Former Cult Members Share When They Realized They Were In A Cult (r/AskReddit Top Stories)

people who were part of a cult when did Garry Eliza I'm an occult when I went to some Scientology event was told I would really enjoy and there's a standing ovation for the founder literally every five minutes my mom used to be a Scientologist very briefly over 40 years ago I get called somewhat regularly from very young sounding professional people from that band of ducking lunatics always trying to talk to her or figure out how to contact her how they got my number I'm not sure but it's ducking spooky and I yell at them every time when I was 17 to 18 my friends and I guys snd girls were big hippie stoners and we would go to this active meditation dance event with the hippie crowd in our city then this one time we attended a private event called an intensive where all these new ages kind of broke us down and got us to talk a lot about our sexuality and everybody was crying and sheets I was like that was weird and then a few kids in my crew went to another one and reported that it was different in that there were more adults everybody wore all white and that at one point they rolled out a TV with a video of s RI bag of a nacho Rajini she talking long dead and everyone started yelling we love you our show we love you at that point I was like yeah probably weird that I'd been spending so much time with middle-aged ladders and tie-dye types trying to bang me taught me how to like dancing though when they call their leader the chosen one it's time to realize it's the cult when they said don't hang out with non JW people they are evil I was in that organization for a long time I was clueless about everything it's an evil organization and I hope it fall down one day I have such a special hatred for that cult I lost an aunt to it and a friend to it in both cases they use the same tactic both my aunt and friend were emotionally fragile and one of the JW's latched on to them separated them from family and friends and eventually fully pulled them out of our lives when our friend would still visit us they shipped him and his new wife overseas my aunt eventually got out and story she tells about how insane these people are are unnerving oh and bTW apparently the JW's have an online team that searches for comments like these so expect some apologist replies I was a part of saga got a international they never really followed Buddhist philosophy and we are quite materialistic I realized it was a cult when we were to all watch a video from our president and we were not allowed to record it or film anything that's when I realized I was in a cult look them up came here expecting this one two of my aunts have been in it since the 80s I went to college in the same city as one of them and she got me into it for a while I got into Buddhism on my own before that so it seemed a natural progression nope realized it was a cult when all the other members had framed photos of their leader on the walls in their house also got suspicious of how pro-democracy they supposedly were but their leader was never elected and had been in place since the 1960s my aunt got super weird and emotional when I tried to casually mention I just wasn't that into chanting anymore she didn't speak to me for six months after I quit I accepted an invitation to a seminar at the local Convention Center to learn about how to add some financial stability to my life it was an M way recruitment meeting and I was very ashamed because this was the second time in my life that I got tricked into attending an amway recruitment meeting there were obvious ringers in the crowd even though everyone sitting was supposedly new comers I could identify the ringers by their irrationally enthusiastic clapping and by their frequent use of Amway glister mint TM refresher spray when I was told that it's not a very nice thing to pray for the end of the world in the death of billion unbelieving people I didn't realize I was in a cult until years after I left I was heavily involved for about a year from ages 15 to 16 TL DR my parents stopped me from attending cult meetings when they realized that one of our practices was akin to a clothed orgy not even knowing that weirder things were a fort practices of the cult the aforementioned clothed orgy where we would stand or crouched together sometimes in a human furniture type position and rive against each other to the Prince of Egypt soundtrack a new Bible that didn't include too much blasphemous content but contained such gems as why God never intended for us to have fun to prove our collective devotion to God some members would voluntarily sacrifice their comfort in the form of setting their clothes on fire or making themselves vomit glossolalia hypnotism and the occasional bit of physical violence i.e wrestling someone to the ground when the hypnotism didn't work exhortation from the adults involved that we were not to tell our parents about what was happening why I stayed in the cult peer pressure mostly a huge crush on one of the auxiliary youth pastors a man who now runs a polyamorous intentional community it honestly didn't feel too different from the various fund each urchins I'd been carted around to as a kid I went to a church for about a year that was pretty cult y every week the pastor would say that he felt someone in the crowd was in need of healing and every week someone would conveniently have a relatively minor injury like a hurt back or sprained wrist this started to raise red flags right away because it wasn't a very big church but somehow they never seemed to run out of clumsy fools who had just stubbed their toe that morning then the pastor would demand everyone come over and touch the person who was hurt and they'd pray and the hurt person would start laughing and jumping up and down because it would miraculously start to feel better immediately I grew up in one until my dad passed away when I was 15 my brother got educated and started questioning things and he got excommunicated I thought about it and said why would God want you expelled from worshiping him I left and started analyzing stuff it's insane some stuff I used to believe I'm angry at myself my mom is still in the cult in college I went to a few Bible studies with people I'd met nice folk but not my thing I heard stories later about intense questioning if you missed any meetups and when one married couple who had been apart for a few months I think due to work travel were going to skip a meet-up to get reacquainted and spend the evening together the group tried to discuss with them just how often it was appropriate for a married couple to have sex I think they lost some members after that bout of crazy I escaped just in time before joining I was invited to a seminar people were chanting slogans praising the founder and the seminar leader celebrating the members accomplishments and how many new members they recruited and that's when I realized the person who invited me lied and wanted me to officially join not just go to an event party for fun that was the last time I ever said yes to anything from table I was at the Rocky Horror Picture Show and they told everyone to stand up like usual at the beginning of a show and they said anyone who has seen the show 100 times sit down and I did and that's when I knew I was in a cult I recently enrolled at a private school which ended up being more of an elitist