Re: [ot] cult influence and power, 1988-2018

Chapter 6–Courageous Survivor Stories Many people involved with destructive cults may have some experiences that are too painful to remember. Even after counseling, ex-members may not wish to communicate their experiences to anyone but the closest people in their lives. Others realize that the world at large needs to understand their suffering while under mind control, and overcome their fear of speaking out, publicly. While I certainly understand the reticence of those who wish to guard their privacy, I admire the courage of those who come forward and tell their stories. Such people can make us all stronger for being able to share their personal experiences. They give us an invaluable insight into the dynamics of recruitment, life in a destructive cult, and the stress of leaving. They are role models to others in the groups they escaped from, proving that there _is_ life after the cult. There are millions of former members all over the world. One of my deepest hopes is to de-stigmatize mind control involvement and to encourage them to speak out. I wish I had the space here to tell the stories of the literally hundreds of courageous men and women I have come to know who have overcome their programming, escaped to freedom and worked to help others.[96] I am delighted to share a few of these stories. Jon Atack and Scientology Jon Atack left Scientology in 1983 and became one of the few outspoken critics of the group at that time—at great personal risk. He authored the must-read book, _Let’s Sell These People A Piece of Blue Sky_, which was published only after a fierce legal attack by Scientology. This book is the first objective history of any post-war cult. It became a bestseller, and is the foundation for all subsequent work on Scientology. Jon and I met in the late 1980s and we have remained friends ever since. He is one of the most talented people I know, and has an encyclopedic mind. Aside from his decades of work helping people understand Scientology, he is an accomplished drummer, painter, poet and author of numerous books. Jon encountered Scientology when he was 19, after the abrupt end of a romantic relationship. Desperately searching for help to resolve his distress, he read a book by Scientology’s creator, Ron Hubbard, and was impressed by what appeared to be a rational therapeutic approach. There was no mention of the supernatural beliefs he would be expected to adopt once he had joined. Jon asked both a doctor and a vicar about Scientology. Neither knew anything, even though a UK government inquiry had condemned the cult only three years earlier.[97] The Scientologists at the local “Mission” were young graduates, all dynamic and friendly. Jon eagerly took up the study of Scientology. After the first few inexpensive courses, the prices spiraled out of his reach, but, unlike many other recruits, he rejected the frequent offers to join the staff. It costs about half a million dollars to complete Scientology’s “Bridge to Total Freedom.” At the hard-sell urging of Scientology registrars, Jon borrowed money and studied Scientology, full-time, for a year. In his nine-year involvement, he completed six counseling courses, becoming a Class II and Dianetic “auditor.” By the time he escaped, Jon was on “OT V,” the 25th of the 27 available levels of the cult’s systematic indoctrination. According to promotional literature, Jon should have achieved supernatural powers by this time, but, as all Scientologists find, the technology just induces euphoric states and heightened suggestibility. Despite many boasts, to date not one Scientologist has taken up James Randi’s million-dollar challenge to perform a psychic feat.[98] When one of Jon’s close friends was expelled from the cult, without justification, Jon followed the cult’s complaint procedure exactly. After six months, Jon received a letter, purportedly from Hubbard, saying only, “Your letter is on my desk.” He refused to sever communication with his friend—called “disconnection” by the group—and spoke to other so-called “Suppressives.” Jon found that 11 cult officials, including Hubbard’s wife, had been jailed in the U.S. for burglary, breaking and entering, theft, kidnapping and false imprisonment. Horrified by this and other evidence, he resigned from the cult. Jon was briefly at the center of a burgeoning independent Scientology movement in the UK, but soon realized that Hubbard’s claims to have been a war hero, a nuclear physicist, and a student of Oriental gurus were bogus. He also realized that the cult’s “technology” was designed to reduce followers to unthinking compliance. After leaving, Jon was harassed under the cult’s “fair game” doctrine, whereby critics can be “tricked, sued, lied to or destroyed.”[99] A stream of false reports was made against him to authorities, including a charge of child abuse (a standard accusation against critics). He was “noisily investigated” by private detectives, who visited his family and friends all over the world, saying they had uncovered his dreadful “crimes.” His private confessions were published. Leaflets were distributed to thousands of households. Jon was accused of being a drug dealer, a rapist, a heroin addict and an attempted murderer. Scientologists picketed his house and academic conferences where he spoke. Their placards accused him of being an “anti-religious hate campaigner,” even though his work was supported by every mainline Christian church. Jon worked on hundreds of media pieces and earned former members over $14 million in settlements, although he received almost no compensation for his assistance. However, he was bankrupted by litigation fees from a raft of cases brought by numerous Scientology organizations and individuals. After 12 years of daily harassment, Jon retired from the scene. The cult continued to litigate against him for four more years. He returned to the work in 2013, because he realized that most former Scientologists simply do not recover from the intense hypnotic procedures and humiliating treatment they received in the cult. Jon blogs at Tony Ortega’s Underground Bunker (tonyortega.org). His work has been endorsed by over 40 academics from around the globe. Recently, Jon has been working on the review board of the Open Minds Foundation (OMF), an organization which seeks to educate the public about undue influence and reduce its impact.” Rachel Thomas and Sex Trafficking Rachel Thomas has a master’s degree from UCLA and is cofounder of Sowers Education Group, an educational organization dedicated to prevent human trafficking. We were introduced to each other by Carissa Phelps in the summer of 2013. Carissa’s organization, Runaway Girl, was conducting human trafficking trainings for the Joint Regional Intelligence Organization (JRIC.org) of Southern California. As an outgrowth of that experience, I asked Rachel to be part of a panel on trafficking as a commercial cult mind control phenomenon. The video of that program is on our website.[100] Rachel was an all-American girl from an upper-middle-class home in southern California. While she was a junior at Emory University in Atlanta, Rachel was approached by a well-spoken modeling agent with business cards, a nice suit, and a charming smile. He told her that he wanted to invest in her modeling career by paying for her first photo shoot and set of comp cards (i.e., a model’s resume). Rachel accepted. At the photo shoot, everything was professional and seemingly legitimate. A few days later, Rachel received a phone call from the agent. “Hey, beautiful! Guess what? You’re already booked for your first gig!” Excited and impressed by his fast work, Rachel showed up to the gig—a music video for a Grammy-award-winning artist. At the end of the shoot, the agent informed Rachel that she had earned $350 for her work that day and asked her to complete a W-9. She filled out the form, including her permanent address (her parents’ home address in California), her current address (the apartment she shared with her best friend near campus), her social security number, and other information. In the next three weeks, her agent used his connections throughout the city to secure her another paid modeling gig and an audition for a major magazine. To finalize their working relationship, the agent asked Rachel to sign a contract in which she agreed to pay him a regular retainer fee. She signed the contract. During her fifth week with the agent, Rachel first saw him slap another model on her face in an instantaneous, unpredictable fit of rage. A day later, she tried to cancel her contract. The agent not only refused, but forced her to have sex with a stranger, threatening to kill her parents if she didn’t obey. From that point forward, she was caught in a web of force, fraud and coercion, regularly experiencing physical and psychological abuse from her trafficker. He threatened to hurt her, her roommate, and her family if she ever told anyone or tried to call the police. Then, once the fear had taken root and she had abandoned any hope for escape, the agent began to mentally manipulate her, to reinforce her acceptance of her new identity as his slave. He gave her a new name and told her to wear a wig. He made her verbalize and repeat that she had chosen this situation by signing the contract. Knowing that her father was a deacon and that she was raised a Christian, he used Bible verses to justify her submission to his authority. He set up a system of rewards and punishments based on her obedience and feigned enjoyment of her servitude. He taught her a specific hand sign to use when she and his other victims were in public. Almost a year into this situation, Rachel received a call from the Atlanta Police Department. They had been given her name and number by another of the trafficker’s victims. Shortly afterward, this man was arrested, and later sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. The effects of the experience stayed with Rachel long after the trial. She moved back home to California to be near her loving family, but she still endured years of self-blame and isolation, in part because she didn’t have much understanding of sex trafficking and knew no other survivors. It was not until she read an earlier edition of this very book, and found a helpful church, that she began to experience true healing. Today Rachel travels the nation, raising awareness about domestic sex trafficking. She asked me to be part of a team including Carissa Phelps and D’Lita Miller, to develop a curriculum called _Ending The Game_. Together we created the first national sex trafficking intervention curriculum, which focuses on resisting and recovering from psychological manipulation and coercion.