Cross X

I've been listening to a podcast about cults, the primary sin of which (as well as many so-called mainstream congregations, including some that claim to teach Zen), is clerical abuse. Regular readers will recognise this as one of my hot buttons.

The hosts of the show (Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation) are both cult survivors – one of a Mormon offshoot, the other of a radical Protestant church. Their personal experience lends valuable insight into the journey their guests have made to end up in front of their microphones.

The manner in which larger society receives cult survivors also comes up. I find this particularly interesting, since it's clear to me that if you drill deep and with unflinching honesty, a whole schedule of self-destructive behaviours – cult membership, suicide, abusive relationships, depression, personality disorders, addiction, most crime – usually originate in social violence.

And former cult members, like spousal abuse survivors, are prime targets for lazy critics. You were weak, stupid, cowardly, you gave tacit consent, and therefore you remain entirely responsible for any misdeeds you committed, or enabled others to commit.

The reflexive question survivors typically face is, "Why didn't you leave?" Moral equivalent of Groucho's "answer yes or no, do you or do you not still beat your wife?"; this challenge is impossible to answer without incriminating yourself. The question itself reads unfinished; it wants "…you idiot" at the end.

But as the hosts of Trust Me point out, it's much more productive to flip it:

"Why did you stay?"

Implied judgement is still there, but whereas the first query rings with fault and blame, this one accepts the equal possibility of decency: Why were you loyal? Why did you commit to this? What did you invest? Who were you afraid to hurt or disappoint? What dissuaded you from acting in your own interest?

Like all penetrating insights, this one is applicable to a lot more than just cults. In Zen we're taught that our true motivation for any act, casual or momentous, is almost always occult; layer upon layer of mind functions work in the dark, so that by the time thought hardens into action, we may be entirely ignorant of its origins.

Nowhere is this more evident than when I confront others in judgement.

Worst of all: when I stand in judgement of myself.

Therefore, henceforward, when interrogating others on past decisions, instead of asking "Why didn't you leave?", I will undertake to ask, "Why did you stay?".

Even when the accused and Crown Counsel are the same person.


(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)