Each person's experience with a cult is different. Some may dabble with a meditation technique but never get drawn into taking "advanced courses" or moving to the ashram. Others may quickly give up all they have, including college, career, possessions, home, or family, to do missionary work in a foreign country or move into cult lodgings.

After a cult involvement, some people carry on with their lives seemingly untouched; more typically, others may encounter a variety of emotional problems and troubling psychological difficulties ranging from inability to sleep, restlessness, and lack of direction to panic attacks, memory loss, and depression. To varying degrees they may feel guilty, ashamed, enraged, lost, confused, betrayed, paranoid, and in a sort of fog.

Assessing the Damage

Why are some people so damaged by their cult experience while others walk away seemingly unscathed? There are predisposing personality factors and levels of vulnerability that may enhance a person's continued vulnerability and susceptibility while in the group. All these factors govern the impact of the cult experience on the individual and the potential for subsequent damage. In assessing this impact, three different stages of the cult experience—before, during, and after—need to be examined.

Before Involvement

Vulnerability factors before involvement include a person's age, prior history of emotional problems, and certain personality characteristics.

During Involvement

Length of time spent in the group

There is quite a difference in the impact a cult will have on a person if she or he is a member for only a few weeks, as compared to months or years. A related factor is the amount of exposure to the indoctrination process and the various levels of control that exist in the group.

Intensity and severity of the thought-reform program The intensity and severity of cults' efforts at conversion and control vary in different groups and in the same group at different times.

Members who are in a peripheral, "associate" status may have very different experiences from those who are full-time, inner-core members.

Specific methods will also vary in their effect. An intense training workshop over a week or weekend that includes sleep deprivation, hypnosis, and self-exposure coupled with a high degree of supervision and lack of privacy is likely to produce faster changes in a participant than a group process using more subtle and long-term methods of change.

Poor or inadequate medical treatments A former cult member's physical condition and attitude toward physical health may greatly impact postcult adjustments.

Loss of outside support

The availability of a network of family and friends and the amount of outside support certainly will bear on a person's reintegration after a cult involvement.

Skewed or nonexistent contact with family and former friends tends to increase members' isolation and susceptibility to the cult's worldview. The reestablishment of those contacts is important to help offset the loss and loneliness the person will quite naturally feel.

After involvement

Various factors can hasten healing and lessen postcult difficulties at this stage. Many are related to the psycho-educational process. Former cult members often spend years after leaving a cult in relative isolation, not talking about or dealing with their cult experiences.

Shame and silence may increase the harm done by the group and can prevent healing.

Understanding the dynamics of cult conversion is essential to healing and making a solid transition to an integrated postcult life. ing session.

Engage in a professionally led exit counselling session.

Educate yourself about cults and thought-reform techniques.

Involve family members and old and new friends in reviewing and evaluating your cult experience.

See a mental health professional or a pastoral counselor, preferably someone who is familiar with or is willing to be educated about cults and common postcult problems.

Attend a support group for former cult members.

The following sets of questions have proven helpful to former cult members trying to make sense of their experience.

Reviewing your recruitment

1. What was going on in your life at the time you joined the group or met the person who became your abusive partner?

2. How and where were you approached?

3. What was your initial reaction to or feeling about the leader or group?

4. What first interested you in the group or leader?

5. How were you misled during recruitment?

6. What did the group or leader promise you? Did you ever get it?

7. What didn't they tell you that might have influenced you not to join had you known?

8. Why did the group or leader want you?

Understanding the psychological manipulation used in your group

1. Which controlling techniques were used by your group or leader:

chanting, meditation, sleep deprivation, isolation, drugs, hypnosis, criticism, fear. List each technique and how it served the group's purpose.

2. What was the most effective? the least effective?

3. What technique are you still using that is hard to give up? Are you able to see any effects on you when you practice these?

4. What are the group's beliefs and values? How did they come to be your beliefs and values?

Examining your doubts

1. What are your doubts about the group or leader now?

2. Do you still believe the group or leader has all or some of the answers?

3. Are you still afraid to encounter your leader or group members on the street?

4. Do you ever think of going back? What is going on in your mind when this happens?

5. Do you believe your group or leader has any supernatural or spiritual power to harm you in any way?

6. Do you believe you are cursed by God for having left the group?

[Excerpted from Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Madeleine Tobias and Janja Lalich (Hunter House Publishers, (800)266-5892). ©1994. Reprinted with permission. Also available from AFF's Electronic Bookstore, or ask for at your local bookstore.]

