 Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 10:58 PM
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I stumbled upon this intriguing conversation as I was Googling CS and cultism. I'm a born and raised Baptist and one of my very best friends is a very devout CS and a Principia grad. For the ten years I have known him, we have steered clear of religious discussions and have always been very respectful of each other's beliefs. I never thought too hard about his religious and educational background until recently, when an occasion arose where I found myself completely surrounded by CS members and Prin alumni for an entire weekend.
As someone with very little exposure or understanding of CS, I found my weekend to be a very eye opening experience!
First off, let me say that everyone I met was extremely nice to me. I went home with a sense that CS members are really good people. I was also struck by how tight the CS community is. I was not attending a family event - and yet, it was though I was attending my friend's family reunion. Not being CS, however, totally made me the "odd man out."
Returning to the topic of this thread, I had never even heard of Principia until I met my friend. Going into the weekend, I really had no preconceptions about the school or the students. But, boy did I detect more than a hint of elitism from Prin grads when they started talking about their alma mater. Geeze, you would have thought they were Ivy leaguers!
I must admit though, that weekend I frequently alternated between wanting to grab those people by their collars and shout "Get a grip! There's more to life than CS theology and Principia College!!" and longing to be one of them. I'm pretty sure it was my unexpected feelings for the latter that solidified the connection between CS and cultism for me...even before I did any research on it back home.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 2:35 PM
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I COMPLETELY understand your post! Not CS myself but married to one, I have witnessed that same "group hug" environment at a Prin function. However, these folks have a very superficial connection. They do not talk about feelings, experiences, etc. It's all about facts. They do not support one another. Believe me, I've seen my spouse go through tough times and they are not there.
A Prin alumn who had lost a wife (to untreated cancer, but I cannot validate this, of course) was at a function one month after above mentioned event. Not one word of support was spoken. It was as if she did not exist. I'm a very, very open person to cultures and points of view (I married a CS!). However, this one is just not right.
I went to a large, well respected university. I have a close circle of friends and know what normal alumni relationships are and what are not. Prin's, from what I have seen, are not. Being part of a cult results in such behavior, don't be fooled!
Helping One Out
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 7:36 PM
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That certainly explains a lot. I mean, it's the same kind of thing at the CS nurses' facilities. I remember feeling surprised at the warmth and closeness of my non-CS friends; and being surprised at the aloofness of the Prin kids I'd grown up with (not the college).
It's a great feeling to have friends that neither "lean" nor "neglect" but rather are some combination of need & normal friendliness. I love it! It's still hard to get used to at times, and I'm probably the one who's a bit of the ice cube still; but I'm forever working on it. My current group loves to surprise one another with birthday cakes, cards when they're missing, and they stay after for coffee, just to be there for one another. One even supplied my daughter with some work experience, and another gave her some suitcases to take away with her.
I don't know how I would have gotten through the stages and trials my kids have been through without them. That's not real Scientific. But I appreciate hearing "what worked" for other families. I don't have to rediscover the wheel, in prayer, every time something gets urgent. If I could have sisters and brothers that I picked, I'd like them to be just like these friends. I wish I could say I found that with other Christian Scientists, as happy and pleasant as they are, but I can't. It just wasn't there. And it wasn't for lack of trying or any personal difficulties.
Actually I think friendship is helped by having a personality and not squelching it. And I feel that trust deepens when someone confides in you and doesn't turn to ice afterwards, or feel weak for having needed a friend. Could be you've hit on a developmental problem that's affected more than a few of us. I've got some more growing to do, and it's embarrassingly obvious! At least I know what to try. Thanks bunches!
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Posted Thursday, April 30, 2009 2:21 PM
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As a graduate of Principia myself, I know what you mean. It's been nearly 35 years since I graduated, and I am still in touch with some of my classmates. It's an odd connection -- I can't even say friendship.
One was my roommate. She has badgered me to keep in touch for all 35 years, yet aside from sharing a class and a room, we were friendly, but not like lifelong friends, in my view. We send Christmas cards, and that's our main connection. Yet, she told me recently that I am her best friend in the world. What??? I feel sorry for her if our annual connection through a Christmas card is her definition of a best friend! I have friends I talk to three or more times a week, cry with, argue about politics with, go to for problems, travel with. I know I can count on them, and they on me. They are my best friends.
Another example is another woman who was a roommate of mine twice. We were pretty good friends at Prin. In fact, my boyfriend and I set her up on a blind date with the man she has now been married to for 33 years. My boyfriend and I also got married, but later got divorced because he was gay and had been trying to heal it through CS -- which didn't work, of course! But we remained friends, most of the years afterwards, and I was very heartbroken when he died of liver disease (caught too late, of course, since he was still practicing CS.)
