Project in process...
To read Scene One, click here.
~*~
Why would anyone join a cult?
Scene Five
Fellowship meetings with The Way were tender and welcoming. They didn't involve the frenzied, spirit-filled confusion of some of the Charismatic gatherings. At Way Fellowships, which were called Twigs, I witnessed what I had read in sections of Acts and the Pauline epistles - "all things common," "decent and in order," "fruit of the spirit," "greet one another with a holy kiss."
Even though all Way believers speak in tongues, The Way is not Charismatic. At Twig, believers didn't speak in tongues all together out loud, like in the Charismatic gatherings. Instead, the Twig leader called on a believer to speak in tongues and interpret or to bring forth a word of prophecy. Always, the same person who spoke in tongues would then interpret that tongue. No one sang in tongues. No one laughed or danced or got slain in the spirit. No one raised holy hands nor prayed the spirit into the meeting.
At first, this made me feel uneasy; I was used to the spirit moving freely and spontaneously. How could a leader control the move of the spirit? But I brought to mind the questioning I'd had about how Charismatic, spirit-filled meetings operated. I Corinthians 14 states that if one speaks aloud in tongues that one should pray to interpret. That if the whole Church speaks in tongues together out loud, unbelievers would call us mad. That all things are to be done decently and in order. Charismatic meetings didn't follow those rules, but Twigs did.
Way believers, using Greek in the scripture, explained to me that the nine "gifts" of the spirit are not "gifts," but rather "manifestations" of the one gift, holy spirit, and that it was God's will for every believer to manifest all nine manifestations. The devil had twisted this truth, thus thwarting the power of God in a Christian's life.
Friends from my small prayer group at Montreat warned me that The Way was a cult. Phillip even accompanied me once to a Twig Fellowship. I thought he would see for himself the love of God that I saw, and the accuracy of the scriptures. But he saw deception and false doctrines; The Way was a messenger of Satan.
I considered my friends' warnings and read about The Way in the most authoritative book on cults at the time, The Kingdom of the Cults, written by Walter Martin. Martin mentioned Way missionaries being so poor they had to eat out of trashcans. I asked about that at Twig and was told the accusation was a lie from Satan, just like religious leaders in the time of Jesus had lied about him. The adversary is the "father of lies" and the "accuser of the brethren;" his aim always being "to steal, kill, and destroy," attacking the "accuracy of the Word." Even in the Book of Acts believers were accused of being a cult, the "sect of the Nazarene."
But Martin's main criticism was The Way's veer from mainstream Christian doctrine, especially the doctrine of the Trinity which teaches that Jesus is God and is deemed the cornerstone of Christianity. Until shortly after starting college, I never realized Christians believed that Jesus is literally God. Upon that discovery, I was stunned. People actually believe that a man can be God!?! Up until then, I thought the Trinity was more figurative than literal. When I voiced this to Scott, one of my prayer-group friends, his only explanation was, "You'll understand it later as you grow in Christ."
All this led me to read The Way's book Jesus Christ is Not God written by The Way's first president and founder, Victor Paul Wierwille. It was the first Way book I read, even before taking The Way's Power for Abundant Living class. Everything Wierwille shared in the book was backed by scripture. He explained the Greek words and the context. He included the history of the Trinity and its roots in Pagan religions. He shared his personal story of how he came to see that the doctrine of the Trinity was idolatry. What Wierwille wrote made sense to me and elevated Jesus even more in my heart.
I loved Jesus; he was my personal lord and savior. He obeyed the Father and gave the ultimate sacrifice. He was raised from the dead by God and was seated at God's right hand. But he wasn't God. He was the Son of God, not "God the Son." This I believed with all my heart.
Therefore, the main thrust of The Way being a cult because it was non-trinitarian didn't concern me, much.
~*~
Click here for Final Scene: Six.
May 22, 2020
May 20, 2020
Why would anyone join a cult: Scene Four
Project in process...
To read Scene One, click here.
~*~
Why would anyone join a cult?
