Maelstrom's a complicated pattern, but the three of it's most common opposites aren't.
King of the Hill involves, at its simplest, one democratically-elected supreme leader with unquestioned power. That doesn't sound like a cult pattern, but it can be. In such a system, the only way to look after one's own interests is to either take the position, or put a trusted friend in the position. The amount of factioning, back-biting, sabotaging, political gamesmanship, and various other nasty crap that occurs just damages people and pulls attention away from what the group is actually intended to do. Don't play this game.
Mess of Porridge also sounds good on paper. Everybody is exactly equal to everyone else. One nose, one vote. We're all brethren here. So on, so forth. Sounds good, doesn't work. You still have all the same issues, except now they're back-channel and usually nastier. Tyranny of the majority tends to rule here, and schooling to get hooks into new people as soon as possible quickly becomes standard procedure. Stick with representative democracy whenever possible.
Scottish Knights is a sort of deliberate double Maelstrom. Rather than pointing to another group and calling them the "real" members, Maelstrom-style, two different groups are each told they are the true members and the other group is being misled for the good of the organization. Taken from an apocryphal story that Aleister Crowley titled his financial backers who bought their way in as "Scottish Knights" to indicate to his "Inner Circle" that they were cash cows to be fleeced for cash and misled as to the "true" teachings, while boasting to the Knights about sexually exploiting and misleading his Inner Circle as to the "true" teachings. Maelstroms can build up on accident, this one is just fraud.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Cult Pattern: Malestrom
The Maelstrom comes first, because it's the one usually foremost on my mind. I tend to trigger on it fairly hard. And, frankly, it's a pattern that I'm currently rather concerned with because at the moment, I see elements of it seeping into the ADF.
This is a pattern I named myself, and I named it for maelstrom in their original sense as whirlpools. In fact, the word maelstrom actually means grinding stream in Dutch. The word play darkly amused me because as a pattern it's avoidable but nearly inescapable, and it has a tendency to grind people down.
In a Maelstrom pattern, the phrase to look out for is "the real work happens behind the next door."
That's not to say that doors or graduated work are bad, in fact they aren't. A healthy group will often have a "getting to know each other" group and/or a "learning to be a functioning member" group, a "functioning member" group, and an "organizing the functioning members" group. Which is normal and healthy. And not the Maelstrom.
The Maelstrom happens when the definition of the "functioning member" group keeps changing. Most worrisome is if what is described as a "functioning member" changes at the time you arrive at what you were previously told was the level of "functioning member." In a fully-developed Maelstrom, this happens at *every* level.
Again, that's not to say that levels are bad. One of the *healthiest* models I've seen involved grouping people into "consumers," "producers," and "organizers." with a lot of shifting between the groups based on what contributions that individual was capable of making at the time.
Humans are primates (you'll hear that from me a lot.) We like levels. We like attaining things. We like identifying people to emulate and learn from. Those are, frankly, awesome. I've been in the dynamic I call "mess of porridge" and it's no fun either. We *should* recognize the people who have learned the path, the organizers, the volunteers. An organization with a clear map into those roles is *ahead* of the game.
But it shouldn't turn into a "march over the next hill" repeating endlessly. The first time you're told that the level you just obtained is "really" just the free sample for the level after it, think about running. Because, like a maelstrom, the more invested you get, the more you'll be invited to invest to get to the rapidly moving "good parts."
And, in an organizational sense, the Maelstrom is no less seductive, and no less likely to capsize you. Your newest members are going to need training wheels. The people who organize things are going to end up being The People who Organize Things. That's okay. That's healthy. That's, frankly, needful.
But everybody should have the same map. If you tell people that Confirmation makes them a "real" member before confirmation, don't tell them Bible College makes them a "real" member after. Of course "there" has more benefits than "here," or people wouldn't go "there." But be honest about where they're at now, and what "there" really is. Otherwise, you just end up with bitter people on treadmills, and the world has enough gyms.
Sermon over. Gods bless.
This is a pattern I named myself, and I named it for maelstrom in their original sense as whirlpools. In fact, the word maelstrom actually means grinding stream in Dutch. The word play darkly amused me because as a pattern it's avoidable but nearly inescapable, and it has a tendency to grind people down.
In a Maelstrom pattern, the phrase to look out for is "the real work happens behind the next door."
