I’ve given and at other events are able to relate to my story because of the parallels to cults found in abusive spousal relationships, bullying, gang involvement, abusive upbringings and other life experiences.

What this says to me is that every story is worth telling. Even if you think only three people will read what you’ve written, tell that story anyway. It all matters. You may not know how right at the moment, but you will find out.

Thanks to everyone who came out to hear me speak about my cult experience and about self-publishing. It was a joy and a pleasure to meet each and every one of you.

To close, here’s a photo of my friend and fellow writer, Sharon, and I at the reading. Thanks to Sandi Amorim for being the official event photographer!

It’s not a cult

1 Comment » // May 19th, 2011

When you’re in a cult, you don’t know it’s a cult.

For those who have never been in a cult this might be difficult to understand. After all, from the outside it can be obvious when a group is a cult – the crazy, closed language, the zombie-like countenance of the members, the abusive behaviour of the leader. Yet, when I give readings and talks, it’s a topic I feel it’s important to touch on because there is so much misunderstanding, so I thought I should address it here as well.

When someone is in a cult, they believe they are saving the world. Or serving God. Or working for the only purpose on the planet that matters. Those in a cult believe they have found the thing they’ve been searching for all their lives. They believe they have found the answers to all life’s questions. They believe that if only everyone joined the group they’re in, the world would be a much better, safer place. They refer to the group as a “family” or a church or a spiritual home, but never, ever would it cross their minds that they are in a cult.

That’s what I believed when I was in the cult I belonged to in the 1990s. Looooonnng after I’d left the group it still didn’t occur to me that it was a cult. I was three or four years into the recovery process before my thinking switched from, “What is wrong with me that I couldn’t stick it out serving God?” to “Wait a minute – I think that whole situation was totally fucked up. I think it might have been a cult.”

I didn’t leave the group because I figured out it was a cult. When I left the group, I did so because my personal values about compassion and love were not reflected in the way I was acting in the group (or in the way the leader and the group were acting toward one another).

When I left, I went through the same very complex series of mental processes that every cult survivor goes through. I didn’t know what I thought or felt about anything. I had been suppressing my thoughts and feelings for so long that I had to re-learn how to feel and think. I had to examine every belief and piece of knowledge within me and decide if I thought it was true or false based on my understanding of the world or my experiences, and not based on what I had been told I was supposed to think and believe. It was a watershed moment when I realized I’d become adept at thinking and feeling for myself once again and didn’t give a rat’s ass about what my former cult leader said was “The Truth”.

Then, and only then, could I look back at what had happened to me in the “spiritual group” I belonged to and wonder, “What was that?” And that’s when I was able to begin researching cults and recognize that I could indeed apply that label to the experience I had.

If you have recently left a cult, be patient with yourself. Your body and mind can only heal at a rate that is right for you. Give yourself time and space to unwind; your thoughts and feelings will begin to return to you as soon as you are strong enough to embrace them. One day you’ll be able to look back and see your experience with clarity and understand what happened to you.

Loss

Comment now » // May 15th, 2011

I woke up this morning thinking of this poem by WH Auden:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Author Reading – 7 May 2011

Comment now » // May 5th, 2011

In case you’re in the neighborhood of Tsawwassen, BC on Saturday…..

I’ll be sharing intimate details of my story of 10 years as a cult member, including how I joined, insights from the inside of a ‘high demand’ group, how I disengaged, and the deeply painful but ultimately liberating process of recovery.

I’ll be thrilled to answer any questions you have about cults, and about the self publishing process.

Here’s where you’ll find me:

Sun Dial Villas’ Common Room
5421 10th Avenue, Tsawwassen B.C.

Saturday, May 7, 2011
2:00pm to 4:00pm

From Vancouver:
-Go South on Oak Street, which takes you onto Hwy 99. Stay in the right lane, through the tunnel. Take exit 28 to Highway 17 (towards the Ferry)
-Go past Ladner, and turn left at the next set of lights, 56th Street
-Turn right at 12th Avenue (beside Tim Horton’s)
-Turn left at 54A Street (there’s a Harris Nursery on one corner and a Canada Post building on the other)
-The parking lot entrance for Sun Dial is accessed from 54th, about ½ a block down on your right. The Common Room is located on the left side of the parking lot. Enter via the door marked Office.

