The ultimate abandonment of self

I’ve been preoccupied lately with documentaries about cults: Scientology, Mormonism, NXIVM, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jewish and Christian Ultra-Orthodoxy and more. All of it super fascinating and familiar to me.

I was almost recruited into a cult back in the early 2000’s. A random encounter with a fellow yogi in an elevator led to a few lunches. Before long she invited me to meet her “friend”. From their I was invited to meet higher ranking members of their organization. I met all of this with skepticism and curiosity and quietly asked myself, where is this going? Finally I was introduced to their leader, who looked a ringer for Marlon Brando in The Island of Dr. Moreau [so very creepy]! All of this courting of me came to a head when they informed me that I’d have to keep my association with them a secret from my new husband. All of my curiosity came to a screeching halt. I knew in my bones that asking me to keep a secret was a violation of me at its root, so I bowed out of that quickly.

Image: Marlon Brando as Dr. Moreau, from the movie, The Island of Dr. Moreau

I’ve alluded in the past to tumultuous events in my extended family. Essentially it became a matter of life and death for me to wake the fuck up to the fact that I had endured many, many years of abuse: gaslighting, projection and scapegoating.

Waking up was no cake walk. And what I’ve been piecing together in the years since is noticing the very same patterns of a cult hierarchy, running through my family dynamic.

Below is a condensed list of cult association qualities compiled by the renowned Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Steve Eichel, President of the Board of the International Cultic Studies Association:

The group is focused on a living leader of which members must display an unquestioning commitment.
Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel.
The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
The group's leader is not accountable to the group or to any authority.
The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
Members' subservience to the group forces them to cut ties with family and friends.

It sadly took me many more years to see the cult dynamic in my family then it did to wake up to a random encounter with a fellow Yogi. But, alas, I made it. I am healing, growing and flourishing. I can not be stopped. Despite the tremendous difficulty getting to where I am now, I would trade nothing for it.

So, dear reader…has someone convinced you of your wrongness? Have you been making yourself small in order to accommodate these individuals? Can I help you out of that hole? You know where to find me.

Next week I discuss this dynamic but from the standpoint of Supremacy. Stay tuned, it’s gonna be good.