I started blogging a year ago, on my 50th birthday. I was processing what were, to me, foundation-shaking new insights, about the founder of the meditation center I had been deeply involved with as a young adult, and the (culty) nature of that group. Now on my 51st birthday, I take a step back to reflect on what I’ve learned from this process — and to consider what might come next. In this post I take a look at distribution, who is reading (and how they are finding me), what readers are interested in, what I’ve learned about myself, and what I’m considering doing next. I would appreciate any feedback! Distribution Who did I envision serving as readers? Initially, just anyone who was interested in learning about high control groups, meditation malpractice, and savvy seeking. Actually, The Savvy Seeker is what I initially titled this project for myself — it would have had that name if I had gone the route of a standalone blog, or figured out how to do that on Medium. But I didn’t want to get bogged down in mechanics. I wanted to jump right into writing. After researching several platforms, I chose Medium because of its “discoverability.” It takes care of the search engine optimization side of things for the writer, drawing in people using search engines to research questions, when their questions relate to my content. Medium also has an established membership of readers who might take an interest in my pieces. As I had more conversations with other people with ties to my old group, and then learned that some of them were finding my pieces helpful, that increasingly became an audience I was particularly thinking of and aiming to serve. Each time I published a new piece, I shared links and blurbs on social media. I started with Facebook. Then I thought to start doing LinkedIn too. Most recently I’ve established a Blue Sky account and begun posting links to pieces there as well. I have included article links in individual correspondence with some folks too. And let the congregation I serve know that I was writing and how they could read if interested. (I generally work on this stuff on my time off from church work, and have come to think of this writing and organizing related to my old group as my side quest. But it’s not unrelated to my ministry.) One year on, I feel good about my choice of Medium. And it’s nice to be able to share via networks I have built over the years on social media. Who Is Reading, and How Are They Finding Me? It took me almost a year to get to 100 followers, and about a quarter as many subscribers. Granted, my topic is a pretty niche one — at least, in terms of peoples’ perceptions of how relevant it is to them. I’m firmly convinced that *everyone* should be educated about high control groups, because they are ubiquitous. And almost everyone will be vulnerable at some point in their life, if the right group should intersect with them. But you have to know something about these kinds of groups to even realize that that is the case. And most people know very little. You don’t know what you don’t know. You know? [Note: all of the below analysis is based on Medium, which is the sole place I published posts in my first year of blogging.] My subscribers — who automatically receive an email with each new article I post — are a mix of congregants (current and past), people with ties to the (intentionally unnamed) meditation group I’ve primarily been writing about, friends from various parts of my life, and Medium members who are otherwise unknown to me. Metrics for individual articles include a breakdown of traffic sources. Some stories skew more toward internal traffic, others toward external. So far, my stories are ranging from
The external traffic further breaks down to include, in order from most to least (though on some articles the order is different):
What it looks like for individual articles is search engines being the least common source of traffic when I first post, but then gaining over time as more people organically find the piece through poking around online. In some earlier articles, search engines are now the top source. Similarly, the portion of traffic that comes from external referral vs. internal on Medium typically increases over time. Reader Interests After the initial push when I published my first couple of pieces last January, the biggest jump in followers came in April. That’s when I wrote the most concrete, biographical pieces on my experiences with my old group — a before / during / after retrospective on moving out to work at the ashram / meditation center. (What I Wanted — What I Found — What I Lost) That last one — about what my group involvement ultimately cost me — got 50% more reads than the first two parts. Notably, the most-read pieces overall are the ones related to adverse effects of meditation. Far and away my most read piece is Calming the Kundalini Fire (how I recovered from adverse effects), with The Shadow Side of Meditation & Mindfulness and Is This Normal? tying for a distant second. How I Was Primed, one of my earliest pieces, trails not too far behind in 3rd place. Of course, the longer a piece has been up, the more reads and views it tends to accumulate. So the above list is tilted toward older pieces. Moving On from Your Spiritual Teacher, one of my most recent pieces, has generated a lot of reads and views in a short time. I believe folks from my old group have shared amongst each other. Perhaps people with ties to other spiritual teachers have found it relevant too. Readers have clapped, highlighted and commented on various articles. I appreciate the engagement and have tried to respond in a relatively timely way. Especially heartening to me has been feedback I have gotten from people who are processing the same discoveries I have been about my old group, and