Had I known then what I do now, I would have acted differently during that last dinner with Tiffany.

More importantly, I would have realized what was going on throughout our relationship. I made it very clear from the beginning that I didn’t like her church. So simple recruitment doesn’t explain the frequency of her phone calls and visits, especially over a two-year span. After all, that’s a long time and a lot of hassle to recruit a single member. And as I mentioned earlier, the bulk of our conversations had nothing to do with things church-related. Furthermore, her evangelistic spiel had become noticeably silent for months until the fateful marriage call.

I had cause in 2001 to study cults in depth. I started by reading Combatting Mind Control by Steve Hassan, a former Moonie and widely regarded expert on cult mind-control who currently counsels cult and ex-cult members. One of his most key points is that indoctrinated people have artificial personalities that bury their real ones.

In 1988, Dr. Flavil Yeakley (Abilene Christian) published the results of a study he had done on the International Church of Christ, at the behest of one of its leaders, Al Baird. As a theologian who had done extensive research on sectarian growth, and a supporter of the discipling movement, Yeakley took on the assignment hoping to allay rumors that the Boston Church network had degenerated into a cult. Because of the problems surrounding the exact psychological test Yeakley used, the Myers-Briggs Indicator Type (MBTI), I didn’t cite it earlier, and won’t now in great detail, even though I know, by observation and independent research, that the results are accurate.

In a nutshell, the MBTI is based on the psychological theory of Carl Jung, and posits that our personalities are determined during are infancy, and that we don’t change unless circumstances force us to. Yeakley views this as detrimental, for “Trying to change a person from one psychological type to another is like spanking a child for using the left hand. One does not produce good right-handed people that way. One produces very poor right-handed people.”

Critical evaluation of the MBTI has shown it to be reliable in certain instances, but unreliable in many more. The test breaks people down into sixteen personality categories based on how they perceive and determine reality. If personality is immutable, as Jung said, then the results should remain consistent throughout one’s life. In fact, however, people could very well take the MBTI and produce varying results.

Proponents of the MBTI, like Dr. Yeakley, would say that the differing results would indicate a shift from the “natural” personality (the one from birth) to an “unnatural” one. In applying the test to ICoC members, and mainline churches of Christ (for control purposes), he found that a personality shift had indeed occurred within the members of the Boston Movement. More startling, they had all shifted to the same unnatural personality, the deceitful and manipulative one belonging to founder Kip McKean.

This means that when Tiffany evangelized, she had buried her own personality under that of her church’s founder. For all intents and purposes, when I argued against her, I was really arguing against a lying middle-aged control freak of a demagogue, nothing more nothing less. But since religious talk only took up a tiny fraction of our time, the prospect of conversion couldn’t account for what Tiffany wanted in our friendship. Only in hindsight did I realize that deep down, her interest in me wasn’t religion, or marriage.

It was freedom.

Hassan goes on to note that in his experience as a former cult-member and therapist that although the artificial personality comes to dominate, the natural personality resurfaces from time-to-time, and when it does, it wants to get out of the cult. In fact, the indoctrinated person will leave, if they are able.

Now the phrase “if they are able” might sound a little strange. But imagine that you’re married to someone in the cult, and that you have children within that cult. The cult would most likely dangle your kids in front of you as incentive to stay. After all, most cults have aggressive legal teams. It would be a simple task to have cult members perjure themselves in front of a divorce court to paint you as a rotten parent. More to the point they can produce your signed, over-inflated “sin list” as evidence.

If you work among church members, then you can be sure of harassment on the job that will make you seriously consider leaving, thus hampering your financial ability to just up and quit. Worse yet, many culties are estranged or shunned by their close family members, who by then were probably tired of being accused of being the devil’s minions. Thus logistical and money support for the wannabe ex-cult member might simply not be there.

At the same time, you’ll have a ton of former members trying to re-indoctrinate you.

Obviously, it would be nice if a person could plan their exit from a cult. Problem is, that takes time, and the artificial personality will reassert itself, especially when it’s reinforced by surrounding cult members.

Tiffany knew I seriously disliked her cult. She was no dumb bunny--in fact, quite the opposite. So she knew I’d never “submit,” and while she tried occasionally, she never tried all that hard. I could imagine her telling her discipler that she’s made “n” number of attempts to recruit me, and that my progress was coming along. After all, she has to tell the discipler something if she doesn’t want to get yelled at, or disciplined more harshly.

At the time, I was the only person close to Tiffany who wasn’t in the cult itself. I’m fairly sure now that when we were together it was one of the few times where her “natural” personality felt free to surface. At the “last supper,” so to speak, I’d probably seen her real persona in its barest form: ambivalent, critical, and “lukewarm.”

The timing of things makes me certain that the events of those several weeks had led her to a crossroad. She’s told by her discipler that she’s too old to remain single. They probably said something like, ”This X guy, is he gonna submit, or not? If he does, you can have him. If not, we’ll put you together with someone else who will be a part of the church for years to come.” When I said no, they found her a guy within several days.

Truth be told, she didn't want to marry anyone. But if she had to tie the knot, better me than some stranger. When she felt the touch of true romance (for the first time in her life), in the form of a co-worker’s neck rub, she knew she would miss out on something important. She probably wondered, for the first time since her indoctrination, what life would be outside the church.

You see, in the end, there was only one way for me to get her out of the cult: kidnap her, and then “deprogram” her. First of all, that’s illegal. Secondly, deprogrammers cost money, and they don’t grow on trees. Most important, and Hassan stresses this quite strongly, deprogramming usually does more damage than the initial indoctrination. It’s something that you’d only want to do as a last resort if, for example, you had good reason to think that the cult had given its members orders to commit suicide or murder people. Otherwise, you’re breaking them down all over again, and adding trauma on top of trauma.

Only Tiffany could really free herself from the New York Church of Christ. I could primarily assist by allowing her natural personality to reassert itself. Had I known then what I know now, I would have spoken with someone like Steve Hassan, a therapist specializing in cults (they’re called ‘exit-counselors’ in the biz), and would have had his or her card on hand to present to Tiffany at that diner. I would have made myself available for intervention, along with her dad and her brothers, and whomever else we could find. Once exit-counseling had begun, I would have followed the therapist’s advice as to how to proceed with her. I certainly wouldn’t have let my anger show. Most important, I would have stressed that it was always okay to call me, even in the idle of the night as she had always done.