See you there!!

Heart Like Mine

Comment now » // May 4th, 2011

(Lyrics: Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe, Travis Howard)

Imagine

Comment now » // May 3rd, 2011

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King Jr.

A Cult Leader Loves Money like Flowers Love Sunshine

Comment now » // April 3rd, 2011

The role that money plays in any cult leader’s life should not be underestimated. I definitely underestimated this fact when I was in the cult I belonged to for ten years. I was in the cult for love; I loved the other people in the group, I loved the cause we had been coerced into believing we were working for (saving the world – who could argue with that?) and I especially loved our cult leader. I admired her, I wanted to be like her, I believed in what she said she stood for. I loved her with every fibre of my being and gave her my whole heart.

Of course, it is only in hindsight that I realize that she definitely didn’t feel the same way about me. And just today, fifteen years after the event I’m about to describe, I had an epiphany and can even more clearly see how those of us who followed her were only valuable to her when we had something concrete to offer (money, labour, connections etc.)

**

When I joined the group our guru ran (which I only realized was a cult years after I’d left) I was young; 21 years old to be exact. I had my first “grown-up” job and was building an adult life for myself; buying furniture, making friends in a new city and getting used to being responsible for myself. The financial bottom line of my life was that I had no money because I had had no time yet to accumulate any. I was earning an entry-level salary and was just happy to be able to pay my rent and my bills and have a little money left over to go to the movies once in a while.

Flash forward two or three years. I am sitting in the coffee shop of the office tower where I work, having a visit with someone else from the cult (the man I call Michael in my book). Out of nowhere, Michael raises the topic of my financial situation. He remarks that he and our guru (I call her Limori in my book) had been discussing me recently and had decided that even though I claim to be broke all the time, I must have some money squirreled away somewhere. After all, I have a good job and no dependents.

My instant reaction to this comment is to feel betrayed. How could the two people I love most in the world talk about me this way behind my back? Moreover, how could they think that I would tell them anything but the truth?

Know this about me: I am transparent and guileless even now at 43 years old. While I was in my 20s you could have multiplied that tenfold. And add clueless to the mix. When I give someone my heart, as I had done with Michael and Limori, I am incapable of keeping secrets, lying or deceiving that person (or persons). I am utterly transparent with strangers. When I love someone? Fuggedaboutit. I could no more have lied to Limori or kept anything from her than I could have punched her in the face.

Flash forward again to today. April 3, 2011. Out of nowhere, as I was waking up from a nap, I remembered this conversation with Michael from years ago and suddenly I am clear about what was going on.

Limori wanted to know about my financial situation, not because she thought I was keeping something from her, but because she wanted to know how my financial situation could benefit her. Rather than ask me directly she went to Michael and raised the subject, knowing he would talk to me about it, since he was my best friend.

Cult leaders need money more than they need almost anything else (although control is pretty high up on their list of priorities). Limori didn’t have a job (other than giving the occasional psychic reading); she lived off the backs of those of us who followed her. In “God’s” name she has been gifted hundreds of thousands of dollars in widow’s benefits, alimony settlements, inheritances and just plain financial donations to her “cause”. For several years, those of us who followed her paid the mortgage each month on the property (fishing lodge and cabins) she owns in the Chilcotin Plateau of BC, because the business couldn’t sustain itself at that time. For perhaps more than a decade, those from the cult who worked at the fishing lodge did so for no compensation, other than the food they ate. Whenever any of us who lived in the city and had jobs balked at the money we were being asked to “donate” she would play the “God” card: “Do you want to serve God or not? Is money more important to you than God? Your ego is really attached to that money, isn’t it? How can you say you love and serve God when you seem to love money more?” etc.

**

The moral of this story? Those who are in a cult are there because of love. Love for their guru, for the cause they serve and for the other people in the group. (And, most importantly, they don’t know it’s a cult.)

But make no mistake; the guru herself does not love the disciples back. The guru only loves what each disciple can do for her. She will say with her mouth that she loves you, but as soon as you are out of money or don’t serve some purpose in the chess game she calls life, you will be tossed aside like so much week-old garbage.