who have shared that my pieces have helped them better understand the group and their experience with it. In many cases, that article sharing has dovetailed with 1:1 phone and email conversations I’ve had with people. There has also been an unexpected outcome of this online writing on unhealthy religion — and of a modest amount of sharing about it in the congregation I serve. (A key example is my sermon last summer on Cults, Control and YoUU, in which attendees used my top ten list of culty qualities to rate the cultyness of the church. Anyone can use the rating sheet I shared than — it can be found on the back of the 7–26–24 Order of Service, available on this page). That unexpected outcome is more people showing up at the church who have had controlling experiences — most often, in fundamentalist organized religion. Such folks, perhaps with a member-friend’s encouragement, arrive feeling hopeful that I, the minister, may understand because of my own familiarity with and concern about high control spirituality — and with the hope that they may have a different kind of experience, a positive, healing experience, in this church. This makes me very happy. Because the needs people were trying to meet with their old group (before things went sour) are legitimate human needs that remain. And if the church I serve can be a good, *healthy* place for people to meet those needs — which I believe it can — well, we are serving our purpose in the community. We can be part of the healing for people who have been through church hurt. (None of the above changes the caveat I give in my Medium bio that I am not here to convert anyone to my particular tradition, or to organized religion in general — truly, I’m not. You do you. Different strokes for different folks. But it’s good when there are a variety of healthy, life-giving options out there for growing spiritual roots and building community.) What I’ve Learned About Me I like writing. It helps me to integrate learning — especially when I am voraciously learning in a new area, as I have been with high control groups. There are things about writing for reading — vs. writing for preaching and hearing — that I enjoy. (I also enjoy preaching. Each kind of sharing is its own thing with its own gifts. The mediums have different parameters which bring out creativity in different ways.) Writing for a wider audience, beyond my congregation or even my particular tradition, feels balancing to me. It gives me a sense of purpose beyond my local church, and gives me another place to channel my “intense” energy (as one lay leader I respect has characterized me). That is particularly helpful in times when I am at risk of getting ahead of lay leadership where I serve, wanting to move faster than they are ready to, or in directions that they aren’t ready to. So, though it might be counter-intuitive to others, having this outlet with a wider audience is good for my longevity and effectiveness in my parish role. It makes me more patient and content here. I especially like feeling useful. When I hear that my writing has made a difference to someone else, it makes all the time and effort feel worthwhile. I’ve had that feedback from a variety of people with different kinds of connections to me, and from strangers. I also enjoy the visual aspect of Medium. Choosing images that deepen or complement the written content is satisfying to me. Making memes that bring a little levity to tough material is fun. Who knows, in the future I might even create a few more of my own custom images, like the cult continuum graphic I drew that debuted in Who Joins Cults?. (I admire the work of David Hayward, who communicates powerfully about healthy and unhealthy religion via visual art. I lack his artistic talent. But I have ideas in my head inspired by the kind of stuff he does — the way an image can convey a concept succinctly — only for Eastern or New Age crowds more like my old group, rather than the ex-vangelical Christian crowd that are Hayward’s people.) My years of writing sermons have made me a better writer. I notice that I gravitate to shorter sentences and plainer language, more than I used to. And from the get go, not just in the editing stage. Writing for Medium has further enhanced this. I’ve written for the eye with more white space, subheaders, quotes and bullets. I have also learned that it is a relief to speak openly about experiences that, for so long, I held close to my chest. Let the sun shine in! It’s not only helpful to other people, it’s healing for me. That’s a small number of words for a big impact, that piece about unstopping the dam of unspoken things. As I discovered with my therapist in the past year, I have too many things-I-had-to-hold-back on my chronology of life events. (Also, too many betrayals. It’s a wonder my ability to trust has survived as well as it has.) I thank my colleague and one-time spiritual director, Mary Grigolia, for modeling this openness and the greater ease it brings into one’s life. All channels open. On a nuts and bolts level, this article is my 27th published in a year’s time (not counting the disclaimer). So I’ve averaged more than 2 pieces per month. I have learned I can fit this into my life. I wish I didn’t need to spend my days off and vacation time in order to write here, though. Multiple colleagues have made the case to me that this writing is *part* of my ministry and I could do it on church time. Perhaps I will a bit more in the future. That said, I’m finding the learning and writing I’m doing on these topics more sustainable than the D.Min. coursework I was doing in fall 2023. The time spent may not be that different, but this project is driven by my own internal, intuitive process, not an external structure imposed by someone else. I can pace myself