evile | Entries tagged with trollspotting

Are Eckancar cult members mostly narcissists? Do you know an "Ekc priest" who is very selfish and a womaniser who has hurt many woman and cares less about anyone's feelings except himself?

I don’t know anything about Eckankar specifically, but it does seem that there is some correlation between cult leadership behavior, abusive religious leaders in all faiths, and the behavior of a narcissist domestic abuser. Note: cult LEADER. Not cult MEMBER. Members are likely to be victims or flying monkeys in service to a leader with NPD.

The BITE[1] model of authoritarian control maps almost directly to a list of narcissistic abuse behaviors[2] The only difference seems to be one of scale. A narcissist will generally only have a spouse and perhaps a few other family members to torture, the cult leader is a bit more organized and structured and can set up an entire sick system to use and abuse large groups of people.

The narcissist, cult leader, or abusive priest/priestess will start by idealizing their target— you are special, you are chosen, you have amazing qualities that are unique and remarkable.

Then they start to isolate you. Your chosen group of friends is unworthy, your family is untrustworthy, if you want to advance in your studies of the religion (or whatever), then you really need to give more of your time, effort, and yourself to the church (ie: the toxic leader) Everything and everyone else in your life is an unwelcome distraction from you becoming the greatness that the narcissist/abuser/cult leader can see in you.

Once you are free of those pesky distractions of other people and their reality-checks, the cult leader/narcissist/abuser goes to work on your self-esteem. They dictate your reality. Nitpick your appearance. Things they formerly admired about you now become flaws to be eradicated, prayed away, etc. Anything you say that disagrees with the ‘leader’ will get you punished, ostracized, silent treatment, yelled & screamed at for hours, etc. They will keep their targets wound up and ground down, depriving them of food, sleep, and time to themselves until the target/victim/cult member accepts the cult leader/narcissist/abuser’s version of reality and no longer trusts their own mind, perceptions, or abilities.

Meanwhile the narc/cult leader/abuser is out farming for new supply —going online to flirt, trolling dating sites, dragging their perfect looking, perfectly behaving (OR ELSE!) harem/followers/targets out in public to get a lot of attention and find more. They create a false front of happy family, fulfilled life, perfect peace and contentment that draws more people in to become cult members, victims, flying monkeys, etc.

When looking to join a faith community, look for an inclusive community that welcomes families and individuals from all walks of life, all colors, all income levels, all ages. Cult leaders often have a ‘type’ that they recruit (all young, all male, etc.)

Look for a community that has healthy systems in place to deal with disagreements and predators, both within its clergy and within its membership.

Don’t trust any faith organization that says it has no bad apples and has never had to deal with such a thing—bad people find their way into every group there is. Every group that exists MUST have rules, policies, and procedures to address such things in a fair and transparent manner.

Look for faith communities that do community outreach. These members are not locked away in worship of the Great Leader all day long, they are partnering with homeless shelters, they are distributing food to neighbors, they are doing school-supply drives with the local school district.

And, finally, when looking for a faith community, speak to ex-community members. Seek them out on purpose and ask why they left. If there is an aura of guilt, shame, or they are‘not allowed to talk about it’ then the organization that they left may be a cult.

Footnotes

[1]

Steven Hassan's BITE Model of Authoritarian Control

[2]

12 Signs You Might Have Narcissistic Victim Syndrome

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Posts tagged 'quora' were originally my answers to peoples' questions on quora.com.

They were monetized but I am giving them away for free here.

If you feel inclined to support my writing, here's my paypal

And if you prefer to pay it forward, I recommend Safe Place as an excellent place to support.

There are only a few kinds of flying monkeys in the world.

There are willing accomplices—people who are as malicious and nasty and ill-tempered as the narcissist but who are too cowardly or too stupid to make their own agenda of terrorism, so they just play toady for the more powerful evil. They will happily rat you out, make up lies about you, or do anything the narc tells them to do to make you miserable. These people are not your friends, and they don’t have anything to offer other than a knife in the back. They are spies for the narcissist. Cut them out.

There are gossip-addicts. They like drama and gossip and they know that the narcissist is a source of never-ending chaos, conflict and entertainment. They may not actually like the narcissist (or you!) but they are happy to put in a little word here and there to help the BS flow. They may actually like you, but they value the soap-opera more than they value you as a friend. They do not value your peace of mind and happiness. They don’t really want to change or fix the situation and they won’t be interested in focusing on other, happier things you have in common. They will constantly guide the conversation back to the drama between you and the narc. They are also spies. You will have to cut them out of your life because they aren’t interested in deep meaningful friendships, they only like pointless drama.

