Relief

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 2: As stated above (A[1], ad 4,5), in order to secure the effects of Christ’s Passion, we must be likened unto Him. Now we are likened unto Him sacramentally in Baptism, according to Rom. 6:4: “For we are buried together with Him by baptism into death.” Hence no punishment of satisfaction is imposed upon men at their baptism, since they are fully delivered by Christ’s satisfaction. But because, as it is written (1 Pet. 3:18), “Christ died” but “once for our sins,” therefore a man cannot a second time be likened unto Christ’s death by the sacrament of Baptism. Hence it is necessary that those who sin after Baptism be likened unto Christ suffering by some form of punishment or suffering which they endure in their own person; yet, by the co-operation of Christ’s satisfaction, much lighter penalty suffices than one that is proportionate to the sin. Reply to Objection 3: Christ’s satisfaction works its effect in us inasmuch as we are incorporated with Him, as the members with their head, as stated above [4263](A[1]). Now the members must be conformed to their head. Consequently, as Christ first had grace in His soul with bodily passibility, and through the Passion attained to the glory of immortality, so we likewise, who are His members, are freed by His Passion from all debt of punishment, yet so that we first receive in our souls “the spirit of adoption of sons,” whereby our names are written down for the inheritance of immortal glory, while we yet have a passible and mortal body: but afterwards, “being made conformable” to the sufferings and death of Christ, we are brought into immortal glory, according to the saying of the Apostle (Rom. 8:17): “And if sons, heirs also: heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with Christ; yet so if we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him.” Whether we were reconciled to God through Christ’s Passion?Objection 1: It would seem that we were not reconciled to God through Christ’s Passion. For there is no need of reconciliation between friends. But God always loved us, according to Wis. 11:25: “Thou lovest all the things that are, and hatest none of the things which Thou hast made.” Therefore Christ’s Passion did not reconcile us to God. Objection 2: Further, the same thing cannot be cause and effect: hence grace, which is the cause of meriting, does not come under merit. But God’s love is the cause of Christ’s Passion, according to Jn. 3:16: “God so loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son.” It does not appear, then, that we were reconciled to God through Christ’s Passion, so that He began to love us anew. Objection 3: Further, Christ’s Passion was completed by men slaying Him; and thereby they offended God grievously. Therefore Christ’s Passion is rather the cause of wrath than of reconciliation to God.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  For the first time since I started working on the case, everything we were struggling to achieve finally seemed to make sense. It took me a minute to realize that the judge was calling my name, impatiently asking me to begin. — The last day of hearings went well. There were a half-dozen people who had been jailed or imprisoned with Ralph Myers whom Ralph had told he was being pressured to give false testimony against Walter McMillian. We found most of them and had them testify. They were consistent in what they related. Isaac Dailey, who had been falsely accused by Myers of committing the Pittman murder, explained how Myers had falsely implicated Walter in the Pittman crime. Myers had confided to Dailey after he was arrested that he and Karen had discussed pinning the Pittman murder on Walter. “He related to us that he and Karen did the killing and, ah, plotted together to put it off on Johnny D.” Another inmate who wrote letters for Myers at the Monroe County Jail explained that Myers didn’t know McMillian, had no knowledge of the Morrison murder, and was being pressured by police to testify falsely against McMillian. We saved the most powerful evidence for the end. The tapes that Tate, Benson, and Ikner had made when they interrogated Myers were pretty dramatic. The multiple recorded statements Myers gave to the police featured Myers repeatedly telling the police that he didn’t know anything about the Morrison murder or Walter McMillian. They included the officers’ threats against Myers and Myers’s resistance to framing an innocent man for murder. Not only did the tapes confirm Myers’s recantation and contradict his trial testimony, they exposed the lie that Pearson had told the court, the jury, and McMillian’s trial counsel—that there were only two statements provided by Myers. In fact, Myers gave at least six additional statements to the police that were largely consistent with his testimony at the Rule 32 hearing that he had no information about Walter McMillian committing the Ronda Morrison murder. All of these recorded statements were typed, exculpatory, and favorable to Walter McMillian, and none of them had been disclosed to McMillian’s attorneys, as was required. I called on McMillian’s trial lawyers, Bruce Boynton and J. L. Chestnut, to testify about how much more they could have done to win an acquittal if the State had turned over the evidence it had suppressed. We finished the presentation of our evidence and, to our surprise, the State put on no rebuttal case. I didn’t know what they could have presented to rebut our evidence, but I’d assumed they would present something.

• From Branded: Brainwashed Inside NXIVM (2020)

