Taiten, thats a great question--what was going on with the ward personnel that they allowed this predator access?

I can offer some stories that might be informative. May not account for the negligence on that particular psych ward. But may be informative, nonetheless.

One bit in my autobiography I did not mention was being in a units of chaplaincy training. The program is called Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) for short. I had too many things going on with me, so I didnt do too well. But I also was in a couple of CPE units that were badly run and I crossed paths with some abusive people.

One of these abusive persons was a priest who was in a religious order and a staff chaplain. I later learned from two other sources that he was, indeed, a bastard, and it had not been my imagination that he was an emotional sadist.

One source was a woman whose brother died from AIDS at the hospital where Father X was chaplaining at the time. X gave her brother shit because he had no interest in the Catholic sacraments. (Father X was also gay and would go out clubbing--he told me this)

My other source was a priest in the same order as Father X and who had had to live with him. When I mentioned Father X, this priest shuddered from head to foot.

"You mean you shared a toilet seat with Father X?" I yelped.

"Unfortunately, yes." Father X said. "Want to know the joke we have about him? For every person he has persuaded not to commit suicide, ten others jump."

This fellow spent a lot of time counseling patients on the psychiatry unit. Perfect. Anyone who complained, would be written off as crazy.

The woman who told me about Father X said that when her brother was dying from AIDS, he and she got a lot of shit from Father X. But when they complained to the ward nurses, they were ignored. Why?

Because Father X could turn on charm when with authority figures. He was strategic. So the people he charmed, who ran the wards he was on, had no framework for comprehending patients who told them Father X was quite different with them.

The woman's brother was not on a psychiatry ward though. He was on a medical ward. Maybe Father X claimed to the nurses that the man had AIDS dementia, further invalidating whatever the man would try to say to the nurses.

So...thats one way hospital personnel can be fooled by predators who get onto wards. Unless burned, few of us understand how abusive people can turn seductive charm on and off. My cousin said his parents were vicious to him. Yet when his school friends came to visit, his parents would turn on the charm. So his friends just didnt believe him when he told them how much crap he put up with at home.

However, I can tell you this. Persons on psych wards are vulnerable in other ways. Any complaint they make can be easily written off as paranoia--even if they're describing a religious predator or some other type.

Ditto for persons who are living on the street in homeless shelters or marginalised in other ways.

Because these persons are so easily ignored when they try to describe.

Yet another item I omitted from my autobiography was spending 2 and a half years working or volunteering in various homeless service jobs.

I met some wonderful people, many I know and love today.

In these same organizations or in organizations that assisted our organizations, we had some persons who were charmers, abusers and, in some cases, dangerous.

I saw some real con artists in the peace movement too.

Here is the take home lesson. In situations where society feels impotent and has a lake of psychic guilt, such as how to help homeless people, or festering issues in society, or human rights catastrophes where decent citizens see the news and dont know what to do, feel ashamed to be housed, fed, and have jobs, skulk past a myriad beggars and touts per day and feel mixtures of shame and boiling resentment--

Be careful. Because persons and organizations that arise to help can attract opportunists who know that this work will give them an automatic halo, society will be so grateful they have stepped forward to help where most of us just skulk and feel impotent that in very many cases, bona fides and resumes will not be fact checked and one feels like a cad (and will be made to feel like a heartless cad) if one dares to critique financial accountability. Allowances will be made.

No one will want to imagine that a social justice hero might be beating his wife or girlfriend (or boyfriend) in private. Or that a female social justice heroine might be disrupting marriages by pressuring male employees to sleep with her.

The infamous Jim Jones of San Francisco got his big jump to prominence by being a charismatic social justice hero. Legions of politicians and powerful religious figures supported him and looked the other way when early complaints were made about Jone's authoritarianism.

So...psych wards, social justice crises, homeless service work, prison work -- never hesitate to fact check resumes and keep even the supposedly saintly charismatic tireless religious worker accountable.