Scene Four
The term Charismatic refers not to a denomination, but rather a movement within Christianity which teaches that the nine so-called "gifts of the spirit" listed in I Corinthians, Chapter 12 of the Bible, are still in use in the modern Church, and that these so-called gifts are separately given by God to individual believers as God so chooses. The English word for "gifts" in I Corinthians 12 is translated from the Greek word charismata. Speaking in tongues, also called "praying in the spirit," is the dominant "gift," but not all Charismatics speak in tongues. The other eight "gifts" are interpretation of tongues, prophecy, word of knowledge, word of wisdom, discerning of spirits, faith, miracles, and healings. In some Charismatic gatherings, believers also dance and laugh and "get slain" in the spirit. The term "spirit-filled," indicates that a believer has received the "gift of tongues" and is open to God controlling her/his life.
I chose a college in a community with Charismatic, spirit-filled, connections - Montreat-Anderson near Black Mountain, North Carolina - in the heart of Billy Graham country. It was a two-year college at the time. I thought that after graduation, to further my studies, I'd attend Wheaton College, an Evangelical Protestant school in Illinois. During my few months at Montreat, I faithfully attended the on-campus, non-Charismatic Presbyterian Church and off-campus Charismatic meetings in the local vicinity.
I became friends with a small group of five other students - Matt, Shirley, Joy, Phillip, and Scott - all spirit-filled and "older in Christ" than I. Matt, lean and tall, was the leader. We'd gather for our own private prayer meetings allowing others to attend only if they too were spirit-filled, or at least open to the idea.
At our tiny gatherings we would "pray the holy spirit into" our meetings. With our eyes closed and arms raised, the palms of our hands lifted toward the heavens, our bodies often swaying, we'd spontaneously begin to sing in tongues or speak in tongues. Some in a whisper; others more vocal. I was a whisperer.
At any time, someone might speak in English interpreting another's message in tongues. Sometimes we might all begin to "laugh in the spirit" - big, hilarious belly laughs. One of us might pray aloud in English, making our petitions known, thanking Jesus and the Father. Sometimes a couple worshippers would get "slain in the spirit," collapsing to the floor. I never did interpret, nor get slain in the spirit. During one of our small gatherings I had to leave because I felt like I was on a bad psychedelic trip; I felt paranoid and dirty.
Montreat-Anderson's on-campus Presbyterian Church would invite well-known Christian leaders to speak. Montreat was a small college, so students were able to easily meet and interact with guest speakers. Jackie Buckingham was one of those guests. She and her husband, Jamie, were personal friends with Nicky Cruz. Jamie was the co-author of Nicky's book, Run Baby Run. As Jackie shared some of the miracle stories, my heart burned within me longing to know God and His power like she described.
Another guest was Ruth Graham, the Reverend Billy Graham's wife. On one of her visits she held a small gathering in the girl's dorm. I was one of around twenty girls who attended. We met in an informal living room setting attired with a few upholstered chairs for seating with the rest of us sitting cross-legged on the floor. It was comfortable, warm, inviting. I asked Mrs. Graham questions about speaking in tongues and gifts of the spirit. Her answer was that she simply didn't know the answers. I thought to myself, If Ruth Graham doesn't know, who does?
I was not finding satisfactory answers to my questions. And the same insecurities and shame that I had experienced previously in the Baptist Church began again to haunt me.
During this time is when I found The Way International. It was September, 1977.
I was still eighteen years old.
~*~
Click here for Scene Five.
To read Scene One, click here.
~*~
Why would anyone join a cult?
Scene Four
The term Charismatic refers not to a denomination, but rather a movement within Christianity which teaches that the nine so-called "gifts of the spirit" listed in I Corinthians, Chapter 12 of the Bible, are still in use in the modern Church, and that these so-called gifts are separately given by God to individual believers as God so chooses. The English word for "gifts" in I Corinthians 12 is translated from the Greek word charismata. Speaking in tongues, also called "praying in the spirit," is the dominant "gift," but not all Charismatics speak in tongues. The other eight "gifts" are interpretation of tongues, prophecy, word of knowledge, word of wisdom, discerning of spirits, faith, miracles, and healings. In some Charismatic gatherings, believers also dance and laugh and "get slain" in the spirit. The term "spirit-filled," indicates that a believer has received the "gift of tongues" and is open to God controlling her/his life.
