Tag Archives: blogs

Your Networking and Your Intent Hold Hands. Here’s Why.

It has been five years since I published my first book, a collection of poetry entitled “Dusted Shelves”. I went into the studio with a great local producer in Seattle, WA, Lance Randall, and recorded Dusted Shelves Poetry C.D., complete with scoring and sound affects. The same year, 2013, I published an interactive journal, “Becoming Gratitude”, designed to reconnect ourselves with mindful awareness of our life. I published these two books while I was writing “Cult Child“, which I published in 2015.

 

When I reminisce on my writing processes recounting my childhood trauma through the pages of “Cult Child“, I realize I was writing it all inside of a very deep emotional triad that my brain was using to keep me balanced.

“Dusted Shelves” was spilling my emotions through organization of poetry written when I was in trauma. “Becoming Gratitude” was helping me every day, stay focused on a positive mindset while I was writing out childhood trauma.

The ability the brain has to work in sync with itself is amazing to me.

Marketing has been a challenge. It has been a process of trial and error, testing and most of all, learning where I will make connections which contribute to my greater good as a person. Having been online from its conception in the early 2000’s, I have, in the past couple of years, felt myself begin to spin with the arrival of fast moving applications like Instagram. Twitter’s fast rise and the plethora of apps being thrown at me to market my writing likewise can overwhelm me. Things seemed to be speeding up faster then I really even felt an inner desire to keep up with.

I set out to understand where I was connecting to my readers. Who could understand me and emotionally feel my writing?

Since my memoir is based out of growing up in a cult, I first gravitated toward the cult advocacy society, where survivors of cults and other mind control groups, tended to congregate. Outside of a few connections who have turned out to be gems, I  learned over time this was not where I was finding the scope of authentic connections I longed for. I walked away from my time in that community learning that the content of my book does not dictate its audience or who will connect with it.

In my explorations, I chose to do a short podcast series entitled Survivor Voices Show. I interviewed strong voices like popular author and marketing expert, Rachel Thompson, owner of Bad Redhead Media and founder of Monday Blogs on Twitter. M Dolon Hickmon, author of bestseller, 13:24: A Story Of Faith and Obsession, Liz Ianelli, artist Survivor993, Cathy O’Brien, best-selling author of Access Denied: For Reasons Of National Security and PTSD: Time To Heal, and my fellow cult survivor, Glori L. Stiner, founder of Move Forward, a cause dedicated to exposing the abuses we children endured growing in Sam Fife’s Move of God cult. I wanted to cover as many mind control and generational abuse based stories as I could. I am pleased with series and am considering doing another one.

I spoke with author Matt Pappas, popular podcaster, sexual abuse survivor and owner of Beyond Your Past. I learned something extraordinary from everyone I talked with. We all had differing experiences when we broke down how our abuses were enacted. We all were even on differing paths in our healing journey. Yet still we all dealt with similar bi-products of the abuse we endured. We experienced Dissociation Disorders, cPTSD, Anxiety, Personality Disorders and a very long list of every day impairments left behind by our abusers. Amazingly, so many of us are thriving and supporting each other as we all are healing.

These experiences taught me that beyond the fences of my journey in this life is something important; that I am surrounded by those who are traveling the same road as me for one reason; because the destination leads to Healing. In the interim of all that I do, this matters to me more than anything.

People who have suffered childhood poly-abuse (sexual, physical, emotional) have the most in common with veterans of war. Yet, the difference is, children shouldn’t have to go to war.

There is no one arena or mold where I fit. I greatly respect and relate to those who have seen the horrors of war and the horrors which can be wrought on a child. I have read many a marketing post about finding my “target audience.” Yet, as I share my journey, what I have found to be an absolute for me is when I stayed rooted in an intent of connecting with survivors, instead of hunting down an audience, I felt the best. It changed my direction. I realized I could funnel small amounts of marketing funds into boosting posts while using my personal energy to really foster positive connections with other survivors from all walks of life.

I believe that as I gear up to release Rise of Sila next year I won’t change much about these connections. My peers will continue to understand me, as they have had the same struggles of abuse even in their teenage years. My story is still the voice of many a survivor, and it is for them, and my own mental health, that I finish this duo-logy.

I usually hunker down between the months of November – February. They are the months of holidays and taxes. I avoid social networking and pound out work. Leading back to the original topic of whether you are running in the right circles for your work, I leave you with this consideration.

Remember you are not just your content, you are also your intent.

Is your content fueled with the intent to connect with those who will understand what you are sharing? Are you rooted in the originality of who you are? Is this shining through your work and connections? If you are struggling to understand who you are, remember that we evolve, and part of who we are is constantly figuring out who we are! When you come into an acceptance of your now, I promise you’ll find your people.

Meanwhile, pound the pages, the canvas, the pavement, whatever you do to purge, create and express. This is the root of your creative intent.

