A few years (ca. 5) after leaving Vienna, as my difficulties working in that part of the world (Eastern Europe & USSR/Russia) didn't abate, I tried to make sense of what had happened to me. I looked at literature on different topics hoping to find something that would help me sort things out. Some of the approaches I took weren't an exact fit, but bore enough similarity to the topic that I found it helpful. Today's topic is one such comparison.
I'm not saying here that the group(s) - one group formed of individuals from many groups (i.e., a mission effort made up of workers from various individual missions) - is exactly a cult, but rather that it had some cult-like aspects to it. It shared enough cult-like qualities, that I'm going to use some of the research literature on cults as my basis for some comments on my time in Vienna.
This morning's citations come from the book...
Alper, Gerald. (1994). The Puppeteers: Studies of Obsessive Control, 1st U.S. ed. New York, NY: Fromm International.
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"No fact of cult life is more important, when it comes to the successful indoctrination of new members, than its isolation... On one level, then, cults are founded upon the same psychology that binds adolescent or delinquent gangs together: the stubborn division of the world between everything out there and the family-like group." (p. 105)
I experienced this as a gradual strangle-hold (noose?) that eventually damaged a lot of my relationship, including family and some long-time friends. I know more pressure was put on me than arguably anyone else there, with the possible exception of some at the top of the organization, although they would have gone through this long before I arrived on the scene there. Why more effort was put out to isolate me is another discussion, and there may have been multiple reasons, with my dad's work being just one possible contributing reason for it.
I will say that on my end of things, I had some qualities in my personality, as well, that may have required the increased effort to "socialize" me. I remember ever since junior high (13-15 years of age) being conscious of enjoying the freedom of being able to sort of fit in multiple social groups, so that none had a complete stranglehold on who I was and what I wanted to do. I was able to do this and still be an insider in some groups, and not just be on the edges of all of them. So this was sort of a basic quality in my personality, that I didn't take well to being pigeon-holed into one tight knit group.
One opportunity this offered me was a better ability to judge things for myself and not be completely swayed by one group's norms and values. If my perspective fit the group's then fine, I'd be more of an insider, but if not I'd remain on the edges and I wouldn't be likely to be changed by they group because I didn't really need the group anyway since I belonged to others too. I liked that freedom and the ability to make my own decisions and form my own values.
Another thing about me was that I knew some German and had enough prior experience of Europe, and even Vienna in particular, that I just hit the ground running, so to speak, where I almost immediately began to scope out the land and see where I could take advantage of some opportunities there. I was to be a secretary at the mission, so outside of the occasional mission-related travel and occasional after-hours responsibilities, I would have time to myself where I could perhaps have a ministry in Austria. I mean, certainly there could be nothing wrong with that, right? WRONG!
But if part of the socialization into that work in Vienna involved isolation, similar to the indoctrination into some cults, then this alone was a prescription for trouble. But I don't think my personal qualities, as described above, can explain everything and I think there was more going on than that, despite what my dad would have me believe: He later told me I was too independent. Others, including other mission workers had other opinions and insights about what may have caused my problems, all of which involved problems because of my dad's work. There may be some truth in both views, but the source of each explanation should also be taken into account: My dad pointed the finger at me, at my qualities, while other missionaries to Eastern Europe pointed the finger at dad and his work. Hmmm... Food for thought, for sure.
There was a certain amount of isolation experienced on the part of virtually all members of the mission, mostly as regards contacts in Vienna and Eastern Europe, though, and not relations in North America (or other homelands of various workers). The mission did insist on reading and approving circular letters ("prayer letters") that any of us sent out, which may have had some affect on relations back home, though. But the mission was pretty controlling regarding any possible leaks of information, including locally, that might hinder their work, so the mission tended to be like a "big, happy family" and rather in-grown. I know that expat communities elsewhere can be like that to a certain extent, but this was a highly educated group that could easily have had freer relations in Vienna, except for those controls. My perception is that most of their relations outside the group were with organizations where there were a lot of others from the group, so that the group wielded an inordinate leverage of power, such as with certain English speaking churches and schools. One reason given for this was that travel (to the East) schedules prohibited a lot of outside contact in Vienna. This is true for some workers, but far from all of them.
I think that's enough on that for now, and I'll more than likely come back to it later.
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"It becomes apparent to anyone being initiated into a cult that there are consequences to be faced for such a choice, and a price to be paid; and it is almost a matter of course that the radical isolation requisite for entry into a cult will carry with it a varying but predictable degree of schizoid detachment, impaired reality testing, and a certain antisocial behavior easily rationalized as idealistically motivated civil disobedience." (p. 106)
At this point I just want to show, first of all, how missions and individual missionaries could come to the "ends justifies the means" rationale for some of the things they did, including, but not limited to, apparent cooperation with government entities, such as taking money from the CIA and having military chaplains in key positions.
