"No Other Explanation" ~greasespotcafe

I've spent much of my day reading and thinking. But that wasn't my initial plan for the day.  Ha!  I did wash some dishes, wash fruit, eat, exercise, respond to some emails, visit with my son and husband, and talked on the phone tonight in a conference call with some of my favorite people.

I was drawn today to a new listserv regarding discussion in the anti-cult movement.  Some of the contributors to the list I had read before. 
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In December, 2006, and January, 2007, I had a disagreement with the owner of GreasespotCafe (GSC), the anti-Way online forum offering support for ex-Way followers.  The owner had accused a man of posing as a woman who had communicated with me in private chat on the GSC chat function at the time.  In that private chat discussion the man, supposedly posing as a woman, conveyed to me intimate details about the romantic relationship 'she' had with himself. (Did you follow that? ...just read it again, if you didn't.)

Men, how would you feel if that accusation were thrown at you?  ....you were baiting an old friend (me) by deceptively posing as a woman and chatting in private chat [with the female friend from 25 years ago (me) with whom you would in a few days have an online reunion] and sharing with her (me) intimate information about your (as you were posing as a woman) romance with this man (you). 

Now, I understood why the GSC owner thought what he thought. This accused man and the GSC website owner had had previous run-ins. (But that's a whole 'nuther can of worms.) The accused man had the same Internet Service Provider address as the 'supposed' woman, so it could be one person posing as two.

However, when I shared with the GSC owner that the man had not posed as a woman, but rather that the real woman (she has the equipment to prove it ) and the real man had been living together and sharing the same Internet Service Provider at the time of the incidents (the man and woman were in process of breaking up at the time as well), the GSC owner wouldn't consider my explanation as valid. To the owner's credit, my only proof was that I had known the accused man in my past, that the accused shared with me verbally about his previous ill experiences with GSC (not that he didn't play into that as well), that the accused and I had spoken at length, that my husband and I had met face to face with the accused and discussed (among other things) the accusation, that the woman and I (at the time) had communicated only via email, and that I still was in a cult mindset of doubting myself and not being as assertive as I could have been.  So, the GSC owner, has a right to his opinion regarding what he thought of the accused man's character and possible behaviour. Though I disagreed with the owner, I had no problem with the owner having his own opinion.

When I relayed to the GSC owner what I had found out (as stated above in my run-on sentence) the owner's response was, "Carol, there can be no other explanation;" ie:  in the owner's opinion, the man had to have posed as a woman; there could be no other option. The owner also stated to me (regarding the accused) that he (the accused) was "baiting" me and that "he looks for people like you."  Those are close to, if not exact, quotes.  I kept my mouth shut, not sharing the exchanges publicly, until 5 months later when other false accusations and insinuations (involving the above as well as other scenarios) started flying around.

That's what bothered me.  The owner would not consider that he could be wrong.  That felt too much like The Way to me; it left a bad taste in my mouth along with more self-doubt and other stuff. At the time of the incident, I had left The Way (after 28 years of involvement) only 14 months previously.

The GSC owner was definitely wrong.  The woman (who I had lunch with later in the year..another story) shared with me that she was openly accused in the GSC public chat room of being someone she wasn't and she got emails from a moderator at GSC accusing her of posing and being someone she wasn't.  She forwarded me those emails.  She did write the moderator back telling him she had no idea what he was talking about (another story).  Her conclusion was, "Those people [GSC posters and moderators] are nuts!" This woman had never been with The Way.

Anyway, the whole scenario (along with a few others and lots more worms) blew up five months later in May, 2007.  At that time (and maybe still) the owner stated his initial judgment (from 5 months previously) of the man he falsely accused hadn't changed. Everyone involved (me included) was responding with high emotions.  I'm not saying I handled everything well.  In fact, because of how I handled the wormy scenarios, my name got a bad reputation at GSC. Not that I'm proud of that.  I wish I had handled things a bit differently. But I may have eventually gotten a bad reputation there anyway.

Shortly after the initial false accusation in December, 2006, (as stated above, there were more to come later), I really began to question some of the behaviours I was witnessing in this "support" forum.  Again, I will emphasize that I didn't handle the incidents the best and was also responding (possibly) with a cult-type mentality and I may have been over-responsive.

But it led me, in January 2007, to google "anti-cult cults" which led to Bernie's site, Another Look at Scientology.  Today, I found myself again reading Bernie's site, Lema Nal's Site, along with the listserv mentioned in my opening of this blog, and some linked articles.  The discussion is stimulating regarding the cult/anti-cult movements.  I don't keep on top of the studies and I'm not a psychology student; however I do my fair share of reading on the subjects of belief systems, the mind, group structures, etc.

I think open, respectful dialogue is a must in this field. Open discussions can (and hopefully will)  have benefits on a large scale in cultures everywhere. That said, people are still people and always will be.  That's not a bad thing...just sayin'.

My reading today brought to mind an except from Arthur Diekman's Them and Us: Cult Thinking and the Terrorist Threat.

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Click here for "More thoughts..." regarding the above.

Added note for any of the curious:  My screen name at the GreasespotCafe is I Love Bagpipes.  Currently I do not post on the GSC forums, but I have been posting blogs in the blog room.  One has to register as a member at Greasespot to view the blogs. My blog at GSC is entitled '77 thru '05 ~ ripples.

My blog entries at my GSC blog are mainly copied and pasted from this blog.  I only choose to post certain blog entries at my GSC blog, entries that I feel might catch the attention of and be of value to any folks recently exiting The Way that then join as members at GSC.

another note:  I've made quite a few edits to this blog entry, more than I usually edit. Hopefully it made the blog clearer...but maybe it is clear as mud!  I keep trying.  (I have a poem about that...stirring up mud.) My intent is not to attack GSC (well not much anyway), but rather to show how a similar cultic mindset can happen in those who say they don't have a cultic mindset and to (hopefully) somewhat concisely convey the tip of an iceberg.

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