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open questions of how teaching and teachers were considered in their USCs. The
seriousness of the consequence (to the old man) of the wrong answer implies the profound
influence of the role of teacher. Hyakujo‘s response to the old man implies limitations –
humanization --of the enlightened person. Clients may be asked what their perceptions of
teacher(s) were in their groups. They may be also asked for their hopes for what their
expectations were for themselves as they matured in their practice within their group. How
do clients feel now about their current goals about growing personally? Have their
experiences with USCs reduced their hope in their potential? Where would that put them in
the process of the events of Hyakujo and the fox?
It is also interesting that the story does not depict the old man as evil or malicious, but
rather as just wrong. Yet, he was reborn as a fox for generations. Like western culture, the
fox in Asian folklore is seen as tricky and dishonest and more – like the black cat associated
with witches (Aitken, 1990). What might this say about the retrospective opinions clients
have about the leaders in their USCs?
The Seal Maiden
The story of the Seal Maiden was beautifully described by Estes (1992) under the name
―Sealskin, Soulskin.‖ Many of Estes insights with respect to application of the story to
women can be extrapolated for their application to ex-members of USCs. In Estes rendition
of the story, it begins with a lonely man hunting from his kayak in the waters of the far
north. He observed a group of naked women dancing on a rock in the sea, as if made of
―…moon milk, their skin shimmered with little silver dots like those on the salmon in
springtime…‖ (Estes, 1992, p. 258). He watched fascinated and, almost without being
aware, paddled adjacent to the rock. In listening to their singing and laughter, the burden of
loneliness was lifted from his chest. As he climbed on the rock he found a number of
sealskins lying there. Without thinking he grabbed one and hid. Soon, at a signal from one,
all the women ran for the sealskins, slipped them on, became seals and dove into the water.
The tallest remained, searching for her skin. The man stood before her and asked her to be
his wife. At first she refused, but he agreed that if she chose to leave after seven summers
he would return her seal skin at that time.
Soon they had a child. While others taught children about land animals, she carried the child
and taught him of all the creatures of the sea that she knew so well. As time went on, her
skin began to dry and peel. She became more and more pale, gaunt and even lame.
Although the seven summers had passed, the man refused to return the seal skin. He
berated her for her selfishness at wanting to leave him and her son. One night, the young
boy awoke, fascinated by a call of an old seal in the quiet of the night. When he went out to
listen, the boy stumbled upon the sealskin hidden under a stone. Upon seeing the skin, his
mother immediately slid into it and began moving toward the sea. She grasped her son,
crying for his mother, and jumped with him into the sea. Her son met his grandfather in the
sea before returning to live on land. The mother was revived and vital when again in her
true home.
The chronologically first part of the story describes how the seal maiden was playing happily
on the rock with her friends. The man is described as taking a significant amount of time to
reach them, but the seal maidens all remained oblivious. The experience of ex-members of
USCs is similar, in that their intuitive radar was not functioning in a manner to detect the
present danger. The presence of the group of seal maidens is an appropriate image for ex-
members of USCs, in that they also were not alone in joining/being recruited/seduced into
joining the community (clients may select the level of influence they find appropriate to
their community). The fact that all in a group were oblivious could be taken two ways: 1)
The approach of danger was so subtle or skillful that they were all unable to detect it, or 2)
the intuitive blindness was not personal but collective. Due to tendencies in the culture, they

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were all vulnerable to the same danger coming in below their radar. A retrospective
reflection of the condition of their intuition, signs of danger that were evident, and how they
were missed is one possible topic of discussion related to this story.
Next, the seal maiden has her skin stolen. In this case, by losing her skin, she loses her
elemental self, herself as a creature of the sea. Without it, she is forced to exist in a world
that is not her own, and in a body that is not natural to her. She is forced to do so by the
lonely man, but she agrees only after he makes a promise to her to allow her to eventually
regain her true self. With respect to USCs, these images may represent the loss of self that
members of the community experience by trying to mold their beings into the idealized
forms suggested or demanded by their communities. The lonely man may then represent
either an individual authority (or the community itself) that needs the adoration of the client
to justify the authority‘s inflated role. Alternatively, the images could all be reversed. The
community members, suffering from their own loss of connection (loneliness) place
demands (projections) on the authority that slowly sway him or her from his or her own
humanity and sense of rooted self. Both these perspectives can simultaneously be true.
Returning to the story, the seal maiden apparently learns to love the man and clearly loves
her son. But she becomes progressively more ill and cannot survive giving her love away
without feeding her own soul. She has enough of a sense of her self to know what she
needs. She struggles with the lonely man to achieve her release. For a member of an USC,
the sickness can be both that of the community members with their humanity suffocating
from overemphasized ideals and the authority suffocating by accepting more and more of
the idealized image others have of him or her. The mutual love between the man and seal
maiden is not enough she would still perish if she remains outside her own world. The
lonely man does not have the strength to release her on his own. Instead he can only think
of himself and his need for her. As there is love in the story, for those in USCs there may be
healthy and positive aspects of that community life. There may even be true growth, as in
the image of the son yet, it is not enough. The seal maiden must return fully to herself to
survive. So must we all be strong enough to understand when we are in a place that stifles
our true selves, and to leave.
For the seal maiden, it was through the healthy fruit of the relationship (her son) that she
gained the tools to leave. The other key factor in her leaving was that of her true father in
the sea. So we see her saved by a combination of the fruits of her own efforts and a
benevolent outside strength. The lonely man was not of assistance in this. In leaving the
community, ex-members of USCs may also find that the benefits of their practices were of
assistance along with the help of an old voice, maybe that of the type of call that first drew
them to spiritual practice initially.
The story doesn‘t speak clearly to the transition back to our selves when we choose to move
where our souls demand. But we do see the seal maiden return to health in spite of the
difficulty she has in leaving objects of her love in the unhealthy place. It is no surprise that
ex-members of USCs would also have great loss in leaving communities to which they were
committed. Where are the clients now in the process of the events in the story? Do they (or
we) have our skins back? Are there ways they (or we) feel drawn back (by love) to remain
where don‘t belong? What is the state of our intuition now?
―The Secret of Roan Inish‖ is a version of this story made into a movie that may also be
recommended to clients.
Dracula, the Vampire Myth
The story of the vampire, Count Dracula, is old and familiar to most in our culture. In fact, it
has recently had a revival of sorts with books (Rice, 1977), movies (―Interview with the
Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles,‖ 1994), and TV shows (―Buffy the Vampire Slayer,‖