The Travesty of Being a "Bible Woman"

Before, I surmised that abusive parents must have a disconnect with their future selves. They must be blind to the fact that the children they treat so harshly will soon be adults who remember. That seemed to me the only way to explain the abuse of vulnerable children.

What I hadn't considered was the quieter damage done by mothers in their striving to be "Bible women." That sickeningly self-abasing behavior implanted destructive mores in the psyches of the girls in the cult, and also likely taught the boys a Scriptural type of misogyny. Good "Bible women" were supposed to "submit to their husbands, as unto the Lord." Females were taught that it was their God-given duty never to refuse a man.

Girls were not taught a thing about boundaries. They never heard that it is OK to say "no," nor that their body was theirs. They learned these wrong ideas from the Mo Letters and, sadly, from observing their own weak, beaten-down, often exhausted, mothers.

Women, like myself, felt unworthy, "deserving of nothing but hell," as Berg wrote. "The only thing good about us is Jesus." There was no room for self-confidence, self-respect, strength, or growth. Submission was the rule. No need to question or try to get out of a bad situation. Just endure. We deserved nothing better.

Step out of that cult, and besides the myriad of other shocks and changes, we were faced with the challenge of overcoming that behavior. But first we had to notice it. It was part of our thinking, our unquestionable "normal"—the water we "fish" swam in—and thus, pretty hard to see. People continued to walk all over us. It took hard experience for us to, hopefully, learn that our concept of normalcy needs serious alteration and that it was all right, even necessary, to stand up for ourselves.

See: Habits of Mind

SS Training

There are some disturbing parallels to life in the COG/TFI to be found in certain political movements and philosophies (and possibly true for other cults that I do not have firsthand experience with).

Karl Wolff, Schutzstaffel General, said of SS soldiers in the documentary series, The World at War, "They were subtly conditioned to see themselves as the sons of light, that they were engaged in a struggle against the powers of darkness. And that it was their duty to feel that they were at all times on duty for the nation, and in a wider sense, for the new order in Europe."

No subtle conditioning for us. It was direct. Berg wrote, "You are the children of God, the children of Light,"* and he told us that we were engaged in a war against the powers of darkness. We were serving God, and preparing to rule the world in the Millennium, when God's children would "run the world."

Hermann Göring wrote, "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country" - or cult.

I've written about the "them and us" mindset in the COG, and the stifling of dissent. We were under constant threat of outside attack from "persecutors" and were to always be vigilant and on guard. Paranoid, in other words. (See Lies and Sexual Coercion)

And, to top it off, in spite of all the talk of “love” in the group, true touches of human kindness were very rare. People were too “busy with the Lord's work” to bother with such frivolities. Besides, we were the Lord's Army, and "God and His Family came first." I was even once told by a top leader that "there is no such thing as human kindness."

* "Lovelight," David Berg —Sequel to "Look of Love"— June 24, 1974 NO.307

Abuse seen as "a labor of love" - a new take on the Milgram experiments

I wrote about the Milgram experiments in reference to why people engaged in Flirty Fishing in the COG here.  

This speaker talks about revisiting those experiments and coming to a slightly different conclusion - one that is even more terrifying - people harm others when they believe they are doing it for love. Shades of the Manson Family killings.

Chillingly Similar: Berg's "Family" and Manson's "Family"

I recently finished reading the excellent account of the Manson Family and the gruesome Tate-LaBianca murders, Helter Skelter, written by the prosecutor in the case. The parallels were chilling. So chilling, in fact, that one may wonder if Berg actually borrowed some of his ideas from Charles Manson.

The Manson Family:

• Delusional, charismatic leader with his own theory of an apocalypse where blacks destroy the whites, then step aside to allow the reincarnation of Jesus himself, Charles Manson, to come out of his refuge in the desert and rule the world along with his loyal followers.
• Using his female followers to flirt and entice men to join the group, with sex as their bait. Women's purpose was to take care of men.
• So-called "freedom" with unashamed nudity and unbridled sex and orgies.
• Delusional followers who would do whatever their leader told them, even brutally killing innocents to "set them free," while bringing "death to pigs." A bit of a conflicted message.
• They called themselves "The Family," a united, "loving" brotherhood.
• Jargon and anonymity — Members took new names, police were referred to as "Romans," outsiders were other-ized.
• No shame or guilt for their crimes.