If an organization brings in lots of money, always demand, demand demand that someone besides the charismatic hero track how the money is being allocated and never let money be used as a personal piggy bank.

Keeping charismatic types accountable is the most difficult thing to do. They often tap our greatest hopes and give a sense of possiblity where we are feeling guilt ridden and accountable.

When a charismatic helper and social justice leader turns his or her public appearances into celebrations of his or her personality and mere presence, instead of focusing on the issue at hand--watch out.

For a recent example, look here. In the US we were guilt ridden about the human rights crises in Afghanistan and horrified by the information coming out on how horribly women and girls are treated. Yet, thousands of miles away, what could a citizen do?

Into this emotional painful storm, someone stepped forward not only offering a solution but seeming in his PR to embody the solution to these woes.

When I saw how this guy seemed to draw the focus again and yet again to his smiling face, I hoped nothing would go wrong.

[www.google.com]

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Whenever someone or something attracts millions and turned into a media charisma festival -- beware. Getting millions of dollars is intoxicating. And even the janitor can be tempted to embezzle ("I'll pay it back later, am going through a rough patch")

Charisma deflects accountability. Charisma makes us feel good. Charm makes us feel good.

Critical thinking just doenst give that kind of glowing pleasure.

Thats why charisma has to be held accountable--it means we have to forego the easy pleasure of being soothed and made high.

And that may be how the minister got 'round the ward supervisors of the psych unit. He may have charmed these stressed out people, made them laugh, made them feel good. they didnt want to give that up, by heeding complaints from the patients in their care-complaints that Pastor so and so was being intrusive.

To face that would not have felt good. Investigations and disillusionment hurt. But its our duty as adults especially those with vulnerable persons in their care to endure the ascetic discipline of questioning charm and charisma when warning signs and complaint are made.

Friends, I dont want to distract from SGI.

If anyone wants to comment on my last couple of posts, feel free to send me a PM.

A final rumination:

There's a slogan button out there with the phrase, question authority.

It would be much more important to create bumperstickers and buttons that read:

Question Charisma

Yet another one of my stories on how people can change demeanor at the blink of an eye.

Many very, crazy people can turn themselves calm and courteous the instant the police arrive.

About a year ago, I was walking in a dodgy area of town. A young man, dirty clothes, trousers up, zipper down, was yelling and pursuing a frightened looking woman.

I thought I could walk quickly past him, cross the road, and avoid trouble. Wrong.

The man began to follow me. I decided to flee to the nearby grocer's.

To my amazement the man followed me right into the store. He refused to leave, even after the grocer ordered him to leave, called the police and then told the chap that the police were on their way.

The man refused. The grocer was short, elderly and an Indian gentleman. Despite the grocer yelling orders to the man to leave, this man, an uncouth, white American, could not take the grocer seriously.

I feared the grocer might suffer a heart incident if this went on too long. I grabbed a stack of shopping baskets, held them in front of me, rather like the turret of a tank, and stepped forward, roaring in my deepest loudest tone of voice, (imagine this in all caps)

'Get Out! Get Out OutOutOutOutOut OOOOOOOOOuttttttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!!!"

This guy instantly went calm and smiling and said I was crazy. I would been enraged at this, except I had watched this same thing happen before. And the important thing was, the grocer was my witness, and the man was violating the law.

My roars brought a trio of big strong men from the nearby hardware store.

At once, the lunatic took them seriously--but as equals. An elderly Indian gentleman could be despised, but not big tall, muscled men.

The lunatic stepped out to argue with them. The grocer and I swung the glass door shut and locked it.

The lunatic returned and banged his own head so hard on the glass that he bloodied it--and knocked himself unconscious.

At that point, the police arrived.

So here it is. A man crazy enough to batter himself unconscious on a closed door went instantly clam when he thought he could exploit an advantage.

And in our town many psychotic persons are admitted to hospital, but pull themselves into temporary calm when facing a judge for a committal hearing.