We Are Your Resurrection

There are ghosts in my view. I am traveling hallways. We are coming back for you. Your breath quickens as you wait. Will your heart give in to the ache; the secrets you hold? They rot your insides, you know.

We are your shadow self.

Every deed, word, blow and theft of innocence lurks inside the remnants of your biological cells. You never considered that hell would come from those you desecrated.

When we come, we are a pack without a leader.

We have no need to follow, holding hands side by side, we yell, “Red Rover, Red Rover, come on over!”, and we smile. You taught us to rip at each other’s wrists, remember? Danger as an entertainer. That was your pleasure.

There were the games we played in secret, away from your judging eyes, sneaking moments with quiet giggles. We reserved our spirits from your shattering, scattering into life, struggling through its mores as we held ourselves in fetal positions to survive. Now, we rise.

We have gathered the ashes of our pasts, reconstructed our wings, and we are prepared to fly.

We are the children of your terror. We are the outcasts and sinners, scar bearers and wayward waifs. We are the tattooed tyrants, birthed from your horror, walking our own paths against your wrath. We color our hair bright. We carry ourselves Light. We know each step with precision as we enter this fight.

We are not mercy. We are strength. We are not bitterness. We are valiance.

We are turning your worlds inside out, releasing the doubt you preach from pulpits and podiums and classrooms to children and vulnerable humans. We are Dragons, gathering in the night.

We have been watching you a very long time. You see, you taught us well, but you failed to keep the tide from turning. Now we take everything you forced us to absorb, the intel and verbal hell, battered bones and dissociated minds, childhoods left behind, never to be relived, and create a mighty hurricane, gathering speed every time another survivor speaks their abuser’s name.

We release shame. It is not ours. It belongs to you. Your time to be burdened with your own deeds is long overdue.

I am a lurker in the darkness, mystic of the floated corners where the view is clear up here. I see the past and futures merging. I see the sadness and the pain purging. I feel every heart hurting, from the wicked to the wounded and my eyes can only focus on the cries of the affected, injected by decades of apathetic sociopathy using human flesh in the deadliest fashions.

For those who have a passion for hurting others, it is you I watch, even those who cloak themselves in the mask of mirrored goodness. We are keenly keeping our eyes focused. We are passed hoping. We are ready for war. Are you? How fast will your knees buckle when the first blows come? How long before your run?

No more will we be ruled, organized or contained. No more will we remain silent or compliant.

Associations and organizations meant to capitalize on those who’ve almost died inside and outside are crumbling at their feet. Too long you have preyed on the weak. Your time has come to an end, and no matter how much you pretend, keeping an illusion of control, you are quickly slipping into a sinkhole.

Even as your wrinkled fingers hold the purse strings, we sing.

Even as you watch us still, spinning tales of the ones who tell truths on you, we laugh as your ropes fray. It is your day. Your reckoning has arrived. We have been released from the hive, a swarm, marching with precision. Welcome to your new religion.

One must wonder about the abusive adult whose mind is so oblivious it cannot rationalize, that what you forced us to internalize would return to watch you burn. Yet, into the flames you will run, because the thought of combusting will feel less painful than the torture we will enact. Every item accounted for. Every brick will be removed. Each stone you drove home to build your wall will fall, and in the end what will be left, are more humans, free from your invisible chains, living in happiness.

For now, you shake beneath the hands of a mighty earthquake. In this surge, graves are unearthed and after years of holding still, we now run swiftly, legs strong, to destroy the villainous ones.

You will relax, forget to watch your back, and we will attack, because you deserve to be fought. You deserve to be tested with unrest.

Welcome to the Resurrection.

She Was Raped. They Made Her Apologize To the Church. It Was 1984.

As I am working on writing the sequel to Cult Child, entitled Rise of Sila, I am again having moments of struggle, pain and even avoidance as I write out and re-live more child abuse memories.

Writing out traumatic memories is an intricate process. Telling someone a brief story of our experience is far different than the hours of detailing each ticking second of a memory. When writing, we must recall every possible sound, conversation, smell, surroundings and anything more we can remember, in order to write a book which allows our readers to be inside each experience with us.

As I am writing I understand how much I was never able to make sense of about growing up in Sam Fife’s Move of God cult; until I became a teenager. While my mother remained silent, my brother and sister did not. As I grew older, we had deep conversations, many questions were answered and peculiar situations happened to us which kept us bound together as siblings who, while not always getting along, each held pieces of our childhood shattering in a way that kept us feeling a base protectiveness of each other.

Many sad revelations came out in our conversations.

One explanation would come from my sister. I had a very convoluted understanding of love. I believed it quite normal for an adult man to be interested in teenagers and young girls, who after beginning our menstruated cycles, were now future wife material, able to breed children, future generations for the cult. It made biological sense to me, seeing as how I had been educated, not about sex, but about my duty as a female, which included mainly the honor of being chosen by a man and bearing his children, living for God and being a good wife.

