Random Stories of People Who Joined and Then Escaped Cults (14 items)

• (#12) Manipulative Guru Asks Member to Hand Over Phones, So They Research Cults on the Internet

  "I grew up in a 'Hindu' cult. It was the Truth, exemplified 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 sponsor from 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 jewelry 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."
• (#9) Redditor Asks to be Saved From Quiverfull Cult

  "I grew up involved with the Quiverfull movement, a type of Christian Fundamentalism that involves having a bunch of children, home education, extremely modest dress including headcoverings, the practise of 'courting' and 'bethrothals' (basically semi-arranged marriages taking place as soon as the girl was old enough to marry), and something called 'Christian patriarchy,' wherein the father is viewed as a sort of mini god.

  I grew up attending a small Christian school run by the local Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church, where every student was Quiverfull. We were required to wear extremely modest clothing (ankle length skirts, hemlines that covered the base of our necks, etc. We had wardrobe checks multiple times each day.)

  Each morning we pledged allegiance to the Christian Flag and to the Bible. It's been years, but I can still recite both pledges by heart. Then we recited the chapters of the Bible we were working on. Yes, I did say chapters. We memorized several books of the Bible (Jonah, all of Paul's epistles, most of Genesis, Daniel, a decent amount of Leviticus and I think the Gospel of Mark.)

  Our schoolwork was primarily books published by Abeka, BJU Press and ACE. Our textbooks claimed that:

  no transitional fossils had ever been found
  the Loch Ness Monster had been proven to be real and was a plesiosaur
  the Great Depression never happened but was just a myth made up by the socialists
  slavery was a win-win solution for all involved
  dinosaurs breathed fire
  the KKK were great dudes who got a bad rap
  the trail of tears was actually super great
  outer space wasn't real because if you blew on a pile of baby powder, a new planet wouldn't form (this was demonstrated)
  the Liberals don't believe in personal responsibility
  the world is about to be attacked by the floating Space Jerusalem

  We never covered much actual math, science, etc. Learning the truth about the government's plan to kill Holocaust the Christians [sic] was seen as much more important.

  For one year the girls also took Christian Charm. This was primarily about how God really, really cares about whether your chest is 10 inches largest than your waist or not. Girls were forbidden from standing with their feet parallel, 'like a man's', instead having to keep our feet at ridiculous and painful angles. We couldn't walk without being careful to 'glide gracefully' and avoid 'swishing' our knees. We were forbidden to not smile, but our smiles were never big enough, or they were too big.

  There wasn't much time for real schoolwork anyway, since we were all so busy being punished for having an ungodly facial expression, and forced to spend the rest of the school day standing on our tiptoes on one foot in the corner.

  In fourth grade my parents chose to pull me out and homeschool me. We joined a local homeschool group filled with Quiverfull homeschoolers. My parents had gone to a different church, one which was very Charismatic (we spoke in tongues, exorcised people, 'healed' with prayer) but not necessarily quite so extreme as the IFB school I had been sent to. However, as my father became more violent (he had a lot of mental issues and was an extreme hoarder), my mother (who was a borderline hoarder and very depressed, so much so that for the first ten years of my life she barely left her bed except to use the washroom) became more and more heavily sucked into this subculture.

  My parents had already gotten rid of most TV channels over concerns about evil spirits and only allowed us to read a few classic books, but after this my mom first stopped allowing us to read anything non-Christian, then banned novels altogether. We began being forbidden to see anyone who did not go to our church or homeschool group. Since my parents never really started teaching, and I had little access to books and at the time no internet, this left little to do all day aside from copy out Bible verses and stare out the window for hours. Time sort of stopped meaning anything.

  We became more into the Biblical patriarchy thing, where my father was seen as the head of our household and a sort of direct representative from God who women were to serve and obey in every way. You weren't supposed to express any kind of wishes or desire, but leave it up to your husband/father to make all decisions for you. (If you were his daughter, this included selecting your husband - girls were expected to be stay at home daughters, serving their fathers, until marriage). Biblical femininity was emphasized, which in this case basically meant long skirts and not having opinions or desires, except to serve whatever man God chose as the best 'helpmeet' possible.

  For a couple of years my mom, who was herself a nurse, stopped allowing us to take medicine, believing it to be witchcraft. She became more and more crazed about the idea of demons trying to attack her and our family.

  Unfortunately, I was born with a birthmark on my leg. She believed that this made me Satan. My father and mother both searched for ways to fix this. I've been exorcised, had oil poured over me, had everything I owned burned, etc. It apparently didn't work.

  After my father died we were at least spared his extreme violence, but my mother became only more unhinged and depressed. We shifted from being Quiverfull to being Charismatic - we'd been both for a while, but my dad's death pushed us all the way from one to another. She mostly gave up on her idea of me as Satan, but became absolutely obsessed with the idea of Satan attacking our family. This belief is reinforced by our church and all the Charismatic material she reads. She even abandoned our homeschool group, believing it to not be concerned enough about how demons are possessing everyone.