That's not to say that doors or graduated work are bad, in fact they aren't. A healthy group will often have a "getting to know each other" group and/or a "learning to be a functioning member" group, a "functioning member" group, and an "organizing the functioning members" group. Which is normal and healthy. And not the Maelstrom.
The Maelstrom happens when the definition of the "functioning member" group keeps changing. Most worrisome is if what is described as a "functioning member" changes at the time you arrive at what you were previously told was the level of "functioning member." In a fully-developed Maelstrom, this happens at *every* level.
Again, that's not to say that levels are bad. One of the *healthiest* models I've seen involved grouping people into "consumers," "producers," and "organizers." with a lot of shifting between the groups based on what contributions that individual was capable of making at the time.
Humans are primates (you'll hear that from me a lot.) We like levels. We like attaining things. We like identifying people to emulate and learn from. Those are, frankly, awesome. I've been in the dynamic I call "mess of porridge" and it's no fun either. We *should* recognize the people who have learned the path, the organizers, the volunteers. An organization with a clear map into those roles is *ahead* of the game.
But it shouldn't turn into a "march over the next hill" repeating endlessly. The first time you're told that the level you just obtained is "really" just the free sample for the level after it, think about running. Because, like a maelstrom, the more invested you get, the more you'll be invited to invest to get to the rapidly moving "good parts."
And, in an organizational sense, the Maelstrom is no less seductive, and no less likely to capsize you. Your newest members are going to need training wheels. The people who organize things are going to end up being The People who Organize Things. That's okay. That's healthy. That's, frankly, needful.
But everybody should have the same map. If you tell people that Confirmation makes them a "real" member before confirmation, don't tell them Bible College makes them a "real" member after. Of course "there" has more benefits than "here," or people wouldn't go "there." But be honest about where they're at now, and what "there" really is. Otherwise, you just end up with bitter people on treadmills, and the world has enough gyms.
Sermon over. Gods bless.
Working Definition: Cult
Okay, bear with me cause this is gonna get pretty convoluted, but necessary.
By book definition, a cult is a spontaneously originated religious group focused on personal experience, in the sense that it is not a schism of a larger group but a completely new religious movement.
In common parlance, though, we use "New Religious Movement" for tiny, experience-oriented spontaneously arising religious groups that have a positive influence on their members, and "cult" for a group of people being led to make bad choices. In this sense, the group may be religious, political, or financial.
The gap between the two makes getting a single definition for serious discussion difficult.
So here's mine:
To qualify as a "cult" in a pejorative sense, 3 elements must be present:
By book definition, a cult is a spontaneously originated religious group focused on personal experience, in the sense that it is not a schism of a larger group but a completely new religious movement.
In common parlance, though, we use "New Religious Movement" for tiny, experience-oriented spontaneously arising religious groups that have a positive influence on their members, and "cult" for a group of people being led to make bad choices. In this sense, the group may be religious, political, or financial.
The gap between the two makes getting a single definition for serious discussion difficult.
So here's mine:
To qualify as a "cult" in a pejorative sense, 3 elements must be present:
- Recruitment - the group must actively encourage people to become involved
- Retention - the group must actively encourage people to remain involved
- Bad End - the group must as a natural result of its internal and/or external activities have a tendency to cause harm. This doesn't include bad luck or one or two members acting in bad faith, but the actual group dynamics causing the harm. It also applies to all harm: physical, mental, social, spiritual, sexual, and financial.
By this definition, all three criteria must be met. An abusive relationship may have cult-like retention factors, but it isn't a cult until it crosses the line into recruiting others. A con-artist may recruit people to bad end, but he's not running a cult until he starts grooming them for repeat business. And a group that recruits and retains people to good end is just a normally functioning group.
This is not a perfect definition, but it is a functional one, and it does do a decent job of generating room to discuss cult dynamics objectively and without regard to size or history. This can be important for discussing cult dynamics, because most cults aren't aware that they are one, and the dynamics that can create a cult can actually occur unwittingly, like in the next pattern we discuss, which I term the Maelstrom.
Friday, January 28, 2011
And so it begins....
As I'm sitting on the couch typing this entry, I can see the winter wonderland outside. We've gotten a lot of snow this winter, but I think this is the first time I've been able to look outside and see literally everything covered. At this moment, I'm glad to be safe at home, nestled comfortably in my favorite chair, knowing that I don't have to go outside at any point today. We live at the top of a rather large hill, and I know the driveway is completely covered right now. It's quiet too. The only sounds are J's snoring in his bedroom, and the soft hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. I should be asleep, but I took a long nap last night and can't get to sleep right now.