A few months after he died, I was contacted by the couple we had been friends with. They were coming out to the West Coast and wanted to see me. I was pleased that I would get to see someone I could talk about my ex with, who knew him -- my friends here never met him. I should have known better. The entire weekend, my CS friends never mentioned my ex. When I brought him up, just to share a memory or something funny he had said in the past, they would avert their eyes and change the subject. It was, as you said, like he never existed. It was awful, and I was so disappointed not to be able to share happy memories with them. They refused to acknowledge him in any way. I guess his being gay and dead was just too much error for them to deal with!
And I have to wonder, Why am I even friends with these people?
Ann
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Posted Thursday, April 30, 2009 6:13 PM
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That's really something.
I've noticed that when a person can't bond, or have close friendships, and when they can't seem to grieve losses to some healthy level (which may vary, I'm told), there's something wrong with their processing of emotions. The lack of, or suppression of, the full range of emotions was something I had to deal with as soon as I came out of CS. In all those years of "being healed of grief" something far less healthy was actually happening. I believe there are various degrees of dissociation a person can achieve. Some can be learned intentionally, as with CS; and some is automatic like in cases of abuse or neglect. It isn't healthy nor normal. There are actual psychological problems where that is a major part of what's wrong. Imagine my mom's surprise when I got through to her on that one!
As far as the emotionally distant "friends," I figure it isn't that we need them so much as it is that these folks need you and as many emotionally available friends as they can find. It lights a pathway for them towards healthier relationships.
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Posted Thursday, April 30, 2009 8:56 PM
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And I have to wonder, Why am I even friends with these people?
Ann, That's really sad --for your former friends, that is. At this point, they need you as a friend more than you need them. It sounds like you have a healthy take on life, and have moved on to better friends and circumstances. Your former prin aquaintences have not, and are unwitting slaves to the "cold conventionality of the past." I feel sorry for them and many others I know in the same way. In truth, they really do want to be compassionate, but they don't know how or don't believe it is appropriate because their religion tells keeps telling them that sickness is unreal, death is unreal, etc., etc. You can still cherish the friendship for what is was --it is part of your experience, and I'm sure there were some really good times for all of you. None of that is ever lost.
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Posted Friday, May 01, 2009 10:58 AM
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After 35 years, I am not going to blow these folks off. I still care about them. But they seem so sadly limited and damaged in their emotional lives. As counselors will tell you, closing off negative emotions requires closing off the positive ones as well. You become detached and numb. I wonder if that's why CS's cling so hard to other CS's, especially if they went to Prin or the A/U camps, or Daycroft, or some other CS place where they were among their own. I was happy and comfortable at Prin, feeling I was among "my own kind", yet I always had this feeling I wasn't studying CS enough, that I wasn't demonstrating it enough, that everyone else was better at it. I remember that the only emotionally intimate relationship I had at Prin was with my boyfriend, but I didn't find that strange back then since my family also was never good at emotional intimacy. Most of them still are not. My sister and I both lived away from the family and left the church, and for various reasons had counseling, so we both are more aware of the need for emotional expression, and we have a much deeper relationship with each other than with anyone else in the family.
I'm sure my friends from Prin are confused as to what it is that I am talking about -- they just never had the chance to emotionally mature, it seems like. Or, as my mother admonished me, "Not everyone wants to talk about unpleasant things."
Ann
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Posted Friday, May 01, 2009 11:41 AM
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Baptist with the CS friend here, again. (Sorry, I forgot to sign my previous post)
I wish I could elaborate more on the details of the event I was writing about earlier (It wasn't a Prin reunion). But, I want to be certain that nothing I write ever gets back to my friend. It's such a small community! I would be mortified if it did.
However, I'd like to mention that there were some former CS members who were in attendance that weekend. I noticed a very bizarre dynamic between this group pf people and the active members. While they were friendly with each other all weekend, you could definitely tell that the former followers were no longer in the "inner circle." I heard many stories from those in the former CS camp similar to the one's I've been reading here....abandonment in critical times, unjustified deaths of family members, etc. It was like being at that event with so many CS people drudged up a lot of old feelings and pain.
As for the friendships between Prin alumni (who are practicing CS) being superficial or flimsy...I couldn't really tell. They all seemed to truly care about each other during the few days they/we were together. I will say this, though...I thought I knew my friend so well. But, that event taught me that even after 10 years of close friendship, I really had no idea of the scope and intensity of the CS community that surrounds him. I saw him in a whole new light! It was amazing to me that he is still clinging (not sure if that's the word I want) to so many friendships with CS classmates almost 20 years out. But like we've been musing on this forum...perhaps it's more of a "security blanket" type thing.