I chose a college in a community with Charismatic, spirit-filled, connections - Montreat-Anderson near Black Mountain, North Carolina - in the heart of Billy Graham country. It was a two-year college at the time. I thought that after graduation, to further my studies, I'd attend Wheaton College, an Evangelical Protestant school in Illinois. During my few months at Montreat, I faithfully attended the on-campus, non-Charismatic Presbyterian Church and off-campus Charismatic meetings in the local vicinity.
I became friends with a small group of five other students - Matt, Shirley, Joy, Phillip, and Scott - all spirit-filled and "older in Christ" than I. Matt, lean and tall, was the leader. We'd gather for our own private prayer meetings allowing others to attend only if they too were spirit-filled, or at least open to the idea.
At our tiny gatherings we would "pray the holy spirit into" our meetings. With our eyes closed and arms raised, the palms of our hands lifted toward the heavens, our bodies often swaying, we'd spontaneously begin to sing in tongues or speak in tongues. Some in a whisper; others more vocal. I was a whisperer.
At any time, someone might speak in English interpreting another's message in tongues. Sometimes we might all begin to "laugh in the spirit" - big, hilarious belly laughs. One of us might pray aloud in English, making our petitions known, thanking Jesus and the Father. Sometimes a couple worshippers would get "slain in the spirit," collapsing to the floor. I never did interpret, nor get slain in the spirit. During one of our small gatherings I had to leave because I felt like I was on a bad psychedelic trip; I felt paranoid and dirty.
Montreat-Anderson's on-campus Presbyterian Church would invite well-known Christian leaders to speak. Montreat was a small college, so students were able to easily meet and interact with guest speakers. Jackie Buckingham was one of those guests. She and her husband, Jamie, were personal friends with Nicky Cruz. Jamie was the co-author of Nicky's book, Run Baby Run. As Jackie shared some of the miracle stories, my heart burned within me longing to know God and His power like she described.
Another guest was Ruth Graham, the Reverend Billy Graham's wife. On one of her visits she held a small gathering in the girl's dorm. I was one of around twenty girls who attended. We met in an informal living room setting attired with a few upholstered chairs for seating with the rest of us sitting cross-legged on the floor. It was comfortable, warm, inviting. I asked Mrs. Graham questions about speaking in tongues and gifts of the spirit. Her answer was that she simply didn't know the answers. I thought to myself, If Ruth Graham doesn't know, who does?
I was not finding satisfactory answers to my questions. And the same insecurities and shame that I had experienced previously in the Baptist Church began again to haunt me.
During this time is when I found The Way International. It was September, 1977.
I was still eighteen years old.
~*~
Click here for Scene Five.
May 19, 2020
Why would anyone join a cult: Scene Three
Project in process...
To read Scene One, click here.
~*~
Why would anyone join a cult?
Scene Three
Shortly after the split from my fiancé in May, 1977, I moved onto a farm with a hippy family who had moved to the North Carolina foothills from New York. I again dabbled with Transcendental Meditation and added in the teachings of Ram Dass, Hatha Yoga, the Bhagavad Gita, and The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ.
In July I visited a cousin with the intent purpose to accompany him to a Wicca gathering; Wiccans believe in witchery used for the good of humanity. My cousin ended up having to work. So, I spent the day with my aunt and accompanied her to a ladies' morning prayer group at a Charismatic Lutheran church.
At that meeting, I heard speaking in tongues for the first time. But instead of speaking, ladies were singing in tongues. Others with "the gift of interpretation" followed in kind - singing in English the interpretation of a tongue. The Baptist Church had taught me that speaking in tongues had ceased after the early years of the first-century Church and that any speaking in tongues since then was devilish.