And so the scene is set. All is quiet and calm and some really productive conversation happened last night. I should be feeling at least okay. I should at least be feeling somewhat at peace. But, I'm not and given the time of year I'm not confident that I'm going to be for a month or so. You see, February is just around the corner and true to fashion J and I are exactly the same in that February is the hardest month of the year for us.
I'm not really sure what triggered it, but the rough patch is hitting me a bit early this year. It's usually at least a week or so in to February before it gets too bad, but right now it's not quite February and things are already starting to get a little bit rough.
I think part of it is because we've both been having a bit of a rough time with something that happened a few weeks back and that's left us both a bit... fragile. We talked a good deal about it last night. It still surprises me sometimes how different we occasionally are. I swear, there is no middle ground with us. We're either perfectly in synch or diametrically opposed.
So, looks like we are headed in to a rough patch. I know we'll make it through it together though. Just try to be gentle for a few weeks?
And so the scene is set. All is quiet and calm and some really productive conversation happened last night. I should be feeling at least okay. I should at least be feeling somewhat at peace. But, I'm not and given the time of year I'm not confident that I'm going to be for a month or so. You see, February is just around the corner and true to fashion J and I are exactly the same in that February is the hardest month of the year for us.
I'm not really sure what triggered it, but the rough patch is hitting me a bit early this year. It's usually at least a week or so in to February before it gets too bad, but right now it's not quite February and things are already starting to get a little bit rough.
I think part of it is because we've both been having a bit of a rough time with something that happened a few weeks back and that's left us both a bit... fragile. We talked a good deal about it last night. It still surprises me sometimes how different we occasionally are. I swear, there is no middle ground with us. We're either perfectly in synch or diametrically opposed.
So, looks like we are headed in to a rough patch. I know we'll make it through it together though. Just try to be gentle for a few weeks?
Monday, January 24, 2011
Flu AND Pneumonia
We've been quiet for the past week or so mostly because we've been dealing almost constantly with my current very serious illness. I have influenza type A and then got pneumonia on top of it, and all of that is complicated by my underlying asthma.
I am starting to head in the right direction towards recovery. Definitely feeling more stable today.
So, keep your eyes on this space. More content coming very soon.
I am starting to head in the right direction towards recovery. Definitely feeling more stable today.
So, keep your eyes on this space. More content coming very soon.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
I Wish I Missed My Church
Tanwyn's post "Confession" inspired me to respond. However, as a long running gag, it seems like whatever we do we either agree 100% or disagree 100%. And this is one area where we disagree strongly.
I don't miss my church at all. I wish I did. At the time I had the opportunity for some wonderful church experiences, I declined them in favor of some horrible church experiences.
My church was filled with wonderful people and terrible books. The assumption was made that you would read the books, you would study the books, you would claim you believed the books, and then you would use the sense God gave a rock to know better than to follow the books.
I didn't know this, I followed the books.
And the books were nasty. I owned literally thousands of dollars in books of the Evangelistic subculture, which I spent hours reading and re-reading. And they were terrible, twisted, dark things. Between that and the family I grew up in, I internalized some of the most terrible ideas and concepts. I simply lacked the sophistication to realize that we were supposed to say we believed every word of our church charter. We weren't actually supposed to believe the thing, much less all the "guidebooks" I read.
The books I read were toxic, and they poisoned my mind. I came to believe terrible things about the nature of the world, people, and God. I exchanged truth for a lie and delighted in suffering. At one point, I realized that I didn't love God, not one bit. And as I worked through that, I came to decide that it was because I had reached a point of progress at which love for God was meant to be discarded. I decided I was ready to face the belief God was remote, and unlike us, and did not require our love, only our worship and obedience, for two very dark definitions of worship and obedience.
This was the cult before the cult. This was the damage that would make my time in an abusive organization happen. This was when I let hatred into my heart, and came to glory in the suffering of others, but in the real actual now and the imagined hereafter. Any hopes I had for normal development, or relationships, or even actually discovering who I was were dashed under a desire to follow the books. Because no one knew I didn't know any better.
I came to hate and despise women, although I wouldn't have known to admit that was what I was doing at the time. I hated and despised anyone who chose different things than me out of life, or beliefs, or took risks I didn't wish to. Only the parts of me too taboo for discussion escaped, and they didn't unscathed.
