I can see what you are saying Derm, and I know that I'm a die-hard, bleeding-heart, liberal, humanist, we-shall-overcome, lefty, so I know I'm biased in tending to think that people usually do the best they can to stick by their values. And of course, nobody who isn't John, knows for sure, and, acutally, I don't believe John knows for sure. Depression and sucidal ideation, do not tend to give you good self-awareness, that's for sure.
Anyhow, last night I watched the last segement of a 6-part series on PBS on Auschwitz. I thought I knew all the history on that subject, but I learned a lot about it, which is OT, except that in that kind of situation, which I can't even imagine having to be in, people did all kinds of things to survive, such that the Nazis were able to get the prisoners to do almost all the work in connection with extreminating millions of people, because if they didn't, they were exterminated themselves. I didn't know that it only took 4 German SS to run a gas chamber/crematorium at Auschwitz, because they had 100s of prisoners who did almost all the work involved in the mass killing. And one of those killed thousands of people a day.
Anyhow, I'm not saying that John's situation is comparable, but I get the feeling that he is at the "self-preservation" level and trying to stop the pain he's in. Depression to the point of suicidal ideation could certainly do that. And so that's were he is coming from in his "apology."
And, I have to say, that there were a couple of times in the cult, that I kind of felt that way. My reaction to amazing abuse by Rawat and his Initiators, instead of fighting back, was to try to "surrender more" and blame myself. I believe John is still in that awful secenario and I hope he gets out of it soon.