Blog Posts

Mind Bugs, Cults and Other Things Good People Prefer Not to Think About

11/1/2016

Last week I gave a talk entitled “Mind Bugs, Cults and Other Things that Good People Prefer Not to Think About” at the Green Mountain Toastmaster’s Club in Stowe. Here is a written word version of the speech.
Mind bugs. If you haven’t met them yet, I hope that you will soon. They are pesky sensory illusions that defy common sense and that is precisely why good people prefer not to think about them!
And a cult, even the word itself, is like the sound of nails running across a black board – Even really good people don’t want to think about cults.
In the next few paragraphs, we will look at a couple other things that good people prefer to not think about – but I sincerely hope that you will! In fact, I hope that you will want to think about mind bugs, cults and much more!
To begin: take a look at this picture of two tables and assure me that you see these two table tops are exactly the same size and shape. Agreed?? No? Well, what do you think is different?

If you think that these two table tops are different in size and shape, you are not alone and, umm… sorry to break it to you, you are also wrong. If you don’t believe me, take a thin piece of paper and trace one of the table tops and then place it over the other one and you will see. Go ahead and do it. You are not going to believe me otherwise and it’s important that we are on the same page before going on. Got it? Are you with me?
This, my dear friends, is a mind bug. Even after proving that they are the same size and shape, we can look at them and they still look like they are different! It takes real effort to change how you are looking at these two table tops and see the truth of their sameness - and that is why most people prefer not to think about it!
This mind bug illusion was created by a renowned psychologist Roger Shepard and has been used in college classrooms and elsewhere for many years. He calls it “Turning the Tables”
But what is really happening here? This is an issue of perspective.
I’m guessing that you have experienced this in other areas of your life. Perhaps you have had the experience of looking at a problem from one angle and it’s huge and completely overwhelming! And then, you shift your perspective and look at the same problem from another angle and … it’s tiny, suddenly inconsequential. What changed? Your perspective.
So, how does this mind bug perspective relate to cults?
Well, I can tell you because, as you know, I was in a cult for many years. In a cult, or any highly controlled group, you are trained to look at life from a very specific and limited perspective. Cult leaders are experts in creating mind bugs and using them to their advantage, and sadly, to the disadvantage of their members. In the cult, you are indoctrinated to see everything from the group leader’s point of view.
I am an educated, caring adult, and I witnessed countless times where Doug, the group leader, used a raised voice and dramatic gestures while interacting with my beloved CTL family members. In my mind, this was Doug showing his fierce love and deep insight into that person’s soul struggle. Now that I have left CTL, I see it for what it was: psychological and spiritual abuse. What has changed in me? My perspective.
In a cult or highly controlled group, life is at best, two dimensional.
To continue with the table analogy: in the cult, I could only see life through the lense that Doug crafted and obviously, the table tops are completely different sizes, shapes and even had different soul characteristics. But now, since I left CTL, my brain circuitry is opening and healing and re-wiring and I am able to move freely around in this wonderful, three dimensional world that we live in. As I circle around the tables and look at them from all different angles and perspectives, I can see what previously, I was completely blind to: that the two table tops are in fact, the same.
When we are able to take in the whole 360 degrees and see in 3 dimensions, we are much, much more likely to see the facts for the facts.
As good people, we may not want to look at coercion or psychological and spiritual abuse or cults or mind bugs or any other unpleasant matters. But I hope that after reading this, something in your own perspective has changed, even a little, and that you are now willing to really think about it. Because, quite simply, there is too much at stake for too many good people if we don’t.

3 Comments

The only thing we have to do

9/27/2016

2 Comments

When I was a kid complaining about chores, I would use my best whiny voice and ask “Do I have to …?” I am guessing that you are familiar with that common refrain. ‘Do I have to pick up my toys? Do I have to wash the dishes?’ Whenever any of us kids complained, my father would respond, without fail, “The only thing you have to do is die”. Ask any of my siblings and they will concur and recite that line in the particular dramatic cadence of my deep voiced, beret wearing father. "The only think you have to do is die." How do you argue with that? Because the truth is, if you really think about it, he was right. On a fundamental level – the only thing we really have to do is... die.

