Gordon McGuire meets the Children of God

Unlike the more successful and profitable new religious movements, the mostly irrelevant and insignificant cult known as The Family seems unable to garner any sustained journalistic interest. However, occasionally there are a few exceptions.

In a recent profile of Gordon McGuire (who has Proteus Syndrome), Robert Nelson narrates McGuire's encounter with a "loose community of drug dealers up on the mountain" that were "one of the vestiges of the Children of God/Family of Love cult." It is a lengthy article and the part about the COG is on page 3 and also excerpted below.

While I have heard of reformed drug dealers joining TF and in some cases donating the remaining profits of their enterprise, I am not aware of any verified reports that any members have participated in the illegal drug trade while they were in TF. However, I have heard of former members who, although they had already moved on to more rewarding enterprises (perhaps in some cases including drug dealing) continued some of the practices (litnessing, prostitution, provisioning, clowning, busking, etc) and rituals they learned during their membership. So it is possible that McGuire encountered former members rather than current members. Nevertheless, it is an interesting story...


-excerpt from article by Robert Nelson-
So he moved to the rickety 1950s travel trailer with a batch of Chocolate Thai pot plants and little else.

Then he met the neighbors.

"So these guys come over and we start talking and it comes out that I have these plants," he says. "And they ask if I'm going to grow. They tell me I should because the guy before me had 200 irrigated growing sites on the land. I asked what happened to the guy and they say, `Oh, he was arrested.' So that scares me enough that I just give them the plants and tell them to give me a little when they mature."

The neighbors were also cooking meth for sale down in Lake Elsinore. McGuire was set.

But there was something odd about this loose community of drug dealers up on the mountain. They were all vaguely religious, all knew each other, all had numerous children and all seemed romantically involved.

McGuire had stumbled into one of the vestiges of the Children of God/Family of Love cult.

Started by former evangelist David Berg in 1969, the Children of God considered themselves "end time soldiers for Christ," believing in a new Christianity based on Berg's "law of love." At its essence, this meant that actions and thoughts could only be judged good or bad based on the nature of the motivation behind them.

Which entailed free love.

The cult was most notorious for its tactic of evangelism through sex, termed "flirty fishing," in which women were supposed to bring men to God by seducing them.

Cult members couldn't figure out if McGuire was a good neighbor or a federal agent, which he definitely wasn't. Female cultists were dispatched to do some flirty fishing.

"Five or six times a beautiful young girl would show up at my door [and say] she could only survive if I helped her," McGuire says. "It was always the same story: She needed to get out of some situation and she was going to kill herself if she didn't get some help. By the last few, I was like, `Well, maybe the world would be a better place if you weren't in it.' It just got ridiculous."

Latham says, "He got in with some pretty weird people up there."

Finally, an older woman showed up at his door. McGuire took a liking to her and they began living together. Much of the time, though, she seemed to be interviewing him. He would give his thoughts on the Bible and theology. She would then disappear for long periods. McGuire assumed she was off passing along what he had said to other cult members.

One night, she returned with a revelation. She told McGuire that cult members had come to believe he was the reincarnation of Zillah, who they thought was, according to the Bible, the first weapons designer for the Assyrian army. Zillah was actually one of the wives of Lamech, one of the descendants of Cain in Genesis.

"They didn't know what the hell they were talking about," he says now. "But it was still nice to be assigned a character from the Bible."

Neighbors began visiting him. They would talk deep into the night. Recalling his years proselytizing as a teen, he became a sort of pastor to the group.

Things on the mountain turned sour, though, when the woman decided she wanted her three children to move in with her and McGuire in his house. That led to a fight. She threatened to burn down the house. McGuire pitched her a bottle of rubbing alcohol, challenging her to do it. She stormed out.

A few minutes later, McGuire smelled smoke.

He went outside and discovered the rear of the house on fire. His girlfriend, sitting on a doghouse out back, blithely commented, "Looks like you've got a fire."

By the time the local volunteer fire department got there, the house and much of McGuire's belongings were gone.

So he got in his truck and headed back to his parents' home in Arizona. Where he was no longer welcome.

• My Right Foot by Robert Nelson