kw: book reviews, nonfiction, memoirs, religion, cults, brainwashing
About 11:00 PM last evening, I finished reading the saddest, most disturbing book I've encountered this year. After six hours of tossing and turning, I realized I need to review it and get a few things off my chest so I can put it behind me. The book, written by Lauren Drain with the help of Lisa Pulitzer, is Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church.
Lauren didn't want to leave WBC. She was 14 when her father, who had been making a film documentary about Fred Phelps and his little congregation, became a convert and moved the family to Topeka, Kansas to live on "the block", as the collection of houses surrounding the sanctuary building is known. It was a rough transition, but over time she devoted herself wholeheartedly to WBC and its ways. Hers was the first family to join since the 1970s.
WBC consists mostly of descendants of the pastor, Fred Phelps, and their spouses and children. He started the congregation as a young man, and there were lean years, but he put himself through law school, and later many of his extended family became lawyers also. They became Phelps Chartered and got rich litigating civil rights cases. Although tithing is expected (demanded and enforced) of all members, the church is awash with money from the PC firm members' tithes.
Although in most ways Lauren was warmly accepted by a number of Phelps girls her age, she learned that she would never quite match up or catch up to them. They had been raised in the WBC way, which means doing every single little thing the pastor's way, as enforced by his leading daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper (Phelps females don't give up their names upon marriage, but hyphenate or simply keep their name). To a member of WBC the pastor's word is law, and Shirley is considered the spokesperson of the Holy Ghost. It seems there is no Son of God in their theology, perhaps because the pastor's sons are all rather passive, and those who aren't have left the congregation.
Most of the book details Lauren's struggles to fit in and to comply with
the extreme demands of WBC and even more extreme demands of her father.
Steve Drain comes across as a real nutcase. He is highly intelligent
and creative, but he is clearly so emotionally insecure he has to
rigidly enforce his control over every aspect of his family members' lives. In that he resembles his mentor, the pastor.
Lauren loved picketing, and felt a thrill of self-righteousness whenever she and her fellow picketers were scolded or reviled by passers-by or counter-protesters. Of course, she didn't think of it as self-righteousness at the time. She had been taught that only WBC members, in good standing, who had a near-perfect and sinless life had any chance of going to heaven. Perhaps a few others might be among God's chosen, but only if they were actively speaking out against America's corruption and tolerance of homosexuality.
Ah, the "fag" issue. The church's web site is titled God Hates Fags. Fred Phelps is a high-performing person, a real straight arrow, an Eagle Scout, admitted to West Point at age 17. He visited the campus once, then almost immediately rejected the notion of attending and managed to struggle through two or three lesser schools to complete a degree. His extreme anti-gay activism dates from this time, though it became even more extreme when the Gay Rights movement got under way in the 1970s. Lauren reports the known facts, including that if "that weekend at West Point" is ever mentioned by an interviewer, Phelps reacts violently and terminates the interview.
I have read items by a few folks who speculate that he had some kind of homosexual encounter at West Point, and most think he is secretly gay. I think it more likely that he became the "designated victim", to use a term familiar to boys who attended a boarding school. He probably got a thorough reaming out. And it is likely that he became terrified by his own reaction to the activity. Maybe and maybe not. The fact remains that he is emotionally insecure, and in recent years he has become frankly insane.
By the age of 21, after seven years in Topeka, Lauren was working as a nurse. She could see a strong double standard of performance, depending on whether you were a Phelps. But she kept that to herself. However, at church Bible studies, she wanted to know what various Bible verses meant. Not only the tiny collection of verses on which WBC activities and attitudes are based, but all of them. At first Shirley and others might try to explain, but at one point she began asking question like this: "Why do we tell people to repent, when we know it won't do them any good? They are already destined to hell." She was scolded and intimidated for asking such questions, and they intimated that she might go to hell for being "divisive".
The WBC heaven is going to be populated by Phelpses, and hardly anyone else. Sounds like a lonely place. Lauren had already seen several banishments, and then she experienced it herself. WBC cannot tolerate independent thinking, and she was out. Her parents disowned her. After work one day at her nursing job, her father gave her 3 hours to pack, then drove her to a hotel where he'd booked her a room for a couple days. That was that. It was near the end of 2007. In the years since, she has had to learn life skills that are denied to those "on the block". She tried to stay in some kind of contact with her parents, but now hasn't spoken to them for a few years.
