Posted by Student on August 24, 2014 at 12:50:37
Girl at the End of the World is an account of growing up in The Assembly, a smallist Christian cult that came of out of the 60's Jesus Freak movement in California. Written by Elizabeth Esther, granddaughter of cult founder George Geftakys, it has many parallels to early COG, pre-FamilyofLove experiences. Particularly interesting is Elizabeth's account of the harsh discipline for children, e.g., religiously-motivated daily spankings aimed at breaking the child's will and promoting "first time obedience" to adult commands. Seems The Assembly and COG took some lessons from the same playbook on child rearing.
Elizabeth's account of her childhood experience of end-of-the-world/doomsday beliefs also parallels COG. Actually, very sad. Kids raised in this cult have a much higher resting heart rate than other kids, largely because they were constantly trained to be on the alert--in a physical state of hyper awareness--of impending doom. SGAs with panic and other anxiety disorders may find kindred spirits in Assembly survivors.
Elizabeth Esther's book is written for small group reading and discussion. Interesting thing about Elizabeth is that she doesn't totally abandon her faith in Christ. Where she finds a church home provides an interested, perhaps unexpected, twist to her story.
Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman is another, more controversial, memoir on growing up in a high demand religious group--this one being Satmar Hasidic Jews. If you google Feldman's name, you'll find quite a few rebuttals to her account, which is, of course, pretty much a standard for the "former insider tells all" type of book.
What I found most interesting about Feldman's story was the account of her pre-wedding mikva, a religious cleansing ceremony that orthodox women practice after their menstrual cycle so they can have kosher sex with their husbands. Feldman feels intensely humiliated by the ritual. Not surprising to hear her first literary attempts were a blog called Hasidic Feminist. She also gives a vivid account of her arranged marriage at age 17, which includes among other things, such an intense level of sexual repression that she and her hubby don't manage to consummate the marriage during the first year. Sometimes there's a little bit too much graphic information) in this book for my own tastes. If the author's intent is to shock the reader, she manages to do just that. Whether the accounts of her own and others' sexual dysfunction are true, it's the kind of stuff where one isn't surprised by the vehement reaction of "not true" from members of the Satmar community.