  1461 01:13:00,509 --> 01:13:03,946 He has some of his kind of close circle with him, 1462 01:13:04,046 --> 01:13:06,715 and they're hiding out in a Mexican villa. 1463 01:13:06,815 --> 01:13:09,918 And so people recognized him almost immediately. 1464 01:13:10,018 --> 01:13:15,791 Oh, it's t hat guy from every newspaper and every news story. 1465 01:13:15,891 --> 01:13:19,762 And so they alert the police. 1466 01:13:19,862 --> 01:13:24,533 [Narrator] On March 26, 2018, the Mexican National Police 1467 01:13:24,633 --> 01:13:26,368 storm the luxury beachfront villa 1468 01:13:26,468 --> 01:13:31,206 Raniere and his most faithful followers are hiding out in. 1469 01:13:31,306 --> 01:13:36,211 Keith hears the Federales start to storm the compound, 1470 01:13:36,311 --> 01:13:37,946 and he decides to hide, 1471 01:13:38,046 --> 01:13:42,451 while Lauren Salzman decides to try to talk to the police. 1472 01:13:42,551 --> 01:13:44,153 [Paige] Lauren freaks out, obviously, 1473 01:13:44,253 --> 01:13:45,988 because there's a ton of cops. 1474 01:13:46,088 --> 01:13:49,758 She tries to kind of calm things down. 1475 01:13:49,858 --> 01:13:52,161 She tries to say he's not there. 1476 01:13:52,261 --> 01:13:54,797 [Armando] They say, let us in and we'll show you the warrant. 1477 01:13:54,897 --> 01:13:55,931 She refuses. 1478 01:13:56,031 --> 01:13:58,901 So naturally, they break down the door. 1479 01:14:01,503 --> 01:14:02,771 [Robert] She gets on her knees, 1480 01:14:02,871 --> 01:14:04,807 and there's machine guns pointed at her head. 1481 01:14:04,907 --> 01:14:09,311 And she's basically willing to put it on the line for Keith. 1482 01:14:09,411 --> 01:14:11,413 Keith! 1483 01:14:11,513 --> 01:14:14,516 And Keith, the exceptional deity leader, 1484 01:14:14,616 --> 01:14:19,121 is hiding, just curled up in the bottom of a closet, 1485 01:14:19,221 --> 01:14:23,826 reduced to basically the fetal position. 1486 01:14:23,926 --> 01:14:27,362 He was handcuffed, and then he went away. 1487 01:14:27,463 --> 01:14:29,131 Everything is falling apart. 1488 01:14:29,231 --> 01:14:31,567 And you've got this inner circle of Keith's 1489 01:14:31,667 --> 01:14:34,203 trying to do damage control now. 1490 01:14:34,303 --> 01:14:36,305 [Woman] Huh? Lauren's coming. 1491 01:14:36,405 --> 01:14:38,674 [Woman] [unintelligible] 1492 01:14:38,774 --> 01:14:40,709 [Woman] Let's go, you guys. 1493 01:14:47,115 --> 01:14:50,786 [Rick] I was relieved that it ended peacefully. 1494 01:14:50,886 --> 01:14:53,322 The women were fanatically devoted to him. 1495 01:14:53,422 --> 01:14:56,792 I think they would have had a gun battle with authorities 1496 01:14:56,892 --> 01:14:59,595 if he had told them to. 1497 01:14:59,695 --> 01:15:02,264 Like David Koresh. 1498 01:15:02,364 --> 01:15:05,334 Like Jim Jones. 1499 01:15:05,434 --> 01:15:07,769 He was more like Charlie Manson. 1500 01:15:07,870 --> 01:15:10,572 He didn't do a last stand. 1501 01:15:10,672 --> 01:15:12,708 [Dr. Marie] When I saw that Keith was arrested, 1502 01:15:12,808 --> 01:15:16,545 I was just like, hallelujah! 1503 01:15:16,645 --> 01:15:19,014 Yay, yay, yay! 1504 01:15:19,114 --> 01:15:21,183 There is some justice. 1505 01:15:21,283 --> 01:15:23,218 [Narrator] Raniere is brought back to the federal courthouse

• From Born on the Fourth of July (1976)

