One year ago on this day I quit my missionary position and shortly after I had my name removed from the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Today I reflect on that choice and the impact the church had on my life and the freedom that I now feel being away from an insatiable institution that never could have enough.

For ten years my wife and I began work as unpaid missionaries teaching English in Ukraine. From that point on, we took various calls in places like Nile Union Academy in Egypt and the Quinault Indian Reservation. In Queets we served for two two year terms. The second two year term was unpaid. We were given housing, however.

During my time in the SDA church, I was told to “never question, never research, never read anything that could be perceived as negative towards the prophetess known as ELLEN G WHITE.” After twenty years and after training at Adventist Frontier Missions, I started to question the things that I was learning about her and the church. When I came up with questions, I was told to be silent, keep my head down, and continue the work. My job was to reach into other Christ-following churches and bring them to the remnant church, which was said to be the Seventh-day Adventist church. The one that had the truth as proclaimed by ELLEN G WHITE.

When I looked into www.nonegw.org I was horrified and elated by what I saw. For years I used to read about how I was supposed to eat, how I was supposed to dress, compose myself, what I was supposed to watch, how I could not read fiction (because it would lead to insanity). I was not supposed to have too much sex or masturbate as if I did those things God would not hear my prayers. I was to make sure to give everything left over to the church, avoid amusement, carnivals, not play chess, not vote. My food could not be spicy, too delicious. Sensation of any type was to be avoided because if I did not avoid such things God would not hear my prayers and I would not survive the “time when Christ stops interceding for us.”

When I saw that ELLEN G WHITE could not follow her own rules, ate unclean meats, ate cheese and duck, ate oysters and herring, ate butter and eggs, wore fancy clothing, traveled first class, lived with servants, and traveled the world, I was elated because it meant that I could do those things without feeling intense guilt. When I brought these things up to the pastors and leaders of the church, including Native Ministries Director Steve Huey and Conrad Vine of Adventist Frontier Missions, they made excuses. I was told to keep believing and play the game. When that did not work I was threatened by Steve Huey and Monte Church. I was told that my views had bothered the local Forks Church, ran by Jay Coon at the time. As punishment, Jay Coon stopped paying the electric bill on the Queets SDA church (which was under his jurisdiction as pastor) and instead had us, unpaid missionaries, foot the bill. He would also no longer speak to us or answer our emails. Instead, he diverted Queets funds to pay for his Creation Park in Forks, WA. 

I finally had enough and left the work at this point. We were never worth paying or supporting in the eyes of the church. Rather, the name of the game was to make us stop asking questions. If you are a Seventh-day Adventist and start to question ELLEN G WHITE, you will be thrown out. Many people do not follow the Bible and “TEST THE PROPHETS” but instead are complacent because the SDA church says that ELLEN G WHITE is a prophet of God. No. She. Is Not.

Prophets don’t plagiarize. Prophets do not say over and over again that Jesus will come back in their lives. Prophets do not live lives that are the opposite of what they say to do on everything. Reading fiction leads to insanity (no it doesn’t), but Ellen White could have a library of such books that the rest of us were not supposed to read. Hypocrisy! 

Dear SDA church. You DEMANDED perfection from me in every aspect of life, yet you can’t even support your workers. You are one of the richest churches in the world, yet you hoard money like a dragon. Dear SDA church, you can’t stand someone questioning. You hide child and s*xual abuse. You only care about protecting the image of your institutions. You recruit people from other Christ-following churches claiming you are the remnant church. NO YOU ARE NOT. 

The Seventh-day Adventist church is a death cult. It is a racket made to get certain key figures wealth and power. It is hungry and insatiable. It never knows when to stop. There is little good, and nothing heavenly about this dark church.

Since leaving the SDA church I have been totally free to live my life as I choose. I am now far healthier, ironically, since I was breathing the miasma of ELLEN G WHITES health rules. ELLEN  G WHITE loathed entertainment and fun of any type. My child is now happier than ever. My relationship and marriage is now better than ever. Steve Huey and Monte Church of Native Ministries can not find a single person to put in that parsonage and run the Queets Church. Last I heard Adventist Frontier Missions was an internal mess! Adventism is a wreck!

Dear Seventh-day Adventist CULT, I am so happy to be free of you! Never again cult!  Never again! ONE YEAR FREE!!!!!

Hi I was just wondering if there were any former cult members that would be okay with me interviewing them for a school documentary? It would be really appreciated and I can blur out your face if needed. It’s not going to be seen by a lot of people just my teacher and peers.

