I was born into one of the world's most notorious religious cults, we thought Armageddon was coming

Alice Giddings
METRO
January 29, 2024

‘I didn’t have a life plan,’ says Petra Velzeboer, who grew up in the notorious Children of God cult.

‘If you think about growing up, pretty much every three years was some deadline for when the world was going to end or Armageddon was going to show up.’

Public spanking with paddles or belts were commonplace, she claims, as were enforced silence restrictions, periods of isolation, and propositions by older men for ‘free sex’.

The cult, which has since rebranded as The Family International, was all Petra knew for the first 22 years of her life.

The Family International still operates in 70 countries globally, though in a lengthy statement given to Metro.co.uk, the organisation said it ‘disassembled [its] previous organisational structure’ in 2010 and ‘currently functions as a small online network of approximately 1,300 people’.

‘The Family International has had a zero-tolerance policy in place for over three decades for the protection of minors, and is diametrically opposed to the abuse of minors in any form, whether physical, sexual, educational, or emotional,’ it added.

Throughout her childhood, Petra lived in communes spanning Brazil, Belgium, Africa and Russia, under the watchful eye of leader David Berg, whom Petra and her siblings were told to call ‘grandpa’, despite never meeting him before his death when Petra was 13 years old.

‘By the time I was 10 years old, he had pretty much gone from being on the frontline into hiding,’ she says.

‘The narrative for us was he needed to be able to listen to God’s voice, but the reality is police were investigating certain homes and communities and investigating child abuse allegations.’

While David Berg was investigated for these crimes, he was never charged or convicted with any offences before his death.

Berg’s theory, and the foundations of the cult’s birth in 1968, was that ‘a generation protected from the influences of groupthink would be protected from being moulded into society’s view of what life should be and would be able to think for themselves’.

But Petra, now 41, tells Metro.co.uk about the ‘regular indoctrination’ she and her family experienced.

‘Every song had lyrics that had their messaging in it saying “God’s the truth” and we would read letters or words from the cult leader,’ she says.

‘Every bit of propaganda, everything we read, every bit of literature, comic books, music, story books, was influenced by him and was often his narration, his voice, his prophecy and instruction.

‘So by the time you’re saying “oh I don’t know about this” or “this doesn’t feel right”, you already have the counter argument in your brain, because it’s been there from birth.’

As Petra says in her book, Begin With You, she and her family ‘traded one groupthink for another’ and it’s why, as a mental health practitioner today, she can’t stress enough the importance of independent thinking.

In Petra’s memoir she recalls events from life inside the cult, plus the ‘double-life’ she started leading outside of it, both of which left her with complex PTSD.

In her teens and early twenties she lived what she describes as a ‘hedonistic’ lifestyle of excessive drinking and drug use, getting arrested, experiencing extreme sexual violence and attempting to take her own life at 26, after leaving the cult at 22 due to falling pregnant with her first child.

Petra says: ‘What’s interesting is seeing the parallels between cult life and how we survive toxic behaviour. What I see in the corporate world is people doing similar things like giving up their own values in favour of survival and getting paid.’

Falling pregnant with her son gave her the final push she needed to leave.

‘People often ask, “how did you escape?” As if it were a prison or walls or a compound and it’s nothing like that when it’s these sorts of communities. It’s more the prison of your mind,’ she says.

‘You could leave at any time, and they would tell you so, but then in the messaging you would receive daily, it was people who left, God punished, so if bad things happened to them it’s because they weren’t listening, which would make people afraid of leaving’.

She adds: ‘For me and my siblings, we didn’t go to school, we didn’t have an education, we thought the world was going to end imminently, so everything out there was painted as other or evil.

‘It was a big leap in your mind to betray it and for many people they were ostracised by their own parents and support networks and would struggle in a big way once they left that safety net.’

When she left at 22, Petra moved in with her partner in London and cut contact with her family for a while. Transitioning to life outside the cult was difficult, exacerbating her depression and alcohol addiction.

‘You have the shock of “what this isn’t how other people think? My parents lied to me?” and then there’s depression and anger before you get to that acceptance,’ Petra says.

In time, she learnt healthy coping mechanisms to better manage her trauma. Now, as a full-qualified mental health practitioner, Petra wants the people who read her book to understand our ‘wellbeing, focus, plans or tactics can change over time’.

‘What I needed in the early days was to get sober and to learn how to be honest and to understand my feelings and emotions,’ she says. ‘These days, it’s movement and exercise, it’s having good people around me.’

Fostering independent thinking is also vital, she says.

