Organizations of Which to Be Wary

Recently, a certain fraternal organization started within the last few years and its leader have been getting trashed online. I had been wary and a bit suspicious of the organization and its leader, even though he was saying many things with which I was agreeing. There were a few things he was saying and doing, and the tone he was taking, that made me suspicious. [This has been bumped up from January 2022. They are now supposedly offering a health care plan of sorts. What could go wrong?]

In no particular order, and subject to being revised and expanded, here are some signs you should be skeptical/cautious of joining or associating with an organization:

A Guy Whose Marriage Had Even Less Sex Than Mine Does

There was a great call during the second hour of the Dr. Laura Program on Friday, December 17, 2021 (the last new broadcast/podcast of the year).

A man called up to talk about his current relationship, but as she often does, Dr. Laura asked him about his prior marriage.

He was raised a Jehovah's Witness (JW) and married at 18. Of course he did. That's how you can make lots of new JWs (start having kids early) and avoid having sex outside of marriage. However, there wasn't any sex. They never had sex. For five years. He never really got any reason to as to why (although, being raised with the idea that sex is dirty except when you're married can really do a number on people, especially women.)

This poor fellow was indoctrinated that divorce was a severe no-no, so he held on. Doctors said it wasn't a medical problem.

Of course he consulted his cult leadership about this. They told him to stick with his marriage and suffer. Of course they did.

Caller left his marriage. He ended up getting an annulment, but not before his (ex) wife tried to really stick it to him via alimony, but things turned out well in that regard (lucky man!!!) Even better, he left the cult through the ordeal.

Dr. Laura could have explored more about how the cult leaders handled things and how his family has reacted (not a word about that), and other fallout from leaving the cult. If his family members are still JWs, they are probably shunning him, unless the cult policy has changed. I'm pretty sure Dr. Laura didn't ask him because she has a friend who is a JW.

Dr. Laura did get to the caller's current relationship, and told him to leave it. Great! Hopefully the man will stay free. He should join the marriage strike.

DO NOT MARRY, GUYS!!!

The only way you can be sure not to choose unwisely is to not choose a wife at all.

Mind Games

One of the blogs in my blogroll is "A Shrink For Men". It bills itself as "a blog for professional men in complicated relationships and dissatisfying careers combining psychology, insight, humor, irony, sexuality, and social commentary."

Although geared towards men, the ladies can find some important insight there – and it could be helpful to a brother, son, or friend.

I want to call special attention to this recent entry there, entitled "How Abusive Women Brainwash You". Some of the techniques described are also employed by abusive men, but men no doubt have other techniques women don’t tend to use. I am fascinated by brainwashing, but also groupthink and cultic behavior – which can both go hand in hand with brainwashing. A group doesn’t have to be overtly religious to be cultic – it could be a political group, a club, even just a bunch of people starting out as friends.

Here's a snippet from the essay, but I implore you to check out the whole thing.

You question your judgment, perceptions and sense of reality. She tells you she loves you yet continues to treat you horribly. You believe she loves you and that you must be a colossal jerk for her to always be so upset. If she's successfully isolated you or gotten you to isolate yourself, you can’t reality test her version of events or receive outside support. By this time, she's made you totally dependent upon her and solely focused upon pleasing her, gaining her approval and avoiding her wrath or disapproval. You probably feel completely alone. Alternatively, if you're still in contact with friends and family, you fear that if you tell them what's going on that they wouldn't believe you or wouldn’t understand.

Was a Dr. Laura Caller Being Elitist?

I usually think Dr. Laura is right, and I get why she does her show the way she does.

She had a caller at the start of the of the final half-hour today who said her family (the one she was raised in, not the one she has now with her husband) was leaving her out of family functions since she left their "elitist" religion.

Dr. Laura turned it around on her and called her elitist and suggested (insisted) that she had been hurtful towards her family.

Perhaps there was some information on Dr. Laura's computer screen that she wasn't sharing with her listeners, but the impression I got as a listener was that it was entirely possible that this woman had left one of the many cults that exist. By "cult" I'm not addressing theology, but sociology. Not all cults live in gated compounds, stockpile weapons in anticipation with of a battle with the government, and commit mass suicide or set dates for the end of the world.

There ARE actual cults out there who shun those who leave their group, even if those people still keep most of the same theological beliefs, practices, morals, etc. It gets so bad that family members are strongly encouraged to shun other family members who leave the group. That could have been what was going on with this woman.

It's good that Dr. Laura gets people think about what they might have done wrong and how they can accept or fix things, but in this case it sounded like she was scolding someone who could have been making a very healthy decision to leave a cult.

Cults are a very real problem and highly intelligent people can be slowly absorbed into one (in her case, she grew up with this group). In some cases, a person's entire life gets wrapped up in the same tightly contolled monolithic group - their family, their job, their friends, even their possessions (home, car, etc.) and leaving becomes very difficult because it means having to start an entirely new life.

I'm glad that I knew enough about cults and how they work to avoid being recruited into one. I was approached no less than five times by the same cult in a short span of time. It got to the point that I could someone was a member before they reached the end of the first sentence of their pitch.

Anyway, this was one instance where I thought Dr. Laura could have been way off.

FLDS Women

FLDS women (from the polygamous compound where the children were taken away) appeared in the media today to defend their cult... uh, I mean religion. Actually, it is a cult, by both theological definition (because it claims to be a religion that it isn't) and sociological definition.

It's the sociological that I'm going to focus on.

The women said they were free to leave the cult property at any time, but that they didn't want to.

Of course they didn't want to.

First of all, it would mean never being able to be with their children again. They'd be leaving the only life they've ever known.

But there are psychological factors at work besides that. They've been raised since birth to believe that:

1. They would be leaving the only true church, thus turning their backs on God.

2. They would be evil and lost people if they left.

3. The outside world is thoroughly evil and dangerous and would corrupt them.

4. They would be of no use (other than for evil) and unable to make a living in the evil outside world. I mean really- how much education have they had? How much job training?

These women believe they'd wither away without their busbands, and would be lost souls without their church leaders.

So, while they were perhaps free to leave (and perhaps they weren't after all - how do we really know?), they have been conditioned since birth to be severly averse to doing so.

Such is one of the problems with cults.

And where are all the boys? With polygamy as the FLDS practice, there is only room for so many men. After all, how is a man going to have multiple wives to himself if there are roughly the same men and women? So some boys get cast out, and I fear, worse. I wonder how many male births are "stillborn"?

Sad stuff.