But this didn't sound devilish at all. It was beautiful, angelic.
That day I was led into tongues and began to see a different side to the scriptures. Instead of a vengeful God whose love I had to earn, I felt the presence of a loving God who had freed me, a spiritual Father who accepted me because His son had sacrificed his all for the whole world, and for me personally.
A few days later I returned to the farm and told my yoga-hippie friends that they didn't have to do all that meditation to be one with God, "Just believe on Jesus Christ and speak in tongues!"
I engrossed myself in the scriptures, reading and rereading the Book of Acts and the Pauline epistles. In my private prayer life, I spoke in tongues a lot; clinging to that so-called "gift" as proof of God's presence in my life. I craved to understand and experience God's love, power, and purpose for my life. craved to understand and experience God's love, power, and purpose for my life. I yearned to know what the scripture meant when it stated the "breadth and length and depth and height," "to know the love of Christ," to be "filled with all the fullness of God."
Each Sunday, through the rest of the summer, I drove a three-hour round trip to attend services at the Charismatic church where I had been led into tongues - Resurrection Lutheran. The message at Resurrection was different from the message at Victory Baptist, the little church I'd attended just months earlier. Instead of hell-fire and judgement, the theme was love, grace, mercy, compassion, freedom. Not to mention, they had good music!
I was full of questions. I wanted to be able to reconcile at least a majority of the contradictions in the Bible. I thought, If I can learn Greek and get back to the original texts, then I can know what the Bible really says. I decided to attend college focusing on biblical studies with an interest in counseling. I also had interest in service work with either Volunteers in Service to America or The Peace Corps.
~*~
Click here for Scene Four.
To read Scene One, click here.
~*~
Why would anyone join a cult?
Scene Three
Shortly after the split from my fiancé in May, 1977, I moved onto a farm with a hippy family who had moved to the North Carolina foothills from New York. I again dabbled with Transcendental Meditation and added in the teachings of Ram Dass, Hatha Yoga, the Bhagavad Gita, and The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ.
In July I visited a cousin with the intent purpose to accompany him to a Wicca gathering; Wiccans believe in witchery used for the good of humanity. My cousin ended up having to work. So, I spent the day with my aunt and accompanied her to a ladies' morning prayer group at a Charismatic Lutheran church.
At that meeting, I heard speaking in tongues for the first time. But instead of speaking, ladies were singing in tongues. Others with "the gift of interpretation" followed in kind - singing in English the interpretation of a tongue. The Baptist Church had taught me that speaking in tongues had ceased after the early years of the first-century Church and that any speaking in tongues since then was devilish.
But this didn't sound devilish at all. It was beautiful, angelic.
That day I was led into tongues and began to see a different side to the scriptures. Instead of a vengeful God whose love I had to earn, I felt the presence of a loving God who had freed me, a spiritual Father who accepted me because His son had sacrificed his all for the whole world, and for me personally.
A few days later I returned to the farm and told my yoga-hippie friends that they didn't have to do all that meditation to be one with God, "Just believe on Jesus Christ and speak in tongues!"
I engrossed myself in the scriptures, reading and rereading the Book of Acts and the Pauline epistles. In my private prayer life, I spoke in tongues a lot; clinging to that so-called "gift" as proof of God's presence in my life. I craved to understand and experience God's love, power, and purpose for my life. craved to understand and experience God's love, power, and purpose for my life. I yearned to know what the scripture meant when it stated the "breadth and length and depth and height," "to know the love of Christ," to be "filled with all the fullness of God."
Each Sunday, through the rest of the summer, I drove a three-hour round trip to attend services at the Charismatic church where I had been led into tongues - Resurrection Lutheran. The message at Resurrection was different from the message at Victory Baptist, the little church I'd attended just months earlier. Instead of hell-fire and judgement, the theme was love, grace, mercy, compassion, freedom. Not to mention, they had good music!
I was full of questions. I wanted to be able to reconcile at least a majority of the contradictions in the Bible. I thought, If I can learn Greek and get back to the original texts, then I can know what the Bible really says. I decided to attend college focusing on biblical studies with an interest in counseling. I also had interest in service work with either Volunteers in Service to America or The Peace Corps.
