Women Are Not Property

Epstein and his enablers. The online "rape academy" with 62 million views in one week. College athletes enabled by their coaches. No, it's not all men, but it's certainly a lot of men. A recent article quipped that "It's not all men but it's always men". And yes, there are women who enable rapists — Ghislaine Maxwell is as guilty as Epstein was — but even when women are involved it's always for the benefit of men. A critical step to attacking the rape culture is for men to speak up and confront other men. 

Why don't men confront other men who are abusing women? One reason is the suspicion that the abused woman will defend her abuser. This happens, as any cop who responds to domestic disturbance calls will attest to. I ran into this problem in my own life over twenty years ago, I heard some shouting outside my bedroom window and saw a family member assaulting his girlfriend. I ran outside and intervened. When the dust settled, the abuser claimed that I had attacked him, unprovoked, and the girlfriend backed him up. Other family members took his side. After everyone left I realized that there was one person besides myself who had witnessed the assault. When I asked him why he didn't intervene and had remained silent afterwards, he told me he didn't want to get involved. 

And that sums it up. Men don't want to get involved. Maybe it's fear of the abuser turning on them, maybe it's a cynical belief that as soon as they get home the abuse will continue. Maybe they just think that perhaps she provoked him. Whatever it is, it has to change. This is not to suggest that women often are perfectly capable of defending themselves. A few years ago I witnessed a customer in the bar where I was sitting grab a woman bartender, before I even knew what was happening the other two women on duty intervened and threw the guy and his two buddies out. But it's a fact of life that the typical man outweighs and is stronger than the typical woman. A man determined to abuse a woman who is by herself has the advantage. 

One strategy that some men employ to assist a woman who is the subject of determined unwanted attention is to pretend to be her husband or boyfriend, whereupon the "bro code" kicks in and the woman is left alone. Women will often tells the creep that she has a husband or boyfriend to fend off potential trouble. I'm not going to suggest not doing this, but why does it work? The reason the "I'm her boyfriend" intervention works is that men will respect another man's property while not respecting the personhood and autonomy of a woman. It's definitely the mindset of the creep in this scenario. He has zero respect for the woman's disinterest, for her right to determine with whom she will interact, for her very rights as an independent entity; but once it is suggested that she belongs to another man, he backs off. But what does this say about the mindset of the intervening man? True, he is to be lauded for involving himself and getting the other guy to back off, but he is doing it by pretending that the woman in question is his property. 

Okay, maybe the term "property" is a bit harsh. Maybe "under the protection of" is more politically correct. But it can't be denied that in terms of the larger culture we are going backwards in the realm of women's rights. The right-wing "trad wife" movement is advocating for a barefoot and pregnant past. Members of Congress are suggesting that the husband be the one to cast votes for his entire family, disenfranchising women. 

This isn't going to change because I write a blog about it, but it has to change. 

Stupid Social Security Reposts (Again)

This stupid post makes its way around Facebook periodically. No, I do not copy and paste, because it's mostly bullshit. The original post in ARIAL, my comments in bold courier font

Concerning Social Security payments, my contributions have been made for nearly 40 years on every salary I received. I always had a job. The Social Security check is now (or soon will be) referred to as a "Federal Benefit Payment?" I'll be part of the one percent to forward this.

Well, it's probably more than 1% that forwards it — because people are dumb. Social Security payments have been called "benefits" for as long as I can remember. It's nothing new.

I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you. Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it. The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a "Federal Benefit Payment." This isn't a benefit. It is our money paid out of our earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes.

One thing that I don't understand though, is what is the big objection to calling a Social Security check (more likely a direct deposit) a "benefit"?. I met the requirements by having payroll tax deductions taken out of my paychecks and I BENEFIT from my meeting of those requirements. I guess the idiots who make these up got tired of getting "entitlement" explained to them.

If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to $180,000 invested in Social Security. If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both you and your employers contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved! This is your personal investment. Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.

That's almost three times more than today's average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration. (Google it – it’s a fact).

And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're 98 if you retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.

