Posted by Student on June 15, 2014 at 13:02:26
I'm just finishing up The Witness Wore Red about the former cult member who helped bring FLDS leaders (think: Warren Jeffs) to justice. The author is Rebecca Musser, 19th wife of FLDS Prophet Rulen Jeffs. She grew up in the cult and was compelled to testify against the leadership because she wanted to protect her younger sisters and cousins from becoming child brides. Sound familiar?
Because FLDS is a polygamous, patriarchal cult that produced a multitude of kids that leadership felt a pressing need to control, some of the parallels to the TFI/COG experience are striking--including the physical abuse, rehabilitation camps, and secrecy.
There's another book written by a cult kid called Beyond Belief: My secret life inside Scientology and my harrowing escape, by Jenna Miscavige Hill. The second part of the subtitle--"my harrowing escape'--is a bit over-stated, imo. Jenna had a relatively privileged existence growing up as the niece of the grand poo-bah, which isn't to say she had an easy childhood. Plenty of exploitation of child labor, lack of proper education, separation from parents, psychological and spiritual abuse in the form of mind control, but nothing like the sexual exploitation and brutal beatings experienced in the FLDS and TFI/COG.
Scientologists appear to be more egalitarian in their construction of gender roles. Everybody gets the shaft equally. Scientology is more about systematic mind control than relational control of bodies through sexual and physical abuse. I know all cults do mind control, but Scientologists seem to have it down to, well, a science.
The single most striking parallel between Scientology and TFI/COG described in this book is the way the group cuts off former members/children who leave from other family members and friends. It's a lot like the way Amish shun family members who leave--s pretty effective way to control people and keep them in the fold, or at least silent if they leave.
Scientology also has some really imaginative (think science fiction) steps of initiation into their higher order of knowledge that make me wonder if Berg & Company took a few tips from the Scientology playbook with all the TFI/COG revelations about keys, supernatural powers, a pyramid-shaped heavenly city inside the moon, etc. Why stick with TFI? Because you're going to get to play in the heavenly flying saucer when it lands. Very similar to Scientology's most absurd, highly secret claims about Thetan cosmology.
Both books provide an insightful look at what it's like to grow up in a "high demand organization" or cult and leave.