And I did this all to myself. Had I followed the example of those around me, I could have had wonderful experiences and joyous memories. But instead I turned to the books, and tried to align myself with them. And in turning away from that which makes us human, became monster. But I was too young to know this, too young to separate ideal from practice. Too young to that hypocrisy can, in certain circumstances, be a virtue.
In time, I would learn better, but at high cost. Among it, I can't miss the church of my youth, as I never really experienced it, only it's reading list. And that saddens me even now.
I don't miss my church at all. I wish I did. At the time I had the opportunity for some wonderful church experiences, I declined them in favor of some horrible church experiences.
My church was filled with wonderful people and terrible books. The assumption was made that you would read the books, you would study the books, you would claim you believed the books, and then you would use the sense God gave a rock to know better than to follow the books.
I didn't know this, I followed the books.
And the books were nasty. I owned literally thousands of dollars in books of the Evangelistic subculture, which I spent hours reading and re-reading. And they were terrible, twisted, dark things. Between that and the family I grew up in, I internalized some of the most terrible ideas and concepts. I simply lacked the sophistication to realize that we were supposed to say we believed every word of our church charter. We weren't actually supposed to believe the thing, much less all the "guidebooks" I read.
The books I read were toxic, and they poisoned my mind. I came to believe terrible things about the nature of the world, people, and God. I exchanged truth for a lie and delighted in suffering. At one point, I realized that I didn't love God, not one bit. And as I worked through that, I came to decide that it was because I had reached a point of progress at which love for God was meant to be discarded. I decided I was ready to face the belief God was remote, and unlike us, and did not require our love, only our worship and obedience, for two very dark definitions of worship and obedience.
This was the cult before the cult. This was the damage that would make my time in an abusive organization happen. This was when I let hatred into my heart, and came to glory in the suffering of others, but in the real actual now and the imagined hereafter. Any hopes I had for normal development, or relationships, or even actually discovering who I was were dashed under a desire to follow the books. Because no one knew I didn't know any better.
I came to hate and despise women, although I wouldn't have known to admit that was what I was doing at the time. I hated and despised anyone who chose different things than me out of life, or beliefs, or took risks I didn't wish to. Only the parts of me too taboo for discussion escaped, and they didn't unscathed.
And I did this all to myself. Had I followed the example of those around me, I could have had wonderful experiences and joyous memories. But instead I turned to the books, and tried to align myself with them. And in turning away from that which makes us human, became monster. But I was too young to know this, too young to separate ideal from practice. Too young to that hypocrisy can, in certain circumstances, be a virtue.
In time, I would learn better, but at high cost. Among it, I can't miss the church of my youth, as I never really experienced it, only it's reading list. And that saddens me even now.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Confession
I have a confession to make; although I'm not sure "confession" is really the word I'm looking for as I have no shame in what I am about to say.
I miss the church of my earliest years.
Yes, you read that correctly. When I was very young I was taken to a vibrant young Presbyterian church on the outskirts of Atlanta, a church my adoptive parents had helped to found. In those days it was a simple building with one room that served as sanctuary and fellowship hall and another wing with sunday school classrooms... mostly for kids. It was a much more simple time, and probably among the last moments of innocence I would experience.
It was a place to bring your kids and raise your family. It was the proverbial village raising up children steeped in God's Word and equipped with the tools for raising a family of their own.
The preacher taught a gospel of grace. He spoke in simple words, easy to understand and even engaged the children as much as he could. Much like the Christ of the Gospels he didn't turn the children away. He taught about a loving God who loved His children so much that He would give anything to save them. Despite the Church's Calvinist roots he taught a gospel of grace, open to all. Didn't have to do anything special to earn it. Didn't have to have some special calling from birth. All you had to do was open to Him and let Him come to you and lift you up out of darkness.
In later years, I would look back on those few years of my life in wonder. I prayed that this all loving God would come and lift me up out of the darkness and turmoil that was life in the cult. Years passed, and no one came to save me. No one came to lift me up out of that darkness.
In the end, it was my own strength and courage, and the Kindreds that I had built *ghosti with that lifted me up out of it. It's hard to come away from that still believing in a all loving God and a gospel of grace. Still, I look back on those few years of my life fondly.
Sometimes, I wish it had never changed.
I miss the church of my earliest years.