  Our church is obsessed with spiritual attacks, which are seen as stemming from absolutely everything. Anne of Green Gables? Witchcraft! Christian music? Actually sung by Satanists, filled with subliminal Satanic messages! Cabbage patch dolls? Demons who stay still when we look at them! (I'm 100% serious) The only way to ward this off is speaking in tongues, making prophecies, etc. A few people in my church believe they hear the voices of demons in their head, and said demons are chasing them. I've been there as we've all laid hands on people and prayed for them to be liberated from the demonic oppression in their lives.

  I still live with my mother and sister. I still go months without seeing anyone who isn't from my church. I still have no real education."
• (#13) Church of Satan is Too Emo for One Member

  I briefly joined the Church of Satan as a teenager/early 20-something. The doctrine of the CoS is designed to draw in people who feel disenfranchised, ostracized, or otherwise 'shoved aside,' and leave them feeling like they're as good as everybody else - but only if they follow LaVey's philosophy. It's every bit the collection of immature freaks and misfits that it sounds like it should be.

  I met a 30-something EMT, a man who at least claimed to be a police officer, and another who claimed to be a lawyer (Lawyer in the Church of Satan... it's almost TOO perfect). They sounded like what I'd now refer to as 'emos,' a term I wasn't familiar with in the 90's/early 2000's. There was a lot of whining about how society didn't understand/ hated/ was afraid of them. There was a lot of furious gesturing towards the doors leading out of the room in which we met, as though people were waiting outside to stone us. Ironically, one time, there were a few protesters outside, at which point everybody threw up their hands as though they'd had to deal with this all the time for years.

  The food was terrific. Junk food orgy. I think there was an episode of Robot Chicken, a while back, which parodied the CoS meetings: a bunch of very fat Satanists chanted "OmmmNommmNommm" as they gorged on delicious, processed fat and sugar. I sometimes wonder if the people who wrote that episode knew just how close to the reality they were. College is ultimately what got me out of this; I actually felt like I had a future for a while, and hanging out with a bunch of people twice my age who acted like they were about half my age suddenly became pretty exhausting.

  That, and my particular grotto had a loud and obnoxious male member, somewhere in his thirties, who was borderline obese and (not unusually, for this lot) loudly emphasized perceived and/or imagined social oddities as making him somehow superior to the 'less unusual,' the inversion of what everybody felt 'on the outside.' In his case, said oddities included his supposed bisexuality. One too many hover hands from him."
• (#8) Young Girl is Abandoned at a Cult, Finds Phone and is Saved by Father

  "I've never been in a cult, but my mom was abandoned at a cult when she was 11 with her 16-year-old and 7-year-old sisters. My grandmother was mentally ill and somehow got connected with these people in Iowa...they were from the deep south. Anyway, my grandmother didn't stay. No one knows where she went during that time.

  My mom and her two sisters were left there for around 6 months, until my mom got to a phone and called her stepfather. He somehow arranged to pick them up with the local law enforcement. He wasn't allowed to just walk right up and get his kids, so he showed up in the middle of the night and mom and her sisters had to hide and sneak away with him. Law enforcement hung around and gave them an escort out of the state. I think that the worst part for my mom and her sisters was not only were they abandoned by their mother, but they were never allowed to confront her with it per her psychiatrist. She was a pretty sh*tty mother and an absent grandmother to us grandchildren.

  I can also add a few more details. Mom said that she and her younger sister did not experience any physical or sexual abuse, but she is not sure about her older sister because she was separated from them. They also worked in a cucumber field in the mornings. They told my mother that she had an aura around her at all times and she said she felt like she was being prepped for some sort of religious ritual.

  Unfortunately both of my aunts that were with my mom have passed away in the last 6 years. Neither really talked about it around me, although they both acknowledged it. My mom is very vocal about it. This would have taken place in 1967-1968 in Iowa."
• (#5) Father Saves Daughter From Being Inducted into Scientology Sea Org

  "Ok, so my mom got involved and brought us into [Scientology]. One of the first Christmases my mom was married to my step dad, he got my sister and me the scientology communication course. You need a partner for the course, so my sister and I partnered up and had a blast with it. One key thing they teach in the course is a lack of response to upsetting words. During the course, my sister and I took turns saying purposefully funny or nasty things to each other in order to get a response. The other had to look straight ahead and not respond at all. This is called bull baiting.

  For another holiday, my step father bought me a 'group processing' (no kidding) auditing session. This is auditing meant to bring you into the present time. Basically, our auditor stood at the front of the room and said 'look at object A. Thank you. Now look at object B. Great job!' for 3 hours straight. You feel really great afterwards because you're literally being hypnotized.

  Now, onto the Sea Org stuff... My sister was really excited to dedicate her life to scientology at 13 years old. My mom and dad split custody of us, so when my sis expressed an interest, my dad asked to check it out. We drove down to Clearwater, FL together (divorced parents, me and my sister) to check everything out. They showed us where my sis would sleep (a motel owned by the org with 3 sets of bunk beds in each room), where she'd go to 'school' (they assured us she'd get a HS diploma, but most school was learning scientology stuff), but they never mentioned where she'd work. (You could be placed on a boat, work in the hotel scientologists came to stay at, or pretty much any other placement.) They said it'd ALL be free. Not only would she be able to do all the course work and auditing she wanted, she'd also be getting a small paycheck! All my parents had to do was sign away their parental rights and my sis would sign a BILLION YEAR contract. (Yup, that's actually what it says on the contract.)

