This will interest some here:
Leaving the Fold, by Dr. Marlene Winell Ph.D.
May 10, 2011 By 2 CommentsDr. Marlene Winell is a psychologist and author of Leaving the Fold: A guide for former fundamentalists and other leaving their religion. This book is an excellent resource for those leaving or wanting to leave religion, especially if they have had traumatic experiences and are trying to recover from them.
She divides the book into three parts. In the first part, she not only shares her story, but also gives some brief glimpses of others who have left and are struggling with the trauma of religious indoctrination. She also explains the five phases of recovery and provides various checklists concerning the impact of religion, benefits, manipulations, and family background in the first half of her book.
In the second half of her book, she deals with the healing process and provides exercises in which to help people heal from their experiences. The inner child is discussed, as well as exercises in which to get in touch with one’s inner child. She also deals with the inner adult and building a new relationship with the two concepts. These two concepts are basically the emotional and rational or thinking side of the individual. The emotional side of a person is one area that religion seems to suppress and sometimes the more rational side of the person can be stunted also. The exercises help to develop a balance between the two in which to have a positive relationship within the self. In a sense, the inner adult takes the parent role and “parents the inner child”.
However, there can be some problems with old mental tapes, which she calls the Idea Monster, and it needs to be overcome in the process of recovery. In the chapter concerning “the Idea Monster”, she provides various exercises to at least tame such thoughts stemming from one’s traumatic experiences. Most of these exercises deal with creating new and more positive messages to replace the old ones. They also deal with emotional recovery after leaving harmful religious teachings and ideology. The religious sect one left or is leaving does not have to be Evangelical Fundamentalist for the book to be helpful. This book can be useful for one leaving almost any sect.
The rest of the article is here: Leaving the Fold
11 comments:
Recovery from a misplaced faith and theological perspectives gone wrong is probably relative and will always be different for each person. Religion is the ultimate cure for the anxiety humans have over knowing they will die. We make plans, pursue careers, learn great things, go amazing places and then...it's over. Or is it?
Evolution seems to indicate we are hairless apes become conscious and aware that we are aware due to our discovery of speech and writing.
Religion says we are the product of a master plan with all things ultimately ok and under control. You know, "I've read the end of the story and we win."
If I make you doubt your faith or you mine, we get defensive and lash out because if we are wrong, then our anxiety will return with a vengeance. It is this dynamic that informs the many reactions from rage and anger/sarcasm and defensiveness to finding a new faith that puts the beast of anxiety back in the box...for now.
No one belongs to the wrong church and no one,themselves, is influenced by any Satan...you are! My God is always the God and yours is always Satan, if staying in a faith is important to me.
One awakening for me personally was that there is NO ONE TRUE CHURCH ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET. In studying the politic of the New Testament, there never was one coherent group of teachings blessed by Jesus himself.
Peter did not see Jesus in the same way Paul did. James did not believe in Paul's views of Jesus nor Paul of his. John labeled Peter as no different than a Judas and the Gospel writers did not agree with each other on the story of Jesus or even who he said he was or wasn't
The mess we see today with all the drama between the appointed apostles, prophets and witnesses is the same as ever. It started before the body of Jesus cooled.
This understanding alone can be liberating and can stop the drama ridden angst COG types feel as they hop and skip from one true church to the next more true one because the last one got tangled in it's own leadership drama. It is that way in the NT and most blind themselves to it.
While religion may be a group effort and pursuit, spirituality is an inside job and requires none of the baggage that comes with organized religious thought. No group can all believe the same one thing. No one! Never have and never can or will. Fracture is built into the system along with the drama and angst of dis-illusionment, because it is illusion.
"We are not divided..all one body we, one in hope and doctrine, one in charity." Never happened, never can. It's an illusion and a meme meant to keep the group together. A spiritual person singing this is probably chuckling to themselves knowing how insane such a view is in reality and yet not shaken by it.
Organized religion produces a mere religious view, opinions and beliefs that often requires that one recovers from it's effects and drama from time to time throughout your personal life.
Of course, some don't ever recover. Some never question anything to begin with. It's not easy and so often we simply replace the old religion with the new which is equally mythological and leads to nothing but new and improved myths.
I don't like it either. I don't enjoy instability. I felt better knowing that I knew the truth of it all. But perhaps it really is not so much finding as it is seeking where we find our best and most realistic comfort.
