Thanks for your concern and hard work Karl but I’m not in a cult! ------- Original Message ------- On Friday, October 14th, 2022 at 1:15 PM, Undiscussed Groomed for Male Slavery, One Victim of Many <gmkarl+brainwashingandfuckingupthehackerslaves@gmail.com> wrote:
Chapter 11, Continued
For the first year after I left the Moonies, every time I heard the word moon, I would think, Father, and remember sitting at Moon’s feet. Another example occurred about a month after I left the group. As I was driving to a friend’s house, I had the thought, This would be an excellent fundraising area! I had to tell myself that I was no longer in the Moonies. This thought was triggered because for the last five months of my membership, I spent fifteen to twenty hours a day driving around looking for places to drop off members to solicit money.
For people who were long involved in a group that required excessive meditation, chanting, “decreeing,”[185] speaking in tongues, or other mind-numbing practices, episodes of floating can occur for at least a year after they have left the cult. Many of my clients have told me that suddenly, in the middle of a normal conversation, they would find themselves doing the mind-numbing technique they had practiced for years. This can be especially dangerous when you’re driving a car. One former member of a Bible cult told me, “It’s very frustrating to realize over and over again that my mind is out of control. Particularly when I’m in a stressful situation, I’ll suddenly discover I’m babbling nonsense words and syllables (speaking in tongues) inside my head, and I’ve become disoriented from whatever I was doing.”
If not properly understood and responded to, floating can cause a former cult member who is depressed, lonely and confused to go back to the group.
For people fortunate enough to receive good cult counseling, floating is rarely a problem. However, for people who don’t understand mind control, it can be a terrifying experience. Suddenly, you flip back into the cult mindset, and are hit with a tremendous rush of fear and guilt for betraying the group and its leader. You can become irrational and begin to think magically, interpreting personal and world events from the cult’s perspective. For example, you didn’t get that job “because God wants you to go back to the group,” or the Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by the Russians “because you left the Moonies.”
When you start to float, simply but firmly remind yourself that the experience has been triggered by some stimulus, and that it will pass. If you can, try to connect as soon as possible with someone who understands mind control, and talk it over rationally with them.
The most powerful and effective technique of all is to identify the trigger. It could be hearing a song, seeing someone who looks like a member of the group, or watching someone act or gesture in a way that cult members often do. Once you know what triggers you, deliberately call forth that stimulus, but make a new, positive mental association with it. Think of something non-cult related. Do this over and over again, until the association becomes a new, learned response.
In my case, when I heard the word moon, I would form a mental picture of a beautiful full moon. I would say to myself, The earth only has one natural satellite, the moon. For about a week, I often said to myself “moon,” and conjured up this image, until it stuck. I referred to the leader of my former cult as Mr. Moon, not wishing to call him “Reverend,” since that was a self-appointed title anyway, and visualized him behind bars in prison garb. Similarly, for ex-Scientologists, it is better to speak of “Ron Hubbard” rather than “L. Ron Hubbard” or “LRH”, and not to call the cult “the Church”. Such loaded language is a significant trigger.
One ex-member of est told me that even though she loves the beach, she avoided it because the sounds of ocean waves always reminded her of her indoctrination. Even though she had been out of the group for five years, that association was still inhibiting her ability to enjoy something she had always loved. I encouraged her to change the association. She could hear the sound of waves and deliberately program in a new and personally gratifying association. I told her to repeat the new association until it automatically overrode the cult programming. Within a few days she was able to visit the beach again. Ultimately, exposure techniques are the fastest methods to override the programming and make new, healthy associations.
Also keep in mind that floating is a natural byproduct of subjection to mind control. It is not your fault and not a defect on your part. Over time, its effects will naturally decrease, especially if you practice the techniques described above.
Overcoming Loaded Language
Substituting real language for the cult’s “loaded language” can speed up a person’s full recovery. By eradicating the cult jargon put inside my head, I was able to begin looking at the world again without wearing cult “glasses.” The cult’s loaded language had created little cubbyholes in my mind, and when I was a member, all reality was filtered through them. The faster an ex-member reclaims words and their real meaning, the faster recovery happens.
When I was in the Moonies, all relationships between people were described as either a “Cain-Abel” or a “Chapter 2” problem. The term “Cain-Abel,” as explained earlier, was used to categorize everyone as either a superior or a subordinate. “Chapter 2 problems” were anything that had to do with sexuality, and any attraction members felt towards others. Therefore, all personal relationships fell into either of these two categories.
