Category Archives: Books, Resources

Books, Resources for learning about religious cults

What is Your Advice?

     Over the last few weeks, I have spoken to many different folks about Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF). The reaction of every person who had never been inside a group such as WOFF was almost exactly the same. They would exclaim- How can the members stay? Or how can intelligent people submit to the rules and the control? The disbelief was obvious. I have had that reaction many times. After several attempts to explain that intelligence has no part in whether a person becomes a member of a cult or controlling group. I had come to an end of how I could explain the quandary. In order to help others understand WOFF, I had mentioned other groups that were obviously dysfunctional and had been labeled as cults. These groups also had members who were accomplished or held some revered position.

     During the explanation, I mentioned that cult leaders seek to fulfill needs. Some of the needs were physical, some were emotional or spiritual. It was obvious during my time with WOFF that Jane Whaley helped meet needs in the lives of members. After all, don’t most churches “help” people? Isn’t that a basic premise of Christianity? Helping others is not unusual in a religious setting. Many churches help with financial, social and emotional needs. One key factor that differentiates controlling religious groups from legitimate ministries is this: what does the “free” help cost the recipient? If the person receiving help is required to listen to the gospel message and is not pressured to accept the message and join the group, then that could be a non-threatening environment for the person needing help. The power of free will and autonomous decision making remains with the person receiving the help.

   However, if the process requires that the person accept the church “gospel” messages while employing methods of “guilt-loading” tactics, the environment could be unsafe. If with one hand the group gives and the other they intend or attempt to take away freedoms and choices, consider leaving the group and seeking help elsewhere.

  Continue reading What is Your Advice?

“Sons of Perdition” from OWN Documentary Club (1)

  This past Friday, I received the “Sons of Perdition- The Story of Polygamy’s Exiled Youth” documentary in the mail. This film is from the OWN Network. We have previously mentioned this film on this blog. The credits are many, so here is the list from the back cover- IMPACT PARTNERS and BBC STORYVILLE present a LEFT RUN FILMS production in association with MOTTO PICTURES and CACTUS THREE. Editor – Jenny Golden, executive producers- Diana Barrett, Abigail Disney, Caroline Stevens, Krysanne Katsoolis. Copyright©2010 Virgil Films and Entertainment, LLC.  There is a website for the film- “sonsofperditionthemovie.com”. The film is rated “R”. The film contains “street talk” as well as some scenes of alcohol and drug use. It is all a part of the true story. On the DVD there is also an option for a  “family friendly language track”.

   Honestly, I put off watching this film after I came home from work for several hours. I knew it would be remind me of Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF). However, this is so timely considering the exit drama which has unfolded over the last two weeks concerning a young man who has come out of WOFF. As I review this film, I will compare and contrast to my experience at WOFF and my understanding since I left in July 2008. We have compared the practices of the Fundamental Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) to WOFF in pervious posts. There are many of the same practices in both groups and there are also several practices which are not shared.

   The film starts with scenes from “The Crick”- a settlement also called Colorado City, located on the Utah and Arizona border. As scenes are shown of FLDS members tending their garden and riding horses, the voice of Warren Jeffs is heard saying, “Oh, young people, eternity was (is) within your reach, if you will just live faithful so the Prophet can place you properly in marriage. I want you to believe these stories. There are no monogamous in heaven. The men have many wives and that is the way men become gods and wives become heavenly mothers. I want to tell you young people, it is a sin to even talk about boy-friends and girl-friends, because you know the right way. But, what happens to people that turn away from this? The Revelation says they will be destroyed.”   

   Continue reading “Sons of Perdition” from OWN Documentary Club (1)

Two Good Questions, Two Good Answers

   Several months ago, a fellow survivor of Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF) gave me an article he had cut-out of a newspaper. He did not leave me the title or date of this publication, but the author of the small piece was very well known. The article was titled, “No need to fear a loving God- In My Opinion by Billy Graham”. It included a question and answer. Here is a copy….

Fear of God and Love for God
Article answers question about fearing God

   I stuffed the small piece of paper in my calendar and left it there for weeks. It was not until a second article came to my attention that I retrieved the first one and considered them side by side. In reference to the first clipping, and in order to avoid quoting the entire piece, I will recap. The person writing the question was trying to reconcile the instructions to fear God and love Him. “How can you love someone you also fear?” It would be incorrect to assume that the entire scope of the matter could be answered in a small newspaper clipping, but, one could get some direction from this answer.

   Continue reading Two Good Questions, Two Good Answers

Jane Whaley and Resurrected Indians?

  In a recent post titled, “The Short Creek Effect”, we cited resource material from “Escape” written by Carolyn Jessop. (“Escape”- authors Carolyn Jessop and Laura Palmer, Copyright©2007 by Visionary Classics, LLC, published by Broadway Books, ISBN 978-0-7679-2756-7). We are continuing on with references found in the chapter titled “Child’s Play”. Jessop recounts the games and adventures of her childhood. She grew up a part of the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints (FLDS) which practices polygamy.

   The game she explains in detail was “apocalypse”. “It was magic, our version of hide-and-seek… We grew up knowing a lot about the end of the world. It had been drilled into us in Sunday school that we were God’s chosen people. When the end times would come, we would be saved.” (page 24) As I read this I remembered how many other religious cults taught that they “were God’s chosen people”. Do I need to list them? My perspective also comes from my time in Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF). Teachings about the end times were sporadic and at times murky in WOFF. But, no doubt we were God’s chosen people. Well, if you pressed on to know the Lord, stayed at WOFF and kept submitting to the authority of God- which was embodied in Jane Whaley. Your place in the will of God was always tied to your continued attendance at WOFF. After all, why would God tell you to leave “the will of God”? So, even if the exact words were not used consistently, it was clearly understood and said that “there may be other folks walking in the Truth, but, we had not found them yet.” Being at WOFF made you special. We move on.