  It was one of the most moving antiwar demonstrations there had been. I would have given anything to have been there with them. I read about it sitting by the pool of the Santa Monica Bay Club, wearing a ridiculous Mickey Mouse shirt. Suddenly I knew my easy life could never be enough for me. The war had not ended. It was time for me to join forces with other vets. I went home and called a couple of people I knew. One of them told me there was going to be a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War that night in an apartment in L.A. I was still a bit unsure of myself but I couldn’t wait to get into my car and drive over. I remember how kind they were to me from the moment I arrived. When I got there, a bunch of vets were in front of the house waiting to carry me up the stairs in my chair. “Hi brother,” they said to me warmly. “Can we help you brother? Is there anything we can do?” All of a sudden everything seemed to change—the loneliness seemed to vanish. I was surrounded by friends. They were the new veterans, the new soldiers with floppy bush hats and jungle uniforms right here on the streets of America. I began to feel closer to them than I ever had to the people at the university and at the hospital and all the people who had welcomed me back to Massapequa. It had a lot to do with what we had all been through. We could talk and laugh once again. We could be honest about the war and ourselves. Before each meeting there was the thumb-and-fist handshake—it meant you cared about your brother. We were men who had gone to war. Each of us had his story to tell, his own nightmare. Each of us had been made cold by this thing. We wore ribbons and uniforms. We talked of death and atrocity to each other with unaccustomed gentleness. I remember being very nervous and anxious at that first meeting. I told them, Give me a speech, give me a place to show this wheelchair. I really wanted to get going immediately. The brothers told me to calm down and not to worry, there would be plenty of chances to speak, it was time to get the organization together. Afterward I went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee and one of the guys came up to me and gave me a big hug. He held me for a long time and when he let go there were tears streaming down his face. “I love you, brother,” he said, wiping his eyes. And then he said, “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry I did that.” “It’s okay,” I said. “I love you too. Now when’s my first speaking gig?” They told me to go to a rally in Pasadena the next day.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  “That must’ve really been hard. I’m sorry.” Alice turned toward her, and Connie saw another face start to surface under the composed party expression, the careful eye makeup and poise. She wasn’t sure how to define it, but it looked like the face of a young girl who had spent a lot of time studying models in fashion magazines. “Yes, it was hard. You remember how things were. In a way I was relieved. But it was awful.” Somebody turned up the music and it marched between them. “How’re things with your parents?” “Better.” Connie nodded. “They’re back together and the separation seems to have cleared the air. They actually seem to love each other again.” “Yeah? That’s great.” Alice turned toward the table, grabbed a large potato chip and used it to shovel up a mouthful of green paste. Connie found a paper cup without anything sticky on the inside and poured vodka into it. She groped for a bright sticky carton of orange juice and a brief storm of conversation bore them apart; Connie became embroiled with a very young man who wanted to talk about the magazine she worked for, while Alice was impaled by the aquamarine stare of the peanut-eater Connie had avoided. They were relieved to come together again a few minutes later in an opposite corner of the room. “So Franklin tells me that you’re living with a woman now.” “Yeah.” Alice’s eyes brightened with a flare of enlightenment; she had never been able to understand Connie’s manic affairs or the way she had flatly turned down the men Alice would introduce her to, and now here was the simple explanation: Connie was gay. “Is that good?” “Yes, it is. I really love her.” “I’m glad to hear that.” “How’re things between you and Roger?” Alice looked away and shrugged. “Okay, I guess. We’re not that close these days. He’s seeing somebody else, actually. He’s off somewhere with her tonight, I think.” “Oh!” “It’s not a crisis. I think that it’s probably good for both of us. I’d be interested in an affair myself, but there’s nobody around at the moment. Roger has a lot of access to single girls. He’s gotten to be a pretty big deal, you know.” There was another shift in the surface of Alice’s face and Connie saw a sudden resemblance to the person she’d seen in the mirror yesterday, right after her dental appointment—one half of the face was alertly contemplating the world with expectation and confidence, while the other had fallen under the weight of it. The eyes expressed the fatigue and rancor of a small, hardworking person carrying her life around on her back like a set of symbols and circumstances that she could stand apart from and arrange. “Do you think that you’ll stay married?” “Oh, yes. I mean, my marriage with Roger is like…a project I’d never drop. And I want to have children soon.”

• From Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults (1988)

  So, she came to Boston, and we worked intensively over a five-day period- meeting 3 hours in the morning, a one-and-a-half-hour lunch break, and three hours in the afternoon on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Wednesday was a day off.” I did intensive psychoeducation about social psychology and Chinese communist brainwashing models, showing videos about other cults and hypnosis. I taught her to be present in the here and now in her body. I told her that I would help her to deprogram herself so that she would develop an “internal locus of control” for her own mind. I asked her to go back to when she was first deceptively recruited and asked her to imagine, “If she knew then what she knows now, would she ever have joined?” She said, “No way!” So, I asked her to visualize the scene and say what she would have wanted to say and do what she would have wanted to do.” The effect was miraculous for her. She understood that she could do this technique to exit her “younger cult self” out of the cult. Her impulses to self-harm or take her life went away as she no longer thought a demon was influencing her. She came to understand that it was just her cult identity on “auto-pilot.” This cult identity was trained to be in “God’s church or to die.” I incorporated the video of her talk in an online course I created for clinicians and everyone who wishes to recover or help someone to recover. Counseled Outs People who had had assistance are the smallest group of ex-members. Most people who are counseled out of cults are able to find the help and information they need. However, some are still carrying around cult-related psychological baggage. Just because a person has been out of a group for years, this does not mean that all of their issues are resolved. This is particularly true of those who were deprogrammed. Some deprogramees report ongoing PTSD symptoms from the deprogramming itself. While I am eternally grateful that my family deprogrammed me, I have needed to do much self healing and also have needed to turn to experts for support. Those who were exit-counseled or experienced some voluntary form of intervention do much better. However, it takes time and good support to recover fully. If the person’s family and friends did not understand mind control and cult psychology it undermines a smooth recovery. Some people are encouraged way too fast to find a job or embark on a career. A supportive cult-aware therapist can be very helpful. Much more is now known about undue influence and cults than ever before. Today there are also many more former cult members who have become professional cult counselors.

• From Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults (1988)

  No matter how deeply the Unification Church virus had invaded the “child parts” of my identity—the real Steve Hassan had not been destroyed. After decades of membership, I have learned that all of my “spiritual children”—the people I recruited—have exited the cult. A very great relief. After receiving my master’s degree, I began a new phase of my life. While practicing psychotherapy and conducting my public education activities, I also worked as the national coordinator for FOCUS, a support group of former cult members who want to help each other. For the past years, I have worked to increase public awareness of destructive cults, undue influence, and mind control. These cults did not go away as the idealistic youth of the 1970s became the young professionals of the 1980s, the leaders of the 1990s and 2000s, and the new retirees of the 2010s. Sadly, destructive cults continue to grow, thrive, and recruit people of all ages and from all walks of life. Yet, while destructive cults continue to grow, so too does our understanding of the process of mind control and undue influence. The availability of help for mind control victims continues to increase. We know far more about the neurological processes of the brain than we did even a decade ago. As more and more people—especially mental health professionals, social workers, doctors, and lawyers—lose loved ones to mind control cults, a sense of urgency is building. There are some basic ways to identify destructive cults, protect yourself from mind control, and help others shake free of its influence. Giving the keys to that knowledge is what this book is all about. Chapter 3–The Threat: Mind Control Today Imagine, if you will, the following scenes. Saffron-robed men on street corners, dancing and chanting with cymbals and drums. Bedraggled young people running from car to car, selling flowers in the pouring rain. Glassy-eyed men and women confronting people behind folding tables near busy intersections, asking for money to quarantine AIDS victims and build particle-beam weapons. Over nine hundred people—men, women, and children—lying dead, face down in the mud. Mention cults to someone and these might be some of the images you’ll evoke. Yet these images do not accurately represent cults, mind control, and undue influence as they exist today. They represent only a small fraction of these phenomena. Imagine, then, a different set of images.