---- I'm so homophobic, I can't even touch myself!

From: HR-Defense@aol.com (Shy David)
Subject: Post-Cult After Effects
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 19:26:03 GMT
Organization: -NONE-
Message-ID: <3defa871@news2.lightlink.com>

Post-Cult After Effects Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D.

After exiting a cult, an individual may experience a period of intense and often conflicting emotions. She or he may feel relief to be out of the group, but also may feel grief over the loss of positive elements in the cult, such as friendships, a sense of belonging or the feeling of personal worth generated by the group's stated ideals or mission.

The emotional upheaval of the period is often characterized by "post- cult trauma syndrome":

spontaneous crying

sense of loss

depression & suicidal thoughts

fear that not obeying the cult's wishes will result in God's wrath or loss of salvation

alienation from family, friends

sense of isolation, loneliness due to being surrounded by people who have no basis for understanding cult life

fear of evil spirits taking over one's life outside the cult

scrupulosity, excessive rigidity about rules of minor importance

panic disproportionate to one's circumstances

fear of going insane

confusion about right and wrong

sexual conflicts

unwarranted guilt

The period of exiting from a cult is usually a traumatic experience and, like any great change in a person's life, involves passing through stages of accommodation to the change:

Disbelief/denial: "This can't be happening. It couldn't have been that bad."

Anger/hostility: "How could they/I be so wrong?" (hate feelings)

Self-pity/depression: "Why me? I can't do this."

Fear/bargaining: "I don't know if I can live without my group. Maybe I can still associate with it on a limited basis, if I do what they want."

Reassessment: "Maybe I was wrong about the group's being so wonderful."

Accommodation/acceptance: "I can move beyond this experience and choose new directions for my life" or...

Reinvolvement: "I think I will rejoin the group."

Passing through these stages is seldom a smooth progression. It is fairly typical to bounce back and forth between different stages. Not everyone achieves the stage of accommodation / acceptance. Some return to cult life. But for those who do not, the following may be experienced for a period of several months:

flashbacks to cult life

simplistic black-white thinking

sense of unreality

suggestibility, ie. automatic obedience responses to trigger-terms of the cult's loaded language or to innocent suggestions

disassociation (spacing out)

feeling "out of it"

"Stockholm Syndrome": knee-jerk impulses to defend the cult when it is criticized, even if the cult hurt the person

difficulty concentrating

incapacity to make decisions

hostility reactions, either toward anyone who criticizes the cult or toward the cult itself

mental confusion

low self-esteem

dread of running into a current cult-member by mistake

loss of a sense of how to carry out simple tasks

dread of being cursed or condemned by the cult

hang-overs of habitual cult behaviors like chanting

difficulty managing time

trouble holding down a job

Most of these symptoms subside as the victim mainstreams into everyday routines of normal life. In a small number of cases, the symptoms continue.

[* This information is a composite list from the following sources:

"Coming Out of Cults", by Margaret Thaler Singer, Psychology Today, Jan. 1979, P. 75; "Destructive Cults, Mind Control and Psychological Coercion", Positive Action Portland, Oregon, and "Fact Sheet", Cult Hot-Line and Clinic, New York City.]

---- I'm so homophobic, I can't even touch myself!

From: HR-Defense@aol.com (Shy David)
Subject: Essay: Coping With Trance States
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 19:26:56 GMT
Organization: -NONE-
Message-ID: <3defa8a6@news2.lightlink.com>

Essay: Coping With Trance States Cult Observer, Volume 10, No. 3, 1993

The following, which first appeared in the Summer 1992 issue of TM EX NEWS, was written by former followers of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. TM-EX is a nonprofit, educational and research organization.

Trance states, derealization, dissociation, spaceyness. What are they?