There are codependent people-pleasers who want to be friends with everyone. They may not like the narcissist’s abusive, gossipy, malicious behavior but they don’t have the courage to speak up and say so. They don’t have the courage to drop a friendship with a person they see being destructive, abusive, and harmful. They think that if they stay quiet, pleasant, and placate the narc, they can preserve their wider circle of friends and keep their social circles intact. They don’t want to make waves or kick anyone out, they just want everyone to get along, and so they will turn a blind eye to the narcissist’s toxic behavior, and/or make excuses for the narcissist’s behavior to try and smooth everything over and make sure ‘everyone stays friends’…when or if you confront this flying monkey, they will more than likely see you as the bad guy for making trouble and trying to break up the group. Best to minimize contact with these well-meaning tools of the narc. You aren’t going to get them to see your point of view and you aren’t going to get them to leave a group that is corrupted or dominated by a narcissistic abuser. They would rather run with the herd even if that herd is running off a cliff.

Bottom line:

If you know someone is only spending time around you for bad-faith, sneaky, spying, underhanded, and/or destructive reasons, you are perfectly within your rights to not engage with them. If you have mutual friends with a narcissistic abuser, minimize time spent with those mutual friends. Don’t tell them anything personal about your life, bad or good. If you are at a gathering of people or a public place and they approach you, say something neutral and pleasant and then make your excuses to go elsewhere. “Nice to see you, please excuse me, I need to go say hello to someone I haven’t seen in a while,” Being rude, unpleasant, or even direct and honest with your reasons for not wishing to speak with them, will not accomplish anything other than giving the narc more ammunition to use against you. Once you’ve identified a person as a flying monkey—whether they are an active malicious actor or merely a passive pollyanna stooge, you need to get them out of your life.

The only way to win is not to play.

======================

I had a similar experience about a year ago, actually. A friend created a facebook group that was described as a ‘safe space’ for women to speak freely about past abuse or trauma, share resources, bla bla bla.

One of the people she added is a woman (let’s call her Katie) who was stalking, harassing, and running smear campaigns against a friend of mine (let’s call her Susan) who had started dating Katie’s ex. Katie hadn’t said or done anything to me, personally, but of course she started badmouthing Susan and calling Susan and her ex ‘abusers’ and whatnot in the group, sharing her episodes of harassment, stalking, and abusive behavior towards Susan and her boyfriend as things Susan and her boyfriend had done to her rather than as things she’d done to them (DARVO).

Since I was around at the time Susan was experiencing all this harassment, I knew Katie was lying, projecting, and smearing.

Rather than confront Katie about her toxic behavior towards Susan and calling her out on her smear campaign I just went ahead and left the group. I don’t have any control over who my friends are friends with, but there’s no reason for me to be around when my friend is spending time and energy on someone I know is toxic and dangerous. (that's called a Boundary!)

Now, if the group was a family group, a professional organization, a religious group, I might stay in the group chat but just not directly speak to or respond to the narcissist, and I’d be cautious about sharing any information with the group that the narc might be able to pick up and use against me.

In my experience with narcissists and groups, the narc can’t hold their ‘wonderful me!’ fake persona for very long, and eventually their true colors will show. If a group’s leadership is wise and experienced, they’ll boot the narc and keep the group intact. If the group’s leadership is naive or unprepared, the narc will tear the group apart, or turn it into nothing but a pack of flying monkeys.

Overall, I think it comes down to weighing pros and cons of staying vs. leaving and deciding what membership in the group means to you. If there are other ways to stay in touch with the people in that group and receive the information that is shared in the group that will not expose you to toxic behavior, that is the way I’d go.

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What difference do you make between a smear campaign and exposing the narcissist (secretly wishing people take your side and validate your experience)?

There may be a difference for you, subjectively. As others have pointed out in their answers, you would be telling people the truth about the narcissist, while the narcissistic smear campaign is a lot of lies and exaggerations, with possibly only the smallest kernel of truth at the bottom of all of it.

But, to outside viewers, it just looks like an epic (or petty) grudge-fight between two people who are putting dirty laundry out for all to see. No matter how right you are, and how wrong the narcissist abuser is, it’s just embarrassing and distasteful for others to see or hear about.