~*~
Click here for Scene Four.
May 18, 2020
Why would anyone join a cult: Scene Two
Project in process...
To read Scene One, click here.
~*~
Why would anyone join a cult?
Scene Two
I put 100% into Transcendental Meditation (TM)- volunteering at the TM Center, assisting with classes and initiations, and planning to attend the Maharishi Mahesh University in Iowa after high school graduation. Within eight months of starting TM I broke the relationship with my dealer boyfriend. A few months later he got busted and sent to prison for over a year. It was a big bust, lots of PCP which the cops found while searching his car as they were in process of arresting him for burglary.
About one year into TM, I met my next boyfriend who was four years older than I. I moved in with him in the fall of my senior year of high school. He was faithfully involved with a small Baptist church. Yet, he smoked pot on an almost daily basis, and we cohabitated "living in sin" for ten months. Because I wanted to please him I dropped my involvement with TM and decided I'd believe the Baptist doctrine, which was difficult, especially the hell-fire teachings. Almost every Sunday I found myself at the altar in tears of shame wondering if I truly was "saved."
We planned to marry in June, a few weeks after my high school graduation. But in May I broke the engagement. I couldn't come to terms with belief in a God of damnation. And I felt that for our relationship to work, I had to believe. I was also struggling with mood swings, depression, and low self-worth.
I felt driven to find "the truth," to discover God, to find my way "back to the garden." I was eighteen years old.
~*~
Some may wonder about parental guidance through these years. Why did my parents not guide me to better choices?
When I was an infant and toddler Mom was hospitalized for months at a time, two different times, in two different hospitals; one in Georgia and one in North Carolina. Mom had manic depression, now known as bipolar disorder. Her treatment included a cocktail of drugs and shock treatments. During those years, the care of the family fell to Dad who was challenged with anger issues possibly as a result from a brain injury due to an almost fatal car wreck before starting the family. I am the youngest of three; my siblings are four and seven years older than I. From the get-go, I was set on a path of trying to nurture my own emotional childhood needs; it was up to me.
I acted out with violent temper tantrums and slept with an empty baby bottle for comfort until I was eight years old. I made my own homemade chore charts. My friends had chore charts; shouldn't I?
In my younger years Mom played with me when my older siblings were off doing older-sibling things. She would sometimes rub my back as I fell asleep at night holding my baby bottle surrounded by my stuffed animal friends. When I was a teen she helped me when I came home drunk, but we never discussed it afterward. Just like we never discussed the jimson seeds or my psychedelic drug use or my boyfriends or sex. In my elementary years Dad taught me to snow-ski and took me on drives in the Blue Ridge Mountains and on rides in his little sailboat at Lake Hickory. Our family went camping in the mountains of North Carolina, and every summer we vacationed in Daytona Beach, Florida. In 1961, when I was around two, our family had moved from Daytona Beach to the North Carolina foothills. It was our only move.
From the time I was around eight years old, Mom and Dad worked outside the home. They were both in sales, so were often away into evening hours. I was a latch-key kid with few disciplinary boundaries. But I was free to explore, and that's what I did.
Our neighborhood was full of kids. We rode bikes all over the place and played pick-up football, softball, and rolly-bat. I loved to run and played lots of tag, relays, and hide-and-seek. In the warmer months we camped outside in our yards or the surrounding woods; sometimes I'd camp out alone. We directed our own play; adults were seldom involved which was the norm in the 1960s and '70s.
One of our next-door neighbors owned and boarded horses. By the time I was four, I had fallen in love with ponies and horses. My parents bought me my first pony when I was six. His name was Dynamite; a cream-colored, Shetland pony. I later owned Princess and then Black Eagle. I rode almost daily until I was thirteen years old. Sometimes I'd even ride before school. I loved grooming my four-legged friends and caring for them. I liked riding bareback and pretending I was a Navajo or Cherokee. My friend, Marie, and I would pack saddle bags on our ponies and pretend we were explorers. But, it wasn't pretending; we were explorers.
