... But charismatic involvement provides a
confrontation with one's ultimate concerns. To fail therein leaves one damaged
at one's core.
Or perhaps it
merely reveals an earlier damage of which one was previously unaware, a damage
we all share. Perhaps there can be healing there, too.
Leaving
Each of the
groups studied had lost far more members than it had retained. And most of their
original members had left. On average, less than 20 percent of those who
joined, stayed on for more than five years, and fewer still stayed for ten or
more years. Ex-members who still felt warmly about the leader were those who
had succeeded in their great work. They had used the group for their purposes
and moved on at the right time. Success gave them a new appreciation of the
leader, gratitude for his help, and also pragmatism about his faults. They no
longer needed to believe in him so intensely. [emphasis added] Usually by the time they were successful, they had witnessed some of
the leader's less savory attributes-his mistakes and
excesses. They held few illusions about his nature but retained a fondness. After success they felt restricted by the
group and needed new challenges. The commonest pattern was to remain until the
next group crisis (charismatic groups have lots of crises) and then move
on. Probably they never again joined a
charismatic movement.
Embittered ex-members
tended to be those who had in some way failed at their great work. They felt
conned, that they had been tricked into believing the unbelievable--and indeed
some had, although most had contributed to their own miseries. [emphasis added] But there is a
special pain felt by one who has deliberately chosen to abandon reason to
follow another-in deep trust and love- into an unknown darkness, only to fall
flat on his face. Typically, when such a follower confronts the leader over
this hurt, the leader refuses to bear any responsibility for it, even mocking
and rejecting the follower. Perhaps the follower did something unethical for
the leader, and in the throes of guilt needs the leader to share the burden.
When the leader laughingly admonishes, "Well, you did it, not me,"
and dresses the tragedy up as a spiritual lesson, the follower feels
betrayed-"burned to the bone," as one described it--trust evaporates,
and the great work is no longer possible in that situation. Now, rather than
seeing the journey as the goal, the follower chooses to leave, blaming the leader
when he finds out that the impossible ideal is, after all, impossible. The failed
follower leaves when it suits him, sometimes with open hostility toward the
group. However, there are shades of success and failure, and even in the most
rigid groups there are degrees of membership. Some leave to join another
charismatic group. Some leave, then rejoin and go through the previous stages
again, and continue onto later stages. Some make several attempts to join a
group, several attempts at a goal, each time achieving partial success; and so they
come and go, remaining, ambiguously, a part of the group.
Each stage may
become a trap. Members may get stuck in one stage and lose themselves. If they
don't move on, they become vulnerable to the excesses of the group. If one doesn't find oneself in such a group,
then someone else-usually the leader will possess one. Charismatic groups
usually have some members who are stuck at various stages. Leavers are sometimes those who have become
stuck and withdraw rather than continue to go round and round. Lacking their
old sense of purpose, they may forge a new one by opposing the leader and his
group, becoming 'career apostates" (Foster 1984b). These are disillusioned ex-followers who
battle against their former group, often at great personal cost, by attempting
to publicly expose every scandal associated with the group. Fortunately for
them, charismatic groups usually have a lot of skeletons ln their closets and
dirt under their carpets, so the "mission" of the career apostate can
become a full-time vocation. [emphasis added]
After having
spoken with several of these people, none of whom was necessarily "wrong"
in his opposition--there genuinely were falsehoods and crimes that needed to be
aired--I nevertheless gained the impression that they were driven by some need for
absolution. A common refrain ran
something like "I ... was so
hoodwinked while in the group that I, too, condoned or took part in these
misdeeds." Hence it seems likely that career apostates are trying to make
amends and assuage their own guilt through their actions. But that is not all,
for there is a particular discovery that people make about themselves in
charismatic groups that many find especially hard to accept. It concerns how
easily one can sell one's soul, how shallow one's sense of ultimate concerns
really is, and how readily one can perform the unspeakable. ...
