People Are Sharing the "Oh Damn" Moment When They Realized They Were in a Cult

I was raised in the Assemblies of God church. While it is not fully classified as a cult, the church meets the majority of the criteria laid out by cult experts. The church is a Pentecostal denomination that operates primarily on scare tactics. As I look back on my time in the church I experienced a lot of abuse. There was never an "oh, fuck" moment, but rather a collection of experiences that culminated in a "fuck that" moment. I've been looking for an outlet for these experiences, so forgive me for being long winded.

My first memorable experience came when I was five years old. That year, the youth group in the church put on a play that dramatized the judgment of Peter at the pearly gates of heaven. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Christianity, Saint Peter is the person who reads your list of sins from the Book of Life and judges who is allowed into heaven. Based off of their sins and/or good actions, people were allowed into heaven or banished to hell. The major problem here was that we were a small church and these were the cool teenagers that I looked up to, being banished into a hell that my five year old brain thought was real.

The next major experience happened when I was seven. It was my first year to attend Jesus Camp, and during the first evening service they asked for people to raise their hands if they hadn't spoken in tongues before [(secret Jesus language if you aren't familiar)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phvpFNUx5Hg). I stupidly raised my hand and was forced to pray for what seemed like hours until I "got the gift." I ended up faking it in the end so I could get my midnight snack before the camp store closed.

Later I ended up at the same camp and experienced "demon possessions" and "casting out" of said demons, was tricked into thinking I was being kidnapped for defending my faith, and was essentially brainwashed in several different ways.

My life was constructed completely around church. I went to a christian school and attended church 4+ times a week. I was cut off from major media, and restricted to the point that I didn't figure out I was gay until I was eighteen, despite it being pretty clear when I was six years old (as evidenced by my uncle).

I have many more stories if anyone is interested, but long story short, I was tramautized well into my teens until I eventually left the church. I wast tired of the hypocracy from the people around me. This, combined with learning about evolution made me start questioning my beliefs. This questioning festered until the "final straw" was when I got my first girlfriend and realized that I would never be accepted by my church or my own family. I left and never looked back. I have never felt so happy. Let me know if y'all want more stories.

Username: boxybaritone

I was born because the church ordered my parents to have another kid. Grew up; Found several documentaries and legal cases against the church I grew up in, including my father's name and my own name. Later a member and my mother admitted it is not a normal church, and my therapist who specializes in cult escapees told me on my first session with him that it is a cult and he used it in his thesis. Also we have three subreddits for members still in and two subreddits for escapees. I was also stalked, impersonated, and technically kidnapped by members.

I decided to google myself and found an announcement of my birth in a newsletter that the cult sent out. Which was only common with very high ranking members (my parents were high ranked). I had never googled my "church" before. I googled my father's name and the cult's acronym and found entire forums discussing his life, our lives.

Why we had to move across the country suddenly to a house the "church" bought at auction when I was little (Previous owner killed his wife in the house, whole other story). Every detail had been shared with these people and that isn't normal for a church. For people in another country, who you have never met, to have that much information on you. I commented and received several condolences from people about still being a minor and not able to leave, about having a Dad that got caught between the church and the law.

Anyways, fell down a rabbit hole on the internet and found BBC documentary, a 60 minutes episode, ABC, NBC mini-docs, YouTube channels of escapees, lawsuits from different countries brought against the church. Missionaries run out of the town in Eastern Europe, banned from a country in SE Asia, banned on certain university campuses in the US. It was wild.

Eventually I brought up my concerns with a peer in the church and she just said "Well, yeah, of course it's a cult. But I love it here" and left it at that. I just figured she was the average fundamental extremist and the thought of being labeled a cult would lead to social persecution and that would tickle her little psycho-ego-clit.

Well a ton of other shit happens, I get out and move 25000 miles away, and members who knew my parents would show up at my place at 3am, try to call the pharmacy to cancel my prescriptions, follow me to class, show up at my work, show up at my new place when I moved; it was fuckin crazy. That is not a church. There were hundreds of sister churches with tens of thousands of members all around the globe and they would sic members on people.

Flew home to see my family for a short while and ended up talking to my mom about my concerns. She said blatantly that more than half the time, it is more about control, and the founder of the church (whose wife and daughter are missing, daughter left a suicide note, no body found, and a guy who called him out on sketchy shit and published a letter to the members of the church also went missing). She mentioned that it is rarely about faith even at the bottom level, and that she would leave if she could.

I asked her why she can't just find a normal church and she explained that if she'd left she would've lost her job, our house, and custody of us. Her boss was a member, our landlord was a member, the church owned the house legally, church had social workers, lawyers, notaries as members. I had seen people leave the church and lose their kids before so many times. They have kidnapped people's kids, they have planted drugs, they have called on church regions with 2k+ members to write a judge in a custody hearing telling them which parent to trust (the one still in the church) and which should lose custody.

I remembered one time my mom came to my godmother's house at a sleepover at like 3am to pick me up and kept insisting I be quiet. I thought she was just having an episode (really high anxiety on that one). Turns out my godparents had been told by the church to pick me up and not let my parents see me until the church gave the okay. And people don't call the police, if it goes to trial the church has your entire life history. Any drug use, and criminal record, and mental illness, any family issues, etc. They can and will spin it so that they are the concerned christian friend who already has taken care of the kid, and you are the fucking whacko who shouldn't be able to even conceive.

So finally I get into therapy, and my therapist goes "well de-programming isn't really my specialty. I can still see you but let me refer you to a colleague who specializes in this so you can get the help you need.". Go to that guy, we are doing the first session intake thing and he is asking basic questions, I mention the church and say I am not sure it is a cult but it isn't a normal church.

He asks the name, I give the name, and he says "Oh! I studied [cult] during my doctoral program, even used them in my thesis!"... I also found more than one subreddit for escapees and so many goddamn Facebook groups, a few tumblr accounts...it is a cult.

I don't think I ever talked about this with anyone, not even my significant other and I need to get this off my chest. Throwaway for obvious reasons (many people know my Reddit profile and know not of this part of my life).

This all started in the early 2000's. Just shy of turning 18 while in college, I was going to weekly drum circles, monthly camping excursions with friends and just having fun in general with local pagans. It was a nice change for me since I was raised in a strict Catholic household and knew the church was a pile of hypocritical garbage. For years this went on, and it was a lot of fun, all of the same people were there, a good core group of 20 of us ranging between 18 to 60 years old. Some new people would come in and out of the group, but usually never stayed very long.

I'd go to camping festivals at nudist colonies, it didn't make a difference, everyone was respectful, and it's not like I'd stare at anyone's body in a sexual way because the vibe wasn't like that. In fact, years later I don't remember anything of those weekends other than great food, bonfires, great talks around said bonfires and awesome music with friends (think burning man but on a smaller scale and less madmax and sand).

I am now in a relationship with one of my best friends from that time and friends with his parents because of all of that. And yes, I've seen his Mom naked and it's not a big deal, because by the way, she lived at one of the nudist colonies and he grew up learning not to sexualize and objectify people by their body, but to accept people for what they are - people.

Enter a new guy into the fold about 3 years in of my going to the group, mid to late 50s. Coversations he started usually revolved around sexuality, freedom of expression, and how terrible society makes sex seem like such a sin. If we could all tune in to our sexual desires we'd have a far better experience than what society gives us an illusion of what sex is.
People started going to this one guy's house for dinner, but I usually declined going because I was a young 20 something woman at that point and most people going were in their late 40s to 60s, therefore not much in common with me.

Well one night at one of the caping festival weekends, I was told by someone there was going to be some sort of celebration around the bonfire, so I went. USUALLY these sort of things involved drumming, dancing, playing music and singing together around the fire

Turned out there were just a bunch of people fucking by the fire representing each cardinal direction on the compass for the elements in order to create sexual energy to heal Mother Earth. So I was like alright, good for you and left to go back to my camp because it was at midnight, I was exhausted, and I really just wanted to dance around the goddamn fire.

This was one of the biggest festivals I had been to, so I didn't know many of the people at the bonfire EXCEPT the new old dude who apparently orchestrated it and some of the newer people who'd go to his house for dinner.( FYI- there was about 200 people there but I kept with my usual 20 peeps in our own camping area. )

I wrote it off as no big deal, drunken pagans being hedonistic, which is acceptable but not my cup of tea. A few weeks later, more people from the core group started going to his house for dinner, and some as young as me so I decided to go. Well, to my delight we had a drum circle after dinner. It was a house on private property in the middle of nowhere, so that was cool. He had a big barn we'd go in and out of while hanging out, but something felt off. Multiple people tried to get me to go into the barn with them, and eventually it dwindled down to just a few of us and that same older new dude. He told me he wanted to show me something and talk to me about something kind of serious.

By the time we moved from outside to a room inside the barn I had been avoiding, there was a circle of people that silently came in while we talked. What I remember of the conversation, he told me that the body is sacred and in order to be purified and ready for what lies ahead of me, I had to submit myself to him and be indocturned (spelling?) into the group by a group of people surrounding us while he fucked me because only then would I gain sexual Nirvana.

You bet your sweet ass I noped out of there, straight up bolted and never talked to most of the people again from that night. Who knows what would have happened, like a gang bang ? Didn't care to find out.

Evidently this group turned into a giant sex cult where they have weekend retreats and shit, but everyone has to fuck this guy so they can get some weird fucking achievement unlocked so that OTHER people can fuck them that's in this sexual order. Once they fuck them, they can fuck whoever. People donate money and time and shit to this new ground they purchased and this main dude has written it off as a tax write off because he's now got it listed as a religious group and retreat.

Like what the fuck? Ok anyway, thanks for listening.

I was raised Catholic. I don't care if that's edgy or not, it's how I feel. I lived in an old town with old people who had old customs. It was relatively boring and repetitive, but I didn't mind my religion when I was young. This story might not be nearly as creepy as some below, but it was surreal and very creepy for me at the time. Apologies in advance for wall of text, but I've never talked about this story before, except to my mom, and my fingers be flowing.

It has to be close to 20 years ago. My aunt invited the extended family over -- whoever would come -- to be part of what was called a "Novena" ceremony (that's what my aunt called it, so it might not be the official name). Apparently, you can rent a statue of the Virgin Mary that has some special significance. It was probably billed as being very old or cried blood or something. I can't recall what the distinction was.

My family, minus my dad, showed up in the evening and my cousins were all there, so it was pretty normal at first: food, messing around and talking. When we were later called to the living room, I remember there were a lot of people there, some whom I didn't recognize.

Along with the statue there were a couple delegates from the church (I can only assume) present and someone who I recall was the owner of the idol. She was a rotund woman with red cheeks and was very nice, but didn't take part in any of the rituals or anything. The priest (again, I assume he was, so I'll call him that from now on) was the person who led most of the evening and he had an assistant. The priest was fairly nondescript: chubby, with gray thinning hair and glasses. He wasn't wearing traditional Catholic garb or anything.

The priest explained what we would be doing -- that it would be time consuming and slow, but everyone would get a turn. Almost all the lights were off and everyone was seated around the room on various couches and chairs. It was very quiet. It felt somber and very weird to me. I had no idea what was going on as I was pretty young. Maybe 12 or so. In hindsight, my mom didn't prepare me well for any of this. She felt really badly about it later in life as neither of us are religious anymore.

Anyway, he stood face-to-face with the first participant and the helper stood at the participant's back. He began to pray over her quietly. I had no idea what he was saying. He would get a little louder, his voice undulating, and he would place his palm over her forehead at times. Then it got weird. The whispering went on and the person started speaking nonsense words (think of the Borat scene in the church). Suddenly, after a bit more of the nonsense words, the person went limp and fell backwards.