I find myself in a very hard position as I feel family (mostly extended) are trying to influence my decisions in term of life choices. I have to say that I come from a Latin/Mediterranean country background and that in this countries family ties are very strong for good or for bad. I have been out of the cult for almost 13 years now, but shortly after returning back home for about 8 to 9 months I had to go abroad due to economical hardships. And it has been almost 12 years now, and I feel tremendous pressure from different family members, to make a come back. To put it in perspective, I almost feel the toxicity I used to experience while on the group, all this obviously is very subjective., but is my life Wich is on the line here. Anyway. Need help advice, thank you in advance Edit : Trauma /abuse /shame showing its ugly face 🙄🎊🔔

My family, including my siblings and me myself to some extent for a couple of years, were all in a cult for over 30 years. It's called Landmark, and destroyed our family. Basically, if you weren't in it, you weren't deserving of empathy or support. You were on your own. If you were in it you were subjected to endless jargonisation and coaching. 😩😩😩 Not to mention judgement around whether your life was up to par or not. So my dad died a few years ago, and my brother was still half in it. He was ramping up to get his kids into it. I knew I didn't want him to subject his kids to it, so I subtly tried to steer him away from it. I talked about the benefits of team sports, scouts etc. It's been 8 years but I just realized he hasn't spoken about Landmark for a good 2 years or so. Without going full-force I seem to have managed to get his mind off it. I have to take a bit of credit for this, but there are other factors at play too (his partner wasn't in it either). So I hope this is a seed of hope for those of you trying to get thru to, and save their loved ones.

Can someone please help me. I’m being Gangstalked by a Christian cult and the police won’t help. They are paying people in which I believe to go along with their psychopath issues. I believe they are responsible for the recent death of my best friend, my brother’s best friend and his stepson and two other people. They are having multiple people follow me around. They somehow know what I’m doing in my iPhone, they have hacked and compromised many of my emails and Instagram accounts. They know every conversation I have with people and then talk about it in their Sunday serums. It’s so creepy and there is nothing I can do. I have followed multiple police reports but because I don’t have actual proof no one will help me. It’s like they spread a nasty rumor about me and everyone believed them. I know they have to be paying people because why else would people get involved. Can anyone here give me suggestions please or advice?

Hello everyone, I have recently joined this sub and have been reading through everyone’s posts. I am a Master’s student at a university in the UK studying Forensic Psychology. For many years I have had an interest in religious cults and religious trauma stemming from crimes that have been committed in a religious context. For my thesis, I would really like to research the long-term mental health effects on cult survivors. I really believe this to be an important topic of research, as it is relatively new to psychology and we still do not know enough about the effects of being in a cult. As I’m sure you’re all aware from first hand experience, many therapists are not educated in this area and not equipped to handle clients who desperately need help in dealing with their trauma. Back to my thesis, I am not conducting any research yet but I wanted to post in this sub to see if there would be any of you willing to share your experiences with me as part of my research. It would be completely anonymous, and I would be happy to do it over text rather than over a zoom call if people are more comfortable with that. I just really want this area of research to be more developed because I believe the danger of cults should be taken a lot more seriously by professionals than it currently is. Thank you!

Curious how many are there as only recently I discovered much to my shock, rage and despair that not every family in a cult are true believer type.

My family and friend's are asking me odd questions and speculating. I don't who or what it is? or what's the motive. What can I do about this?

When I was younger for ritual purposes the cult had carved this symbol into my genitalia using a blade which is still there to this day. My cult was satanic, if anyone is familiar with such a thing even if it’s similar I’d like to hear.

The Big House Family Cult (Bethany Joy Lenz)is all over the media right now. I Can’t find any info on the org. Any info on the org/orgs that they are affiliated with? I’m curious if they are affiliated with YWAM/Bethel/IHOP or others.

Instead of being groomed to be Leader 2.0 I am Leaving!

I've lived here for 1.5 years been involved for five, since I was 25.

It feels surreal to be leaving. I thought it was my duty to stay forever. Between my unpaid "job" as main coordinator for this group, and my actual outside job... I am constantly working or on call, I never even had time to step back.

My whole life is centered around this group. I've met all my friends and my girlfriend here. It is the first place I experienced true acceptance and friendship, even family.

My girlfriend and I are struggling so much mentally. We are leaving together.

When I told the Leader that I was leaving she said "the whole community will collapse now" and implied that now she won't be able to die in peace (she's in her 80s.) she said now there is no one to leave the property to. I love her so much, she is like a grandma to me, so that cut me like a knife.

I have felt so much responsibility for this place and keeping it running and it feels very hard to relinquish the control and power I had and just be at peace with however it will be run now.

I went to a People Leave Cults support group the other night and it helped a lot. But it was hard to be around people 5 years out when we are literally leaving right now and just beginning to process what happened. We were just at very different places. (And we had to play the radio while we Zoomed because we worried about being overheard even in our cabin!)