This wasn’t obvious to me then, because I was distracted by all the “higher purpose and serving God” rhetoric that was being thrown at me. An effective cult leader is like a magician; she will distract your attention and have you watch her right hand while her left hand is slipping your watch off your wrist, your wallet out of your pocket, your self-esteem out of your soul and your life out of your hands. The sleight of hand that went on when I was in Limori’s cult is only obvious to me now, over a decade later.

As my dad is fond of saying, sadly, hindsight is 20/20. When it comes to cults, this could not be more true.

–

(Photo courtesy of scottchan and FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Don’t Think, Just Work

Comment now » // March 29th, 2011

Thinking is the cult leader’s enemy. At least, her followers’ thoughts are her enemy.

A cult leader will do whatever she can to prevent her followers from thinking for themselves. I’ve covered some of these “thought stopping” techniques in previous posts and today I want to talk about another technique that I haven’t covered before. Relentless work.

The cult that I belonged to has its headquarters at a remote fishing lodge and resort in BC, Canada. It’s the perfect set-up for the cult leader who runs the resort because she can require those who live there to work ceaselessly. There are always new cabins to be built and improvements to be made to the existing structures; guests to be fed; laundry to be done; property gardens and shoreline to be maintained; equipment to be maintained; supplies to be brought in; bookkeeping to be done; a store to be stocked and maintained. I could go on and on.

And then on top of all this there’s the “work” of serving the “God” that the cult leader says she channels and speaks for. That work involves meditating, monitoring one’s thoughts so that “negative” energy can’t get in, and making sure one is behaving and thinking in a “clear” and “clean” manner etc.

Needless to say, free time is almost non-existent. Those who live at the resort year round basically work unless they are sleeping. And when I was there, we had to ask permission to go to sleep. The day was never over until the fat lady (our guru) said it was over.

All this work, both physical and mental, serves a very specific purpose for the cult leader. It prevents her followers from thinking.

A cult member or disciple who begins to think for himself is a danger to the cult leader. The leader wants her followers to be so busy stopping their thoughts, so tired from physical labour and lack of sleep, and so overwhelmed with the endless list of tasks that must be performed (and performed perfectly) that they won’t think for themselves. Thinking leads to questioning and questioning can lead to challenging the cult leader about the veracity of her words and actions. And that questioning and challenging can lead to disciples who realize their leader is totally full of shit and is abusing them.

We all need time to process what happens to us. Think back to the last time you had an extremely busy day or few days. What happened when it was over? What happens for me after a period of extreme busyness is that I feel a need to pause, reflect and process what happened. I think about the conversations I had, wonder what things I might have done differently, consider challenges and their impact on my life, wonder about what I might want to change about my life, think about my friends and reflect on where they might be in their lives etc. But if the hamster wheel just kept turning, and I had to keep working ceaselessly, every day rolling by faster and more crammed with stuff to do than the previous day, then I would never have time for any of this sort of reflection. Reflection is vital to a human being because it helps to create our humanity and our individuality. It helps us to define who we are as individuals and it allows us to know ourselves and therefore know a bit more about our place in our lives and in the world. But in a cult you do not reflect; you react. You simply keep going on that hamster wheel, reacting to what’s coming at you next and never get the chance to reflect on it and wonder if it’s right or wrong, good or bad.

In a cult, one is not entitled to even the privacy of one’s own thoughts and feelings about life. Those thoughts and feelings (and a person’s individuality) are a dire threat to the cult leader so she does everything she can to create an environment that eliminates them. This is just one more example of how cult leaders rob followers of their humanity, their right to privacy and their right to experience the world in whatever way suits them best.

Just had to share…

1 Comment » // March 14th, 2011

You can add another doomsday cult to the list…..

Comment now » // March 6th, 2011

I’ve seen billboards proclaiming the end is coming on May 21, 2011 here in Vancouver, about six blocks from my home.

Predicting the end of the world has gone on since…..well, pretty much since the beginning of the world. No one’s got it right yet.

Click here to read more about a group traveling the US warning people about the end of the world.

I wonder what will happen for them on May 22, 2011? Cognitive dissonance, that’s what.