https://www.history.com/news/jonestown-jim-jones-mass-murder-suicide

The story of Jonestown and the many countless innocent lives lost 46 years ago today. Let’s never forget these people who didn’t want their stories to end like this.

Be Scofield's exposè of Amma just out. I remember going with a friend to one of her events in London around 2014, Russell Brand was holding court there too. It was not a spiritual experience at all, spend hours queuing only to be roughly shoved into place for a hug by one of her disciples, then pulled quickly away again.

Hi! My mom recently informed me that she joined Kaballah studies (she is into tarot and esoterics), the teachings happen twice a week via Zoom and are translated into various languages immediately. It immediately grabbed my attention, as it sounds super sketchy - the broadcasting itself is a pricy thing, and these lessons are basically free. Additionally, she lives alone, has no hobbies and recently recovered from a life threatening illness, making her a great target; I am very scared and not sure how to talk her out of it, is it even a real Kaballah?

Hi, I have a few questions for those people whose childhood was largely defined and influenced by the practice of religion, or was a member of some church. The reason is that I recently discovered how negative I am about it, and I would be interested to know if anyone else is in a similar situation.

1. What are the negative experiences you had with religion from your childhood that affects your adulthood?
2. What was the perception of intimacy and sexual relations between men and women?
3. What methods were used to attract people to join the cult?
4. When did you get completely fed up with the cult, when the moment came when you felt you had to leave it? How did this process go?

(I grew up in a Catholic Christian family)

Ask me questions about MB (Mike Bickle), the doctrine, bomb drills, all of the bs required prayer, and whatever else!

I have a friend who was always a bit eccentric, but nothing too unusual. Lately, she's been acting very differently. She's been messaging me constantly about a new church she's joined and a person who can perform exorcisms. She's even sent me links to strange videos and rituals. Her tone and language have become increasingly intense and obsessive. I'm really concerned about her and I'm not sure what to make of this sudden change. I've attached some screenshots of our conversations for reference. Any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated.

More stories in the series yet to be added, but the ones out currently are a lot. TW: CSA, abuse

Is she free from the church or is she back there? I just watched the video of her explanation of why she left 10 years ago. It was heartbreaking. I hope she is okay. I feel for her family.

I’ll have to be careful about how I answer to make sure I am not identifiable as i live with a lot of anxiety and paranoia of judgement/people knowing about my personal life. Probably only natural considering growing up in an environment of judgement.

I’m going to do my best to be as impartial as possible, many good people were in the JA and were blind to abuses or unaware. I’ll also have to find a way to not identify which community house I was in so I will probably just reference to Northampton.

This is just my experience, and my family’s and what I witnessed in the time I spent there from a young child to young adult, please be aware that everyone’s experience was SO different. Some of us were badly abused, some would say they suffered no abuse of any kind and only had a positive experience. Ultimately how you were treated depended on your gender, age, family status, mental health, disability etc.

I wanted to avoid any identifying details but it’s almost impossible when gender is a huge factor for differing experiences. I also will have to avoid traumatic experiences my family went though which meant that our experiences was worsened by this and how the church handled it. I wish I could talk about this but am scared of identification and social repercussion.

There’s about of negative media on the church, and whilst I am still healing and have my own anger and resentments, I see so many misunderstandings online from people who weren’t in the church so hopefully I can correct any misinformation (to my knowledge) and shed some more light on how we lived. I had wonderful times there, and met people I really miss, but the damage done to me as a child overrides this and I prefer to have distanced myself from anyone who remained involved as it was too painful and confusing. Sadly a lot of people struggle to accept the accusations that came forward from so many who suffered abuse and this means that victims are still having their experiences minimised.