    Jessop continues, “When the end times would come, we would be saved, the wicked killed, and the world destroyed. I was too young to question these ideas; they were my spiritual ABCs. Contrary to what most would think, we were not taught the end of the world was a bad thing. Not at all. It was a good thing because it would usher in a thousand years of peace… There was one caveat; before God slaughtered the wicked, he would allow them to try to kill his chosen people. (It should have made us wonder, but we didn’t.) We were taught the government (which was wicked) would move into our community and try to kill every man, woman, and child. But since we had been faithful to God and kept his word, he’d hear our prayers and protect us.” (page 24) Again, as we read this, remember that these ideas were taught over and over to the young children. It became accepted and so common place that at least from Jessop’s account there was very little doubt expressed or even the least bit of critical thinking in reference to these FLDS “truths”. Why should that shock us? Why should it shock me? As a result of the mind control methods used in this group, critical thinking was for the most part non-existent.

   Continue reading Jane Whaley and Resurrected Indians?

“Mind Over Mania”- on MSNBC

   Sunday evening, MSNBC aired a documentary about Teen Mania and the Honor Academy. In previous posts, we have reviewed the Teen Mania program. The link is here:  Protests in Dallas at Acquire the Fire Conferencehttps://religiouscultsinfo.com/?p=4049 . The latest post for the alumni blog is titled “MSNBC Airs Documentary on Honor Academy”- http://www.recoveringalumni.com/2011/11/msnbc-airs-documentary-on-honor-academy.html .

Here is the trailer from docs.msnbc.com

 

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Continue reading “Mind Over Mania”- on MSNBC

The Short Creek Effect

   Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer wrote “Escape” (Copyright©2007 by Visionary Classics, LLC, published by Broadway Books, ISBN 978-0-7679-2756-7). We have reviewed this book previously in a guest post written by Lahna Morakis. Honestly, I have had a copy for a while, but had not picked it up until recently. From the back cover, “ESCAPE provides an astonishing look behind the tightly drawn curtains of the FLDS church (Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints), one of the most secretive religious groups in the United States. The story Carolyn Jessop tells is so weird and shocking that one hesitates to believe a sect like this, with 10,000 polygamous followers, could really exist in twenty-first-century America. But, Jessop’s courageous, heart-wrenching account is absolutely factual. This riveting book reminds us that truth can indeed be much, much stranger than fiction.”  –Jon Krakauer, author of Under the Banner of Heaven, Into Thin Air, and Into the Wild.

   This book follows my other reads on this religious cult. I have read books by Flora Jessop “Church of Lies”, Brent Jeffs, “Lost Boy” and Elisa Walls, “Stolen Innocence”. We have reviewed each of these books as well as made several comparisons to the practices of Warren Jeffs, leader of FLDS and Jane Whaley, leader of Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF).

   In “Escape”, Carolyn Jessop begins with her childhood memories in Salt Lake City, Utah. She tells of the influence of her Grandma and how this relationship shaped her outlook. “Listening to my grandmother talk, I felt like I was being rocked in a cradle of specialness. Grandma made me feel unique, but not in a traditional way. She taught me that I had been blessed by God with an opportunity to come into a family where the generations of women had sacrificed their feelings and given up things of this world to preserve the work of God and prove worthy of the celestial kingdom of God.” (page 19) With this book, as with the others, I will compare the memories and observations of the writers about their life in FLDS with my experience in WOFF.

  Continue reading The Short Creek Effect

Has Anybody Seen My Ladder?

  On the way to church this morning I was listening to the radio. Yes, I know that is dangerous and unacceptable in some circles. But, after leaving Word of Faith fellowship (WOFF), I eased back into the evil habit after several months of being out. When I first left WOFF, it was hard to break from the rules and rules and more rules that I lived under while in WOFF. Yes, we have gone over that before and yes, there are some rules that change and some have been added since I left in July of 2008. As I talk to other survivors of WOFF, I learn that others also find some rules of WOFF will continue with them after leaving the group.

   The pastor speaking on the radio was reviewing three parables from the Gospels. I will not attempt to re-preach the message, but, I did hear some interesting analogies. The minister was speaking about how Jesus treated the Pharisees. Jesus warned them about all the man-made rules and not to trust in them for salvation. That is what caught my attention. The analogy was used that for some folks, their “rules” become their “ladder” to climb and elevate them “closer to God” and over and above other Christians or other folks not in the church. The picture became quite clear for me as I have been on that kind of ladder in the past. The ladder climbing time at WOFF seemed logical, since keeping all of the rules was required for continued membership. In that group, obeying the rules and ultimately Jane helps you climb the ladder and move up the pyramidal structure.

   Can you relate to the word picture? As the focus shifts from following Jesus to following His followers or one main “follower”; it is easy to take those steps up the ladder and you submit to more and more outward rules and requirements thinking that keeping those requirements equates to serving God. It is a trap that many fall into even if you are not in WOFF. But, the deception when you are on such a ladder is to deny you are on the ladder. In your thinking, you are just “walking in a higher place in God” or “finding your place in God” or “walking in a higher place in the spirit”. I have heard it called many things while at WOFF. But, the actual results included a pride or feeling of superiority that came since you were submitted and could keep most all the rules and rarely if ever got correction. If you have ever been in the sound booth at WOFF, keeping the rules puts you that high or higher over other WOFFers or outsiders – for sure. After all, others just don’t walk in the place “we” do at WOFF. I heard it said and felt its effects during my time there.

Continue reading Has Anybody Seen My Ladder?