Even worse were the predators like my sister’s rapist. He raped her under the guise of deep lies and promises of a rescue that she could not critically think through. He kept her in a state of hope and fear, a narcissistic criminal who preyed on an innocent and highly naive young girl. She could not deduct that he was married, had multiple children, and furthermore, she had no knowledge yet of what he had done to his own daughter. She was a victim of a very cunning and predatory man.

It would be in later years that I would find out the truth of what was done to my sister on multiple levels. A man named Buddy Cobb was the go to man for The Move of God for over 30 years after its founder, Sam Fife, died in a plane crash in 1979. When my sister was raped, Buddy Cobb flew to Alaska on one of the cult’s private airplanes specifically to “handle” the situation with my sister.

What Buddy Cobb did to my sister was nothing less than abhorrent.

We were sequestered into our cabin. I write about this in detail in Cult Child. They held Elders meetings to decide what to do about my sister. During this time, as a young teenager, I did not understand or have much of a clue about what was going on. No one explained anything to me. My sister would barely speak at all, staying curled up in the fetal position on her mattress in our cabin, usually facing the wall, telling me to leave her alone if I tried to talk to her.

The details of what happened to her will be told in Rise of Sila, but I will share a summary of the horrific shame she was put through. The final decision came down the line from Buddy Cobb. Not only were we to be expelled from the cult, but my sister was about to be forced to do something that no rape victim should ever endure. Decided by the Elders, under the leadership and advisement of Buddy Cobb, my sister was made to stand up in front of a congregation of over 200 adults.

She was forced to ask for their forgiveness. She was forced to confess that she was a Jezebel, a whore of Babylon.

No wickeder of a human could exist after someone as low as her, according to them. She was too much of a sinner to be rescued. She was such a slut, so vile, that it was more likely she would influence the other girls.  This wasn’t just a demon which could be cast out. No, she was truly a problem for the men on the cult.  She would more likely seduce man after man. For the record, my sister later went on to graduate college and be married to the same man for over 25 years, completely opposite what they predicted she would “be”, a girl who would never commit to one man. They were wrong.

With my brother having already run away, my teenage sister “seducing” grown men, me being “rebellious” and too non-compliant (argumentative), we just weren’t a family who was an asset to the cult any longer. With a “heavy heart”, Rick Alloe, my sister’s rapist, stood and confessed that he was weak and had allowed himself to be “seduced” by a teenage whore. They too were “exiled“, so we thought. We would later find out they merely migrated to live near another cult compound in the South, and their family would remain intertwined inside of this cult into the present times. One of the Alloe’s daughters, Debbie, married one of the original cult investors, a man named Doug McClain.

My mother and her best friend made my sister’s life hell. How could she do such a thing, destroy our families like that? Rick Alloe’s wife, Peggy, would never speak to my sister again. Post cult, when my mother and Peggy would talk on the phone, my sister would quietly exit the room.  At first I didn’t really pay it much mind, but as we grew closer, and as I learned more, I understood, and the abhorrence of these women with their cultish, deviant behavior grew stronger.

My older sister was raped and victim blamed in a cult. It was 1984. Now, the unearthing of sex abuse and religious child trafficking is blasting into the news and social media. This is not a new horror. No. It has existed for decades; centuries. Have we simply come into a time of reckoning through the adult victims and the release of technology?

There is no consolation for having been through the levels of child abuse we kids suffered. No amount of restitution would make the pain go away.

Yet, restitution is due the victims all the same. Criminals who quietly stood by, knowing abuse was happening, should be held to their day in court. While the descendants of these rapists and their silent, aiding and abetting leaders want to live comfortably, reserving a false memory of their ancestors, not wanting to face the truth of what their families did to us, we will not allow this hiding any longer.

Before Buddy Cobb’s death in 2017, his granddaughter, Angie, brilliantly pegged him on the abuse. She asks him the same questions in two different scenarios. He gives the same answers, that the abuse is just evil having its day, and nothing happens that is not God’s will. When I first saw this video, I dealt with nausea having to see this man’s face again. His face has haunted me my whole life; the darkness of his eyes; the wicked smile; the arrogance and lack of caring. As a sensory child, my memories of him are filled with avoiding being near him and a crawling of the skin at his presence. While I have struggled to remember many of the eyes of those who abused me, I always could remember Buddy’s eyes, hooded and piercing, seemingly mocking and daring one to cross him.

His children would like us to think that these were the answers of a man who was aged and suffering with Alzheimer’s. Knowing Alzheimer’s as I do, I say that all the more then, he was speaking the truth. One of his children tried to say that the granddaughter was under the influence when she filmed it.  I say even if she was, she still asked the question, and he still answered.  Twice.  In two different settings.

Maybe his mind had returned to what we children experienced and how they as adults handled it, shuffling pedophiles off from farm to farm, working us into exhaustion, beating children and blaming rape victims while protecting criminals. Broken bones and bruises? God’s will. Child rape? Just evil having its day. Regardless of any excuses being given in regard to this video, these responses are those of a man whose mind is extremely sadistic.  The look in his eyes and specific hand movements are psychologically revealing to me.