‘I think expression in the right way is key for your mental health,’ says Petra.

‘It can be deeply personal like art which can help you – journaling, writing – all these things can help you go “oh that’s what I think”.

Petra does have some positive memories from the cult and notes that she had ‘adventures’ and enjoyed music in particular with her siblings.

The Family International told Metro.co.uk it has issued ‘official apologies on several occasions to any members or former members who were hurt in any way during their membership, and made the latest of these publicly available.’

Looking to the future, Petra believes that her experience with groupthink and mental health can be translated into other areas of life.

At one keynote event, a young woman said: ‘I’m waking up at 5am, I’m journaling, meditating, exercising, taking cold showers and I’m more anxious than I’ve ever been’.

‘I was thinking “no wonder”,’ says Petra. ‘We all think that we have to “do wellbeing” and achieve it by following all these people that seem to have these perfect Instagram lives and I just think the challenge to ourselves is to, even in this space, learn to think for ourselves, check our influences and then allow that to evolve over time.’

With that in mind, Petra said one of the most important things to do to preserve your mental health is to be ‘radically honest’ and ‘challenge your own bullsh*t’.

‘That doesn’t just mean speaking to a therapist, it could, but it means being radically honest with yourself,’ she says.

‘For example, asking yourself “what do I really want?”. If fear of other people’s opinions didn’t matter, how would I be living my life and I think more people are starting to ask some of these questions in a post pandemic world.’

She also stresses that while it’s important not to ‘minimise trauma’ it’s important not to get stuck there.

‘Trauma, big T little T, it doesn’t matter,’ she says. ‘It’s less about the thing and more about how it’s affecting your body and mind.

‘We don’t want to minimise trauma and mental illness, but we also don’t want to get stuck there, because I’ve been in that stuck place where I was like “well I’ve got depression, if you grew up like me you’d have it to” and I would surround myself with people that would feed that information back to me.

‘No matter what context you’re in, whether it’s a toxic relationship or a work environment that’s affecting your physical or mental health, so many people just say, “well that’s the way the world is”.

‘So I challenge people to begin with themselves and think what is one small thing that is within my control.

‘I used to listen to a one minute guided meditation, that was the only thing in my control. I challenge people to experiment with wellbeing tools and being honest and learning about themselves and what can work for them.’





https://metro.co.uk/2024/01/29/born-one-worlds-notorious-religious-cults-20187163/

The Australian cult that fed children LSD: Guy Pearce on the 'disturbing' true story behind The Clearing

Actor and co-director Jeffrey Walker speak about the chilling inspiration behind the series

Katie Cunningham
The Guardian
Tue 23 May 2023

As soon as he put down the script, Jeffrey Walker knew he wanted to work on the Disney+ series The Clearing. “It was one of those reads that you just couldn’t stop thinking about,” the show’s co-director says. “It affected me emotionally and psychologically.”

This might ring as hyperbole if it weren’t for the disturbing real-life story behind the script. The new eight-part series, adapted from JP Pomare’s novel In the Clearing, is based on the true story of the Family, the cult who operated in the shadows of regional Victoria from the 1960s to the 80s.

Among its various cruelties across two decades, the Family obtained 28 children, mostly through shonky adoptions or as “gifts” from unwed mothers, and housed them in a sprawling property at the secluded Lake Eildon. There they were subject to beatings and starvation, given daily doses of benzodiazepines to keep them docile and forced to begin taking psychedelic drugs, escalating to the point of days-long trips once they turned 14. To look like the “family” they were told they were, the children’s hair was bleached blonde and they were dressed in matching outfits.

Those involved in The Clearing are keen to stress that viewers should not expect a to-the-letter retelling of the real-life case (for that, watch the 2019 documentary The Cult of the Family). But the series is still rich with details that echo the facts, like those matching platinum hairdos – a subtly chilling sight – as well as the filming locations, which included Lake Eildon.

The trailer for The Clearing.

While the early episodes are a largely faithful adaptation of Pomare’s book, Walker says the story quickly expands beyond that source material “to take on a cinematic life of its own”. The exact plot details are being closely guarded – the Guardian was only given access to the first two episodes in advance – but it broadly tells the story of the cult, renamed the Kindred, in present-day scenes and flashbacks to the 80s as Freya (Teresa Palmer) reckons with her past and her connections to the cult.

Walker, who co-directed The Clearing with Gracie Otto, says the goal was to capture the trauma that young people raised in cults experience. “Your past is with you all the time – you carry it with you in the present constantly,” he says.

