Chapter 5

Today's topic: "critical thinking"

After I left MoL I started to read a lot of books and online articles on the subject of destructive cults, thought reform, coercive persuasion and of course about the recovery process. Websites such as those of Rick Ross, ICSA, Factnet and Steven Hassan provided me with valuable information that helped me to understand and heal my intense experience in MoL. Of course this didn't happen the day after I was out of MoL.
One of the things that fascinated me the most was the critical thinking ability. I finally "understood" this expression used by my exit counselor, when she told me I was quite lucky that I had a strong critical thinking and that in itself was a "good thing". Finally someone who was appreciative of my qualities and didn't exploit, judged and control me like the people in MoL.

So here it is what I have to say.

Critical thinking definition.

I looked up Wikipedia's definition of critical thinking.

"Critical thinking is an on-going concern with the problems inherent in human thinking. It leads to the historical art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it.
However, a large part of critical thinking goes beyond informal logic and includes assessment of beliefs and identification of prejudice, bias, propaganda, self-deception, distortion, misinformation, etc."

Critical thinking is “a way of taking up the problems of life.” (William Graham Sumner, Folkways, 1906)
And one of the biggest components of critical thinking is the ability to question.

Critical thinking in MOL

MoL doesn’t accept a critical mind, and MoL doesn’t answer simple questions. MoL is full of unworthy people trying to be worthy by screaming rules and guidance (it happened to me all the time) and much too often overpowering others in subtle and tricky ways. In this way they get their highs, they think they are right, and they for a brief moments feel themselves not unworthy. For a while I had nightmares in which some of the MoL leaders were screaming at me.
MoL impoverishes the ability to think in many, sophisticated ways. Even if their intentions would be good, the means are not justifying the intentions. And their means are real nasty to say the least!

Cogito ergo sum
The great ability of the mind to think freely, to make an assessment of experiences, situations, facts, to check reality, to question beliefs, ideas, values is very compromised in a cult-structured group like MoL.

About the GMP
One of the fundamental teachings of MoL is the GMP, or Gourasana Meditation Practice. This meditation is geared to release emotions in the first stage, then calming the mind in the second, to think clearly in the third stage, so it can find solution to the problem of your life. MoL talks a lot about the importance of thinking this way. But it is not free, critical thinking. This very tool, taught mostly by Jim St James, one of MoL's main leaders, is set up to indoctrinate the MoL beliefs system. The mind is taught to ask questions in this meditative space, but only within the Ultimate goal to break free from life and death and go Home to God.

Jim would spend hours instructing us in the most tedious, repetitive and obsessive way, how to ask question about let's say a simple object. I remember a Retreat with him where we spent most of the days learning each others phone numbers. There were around 70 participants in that Retreat, and we exercised endlessly to memorize both a land line number and cellular for everyone. At the question, why we were wasting so much time for such an unnecessary and not gratifying task he answered that it was helping to "increase our desire for God".

Since I left the group I've lost interest in learning any telephone number. I don't even know my own unless I read it. In this age of electronic phone books in every handset, who needs to know numbers by heart?

In Mol, you're not invited to think with your mind and to question any of the so called basic MoL "truths". You are supposed to surrender your criticism and only find answers to the questions that can help you have a life within the MoL organization and moreover to deepen your "faith" or dependency. Slowly we were trained to ask those questions that bind you more to the group and with the purpose of the group.
How to make more money for yourself and find ways to own more money, was less important than funding the MoL mission. How to extend your "friendship" to the outside was subordinate to fulfill another basic "must" and requirement of the MoL mission: how to find new recruits to participate in the Intensive seminar. Remember, more people coming in meant more money to the established power-house Kalindi.

Whenever I was expressing doubts about some of the abusive and manipulative behaviour of leaders, contradicting certain teachings from Kalindi or resisting guilt trip from the Lady, just to name a few, I was silenced with a label: I was told I was arrogant, fighting the guidance, not surrendering my ego, being in the illusion, even ridiculed for even thinking those "independent" thoughts and "not loving Kalindi enough." And not only was criticism strongly discouraged, even positive suggestions for improvement were quickly dismissed and belittled. We were not supposed to know a better way, because God/Kalindi already had thought through the best way for us.

Continuing with wikipedia.

"In a Greek-English Lexicon the verb krino- means to choose, decide or judge. Hence a krites is a discerner, judge or arbiter. Those who are kritikos have the ability to discern or decide.
The word krino- also means to separate (winnow) the wheat from the chaff or that which has worth from that which does not."

In other words to distinguish what is true from what is false, a con-artist from a truly genuine, honest guide.

"The mind has no answers. The heart has no questions."

This is one of the many quotes from MoL. It sounds nice but it has a very heavy implication: if you question, you are heartless. This is unacceptable. Without a heart you can never be with God, but without your mind you can!
Miracle of Love promotes and wants an unquestionable trust and faith to the teachings of Kalindi and her subordinates. Being critical to any of them is a sign of a strength of will/ego, therefore a lack of humility and submission to the leadership. You are not suppose to have your own judgments or to choose freely, not to think about deciding your life.