[101] Masoud Banisadr and MeK, an Iranian Terrorist Group I first met Masoud Banisadr at an International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) meeting in Barcelona, Spain in 2011. We spent hours together. I was fascinated to hear the story of his cult involvement, as I had never met a former member of an Islamist terror cult before. At the time, I remember thinking that my experience of mind control was like that of a kindergartener next to his—a college graduate. I was only in two and half years. He was involved for twenty years. His indoctrination was so much more extreme than mine. I was gratified when he said that my book had helped him understand mind control. Masoud wrote his story in the 2004 book, _Masoud: Memoirs of an Iranian Rebel_. Since then he has dedicated his life to intensive scholarly study of cults and terrorism, culminating in the publication of another book, _Destructive and Terrorists Cults: A New Kind of Slavery_, in 2014. In this book, Masoud paints a gripping portrayal of the dynamics of cults and their megalomaniac leaders. Here is a short summary of his story. Masoud Banisadr was born into a prominent, educated, and liberal-minded Iranian family. He was 25 years old, in the final year of his mathematics Ph.D. in the UK—happily married, and the father of a two-year-old daughter—when he attended a political meeting organized by the Iranian revolutionary organization, Mojahedin e Khalq, or MeK. It was during the Iranian revolution and he supported what he thought was the group’s purely political cause. Iran had finally overthrown the dictatorship of the Shah. It didn’t take long for Masoud and his family to be sucked into the mind control of the group. Soon he had transformed into an obedient cult member, sacrificing everything he had to the ambitions of the group’s leader. MeK was originally a political organization that mixed Islam with Marxism. MeK played a prominent part in the mass demonstrations and paramilitary activity that led to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran. To recruit new members, especially young students from schools and universities, MeK’s slogans focused on democracy, freedom and human rights. After the revolution, as an aspect of recruitment, MeK supported Ayatollah Khomeini and the new establishment. Over time, MeK changed from a small guerrilla organization into a mass political movement with the support of hundreds of thousands of young students. On June 20, 1981, Rajavi, the leader of the group, felt he could follow Lenin’s Bolshevik takeover of government. He demanded his supporters to pour into the streets to overthrow the new revolutionary government and make him the new Iranian leader. The attempt failed. It also cost many lives, especially among young students. After this futile endeavor, MeK changed dramatically. It became a clandestine terrorist group, turning some of its young members into human bombs. A young member (perhaps the first female “suicide bomber”) blew herself up inside a mosque. A month later, Rajavi, and many high-ranking members fled to France. After Rajavi sided with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, he lost almost all his support, both inside and outside of Iran. In 1985, in an attempt to hold on to its remaining members and supporters, MeK followed a more totalistic destructive path and initiated the process of _Ideological Revolution_. This process of mind manipulation escalated with the announcement of the marriage of Rajavi to Maryam, the former wife of his close aide and friend Abrishamchi. In 1986, Masoud Banisadr was made the representative of MeK to United Nations’ agencies and human rights organizations, and later its representative in the United States, meeting well-known politicians. By 1990, all members of MeK were intensely brainwashed, and forced to divorce their spouses and accept celibacy for the rest of their lives. A year later, in order to destroy any remaining family ties within the group, members were forced to surrender their children, who were adopted by other supporters in Europe and America. Masoud divorced the “love of his life” and was unable to see his children. Finally, in 1994 all members were forced to go through the final stage of _Ideological Revolution_ called “self divorce”—total loss of their individuality and personality, and to act only through blind obedience of their cult identity to leadership. By 1996, after almost 20 years in MeK, Masoud began to wake up, as if from a very bad dream, and was able to find a way to get away. He experienced extreme, crippling back pain, which forced him to distance himself and receive care. There were other ex-members of the MeK and his family who still dearly loved and missed him. By then, almost all members of the group were living in camps in Iraq, isolated from the rest of the world, collaborating with the government of Saddam Hussein against their own country, Iran. In the largest of these, Camp Ashraf, cult leaders Masoud and Maryam Rajavi had created their own imitation Iran, complete with a pseudo-parliament and a replica of the Tehran bazaar. Their members, by now transformed into devoted, unquestioning slaves, helped the two leaders to live out their failed fantasy of being the only true leadership of Iran. In 2009, Camp Ashraf was seized by American forces, and MeK had to surrender all its arms and munitions. In August of 2014, I was invited by Richard E. Kelly of AAWA (Advocates for Awareness of Watchtower Abuses) to teach a workshop in London. I invited many of my friends and contacts to come attend. A press conference was also organized about terrorism as a mind control cult phenomenon and many important statements were given by colleagues. The videotape of the press conference can be found on my website.[102] While in London, I was fortunate to be able to spend time with Masoud, even meet his ex-wife, who has remarried, and his wonderful daughter and son. It was a heartfelt experience being a part of a healing that continues to unfold. Masoud is dedicated to sharing his life experience to help prevent people being recruited into extremist cults and to develop programs to help those afflicted to exit and be rehabilitated. He is a respected and dear friend. His website is http://www.banisadr.info/ Josh Baran and Shasta Abbey, A Zen Buddhist Cult Josh Baran owns and operates a highly successful company, Baran Communications in New York City. He does strategic communications, crisis management, publicity and public affairs. Josh has been a friend and ally since the late 1970’s. It was then that he founded _Sorting It Out_, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people who had been harmed by spiritual groups, gurus, and cults. He was my counterpart on the west coast—and my go-to person whenever I had a case involving an eastern religious cult. Over the years he has helped bring media attention to many important cult mind control stories. I am proud to call him my friend. Josh became a spiritual seeker in his early teens. He was very attracted to Asian religion and meditation and, when he was in his 20s, living in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s, he would attend presentations by visiting meditation teachers and spiritual masters from around the world. He was a regular at Stephen Gaskin’s Monday Night Class, and one of the first Americans to be given a secret Transcendental Meditation (TM) mantra. Zen especially attracted Josh because it focused on meditation and on direct, personal mystical experience. According to Zen, nirvana is here and now; and all you had to do, according to Zen stories and teachings, was wake up and see for yourself. Then, in San Francisco, Josh met an Englishwoman in her 40s named Jiyu Kennett, who had lived in Japan, Hong Kong and Malaysia for six years. There she had become a Soto Zen nun, gone through the basic training, and been certified as a teacher. She was the first European to receive the ‘transmissions’ of a Zen master and be given permission to teach. She was charming, very accessible, friendly and charismatic. Kennett, along with two western disciples, had set up a small Zen center in a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. Josh started meditating with the group and enjoyed the practice very much. Kennett wanted her serious disciples to become official Buddhists, shave their heads, and be ordained as monks. Josh became a monk when he was 20. A year later, the group moved up to Mount Shasta, near the Oregon border, where it had purchased an old motel with many small cabins. With the approval of her master, Kennett wanted to westernize Zen and liked using Christian terminology, so she named the organization Shasta Abbey. Shasta became a fairly isolated country Zen monastery. Josh became its guest master, then its chief cook, and eventually its president. For the first few years, Josh found the meditation and discipline important and valuable. In retrospect, he said, it “really did help me clear away some of my own inner fog. It also helped me grow up, become more mature, and led to what I often call spiritual adulthood.” After a few years, Josh received “dharma transmission”—a formal endorsement to teach Zen—and was named one of Kennett’s “dharma heirs.” Josh noted, “I could set up my own Zen center if I wanted, but it was also obvious to me that I wasn’t enlightened. Maybe I was a tiny bit enlightened. I was a little bit more than a beginner, but, frankly, at most, I was an advanced beginner. I wasn’t any kind of master. I wasn’t a guru.” After those initial years, Kennett changed. She was suffering from chronic illness, and her friendly manner disappeared. She became authoritarian and self-aggrandizing. As Shasta Abbey grew, so did her grandiosity. Eventually, she demanded absolute loyalty from everyone. No one was permitted to question or challenge her. “I think she was frankly stressed out and didn’t know what to do,” Josh observed. “The way I saw it was that she came to the end of what she knew how to teach. She only had three or four years of experience in Japan and a very limited insight…In her mind, she had to be this fully enlightened Buddha.” Not surprisingly, the group changed as well. It became more institutional, hierarchical, and rigid. Eventually, loyalty became the group’s absolute value. Even the slightest questioning of Kennett would provoke an extreme reaction. Monks would be yelled at, punished or demoted. However, Kennett’s rages were seen as skillful, ego-busting Zen teachings. The only acceptable response was to bow and accept the emotional attack. Josh thought the Buddhist teachings were great, and he still liked some of what Kennett taught. But he was dogged by questions. _Why is this place so toxic? Why is Kennett abusive and cruel and cold? If she’s so enlightened, why is she such a bully? Is this genuinely Zen, or is it a complex and confused mess of half-baked Zen, monotheism, occultism, and self-adoration—a very strange personality cult?