The helper caught her and laid her down, where she continued to spasm and writhe and speak nonsense words. Then it got quiet and the person just laid there in repose. After a moment, she got up, smiling, and went and hugged family who were crying and carrying on about how beautiful it was to have been touched by God. I was stunned. I was very unsure I wanted to do it anymore.

As the hours went by, the only person to whom I REALLY paid attention after the first lady was my grandmother. She was such a sweet, caring, smart and uplifting woman in my life and I almost felt nauseous to have watched her speaking like that and falling. It seemed obscene. I couldn't understand why. Eventually, it was my turn. I remember he started off with the Lord's Prayer, whispering over me. He may have recited others, I can't remember.

I remember vividly that he began "suggesting" to me that I would feel God inside of me and that it was OK to let loose whatever sounds were trying to come out; that it might sound weird, but to just go with it. That if the feeling was overwhelming and I felt like I might fall or if I felt faint or limp or just very, very comfortable, go ahead backwards and I'd be caught. Until this moment, I had been wondering why everyone did the same exact thing in the same order.

To this point in my life, I had not yet found a real reason to doubt religion. I questioned, sure, but nothing concrete. I even helped my aunt teach Sunday school. But at this ceremony, watching everyone I knew and loved acting so strange, I felt nothing. I felt no God, no warmth, no want of speaking in tongues. After a bit more praying and "suggesting" things to me, they ended up laying me down and I just sat there quietly for a while. When I got up, my mom was crying, but not in a good way. She was scared, I could tell.

Later, when we talked about it, she said she had the most horrifying feeling as she watched me "go limp". I explained that I had faked it because I didn't know what else to do. That I felt nothing. She was shocked and I never talked to anyone in my family about it again. In fact, I kind of forgot about it until now.

Anyway, the night went on and although I didn't pay very close attention, everyone around me seemed to go through this ritual with joy and connectedness, but I found myself turned off. It turned out to be a key cog in losing my religion for good.

I grew up in a 'Hindu' cult. It was the Truth, exemplied in our guru with his lifestyle of 6 cars, 2 mansions, 3 businesses and international vacations in first class, together with annual celebrations of his and his family members' birthdays. All of which we were solicited to pay for and sponsored to the bottom of our pocketbooks and into debt, to prove our devotion. We were the elite destined for self-realization and were only to have limited association with the rest of the world, even our own non-believer families.

Disobedience meant shunning and expulsion. We celebrated our birthdays only by decorating the guru's home and giving gifts to him and his family. I was homeschooled and attended university by distance learning, all so that I could stay in the group with our strict timetable of daily morning and evening prayers, communal meals, and morning and evening sermons by the guru (unless you were 'spiritual enough' to work unpaid in his businesses or doing chores at his home).

We had mandatory purification baths every morning and evening, and if we touched something 'polluted' (a menstruating woman, an unbathed person, old food, dirty clothes, a thread from these clothes, had marital relations, etc.) we had to bathe and change clothes all over again. Menstruation meant seclusion for 3 days; birth or death in the family, 11 days.

We asked the guru's permission for every step in our lives -- going to the doctor or into town, buying appliances, visiting family and hiring someone for home repairs, to education, career, marriage. Vaccines were frowned upon and if you got chicken pox or cancer, or had an accident, it was due to your bad karma or ego. Girls had to wear their hair long and both sexes had to wear old-fashioned traditional clothes that covered us from shoulder to ankle. We had to be vegetarian.

It was easy to control people -- we lived in rental accommodation owned by the guru's organization, overseas disciples had visas sponsored by him, and he handled our utilities, phones and internet. These were occasionally cut off or destroyed (once or twice by bulldozer) to discipline erring disciples, in addition to the public shaming during the sermons, yelling at or 'blows' that also included physical 'correction' aka 'purification' (being hit) by the guru -- which was considered a blessing as it was his guidance and sacred touch.

Teens were strictly supervised; we got in trouble after a group of teens went out (chaperoned) to a local temple's dance and music program, and more seriously when we went the beach, since the cult provided 'everything we needed in life'. Romance was forbidden and marriages arranged by the guru between group members. The more the couple was opposed to each other, the more ideal, 'to put the guru first always in your marriage'.

Even those young people who vomited in disgust, or swore they would rather die, were gently coerced into marriage; gays too, with the opposite sex. Several disciples were encouraged to and did break off their engagements or divorce their significant unbelieving others who would 'block the light' and 'drive them insane'. Two girls eloped and no one including their families attended the wedding.

We were also told that natural disasters and manmade tragedies were due to our impurities. To offset these we made huge donations to the guru's temple. He even had a (badly) hidden camera to film worshippers who thought they were alone. We were told that in fact nothing would be immoral if the guru 'the living Truth' asked it, whether financial transactions, plagiarism, lying or stealing.

Information was strictly controlled: gradually, movies were banned and our library was disbanded. People were told to stop talking to one another 'gossiping'; new babies were secluded at home. Disobedient disciples were sent out of town and shunned for several days as punishment.

Around the point when we were told to cut off our mobile phones (both private and group-sponsored contracts) give up our wifi and Facebook, and abandon our pets ('do not try to understand the guru's orders but just trust'), I read up on cults on the internet and decided to get out. I sold my jewellery to finance my plane ticket, driving lessons, return to university classes and cult recovery workshop.

In my recovery group I discovered how similar our cults were. My friends and family in the cult have cut me off; my other family and ex-cult-members have welcomed me with open arms.

Mine was more a slow reveal than an "Oh shit" moment. I used to be with the New Kadampa Tradition. Really stuck me as odd that everything cost money at a Buddhist center. It's the only one I've been to that charges anything for anything. I've been to several Buddhist centers/temples over the decades. I was Kadampa for about five years maybe and was a trusted member at Vajradakini in Irving, TX (now Arlington), and at Kalpa Bhadra in Wichita (no longer extant). Spent a year in Albuquerque attending the Shakyamuni center.

There were always talks about it being a cult since it was in the news those days. The Dalai Lama had outlawed a central practice within Kadampa and Gelugpa ("Tibetan") lineages based on a string of murders within his monasteries and a shadowy history of the aforementioned practice.

Even though his decree only affected Gelugpa-lineage Buddhists, Kadampas felt especially attacked. It was then commonplace to see Kadampa Buddhist monks and nuns in full robe protesting outside of areas where the Dalai Lama was; shouting, holding signs, making noise, ignoring precepts. I am largely glossing over this debacle, but it's what had the NKT in the news.

Seeing angry Buddhist monks and nuns shouting in protest, practically everything costing money, the NKT actually having it's own publishing company which copyrights its reading materials, prayer books, and posters? Would Geshe-la (Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, founder of NKT) or the NKT actually sue for plagiarism when one believes they are spreading the Dharma?

And then there's the actual Dharma (Buddhist teachings) within the NKT. The first thing you learn there is that what teacher says goes. The teacher is to be seen as an emanation of his teacher, and his teacher an emanation of his teacher, all the way back to Buddha Shakyamuni. So your teacher is to be seen as the Buddha himself. Sorry to get political, but that's like saying Bill Barr's summary of the Mueller Report should be seen as the Mueller Report itself; since it was passed down and summarized by an authority figure who is not the originator of the report.

It's a very difficult thing to pin as a cult, though. I believe everyone I met has full faith in the NKT. It is a very seductive thing as well for any Westerner looking into Buddhism. The entire idea behind the NKT is to make Buddhism accessible to the West. If you've ever gone to an Asian Buddhist temple, you might know how difficult it is to insert yourself. Not only is it - most of the time - corrupted by their region's culture, but it's also not usually in English.

There are also "wrathful" aspects to Buddhism. Buddhism has a somewhat heavy focus on death; the fact that we will die, and it could happen before you finish this sentence. So there is some imagery to reflect that. That might be a little unsettling to Westerners. So a lot of the wrathful aspects of deities aren't displayed. Rather they have smiles on their faces with bright colors around. There is even more altering to Kadampa Buddhism than to, say, Gelugpa because of this "Westernization".

It just seemed to me that everything about the NKT was in direct opposition to what the Buddha taught. I'm in no way a Buddhist scholarly master (I think such a thing might, again, be in opposition to the Dharma), so I can't say for certain.

They eventually kicked me out because I was there all the time. I thought I was being a good Buddhist always at the center; cleaning, changing offerings, helping newcomers. They said they felt I saw it as just "a place to hang out". I rode my bike ten miles a day to get there and back until I moved in across the street.

All in all, something just did not add up about it. I don't hate it though. Everyone there was 1,000% awesome (except the two who kicked me out - but they never seemed overly "Buddhist" to me; always arguing, upset with people, concerned with money, never in a state of equanimity). I actually attended Shakyamuni and Kalpa Bhadra after I got kicked out of Vajradakini. The people within the NKT (the plebs, if you will) are amazing people who are just trying to have an honest go at this Buddhist thing; even the ordained members.

I just think what the Buddha intended was something different from this. So I'm largely non-partisan now. Maybe mostly Zen. idk. I just want inner peace.

I've posted this story in comments before but I like telling it because it's relevant and it gives me a chance to talk about it. It's long, but if you want a serious answer, I have one.

I was born into and spent my early years being raised in a cult. I didn't have any outside contact from the church family until I was six years old, and I was home schooled for kindergarten.

My home life was abusive. My father was in the military and my mom was poor and uneducated, so we lived with her immediate family who were all church members. I had to start public school when I was six, which was hard for me because at no point did anyone ever explain to me the difference between my family's beliefs and the beliefs I encountered of everyone else at school. I was also bullied a lot for the way I spoke and the way I dressed, as I wasn't allowed to wear pants by my family's rules so I always wore dresses. We were poor, so my dresses were always old and outdated. And ugly, I absolutely hated wearing them. But this type of atmosphere continued for me into high school. I was punished at home when I fought against it.

When I was 17, my dad arranged a relationship for me with a man, who I moved in with. Not to go into explicit detail but this relationship involved a lot of rape. I grew sick, and when I was sick, he took me to a doctor. The doctor put me on a lot of psychiatric medications that made me very zombified, and I gained a lot of weight. I went from 120 pounds to 220 in a year. The guy I was with was really disgusted with me and he ended up moving back in with his parents, leaving me abandoned on the side of a road after vacating our apartment. I was 19, and I had no idea what to do other than call my parents. They begrudgingly allowed me to come home but the atmosphere was still abusive, and I just felt like I had to leave. I ended up living in homeless shelters for about a year, and I was in and out of mental institutions for about two years straight. But the people that worked at the hospital set me up on government assistance programs while it was happening.

The Obama years were good to people like me. I was able to get housing assistance, with my own apartment. I did not qualify to live in group homes because I was considered too naive to be able to handle it. No one knew what else to do with me other than put me in my own apartment and give me a case worker. She visited me twice a week and taught me basic life skills, like how to shop and how to use a debit card. So I got food stamps and SSI, and basically learned how to live a self-sufficient life. I was 21 when all of this was happening.

Eventually I was doing so well that my doctors let me come off my medications. It happened very slowly over time, because I was on a lot of them. After about two years I was medication free, and I'd lost 100 pounds in the process. I was 22, and I decided I wanted to go to college. I was still seeing my case worker once a week, but I started taking busses to classes at a community college for computer technology. I was pretty blank slate when I was choosing my major, but technology really fascinated me so I wanted to learn more about it.

Being educated in college was completely eye opening for me from a scientific perspective, but I still struggled with feelings of allegiance to my old church. I'd always felt it was "just a church" and that my family were just misunderstood people.

