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In Reply to: Re: as an SGA posted by Goth88 on July 21, 2002 at 20:37:14:
I have often wondered as well, and so do many SGAs, "Why did they stay?" and I think it has something to do with the frog in the pot story, how you can boil a frog if you put it in a cold pot and turn on the heat, because the frog is cold blooded, he doesn't even realise what is happening until it's too late.
You become used to it, Berg was either incredibly stupid or incredibly smart. In a way you can see how he slowly prepared the group to bring it where it is today, with indoctrinating the disciples with the idea that he was the ET prophet, his word is God's Word for today, that if you can't take it get out, but not in a nice way, that if you couldn't handle it you were immature, and put the pressure in place for him to have full reign over the group's thinking patterns and behavior.
It was crazy at times, the things people did just to obey, not wearing brief underwear, not wearing jeans, not boiling your water to make coffee, stupid things, just becuase that's the way "grandpa" did it. I no longer believe the group has that much control over its members though.
I think one reason many of the first generation is still in the group is cause they truly have nowhere else to go, and nothing to do. They have no degrees, no career choices, they are nearing 50 or probably older, no company they were part of that can give them retirement, leaving at that age is really difficult, my husband has had to do it as well as my father. In the case of the SGAs, at least we have the benefit of age and the time to make something out of our lives, and I believe that our past gives us a strength and seriousness about life many our age don't necessarily have. We seem to be a deep lot, deep thinkers. I can be online and chat with a whole group of SGAs, some of whom I've never met, and can almost immediately get into deep and intimate details that you wouldn't dream of sharing with your typical best friend, not until you've known them and their trustworthiness. We have a deep connection to each other which is hard to break.
I just read a note from a woman who joined the group when she was 16, and it made me think of this post, and how true you are that in some ways there isn't much separating us (the SG) from you (the FG). I really don't like the terms at all, I have many friends in both brakets and don't see a difference between them, except the FGs are a bit more mellow perhaps, but on the level of friends, they are all at the same place.
But in some FGs cases, they didn't join at such tender ages, neither did they come from broken and disjointed backgrounds. My father for instance, joined at 23, forsaking a scholarship to some university in CA, left awhile later, and then rejoined at 35. He knew, he definitely had enough outside influence and enough knowledge of the group and its doctrines to make an educated choice, and he chose the group. For some reason, he in his heart believed it was right and that this was where he should be serving God. He has since left, and I no longer hold it against him for making such a decision with our lives, there's no point in it, and he and my mother (who didn't rejoin but regrets not having been firmer about keeping us with her), have apologised repeatedly to us about their choices and the effects of those choices in our lives.
I think that most SGs go through a bitter phase where they are mad at their parents and the other adults who put them through this oppressive situation, but as time goes on you learn to look at things in perspective and realise that you are who you are due to that time of your life and it's those those experiences which have probably given you the inner core of strength you have today. The strength to be who you are regardless of pressure around you, the strength to be your own person without depending on anyone or anything else, esp. not a group or organization.
Jules' site has been a major success in bringing us all together and helping those who left out of guilt know that they aren't guilty, and to help each other realise our strength and power, and to determine what we want to do next in regards to the group, our parents, our past. At this point many of the SGs there are not at all happy with the first generation. Many were treated intolerably by them, dictators who lorded the spiritual power given to them over those they were supposed to care for. And it seems that most SGs have lumped the majority of FGs together, for the time being. It will take them (us) time to come to the point of realising that you got screwed as well.
Perhaps we are a little more "righteous" in our indignation and anger and feel justified in holding you (FGs) accountable for it, although many of you aren't directly responsible for their past, but you were the ones who had the say, the vote, the authority, so you are the ones held responsible for their pasts. My brother is the same way and has told me he really doesn't pity the FGs right now. It's not that he's mean and vicious, and wants to raise up an all out attack on them, but he just doesn't have much pity for your plights cause he feels you were old enough to know, you could have left when things got weird, you could have stopped it, but you allowed yourselves to be under the spell that was cast.
Anyway, don't get frustrated by it, one thing I've noticed is that time really does heal and as distance is put between you and your past, you are able to look back at it in another light, and one day the SGs may be able to accept their adult counterparts, but at the moment it's a healing process that they must go through and they really do have the right to their anger.