_ Eventually, in 1976, Josh knew it was time to leave. At the time, he was president of the organization, the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives. There weren’t any prohibitions against leaving, but senior members who had left earlier were invariably vilified as failures and losers, too weak to follow the Soto Zen path. But in Zen there is something called _angya_, a kind of pilgrimage or walkabout in which longtime practitioners go away for an extended period. Josh told Kennett that, after much personal meditation and reflection, he felt that it was time to do an extended _angya_. She acquiesced, but she was obviously not happy—and from that day on, she tried to persuade Josh to cancel or delay his trip. But Josh held firm to his decision. A week before his departure, Kennett invited Josh to tea. She said she wanted to give him a “going-away present.” At the meeting, she tried one last time to talk Josh out of leaving, but he stood his ground and explained that he would be departing on schedule. Kennett then gave Josh her promised gift—three small folded pieces of paper. Each one, she said, contained a dime. On the first tiny package, Kennett had written the word _JAIL_. Kennett said, “Here is the first dime. (This was obviously when there were still public “pay” phones). After you leave the Abbey, when you get arrested, use this dime to call me from jail and I’ll come and bail you out.” Then she gave Josh the second package, on which was written _LOONEY BIN_. “After you leave Shasta,” she said, “when you fall apart and end up in a mental institution, use this dime to call me, and I’ll come to get you.” The “The third package said BROKE. Kennett said, “When you totally run out of money and have nothing, use this last dime to call me, and I’ll come and rescue you.” Her underlying message was clear: _Leave me and you will go crazy. Without me, you have no personal power or integrity or sanity. Without me, you will fail. Without me, you will lose the Buddha’s Way. Without me, you are doomed._ Now Josh was more certain than ever that it was time to break free . Josh left on schedule—and never returned. He did not end up broke, in jail or in the looney bin. He lives in Manhattan, where he runs Baran Communications, a successful strategic communications and public relations firm, working for non-profit organizations, documentary and feature films, and special campaigns. Josh predicts that meditation, especially “mindfulness” as it becomes more “mainstream,” will foster a whole new wave of destructive cult leaders. Yves Messer and the Lyndon LaRouche Political Cult[103] Yves Messer is a very talented artist, designer, architect and portrait painter who currently lives in England.[104] He is courageous—one of those rare former members of the LaRouche organization who dares to openly and publicly expose the group. We found each other over the Internet in 2008 and were able to meet in person in London, in 2014. Yves was recruited into this political cult in 1983, when he was 22, and remained a member until 1994, based mostly in France and Germany. He was attracted by the group’s apparent liberal political platform. “LaRouchies,” as they are called, claimed to stand for economic progress and to be anti-war, pro-third World, in favor of science and the arts, and investment in infrastructure and high technology. They position themselves in a centuries-old tradition of humanism—that’s how they catch idealistic people’s interest. At the center lies Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., a bizarre personality. He ran for the U.S. presidency eight consecutive times, but almost no one, apart from his members, voted for him. Most people do not take him seriously, and might pass him and his followers off as gadflies—you may have seen LaRouchies in airports with signs like “Nuke Jane Fonda” or near post offices or grocery stores with posters depicting President Obama with a Hitler mustache. But there is a deeply sinister side to the man and his organization. LaRouche exhibits the personal traits of a narcissistic psychopath—lack of empathy, delusions of grandeur, entitlement, paranoia, and a willingness to engage in criminal behavior. At least two deaths, first of Jeremiah Duggan, in 2003, and the suicide of Kenneth Kronberg, in 2007, have been linked to the group. In fact, LaRouche and his followers believe themselves to be “at war.” Like many cult leaders, LaRouche paints the world in black and white: us versus them, good versus evil. He talks about a “cosmic war” between two secret elites—the evil and the good—the outcome of which will decide whether or not civilization survives. He claims the world is about to be plunged into an abyss, variously described as a “New Dark Ages,” World War III, total economic collapse and a great pandemic. A self-professed economist, he has predicted a financial crash nearly every year for the past 40 years. LaRouchies believe that saving the world from Armageddon is their ultimate goal, their cause, their reason for living—and that physical force may be justified. A pacifist Quaker in his youth, LaRouche turned to violence in his 50s, moving away from the far-left towards the far-right and even associating with neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Young and naïve, when he joined in mid-1983, Messer dedicated himself to the group and was promoted two years later as their so-called “Executive Intelligence Review” correspondent in Paris. He was sent to a “secret” training camp, which turned out to be LaRouche’s mansion in Germany, where he learned to use guns, shooting live bullets at targets, against the backdrop of lush woods. The purpose of this weekend training was to ensure LaRouche’s security during his European tour. In October 1986, hundreds of law-enforcement agents raided LaRouche’s headquarters in Leesburg, Virginia. Two years later, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for scheming to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and defaulting on more than $30 million in loans from supporters. He was paroled after serving five years of his 15-year sentence. Like many followers, Yves initially believed that LaRouche had been the target of a “political vendetta.” In 1992, in the Alsace region of France, Yves helped set up a citizens’ aid convoy to help refugees of the genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the war in the former Yugoslavia. The Alsace-Sarajevo aid convoy, as it was called, set off on February 17, 1993 with more than 60 vehicles and 130 people. The mission was a success—it actually saved lives—but some leaders in the group chastised Yves, for failing to prominently attach the LaRouche name to the convoy. Messer was surprised but, by then, he’d already become suspicious of the group’s motives, which seemed largely designed to cater to LaRouche’s vanity. It happened that Yves was in contact with someone outside of the cult who had started a hunger strike to protest the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia. Yves spent several days with him, discussing all kinds of things including what they called “mind manipulation,” going so far as to design seminars—along with Yves’s partner at the time—for a hypothetical “Research Institute on Mind Manipulations.” One day, several LaRouche leaders arrived at his home to, in their words, “debrief” him but it was clear they were checking out his loyalty. Yves decided to quit the group. He left with his then-partner, in 1994, thinking it was just a disappointing political movement. It took them years to realize that the LaRouche organization was a cult, one that controlled its members by keeping them from feeling that they ever achieved anything real and significant. “What is essential is to preserve the LaRouche doctrine over reality,” Yves said. “The doctrine is the real, superior, and the _only_ reality.” Forbidding children to members was another key way to control members. The policy of enforced abortions left hundreds of couples without any children.[105] Yves and his then partner, who are now separated, adopted a little girl from China, and moved to Britain, where he eventually joined with Erica Duggan, whose son died in the group, to expose LaRouche and his organization. Members of the LaRouche Youth Movement left the cult en masse, in 2012, inspired in part by reading my book and reading Yves’ website, http://laroucheplanet.info/ and his efforts. Yves is still involved, through his websites and other activities, in combating cults and mind control. Hoyt Richards and Eternal Values[106] Hoyt Richards was one of the world’s first male supermodels and is a writer, actor, producer and filmmaker. He is also an outspoken former cult member willing to give interviews and even help people to leave destructive cults. We were introduced to each other by a woman who had been mind controlled by a gypsy “psychic” in the summer of 2011. During the late 1980s and 1990s, Hoyt traveled the world, walked the runways of Paris, Milan, and New York; graced the covers and pages of high-fashion magazines; and appeared in hundreds of commercials. However, throughout his entire 15-year career, he was a member of Eternal Values, a destructive cult that began in midtown Manhattan. Eternal Values was founded by Freddie Mierers, a native New Yorker, who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. In the seventies, Mierers, a former model and interior designer, reinvented himself as “Frederick VonMierers,” a new-age astrologer and guru who focused on attracting wealthy WASPs as members.[107] When he was 16, Hoyt met Von Mierers on the beach on Nantucket, where Hoyt’s family vacationed every summer. Hoyt developed a friendship with Von Mierers over the summers. While attending college at Princeton, where he studied economics and played football, he would occasionally visit Freddie in Manhattan. Hoyt explains, “My early memories with Frederick in New York were going to Studio 54. Frederick could get me and his troupe of attractive followers whisked right through the large crowd out front of the club. It was a crazy scene. Celebrities and beautiful women were everywhere. I was only 18 and it all seemed like a fairy tale. At the end of the night, we’d gather a group of hip club goers and go back to Frederick’s apartment for his version of ‘high tea.’ We’d have these long spiritual conversations until dawn. I found it all terribly exciting and harmless, or so I thought. I remember, at the time, even feeling like _I_ was taking advantage of _him_.” During Hoyt’s sophomore year, a chronic shoulder injury worsened and he found himself in a dilemma. Doctors told Hoyt that he would need major surgery to both shoulders if he wanted to continue to play football, with no guarantee that the surgeries would be successful. The alternative was to give up football. “For me, it felt like an identity crisis. I had played football all my life and my closest friends were my teammates. I really felt lost. This is when Frederick swooped in to ‘my rescue’ and suggested I give modeling and commercials a try,” Hoyt said. Hoyt agreed and met with early success. This led to more trips to New York City for auditions. When he graduated with a degree in economics, Hoyt moved in with Von Mierers’ group. The group was largely made up of younger yuppie types—Ivy League lawyers and architects and a smattering of actors and models. Von Mierers’ main theme was apocalyptic—he predicted that by the turn of the century, a cataclysmic geological event, known as a pole shift, would occur and most of the planet’s population would perish. Only certain pockets of humanity would survive in secret “safe places.” Highly evolved souls, like Von Mierers and his followers, would be lifted off the planet by space aliens, trained, and brought back to Earth in the aftermath, to lead the building of a new-age utopian society. Hoyt lived with the group for 15 years, during which time he broke from his family. He didn’t see his parents for 12 years. After Von Mierers’ AIDS-related death in 1990, the group relocated to the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. This was one of Von Mierers’ designated “safe places.” Von Mierers had been the only person with supposed access to the space aliens, so the group became more survivalist in nature. They built a large compound outfitted with bunkers, and stockpiled weapons and a four-year supply of vacuum-packed food. Hoyt escaped the group in the summer of 1999. “I wish I could tell you I woke up one morning and had the realization, ‘Yikes! This is a dangerous cult and I need to get the hell out of here!’” he said. “Actually it took me three attempts to escape before I actually did. My self-esteem was so beaten down. I was constantly being told that I had let down the group and however hard I tried to improve, it was never enough. I had resigned myself to accepting the truth that I was a hopeless cause. I felt I was unfixable and unworthy.” Earlier that year, he had voiced doubts about Von Mierer’s apocalyptic prediction. At the time, he was traveling 300 days a year around the world modeling. “I guess you could say I still had one foot somewhat in reality. However, I paid heavily for expressing my doubts. Even though I was the group’s primary source of income and had given them many millions of dollars over the years, I was instructed to move to their North Carolina compound. I was told I couldn’t model anymore—they shaved my head weekly so I couldn’t work even if I wanted to. I was quarantined to the premises and given every type of slave labor they could think of ‘to teach me humility.’ I had to be the first one up and the last one to bed. I was forced to live in the garage with the dogs on a mat. I was literally and figuratively in the dog house,” he said. “Luckily, I can laugh about it now. But it was a horrible period in my life. I even contemplated suicide. But the crazy part was, as I much I hated being in that situation, I also felt like I deserved it. Even though leaving the group felt like such an act of cowardice, I felt like dead weight—that I was holding them back. I honestly felt that I was wasting _their_ precious time and goodwill. My primary drive to leave the group was not because I thought they were bad or abusing me, but rather to relieve them of the burden of my uselessness.” Fortunately, Hoyt did escape. He experienced PTSD, as many would expect. After about 18 months away from the group, he finally had the clarity to consider a new idea. “I was so convinced when I left Eternal Values that I was evil and cursed—that I had failed Frederick and even mankind. I felt I was doomed to a life of tragedy for betraying the cause. But I finally got to the place where the thought occurred that maybe the way I felt was not just because of me and my endless failings, but perhaps the _group I had been involved with had something to do with it_,” he said. “For years, people had been saying I was in a cult but I would never believe that. I just couldn’t accept that I would ever do that. I was convinced that things like that didn’t happen to people like me. I would never join a cult.” Desperate to find answers, Hoyt went on to the Internet and discovered an earlier edition of this book. “I bought the book because it was the bestseller on the subject. But my true intent was to reassure myself that my group wasn’t a cult. Of course, I was wrong. The book was the first step for me in accepting the truth of what my experience had been. It also gave me the tools and inspiration to move toward the road of recovery.” Once Hoyt was well into his recovery, he went on the offensive and sued Eternal Values and won, thereby effectively ending the group’s existence. He remains active in raising cult awareness and, at times, has assisted me to rescue others from cults or mind control situations. He explains our work together: “We share a common goal of wanting to demystify the overwhelming preconception that cults happen to a particular kind of person or profile—naïve kookoos, weirdos, damaged people from broken families, etc. I don’t fault anyone for that point of view. It was the same one I held, until I went through what I went through. I’m living proof that it is just not accurate. In being open and transparent about my experiences, I also hope to demonstrate to other cult victims that there is no need to hold any shame around the experience. We are all survivors and we should be proud and hold our heads high. “I’m delighted to say I’m working on several film and TV projects to help build awareness of how cults operate and understanding of mind control. Coming forward and telling our stories is one of the greatest gifts we can give to others.” Gretchen Callahan and the Truth Station Some destructive cults are tiny in comparison with organizations such as the Unification Church and Scientology. Yet, small groups can do just as much harm to individuals as big ones. Certainly this was true of Gretchen Callahan’s involvement in a small fundamentalist Bible cult in southern California called the Truth Station.[108] Its 30 members were led by a man who was convinced that he was in direct communication with God. The group lived in a house together and spent much of their time being indoctrinated. They believed that they were the only people on Earth living as true Christians. They also believed in the practice of faith healing. Yet Gretchen had a personal experience of a faith healing that failed—with fatal consequences. The group would routinely have long meetings in a crowded living room. The leader would spend hours putting members on the hot seat, verbally humiliating them, while everyone else watched. No one was allowed to get up and go to the bathroom. They had to stay and be part of the process. Members were led to believe that the sin in each of them had to be “brought into the light” and destroyed. No one knew whose turn on the hot seat would come next, and each person would sigh inwardly with relief when another member’s name was called. Questioning the leader’s authority was called “giving place to satanic spirits.” Being fully committed to the infallibility of the leader and his interpretation of the Bible was seen as the mark of a true believer. People would go to great lengths to demonstrate that they were, indeed, true believers. David, a young man in the group, felt the subtle power of the group pressuring him to become more “spiritual.” To prove his commitment to the group and be more accepted, he decided to stop taking insulin for his diabetes, believing that God would heal him. The members applauded his faith and his decision to throw away his insulin. In a matter of days, David’s health deteriorated. By the end of the week, the leader ordered around-the-clock prayer teams. Gretchen’s team was on when David took his last breath; yet the group, spurred on by the leader’s anxious exhortations, was convinced that David would be resurrected. They prayed for 15 hours over his body. David’s father, at that time a group co-leader, beat on his dead son’s chest, rebuking Satan and the angel of death, while David’s mother had to be removed from the room because her grief and anguish were viewed as spiritual weakness. Gretchen held David’s hand much of the day, as his body turned blue and became stiff. Even after the police arrived and the coroner took away the body, the group members continued to believe that the young man would return. For three months following his death, a place was set for him at the table, and members (including young children) had visions, dreams, and prophecies concerning his resurrection. A few days after David’s death, Gretchen’s parents called her from their home in Jamaica, because they had heard about the incident. Gretchen succeeded in convincing them that the young man was not actually dead. The leader had told her it would be a great miracle when he awakened, and nonbelievers would flock to the group. Two years after David’s death, Gretchen was kicked out of the group for her “spirit of rebellion.” She just couldn’t take anymore. She had given and given to the group, and it was never considered enough. “I guess you could say I was burned out,” she told former members of other groups during a meeting of an ex-cultist support group. “Something inside me just turned off. Even though I was still frightened of doing the wrong thing or being ‘out of the Spirit,’ I just couldn’t feel repentant any more for the ‘sins’ they had fabricated about me. I noticed that no one was happy and smiling anymore. Everyone was afraid to talk to one another because they might not be speaking ‘in the Spirit.’ Yet, even after I was thrown out, I still believed they were right and held the exclusive key to salvation. It wasn’t until my parents had me deprogrammed that I started to understand that I’d been struggling with the mind control abuses, not with my relationship with God.” A few months after Gretchen left, the group began to use physical beatings, especially on women and small children, to eradicate “satanic spirits.” “It has taken me years to fully understand how deeply they controlled my emotions and thought processes,” Gretchen said. “If I hadn’t received good counseling, I probably would have kept trying to return to the group.” Gary Porter and Soka Gakkai/ Nichiren Shoshu Gary met and fell in love with Ann, a woman involved with Soka Gakkai, formerly known as Nichiren Shoshu of America (NSA). The organization originated in Japan and claims Buddhist lineage, although members of some other Buddhist sects question its authenticity. Under both names, this cult has been active in the United States since the early 1970s. They own and operate Soka Univeristy in California. Members believe that if they chant the words _nam myoho renge kyo_ repeatedly in front of a rice-paper scroll called a _gohonzon_, they will gain the power to get whatever they wish. Ann had been involved for over two years when she began to chant _nam myoho renge kyo_ for hours a day, in order to meet and marry a doctor. “People would chant for parking spaces, a new job, good grades in school, whatever,” Gary told former members at a ex-member support group meeting. Gary, who had grown up as a Methodist, was at a low point in his life when he met Ann. “I was burned out from four years of chiropractic college. My best friend was killed in a car accident. My siblings were pressuring me to go home and take care of my mother, who was ill. I was a sitting duck for anything that promised the keys to solving life’s problems,” he said. At first, Gary thought the group was weird, but he agreed to try the chanting. It gave him an incredible high. He bought a devotional scroll, a _gohonzon_, and married Ann—after all, he did have a doctor of chiropractic degree—and remained in the group for over five years. NSA used its celebrity members such as Tina Turner and Patrick Duffy for recruiting and for confirming members’ commitment. Its other big selling point was “working for world peace.” NSA made members believe that only their chanting would save humankind from destruction. But, other than march in NSA-sponsored rallies, which were shunned by most mainline peace groups, members did little to promote peace. The NSA marches did, however, dominate members’ time and energies. “We used to have to go to group meetings three or four times a week, not to mention the hours we would spend each day chanting,” Gary said. The voices of doubters were muffled and conformity was rewarded. Eventually, Gary had several confrontations with his leaders in NSA and was threatened with expulsion. Deep down, that was exactly what he hoped for. He was tired of the pressure and manipulation, and his chiropractic work was suffering, because of all the time and energy he was putting into NSA. Gary and Ann were eventually kicked out of the group. Ann spent the next year on a couch, thinking she was dying of terminal cancer. In fact, she was not ill at all, only acting according to her indoctrination. She, like other members, had been taught that if she ever left NSA and stopped chanting, terrible consequences would follow.[109] Once Gary and Ann started to study material on mind control and destructive cults, they realized that NSA was using the same techniques as groups such as the Peoples Temple and the Moonies. It took them several years to piece their lives back together. Born Into The Group When this book was published in November 1988, the overarching thrust of the book was directed toward people, like me, who were deceptively recruited into a destructive cult. Soon after the book appeared, I began receiving calls and letters from people who had been born into groups. One of the most memorable was a letter and a follow up call from Randy Watters, a former elder at Watchtower’s Bethel, who ran FreeMinds.org. He said, “I loved your book! But can I ask you, why didn’t you mention the Jehovah’s Witnesses?” I remember being startled by his question, and immediately responded, “Why, are they a cult?” He laughed and said, “Are you kidding? I underlined the entire book!” I responded, “Really?” He told me, “Absolutely!” and I responded, “Teach me.” He told me to come to California and he would get a group of former Witnesses together—many of whom were born into the group. I could teach them about mind control and cults. They would teach me about Jehovah’s Witnesses. And so my education began. It was extremely interesting for me to learn that my book was being read by hundreds of people who were raised in the Watchtower, a group I’d encountered many times in my life, and especially while a Moonie. They would try to recruit me and I would try to recruit them. Jehovah’s Witnesses are a high-control group that absolutely denigrates former members and forbids contact of any kind, including reading anything they write. What was so interesting was that because I _hadn’t_ written about them in the first edition, I was not on their index of banned books. The Moonies were very high profile and Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) knew they were a weird cult. So reading a book by a guy who was an ex-member was a curiosity for them. They would read the book expecting to learn about the Moonies and other cults, and wind up realizing they were in a cult. I remember talking with my colleagues in the counter-cult world about my realization that Jehovah’s Witnesses were a mind control cult. I met total resistance. I was told things like, “They’ve been around too long” and “They’re too large!” My reaction was, “Since when have those been criteria for evaluating a mind control cult? I thought mind control was the criterion!” I started working not only with people recruited into the Watchtower Society but also people who were born and raised in the group, and I received hundreds of letters and phone calls. Most of the folks who had read my books wanted to know, “What if I don’t have a pre-cult self to go back to? How do I get well?” I knew that I needed to begin addressing the issues for those who had been influenced from childhood by a totalistic group. Through my investigations and experiences, I have come to believe that human beings are all born with an authentic self as well as a desire for love, fairness, truth and meaning. It is something that no group can program out of a person and therefore there is always hope for real healing. A subsequent chapter focuses on recovery strategies and a future book will be written on this subject.[110] However, I do wish to make a special note about courage. People who choose to exit a group where they know they will likely be cut off—shunned, disconnected from by all of their family and friends—face incredible suffering, pain and hardship. The level of pain is unimaginable for the average person. If those trying to exit do not succumb to the pressures to return to the group, they can become resilient and strong. They often become staunch atheists or strong believers in the Bible, God or some Higher Power. People kicked out of these groups are most at risk for serious emotional breakdown, addiction, suicide and other major public health issues. Research must be done to ascertain what I believe is a monumental drain on our health care system by destructive cult involvement. Mental health professionals, unless sensitized and trained, do not know how to even do a proper intake when it comes to involvement with undue influence. However, I am working on a forthcoming book and a training curriculum to help address this profound need. Over the decades, people who were being born into large cults—the Moonies, Scientology, Hare Krishnas, Children of God,[111] TM—began coming of age and started to question their group’s programming. With the creation of the Internet, online discussion groups and support communities sprang up. These have been very helpful for people raised in cults. I am pleased to share the stories of a woman raised as a child in TM, two former Jehovah’s Witnesses, and a former Mormon. I understand that these organizations are very high profile and that the public generally does not think of them as psychologically harmful. The Watchtower Society and the LDS Church have been around since the 19th century and have millions of members worldwide and enormous resources. I understand that I risk being put on enemies’ lists, though I hope their leadership has more foresight than to do this. My hope is that the leadership will actually read this book and take steps to reform the policies of their organizations. Gina Catena and Transcendental Meditation (TM)[112] Gina Catena is a Certified Nurse-Midwife (CNM) and Nurse Practitioner (NP), writer and courageous former member and activist. After she understood the commonalities between covert methods of TM and other exploitative cults the International Cultic Studies Association first invited her to present her story at their annual meeting in 2006. In 2010, I met Gina when I became enthralled by her presentation about the Beatles’ involvement with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Transcendental Meditation.[113] She writes and speaks on a volunteer basis to raise awareness of the risks of involvement with TM, so that the loss of those who suffered or died in the group is not in vain. “My conscience dictates that I reveal the insanities I lived, so that others might be spared recruitment to TM’s underbelly,” she says. Gina Catena was raised in Transcendental Meditation (TM), an organization founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his followers. Her parents were drawn in during the 1960’s. As a teenager, Gina’s parents sent her to live with the TM Movement, in 1974, when they established their permanent university and community in Fairfield, Iowa. Gina and her brother were raised to believe that they were in a spiritually privileged class—“children of the age of enlightenment.” They participated in private initiation ceremonies, called pujas, each receiving a secret mantra that supposedly could induce an altered state of consciousness, release stress, free creativity, and ultimately cure all ailments. Like many TM children, Gina raised herself—her parents were often away meditating or traveling to expensive advanced training courses. Still, Gina loved the close-knit TM community and recalls the feeling she received as a kind of “social heroin.” Members were deeply entwined by their shared lifestyle and their goal to “save the world” through meditation. As she grew older, Gina became increasingly troubled by certain behaviors, in particular the group’s habit of blaming individuals for their own problems, such as poor health, financial woes and relationship issues. These problems were chalked up to “bad karma,” but in fact, they were often caused by the group’s practices. “Meditating every day for hours and hours drove some members to psychosis,” she told me. Treating health conditions with expensive questionable herbal concoctions produced by Maharishi Ayurvedic Health Products International, or with costly mystical prayer ceremonies called “yagyas,” instead of seeking professional medical help threatened the health of members and in some cases may have caused their deaths.