So, You Want to Join a Cult - Follow Up - Part III - How Do Cults Retain Members?

What anyone who seeks to understand the workings of cults and why people are drawn to them need to understand is that it's not always obvious that there is anything bad going on. Anti-cult people often point at "wacky" beliefs without being aware of any actual abusive or harmful actions. 

People who have seen friends and family members get involved with cults often assume that their loved one has been brainwashed. Brainwashing, when mentioned by cult opponents, is often misunderstood, not only in how it works, but in its actual effectiveness. People assume that just because an individual changes their apparent focus or loyalties resulting in perceived changed behavior then there must be some malign influence causing this abrupt break. The truth is that for most people a cult, at least in the early stages is offering the recruit something that they want. They see the cult as a positive in their life. This becomes something that the cult can use to retain members. The new recruit sees what they believe are the obvious positives of cult membership while family and friends, believing that they see something that the new cult recruit doesn't, invests a lot of time and energy trying to convince their son, daughter, or friend of the dangers of being involved, even suggesting that brainwashing is involved. This is bound to cause resentment and inevitably, a rift. In many cases the well-meaning family and friends don't really have a clear idea about why the cult is a cult, other than a vague suspicion of "the other". The cult plays up this rift, often predicting that it would happen as evidence that they're on the right path. Christian-derived cults point to similar statements by Jesus in the Gospels to "prove" that separating from one's family and "the world" is the way to godliness. You see this in politics as well, with the MAGA cultists often able to point to the opposition by "the Left" as evidence that they're right. 

In extreme cases, family members engaged in deprogramming. I don't know if this happens these days, but it was quite common in the seventies and eighties. My own parents, according to one of my siblings, consulted a deprogrammer while I was part of a Way program in Western Nebraska. The deprogrammer himself cautioned them that if it didn't take, they would lose me completely. 

I was aware of several attempts to deprogram people when I was in The Way, some successful, some not. Typically a deprogramming would begin with an invitation for the cult member to meet with parents for an innocuous reason, like a birthday or anniversary. The cult member would be told to meet his family at a hotel or at an out of the way location. Instead of his family he would be greeted by professional deprogrammers who would hold him against his will, often physically restraining him. The specific methods would vary, but the deprogrammee would be subject to non-stop attacks on his cult beliefs, his cult leader and his cult friends. Techniques like sleep deprivation would be employed. Most of these deprogramming attempts sounded more like brainwashing than what the cults did. It shouldn't strain the imagination to see how an unsuccessful deprogramming attempt would do more damage to the familial relationship than would staying in the cult. The existence of frequent deprogramming attempts, as well as societal anti-cult hysteria, served only to solidify an us against them mindset that cult leaders jumped on to justify continued membership. You must be involved in something good if "the world" is against you.

As I stated at the outset of this article, at least initially, in most cults, there's nothing obviously bad happening. On the contrary, nobody joins an evil, controlling, abusive cult. They join groups that provide something that they value. Any problems are either not visible, or are ignored. It's only later that they realize that they did in fact join an evil, controlling, abusive cult. Most people, if they stick around through the honeymoon period, are in it for the long haul. This is true, not only of cults, but, for example, many jobs. At my current job, it's often said that if you make it to five years, you're a lifer. We have a lot of turnover among new people, but there's also many people who have been there for 30, 35 or 40 years. Cult leaders know this and typically refrain from coming down too heavy on new recruits so as not to drive them off before they have internalized the perceived benefits. While a new recruit is basking in whatever perceived benefits are accruing, the cult is also busy hammering home the message that what the cult has, nobody else can offer. For me it was the claim of Biblical accuracy. I was won over initially because I desperately wanted, not just to believe, but to know. The Way did a good job of convincing me that they were the only ones that were interpreting the Bible correctly - which was important to me. Once I was convinced of that, I was hooked. 