Morris
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Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2009 9:39 AM
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Quoting from a post made back in late April:
"Returning to the topic of this thread, I had never even heard of Principia until I met my friend. Going into the weekend, I really had no preconceptions about the school or the students. But, boy did I detect more than a hint of elitism from Prin grads when they started talking about their alma mater. Geeze, you would have thought they were Ivy leaguers!
I must admit though, that weekend I frequently alternated between wanting to grab those people by their collars and shout "Get a grip! There's more to life than CS theology and Principia College!!" and longing to be one of them. I'm pretty sure it was my unexpected feelings for the latter that solidified the connection between CS and cultism for me...even before I did any research on it back home."
This is one of my biggest irritations with CS people. It's there attitude of total Divine superiority and it sort of comes with the territory. In their eyes they are BETTER than Ivy League. When you are convinced that MBE was the only person in the world (for the past 2,000 years!) who understood the Truth and Reality of life and that the CS form of Truth and Reality is the total OPPOSITE of EVERYBODY ELSE'S, it is very hard not to feel it's the most auspicious institution in the world ... it is easy (inevitable?) that one would get the feeling of great spiritual superiority. When you read the works of MBE day in and day out and get the message that all other belief systems are just poor sillies living in the dark, what else can you do in the way of relating to a non CS but to feel sorry for them, or repelled by them when and if they have the nerve to speak up about their own Christian beliefs?
I think it is natural that anyone who buys into MBE's teachings would feel that they are better than Ivy Leaguers. And in CS teachings there is no higher an educational institution than Principia. Principia being the pinnacle, the ultimate. I know a few of those Prin-worshiping people. Fortunately my family did not "know the truth" well enough to scrape up the money to send me there, so I was the outsider, even though I still was trying to be as devout a CSist as all other CSists appeared to be, I never measured up to them because I didn't go to Prin. I always felt that they were all pretty condescending to me and all other non-Prin grads (although that made me even less spiritual in their eyes simply because I had that "negative feeling."
CS is a religion you can never really win; as a CSer you can only keep denying other people's feelings, thoughts and experience until you have nothing left but a bed in a back room somewhere with your trusty S&H and all those blasted metal tabs, and then you die. Alone.
From arrogance to grimness and aloneness, not the vision of Jesus by your side nor the presence of anybody else.
Never being able to admit that Prin ultimately never did you any real good.
Sad. Very sad.
no more CS4me
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Posted Thursday, June 25, 2009 12:06 PM
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Anonymous (6/23/2009)
CS is a religion you can never really win; as a CSer you can only keep denying other people's feelings, thoughts and experience until you have nothing left but a bed in a back room somewhere with your trusty S&H and all those blasted metal tabs, and then you die. Alone.
I love it! How very true! Don't forget the blue chalk!
In fact, I agree with the earlier poster who said it was that feeling that they wanted to be included in the Prin "in crowd" that made them realize it was cultish. I was thinking about this in a way, because of the current practicing CS's who sometimes come on to this site and tell us that if we just studied Mrs. Eddy's writings more, we would see that CS is true. It shows the cultish state of mind, the blinders they have on, the special language they speak, the certainty of being right, the devotion to a figure like Mrs. Eddy who, after all, was just a human being. Whether they literally see her as the Second Coming or not, they certainly act as if they do, as if her words were inspired above those of the writers of the bible. One recent CS poster actually said the Bible was inspired because Mrs. Eddy said so.
Especially when I moved across the country, I did miss that connection, that knowledge that I could just walk into a CS church and see people who believed as I once did, and probably some Prin connections as well. I was tempted to go back to church just because I had moved to a new place where I knew no one, and wanted to make friends, and that seemed the easiest way. Then I realized, Why would I seek out friends whose beliefs are NOT the same as my current beliefs, but instead are beliefs I have left behind? So I didn't go, though I did poke my nose into the local Reading Room once or twice out of curiosity.
I think that too marks it as a cult. I knew that there was no casual contact to be had. You are in or out. You are a practicing CS or you are not. There's always a stigma when you're with CSs whom you knew at Prin or the church or in the family. You are the one who left the church -- they can't talk to you in Christian Scientist-ese, they can't assume you think like they do, and that makes it awkward and uncomfortable. My own aunt has not spoken to me since I left the church -- we used to be really close. Evidently it was much shallower than I thought, since my simply deciding to leave a church ended our relationship as niece and aunt. I don't need so conditional a relationship in my life.
Ann
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