It is as much a confession as it is a process now. After being out of a dysfunctionalreligious group for ten years, I still look for reasons why I stayed in so long and even led the cause of the group as a pastoral leader. Pastor—hmmm, I wonder if the is even an appropriate title for me now or even for anyone in leadership in the group I was actually kicked out of. Yes, kicked out. What was a cause for such an action on a group that needed members to propagate itself. What was my heinous act? Some would say it was my rebellion, some would say it was my thinking too highly of myself to place myself on equal footing with the Leader. But in retrospect it really wasn’t any of those things. No, it really was:
The sin of autonomy.
What do I mean by such a phrase? To really explain this phrase, I have to delve in the Jungian dynamic that drives every human soul — everyone of us. Recently, I was given some material by friend who has dealt with cults and heretical branches of Christianity over the years. In one of the Volumes of the Cultic Studies Journal, there was an artiicle that laid out clearly and succinctly the what has been called the transformational process of a person into a cult member. What is it that causes the transformational changes? Why does the person who is a regular Joe with problems get tangled and stay tangled in a cult even long after they discover it is not heaven at all that they have found, it is hell.
Carl Jung in his psychoanalysis of the human mind fits nicely into the explanation of why a person takes the bait, why they allow such abuse and treatment, why they embrace the continued use of it and ultimately when discarded, lose their faith when they leave or are kicked out as I was myself. One thing can be said for sure, there is no parting without some kind of bloodshed for the most part. Those that do are much smarter than I and I only have my own experience to think about.
So as we take these steps together and I stitch together personal experience with research I have done, please bear in mind that I do not have the answers, I have only my own story to tell and tell it I shall.
Again, here are the framing questions:
1> What is Jung's definition of transformational change and how does that axiom apply to a cult member's morphing into a zealot?
2> Why does a person who is a regular Joe with problems get tangled up and stay tangled in a cult?
3> What drives a person in a cult to allow such change that is so invasive and destructive?
4> What is the usual fate of the ex-cult member? How do they view life and is there any reckoning in their lives for what has happened to them.
I can remember that when I had just been thrown out of the cult, that one of the Leaders told someone I knew with a bewildered and frustrated look on his face ‘Why can’t they (me and my wife), just move on?’ This series of entries will ultimately answer that question.
But first some background will be needed in order to apply to my story. So stay tuned.
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