What strategies can we use to cope with them? By trance states we mean dissociation, depersonalization, and derealization. In the group we called it spacing out or higher/altered states of consciousness. All humans have some propensity to have moments of dissociation. However, certain practices (meditation, chanting, learned processes of speaking in tongues, prolonged guided imagery, etc.) appear to have ingrained in many former members a reflexive response to involuntarily enter altered states of consciousness. (These altered states are defined fully in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM III]).

Even after leaving the group and ceasing its consciousness altering practices, this habitual, learned response tends to recur under stress. For some former members this can be distressing and affect their functioning. When this happens, it tends to impair one’s concentration, attention, memory, and coping skills.

Many former members coming from groups practicing prolonged consciousness altering find that the intensity, frequency, and duration of the episodes decrease when they deliberately and consistently use the strategies outlined below.

It is important to note that when one is tired, ill, or under stress, the feelings of spaceyness, dissociation, depersonalization, and derealization may temporarily return. By developing the ability to immediately label these states and attempting the following strategies, one can return to a consistent state of mental functioning.

Maintain a routine. Make change slowly, physically, emotionally, nutritionally, geographically, etc.

Monitor health, watch nutrition, get medical checkups. Avoid drugs and alcohol.

Take daily exercise to reduce dissociation (spaceyness, anxiety, and insomnia).

Avoid sensory overload. Avoid crowds or large spaces without boundaries (shopping malls, video arcades, etc.) Drive consciously without music.

Reality orientation Establish time end place landmarks such as calendars and clocks.

Make lists of activities in advance. Update lists daily or weekly.

Difficult tasks and large projects should be kept on separate lists.

Before going on errands, review lists of planned activities, purchases, and projects. Mark items off as you complete them.

Keep updated on current news. News shows (CNN, Headline News, talk radio) are helpful because they repeat, especially if you have memory and concentration difficulties.

Reading Try to read one complete news article daily to increase comprehension.

Develop reading "stamina" with the aid of a timer, and increase reading periods progressively.

Sleep interruptions Leave talk radio/television and news programs (not music) on all night.

Don’t push yourself. After years or months, dissociation is a habit that takes time to break.

---- I'm so homophobic, I can't even touch myself!

From: HR-Defense@aol.com (Shy David)
Subject: Repairing the Soul After a Cult Experience
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 19:29:13 GMT
Organization: -NONE-
Message-ID: <3defa935@news2.lightlink.com>

Repairing the Soul After a Cult Experience Janja Lalich, M.A.

1/2

I was recruited into a cult in 1975 when I was 30 years old. The previous year I returned to the United States after having spent almost four years in exile abroad, where I lived the most serene life on an island in the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain. If someone had told me that within a year I would be deeply involved and committed to a cult, I would have laughed derisively. Not me! I was too independent, too headstrong, a lover of fun and freedom.

I was told that we would be unlike all other groups on the Left because we were led by women and because our leader was brilliant and from the working class. I was told that we would not follow the political line of any other country, but that we would create our own brand of Marxism, our own proletarian feminist revolution; we would not be rigid, dogmatic, sexist, racist. We were new and different - an elite force. We were going to make the world a better place for all people.

The reality, of course, was that our practical work had little if anything to do with working-class ideals or goals. Our leader was an incorrigible, uncontrollable megalomaniac; she was alcoholic, arbitrary, and almost always angry. Our organization, with the word democratic prominent in its name, was ultra-authoritarian, completely top down, with no real input or criticism sought or listened to. Our lives were made up of 18-hour days of busywork and denunciation sessions. Our world was harsh, barren, and unrewarding. We were committed and idealistic dreamers who were tricked into believing that such demanding conditions were necessary to transform ourselves into cadre fighters. We were instructed that we were the "uninstructed" and that we must take all guidance from our leader who knew all. We were never to question any orders or in any way contradict or confront our leader. We were taught to dread and fear the outside world which, we were told, would shun and punish us. In fact, the shunning and punishment was rampant within; but, blinded by our own belief, commitment, and fatigue, in conjunction with the group's behavior-control techniques, I and the others succumbed to the pressures and quickly learned to rationalize away any doubts or apprehensions.

I remained in that group for more than 10 years.

When I got out of the cult in early 1986, I had to begin life anew. I was a decade behind in everything. Both my parents had died, and I had lost touch with former friends. I had to play catch up, so to speak, culturally, socially, economically, emotionally, and intellectually.