So while I was at college, I still maintained close contact with a few church family members, who were hosting a refugee woman from South Sudan. She barely spoke English. Her family had all died back at her home, and she'd come to the States as part of a Federal refugee program. She was also pregnant. We found out from a doctor's visit that the baby had not developed lungs, and would be stillborn.

He recommended an abortion. My chuch family had an intercessory prayer meeting over this event where they decided that the woman would not have the abortion, but we would let her have the baby at home and then we would hold it as it died. Which is exactly what we did. I watched that woman push that baby out in like 15 minutes, and then we all held that little baby as it died.

I was 23. THAT was the moment I finally figured out I was in a cult. I had memories of doing similar things when I was a young child, but now here it was in my face. I lost my mind a bit, but eventually I got it together, finished college, and cut off all contact with my family and my church family. I'm in my 30s now and am actually doing quite well, considering the start. I've worked unifwith cult specialists and deprogrammers to get to where I am now. I haven't spoken to any of my family or church family in almost nine years, and for the most part they leave me alone.

Six years ago, a friend of mine called me up to chat. Through the call he references some retreat he had done and one was coming up near me and he thought o should attend. Looked it up and it was quite secretive and worked on references. It was also short notice and I would have to change other commitments so I declined. It was for "group A".

Nothing happens and guy keeps posting on social media, no big deal. Just a couple of weeks ago I was listening to a podcast series about a cult, "group B". I had heard their name in the news when some big shit had happened to them and didn't pay so much attention.

The podcast had great hype so I started listening. I was intrigued a bit because it was based in the same place the "group A" event had taken place. Although I didn't remember the group's actual name, it wasn't the same as "group B" but I was wondering.

I start looking through my emails and texts from this guy but can't find the reference. Whatever. Well, by the second episode, they're talking about the spread of this cult and they have a big presence in my friend's city, where I also used to live. They also bring up different offshoots and through mentioning the names they say "group A" and the lightbulb goes off... YES, that was the name, holy shit! So I ALMOST got recruited into this movement.

Well I haven't seen my friend reference anything, nor his wife. They probably attended some of the seminars and said well thats enough. I'm doing research on this cult and some of their companies, like "group C" and so on. I also look at my friend's social media presences and nothing matches so I'm relieved.

But something's not quite right still. As I'm listening to other episodes I'm also doing research on my friend and his wife outside their regular SM presence. An odd tracking website references him as working for a media company with a name somewhat similar to one of the groups, let's call it "group D".

I look at their website and they shut down a couple months ago. Curious, I use the wayback machine and check the last update and he is indeed there at the time, quite high, and do is his wife. But both say they are currently self-employed.

This is too much coincidence. I start digging and group C and.... yeah, they changed their name to group D. Shit! Did they know? Maybe he was given that position through a contact, not knowing the details.

So I start looking up their names including "group A" and holy fucking shit the troves I get. His wife was successful in there and even his sister in law, who may have had significant access, thought unsure.

So at this point I'm just thinking this group was exposed last year and raided by federal authorities last spring and their top executives arrested and awaiting trial and they were still working there? And it turns out "group D" only stopped because of the arrest of one of their rich member/benefactor.

So while I was focusing on them and their involvement, it really clicks that 6 years ago I was invited by a good friend of mine to a Society of Protectors (group A) event which served as a recruitment group for NXIVM (group B) for which my friend may have been a member still as of the end of the summer.

Username: BennyGB

In grade school I guess I really became afraid for my future. They'd already sent me to a "church school" which was one room with K-12 and "college prep", delaying anything that would count as education by state guidelines or whatever.

The dinosaur unit came up, and I remember taking my home work folder to the living room floor and a parent FLIPPING OUT, pulling out the bible and the personal writings of the 'prophets' (books of opinons and more rules put out through the church by a few 'important' people). Apparently, dinosaurs and fossils were a thing the devil planted evidence of to through us off the trail of the lord's teachings. We spent equal amounts of time with the prostestant bible as we did with these dusty old DIY booklets. Somewhere there was a vague answer to my childhood curiosity.

In reality, I nearly failed the unit because the lunatic insisted I do the required work to pass but protests and argue with the teacher. She worked at the school lunch program but went in early and late to complain to my teacher, other teachers, the principal. I was a fucking freak. And I thought the whole thing was ridiculous but her reaction scared me enough that I tried to learn and then went home talking for hours about all the deceitful practices of the public school.

I was often not allowed a closed door, never went to overnight gatherings with other little girls (even if it was kinda mandatory- like a partnered project or a trip with the girl scouts or choral group, the latter being the only extra curricular thing I liked). I was also gently encouraged, by at least nagging when I forgot to follow pointless demands, to always leave doors a crack open especially if I was alone or had friends over clearly playing video games loudly.

Even the bathroom door rarely closed all the way, and the woman that gave birth to me decided to 'mentor' a woman who lived across the road and was in a custody battle for her two small children. They often had a few drinks and opened the bible sort of. I sipped drinks and listened to the story of the woman's hard life. She missed her kids and thought I was so cool and smart.

I was too old for anyone to check on me during a bath (my memory won't set a recognizable timeframe but 9-12ish? somewhere in there for months on and off) but if the parent didn't open the door and talk to me face to face like a weirdo, her friend might be over to 'save her the trouble'.

No, the parent didn't ever touch me. Just left doors open as advised by church doctrine to be sure I wasn't coming into womanhood and perhaps touching myself. Her friend was very sweet but I spent two random years in my 20s dreaming of everything, and each morning I woke remembering the only things I ever remembered about the nice weirdo who actually remembered to cover my eyes with her hand when she rinsed my hair.

Oh, and I was living on my own by 15- they heard I'm pansexual and pagan, I lived with my babe's parents until we got our own place- my now (the friend with generous parents I've lived with since) girlfriend's jaw dropped a few years ago when I was reading the news and asked if she knew that my parent's church, Seventh Day Adventists from rural northeast, was the same as the Waco one...nobody from our neck of the woods made the news but still...shouldn't I know something like that?

I felt so sheltered, so cut off at the knees for all the things I never got to read or watch, the buddy in grade school who liked math as much as I did and got to skip several grades without me because my folks didn't want to 'ruin my childhood by forcing me into a more mature group of students'. 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade teachers kept begging, I was well ahead of the other kids and could really do a lot with a subject I was passionate about.

They ripped my bedroom door completely off several times between 13 and 15, left me alone with 2 younger boys for hours because the current preacher was from out of state and they needed a friend (they did know about sex and their daddy liked to tell slightly off color jokes to adults when they thought the children were very far away.

The younger boy kept trying to grab my tit one night, back when we lived on the farm and rode from one field to the next in the back of a pickup. We were both under ten, him a few years younger than that. I somehow thought I was corrupting the kid and he faked tears when I wouldn't talk to him in church the weekend after he first did it. I was reprimanded. There's more...but, yeah, those are the stand-outs today.

I've talked about this before on Reddit, and was surprised because so many people also went to these schools but had no idea.

The CEDU boarding schools were founded by a high ranking Synanon member named Mel Wasserman. If you guys don't know what Synanon is, [here you go](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon). There's about a dozen of these schools and they are STILL OPEN. Edit: [Here's the school's wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEDU) I went to Boulder Creek Academy, 2001-2003.

They kept all the teachings, but dumbed them down for kids. Every few months we would go through a workshop, called 'propheets', where they would do weird ass fucking things like make one person sit on a mattress in the middle of the room and have the rest of us pretend like it was a liferaft, and you have to scream out all of the reasons you have to live and beg for your life.

Staff would walk around, going, "you live, you live, you die", pretty much all down to favoritism. If you get picked, you get on the life raft, if you don't, you drown, which was a little touchy for me because my older brother had just died from drowning less than three years earlier, but I had to act it out regardless otherwise I would fail the propheet and I would be pushed back, and then I would be there another 3 months until the next one rolls around.

Also sleep deprivation was a key part. The last work shop was 7 days,and the whole time you have to refer to yourself as "Me". I don't know how to explain this, but pretty much if you told a staff that you didn't want to do something they'd be like, "that's right 'I' doesn't want to do this, but your 'me' does'. This was right before they dropped you off at a mall (keep in mind, we were all kids who were in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, who have been away from the world for almost 3 years) and you had to 1) buy someone food, 2) get someones address, 3) talk to someone of the opposite sex, and some other shit, but you couldn't tell other people why you were doing it. Think about that next time you’re in a mall (if anyone even goes to malls anymore). You would have approach random strangers and do that, after being shut away for almost 3 years.

When you graduate that propheet (Summit), the whole school (about 60 kids at once time) gathers round the main room in The House. They play [this fucking song](https://youtu.be/zxSTzSEiZ2c) and the kids walk one one by one with a rose, and walk through the crowd and touch their hands and cry and... Jesus Christ... What the fuck lol. Just clicking on that song to link it made my heart start beating and really took me back.

I can go on and on and on, I was there for two years and this doesn't even scratch the surface of all of the weird shit. When did I find out? Like 10 years later when I really started thinking about it. It all felt totally normal, and I just remembered friends and stuff. That's the scary part. This was not normal, and to all the CEDU kids in here, sorry, you were in a cult. Just really take a minute to think about it.

All of the weird sayings, the "agreements", the smoosh piles, the bans, the raps, the jumpsuits, the repetitive music, the scrolls, the workshops, the monitored phone calls, the mandatory Positivity letters, the Outlets, the Peace Talks, the Inner Circles, all of it, and this was **all Synanon**. That's not even including the propheets my dudes. I still have my propheet journal around here somewhere, let me update this in a bit. Some other things.

Disclosure circles. We had a thing called Raps where we would sit in a circle for 3 1/2 hours 4 times a week and just share, or get yelled at, or have to rat other kids out. Disclosure Circles were like Raps on crack, and they lasted up to 6 hour. That’s where the staff would have to share stuff about themselves too. I learned that one of the staff fucked an unconscious girl who drank too much, so that was nice. None of the staff there had ANY kind of certification or degree or was qualified to teach therapy to kid. I don't even think you had to have a high school diploma, and this was North Idaho, in the middle of the woods.

At the end of the 5th propheet, staff and your friends would hold you down as you struggled to get up, and it would give you this weightless feeling and they held you up to a light afterwards. That was your rebirth, as you shed your shadow self away. You looked back at your shadow and told it goodbye, and then it was someone else’s turn. Edit: The shadow self is something that was connected to the first propheet. You had to draw an ugly image of yourself, and then face a wall and stare at it.

Also during that propheet you had to put your head between your legs and scream out confessions at the floor. If you couldn’t think of anything, you just had to scream at the top of your lungs. There were only about 14 kids to a peer group, so, imagine a room full of 14-17 year olds just screaming, crying and yelling out the most horrible things that had happened to them while staff paced around them, making sure they did a good job. Again, I can go on and on.
Another edit! They were able to keep you there until you were 22 if you were enrolled when you were under age. One of my best friends there was there for 4 years. If only you can see how just utterly lost he is right now. I’m afraid to even reach out because he’s so far gone.

Thanks for the gold and all that. Just remember, that this is still going on as you read this, and not a damn thing is going to be done about it. This is just CEDU, and there countless other schools out there way way worse. Hell, in Provo Canyon if you really screw up you get sent to its expansion in fucking Guatemala, and parents are on board with that because the schools all seem so caring to the naive and ill informed. What else can you do, except let people know?

I grew up in a pseudo-cultic pentecostal home, but thats not what I wanna talk about here. I wanna talk about my involvement in the birth of a cult, my family leaving of the new cult, and my recent observations of the church, that is now definitely a cult. I wont discuss what church it is, because honestly, after you figured it out, it wouldn't be hard to figure out EXACTLY who I am.