• From Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults (1988)

  At the meeting, she tried one last time to talk Josh out of leaving, but he stood his ground and explained that he would be departing on schedule. Kennett then gave Josh her promised gift—three small folded pieces of paper. Each one, she said, contained a dime. On the first tiny package, Kennett had written the word JAIL. Kennett said, “Here is the first dime. (This was obviously when there were still public “pay” phones). After you leave the Abbey, when you get arrested, use this dime to call me from jail and I’ll come and bail you out.” Then she gave Josh the second package, on which was written LOONEY BIN. “After you leave Shasta,” she said, “when you fall apart and end up in a mental institution, use this dime to call me, and I’ll come to get you.” The third package said BROKE. Kennett said, “When you totally run out of money and have nothing, use this last dime to call me, and I’ll come and rescue you.” Her underlying message was clear: Leave me and you will go crazy. Without me, you have no personal power or integrity or sanity. Without me, you will fail. Without me, you will lose the Buddha’s Way. Without me, you are doomed. Now Josh was more certain than ever that it was time to break free. Josh left on schedule—and never returned. He did not end up broke, in jail or in the looney bin. He lives in Manhattan, where he runs Baran Communications, a successful strategic communications and public relations firm, working for non-profit organizations, documentary and feature films, and special campaigns. Josh predicts that meditation, especially “mindfulness” as it becomes more “mainstream,” will foster a whole new wave of destructive cult leaders. Yves Messer and the Lyndon LaRouche Political Cult103 Yves Messer is a very talented artist, designer, architect and portrait painter who currently lives in England.104 He is courageous—one of those rare former members of the LaRouche organization who dares to openly and publicly expose the group. We found each other over the Internet in 2008 and were able to meet in person in London, in 2014. Yves was recruited into this political cult in 1983, when he was 22, and remained a member until 1994, based mostly in France and Germany. He was attracted by the group’s apparent liberal political platform. “LaRouchies,” as they are called, claimed to stand for economic progress and to be anti-war, pro-third World, in favor of science and the arts, and investment in infrastructure and high technology. They position themselves in a centuries-old tradition of humanism—that’s how they catch idealistic people’s interest.

• From Born on the Fourth of July (1976)

  He knew the major understood everything, like the men who whispered softly on the chow line and the men who stood talking by their tents. No one wants to say, he thought, no one wants to talk about it. Who wanted to approach him and ask if he had done it, if he had killed the corporal that night? No one. No one would ever do it, he thought. * * * There was a night not long after he had killed the corporal when he was walking on the wooden path that snaked around all the tents past the bunkers like a sidewalk. He was sort of tiptoeing along the casings and he opened up what seemed to be his tent. He had seen this light in the long crack at the bottom of it and he walked in to find he had just walked into the battalion commander’s tent. It was very dark, so dark somebody, anybody, could get lost in a place like that, he thought. Just like that goddamn patrol a few months ago when he had read the map wrong, when he had led the men in the wrong direction. He had been a thousand meters off. He was a mile from where he was supposed to be, and now he was doing it again. He was walking in on the goddamn battalion commander who was in his pajamas getting ready to go to bed or something. “Yes, what do you want, sergeant?” he heard the battalion commander saying to him. “Ahhh, nothing,” he said. “I made a mistake, sir. I thought this was my tent.” The battalion commander looked at him for a moment, looked at him like he had done a very stupid thing. “Well, carry on,” he said. * * * It was his friend the major who gave him his second chance. He called him into the command bunker one day and told him he wanted him to become the leader of his new scout team. The major who understood him told him he liked the way he operated and said he knew the sergeant could do a good job. Here was his chance, he thought, to make everything good again. This young, strong marine was getting a second crack at becoming a hero. He knew, he understood, the thing the major was doing for him, and he left the tent feeling stronger and better than he’d felt for a long time. Here was his chance, he thought over and over again. He walked down the twisting ammo-box sidewalk and saluted one of the officers as smartly as ever, much too smartly for anyone who had been over there as long as him. The thoughts of the night he’d killed the corporal were already becoming faded as he began to think more and more about the scout team, how he would train them and the things they would do to make up for all the things that had come before.