But most important of all, I had to repair my soul. Who am I? How could I have committed the many unkind acts while in the group? Where do I belong now? What do I believe in now? Will I ever restore my faith in myself and in others? These are the kinds of questions and dilemmas that troubled me. Over time, and most recently through my contact and work with former members of many types of cults, I've come to see that the single most uniform aspect of all cult experiences is that it touches, and usually damages, the soul, the psyche.

I define a cult as a particular kind of relationship; it can be a group situation or between two people. Within that relationship there is an enormous power imbalance, but more than that, there is a hidden agenda. There is deception, manipulation, exploitation, and almost certainly abuse, carried out and/or reinforced by the use of social and psychological influence techniques meant to control behavior and shape attitudes and thinking patterns. A cult is led by a person (or sometimes two or three) who demands all veneration, who makes all decisions, and who ultimately controls most aspects of the personal lives of those who are cleverly persuaded that they must follow, obey, and stay in the good graces (i.e., the grips) of the leader.

Cult leaders and cult recruiters capture the hearts, minds, and souls of the best and brightest in our society. Cults are looking for active, productive, intelligent, energetic individuals who will perform for the cult by fund-raising, by recruiting more followers, by operating cult businesses and leading cult seminars. In the 1960s and 1970s it was perhaps more typical for cults to recruit primarily young people; this is no longer so. Today, cults recruit the young and old alike and everyone in between. With anywhere from three to five thousand cults active in the United States today, it is quite likely that a cult recruiter has been knocking on your door or that you have unwittingly answered a cult's advertisement for a course, a workshop, a lecture, a book or tape, or some other product.

Today's cults are so sophisticated in their recruitment and indoctrination techniques that their methods go far beyond what anybody imagined in the 1950s when certain scholars and researchers were studying and writing about thought-reform programs and systematic behavior-control processes. Cults today have perfected their approaches and refined their manipulations. They had to - after all, recruiting and retaining bright people isn't easy. And this is again where the soul comes in.

Cults appeal to that part of ourselves that wants something better; a better world for others or a better self. These are the genuine, heartfelt desires of decent, honest human beings. Cult recruiters are trained in how to play on those desires, how to make it look as though what the cult has to offer is exactly what you're interested in. Cults can be formed around almost any topic, but there are nine broad categories: religious, Eastern-based, New Age, business, political, psychotherapy/ human potential, occult, one-on-one, and miscellaneous (such as lifestyle or personality cults).

All cults, no matter their stripe, are a variation on a theme, for their common denominator is the use of coercive persuasion and behavior control without the knowledge of the person who is being manipulated. They manage this by targeting (and eventually attacking, dissembling, and reformulating according to the cult's desired image) a person's innermost self. They take away you and give you back a cult personality, a pseudo personality. They punish you when the old you turns up, and they reward the new you. Before you know it, you don't know who you are or how you got there; you only know (or you are trained to believe) that you have to stay there. In a cult there is only one way - cults are totalitarian, a yellow brick road to serve the leader's whims and desires, be they power, sex, or money.

When I was in my cult, I so desperately wanted to believe that I had finally found the answer. Life in our society today can be difficult, confusing, daunting, disheartening, alarming, and frightening. Someone with a glib tongue and good line can sometimes appear to offer you a solution. In my case, I was drawn in by the proposed political solution - to bring about social change. For someone else, the focus may be on health, diet, psychological awareness, the environment, the stars, a spirit being, or even becoming a more successful business person. The crux is that cult leaders are adept at convincing us that what they have to offer is special, real, unique, and forever - and that we wouldn't be able to survive apart from the cult. A person's sense of belief is so dear, so deep, and so powerful; ultimately it is that belief that helps bind the person to the cult. It is the glue used by the cult to make the mind manipulations stick. It is our very core, our very belief in our self and our commitment, it is our very faith in humankind and the world that is exploited and abused and turned against us by the cults.

---- I'm so homophobic, I can't even touch myself!

From: HR-Defense@aol.com (Shy David)
Subject: Coming Out of the Cults
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 19:29:42 GMT
Organization: -NONE-
Message-ID: <3defa94c@news2.lightlink.com>

Coming Out of the Cults Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D.