cult in a school we were given an orientation lecture and had to listen to the Dean speak I knew it was a cult or cult like when the Dean said to us when someone asks you who you are say to them I come from school name I am school name school name is me and then he said say it with me and then we had to repeat his word saying that our school was our identity when utilizing Career Services we also were required to include the school's logo on the top of our resume as if they owned us or something about three to four years after I left I was kicked out for getting assaulted by one of the leaders and told my mom I didn't want to go back I live near suicide for those years after questioning everything I ever knew it took a near friend explaining to me what a cult was for me to realize that's what I'd grown up in after that it was all uphill a a can be pretty culty depending on the meetings you go to I went to one meeting regularly where they didn't want me to interact with anyone outside the program they also wanted men to devote all my free time to a a by doing service commitment and going to multiple meetings a day they also told me to use the program as my higher power if I couldn't find my own conception of a higher power I thought it was weird to think of the program as basically being God everyone also wanted to know my life story down to the nitty gritty details and I would get criticized if I didn't want to share something I ended up feeling worse about myself as a person because I constantly had to relive all the bad [ __ ] I had done I ended up leaving AAA and going to different Recovery Group that was a lot more relaxed I have nothing against AAA as a whole it has helped millions of people also like I said it depends on the meeting but the one I was going to seemed a lot like a cult and it made me not want any part of the program I kind of realized it operated like a business you can't advance if you don't shell out cash we constant meet so the clergy can beg for money we have gordy ads plastered everywhere most churches don't operate like this I slowly dissociated myself from the cult after that I realized when there was no compassion shown by many of the people so I left after being a part of the group for seven years no one reached out to ask if I was coming back or if I was going through something it took a few months but I realized they were more interested in money donated and controlling people's time I knew several people who have lost everything to be a part of this cult I'm glad I got out when I did and have been way happier ever since I was born into a Jehovah's Witness family when I was 12 I realized that the evidence for God was extremely weak or even non-existent so I became an atheist but kept pretending to believe I didn't realize it was a cult until I started to ask questions or point out contradictions or mistakes any slight are you correct any inconsistency you questioned typists & JW publications anything I said no matter how small was met with pure disgust how dare you question the organization if there is anything your religion doesn't let you question then your religion is hiding something another giveaway was love-bombing everyone acted like they loved me like a son or sibling but not everyone was a good actor the fake smiles the force greetings the unconditional love from everyone while gossip and murmuring prevail behind the scenes cults are toxic Jehovah's Witnesses have held me captive for many years now threatening indirectly to sever my ties with my family when I leave that's my experience with that cult and there are countless more like it I don't want to call it a cult because I still have a great deal of affection for the people there but anyway I grew up in a Christian Church that has played an enormous role in my life and for the past year I've been trying to work up the courage to leave the initial breaking point was getting drunk for the first time and realizing that I didn't feel like God was judging me rather I was more concerned with what people in the church would think the lines have thought that followed led me to atheism and in the last while mine realizing how weird so much of my beliefs were I turned down so many different fun events because I felt so much pressure to never miss a church thing I believe Jesus was coming back and the world was going to end within my lifetime I was expected to keep the church leaders up to date with anything that happened in my life and consultum before making any big decisions I've also learned that the head of the church believes Jesus appeared in his office multiple times when the boss got mad at me for changing my undergraduate without asking him first among so many other things that one was the one that made me realize I was out of ducks to give I was raised in a cult I got out when I was 18 but didn't realize it was a cult until I was 28 thought the rest of the world was crazy therapy helped when I found out that for decades in my country they would take money from every body majority of people were poor for plenary indulgences the idea was when you have money to the church you could lessen your time in limbo they even had specific amount like this amount is worth this amount of time I mean these people could barely survive and they were having to give any money to this made up stuff literally made up they actually changed it and now say limbo doesn't exist I knew the church I belonged to was cultish after five years are left for other reasons but found the bike model not long after of the 43 actions the model names I identified all but two of them in that church and went holy sheet I was in a cult it's the up C hacker apostolic Pentecostal 'he's my great-grandfather grandmother and mother all attempt i was born into it as a woman their rules are strict even for conservative Protestants I was trained up believing that I as a woman would be condemned to hell for the following cutting my hair wearing jewelry wearing maklouf wearing plaid shorts etc on top of that their theology teaches that you will not go to heaven unless you experience a full immersion baptism in Jesus name instead of the traditional Father Son Holy Spirit and practice speaking in tongues the biggest problem is they place themselves above every other Christian denomination they literally believe every other denomination is condemned to hell and being taught by false teachers it's almost better to be an atheist instead of a false believer I began questioning when I realized there were people who died bringing the gospel to all corners of the globe who didn't teach the UPSI doctrine then I met a young man who belonged to another denomination and was the kindest most truly god-fearing person I had ever met he became my best friend we fell in love and got married four years after we met now I know that God's love isn't that complicated I don't have to stress that I can't speak in tongues I don't have to worry about the end of the world upsie beliefs in the end times it's so wonderful and for you I was out for several years before I ever realized it really was a cult as kids we literally found it listed in a book of cards or some such list and asked our parents about it of course they assured us that we were not in a cult [Music] you

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Id: oW3zVfz5lUw

Length: 15min 48sec (948 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 03 2020