Worldwide Church of God: Letter to children of the cult

Dear Nephew, (raised in the WWCg and filled with fear and confusion and depression)

I read your letter. My daughter brought your letter along with her today so I could answer you, as well as she is answering you.

WWCg was a "nice" cult, that did not do the openly destructive things to children, like beating and starving them. Very very little is known about the effects of the cult upon the children per se. However, I do not think that is the thing you or I should focus on, because what does happen to the Worldwide Church of God cult members at large seems to have and still be happening to you. As you note, the symptoms are illusive and almost something one could ignore and just relegate to "indigestion, while having a heart attack". That is about the best analogy I could think of. If I had not studied the effects that cults have in general upon the human mind, I would also have dismissed my symptoms as rather vague and non-important.

However, in my case, I was well aware of my symptoms because I had not had them while inside of the cult. That was the only clue I had, besides having transferred my relationship and allegiance and worship from God unto the "one and only true church" i.e. the cult. I researched to figure out how they did such a horrendous thing, and found the only answer, mind control. You don't have that "life experience" to draw from, because you were raised from baby on in the cult.

Now about the symptoms. I think by talking over time, and doing your own research as well, you will begin to understand how "it all fits together", and comprehend what you are experiencing and NOT experiencing, with what are well know as cult after effects.

What's the big deal? You asked the other day. HAVING SOMEONE ELSE OTHER THAN YOURSELF IN TRUE AND TOTAL CONTROL OF YOUR MIND, IS THE BIG DEAL! Not being aware of the computer chip in your brain, (not literally) is the big deal. But just as a computer can be re-programmed, we can re-program ourselves. Thank God. Awareness and education are your tools to re-program and check out the programming imputed to your mind.

Now to those symptoms. The trancing on the bus, is just that, trancing. You were well programmed already as a kid. Now some trancing is normal and not to be afraid of, but we were deliberately hypnotized. I have a tape on which GTA says that, as well as some tapes from an ex-evangelist that talks about the "training" that they did, plus the volumes of testimonies available.

Trancing probably does happen to you today. It would come in the form of not hearing someone when they speak, missing a segment on a t.v. show, "day dreaming". You mind is wandering, dissociating. That is a fairly good explanation. (I can't spell, since the cult, and my spell checker is absent without permission) Now everyone does some of this, and it is natural. So it is not something to be terrified about. However, there are "triggers" that may be words or sounds or whatever. I have figured out some of the tricks in studying hypnosis. A bunch of disjointed-non understandable phrases-strung together can put one into trance, if that is the way it was done for 15 to 20 years, and was.....by OUR LOCAL MINISTER. So anything that causes confusion, not understanding a concept in a class lecture, could start the trance for example, or a word not quite heard.

"HYPNOSIS IS CONCENTRATED FOCUSED ATTENTION, USUALLY DONE WHILE THE SUBJECT IS VERY VERY 'RELAXED'" That is one reason that the car is such an obvious place to go into trance. The jogging and rhythms of the tires, etc. That is a pretty simplistic explanation, but the best as I can do, with the understanding that I have.

All your foundations DID COLLAPSE when your family left Worldwide Church of God and your folks got a divorce. With the losses of the "church" came the loss of family and home and town, and even dog and cats, as well as no base to return to, no anchors. Yes, I worried a lot about that and have still got you on my mind. Your entire life was lifted up, a lot like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and there was no returning to your life as you had known it. I think that is the precise reason that you have not "put things together and related them to fit together". It all happened at once, and merged. It is difficult, if not impossible to sort out what feelings come from what. I realize this. The changes had to be totally over whelming, and life encompassing. This just adds to your inability to associate with the cult the traumas it caused, versus the traumas caused by your life being in turmoil, not just going to school and that would be enough, but by the breakup of your entire past.

You had to be hurt, cynical, and pessimistic. Besides all that, you must have been or should have been or will be in intense grief over it all. That has to be felt, worked through, and finally accepted, not just intellectually, but in the gut. I think you must have suffered much more trauma from the divorce etc, than the cult. However, that doesn't negate the cult experience.

Which brings me back to your symptoms. The self esteem issues. They are universal to a cult, classic symptoms. They are directly related and caused by the cult. You will come to understand this, as you educate yourself about cults and their methods. Then, you will take a new look, at how you look at yourself, and decide to dump out the "program". That is what it is.