Yes, you read that correctly. When I was very young I was taken to a vibrant young Presbyterian church on the outskirts of Atlanta, a church my adoptive parents had helped to found. In those days it was a simple building with one room that served as sanctuary and fellowship hall and another wing with sunday school classrooms... mostly for kids. It was a much more simple time, and probably among the last moments of innocence I would experience.
It was a place to bring your kids and raise your family. It was the proverbial village raising up children steeped in God's Word and equipped with the tools for raising a family of their own.
The preacher taught a gospel of grace. He spoke in simple words, easy to understand and even engaged the children as much as he could. Much like the Christ of the Gospels he didn't turn the children away. He taught about a loving God who loved His children so much that He would give anything to save them. Despite the Church's Calvinist roots he taught a gospel of grace, open to all. Didn't have to do anything special to earn it. Didn't have to have some special calling from birth. All you had to do was open to Him and let Him come to you and lift you up out of darkness.
In later years, I would look back on those few years of my life in wonder. I prayed that this all loving God would come and lift me up out of the darkness and turmoil that was life in the cult. Years passed, and no one came to save me. No one came to lift me up out of that darkness.
In the end, it was my own strength and courage, and the Kindreds that I had built *ghosti with that lifted me up out of it. It's hard to come away from that still believing in a all loving God and a gospel of grace. Still, I look back on those few years of my life fondly.
Sometimes, I wish it had never changed.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
3 Things Before I Sober Up
- Wartenberg Pinwheel
's rock for solo play.
- Endorphin rushes are good self medication.
- I love everything.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Feedback Loops
One thing that I'm rapidly learning as we continue this whole "living together" thing is that we both have a tendency to feedback on one another quite badly. Take last night for instance; J got really badly triggered by a comment that someone made towards the beginning of Druid Moon and had to leave the room very abruptly. Well, of course I followed him out to check on him, as is my usual habit. He... wasn't budging. He just wasn't ready to come back in. Meanwhile, I had apparently stored up a lot more hope in finally being able to go to one of the smaller rites and really experience it with him, so I ended up in a bad state.
What happened after that was probably the least pleasant four hours that I have spent in a really long time. He pointed me at a blog post not realizing how seriously I was going to take it and without letting me know that the blog post didn't really reflect where he was at that point but by then I was so badly triggered that I just couldn't talk to him about it and it basically devolved to the point that I was the one in full bore crisis even though he had started to hit recovery upswing.
So, I'm really starting to realize that this feedback cycle is causing us a lot of problems. I'm not really sure how to address that right now. I guess now that we've identified that it is an issue we can at least start to try to work on it.
It's a starting point, right?
What happened after that was probably the least pleasant four hours that I have spent in a really long time. He pointed me at a blog post not realizing how seriously I was going to take it and without letting me know that the blog post didn't really reflect where he was at that point but by then I was so badly triggered that I just couldn't talk to him about it and it basically devolved to the point that I was the one in full bore crisis even though he had started to hit recovery upswing.
So, I'm really starting to realize that this feedback cycle is causing us a lot of problems. I'm not really sure how to address that right now. I guess now that we've identified that it is an issue we can at least start to try to work on it.
It's a starting point, right?
Chasing Hope
So, what's with this whole "PTSDruids" thing?
Well, this is where my brother and I come to write about our experiences as we grow and recover together as we walk ADF's Dedicant's Path together. We both had pretty horrific childhoods and ... well, when you hurt kids that young, Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is pretty well guaranteed and neither of us is an exception to that.
Trying to live, work, play, grow, worship and heal while living under the same roof is a challenge in the best of times. My husband is a saint for putting up with such a dysfunctional wife and brother-in-law and a neurotic cat all living in the same, smallish two bedroom apartment.
All of that said, we both feel extremely blessed to have each other as we work through this together.
I'm sure you'll be getting to know the two of us much better in coming days, so I'll leave this here for now.
Well, this is where my brother and I come to write about our experiences as we grow and recover together as we walk ADF's Dedicant's Path together. We both had pretty horrific childhoods and ... well, when you hurt kids that young, Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is pretty well guaranteed and neither of us is an exception to that.
Trying to live, work, play, grow, worship and heal while living under the same roof is a challenge in the best of times. My husband is a saint for putting up with such a dysfunctional wife and brother-in-law and a neurotic cat all living in the same, smallish two bedroom apartment.
All of that said, we both feel extremely blessed to have each other as we work through this together.
I'm sure you'll be getting to know the two of us much better in coming days, so I'll leave this here for now.
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