The most common mistake made by ex-members is to tell themselves that they should not think of the cult word. The mind doesn’t know how not to think of something. Language is structured so that we have to think in positive associations. So, if you are an ex-member, make a new association, just as I described for the problem of “floating.” If you are an ex-Moonie and have trouble getting along with a person, think of it as a personality conflict or a communication problem. For anyone who has been a Scientologist, it is absolutely essential to stop using the enormous cult vocabulary to stop thinking in the loaded terms invented by Hubbard and recorded in two dictionaries totaling a thousand pages. These folks are still thinking in the cult cubbyholes of the human experience. This becomes an issue with ex-Scientologists because unless they have made the intense effort necessary to eradicate the cult jargon installed in their minds, they inevitably use this jargon with each other and triggering happens all the time. Check the real meaning of words in a proper dictionary. Choose your friends and reclaim your native language! It will speed up your healing!
Loss Of Psychological Power
Another common problem for former cult members is the loss of concentration and memory. Before I became involved in the Moonies, I used to read a book at one sitting, averaging three books a week. But during the two and a half years I spent in the group, virtually all I read was Moonie propaganda.
When I first left the cult, I felt frustrated whenever I tried to read non-cult literature. At first, getting through a single paragraph was nearly impossible. I would continually space out, or have to stop to look up words that I once knew but now couldn’t remember. I had to read and re-read material before I was able to force the creaky gears of my mind into operation. I also needed to buy a 400,000-word dictionary to relearn the meanings of words I had once known. I needed to look at old photographs, read old college papers, and be reminded of people I knew and things I had done prior to being in the group.
Fortunately, the mind is like a muscle. Although it tends to atrophy from disuse, with effort it can be built up again. It took me nearly a full year to get back to my pre-cult level of functioning. It took a lot of will and many hours of effort. But I did it. When I first was deprogrammed, I knew I wanted to go back to college but knew I needed time to strengthen my mind before I could function again. It took me a full year to regain my ability to concentrate and read normally.
Nightmares, Guilt, Grief, And Remorse
Nightmares are a good indicator that a former cult member needs to receive additional counseling in order to work through their cult experience. These unpleasant dreams come from the unconscious mind, which is still wrestling with the issues of cult involvement. Nightmares indicate unresolved conflicts within the mind.
Common nightmares for people who have lived with mind control include being trapped, feeling that people are coming after them, and being in the midst of a storm or a war. Ex-cult members also frequently report having upsetting dreams in which people inside in the group try to get them to leave, while friends and family outside the cult pressure them to rejoin.
Another key issue for some former members is guilt about things they did in the group. Some people were involved in illegal acts, such as fraud, theft, breaking and entering, harassment of critics, arson, sex trafficking, and the use and sale of drugs. I have met people who went AWOL from the armed services because a destructive cult group recruited them, and had great trouble when they tried to clear themselves later.
Fortunately, the vast majority of ex-cult members have not been involved in such things. However, even if they were not coerced to break the law, most have to cope with how they treated their family and friends during their cult membership. For example, some people had parents who became ill, but cult leaders prohibited them from visiting the hospital. In some cases, a parent died, and the cult member was not allowed to go to the funeral, even though it might have taken place only 20 miles away.
It can be extremely painful for a person to leave a destructive cult and have to deal with the havoc and emotional damage that their membership caused. This is especially true for people born into a cult. When they leave, typical cult policy is to excommunicate or shun them. This means they are rejected by their own families and friends, whom they might never see or speak with again. Alternatively, they might experience extreme pressure from their loved ones to “come back to God.”
When I first left the Moonies, I felt an incredible sense of guilt about my role as a leader. I blamed myself for lying and manipulating hundreds of people. I felt I had allowed myself to be used as an American front man, a stooge for the Koreans and Japanese, who really held the reins of power in the group. For me, speaking out and helping others to leave was a form of making amends for what I had been manipulated to do.
Another issue involves feelings toward friends still in the group. When I left the Unification Church, at first I desperately wanted to rescue those people I had personally recruited. Unfortunately, the Moonie leadership cleverly shipped the people who were closest to me away from New York. They were told that I was away on a secret mission. The people I had recruited, my “spiritual children,” didn’t find out that I had left the group for more than three months. I believe they were told then only because I had started appearing on television to speak against the group.
