Yesterday was the 4th anniversary of my brother’s heartrending, untimely death. A photo of him and his dog Buck sit on the little table in between my desk and meditation chair. I often find comfort in his presence here, beside me. 

I have had four years to sift through the rubble and try to make sense of his complicated death and the turmoil within my family that followed. Although there have been many experiences of healing and loving acceptance, there also remains a residue of confusion and tension in various pockets of my family life and within my own soul.

One such area is my decision to not attend his funeral in Arizona because there was a CTL* retreat scheduled at that same time. I believed I needed to be with my ‘CTL family’ in my broken hearted state of grief. I believed I needed the strength and clarity of my teacher Doug in order to process my intense emotions. I believed I needed the loving circle of people who knew who I really was. I believed they were more important than my sisters and father who traveled out there together. Without me.

I assured myself we would have a funeral in NY for him at a later date because my mother was in the hospital with a double knee replacement and could not travel. And I took comfort in a plan for me to fly out to Arizona a few days later to accompany my elderly father on his return flight. It was a perfect plan that I constructed in my own confused mind so I could swallow the bitter pill of missing my brother’s funeral – but mostly, it was the story I told myself so I could live with my decision to go to the CTL retreat instead of my brother’s funeral.

Well, there never was a funeral for him in NY. And my father flew home unaccompanied and I was left to face my decision. But it would be four more months before I could even begin to understand that my choice to go to the retreat instead of the funeral, was not fully my choice.

It was May 28, 2014, barely 4 months later, when a fissure in my 18 years of dedication to CTL erupted in my psyche and within a week, I wrote this to a friend, “There is no question in me now that Wednesday night, the dam that broke in me released me from a cult.”
And today, after 4 years and 8 months of soul searching, studying, writing and speaking about cult dynamics, I can finally offer myself a healthy dose of kindness and understanding around my decision - because, when my brother died, my mind was not fully my own. Over the next couple of months, I will write more about mind control. 

In the meantime, have you, dear reader, ever experienced or witnessed someone you love, making a choice that was not really a choice? Please feel free to share. 

* Please read my blog statement to clarify the use of names throughout my writing and my intention for this blog. 

I am in France, enjoying a family vacation after the 4 day ICSA conference in lovely Bordeaux. In addition to many informative lectures about Cultic Dynamics by renown experts in the field, I also offered a presentation. It was an honor to present in Bordeaux and I will share a snippet about how cult leaders maintain control with you here, (minus the visuals from my PowerPoint)
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"….  Another tactic that Cult Leaders employ is something I call “Complicated Backdrop” or “Where’s Waldo?” Apparently here in France it is “Where’s Charlie?” and in Germany, “Where’s Wally”. I trust that you have experienced these complex ‘search-and-find’ drawings.
Has it ever happened to you? Have you ever dropped something on a patterned rug and watched it land but then not be able to find it? Recently, I dropped a paperclip on my multicolored rag rug and even though I saw exactly where it landed, when I went to pick it up, I simply could not find it!
Now, if that same paperclip landed on a simple, white rug, it would have been easy to spot it. But not this paperclip! I finally ran my hand over the area and just before I was about to touch it, I finally spotted the rascal - right in front of me - exactly where I had been looking!

Cults are like that patterned rug. One of their traits is to have a complicated background rather than the pure white base that many of them proclaim to have. There is nothing straightforward or transparent about cults. They always have a complicated system with rules, structures, and rules about the structures and a complex hierarchy with rules about the various levels, that might be disguised as “truth” or “God’s will” or simply “what is right”. And in this complex environment, what should be obvious, simply isn't.

When my brother died, a sudden, tragic and complicated death in Jan 2014 I did not go to his funeral because it was scheduled at the same time as a CTL Retreat. At the time, I was in my height of involvement with CTL, having finally achieved the status of being an ‘Executive Committee’ member. Part of the culture within CTL was a rule, albeit unspoken, that once you were in the Executive Committee, the commitment to the group was so deep that only earthquakes and extreme situations could keep you away from a retreat. Retreats, in the CTL world were paramount.  
 
So, I made a choice between my birth family and my CTL family and chose them because at the time, I believed that CTL was more important. I even lied to my family that I had already paid for the retreat and that was part of why I needed to go. The truth was, the bulk of my retreat expenses were added to my growing payment plan - assuring that I would be in debt to Doug for years to come which in turn assured that I would continue to work my fingers to the bone for him and his organization.
 