I won't argue against the figures that indicate that privately invested money would have yielded more retirement income than what the typical person receives as Social Security payments, but seriously, how many people would do that? Investing 15% of their income? Especially in the early years of lower income? Many people living paycheck-to-paycheck find it very difficult to save, let alone invest.
Even as it is, I just calculated that if I live until 80 I will receive roughly twice what I and my employers were FICA taxed over the course of my working life (51 years). I don't argue that it would be more than if invested in something like a mutual fund, but it's certainly more than if there was no Social Security.

A big myth is that what we "paid in" is our money setting in an account somewhere. The money that came out of our paychecks immediately was used to pay people who were then receiving benefits. OUR benefits are based on a formula that takes into account a portion of our lifetime earnings.

Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger "Ponzi scheme" than Bernie Madoff ever did. They took our money and used it elsewhere. They forgot (oh yes, they knew) that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn't have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn't pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently they've told us that the money won't support us for very much longer.

But is it our fault they misused our investments? And now, to add insult to injury, they're calling it a "benefit", as if we never worked to earn every penny of it.

Just because they borrowed the money doesn't mean that our investments were a charity!

There's another big inaccuracy in this copy & paste job. The whole myth of "they took our money & used it elsewhere". Until just a few years ago the amount of revenue collected via FICA payroll deductions exceeded what was paid out in benefits. By law, this surplus was invested in US Treasury bonds, which paid interest into the Social Security Trust Fund (SSTF). Right now it's reversed: the benefits being paid out exceed what is coming in, so the difference is being taken out of the SSTF. The SSTF balance will be down to $0 in around 7-10 years. After that payroll deductions of current workers will cover 70-80% of benefits payments. The whole "Congress raided Social Security myth" persists. Democrats blame the Republicans, Republicans blame the Democrats. But there's no blame needed, because it didn't happen. The Social Security Administration is required by law to invest any surplus in US Treasury Securities. This is what is meant when you hear about "the government" borrowing money from the Trust Fund. Look at what happens to your money when you deposit it in a bank. Even though there is a vault in every bank with cash in it, this does not represent all the bank's deposits. Once you put your money in a bank, a percentage of it is loaned out, and some is invested in interest-bearing securities. Currently, banks are required to have a cash reserve of 12% of assets. That means that 78% of what has been deposited in a bank isn't physically there in the form of piles of cash. It's earning its keep. This is similar, but not identical, to what happens to the surpluses in the Trust Fund. The Trust Fund, rather than sitting on a pile of cash, is freeing up the cash for current use, paying out benefits to current retirees. If, rather than investing in Treasury securities, the Trust Fund invested in private securities, it would be a similar situation, except that the cash would now be in the hands of private companies (or individuals), rather than the US Government. Having this cash in government hands, rather than private investors reduces the amount of borrowing needed to make up annual budget deficits.

Let's take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government.

Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going for the sake of that 92% of our population who need it. Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.

99% of people won't Cut and Paste this to their timelines. Will you?

Please, for the sake of our country, Copy & Paste. It's important. Then type Done!

This affects everyone! I don't know what the originator of this, or other Social Security posts, intends to accomplish. The problem isn't that Congress or a past president "stole" or "borrowed without paying back" our money, it's not that your direct deposits are called benefits or entitlements. What are the people who repost or share these posts demanding be done?

In reality, what needs to be done is to find a way to make up the 20-30% gap between revenue from payroll taxes and paid benefits that will exist when the Trust Fund is depleted in 8-10 years. Increase or eliminate the income cap? Increase FICA withholding by a percentage point? Means test benefits? Something that no one yet thought of? That's what we should be getting worked up about. Not these imaginary "raids", or whining about "our" money. Previous articles about Social Security: https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2020/01/social-security-tutorial.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2017/12/social-security-trust-fund.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2021/07/social-security-misunderstanding.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2018/10/entitlements-social-security-trust-fund.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2022/01/social-security-part-2.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2022/06/are-republicans-eliminating-social.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2022/01/social-security-part-1.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-myth-of-them-borrowing-or-stealing.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2022/05/another-blog-post-about-social-security.html

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XLVI - 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, invest 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 deprogramming target 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, in most cults there's nothing obviously bad happening, at least initially. 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 last job, it was often said that if you made it to five years, you're a lifer. We had 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 $5,000. You soon realize that it's a lemon and spend $1,000 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 $2,000. The victim of this fallacy doesn't consider that she may yet spend much more to repair the car and that taking $2,000, even if it's technically a loss, would put $2,000 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. 