The only people who care about who did what to whom will either be drama-addicted ‘flying monkey’ type people (the narcissist’s enablers and audience members) or your own closest friends and family.

For anyone outside of your most trusted circle, you should not bother with ‘exposing’ the narc, because they either will not care, they will enjoy the gossip & pass it around, and/or they will think you are just as bad as the narc.

Fun bonus for attempts to expose the narc: negative publicity is still publicity, in the mind of the narcissist ‘star’ of the “Great And Wonderful ME! Show” They will enjoy knowing that they still take up so much of your time, thoughts, and energy. Your pain, aggravation, and attempts to expose them will just feed their ego and make them feel more and more powerful and superior.

The best way to win against one of these people is to ignore them. Act as if they do not exist. Don’t let them see that they’ve hurt you.

If their behavior has caused you harm, file charges.* Don’t talk about it with everyone, just take your information to law enforcement or a lawyer. Otherwise, just ignore petty gossip and go on about your life. Exposing the narc to mutual friends, social groups, and acquaintances is not going to give you the results you want, it’s just going to give the narc fuel and make you look crazy. (speaking from experience here!)

*Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Consult a lawyer specializing in 'high conflict' if you are looking to take legal action against a narcissist/abuser.

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Editing to add: Posts tagged 'quora' were originally my answers to peoples' questions on quora.com. They were monetized but I am giving them away for free here.

If you feel inclined to support my writing, here's my paypal

And if you prefer to pay it forward, I recommend Safe Place as an excellent place to support.

Have you ever been accused of something you didn’t do? Not just something you didn’t do, but something so awful you’d never even thought about? Something so low down, dirty, disgusting, immoral and repugnant that it almost makes you sick to your stomach to think about?

And then, think about all the Narcissist’s little friends, flying monkeys, enablers, and poop-eaters who believe every single thing the Narcissist says. To think that not only are such horrible accusations being made about you, but that there is a whole group of people out there who believe it and repeat it freely…it is horrifying. It is disgusting and so unfair. You want to stand at the top of the highest mountain telling your truth, trying to make people believe and understand that you aren’t the godless monster that the Narc has portrayed you as.

It’s worse when the Narc has some real power in your life—if they are a coworker or supervisor, for example, or a highly placed member of your church community or a club or organization you’ve given many hours of your life to support. Suddenly, you learn this horrible thing the Narc has been saying about you and you look around yourself…does this person believe the Narc? Are they all secretly judging you and looking for signs that you are the depraved individual that the Narc has told them you are?

You can’t trust anyone, you can’t feel joy in your pursuits, your accomplishments at work, your creative endeavors….because you fear the person has secretly gone and poisoned everyone you know behind your back. They’re all just waiting to watch you slip up and Do The Thing that the Narcissist told them that you do—molest a kid, shoot up drugs, steal from old ladies, rob the collection plate, poop in someone’s flowerbed, whatever….

You desperately want to prove the Narc wrong, you want to clear your name, you want to show the world who the sick and evil one is…but unfortunately the Narcissist is such a master manipulator, their poison is spread so thick and so deeply in your community that literally every single thing you do or say to try and prove that you are not a bad person, is just twisted by the Narc into more “proof” that you ARE the bad person. Every attempt you make to clear your name or prove that the narc is the one who actually did the horrific thing is seen as you 'gossiping,' 'making trouble' or 'stirring the pot'! It is a horrible situation to find yourself in, and of course you want people to hear and believe your side of the story. But don’t bother because, in general, most people won’t. Once you’ve been the victim of a Narcissist’s smear campaign, you feel there is no way to ever be clean and decent in the eyes of the world ever again.

==============

Editing to add: Posts tagged 'quora' were originally my answers to peoples' questions on quora.com. They were monetized but I am giving them away for free here.

If you feel inclined to support my writing, here's my paypal

And if you prefer to pay it forward, I recommend Safe Place as an excellent place to support.

Why do narcissists thrive on exclusion?

Narcissists thrive on conflict and chaos; exclusion is only one tool in their tool box for creating conflict and chaos.

Part of the narc’s pathology is believing that they are superior to others and must interact only with other superior beings. From this standpoint, it’s easy to see why they crave membership in exclusive groups, so that they can have people to look down on, and also so that other members of the exclusive group can confirm to them that they are indeed special in some way.