Buddy Cobb Hand Signal

There are no excuses to be given. There is nothing which can be said that will erase the truth of what was done to me, my siblings and dozens of other children in Sam Fife’s Move of God.

The church is being called to answer. No longer will we allow Christian ritual abuse to be slid under Satanism as if only Satan can be a wicked entity. If there is a God, loving, omnipotent and omniscient, I dare say, he is indeed, a sociopath entity who has fed children to his supposed fallen son, allowing evil to have its day, and that, my friends, according to the followers of the Bible, is simply God’s will.

Christians no longer get to say that this is not “true” Christianity. Yes it is. That is akin to saying a dictionary is not a real dictionary. The Bible is a book. There is no changing it’s existence. There is no changing the horror stories it holds or the sick mind control enacted based on its teaching.

Until humans wake themselves up to what has been done to their minds; to their judgment and sick moralistic ties to a book based out of blood sacrifices, incest, cannibalism (communion), exorcism and child sacrifice, I fear there will be no reprise for children continually born into the generational curse of religions. The after affects of being raised in such arenas leave adults with anxiety, depressions, low self esteem, false senses of wholeness and often a sadistic deviance in regard to children.

No longer will we blame victims for what has been done to them.  No longer will we divert the issue of CRIMINALITY into an issue of religiosity.

As human beings, we have a responsibility to stop allowing adults to treat children like my sister was treated.  Young minds are malleable and often naive. The church must be held to their cross for the foundation they have built which has allowed for this apathetic mindset to exist. The church must be held accountable for the deviance their morality concepts has created; concepts built out of stripping humans from their innate right to be free, think free and not be harmed.

No child is ever responsible for their abuse. There is nothing they can wear, say, do, think, or breathe which ever makes them the blame. There are only wicked adults attempting to hide from accountability.

Prince Became a Jehovah’s Witness In 2001. Did It Change His Music?

The first time I heard the song “Purple Rain”, tears streamed down the sides of my eyes. They were deep tears, inspired by the mirage memory images dancing in my fifteen year old mind. I could see myself dancing in purple rain, but I didn’t know why. “I never meant to cause you any sorrow. I never meant to cause you any pain.” Those were the words I longed to hear from those who had abused me. His vocals sank into my soul, and somewhere in there, it touched the pains I had no way to define in any kind of literal sense.

Just shy of a few months of being free from a life on a fundamentalist cult in the backwoods of Delta Junction, Alaska, where I primarily grew up without electricity, running water, or access to this fast moving world, everything about Prince’s music stimulated particular parts of me. When dealing with the world around me, I often felt like I was inside of one of those ping pong machines I couldn’t quite figure out how to play. Those things made me agitated, and so did many parts of the environment around me. Music let me drift away, and Prince often helped me cry through it.

Purple Rain’s whole song list touched a piece of me who was trying to figure out itself.  I wanted to “go crazy” and “get nuts and search for that damn purple banana until they put me in a…”, by the way, my mother liked to throw that word “crazy” around, and so I turned “Let’s Go Crazy” up just a little louder, pushing my boundaries until I hit her nerves and she screamed at me to turn it down.

“You want to call me crazy, huh? Well, let’s get nuts.” was just one of the thoughts that would run through my mind as I attempted to use music as a communicative tool only my peers seemed to understand.

Purple Rain was Prince’s first album, one of my favorite movies, and it made me feel. I admired the way he came out with a bang. The rhythms sang along with the joints I smoked, and the lyrics gave me a language for my emotions.  When Doves Cry brought lumps into my throat. I was hearing the layers of secular music, and it dug its way into everything which had gone flat in me over the prior years of being surrounded by so much abuse.  Music became interpretive, and Purple Rain was the first album I connected with on a soul level as a teenager.

I couldn’t play Darling Nikki too loud, though.

“Foul.” My mother would say about Prince, as she slightly moved her toes in rhythm with the beat.

“Hypocrite.” I’d think, observing her trailer park level judgment.

The Beautiful Ones really did hurt me all the time, the ones I loved as a child, the ones I thought I loved as a teenager, and I wept, curled up, learning about human connection.  These lyrics were able to touch me more than any gospel song harmonically programming me to a god I was still trying to figure out, who I still feared.  When I listened to Baby I’m a Star, I felt a small urge of empowerment.

I was working on a project a while ago and listening to the Prince channel on my Slacker Radio.  The song “America”, one of America’s most underrated yet most patriotic song ever composed, came on, and suddenly I was swept back to my high school days.  My mind wandered to something I’d never explored before.

In 2001, Prince converted to the Jehovah Witness faith.  I began to wonder how Prince’s music would change with the morphing of his mental belief system.  I set off to explore his discography and study the patterning which may have emerged through his own spiritual journeys.  Prince had already proven to be a revolutionary artist, Sign of the Times being a top-seller and another one of my favorites at the age of eighteen in the late eighties era.