The Family of Love:

• Delusional, charismatic leader who taught that the world was evil and would be destroyed in the apocalypse, before which God's children would be raptured to heaven and saved, soon to return to rule the world during the Millennium.
• Using female followers to entice men to join and/or support the group financially. "FFing [Flirty Fishing] is going out witnessing the love of Jesus with the serious intent to use sex or sex appeal as the bait." (From FF Report Questions & Answers!) Women were taught that their role in life was to care for men, specifically, the men's "physical needs." 
• Free sex — yes.
• Delusional followers who were to obey unquestioningly. "You must obey implicitly, quickly and without question your officers in the Lord, without murmuring [complaining]..."  (From The Revolutionary Rules, 1972) The disciples' job was to set the "Systemites" free, while overall condemning them for following "mammon" [material goods, i.e. working for money].
• The Family, a united brotherhood — yes.
• Jargon and anonymity — Members took new names when joining and after "breakthroughs in their spiritual lives." Indeed, police were referred to as "Romans," as in praying, "Lord, hide us from the eyes of the Romans," before distributing literature on the street, etc. (Truly, that was a common prayer back in the day.) The othering of "them and us" was elemental.
• No shame or guilt, absolutely. They do not feel their doctrines were wrong.

Berg, with his delusions and charisma set up a fool's paradise that became his followers' "normal," with a whole different set of mores from society at large. Most egregiously, he proclaimed that adult sex with kids was "godly." Bear with me through these loathsome quotes in which I have added bold type for emphasis:

"THE ONLY WAY TO GET FREE OF [Satan] AND HIS LIES AND HIS PROHIBITIONS AND GUILT COMPLEXES ABOUT SEX is to get rid of his lies and his lying propaganda, his anti-sex propaganda, and believe the Lord and His Word and His Creation and God's Love and His freedom! That there's nothing in the world at all wrong with sex as long as it's practiced in love, whatever it is or whoever it's with, no matter who or what age or what relative or what manner!

"I'M TALKING ABOUT NATURAL NORMAL GODLY LOVE AS MANIFESTED IN SEX, as far as I'm concerned for whomever! There are no relationship restrictions or age limitations in His law of love. But system laws make it all against the law, and if I'd tell you what I think, I'd probably break the law publishing it! Whew! Wow! The system really stinks! It is a pit of lies and deceit and fiendish propaganda against the laws of God and the love of God and the sex of God! It's almost totally against nature!" (From The Devil Hates Sex!—But God Loves It!, 5/20/1980)

What was satisfying about the Manson murder trials, was that the prosecution succeeded in convincing the jury that without Manson's role, influence, and philosophy, and of course, his orders, the murders would not have been committed. He was given the death penalty, which was changed to life imprisonment when California abolished capital punishment. At the time of this writing, he is still in prison, living at taxpayer expense, even making some money from the licensing of his songs and name. But, at least, a measure of justice was served.

Too few TFI members that followed through with Berg's advice that “unto the pure all things are pure,” including sex with kids, landed in jail. It is a shame that Berg and Zerby did not. Even though Charles Manson did not personally kill the victims of the Tate-LaBianca murders, he was judged to be the one that instigated his followers, and because of that and other crimes, he has spent his life in prison. Berg and Zerby not only created the atmosphere where their followers thought such behavior was “of God,” they themselves set the standard for this child-abuse. If anyone should have been jailed, it was Berg, and the current leader of the TFI, Zerby. 

No justice has been served.

Yielding My Will

Being "yielded" was the ideal characteristic for TFI members. Dictionary.com defines this as "inclined to give in; submissive; compliant." It took me years of being told to "surrender my will to the Lord" to attain to this goal, but I finally made it.

I think the turning point for me was when I returned (to the enormous School Home where I lived) with my fifth baby after giving birth at a little clinic. It was my birthday, and I was filled with joy to have a beautiful new baby. That joy had already been tempered when someone told me at the clinic that the District Shepherd had written to me. Although trying to push it out of mind so I could enjoy the day, I was worried.

For good reason. As soon as I was settled on my bed, new babe in arms, looking forward to introducing my children to their new baby brother, I was handed a 8-page computer printout of correction from that Shepherd. This is the Shepherd who had already put the onus on me for any marriage problems we were having by telling me I was, "not just self-righteous, but really, really, really self-righteous." That 16-page list of my sins and failings, I now see, was the straw that broke the camel's back.

If I had lacked in decisiveness and confidence before, it was nothing to how I was after that letter.

Of course, mandatory public "confession" and united prayer followed, after giving me a week or so to dwell on "what the Lord was trying to teach me." (Shades of Mao and the public confessions required during the Cultural Revolution.) Naturally, I was to do even more intensive studies of the Mo Letters and the Bible as remedy (or was it penance?) for my sins. Oh, not to forget the OHRs (Open Heart Reports), where we wrote our secret sins and daily struggles and victories for our Shepherds to muse over and decide on future dealings. These were ramped-up during times of confession, when "the Lord had his spotlight" on me.

The whole idea was to break our wills and psychologically beat us into submissive, unquestioning, even unthinking, followers. Even more so for women, who were to be obsequious, fawning "helpmeets."

See also: Learned Helplessness