[114] Donating thousands and even millions of dollars for Maharishi’s schemes to create a perfect world through advanced meditation programs pushed many toward financial ruin. Some actually committed suicide. Meanwhile, ‘Mahesh’ and his inner circle resided in luxury—in Swiss palaces and mansions and later in a custom built private enclave in the Netherlands.[115] Gina observed other problems. TM markets itself heavily, drawing on pseudoscientific research to tout the health benefits of their brand of meditation—calling it a cure for everything from PTSD, ADHD, sexual exploitation, stress and poverty. In fact, it is a method of self-induced trance which can, in some people, produce anxiety and other adverse reactions. Instructors make light of these reactions, calling them a form of “un-stressing,” and urging more meditation to release stress even further. It is important to differentiate TM’s meditation method from other forms of legitimate meditation. In TM, the practitioner is given a single word, their secret _mantra_—often derived from the name of a Hindu diety—which is repeated until a trance state is achieved. Though TM’s marketing and front groups have changed names over the years, recruitment occurs largely through the _David Lynch Foundation_[116] and the _Center for Wellness and Achievement in Education_[117]—recruitment remains the same step-by-step process. Someone signs up for a beginner TM course. They are then encouraged to attend regular support meetings, where they are warmly welcomed, and given “suggestions” about which advanced courses they might take. Many people stop with the introductory course but some choose to go on. Eventually, they may sign up for the TM-Sidhi program which promises to teach mystical powers, such as yogic flying, for a mere $5,000 or more. Decades ago, a friend sponsored Gina to learn yogic flying. “It involved energetic butt-bouncing on high-density foam,” she said. In 1976, Maharishi promised devotees that if they could get the square root of 1% of the world’s population to practice the TM-Sidhi program at the same time daily, they would create a “Maharishi Effect” of global peace, prosperity, perfect weather and health for the world. Many true believing TMers continue to devote their lives to practicing the TM-Sidhi program[118] for four to eight hours daily, in the belief they will positively affect the world. Some become addicted to the state of self-induced trance. They are dubbed “space cadets” by other TMers. Many of those same devotees struggle with cognitive dissonance as they decline with age despite Maharishi’s promises of immortality. Despite her growing doubts, Gina stayed in the group, married twice—in each case to a TMer—and had three children. In 1980, Gina left for India to attend a one-month course in “Vedic Science.” She returned to Fairfield, Iowa, but something had shifted. “I never again attended a course. I still lived in the town but I conducted my own life as if I were living elsewhere,” she said. Finally, in 1988 she convinced her husband to move the family to California. They were both 30 years old. Gina enrolled her kids in public school and began taking courses at the local community college “My husband initially could not function. He played video games for about 15 hours daily—truly just another way to dissociate,” she said. “He began following Sai Baba (another problematic Indian guru). I didn’t follow anyone. I was too busy working (in retail), taking college classes and raising three children.” The pair eventually divorced. Gina would go on to earn three degrees and currently works as a certified nurse-midwife at a major medical center. “I still didn’t realize it was a cult until 2003, 15 years later. I was 45,” she said. A coworker told her about the work of Margaret Singer. “I had the ah-ha moment—‘Oh shit! I was raised in a cult! My whole family is in a cult! That’s why our lives are so screwed up!’ Only then did I begin searching online for cult information, reading everything I could to self-counsel. I found a therapist who knows about cult recovery.” As a medical professional, she has devoted herself to exposing the ways in which TM can adversely affect a person’s health. She maintains close relationships with other former members and with families who have been adversely affected by TM. She blogs at tmfree.blogspot.com and ginacatena.com and speaks and writes on a volunteer basis to raise awareness of the risks of involvement with TM. Lee Marsh and Jehovah’s Witnesses[119] Lee Marsh is a former Jehovah’s Witness, a retired Canadian counselor and is the president of Advocates for Awareness of Watchtower Abuses (aawa.co), a nonprofit group that helps educate the public about the group’s violations of basic human rights, especially toward women and children. When Lee was eight years old, her mother abandoned the family, and Lee was forced to live with her father. Shortly after that, her father began sexually molesting her. The crime was reported to the police when she was 11, and her mother, whom Lee had not seen in three years, was awarded custody. Her mom was then living with relatives and studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses. When Lee was 12, her mom’s common-law husband sexually molested Lee and her teenage aunt. When this was reported to an elder at the Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall, the elder advised the family to keep it secret. When it happened again, the elders decided that it should not be reported to the police. Lee’s aunt was sent to live with other family members, while Lee was placed in a foster home for the next three years. At age 16, Lee went back to live with her mother, who was then a baptized Witness. A year later, Lee was baptized and encouraged to marry a Witness, a man she hardly knew. They had two children, and she remembers the enormous pressure on her to be a good example to others in the congregation. Meanwhile, her husband—who appeared to be a fine and upstanding Witness—sexually and emotionally abused her. However, she carried a secret. On the outside, their family life looked good. But inside she was depressed and suicidal. She had never received counseling for her childhood abuse, and the emotional and sexual abuse in the marriage only exacerbated many of the long-term effects of abuse that she only realized later on. _The Watchtower_, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ prominent magazine, counsels Witnesses to be wary of therapy and counseling, as they are supposedly ways for the Devil to destroy their faith. But after struggling for years with bad _Watchtower_ advice, Lee received permission from the elders to get counseling. However, she was forbidden to tell her counselor that she was a Jehovah’s Witness. After two sessions, Lee realized what was happening in her life, that her husband was a repetition of the abuse she endured as a child. She realized she needed to get out of the marriage. She also knew that this would not be easy, as there were only two acceptable ways to make that happen among Witnesses—death or adultery. After talking to the elders about the situation, she was granted a trial separation. But Witnesses believe that a wife’s role is to provide sex to her husband. So despite the fact that they were separated and her husband was living elsewhere, he believed he had the right to come to her house for sex. Understandably, she could not deal with sex-on-demand, and the only approved way to stop him was to commit adultery, so that is what she did. After she told her husband and the elders about this once-only incident, she was “disfellowshipped,” and everyone in her congregation—even her mother—was obligated to shun her. Her husband convinced their kids to live with him, and soon Lee was homeless. She filed for divorce and it was granted. She needed to support herself, but had few marketable skills, because of the Witness taboo against college. Lee went on public assistance and made the brave decision to register for college. She did well in her first two courses and decided to study full-time. In that environment, she began to thrive, ask critical questions, and challenge assumptions—none of which is permitted in the Witness world. Lee graduated with honors, formed a small nonprofit organization to help incest survivors, and provided counseling for over 600 people over seven years before she retired, due to ill health. Counseling others had helped her turn past childhood abuse into something positive. But it was now time to investigate her Jehovah’s Witness experience. Using the Internet, she found a wealth of information about the Witnesses and cults in general, and the methods used to unduly influence members. When she finally proved to herself that Jehovah’s Witnesses were a cult, it pinpointed many cult-induced phobias and fears that had lingered with her for years. She has since come to learn about the detrimental effects of the Governing Body’s policies on child-rearing. This includes corporal punishment of children. Most repulsive is their organizational failure to call police when children were being raped by pedophiles in the organization. A number of high profile lawsuits have recently been brought against the Watchtower and several perpetrators. We can only imagine how many more victims will be coming forward. Lloyd Evans and Jehovah’s Witnesses When I first met him, Lloyd was blogging on the Internet under the name John Cedars, as he was buying time to develop an exit strategy from the Watch Tower Society. He has a huge online following and is responsible for helping thousands of people reassess their obedience to this aberrant Christian group.