About six months after I left, I went back to Queens College, where I had started a chapter of C.A.R.P., and gave a public lecture on cults and mind control for the psychology department. In the audience were my top three disciples, Brian, Willie, and Luis.[186] They sat and listened to me lecture for over an hour about mind control. I gave specific examples of how I had lied and tricked each one of them into membership. After the lecture was over, I walked over to them, and anxiously asked them what they thought. Willie smiled and said to me, “Steve, you shouldn’t forget the heart of the Divine Principle or the heart of Father.” I was crushed. They didn’t appear to have heard a single thing I had said.
At that moment I remembered how, when I was a member, I had been instructed by Mr. Kamiyama to raise my spiritual children to be faithful, even if I left the group. I didn’t realize at the time why he had me do that, because I never imagined leaving. Now I understood. To my great relief, many years later all three of them eventually walked out. I am so relieved and hope that one day they will forgive me and speak with me again.
Many people involved in faith-healing cults have to deal with the death of a child or other loved one who was prevented from receiving medical treatment. The remorse they feel when they leave such a group should not be turned on themselves in the form of blame or guilt. They need to realize that they were victims, too, and did what they believed to be right at the time.
Other ex-cult members have to deal with the anger and resentment of their children, who in some cases were beaten, neglected or sexually abused. Many were deprived of an education and a normal childhood. Some were deprived of their own parents; certain cults, such as the Hare Krishnas, systematically separated children from their parents and allowed them to visit only infrequently.[187] Yogi Bhajan’s 3HO group sent some of its members’ children to the organization’s school in India. By separating children from their parents, the allegiance of both generations became solely to the group.[188] For years, Scientology “Sea Organization” parents were only allowed to see their children for an hour a day, if their production statistics were up. Children ran wild with almost no adult supervision. Leader David Miscavige has since prohibited Sea Org members from having children, and many women have been coerced into having abortions.
For others involved in less destructive cults, the emotional toll on children can ultimately yield positive results. I saw that in the life of my client Barbara. She explained how, for most of her life, she had thought she was crazy. Then she realized, from talking with a friend, that the group her parents had been involved with for the previous decade was actually a destructive cult. Barbara had spent a good deal of her childhood growing up on the group’s commune. She and her brother Carl had been taught since early childhood that all negative emotions were harmful. Sadness, anger, jealousy, embarrassment, guilt and fear were all to be avoided and not “indulged in.” Of course, all of these emotions are entirely normal, but Barbara and Carl had been taught otherwise. They were very relieved to know that their lifelong problems were not signs of mental illness, and that help was available for them.
Growing up, Barbara and Carl had tried to do what they were told, and dutifully attended cult indoctrination programs, but had never felt right about it. Nevertheless, they loved their parents and tried to do what would please them. Now that they were in college, as soon as they discovered that the group was a cult, they arranged for me and a former group member to counsel them, and then planned a rescue effort for their parents.
Their parents were bright, successful people in their fifties. He was a practicing attorney; she was an elementary school teacher. He had been recruited into the cult by an old friend from college. As a lawyer, he was quite skeptical at first, but was eventually drawn further and further into the group. He and his wife became mid-level leaders, and eventually ran the group’s meetings in their city.
The rescue effort was a complete success, and the entire family is now closer than ever before. Both parents have helped others in the group to reevaluate their commitment. Several have left it.
Harassment And Threats
Another issue for some former cult members involves harassment, threats, break-ins, lawsuits, blackmail and even murder, particularly if an ex-member goes public. Since cults believe that anyone who leaves is an enemy, there is always some risk that harm will be done to a defector.
I have been threatened many, many times by cult members—usually by mail or phone, but also in person, particularly when I am picketing, demonstrating or otherwise exposing a particular group’s activities. I have only once been physically assaulted, however, when a Moonie punched me in the face and incited me to punch him back. I looked him in the eye and asked him, “Is this what the Kingdom of Heaven is going to be like—silencing the opposition?” I took him to court and he pleaded no contest. The judge ordered him to pay for a new pair of glasses for me, and gave him a stern warning to stay away from me. Years later, he left the group and contacted me. He apologized for the incident, and told me he was only doing what he had been instructed to do: “Take care of him.”
Even though violence toward former cult members is relatively rare, the fear factor has kept many people from going public and telling their stories. What they don’t realize is that once their story is told, it would be stupid for a group to retaliate, because that would only incriminate them more. When I started Ex-Moon Inc. in 1979, it was partly because I realized there would be much more strength and safety in numbers. That strategy was successful.