Amazingly, she remains a spiritual person. Many would reject God along with the church. She has not. Helped at first by a boyfriend's mother, she learned a new way to understand the Bible and God's ways. Lauren is in the early stages of building a new life with a new understanding of herself, society, and God. Her closing words are, "I don't believe that God rejoices in tragedies, calamities, disease, pain and grief. In my faith, He has better things to do."
Amen. The two Testaments contain more than 30,000 verses. Most Christian traditions emphasize a message that is backed up by 2,000 to 3,000 verses. The strict WBC theology relies heavily on about 100 verses, and twists another thousand or so to fit, while ignoring the rest. The god of WBC is not the God I believe in, not the God that Christians and Jews know from our Bible.
Showing posts with label cults. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cults. Show all posts
Friday, September 06, 2013
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
The Psychopath Factory
kw: book reviews, nonfiction, cults, escapees
I really wish this book were fiction: Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill. I really wish it were fiction, but it is not. Born into a Scientology family, at age six or seven Jenna was separated from her parents so they could—"for the greater good of humanity"—work a grueling schedule on church staff. Her parents were trusted with great responsibility, at least in part because her father is the older brother of David Miscavige, the leader of all of Scientology since the death of L. Ron Hubbard in 1986.
For the first eight years or so, she thought she was living a normal life, though she didn't like it much. She was one of a couple hundred kids who were raised at The Ranch in the California desert. A small contingent of adults managed the older kids, who supervised the younger ones, and all (except the adults) quite literally slaved to clean up the rundown buildings and landscape the grounds. As one of the youngest, Jenna could do little hard physical labor, so she became a kind of medic (with some sort of 3-letter-acronym title) to the rest. She cleaned and bandaged scrapes and cuts, dispensed aspirin and other medicines. While her parents were stationed comparatively nearby in Hemet, California, she saw them one or two times per month. Later, her mother was sent to Florida ("Flag", the headquarters of Sea Org, the training center for the most dedicated staff). Her father was busier and busier, and some years she saw them no more than once, usually at Christmas. The long separation led to marital troubles, and her mother had an affair, which landed her in RPF, the Scientology prison camp for Sea Org sinners. Not long after her parents were reunited, they left Scientology, and were "declared" SP's or Suppressive Persons. Think of Excommunication on steroids. Offered a chance to leave with them, Jenna declined. Jenna was 16. She and they had no contact for at least a couple of years.
Did you ever hear the proverb about the fly living in a vinegar bottle? Never tasted sugar, and doesn't know it exists. Such is the ingrown world of a powerful cult. Although Jenna had begun to realize she didn't have to doubt herself all the time, it took her another 8 years to get to the point that she felt she had to leave. By this time, she was married, and she and her husband tried to go through the church-accepted "exit" procedure because he didn't want them to be "declared" and thus lose contact with his relatives. The process was so grueling and invasive, she eventually refused to continue, and after much sturm und drang, now with her husband's full support, the two of them fled.
Reading the book, I wonder how she retained her sanity. Her experiences were an exercise in systematic production of insanity, from which she gradually, miraculously, recovered. The Scientology mind control system was carefully thought out and finely honed by Hubbard, who by 1950 had already become very rich from writing science fiction. In SF circles, he was a World Builder, capable of imagining a complete and consistent world, and rendering it in a narrative that draws the reader into its imaginary milieu. Dianetics and the books and lectures that followed as he built the "church" of Scientology became Hubbard's tour de force of world building, a consistent all-encompassing system of mind control that, had he known about it, Mao Zedong would have co-opted.