Cults are like Communism. Communism has no use for the individual. He is only good in that he is useful to State. When he is no longer useful, he is expendable. No value, no worth, and no self esteem. This should still trouble you today. It is cult induced. It can be fixed. It will take work. The cult program is faulty, it is in error, you are o.k. because God made you and loves you. That is the pearl on which you can build your true self esteem. They taught that God looked at you like you were filthy and just garbage. Worms and filth, in rags to God. NOT TRUE, once you have accepted the sacrifice of JESUS CHRIST, as you have, you belong to Jesus, and HE NEVER LOSES HIS SHEEP. HE GOES AFTER THOSE THAT STRAY. HE KNOWS WHERE THEY ARE AND HE KEEPS THEM. NOTHING CAN TAKE THEM OUT OF HIS HAND. You are very important to HIM, so you must be important. I know I said this to you before, but you must internalize it. Repeat it over and over, if necessary. Get the other program OUT. As you use words to express it to your mind, your feelings of worthlessness will begin to wane. Words are a power house, the tools of the cult, and the tools of the 3rd Reich. The words you tell yourself or hear the most, your mind will believe, AND THEN your emotions will change. This is a fact. The cults use it all the time to program us. We can reverse it to de-program ourselves.

Decision making. Well Nephew, think about it. In a cult decisions are made by the minister or powers that be for you. In your case, you had two very trained authoritarian, trained by the cult, parents. You ADAPTED by obedience, not questioning, but obedience. I fully remember how well behaved you were, (over adapted child) and how your mom took you (dutifully cult taught) into the bathroom and beat the shit out of you....well it sounded like it anyway. You fast learned not to cross her. Your father was the same authoritarian. I saw and heard the same shit with another your step brother.

The hitting your step brother was worse than the hitting of you, because it was harder, and he learned harder. That was my beginnings of whispers from the Holy Spirit to my heart that something was wrong. I did the same things to my sons in ignorance. Both boys remain somewhat oppositional to me to date, and I can relate it directly to "church abuse", or "Sabbath spanking", or the CHILD ABUSE THAT WE WERE TAUGHT was "DICIPLINE!" Therefore, although you weren't beaten by a nasty cult leader, you were not to question and it got kinda hairy for a little kid...you complied...smart...and avoided the "discipline". We were even trained how to "SPANK" a baby of a few weeks of age. Yes, Nephew, it was and is a cult.

So today you say you have a hard time making decisions. Yup. I know. You have cult induced indecision's. First off, you were not trained to do that....make decisions....it takes what is called, Critical Thinking. YOU WERE TRAINED NOT TO THINK CRITICALLY. Come on....THINK NOW ABOUT IT..........if they wanted $150,000.00 out of your life blood over the time estimated a person stays in a cult, they wouldn't have wanted you to be able to think your way into keeping your money in your pocket.....would they?????????? ........ So you need to get a good COGNITIVE --BEHAVORIALLY focused therapist, if you can't find a therapist trained in cults...and there are almost none. There are many schools of "discipline" or types of training or approaches that a therapist can be trained in. You need to find out if the one you talk to is of the right vintage. You would not have a sinus specialist fix your heart. This is the same principle and most people do not understand that. Find out the area of expertise.

Now where you work for the Police Dept. you have been trained. This is automatic to you as to what to do, you say, and you have no problem operating in this capacity. You have the answers, have the information, and can make the decisions you need. Good. .

(This helps to keep you confused, however, because in other things you can not make decisions, decisions that are not as important......)

However, get into something like knowing what you WANT TO DO, you shut down. The reason is that as an ADAPTED CHILD, you were not allowed to HAVE, feelings, EXPRESS feelings, and certainly not ACT upon feelings. You were not trained to think critically, nor were you trained in decision making skills. You did not get any practice, but the contrary. You were not even given PERMISSION, either EXTERNAL OR INTERNAL PERMISSION to make decisions. Everything in a cult has to fit the mold, stay status quo, another words, follow the leader. No one is in charge of his or her own thinking. The guru does it for them. Then the mom and pop teach the kids, and the cult moves on into society. Even if the family exits like we did, we take the cult with us. The programs are in place. Alcoholic and other dysfunctional families work the same. The problem goes along. The liquid alcohol may not be being poured, but the behavioral training in smack dab in place.

