Good morning. There's a situation brewing with a clam in-law that I'm not sure how to deal with and would greatly appreciate some assistance.

First, the background: nine years ago, one of my sisters-in-law and her husband got sucked into the cult. We (the rest of the family) did everything we knew how to at the time. We researched the cult, tried group interventions, did visitations, the whole bit. During one of these visits, the husband called California for help. The handler on the other end did his bit, advised him and tried to talk to each of us interlopers. I had a lively debate with the twit that ended with me being referred to as suppressive.

Apparently, I knew too much about them for him to convince me that they weren't evil.

The long and short of it is that nothing helped and my clams-in-law progressed along the bridge until I was told that they had both reached "clear" status. This was about 18 months ago. There had been some trouble between the husband and two other in-laws, harassing phone calls and threats of calling the police, but nothing came out it.

Now the new problem. We just found out that the husband has been in California since October and isn't expected back until February.

Sister-in-law very neatly kept this hidden from the rest of the family, but one of her sisters found out. The only hint that something was going on was a sudden resurgence in phone calls to the "problem" in-laws. My best guess is that the husband is doing some new levels of training and the problem in-laws keep coming up in Auditing sessions, and he has to deal with them.

Anyway, there's a family meeting being called to try to draw up a plan of action. We're guessing that the husband is probably lost. One sister-in-law doesn't think he'll be back. What we need to know is how to deal with the sister-in-law who's here and what we should expect when and if the husband returns. Any insight anyone could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Cheers, .....G

----
Gordon Campbell
Clam Fighter since 1993
SP4 with clam cluster
They called my ISP!

On Fri, 24 Jan 2003 15:50:37 GMT, Skip Press <skippress@earthlink.net>

wrote:

snip

>Get her / them to read "A Piece of Blue Sky" - worked for my wife and
>me. :-)

There *is* another way, though few people can manage it. You can get them *thrown out*.

All you have to do is get enough people picketing where ever they are and scientology management will decide they don't need the hassle and kick them out.

Of course, your relatives will at first be as pissed at you as any junky would be who got his dope connection cut off.

Keith Henson

On Fri, 24 Jan 2003 09:14:40 -0500, "Gordon Campbell"

<clamfighter@cruachan.ca> wrote:

>Good morning. There's a situation brewing with a clam in-law that I'm not
>sure how to deal with and would greatly appreciate some assistance.
>
>First, the background: nine years ago, one of my sisters-in-law and her
>husband got sucked into the cult. We (the rest of the family) did everything
>we knew how to at the time. We researched the cult, tried group
>interventions, did visitations, the whole bit. During one of these visits,
>the husband called California for help. The handler on the other end did his
>bit, advised him and tried to talk to each of us interlopers. I had a lively
>debate with the twit that ended with me being referred to as suppressive.
>Apparently, I knew too much about them for him to convince me that they
>weren't evil.
>
>The long and short of it is that nothing helped and my clams-in-law
>progressed along the bridge until I was told that they had both reached
>"clear" status. This was about 18 months ago. There had been some trouble
>between the husband and two other in-laws, harassing phone calls and threats
>of calling the police, but nothing came out it.
>
>Now the new problem. We just found out that the husband has been in
>California since October and isn't expected back until February.
>Sister-in-law very neatly kept this hidden from the rest of the family, but
>one of her sisters found out. The only hint that something was going on was
>a sudden resurgence in phone calls to the "problem" in-laws. My best guess
>is that the husband is doing some new levels of training and the problem
>in-laws keep coming up in Auditing sessions, and he has to deal with them.
>
>Anyway, there's a family meeting being called to try to draw up a plan of
>action. We're guessing that the husband is probably lost. One sister-in-law
>doesn't think he'll be back. What we need to know is how to deal with the
>sister-in-law who's here and what we should expect when and if the husband
>returns. Any insight anyone could provide would be greatly appreciated.
>Thanks.

I can give you some insight. It might or might not help.

The closest model for people in cults is drug addicts. The exact same brain reward pathway is involved. What happens is that some people are intensely rewarded by the kind of attention they get in cults.

The way the reward works is that attention causes the brain to release endorphins and dopamine--which act on the same reward circuits that addictive drugs do. There are sound (sex connected) reasons evolution built this mechanism.

People's rewards circuits do change in sensitivity as they get older.

They sometimes get to where the reward from cults or drugs isn't worth what the cult or drug costs them. A good fraction of dope addicts (that don't die) give it up in middle age. But it harder to talk reason to someone in a cult situation than it is to talk to a junky about their dope use.

Support groups (such as AA) substitute group attention rewards for the drug. To the extent support groups work, this is how. Support for people getting out of a cult might take the same form, though cults make it very hard for outsiders to have any contact.

There is a long journal article here:

http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/cults.html

which I found to my surprise has worked its way up to the bottom of the first page if you put my name in Google.

Good luck!

Keith Henson

>Cheers,
>.....G
>
>----
>Gordon Campbell
>Clam Fighter since 1993
>SP4 with clam cluster
>They called my ISP!
>

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