I've observed Scientology, mostly from a distance, for over 45 years. I was in my late teens when I read parts of Dianetics. I didn't read it all, because it was all hype with asserted "proofs" but nothing a fellow could substantiate. I had my first direct contact with Scientology in 1968, when someone at work invited me to a lecture. There was some kind of illustration, with about 8 items arrayed up a ladder, with a Buddha-like figure at the top. After a short introduction, most of the "lecture" consisted of an explanation of each of the 8 points (such as "Group Survival", a couple of steps above a more self-oriented point), then asking in the audience for a show of hands, who "understands" the point. After that, asking for another show of hands, who believed they had "internalized" the point. I don't recall what the last point is, something about wholeness and all of humanity, but I still had my hand up. The moderator directed a quizzical look my way. I said, "I am a Christian. When someone becomes a child of God, that comes as a gift. It is where we start, and we go onward from there." I noted shock, followed by rather murderous looks on a few faces, so I stood and slipped out of there. To my relief, the fellow at work didn't contact me after that.
Unbeknownst to me, a few years later a close relative I'll call Jason became involved with Scientology and began "auditing". I don't know how he paid for it, because auditing is expensive. It is a 1-on-1 process with an auditor and an "E-Meter", a klutzy kind of lie detector (a sensitive resistivity meter attached to a pair of soup cans you hold in your hands). The auditor questions a subject, watching the needle of the meter, and helps them get rid of "engrams" (this is a real psychological term, but isn't closely related to the way Scientologists use the term). The goal is to get rid of all engrams and become "clear". In about 1970 it was reported that getting "clear" cost about $10,000. If auditing costs have risen at the same rate as a loaf of bread, the cost today is about $60,000. Of course, if getting everyone "clear" were the only goal, things would stop there. But there are 8 steps of something called "OT" (for Operating Thetan) after that, at absurdly high cost. People who are having a hard time paying for all this are offered staff positions. Scientology staff members (Jason was one for a number of years) work on projects and get free room and board plus a bit of money (it was $15 per month in the 1970s) in return for free auditing.
Nobody is perfect, so new problems that arise in people's lives need to be cleared with further auditing. Auditing for staff is more arduous, and is actually a kind of brainwashing torture. Someone who gets to their wits' end and acts out beyond some limit can get RPF time. Jason was in RPF for a while, perhaps close to the average "sentence" of 2 years. Later, his father helped him pay some hoked-up debt he had, and got free of Scientology for a while. Today, nearing age 60, he runs a small business, but has on-and-off business relationships with members of Scientology. I suppose he is a "public Scientologist" now, the kind that pays for any auditing and other services he receives. He certainly makes more than $15 a month! We talk from time to time, but nothing about Scientology any more. He is still under their spell of unrelenting positivity about everything to do with Scientology. He may have private dissenting thoughts, but you'd never know it.
Read the book. You'll see for yourself how terrifyingly thorough their brainwashing techniques are. The ideal Scientologist is a perfect psychopath. Able to totally fool a lie detector, because he or she is in total control of all emotions, including familial ones. Family can be discarded (as Jenna was) to further the mission. Everything, but Everything is subservient to the goals of the organization. Power over lesser staff is exercised pitilessly and thoroughly. Jason is the only member of my extended family who has had daily acquaintance with handguns (outside the military)...or needed to. A cadre of Scientology operatives are the only group that ever raided an FBI office (to destroy documents about Scientology) and got away with it. Jenna M. Hill was one of the lucky ones, someone who cannot be manufactured into a psychopath. Someone with a conscience.
I really wish this book were fiction: Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill. I really wish it were fiction, but it is not. Born into a Scientology family, at age six or seven Jenna was separated from her parents so they could—"for the greater good of humanity"—work a grueling schedule on church staff. Her parents were trusted with great responsibility, at least in part because her father is the older brother of David Miscavige, the leader of all of Scientology since the death of L. Ron Hubbard in 1986.