• From Born on the Fourth of July (1976)

  I am telling Mom and Dad that I am hurt pretty bad but I have done it for America and that it is worth it. I tell them not to worry. I will be home soon. The day I am supposed to leave has come. I am strapped in a long frame and taken from the place of the wounded. I am moved from hangar to hangar, then finally put on a plane, and I leave Vietnam forever. 2 THE BUS TURNED off a side street and onto the parkway, then into Queens where the hospital was. For the first time on the whole trip everyone was laughing and joking. He felt himself begin to wake up out of the nightmare. This whole area was home to him—the streets, the parkway, he knew them like the back of his hand. The air was fresh and cold and the bus rocked back and forth. “This bus sucks!” yelled a kid. “Can’t you guys do any better than this? I want my mother, I want my mother.” The pain twisted into his back, but he laughed with the rest of them—the warriors, the wounded, entering the gates of St. Albans Naval Hospital. The guard waved them in and the bus stopped. He was the last of the men to be taken off the bus. They had to carry him off. He got the impression that he was quite an oddity in his steel frame, crammed inside it like a flattened pancake. They put him on the neuro ward. It was sterile and quiet. I’m with the vegetables again, he thought. It took a long while to get hold of a nurse. He told her that if they didn’t get the top of the frame off his back he would start screaming. They took it off him and moved him back downstairs to another ward. This was a ward for men with open wounds. They put him there because of his heel, which had been all smashed by the first bullet, the back of it blown completely out. He was now in Ward I-C with fifty other men who had all been recently wounded in the war—twenty-year-old blind men and amputees, men without intestines, men who limped, men who were in wheelchairs, men in pain. He noticed they all had strange smiles on their faces and he had one too, he thought. They were men who had played with death and cheated it at a very young age. He lay back in his bed and watched everything happen all around him. He went to therapy every day and worked very hard lifting weights. He had to build up the top of his body if he was ever going to walk again. In Da Nang the doctors had told him to get used to the idea that he would have to sit in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

• From Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults (1988)

  At that moment I knew Bruce would be all right. I could see that he was not yet fully under the group’s mind control. I thought he would respond well to hearing more information about the group’s leader, multimillionaire Korean industrialist Sun Myung Moon. I began telling him facts about the Moonies unrelated to mind control—Moon’s felony tax fraud conviction; the Congressional report on the Moonies’ connections to the Korean CIA; and their suspected illegal activities. “You know, I’ve been looking for someone like you for a few months,” Bruce said after hearing me out. “I went to the priest at MIT to ask him for information. He didn’t know anything.” Bruce was still thinking for himself, but in my opinion, he had been on the verge of being inducted into the cult. The three-day and seven-day workshops he’d been through had set him up for the 21-day program. When I was a member, it was common practice after this latter program to ask recruits to donate their bank accounts, move into the Moonie house, and become full time members.4 Bruce and I spent the next couple of days going over more information, watching videotapes, and talking about mind control and destructive cults. Much to his parents’ relief, he finally announced he wasn’t going to the workshop. He spent a lot of time photocopying stacks of documents and wanted to try to talk to the other students being recruited at MIT. He went back to the priest and told him about his close call. A week later the priest called to see if I would conduct a briefing session for college administrators. That case was an easy one with a happy ending. The family had been quick to spot their son’s personality changes, discover that C.A.R.P. was a front for the Moonies, and locate me. Their fast action enabled them to help their son easily and quickly. The phone calls I receive are usually variations of the same plea for help. A son or daughter, sister or brother, husband or wife, mother or father, boyfriend or girlfriend is in trouble. Sometimes he or she is just being recruited; other times the call is about someone who has been in a cult for many years. It is relatively easy to deal with someone not yet fully indoctrinated, like Bruce. Most people who call me, though, have had a longer-term problem. Some cases can be resolved quickly; others require a slower, more methodical approach. Emergencies like Bruce’s are tricky because there is little or no time to prepare. Nonetheless, I have learned that fast action is often necessary. If someone is being worked on in a mind control environment, sometimes even a few hours can be crucial.

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  The romantic elements, even in the eviscerated version of the Acts that has come down to us through Gregory, are unmistakable. The Acts of Andrew were hardly alone. In a freestanding episode in the fifth-century Lausiac History, the Christian adaptation of the romantic repertoire is even more evident. In a “very old book ascribed to Hippolytus,” Palladius found a story about a “certain maiden, most noble and extremely beautiful, in the city of the Corinthians, who was practicing the life of virginity.” In an age of persecution, she was denounced to the governor as a Christian. The “woman-mad” governor had his own designs on her, and he “tried every device [mēchanē]” but “could not persuade the girl.” He ordered her sentenced to a brothel, where she was subjected to the usual threats. She deflected her suitors with a ruse of her own. “I have this festering sore in a hidden place, which emits the most foul stench, and I fear it will make you hate me. Hold off from me for a few days, then make your use of me, for free.” She prayed. God, seeing her chastity, sent a young man in the employ of the Roman secret service to be the instrument of her salvation. He paid the guard for a night with the girl, went in, and gave her his clothes. She escaped in disguise, “inviolate and unpolluted.” The next day “the drama was known, the agent was seized and thrown to the beasts.” He was a martyr twice over, both for his own sake and for “the blessed girl.”29