Also, by the time a missionary actually lands at the doorstep of the mission in Vienna, that person has gone through various amounts of preparation and also the grueling task of raising one's support. So a lot is at stake at that point, and hypothetically, the novice should be more open to the induction process than someone who'd just walked in from the street (possibly an over-simplification, but I'm referring here to those joining real cults). Also, the inductee has already demonstrated a certain level of trust of the mission to go through all that before actually arriving on the scene. Perhaps unfortunately for me (depending on how you look at it), I already had a history of having qualms about specific missions, which may have been somewhat unique.
So, in getting back to this citation, there's a HUGE price to be paid if the new missionary isn't willing to pay the price (a price which may or may not have been clear before arriving, or perhaps only partially understood prior to arrival in Vienna). Long before actually starting the process of indoctrination, then, the new member has already crossed the threshold of entry and it's much harder to leave, especially unscathed, than it usually would be to leave a regular cult. Plus, entering a cult at least has the advantage that the cult may well already be recognized as a cult, whereas the mission is not and was clever enough to have a fairly high profile back home. That profile, of course, was as the mission and its entrenched members had painted it. So the cult inductee would likely faced more credibility in their retelling of events that I would. Plus, special precautions were taken (as I see it) to make sure my account wasn't credible. More on that eventually.
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Alper precedes this next citation with a fairly lengthy discussion about the cult's development of symbiosis, what that is, and how it is achieved. A lot of this discussion doesn't related that closely to my experience in Vienna, but on a certain levels shadows of it do.
"If symbiosis is what is being sought and created, it is understandable... [t]hat cults will often depend on hyper-stimulation... to cover up inner loss and deadness. And it follows that cults, to protect the symbiosis they have arduously cultivated, will seek to mask the underlying enslavement of their members by glorifying and shamelessly flattering their autonomy in whatever way possible." (p. 109)
Now I doubt that many members of the mission in Vienna would consider themselves enslaved; in fact, it's possible I'm the only one. But I think any of them would be hard-pressed to deny the symbiosis aspect. Now, Alper doesn't discuss different types of symbiosis, which would probably be outside the scope of his primary topic, and I would be remiss if I gave the impression that all forms of symbiosis are necessarily evil or manipulative or abusive. But I do think that the symbiosis of that group in Vienna had some cult-like similarities, namely unhealthy aspects to it.
The work in Vienna, at least how the leadership seemed to think, was dependent on all the workers (and their family members) being completely 100% trustworthy. Efforts to develop this level of trustworthiness felt to me like social engineering and the complete and full openness with specifically appointed others (who these people were varied depending on the individual and their position in the mission).
The goodness of the mission and their good intention towards their members and their well-being was extolled wherever and whenever possible. And personal revelation and confession (not necessarily to everyone but to the specific "appointed others"), would remain well-kept secrets and result in efforts to help the initiate grow spiritually and adjust to their new life in Vienna and with the mission. Of course, there had to be incredible trust that such secrets would remain well-guarded and that the mission and those individual in receipt of personal divulgences were well-intentioned and had only the confessee's best interests at heart. But how I was treated eventually confirmed my worst suspicions and lack of trust of them.
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"It is a commonplace observation that it is almost impossible to encounter anyone immersed in a cult who isn't grandiose in some transparent and typically intrusive way." (p. 110)
Before this statement, the author suggests several characteristics that this grandiosity summarizes.
I don't want to insinuate that members of the mission I was with were exactly grandiose in the way Alper describes, but I will say that there was a certain amount of this in that the mission was seen as something cutting edge and requiring especially high security because if that mission were compromised through indiscretion it would not only would it affect the mission (and possibly some people behind the Iron Curtain), but also the 15 or so missions that comprised our work. For example, I was actually sent out through another mission on loan to the work in Vienna, and my home mission could be affected, as could the home missions of all the other workers. This kind of thinking justified, at least ostensibly, the need for high levels of security and unusual precautionary measures (although one of the military chaplains told me that they really weren't "professionals" in this espionage-type security; take that as you will.)
I do think, though, that it was somewhat a matter of pride to be involved in such a work that was so highly regarded by so many missions. We were, in a sense, the elite of the elite. In this sense I think there was a certain amount of this grandiosity of thinking that Alper refers to.
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I'm ending a chapter now, so I have to take a break to take care of my day's activities. I'll come back to this though later on today; I haven't finished yet with this book.
Tschuss!
~ Meg
