Janice Selbie’s new book, The Guru Gene, is a crucial guide
Many years ago I knew a devout Catholic woman who was determined to get to heaven, so that she could see her mother again. Once when we met, she was out of a job, and I offered to give her a book on job search—since at the time I worked for a company that helped people get jobs. I was stunned by her response: “I don’t read books.” Nor would she tolerate any analysis or critique of Catholic dogma—she didn’t want anything to damage her faith.
A few years after that, another devout Catholic woman told me about sitting with her dying mother. She gave her mother messages to relay to deceased relatives who were already in heaven. How would she know they’d made it to heaven? Did it occur to her that sending messages like this might be a violation of divine protocol? If the deceased relatives were looking down from heaven, why would they need such messages?
For thousands of years, cults and religions have benefited from the fear of death. They have thrived because they have come up with formulas and holy heroes for escaping death—and devoted followers have been convinced. How do people become persuaded that heaven exists, and that they should work as hard as possible to get there? That’s the role of the clergy—and it is a symptom of Religious Trauma. There are so many other symptoms as well, and religious trauma can become quite a burden. For people who DO read books, and who do, somehow, make connections with reality, escape from religion is accompanied by grief, exclusion from their communities. Yes, it is traumatic.
Janice Selbie’s new book, published last month, The Guru Gene: From Blind Faith to Clear Thinking in an Age of Influence (Kindle, 150 pages), is valuable tool to help folks who feel the need, the urge, to escape from religion. Selbie describes the situation of so many people:
“Our brains are constantly scanning the social landscape for judgment and approval. Religions have plugged into this system with remarkable precision, offering the ultimate watchful presence: gods who see everything, angels who take notes, and ancestors who hover nearby. Suddenly, it’s not just your neighbor or your boss watching, but the entire cosmos. And you’d better behave, or else.”
Selbie describes her own experience in religion, her own torment:
“I spent nearly forty years inside religious fundamentalism. My worldview came packaged with certainty, eternal consequences, strict moral rules, and a community that reinforced those beliefs every day. At the time, I did not consider myself indoctrinated. I considered myself right—which, in fairness, is usually how indoctrination works.” (page 11, Kindle)
But eventually she moved on:
“I felt frightened, angry, lonely, and embarrassed by how difficult it was to function without the certainty that had once organized my world. I did not know anyone who had left a lifelong belief system and gone on to build a joyful, meaningful life. At times, I wondered whether such people existed.” (page 11, Kindle)
In 2024 Selbie published Divorcing Religion: A Memoir and Survival Handbook (320 pages), reflecting her new commitment to helping people who are trying to make the same escape she did.
Her writing style feels very much like a conversation: informal, direct, easy to grasp. There are twelve chapters in The Guru Gene, with such titles as Wired to Belief, Certainty Feels Good, The Charisma Trap, The High Cost of Belonging, The Mind Under the Influence, Reclaiming Your Mind, and Healing the Wounds of Belief—which is the final chapter.
I can imagine the anguish readers may feel when they read these chapters, and Selbie decided to add at the end of each, a page titled Key Takeaways. There she sums up the most important lessons to learn from the chapters.
She added an Appendix to Chapter 12: “The following resources offer support, education, and community for those navigating religious trauma, deconstruction, or recovery.” There are 16 resources listed.
I also highly recommend that readers pay close attention to the abundant footnotes, 18 pages in total at the end of the book. These are mainly quotes from experts in the field of careful analysis of religion and its harmful effects. This is a valuable resource indeed!
She has established her new career, and we read in the section titled, About the Author:
“Janice Selbie is a professional counsellor and religious trauma recovery coach, as well as a former fundamentalist…She is also an international speaker on religious trauma, high-control groups, human behavior, and difficult conversations. Her work supports individuals navigating deconstruction, identity loss, and recovery from high-control environments…She is also the founder of the Conference on Religious Trauma (CORT) and the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture Conference, both of which provide education, community, and support for those recovering from religious harm.”
Her website is www.janiceselbie.com.
When I read these words on page 26, Kindle, I thought of the two Catholic women I mentioned at the start of this article:
“Neuroscientist Robert Burton argues in On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not that the feeling of knowing is not the same as knowledge itself. It’s a neurological sensation, often independent of accuracy. Certainty, then, becomes its own reward. We start craving that hit of confidence like a gambler chases a win. In short, we become addicted to certainty and allergic to doubt.” (p. 26, Kindle)
Both of my encounters with those gullible Catholics are now so far away and long ago. I wonder if these women have managed to come to grips with reality, which can creep into our awareness in unexpected ways. Did it ever occur to them to ask their priests how and why they were confident that heaven and eternal life are real? What is the reliable, verifiable, objective evidence that these are realities of the cosmos? I suspect they never mustered the courage/curiosity to ask this question. As Burton wrote: “We become addicted to certainty and allergic to doubt.”
Janice Selbie is now on a determined path to reverse the order of that. It’s okay to be addicted to doubt and allergic to certainty—unless there is sound, solid evidence supporting certainty.
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes:
• Guessing About God (2023)
• Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also available.
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.
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