Some of the larger, more aggressive groups, such as Scientology, believe in attacking critics rather than defending against accusations.[189] Scientology has initiated hundreds of lawsuits against former members and critics, including Paulette Cooper, author of The Scandal of Scientology,[190] and Gabe Cazares, former mayor of Clearwater, Florida. Typically, these suits are filed purely to harass and financially drain cults’ opponents. To a certain extent, this strategy has been successful: most former members of Scientology, for example, are afraid to take any public action against the organization.[191] However, when the FBI raided Scientology headquarters, documents were obtained that proved the illegality of many of the organization’s activities, and Hubbard’s wife and ten other Scientologists were sent to jail. Guilty verdicts have also been handed down in Canada and France.
Problems With Intimate Relationships
Inside cults, members often have little chance to form a normal, satisfying intimate relationship with a partner. They may be forced into celibacy, paired with someone they would never have chosen on their own, or coerced into a life of sexual servitude. When they leave the group and begin to live in the real world, sooner or later they have to deal with the fact that, for years, their need for a satisfying relationship was never met.
Yet the experience of having been taken advantage of, often for years, makes it hard for people to take the emotional risk of forming close relationships with others. Some people have denied their own sexuality for so long that they may have difficulty expressing it. In other cases, ex-members got into sexual relationships with trainers or leaders who manipulated them, with little regard for their feelings.
That said, I have met a number of people who married in a cult, raised children, left the cult and managed to navigate their lives together. They are by far the exception. Most relationships break up after exiting the group. Sometimes one person stays in the group, which makes it very difficult when there are young children.
Trust in yourself and learning to trust someone else, much less a group, is a really big deal for ex-cult members. Feeling your real feelings and learning how to express them in healthy ways is so important. Learning to respect yourself and your partner as a separate and individual human being is essential. How to problem solve and share power is another essential issue. Some Christian cults put women under the control of men, and it can be difficult to unlearn such subservience.
In all of these cases, it’s best to seek therapy with a mental health professional who understands undue influence.
Ways To Heal Yourself
The most effective emotional support and information will usually come from former cult members who are further along in the healing process. But the actual healing is the responsibility of the former cult member.
Finding and becoming part of a healthy group can be a big step forward. It took me a full year, after I left the Moonies, before I gingerly involved myself with a group of any kind—in this case, a peer counseling organization at college, in 1977.
In 1986, I served for a year as the national coordinator of a loosely knit group of ex-cult members who wanted to help themselves and others. It wasn’t easy to coordinate a group of people who have all been burned by group involvement! But my experience taught me that such a thing is possible.
Support groups for former cult members can be especially beneficial. One woman who attended such a group in Boston contacted me, after she heard me on a local radio show. Deborah had been involved with a political cult for ten years. One day she told me she broke one of the group’s rules. She had lunch alone with a non-member, and rather than face being “grilled” by the cult leader in front of the entire membership, she called up her parents and asked them for a plane ticket. She later decided that she was afraid to go home and wound up living on the streets of Boulder for several months, until she was able to slowly work her way back into society. When I met her, she was a successful businesswoman.
Even though she had been out of the cult for eight years, she had never talked about her experiences in it until she began meeting with other ex-members. “I feel like the whole thing is one big black box, and I’m afraid to open it up,’’ she explained. But soon, with the help of the group, she did open it. She mustered the courage to share an issue she was dealing with. “I know that I am being hampered in my ability to trust my boyfriend and make a commitment to him. I think it is connected to what I went through,” she shared.
We were all amazed at how successfully Deborah was able to compartmentalize her mind control experience, for such a long time. When she did start talking about it, huge chunks of time were still unaccounted for. The more she talked, the more we asked her questions and prodded her memory. Month by month, she got more and more in touch with what had happened to her. She had been subjected to an unusually intense degree of emotional and personal abuse while in the group.
“I’m really glad I was able to meet and talk with other former members,” she explained. “It’s nice to see other bright, talented people who went through something like what I went through. I just could never talk about the group to anyone without them thinking that I was crazy or sick.”
Being part of a support group can show people how mind control operates in a variety of different organizations. It also enables those who are still grappling with issues of undue influence that it is possible to recover and become a happy, productive person. For most people who leave a destructive cult, the first step should be getting a handle on their group experience. Then, if there are other issues or problems that existed before their membership, they can begin to resolve them also.