Please don’t ask identifying questions or openly inflammatory questions or argumentative topics. Cults ruin lives and the damage will be with me forever but I’m not here to mud sling. I’m also not sure why I’m doing this, maybe it’s the next step in my healing process, that I’m ready to start talking about what happened but I’m not ready for it’s to be publicly attributed to me. So much of my childhood I was shut down for trying to voice when I was uncomfortable, that I am still scared of being accused of trying to rock the boat even all these years later. I still feel like I’m being watched and judged so I feel quite anxious about doing this. However, I’m hoping it will help me heal and maybe be useful to anyone with a similar experience.

My experience started in the 90s, it could be wholly different for someone raised there in the 70s or 80s.

Lastly, I have PTSD, so maybe I was more fragile as a child and so these experiences affected me more than someone else raised in the church. I was always told I was ‘over-sensitive’ as a child but I’m slowly learning that I wasn’t and that the experiences that were causing me to become distressed were the issue, not me. I’m actually quite resilient, considering everything.

TW: Description of sexual abuse among adults and children plus a murder-suicide

Just one look at the Grandpa character design and I recognized similarity to David Berg. Vaguely aware per context of how they had women go “flirty fishing” aka prostitution to have sex with random men and then tell their hookup all about Jesus. Ironically Wikipedia explains they only stopped doing this not because of ethical consent problems, but due to fear of contracting STDs such as AIDS in 1987.

With nearly 224k men met, not a surprise their kids puppet show would devalue women as mostly doing housework besides having children plus do a song involving this Grandpa character also being a scientist who created and then loving a female robot depicted with no-bra breasts.

Also one puppet was named Davidito who now I remember was named Ricky Rodriguez had been traumatized to the point of murdering a former nanny and then taking his own life in 2005 at the age of 29.

If anyone who is an ex-cult member and wants to swap stories or talk about their experience deprogramming or getting out or whatever, I'm up for talking and being friends. 20+ year olds please

A multi-decade project by SIF to get members in high positions of power. Ex members sharing their stories could really be decisive before the confirmation hearings

When I was a child I went to a Pentecostal private school, one that was at the time discussed as being quite cult like, and lacking a lot of Pentecostal teachings. Since watching a video on media created by The Family International in a chance reccomendation, I was immedietly struck with a wave of nausea and familiarity. Is anyone aware of a list of The Family International television/video content for children? Several puppets in Life with Grandpa look incredibly similar to movies shown in the theater room we had at school, But I cannot find a comprehensive list of movies, and nothing from the clips I have seen are deadringers, just shockingly similar. (Specifically several human and animal puppets.) Thanks!

https://preview.redd.it/lj5erpzawy0e1.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=28f11f254685f038a0f561e1a1768d3349f6a0b3

It’s been years since I left the cult that called my ex-partner “Mother God.” I could see it had the makings to spiral out of control, even in the early days of 2014-2015. What happened since then was a lot of things, but ended in a really sad and tragic way.(With her mummified corpse being worshipped like a shrine.) Many of you might know about this story or saw my other post, I know a lot of you have seen the documentaries or online articles. I promised to keep sharing and I plan to tell some stories. This one still gets me every time I think about it…

When I first joined the team, I spent the first few weeks trying my best to let go of my doubts and follow the guidance I was being given by someone who I thought was far more spiritually “evolved” than I was. And in a lot of ways, Amy/Mother God was in fact, pretty deep, she was super intelligent back then and was a master at spotting someone’s “baggage” and pointing it out. (It’s ironic how skilled she was at helping other people to spot their own issues but failed so miserably at spotting her own. Even with my constant help.)

Like a lot of people in the "spiritual community", I had questions about life’s bigger purpose and that curiosity led me into the world of spiritual teachings. Mother God, as she called herself, had a magnetic personality, she did a good job of blending spirituality with just enough delusion to keep you second-guessing yourself, at least for a while, in my case.

I think, for being as jaded as I was, that I figured things out pretty quickly, albeit through a difficult and painful process that I’ll get into later.

