In writing about groupthink, I’ve become aware of how amazingly
powerful it is. The best illustration of that is people in cults – they are willing to destroy
themselves when the group or its leader demands it. In the worst cults, members separate themselves
from all other sources of information like books, media, or the internet that stand
any chance of getting them to stop believing whatever their dear leader wants
them to believe. Anyone can readily see how insane some of their ideas are, yet
they all profess to believe them, well, religiously.
And they'll do almost anything they are told. Would you let a child of yours writhe in pain from a broken bone for a week because your leader didn't want them to be exposed to doctors except as a last resort? In the book reviewed here, that's one of the things that would happen.
In this book, the cult is the Fundamentalist
Later Day Saints (FLDS) under Warren Jeffs. It was written by one of Warren Jeff’s older daughters, Rachel, who
somehow managed to eventually escape and re-establish some sanity.
FLDS was a polygamous offshoot of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Jeffs ended up with 78 wives and 53 children. Some of these wives had been previously
married to Jeff’s own father before his father's death. Jeff described himself
as God’s “prophet” who spoke directly with the supreme being. Despite demanding
a puritanical ideology from his followers, he married girls as young as 14 or
maybe even younger, and had them commit lesbian sex acts in front of him. He also
molested at least two of his own prepubescent daughters, though he managed to get
them to keep it a secret. He had six wives at the time.
Many of the rules he
insisted his cult members follow were arbitrary, and were all "directed by God," who nonetheless changed His mind from time to time. Jeffs demanded strict obedience and hard work from everyone.
Males often did not get paid for their work. And yet everyone almost always followed
his instructions to the letter, no matter how crazy they became. Jeff would
then offer them “blessings” from the “Heavenly Father.”
Men and women who hardly knew one another were assigned
marriages. The “sister wives” — some of whom actually were real sisters and half-sisters
— were supposed to get along and not be jealous of one another. But of course
they couldn't help themselves. Again, when it came to actual behavior, they always did what they were told to do. Husbands would often play
one of them off against the others by showing favoritism as to which of them he
would spend the night with.
Even though Rachel finally managed to escape and start to think for herself, in the book she still seems to indicate that many times she still fears she that is displeasing God. In the book, this thought seemed mixed with the horror of never seeing many of her family members ever again, which I think is the real fear. Her five children are never going to be able to see their father, who is still in the cult, ever again.
You can sense that all along she sort of knew her father couldn’t really be talking to God, yet still told herself he was and that therefore her soul was in danger. She knew all too well what happened to members who left or were thrown out of the group, but often thought the source of her conflicted ideas was her own sinfulness.
It took her father telling others that God had told him that she had engaged in behavior that she knew she had not done. God, after all, wouldn’t lie like that. But as mentioned, at times she felt that a newly-found desire to leave her church was “the most wicked thing possible.” "Flirting with Damnation" is the title of one of the chapters in the book. At times, her real fear of being cut off almost seems to metamorphize into the religious one.
The cult was based primarily in a town called Short Creek,
which straddles the border between Utah and Arizona. They had been pursued by the
law there in the distant past for their polygamy, but had returned when the
heat was off, so to speak. There was also an offshoot of the cult in British
Columbia Canada. Young girls were often trafficked from one of these locations
to another, often by their own fathers, so the men could marry them.
The cult had been left alone by the government for about 50 years, but in 2003 the state of Utah started to arrest and prosecute cult members for both underage sex and polygamy. Warren Jeffs knew he would be a target, so he started establishing colonies in which to hide in other states. As he moved around, and especially later after he was arrested and given a life sentence, he started to issue more and more strange instructions from God and “corrections” for certain cult members. From jail. More and more normal activities were said to be forbidden – having fun was almost illegal.
Everyone continued to follow him as he issued “corrections” to those who he
deemed “unworthy.” They did so after his corrections became more and more
heinous. He would send some members, usually males but sometimes females, away. And their children could never
see them again. Rachel had been prevented from attending her own mother’s funeral.
He moved people from one of his “refuges” to another, and sometimes punished
them by putting them with a kind of solitary confinement, with very little food,
for a month or two. There were many more horrible pronouncements I won’t describe
here.
The level of willful self-destructiveness of people in a cult such as this is almost beyond comprehension. I finished the book wanting to hear more about how she handled the conflicted feelings she surely had after she left and was separated from everything she knew growing up.
An interest of mine lately. I was reading these supposed cult exit helpers who put zero responsibility on the person for joining the cult. Big names in the field too. Of course they were manipulated so they are not to fault. Wrong.They are doing these people such a disservice and are actually setting them up form yet more manipulation and harm and keeping them in a vulnerable state. I found the Zur Institute where they hold people accountable for joining a cult as an adult and I agree Not to blame or beat yourself up just accept the responsibility and move out of this victim mentality. If you are that naive and gullible and easily influenced YOU have a big problem. In the real world you have to take responsibility for yourself and educate yourself on manipulation tactics and learn not to let people control you and trample over your boundaries. You have to strengthen your weaknesses or you will be prey. Anything else is enabling.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with you about people who join cults taking responsibility, but the author of this book was raised by the cult leader- and cult members born in the group were mostly cut off from all outside influences - which makes it considerably harder to escape the groupthink involved.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I dont hold kids accountable for being born into a cult. Her story sounds like a horror story and actually I feel quite proud of her for having the courage and strength as well as insight she did to leave.
ReplyDeleteWhat amazes me is how a highly or someone with NPD or any personalty disorder can have normal and healthy behaviours and thinking and then they go off the grid into either a weird idea, antisiocial thinking or destruction and dont really even think it is. The narcissist and psychopath go one further and expect you to adhere to their weirdness and crazy ideas or buy their rhetoric and propaganda. I think to date I have met people with most of the personality disorders or they emcompass traits of ones. I use it to head to the hills or limit my time with them as they are not healthy and they just dont want to see it. They think they are normal.
ReplyDeleteI think what your talking about is a bit more complicated than maybe you realize. There's a reason why these folks refuse to "see it." See https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/matter-personality/201108/self-sacrifice-the-good-the-kin,
Deletehttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/matter-personality/201109/the-family-dynamics-patients-borderline-personality,
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/matter-personality/201109/living-vicariously-through-children-twist, and https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/matter-personality/201110/the-family-dynamics-narcissistic-personality-disorder-and
if you're interested in my (not at all the conventional wisdom) take.