Dear Doves,

I would like to say a few words on the subject of Cults. I live in a rural area, and believe it or not, there is one near me.

They were spoken about in my local newspaper a few years ago, so I decided to look at their website at the time and find out about them. One of the local pastors called them a cult….and after a lot of thorough research on them, I concluded that he was correct.

Their website was incredibly nice. I read all of it, and it seems I agreed with most of their religious views. I was amazed! Although they made everything on their site look wonderful, I decided that in order to know the entire truth, I would have to look into the opinions and narratives of former members. I found out that this is precisely what everyone should do who wants to know about any group, anywhere.

If you only look at their website, or even talk to them…you don’t get the whole truth. Find out what the former members say about them. In this case, it was pretty mind boggling. A real pattern emerges.

I found out the following: these cults want to *control* their members, totally. Their minds, their relationships, their bodies, their worldly goods…everything. This is how it works:

A person is disgusted with this world, perhaps also with their family and friends. They look for something spiritual that they can agree with and join. They find a group of people who seem to be on the same spiritual path and wavelength as they are. Perhaps they even agree with this group on 95-100% of everything the group espouses. The person needs “to belong” to something greater than him or herself. This person thinks they have found it with this group. Here is what the group (cult) wants from you:

1. Give over all your worldly goods to the group. All real estate, bank accounts, jewelry, cash, all valuables you have accumulated in your entire life, whatever you have inherited or worked for….give it to them. Sign a legal contract doing just that. In exchange, you will live, rent free and pay for nothing, in their group commune.

2. Promise to obey the elders, especially “the Leader” of the group and abide by his/their edicts. They say they believe the Bible 100%, so do you, but you must live by their rules.

3. You will eat whatever they want you to eat, dress how they want you to dress, work at whatever they tell you, and do whatever they want you to do. In exchange, you are promised you will be taken care of for life.

4. You will be bound (brainwashed) by the thoughts of this group. It is not a democracy, and your opinions do not matter.

5. They instruct you that your family is not your real family; they are. You will stop interacting with your original family, and will only interact with your new family; i.e., them. This goes for your former friends, as well.

6. There are no disagreements in your new family. You will sing, perhaps dance around, smile, and obey your leader. You will do the work you have been assigned in the group.

So…let’s say you have joined this ‘group’. Everything is going along swimmingly at first, until…you get a job you don’t want to do. You are told (not asked) to clean the toilets constantly and haul out the trash. You do this at first, but after months of it, get tired and wonder why “that” is your job. Shouldn’t you all be taking turns at this?? Oops…remember…your opinion doesn’t matter. The leader wants you to do this. Don’t annoy him with any of your complaints.

BTW, the cult loves young women who will constantly become pregnant and enlarge the numbers of people believing in the cult. Get used to it.

Sooo…you’re an older woman and maybe can’t get pregnant anymore? Hope you love scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets…

On their website it said: “Our women like to dress modestly”. LOL…translation: you are going to look like a holdover from the old Soviet Union. Get used to it. Dyeing your hair and putting on make-up? Forget about it….! The only photos of women on that site showed them all to be about 9 months pregnant. If you are no longer of child-bearing age, the leader and elders think of you as old, and by golly, you are going to look and feel the part.

Most of these cults are patriarchal societies. The women are going to have babies, cook, clean, scrub, break their backs tending vegetable gardens, wash clothes and dishes, take care of the babies and kids, make breakfast, lunch, dinners, and even work at outside jobs (such as restaurants or deli’s that the cult has bought up) like waitresses and cooks. What are the men going to do?? Supervise you 24/7, and help make more babies, of course. The men at the top will hold all the purse strings. Cults grow in two ways: recruit from the outside as much as possible, and highly encourage cult members to keep procreating.

Well, months have gone by. You now find yourself totally disillusioned. What to do..?

You go to the Leader and nicely, complain. You say you should be doing a different job, perhaps? The Leader, and elders, disagree with you. You were given the job they want you to do. You don’t like that, you say? Guess what? The Leader and elders will get the rest of the mind-controlled group to SHUN YOU. That means, NO ONE will ever talk to you again! Oops…you should have known your place and not complained.

More months go by and you hate your existence. Don’t worry, the cult leaders don’t like you anymore, either. They have no problem giving you a ONE-WAY bus ticket out of there, hopefully hundreds or thousands of miles away. Um…don’t bother asking for your worldly goods back, either. You won’t get them, as you signed a contract giving it all up to join with them in the first place.

This is how cults get rich…taking members’ monies and buying up businesses and properties. Actually, it’s the small elites who run the cult that get wealthy…the average cult member is always going to be poor. The clueless rank and file cult member does not know that the top guy and his cronies/elders have siphoned off lots of cash and purchased houses and real estate…in their own names. You will be given no information on where the money goes. You and others will be working for them like slaves with the monies you gave them, up until the day you hopefully get wise and become disgusted with the whole deal! You can be guaranteed that the leader and cronies/elders are laughing all the way to the bank and AT YOU.

A major thing cults do is restrict your access to outside information. Do you like researching on the internet? Oops…you won’t have access. Because if you can go on there, you could read negative info on the cult, or what former members are saying. They can’t have that. You probably won’t have TV either, because news of your ‘cult’ might be on there. Most likely you will be too tired form your slavish work-life and incessant cult ‘meetings’ to care about that, anyway.

A few years back I noticed a family from that cult, on the checkout line at our local supermarket. The thin mom was wearing a floor length dress, thin dad, (they were buying only fruits, veggies and distilled water) and the three kids’ ages seemed like 4, 2, and a baby. The dad had the most vacant stare I have ever seen on a human being, in my life. I guess that’s what you look like when you haven’t had an original thought in years, and you just obey some ‘leader’ who does all your thinking and decision making for you…

BTW, there are different types of cults. Not all of them dress alike and live in a commune. The main factor relating to all of them is mind control. They trick people into joining by telling them lies, taking their money, coercing them to stop thinking and follow their leader, and using control techniques to get them to remain there.

Bottom line….completely investigate everything you are interested in. Once inside of a cult, it is very hard to disengage from it. I know of one old gentleman who tried to get his wife out of one, and was unsuccessful up until the day he died.

God bless.

YsiChrist,

Patty RP