The complexity of CTL rules and the financial, social, emotional and spiritual dependence that I had on the organization, completely obscured my ability to see what was obvious.  I did not know at the time that my decision to not go to my brother's funeral was influenced by the grip that CTL and Doug had on my psyche and that at that time,  my mind was not fully my own. The complex web of conditions in CTL, spoken and inferred, clouded my ability to see what would be so obvious in a more normal situation: when your beloved brother dies suddenly, you go to the funeral, no matter what.
 
This was a case of “Where’s Gerette” in the complicated CTL Backdrop and it  still pains me, every time I think about it.
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It ​is astounding that three and a half months have passed since my last blog post – especially because I have been writing more than at any other time in my life. You will hear more about that in a minute – for now, there is today.  

When I rolled out of bed this morning Bob asked “Are you getting up already?” When I saw that it was only 6 am, I gratefully dropped back into bed to snuggle. “Happy Anniversary,” he said as I slipped into his warm arms. I was aghast! I had forgotten that today was our 25th wedding anniversary! And I was touched that he had remembered. Weeks earlier, we had determined that our upcoming trip to France was both our family vacation and our anniversary celebration, so we did not make any big plans. Turns out he had nearly forgotten too - but we both agreed that we had to do something today. We quickly ditched most of our responsibilities for the day and decided to go up to Top Notch for a massage and spa day. Ahh…  

Chatting with Sylvia, my spritely, strong handed massage therapist, I paused (as I often do when someone asks me what I do), when she asked what I would be speaking about in France. As I settled onto the warm table resting my forehead into the soft white face cradle, I said succinctly “Cult Awareness”. “Oh! That’s a busy topic these days!” she replied.  I giggled. I love her response and in a different setting, would have asked her about her perspective on cults.  

Yes, indeed. Cults are a busy topic these days!  

In three weeks, I will be presenting a talk about Mind Bugs (see Nov 2016 post) and many social and neurological conditions that make it incredibly easy for smart people like you and I to fall into cults of all kinds – soft, hard and otherwise. I am thrilled to be presenting at the annual conference for the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) in Bordeaux France of all places. I am told that there are some excellent beverages in that town that I look forward to sampling!     

When I am not preparing for this presentation, I am also….drumroll…. WRITING A BOOK! I am so excited to be fully engaged in this creative and cathartic process. In addition to offering an understanding of current cultic dynamics while weaving in my personal experience, my book aims to challenge the shaming silence that our society has imposed on millions of individuals who have been influenced by cultic dynamics. It is my greatest hope that it will speak loudly, clearly, and gently to those who have suffered quietly for years or who are just beginning to recognize their circumstances.  

I will be sharing sections of my book in the coming weeks and months.  Stay tuned!

​The sincere gratitude I felt for Trump’s successful campaign (see “Thank You Donald”) withered with the reality of the Inauguration. Silly as it seems, in December I still did not believe that he would actually become the President of these once united states. The truth is, it was traumatic for me to witness a man so blatantly brandishing many of Doug’s traits, rise to become the Commander in Chief of this beloved nation.  The truth is, it was traumatizing for me to watch so many fellow citizens, friends and family fall into a brainwashed enthusiasm so similar to the one that I myself had landed in under Doug’s “leadership”. The truth is, I was in shock and therefore speechless for 2 months.
But now I’m back – and I have a lot to say.
Last week’s press conference birthed a new focus for my writing: the parallels between Doug, (the leader of the destructive group that I was in for over 19 years) and President Trump.
I am most struck by the way that Trump communicates. Throughout the entire hour and 17 minute press conference, he kept up a casual banter about ‘the dishonesty in the Press’. Occasionally he would throw an excoriating dart, but for the most part it was numerous, off-handed cavalier statements.
Friends: beware. This is a repetitious and calculated technique to garner loyalty where there is a threat. Keeping it casual and using simplistic language is part of its power.  On the one hand he almost playfully dismisses the need for the Press and on the other, makes it clear that there are a ‘few good reporters’. It’s all about “us” versus “them”.  In this way, much of the underscore of President’s Trump’s communication in this press conference could be distilled into “Are you with me or are you against me?”
I recognize President Trump’s strategy because I experienced it for 19 years when I was under Doug’s tutelage. Throughout his lectures and during individual sessions, Doug sprinkled negative comments about people or groups who had challenged him. While under Doug’s influence, I did not perceive these comments as problematic. I was grateful for his warnings and made sure that I steered clear of those people. I did not want to associate with those who did not understand the truth of Doug’s brilliance. I was proud to be one of his loyal students and I worked diligently to stay in his good graces. It was not uncommon for Doug to end a session, playfully asking, “Are you ‘wit’ me or ‘agint’ me?” And I was ‘wit’ him more than I knew – until I wasn’t!
During the last two months, I felt frozen by the divisiveness of our current political landscape. I want to be clear: my work as a cult awareness educator is not about politics. My passion is to bring more awareness of destructive group dynamics regardless of the particular politics, religion or belief systems. My goal is to educate about dynamics and not to choose sides.
It is my greatest hope that by becoming more educated about Trump’s destructive traits that all Americans will be thinking for themselves and refusing to fall into the trance that many of our fellow citizens and officials  appear to be in right now. It is our birthright to protect our powerful, beautiful nation from undue influence by any one individual.
To this end, I need to ask: if Doug digs Trump, what do you dig?