On the other side of the coin, if they are excluded from membership in a group, that also gives them supply in that they can create conflict and chaos over being excluded. Being told they aren’t a good fit for a group, or that they are being let go from a group, gives them the opportunity to badmouth group members & leadership, and go tell their sad story of being kicked out or denied admittance to their flying monkeys/negative advocates.

Either way it’s a win for the narcissist. They get drama and attention out of it, no matter how it plays out.

A somewhat famous author and somewhat well known figure among certain subcultures, hobby, and interest groups has stated that one of my social groups contains and harbors a rapist. This person has gone so far as to create a tag in her blog titled "[thisgroup] rapist"( Read more... )

All of that has caused me to clarify my thoughts and feelings re what is "safe".( Read more... )

"The Conversation We All Need To Have" also caused me to apply reason to my fears; I don't feel 'safe' when so-and-so is around.( Read more... )

So...'safe' is an illusion, or its a reality we create. It's really how you feel more than a concrete, provable fact of existence. Bad things are going to happen. Bad people are out there. We are all going to be hurt and bleed at some point in life. We are all going to die. Fear and worry aren't going to keep those things from happening to us, but they may keep us from enjoying the many beautiful and wonderful things that happen in between times of fear and pain and death. I think I'm going to choose Happy. And I'm going to choose Safe, too.

**I realize I am speaking from a place of privilege. I live in a country and come from a socioeconomic and geographic area where "safe" is pretty much our normal way of life. But there are plenty of people, even relatives, who believe that where I have chosen to live is somehow 'gang land' or 'the ghetto' ... that's their belief system and I do not choose to let their fear keep me from enjoying my home and walking my dog and greeting my neighbors, and so far my belief that "I am safe" has prevailed. How 'bout that?

Current Mood: thankful
Current Location: home.

http://captainawkward.com/2012/08/07/322-323-my-friend-group-has-a-case-of-the-creepy-dude-how-do-we-clear-that-up/

This blog entry has a LOT of good points. a LOT.

I am not trying to dismiss those points by trying to create a distinction between "how we deal with predators as a formal entity with elected leadership and bylaws" and "how we deal with predators when they are friends of friends in informal group settings,"

So let me try again to compare these apples and oranges:

1) You’re at a convention. You’re at work. You’re at an SCA or Amtgard or Civil War Re-Enactors' event. You’re camping at the renaissance festival. You’re attending a church ‘shut in’. You’re at the comic book store. Someone harasses you. Someone touches you without your permission. Someone says vulgar or threatening things to or about you. Someone assaults you. There are people who are there to help. There is a boss, a store owner board of directors, chairperson, ‘autocrat’, king/queen, event security. There are policies and procedures for everyone involved to follow and utilize to address the incident.

2) You have a group of friends. A friend of a friend harasses you. A friend of a friend touches you without your permission. A friend of a friend makes verbal threats against your person, life, or livelihood. A friend of a friend assaults you. At that point, you have police and you have your word against theirs, and you have a choice about how far you want or need to go in order to make yourself feel safe.

As a friend of many strange and diverse people, I am NEVER going to take the word of another person about who I should or should not be friends with. I am NEVER going to listen to one stranger tell me another stranger is toxic and evil and follow that person's directive to "WARN ALL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT ______!!!" Because, seriously, I don't want to live in a world where one person can say "Bramblekite is toxic and evil, avoid her," and have everyone that they say that to BELIEVE them and ACT on it without thinking or questioning or finding out for themselves. And I am NEVER going to entrust my health, well being, or safety to anyone but ME, either. I'm glad of laws and law enforcement. I'm glad for formal groups with formal leadership. But the buck stops right here, with me. And I'm glad of it.

Personal aside, tangent. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: bitchy
Current Location: home.

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

The Fox without a Tail

One day a fox became caught in a trp. In his struggle to free himself, he left his tail behind. On his way home, he devised a way to head off being made the butt of jokes. He trotted back into the forest and called together all the foxes.

"Foxes are much more attractive when they do not have a tail," he said as he wiggled his stump. "Observe how sleek my appearance is. No longer will I have to pull burrs out of my tail. I am free – and you can all be free, too! It is time for all foxes to cut off their tails."

"Nonsense!" an elder fox yelled out. "If you had not lost your own tail, my friend, you would not be urging us to lose ours as well. You must deal with your loss on your own."

