March 30, 2022, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT, Online
The Family Survival Trust is happy to welcome Elgen Strait as this year's featured speaker for our annual public event. Who are the Unification Church and "The Moonies"? What is it like to grow up as a "Moonie"? What difficulties do people who are born-in face? Does our society provide adequate support to former members? Podcast host and former second-generation Moonie, Elgen Strait, will be answering these questions and more in our 2022 Annual Public Event.Elgen will be sharing his fascinating personal story as well as insights into how the Unification Church operates and the common themes that have emerged through interviews with second-generation members on his podcast.The event will last for one hour and include a 30 minute presentation followed by 30 minutes of questions and answers.
Doors open at 6.30 for a 7pm start. Following the event, the Zoom room will remain open for those who wish to stay and chat informally.
About Elgen: Elgen Strait is the host of Falling Out with Elgen Strait, a podcast focused on the experiences of second-generation survivors of the Unification Church, a cult commonly referred to as "The Moonies."
"Yesterday (February 21), three ex-members of an alleged "abusive cult" led by the self-proclaimed "spiritual teacher" Bentinho Massaro posted a series of statements on Instagram, each sharing how they became followers and finally broke free. Despite reportedly signing NDAs for $100,000 or more, they said that they wanted to expose a pattern of "psychological and spiritual warfare" within Massaro's following, in the hope that he will be brought to justice.
The trio – yoga and meditation teacher Jade Alectra, artist Keilan McNeil, and Jacqueline Graham – also shared their respective experiences with the so-called cult in statements on a joint website titled The Mirror Effect."
Kristyn Decker
2:00 PM-2:50 PM
Friday, June 24th
"I was born and raised in, and lived polygamy before I finally found freedom and genuine happiness. For 28 years of my life, my father was the Prophet of the AUB cult, centered in Murray, Utah. My mother was the first of his 13 wives and I was number 12 of his 23 biological children. While on my way out, I obtained a B.A. in Education. After I escaped, I published my first auto biography, Fifty Years in Polygamy - Big Secrets and Little White Lies. With many speaking engagements, book tours, and helping victims who wanted to leave, came the necessity to establish the Sound Choices Coalition: Informing Society of the Realities of Polygamy and Advocating FOR its victims. Because of these things and much more, I'd like to talk about the amazing "findings" in the 2009 Canadian Court Case against polygamy. Chief Justice Bauman finds polygamy "as harmful to women and children and to society at large, and even to the very foundation of democracy itself." In 2009 a team of lawyers from the federal and provincial governments, along with a handful of allied public-interest groups, set out to prove the experts wrong and to show there were devastating harms that inevitably flowed from polygamy's "cruel arithmetic". The case against polygamy would proceed for almost two years, and was laid out through forty-four days of trial and more than 100 witnesses. The evidence ranged from the testimony of pre-eminent academics to stark and disturbing confessions of polygamists testifying under the shield of anonymity. The eventual (2011), 357-page decision of the Chief Justice based on "the most comprehensive judicial record on the subject ever produced," finds 'that the harm against women and children outweighs concerns over protecting religious freedom.'
"Fifty Years in Polygamy is the personal history of Kristyn Decker, the daughter of a polygamist prophet. Within, she reveals a rare, uncensored, firsthand account of the inner workings of a Utah-based polygamist sect whose members today include high-profile reality television stars. Her gripping narrative describes the rampant anguish and abuse behind the happy faces that polygamist women present in public. Fifty Years in Polygamy is Kristyn's inspiring journey; Kristyn challenges the common misconception that polygamy is simply a harmless lifestyle choice. "For many, it is like modern-day slavery," she says.
News, Education, Intervention, Recovery
Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.
CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.
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Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations and related topics.
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