  My incredibly analytical father started doing his research as soon as we got home. He researched for weeks and ultimately made the decision to not sign away his parental rights. He showed my sister and me 20/20 videos, stories from ex-scientologists, etc. I left after that. My sister was devastated. My mom was pissed. The great relationship my parents had turned very sour. And my mom had to pretty much force my sister to go to our dad's house on his custodial time. My dad even took my mom back to court and changed the custody agreement they'd been using for YEARS to include 'all decisions about school, religion, and medical procedures must be agreed upon by both parents.' Soon after, my dad spotted people going through his mail, watching his house, calling and immediately hanging up...

  My mom started getting frustrated with the church when their promises of helping her get sober didn't really pan out. She'd been an alcoholic for years and scientology said they could help that. The final straw was being held against her will. My step father had asked her to take a course in Cincinnati - he'd pay for it! And pay for her travel! AND pay her to take it! Though she was separated from him, she was tight on money and went. Once in Cincinnati, she was locked in a room. She still hasn't opened up to me about the whole story, but she has said she kept asking to use the phone and they said no. They did call my grandparents, though, to ask for $10,000 to 'help' my mother. Once released, she said 'f*ck this sh*t' and hasn't been back.

  They still call my mom and sister occasionally trying to get them back in, but the calls have slowed over the years. Also, my mom and step dad did have a child together, who is being raised semi-in the church. We have to be careful about speaking about another sister's depression and ADD meds around her. If she found out and told her dad, he may not let my youngest sister see us at all."
• (#2) Parents Hire Reform School to Kidnap Kids in Night

  "Not exactly what most people would see as a cult, but it's what it was.

  The Family Foundation School was based off of the East Ridge Cult. Many of the teachers and staff had been part of East Ridge. East Ridge was based off of the concepts of All Addicts Anonymous, which was essentially the beliefs used by Synanon in the 70s/80s I think. Essentially, this was a 'recovery' cult that made use of the twelve steps to brainwash people.

  I was 15 when I was sent to the 'school'. Most kids who went there had an escort service, essentially their parents paid people to kidnap them. I wish I was exaggerating, but escorts of this nature snuck into the kid's rooms in the middle of the night, woke them up, and if they don't cooperate, put them in chains and dragged them off to the school. I went willingly with my parents. I wasn't a particularly bad kid, but I was suicidal and depressed, and it badly affected my grades and ability to do school work. I had been hospitalized three times, so my parents were desperate and willing to try anything to get me help.

  So I went willingly. I didn't think it was going to be bad or abusive. I thought I was just going to get some intensive therapy on a longer term basis than my stays at the mental hospital. I realized pretty early on that there were a lot of techniques that were used that were not okay. I ran away after two weeks, and was found in about 10 hours

  I refused to submit to life there in the beginning. They verbally abused kids in front of each other, used exercise and deprived kids of food as a means of punishment and coercion, and the religious aspects were pretty horrifying. They used tactics such as 'exile' and shunning to get people to submit. I recall in my life skills class there, hearing about how brainwashing isn't bad, how it's good that they were reprogramming us to be model, productive citizens.

  Phone calls with family were always monitored and if you tried to say something about how you were being treated, they would tell your family that you're being manipulative and not to believe you. I only had alone time with my family once in the eight months I was there. I was allowed to go to dinner with them once. I remember the entire time thinking that I should tell them, but I knew they wouldn't believe me. Even to this day 13 years later, I don't think they believe me. I know they do, but there is still something that nags at me about how no one should trust me, since it was drilled into me there that I'm a liar and manipulative, and that no one should trust me.

  I got out because I got kicked out. I had a mental breakdown. I had been cooperating and following the program. But my aunt had been diagnosed with cancer at some point along the line, and it took her quickly. My parents wanted me to go to the funeral, school said no, so parents said that I couldn't go. I went silent for a few days and then I just started flipping out. Every day. I mean, I had anger problems, but I lost my shit and I flipped out on everyone. I don't remember it too well, but I spent a lot of time in isolation and I would literally just attack anyone who tried to touch me. I had no control and it was horrifying. I am honestly not an angry or violent person. The idea that I acted like this still haunts me.

  I thought I was going to go to a mental institution for the rest of my life because that's what they said would happen if I left. My mother sent a letter saying that if I was kicked out, that I wouldn't go home and they would send me someplace where I would be locked up 24/7. None of it mattered to me. One day, I saw my stuff was packed and I was terrified. I thought I was going to be sent to a mental institution. But my dad was there, and he took me home, and I cried.

  The effects of it, and what really happened there. Well. I didn't realize how fucked up it actually was, and that it was actually a cult that focused on 'You will die without us' until I was 19. I'm in touch with a few survivors. We're all at least still a little bit f*cked up. Sometimes the only thing I can do is laugh at how f*cked up it was. The good news is that the school announced that they were closing this past August."

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