Once a cult member is hooked, convinced of the correctness and importance of the cult's central claims, a species of the sunk cost fallacy helps keep the momentum going (or inertia if you prefer). In economics "sunk cost" is the money or time that you spent that, no matter what else happens, you're not going to get back. The sunk cost fallacy comes into play when an individual uses the fact of those irretrievable expenditures as a rationale for continuing to expend time or money on the initial investment. For example, you buy a used car for $5000. You soon realize that it's a lemon and spend $1000 one month, $450 the next, and another $800 later on to repair its many problems with no end in sight. The sunk cost fallacy tells you that you've already spent so much on this bomb that you will have wasted all that money if you sell it now for $2000. The victim of this fallacy doesn't consider that she may yet spend much more to repair the car and that taking $2000, even if it's technically a loss, would put $2000 in the bank and save untold future dollars. She is focused on the money that she will never get back, rather than preventing future expenses. 

Cult members often think like this, after a number of years they may notice problems - abuses and control issues - any number of red flags, but wave them off because they think that all the the time invested in the cult would be wasted, and even worse, their family who warned them that they were getting into a cult, would be able to say "I told you so". Pride is a powerful thing. Cult leaders hardly have to do anything to encourage this thinking. It's so intrinsic to human behavior that they just have to sit back and watch it unfold. 

Even when the red flags get too numerous to ignore, many cult members still hold on, balancing in their minds the perceived benefits against the abuses. This is similar to the dynamic that you see in an abusive relationship. The abused spouse often sticks with the partner who physically and mentally abuses, forgiving and repeatedly returning to the abuse. There's many reasons for this, but it comes down to a calculus where the bad and the good are put on a metaphorical scale and the good is imagined to outweigh the bad. This may seem insane and incomprehensible to an outsider, but it's a fact of human nature. A more prosaic example involves employment. How many of us continue in jobs that we hate? I would guess quite a few. Why would that be? The money outweighs the sexually harassing boss; the flexibility outweighs the long commute, could be any number of things, but it's math that we do every day with all aspects of our lives: we tally up the positive and the negative; if we decide that the positive carries more weight than the negative - even by a tiny bit - we stay with it. Cult involvement is no different. It only looks crazy to someone who hasn't been in the midst of it (but is in the midst of their own craziness. 

In short, cult retention of members isn't something magical; it doesn't involve brainwashing or blackmail, it's just a simple understanding of how people think and feel. 

Balance

 Despite the apparent change in power balance between employers and employees, employers still act as if loyalty only runs one way: from the employee to the employer.

Of course, much of this stems from the fact that we live in a capitalist economy. Many people will instinctively think: "Of course we do, I wouldn't want to live in a socialist system". Most people don't really think about our economic system. They equate socialism with lack of freedom and think that our economic system just means "freedom". But does it?

In a capitalist economic system, capital is important, while labor is disposable. Using the example of the grocery chain where I used to work - the company's founder is given the credit for starting the company, while the thousands of people who worked for him over the decades are expected to be grateful for the opportunity to have jobs. After all, it was his money, and his hard work...blah, blah, blah. But could he have built the company to its present size (and his bank account) without those thousands of people who showed up for work every day? And not just the people stocking the shelves, but the accountants, the IT people, the specialists in bakery or Deli operations and the managers at all levels who kept things chugging along. None of those people had any stake in the profitability of the company other than the bi-weekly paycheck. (This particular company did have, for many years, an employee stock ownership plan, where a percentage of the profits were distributed to employees in the form of company stock - last year the company bought back all the employee-held stock).

This isn't unique to the company I was referring to. It's the way most companies work. We have come to view it as normal. We view it as natural that the person who comes up with the money is inarguably the person who calls the shots, while the people who make it all work are expendable, and have no rights. (And when it comes down to it, the "person with the money" isn't usually using his own money, but has taken out a loan or has investors)

Since we're unlikely to see any change to this system on a large scale, I thought that it was a good thing that the low unemployment rate was the catalyst for a change in how employees viewed their obligations to the companies that hired them. Many people viewed this change negatively, opining that "nobody wants to work anymore" or claiming that "millenials are all lazy" when it's just a matter of workers valuing their own labor more than protecting the employer's bottom line. 