For the first eight years or so, she thought she was living a normal life, though she didn't like it much. She was one of a couple hundred kids who were raised at The Ranch in the California desert. A small contingent of adults managed the older kids, who supervised the younger ones, and all (except the adults) quite literally slaved to clean up the rundown buildings and landscape the grounds. As one of the youngest, Jenna could do little hard physical labor, so she became a kind of medic (with some sort of 3-letter-acronym title) to the rest. She cleaned and bandaged scrapes and cuts, dispensed aspirin and other medicines. While her parents were stationed comparatively nearby in Hemet, California, she saw them one or two times per month. Later, her mother was sent to Florida ("Flag", the headquarters of Sea Org, the training center for the most dedicated staff). Her father was busier and busier, and some years she saw them no more than once, usually at Christmas. The long separation led to marital troubles, and her mother had an affair, which landed her in RPF, the Scientology prison camp for Sea Org sinners. Not long after her parents were reunited, they left Scientology, and were "declared" SP's or Suppressive Persons. Think of Excommunication on steroids. Offered a chance to leave with them, Jenna declined. Jenna was 16. She and they had no contact for at least a couple of years.
Did you ever hear the proverb about the fly living in a vinegar bottle? Never tasted sugar, and doesn't know it exists. Such is the ingrown world of a powerful cult. Although Jenna had begun to realize she didn't have to doubt herself all the time, it took her another 8 years to get to the point that she felt she had to leave. By this time, she was married, and she and her husband tried to go through the church-accepted "exit" procedure because he didn't want them to be "declared" and thus lose contact with his relatives. The process was so grueling and invasive, she eventually refused to continue, and after much sturm und drang, now with her husband's full support, the two of them fled.
Reading the book, I wonder how she retained her sanity. Her experiences were an exercise in systematic production of insanity, from which she gradually, miraculously, recovered. The Scientology mind control system was carefully thought out and finely honed by Hubbard, who by 1950 had already become very rich from writing science fiction. In SF circles, he was a World Builder, capable of imagining a complete and consistent world, and rendering it in a narrative that draws the reader into its imaginary milieu. Dianetics and the books and lectures that followed as he built the "church" of Scientology became Hubbard's tour de force of world building, a consistent all-encompassing system of mind control that, had he known about it, Mao Zedong would have co-opted.
I've observed Scientology, mostly from a distance, for over 45 years. I was in my late teens when I read parts of Dianetics. I didn't read it all, because it was all hype with asserted "proofs" but nothing a fellow could substantiate. I had my first direct contact with Scientology in 1968, when someone at work invited me to a lecture. There was some kind of illustration, with about 8 items arrayed up a ladder, with a Buddha-like figure at the top. After a short introduction, most of the "lecture" consisted of an explanation of each of the 8 points (such as "Group Survival", a couple of steps above a more self-oriented point), then asking in the audience for a show of hands, who "understands" the point. After that, asking for another show of hands, who believed they had "internalized" the point. I don't recall what the last point is, something about wholeness and all of humanity, but I still had my hand up. The moderator directed a quizzical look my way. I said, "I am a Christian. When someone becomes a child of God, that comes as a gift. It is where we start, and we go onward from there." I noted shock, followed by rather murderous looks on a few faces, so I stood and slipped out of there. To my relief, the fellow at work didn't contact me after that.
Unbeknownst to me, a few years later a close relative I'll call Jason became involved with Scientology and began "auditing". I don't know how he paid for it, because auditing is expensive. It is a 1-on-1 process with an auditor and an "E-Meter", a klutzy kind of lie detector (a sensitive resistivity meter attached to a pair of soup cans you hold in your hands). The auditor questions a subject, watching the needle of the meter, and helps them get rid of "engrams" (this is a real psychological term, but isn't closely related to the way Scientologists use the term). The goal is to get rid of all engrams and become "clear". In about 1970 it was reported that getting "clear" cost about $10,000. If auditing costs have risen at the same rate as a loaf of bread, the cost today is about $60,000. Of course, if getting everyone "clear" were the only goal, things would stop there. But there are 8 steps of something called "OT" (for Operating Thetan) after that, at absurdly high cost. People who are having a hard time paying for all this are offered staff positions. Scientology staff members (Jason was one for a number of years) work on projects and get free room and board plus a bit of money (it was $15 per month in the 1970s) in return for free auditing.