Prince’s first post conversion albums were filled with the concepts of love. He immediately released “The Rainbow Children” with 21 tracks, some untitled and a mere .04 seconds long. It is filled with a plethora of genres, funky beats and occasional odd, electronic biblical messages that feel rife with mind control of his new dive into an extremist faith. Then suddenly a rift of freedom drops inside of the messages, causing the mind to drift into yet another dimension of composition and song. Deconstruction has a prophetic element in its lyrics, written well before it’s time and utilizes the same tonal, electronic and somewhat “alienesque” bot-like spoken word with amazing guitar rifts and vocal harmonies mixed into the message.

One after the other, the Banished Ones fled
As they watched from the distance
The destruction of the Digital Garden
With no more fruit to bear from its trees
The Haze was finally broken
With the rains came the awareness that never again
Would anyone ever lay claim to the treasures of the Rainbow Children

It would be five years before he released another album. He had explored other love languages, producing incredible balladry and instrumental genius pieces such as 3121’s “The Dance” and previously temporarily erasing his identity with the Love Symbol album in 1999, just a year prior to his conversion, which featured religious minded songs such as “And God Created Woman”.

Prince had a natural ability to continue understanding and embracing an apostate world while laying claim to a belief system which teaches against vulgarities and open explorations of sexuality. He prided himself on being able to explore sexual topics without what he personally considered vulgarity.  For Prince, it’s apparent, that vulgarity could be left up to the interpretation of the listener.  His work and phases of identities represent a deep exploration into the spiritual elements of his own DNA.

While it seemed that Prince spent the first decade of his Jehovah’s Witness post conversion life creating music which delved into a deeper layer of his self exploration, leaning more toward spiritual concepts, the last album Prince would release before his death was Hit n Run Phase One featuring songs like Million Dollar Show where he openly exudes a pop element mixed with a touch only Prince can develop, using violins to end what seems like a subtle mockery of himself and the manufactured sounds of pop.

As always, Prince painted a multi-dimensional picture with his music. With songs such as June, Prince seemed to be making music simply because he could, creating a scripted poetry smothered in the richness of beautiful and haunting instrumentals.  He explored differing genres and wrote more ballads about lost love and raw, vulnerable emotion.

Conversation starters come way too hard
Nobody wants to be the martyr,
playin’ the wrong cards
Why did you come to this planet?
Why did you come to this life?
“June”, Hit n Rune Phase One

A week after Prince’s death Hit n Run Phase Two released with equally brilliant funky jams like Black Muse.  While “Diamonds and Pearls” appealed to the dance floor, the ballads written in Prince’s later years, are wrapped in a depth that could seemingly only be expressed through exquisite horns and strings, built softly around rhythms and the lull of his soft voice. Prince’s “Revelation” is one of the most beautiful and understated ballads he ever wrote.

Prince mastered the art of weaving his faith into the carnal realities of his flesh, continuing to explore an ever evolving and exploratory faith based life.  He built an intricate web of musical gifts until his death, spinning raw sexuality with history and a reverence to the Christian God.

but the task at hand until I see the sun
is to keep doing you until you cum, to revelation (revelation…)
Through English glamour, casting a spell
Though Hebrew, Greek and Roman hell
higher ’til we understand, the colour of the Pharoah’s hand
(the colour of the Pharoah’s hand…)

Finally, a short compilation of Prince’s funniest and greatest moments.

Becoming: A Minute Spoken

50 Years of NOT Ending Religious Human Trafficking

In August of this year, there will be an Alaska seminar to help educate law enforcement and local government, along with state citizens,  about Sam Fife’s Move of God cult, still very strong and yearly using state funds and subsidies for their own profit while religiously trafficking humans through free labor and mind control.  This cult is not just doing this in Alaska, but also in Georgia and other locations in the United States as well as other countries.  Because of this seminar, I decided to join a group filled with residents of Fairbanks, Alaska.

The subjects of cults arose when one of the group members recently posted this:

“OKAY I have a question… every year around the same time I always end up having these kids come to my place of work. They claim they are fundraising for mission trips through their church. They try to sell ornaments or this year they were selling cheap cheesy holographic posters for $20…Yesterday, a boy came in and I gave him $5 hoping he would leave. He then continued to walk around asking [people] for money. WHO are these kids and WHAT church is this?? I really do think this is just a scam and I’m genuinely concerned about these kids who walk around town for money. Is this a cult? Are these kids kidnapped and being forced to ask for money. I am genuinely wondering if anyone has any information on this as it reoccurs every year and it is dangerous for kids to wander around Fairbanks asking for money.”

Someone in the group decided to investigate and was able to find out the following:

“They are Moonies. Yes. They are still around. One was scamming at the Post Office last year and I went in and told the clerk there was a Moonie soliciting in the Post Office and he didn’t even know what a Moonie was.”