When you were little, your mind wasn't clouded up by all the cult shit. Now you are lost, you said. Yes. We all lose ourselves in a cult. That is the identity crisis thing. I am enclosing with this letter a copy of a few pages in a book I just got my hands upon. This is the first writing of the type. There is little data on kids that come out of cults. I told you exactly the way it was/is. In fact, Langone's studies your mom and I and some of the others partook in by filling out the questionnaires. He is going by a lot of what we told him our symptoms were, plus the case studies he did and other did. However, I believe there is much hope and reason to be happy about you. I think that you will be o.k., but first you study and realize what, how and why you have the strange problems you do.

Educate yourself. I will do all I can to help. You are a normal person, REACTING AND RESPONDING NORMALLY TO ABNORMAL STIMULI. Remember those words. Only very normal healthy people can be brought under mind control. That is not to say that people with problems can not be brought under, but mentally ill persons and those with personality disorders can't be. So you are in good company and you are mentally intact and o.k. I think that is very important for you to know. Your mind is functioning perfectly fine, it has just been screwed with. And we can fix it. So smile.

If you WANT to go to Seminary, go. If you don't want to don't go. Simple....no. You have been trained to not know your own feelings and mind. You do not know. That is o.k. for now. Give yourself space to not know. Perhaps gather more information. I think perhaps, if you get through this cult crap and comprehend it and de-program yourself, you will make one hell of a minister who knows what the hell is really going on, on God's great earth. I think you will know what to do, when HE wants you to know. For now, you have some other life lessons to learn.

You say you seem to think in black and white and that confuses you also. Black and White. Famous last words. The we/them of cult life. They are all bad outside the cult, and we are all good inside the cult. They are "of the world", and we have "come out of the world". Everything is either good or bad, black or white. All programming. Typical classic stuff, the stuff of cults around the world. Nothing new. Another program. Can be undone, with first, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. Something we were not taught about. Then, probably with reality therapy. More on that subject another time.

These are not character flaws. These are "programs". These do not make you bad, or worthless. They have absolutely nothing to do with you personally, except that they live inside of your mind, placed by the cult. This is not a cop out. (as you dumped on yourself) This is a reality, a fact, a truth, absolute. I promise.

Who are you? (you say you don't know) Yes the identity crisis. We all go through them, before, and after the cult. You have more to work through because at your age there is also one. Fun stuff. Pain, confusion. Baskets of feelings that don't make much sense. Who am I?

Yes, the doctrinal problems are not the issue. The ways of thinking is the issue. That will take more time to identify and counter. However, that is not hopeless, and will be very very freeing up of your personality for you. It will take some active work on your part, and it will take some time, but the outlook is terrific.

WWCg put a letter and a program inside of you, yes, like a letter on a computer. You erased the letter--but the program is still there. Well, that is really right on to what I have been trying to explain to you. However, we can disconnect the programs. Much specific work is being done on this very issue, both by myself, and other researchers, all specific to the WWCg programs, and not cults in general. Another words, we are searching out the WWCG programs and are going to expose them as best we can.

You asked where you start. By reading elementary stuff on cults. Start with the straight talk about cults book, and Singers overview of the cults, "Cults in our Midst" book. Both will send page to see from....

"God did not pull out my entire family, to let you behind". We must now work to get the cult out of you. YOU must do most of the work. We can only guide and support you.

The doctrinal stuff became clear to you. The mind control stuff will as well, as you study it, as you did with the doctrines, but now the mind control-psychological stuff must be studied and understood. Then and only then, with new information and understanding, will you be able to weed the psychological garbage out.

I believe that God may have a special ministry in mind for you, that of a true Christian minister truly understanding the cult-mind control problem. You see, just like the authorities, Singer, Langone, West etc., they only have the knowledge from what the victims have told to them. They are on the outside looking in and analyzing. You, Nephew, will have the information from the inside out. Having been there, you will know how horribly hard it is to figure out, and know that one cannot sense mind control, cannot feel it, cannot perceive it, except by others that have been there telling you. That is why it is so evil. It is done out of our awareness, without our knowledge or consent. This truly will make the verse: IRON SHARPENS IRON more meaningful to you, as you proceed in your healing from the cult.

Fear is induced by the cult. Do not be afraid. Put your trust in God, and His Son. And then proceed in your life. Trust Him. Fear is another leftover by product of the cult. You have wonderful choices ahead of you. You can make a difference in the world, not save it all, like WWCg taught, but make it a better place to be, because you were in it.