What got me thinking about this today was hearing that the Human Resources Director at my former company had retired. Her long time assistant, who was presumed to be her successor, gave his two week notice at around the same time. There was apparently anger in the company's high levels about his resignation - he was dismissed immediately and not allowed to work out the two weeks. I don't know why this assistant left. It could have been that the position that he accepted was so much better that he couldn't turn it down, maybe the company was posting the open HR Director position without offering it to him, or possibly this was the culmination of years of unhappiness at his current job. But whatever his reasons, it shouldn't matter. He was leaving because, whatever the precise reasons, it was better for him and his family. 

I started out talking about loyalty. Employers expect loyalty from their employees, yet typically that loyalty is not reciprocated. How many employees show up for work one day to find that their position has been eliminated? Or that, without their consent, they are being transferred to another location? Or that their work schedule has been changed? Any of those things can happen at any time and most of the time there's no notice given, no permission asked. But when an employee wants to cut their hours, or change their schedule, that's looked upon as a problem. How about the whole concept of two-week notice? The courts have ruled that an employee who fails to give two-week notice can't have their benefits, such as vacation time, taken away, but it is almost universally looked upon as some kind of betrayal. Because employers are not expected to have any loyalty towards their employees. 

So, any time I see somebody doing what's best for themselves and their family, I applaud.

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Follow Up - Part II - How Do Cults Recruit?

"Sincerity is the key, if you can fake that, you can achieve anything"  ~ Attributed to various people

Cults appeal to that part of ourselves that is searching. Sometimes what's being searched for is love, or a sense of belonging. Sometimes what's being searched for is answers, knowledge of the world: the mundane  or the spiritual. Sometimes people are attracted to "secret knowledge". Cult recruiters have to be sincere - not appear as con men and women. 

Contrary to widespread belief you don't have to be stupid, or a broken person to get caught up in a cult. Shortly after I left The Way I was friends with a woman with whom I had many religious and philosophical discussions. When I revealed that I had been in a cult, her attitude toward me changed; she couldn't believe that someone whom she viewed as intelligent and discerning would be foolish enough get involved in a cult. She didn't realize that part of what made me discerning was that I had gotten out of a cult and knew their tricks. 

The recruiting tool that I am most familiar with, having been on the receiving end as well as employing it on others, was the search for answers, the search for knowledge. Love bombing, or overwhelming a potential recruit with attention and offers of friendship was something that I had heard about, and saw rarely, with hardly any success. Someone who is just looking for a friend, or who has a crush on one of the cult recruiters has, in my opinion, a shallow attraction to the cult itself. If there isn't enough commonality to maintain a friendship, or the crush proves to be not interested, that usually ends the involvement. I saw this with the family member who first introduced me to The Way. When her friendship with the local Way leader soured, her involvement ended. Seekers after knowledge, once hooked, tended to stick around, ignoring potential red flags. 

A cult recruiter who is offering answers though, is relying on the recruitee having just enough information to see the plausibility of the cult's doctrine, but not enough to be able to see through the subterfuge. They have to be able to undermine faith in the reliability of mainstream sources of information in order to strengthen the cult's position as the arbiter of truth. My initial exposure to The Way indicated that they at least thought that they had all the answers, and as I stuck around and enrolled in their classes, what they were teaching seemed to make sense and fit together. Of course, if I had any background in studying the Bible I may have spotted the weakness and contradiction in many of their positions. Unfortunately no one in my circle of family and friends had the knowledge to contradict what I was being taught. Once I was hooked, I became invested in their doctrines and was willing to overlook red flags because they were providing something I craved - knowledge of the Bible. Having access to that knowledge outweighed the problems that I encountered along the road, even in the early days. And it made me feel special - I enjoyed the feeling of possessing secret knowledge, that I was among the spiritual elite. 

And that's an important key to cult recruitment and retention: providing people with something that they want, and making them feel like they are part of something greater than themselves. Whether or not any of it is true. 

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Follow Up - Part I - What IS a Cult?

