Scarred (Never After Series)

Product Information

As an aside I recently introduced my daughter to 1970's Worzel Gummidge and she LOVED it, but it was strange viewing the show through a modern lens. Worzel's awakening is more akin to a Fulci zombie film, Aunt Sally, the Crowman and other scarecrows are remarkably cruel and barbaric, the children are abandoned by an alcoholic largely absent father, Babs Windsor as Saucy Nancy is remarkably cheeky 70's smut, Worzel's head removing is terrifying and of course Worzel's kindly threatening of Aunt Sally plays domestic abuse for laughs - all this in a hilarious daytime TV show for kids) Then there were comics. Oh yes, there were comics. From Action! To 2000AD and all points inbetween, the authors lovingly recall their favourites and how much they were scared by them. There’s also a very good section on girl’s comics, which if anything were far more strange and disturbing than boys stuff (Misty anyone?). They then move on to books and the cornucopia of goodness that fed the imagination of those kids who were into horror (The Pan Book of Horror Stories); lurid pulp fiction; Dracula (you think vampires are big news now - Dracula was huge in the 70s); even down to the somewhat deranged art in kids comics by the likes of Ken Reid. Oh and also the trippier side of Marvel Comics who, under the editorship of Roy Thomas, produced some very strange stories indeed. I have read about different cults before, always wondering how the hell people managed to allow others to so fully control them that they succombed to brainwashing, abuse, and even death. With NXIVM, I can completely understand how it was able to collect so many followers and for so long under the guise of a personal growth and empowerment groups...because what human isn’t constantly seeking that?

Scarred is Sarah Edmondson's compelling memoir of her recruitment into the NXIVM cult, the 12 years she spent within the organization (during which she enrolled over 2,000 members and entered DOS—NXIVM's "secret sisterhood"), her breaking point, and her harrowing fight to get out, to expose Keith Raniere and the leadership, to help others, and to heal. Complete with personal photographs, Scarred is also an eye-opening story about abuses of power, female trust and friendship, and how sometimes the search to be "better" can override everything else.There’s a child whose life has changed in the last year…..Somewhere, there are other children whose lives are going to be changed. As with everything in culture that hangs around long enough (The Beatles, the Star Wars saga, the concept of the superhero) 1970s nostalgia has darkened and complicated itself as its shelf-life has extended beyond its own meagre ambitions. Because it wasn’t just Bagpuss and Dad’s Army was it? It was the IRA and Pol Pot and the Ayatollah. It was panic about rabies and despair about the Cold War, summers that were too hot and winters that were too cold, and strikes and power-cuts. Margaret Thatcher smashing the glass ceiling and lacerating everyone below her. Open racism, open sexism and people of forty who looked nearer seventy because no one dared tell them how many fags they could smoke or gins they could sink at lunchtime. From the very start Edmondson seems emotionally needy and mentally unstable. Leaders of the Nexium group play on these issues and slowly pull her into the organization's crazy Scientology-like system of self-esteem mixed with abuse. The author calls the group a "cult" but it's not by normal definition--they didn't force her to stay in it and she freely hopped planes regularly to fly across country to attend ridiculous seminars. The leaders would guilt-trip her and she would buy into it. Once or twice might make you feel some sympathy--but all the time over a period of twelve years? She has to shoulder a lot of the blame. Ah the 1970s. What a strange decade it was. The beige hangover to the psychedelic 1960s. Or was it? In its own way the 1970s was just as “far out” as it’s predecessor and in Scarred for Life authors Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence recall what it was like growing up in that decade surrounded by pop culture that seemingly wanted to scare the pants off you at every turn. There was a strong Gothic element to British TV output as well, with annual Ghost stories for Christmas (usually an MR James adaptation) and such downright strange shows as Dead of Night, The Stone Tape and Sapphire and Steel. All of this is recalled in loving detail by the authors along with recommendations of what to watch and how to watch (either DVD or YouTube. Thank god for YouTube!).

With everything involved in NXIVM over the course of the years, the key players, Sarah Edmonson being one, I have been completely fascinated by everything that continues to be revealed about this secret organization. Sarah’s account is thorough—you will learn a lot about the philosophies, vocabulary, rules, and rituals. You get her version of events right up until she was branded to be in DOS, the secret women’s group being groomed to become sexual partners for Raniere, along with her escape from the organization and attempts to save all of those she had recruited. This book was not a particularly easy read, in a large part for me due to how it was written. I found the CBC investigative journal program Uncover: Exposing NXIVM to be a much more entertaining dig into Sarah Edmondson's experience and easier to digest. I have yet to read Oxenberg's book on it all, but I am looking forward to eventually doing so.The rest of the book covers other aspects of pop culture that fed the minds of the nation and put the fear of god (or whatever monster) up them. From Public Information films (“Sensible children! I have no power over them!”); Toys and games; Movies, where we get essays about such things as English Folk Horror, those big American horror films that they were too young to watch (The Exorcist and it’s ilk); dystopian science fiction and dark, downbeat pop movies like Stardust and Slade in Flame.