"The disaffected and the apostate are in particular informants whose evidence has to be used with circumspection. The apostate is generally in need of self-justification. He seeks to reconstruct his own past, to excuse his former affiliations, and to blame those who were formerly his closest associates. Not uncommonly the apostate learns to rehearse an 'atrocity story' to explain how, by manipulation, trickery, coercion, or deceit, he was induced to join or to remain within an organization that he now forswears and condemns." Note however that Wilson begins by qualifying his statements with 'circumspection' and 'generally' and 'not uncommonly' but then goes on to give the worst case scenario of an apostate's behaviour.
Much of this quote applies even more to the true believers, the current devotees or the "pre-apostates" as many of them are. Their evidence requires even more circumspection that does that of the exes. They are the ones truly in need of self-justification, especially as when in the case of EV the group is small, moribund and having a leader who has overtly unattractive characteristics. People who leave cults such as DLM/EV/TPRF do not require such justificatory stories as they are returning to their society's standard belief systems and repudiating the deviant cult system they were involved in. In the great majority of cases they are welcomed back by family and friends who had counselled them against the manipulation and deceit that had got them to join in the first place and require no self-justification.
Wilson ignores the well-attested evidence that many NRMs have been discovered to have actual atrocity stories. Using this idea the statements of people who had escaped from the Peoples' Temple, Aum Shinrikyo, the Solar Temple and Heavens Gate before their very public fatal atrocities would be considered false and unreliable. That other scion of NRM apologia, Gordon Melton, was claiming Aum Shinrikyo innocent even as the Japanese police were finding the evidence of their guilt in the mass transit poisoning.
Furthermore, most of the people who leave DLM/EV/TPRF tell a well balanced story of their involvement that includes their youthful innocence/gullibility (it was the 70's after all) their early enthusiasms and enjoyment and their growing disaffection as the cult promises and life style foundered. Very few ex-premies relate the horror stories that eg ex-Moonies or ex-Scientologists have to tell.
Recently there was a humorous exchange on this forum re the trials and tribulations of getting to some of the DLM programs in the late 1970s which included the tragic accidental death of an over-tired traveller. Vignettes such as these provide evidence of the well balanced and truthful understanding of their histories by ex-premies as does the widely diverse viewpoints on this forum which does not preclude strong disagreements re the cult/aging NRM about certain aspects of it.