There's no universally agreed upon definition of for cults. But there are some common features: 

1. Shared unquestioning commitment to a charismatic leader or ideology
2. Belief that the group has all the answers
3. System of behavioral control, including isolation
4. Dissent is not tolerated

Google "cults" and you'll likely find more characteristics, but the four I have listed a the main overarching categories. Note that I haven't mentioned unorthodox beliefs. Mainstream Christians often categorize groups such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (The Mormons) and Jehovah's Witnesses as cults based solely on their beliefs which deviate from the majority of Christian denominations. I won't argue with an ex-Mormon or former Jehovah's Witness if they tell me that they left a cult, but a Catholic or Protestant who accuses those groups of being cults is likely doing so based on what they heard about their beliefs. 

Sure, a belief that Joseph Smith received his revelation by translating the divine message that was inscribed on gold plates, or that the "Lost Tribes of Israel" moved to North America or that in the afterlife there's the possibility that we get to be gods of our own planets, just like God was once a mortal before his becoming God - sounds crazy. But does a virgin birth, a man ascending bodily into the heavens after being raised from the dead, talking donkeys and one family with a boat full of animals repopulated the world after a year-long flood make sense? No religion makes sense to those outside that religion. 

Of the four main indicators of cultishness that I cite, there is definitely a continuum. Many groups believe that they have all the answers, systems of control vary in seriousness and differ among different cultures, and how much dissent is tolerated can be situational. I grew up a Catholic, in my opinion there is some mild cultishness involved in being a Catholic. Most Catholics that I know would never even consider being anything but a Catholic, and if they think about it at all, consider that as far as religion goes, "The Church" has all the answers, but as long as one isn't too overt or obnoxious about it individual Catholics pick and choose what aspects of Catholic doctrine to adhere to. The dominant behavioral control is peer or family pressure. 

A cult does not have to have a religious focus. A contemporary example of non-religious cult behavior is the "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) followers of former president Trump. There's an inarguable unquestioning commitment to a leader who is followed no matter what; they believe that in the realm of politics and governance, Trump has all the answers and dissent is most assuredly not tolerated. Even the behavioral control and isolation applies. Although they still have whatever jobs they had before becoming a Trump supporters, and are often involved in their communities, they have willingly isolated themselves from anyone who isn't 100% on board with their views. Anyone who differs is branded a socialist, anti-American, a traitor or even a pedophile. Not that different that a religious cultist claiming their opponents are devil-possessed. 

Cults come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but it's a cults actions, their behavior, that defines their cultishness, not necessarily their beliefs. 

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XLI - The End

 When it was announced in a special adult-only meeting that Way President Craig Martindale had admitted to an extra-marital affair that he claimed  was consensual the reaction was varied. One couple left immediately. They later told me that when it was announced that I was being put on probation I was described as "traitorous", among other things. This couple was incredulous that I was treated so badly while during the same time period our supposed leader was engaged in behavior that was arguably much worse. Others made excuses for him. I kept my mouth shut. Pat was one of those who made excuses. In order to further my attempt to salvage our marriage I stayed away from subjects where we would argue. Inside, I was furious. Martindale had recently taught a whole new series of classes, The Way of Abundance and Power, Foundational, Intermediate and Advanced, that would replace the Power for Abundant Living series taught originally by Wierwille, The Way's founder. A lot of what was in the class deviated from what we had been taught previously about several subjects. Some of it was just Scientology-level insanity. I couldn't believe that a man who didn't even understand that adultery was wrong should be trusted to present what was billed as new revelation from God. 

I soon found a like-minded group of people in a message board called GreaseSpot Café. The name came from Martindale's frequent rant that people who left The Way would be "a grease spot by midnight". One of the first things I noticed from the stories that people posted was that things that I thought were minor, or outliers, were in fact common throughout The Way. Things that I had brushed off as one-time personality quirks were in fact official policy. From people's testimonies I learned that Martindale's "affair" was not unusual, but that sexual harassment and abuse had been going on for years, for decades. I participated in discussion about various Way doctrines and saw how shaky they were. At one point I put together a ten page review of Martindale's Way of Abundance and Power (WayAP) class and sent it to a member of the Board of Trustees who I felt was open to what I had to say. The review was an in-depth examination of WayAP, pointing out the numerous inconsistencies with previous Way teaching and with the Bible itself. This Trustee called me at home one night and told me that he was going to have our regional coordinator, who was going to be in Lincoln to teach the WayAP class live, address my concerns. Which he did, unconvincingly hitting some of the high points of my ten pages as we took a walk around the block, closing with "So, we've covered everything". This was the point where I knew that I needed to leave The Way. 

