Empathy with premies is very important, and I"m all for it.  I mean, really, we all were premies once, most of us understand the self-deception, the self-censorship and the fear, not to mention the huge, glaring, monumental blindspots that premies have, because we had them ourselves, and they didn't just vanish when we left the cult either.  Unexamined, they can sit there, operating automatically just as they did when we were premies.   This Forum and the websites are helpful to pull all that apart.

My point was that I thought with Ghi, you kind of carried that to the point where you "agreed" with "practically everything" that Ghi said, which is taking empathy to the point of actually verging on apologia, and that doesn't help Ghi, or anybody else, including the entire audience that is reading your post.  I just don't think it's helpful to anybody to imply that you "agree" or find "reasonable" something that was as twisted and deceptive as what Ghi wrote.   And the reason is that Ghi wasn't spitting insults or being obviously passive-aggressive as a lot of premie posters are.  He "sounded" like a nice guy, just saying what he believed, but what he actually posted, partly because it sounded sincere and polite, was in some ways much worse because perhaps the actual content wasn't immediately obvious.

Now, I think it's fine to note that maybe Ghi doesn't see what he posted as being dishonest, or as deception, as we didn't when we said similar things as premies, but in this brave new world of PR spin that the cult is engaged in, I think it's very important not to blur the lines, but empathy is great, and very important.

I feel sorry for somebody like Ghi, I really do, because I was there myself once.  Empathy for that is important, and I sometimes think in this give and take, I sometimes forget that there is a human being on the other side of the discussion and I can just get frustrated with the obvious hedging, coining words, mixing metaphors, saying one thing and implying another, and all the other crap they've learned from listiening to Rawat over the years that goes on.  When you are sensitive and aware of it as an ex-premie usually is, you can get this feeling you just want to shake the person and say "for God's sake and for your own good, wake up!"

So, show sympathy, empathy,  love, "tenderness" or whatever, but it doesn't help Ghi or anybody else to "agree" (in other words "reinforce") the mind control.  Maybe it's a kind of "tough love," I'm talking about.

And I disagree that it's always just "style."  In my opinion, the biggest weapon there is to culthink is information and persistent, sensitive, even empathetic, telling of the truth.   You can do it nicely, you can do it lovingly, you can even do it empathetically, and I'm not usually one to engage in that kind of confrontation, because it doesn't work anyway, in my opinion, even though some of the ex-premies like it.  'Yeah, our team!"

And, for the most part at least, I also do not see premies as "the enemy," and I never have.  Now, the (always anonymous, the cowards) premies who attack ex-premies with hate-filled websites, or send hateful letters to our employers, or call me and others homophobic names because we express our opinions using our own names and stand behind what we say, well, it's hard not to take that personally, but those are not the people we are talking about, at least I hope not.