Like many of life's "why" questions, if they can be answered at all, the answers are complex and layered. I do not begrudge my parents for their lack of better guidance, which I may not have heeded anyway. For their perseverance in the face of some harrowing life challenges, they have well earned my utmost respect and admiration.
Dad died in 1996 at age seventy-three. He lived his final twelve-plus years as a quadriplegic, the result of a head-on automobile collision; Mom was his main caregiver. Mom died in 2009 at the age of eighty-three.
~*~
Click here for Scene Three.
To read Scene One, click here.
~*~
Why would anyone join a cult?
Scene Two
I put 100% into Transcendental Meditation (TM)- volunteering at the TM Center, assisting with classes and initiations, and planning to attend the Maharishi Mahesh University in Iowa after high school graduation. Within eight months of starting TM I broke the relationship with my dealer boyfriend. A few months later he got busted and sent to prison for over a year. It was a big bust, lots of PCP which the cops found while searching his car as they were in process of arresting him for burglary.
About one year into TM, I met my next boyfriend who was four years older than I. I moved in with him in the fall of my senior year of high school. He was faithfully involved with a small Baptist church. Yet, he smoked pot on an almost daily basis, and we cohabitated "living in sin" for ten months. Because I wanted to please him I dropped my involvement with TM and decided I'd believe the Baptist doctrine, which was difficult, especially the hell-fire teachings. Almost every Sunday I found myself at the altar in tears of shame wondering if I truly was "saved."
We planned to marry in June, a few weeks after my high school graduation. But in May I broke the engagement. I couldn't come to terms with belief in a God of damnation. And I felt that for our relationship to work, I had to believe. I was also struggling with mood swings, depression, and low self-worth.
I felt driven to find "the truth," to discover God, to find my way "back to the garden." I was eighteen years old.
~*~
Some may wonder about parental guidance through these years. Why did my parents not guide me to better choices?
When I was an infant and toddler Mom was hospitalized for months at a time, two different times, in two different hospitals; one in Georgia and one in North Carolina. Mom had manic depression, now known as bipolar disorder. Her treatment included a cocktail of drugs and shock treatments. During those years, the care of the family fell to Dad who was challenged with anger issues possibly as a result from a brain injury due to an almost fatal car wreck before starting the family. I am the youngest of three; my siblings are four and seven years older than I. From the get-go, I was set on a path of trying to nurture my own emotional childhood needs; it was up to me.
I acted out with violent temper tantrums and slept with an empty baby bottle for comfort until I was eight years old. I made my own homemade chore charts. My friends had chore charts; shouldn't I?
In my younger years Mom played with me when my older siblings were off doing older-sibling things. She would sometimes rub my back as I fell asleep at night holding my baby bottle surrounded by my stuffed animal friends. When I was a teen she helped me when I came home drunk, but we never discussed it afterward. Just like we never discussed the jimson seeds or my psychedelic drug use or my boyfriends or sex. In my elementary years Dad taught me to snow-ski and took me on drives in the Blue Ridge Mountains and on rides in his little sailboat at Lake Hickory. Our family went camping in the mountains of North Carolina, and every summer we vacationed in Daytona Beach, Florida. In 1961, when I was around two, our family had moved from Daytona Beach to the North Carolina foothills. It was our only move.
From the time I was around eight years old, Mom and Dad worked outside the home. They were both in sales, so were often away into evening hours. I was a latch-key kid with few disciplinary boundaries. But I was free to explore, and that's what I did.
Our neighborhood was full of kids. We rode bikes all over the place and played pick-up football, softball, and rolly-bat. I loved to run and played lots of tag, relays, and hide-and-seek. In the warmer months we camped outside in our yards or the surrounding woods; sometimes I'd camp out alone. We directed our own play; adults were seldom involved which was the norm in the 1960s and '70s.