If I told you what church it was, a couple webpages later you could figure it out just from looking at my reddit history and comparing it to Facebook pages. Hell, there is enough information on my post history to figure it out, but Im trusting reddit to not give enough of a shit to do that.

A couple years ago, my family left a church because they disliked the preachers wife. She was quite a bitch, if I say so myself. After we left that church, we got involved with a different church, that preached the same things as our last church more or less. About two years later, shit started to get weird.

The preacher at the church started preaching weird messages, even for a oneness pentecostal church. Things heavily misogynistic for example. Women cant preach to others, women have to be completely subjective to whatever their husbands say, and other things. On top of the fact that they already didn't allow women to wear skirts, I as a male thought it was pretty fucked up.

He then started preaching against being good friends with people outside of church, and that your "church family" was all you needed. Other little things, no music except for christian gospel, no christian rock, pop or rap. TV was evil except for g-movies, and even then you needed to watch out for satanic influence.

He said no more holidays, except for thanksgiving. Apparently all other holidays were "Too pagan" and even made my parents feel guilty for celebrating christmas. He stopped all special programs, even not allowing anyone to go to district wide church events.

I gotta point one thing out though. He wasn't the only one preaching. He basically had two lackeys: The Youth Pastor and another little lackey he called an elder. They also preached like this, and soon they even started preaching about an hour long, one after another. Every sunday, sunday night and wednesday, and if you didn't go, you were not a true christian.

Then shit hit the fan, hard. It started one week, when the pastor evaluated the church, and said that the church should be a cult. He brought up his "church family" message from before and made it even weirder, to the point I figured huffing paint thinner would be better for my health then listening to that crap. He literally said that we should be a close knit cult worshipping jesus.

Two weeks later, the diarrhea hit the fan. The Pastor said, in a roundabout way, that Jesus was not god in any way, shape or form. This is heresy in all forms of christianity. He preached that jesus was simply the messiah, and that we should only pray to Yahweh. He said that through Yahweh, not Jesus, we could be perfected like Jesus was. The catholic pope would have a fucking aneurism hearing this.

One month later, the other church leaders in the district took notice. They held a statewide meeting, which bore some interesting information that I will get back to in a minute. The end result was that the pastor and the youth pastor tried to convert them to their form of belief and start a new denomination. The pastor and his church were then kicked out of the ALJC.

Three months more of their crap, and we left. About a month later, We found a new church. I talked to the pastor there, and he told me some interesting things. Apparently, this was my old pastors exact story.

He (old pastor) was sitting there with the youth pastor discussing the things of god, and suddenly he say a ray of light. An angel apparently came down and touched them on their heads, and told them they would be prophets of the truth of christ, and to spread it to all christians they could, to reform Christ's current church and unify it.

There is no denying they started a cult. Last year. It hasn't even been a full year yet. I fully expect this shit to go south eventually. I just don't know when. I always thought something seemed off at that church, and that something about the pastor and the youth pastor seemed creepy.

Alas, my family left that cult and returned to our old life, which was only psuedo-cultic. Im still stuck in the pseudo-cult of oneness Pentecostalism, but at least its better than those guys. I really find it terrible that oneness pentecostals kicked out a guy for being too fanatic.

Well, this is my friend's story but we go, so when my buddy was in 8th grade everyone was in this friend group, so he tried to fit in with a group but it didn't work out until one day this group of around 4 people introduced themselves as "the loving lives"

(apparently it was normal for people to go up to others and say their group name and asking you to be in their group) so he immediately took up the offer, each group had a leader and usually these "leaders" were assholes but surprisingly for once this guy seemed nice,

now this group leader had a nickname and so did everyone in this group, the leaders nickname was "blue blood" which would have been a red flag for me but he thought it was just a harmless nickname and my mate's nickname was "red bull" yeah...fucking red bull,

he thought it was the dumbest name ever and when he asked to have it changed, blue blood denied and the whole group didn't talk to him for 2 weeks after that until he got a phone call from blue blood, he picked up and immediately recognised the voice,

it was blue blood's the weird thing was that he never told his number to blue blood, my mate asked how he got his number but he refused to answer him, bb (that's what we are calling blue blood from now on) asked him to come to a small grocery shop near their school,

my mate (let's call him will) agreed and so they met there, it was just bb and will, bb asked will if he wanted to go have some drinks with him at his house, will said he couldn't drink alcoholic drinks, bb said "they aren't alcoholic, they are good for you, just brings what you lost back to your body" will was really confused and asked him what he meant by that and bb just said "you'll find out" will being the idiot that he is agreed to go to his house,

they took a pretty long walk over to bb's house (it was a 15 minute walk) and bb refused to talk breaks or sit on the sidewalk for a while, they just kept walking) when they arrived at his house it looked like a normal house, as they went inside bb asked will to put his shoes by the door and go inside which was usually a pretty normal thing so he agreed and did that bb took will's shoes and asked him to sit on the couch for a while and then he went upstairs he came back without the shoes and asked will if he wanted to know why he hasn't seen his parents yet,

he actually did want to know so bb said something along the lines of "my dad was brought up into a cult ever since he was young, before i was born my mom gave birth to my older brother and my dad immediately started trying to bring my brother into the cult aswell my mom didn't like that so she divorced him she had custody of my brother for most of the time but my dad got to see him on the weekend,

one time he came back with bandages on his shoulder and wrist area, my mom assumed it was a scratch or he got hurt so she never asked about it. When i was born 4 years after my dad would take me on the weekends, he used to tell me that my mom was in "the circle" and that i should be in it too (he was talking about the cult) he used to take needles and take some of my blood every weekend (and stopped doing that to his brother) putting it in bottles untill one day my mom asked why i had that bandage on my wirst and shoulder just like my brother used to,

i told her everything and my dad lost custody of me and my brother, my brother is an adult now and my mom is bearly home, she's usually at bars and i can't go with her, so I'm carrying on my dad's cult, i never knew what he used to do but i like to imagine" will wanted to leave but for some reason he didn't, he said he kind of left bad so he stayed they went up to bb's room and the second he went inside he saw containers, like resturant containers mostly Applebee's ones, FILLED TO THE FUCKING RIM WITH BLOOD!

Each one had names on it, 2 of them said "blue blood" each "group" member had 1 and there was an empty container labed with "red bull" and mate got so damn sacred to the point where he ran out of bb's house without shoes. A month after that whole thing bb left the school and 2 of the "group" members left the school aswell.

Username: YouDontExistInSpace

Not me, but two stories that happened to my friend and his family many years ago. First off, my friend's older sister met this guy and started dating him. After a while, she's suddenly converted to being a Jehova's Witness (her family were pretty religions Christians to begin with). She would regularly harass her family for not joining JW and disappear for days and weeks at a time, claiming that she couldn't stand being around them for not believing in the TRUE religion.

Eventually, on Christmas Eve, she told her family that she couldn't be around them on Christmas because JW's don't do holidays, and was going to stay with her JW boyfriend for a few days. Well, on Christmas morning, she shows up anyway, and throws a gigantic bitch fit, because her family was "disgracing Jehova" or something like that.

She knocked the tree over, literally threw expensive presents against the wall and got into a fist fight with her mother. She left in tears, claiming she was never coming back, only to come back the next day and act like nothing ever happened. She was promptly thrown out of the house completely and told to not come back until she got out of that fucking cult.

Eventually, she did get out of it, though she ended up just going back to being an even more ultra-religious Christian than before...
This story is actually about my friend (the younger brother of the girl from the last story). Dude was a literal genius. Took college level math courses in middle school and everything. Funny enough, he ended up being a hairdresser, but that's not the point of the story.

His sister's JW boyfriend's dad would hang around sometimes for... some reason. Though he claimed he wasn't a JW. One day, he invites my friend to this place he knows, where they'll give him a personality and career assessment test that he can use to help guide him to his future. Friend is like "Sure, why not?" and goes with him to do this test.

They take him into a room and have this dude ask him one on one questions. After that, they tell him they'll call him when he can come in and pick up the results. A few days later, the guy comes and picks him up to take him to get the results of the test.

They sit him down in a small room and tell him that the test results indicate that he is a depressed mess with no ambitions or goals, that he is probably suicidal and as it stands, there is no hope that he will ever succeed in life. But they can help. They can give him courses that will help him find that which he lacks and drive him to success.

He promptly told the man to go fuck himself. He was never really one to respect authority... He told the guy that he was completely full of shit. He was not depressed nor suicidal, and he had his entire life planned out. He knew exactly what he was going to do in life (which didn't end up happening but that's besides the point) and how dare this guy tell him such nonsense.

Well, the guy who brought him there was like "You're going to sign up for these courses or I'm leaving you here."

He promptly told him to go fuck himself too, and the guy abandoned him there, in a town he didn't know, an hour's drive from his house. He called his dad to come pick him up, who was none too happy to hear what had taken place.

He brought him home, and then was apparently going to go see the dickhead who was responsible for all of this. Now... he never said exactly what happened but... well, it's implied that he beat the everloving shit out of him for abandoning his son in some random town and for trying to recruit him into Scientology.

Username: A_Wild_Taka_Appears

I was invited to a Landmark meeting by a friend of a friend. We'd gone to some rave-type clubs together, and he seemed like a good guy so I agreed.

The meeting was held on an upper floor of a nondescript office building. People there were pleasant, but people seemed really off: Everyone seemed to me runing on a consistent script, and it wasn't a familiar one. It reminded me of the politeness with an agenda exhibited in the film "Get Out".

I was sitting next to the guys wife's friend - another random like me who was invited to the meeting. I really liked chatting with her during the prescribed talk periods. Meeting went from "this is a self-help seminar" to " this is a weird new age cult" when friend's-friend-guy forcibly asked cute girl to move, then moved in to do his talking points on me -- while his mentor did those points on the girl.

Then they tag-team swapped back and worked us over similarly during the next free talk period. Whole thing reaching the apex when each dropped the airs of it being a friendly chat and asked each of us (within earshot of one another) to sign up for a few hundred dollar course.

This part felt like the reveal in a kids novella where everyone in a room pulled off their facemasks to reveal who was really an alien. Everyone who wasn't drinking the Koolaide stood out at that point - like me, they were just people who showed up because a friend or coworker asked them to.

The Landmark people didnt let up after the sales pitch, or give any opening to politely disengage and leave - so after about 2 hours, I just told the guy I needed to go. I went to meet the OkCupid date I had scheduled later that day - I just decided to walk there instead of transit to kill time.

Other people from the room intercepted me on the way out, running off block and redirect scripts, trying to make sure it was incredibly uncomfortable to get to the door. A woman followed me to the elevator and all the way down to street level. No thanks, Ms. Landmark, I can get my own coffee around the corner.

The whole experience made for great first date conversation at least 😅 The friend's friend is still in my social group, so I just pretend that this particular Saturday morning didn't happen for everyone's sake.

What stayed with me about the experience was the sense that Landnark's nature worked for people who somehow grew up without a moral compass. One woman's testimonial during the Landmark event tipified this - She was a successful Yoga instructor or something similar, and had been having an affair for a few years.

She tearfully explained from the podium that it took Landmark training for her to figure out that was wrong, and was bad for her marriage. 😗
For people who found material success, but discovered success doesn't make you a good person - it took derranged, hyper- cathartic 5:00am phonecalls to everyone they wronged to make them better people.

This whole thing reminded me of an article I read once that argued that it's not just religion that people need, but a healthy, stable community: One that helps remind us by example how to be good people, and prevents us from becoming atomized and separate from each other because of our ability to do so with technology. I believe that's something you shouldn't need a script and a $725 course to achieve. 🤷‍♂️

Username: kidswriter

My family wasn't part of a cult, but they sent me to a Church of Christ private school when I was a kid because one of my 4th-grade public school classmates mentioned the word 'sex' to me.
It was bizarre.