Out of everything I read in this particular group thread something stood out to me the most.

“He didn’t even know what a Moonie was.”

In case you don’t know what a Moonie is, here is their Official Website.

As an activist who is very focused on doing work regarding the specific cult which abused me; a cult which is still in full operation; Sam Fife’s Move of God, I cannot understand why there are no activists interested in the grave problem facing these religiously trafficked children. So many questions swirl in my head when I think of all these kids.

Where are the ex-Unification Church/Moonies who are focusing in on their own ex-cult, since they would know their system best?

Why do law enforcement, government officials or social services not know about the issue of religious child trafficking? Why aren’t there education seminars for this? What the hell have cult experts been doing for the last 60 years?

I messaged Steve Hassan, an ex-Moonie/Unification Church cult leader and a self-prescribed cult expert. Mr. Hassan has been on national television talking about various cults in the news, mainly Scientology. Mr. Hassan has also dealt with the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  I was and still am very interested in understanding why an ex-Moonie, who seemingly cares about the cult problem, is not actively involved in focusing on the children of his ex-cult; a cult using child labor trafficking for profit.

I decided to message Mr. Hassan to hopefully receive some honest and forthright answers for my questions.

May 24, 2018

Hi Steve,

I am currently writing an article about religious child trafficking. It was inspired by a post in an Alaska group I’m a part of, where someone witnessed dozens of children selling certain items around parking lots and stores. After investigation, it was found out the children were Moonies who were bused all over to different cities in America to make money for the Unification Church.

A common question which was directed at me was why no one was doing any work to help these children.

With you being an ex-Moonie and cult expert, I plan to mention you in the article. So I wanted to pose the questions and give you an opportunity to respond in your own words.

1. Have you done any work with the federal government in regard to religious child trafficking such as what is the practice of the Moonies using child labor?
2. Do you know of anyone who specifically zeroes in on this cult with focused time to fight it?
3. Have you ever testified in a trial against the Moonies for child trafficking?
4. Can you educate the reader on your understanding of why the federal government allows for or doesn’t fight against the religious trafficking of children?
5. In your opinion, what is a plausible solution to begin protecting these children?
Thank you in advance for your time.

I received this response, not from him, but from someone who is an administrator at their Freedom of Mind organization.

Dear Vennie,

Thank you for contacting Freedom of Mind.
How did you hear about us?
Have you read Steven’s book Combating Cult Mind Control, 2016 edition?
Are you a freelance writer? Do you have an agreement with any major news outlets to publish your article?
Have you contacted the National Human Trafficking Hotline?
Please reply when you have a moment.

There I was, staring at a response promoting a book and asking me if I’d contacted the Human Trafficking Hotline.  I was left with an even deeper curiosity of why Mr. Hassan had worked on other aspects of human trafficking, but the issue of the trafficking of the Moonie children was nowhere to be found.

As an author and activist myself, I would have openly shared the work I’m doing in regard to my ex-cult. I would have shared what other survivors are doing. I would have been concerned and thanked the person for bringing it my attention, because why wouldn’t I want to “combat” religious child trafficking still happening in my ex-cult? I’m currently working toward a campaign targeted at changing laws; something that cult experts should have done decades ago.

I explained in my reply that I am an activist, author and blogger; had conference presented before, was familiar with Mr. Hassan’s book and offered my website for further exploration of me on their end.  I then stated:

I’m specifically looking for direct quotes from him, if he’s willing as an ex-Moonie to answer the questions I sent since that is what I am writing the article about, in order to understand what past and current work has been done specifically by ex-members of the group. 

I was met with silence. Not another response or word, and as I began to research the patterning of cult experts, I understood why. Most of the self-identified cult experts are adults who helped start cults.  Some of them have even capitalized on studying what they started or helped start.  Yet, I couldn’t find work any of them had done to change laws which would help to protect the child victims of cults; like ending religious exemptions laws; laws which allow for faith-healing into death, a problem currently being fought in Idaho, helping work on legal bills which would demand stricter child abuse laws or supporting individuals who do actively work to figure out how to change these laws and deal with current religious cults practicing child labor trafficking.

I realized when it came to activism, there really wasn’t any.  There was just academics for other academics, publications not being used to change laws; and even worse, publications passed off as “new”, which were actually filled with recycled information from years past. How disheartening to see such capitalization on the suffering of humans.

In my extensive research, I have not found anyone in the last 50 years, associated with work to investigate extremist cults, or who identifies themselves as cult experts, aside from Jan Heimlich, author of Breaking Their Will, who has zeroed in on the cusp of the problem; religious child trafficking. In my quest to find a group doing active work to change LAWS; to focus in on the criminality of this issue, I have continuously hit dead ends. If anyone has been overlooked, by all means message me. I’d love to connect with you.

Linda Martin of Silent Cries has a poignant quote. “We don’t want your academics. We want action.”