Trust the feelings that "He" put into you. Trust your perceptions. Trust your instincts. We were brainwashed NOT to Trust ourselves....AGAINST the GOD THAT PLACED THESE THINGS IN US! An old saying that I love is: "Courage is fear that has said its prayers". Use that as your guide.

Don't make a decision to go to the Seminary right now. I believe that you should try and get this crap under control, first. There is time...a few months of intensive cult study may bring you to a firm decision of what you want to do. It may take longer. This is something that I am still dealing with eight years later.....but.....decisions must be made, and no decision becomes a decision. Read that again. Making no decision, is also a decision.

Black and white...more later....some questions must have black and white answers. Some do not need them. I will explain how those needs got programmed into you, and then you can decide if you still need those b&w answers, and which ones. One at a time. O.K.?

Yes, you were abused in the cult. Many types of abuse were used. I will save that for another day too.

You asked if religion was used to control. You are just becoming aware. Yes, religion was used to control. Yes, definitely, Worldwide Church of God used salvation and loss of it to control, over and over and over in so many many ways, unbelievable, but I have it in black and white in probably thousands of places in their literature. Yes. An absolute you can count upon. That uncertainty of salvation that you carry with you to this day, is cult installed. Another program. It is a faulty program. It can be removed. You must continue to struggle against it. It is another absolute. Jesus did it all. In your head you know that. In your gut (where the mind control is centered and used and needs to be weeded out) is where you cannot "get it". Mind control does not work on the "intellect". If it did, we would have run. None of us are stupid. We were tricked. We were recruited. We were "emotionally blackmailed" or other wise known as put under mind control. Mind control is a play on our emotions. Beside that in Worldwide Church of God, we were trained to shut down many emotions, and to keep only those that they wanted to "enlarge, exaggerate, make bigger, more powerful" such as GUILT, FEAR, SHAME, AND ANXIETY. Mind control could be easily labeled: subtle feeling control. When someone controls and redefines and shuts down another's emotions, that someone controls the thought and actions of the individual. Words play a great role in the process. We were "neuro-linguistically programmed" (for paradise and destruction).

Fear of not having a black and white answer is cult induced. It is a necessary tool to control an individual, make him stop thinking, and not face reality. Realities are not black and white. The true reality is a mixture of the good, bad and ugly. Take Jesus on the Cross for instance. It was truly ugly, sordid, hideous, what they did. To deny that, is to deny some of the meaning. It is a negative. It is ugly. It is still truth and reality. So mixing the bad and ugly with the good of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, you have salvation. This is how I personally was able to grapple with this.

Yes, Nephew, we can all relate to everything you are expressing. Yes it is awful. And yes, no one SHOULD ever have to go through all of this. But the REALITY is that we ARE and am, and have to. I believe that the whole damn experience can be made into a positive, however. Our Great God in Heaven knows what He is doing and the work He has begun in US. (no b.s. work of any man defined religion here) He knows us, and what and how we will respond to this. He knew I would research it all out, and He knew I would help others. He will use it to His glory. You use it for that as well. Rom 8:28 never leaves me.

Lastly, your comment, "the experience of WW does not seem as though it was all that bad." Well, many things that are good came from it. There are so very many. I would like to write about that too. However, this time, time limits me. The fact that there was many benefits of being in WW, does NOT negate the reality of the negatives. If we can clean up the negatives, and then focus on the positives, we can use them to serve us and our God. The reality, is BOTH the good and the bad. So yes, the good needs to be explored as well to finish the healing process, and make the time there not all a waste. In many ways the WW experience can be looked back upon as a special blessing, and I will talk more personally about that at another time.

I am closing with this. I love you. I am going to be sending you some stuff. You will need to read a few books. O.K.? You are really so lucky. I had to send to hundreds of places to get my information, claw it out, paste it together in my mind, and now there are several wonderfully written simple books that have a lot of what I have learned in them. So you only need to read a few things. It will give you years of foundation in understanding cults and their influence. Also, I have contacted a TRANCE AND DISSOCIATION CENTER, and have information coming....not just for you, but for all of us.

Please respond to my letter as well as to Audrey's. She is answering your letter in her own words, based upon her own experiences, and I did as well, based on mine. We love you. We are your REAL family--extended family--but real.

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