​Dear Mr Trump,
I am writing to sincerely thank you for your recent contributions to the field of Cult Awareness Education. I am deeply grateful that you and your constituents are so vocal in re-focusing America and that this passionate venture is bringing to light that which has been hidden, roiling beneath the surface of our national sentiment. Cults have long been considered obscure and of concern to only a small fraction of our population but since you have taken center stage in our country; you have prompted an enormous national focus on these issues, stimulating unprecedented world-wide interest. I am convinced that this is indeed a good thing and as an educator I appreciate this teaching opportunity.  

I trust that you will agree with me Donald, that Cult membership (in all types of Cults) did not suddenly balloon in the last year, but that these “high control groups”, as we now call them, have been a strong, steady current attracting millions of people in wildly different ways for many, many years. Americans engage in a wide spectrum of cults ranging from what I call “Soft Cults” that are fairly harmless, to highly controlled Religious, Political and Psychological Cults all the way up on to the most violent ones: ISIS, KKK and the like.  At this point in history, I believe that most of the global population has been impacted by Cult Dynamics and this fact sits squarely in our collective Blind Spot.

Thankfully, your rise to power is helping to shine a light on this.

Thank you Donald, for so clearly demonstrating the traits of a Cult Leader. (see https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spycatcher/201208/dangerous-cult-leaders scroll down to the list of 50 traits of the pathological cult leader.)

Thank you Donald, for using Cult Strategies in such a high profile manner for millions upon millions to witness. (see http://reallyweirdstuff.com/howtobesuccessfulcultleader.htm http://workingpsychology.com/intro.html )

From one entrepreneur to another, I will admit that until recently, I was floundering in my efforts to pitch my business but all that has changed, thanks to you. I know that I still have an uphill climb, but now at least, the need for Cult Awareness Education is squarely on the map.

In all seriousness, I need to say that our country is doomed to unequivocal human and environmental disaster if you and your colleagues continue to push the White Nationalist agenda. Please ask your leadership team how much suffering you are willing to inflict on the American people before recognizing the profound selfishness of that cult's code. Let us look with honesty at the strengths and weaknesses of our great country and replace cult leadership with integrity and true passion for Truth, Freedom and Democracy. 

With gravity and gratitude, 
Gerette Buglion
Cult Awareness Educator
 
P.S. In case you don’t want to click on the links above, here is a small sample:

50 typical traits of the pathological cult leader (from Dangerous Personalities) you should watch for and which shout caution, get away, run, or avoid if possible: 

1. He has a grandiose idea of who he is and what he can achieve.
2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, or brilliance.
3. Demands blind unquestioned obedience.
4. Requires excessive admiration from followers and outsiders.
5. Has a sense of entitlement - expecting to be treated special at all times.
6. Is exploitative of others by asking for their money or that of relatives putting others at financial risk.
7. Is arrogant and haughty in his behavior or attitude.
8. Has an exaggerated sense of power (entitlement) that allows him to bend rules and break laws.
9. Takes sexual advantage of members of his sect or cult.
10. Is hypersensitive to how he is seen or perceived by others. 
11. Publicly devalues others as being inferior, incapable, or not worthy.
12. Is frequently boastful of accomplishments.

(click on link above to see the rest…) See comment section below and share your thoughts! 

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.  

​ 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.