Allison Mack might appreciate this background info before she ‘takes the fall’ for the team
By Heidi Hutchinson
During part of the time my sister, Gina Hutchinson, was “engaged” to Keith Raniere, I was in college. One of my term papers for an English literature course was a comparison of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” to Dante’s “Inferno.” Both writers deal with the topic of the Biblical account of the “Fall of Man” from the Garden of Eden.
It’s a topic that interested me because our father converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) and we were reared mostly LDS. The first college I attended was Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where we lived before Gina moved with the rest of our family to the Albany, NY area where our mother grew up, while I stayed on at BYU another couple of years, but spent summers and other school breaks with our family after they moved.
Milton’s famous prose diverges from Dante’s and the King James’s versions of “the fall” in that in “Paradise Lost” Adam and Eve were innocently enjoying the fruits of each other’s loins long before the demon serpent showed up to tempt them into partaking of the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
One popular interpretation of Milton’s work is that it was not the partaking of the fruit (sex) itself that ruined Paradise for all mankind thereafter but the knowledge or understanding of the consequences (guilt) that befell Eve and Adam.
And, as I was fond of quipping in the retelling of Milton’s tale in the Equal Rights Amendment era of the mid-eighties; though Eve or Woman is blamed for taking the first bite of the Apple, it is the male sex who’ve been walking around with the only actual evidence — a piece of the fruit stuck in their throats — the Adam’s apple — ever since.
So, where does Keith Alan Raniere slither into this story? Well, as Gina’s betrothed for a time after spoiling her precious virginity at the age of 15, some of us — including myself and a Mormon convert friend of Gina’s — felt compelled to attempt to convert her rapist, Keith, to Mormonism. Later in their “relationship,” when Keith proved himself unworthy of being husband material for any decent girl, the effort became helping Gina emotionally detach herself from the demon. Overcoming the Mormon sex guilt trip was part of that failed effort.
There were other aspects of “the fall” that KAR twisted into a tool of seduction and induction to his own perverse religion. In Dante’s interpretation, as in many versions of this myth including LDS beliefs, Lucifer or Satan is the 1st Son of God and the brightest, most luminous Angel in Heaven. Lucifer’s downfall was his plan to force mankind to do God’s will. God, however, wishes mankind to have a choice between good and evil. To have “free will.”
In brief, a war is waged over this crucial matter, free will or force, and Lucifer along with 1/3 of the angels are cast out of heaven and Earth, never to attain a human form but to dwell among we mere mortals in spirit, tempting us to fall with them.
Thus, “taking the fall,” became one of the central modules in KAR’s rational inquiry tech as, I believe, a means to manipulate others to sinful ways whereby they might also happily take the blame for the cult’s criminal activities if caught.
Great piece H! As per usual. I hope you stay strong and cheerful and persist in your mission to get justice for your sister. I’ll always be interested to read The FR, especially your point of view, You’ve had a very interesting life. I know you mentioned something about a care package for JT, I would like to contribute to that, similarly, any sort of go fund me for nxians, (please post details, when and if you have them) but won’t be contributing here any longer.
Don’t get me started on Milton!! except to offer this, written a generation after him, I think of it as an excellent riposte although there’s nothing to say it was, still, I think it’s brilliant. All the best 🙂
Adam Pos’d – Anne Kingsmill Finch (1661–1720)
Cou’d our First Father, at his toilsome Plough,
Thorns in his Path, and Labour on his Brow,
Cloath’d only in a rude, unpolish’d Skin,
Cou’d he a vain Fantastick Nymph have seen,
In all her Airs, in all her antick Graces,
Her various Fashions, and more various Faces;
How had it pos’d that Skill, which late assign’d
Just Appellations to Each several Kind!
A right Idea of the Sight to frame;
T’have guest from what New Element she came;
T’have hit the wav’ring Form, or giv’n this Thing a Name.
Sorry to hear you’re not planning to comment any longer on this site, One. Really enjoy your keen, inspiring insights. Should I ask why? If you’re comfortable…
In any case, you’ll be missed and I’ll keep you posted on the care package for JT. Btw, Catherine Oxenberg has a DOS victim’s fund set up if you visit her official website. See you around, I hope.
Onewomanarmy, I do hope you reconditioned and continue sharing your comments here. I fear that good, intelligent and respectful people are being chased away by those who have an agenda to change the narrative on almost. every article posted to this blog. When the thoughtful contributors leave, it amplifies their voices and I hate to see that happen. It seems to be happening across the internet and helps give rise to its increasingly negative tone.
Heidi, thank you again for your informative and well thought out pieces.
Heidi.
You’ve hit on one of my favorite topics from American History, the Mormon Church.
As you are aware Mormonism was founded in upstate New York. by the itinerant Gold Hunter Joseph Smith, a preacher who promised his followers Godhood.
“As man now is, God once was.
As God now is, man may become.” Joseph Smith, the King Follett Discourse…
And I know all about the star Kolob where the Mormon God hails from.
For. all of the .comparisons .of Keith Raniere to Hitler or Rasputin or serial killer H H Holmes, I believe that Raniere is most aptly
compared to the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith.
I. assume. you have read Fawn Brodie’s excellent biography of Smith, “No Man Knows My
Story.”
Yes, thank you for the reference, Shadow. KAR fashioned himself very like Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, David Koresh, a number of cult leaders in succession most seeking power, glory and riches through control and manipulation of others, some perhaps truly mentally ill, but what their devotees evolved into, the religions that formed around each leader generations hence were not always the same nor as toxic and dangerous as what NX became and will become if left unchecked. I know many Mormons, for instance, who are stellar people. Even their original church “founder,” Smith, was no pedophile, he was a 15-year-old boy himself when the Book of Mormon was published. Keith Raniere is a whole different sort of beast. Raniere tried to be a Joseph Smith in a sense, a polygamous prophet to my sister, her Mormon friends, even me but Keith has no conviction to any real belief system, IMO. His philosophy evolves entirely around whatever works to build a better little girl trap and satiate his sadistic, entirely self-serving, perverse appetite to conquer and destroy.