Looking at things in a 20 year rear-view mirror, it seems like such a minor thing to become the straw that broke the cale's back, especially after decades of red flags. But, to use another metaphor - it was that last pebble that started the avalanche. 

Yet I was still unwilling to make a clean break, as I knew that my ex-wife did not see things my way. The decision was made for me in August 2001. I had been posting on GreaseSpot Café (GSC) pretty regularly. The Way had loyal members reading through GSC, trying to identify "innies" who were posting there. They figured out who I was and confronted me about it. Although I never admitted to my role I was informed by phone several days later that I was no longer welcome at any Way functions. I'm not sure if they were putting me on probation again, or whether I was M&A, but as the leader on the phone attempted to give me some instructions I informed him that he had just abdicated any authority that he had over me. I was finally out of The Way for good.

Unfortunately, this put the nail in my unrealistic dream that I could somehow salvage my marriage. Things had not gotten any better when my probation was up in 1999, Pat was still convinced that I was entertaining devil spirits and frequently "confronted" me on various issues, large and small, usually having the children sit in as witnesses, eventually preventing me from interacting with the children even though I still lived there. But being ejected from The Way gave her the excuse to finally sever ties with me and in early November 2001 I was asked to leave. 

Rebuilding relationships with my children is another long, but ultimately successful story. I stayed involved with GSC for many years afterward, contributing to the record of cultishness that it embodied. I made many friends and met over 30 of GSC participants in person over the years. One never sets out to join a cult, but people end up in them every day. They're not always religious based, but many are. It's been over 20 years since I left The Way. My involvement shaped who I am, good and bad. It made me more aware of what cults are, and it made me much less likely to get involved in shady enterprises and much more likely to do my homework and not get sucked into conspiracy theories.  

The Way was part of my life from the ages of 19 to 43. It's still part of my memories. I hope my experiences can help others steer clear of cults of all kinds.

Start at the beginning:

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2019/10/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-i.html

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part 40 - The Purges Catch Up

[There will be things in this installment that are just me making bad decisions that have little to do with being in a cult - I'm also leaving out details regarding my ex-wife's actions that I think have nothing to do with cultishness. It's the response of our so-called spiritual leaders that's cultish. I do not want to leave the impression that I'm blaming my own foolishness on my ex-wife or The Way- I take responsibility for my actions]

The purges caught up with me in early 1999. Our finances were in bad shape. Any attempt that I made to take a hard look at our budget, or cut back in area was met by a stubborn refusal by my ex-wife. As I mentioned in an earlier installment she, as well as several other women had interpreted the verse that said a women was to be a "keeper at home" to mean that the wife would make all the decisions, but that the husband, as "head" would be responsible. Way leadership supported this interpretation. As I said, our finances were a mess, we were under pressure to, not only give 10%+ of our income to The Way, but spend money on classes and out-of-town events. At home, I was under pressure to make purchases that we couldn't afford. The answer both from Pat and from Way leaders was to "believe for financial prosperity". My solution to this impossible situation was to run up an unsustainable amount of credit card debt - and hide it from her. As you could imagine, eventually I would be found out. It was a house of cards.

Eventually Pat found out about the mountain of credit card debt. Rather than confront me personally Pat went to the local leadership. I came home from a work conference to an empty house which was soon filled with several Way leaders who confronted me on my "sin" of being in debt. I was rather relieved to be found out, and looked forward to putting all the lying behind and moving forward. For some reason I was not, as I had suspected, marked and avoided and thrown out of The Way. The Way had instituted an intermediate punishment that they called Spiritual Probation. This involved a six month period where the probationer would be banned from attending any Way functions, prohibited from contact with any active Way people and required to write a letter to the Way state leader outlining how he was "getting back in fellowship". Oh yeah - still required to keep tithing 10%+. I guess they figured that if expulsions continued at the rate that they were, soon there would be no one left. Probation was just another method of control. 