We are all going to die. Dying is a universal experience that links everyone one of us. Although I have been interested in death and dying for many years, I have been surprised to find myself immersed in this topic for the last three years, even before the tragic death of my brother. I became a hospice volunteer, am a core member of a monthly discussion group called Death Café, I participate in a neighborhood book discussion group on death and dying and am constantly bringing the topic into discussions with friends, family and my women’s group. I’ll admit: I’m a little obsessed.

I find it curious that my post cult healing process has been accompanied by this exploration. I have found the death/dying conversation to be paradoxically inspiring and life enhancing. Perhaps because the violation that I experienced from Doug was primarily on a spiritual level, I am drawn to exploring anything to do with spirituality and therefore death. For now, I am gently holding the question about how the death discussion relates to cult recovery, and will certainly come back to it.

One thing that is very clear to me is that culturally, it's taboo to talk about death. Why is this? And how might our lives be different if we actually integrated discussions about death into our daily lives? How might our finite lives be different if we, dare say, celebrated death, or even looked forward to it?? Looking forward to death? It’s a radical thought. But not as radical as you might think.

A week ago I met someone who literally can't wait to die. His name is Peter Panagore and nearly 60 people came out of the Vermont woods to hear this man speak on a Tuesday evening. The title of his talk was “How dying taught me that death is just the beginning.” I had already read his book about his near death experience, so I had an inkling of what was coming – but it did not prepare me. His presentation blew my mind. This man can't wait to die, because he already did once, up on a mountain when he was 20 years old, ice climbing. He died of exposure. He knows what it is to die and he wants to go back there. He describes, in incredible detail how he separated from his body, and experienced … the indescribable – sensations of profound beauty, joy and of being flooded with light and surrounded by exquisite harmony and loved unconditionally - so completely beyond any worldly experience. Today, Peter wants to die, because he knows, unequivocally, that he is going back to that wondrous place.

Mr Panagore is not alone with this experience. Millions of people all around the globe have had near death experiences. After the talk, I did a web search and found the website for the International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS). They have documented millions of near death experiences, and studied the themes, many of them, very similar to Mr Panagore’s experience. The IANDS researchers report that the after effects of a near death experience are overwhelmingly positive: nearly 80% claim that they have less anxiety, no longer fear death and have a greater sense of life purpose.

The IANDS website has many resources – many of which connect to research and scholarly papers completed by Astrophysicists and Quantum Physics gurus who have proved and/or are proving that consciousness does not end when the body dies. The self does not die. In fact, they say that consciousness and matter exist in an incomprehensively multidimensional reality that can only really be understood as divine.

But I still have this question: if consciousness and the proof of divine reality after death are so amazing, why do we not want to talk about it? Heck, even if we don’t buy it, that despite those millions of first-hand accounts to the contrary, and we think that the end is just the end, there is still a big question in my mind: Why are we as a culture, so reluctant to talk about death?

Since we are all going to die, why not embrace death as an integral part of life? I can say that as a hospice volunteer and as a member of a Death Café discussion group my life has been profoundly enriched through facing into death unapologetically, with honesty and curiosity. And to this end, I want to invite you to do something that might make you feel uncomfortable – to speak with one person this week about death – a loved one, a friend or a complete stranger, and just see what happens. Be open to the miraculous. Since (in the words of my late father) the only thing we really have to do is die then let’s embrace it with the wonder and honesty of a vibrant life.