They are released and back on the street in hours.

I saw this happen all the time.

So...when someone who is manic or has severe schizophrenia can marshal resources to present as calm and sane when desirous of avoiding incarceration, a nonpsychotic but character impaired individual (such as that predator pastor or Father X or a Jim Jones-or my cousins abusive parents) can easily pull together and present as charming and gracious when in the presence of authority figures, media, or in the early stages
of charming a potential target to be used and abused later on.

When considering whether to make a large donation, date someone, marry somone, dont go by charm or charisma.

Watch how they behave in private and especially with social inferiors and the socially marginalized.

Again, back to SGI.

Feel free to PM me if you want.

A very important way to test character is see how well (or badly) someone behaves towards perceived social inferiors vs. how the person behaves in the presence of authority figures or persons socially privileged.

Here's something similar, going back to SGI - I'll PM you with other comments rather than derail the thread (something I happen to be terrific at):

So this woman who had been a district leader of mine, along with her husband, decided to take a lesbian lover. Turns out she'd been a completely out lesbian musician before meeting her musician husband, but they both felt "a connection" and decided to marry, over her friends' "Have you lost your mind??"s. They had 2 sons. So anyhow, she meets this woman who's living with another lesbian (in a partner situation). They start doing whatever it is that lesbians in love do, in the house she shares with her husband, and she's parading her around in front of her young sons (the eldest is about 12, the younger perhaps 8). They would even take women from our district over to the lesbian lover's apartment to do gongyo while the woman's partner was at work! I thought this was *SCREAMINGLY* wrong from start to finish, all the infidelity and inconsideration. I don't care that they were lesbians - that's just an aside. They were both devout SGI members and, in the husband and wife's case, longtime district leaders.

Well, a few months into their affair, her husband files for divorce, unsurprisingly. And THEN, a few months after THAT, Loverlesbo drops dead! Blood clot in the brain stem. They'd been goin' at it for almost a year, and she collapsed. They rushed her to the hospital, surgery, etc., but she never regained consciousness. The wife remained at her bedside, ignoring her younger son's birthday along the way. In about 2 weeks, they unplugged her and that was the end of that. Hooray for the protection of the gohonzon O_O

The interesting part that segues into corboy's comments above is what happened in the hospital chapel when the patient's sister arrived. She was sitting in the chapel when the chaplain approached her. Asked if she was a Christian (she was) and if she'd like to pray together (she would). So the chaplain led a prayer:

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Dear God, please allow this woman's sister to regain consciousness long enough to accept Jesus as her personal savior so she doesn't have to burn for all eternity in hell.

It was a little longer than that, but that was the gist of it. Please intervene in reality so that the patient could come out of her coma long enough to convert to Christianity! The woman's sister says that, at that moment, she started chanting NMRK under her breath and became an SGI Buddhist instead - ha!

This district leader woman who stepped out on her husband, BTW, is the same one whose younger son had his lower spine and ribs crushed by a heavy iron gate that fell upon him in a freak accident. Who hosted those 3-hour daimoku tosos at their house, in front of her crippled son, every weekend for months and months and months, everyone praying that he would be restored to 100% perfect functional condition. Way to help him adjust to his new reality of being permanently disabled, morons. But she DID get a multimillion dollar settlement for his injuries - yippee.

Gotta love the protection of the Mystic Law *eye roll*

If that is the actual order of words that 'prayer' is fiendish--it smuggles a threatened curse under the guise of pastoral care.


Rhetoric put to an assaultive purpose.

For at the end of this prayer the last word is 'hell'.

It begins with the soothing comforting language of of prayer, which would lead most of us to bring our hearts open and forward.

And to have that word 'hell' put right in at the end, as the sting on a scorpions tail --- what a thing to do to someone.