I didn't know what Church of Christ was, but the first thing that threw me off was the idea that singing along with instruments was somehow sinful. Even as a 10-year-old kid, that didn't make sense.

Their arts program was also woefully inadequate - in public school, I had been allowed to draw creatively, but it was almost like they didn't want anyone else's artistic talent to stand out, so instead of drawing or painting we were gluing pieces of colored craft paper together as per step-by-step instructions and calling that 'art class'.

My teacher also really didn't like me because my family wasn't from the Church of Christ (we were Methodist at the time) and didn't attend the same church that she did. I remember that she would take an entire letter grade off my tests and assignments for simple mistakes like forgetting to write my name at the top of the page, which meant that my grades started *plummeting* from the point that I started school there and my parents held me accountable because they thought it was due to laziness or resentment.

She would hold monthly classroom 'parties' where at the end of the month, 'points' that she assigned each student would be tallied up and the students could then use these points to buy little toys or candy from a 'class store'.

During this time, the last hour of the day, the students were permitted to sit with their friends, eat their candy in the classroom, and watch cartoons on the classroom TV.

If you didn't have any points, you had to go stand outside in the hallway while everyone else enjoyed the party. In my entire time at that school, only once was I actually permitted to stay inside for the class party. All of the other children understood that the teacher didn't like me and so they treated me as a social pariah because they also didn't want to be associated with me.

I had no friends and was absolutely miserable for that year of my life. It finally came to an end when, after a parent-teacher conference where my teacher had assured my parents I was not a problem child and that I was just having difficulty 'adjusting', the same teacher called for a meeting with the principle of the school and said I was the worst child in her class and I should be sent back a grade.

In my previous school, I had been in AP classes and had been well-liked by all my teachers and peers, so suggesting that I was a 'special education' child set off some alarm bells in my parent's heads, especially since my mom was a special education teacher and would have seen signs if I had been in need of behavioral or academic assistance in school.

This woman was willing to completely throw me under the bus because she had a personal grudge against a 10-year-old *child.*

She still teaches there, apparently. I have since then lost a lot of my faith in religious authority figures, in large part due to her actions, but I sincerely pray for the well-being of all the students that attend that school. They fucking need it.

Username: redfeather5

When I realized that the cult leader was worshipped more than the cult’s actual god. When I was covering up for individuals within said cult who should’ve been incarcerated or at the very least, exposed for what they done and who they truly were/are. When I was verbally and emotionally abused on a consistent basis by the individuals who I thought were my “family” within this cult.

So many events led up to a singular point in which I completely broke down and had to make a decision. I either had to slowly and meticulously plan to move on and cut myself from dependency of said cult, submit and be brainwashed forever or simply end my life. I chose option one but not without pain and suffering. It was worth it in the end.

A little history on the cult: This particular cult’s belief system/ foundation were laid out by a singular individual through a faith-based weight loss program. The core belief of said cult was that obesity and overweight individuals are greedy sinners that will go to hell if they don’t loose the weight and get fit / right / perfect with their god.

Another one of the cult’s major beliefs is that perfection through Christ and the Christian doctrine was obtainable and must be obtained at all costs. Everything everyone in this cult was subjugated to the scrutiny of it’s leader and leadership.

This scrutiny includes conforming EACH AND EVERY member’s ways of thinking, beliefs, style of dress, mannerisms, financial situation(s), health, mental health, sexuality, food eating habits (once again, weight-loss was the foundation of this cult), “authority” / hierarchy, to what the cult leader and her leadership’s will is.

This cult justified these radical lifestyle changes through the history and elements of the Christian Bible, Judaic and Muslim culture, with the cult leader’s spin on it.

I was a part of this “diet cult” for over 11 years. During those 11 years the cult’s leader, her leadership and many members covered/justified murder, rapes, sexual assaults, homophobia, victim shaming, domestic abuse, breaking up families, illegal financial schemes and a plethora of other illegal dealings. I was “in the inner circle” or more specifically, a youth counselor and “encouraged” for a fair amount of time I was there.

During this time I was witnessed to some of the most depraved, FUBAR things I ever witnessed in my short amount of time on this planet. I was often sent out as an infiltrator and a close eye/ear to leadership. I of course, for a very long time was willing to do horrible things for the sake of the church, it’s leader and it’s “god” (in reality, was the cult leader).

This cult is active (close to 20 years old) and the cult leader’s weight loss program / empire is still running after 30+ years. It’s slowly dying / fading into obscurity, however on a monthly basis myself and my wife (who I married within the cult, who left with me) are regularly messaged / reached out to by current members considering leaving and ex members who recently had left who and are struggling / coping with leaving.

Aside from dedicating one’s life to the cult which makes leaving extremely difficult by itself, what physical power that place has over its members is a major factor.

The cult has a strong presence within the city and most parts of the state it resides in. Their members are seemingly everywhere, despite its small size. They also are extremely politically active and have many allies in the court and political system within this state and it’s government. They are wealthy, self-sufficient and dangerous.

It’s a sad sad situation, but I am grateful that my wife and I have our lives back. I am also grateful to the many men and women who have recently stepped out of this cult and are rebuilding their lives. I strive to help out as much as I can, to be a good shoulder to lean on and resource to help these individuals recover, as well as provide them with true professional help.

Username: Carb0n12

I was part of a cult-like employer. It's called Los Angeles Unified School District.

When I resigned from LAUSD over horrendous working conditions and because I don't think teachers are supposed to be martyrs for their jobs, anymore then we expect engineers or lawyers to be martyrs for their jobs to prove their worth, it dawned on me slowly what a cult-like employer LAUSD is.

I guess the greatest "AH HA" moment came for me when I got a sub job working in a state far, far away from California, and discovered that teachers and administrators really can be kind and caring, every one of them, and thus teach kindness and caring to the students by example.

At that school district, each and every school had at least one full-time counselor. She'd visit each class for about 30 minutes a week and teach life skills and emotional coping strategies, something ALL kids need to learn because there is suffering everywhere. All families go through bad times and need to learn kindness and empathy. She'd also meet individually with kids who were referred to her. I had never seen such a school before.

LAUSD is a cult. Knowing this had made me wonder if all government agencies in L.A. are a cult? I sometimes wonder if the DWP is. I don't know. But one way you can tell if you're in a cult-like organization is if you apply the questions about abusive relationships to your supervisors or the organization in general.

This list can be applied to my experience with LAUSD: https://psychcentral.com/blog/21-warning-signs-of-an-emotionally-abusive-relationship/

Number 4 on that list: I would sometimes try to talk to my supervisors about problems with my students, and those bitches would just GHOST me. WTF?! These are children and their parents are expecting us to do the very best for them, and you, administrators, won't even TALK to me or reply to the notes I've left in your boxes?! W. T. F. ?

Cults are emotionally abusive. Some workplaces are too. Oh, and the other sign you're in a cult or emotionally abusive workplace, is that you start to feel like YOU'RE CRAZY. They are crazy makers.

After I left that employment I was so convinced I was a lousy teacher and all the bad stuff that happened was my fault. I FELT insane. I didn't know what was real or fake anymore. I struggled with differentiating fantasy from reality. My head was all messed up.

It kind of crippled my decision-making ability because I'd lost my confidence about life. I felt cursed all because I'd been in that cult-like place and then had the balls to leave it. NO ONE leaves LAUSD. It's a gravy train of gov't. corruption. There's a big, fat pension waiting for you if you can just put in your time.

Cult-like places are also full of Crazy Makers - block them from your life or they will psychologically kill you.

My ex-husband is a crazy maker, so I had the double-whammy of having people hate me because I left the Church of Mr. Wonderful and his family, and then I resigned from the Church of LAUSD. A whole bunch of people have despised me because I left those two churches. In the first church, you're supposed to worship and obey Mr. Wonderful. In the 2nd church, you're supposed to worship and obey Los Angeles and the L.A. way of doing things.

I guess I'm a little like Martin Luther for leaving those two cults. He was hated too.

Username: [deleted]

There were lots of moments where I should've thought "oh fuck, I'm in a cult." Looking back, there were a bazillion red flags that I should've listened to but ignored because I really, genuinely trusted our leader and our group. Every time I'd question anything, though, I'd take it to my other cult friend and be place right back on track with their beliefs.

This is going to sound strange, but what really made me realize I was in a cult stemmed from a dream I had. For three days leading up to my discovery of all the lies I'd been fed, I had this terrible, awful feeling that everything was going to change.

Something felt so wrong to my core. It was very much like the idea of feeling "the winds of change" that people will write about.
On the third night, I had a dream I was trapped in the basement of an airport.

I had this sick, sinking feeling in my stomach as I ran back and forth between rooms and corridors. No one was paying attention or listening to me, even as I was screaming that I was trapped and needed to find my way out.

Somehow, I found a door that led to a small bathroom, which lead to a huge, black room full of multiple blazing fires. I heard a female voice tell me that I had to burn the things that mattered to me in order to be set free. I looked at my arm--I was wearing four different silver bracelets.

In the dream, I knew these bracelets were special to me because I made them, and they represented my closest friends (who were the cult members). The voice told me that I had to let go of the bracelets I'd made and throw them in the fire.

I was reluctant at first, and crying. But as soon as I did, I felt this immediate sense of relief and every sense of dread I had before vanished. Instead, I was surrounded by this feeling of love and acceptance, and a general "you did it!" kind of vibe. I was crying but I'd never been so happy.

When I woke up it was 4 am. The dream shook me to the core, and I knew it had something to do with the cult. So, I did some internet digging to try and figure out more about our beliefs and found out that everything our leader had ever said was an enormous lie based on a conglomeration of different video games.

I'd never felt so free after that. I'd also never felt so stupid. I'm learning to forgive myself for falling for lies that, from the outside, seem so ridiculous and outlandish. I'd laugh at myself for believing something so ridiculous if it didn't actually really, really fuck me up.

That's the thing, though--it always starts off as somewhat believable. It's only when they know they have you that they start to make you believe the real crazy shit.

I'm still dealing with the emotional manipulation, gaslighting, and damage its done to my self esteem.

Username: EmberAlis

Gotcha. My parents are super religious and have two grandpa’s (grandmother’s brothers) who are priests.

I didn’t think Catholicism was much of a cult growing up but looking back it is cult, at least to me. I also went to a Korean Catholic Church so there might cultural attributes that get exacerbated by the Catholic environment.

But I remember early that I was generally inquisitive, always asking why Jesus did this, why the church has stances on certain things, and as a kid I got answers (not the best answers, but answers nonetheless) that satisfies my mindset at the time,

so I continued going with my parents and family because it’s what they do, some of my friends go, and the slight sense of community, and as a kid, you can’t really go out and make decision for yourself on the fly.

One example of a question I had as a kid was: “if there’s heaven and hell, and someone I loved goes to hell, how can that be heaven for me?”

Answers I got as a kid were: 1) god has a plan for everyone in your life and will make sure he hears your prayers for your loved ones 2) you will learn to avoid sinful actions/people as a test of God 3) or some combo of both.

There were some points I was heavily religious in my youth because I go all out on my personal beliefs, but as I got older, with a little help of some weed, my questioned became deeper, Where religious people kept spewing the same “I don’t know, but God has a plan” answers, and that did not satisfy me anymore, since it felt so limiting.

When I got to college, I chose to go away from my local college, and decided to never go to church again. I realized in college that the reasons I put up with church were because it made my parents happy and I had some friends there and the overall general sense of community. I realized I can build those thing around me without having to do with fundamentalism that stifles my thought process with conjecture.