2 Comments

Summer 2016: The Agony and the Ecstasy

9/5/2016

1 Comment

I just turned my desk calendar to September and I am wearing shorts below and three layers on top. We haven’t broken 65 degrees in this part of VT for three days now, but I’m enjoying these shorts nonetheless. It feels a bit vain to say this, but I like wearing shorts right now because my legs are actually tan – a rare occurrence for this white-skinned northern Vermonter. Most years my legs are so white that I’m shy to wear shorts in public. Seeing some color on my legs is a warm affirmation of this extraordinary summer that ironically, I am so glad is over.
Last week I wrote in my journal something like “I have never had a summer of such fun, splendor and joy and I have never been so happy to be approaching September.” When I returned home from the annual Baggins Girls weekend in Cape May NJ on August 21st, which is always the most fun weekend of the entire year, I was concluding my sixth major trip or vacation this summer! In addition, I also went to my family reunion, buried my father’s ashes in the Adirondacks, made multiple trips to MA for family, pleasure and education, sent our daughter Sophie off to Kyrgyzstan and the list goes on. All this, while a part of me longed to simply be at home, to tend the chickens, the bees and the steady flow of guests in our Dream Haven cottage.
Sleeping in my own bed for this past week has been a delicious necessity. I have needed to be very close to home this week and my body has made darn sure that I don’t stray too far. Since the end of March, which is when our summer really began with our trip to Baja Mexico, I have been riding a rollercoaster of bodily … let’s call it sensations, for now.
In sharp contrast to my otherwise glorious summer of delight, the last 5 months have dished out some hearty doses of physical challenge: a recurring bronchial struggle that would simply not go away for more than a couple weeks, a hyper thyroid, a smashed elbow, a couple more private, shall we say, ‘conditions’ that were bizarre and then, right at the end of the summer… migraines! They started in Cape May, where I was relaxed, laughing and savoring the sun, wind and waves and continued right through to the end of August. Talk about intense! I have so much compassion now for my friends who get migraines. I also have compassion for myself and for my journey – inner and outer - this summer.
Part of me wants to linger with you, sharing each one of the many highlights of the summer of 2016. But for my blog, I am most interested in sharing the bigger picture – like why it is such a big deal for our family to take a vacation in the first place.
My husband, Bob and I have been together for over thirty years and until now; we were not good at taking vacations. Sure, we have had a few fantastic ones – but in truth, excluding this summer, I could count them on one hand. This is surely due in part to our choice to live modestly and our struggle to plan ahead. There is of course, another factor that weighs heavily here: our 19 year odyssey with CTL.
In addition to the weekly or bi-weekly individual therapy sessions, each level of membership in CTL required increasing levels of both volunteer hours and the number of required annual retreats. Because Doug is not licensed he cannot accept insurance and all therapy, events, retreats and travel were paid for out of pocket. As you can imagine, our pockets were continually being emptied for this work that we both were so devoted to and there was little left for family vacations. For years and years, Bob and I would leave our kids with friends, family, and paid babysitters to attend anywhere from two to five retreats a year. When we couldn’t afford a retreat, Doug was “generous” and allowed us (and others) to create a payment plan account. Our combined balance due grew to nearly 10K between us.
I need to pause. When I wrote that last sentence, about the payment plan being $10,000, I felt my stomach drop. I need to take a breath and ride some waves of shame, self-condemnation and anger that just rose up. Part of me wants to delete that sentence and move on, but I am learning that my healing process includes honesty and a lot of self-compassion. In this moment, I am aware of some nasty internal and external voices and the sting of shame – and I also feel a deeper stirring within me.
It is my passion to bring awareness of destructive groups into the world, for talking about the taboo subject of cults, for naming the personal loss that ensues from these all too pervasive dynamics and when I speak honestly, I feel empowered. And there is power in naming the specifics – like the $10,000 payment plan that kept me deeply indebted to Doug, ensuring a continued dynamic of power-over. And yes, I chose to attend each retreat and each class that I could not afford. What was unnamed however is that this ‘choice’ was imposed by a highly controlled, hierarchical system. I firmly and naively believed that each retreat or each class would bring me one step closer to the promised enlightenment that would allow me to someday enjoy the level of spiritual and financial freedom that Doug and the head teachers enjoyed. I was hooked in, line and sinker. I understand now that Doug, consciously or not, was promoting a relationship of dependency by his ‘generous’ offer to allow his clients to create a payment plan for services that they could not afford. I now know that this practice is illegal and is a tactic that narcissists use to ensure that their ‘subjects’ remain grateful and dependent on them. Learning to recognize this pattern is an essential tool for self-empowerment.
Bob saw the writing on the wall and left CTL and his work with Doug over a year before I did. We noticed a significant relief in our family budget then but I was still completely bought in and this extra breathing room only gave me greater license to increase my commitment to the group. It was not until I snapped out of my blind devotion on May 28, 2014 that I could begin to see the impact that my choices made on our family. As you can imagine, there are many, many layers here that I will explore through this blog.
I don’t know why the last 5 months have been riddled with physical complaints - perhaps it is all circumstance and just part of the post 50 woes. Or perhaps there is a link between the stressors of the past being finally catching up with me on a physical level. Or perhaps in some mysterious, homeopathic way, my ailments are actually part of my healing process. Or maybe it is a little of all of this. For today, I am deeply grateful for a week of feeling strong again, enjoying the brisk air of approaching autumn with vigorous walks, a great hike and even a little jogging through the woods!
For today, I am choosing compassion for myself and for my husband and our children in acknowledging why we had so few family vacations. It is painful and yet, we cannot change the past, only bring ourselves more fully into the present moment and bring more intention to our future. Based on our 2016 track record, I will raise a glass to cultivating rich life experiences more on the ecstasy spectrum and less of the agony. And I have reason to believe that I just might be savoring tan legs next summer too!

