Real-Life Fantastic Beasts #19 and #20: Meet Cis occamy and Leptanilla voldemort!

One of my favorite talks to give at Potter festivals, particularly when addressing child audiences,  is on the topic of Real-Life Fantastic Beasts:  newly discovered species that have been given scientific names inspired by the wizarding world.  The last time I spoke on this topic, there were eighteen such critters, ranging from dinosaurs to tardigrades, all with amazing stories from their discoverers about why they were inspired by Harry Potter.  My pipe dream is to produce a children's natural history book about these beasties and happily, thirteen of the discoverers have so far agreed to be interviewed for it. 

The downside of this book project is that it keeps getting longer.  The last year has added two more species to the list, for a grand total of twenty.  Cis occamy, a beetle from Brazil, joins corinnid sac spider Attacobius demiguise and stink bug Graphorn bicornutus in the subset of species named for Newt Scamander's friends from the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movie franchise, rather than Harry Potter series itself. Leptanilla voldemort is the first ant species to bear a Harry Potter-inspired name, joining two stink bugs, two beetles and three wasps as insects in this unique group. 

Learn more about these magical creatures after the jump. 

Reading along with Prudence, Part 4: A look at the UHC through the Lens of Modern Cult Practices.

Hassan begins Chapter Three by explaining that destructive cults do not refer only to religious organizations but to any group that uses mind control methods to exert undue influence; these can include political organizations, human trafficking groups, psychotherapist groups and even multi-level marketing companies. For example, in 2019, Hassan published a book called The Cult of Trump. What distinguishes a destructive cult from a legitimate organizations is consistent and unethical use of what Hassan calls the BITE model: the group leadership maintains excessive control of the recruits' Behavior, Information, Thoughts and Emotions. Hassan makes it clear that he supports freedom of religion and peoples' rights to affiliate as they please, evoking the name of another real-life cult leader mentioned in The Running Grave as one who "differed from the UHC only in laying slightly more emphasis on murder and a lot less on generating revenue:"

If people want to believe Sun Myung Moon, or Charles Manson, or their dog is the messiah, that is their right. However, and this is the crucial point: people need to be protected from processes that make them believe Manson or Moon is the messiah... If deception, hypnosis or other mind-control techniques are being used to recruit and control followers, then peoples' rights are being infringed upon. 

Hassan reviews research on mind control that began in the 1950's. Some was conducted by the CIA; some by psychotherapist with good intentions to use the methods to empower people and get them out of "mental ruts." He describes a form of group therapy, "sensitivity training" that arose in the 1960's and morphed into something that very much resembles the UHC's "revelation." 

One technique, widely popular at that time, was the "hot seat," which was first used by the drug rehab cult, Synanon.  A member of the group sat in the center of the circle, while other members confronted them with what they considered to be the person's shortcomings or problems. Needless to say, without the supervision of an experienced therapist, and sometimes even with it, such a technique opens up considerable possibilities of abuse. 

 Continued...

Reading Along with Prudence, Part 3: Entering and Exiting a Cult.

Dr. Hassan spends much of Chapter 2 of Combatting Cult Mind Control sharing his own story of recruitment into and eventual deprogramming from the Unification Church. The year was 1974, the same year our favorite one-legged fictional detective was born. Hassan was a senior in college, an aspiring poet and uncertain about his future when some young people from the "One World Crusade" --an international organization that claimed they absolutely, positively weren't a religious group, approached him in the university cafeteria and invited him to visit their house. Finding a few of the young women attractive, he went. Hassan describes a welcoming group who insisted he return multiple times, "loved-bombed" him with flattery and compliments, and impressed him with their apparent happiness and unity. We can easily imagine a similar thing happening to Will Edensor, whom we are told became friendly with some UHC members after attending a lecture at his university. A chance weekend off work led Hassan to accept an invitation to a weekend retreat, where his indoctrination began. 

Only when Hassan was away at a Tarrytown estate and dependent of the group members for a ride back to Queens did he learn that the "retreat" was actually a three-day workshop run by the Unification Church. Having no transportation back to his university, he was forced to stay for three days of lectures on the "Divine Principle." It is easy to see why Henry Worthington-Fields was grateful he brought his own car to Chapman Farm.

Hassan also describes the use of personality tests on potential recruits, although in his case the attendees were asked to draw pictures instead of taking the pencil-and-paper test given to Robin and her cohort. As with the Chapman Farm recruits, the sleep deprivation began almost immediately, as did the segregation into groups and the lack of any solitude or free time. Just as the UHC recruits were asked to record on their feelings in nightly journals, the prospective Moonies were asked to fill out "reflection papers" at the end of a grueling day. The major difference between Hassan's weekend retreat and the first week of UHC indoctrination was the lack of manual labor, though the group was subjected to calisthenics in the morning before breakfast. 

Contined....

Cover Story for April's The Rowling Library: Tweets, emojis, genetics and The Hallmarked Man

We interrupt the review of Steven Hassan's Combatting Cult Mind Control for a special announcement!

Regular readers of this blog will see something familiar in this month's Rowling Library Magazine. Editor Patricio Tarantino asked me to write the cover story after reading my emoji code blog post. 

Only the magazine has way cooler illustrations.  Check it out. 

Reading Along With Prudence, Part 2: An Introduction to Destructive Cults, and the basis of the UHC

Chapter 1 of Combating Cult Mind Control begins with a description of what Hassan calls a "relatively easy case" involving a young man on the verge of joining the Unification Church (aka the Moonies), the same cult in which Hassan himself spent two and a half years. The young man had attended 3 and 7 day workshops and was on the verge of committing to a three-week program after which many choose to abandon their old lives for full-time cult involvement, just as many of Robin's peers did after their week at Chapman Farm.

Hassan also stresses the importance of educating the public about the dangers of cults that practice undue influence. This knowledge can serve as an "inoculation" against mind control; as he states, "People's resistance is higher when they are aware of the danger."  Prudence echoes this exact idea when she recommends Hassan's book and warns Robin to be careful when going undercover: "Being able to identify their techniques will help you resist them." Indeed, when Prudence describes getting professional support with her ex-UHC patient from "an American therapist who's worked with a lot of cult survivors," it is not a stretch to imagine that she contacted Hassan himself. 

When describing the "nightmare reality" of abusive cults, Hassan describes his clients as:

people who have been systematically lied to, physically abused, separated from their families and friends, and forced into servitude.

He evokes another work of fiction, George Orwell's 1984, set in 

a world where thought police maintain complete control over people's mental and emotional lives, and where it is a crime to act or think independently, or even to fall in love.

Hassan maintains that modern day abusive cults resemble Orwell's dystopia:

In these groups, basic respect for the individual is secondary to the leader's whims and ideology. People are manipulated and coerced to think, feel and behave in a single "right" way. Individuals become totally dependent on the group and lose the ability to act or think on their own. They are typically exploited for the sake of the group's economic or political ends. 

Those of us who spent four grueling months with Robin in Chapman Farm will recognize every one of those elements. I was reminded particularly of Becca Emily Pirbright and her forbidden "pure materialism" love affair. Despite knowing that the story of the Drowned Prophet was a lie, was unable to break away, even when the opportunity presented itself in Norwich. 

Continued...

Reading Along with Prudence, Part 1: Hassan's Combating Cult Mind Control

Like many serious Strike readers, I read the preview of The Running Grave last August. During Strike and Robin's first visit to Prudence, she gives them a copy of Steven Hassan's Combating Cult Mind Control (CCMC), urging them both to read it before Robin undertakes her mission. Interestingly, though we see Strike spending a couple of nights reading the book right after Prudence gives it to them, we never see Robin, the psychology student with an interest in mind control, reading the book, reacting to it, or recalling elements of it once she is undercover in Chapman Farm. Given how many techniques that Hassan describes that the UHC uses, it is odd that Robin never specifically recalls or recognizes any. It was clear from the earliest descriptions in the preview that JKR/RG drew heavily from Hassan's BITE model when designing the fictional cult. I listened to the audiobook of CCMC last September as a way of filling up some time between the preview and the actual book publication.  

Hassan's book both expands one's enjoyment of The Running Grave and teaches a lot about modern day abusive cults and what separates them from legitimate religious, political and business organizations. Dr. Hassan recently commented on TRG on his own Twitter read. This reminded me that I wanted to do a chapter-by-chapter review of CCMC, with a specific look at how parts of the The Running Grave were informed by this volume. In particular, multiple aspects of the fictional Universal Humanitarian Church (UHC) appear to be inspired by Hassan's recruitment into and rapid rise in leadership in Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, or, as they called themselves in Hassan's day, the Moonies. 

Strike and Robin likely read the 2015 edition, although it is possible that Prudence gave them an earlier edition. I listened to the audiobook of the most recent edition, published in 2018 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre. Readers can also access the original 1990 edition here. 

So, without further ado, let's start the read-along with Prudence. 

Charlotte Campbell-Ross: A Psychological and Literary Look at her Life and Death.

The death of Charlotte Campbell-Ross was the central and certainly one of the most shocking turns of events in The Running Grave. For me, it was the part where the book genuinely turned into a "can't put it down" page-turner, and, when I originally blogged about it, I was simultaneously teary-eyed and searching Youtube for "Ding Dong the Wicked Witch is Dead" clips to include. 

Last November, my friend and co-podcast guest Nick Jeffrey published a post suggesting that Charlotte did not kill herself but was instead murdered, probably by a member of her own family. I usually find Nick's arguments pretty compelling, so I read his post thoroughly, digested his arguments and then, most atypically, found myself entirely unconvinced. 

I think there are psychological, practical, and literary reasons to take MiLady Berzerko's death at face value. Forced to accept that "Bluey" wanted nothing more to do with her, intoxicated and drugged, she left a series of voicemails for Strike, initially begging for his attention and, when that failed, threatened the things she knew he valued most---his agency's public reputation and his relationship with Robin. She entered the bath and slit her wrists, probably thinking there was at least a chance Strike would show up, intent on stopping her following through on her threats, but wind up rescuing her instead. After all, he managed to save her when she was locked away in Symond's house. And, if not, her spiteful suicide note, in which she blamed everyone but herself for her misery, would leave a bit of her hate for Strike and her family--including her three-year old twins--to carry forever. At that point, facing life without "Bluey" and finally facing criminal charges for her violent behavior, she was desperate enough to accept either outcome. Her actions were selfish and manipulative, right to the end, and entirely consistent with how her character has been described ever since university. Why do I think so?  The evidence comes after the jump.