One of our next-door neighbors owned and boarded horses. By the time I was four, I had fallen in love with ponies and horses. My parents bought me my first pony when I was six. His name was Dynamite; a cream-colored, Shetland pony. I later owned Princess and then Black Eagle. I rode almost daily until I was thirteen years old. Sometimes I'd even ride before school. I loved grooming my four-legged friends and caring for them. I liked riding bareback and pretending I was a Navajo or Cherokee. My friend, Marie, and I would pack saddle bags on our ponies and pretend we were explorers. But, it wasn't pretending; we were explorers.
Like many of life's "why" questions, if they can be answered at all, the answers are complex and layered. I do not begrudge my parents for their lack of better guidance, which I may not have heeded anyway. For their perseverance in the face of some harrowing life challenges, they have well earned my utmost respect and admiration.
Dad died in 1996 at age seventy-three. He lived his final twelve-plus years as a quadriplegic, the result of a head-on automobile collision; Mom was his main caregiver. Mom died in 2009 at the age of eighty-three.
~*~
Click here for Scene Three.
May 17, 2020
Why would anyone join a cult: Scene One
I'm currently working on a personal project: refining and reworking my story, Seeking Life Along The Way, a three-part narrative I first wrote in 2008. In refining the narrative, I'm dividing each Part into Scenes, at least for now.
Part 1, which I've retitled (for now) Why would anyone join a cult?, is divided into six scenes. Each scene can be accessed by clicking these links: Scene One, Scene Two, Scene Three, Scene Four, Scene Five, Scene Six.
~*~
Why would anyone join a cult?
Scene One
I did not have a religious upbringing. Our family attended a Methodist church and camp-meeting with some regularity. But those were social gatherings more than religious ones. I didn't think God could be found in a building or a book; but rather, in nature and the universe. I believed from a young age that there must be something. The earth with its teeming life. The skies with all their magnificence. Nature with all her intricacies. They had to have been created by something beyond. Something powerful and beautiful.
From the age of eight and through my teen years I was fascinated with the supernatural - reading books on UFOs, playing with Ouija boards, intrigued by witchcraft, dabbling with astrology. At ten years old I attended a Baptist revival with a friend; I went up for the altar call. A year later I saw The Cross and the Switchblade, a movie about the ex-gang leader, Nicky Cruz, and his conversion to Christianity. The story was powerful. It moved me and led me to read Cruz's book, Run Baby Run. His story made an impression on my young mind; it seemed authentic as opposed to a religious facade.
At twelve years old I attended a Methodist confirmation but never completed the requirements. When I was thirteen I read the four Gospels and concluded that Jesus Christ was the biggest egomaniac who ever walked the earth. However, I liked the poetic flow of the Gospel of John. I continued to read parts of the Bible during my early teens; my opinion didn't change. In the Old Testament I read about a vengeful God who annihilated people. Of the folks I talked with about the Bible, no one could satisfactorily explain the contradictions in the text. Understandably I rejected the Bible as an ultimate authority but thought it contained some truth alongside other religions.
Also at thirteen I fell in love for the first time and gave my whole self, body and soul, to my young teenage lover. I craved attention and touch, to be wanted, and to please. I was involved with four such all-encompassing relationships between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. In the second of these, I was a victim of physical abuse. I ended that relationship right at a year which coincided with the ninth and final hitting session; that time I fought back. I did not reveal the physical abuse to anyone; I was embarrassed and didn't want people to think badly of him or me. He was a "jock" four years older than I; I was a cheerleader. Shortly after our breakup I decided to switch peer groups and become friends with the "freaks."
In late spring 1974, at fifteen years old, I began experimenting with drugs. Three months later, I became romantically involved with one of the main high school drug dealers. We were never in short supply of mind-altering substances. In October, 1974, we ate seeds from datura stramonium (Jimson weed). I lived a four-day sleepless nightmare filled with hellish hallucinations while strapped to a bed in ICU. My boyfriend was restrained with a straitjacket. Yet, even after the stramonium nightmare, we continued experimentation with various kinds of hallucinogens -- LSD, windowpane, blotter acid, mescaline, MDA, and more. We tripped a lot; up to four times a week, sometimes during high school classes.