To back up a step or two: Little by little over the previous several years Pat had been redirecting her habitual finding of fault with Way leadership towards other Way people in the area. She was the originator of many accusations which resulted in people being confronted and marked and avoided (M&A'd). After running out of targets she focused on my shortcomings. Of course every marriage has its bumpy spots. One of the spouses drinks too much, or spends to much time with buddies, or is rude to the other. Sometimes it's just minor things like the toilet seat gets left up. But in The Way, everything was spiritual. Everything. And my ex-wife was more willing than most to find a spiritual explanation for any behavior that she didn't like. What do I mean by a spiritual explanation? Devil spirit possession. That's right, things as simple as paying a bill late or allowing the kids to stay up late to watch 'Seinfeld' were evidence of being possessed by Devil spirits. Pat became convinced that I was possessed and that somehow if I was out of the picture, things would be alright. On two occasions she disappeared for several days at a time, once leaving a note that said "It has been a disgrace to be unequally yoked with you" which one of the children found before I did. The children were convinced that she had abandoned us. Local leadership allowed her to come to them and complain without bringing me into the conversation.  As for me, I was frustrated by her behavior and the response of the Way leaders. Eventually my credit card debt was discovered and the six month of probation started.

At the time we had two sons who were legal adults and lived in an apartment across the street from us. They were allowed to participate in Way functions - an arrangement which contributed to more division within my family. My eldest son, who among other things had serious anger issues, would go to Way leaders whenever he and I had a disagreement. At one point Roger, the local fellowship leader, informed me that he was stepping in as a father for my son, implying that I was incompetent to do so, further dividing the family. Pat thought that by going to leadership with evidence of my sins The Way would kick me out and she would be able to live her life without my "Satanic" influence. But The Way had other ideas. They decided that she would also be banned for six months, although not required to write a monthly letter. This angered her even more. The six months dragged on. I took a second job in order to pay down the debt without affecting the family finances and faithfully wrote my letter every month. (And sent in my tithe) After the six months were up I was let back in to The Way, the leaders convinced I had mended my ways. Pat was not convinced. She was convinced that I had pulled the wool over leadership's eyes and was bound and determined to show them that I was evil. And I'm not being metaphorical - she was 100% convinced that I was evil. I'm not pointing at Pat's words and actions to suggest any kind of delusion, but that her position was in line with what Way believers had been primed to believe. It was exacerbated by her "it's always someone else's fault" personality, but the conclusions she reached were incubated by her several decades in The Way. 

I was readmitted to The Way in August 1999. In January 2000 it was announced that Craig Martindale, president and supposed spiritual leader of The Way was being sued by former Way members as the result of an extramarital affair that he claimed was consensual but the ex-members claimed was coerced. He resigned a few weeks later. We were told to not start searching the internet for information about the lawsuit, which of course I did.  I soon found several message boards run by ex-Way members and I began living a double life.

Start at the beginning:

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2019/10/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-i.html

Part XLI - The End

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2022/12/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-xli-end.html

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXIX - More Purges

In the previous installment I brought up the purge of gays (derided as "homos") as well as anyone who was suspected of having gay fantasies or even sympathies for gay people. But this was only one of a series of purges of the ranks of Way "believers". 

Predating the "homo purge" was the "no debt" purge. Despite common sense and even a cursory knowledge of modern economics indicating that reasonable debt could be a good thing, Martindale banned all debt based on a verse that read "Owe no man any thing, only to love". Obviously unsecured credit card debt should be avoided, but how many people could afford to pay cash for a house? Or even a new-ish car? Understanding the future value of money might cause one to finance a purchase of a home appliance rather than pay cash up front. But Martindale was insistent. No debt. Period. No exceptions. If you were in debt you couldn't be a fellowship coordinator, you couldn't enter or remain in The Way Corps, you couldn't attend the Advanced Class. But people were in debt. People owned homes, had car loans, student loans, home improvement loans. All things that no one thought would be "off the Word" as recently as the previous year. People who owned homes were counseled to sell their homes and start renting. There was utter chaos. Once this new edict filtered down to the rank and file the "confrontations" started. In our area there was a man who appeared to be developmentally disabled. He usually dressed very shabbily, and leadership talked to him about buying some new clothes. Which he obediently did - with a credit card. Bam! Debt! Confronted. Marked and avoided. My eldest son, who at the time was living with Fred Brown, the aforementioned local leader, worked several part time and temporary jobs throughout the year. As anyone who has ever been in that position knows, none of the part time employers withhold enough taxes - the withholding formula assumes that there isn't any other income - so when it comes time to file there is a tax liability due rather than a refund. Fred told him that he was in debt and therefore "off the Word". When asked to explain his reasoning about how paying taxes was debt, all Fred could come up with was "Tell me how it isn't". Of course some leaders managed to work around the new rules. Some lived in homes that were in their parents' names; one local man had concocted an elaborate workaround to convince himself that his debt wasn't really debt. 

