[Okay, yes the stories are mostly real and are mine. No, you can’t know who they are. I made sure of that. So sit back and listen to my nonsense about the people I have met. My advice: learn to be nice and have fun with people, and believe them less. ]

Setting: One very cold winter in 1996 in Salt Lake City, Utah, with wife Lynn, who has hired me to get her husband, Chris, out of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. What is going through each one’s mind?

LYNN: I loved Chris more than just about anything when we were married. It was my second time around, and my little Kate loved him, too. Quite a contrast from her real dad!  Distant and cold, he had never connected with his sweet girl for more than a trip to the Fair once a year.

Chris, however, spent huge amounts of time with Kate; something he seemed to have a lot of because he was often unemployed. I was thrilled for her to have a thoughtful, doting  dad in her primary school years.

Then came the visit by Jehovah’s Witnesses. I knew who they were the moment they knocked; you just have this sense sometimes. Hucksters! I don’t believe in God, I have no use for this tripe. Chris, however, invited them in. It was the paradise earth pictures... like giving candy to a baby. He ate it up. Oh my god, I’m going to die, I thought.

I knew what this was really about. Chris needed something to believe in. I even used to chide him about it, “What story are we in today, baby?” Kate loved the involved storybook games, but Chris was out of work, not concerned with the future, and easy prey for any huckster, religious or otherwise. I was in desperation. Finding an exit-counselor, and reading up on the process kept me busy for months. I was prepared for the worst. If he didn’t get out of the Witnesses, it was over between us. It’s his decision.

CHRIS: When I met Lynn I knew we were a match. Her flowing blond hair and her cute smile sank my ship on the first date. I had loved Karen, but I just physically couldn’t have kids. If I wanted a family, this was going to be it. My father had been abusive. My mother, an alcoholic, shielded me from him with her imposing presence.

I wanted the rest of my life to be better.

The Witnesses opened my eyes to Kate’s future. A kid should have a good start. What about God, Jehovah? If there is nothing but this world, life is really sad! It really is up to me, if Kate will ever get to know about Jehovah. I am the head of the house, and I’m sure Lynn will see the wisdom of this, at least to give Kate a choice.

But it didn’t work that way. Lynn could not even discuss the Bible and sometimes flew off the handle when I even mentioned the word Jehovah. I am pretty easy going, so I just avoid using the words that seem to trigger her. She thinks I’m in a cult! If she could only see how crazy she is acting. If she only knew how important all of this really is. We are living in the last days! We can’t trust everything we hear and see. We need guidance. Why not listen to the Creator of all things?

I must be subtle when I witness to them. Lynn may lose out, but Kate’s everlasting life is at stake now, whether I make it through Armageddon or not.

RANDY: Talking over the phone gives me a rough sketch of my clients, but meeting them in person corrects any misconceptions. People are very predictable. Through an awareness of body language, voice clues, posturing, eye contact and the other clues in the background, I am good at sizing up the types of people and the way they interact. (I call them memetic matrices. In law enforcement, it is called profiling.)  The ones who hide their feelings might take an hour to crack. The rest you can read like a book.

More importantly than the initial body-language clues come the subtleties… like passive-aggressive behavior, control issues, permissions, and psychological mine fields that must be sidestepped. Not so much directed at you, but at their family members.

Your boundaries are suggested but not stated by the client’s family... “We are Jewish, we do not want Junior to lose out on an education. We want him to be a doctor.” or, “Our family believes in free thinking, and we do not want her to get involved in anything else like this again.”

In the case of Lynn and Chris, the dynamics were not difficult. Every intervention is like a Jerry Springer episode in my head... perhaps everyone’s dressed up and more polite, but he same ruses are used to disguise the same old primal issues. I guess all that door-to-door talking to people helped me read the obfuscations, too.

People don’t get stuck in cults because of doctrine. Doctrine has no real primal power. It is a front for control by the leader(s). I have learned to look for the control and I mostly ignore the doctrine. If I can get them to address the real issues they have with their loved ones directly, the cult may simultaneously lose its usefulness and is often dropped, not primarily because it is “wrong,” but because it’s use as a tool in negotiating with their loved one(s) is no longer needed. Respect and understanding have finally been won.

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written by Blueeyes54 , August 16, 2009

very interesting.

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