Other than the Jimson seeds most of my psychedelic experiences caused me to feel at one with the universe, in harmony with all creation. However, as the months passed, the trips began to turn bad. The feeling of tripping lingered even without having dropped any acid. I became paranoid and withdrawn.
Needless to say I had many thoughts of insanity. My saving thought was, If I was insane I wouldn't know it. At that point, I quit drugging and drinking. In desperation I turned to Transcendental Meditation (TM).
It was late summer 1975. I was sixteen years old.
~*~
Click here for Scene Two
Part 1, which I've retitled (for now) Why would anyone join a cult?, is divided into six scenes. Each scene can be accessed by clicking these links: Scene One, Scene Two, Scene Three, Scene Four, Scene Five, Scene Six.
~*~
Why would anyone join a cult?
Scene One
I did not have a religious upbringing. Our family attended a Methodist church and camp-meeting with some regularity. But those were social gatherings more than religious ones. I didn't think God could be found in a building or a book; but rather, in nature and the universe. I believed from a young age that there must be something. The earth with its teeming life. The skies with all their magnificence. Nature with all her intricacies. They had to have been created by something beyond. Something powerful and beautiful.
From the age of eight and through my teen years I was fascinated with the supernatural - reading books on UFOs, playing with Ouija boards, intrigued by witchcraft, dabbling with astrology. At ten years old I attended a Baptist revival with a friend; I went up for the altar call. A year later I saw The Cross and the Switchblade, a movie about the ex-gang leader, Nicky Cruz, and his conversion to Christianity. The story was powerful. It moved me and led me to read Cruz's book, Run Baby Run. His story made an impression on my young mind; it seemed authentic as opposed to a religious facade.
At twelve years old I attended a Methodist confirmation but never completed the requirements. When I was thirteen I read the four Gospels and concluded that Jesus Christ was the biggest egomaniac who ever walked the earth. However, I liked the poetic flow of the Gospel of John. I continued to read parts of the Bible during my early teens; my opinion didn't change. In the Old Testament I read about a vengeful God who annihilated people. Of the folks I talked with about the Bible, no one could satisfactorily explain the contradictions in the text. Understandably I rejected the Bible as an ultimate authority but thought it contained some truth alongside other religions.
Also at thirteen I fell in love for the first time and gave my whole self, body and soul, to my young teenage lover. I craved attention and touch, to be wanted, and to please. I was involved with four such all-encompassing relationships between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. In the second of these, I was a victim of physical abuse. I ended that relationship right at a year which coincided with the ninth and final hitting session; that time I fought back. I did not reveal the physical abuse to anyone; I was embarrassed and didn't want people to think badly of him or me. He was a "jock" four years older than I; I was a cheerleader. Shortly after our breakup I decided to switch peer groups and become friends with the "freaks."
In late spring 1974, at fifteen years old, I began experimenting with drugs. Three months later, I became romantically involved with one of the main high school drug dealers. We were never in short supply of mind-altering substances. In October, 1974, we ate seeds from datura stramonium (Jimson weed). I lived a four-day sleepless nightmare filled with hellish hallucinations while strapped to a bed in ICU. My boyfriend was restrained with a straitjacket. Yet, even after the stramonium nightmare, we continued experimentation with various kinds of hallucinogens -- LSD, windowpane, blotter acid, mescaline, MDA, and more. We tripped a lot; up to four times a week, sometimes during high school classes.
Other than the Jimson seeds most of my psychedelic experiences caused me to feel at one with the universe, in harmony with all creation. However, as the months passed, the trips began to turn bad. The feeling of tripping lingered even without having dropped any acid. I became paranoid and withdrawn.
Needless to say I had many thoughts of insanity. My saving thought was, If I was insane I wouldn't know it. At that point, I quit drugging and drinking. In desperation I turned to Transcendental Meditation (TM).
It was late summer 1975. I was sixteen years old.
~*~
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