1 Comment

I Began My Life Anew

6/30/2016

0 Comments

It has been two years and a day since I heard the words “It is over” and I began my life anew. Shortly after that ‘earth-quake’ of change when I left my group, I had the following dream:

It is night time and I am leaving people I love – something about my father… A storm is about to break. I feel a sense of connection and joy - I love storms! I walk out into the field – there is light enough to see softly. I like this sensation and I like that I can be seen by my loved ones. It is a luminous feeling. I feel a burst of joy and start to run, feeling the cool grass under my feet. There is a flash of lightening and in the glow; I see a deer running along the edge of the field. She turns and is now running straight towards me. I pause, filled with joy at the sight and put out my hand. The deer comes right to my hand – I feel her head and back as she runs past me and I am filled with awe and energy.

Although I have referred to it a number of times, I have not read this dream in over two years and today I am humbled by its gentle prophecy. It was this dream and the tingling sensation in my hands that prompted me to call Nancy Mosher and begin my personal journey with Reiki. The storm of the following year, culminating in the death of my father, was weathered and eased with my daily Reiki self-practice. As I churned through family drama and faced into many dark corners of my post cult healing process, Reiki has provided light-filled ballast to my days. Again and again, I have felt the sensation of being ‘re-wired’ - back to my essential self throughout this healing journey.

It is now a month since I wrote these words above and progress has brought me to this moment of reckoning. It is simply time to post my first blog. And with it, I include my first poem in ages. Yup…it’s time to dive!

Deer:
You reached for my hand,
just like that whale I witnessed years ago:
Spyhopping
Shifting its massive grace
Just within reach of her outstretched hand.
I saw you do it.
She gets to live the rest of her life saying
"I touched a whale!"
But really, you touched her.

You came to me
Much like the dragonflies this morning:
Finding me in sun, overlooking the pond.
Ten or more resting on me:
Carnal, unpure me.
You found me
And made me holy
Undeserving as I am.

Whale:
In this other world
You and I were bound together
In grief.
It is I
who held the knife
But our wailing is one
It is I
who plunged deeply into your yielding flesh.
You do not flinch

It is I
who flinches eons later
In my temporal foray
I no longer know myself.

Deer:
You bring me home
To my hands.
Hands hold the key
To remembering who I am.

You and I:
And from here, I pray
They
gently remind You
Of Home.

Is this where we meet?
Where both hands hold a knife
And we each
receive the blade?

My Dream Early 1990s | Grand Manan Island, NB
I am on a beach with a whale.  I am holding a knife and, knowing what must be done, plunge it into her yielding flesh –going deeper and deeper.  I and the whale are keening – our cries filling the air around us.

0 Comments

Forward>>

Mind Bugs, Cults and Other Things Good People Prefer Not to Think About

The only thing we have to do

Summer 2016: The Agony and the Ecstasy

I Began My Life Anew

Gerette Buglion

Archives

Categories