The Moral of the story: Do not trust all of the advice given by others.

Many in the program offer helpful support based on their experience. There are also those who give advice. Sometimes this advice is well-meaning and useful; other times it may seem suspect. Listen to the support, guidance, and advice you are given. But never let such information have a negative impact on your recovery.

I will listen to the advice I am given, but will make decisions that are right for me.

You are reading from the book:

Morning Light by Amy E. Dean

Morning Light © 2011 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the permission of Hazelden.

Current Mood: cynical

So, back in...I dunno, like 2008 or something, my stepbrother

sineater friended me on LJ. I was pretty uncomfortable with this; we've had a history of unpleasantness between us, starting with the night my friend X and I threw his soon-to-be wife a "Bachelorette Party" which went horribly awry. bla bla, old old news.

Anyway...he friended me and I was thinking he was expecting me to friend him back, and I was uncomfortable with that, knowing his wife's tendency to treat everything he owns as hers, including, presumably, email and LJ accounts.

Being human and nosy, I went ahead and cut and pasted some of the recent entries for later reading, and then I messaged him with "hey, thanks for friending me, but we've had a hard time with this sort of thing in the past, as far as you and yours reading something I write and deciding I'm a horrible person, etc." and he replied with "it was a mis-click," and unfriended me.

Also around that time I guess is when he posted the public thing about me "stalking and harassing" him and his wife.

Anyway, my cel phone recently died a horrible death and one of the files I'd had saved there was some of those entries. I re-read them, particularly the 'spin' Sineater put on one of our more recent interactions: My mom was in town and Thax and I drove her to the park where his HFS group met, so mom could visit with him and the horses. I stood around and said nothing to no one, his wife babbled at me for a bit [even after I turned my back on her to indicate that I was not interacting with her], and then we left. So, that became, in his interpretation, me using mom and Thax to "stalk and harass"...he said it was a nice visit with mom, and called Thax my "unwitting accomplice"

I guess I'd probably read that before. But reading it again today, something just clicked in my head and I realized Sineater isn't a very nice person. and really, he never has been. When our parents were dating, he spent a good amount of time trying to get into my pants. When we became stepsiblings, he turned his attentions to any female friend I brought into the house. He frustrated and upset our parents by sneaking out of the house to visit various girlfriends over the course of his high school career, and also found interesting ways to disobey house rules re: visitors, phone calls after 10, etc etc. He has pretty much always been a sneaky, disrespectful, lying little weasel. And as soon as he got a chance, he moved out of the family home and back to Austin where he lived with his [obese & abusive, gee sound familiar?] ex stepmom for the last part of his HS, and apparently she treated him like a roommate & he was allowed to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, which was more to his liking than having a family and chores and curfews and rules.

His choice of life-partner was exactly that, his choice. Another spit in the face of his family, who he has never respected or cared about. Maybe it was even a conscious decision to pick someone he knew would fight with and alienate all of us. I don't know.

I won't go so far as to say that he deserves the way she treats him and talks about him, because NO ONE deserves to be hit and yelled at and talked bad about all the time, but it's his choice and that's that.

So...while I love him, because you do always love your family no matter how fucked up they are...I realized today that I really don't LIKE him at all.

If he calls in need of food, or money, or a place to stay, or a place to bury a body, of course I'll be there for him, because that's what family does. But I realized today that I no longer wish to have any sort of emotional intimacy with him, or share my life or my happiness with him. The fact that we don't have that no longer hurts me.

It's very freeing.

Current Mood: relieved
Current Location: home.
Current Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaH0hds0o7c

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1345803/5_tips_to_deal_with_a_loved_one_with.html?cat=72

( text of article )

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: home.

Part II - Identifying Trolls: A Field Guide

CHAPTER 5

TROLLISH ATTRIBUTES: A CHECKLIST Seeing what's there

Here are some common characteristics of trolls. Use this list as a guide and as warning signs.( Read more... )

=======

When reading this, I couldn't help but be struck by the similarity of the writer's "Trolls" and the descriptions I've seen of Sociopaths, Abusers, Online Predators, Narcissists, and people with Borderline Personality Disorder.
( Read more... )

And, sure enough, I read on and find that my thoughts re: Trolls & mental illness are pretty much spot-on:

CHAPTER 6:

GREATER AND LESSER TROLLS

Current Mood: sympathetic

Am I a Troll?