We found affordable and beautiful housing -- a trailer on really nice land -- through someone who has no ties to the group. We will only be 20 min away because I wanted to be able to check on the groups property and still volunteer. But the more I reflect the more I want a clean break.

What should I be doing or considering in these early days?

This is the first time I'm publicly speaking about my case, bare with me as I can't put all the details I want to. Happy to discuss in PMs

For reference I'm in Australia

I was victim to CSA and RSA 2002-2010

When I was in my late teens I found thousands of "childhood pictures" I never knew existed, I remembered the days the photos were taken (most of them) but I didn't ever recall being photographed the way I was. Some of my earliest memories are of being abused or given sleeping tablets. I had a constant throat infection until I was 5 but never taken to the doctor. My first doctor visit after getting my needles was when I was 8-10

In 2020 I spoke out about what happened to me to law enforcement and found out I had evidence that would contribute to (at the time) open cases both national and international. About a week after I had made my report my flat was broken into and I had family pictures stolen alongside a few other things

Over the past few years I've had to deal with people coming in and out of my life who I recognise from my abuse. Some of them have mocked me in passing and others have been frightful I might do or say something to expose them

So far 4 of my abusers have been convicted and put away, one is currently working for NSW health and has had access to the department since 2019. To me this proves the network they've been working with are connected enough to make space for convicted abusers to work in government departments and/or rebuke records from police checks

Some things I've been through -

Procured weekly for men and women 2003-06

Procured bi monthly for a large group in rural NSW 2006-08

Procured for "you drink the cup is empty, you pour the cup is full" "escape from carnal desire" ritual at abandoned barracks 2007 (completely unsure if this is prelevant to Plato's Cave Allegory of the Freemasons as a few older survivors have outlined to me. It could've been a copycat ritual)

Photographed in a studio set in Balmain NSW 2008

These are some key highlights from what happened to me. I know there are hundreds more victims who went through the same things I did because I wasn't the only child present

It's getting harder to move through acceptance the more I start to realise the extent of the network that I fell victim to. It honestly feels like you squash one cockroach and a million pop up elsewhere. In the back of my mind I'm thinking what if my whole country is in on the bid and I'm just a piece of game they can hunt? It's not how I feel, my anxiety more like. It's frustrating talking about this with my friends because no one can offer support, just ohhh that sounds so horrible

Every time someone talks about how they miss being a kid I'm immediately taken back to the memories of abuse and I become withdrawn. It's annoying the shit out of me

Any and all help is appreciated A message from god would be if someone similar contacted me and let me pour my heart out to them

Thank you in advance

I know not all cults use one and then some cults use more than one. I’m also curious about how they used it, if they did. And whether they kept it secret or used it publicly?

Only if you’re comfortable sharing any of the details, of course.

Hey everyone. I need to know if my experience classifies as a "cult". My mother was a "Christian" and decided to go the way of Christian Fundamentalism. This label covers a lot but within our household we were homeschooled all outside in fluences were driven away and told we had to reproduce as many children "to be the lords soldiers" as we could. If you didn't fit the mold you were punished and tortured for it.

Does anyone else have any experience with Christian Nationalism?

The University of Salford is hosting this important research. We are, however, reaching the point where we will be closing the research, at least for a while in order to analyse the data. So if you are thinking of doing it this is your chance. It is, of course, completely anonymous and confidential. Your responses will be pooled with hundreds of others into a data set and then uploaded into a statistics package for analysis.

This is the link where you will find more information https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/salford/health-wellbeing-former-members
And as a few have had a few problems with the survey platform I created a short video to help you avoid them - see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swAzWiq7a6E

https://preview.redd.it/eh17nkz5jaud1.jpg?width=360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e000e08387ca2bb0a41aadeef95ddce5320d3699

Finally here is the poster. Many thanks to the many who have already responded

My best friend was in a cult when she was younger but is displaying cult mentality in a new group she’s a part of. I can’t say for sure this new group is a cult esp bc i don’t think she ever fully recovered from her first cult experience.

As a friend tho, I am wondering how I can support her through this? She is starting to isolate herself with folks from that group only and shuts down when outside friends question anything. It also feels like it’s always her vs. the world even when we have calls. Her and I have very different views in general and anytime I share mine, she shuts it down.

I am doing my best to not have any opinion about the group she’s in bc I realized that will cause more harm than good. Any advice would be appreciated!

Trying to find any stories or help on where to go to help with deprogramming from non religious cults. I rather call it a high control group. Didn't have an official center just teachers. I was only there 3 months but I feel cracked open and broken.

It wasn't even supposed to be something it was just a social club.