Start from the beginning: Part I

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XLV - 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. Even if they are. 

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. 

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XLVI

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XLIV - 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 are 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. 

Among 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 among Catholics 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 Donald 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 cult's actions, their behavior, that defines their cultishness, not necessarily their beliefs. 

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XLIV

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XLIII - The Ethics of Deprogramming

I'll argue that cults are generally bad things and people shouldn't get involved in them, but is it justified to forcibly remove cult members from the a cult?

Not usually. 

Of course, those cults that involve adult men with multiple teenage girls as their "wives", or if there is definite physical abuse going on, there should be intervention. But most cults are pretty boring. 

During my involvement with The Way International my parents considered "deprogramming" me in order to "free" me from my supposed mental imprisonment. They went so far as to consult with a deprogrammer, who actually talked them out of the attempt, pointing out that failure would mean that I'd likely never want to have anything to do with them ever again. They chose not to risk it. Mom and Dad never spoke of it, but many years later one of my sisters spilled the beans. At the time there was a lot of media focus on cults in the wake of the forced mass suicide at The People's Temple in Guyana. Parents whose children were in cults assumed that all cults were potentially going to end up like Jim Jones' followers. The cults that attracted the most attention also tended to have beliefs or practices (or both) that were far enough outside the mainstream as to appear "weird". The assumption was that the only reason that anyone would get involved in a cult was that they were brainwashed. Mind control was the only way to explain it. If you didn't think about it too deeply. 

Family members often point to how their loved ones "changed" after getting involved with a cult, not only their beliefs, but their behaviors and loyalties. But is that so unusual when new recruits to a cult are more likely to be young and actually looking to change their lives? Many people who have had family members join the military, especially those who have seen combat, could attest to the changes in the outlook of their loved ones. People change their political orientation all the time. A new cult member typically is looking for some meaning in their life and a cult often provides that meaning. Is it any wonder that they are often exceedingly gung-ho about their new life's focus? 

What about when the honeymoon period of cult involvement has ended and the cult member begins to experience some of the abusive treatment? Surely that's brainwashing? Not so fast! We can compare someone who stays in a harmful cult to someone who stays with an abusive spouse, sure that she loves the man who beats her every day, or is afraid that she won't be able to survive on her own. Or someone who hates their job but won't look for a new one. Justified or not, logical or not, people continue in harmful situations either because they fear that the alternative is worse, or have made the calculation that the perceived benefits outweighs the downside. I personally have done both — I stayed in a marriage that was mentally abusive because I was afraid that I'd lose my children and afraid to be perceived as a failure, rather than get out; I continued in a job that was terrible on many, many levels because I judged that the financial benefits outweighed the negatives that I had to endure. 

People join cults because they make a decision to get involved in something that they believe gives them what they want — whatever that may be. People stay involved in cults because they make a decision that staying in is the better alternative to getting out. Are they making the "right" decision? Who knows? Unless one knows all the variables in another's life, how can you decide what is best for that person? Spoiler alert: you can't. 

So what about deprogramming? You don't hear too much about deprogramming these days, or cults for that matter. But back in the eighties there were a lot of people making big money from the families of young people involved in cults. I know of several people who were the target of deprogrammers, some succumbed and left their cult, some escaped the deprogrammers and went back. What did deprogrammers actually do? Their first step was kidnapping the target of the deprogramming. Kidnapping! Often violently. The head deprogrammer sent hired muscle to abduct the target who would then be locked away from the world, often in an isolated farm house of hotel room. The abductee didn't usually even know what city they were in. They were allowed no contact with their fellow cult members, were not allowed to leave and sometimes were physically restrained. In one case that I know about personally, he had his shoes and socks taken away to deter escape! In extreme cases they were sleep deprived and subject to what could be described as torture. Various psychological methods of persuasion were also employed — the cult's beliefs were questioned and mocked, accusations made about the cult leader, and in one case that I am familiar with, the abductee's fiancée, who was also a cult member, was accused of cheating on him! The methods used by deprogrammers appear closer to what would be consider brainwashing than what the cults actually engaged in. 