as feels right for me. (Or as I feel impelled — that’s really it.) The structure had been part of the appeal of the D.Min. (Doctor of Ministry). But now that I have this platform, and a topic I am so passionate about that I can’t not do it, and a likely publisher if I decide to pursue a book at some point (perhaps when my sabbatical rolls around?) — well, I don’t need the D.Min. program. I took a leave of absence from the doctoral program after I heard that fateful podcast in Dec. 2023, with allegations of criminal misconduct against the founder of my old group. I was dramatically reoriented in that moment. It now seems unlikely to me I’ll ever return to the D.Min. program. I’m doing a doctorate’s worth of independent study on high control groups and related topics. The need for an outlet and for a certain kind of vocational growth is being met in this way. I mentioned above what people have most read. What they have least read are the pieces that I actually most want folks to read, the prevention-oriented ones: Seeking Safely for spiritual seekers and Safely Teaching Meditation & Mindfulness, for those who teach and mentor. I have learned, once again, that my personal pull is toward prevention and building effective systems, building the world we dream of. If I pursue a book, it’ll likely be along those lines — not just another cult survivor memoir, but a guide to savvy seeking in the Wild, Wild West of our current spiritual landscape. I also have creativity to give to experimenting toward the spiritual community of the future. The old model of church, the one we’ve known for decades, centuries, is slowly dying. Well actually, it’s dying faster as time goes on. What will come next? I want to play with that. And that is what it is to me, play. Very real and not without effort, but full of joy and juice and buoyancy. Happily, I am able to do some of that in the congregation I serve. What’s Next? I have quite a few topics left on my running list of things to write about here. The ones that feel most immediate are:
I am also considering whether I might, in the future, like to write about other topics. Particularly related to chronic illness; after the consciousness-raising I’ve had from a stack of books read in the past 3–4 years, I have Things To Say. I have energy that could use a constructive outlet, as well as some life wisdom to share. The chronic illness topic actually ties back to my cultic experience. My sensitive nervous system fared poorly in that socially dangerous environment, leaving a lasting imprint on me physiologically. However. I’m torn between my desire to continue shedding light on topics that were previously off the table for me, which includes chronic illness. Torn between that desire, and my inherently private nature — particularly when it comes to what congregants might know about me… and how those things can play out in family systems… it is SO FRAUGHT. I probably won’t go beyond the vague admission here, and if I do it would probably be behind a Medium members-only paywall. If you’re curious, the books I’m referring to are, in the order I read them:
There is also a small part of me that occasionally feels like opining about trends in my particular faith tradition or organized religion in general. I have the impulse to share and cross fertilize ideas in an area that one rubric of ministry labels leading-the-faith-into-the-future…. like the joyful juicy experimentation with programs and ways of connecting people. I’m curious to know whether YOU, dear reader, would be interested in any of the above topics — more high control group topics, the light and shadows of meditation, chronic illness, and/or the future of church (from my particular, Unitarian Universalist minister’s, perspective). If there are specific topics under those themes that you’d particularly like to read about, please let me know! There are also some ways of publishing online that I might try for the first time in future. Publishing in (Medium) publications is a possibility. In this past year, I have just wanted to get my writing out there, and keep it free, as I got going on the cult stuff. But I know that publications might help stuff reach more people, so it may be worth taking some time to explore that. The other thing I’m considering is publishing in member-only ways… besides publications on Medium (which I believe are mostly members-only access), I could also put some articles behind a paywall when I publish directly. For cult and meditation-related stuff, I anticipate sticking with free articles. But I’ll consider this for other topics. After all, Baby Bear’s college fund is sitting there, waiting for contributions. Relatedly, it has crossed my mind that I could create my own publication [within Medium], to separate the savvy seeking stuff (like what I’ve been writing so far) from any new territory I might venture into. Because people following or subscribing so far may only be interested in the sort of thing I’ve been writing so far. And/or, I could cross-publish the spirituality-related pieces on my ministry web site. Weebly surely has a blog feature. [If you are reading here, you know it does, and I have!] So many options… I welcome any feedback from readers — on what you’d be interested to read about, and/or how you would like to access it. You can chime in via the comments here, email me, etc. Thanks for reading! You can subscribe to get every new post sent directly to your inbox. I also post on Bluesky when a new piece is up. Meanwhile, here are some other articles you may enjoy 👇 Seeking Safely … What’s A High Control Group? … The Accidental Buddhist Please read this disclaimer carefully before relying on any of the content in my articles online for your own life.
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