Palmer’s character could stand in for the dozens of children who suffered at the hands of the Family. But one character indisputably based on a real individual is Adrienne Beaufort (played by Miranda Otto) a stand-in for Anne Hamilton-Byrne. Hamilton-Byrne, who died aged 98 in 2019, led the Family and holds the dubious honour of being one of history’s few female cult leaders.

The self-appointed guru claimed to be Jesus reborn as a woman and told the children raised in her clutches she was their birth mother, and that together they would survive the end of the world to become a new master race.

Guy Pearce had heard vague details of the Family cult when he came onboard, but preferred to keep it that way, having been drawn in by the “really compelling and disturbing” story. “I’ve done things before where things are based on exact occurrences … I find I’ve got to be very careful in how much of the original source material I delve into,” he says.

Pearce’s character, Dr Bryce Latham, is also clearly sketched from real life: the Family’s co-founder, Dr Raynor Johnson, was a physicist whose presence lent the group an intellectual authority that helped them recruit members, often handpicked from Melbourne’s wealthy elite. Joining for the promise of spiritual fulfilment, they were made to take dangerous amounts of LSD and had every aspect of their lives controlled.

“I’m always nervous about how much research I do,” Pearce says. “It can be helpful sometimes, but it can also open up cans of worms that convolute what it is I’m initially picking up from in the script.”

He regards Latham as “highly intelligent” but also “socially inept, quite the hermit”; a man who believes that if we could access more of our brain through the use of psychedelic drugs, humans could create a more efficient and fulfilled society. But that vision carried with it a cruel myopia.

“He really is lacking in the sort of usual humanity that we might find would kick in if we saw children being abused – to him, it’s all for the greater good,” Pearce says.

The Clearing’s A-list cast in Otto, Palmer and Pearce will be obvious draw cards (another legend of Australian screen, Claudia Karvan, also appears in later episodes). But Walker feels the true standouts are the two child leads, Lily La Torre and Julia Savage, through whom we experience the inhumanity of young life in the cult. He was impressed by their talent and ability to handle the script’s “heavy material” – something the behind-the-scenes team were conscious of making as low-impact as possible for the young performers. Kids were only brought on set for “a really short period of time”, the parents were always nearby, and efforts were made to keep the mood on set as light as possible until the moment cameras rolled.

At times, The Clearing can be upsetting viewing, particularly knowing how few consequences the Family’s leaders faced. Johnson died in 1987, a few months before the Family’s compound was raided by police and all the children removed. Hamilton-Byrne fled overseas and – while eventually arrested on minor fraud charges – never served any jail time.

But Walker is excited for audiences to see the finished product which, in what feels “pretty special” for an Australian production, is airing in the UK on Disney+ and the US on Hulu in tandem with its local release. He thinks the show is “brave” for keeping viewers guessing.

“It doesn’t feed you every little bit of information in the first episode,” Walker says. “You’re given all these little pieces to the puzzle that ultimately you’ll only fully form in the finale. Every single thing pays off.”

The Clearing starts streaming on Disney+ in Australia and UK and on Hulu in the US from 24 May


https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/may/24/the-australian-cult-that-fed-children-lsd-guy-pearce-on-the-disturbing-true-story-behind-the-clearing

CultNEWS101 Articles: 3/6/2023 (Larry Ray, Documentary, The Family, Australia, Buddhist)

Larry Ray, Documentary, The Family, Australia, Buddhist 

Hulu: Under his Spell: Sarah Lawrence Dad Turned Predator

"The case that horrified the country; a dad moved into his daughter's dorm at Sarah Lawrence College. For about 10 years, Lawrence Ray violated, extorted and sex trafficked her friends and others. See the disturbing recordings and hear from the survivors." Includes comments by Patrick Ryan and Steve Hassan.

The IndoctriNation Podcast: Reclaiming Stolen Youth w/ Felicia Rosario and Daniel Barban Levin 

"Felicia Rosario and Daniel Barban Levin are featured in the new Hulu documentary STOLEN YOUTH: INSIDE THE CULT AT SARAH LAWRENCE 

The film which is available now for streaming offers striking first-hand interviews with con man Larry Ray's victims and incorporates personal audio tapes and video recordings to tell the story of his grim 10-year influence over a group of young people."

Hamilton Spectator: Insiders called it a cult. To others, it was a family - until it turned on itself

" ... They lived in a mansion. They prayed together. They cooked and ate and did chores together. They worked side by side and shared their earnings and expenses. They cared for one another's children and vacationed together.

Some insiders say it was a cult.