[120] Their Governing Body’s policy against blood transfusions, established in 1945, is a non-Biblical and erroneous interpretation of passages of the Bible that has led to countless deaths and needless suffering.[121] For all the victims of Watchtower ideology, Armageddon is a real event that could strike at any moment. It is a time when divine forces will be unleashed to kill pretty much everyone who isn’t a Jehovah’s Witness, and the idea that Armageddon is “just around the corner” has been instilled in Witnesses of all ages for decades. The level of phobia indoctrination of this group, bolstered by their numerous false prophecies over the decades, restricts members from higher education, sports, voting, Christmas and birthday celebrations, and promotes total dependency. Lloyd Evans got his first taste of this when he was a child. As part of his family-worship evening, his parents orchestrated a fake phone call, reporting to Lloyd and his sister that the Great Tribulation (the prelude to Armageddon) had started. Lloyd ran upstairs to pack his vital belongings, because the family had to flee with other Witnesses to escape the authorities under Satan’s control. Only when panic-stricken Lloyd came back downstairs could he tell from the smiles on his parents’ faces that this had been some sort of macabre joke. By the time Lloyd was 20, he had started to see glitches in this high-control pseudo-religious group. But this formative awakening was put on hold when Lloyd’s mother died of cancer in 2001, when he was 21. When Lloyd was 25, he fulfilled one of his mother’s dying wishes, by attending a two-month course designed to train young Witness men to better serve the organization. Within three years of graduating, he was promoted to the position of elder in his local congregation. A year later, in 2009, Lloyd withdrew as an elder and decided that he and his wife would move to Croatia, to be near her parents. For the first year Lloyd attended the local meetings and tried to settle into his new congregation. However, due to the language barrier, he could no longer understand what was being taught at the meetings and gradually unplugged from his indoctrination. And he started to ask himself, “What do I believe?” Doubts from his youth began to resurface. It wasn’t long before Lloyd realized he no longer believed Jehovah’s Witnesses were God’s organization. The more Lloyd awakened from his indoctrination, the more curious he became. He visited websites set up by ex-Witnesses. Though he had been taught to intensely fear so-called “apostate” websites, he found many of them informative and not spiteful, as he had been led to believe. He also read the book _Crisis of Conscience_, by former Governing Body member Raymond Franz, which convinced him that Jehovah’s Witnesses were being deceived by their leaders. Curious to find out how others felt, he set up the website jwsurvey.org to survey current and former Witnesses for their opinions. After three years, he learned that almost all Witnesses who did objective research disagreed with the teachings of their leaders. Lloyd and his wife have since formally disassociated themselves as Witnesses, which prompted many of their family members to shun them. Though they admit it is extremely painful, Lloyd and his wife take comfort in knowing their daughter will grow up without experiencing the heartache of being shunned by her parents for ideological reasons. Tom Hopkins and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) Tom Hopkins is a father, a humanitarian, a composer, a music producer and a guitarist. He was a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—more commonly known as the Mormons—for most of his life. He grew up in a loving, active Mormon family, and at 16 became a priest. He served as the assistant to the bishop, and he proselytized, influencing and baptizing several people. Later, during his mission work in Thailand, he averaged at least one convert baptism per month. After returning from Thailand, Tom converted and baptized a woman who he later married. Together, they raised four children. Tom became a Gospel Doctrine teacher, a scoutmaster, a high priest and second counselor in the bishopric, a counselor in the Sunday school, and stake mission presidency. He was also a faithful home teacher who tithed and made regular offerings. Despite all this, certain doctrines and aspects of his Mormon faith never felt right to Tom. Like other faithful members of the church, he accepted some things on faith, expecting that someday, perhaps after he died, it would all make sense. Though he studied literature that answered many anti-Mormon arguments, he didn’t give his own concerns, questions, or negative feelings much energy or credibility. Tom was taught to believe that the Mormon Church represented everything in life that was good and true—and the only way to eternal happiness. He was also taught that anything contrary to the teachings of the church was false, evil and of the Devil—and, of course, would lead to unhappiness. Tom loved his parents, his family, and his Mormon friends. They were good people, and Tom wanted them to love him, accept him and be proud of him. To Tom, this meant not taking seriously his doubts about the church. He felt stuck—like he had to play the game, believe in extraordinary events and theology and dedicate his life to the church. In his late twenties, one of Tom’s guitar students, a lawyer and former missionary, told him some very disturbing facts about the Mormon Church. Some he’d heard before; some he hadn’t. Some of what Tom was told made sense, rang true and disturbed him more than any other discussion about the church that he’d had previously. That night, after he came home, Tom cried in secret, seriously wondering for the first time in his life if Church doctrine might not be true. But he didn’t want to look into any of the things he’d been told that day. Instead, he pushed them aside, and redoubled his efforts to increase his testimony and his faith. For the next 15 years, he lacked the courage to investigate what his student had told him. Meanwhile, the more perfectly Tom practiced his Mormon faith, the more he lived in a world of guilt and shame, always seeking forgiveness. He became obsessed with trying to be worthy, in order to have “the spirit” with him. The routine of daily prayer, scripture study, church activities, seminary and institute classes, regular temple attendance, weekly sacrament meetings, priesthood meetings, and Sunday school constantly indoctrinated Tom and reaffirmed his faith. When he took the sacrament, or went to the temple, he made covenants to be obedient to the strict commandments of God and Church standards. But he also knew that, even as he made those promises, he—like everyone else—would fall short of perfection, and would need to repent over and over again. This routine often led to shame, hopelessness, two-faced hypocritical behavior and a habit of breaking commitments. This can be the perfect recipe to create addiction. Yet Tom was determined to be a man of integrity. With help, he eventually came to the point where he felt that he would rather lose everything, face public humiliation and die with his integrity intact, than to live without it. Integrity became more important to him than his need to believe in the Mormon Church. Armed with this new courage to be completely honest, and to follow his own convictions no matter what the cost, he was finally willing to deeply investigate his questions and concerns about the Church. The more he studied, deliberated and prayed, the more clear it became that the Mormon Church was not what he had believed it to be. He found that it was full of ulterior motives and deception. This confirmed his own experience: he had known people in the Church who were power hungry or greedy. To this day, Tom doesn’t feel that the Mormon Church or its leaders are intentionally malicious—but that they do harmful things, because they believe that the ends justify the means. The church’s leaders and followers are indoctrinated to believe that the Mormon Church is _the_ true religion, and they cannot stand the idea of their friends and family suffering, or going to hell, or attaining a lower degree of glory, because they are not active in the Church. Tom’s story is online at iamanexmormon.com and he wishes to add his voice to those of other courageous former members at exmormonfoundation.org. I was invited to speak to their annual conference in 2008 when I explained the BITE model. For me, meeting two hundred and fifty former LDS people was quite an intensive education. I had helped people exit the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) cult of Warren Jeffs but, until the conference, I was not clear on just how much the mainstream organization was problematic. The talk I heard at that conference given by Ken Clark, a former LDS CES Institute Director for 27 years, entitled: _Lying for the Lord: Deception as a Management Tool of the LDS Church_ was an eye-opener for me.[122] The people who were willing to share their stories in this chapter represent just a fraction of the amazing human beings I have come to know since my own exit from the Moon cult. There are so many other people whose stories deserve worldwide attention. The Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) is the largest polygamous cult in the U.S. and is far more extreme and destructive than the modern day LDS organization.[123] There have been many excellent books and documentaries on this cult. Rebecca Musser, ex-wife of “prophet” Warren Jeffs, published her biography, in 2013,The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice.[124] Carolyn Jessop, with assistance from Utah Attorney Generalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shurtleff, had gone into print ten years before. [ibid] Carolyn became the first woman who left an FLDS community to be awarded full custody of all of her children. She wrote the best-seller, _Escape_, in 2008. Her cousin Flora Jessop, who is an incredible activist helping victims of FLDS, published _Church of Lies_, the following year. Special acknowledgment goes to my friend Tory Christman, an ex-30 year Scientologist, OT VII, who has made hundreds of video blogs and has helped me many times to assist people involved with Scientology. Please visit her on her ToryMagoo44 Youtube page. Exscientologykids.com is a website maintained by Jenna Miscavige, the niece of top leader David Miscavige, along with several of her friends. She published the book _Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology_ and _My Harrowing Escape_, in 2013. Donna Collins, born into the Moonies, has been an amazing force to help her family and friends exit the cult. She was featured in a BBC documentary on the Moonies, _Emperor of the Universe_, which is online.