Oh, yeah, it's choice all right. Hardly uncommon, though - one year, this friend of mine and her husband (formerly Sufis for 7 years, now nothing in particular) decided to go to the nearby large church for the Christmas Eve service. The husband felt they might be missing out on something. Well, they went - it was beautiful. Lovely music, beautifully decorated sanctuary, candles, etc. And the pastor only spoke for about 5 minutes, at the very end. And in those 5 minutes, he totally alienated and offended them.

The gist of his remarks started off making the point that the holidays are one of the times of year that people feel loneliness most keenly. That's nice, right? He then went on to declare that, unless you acceptedjesusasyourpersonalsavior, you would never feel anything but crushing loneliness and despair until you died, and then you'd suffer for all eternity!

They never went back...

Corboy, I've always found your comments to be so insightful - doubly so, since your exposure hasn't come by being directly immersed in one of these swamps.

One of the advantages I have in maintaining a friendship with a long-term member is that I can constantly hear the contradictions between what she thinks she believes and what she really believes. Despite her incessant babbling about being protected by her practice, she is one of the most fearful people I've ever known. She trusts almost no one outside of the org, and is almost paranoid when it comes to dealings with non-members. She barely leaves her house, and her husband takes care of all the grocery and other shopping. So . . . if she's so "protected," why is she so afraid of everything? I've asked her (in not-so-many words), and she's in total denial about being so filled with fear. I've known her for 45 years (holy crap!) and this has been something that I've growing gradually over the past decade or so.

The inability for her to even acknowledge what she feels because it runs counter to what she believes she should feel . . . we've discussed that inability to recognize feelings as a part of what these practices cultivate. As corboy pointed out awhile back, we get set up for that early in our lives by parents/caregivers who encourage us to disavow our uncomfortable feelings (oh, no - you only THINK Uncle Creepy makes you feel icky!).

These organizations are absolute geniuses when it comes to figuring out where peoples' buttons are, and exactly how to manipulate them. Above all else, that's what makes them so sinister and dangerous. After they've figured out the combination, your ass is theirs, unless you figure out what's going on.

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and she's in total denial about being so filled with fear.

Meh, been there done that.

When I was in the peace group (influenced by my adored spiritual advisor, but also myself genuinely desiring to be a hero--wanted to be a hero since I was a kid) I got arrested at our local Federal Building.

Was finally paying taxes in the adult world, so I chose the noble alternative of classical civil disobedience and told the US Magistrate I preferred to do time rather than community service or pay a fine.

With great charity and wisdom, the magistrate sentenced me to two days. But instead of being sent to a halfway house, I was sent to do those two days at the nearby Federal Detention Facility.

Prison, baby. Complete with reporting to the US Marshal and walking out in leg chains and handcuffs with the other people to a van guarded by US Marshals.

I was scared. Nearly exploded with shame inside my core self. Luckily another prisoner asked if I was OK and that human voice helped me pull together.

Here is my point.

One of the US Marshals asked me flat out, "Is this really worth it?"

What could I say? To admit I was terrified and no this wasnt worth it, with two days still ahead of me in the clink?

So I replied, "Yes, it worth it."

Worse, I told myself I believed this.

During whole two days, everyone was kind and gracious.

My big bummer was that my fellow peace activist, who shared the day with me was no support at all. THis person just clammed up and shut down.

The guards, US Marshals, and the prisoners were the ones who showed emotional warmth and presence. (My pal was probably terrified, still despite being a seminary student, I'd expected the person to have more inner resources to spare a comrade. I'd have been glad to talk but the person just shut down and shut everyone else out)

And when my comrade and I got out, and pals arrived to take Jim back home, I was not offered a ride. I didnt feel able to ask.

And the reason I didnt have a ride was my two room mates were neck deep in school. One was working his ass off doing his premedical classes. The other guy was facing finishing his Ph.D dissertation and getting ready to defend it before the committee.

I could not ask them to take time out of their lives.

So it took me one month before I could allow myself to write this down.

