A great read for any ex SCJ members living with guilt/shame/etc... you’re not alone.
I became a member of The Way International (TWI) in 1978 and left around '87. After years of family trauma, at age 16 I quit school, left home, and tried to start a new life with a roommate who was 8 years older than me (I lied about my age). I was 100% clueless about being an adult and suffering from what I now know to be symptoms of PTSD and depression. During this dismal and lonely time, one of my brother hitchhiked out to visit me. He was picked up in a beat up old car by a member of TWI and aggressively witnessed to for nearly two hours. In an attempt to get the Jesus freak off his back he told them he wasn't interested, then for some reason gave them my number. I got a phone call the next day. We also talked two hours, but unlike my brother, I bit.
I did not grow up in a religious family, but I was desperate and vulnerable at the time and open to any kind of relief. The Way International came rushing in like a tsunami bringing instantaneous family, love, hope, joy, peace, belonging, and salvation from any and all negative emotions. Now, and this part is embarrassing to admit, all this happened in my life around the same time period as the Jonestown suicides. Cults were huge news in the '70's. I was well aware of the possibility of TWI being a cult. The intellectual and rational part of my brain was sounding loud and clear alarms, but they were continuously being drowned out by relentless waves of love bombing. It flooded over me just when I was in an emotional desert and thirsty for every last drop.
One way I can describe getting involved in what I, a person of passable intellect, knew was most likely a cult is to compare it to a married person who cannot resist the powerful allure of an illicit romance. You know goddam well you shouldn't do it, but it feels so goddam good when you do it. At first you tell yourself it will only be flirtation, a little ego stroking, maybe this one little dabble, then another, and before you know it you are fully sucked into the deepest depths of a bad situation. You knew better when you started, when you could still see the big picture. But you minimized and rationalized each little step on your way down until you were no longer able to see clearly. Still, no matter how deep in I got with The Way, pesky rational thoughts would try to rear their ugly heads from time to time and there had to be a way to deal with them..
To me, a group can be called a cult when it strategically prepares your brain to deal with information that could undermine the group. The way they do it is by actually letting you know up front what "negative" thoughts you are likely to have, and what specific arguments could be made to convince you to leave the group. They then relentlessly work to prepare you in advance for how to respond when it inevitably happens. After a while, when a rational question or thought enters your brain, your mind doesn't even try to process it - you respond as preprogrammed. In The Way International it was a major part of the group culture to share war stories of having opportunities to respond to the devil's attacks (logic). You were considered possessed if you entertained them for long. Responding to these "negative" attacks as you were programmed to do, was considered a God given opportunity to reinforce your supreme spirituality and proof that you were out there on the front lines for God.
One example (out of many) of this strategy playing out in my own life is when the members of my fellowship told me that devil spirits would enter into my earthly family now that I had a heavenly family (TWI). They warned me that the devil was going to make my earthly family bring up a number of things like Jim Jones, cults, how I was different, ask me to come home, etc..., etc.... When they felt I was ready, I was allowed to go home and share God's good news with my earthly family (accompanied by a fellow cult member of course). My sweet grandma, whom I worshipped and was never a part of our afore mentioned family trauma, naturally ended up saying some of the obvious things TWI told me I would hear. I was aghast that Satan had attacked the one family member I adored the most, of course he would. My God, The Way is full of prophets! They knew the future! I responded as I was programmed to do (especially with fellow cult member there). I never had to put a thought into what my family was trying to tell me and when I got back to my fellowship I was a hero for standing strong in God's Word.
I titled this post "How Smart People Get Into Cults" then I wrote all about myself as though I'm a particularly smart example. It's just that the one thing that deeply haunted me after I finally got out of TWI (and that's another big long post) is how I could have been so fucking dumb as to waste nearly a decade of my life in a fucking cult. I look back at some of The Way's beliefs, such as Eve had a lesbian relationship with the devil who assumed the body of a woman, therefore homosexuality is the cause of the downfall of man, and I marvel at my amazing capacity for moronic ideas. The tales of dumb shit I did and believed are too many to tell. It's like when I was hitchhiking as a lone female so I could witness to strangers, I had so much to cover in so little time. I can't possibly spew it all out in this format. .
In spite of all the unbridled stupidity, after I left The Way, I went on to earn a bachelors degree and two masters with a 4.0. I was highly motivated to prove to myself that I'm not an imbecile. I'm not bragging, just trying to make the case that stupidity is not a requirement for being duped by a cult. Cults, be they religious, political, business (like Amway), or even a controlling relationship, all use the same old techniques. They make you feel special, they give you hope, and promise you your dreams will come true. They program you day after day with canned slogans, prepared arguments, and come-backs to anything that may burst your bubble. Anyone can be duped. You could be in a cult of some sort right now. Just look at our current political situation! Do you feel like you can openly entertain the other sides opinions? Always remember, no matter how smart you are, it is important to retain your ability to question even your own beliefs. The more we know about mind control techniques, the freer we become.
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