Support groups can also be a mixed bag, if they aren’t run by experienced professionals. With the best of intentions, people in support groups can wind up further traumatized if there aren’t clear rules and boundaries of respect.
Be a good consumer! When looking for a support group, be careful. Some “support groups” are, in fact, fronts for cults themselves, which use them to lure back people who have recently left the group, as well as to recruit vulnerable people who recently left other mind control cults. When researching support groups online, look for a legitimate e-mail discussion group and/or Facebook page. I also suggest not revealing your real name or any personal information, until you are confident that the group is legitimate. If there is no support group in your area, see if there is an online support group that meets your needs.
It becomes apparent to former cult members in the first year after leaving that any pre-cult problems they may have had were never resolved while they were members of a destructive cult. This can be very disappointing to the ex-member, because the illusion of becoming healthier was one of the factors that reinforced continuing membership, sometimes for many years.
This realization is often more difficult for long-term members. Imagine going into a group at age 18 and coming out at 30. You’ve been deprived of a huge amount of life experience. Your twenties, typically reserved for self-exploration, experimentation, education, skill development, career and relationship building, have been lost. Chronologically, you are 30, but psychologically, you probably feel 18. Friends from high school have good jobs; many are married; some have children; some have houses. At 30, you may be inexperienced at dating, and have been out of touch with world affairs for more than a decade. At a party, you have little to talk about except your cult experience, which only exacerbates the feeling of being in a goldfish bowl. You have to catch up on everything. You may feel an acute sense of having to make up for lost time.
Some long-term former members liken the experience to that of POWs coming home after a war. In fact, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) seems to apply perfectly to some cult member veterans. When they come home, they have to catch up on everything. In the 1970s one person I worked with had never heard of the Watergate scandal, didn’t know who singer/songwriter James Taylor was, and wasn’t aware that we had landed and walked on the surface of the moon.
Paradoxically, however, you need to slow down and take time. You need time to heal, grow and develop. You’ll need to discover or create your own path, and be concerned about your own unique needs, rather than compare yourself with other people.
One sensitive father of an ex-cult member said, “If someone gets hit by a truck, naturally you expect that it will take them time to recover. You wouldn’t expect them to get up out of bed, and go and get a job the next week, would you?” His daughter lived with him for her first year and a half away from the cult. He didn’t pressure her to move out or seek employment during that time. He recognized that she was doing the very best she could.
Every person who has been in a cult is different and has different needs. Some people are able to adjust quickly to the outside world. Others, who have been more severely traumatized, need more time.
Perhaps most importantly, former cult members need to learn how to trust themselves again. They have to become their own best friend, as well as their own best therapist. They have to realize that they didn’t choose to be lied to or abused. They are not at fault. Eventually, as they learn to once again trust themselves and their own inherent wisdom and instincts, they also learn that it’s okay to begin trusting others. They realize that all groups are not evil. In fact, the good part of being involved with a healthy group—be it a religious, social or political—is that you can exercise control over your participation. You do not have to stay one minute longer than you want. Nor do you have to sit silently and blame yourself, if you don’t understand what is being said or done. You can question, and you can question some more. Not only is this all right, it is your Constitutional right.
Other Challenges And Issues
Another important aspect of growth for any ex-cult member is learning to get in touch with emotions and channel them effectively.
When someone first leaves a mind control group, many of the emotions may remain suppressed. But as they adjust to the outside world, they may begin to feel shame and embarrassment, then anger and indignation. They move from What is wrong with me? to How dare they do that to me! This is normal and healthy.
At some point, they may begin a voracious research project to find out everything they can about their cult and answer every one of their questions. This, too, is a very positive therapeutic step. Often, the number one priority of someone who has just left a cult is to help rescue the friends who were left behind. For cult members, their major regret in leaving is usually losing contact with people they came to know and care for in the group. It becomes particularly difficult when a former member realizes that the friendships they thought were so good were conditional on continued membership. A former member can quickly see the strength of mind control bonds when their closest friend in the group refuses to meet them, unless he brings another member along.
Eventually, when all their questions are answered, and all their cult issues are addressed, they reach a saturation point. They declare to themselves, “They’re not going to take the rest of my life!” and start making plans for the future.