If cults, in particular the one I was involved in, had brainwashed their members, it would stand to reason that it would be difficult for someone to leave. Yet during my own involvement I saw people freely walk away, new people, as well as those who had been in for decades. My own cousin, who got me involved, walked away within a year, presumably because she decided that it wasn't providing anything that she wanted or needed that she wasn't getting anywhere else.

Finally, in the United States we have the right of free association, as well as the right to the religion of our choice. No one has the right to forcibly convert (or de-convert) someone else...even if they think the other's beliefs are harmful — or weird.

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XLIV

Review article on Brainwashing: Part IX - Brainwashing

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XLII - Blindness & Brainwashing

Recently, a family member referred to my time in the cult called The Way as "blindly following". Many anti-cult crusaders have referred to cult members as "brainwashed". I thought I had presented pretty clearly why I had gotten involved in The Way, why I stayed involved in The Way, and how I extricated myself without any help from the supposedly unblinded (no offense to my blind friends, by the way!) 

Most people who are involved in religion begin their involvement because it was their parents' religion. Some embrace their family's faith wholeheartedly, some observe the outward forms, others question it and start to follow a different faith. Of the outward observers, if you never discussed religion with them (it's a taboo subject after all) you might never know they weren't inwardly religious. Of the questioners, some of them give up on all religion, some, for various reasons, pick a new one. Some of those "new ones" turn out to be cults. 

But what makes a cult a cult? Not their beliefs. Every faith has beliefs that seem bizarre to those outside the faith, but seem perfectly normal to those who grew up surrounded by it. The religion that I grew up in believed:

• The creator of the universe somehow caused a virgin to become pregnant with himself
• The resulting child, when he reached adulthood, had to be killed in a blood sacrifice either for atonement, forgiveness of sins or as a sign of his love, or all three
• He rose from the dead after three days
• He physically levitated into the sky after a further 40 days
• This man, God, and the "holy spirit" are all "God", yet at the same time distinct "persons"
• This man and his followers could break the laws of physics at will
• It was possible to break the laws of physics yourself by praying to, not only this three-in-one God, but his mother (who also levitated into the sky without dying) and any sufficient holy followers who were coincidently dead

I could go on and on. Naturally this isn't how a Catholic would describe their beliefs, but it's the way it looks to an outsider. And a majority of the people in this country would subscribe to most of these beliefs. Non-Catholic Christians wouldn't pray to Mary or to saints, but you can't really argue with the rest. The purpose of the previous listing isn't to make fun of Catholics or their beliefs, but to point out that if you're going to make judgments about the "weirdness" of cult beliefs, take a look at your own. 

A related measure of cultishness is whether a group calling itself Christian has beliefs that are in line with Christianity. If you are of the opinion that you can objectively determine whether any group's doctrines are authentically Christian you're likely part of one of those groups that think they have a lock on the truth. The number of mutually exclusive versions of Christianity that exist is staggering. Sometimes the difference is their opinion on church governance: episcopal or by committee? Other times it comes down to the minutiae of Christology, which the rank and file don't understand anyway. And does anyone really understand the doctrine of The Trinity? If the Bible was as clear and unambiguous as Bible believers think it is, wouldn't you assume that there would be fewer competing versions? Or are they all Satanic, except your version.

Some people get it right and determine that a cult is a cult because of actions rather than beliefs. But again, they fail to pick the beam out of their own eye, such as the widespread coverup of child rape by the clergy of one major denomination or the ostentatious lifestyles of many ministers running megachurches.

There are a lot of reasons why people join and stay with cults. My reasons are pretty simple. 

As a young man I was dissatisfied with the lack of answers I felt that my church offered. There was too much "take it on faith" for my taste. So I started looking around. I went to services in the churches of other denominations. I read about different religions. I was getting nowhere fast. I was introduced to The Way through a family member who was attending Way meetings. This relative worked in the same office as the local Way leader. I have no idea what her motivations were, what she was looking for, or what attracted her. I do know that she stuck around for a few months and lost interest. So either she was immune to the brainwashing, or maybe there wasn't any brainwashing. I stuck around. 

Why did I stick around? Because it made sense to me. They tried to make it make sense. Granted, it was all based on the premise that the Bible was inspired by God, but that was no different than any Christian denomination. There was little "take it on faith". Anything that we were expected to believe was documented in the Bible. Sometimes pretty poorly, but documented nonetheless. This appealed to me. Even though I didn't have the theological background to be able to separate the serious Biblical research from what turned out to be pretty shoddy exegesis, it was more than I was getting from my church leaders. In fact, I gave my parish priest the opportunity to address the discrepancies between Catholic and Way Biblical interpretation. All I received was a smirking reference to 2000 years of history. If I was going to go with longevity I'd become a Hindu. 

