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.

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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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Click here for Scene Two