Nobody is perfect, so new problems that arise in people's lives need to be cleared with further auditing. Auditing for staff is more arduous, and is actually a kind of brainwashing torture. Someone who gets to their wits' end and acts out beyond some limit can get RPF time. Jason was in RPF for a while, perhaps close to the average "sentence" of 2 years. Later, his father helped him pay some hoked-up debt he had, and got free of Scientology for a while. Today, nearing age 60, he runs a small business, but has on-and-off business relationships with members of Scientology. I suppose he is a "public Scientologist" now, the kind that pays for any auditing and other services he receives. He certainly makes more than $15 a month! We talk from time to time, but nothing about Scientology any more. He is still under their spell of unrelenting positivity about everything to do with Scientology. He may have private dissenting thoughts, but you'd never know it.
Read the book. You'll see for yourself how terrifyingly thorough their brainwashing techniques are. The ideal Scientologist is a perfect psychopath. Able to totally fool a lie detector, because he or she is in total control of all emotions, including familial ones. Family can be discarded (as Jenna was) to further the mission. Everything, but Everything is subservient to the goals of the organization. Power over lesser staff is exercised pitilessly and thoroughly. Jason is the only member of my extended family who has had daily acquaintance with handguns (outside the military)...or needed to. A cadre of Scientology operatives are the only group that ever raided an FBI office (to destroy documents about Scientology) and got away with it. Jenna M. Hill was one of the lucky ones, someone who cannot be manufactured into a psychopath. Someone with a conscience.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Poor little cult girl
kw: book reviews, nonfiction, religion, cults, memoirs
Would you give your newborn daughter to this man? A couple did just that nearly thirty years ago. Though they raised their daughter, every detail of their lives was under the control of their Guru, Sri Chinmoy. She was named Jayanti Tamm, and declared to be the Chosen One from birth; she would be the pre-eminent disciple, the perfectly "God-realized" one. Her fate would be to forever sing the praises of Chinmoy, who effectively became her god.
She was his pre-eminent disciple for about fourteen years. At age fifteen, she began to wonder a few things. Though she was treated quite harshly for any infraction, she had had a neurosis of complete submission instilled into her, and could never rebel for long. As Ms Tamm recounts in her memoir Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing up Cult, it took her ten years to overcome the emotional bonds that held her.
She was lucky. Overcoming a deep-seated attachment that is nearly one's entire life is no small matter. In her memoir, she writes with a peculiar double vision. She observed Sri Chinmoy's inner circle her whole life, for many hours each day, even once she started school (the guru didn't like that, but was unwilling to flout truancy laws). She records her feelings, but also speaks of evident hypocrisy the guru displayed. One is her child-view of this god-figure, who claimed to be the unique manifestation of the Supreme; the other is her more mature self looking back. The two blend to indicate that, at some early age, she became aware that not all was right.
By age fifteen, she began to think for herself. She has a formidable intelligence, which could not be satisfied with mindless subservience. Yet the guru's hold on her was complete (I term him "the guru", though she consistently calls him Guru; I cannot bring myself to use that title). She existed to make him happy. When she could subdue her mind (the "poisonous mind" according to Chinmoy), she felt fleeting happiness at his every attention, even a glance. But it could not last. She swung between the guru-world and the "outer world", with wilder and wilder gyrations until she was expelled.
The breaking-away process that occupied her for ten years is covered in about half the book. She goes into shuddering, painful detail. It is all necessary. For those who have never fallen prey to a cult of personality, the power of such a person's hold is nearly inconceivable. A cult leader is, almost by definition, a psychopath. No sane person could so consistently damage and destroy others for his or her own benefit.
Chinmoy is my poster child of Peter Pan gone wrong. He never grew up. He learned very early how to manipulate others to satisfy his every whim, and he lived a life of almost total self-gratification while demanding utmost asceticism of his disciples. He used up disciples like Kleenex. Cross one of many lines, and he'd declare you an ex-disciple. But first he'd try the mix of charm and intimidation that psychopaths do so very well, to bring you into line. Then at a certain point, the phone would ring, and your former life would be over. To all "true disciples" after that, you don't exist. Yet Ms Tamm calls this an unintended mercy. Being suddenly cut off to that extent allowed her to find herself.