During my early days in The Way it was obvious that my family disapproved. Almost 50 years have gone by, so it's difficult to ascertain exactly what they disapproved of. The most obvious thing earning their disapproval was that I was leaving The Church. All branches of my family that I am aware of have been Catholic for many generations. In addition to the religious devotion, Catholicism was cultural. Our particular neighborhood was made up mostly of White Catholic ethnic groups. I don't think I was aware of Protestants until I was in high school. My own parents were very religious — my father attended mass every day if possible. I still remember the look of anger and disappointment on my Dad's face when I told him I was no longer going to mass since I no longer considered myself a Catholic. The theological grounds for disapproval were probably related to the disapproval of simply being not-Catholic, but since most Catholics were not steeped in the myriad details of the Bible they were unable to address my confident (or arrogant) assertions that I now was in possession of The Truth. It's possible that they were swayed by the long shadow that had been cast by The People's Temple mass "suicide" in Guyana a year after my initial involvement. A group that had been labeled a cult had done something heinous, therefore, in the minds of the general public, any group labeled as a cult was equally dangerous. Unfortunately the cult appellation had been applied without any subtlety, usually slapped on any group that differed doctrinally from what was perceived as the mainstream. Down deep, I think what made my parents think I was "blinded" or "brainwashed" was their perception that I had somehow "changed".

There's nothing like the enthusiasm of the newly converted. Whether it's religion or politics or the newly sober, it's the new recruit who is loud and in your face about it. And I sure was in everyone's face about it. It started out during the three-week introductory class. I'd come excited about some new thing I had learned and want to talk about it. To be clear, this wasn't some doctrine spun about billion year-old space aliens storing souls in a volcano, or Jesus appearing to the Native Americans, this was stuff that you could trace directly to a Bible verse or two. Of course I was excited, this is what I had been searching for: answers! In response to the obvious discomfort that my parents had with what I was sharing, my mode became less excited and more arrogant that I had The Truth and they didn't. I suppose I had changed.

What my parents didn't know that in addition to my search for spiritual truth, I was also kind of drifting. I had no real goals, was doing poorly in school (not due to lack of intelligence, but lack of ambition) and was drinking a lot. I wasn't taking any hard drugs, but it's likely that I would have gone that path if not for The Way. Being involved in The Way gave me a sense of direction that came of being intimately involved in something greater than myself. I had a mission, I had purpose that I didn't have before. Making "moving the Word", i.e. proselytizing. Maybe my priority seemed weird to my family, and evidence of an unwelcome and unhealthy "change", but I don't want to see that alternate history where I didn't have that set of goals. 

After a year I moved into a series of "Way Homes" with other Way people, and a year later left the state as part of the missionary program called Word Over the World (WOW). I had planned on entering the Way's leadership program, The Way Corps, but was unable to put together the tuition. A lot of people, including my family, thought that my wanting to cut ties and move to another state as a WOW was prima facie evidence that I was in a cult. The truth was that only a small percentage of Way members at any given time were part of any of their programs, and some never were involved beyond the twice-a-week "Twig" meetings. The heavy involvement was mostly people my age (19-22 at the time) — people with children at home, or retirees, or men and women with professional careers tended to live outwardly normal lives. In my early days I saw few attempts at controlling the daily lives of Way members by the leadership, and there was no concerted effort to keep people from leaving. People left all the time.

After one year as a WOW I elected not to return to New York and got married, getting two stepsons in the deal. I lived pretty normally for a while, even dropping out of Way involvement (but not Way beliefs) for a few years. When my wife and I returned to active involvement we found that The Way's founder had died and that a power struggle had broken out. When the broken glass had all settled, the founder's designated successor was still in charge, but 80% of the members and leadership and split off to start their own groups. The leader, having survived the coup attempt, became increasingly paranoid and instituting greater and greater controls. Public pronouncement's became more and more unhinged and practices and doctrines became more oppressive. There were purges. I stayed through all of that. Why?