Sometimes there are additional issues that need more extensive individual counseling. Sarah, a former ten-year member of the Church Universal and Triumphant, had been forcibly deprogrammed more than five years earlier, yet was still experiencing cult-related problems. I agreed to work with her for ten sessions. Her first homework assignment was to begin writing down her entire cult experience. This is something I recommend for every ex-member. It was certainly something Sarah needed to do in order to reclaim her true self.
I also suggested that, since she had been involved for such a long time, she should begin by making an outline. I told her to take ten folders and number them from 1973 to 1983; put 12 sheets of paper in each folder; and label the sheets January through December. With that as a starting point, I told her to begin writing down everything she could remember that was significant, whether positive or negative. I told her not to worry if there were huge gaps. Eventually they would all be filled in.
In order to help her remember, I told her to think of specific places she had lived or visited. I also told her to think about significant people. Lastly, I told her to recall specific activities or events that were meaningful to her.
Step by step, she was able to fill in her entire experience. She recorded how she came to be recruited. She listed her likes and dislikes about the group and its leaders. She was able to chart her ups and downs as a member. She was also able to see that, at many different points, she was very unhappy and disillusioned, but had no way out. At one point she had actually come home to her parents, complaining about her unhappiness, and they had taken her to a psychologist, who unfortunately did not recognize her problems as being cult related. After two months at home, Sarah had gone back to the group.
By writing down her entire experience, Sarah was able to process her experience and gain a greater perspective on it. She no longer had to carry around a lot of swirling, seemingly contradictory thoughts and feelings. It was now all on paper.
As part of her therapy, I explained to her that the person whose story filled those ten folders no longer existed. I suggested that she think about that person as a younger Sarah, someone who was doing the very best she could. Back at the time of her recruitment, she didn’t know about cults or mind control. If she had, she surely would never have gotten involved.
Then I had her imagine herself as a time traveler. I instructed her to go back in time and teach the younger Sarah about mind control, so she could avoid the group’s recruiters. I asked her to imagine how differently her life would have turned out if she had never become involved with the group. This enabled her to see that with more information, she would have had more choices and could have averted the danger. This became very important for her later in her therapy.
I asked her to re-experience, one at a time, traumatic cult experiences. This time, however, she could correct her responses. She told off one of the leaders in front of the members and angrily walked out of the cult. Even though she knew that we were just doing an exercise, it provided her the opportunity to channel her emotions constructively and reclaim her personal power and dignity.
By standing up for herself and telling the cult leader to “Shove it!” she could walk out of the group on her own and avoid the trauma of the forcible deprogramming. Sarah knows that in reality, her parents did need to rescue her. However, through this process she was able to regain personal control over the experience. This was extremely important in order to enable Sarah to move forward with her life.
Like everyone else in her position, she needed to take all the things she had learned, and all the people she had met and come to care for, and integrate them into a new sense of identity. Integrating the old into the new allows former members to be unusually strong. We are survivors. We have suffered hardship and abuse, and, through information and self-reflection, we are able to overcome adversity.
Like all former members I have counseled, Sarah suffered from lack of trust in herself and others, and fear of commitment to a job or a relationship. By helping her to reprocess her cult experience, I was able to show her that she now has resources that the younger Sarah didn’t have, and that she is no longer the same person who was tricked and indoctrinated into a cult.
She is older, smarter and wiser now. She knows on a very deep personal level that she can identify and avoid any situation in which she is being manipulated or used. She can rely more completely on herself, and if she needs assistance, she will be able to find what she needs. Likewise, she needs to not fear making commitments. She knows now to ask questions and keep on asking questions, and to distrust any job or relationship that requires anything that violates her core self, including her ethics and values.
Like anyone who has been molested or abused, former members need to learn to rebuild their trust in themselves and others step by step. In their own good time, they can learn to take little risks and test the waters. They don’t have to jump in any faster than is comfortable for them.
Recovery Facilities For Former Cult Members
There are regrettably only a small number of facilities to help ex-cult members heal, recover, rest, and grow. One such recovery center is Wellspring Retreat, founded by Paul and Barbara Martin, in Athens, Ohio. Paul, now deceased, was a licensed psychologist and former eight-year member of the Great Commission International, a Bible cult .192 Both provide healing and support, through a staff of trained counselors and former cult members.
For some former cult members, the opportunity to go to a safe place for a few weeks or months, where they can get intensive support and counseling, is invaluable. The problem is that these facilities are very expensive to operate and most people coming out of cults have no financial resources. Something must be done to offer the services that people need to recover!
Endnotes for Chapter 11 are in previous content email.