Grahame Gee
Saturday, June 25, 2022
11:00 AM-11:50 AM
This presentation will outline my reflections of my experience as someone who was born into the Worldwide Church of God, a Bible based doomsday cult. It will focus on the effects of psychological colonization by the cult leader and his enablers and provide an outline of a model for assisting second generation survivors (SGS) of a cult, whom I define as individuals either born into a cult or brought into a cult at a young age who subsequently leave the cult. This will be achieved by firstly, providing a brief overview of the cult’s teachings and organizational characteristics. This will include a brief autobiographical summary of the cult leader. Secondly, the colonizing effect of the cult’s practices will be outlined. This will include a brief discussion of the cult’s effect on the psychological and emotional development of its SGS, noting that the cult’s controlling influence led to a level of moral development that stuck at the level of obedience and punishment. While the primary source of this truncated development is the colonizing effect of the cult leaders traumatizing narcissism, mid and low-level enablers were required to both mediate and reinforce his colonizing influence. Finally, I will present a model for psychological decolonization of SGS. The model encompasses for parts, involving listening without judgment (Receiving the Story), Acknowledging without Blaming (Validating the Story), Identifying Strengths (Reinterpreting the story) and Identifying Authentic Values and Goals (Rewriting the story).
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