Why does anyone stay in an uncomfortable, or even dangerous, situation? Why do people stay in crappy jobs or women with abusive husbands? I had decided, at least for me, that an accurate "true" teaching of the Bible was worth something. Right or wrong, I thought that The Way taught the Bible correctly, and I didn't know of any church which taught it any better. Certainly not the church of my youth, my return thereto being the subject of many family prayers. The abuses and attempts at control didn't come all at once, like the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water, and it was a while before they came for me. For me, I was balancing the pros and the cons every day. Eventually the cons outweighed the pros. 

Rather than following along blindly, or being pitifully brainwashed, I made decisions every step of the way. Were some of these decisions based on false information? Absolutely. The Way's founder wasn't the great Biblical researcher that he made himself out to be. Were some of them based on wishful thinking. Also absolutely. Are "cult" members unique in making decisions that turn out to be bad, or get involved with and stay in bad situations? No. 

Don't assume that us ex-cultists are somehow different from the rest of you.

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XLIII

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

 When it was announced in a special adult-only meeting in January 2001 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 problems, or outliers, were in fact common practice 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, especially among the top echelons. I participated in discussions 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 would be in Lincoln to teach the WayAP class live, address my concerns. Which he did, unconvincingly and superficially 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 25 year rear-view mirror, it seems like such a minor thing to become the straw that broke the camel's back, especially after decades of red flags. But, to use another metaphor, it was that last pebble that started the avalanche. The Way had always promoted itself as a ministry that encouraged its members to study the Bible themselves and not rely on churches to interpret it for them. I had done precisely that but was fobbed off with a pat on the head and an admonition to trust what I was being taught. Neither the Trustee, nor the Region Coordinator had made a serious effort to address my concerns, or to defend their position biblically. The only reason that I had stayed with The Way so long, despite numerous red flags, was that I believed that Biblical Truth was being taught there. I no longer could accept that this was the case. 

Yet I was still unwilling to make a clean break, as I knew that my ex-wife did not see things my way. It wasn't so much that I wanted to remain an active member of The Way, but that I thought it was the only way to salvage my marriage. 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 the Region Coordinator on the phone several days later that I was no longer welcome at any Way functions. I was not sure if they were putting me on spiritual probation again, or whether I was being marked and avoided, but as the phone call wound down, the he attempted to give me some instructions. I half heartedly (and maybe sarcastically) responded "sure". He replied that my response wasn't very convincing. I informed him that he had just abdicated any authority that he had over me, so it was immaterial to me what he was convinced of, and hung up. 

I was finally out of The Way for good.

Unfortunately, this ended 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 Greasespot Café for many years afterward, contributing to the record of cultishness that it embodied. I made many friends at the Greasespot Café and met over 30 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 25 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.

This ends my personal involvement with The Way International. I will be posting some generic articles about cults in the coming days. 

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XLII

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XL - The Purges Catch Up To Me

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. (Or take the blame if things went wrong) Local 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 my then-wife 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.

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. 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.  

Eventually Pat found out about the mountain of credit card debt. Rather than confront me personally Pat went to the local Way 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. 

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 be banned for six months along with me, which angered her even more — she believed that I was wholly at fault for our situation vis a vis The Way and resented being exiled along with me. But as far as The Way leadership were concerned, my sin was not what Pat alleged — that I was harboring Devil spirits — but simply that I was in debt and had lied to leadership about it. One of the leaders even asked her how she could have missed the fact that I had accumulated so much debt and that there was virtually no money in our joint bank account. This of course did nothing to help the situation at home. 

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) 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 during my probation — 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. 

I was readmitted to The Way in August 1999, when the six months were up. It was a tense time. On the surface things seemed normal with my interactions with other Way people. It seemed like all had been forgiven. In our area I was the only one who had successfully navigated the so-called Spiritual Probation and re-entered full fellowship with The Way. The leaders were convinced I had mended my ways. But 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. 

In January 2000 it was announced that Craig Martindale, president and de facto 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. Rumors flew. The biggest difference in the world between the current uproar and the chaos that followed Wierwille's death and the subsequent fracturing of The Way in the eighties was the internet. In the late eighties and early nineties information moved slowly. Letters, phone calls, furtive conversations at larger gatherings. But now, with a few clicks, you could communicate with anyone in the world. We were told to not start searching the internet for information about the lawsuit, which of course I did.

