History is full of intelligent people lured down dark alleys--think of the intellectuals who fell for Nazism. The crop of 70s religious charlatans are now largely discredited and forgotten, but we'd be fools to think there isn't more of the same out there ready to exploit young people. The clearest current example is radical Islam, which has fooled a lot of young people into espousing violence and suicide bombing. I wonder if exes have a contribution to make there--some wisdom we can inject into the situation.  -Nev

The Nazis did fool alot of people until it got obviously deadly weird.  The 70's religious scammers are gone and forgotten as you said.  For sure there are new replacements in place to go after and rip off every generation.  As for the radical violent Islamic sects, I don't know what we can do for them.  I see them as being in quite another league that I am grateful we are not in.  Perhaps if an ex-premie knows a young radical Islamic person who is leaning towards violence, there could be some transferrence of information and wisdom.  -San   

But I fear it is very hard indeed to truly learn from the past.  -Nev

Just like anything that is worth learning how to do, learning from the past requires discipline, concentration and will.  And just like any other discipline, it is hard in the beginning, but as time goes by, it gets easier and easier once the desired patterns are established and repeated.  

The broad strokes:

1)  remembering the past

2)  harvesting the essential lessons and memorializing them 

3)  recognizing similar scenarios in the here and now and applying those lessons

Of course there is finer tuning, but this is a beginning.