Dealing with my religious parents is one thing, but I maintain a shallow and happy relationship with them, where most details of my life are kept secret from them.

I have very little friends since rejecting my communities but I have a couple good ones from high school and college, a dog and gf that keep me happy, and honestly I’m such a burnout now from having my system of belief shattered late in adolescence that I can give two craps about that community now.

I will say this, I am way more satisfied being a burnout now then being a person who is constantly forcefed rules of morality and existence based on a few selected bible verses, and avoiding the contradictory stories.

Sorry got really stoned reading your response and got really into dissecting my past lol. TLDR: Catholicism is a cult.

Username: GrownUpTurk

My great Grandparents moved from California to Oregon to stay with The Church. My grandma was betrothed to another young man in the church so not following them to another state wasn't an option.

Grandma married him, and since the church didn't believe in birth control, proceeded to have 5 children. The first of which was my mom, who was betrothed at birth to another first born that was born around the same time.

Where shit really hit the fan, was when my grandpa wanted a divorce and left my grandma for another woman outside of the church. I can't even tell you how unheard of this was. Anything that brought you closer to "the world" was not allowed.

Movies, games, eating out, etc. Let alone *divorce*. If you weren't sitting around reading the Bible, cooking or cleaning. You were doing something wrong as a wife. Therefore my grandmother was to blame for his infidelity.

The pastor lead The Church to shun her. She said she walked in and the only world she's ever known wouldn't talk to her, or even look at her. She grew up with those people. She said her closest friends had tears in their eyes but only stared forward.

And I would like to clarify that only she was shunned and not her 5 teenage children. She was expected to bring them and leave. But The Church was her life, so she just sat in the back and tolerated being treated like garbage. I was told she went through a huge depression around this time. Understandably.

Then my mom stopped going to the church for a few years and got engaged to a man that she was not betrothed to. i.e. my father. The Church was pissed the fuck off. As far as they were concerned she was their property. How dare she break a promise that was made for her as an infant. However, here was my grandma's chance to get on their good side.

She got up on stage and gave an open invitation to The Church to come to their wedding and all 200 of them showed up. TWO HUNDRED. Including her betrothed and his family. Imagine having 200 unexpected guests at your wedding that you never wanted to see again, and are glaring daggers at you the entire time, on what was supposed to be the happiest day of your life.

My mom said she could see and hear the man she was promised to weeping through the entire ceremony, and in the reception line his sister hissed through her teeth at my mother, " I hope you're happy with the life you've chosen."

What a hell of a thing to say. I guess she did spend her whole life thinking she was going to be your sister in law. Fuck.

Then I was born. Thanks Mom for not letting me experience that craziness and getting out before I could be betrothed to some other baby.

Username: RandomOregonian

I was part of the [ICOC church](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Churches_of_Christ), often called the "Boston Movement", which was started when a charismatic preacher (isn't that how it always starts?) named Kip McKean split with the Church of Christ in Boston due to irreconcilable differences. (Pretty apt to use a divorce metaphor considering the church is supposed to be Christ's wife, I guess.)

There was a lot of hoopla surrounding him, but I never really heard about it. One girl who was in the church her whole life had heard about it but told me it was kind of a long story. He eventually resigned from leadership when certain members of the upper-ranking fellowship felt he was being too prideful and arrogant and diverging from their dogma. Anyway, that's all backstory.

I was involved for nearly four years. I was very excited at first. I started a new job and was immediately invited to church by a pair of twin brothers who I thought were really cool and friendly. (They were, and still are, however much I now disagree with their brand. 'Cause in the end that's what any denomination is - a brand they're selling you. "Leading experts all agree, ICOC saves twice the souls at half the price!" etc) They invited me for Bible study, and as I was searching and quite curious about God for the first time in my young life (I was 18), I agreed. They were awesome.

We talked about a lot of deep stuff - life, death, morality, spirituality, all the kinds of things I felt like no one else ever wanted to discuss, preferring to talk about the latest episode of whatever hit TV show or what this month's hot pop star was wearing or not wearing that scandalized the nation's right-wing fundies. I felt like I was dying of thirst and these guys were giving me water. Their friends, other people in the church, were very inviting and made me feel at home, like I was part of a family, the kind of family I never had growing up. I loved the sense of community, of belonging.

We studied the Bible - they had a fairly rigid formula, divided up into lessons, from Jesus's character to his mission field right up to his death on the cross and what it meant for us lowly sheep. One of the latter studies was sin, where we had to write down and confess the sins weighing on our hearts, what we'd done in our lives to separate us from God. I confessed a lot - homosexuality, childhood molestation, incest, as well as your bargain bin sins like pride and envy and anger. Everyone was accepting.

They said to be saved I had to repent of these sins and go through water baptism, and pointed out the scriptures that proved baptism was absolutely essential to salvation, no debate. (This was a stumbling block for many people we studied with. There is a lot of debate about what kind of baptism is sufficient or if it is necessary at all.) I felt like what they were saying was totally true. I consented, repented, believed and was baptized.

I enjoyed a wonderful first year. I quit smoking, drinking and drugs, stopped hanging out with most of my old friends to avoid worldly influences, began proselytizing to friends and family and coworkers (shyly, and haltingly - I was, and am, an introvert to a ridiculous degree). I was in it to win it. I was running the race Paul talked about, and damn it, I was gonna make it to the finish line if I had to crawl. And they were all there to cheer me on and pick me back up when I fell down! What more could you ask?

As time went on I became disenchanted, not only with the church but with the fundamental essence of Christianity, of praying to a God I couldn't see and feeling so disconnected from him, unable to see his presence in my life except for contrived coincidences. I hated reading between the lines.

Why couldn't God appear before me and remove all doubt? But that's not the point of faith, they said. It wasn't just that. They were very involved in the concept of a self-contained church. The preacher would hint heavily every week that this was the only church, that our growth was proof that God was on our side, that we did things differently. There were the religious, and then there were *us* - the true believers, not bound by silly Pharisaical dogma! We were saved by the blood of Jesus, not by the Law of Moses.

But this was mostly talk. I felt a great deal of pressure to conform - to contribute, serve, go on double dates to encourage the sisters (I was gay - I had no interest, but I did it out of the hopes that God might change my heart, and to make the sisters feel appreciated in a world that degraded and objectified them), share my faith, read my Bible daily, reach out reach out reach out. The mark of a successful disciple, as we called ourselves, was who he brought to heaven with him. One guy got up to the podium to share his testimony on Sunday and said he wanted to bring a whole busful of people to heaven with him. That was his goal.

One guy grew a beard and vowed not to shave it till he'd baptized twelve men. The numbers game was a powerful motivator, a New Year's Resolution for the faithful. We had accountability partners, disciplers, people who prayed with us and advised us and helped us in our spiritual journey. We were supposed to be bare and vulnerable with them, to stay humble and to make sure no sin went unaccounted for.

I spent a lot of time hating myself because of all my sin. I sank deep into depression. I had stopped believing at around the two-year mark but went through the motions because now I lived with these people and had forgotten what it was like to be outside of the church. There was a subtle aggression to conform, to go to events and be unified with the body.

Independence was not encouraged because if you cut off a finger and don't reattach it soon, it dies. And you're depriving the body of you, the precious finger, just as much as you're depriving yourself of the body. How selfish of you! My depression did not go unnoticed. I was told I had to get on medication and go to a Christian therapist who would help me sort out my gay hang-ups and help me move past my old wounds and be a stronger spiritual soldier in God's army. If I didn't, they'd have to kick me out, because I wasn't following the Bible anymore.

There was no joy in my life, and I didn't want to help anyone in the church or be a part of it. I felt like no one cared and everyone was very superficial. Like you had to put on a happy face and be constantly seeking a goal, telling people things were getting better and you had faith and God was so awesome, when really you felt the opposite.

In the end I told them I couldn't do it anymore, I didn't want to follow God or be a part of their church. I was kicked out five minutes later, on a work night. I drove to a friend's with all the stuff I could fit in my car and we had Chinese food and commiserated. Then I drove to my dad's house and said, "Hey, can I move in?" Luckily he welcomed me home, but advised me never to let other people tell me how to live my life.

They weren't a cult like you hear about in broad strokes in the media. No sexual abuse, no money laundering (that I knew of), no big stuff. But a lot of mind control, guilt, shame, fear, elitism and othering. I still love some of the people there, the ones that I really connected with, who didn't love me just because Jesus said they had to. But I don't talk to them much anymore. They're busy with their church lives, I'm busy with mine. Such is life. I don't regret the lesson I learned, but I miss the sense of belonging. Sadly it was an illusion that didn't sustain itself. Most of the people didn't know I left; they didn't know me at all.

One guy recently asked me which region of the church I'd moved to, because he hadn't seen me in two years. I told him I'd *left* two years ago and he looked suitably embarrassed and apologized. I don't know. I can't put the blame squarely on them, that'd be easy. I had faults, too. But of course so did they, because they were humans, some of them trying the best they could with the materials they had. Some of them were fake, but I know plenty of fakes outside the church as well.

I'm on the fence about God today. I was told not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but most days I want a house with no bathtub. We'll see. If there's a God, I hope he understands.

Username: pbmummy

I'm surprised that Indian cults have not been mentioned at all, India is a hotbed for cults and anyone can go start one over there and instantly get a bunch if followers after one dinner party.

My parents joined a passive-aggressive (luckily) cult from south India about the time I was born which was based on some strange mix of secular ethics and Meditation (but they were largely Hindu philosophy based). my early experiences were mostly positive, the cult didn't have too many rules and is open to everyone - people could leave as they please and they had small meditation centres dotted around the world. we had a spiritual guru who seemed very charismatic and authoritative but passive-aggressive in pushing people. we were made to attend prayer meetings every Wednesday and Sunday, so my parents would take me (and my brother) there and let us hang around a small room with other kids while they spent an hour meditating and listening to some philosophy, I think.

My mothers side was completely into this, so my aunts, uncles, cousins, grand uncle etc etc were familiar faces so it all felt lighthearted and "spiritual" (whatever that means). since it was based on secular ethics it wasn't much of a problem accepting other forms of religions and beliefs - we were just told that they would eventually make it in. I was allowed to join a private school that had nothing to do with this so my education was intact. the "mission" had 2 other gurus that handed down the organization upon one's death.

the entire mssage was about surrender and servitude, by he age of 10 I was taken to a compound in a far away village where the gathering could get much larger by magnitude, the compound was growing its own food, serving guests, had huge communal halls where people could rent a bed to sleep and we spent about 10 days there while my parents would meditate a few hours o the day the kids were passively told about how powerful the guru was, his magic and his ability to read our thoughts and make decisions for us. we were told that we would be allowed to pray by the age of 16 and understand the benefits completely. everyone who worked there were "volunteers" who were helping out with the mission who did everything for free while the guests would pay a small token and rent / buy everything for a price a little more than what they would cost outside. it was here first that I saw people from other countries i.e. white people who were basically charged higher for everything, given better rooms and better facilities segregated from the normal Indian crowds.

they were special guests of the guru and had special access to him (there were a thousand of them) we had all gathered to celebrate the guru's birthday and the crows was about 75,000 people. all of this started to take an effect on me, I started to believe in the power of the guru and started to completely indulge myself and make more friends, keep in touch with them etc. after this we were made to attend several grand 3-4 day gatherings in various exotic locales where we were paying for the gurus visits and his speeches. my parents were made "preceptors" which meant that they were the evangelical bunch authorized to hold their own prayers and maintain prayer halls and take direct instructions.