Now, some of the descriptions above may be a bit unnerving. We all have some tendencies in these directions. Especially as Pagans and as members of an admittedly dysfunctional modern Western society, we all have echoes of all these traits. Have we not all had moments of insecurity, of competitiveness, of rigidity or paranoia? Are there not things which make us fearful, or angry? Of course there are. Does this mean we are all trolls? No. There are very real differences between these everyday reactions and the excessiveness of trolls. The main keys to recognizing trolls are: 1) the inappropriateness of their actions and reactions, and 2) their inability to concern themselves with the rights or needs of others.

All of the features and traits of trolls also exist in healthy people. But there are differences. Observe some of them:( Read more... )

Current Mood: thoughtful

Jun. 15, 2005

http://home.mn.rr.com/bichaunt/Trolls/index.html

Healthy people generally operate on the level of Solving Problems or
Dealing Differences, occasionally moving to Competition when it is
appropriate for instance, in a game of checkers, or of Magic: The
Gathering. Art contests, scholarships, and a myriad of other human
activities are perfectly appropriate places for Competition within
reason, and within the accepted and ethical rules of conduct for the
particular activity.

But trolls will quite often engage in Competition, even when the
times and circumstances are inappropriate. They may well view
virtually all interactions as Competition, being more concerned with
who wins and who loses than they are with what's actually going to be
done. They may also be more concerned with winning than they are with
the ethics of how they've won. Trolls will often resort to completely
inappropriate behavior in an effort to get their way, not really
caring about what rules they've broken or who they've hurt.

When Competition gets too serious, there is no good solution. The
only possible resolution is when someone wins, and someone else
loses. And trolls, tenacious as they are, will not accept losing;
they'll continue to compete until they've won.

When you're in a conflict situation, ask yourself if any resolution
will be acceptable to the other person, short of them unconditionally
getting their own way. If that's really the only possibility, then
you're probably in a trollish Competition, and no conflict resolution
technique is going to help, regardless of how sincere you are.

Back to top
Unhealthy Conflict I:

Obsession
An extreme form of Competition can happen in trolls, particularly
Sociopathic trolls. Someone who has no sense of propriety or of
social interaction, no sense of compassion or of the value of others,
can get caught in gameplaying merely for the excitement of it. For
such people, blindness and even addiction can set in, an intractable
and unshakable drive to play, to win, to crush the opposition. Such
an insatiable drive is an Obsession.

People can form psychological dependencies on anything drugs,
television, work, sex, loud music. These dependencies can have the
force of physical chemical addiction. Some of these addictions are
more serious and destructive than others. Some are relatively benign.

Even healthy people sometimes become Obsessive. There are some
problems, some situations, which you may find yourself driven to go
after, again and again, unshakably, and sometimes even against your
better judgement. But for most healthy people, this sort of Obsessive
behavior is very uncommon, or is confined to fairly harmless areas.
For instance, you may be a fanatical collector of Star Wars toys, or
you may find yourself driven to create the perfect work of art. Some
of the best true scholars and researchers, artists and musicians, can
be pretty Obsessive about it.

Where it gets dangerous and unhealthy is where such Obsessive
behavior involves harm to other people, or to oneself. Trolls may try
to write off such behavior to simple disagreements, or to healthy
forms of Competition. Or they may try to duck the blame by insisting
someone else (usually their target) somehow made them engage in
Obsessive or damaging behavior. But a pattern of such actions
particularly in wildly inappropriate times, or to absurd extremes, or
with no reasonable justification leaves little doubt about the true
nature of trollish Obsession.

People can even become addicted to causing harm, to eliciting a
response of fear and pain in other people. Such an addiction is
obviously far from healthy. It is also something which most Pagan
Leaders are not equipped to deal with. Unless you are very skilled as
a counselor, there is nothing you can do for such a person, and no
way you can significantly affect his or her behavior. It is simply
not possible to find a resolution to a situation involving someone
who is addicted to battle. Even winning won't slow down such a
person; it only means a new target must be found.

It is not possible to resolve conflict with someone who is addicted
to conflict. No amount of good intentions or mediation skill on your
part is going to make any difference. It will only prolong the pain
to yourself and to others.

E

Jun. 25, 2004

http://esoterica.bichaunt.org/

the thing about trolls in covens.

So much of that is UB and the HFS/SCA, etc etc etc.

I wonder why she does that...