They called it The Family, and a former pizzeria owner and martial arts teacher named Mohan Jarry Ahlowalia was it's unlikely charismatic leader.

For decades, the communal living arrangement seemed perfect. Ideal.

Until allegations of sexual and physical assault, death threats, human trafficking, extortion and gun violations tore the Burlington household apart. The ugly accusations pitted Ahlowalia's followers against each other.

Details of The Family's strange life became evidence in a long, complicated criminal trial that had Ahlowalia fighting for his freedom.

Thirty charges were laid against him. For three years the case meandered through the justice system. Eventually 14 witnesses testified at a trial that took 57 days spread over a year.

In the end, Ahlowalia was found guilty of absolutely nothing.

The judge eviscerated the Crown's case.

Key witnesses, she said, were discreditable at best. At worst, some may have colluded to frame their former leader.

The judge even suspected guns were planted in Ahlowalia's bedroom and car.

"This case turns on the credibility of the witnesses," Ontario Court Justice Jaki Freeman wrote in her judgment.

The Family, a seeming hub of nurture and love, had turned on itself."

Slate: I Was Raised by American Buddhists. Here's Why I Left

" ... For the fourth week in a row, a white ex-Catholic Buddhist sits down to teach us about humility. We, a group of six or seven teenagers, roll our eyes at each other. It's 2013, and we've just left the gompa—the shrine room—of a Buddhist center in Raleigh, North Carolina, to attend youth group. The mostly white adult members will stay in the gompa to listen to the teachings of the Nepalese geshe (an advanced title earned by high-level Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns). A different parent teaches youth group every week, but a surprising percentage of them grew up Catholic and converted to Buddhism in young adulthood.

Being raised Buddhist from birth put me in a unique position among white Americans. I've heard white peers, professors, and Uber drivers praise Buddhism for being the only "unproblematic" religion—Buddhists typically don't proselytize, the religion tends to accept and incorporate scientific discoveries, and there aren't teachings that discriminate against minority groups. But I've come to understand that when Buddhism is filtered through a Christian culture of indoctrination, it can have similarly harmful effects: obsession with purity, victim-blaming, and abuses of power.

A large percentage of American Buddhists are highly educated—among the subscribers of one of the most prominent Buddhist magazines (where I used to work), 42 percent have master's degrees and 15 percent have doctorates; 77 percent have at least a bachelor's degree. Yet, when I was growing up, it became a running joke among my fellow youth-group teens that nobody could seem to put together a curriculum. We kept repeating topics, and apparently many parents thought the lesson we most needed to learn—this group of soft-spoken kids, half of us homeschooled and all on the outskirts of popularity—was humility. These parents' model of humility, however, taught us more about deferring to authority than it did about not being cocky. Most of our conversations circled around the importance of not thinking we knew better than those around us, and how the people who hurt us were actually suffering just as much—or more—than we were. These lessons solidified in me a pattern of acquiescing to people who held power over me that followed me far into young adulthood.

During my elementary-school years, Tibetan monks lived with my family. My parents hosted them in part because offering alms to monks is one of the strongest ways to generate positive karma. Buddhists believe that the intentions behind every thought and action produce karmic "seeds" that later manifest as suffering or the absence of suffering. When, in the face of suffering, you act with intentions that balance compassion and wisdom, you purify the karmic seed so that it no longer affects your present and future circumstances. Once your karma is neutralized, so to speak, you may achieve enlightenment.

The monk who stayed with my family the longest—a few years—became integrated into my family's life. He woke up with us on weekends so my parents could sleep in, came to my and my sister's school events, and prayed in Sanskrit before every family dinner. He also really liked kissing me and my sister on the mouth, even though we would shriek and run and push him away whenever he tried.

We even had a kissing game: When the monk and my mom made thentuk (a Tibetan soup), they'd make one noodle longer than the others. If you got what became known as "the big noodle," you got to choose whoever you wanted to kiss and they had to let you.

I don't fully blame my parents for letting this happen. People commonly view religious figures—especially those who have taken a vow of chastity—as more "pure" than laypeople. (We've seen it play out with Catholic priests.) That the monk was Asian, had grown up in a monastery in India, and wore his maroon-and-gold robes every day contributed to this."

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Breaking Away From The Children Of God, A Wild, Radical Religious Cult

Dr. Oz

December 2, 2021

https://youtu.be/r_UgipVDiEU

Netflix released a new documentary on the secretive religious group 'The Family.' Despite its flaws, it's a must see.