[125] If you wish to understand the Moon cult better and what they believe, watch this documentary! For an active ex-member site on the Moonies, please visit http://howwelldoyouknowyourmoon.tumblr.com/, and take a look at the Moon page on freedomofmind.com, which lists all of the Moon-owned entities around the world. This list is maintained by Private Investigator, Larry Zilliox, who has been helping me with cases for decades. In future editions of this book, I will add many more stories of courageous former members. I would like to include: a multi-level marketing survivor, a former member of a Large Group Awareness Training, a former member of a Jewish cult and a survivor of FLDS. There is another book I hope to do about sexuality, cults and mind control. Hal Lanse’s _Erasing Reason: Inside Aesthetic Realism - A Cult That Tried to Turn Queer People Straight_ is an important book that is a window into the power of mind control. Straight people being convinced to be gay. Gay people being indoctrinated to believe they are straight. Heaven’s Gate members mind controlled to believe they are aliens and eight men happy to have their testicles surgically removed. Transgender pioneer ex-cult activists Kate Bornstein[126] and Denise Brennan[127] speaking out after so many years in Scientology, being told by the cult they were not who they knew themselves to be. Inspiring! Please come to the Freedom of Mind Facebook page and share your stories. There are also many groups in the Freedom of Mind group database: some are online, but most are not due to lack of resources. So if you do not see a group listed, do not assume we do not know about it or that the group you are investigating is not controversial. Hopefully, I will do a book dedicated to telling the remarkable stories of former members I have had the privilege of knowing over the decades. Hearing people tell their stories is a deep experience that can help inoculate the public to the dangers of undue influence and destructive cults. It is my profound hope that more people will be willing to share their stories and the stories of friends and family members who have been involved with this global epidemic of mind control. If you have a story to tell, please share it! Chapter 6 Endnotes 96. One amazing thing is that with the Internet and some dedication to searching for them, their information and their efforts can be found. The Wayback Machine is a valued resource of past Internet sites, especially of former members who were eventually silenced by cult harassment. 97. Enquiry into the Practice and Effects of Scientology, Sir John G. Foster, KBE, QC, MP; Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, by order of the House of Commons, 21 December 1971. 98. http://web.randi.org/the-million-dollar-challenge.html 99. Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 18 October 1967, issue IV, Penalties for Lower Conditions. 100. Video of Trafficking Panel (2014) at ICSA is at https://freedomofmind.com//HumanTrafficking/HumanTrafficking.php 101. Why Ending the Game? Pimps call what they do—enslaving people to sell sex—“The Game.” So we chose our course name to let people know they can only win by leaving the game. The web site for the program is endingthegame.com. 102. The Video of the Press Conference In London about Cults and Terrorism is on https://freedomofmind.com//Info/terrorism.php 103. See Dennis King’s book Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism (1989) for LaRouche’s connections to neo-Nazis and the KKK.Regarding “physical force may be justified” I can safely refer to his 1973-74 “Operation Mop-Up” use of violence against CPUSA: http://www.publiceye.org/larouche/Mop-Up.htmlOn Kenneth Kronberg’s suicide: http://www.kennethkronberg.com/kk/On Jeremiah Duggan’s death: http://justiceforjeremiah.yolasite.com/On the Youth movement massive departure in 2012, here is their (long) document http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.LYMwhyweleft “Why we left”BITE model applied to LaRouche http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Cult.BiteYves’s role in the aid convoy to Sarajevo : http://artwithconscience.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/my-story-of-1992-93-alsace-s... 104. http://messer-art-design.com/ 105. Scientology is also notorious for enforcing abortions on live-in members. 106. A thorough article was published about the cult. See East Side Alien by Marie Brenner, Vanity Fair, (March 1990, Volume 53, Number 3). 107. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. WASP is sometimes considered to be a detrimental term but it was one Hoyt used to describe the cult’s recruitment focus. 108. Doug Johnson, “Former Truth Station Member Tells of Secret Practices,” Victor Valley Daily Press (March 5, 1981), A1.“TV Producer Charges Kin Abused by Religious Cult,” Oxnard Press Courier (March 5, 1981), 2. 109. Michael Kelly, “A Couple Still Hearing the Chant,” Cult Awareness Network News (Jan-Feb 1985), 3. 110. Take Back Your Life, (Bay Tree Publishing1994, 2006) by Lalich and Tobias is a very helpful text on recovery. 111. Miriam Williams, Heaven’s Harlots: My Fifteen Years in a Sex Cult, Eagle Books, 1998 and Something Somebody Stole by Ray Connolly (2011) and ex-member resource page is at http://www.xfamily.org/index.php/Main_Page 112. Cult or Benign Cure-all? Life in Transcendental Meditation’s Hidden Society - http://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2014-10-20/cult-or-benign-cure-all-li... 113. 2010 ICSA Conference handbook is online at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4dmoPK1tYNjanFOQkZ6azg5UjA/edit?usp=sharin... 114. Yagyas http://www.maharishiyagya.org/ Maharishi Ayurvedic Products (MAPI) latest site(2015): http://www.mapi.com Scientific basis under “Our Story” section: Maharishi was unyielding when it came to the authenticity of these ancient formulations and their purity. In the early days of Maharishi Ayurveda, Maharishi, surrounded by the greatest Ayurvedic experts in India, rejected formulas due to minor deviations from the ancient original texts or due to lack of purity in the formula. This is the foundation of vpk® by Maharishi Ayurveda: Authentic, Pure, Effective and Safe. - See more at: http://www.mapi.com/our-story/our-story.html#sthash.iCxtzXMk.dpufWikipedia references show lack of science on MAPI products. Wikipedia has a senior editor assigned to TM-related pages to keep the pro-cult trolls in check:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharishi_Vedic_Approach_to_Health 115. Source of Swiss palaces and private enclave in The Netherlands —my life. But here are the links:http://www.meru.ch/index.php?page=kurse-in-seelisberghttp://www.ayurveda-seelisberg.ch/index.php?page=home&hl=fr_FRhttp://www.globalcountry.org/wp/full-width/links/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharishi_Peace_Palacehttp://www.peacepalaces.com/home.htm 116. David Lynch Foundation: http://www.davidlynchfoundation.org 117. Center for Wellness and Achievement in Education: http://cwae.org/ 118. links TM-Sidhi program : https://www.mum.edu/about-mum/consciousness-based-education/tm-sidhi-program... links TM-Sidhi Program :http://minet.org/www.trancenet.net/secrets/sutras/http://www.suggestibility.... 119. MACLEANS January 5th, 2015 Against Their Will: Inside Canada’s Forced Marriages by Rachel Browne http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/against-their-will/(Courtois, Healing the Incest Wound. 1988) 120. Walter Martin’s book, The Kingdom of the Cults, Bethany House (1965), has a chapter on Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watch Tower Society and critiques them theologically. It was important for me to understand that the Bible JWs use deviates substantially from those commonly endorsed by scholars. For example, the New Testament in their Bible has “Jehovah” inserted where the Greek text would have said “Lord.” As Bible scholar Bart Ehrman notes: “The divine name ‘Jehovah’ doesn’t belong in either Testament, old or new, in the opinion of most critical scholars, outside the ranks of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. That’s because Jehovah was not the divine name.” http://ehrmanblog.org/ 121. The Hebrew Bible does direct people to observe the dietary law of Kashrut and drain the blood of animals they cook and eat. See http://www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ritual/Kashrut_Dietary_Laws.shtml However, I have asked numerous Christian and Jewish scholars about the Watch Tower policy. Not one thinks there is a shred of legitimacy to the Governing Body’s policies on blood transfusion. In fact, the Jewish religion is always in favor of saving life! Please see http://ajwrb.org/ for detailed information about the changing policies on blood by the JW Governing Body over the years. http://ajwrb.org/children/my-child-is-deadis a heartbreaking story. For a summary of the blood issue, explaining the Watch Tower history of the doctrine, and why it is not based on sound Scriptural reasoning, please visithttp://www.jwfacts.com/Watch Tower/blood-transfusions.php. 122. The talk I heard at that conference given by Ken Clark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKt7ozdKeBk&list=PLA92A1F6CFEA252A2. Richard Packham’s 2013 talk,“Truth Will Prevail: All About Proof, Evidence, Fallacies and Lies” is worth your time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXl1FjwSMBQ 123. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latte... 124. (Grand Central Publishing, 2014). The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamas Cult Leaders to Justice. 125. BBC’s Emperor of the Universe is online at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2967341 126. Kate Bornstein, A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology, and leaves twelve years later to become the lovely lady she is today, (Beacon Press, 2012). 127. Larry Brennan, The Miscavige Legal Statements: A Study in Perjury, Lies and Misdirection. Self-published. Posted on WhyWeProtest.net Activism Board. Please watch my video interview with Denise when she came out and her final interview before passing away: https://freedomofmind.com//Media/video.php?id=53.