When I first entered the anti-cult society, I had expectations. I expected to find dedicated activists who had been working to change laws that would protect children. I expected to find support. I expected to find people who really cared about finally getting to hear the voices of us cult children. I expected to find people who were truly interested in knowing how some of us went through so much torture to come out strong, out here fighting against the people who hurt us.

I did not find that. I found an inflated, regurgitated, extremely wordy, academic publication library, which seemingly was more geared toward studying and building “models” for their own problems, the ones many of them helped create in their younger days.  Has this been their way of paying penance, to study what they were apart of and/or helped create? They are seemingly clueless in regard to the true depth of what we cult children have experienced, and they’re seemingly only willing to listen for a fee.

I found gossip and manipulative behavior. I found individuals who were grossly damaged and still deeply rooted in their own trauma base, yet passing themselves off as therapists. I quickly learned that a degree in psychology does not a therapist make, and a PhD doesn’t guarantee a person’s ethical system. Anyone can earn a degree. Anyone can learn anything they wish to learn.  However, applying it in a manner which creates growth, healing and radical change is what truly earns my respect.

I found an anti-cult society who in essence needed you to vote like them, be like them, believe like them, act like them, do what they say, take counseling from them, read all of their very dry and boring books and stay the little victim cult children we’re supposed to be, because that makes for better earnings and for some, ratings. The more damaged the survivor, the better, it has seemed; that way you’ll keep coming back; keep spending the money; keep the organizations alive and give the experts something to keep themselves relevant.

I say with open criticism that in my experience the current cult experts are the people who helped sensationalize the problem of extremist belief and now want to charge us victims a fee to heal from the aftermath of that same problem.

I found a refusal to truly hear what we cult children have to say, some of it critical of their lack of action over the last 50/60 years. They hold no accountability, but they’ll hold our money at a conference, and they’ll feature presentations at that conference, geared toward cult children in order to reel in these unsuspecting cult children to pay for that conference.

This, as I have experienced, is somewhat of a racket, what I now view as the “cult of the anti-cult world“. Their love bombing tactics are outrageous. Their shunning tactics are even worse, should you dare question or have a critical statement that goes against their self-made, elitist society. The personal behaviors of some of the leaders are appalling. The acceptance of these activities by those who stand by and/or fence sit is complacently just as bad.

I could tell you many disgusting stories of a final anti-cult conference I attended, where donation envelopes were lain out on a table. A symbol of tithing at an anti-cult seminar? Shocking, really. I sat in the bar at the hotel as the adult cult children spilled out of the conference room, talking among themselves, enraged at what they’d seen. I listened to all of their complaints. The emotion seemed to quickly pass for them. Even survivors who swore on that day that they’d never give another dime to this organization, have messaged me asking me if I’m going to this organization’s conference this year. Absolutely no way. I said it then, and I say it now, that I won’t support unethical people or organizations after I have personally witnessed their behavior.

I do look back on any negative experience with a severance of thankfulness, because when I get to see the reality of what something or someone is, I have just been protected in my own way of going forward. I have just been handed a crossroad which is curved in my favor because truth has been revealed.  It’s up to me to take the proper path, even if I take it alone, or with a very small group of others.  Some say there is strength in numbers.  I say there is just strength, and the strongest have resiliency for the long run. I say there is strength in the willingness to stand up against non-action and to reveal truth in a critical way, even if it results in more shunning and more blow back.

I recently heard this from one cult expert:

“Anyone can join a cult. Anyone in a vulnerable position can join.”

In regard to adults, this is somewhat truth.  However, this is an incorrect absolute which rules out children.  Children do not get lured or willingly join cults. They are born into them or like myself, are taken into them at a very young age. Experts are seemingly virtually lost when it comes to deeply understanding the reality of the child cult experiencers. It’s an unfortunate dynamic, since many of us have much to share if only these experts placed their egos aside long enough to listen.  We could tell how we survive each day; what we go through; how we cope; how we’ve integrated ourselves; how we become happy and even more, how so many of us have found healing.

After a local psychologist read Cult Child she shared with me that it was the first of its kind for her, since it is a book written from the first person viewpoint of the child, giving a very poignant view of what it’s like to live in the mind of an abused kid. Stories I wrote of being just nine and brutalized sexually in a potato dugout, then straightening my skirt and lugging the pail of potatoes back to the kitchen to keep working allowed her to know my thoughts during this incident, for instance. Details that are important for people who want to work with children or adult children who have survived abuses in these very specific environments can be found in the understanding of the way we think.

I find that most therapists reading my story are people completely unrelated to cults, yet wanting to learn about us since there are more and more of us children seeking therapy.  My story isn’t only for cult children.  It is helpful for all kids who’ve suffered sexual, physical and mental abuse in differing situations.  To know us, is to really understand how we think as we are being abused.  To understand us is to read our stories.

Even the experts can’t answer pertinent questions as to why there are no legal ramifications against religious human trafficking specifically, steering clear of the subject to focus on non-religious human trafficking.