(Excerpted from "Coming Out of the Cults," Psychology Today, January, 1979)

Most ex-cult members we have seen struggle at one time or another with some or all of the following difficulties and problems. Not all have all of these problems, nor do most have them in severe and extended form.

Depression. With their 24-hour regime of ritual, work, worship, and community, the cults provide members with tasks and purpose. When members leave, a sense of meaninglessness often reappears. They must also deal with family and personal issues left unresolved at the time of conversion.

But former members have a variety of new losses to contend with. They often speak of their regret for the lost years and feel a loss of innocence and self-esteem if they come to believe that they were used, or that they wrongly surrendered their autonomy.

Loneliness. Leaving a cult also means leaving many friends, a brotherhood with common interests, the intimacy of sharing a very significant experience, and having to look for new friends in an uncomprehending or suspicious world.

Indecisiveness. Some groups prescribe virtually every activity: what and when to eat, wear, and do during the day and night, showering, defecating procedures, and sleep positions. The loss of a way of life in which everything is planned often creates a "future void" in which they must plan and execute all their tomorrows on their own. Certain individuals cannot put together any organized plan for taking care of themselves, whether problems involve a job, school, or social life.

Some have to be urged to buy alarm clocks and notebooks in order to get up, get going, and plan their days.

Slipping into Altered States. Recruits are caught up in a round of long, repetitive lectures couched in hypnotic metaphors and exalted ideas, hours of chanting while half-awake, attention-focusing songs and games, and meditating. Several groups send their members to bed wearing headsets that pipe sermons into their ears as they sleep, after hours of listening to tapes of the leader’s exhortations while awake. These are all practices that tend to produce states of altered consciousness, exaltation, and suggestibility.

When they leave the cult, many members find that a variety of conditions—stress and conflict, a depressive low, certain significant words or ideas—can trigger a return to the trancelike state they knew in cult days. They report that they fall into the familiar, unshakable lethargy, and seem to hear bits of exhortations from cult speakers.

These episodes of "floating"—like the flashbacks of drug users—are most frequent immediately after leaving the group, but can still occur weeks or months later.

Blurring of Mental Acuity. Most cult veterans report—and their families confirm—subtle cognitive inefficiencies and changes that take some time to pass. Many former cult members have to take simple jobs until they regain former levels of competence.

Fear of the Cult. Most of the groups work hard to prevent defections:

some ex-members cite warnings of heavenly damnation for themselves, their ancestors, and their children. Since many cult veterans retain some residual belief in the cult doctrines, this alone can be a horrifying burden.

When members do leave, efforts to get them back reportedly range from moderate harassment to incidents involving the use of force. Many ex-members and their families secure unlisted phone numbers; some move away from known addresses; some even take assumed names in distant places.

Fear may be most acute for former members who have left a spouse or children behind in the cults that recruited couples and families. Any effort to make contact risks breaking the link completely. Often painful legal actions ensue over child custody or conservatorship between ex- and continuing adherents.

The Fishbowl Effect. A special problem is the constant watchfulness of family and friends, who are on the alert for any signs that the difficulties of real life will send the person back. Mild dissociation, deep preoccupations, temporary altered states of consciousness, and any positive talk about cult days can cause alarm in a former member’s family. Often the ex-member senses it, but neither side knows how to open up discussion.

New acquaintances and old friends can also trigger an ex-cult member’s feelings that people are staring, wondering why he/she joined such a group.

The Agonies of Explaining. Why one joined is difficult to tell anyone who is unfamiliar with cults. One has to describe the subtleties and power of the recruitment procedures and how one was indoctrinated.

Most difficult of all is to try to explain why a person is unable simply to walk away from a cult, for that entails being able to give a long and sophisticated explanation of social and psychological coercion, influence, and control procedures.

Guilt. According to our informants, significant parts of cult activity are based on deception, particularly fund-raising and recruitment. The dishonesty is rationalized as being for the greater good of the cult or the person recruited. As they take up their personal consciences again, many ex-members feel great remorse over the lies they have told, and they frequently worry over how to right the wrongs they did.