MoL teaches black-and-white thinking such as: everyone outside the group is lost in the illusion. Kalindi is the Voice of God and she is to be followed no matter what, but for sure not questioned. If you behave according to the rules you'll be rewarded otherwise you'll be "work through" heavily.( Other MoL definition for molding your ego)

Slowly the average recruit starts to learn that there is something intrinsically wrong in thinking on your own, and adjust himself to think out of the box of Mol belief system.
To reinforce this strategy Kalindi and her leaders came up with a list called The 10 NO’s:

1. No Assumption or speculation
2. No hearsay
3. No rumours
4. No gossip
5. No discouragement
6. No judgment
7. No negative thinking
8. No wallowing
9. No issues
10. No complaining

If you were caught in one of the above you were publicly scolded and of course you would have to prove in the next meeting that you understood the lesson by mostly denying a true part of yourself. For the sake of the group acceptance, you would settle for a compromise. A gentle persuasive slide into the abnegation of your real identity.

In a group like MoL those great abilities of the mind that makes a person an individual on his own, become impaired. The damage to the critical thinking is most difficult to heal and to recuperate. It also prevents a current member to open his eyes and decide to leave, on the contrary it perpetrates the mental slavery and the sheep-like participation to the group.

There are many ways of shutting down this process that greatly inhibits the thinking. One of them is through induced guilt.
How many times I heard I was not humble enough, I didn't really want to find God, I had not enough desire to change, I was not silent enough to receive God/help.
I received guidance not to ask any question anymore in public Mol meeting, actually not to talk and draw any attention, not to wear make up, not to say NO anymore, instead going around and say: I am sorry. I was forced to be on my knees and apologize for... I still don't know what for! Thankfully, I don't care anymore, either.
The guilt was turned on to me, never onto the MoL, never onto Kalindi or Mazzarati or the Lady or Jim or Scotti.

Another block to critical thinking is making you afraid. MoL indoctrinates with fear. The basic and biggest fear within MoL is that "you cannot break free in this life time and have to return to earth". So you are urged not to discuss, not to dissent, to over criticize your mistakes, to minimize your natural qualities and of course not to take pride in any achievement - otherwise, you might not make it. You can't have fun and enjoy a moment of happiness because that is the illusion. And to be in illusion is to suffer.

To surrender or not to surrender to the path?

I was never able to fully surrender to the path of Miracle of Love.
Although the attempts to silence my voice and break my spirit were many and abusive, I never let go of the fight, which in itself for MoL is the greatest sin.

I believe one of the main reasons why no one was ever able to completely suppress my critical thinking lay in the fact that the guilt trip they put on me never worked!
I tend to have a very strong temperament and the eternal rebel in me could throw a fit of anger in front of any leader, disrespectful of them and fearless. Once Gourasana said that anger was the worst emotion in a human. That is when the witch-hunt started in MoL and anyone who had an issue with anger was the target of massive brutal manipulation disguised through subtle persuasion technique and through a skilled system of behaviour control. (letter reporting, spy on each other, etc.)
At times a sense of shame and guilt was really bothering me for having lashed out on people however right I might have been. I was mostly trying to defend myself for the constant attacks at my personality. But yet again, I was under the spell of MoL jargon and definition of emotion. They called anything that was not surrender anger. They called my questioning and my critical thinking anger. They called me names, labeled me, humiliated me and blamed me for asserting myself, which in their vocabulary, was called being angry.

Because the consequences of having raised my voice were pretty heavy in terms of punishments, I started to develop my own inner strategy to survive those games.
Yes, many times I was not allowed to talk or express any opinion, so I built up my own private ideas about the teaching of Mol, about the leaders, the rest of the members and started to fight for space just to be me. I still believed in a sense of freedom within the group. I believed in finding your individuality, your "true-self" (MoL jargon - your very essence) within the group.
I didn't have a problem with myself as they were having it with me. I just wanted to be me.
That is practically impossible in the Miracle of Love organization.
It is actually the wrong direction to go in a path that promotes "surrendering your will". That is also the reason why at the end of trying to break my ego, I was dismissed, as castaway.

Conclusion
As many professionals and ex members have already said, it is not enough to be out of a cult to undo the negative and destructive influence of the group.
The recovery process of "getting the cult out of the mind" is to me to find a way to remove the blocks imposed on the critical thinking ability, to re-learn how to use your mind freely, to deal with the painful feelings of betrayal, disorientation and many life challenge you may face after leaving. And foremost to trust again.
It takes time but it is possible.

I wish luck, success and healing to all of those who wish to find their true, real identity again.


Some links for this article:
Wikipedia critical thinking
The Independent
The role of critical thinking in recovery
The possible impact of Miracle of love

See also:
The goose is out - first article by me, posted on the Rick Ross website
A warning on Miracle of Love
Sarlo's Guru Ratings on Kalindi and MoL