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  “But surely there must be some smart kids in the B class.” “No, there aren’t.” “But all my friends are there.” “You don’t want to be friends with those kids.” “Yes, I do.” We went back and forth. Finally she gave me a stern warning. “You do realize the effect this will have on your future? You do understand what you’re giving up? This will impact the opportunities you’ll have open to you for the rest of your life.” “I’ll take that chance.” I moved to the B classes with the black kids. I decided I’d rather be held back with people I liked than move ahead with people I didn’t know. Being at H. A. Jack made me realize I was black. Before that recess I’d never had to choose, but when I was forced to choose, I chose black. The world saw me as colored, but I didn’t spend my life looking at myself. I spent my life looking at other people. I saw myself as the people around me, and the people around me were black. My cousins are black, my mom is black, my gran is black. I grew up black. Because I had a white father, because I’d been in white Sunday school, I got along with the white kids, but I didn’t belong with the white kids. I wasn’t a part of their tribe. But the black kids embraced me. “Come along,” they said. “You’re rolling with us.” With the black kids, I wasn’t constantly trying to be. With the black kids, I just was. [image file=image_rsrc2TK.jpg] Before apartheid, any black South African who received a formal education was likely taught by European missionaries, foreign enthusiasts eager to Christianize and Westernize the natives. In the mission schools, black people learned English, European literature, medicine, the law. It’s no coincidence that nearly every major black leader of the anti-apartheid movement, from Nelson Mandela to Steve Biko, was educated by the missionaries—a knowledgeable man is a free man, or at least a man who longs for freedom. The only way to make apartheid work, therefore, was to cripple the black mind. Under apartheid, the government built what became known as Bantu schools. Bantu schools taught no science, no history, no civics. They taught metrics and agriculture: how to count potatoes, how to pave roads, chop wood, till the soil. “It does not serve the Bantu to learn history and science because he is primitive,” the government said. “This will only mislead him, showing him pastures in which he is not allowed to graze.” To their credit, they were simply being honest. Why educate a slave? Why teach someone Latin when his only purpose is to dig holes in the ground?

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  Myers testified this man had black-gray hair and allegedly talked to McMillian. Myers asserted that he was shoved and threatened by Mr. McMillian when he went into the cleaners. The mysterious third person, who is circumstantially presumed to be in charge, allegedly instructed McMillian to ‘get rid of Myers,’ which Mr. McMillian said he couldn’t do because he was out of bullets. The white man in charge has never been identified or arrested by the state. The State has not been looking for a third person, a ringleader for this crime, because I think they recognize that this person doesn’t exist.” I paused again to let the meaning of this sink in. “Based on the testimony of Ralph Myers, Walter McMillian was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. As you’re about to hear, the testimony of Ralph Myers was completely false. Again, Your Honor, the testimony of Ralph Myers at trial was completely false.” I took a moment before turning to the bailiff to call Myers to the stand. The courtroom was silent until the deputy opened the door to the holding area and Ralph Myers walked into the courtroom. There was an audible reaction to his presence. Ralph had aged visibly since the last time many of the people in the courtroom had seen him; I could hear murmurs about how his hair had grayed. Dressed in his prison whites, Myers once again appeared small and sad to me as he climbed up onto the witness stand. He looked around the courtroom nervously before raising his hand and swearing an oath to tell the truth. I waited until the courtroom became quiet. Judge Norton was looking at Myers attentively. I walked over to begin my examination. After asking him to state his name for the record and establishing that he had previously appeared in court and testified against Walter McMillian, it was time to get to the heart of things. I walked closer to the witness stand. “Mr. Myers, was the testimony that you gave at Mr. McMillian’s trial true?” I was hoping that the judge couldn’t see I was holding my breath waiting for Ralph to answer. Ralph looked at me coolly but then spoke very clearly and confidently. “Not at all.” There was more murmuring in the courtroom now, but the crowd quickly quieted to hear more. “Not at all,” I repeated before continuing. I wanted Ralph’s recantation to sink in, but I didn’t want to hesitate too long because we needed a lot more. “Did you see Mr. McMillian on the day that Ronda Morrison was murdered?” “Absolutely not.”