Since my dad was the primary breadwinner he didn't get to go away that much so he always had just one foot out the door while my mom spent insane amounts of time in these gatherings and different compounds. a few years later I started to see my mother change - my mom would always talk bad about relatives from my dad's side and tell me that they were bad people and I should avoid them. this became a pattern, within no time my mom started avoiding social gatherings outside of this cult and avoiding social contact literally ignoring the existence of everyone outside the cult.

this turned into a feedback loop and within no time we had lost touch with every relative who didn't belong to this cult and there was more and more brainwashing, buying the guru's speeches and pop-philosophy and spending more money on every gathering. people would come over every Wednesday or randomly and my parents would take over the living room and meditate for a few hours and peddle bad philosophy and stories of the gurus' amazing abilities to make good things happen for everyone. (we were told to meditate before any difficult event like a test or if someone close to us died)

all of this still seemed okay until I grew older and noticed my friends within the cult start to profess their love to each other and ask the guru's permission to get married (the guru would gladly allow this as it kept people within its grasp) and any objections would lead to further isolation from their families. a lot of people would either break it off from their families or leave the cult entirely and lose touch with us - even close friends.

Maybe it was the cult's design or maybe it was me - I always felt I was an observer and couldn't fully accept what was going on. I noticed the cult would buy more and more land and expand all over the world (religious land is tax free) and we heard news that they were banned in a few western countries because they were a threat to Christianity (they were listed as a dangerous cult - I found out later) and all of this eventually added up. we had no vacations, no timeout - every summer / Diwali break we would go to one of these compounds and never got to see the world - not even india, just these compounds in different cities. we would go straight there and head right back to our schools after busy "volunteering"

during my late teens I was told not to listen to music as it would corrupt our thoughts (by some of the members not my parents) and that got me intrigued. this was a bit of a shock as I had already started listening to some soft rock and I didn't see anything wrong. it was literally cognitive dissonance that drove me to take music more seriously (I wasn't given any money to buy music but MP3s and the internet happened), eventually I got hold of some heavy metal and the lyrics in them were very powerful -

I posed those thoughts to my parents and my parents started to discourage my questions, this is what got me to slowly exit its influence, talk to my relatives and friends from outside the cult and eventually I broke out of it. I started acting out, would fight with my mom about her beliefs and started to see her lesser and lesser (I had started a business and was too busy with it), a few years later and I was completely out of it. I still know a lot of my relatives are ardent devotees to the cult and will not take a critical question from me, I've lost touch with them.

Sorry this isn't a horror story, it never was and I'm thankful - cults can also be about social isolation too and there's way many personal details I'd rather not discuss. but the cult's MO is like Zynga's freemium model - make more money off the rich whales while being passive and legal in everyway.

Username: eddhead

I'm not creating a throwaway account for this, just in case anyone has any questions or comments. I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. Although , in recent years the group has gained some small level of acceptance -- it was definitely a cult when I was forced to be part of it.

Things that made/make the Witnesses a cult. The obvious, all members are required to go door-to-door and try to convert "worldly" people, or at the very least distribute Watchtower literature so that the person has at least been warned that the end of the world is almost here and if they're not a JW,

God is just going to kill them -- no matter what type of person they are, or how moral or kind or charitable or good they are. Doesn't matter, if you're not a JW, you're dead.

JWs strictly obey the dictates of the "governing body" -- a group of old white men who used to own about half the real estate in Brooklyn -- but I believe since have moved their HQ to either Patterson, NJ or a different location. EDIT: This "governing body" claims to have a direct connection to God and to be God's mouthpiece on Earth. Anyone who speaks against this group of men is said of have committed the "unforgivable sin".

On a congregation basis, all JW members are subservient to a local body of elders. These elders have no formal theological or pastoral training. Basically none of them have been to a seminary or school of divinity. They're simply chosen because they're "loyal to the governing body", middle aged men.

Women are allowed absolutely no authority, in any sense in the JWs. But let's get back to these body of elders and their power -- on the mere allegation that a person has committed a grave sin, like smoking a single cigarette, these elders can "disfellowship" a member. Once a JW is disfellowshiped, no other Witnesses are allowed to talk, correspond with, or even be in the same building with this person.

This includes members of their own family. And yes, families are routinely torn apart by this process. A JW can be disfellowshiped for literally any reason and no proof is necessary. The level of paranoia that exists is palpable.

I could go on for hours but I'm sure you don't feel like reading it. How did it affect me. It made me believe, from a very young age, that there could be no God -- or at least no loving God. God was portrayed a homicidal lunatic, willing to destroy anyone and everyone who didn't blindly obey him, just to make a point that he could.

It also engendered in me a deep mistrust for "authority figures". When the 35-year-old "elder" who flunked out of high school and works at a gas station pumping gas is making decisions about whether or not I should be thrown out of the congregation,

thrown out and disowned by my family and all my JW friends (cause when you're a JW, you only are allowed to have other JWs as friends) and he's making the decision based on if he believes that I jerked off last night or not -- you really start to resent "authority".

The experience basically screwed up my entire childhood and young adult life. I was around 25 to 30 before I finally got over all the anger, frustration, lies and mind games.

Username: GaiusMagnus

Obligatory apology for the wall of text, but I gotta throw in the backstory. I was raised agnostic, my parents never forced my brother and I to go to church and we never learned about any gods/religions.

I went off to college out of state after high school, but my last year of college was when I became interested in familiarizing myself with religion. I was basically just trying to learn about as many as I could and maybe possibly start connecting with something I liked. My close friend who was raised Catholic knew had met some guy on campus who struck up a religious conversation with him, my friend told me about it, and I said I was open to listen to the guy.

We all got together to talk more, it was a little odd because the guy was clearly in his 40's but trying to dress like a 20 year old. He told me the history of Christianity and Jesus and the disciples yada yada yada, and he asked me if I wanted to connect with a girl closer to my age in the church. I figured it wouldn't hurt to listen so I agreed, gave him my phone number to give to her, and waited until she reached out to me.

It took a few days, but I got a text from the girl, Amy, asking if I wanted to meet up for coffee and talk. We met up the next day, she asked what I was looking for, and I explained that I was basically just learning and trying to find something I liked. I specifically remember telling her, "I'm not looking to join a cult or anything" and she was like "Oh yeah no that's not good, haha!"

We kept talking, Amy told me her testimony, how she struggled with her relationship with God as a teenager, and then found this church during college and felt at home. Honestly I thought it was really heartwarming and raw. She asked if I wanted to participate in weekly bible studies, which I assumed would be in a group setting at the church, so I said sure why not.

Turns out they were one-on-one, just me and her wherever we could find a place on campus, and she brought packets with her, like exam packets. Each packet had fill in the blanks for certain verses, places you could write interpretations of the verses, and passages of text with really specific demands of what was expected of you and what you needed to believe.

Again, thought it was strange, but I was just trying to learn. As each bible study progressed, she asked more and more personal questions. I had a boyfriend at the time and she asked about our sex life and encouraged me to break up with him since he wasn't part of the church and we were "sinning."

Amy told me that her and her boyfriend (who was in the church) both received messages from God that they were supposed to be together, they went to the pastor, and he "allowed" them to date. RED FLAG.

She invited me to a church service and I thought, "Well maybe it's just her that's weird and everyone else is alright, so I'll go." She offered to pick me up, and the service was in a hotel ballroom. They didn't even have a church building. RED FLAG.

People were going up to the front to talk before the pastor started and I said I thought it was cool that they memorized verses like that. She said, "Oh no, they're prophets, God is speaking through them right now." Definitely thought that was a load of shit, but whatever, some people are wacky right? RED FLAG.

I kept going to bible study but I stopped going to the services, and she invited me to a "get together for the new members of the church." That weekend, we all showed up to a house. I asked who lived there, and Amy said, "No one, the pastor just owns it and we have church functions here." RED FLAG.

So we're all socializing and then all of a sudden they turn the lights off. One guy starts playing guitar and everyone starts fucking chanting and I get grabbed by the shoulders and pushed into a line up of other people.

I asked the person next to me what they were saying and she said they were speaking in tongues. And that was the moment I knew I was in a cult. The pastor, his wife, and a few other members went around and put their hands on our shoulders and heads, and the pastor gave us a "personal message from God" while the others chanted.

I left early because I had to go to work, blocked Amy's number, and never went back. A few days later, I googled the name of the "church" and found a support group for people who had left.

Username: dumbest

I was raised Mormon and graduated from BYU. I was a true believer most of my life. In the exmormon community, we have a metaphor. Imagine Every bit of doubt or cognitive dissonance is something you put on a shelf to ignore.

We say you fill the shelf with more and doubts until it gets too heavy and breaks. When it breaks, you don't believe anymore. In fundamentalist religions, doubt is a cancer because the religions themselves are so insecure. So I'll tell you my first "shelf items":

- Joseph Smith's hagiography in church history is unbelievable. He was always wanted by the law, and in the scripture he wrote (speaking in God's voice) was full of a bunch of instances of God telling people off on Joseph's behalf. It was hard to believe, for instance, that God would tell people to build a hotel for Joseph Smith to own, and then bitch at people for not doing it fast enough. In the church narrative, Joseph Smith was an almost perfect person. In reality, he had a lot of enemies. Church history describes those people as deceived by Satan and their accusations categorically untrue.

- the stories they tell about people who have left the church don't make sense and ascribe people weird motives that I'd never observed first-hand. For instance, anyone who leaves the church is either lazy, offended, wants to sin, deceived by Satan, or never truly believed in the first place. Most people I've met think that they're good people, or at least try to be. So that doesn't make a ton of sense.

Another story of this in action is this famous story about how an early church leader left the church because his wife got upset that she wasn't getting her share of milk byproducts from a cow she co-owned with her neighbor. And another one was a guy who left the church because his name was misspelled in a revelation. You've got to remember that these people gave up salvation over milk and a misspelled name. That just doesn't make sense. It's unbelievable. Later investigation reveals at least some of these people left upon finding out Joseph Smith was conducting his own secret polygamous marriages.

- BYU. The school is very pharasitical. On top of that, it is very authoritarian. Anytime they want students to do something, they make it a matter of integrity; If you have a 5 o'clock shadow, your integrity is questioned because you signed the "honor code".

If you want to live in "unapproved housing", honor code again. Return textbooks to the bookstore without dropping the class, honor code. Everything is conveniently cut in the administration's favor. At the Lord's University.

- I read a little about the BITE model (a model that describes cult control tactics) and recognized a lot of stuff from my own life.

In the end, it was a process. By the time I was 26, I didn't believe. It was a bunch of little things over time. And then when I realized I didn't believe, I heard other people's stories and looked at primary sources from church history, which made me realize things were worse than I knew.

To be sure, cults exist on a continuum, and even Mormonism isn't as culty as say, Jehovah's Witnesses or Scientology. But, that's my experience with Mormonism.

Username: treetablebenchgrass

my mom is of hippie age and when she was young all those new age stuff was popular so she raised us with crystals, buddhism, new age self help books, mass awareness training groups/seminars etc.

and tv and media always had new age or supernatural stuff (mediums, psychics) so i grew up with the impression (groomed) that it’s real.

in the 00s all those new age stuff was popular along with yoga, kabbalah, landmark forum, self help and new age was at peak popularity and was always on talk shows like Oprah recommended so much new age psudeoscience to everyone.

