an new Jules article from MovingOn

(Reposted from MovingOn with Jules' permission)

Magic and Madness
from Jules - February 22, 2003

Living in a fundamentalist religious movement is a little like being in a Harry Potter book. There are magic words and rituals to learn, evil monsters around every corner, and special access to secret powers that influence everything from the weather to the outcome of sporting events. Most fourth graders understand that the magical world of J. K. Rowling is a figment of her imagination and a made up fantasy. Religious fanatics, on the other hand, actually believe that they are part of an elite group with special access to information and abilities that ordinary people could never comprehend.

Due to the fact that most young children will interpret information they receive from a source they deem authoritative and credible (such as television) to be accurate, there are a number of ethical and legal standards for advertising commercial products to children. Unfortunately, there are no such standards for religious indoctrination, and even if there were, the Family has a long history of viewing the children of their members as disciples of their teachings by default and therefore not entitled to any choices in the matter of beliefs or rationality.

The adults I trusted and loved in the Family told me that if I questioned the principles of the group, (that a one-world government would drive us into caves before I reached adulthood, that Berg and the Family were guided by the ghost of an alcoholic gypsy, that we would one day rule the world with superpowers, that a Jewish conspiracy faked the holocaust and persecuted the Family, that despite our desperate poverty we were so much more fortunate than people born into society, that to want an education or a different lifestyle than my parents was the ultimate betrayal of God and was to risk his fiercest judgments) then I was crazy. These were unquestionable facts and no matter what my common sense told me, I had to believe the Family or these “doubts” would make me insane. As a child I wrestled with reconciling the magical world of the Family with what my senses were telling me and the two sides were so diametrically opposed that I did think I was on the brink of losing my sanity. I took this to mean that the Family must have been right, so I repressed my own questions as best I could and for many years I accepted that I could not trust my own reasoning. The Orwellian dogma demanded that war was peace, abuse was love, pain was joy, ignorance was knowledge, selfishness was sacrifice, and on the list went.

When I first left the Family, I left because I could no longer reconcile my own sense of morality with what the Family stated was right. I had tried as hard as I could to make things work within the framework I had always known, and decided I needed to try something different. However I thought that it was mostly just the situations I had been in, and I did not realize how very deep the deception went. I read a copy of Deborah’s book a few months after leaving and was stunned by what she said about her father, the person I had known as “Grandpa”. As I began to think it all through and to comprehend that everything I had ever believed and trusted my entire life was a lie, and more than that, was deliberately designed to manipulate me, I felt shaken to the core of my very identity.

The term “gaslighting” means to intentionally change the reality of a victim, and thereby lead them into questioning his or her own sanity. The word comes from the 1944 film Gaslight in which a Victorian husband (Charles Boyer) conspires to convince his wife (Ingrid Bergman) that she is going mad, the goal being to make his planned murder of her appear to be suicide. Mysterious footsteps, "misplaced" objects, and inexplicably dimming gaslights (thus the title) are all part of the plan. The wife trusts her husband and begins to doubt herself and her own senses and starts to believe that she really must be going insane. This is what the Family was to me.

As lame as it sounds, the closest thing I have seen to the shock I had to my system when the light finally came on is the film the Matrix. The paradigm shift for me was that extreme when I realized that nothing I had previously worked so hard for, suffered so much because of and given so much to was real. It was like living on a movie set my entire life, and then one day looking behind the buildings of the street I walked down every day and seeing that they were nothing more than plywood fronts.

After having actually lived through deception that was so absolute and complete, I find it hard to trust anything or anyone now. After gauging my sense on reality on my observations of others and having that turn out to be so very wrong, I am cautious now to a fault about believing what other people say. I leave my lovers at the slightest sign of something being amiss, I worry that I’m being exploited by my supervisors in my workplaces, I keep my friends at arms length, and I try to never tell anyone else anything that I haven’t already processed enough so that they could not use it to hurt me. In a word, I tend to be paranoid.

There are still days when I feel completely disorientated and unsure of who I am or what I know. There are less of them than there used to be, but they still come. I am still learning to differentiate between my instincts and common sense, which I trust, and my emotional conditioning, which is what I was taught. I still panic for no apparent reason sometimes, and certain words and actions can still trigger the fear and feeling of vertigo.

The Family’s belief in their uniqueness and special connection to the divine gave me a sense of control over my environment. The magical powers Family members believed they had were a way to combat the powerlessness I felt in the group. Without that, and as my need for superstition dies, without any sort of belief in a divinely directed path for my life, I felt lost. At first I turned from Christianity, which triggered so many unpleasant memories, to a more holistic and mystical type of spirituality. Instead of cracking my Bible, I read Tarot cards. I think it was really the same thing, a desire to have some kind of edge on life, to have the overwhelming responsibility for making my own choices placed on someone or something else. If I was wrong, it was just that I didn’t listen hard enough. To think that there might be no right answer at all, or even worse, that it didn’t matter, was terrifying.

I can’t say I’m completely past all this, because I’m not.

I do feel more like a citizen of society than I used to. I am more confident and less easily swayed by circumstance. I do rationalize more and try to maintain a balance between learning about other points of view and buying into whatever I am told by someone I respect. I am less affected by other people’s opinions of me, and less cynical about the motives behind other people’s actions. It is getting better. I think I am becoming more genuine. My sense of reality is less tenuous and more tangible. I feel less of a need for control and more a sense of wonder at the mystery that is life.

It’s impossible to ever really know what is in another persons mind and who can say what is actually normal. I don’t know if I will ever get to a place where I feel I am like everyone else and I don’t know if that’s even what I want, but despite the bad days, I am moving towards contentment with who I am now.