John Fea
Washington Post
August 16, 2019

Last week Netflix released “The Family” a five-part documentary about a secretive group of Christians with a mission to spread the teachings of Jesus to Washington, D.C., and beyond. Many progressives will love the documentary because it gives them what they want to hear, while conservatives will probably question the motives of those involved.

“The Family” is directed by Jesse Moss and based on two books by journalist Jeff Sharlet: “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power” (2008) and “C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy” (2010). (Sharlet is an executive producer and has a significant amount of camera time.)

Sharlet’s books have appealed to progressive pundits anxious about the Christian right’s threat to the separation of church and state, but his work also has had its share of critics.

Historian of religion Randall Balmer, who over the past 30 years has been one of our most discerning observers of American evangelicalism, panned the “The Family” in a 2008 review in The Washington Post. Balmer criticized Sharlet’s sloppy use of history, his paranoid style and his failure to take seriously members of the Family who did not identify with the Christian right. (Coincidentally, Balmer and Sharlet are now colleagues at Dartmouth.)

When Sharlet published his books, many observers of American religion, like Balmer, were skeptical of conspiracy theories about the theocratic schemes of cultlike groups working behind the scenes in Washington.

Historians of American Christianity were hard at work trying to convince academics and the general public that evangelicalism was a religious movement, not a cover for a nefarious attempt to create a 17th-century Puritan theocracy. The efforts of these historians, of course, did not come easy during the Age of Reagan, Moral Majority and the “culture wars.” Sharlet’s book didn’t help the cause.

But much has changed in the past decade. In fact, Moss and Sharlet’s documentary, which devotes the bulk of its coverage to developments in “The Family” after 2010, is quite timely. The Christian right has found renewed energy since President Trump’s election. Christian nationalism, the idea that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and needs to return to its religious roots, is on the rise. Many pundits and scholars wonder whether the evangelical movement can be separated from the agenda of the Republican Party.

It’s time to examine Sharlet’s work (and now Moss’ work) with fresh eyes, and for this reason alone, “The Family” is must viewing.

Abraham Vereide, a Norwegian-born evangelical, founded the Family (its original name was the International Christian Leadership) in 1935 to provide a space for men with power in his adopted hometown of Seattle to meet regularly for prayer and Bible study.

As Sharlet notes in “The Family,” and Princeton historian Kevin Kruse has argued in his book, “One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America,” Vereide’s organization had more than just a spiritual agenda. He merged evangelical Christianity with corporate capitalism to defeat what he believed to be the socialist leanings of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Family emerged at a time of labor unrest in Seattle, and Vereide used his fellowship of Christian businessmen to crush the city’s growing workers movement.

Sharlet first learned about the Family when he was invited to live at Ivanwald, a house in Arlington, Va. Young men, preparing for future leadership in the movement, resided there in spiritual community and spent time serving the needs of the Family’s leadership and international dignitaries who met at a nearby mansion known as the Cedars. Episode 1 of “The Family” dramatizes Sharlet’s experience at Ivanwald.

The Family is now known best for its sponsorship of the National Prayer Breakfast, an event that has especially attracted evangelicals. Vereide’s successor, Doug Coe; eventually took over the gathering; religious leaders in the world of politics, business and culture come to Washington every February to share a meal and build networks among like-minded believers. Since its inception, every president — from Eisenhower to Trump — has attended.

Coe, who died in 2017, was an enigma, and the documentary doesn’t help us get to know him any better. On one hand, Coe seems to have been a kind, Christian gentleman, with roots in mainstream evangelical ministries who felt called to minister to politicians, lawmakers and other men of influence in Washington. His primary concern was telling people about Jesus.

But the Coe portrayed here was a puppet master who demanded loyalty of his followers. He illegally subsidized the rent of congressmen living at a Family-owned townhouse called C Street Center. He modeled the Family’s organizational philosophy after the mafia and the Nazis. And he operated in secrecy with little accountability.

Moss and Sharlet seem to be interested only in this darker side of Coe. They concentrate on the Family’s numerous efforts to blur, or in some cases, cross the line between church and state. This is especially the case in the episodes dealing with the Family’s influence outside the United States. “The Family” documents several incidents in which Coe’s organization funded the travel of sitting members of Congress to meet with autocratic world leaders for the purpose of sharing the message of Jesus. While such meetings are not problematic in and of themselves, the documentary points out that these ambassadors for Christ rarely condemn, or in some cases simply ignore, the human rights violations of these leaders.