There was another mercy. Her father and brother shunned her as instructed, but her mother refused to abandon her, and rather than expel her from her dwelling in cult-sponsored housing, drove out the messenger who came to evict Jayanti, and instead emptied the place of all disciples. Without her mother's help Jayanti may have died. Indeed, she attempted suicide by subway train, but was rescued by a bystander. It was the guru's intention that all ex-disciples die, "punished by their Soul" (which indicates he misunderstands the soul).
Instead, now two years past, the guru has died, though dedicated disciples carry on his purported "work". Within a few years, the Sri Chinmoy phenomenon will either die away, or its leaders will organize into a Yogic denomination and carry on, one more dead body that refuses to rot.
The author is now a professor, is married with a daughter, and is, I sincerely hope, going on with life as a much more normal human.
Would you give your newborn daughter to this man? A couple did just that nearly thirty years ago. Though they raised their daughter, every detail of their lives was under the control of their Guru, Sri Chinmoy. She was named Jayanti Tamm, and declared to be the Chosen One from birth; she would be the pre-eminent disciple, the perfectly "God-realized" one. Her fate would be to forever sing the praises of Chinmoy, who effectively became her god.She was his pre-eminent disciple for about fourteen years. At age fifteen, she began to wonder a few things. Though she was treated quite harshly for any infraction, she had had a neurosis of complete submission instilled into her, and could never rebel for long. As Ms Tamm recounts in her memoir Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing up Cult, it took her ten years to overcome the emotional bonds that held her.
She was lucky. Overcoming a deep-seated attachment that is nearly one's entire life is no small matter. In her memoir, she writes with a peculiar double vision. She observed Sri Chinmoy's inner circle her whole life, for many hours each day, even once she started school (the guru didn't like that, but was unwilling to flout truancy laws). She records her feelings, but also speaks of evident hypocrisy the guru displayed. One is her child-view of this god-figure, who claimed to be the unique manifestation of the Supreme; the other is her more mature self looking back. The two blend to indicate that, at some early age, she became aware that not all was right.
By age fifteen, she began to think for herself. She has a formidable intelligence, which could not be satisfied with mindless subservience. Yet the guru's hold on her was complete (I term him "the guru", though she consistently calls him Guru; I cannot bring myself to use that title). She existed to make him happy. When she could subdue her mind (the "poisonous mind" according to Chinmoy), she felt fleeting happiness at his every attention, even a glance. But it could not last. She swung between the guru-world and the "outer world", with wilder and wilder gyrations until she was expelled.
The breaking-away process that occupied her for ten years is covered in about half the book. She goes into shuddering, painful detail. It is all necessary. For those who have never fallen prey to a cult of personality, the power of such a person's hold is nearly inconceivable. A cult leader is, almost by definition, a psychopath. No sane person could so consistently damage and destroy others for his or her own benefit.
Chinmoy is my poster child of Peter Pan gone wrong. He never grew up. He learned very early how to manipulate others to satisfy his every whim, and he lived a life of almost total self-gratification while demanding utmost asceticism of his disciples. He used up disciples like Kleenex. Cross one of many lines, and he'd declare you an ex-disciple. But first he'd try the mix of charm and intimidation that psychopaths do so very well, to bring you into line. Then at a certain point, the phone would ring, and your former life would be over. To all "true disciples" after that, you don't exist. Yet Ms Tamm calls this an unintended mercy. Being suddenly cut off to that extent allowed her to find herself.
There was another mercy. Her father and brother shunned her as instructed, but her mother refused to abandon her, and rather than expel her from her dwelling in cult-sponsored housing, drove out the messenger who came to evict Jayanti, and instead emptied the place of all disciples. Without her mother's help Jayanti may have died. Indeed, she attempted suicide by subway train, but was rescued by a bystander. It was the guru's intention that all ex-disciples die, "punished by their Soul" (which indicates he misunderstands the soul).
Instead, now two years past, the guru has died, though dedicated disciples carry on his purported "work". Within a few years, the Sri Chinmoy phenomenon will either die away, or its leaders will organize into a Yogic denomination and carry on, one more dead body that refuses to rot.
The author is now a professor, is married with a daughter, and is, I sincerely hope, going on with life as a much more normal human.
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