Prelude
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
Matthew 7:15
This is why most former cult members never talk about the experiences to anyone: It is hard for those who’ve never been exposed to it to understand what they went through, really. They barely understand it. There’s also an element of shame for having been so gullible and naive.
Even I, after almost four decades have passed am not willing to use their name and will call them the Church Glorious and Victorious. But I hope that this book will spark others to talk to others about their experiences in these cults, for only then will the truth of their ultimate aim be exposed.
One of the Church Glorious and Victorious daily decrees has a line that states, “Expose the lie, expose the lie, expose the lie.”
That is what needs to be done before they do too much damage to your son, daughter, husband, wife, even in some cases, mothers and fathers.
May God have mercy on my soul for having undergone these initiations and grant pardon in His name for associating with this group. For as I was to later learn their plan is far more insidious that it is, resented to initiates like me who make 90 percent of these cults.
To begin.
Prelude
I don’t really know how to explain how I became involved with them except that I was very alone and very confused.
The woman I loved for three years and whom I’d planned my life around decided that her career with a major banking house in New York took priority over us. Also, I was working in a job that was nowhere near my capabilities, and they gave me a “reason” for that, just like they had a “reason” for just about every occurrence since time began.
They were good at what they did. It would take the total love and deep concern of another woman, Kathy, my mother, my family, and Christ Himself through the Holy Spirit to finally draw me away from their ways.
I write this in hopes of reaching some of those who do not have the same resources fighting to get them back.
Don’t think that the people who get involved in a cult (for that is what they are but when I was in it I thought it was another church) are stupid. They aren’t. In fact, many of them are among the most intelligent and talented people you’d ever want to know.
They’re just people, like me, who are looking for more, for higher vistas than they ones they’ve known, and these groups offer them that. In the 1880’s they’re the type that would have ventured out West and tamed a wilderness. In 1980, now that that wilderness is tamed, they venture out West to conquer a spiritual wilderness. Only, in my case anyway, the so-called “Church” to which I belonged came east to find me.
My first contact with them was a guy where I worked. He was bright, kind and a bit eccentric. He also seemed to be more at peace than the rest of my coworkers.
This “peacefulness” I was later to discover was due to his seven years of hypnotic chanting, but at the time all I saw was that he was looked at peace with himself while everyone else looked haggard. So when he approached me about seeing a play one day after work. I agreed.
Little did I know then that I was about to be launched on one of the most bizarre experiences of the latter part of the twentieth century...that of belonging to a cult.
Here’s how it happened and how you can recognize one of these diligent, hard-working, conscientious, and deadly earnest cult recruiters should they as nonchalantly approach you.