Moreover, world leaders often perceive these delegations as U.S. envoys. Sharlet puts it well when he says that Coe and the congressional members of the Family meet with world leaders “as representatives of the most powerful government in the world,” but when they arrive, they claim that they “are just talking about my Jesus.” Some of these congressmen have even advanced the religious agenda of the Family while serving on official government trips funding by taxpayers, and at least one spent time in prison for laundering money through the Family.

Indeed, “The Family” makes a convincing case that many of Coe’s followers are crusading Christian nationalists who use fear mongering tactics and political influence to spread a false gospel that equates Christianity with worldly power.

Many viewers will inevitably equate the Family with American evangelicalism. And who would blame them if they did? Some of the Family’s most troublesome practices reflect an approach to religion and politics that led 80 percent of American evangelicals to vote for Trump in 2016. Many of the politicians who gravitate toward the Family have run campaigns designed to convince evangelicals that gays, Muslims, Barack Obama and immigrants are eroding white Christian America.

But the Family also seems to be a much more complex organization than the quasi-theocratic movement that Moss and Sharlet make it out to be. The history of the organization suggests that its members and friends also include Christians who reject the Christian nationalism that has come to define much of evangelicalism. Why did Hillary Clinton or evangelical progressive Jim Wallis or Jimmy Carter gravitate toward Coe? (To be clear, none of them are considered “members” of the Family. Clinton and Wallis do not appear in the documentary, but Carter is interviewed.) Did Coe deceive them? Or did they believe that Coe’s vision for prayer and Bible study was not only appropriate, but valuable, in the United States? Moss and Sharlet don’t seem to be interested in exploring these questions.

Take, for example, the Family-inspired fellowship group that meets in Portland, Ore., and is featured prominently in Episode 5. The men in attendance are intense about their faith. They reveal a masculine approach to Christian faith that has been a part of the movement for a long time. But they spend little time talking about government or politics.

The group is interracial and is led by an African American evangelical. A white member openly criticizes Moss for the lack of racial diversity in his film crew. At one point, the conversation sounds like we could be watching a local Black Lives Matter meeting. Yet Sharlet seems to imply that these men are in training, just like the young men he encountered at Ivanwald, to advance the theocratic mission of the Family.

The members of the Portland group are not elite power brokers. They appear to be ordinary men with everyday problems who want to be better husbands and fathers. They struggle with pornography, they lament the prevalence of divorce and adultery, even as they realize that they aren’t immune from such problems, they talk about racial reconciliation, they challenge one another to surrender their lives to God, they display humility and they hold one another accountable in their pursuit of Christian faith.

Maybe this is what the Family, at its core, and despite its many flaws, is really all about.

John Fea teaches American history at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pa., and is the author, most recently, of “Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump.”

Correction: An earlier version of this piece incorrectly stated that Doug Coe started the prayer breakfast gathering and has been updated to reflect that he took over the gathering. This piece has also been updated to fix the original name of the group profiled in the documentary: International Christian Leadership. The piece has also been updated to clarify that the author believes Jeff Sharlet appeared to imply men were in training to advance the Family.

https://beta.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/08/16/netflix-released-new-documentary-secretive-religious-group-family-despite-its-flaws-its-must-see/?noredirect=on

Becoming Legendary with Sharen Seitz #18

A Vibetality Podcast

July 15, 2018

"Born into an emotional and chaotic life in one of the world's most dangerous cults (The Family International) Sharen Seitz has worked hard to create harmony where darkness can dance with light and she can share her human experience with the world." 

Podcast Link

_________________________

My First Podcast Experience

Written by Sharen Seitz on her #iahsay blog at Essensha.com/blog

"I believe that just about every human has thought about it at least once; ‘What will my future be like? What steps must I take to build the future I want?’
I didn’t have much of a foundation to build on having been born into The Children of God sex cult. It has always been a huge challenge to cope with that sort of upbringing and explain really anything about myself to others. My journeying through adversities while in this human experience has never been simple conversation for me nor will it always be easily understood by others. So for that and many other reasons, life used to be about hiding my truths. First, through control while too young to have a choice. Then as I grew older, I would just feel limited by experiencing low vibrations of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and fear of my truth not being validated when I actually did find the courage to speak up."

"Nowadays, as I discussed in my interview, I am observing more of an openness to vulnerability during conversations of powerful and deep subjects. I also see a lot of avoidance when suffering takes place, sure. The subject of death, for example; there is a sort of tip-toeing that occurs when someone else is in the space of someone who has recently lost a loved one. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that death, a natural and absolute part of life, is so feared that we are too uncomfortable to even speak about it or become empathetic or sympathetic to those in mourning? Growing up in the environment that I did I experienced a lot of loss and confusion but had not yet faced losing a close loved one through death. I contribute that partially to not having had the opportunity to get close to many of my relatives, or even immediate family members. However, thinking about losing my dad with our unresolved issues, the sister that was like my mother from birth, or my younger, twin sisters, and the only brother that I really knew to something “tragic” was always too much to even think consider."