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  Luke was an ingrown fairy and finally, when I got to know him intimately, a big pain in the ass. I told Maxie that over the telephone; I could tell from the way he answered me that he didn’t like it very much. He said Luke had always been a friend to me. It was true enough, but it wasn’t enough. The truth was that I was really glad Luke had kicked off at the opportune moment: it meant that I could forget about the hundred and fifty dollars which I owed him. In fact, as I hung up the receiver I really felt joyous. It was a tremendous relief not to have to pay that debt. As for Luke’s demise, that didn’t disturb me in the least. On the contrary, it would enable me to pay a visit to his sister, Lottie, whom I always wanted to lay but never could for one reason or another. Now I could see myself going up there in the middle of the day and offering her my condolences. Her husband would be at the office and there would be nothing to interfere. I saw myself putting my arms around her and comforting her; nothing like tackling a woman when she is in sorrow. I could see her opening her eyes wide—she had beautiful, large gray eyes—as I moved her toward the couch. She was the sort of woman who would give you a fuck while pretending to be talking music or some such thing. She didn’t like the naked reality, the bare facts, so to speak. At the same time she’d have enough presence of mind to slip a towel under her so as not to stain the couch. I knew her inside out. I knew that the best time to get her was now, now while she was running up a little fever of emotion over dear dead Luke—whom she didn’t think much of, by the way. Unfortunately it was Sunday and the husband would be sure to be home. I went back to bed and I lay there thinking first about Luke and all that he had done for me and then about her, Lottie. Lottie Somers was her name—it always seemed a beautiful name to me. It matched her perfectly. Luke was stiff as a poker, with a sort of skull and bones face, and impeccable and just beyond words. She was just the opposite—soft, round, spoke with a drawl, caressed her words, moved languidly, used her eyes effectively. One would never take them for brother and sister. I got so worked up thinking about her that I tried to tackle the wife. But that poor bastard, with her Puritanical complex, pretended to be horrified. She liked Luke. She wouldn’t say that he was a swell guy, because that wasn’t like her, but she insisted that he was genuine, loyal, a true friend, etc. I had so many loyal, genuine, true friends that that was all horseshit to me.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  For several weeks I had not been able to make entries in my diary. I now returned to my scrupulous and methodical habits, but my point of view had changed. Before, it had been metaphysical and impersonal, scrutinizing the world passionately to understand it. Now I became the only center of my own preoccupations. Who was I? What were the results of my long struggle ever since my childhood? In the confusion of my buzzing ears and burning cheeks and feverish brain, I was certain only of the need to come to a conclusion. Would I have the courage to go on living in so unstable an equilibrium? But once more my balance-sheet was almost forgotten. The collapse of the Germans was as sudden as the arrival of their Junker transports full of troops had been, at least to me. One afternoon, probably at about five, I had just taken my temperature when shots rang out in the streets. As we always expected the worst, we started to put up barricades, before we caught sight of the first American tanks. For several days we gave ourselves up to delirious joy. Miraculously, our anxiety was gone, and here again were freedom and abundance. The German planes soon disappeared and our nights ceased to be nightmares, we devoured endless cans of meat, and spoke loudly in the streets to relieve ourselves. It was more than peace: it was a party. Then we had to start everyday life again. I realized that the historical change in our situation required a new kind of behavior. (But I wonder whether the gravest problems are not less painful than having to face one’s own self.)

• From Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults (1988)

  Over the years, I have come to realize that millions of people have actually been subjected to a mind control regimen but don’t even know it. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t talk with several people who are still experiencing negative side effects from their experience of mind control. Often, it is a great relief for them to hear that they are not alone and that their problems stem from their past involvement with such a group. Perhaps the biggest problem faced by people who have left destructive cults is the disruption of their own authentic identity. There is a very good reason: they have lived for years inside an “artificial” identity given to them by the cult. While cult mind control can be talked about and defined in many different ways, I believe it is best understood as a system that disrupts an individual’s healthy identity development. An identity is made up of elements such as beliefs, behavior, thought processes and emotions that constitute a definite pattern. Under the influence of mind control, a person’s authentic identity given at birth, and as later formed by family, education, friendships, and most importantly that person’s own free choices, becomes replaced with another identity, often one that they would not have chosen for themself without tremendous social pressure.75 Even if the person gets along through deliberate play-acting at first, the act eventually becomes real. They take on a totalistic ideology that, when internalized, supersedes their prior belief system. Ultimately, the person usually experiences—and shows—a radical personality change and a drastic interruption of their life course. The process can be initiated quickly, but usually requires days or weeks to solidify. Those unfortunate enough to be born to members of a destructive cult are deprived of a healthy psychological environment in which to mature optimally. That said, children are remarkably resilient and I have met many who described never completely “buying in” to the crazy beliefs and practices. Most ran away or found a way to escape before they became adult. Yet, for others, it took decades to find the strength and the courage to be “true to themselves.” Family ties can enforce silence on disbelieving second-generation members. It is easier to go along with the cult than to express their true opinions. It’s worth noting that a group can use mind control in positive ways. For example, many drug rehabilitation and juvenile rehabilitation programs use some of these same methods to re-integrate a person’s old identity. But such programs, successful as they may be, are fraught with danger. After the person is broken and given a new identity, they must also have their autonomy and individuality restored. Whether that happens depends entirely on the altruism and responsible behavior of the group’s directors. As mentioned earlier, one drug rehabilitation program, Synanon, drew repeated allegations that it abused the most basic rights of its members and was actually a full-fledged cult.76

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  When Rabbi Meir reaches the brothel, in disguise as a Roman soldier, he tests his sister-in-law’s virtue by trying to hire her. In the Talmudic story, the brothel is a state institution. Whereas the pirates and pimps who threaten girls in the Greek romance are part of a mythical anti-state, beyond the legitimate social order, in the Christian and Jewish stories the Romans are the villains, the menace to the sexual integrity of the heroine. Rabbi Meir must go in disguise as part of the ruling order to rescue the girl’s honor. When he approaches, she resists by telling him that “the manner of woman is upon her.” We should recognize in this ruse the parallels with the “devices of virtue” in the romance—the epileptic fit, the uncontrolled weeping, the malodorous complaint that will save the girl’s honor. This escape mechanism explains the logic of the disjuncture between shame and sin; the story still operates along the conventional gears of the Greek romance, but within the moral logic of Judaism, of sin and Torah. The Talmud employs the characterization of a Greek romance—character is essence and will be revealed in the crucible of danger—but sets the story within the moral architecture of Judaism. Rabbi Meir, a patient customer, offers to wait for her menstrual cycle to finish, but she redirects him to other women in the brothel. He reasons that she has acted thus with all her customers and therefore merits salvation. He bribes the guard and secures her release.42 The narratives of the Babylonian Talmud are beguilingly complex literary creations, none more so than this deposit of Greek literature in the very tractate dedicated to maintaining lines of separation between Jewish and gentile cultures. The punishment of Rabbi Haninah ben Teradion and his family was deeply embedded in rabbinic tradition. The story exists in kernel in other sources, including the Sifre to Deuteronomy. In the Talmud, the substratum of rabbinic legend has been reshaped into the form of a Greek romantic trope. The appropriation of romance for a Talmudic story would be striking enough in itself, but the true richness of the story emerges only when the episode is understood in its redactional context, in its place within a complex series of stories in Avodah Zarah. The tractate is principally concerned with idolatry, especially forms of commercial interaction that might have brought Jews too close to the taint of idolatry. The anonymous virgin’s escape from the brothel actually sits at the end of an especially long and complex sequence that presents, in dreamlike succession, a stream of memories about rabbis brought face-to-face with the Roman authorities. The surreal quality of the memories conceals the fact that this sugya has an exquisitely careful design, in which a sequence of symbolically interrelated stories unfolds once, and then again. This artful doubling allows the redactors to juxtapose stories, to contrast characters, and to invert meanings. Within this grander structure the brothel scene acquires an even deeper significance.43