God did not trick me into the ministry of WCG, nor did Satan. I did. I made the choice. It seemed right at the time. It wasn't. Live and burn. Life goes on until it doesn't and I want to learn all I can while I can.
We need to honor the journey of each. No two are alike.
A few of you might enjoy this example of NT Politics at work between the camp of Peter and that of Luke and the Apostle Paul. The NT is full of these sarcastic little stories meant to undermine the followers of one Apostle/Disciple by the other.
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Murder-of-Ananias-and-Sapphira-in-Acts-5----Promoting-Fear-When-Perfect-Love-Just-Wont-Do&id=165729
Pardon a few typos in the text. I write out of my head and, like others, filter them out even when staring at them :)
Thank you for the insightful commentary, Dennis.
My journey includes the lessening of the effects of the HWA-Church's teachings within myself, which I mostly account for as being the result of the decades gone by since I stopped attending.
(As the saying goes, "Time heals.")
Plus, after the first 20 years out I finally realized the WCG was a destructive cult and did some reading on the subject.
Time has a way of putting things in perspective.
Apropos to this subject, there was a comment I read about Harold Camping's followers on the heels of his(alleged) failed rapture prophecy that went something like, “They're too psychologically invested to turn around now.”
I am now OK with the fact that life is sometimes good, and sometimes bad.
Sometimes life feels good, and sometimes it hurts.
I don't believe people who profess to be "living in joy, 24-7" ...
I think that's a creepy and unethical way to try and convert others. As you may say, it's a way for them to "protect against potential anxiety, with a vengeance"
Jesus of the Bible wasn't that way.
But to protect their own psychological constructs, many people don't want to look at that (either closely, or at all).
I've ordered the book from Amazon.com. The part that interests me are the exercises to change the neurology of the brain.
The book may or may not be more useful than "Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships" by Janja Lalich and Madeleine Tobias. It seems to have a better basis for recovery from cult life, but we'll see. It is highly acclaimed and has some reasonable tools.
Another book of interest in line with these two is "Hardwired Behavior: What Neuroscience Reveals about Morality" by Laurence Tancredi. Dr. Tancredi is a rarity: He is a psychiatrist and an attorney -- highly regarded in both fields. His books adds depth to the editorial by Dr. Stanley Schmidt on a related topic in Analog.
For those of you frustrated that DNArefutesBI.com semingly has not made much progress lately, I would explain that the site is becoming massive, particularly with the materials I am including in the section on recovery. Even with mega menus, navigation is really challenging. Thank heaven for Flipping Books.
Not to worry though, this blog has been very helpful in developing the site and should be enlightening when all the pieces are integrated and published.
And even if you don't find it that useful, "The Plaint Truth" and "Goof News" should be amusing as biting satire.
You might find my own Rule 51 useful:
Never base your spiritual life on a proven false prophet.
Time, changing my environment, reflection and reason led to my eventual recovery (but it's still a work in progress).
I spared nothing and was willing to think the "unthinkable," believe the "unbelievable" and conclude the "impossible." What often holds so many back is the unwillingness to wipe the slate clean and start over with no sacred cows to hang onto.
The thing I've missed most is the family-like camaraderie the cult provided. I can count the old friends remaining on the fingers of one hand and have fingers left over. Even then, we can't be truly close like we used to be.
It's that loss that leads to the fear that keeps many ensnared in some form of religion. It's similar to being ensnared by a drug.
Allen, it's called emotional extortion.
Cults count on it to keep family members in the cult even after they conclude that the whole thing is a scam, in order to save what they think is left of their family and friends.
As for friends, since the whole friendship thing was based on shared delusions, once people change their ideas about the delusion, the basis for the "friendship" is at an end. You will experience this if you are disfellowshipped or leave. Does anyone call if you don't show up? Not likely, in most cases.
"You might find my own Rule 51 useful:
Never base your spiritual life on a proven false prophet."
I"ll see your rule and raise you one...
"There are no real prophets, Apostles or Witnesses in real time and space ever. They are all constructs and all wrong about themselves. Don't be fooled."
There have been Corporate Prophets.
Kenneth Lay springs to mind.
Cults rarely work out well for members. The more we know about, the more exploitation and psychological damage we uncover.
The normal pattern of human intellect is that as one learns, more questions arise. Cults attempt to reverse this by claiming to have all of the answers. These answers are superimposed on members, subverting normal thought processes. Upon leaving, atrophied intellect must be restimulated and redeveloped. That's painful, but, thankfully, possible to accomplish.
BB
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