"Or so I told myself."

"On November 2nd, 2016, my newly mended friendship with my father came to an end when he decided he couldn’t take the chronic pain from his car accident anymore and took his own life. Not only was I unprepared due to how I was avoiding the mear thought of losing my dad, and certainly never considered he would shoot himself, but I had also just moved to a new state. Matt, my partner and love, happened to have just left for Austin, Texas on a business trip after we moved into our new home together. I was completely alone when I got the call early that morning and was alone for the following 3 days. I had fortunately met one person through her sitting our pups, so I’m forever grateful to her for providing some human interaction and support when she was just a stranger who had no idea what to do for me. Which leads me to circle back: we all have an idea of how uncomfortable it was for others when they heard me attempting to reach out for support by saying the words, “my dad just killed himself…” This subject of death is already a challenge for us all but throw in the subject of suicide and there is almost a “recoiling” that happens, as said by host Patrick Brennan in our interview."

"Due to what I was born into and what my life was like after the abuse set the stage for this incarnation, I have always struggled with suicide idealization. We were always prepped for death, taught to look forward to the rapture, and Armageddon."

"At nine, I developed a nervous nausea and vomiting syndrome that was linked to symptoms of PSTD. Although I was victorious five years ago over this mysterious illness that I faced most of my life and had affected all of my relationships, jobs, and schooling — this added element of physical, daily torture has been enough for me to be validated in my thoughts of worthlessness and being a burden on others, over the years." 

"If you take a small child and put them in a chaotic environment where nothing is ever safe or secure, no one is ever consistent or loving, and everything your shown, taught, and treated like is an example of horrifying abandonment, abuse, extreme confusion, and some of the worst cruelty and brainwashing there is today, that child will likely develop what we label “complex trauma” or CPTSD."

"There are so many accurate stereotypes for how people from a background of abuse, neglect, abandonment, and violence can turn out. So it makes sense why my stunning and dear friend, Dawn Watson > dawnwatson.com.br/english<, who was also born into The Children of God/The Family (TF) in Brazil, is so admired for her ability to spend her existence working with thousands of people around the world teaching through her many examples of courage, strength, and determination to make her suffering worth something for those confused, trapped, and in pain… like we were. She inspires and supports me time and time again through our conversations with her ability to lift me up, yes, but also through our powerful and personal connection where we can relate in our darkness. As a woman, there is nothing like having correlating paths, synergistic goals, and mutual support with a like-minded and like-spirited woman.
She and I agree that pain is a teacher and that to get through it, you must listen to its lesson."

"I often write passages with details about bits of my life experiences, I post spiritual poetry or writing pictures, and sprinkle in other meaningful content via my Instagram, @ShareInnsaei. After writing a bit about trauma and how diverse it can be no matter the circumstance or person, I was contacted by Patrick, the host of Becoming Legendary | a Vibetality Podcast. He asked me to come onto his show and tell more about my experience having been born in Japan into one of the most dangerous cults on earth, and what life was like after my family left when I was six years old."

(See www.Instagram.com/Shareinnsaei to view my spiritual writing for trauma)

"Every ex-member of TF whether they are 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th generation ex-members have different memories and stories to tell. I am sincerely and utterly grateful to Patrick for allowing me this opportunity to share a bit of my personal testimony with you all in hopes to reach out to those who feel stuck, alone, and silenced:

Podcast Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/becoming-legendary-a-vibetality-podcast/id1097209709?mt=2&i=1000415851508

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/13/2016

Evangelicals, Prosperity Gospel, The Family, Scientology, Cult Experts, Buddhist, Rastafari, FLDS, Mormonism, LDS

​Washington Post: ​

Evangelicals should be deeply troubled by Donald Trump’s attempt to mainstream heresy

This opinion piece is by Michael Horton, a theology professor at Westminster Seminary California.