I discovered not only information about the current scandal but other people who had some of the same doubts and questions that I had. 

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XLI

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" (their term, not mine) 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 long-term 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. As usual Martindale gave no thought to how his pronouncements would affect people. 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 what 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 marked and avoided. 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", not as someone honored for their long service, but one 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 from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XL

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXVIII - Purges

Deprived of their usual targets of alleged spiritual impurity, the wives of the Women's Cabal turned on their husbands. Couldn't afford whatever your wife thought was a necessary purchase? You could forget about a reasonable conversation reviewing the household budget and the state of the bank account — you "weren't believing" for prosperity. Cold or flu making the rounds at your house? Obviously the "head of the household" wasn't believing for health. What this had become was a dictatorship by the women, who made all the decisions, but all blame was put on the men when things went wrong. This was by no means a universal phenomena. Some Way men emphasized the "man as head" model and made all the decisions, relegating the wife to the role of silent enabler, nothing more than a cook and baby-maker. In Lincoln, the tendency of local Way woman to challenge decisions that they didn't agree with was strengthened by that one word in Titus: oikôdespotês. In practice, Way leaders took advantage of this dichotomy, the confusion about who was in charge (as if anyone needed to "be in charge") to exercise control, pointing out marital discord as evidence of devilish influence.

But this was all just a sideshow to the purges.

Most cults take pride in growth, pointing to it as "evidence" of God's favor. For most of its history The Way did as well. Much was made about the large number of people who attended the annual "Rock of Ages" gathering every August; the thousands of new Way believers in Zaire was celebrated as were record numbers entering the Way Corps or serving as Word Over the World Ambassadors. But after losing around 80% of its membership and leaders in the late 80's, some rationale had to be constructed to make sense of it all. That rationale was the teaching of "the faithful remnant". This was the doctrine that stated that God wasn't about quantity, but was more concerned with quality. The smaller number of active Way people was celebrated as being more pure, more godly, more "on the Word" than what had been around before. And not only were we supposed to view the shrinking numbers as somehow positive, but leadership began to actively reduce the numbers by imposing strict standards of behavior and obedience to leaders that had never been seen before. The most intense was what we profanely referred to as the "homo purge". (I'm using term and placing it in quotes because that's what it was called in The Way, I do not endorse describing gay people simply as "homos")

For most of my early years in The Way, homosexuality wasn't addressed, at least that I noticed. I didn't know of any "out" gay people and I can't recall a single sermon on the subject until the mid nineties. The times were not friendly to gay people outside The Way, and in retrospect Way people were probably as homophobic as the typical straight people of the time, but it just wasn't a focus. In 1995 it became a focus. Way President Martindale began making homosexuality THE sin to be on guard against. You know the verse about the love of money being the root of all evil? For Martindale homosexuality was the root of all evil. Everything that would or could go wrong was blamed on supposed closeted gays in our midst. In 1995 he cancelled the WOW Ambassador program with no notice in the midst of the Rock of Ages. His "reasoning" was his belief (that God supposedly told him) that 10% of the outgoing WOWs were homosexuals. Hundreds of Way followers had uprooted their lives — quit their jobs, sold their homes, said goodbye to their friends — in order to spend the year witnessing and recruiting people to The Way. And Martindale threw it all away based on "revelation". He encouraged people to point the finger at suspected homosexuals, as long as you had "a genuine spiritual suspicion" — whatever that was. Martindale wasn't slowed down by the inconvenient fact that few if any actual gay people were found to be hiding out among the believers. That deterred him not in the slightest. He came up with the terms "Homo fantasizers" and "homo sympathizers" and they became were corollary targets, based on that ephemeral "genuine spiritual suspicion". 

I'm not proud of my behavior during this time. Actually, I'm ashamed of my behavior during that time. Growing up I had taken a laissez faire attitude about gays. If I knew any, I didn't know that they were gay. I probably made ignorant jokes — because I was ignorant. When I moved to Nebraska and got involved in KZUM, however, I came in contact with a lot of gay people and became friends with many of them. This was during the time when my ex-wife and I were not actively involved in The Way, 1983-1990. Even after getting back involved with The Way in 1990, homophobia and gay bashing hadn't taken hold yet, but once the organization which I viewed as having a handle on God's Truth started preaching against gays, I'm ashamed to say that I jumped on board. I probably wasn't as vicious about it as some, but I was vocal. I'm sure there are family members who haven't forgotten my homophobic remarks made in those days. 

