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In Reply to: Re: Reposted from Movingon re: Paul Hartington aka Abel posted by susie on December 01, 2005 at 16:58:37:
A few reflections: I have no doubt that posters who wrote about Stuart Hartingdon and his wife told the truth when they spoke of how they were not "as bad" as some other people.
I also believe what the above poster has said about his/her own experience with the Hartingdons.
Having known them personally and lived with them in my time in TF I can offer the following, based on Steve Kent's research:
-the interesting thing about groups like TF is not just how there is deviance in their ranks, but how they can "create" deviance. How many of us used to know certain people at one time and truly these seemed to be decent or loving people only to become some sort of "monsters" after prolonged exposure to a closed environment and a lot of "undue influence?"
- Some of the strongest among us, the ones who had some sort of lower threshold and perhaps some stronger sense of inbuilt ethics, pulled out at one point. I know for me the breaking point would have been if someone had required of me to have sex with a child, or to take my kids away from me. Even though leaving meant stepping into the unknown and the possibility of "God killing me" I knew inside of me that for me letting my kids be taken or being required to harm a child was already death for me. At that point, God could very well go ahead and kill me.
-I guess in some ways I was never " a true revolutionary." I was often told I was too smart, too carnal, not spiritual enough, had the "handicap of natural ability" (was not enough of a moron or zombie in other words) but that was my salvation in the end, even though it cost me humiliation, silence restrictions, having to have sex with some people I abhorred under duress etc.
-What I am trying to say is that the Hartingdons I used to know when I knew them are not the Hartingdons they became afterwards, after many years of having to make decisions and taking more and more steps into TF's investment.
I would like to find Ben Zablocki's article about brainwashing and the issue of investments made in cultic involvement as I think it sheds a lot of light as how some decent people can eventually turn into such monsters. (I am thinking about the person Sarah Davidito used to be at FIRST, or who Jeremy Spencer used to be in the beginning - they have very little to do with the people they became and who they are now)
Perhaps a good article would be The Making of Deviance in Cults, or The Making of a Monster starting from a person who does not exhibit deviant characteristics to start with.
Zablocki's article is referred to here,
http://www.rickross.org/reference/apologist/apologist29.html
if someone can find it and post it on this site I think it can be helpful.
And I hope the Hartingdons ARE reading this site because when I did know them they were still somewhat human. Just as in 1984, though, so many Winstons got to the point of selling out their humanness and developed a much darker side.