There was also a series of new classes that Martindale recorded, all of which were mandatory. Advanced Class graduates who had not taken the old class were no longer considered Advanced Class grads...for all that was worth. Anything from before this time period was called "old wineskins" Anyone speaking nostalgically about "the old days" was suspect - and confronted and M&A'd. The little blue pin that WOW Ambassadors received and which they had always worn proudly as a reminder of their service was no longer approved. An old nametag indicating an old class, the same. Anyone who had been around for a long time was derided as an "old grad" whose opinions and input were disrespected or ignored. Men and women who were not in The Way Corps themselves but were married to Way Corps grads had always been given the courtesy designation of "spouse Corps" and were treated as Way Corps, but no more. Any Corps married to non-Corps were no longer considered Corps grads and were relieved of any leadership responsibilities unless they submitted themselves to four years of Way Corps training. Some of these couples had served faithfully in leadership positions for 20 years or more. More thinning of the ranks. 

For years the top leadership had been extremely stingy with funds, requiring reams of red tape for the smallest expenditures, so it came as a surprise in the mid nineties when Martindale decreed that all active Way Corps would be receiving a salary as full time employees of The Way. As part of the "benefit" of not having to work a secular job (Fred had been a drywaller) the Way Corps had to submit to a ratcheted up level of control, including prohibitions on smoking and other habits and having to ask permission before starting a family. In order to justify having Way Corps with small numbers of people to "oversee", Martindale changed the definition of a branch from seven twig fellowships to two, basing this on a misunderstanding of a Hebrew phrase in Exodus. Like most excrement, it all flowed downhill. Free from working a "9-5", Way leaders had all the time in the world  to snoop into the affairs of their flock. Fred and his new wife Elaine started scheduling "witnessing" excursions mid-day and popping over for inspections and meetings. I worked at home and we home-schooled our children, so these visits were quite disruptive. We had to keep track of who we talked to about God, the Bible etc, who we invited to twig fellowship, who attended and reasons for being turned down. The 10% tithe wasn't enough - we were now pushed to increase our "abundant sharing" to higher percentages. It went on and on. Along with this, the confrontations increased and people were thrown out. 

A weird addition to the Way Corps becoming full-time employees was "no gift" policy. Way protocol for many years had been for the "believers" to present their leaders with some kind of gift at the completion of classes or at major events. Martindale at this time became convinced that gifts to leaders constituted bribes and were banned. Once, my five-year old son wanted to give Fred a little trinket - I think it was an animal-shaped pencil eraser - but Fred turned it down, reiterating to us the "no bribe" policy. 

Despite Martindale's claim that he got the idea to make all Corps full-time employees from God, the idea soon hit the brick wall of reality. The Way International was hemorrhaging money. In addition to the salaries, they had to remit payroll taxes on all of it, and none of these people, who had previously been gainfully employed, were tithing or "abundantly sharing", reducing The Way's gross income while expenditures had multiplied. 

Remember that every one of these changes begat grounds for more suspicion, more confrontation, more people humiliated and kicked out of active involvement in The Way. As this state of affairs progressed (or regressed) the air of suspicion and accusations of devil spirit possession reached into every corner, not exempting marriages, including mine.

Start at the beginning:

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2019/10/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-i.html

Part 40

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2022/12/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-40-purges.html