Enter “The Secret” and law of attraction that QUANTUM PHYSICS proves ur mind “magnetizes“ ur desires to u. i emphasize quantum physics for this was the kicker.

i was hesitant to believe and confused cuz it seemed sketchy but Oprah and society said it’s real and ok so i let my guard down and believed. my mom and aunts, cousins also believed.

but i always felt confused cuz they are saying that mainstream science is wrong and trying deliberately lie to us to hoard all the power to themselves to keep us ignorant (new age conspiracy theory).

also them saying crazy things like ppl starving in africa or rape victims attracted it to themselves cuz of their thinking, which i thought was appalling.

at that time the show has already been on Oprah 3 times, the author made Times magazine most influential people in the world list, even regular counselors, teachers, managers at work were recommending the books.

these caused me a lot of distress and confusion and broke down my mind like how cults program u, how can it not be real if so many people were validating it, who am i to question that with my limited knowledge doubts etc.

years of mental hell afraid of my “thoughts” cuz of low of attraction and quantum physics i started googling the words with “scam” beside it for once and finally found that the “quantum physics” part of law of attraction that’s always emphasized came from the Ramtha school of Enlightenment which is a cult.

i was well into adulthood before i realized anything was wrong. mostly because of a fantasy filter bubble created by american media and the hippies legacy on culture.

still struggling with deprogramming now because it’s been so long in this type of thinking.

be careful of “harmless” self help seminars and books promising u happiness, health, wealth and love all with just 1 little trick THEY don’t want u to know!

Username: 143637

**Trek Alliance / Equinox** I got involved in a different kind of cult. This one called it's self a business opprotunity but it was really a MLM, multi level marketing, network marketing, pyramid scam of the worst kind. It was shutdown by the Feds. Equinox started and was shutdown first. The top earners from there went on to start Trek Alliance. They used the same tricks as before but they learned from the mistakes of Equinox.

Trek would put up flyers, post adds, hunt resumes, cold call anyone and everyone to bring them into a job interview or business opportunity. The place would be an open office. It looked professional but different from any other office you have ever been to.

This is where it started. Before the interview, they wanted to give a company overview. One 1/2 of the room had several chairs facing a whiteboard. Candidates would be seated every other seat with a rep between them. The reps would be active listeners in the presentation. Showing interest, nodding, agreeing. It created an energy that tried to pull the others along.

When that speaker was done, they would introduce a special guest. either the owner or top regional sales person. The reps talked up the first speaker, the first speaker talked up the last speaker (who would turn around and talk up the first speaker). This last guest was "talking to the reps" showing them how they could make more. This would lead into a pitch for a local weekend training or a larger regional training event (that happened once a month). After it was over, everyone was excited for that next event. The reps would sign them self up for it and also the candidate.

The weekend events is where top sellers would close the deals and pitch for the larger regional event that cost $300-$500 (money back guarantee). The regional training sounded like a leadership training or something that even non reps could benefit from. But it was where one of the companies founders would close everyone that was still on the fence. This was always 1 week before the end of the month. This gave them 1 week to pull whatever high pressure sales tricks they had left on you.

Reps attended every event. 5 nightly sessions a week, 3 weekend events a month, and one regional event a month. They had to pay for the larger events and had to cover refunds if the candidates requested them. They could rent a desk at the office and were encouraged to work there.

This was a way to make untold sums of money, but it would bleed everyone dry. I struggled to make things work but was encouraged that it would pay off.

You needed to get candidates to put up $4000 and work their family and friends to do the same. It tore people apart and I still have people I know that I will never be able to reconnect with because of it. You had to distance yourself from people that didn't believe in you.

As I spent more time with some of the top earners from the area, I started to peel back the layers. I saw every one around me living on credit cards (fake it until you make it). The top earners in our area were just breaking even. My credit cards were maxed and creditors were calling. I finally did the math for my current situation. To stay afloat, I needed to get 2 candidates a month to invest $4000 each. I then realized 2 things. First is that I am a awful sales person and have not gotten anyone to invest more than $300. And the second is that I was in serious trouble with my finances and I had to do something about it.

It was an interesting time of my life where I got to travel every month and meet a lot of people. I got wrapped up in the energy and truly felt that I could make a lot of money with this system. I knew it was going to be hard work. While it sounded good in theory, the reality is something very different. It took me way too long to see it and I was embarrassed to admit it.

I know it is not exactly a cult, but they use all the same tricks that cults use.

Username: stld52

I have told my story in other threads about my father, he wasn't religious at all. My grandmother however belonged to a small pentecostal group, and she grew up in that religion. So when it came to my religion, I was forced to go with her to pentecostal church up until I was about 13, when she got to sick to go.

The church was a block away, I lived in the deep country so it was a small community church, around 3 rooms and a couple bathrooms. Boys had to dress up always, we constantly wore long pants and button up shirts. Girls could show now ankles, meaning denim dresses down to the feet. They could wear no make up, they could not cut their hair.

If you broke those rules you got beat, spare the rod spoil the child after all, it did not matter, anyone in the church could snatch you up and beat you. We are brothers and sisters of Christ after all, so family can beat family.

Needless to say I got beat a bit there. My grandmother was too old to whip me, so everyone else obliged themselves to be my judge jury and executioners for any infraction that they thought I did. She didn't say a word to stop it. The worst was "brother larry" this middle aged guy that had no kids and seemed to take out a weeks frustration on whatever child he could catch on sunday morning.

Brother larry was also the youth minster, and the sermon was usually some shit about how the other kids at public school were sinners and hell bound. One time he got word that I had worn shorts to school, it was the end of the year and hot, so I had some swimming trunks. When I got to church on sunday morning I got the hell beat out of me by the decon, paster, and brother larry.

Main church went anywhere from an hour and a half, to the entire day, depending on how religions everyone was feeling or how scary the news was that week. "hell is a commin!" was frequently the call and sermon, and if anything that slightly resembled biblical prophecy happened that week then by god we better get ready for the apocalypse. As I got older, say around 10 or so, I started "going to the bathroom" and just walking home once they got into a frenzy.

The "holy spirit" getting "apon them" frequently ment hours of baby babble coming from adults, fainting, dancing, and picking up kids and holding them skyward. It was frightening as fuck most of the time. If anyone in the church had a new born, then that poor child was going to be prayed over, anointed with oils, and held up before god for about an hour strait while everyone sang and dance around in a frenzy. Looking back it resembled a human sacrifice, I guess we were fortunate no one dropped a dagger at the altar or else it would have become one.

I dog my dad a lot, and he was a horrible father and human being, but I have him to thank for saving me from that cult. At around 14 I started leaving shortly after service began to just walk back home and go play.

Well the church noticed my absence and came to get me. I got an hour screaming lecture and beating, and the major theme of it was "do you wanna be a hell bound sinner like your worthless father?!"

Well my dad came home later that day and I told them what they said and did. He was sober enough that day to realize some shit was wrong, and he went to have a talk with the church that night, and by talk I mean he brought a .45 into the church and told them if they ever came around his house again every single one would be carried out in a body bag.

I was basically ex-communicated at this point and my grandma was no longer welcome, she went into the nursing home shortly after and died a couple years later. not a single one of those savage piles of shit went to visit her or visit her funeral.

Username: lordgiggles

So plenty of other WWCG fallout on here, but I figured I might as well show some solidarity (yay! we're out!)

I faked sick almost every Saturday for a year when I was 10 until I had the guts to ask my parents to not make me go anymore, the rest of the family stopped going within a couple years of that. But what I do remember involves a lot of shouting during sermons, my family barely able to make ends meet my entire childhood, even though my dad earned good money, because of tithing, and a lot of rules and beliefs I couldn't explain to other kids.

Wasn't allowed to celebrate birthdays (I had my first party at 10 and was so unsure what to do I didn't do another since), I couldn't accept gifts for birthdays or Christmas/any other holiday we didn't believe in, and once my sister yelled out "Pagan Trees!" while we drove past a Christmas tree lot.

I'm atheist now, go figure. One memory I don't think I will ever get out of my head was probably one of the few that got me thinking about leaving at such a young age... A man during some holiday service (Tabernacles maybe?) at Ambassador in Pasadena, CA pulled out a knife from his briefcase during service and started screaming about the church being bad (I was too young to get much more out of it).

He was in the balcony right across from us so it was like a full show of "something is not right about this place" when a couple guys got the knife from him, they started to get him out and everyone started signing hymns.

**Yeah, the "sane" reaction the church folk had to some guy losing his shit with a butchers knife was to start playing music and everyone stood up to sing**, I think it was Onward Christian Soldiers? That stuck with me as the least sensible thing to do in that situation and I started to wonder if the guy was right, maybe we were all following someone in the wrong direction.

Other weird shit they did: No makeup allowed, then it's all good, then not allowed again, then it's okay (no discussion of decision changes).

We celebrated *some* Jewish holidays, but as if to make sure we didn't feel close to anyone of another religion, we called them by their English names (except for Passover), but I'm still mad we didn't get Purim.

There was a foot washing ceremony I'm super glad I wasn't part of, that I heard the ministers didn't have to take part in.

We were told all of our friends were going to hell for not being part of this "One True Church" even as children

Mr Armstrong made house visits to anoint me with holy water as a kid when I was sick, I'm still pretty sure it was the medicine that cured my laryngitis

The ministers all drove fancy cars, lived in mansions and many had expensive vacation homes while most of the church members, my family included, could barely afford to feed their families or buy clothes because of the *mandatory* first, second and third tithes.

EDIT: and I guess I should mention, I can't hate them entirely, my parents would have never met if it weren't for the church, so I wouldn't exist. But I sure do wish they'd dropped it right after falling for each other =p

Username: kackygreen

My experiences echo /u/supercultwoman's, but the children weren't made to fast, and when the adults did fast it was to 1. lose weight via some scam (diet pills/noni juice/etc) because someone important's wife was selling it and 2. get closer to god.

They thrived on the poor and the drug addicts. There were several ministries tied with homeless shelters, which picked up a lot of people interested in having a second chance and joining a big family-like congregation.

Our pastors would offer to help them but only if they converted. Drug use and addicts were excused (they made up an overwhelming amount of the congregation) and they weren't advised to go to doctors or get real help if something were to happen. There were meetings similar to AA set up over and over again, and everyone would fail hopelessly. There was a lot of meth, booze, crack cocaine use, heroine, and huffing.

The teenagers were not much better. Everyone was encouraged to donate 10% of their income to the church, because god would double or triple it and make you rich. If you had financial problems - even because of health problems, you were to put god and the church first. No excuses.

The pastor and his wife were treated like celebrities and there were strict gender roles. The parents (mothers) were encouraged to homeschool with A.C.E, and shamed if they couldn't. The kids that were homeschooled via this system ended up illiterate and most were unable to go on to college or do a trade.

There was this big fiasco when someone said "Hey, don't use the homeschooling, they won't be able to get into college. It isn't accredited." The parents started freaking out and the pastor's wife (in charge of it all) threatened to find out who started it and sue.

There was also a big End Times/Revelation thing, and the pastor was convinced our church was the only good church mentioned in the End Times, which we would see soon - so why bother trying to get into college or have a family?

They didn't have dates picked, but they said that anyone that the generation that was born in 1948 (founding of Israel) would see the return of Christ. This was really interesting to me, because my father was born that year. There was also a big Illuminati/conspiracy theory thing going on, and they despised the Catholic Church for being reptilian spies or something bizarre.

I left at 17 when I figured out that it turned me into a horrible person. I wasn't allowed to listen to music that wasn't Christian, the leaders of the church forbade us from having friends that weren't part of the church, and they were pressuring me to break up with my boyfriend because he wasn't a member. They also said since I wasn't converting people, I was useless to god.

I'm now 26. Most people have either left and are struggling to support themselves and figure out their spirituality, or they are on hard drugs and still a member. Several people have died or have brain damage from the drug abuse.

The people I were once close to in the church are now addicted to meth.

Username: [deleted]