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In Reply to: Re: Excellent post from P.D. from way down the board posted by PBY on October 31, 2002 at 09:58:21:
Well, here I go again, but I will keep going when the topic comes up. I can say that I know first hand that when I joined the family I had no real knowledge of the Bible or God. The presentation of the "family" was one of witnessing and leading people to the Lord and then once that occurred then if a person was proper material (useful) then they could join a group that was the highest calling and that had all the answers. Many people join because they are vulnerable. There is a need. One need might be a sense of reason for leaving and a just cause. That is what I thought I joined. And I was barely 18. Another was exhaustion of the dangerous and hurtful world around me at the time. Regardless of motivation, it would have been hard, imo, for anyone who joined to be in without sincerely believing in God as a very real entity who was all powerful and took you at your word. After "milk", or, bible basics and intensive training, including purging sessions (often lasting all night long) exhaustive classes and exhortations, "inspirations" and a tiring schedule of memorization and buddy systems, it is easy for me to see why people joined and not blame them for staying in, even when things happened that would have gone against their own values. Why? Because there was constant training and reinforcement that our gut feelings were bad, from the devil, spiritual weakness.
I personally believe that men and women were beat down and all in submission to what was presented as god. People saw at times miracles to support their belief. Well, miracles happen in all realms of beliefs. Whether your are a fundamentalist Christian terrorist, islamic terrorist or other, including mainstream recognized religions and ideologies seen as safe and non-cult. These "miracles" or in some cases "consequences" reinforce the idea that God is with or in that group in some special way. So the person that is convinced their movement is Gods chosen believes that their leader is God's prophet. Obviously, if you believe the bible at all, there were certainly kings and prophets that had a great deal of control over people.
The next obvious result of this is that you fear that you are wrong, face DEATH, to go against the movement as was reinforced frequently and repetitiosly through letters, testimonies (of returned "backsliders" and so on.
Do I expect someone born or raised as a child in the family to understand that? no. Can I fully understand their experience as far as the family is concerned? NO. But I do not blame. We have all been beaten down and all been condemned by people within the family. I hope to build up amongst survivors of that group regardless of where they were in it or when they joined or became a part. I am glad for all that are OUT. Now via VANDARI the family unitedly curses us. That energy will return upon them, imo.
I do not want to negate here any experiences that anyone has with their own individual parents. But I do want to explain that joining was not a choice seen as negative, and the programming was subtle and real. Some parents did things they would not otherwise do under the influence of long term conditioning and resultant changes of belief. That is a personal issue to work out between parent and children. Maybe some could post here about experience that they have had working things out as exers between generations?
