Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1992, Page 43
these ceaseless trials and criticism sessions and denunciations, for they were the
process used to break people’s confidence in their own opinions.
I stress the words active participation. I daresay almost every single one of us led
one of these sessions at some time or other. Even I, with my brief membership of
one year, had occasion to lead such sessions … Why would we do this? The love of
petty power that exists in everyone, some vestigial doggy-master part of all of us? All
that causal stuff is, as they say, beyond the scope of this paper. But until we examine
how easily such a corrupt society could be created, how simple it was for a single
woman, Doreen Baxter, and a few cohorts to take a hundred well-intentioned,
intelligent individuals and then create such a nifty little human hell --until we look at
how relatively easy it was, I don’t believe we will have gotten the point at all.
[We were not just political people that went wrong.] Yes, we were brainwashed by
Doreen Baxter and her lieutenants. But I think we have to take it a step further: after
all, we were not locked in dark closets or tied up with guns to our heads. Without
making light of the sort of behavior modification that took place in the party, let me
add that we all cooperated. Every one of us was “leadership” over someone else.
Even when we didn’t have to, we reported on people, we sat in groups and put up our
hands to volunteer something terrible about someone, we tore someone to shreds if
he was five cents short on getting lunch. At every and all occasions, we all did it. All
of us.
There was a kind of exhilaration in wielding this sort of power. There had to be.
People don’t do things they absolutely hate to do, so consistently, over years and
years, without positive as well as negative reward. And beyond the (very occasional)
real-world reward of seeing our labors amount to something, the reward was this:
inside the party we were little potentates, comrade kings, lording it over one another.
Even with this view of active participation in mind, we cannot forget the unforgivable: Doreen
Baxter, Sandra, and their most trusted lieutenants did indeed create “a nifty little human
hell.” The “taste of power” of the many (and a mere nibble it was for most) was nowhere near
the wielding of power, the perpetuation of corrupt behavior, and the perpetration of
unspeakable brutality carried out by the few at the top. Although the cultist may in fact
become a collaborator in his or her own manipulated conversion, the process of conversion is
real and profound. The more successful the conversion process, the more powerful the group,
for there are that many more members who grasp and accept a particular ideology --and a
particular leader. During conversion, the cult member’s self is reconstituted to fit the mold. In
this case, the mold was the cadre ideal.
In reflecting on her years in the WDU, another former member described the process in a
poem:
these ceaseless trials and criticism sessions and denunciations, for they were the
process used to break people’s confidence in their own opinions.
I stress the words active participation. I daresay almost every single one of us led
one of these sessions at some time or other. Even I, with my brief membership of
one year, had occasion to lead such sessions … Why would we do this? The love of
petty power that exists in everyone, some vestigial doggy-master part of all of us? All
that causal stuff is, as they say, beyond the scope of this paper. But until we examine
how easily such a corrupt society could be created, how simple it was for a single
woman, Doreen Baxter, and a few cohorts to take a hundred well-intentioned,
intelligent individuals and then create such a nifty little human hell --until we look at
how relatively easy it was, I don’t believe we will have gotten the point at all.
[We were not just political people that went wrong.] Yes, we were brainwashed by
Doreen Baxter and her lieutenants. But I think we have to take it a step further: after
all, we were not locked in dark closets or tied up with guns to our heads. Without
making light of the sort of behavior modification that took place in the party, let me
add that we all cooperated. Every one of us was “leadership” over someone else.
Even when we didn’t have to, we reported on people, we sat in groups and put up our
hands to volunteer something terrible about someone, we tore someone to shreds if
he was five cents short on getting lunch. At every and all occasions, we all did it. All
of us.
There was a kind of exhilaration in wielding this sort of power. There had to be.
People don’t do things they absolutely hate to do, so consistently, over years and
years, without positive as well as negative reward. And beyond the (very occasional)
real-world reward of seeing our labors amount to something, the reward was this:
inside the party we were little potentates, comrade kings, lording it over one another.
Even with this view of active participation in mind, we cannot forget the unforgivable: Doreen
Baxter, Sandra, and their most trusted lieutenants did indeed create “a nifty little human
hell.” The “taste of power” of the many (and a mere nibble it was for most) was nowhere near
the wielding of power, the perpetuation of corrupt behavior, and the perpetration of
unspeakable brutality carried out by the few at the top. Although the cultist may in fact
become a collaborator in his or her own manipulated conversion, the process of conversion is
real and profound. The more successful the conversion process, the more powerful the group,
for there are that many more members who grasp and accept a particular ideology --and a
particular leader. During conversion, the cult member’s self is reconstituted to fit the mold. In
this case, the mold was the cadre ideal.
In reflecting on her years in the WDU, another former member described the process in a
poem:
