Multiple Personality Disorder
By Glacier Gruff
7/21/98
Greetings, once again, from the pensive portion of the spiritual nunatak, where the clear, and snow-less air promotes introspection and intense analysis of times past...
I'd hoped to coin a NEW _CG. In fact, I'd hoped to call it the SCG, for Schizophrenic Church of God. My premise was that the many changes of personality that the _CG has undergone would lead one to conclude a severe case of multiple personality disorder.
Unfortunately, it is a mistake to attribute multiple personality disorder to Schizophrenia. They are separate psychological phenomena. So, I am momentarily at the end of my rope, not having a neat single "letter" to place in _CG (yet).
I'm going to refer to, and excerpt from, a study I found on Internet:
Child Abuse And Multiple Personality Disorder
Philip M. Coons, M.D.
Department of Psychiatry. Indiana University School of Medicine.
Indianapolis, IN 46223"Abstract -- The syndrome of multiple personality is associated with a high incidence of physical and/or sexual abuse in childhood. Occasionally those with multiple personality abuse their own children."
Now, let me assert, as "children," the "members" of _CG. I believe that to be spiritually acceptable. "Children of God," etc.
Let me, then, propose that the abusers were, in MANY instances, the upper echelon of ministry. Not only that, I propose the the ministry, in many, but NOT ALL, instances, also comprised the mentality described as "the accusers of the brethren." In some instances, there WAS sexual abuse, by assaulting boundaries, via lectures by certain Evangelists and apostles.
Part of the problem we are dealing with here is "barriers." The abuse was oft the result of MASSIVE breaches of the "boundaries" of the "children," either in sexual education, or in "correction."
What are the results? Multiple personalities, specifically, in _CG vernacular:
"Splinter groups."
Each group has its own, distinct, personality. Not only that, but, as Dr. Coons points out, the abused become abusers. With that, I give you such tomes as "The Plain Truth about Child Rearing," "don't let a little blood upset you, you MUST drive out the will to resist you..." "You HAVE to break their will"...&c.
Now, let's look at the personalities put forth by Dr. Coons:
1. The existence within the individual of two or more distinct personalities. Each of which is dominant at a particular time.
2. The personality that is dominant at any particular time determines the individual's behavior.
3. Each individual personality is complex and integrated with its own unique behavior patterns and social relationships
Suddenly, the children, there being so MANY, begin to congregate according to their personalities. Those who tend to be more spiritually abusive, congregate in "works" devoted more closely to "Mr. Armstrong," as it once was with the "Pope," Luther, the "Twelve," whatever...
An interesting aside is those who become healed. They are, because of their freedom from "businesses," referred to as "LOST." The long arm of abuse reaches out to pull them back into the business.
They, too, loosely gather, but always sharing their freedoms, and rejoicing that they can fulfill the teachings of their faiths, primarily "walking their path according to the creator," or "doing their own salvation burger on their own bar-b-que."
Dr. Coons also pointed out: "The original personality is usually amnesiac for the secondary personalities while the secondary personalities may have varying awareness of one another. Sometimes a secondary personality may exhibit the phenomenon of co-consciousness and be aware of events even when another personality is dominant.
Differences between personalities may be quite subtle or quite striking."We remember how OFTEN we were exhorted to forget those who were "outside." They didn't even "know what we know." We were meeting in SECRET. And, soon, we Dis-associated ourselves from our former social fabric. We were very unaware of their doings over the years.
Now that the _CGS are "splintering," we notice how EASILY some, in some instances, get along with others, . Yet, in others, there is GREAT animosity between the "siblings," accompanied with spiritually abusive accusations, etc. We notice how EASILY the previous membership is forgotten, and a new life assumed.
AND, a scripture is grasped and hurled at the children, proof-texting the situation: "Come OUT of her my people..." etc, etc. The almost hypnotic assertion is made that by belonging to the business, one is "OUT of the world," and should be FORGETTING the world, or past associations with various _CGs.
I recall how we were exhorted to destroy things from our past. In my instance I destroyed myriad diagrams of the Apollo, B-52, Hound-Dog missile, and Apollo Astronaut Trainer. Programs from the original Apollo Moon-glow computer, machine language programs from myriad guidance systems, and, even, my proposal that led to the Project Fire Re-Entry Vehicle Study that allowed the Apollo to come home safely at 27,000 miles per hour.
How many things were YOU exhorted to "chuck." I give some of you the families you broke up, because you were divorced-remarried.
But, those things were twisted to become SACRIFICES. We'd given up "The WORLD," to be in the business. Of course, we couldn't go back ... subconsciously, think how we'd look!!!
We'd taken on a NEW PERSONALITY.
So far, I can conclude the following. The BUSINESSES, which all churches comprise, tend to be, to one degree or another, abusive. They cause some of their "children" to eventually separate and take on multiple personalities to accommodate the abuse. Those personalities congregate in what USED to be called "Protestant groups," but, lately, are called "splinter groups."
I also conclude that these businesses WILL eventually disappear, much like my previous proposals of the Cheshire Wolf.
I conclude that SOME of the "ministry" of these businesses were honorable, and driven by their faith in the Bible. But, too MANY, particularly as they climbed the ministerial ladder, were abusive, believing they had to impose their will upon the "children."
I've repeatedly referred to them, as does the Bible, as "Ekklesia," called out ones
I conclude that the MANAGEMENT of the BUSINESSES, be it Catholic (the Popes of times past and the Inquisition), or the Worldwide Church of God (Herbert W. Armstrong, world class Pollster and ADVERTISING specialist), became obsessed with their cause, and abused their "children." In some few instances, there were deaths, in MOST, family disruptions, and, eventually, in all, "Reformations." The results: "splinter groups," and MANY fleeing the circumstances.
Concerning the matter of "fleeing" I give you the exodus to the Americas by the Quakers, Huguenots, etc, as a result of Protestant and Catholic pressures in the Occident.
Unfortunately, the same things took place in the Americas when the newly freed, and newly zealous folk began to insist that the aboriginal folks become "Christians."
The Occident, and Orient, are given to multiple personality disorders.
Thus I propose,
DCGThe Dynamical Churches of God.
I will now think about the "strange attractors," and general Chaotic, but organized behavior, of the Occidental and Oriental Cultures.
Of course, being beat about, much like the particles in the Brownian Movement, there are the Aboriginal Cultures, who had already solved the problem, much to the consternation of the "civilized world."
"Let there be Peace on Earth?"
I liken that to "let there be an end to entropy."
I remain, several fingers into the Bot'le,
Yr. Ob'dt. Sr'vt.
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