And to admit I did not ever want to go to prison again, and that I knew if I did return to jail and prison and do long term time the way my heroes in the peace movement were doing, I would develop emotional frostbite and become shut down, coarsened and unable to relate to mainstream society.

Which is why we already had so much trouble communicating with mainstream society. Too many of us had been in the resistance community for so long that we lost whatever social skills we had that would have made us useful in communcating with, listening to mainstream society.

So, it took me months to face that it wasnt worth it.

Back in leg irons standing by the prison van, I was just as invested in the fantasy as your friend. I had to keep my own shit together when under pressure. So sure I said it was worth it.

Facing cognitive dissonance when in leg irons is not easy to do.

Facing cognitive dissonance and admitting regrets is not easy when wearing ordinary footwear either.

Back to SGI.

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Which is why we already had so much trouble communicating with mainstream society. Too many of us had been in the resistance community for so long that we lost whatever social skills we had that would have made us useful in communcating with, listening to mainstream society.

I think this happens with all cults. How many people do you know whose circle of friends is limited to their fellow church members? I know lots of SGI members whose only friends are fellow SGI members. The more time you spend doing something weird, the more you become estranged from normal people in society, and the more difficulty you have in relating to them (and they to you).

Have you ever been in a conversation where someone made an excuse for something horrible with "It's God's will"? It's weird and off-putting. I remember this Christian woman who had had a son who died of SIDS while in infancy. They chose to recycle his name - Tristan - so she would talk about "Tristan" and "Tristan-in-heaven." Weird and off-putting. Or the people who put in a plug for Jesus every other sentence.

Within the SGI, if something happens that you interpret as "the functioning of the King Devil of the Sixth Heaven" or a perfect example of "esho funi," are you going to talk to your coworker or neighbor about it? Of course not! They don't even have the right vocabulary! You'd call a fellow member or leader, who will then reinforce the cultie perspective. This is one reason that cults of all kinds employ "private language." The sort of thing that distances one from normal people.

I remember overhearing one woman, an Evangelical megachurch member, talking with someone I knew - they'd just discovered that they went to the same megachurch. And the first woman, when asked about a certain group (can't remember - book club or adult women's group or something), saying "I don't feel called to do that." Cultiespeak. It's the sort of thing that quickly identifies someone as strange.

I remember years ago, when I was still a fairly new YWD leader, and I met this other new YWD. I guess she'd been at this party where there were SGI members (NSA back then) and they were playing some game and the participants were arguing about it. She said, "I don't think this a very good game for kosen rufu!" The NSA members' eyes bugged out - they'd never seen her before, and here she was, using their private language! She ended up joining and marrying one of the YMD - their first child was born Down Syndrome (most cases are born to women in their 20s, you know), and she died without ever being able to leave the hospital. What a benefit! What fortune! Hooray for the protection of the gohonzon!! I remember her telling me, one of the last times I spoke with her (I moved away), and she said, "Yeah, I know she's enlightened, but I still miss her."

Exactly. The more a groups beliefs and behavior differ from the mainstream, the harder it is to 'commute' between one's group and the mainstream.

It becomes so much easier to 'edit' one's friendships and associate mostly with fellow believers, which in turn reinforces the whole thing.

What is difficult is new recruits and low ranking members may be unaware of just how much the actual belief and behavior commitment differ from mainstream.

How often do many recruiters smile and say, reassuringly, 'Oh, take what you like and leave the rest?"

They themselves may be unaware of the full extent of the belief system, which means they can say this in all sincerity.

How can you make an informed decision to 'take what you like and leave the rest' if you are not told in the beginning, up front and in full, what the entire belief and behavior complex consists of?

Very different from evaluating a job offer and knowing in advance that if you accept the the job it will entail a 75 minute commute two times a day. Some might refuse.

But what if a group recruiter cannot or will not tell a potential recruit the extent of the social commute -- the actual distance between the mainstream and the group's belief system?

For example, that they are actually led by a guru considered infallible, but this is not mentioned to new recruits who might otherwise refuse to join.