Notes From 28 Years Studying Cults and Culture
Part 1: deprogramming from fundamentalist Christianity
CW: themes of abuse of power are explored in this post
Today let’s break down some of the good, bad, and ugly of growing up in a cult. Well, let’s be honest I have to start with the bad and ugly as that’s far too much of the story.
I say “cult” but on the whole scheme of things, where I grew up was pretty mild in comparison to the headline makers like Heaven’s Gate and Jim Jones. No, there were no snakes spitting poisonous venom but yes, there was laying on of hands and the Holy Spirit.
When I was in the last stages of making my plans to leave the cult, others shamed me, sure of course they did. It was in subtle ways – the sideways looks, the awkward body language. They could tell something was up.
Let me be clear that I did not endure the kind of horrific tactics used by other cults. They did not contact my family and weaponize them against me. I was not their slave aka I wasn’t working for free for the cult to the extent that I had no income. I had a job outside of the religion. They did not discourage me from having my own bank account, so I had the money to be independent. Many, many souls trapped inside cults cannot say this.
I did not have children with my ex-husband. This is the source of many women’s inability to leave. I cannot convey to you how happy I am not to have had children with a Man of God in that religion.
The worst of the worst cults remove children from their mothers. Keep Sweet, Pray and Obey (on Netflix) tells the story of an FLDS cult that did precisely this. The threat of this keeps God-fearing mamas “in line with God’s will.”
If this phrase sends chills through you… good, you’re paying attention.
That voice of God’s will, BTW, is the spiritual narcissist at the top. More on spiritual narcissists in tomorrow’s missive…
I was yelled at for leaving, sure, but only by one person and that was for corrupting her niece by taking photos of her in a bathing suit. Auntie threatened to tell the band director on me. I suggested she give him a call right then. You must call bluff on these threats to get free.
Cults mark their members out with a dress code.
The church I grew up in does meet my definition of a cult because it socially maims its members. There was a clear dress code that made me stick out like a sore thumb: no pants, no makeup, no cutting your hair, no loud jewelry or painted nails. A small “tasteful” gold cross would be perfectly acceptable, but certainly, no door-knocker earrings that make you look like a hoochie were appropriate in God’s house or anywhere outside its doors, for that matter.
The whole rest of the world was subject to their rules. I bought this lie hook line and sinker. I didn’t just dress in the dress code during church service, but everywhere. It even shaped what I wore at home alone or in front of my husband.
Cults the world over very often mark their members out from society with their dress code. This makes them outcast from mainstream society.
The odd dress code coupled with my acting like a little elitist Jesus sycophant really did cause other people to treat me worse. Of course people thought I was weird. I was acting weird and unkind in ways I was blind to.
The cult then flips this ostracization to its advantage and drives the members more deeply into their bubble. The message wasn’t subtle at all: we are the only ones who really love you. If you leave us, you leave the possibility of real, unconditional love.
What was the price of this “unconditional” love?
They decided nearly everything that mattered for you. They decided your whole life for you in ways big and small.
You weren’t allowed to just decide what city to live in, you had to ask permission of your pastor and he would call the other pastor and THEY WOULD DECIDE. Now, of course, you trusted your pastor was looking out for your best interest and would never do anything vengeful, petty, mean, or manipulative. I bought it hook line and sinker.
And yet.
And yet I knew somewhere in me that I couldn’t talk about the lies I’d bought to anyone else. They would think me crazy. In truth, I was crazy. I wasn’t the good kind of crazy which is a reclamation of wildness. That wildness destroys manipulative control instructions and structures. No, instead I was the delusional kind of crazy that made me blind to the ways I was building the power of the manipulative organizations with my time, attention, and money.
I couldn’t tell the World how I really thought because, in truth, some part of me knew it wouldn’t stand the sunlight. It took me until I was 26yo to trust this part of me and leave, no matter the consequences.
The church I attended as a teenager was built on this separation. They flipped this actual weakness around and used the fact that everyone else thought we were crazy as evidence of how crazy THEY actually were. We could not look in the mirror and see how absurd we were.
We believed we were God’s chosen and everyone else was “The World.” One sentence that rings in my ears still, “the World will chew you up and spit you out.” I believed the World was empty, angry, and mean.
The devil’s bargain of Christianity
The terrible offer is this: Jesus washes you in the blood of the lamb. He atones for your sins. All you have to do is believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light and most importantly none comes to the Father but through me… plus pay ten percent of your paycheck his way.
Don’t forget about that part. Definitely don’t forget about that part. I dutifully did my part.
I bought this and every other lie hook line and sinker.
Jesus didn’t atone for my sins. I must atone for my own. I must apologize when I mess up. I must take care to learn from my mistakes. There is no other way to become a full-grown adult.
Now that I’m free from this lie it’s so incredibly obvious I can’t believe I ever fell for it.
Oh, and then there’s the one about unconditional love. I never met such hypocrites as those professing unconditional love and then jerking it back the second it suits them to twist your hand till it hurts.
If they had loved me unconditionally they would still be loving me now. Out of the hundreds of people from this church who knew me and professed good Christian values there was only one family who spoke to me kindly after I left. I never got a single phone call to check on me from anybody else. It was as if I dropped off the planet.
For about a decade I threw out the baby with the bathwater. I had no hope of ever being part of a community that could explore together without giving my power away to it. It’s taken me two decades to know it’s possible because I’m seeing its strong sprouts grow right before my eyes.
It’s really simple though. There’s no need to overcomplicate it. All you do is this.
Show up.
Listen to what others bring.
Return to your center during the silent parts. This will help you break patterns of giving your power away.
When there’s space and you’re moved to share your voice and gift, do so. This is the practice of risking more deeply being yourself.
Don’t stop there though. You must do the last couple of steps so that when you begin the cycle anew the next time you show up, you will have been reborn at least a tiny bit or maybe a lot.
Notice the impact you have on others.
In the usually rare case that you hurt someone, apologize.
Learn.
Repeat. Show up again. Trust is built layer by layer like a pearl.
If a community gets big enough and keeps skipping these steps, they will slide surely into being run by some flavor of narcissist. That, however, is FAR from inevitable or unavoidable.
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