Perplexities about Altruism. Many of these people want to find ways to put their altruism and energy back to work without becoming a pawn in another manipulative group. They wonder how they can properly select among the myriad contending organizations—social, religious, philanthropic, service-oriented, psychological—and remain their own boss.

Elite No More. "They get you to believing that they alone know how to save the world," recalled one member. "You think you are in the vanguard of history . . . As the chosen, you are above the law . . . "

Clearly one of the more poignant comedowns of postgroup life is the end of feeling a chosen person, a member of an elite.

---- I'm so homophobic, I can't even touch myself!

From: HR-Defense@aol.com (Shy David)
Subject: It Hurts
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 19:30:19 GMT
Organization: -NONE-
Message-ID: <3defa970@news2.lightlink.com>

It Hurts Jan Groenveld

IT HURTS to discover you were deceived - that what you thought was the "one true religion," the "path to total fredom," or "truth" was in reality a cult.

IT HURTS when you learn that people you trusted implicitly - whom you were taught not to question - were "pulling the wool over your eyes"

albeit unwittingly.

IT HURTS when you learn that those you were taught were your "enemies"

were telling the truth after all -- but you had been told they were liars, deceivers, repressive, satanic etc and not to listen to them.

IT HURTS when you know your faith in God hasn't changed - only your trust in an organization - yet you are accused of apostasy, being a trouble maker, a "Judas". It hurts even more when it is your family and friends making these accusations.

IT HURTS to realize their love and acceptance was conditional on you remaining a member of good standing. This cuts so deeply you try and suppress it. All you want to do is forget - but how can you forget your family and friends?

IT HURTS to see the looks of hatred coming from the faces of those you love - to hear the deafening silence when you try and talk to them. It cuts deeply when you try and give your child a hug and they stand like a statue, pretending you aren't there. It stabs like a knife when you know your spouse looks upon you as demonised and teaches your children to hate you.

IT HURTS to know you must start all over again. You feel you have wasted so much time. You feel betrayed, disillusioned, suspicious of everyone including family, friends and other former members.

IT HURTS when you find yourself feeling guilty or ashamed of what you were - even about leaving them. You feel depressed, confused, lonely.

You find it difficult to make decisions. You don't know what to do with yourself because you have so much time on your hands now - yet you still feel guilty for spending time on recreation.

IT HURTS when you feel as though you have lost touch with reality. You feel as though you are "floating" and wonder if you really are better off and long for the security you had in the organization and yet you know you cannot go back.

IT HURTS when you feel you are all alone - that no one seems to understand what you are feeling. It hurts when you realize your self confidence and self worth are almost non-existent.

IT HURTS when you have to front up to friends and family to hear their "I told you so" whether that statement is verbal or not. It makes you feel even more stupid than you already do - your confidence and self worth plummet even further.

IT HURTS when you realize you gave up everything for the cult - your education, career, finances, time and energy - and now have to seek employment or restart your education. How do you explain all those missing years?

IT HURTS because you know that even though you were deceived, you are responsible for being taken in. All that wasted time........ at least that is what it seems to you - wasted time.

THE PAIN OF GRIEF

Leaving a cult is like experiencing the death of a close relative or a broken relationship. The feeling is often described as like having been betrayed by someone with whom you were in love. You feel you were simply used.

There is a grieving process to pass through. Whereas most people understand that a person must grieve after a death etc, they find it difficult to understand the same applies in this situation. There is no instant cure for the grief, confusion and pain. Like all grieving periods, time is the healer. Some feel guilty, or wrong about this grief. They shouldn't -- It IS normal. It is NOT wrong to feel confused, uncertain, disillusioned, guilty, angry, untrusting - these are all part of the process. In time the negative feelings will be replaced with clear thinking, joy, peace, and trust.

YES - IT HURTS BUT THE HURTS WILL HEAL WITH TIME, PATIENCE &

UNDERSTANDING

There is life after the cult.

Copyright (c) Jan Groenveld Internet: py101663@mailbox.uq.oz.au Cult Awareness & Information Centre PO Box 2444,Mansfield,4122,Australia (61-(0)7- 343 8116)

---- I'm so homophobic, I can't even touch myself!

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