Fred Brown, our local Way Corps leader discovered that I had a talent for accurate note-taking. Why was this a valuable skill to have in a cult? Because the manner in which purges were conducted was a "confrontation". The local leader, along with a subordinate leader if there was one, and several witnesses would "confront" the person suspected of homosexuality (or some other sin — there were multiple, overlapping purges that I will get into in the next installment). This was supposedly the "Biblical" way to address "evil". The leader would grill the confronted one, aiming to pin some sin on him or her with the inevitable result that they were kicked out of Way involvement. My job was to take notes and read statements back to the leader when asked to, with emphasis on finding contradictions and lies to pin on the person being confronted. The term we used for kicking a person out was "mark and avoid" based on a verse which said "...mark them which causes divisions and offenses...and avoid them". Not only was a person who was marked and avoided kicked out of the fellowship, but none of the active members were allowed to have anything to do with them. Someone who was marked and avoided was cut off, not only from any friends that they had, but often from their family as well. This went on for several years and I was involved in dozens of mark and avoid confrontation sessions. 

Along with the other purges, this was my Way lifestyle for around five years, always looking my shoulder, watching what I said and to whom, including my own family, and all the while I was complicit in the evil. 

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XXXIX

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXVII - Pointing Fingers

The "Woman's Cabal", which included my ex-wife Pat, mainly concerned themselves with criticizing local Way leadership, being part of the informal power as known as Old Grads they felt that they had the knowledge and standing to question anyone that they thought was "off The Word". Fred Brown, the newly appointed leader, freshly graduated from the Way Corps and exposed to Way President Craig Martindale's paranoid ravings for four years was not having it. He began cracking down on any dissension,  and in line with what Martindale was preaching every week, directed any dissension among the believers away from leadership and toward each other.

This was a big change. The power struggle among leadership during the second half of the eighties had caused the rank and file to question the leadership. Any problems — sickness, financial issues, even divorce was traced back to leaders being "off The Word", or — and this was an accusation that was thrown around more and more — devil spirit possession.

Now the same issues, when they arose, were being laid at the feet of ordinary Way followers to the point where if Martindale caught a cold it was blamed on lack of believing by the Way "household" (i.e. the whole body of active Way participants). I was even present when a thunderstorm that caused the campground at a Way event to be flooded was blamed on the lack of "community believing", rather than the poor planning of leaders who designated low ground as a campground during the rainy season in Ohio. 

This change in focus of spiritual responsibility had the effect of making people paranoid that their own negative believing could cause harm in the household of believers and also intent on pointing the finger at others. The women of the cabal struck out in multiple directions.  

One of the many classes that The Way created was called "Defeating the Adversary" (i.e The Devil). The Way, despite having a fair number of women in leadership positions, (usually single women) was extremely patriarchal and fundamentalist in its interpretation of verses that related to marriage. They very much believed that the husband was the head of his wife (although not that any random man was the head of any individual woman) although what that meant was left unclear. In the Defeating the Adversary (DTA) class Martindale made reference to Titus 2:3-5 where, in English, women are described as "keepers at home". He claimed that this was a translation of the Greek word oikôdespotês. Oikos means "house", or "home". As for the second part of the Greek word, I think we all know what a "despot" is. This was interpreted to mean that wives were the undisputed rulers regarding household decisions. It was left unclear how this meshed with the husband being the head of the wife. 

Deprived of the traditional targets of incompetent leadership and armed with supposed Biblical justification for being a dictator over their own households, Way women began refusing to discuss household decisions with their husbands, and if the husbands wouldn't cooperate, accusing them to leadership as "off The Word" or even possessed. Fred was happy to entertain these accusations and fostered an environment where married couples were fighting with each other, justifying their intransigence as "keeping the household pure". This bubbled beneath the surface for several years. It started to affect me in my marriage, but there were so many other accusations going around, with kangaroo courts and "confrontations" the issues in my own marriage flew under the radar for a while. 

Purges were on the horizon.

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XXXVII