• From Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults (1988)

  Eventually, when all their questions are answered, and all their cult issues are addressed, they reach a saturation point. They declare to themselves, “They’re not going to take the rest of my life!” and start making plans for the future. Sometimes there are additional issues that need more extensive individual counseling. Sarah, a former ten-year member of the Church Universal and Triumphant, had been forcibly deprogrammed more than five years earlier, yet was still experiencing cult-related problems. I agreed to work with her for ten sessions. Her first homework assignment was to begin writing down her entire cult experience. This is something I recommend for every ex-member. It was certainly something Sarah needed to do in order to reclaim her true self. I also suggested that, since she had been involved for such a long time, she should begin by making an outline. I told her to take ten folders and number them from 1973 to 1983; put 12 sheets of paper in each folder; and label the sheets January through December. With that as a starting point, I told her to begin writing down everything she could remember that was significant, whether positive or negative. I told her not to worry if there were huge gaps. Eventually they would all be filled in. In order to help her remember, I told her to think of specific places she had lived or visited. I also told her to think about significant people. Lastly, I told her to recall specific activities or events that were meaningful to her. Step by step, she was able to fill in her entire experience. She recorded how she came to be recruited. She listed her likes and dislikes about the group and its leaders. She was able to chart her ups and downs as a member. She was also able to see that, at many different points, she was very unhappy and disillusioned, but had no way out. At one point she had actually come home to her parents, complaining about her unhappiness, and they had taken her to a psychologist, who unfortunately did not recognize her problems as being cult related. After two months at home, Sarah had gone back to the group. By writing down her entire experience, Sarah was able to process her experience and gain a greater perspective on it. She no longer had to carry around a lot of swirling, seemingly contradictory thoughts and feelings. It was now all on paper. As part of her therapy, I explained to her that the person whose story filled those ten folders no longer existed. I suggested that she think about that person as a younger Sarah, someone who was doing the very best she could. Back at the time of her recruitment, she didn’t know about cults or mind control. If she had, she surely would never have gotten involved.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  She thought of her last conversation with one of these people, a film production assistant on her lunch break. “Stephanie,” she said, “you’ve simply got to cut your hair. I know it sounds superficial, but really, things like that matter. Editors are very busy people; they can only see you for twenty minutes, so they have to act on impressions, and that includes style. Long hair is college—ideals, finding yourself, and all that. Nobody here has long hair.” She dug smartly into her pile of refried beans. She thought of Jackson, an ex-lover whom she had especially wanted to impress, and was perversely glad that she never did get a professional position. She remembered what a curious relief it had been to take her first job in a whorehouse, where a real job didn’t matter, where males and females performed the ancient, primal and wonderfully elementary dance of copulation, blandly, predictably and by appointment. “Is something wrong?” asked Bernard. “I was just thinking of someone.” She hesitated. “Someone I knew in college. I had a pretty awful relationship with this person and I couldn’t have sex for over a year afterward. The first time I fucked anybody else after him was my first trick in my first house.” “You’re kidding!” She laughed. “It’s too corny, isn’t it? Girl has heart broken by callous swine and turns to prostitution.” “Your life is very dramatic,” he said pleasantly. “It’s not so dramatic. These things happen. I mean, I’m over it now.” Bernard walked her back to her building, but to her surprise he didn’t want to come up to the apartment, even though she would have liked him to. In fact, they didn’t fuck until the second time she had dinner with him. It was a calm, affectionate event (“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, referring to his problematic size as he lay on top of her, gripping her firmly about the hips). The evening was marred only when he handed her a hundred dollars on his way out the door. She stared at him, stricken. “I don’t want that,” she said. “That’s not why I’m seeing you.” He looked embarrassed. “I know it’s not why you’re seeing me. It’s not why I’m seeing you. But I think you should have it.” “I don’t want it.” He sat on the bed. “Stephanie, it’s very simple. I have a lot of money. You do not. You need money. I can give it to you. Please take it.” “You didn’t give me money when we went out to dinner.” He groped for an explanation for this and gave up. “Well, the next time we go out to dinner, I’ll give you money.” “I won’t take it.” “If you don’t, I’ll just mail it to you.”