This week, it’s answers about cult hopping, my thoughts on finding spirituality after a cult experience, how one might approach someone they suspected was being trafficked and a lot more. Enjoy!
(1) Justice Clarence Thomas is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. His wife Virginia, aka Ginni, as we are now finding out, has been a QAnon enthusiast for a while. Before that, she was active in the Tea Party. It is also a matter of public record that back in the 1980s, as a young congressional aide, she has been victimized by Lifespring, a cult masquerading as a for-profit “human potential organization” and later spoke out against its abusive practices.
With this in mind, what are your thoughts on cult hopping and cult hoppers? More specifically, do you think there are personality types more susceptible to recruitment by cults? There is research out there suggesting that cults often take advantage of major life events (loss of a loved one, long-distance relocation on a short notice, etc.), but the phenomenon of cult-hopping seems to suggest that some people may be wired in a way that makes them easy targets for cults, life events or not. What do you think?
(2) How would one go about separating any remaining sense of spirituality from tainted cult beliefs? For instance if you were in a cult that used meditation and it feels tainted but you’d still like to meditate occasionally and not have it be mentally/emotionally connected to the former cult? Or for former cult members who still retain some religious beliefs after leaving. How can one separate these things, untangle everything and ‘reclaim’ the spirituality that the cult manipulated and abused?
(3) What do you think is the best way to intereact with people you suspect of being trafficked by a destructive cult? (Here I am thinking more along the lines of the situation Jen Kiaba was in as a Moonie, where the police are not going to be involved to question a kid selling knicknacks for her “church.”)
(4) When you were involved with Scientology, what kind of limits on technology did they have? Was it that you couldn’t have social media so you couldn’t see the truth or was there full access? Would you be punished for looking at the truth? Could somebody in Scientology be punished for looking at your channel and being educated more?
(5) When Scientologists say that someone has “pulled it in,” that sounds awfully like the Law of Attraction. Is this the Scientology version of the Law of Attraction?
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