When therapists are open to listening, that is when learning happens. A therapist who is not learning from their patient, may not be an open-minded therapist.

Children and adults are being religiously trafficked on a daily basis. When a cult expert was contacted, the response to me was an attempted book sale and a referral to a hotline who, after some discussion, knows very little about working with cults specifically, which gave me a new understanding of where more work is needed. So the call was fruitful and opened a doorway for me.

The young girls and boys who walk all day to evangelize in neighborhoods are not paid for their work. The young boys and girls selling wares in parking lots are many, not even old enough to be working.  Where is the fight against this religious trafficking?

I’ll never forget what was once said to me at a cult conference. “We are here as a resource hub, not to rescue children in cults.” In the chambers of the cult child world, we call these people the Talamasca of religions/cults.

After observing the lack of activism and the Hollywood chase by the anti-cult world, I knew that this society, made up mainly of ex-cult members and religious minded individuals selling their own brand of faith, was not where I would find the people doing active work, as I originally believed. I swiftly changed my direction, and I found where the action is happening, a society of individuals who were abused kids just like me, yet in different scenarios.  I have met more ex-cult children in this arena than anywhere. I was surprised to find that the majority of adult cult kids are also in an arena more focused on sharing their experiences and healing.

I met an amazing cult family at one of my local shelters where I went to donate some copies of Cult Child, and I was able to get on their list as an emergency contact for cult families specifically. It means I will drop what I’m doing if possible and come to support and listen to their experience with understanding, should a cult family arrive at the shelter and need support. I deeply connect with the children, because I understand how scary the world is after growing up or being taken into a cult. They needed to talk to someone who is like them. I can speak their language. This is where we adult cult kids have so much to offer in this arena.  I urge cult survivor children to make contact, if at all possible, as shelters are always looking for volunteer support people.  Those of us having cult experience as children are the best suited to connect and support these children.

There is a small army of us who refuse to be compliant with the old guard, anti-cult society’s need for control and the dictating of what the truth of child cult survival is like. We stand on the side observing, waiting, watching to see if action follows their attempts to momentarily sensationalize various stories. We wait, because after they are done, after networks have made their money off of the sales of commercial slots, giving little back to those individuals who shared their heartache openly, who have families to support, trying to send children to school, pay bills each month and live the every day semantics of life and have to return to their regular lives and keep moving on and surviving in this world, we will still be here, strong, to step in where we should have been asked to step in right from the beginning.

It is these observations which keep me proudly independent and unafraid to criticize or be criticized.

I also encourage you to find your local CASA chapter and join to be a child advocate specifically for cult children. This is a need in many communities across America.  It can also be a very cathartic process when our hearts are open and understanding with these children.  Change starts with action. Let’s end religious human trafficking.

Remember that there are many generations of cult children who exist.  The cult of Christianity helped found America.  So the trauma of cult life is centuries old.  There is no title to fit that.  I know an adult who is a fifth generation child born into a cult.  Every cult survivor is different.  There is no one model to fit us.  There may be a model to fit individuals who start and help start cults, but there is absolutely no one system which will ever apply in regard to the coping mechanisms and healing for the victims they left behind.

Vennie Kocsis is the best-selling author of Cult Child and other publications. She is a also a poet and hostess of the podcast Survivor Voices Show.

I Loved You

I loved you
like water
like the grass
like liquid mercury
inside of blown glass

i loved you
like soft snow
and meditations,
like you were
the chosen one.

i loved you
inside cages
on rooftops
where lilies grew
through rock quarries.

i loved you
innocently like lambs,
openly like rain clouds
demanding the
sun come out
i loved you.

i loved you
like disease accustomed to,
like rabid dog bites
oozing with foam
because the pain
had become my home.

i loved you
somewhere in the distance,
like tart lemons
and bitter beer faces,
i loved you,
and then i loved another.

i loved another,
like the same as you,
same habits,
same stench,
same brick walls,
trapped inside the absence.

i loved another,
like more tears on baby cheeks,
more bruises on scraped knees
like open wounds
and belly screams on
roller coaster rides,
i loved another,
and then i loved me.

i loved me,
like acceptance,
and purity,
wholesomeness,
and mistakes.
like wistful memories,
and regrets,
like fading sunsets.

i loved me,
like imperfection,
and joyful smiles,
like yearning
and fighting,
constantly running,
to keep from hiding,
i loved me,
now i love them.

i love them
like learning,
like figuring it out,
and compassion.
like accepting the afterlash
of my actions.

i love them,
like hope
like understanding choices,
like intent of thought,
like harsh truth,
from singing voices.

i love them,
because i loved you,
who taught me to love another,
until i learned to love me,
so i could love them.

(written 1/11/2011)

https://anchor.fm/venniekocsis/embed/episodes/I-Love-You-e1k5sc/a-a3tho1

 

Vennie Kocsis is the best-selling author of Cult Child and other publications. She is a also a poet and hostess of the podcast Survivor Voices Show.