Donald Trump’s upcoming inauguration will include Paula White and possibly other members of his inner circle, Darrell Scott, “Apostle” Wayne T. Jackson and Mark Burns. They’re all televangelists who hail from the “prosperity gospel” camp. They advocate a brand of Pentecostal Christianity known as Word of Faith.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/01/03/evangelicals-should-be-deeply-troubled-by-donald-trumps-attempt-to-mainstream-heresy/

​The Daily Beast: ​

My Life Inside ‘The Family’ Cult

We lived in a huge, ten-bedroom chalet in Switzerland which had once been a quaint bed and breakfast. If it weren’t for the Family’s avoidance of even basic upkeep, it would have been like something you’d see on a postcard. Our window boxes were filled with rotting memories of carnations, the roof leaked, and the floors sagged under the weight of all the people they supported. We’d managed to cram nearly seventy of us into this particular home. Its one virtue was that it was close enough to the American military bases in Germany that we could pick up Armed Forces Radio. That was important, because I had a radio.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/08/my-life-inside-the-family-cult.html

​AOL.Com: ​

Scientology lawyer speaks out, slams Leah Remini and her show

Now, a representative for the church is speaking out on camera, accusing Remini of "making a career out of attacking Scientology."

"When people espouse these kinds of lies about an organization like the Church of Scientology, it stirs up a lot of religious hatred and bigotry, and that results in people believing that somehow they have to act it out," Monique Yingling, an attorney for the church, told ABC's Dan Harris.

The interviews with Monique Yingling, an attorney for the church, and Remini air Friday on ABC's 20/20.

http://www.aol.com/article/2017/01/07/scientology-lawyer-slams-leah-remini/21649911/

How to select a cult expert

When you are looking for help — for yourself or for someone else — you run into terms like: ‘cult expert,’ ‘thought reform consultant,’ just ‘consultant,’ ‘lecturer,’ ‘exit counselor,’ ‘intervention specialist,’ ‘cult specialist,’ et cetera.

The media often still refers to ‘cult experts’ as ‘deprogrammers’ — people who ‘deprogram‘ someone who has been ‘programmed’ through ‘brainwashing‘ or ‘mind control.’

Familiarize yourself with the terminology and issues so that you can ask informed questions when interviewing people.

Keep in mind that this in an unregulated field in which some people who have become quite skilled at marketing themselves are the very ones to stay away from

http://www.cultexperts.org/

​The Guardian: ​

Buddha branding is everywhere – but what do Buddhists think?

“It’s hardly surprising that people are trying to sell things attached to the concept of Buddhism,” says Singhamanas, who was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist order in 2012 and now works at the London Buddhist Centre. “It’s the idea that something can give you peace, ease, energy – something mysterious, something holy but not religious.”

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2017/jan/08/buddha-branding-buddhists-religion-philosophy-year-anxious

​NY Books: ​

The True Story of Rastafari

For Jamaica’s leaders, Rastafari has been an important aspect of the country’s global brand. Struggling with sky-high unemployment, vast inequality, and extreme poverty (crippling debt burdens from IMF agreements haven’t helped the situation), they have relied on Brand Jamaica—the government’s explicit marketing push, beginning in the 1960s—to attract tourist dollars and foreign investment to the island. The government-backed tourist industry has long encouraged visitors to Come to Jamaica and feel all right; and in 2015, the country decriminalized marijuana—creating a further draw for foreigners seeking an authentic Jamaican experience.

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/01/06/the-true-story-of-rastafari/

KNPR: FLDS Towns Face DOJ Deadline Regarding Lawsuit

A jury concluded 10 months ago that nonbelievers were denied police protection, building permits and water hookups by officials in both towns.

https://knpr.org/headline/2017-01/flds-towns-face-doj-deadline-regarding-lawsuit

Dr. Phil: A Lawyer Convicted of Hypnotizing and Assaulting His Female Clients

An attorney convicted of charges related to hypnotizing several female clients and sexually assaulting them was sentenced to 12 years in prison

http://www.drphil.com/shows/a-a-lawyer-convicted-of-hypnotizing-and-assaulting-his-female-clients/

The Salt Lake Tribune: How much do top Mormon leaders make? Leaked pay stubs may surprise you.

All general authorities earn the same “living allowance,” spokesman says after purported pay stubs show up online.

http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/4800350-155/how-much-do-top-mormon-leaders

The Atlantic: The Fight for Female Priesthood in the Mormon Church

Where We Stand is the story of a controversial group of Mormon feminists fighting for the ordination of women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This 20-minute documentary follows Abby Hansen, a stay-at-home mom turned vocal advocate for Ordain Women.

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/511433/female-priesthood-mormon-church/

Lessons learned from Huston Smith’s exploration of religious experience

http://religionnews.com/2017/01/06/lessons-learned-from-huston-smiths-exploration-of-religious-experience/

​

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