Defining Cults - Who Joins Cults? - The "Not Me" Myth
The average person looks down on those who get involved in cults, get taken in a scam by some operator who bilks people, or remain in an abusive group or relationship for long periods. That only happens to weak and silly people, the person boasts, generating for herself or himself a category called "not me" in which to place the victim of cults, scams, and intense influence. There is an almost universal aversion to accepting the idea that we ourselves are vulnerable to persuasion. I have heard this from journalists, college professors, neighbors, passengers seated enxt to me on a plane, poeple I tlak with in the street, graduate students, gardeners, salesclerks. Neither education, age, nor social class protects a person from this false sense of invulnerability.
Severaly years ago when I was lecturing in Switzerland, a Swiss psychiatrist opened the program by saying: "We have such an educated, close-knit, middle-class society, we have no cults here. Cults will never get an inroad in this country." I then provided literature containing the street addresses of various large, internationally known cults, as well as many small ones, operating in Zurich and other Swiss cities. Few, if any, countries in the world are without cults.
Sayfa 16
4. Earth and Sky
“Lunch time, mateys. Let’s see what Aunty Jayne packed for us.”
Gentle waves lap up to the boat as we dig into the basket.
“Ah, there’s a cold beer in here,” he says. “Must be for you, Zain.”
Zain giggles.
“No? You want it, Shayda?”
The kids giggle even louder.
“Mum doesn’t drink, silly,” says Natasha.
“Natasha!” Since when does she act so familiar around strangers?
“It’s okay mum. Troy’s cool,” she replies.
“Yeah, mum. I’m cool.” He pulls the tab.
Sayfa 31 - d ü ş t ü m
To live is to engage in experience at least partly on the terms of the experience itself. One has to stick his neck out in the action without any guarantees about satisfaction or safety. One never knows how it will come out or how silly he will look, but the neurotic type wants these guarantees. He doesn’t want to risk his self-image. Rank calls this very aptly the “self-willed over-valuation of self” whereby the neurotic tries to cheat nature. He won’t pay the price that nature wants of him: to age, fall ill or be injured, and die. Instead of living experience he ideates it; instead of arranging it in action he works it all out in his head.
Ballad
Hear the ballad “Murdered Woman
Suddenly Gets Up from Chair.”
It’s an honest ballad, penned
neither to shock nor offend.
The thing happened fair and square,
with curtains open, lamps all lit:
We’re very dismissive, as a culture, about heartbreak. We talk about it like it’s funny, or silly, or cute. As if it can be cured by a pint of Häagen-Dazs and a set of flannel pajamas.
But of course, a breakup is a type of grief. It’s the death of not just any relationship—but the most important one in your life.
There’s nothing cute about it.
By then it seemed silly to get off the phone just to avoid hearing pee hitting a toilet bowl, so I told him he could stay on the phone if he wanted. He did not take me up on it, then or ever, though from then on, I often peed mid–phone call. With his permission, of course.