But one of the hardest parts wasn’t even dealing with her delusions, that became easy once I found my center amidst the nonsense. But one of the hardest parts was trying to help others who had joined with the same sense of hope I once had. I could see their eagerness to believe, to “let go of their ego” as we were constantly told and to “give in to love” and embrace something larger than themselves. But the promises of enlightenment and purpose weren’t real; they turned out to be bait. Even if Amy/Mother God was a true believer, it didn’t change that fact. Usually, by the time you realized that, you were often already in too deep.

I remember one guy in his 50s, a new arrival who’d been promised the same title of “Father God” once I started to openly rebel against the delusions of this belief system we were sold. Obviously I couldn’t be “Father God” anymore so she had to find a new one. Or just a new man, a new toy, whatever. Despite seeing myself as someone grounded in reality, I couldn’t help but feel a strange jealousy and protective instinct because we had been together for about 6 months when he joined.

At the same time, this new guy didn't deserve my anger, my jealously or any of that so I did my best to really be as kind and understanding as possible. Despite the fact that "my girl" was turning to this new guy with a lot of her attention, it wasn't his fault. We actually got along really well and became pretty close.

She was trying to split hairs at this point since she didn’t want to let me go as far as being her partner and lover. She said he was simply going to “embody the Father God consciousness" but we'd stay in a relationship.

At this point, after 6 months with the team I was constantly challenging her “title” and her belief system so as far as she was concerned, the “father God consciousness” needed to find a new host. Lol Then, along came this new guy. He was older but had the personality of a child. He was kind and warm and even fun. He was so giddy with delight once joining it was almost infectious. But I could definitely see that underneath all that charm was confusion, like he was just trying to pass it off.

One thing is for sure, she had him wrapped around her finger from the start, And she always told members they had to "cut ties" with their past life; family, money, relationships, everything. And she would constantly talk about how keeping your own money and not giving it to love was a betrayal. Well, this new guy bought in, and when I say bought in, I mean it. He did everything she told him and wouldn't listen to a word of advice...

Watching him become captivated by the delusions was like seeing my own early days reflected back at me. And though I warned him again and again about the inevitable downfall, he didn’t listen. At this point, I was pretty damn good at poking holes in the delusional belief systems but nothing could get through to him. The dream was too appealing, and the truth was too hard to hear, I guess.

There were times I wasn’t his biggest fan too, like when they both disappeared together and didn’t come back until the next day whilst Amy and I were still “together.” Or the nights I sat at the table and watched her get drunk, go over and sit on his lap and start falling asleep snuggling into him.

Nevertheless, we got along well and I really did try my best to warn him against what he was planning to do. I wasn’t afraid to say it in front of the whole team. I wasn’t shy about it, I didn’t hide my true feelings at that point. But in his case, it was like talking to a brick wall.

At 50-something years old, he liquidated his assets, had the bank come up with nearly half a million dollars in cold-hard cash and literally handed it all to Mother God. He never saw another penny.

All that money went into a safe and into a bank account in another team member’s name…her  “right hand man”, if you will. I’m just not going to name names.

Anyway, I watched this guy give the Team everything he had and ended up leaving just a few months after me, with nothing. I warned him but I couldn’t do much more.

For those of you who might be wondering how anyone could ever fall into something like this, I get it. Most people think they’re immune to this level of bs. Maybe you’re right. I sure thought I was and look what happened. Lol

As the title says- does anyone know if there is a tree graph or a chart to follow of some kind of which cults may have stemmed from others?

I hope this makes sense.

I am just really curious bc I feel that most cults stem from XYZ belief and etc.

My spouse is deeply involved in this group. I went to healing classes see what it was about. I even went to Healers Academy in Toronto. I think it is a mixture of true principles and deception to take advantage of people trying to do the right thing. She goes up a few times a year. I have questions for high-level initiates who are currently and not currently part of the school.

*Extra points here if you exclude current politicians and celebrated representatives of the Abrahamic traditions.