i was born into a cult... | #grindreel

I need you to get serious serious with God say God I'm here to betray you don't open your mouth the Holy Spirit can't talk all right now I want everybody to raise your hands how we're gonna pray in tongues how'd I do yeah let's do it all we love you Jesus so cohosh [Music] what you saw right there was what I grew up in I was sent to a camp just like that one that's from the movie Jesus camp and I would venture to say the one that I was sent to as a kid was probably five times more intense maybe ten times more intense than that I would venture to say that it was a cult and after watching this video I think that you might agree with me what I've experienced is very culty and I can laugh about it now but when I think about what I grew up in and I think about my family more stuff starts to make sense like keeping information private because you would be ashamed of what other people think or they might think it's weird or they might challenge what you know and we don't want any of that happening having said that I'm gonna tell you about my experiences growing up and my experience with a cult II church camp that I got sent to when I was kid this video breaks all of the dinner-table rules you know no religion no politics things that are diverse if typically I try not to talk about that stuff on the channel but I'm going to talk about it for this video and I'm going to do it as graciously as possible I'm not looking to insult anyone not looking to disrespect anyone's religion so if you're religious you do you all I ask is that you please keep the comments respectful if you agree with me if you disagree with me I'm just going to tell you and I'm going to show you what I grow up in and how it affected me and how being older and now leaving my family everything starts to make sense all of this stuff was done under the guise of Christianity it was Pentecostal as they say that's that was what I grew up in very Pentecostal and you can have all the opinions about that kind of sect as you want but when you're a kid you're told that is the truth and so that's all you believe you believe that it's the truth well I mean I didn't really buy into it but you're told that's the truth and you're not allowed to even consider any other opinions or other options as a child so don't like blame me or anything like that like you just you're a child first I'm going to describe to you what a cult is and how cults kind of get you in the things that they do there's a whole list of things that classical cults do so bring people in and keep you in and I'm going to describe those things to you and then I'm going to tell you my story and then I would like to see if you guys can connect the dots and see that this is in fact what cults do and it was actually very culty and I think most Christians watching this video would be like that's not what Christianity is all about at all you know and so let me describe them to you the first one is have a mission and now for us it was always ingrained that the world is ending like very soon very very very soon and you need to be ready to go right now it's happening today you know very kind of like very urgent offer them something for free time is running out so create a sense of urgency you know you need to do it right now or else don't give people time to think separate the new people to diminish their doubts of whatever they're experiencing they might be questioning their initial new family and then they do this thing called love bombing that's when they surround you with the people already in the cults and they act interested in you and they ask you about yourselves and they they want you to feel like you're really loved here with your new community and your new family and then you use that information like what are your hobbies you use that information to manipulate them later what are your fears and then you use that and to kind of leverage them then you use love-bombing as a reward for good behavior within the cults well the first time you get there it's just given to you and it feels so nice to finally be accepted by your new family and then they take it away and you're like what did I do wrong I didn't understand and then they give it back to you to reward you for doing an activity they have rigid schedules they try to keep you up as long as possible with this little food as possible and they keep you moving and they keep you active they induce guilt they say you're wrong something is wrong with you you need to confess for this or they tell you that if you don't confess about doing the wrong thing that you're going to have consequences you will be punished they make everyone look the same they make everyone wear the same uniform the same shirts the same robes whatever it is they tell you that mental breakdowns are disguised as spiritual awakenings and that you're moving in the right direction and when you become paranoid about your thoughts and you realize what you're doing and you start questioning way is this this doesn't make any sense they just tell you that you're battling your own sinful nature that you're battling yourself they put you into a trance-like hypnotic States through thought stopping activities like chanting and deep breathing and dancing in place and running in place they encourage separation from your friends and family if you cannot recruit your friends and family you are wasting your time with them with the non-believers of whatever the cult believes so that's the overview of what cults do to people and now I'm going to tell you about my experience with Church camp this church camp was called the Holy Spirit encounter or like the consuming fire or something like that I was about 12 or 13 years old and I got sent to a church camp that basically made me nope out of like everything after that and now I'm not looking for a bunch of dm's after this video trying to show me the secret to happiness anything like that all right I already got oh I already get a lot of those emails I get a lot of this is the truth Josh you need to accept it now every different kind of truth that someone has found you guys would actually probably have a laugh my parents had always done what their parents wanted them to do in fact I was a shotgun wedding because I was on the way and my dad probably didn't want to get disowned from his family so he's like you know what I guess I got to marry this chick and so it was very important what their parents thought of my parents and my grandparents were obsessed with getting us kids us grandchildren into church at a young age and they would always say you know you need to get them in young so they'll never waver in their faith they'll always do exactly what they're told when they're told and how and never question anything and that's what that was their speech that they gave my parents they'll never question anything if you just get them while they're young and keep them you know and I think any adult Christian or a religious person would say it's okay to ask questions and actually when I went to church I was always the kid that asked too many questions in Sunday school and so many questions that I got kicked out of Sunday school and the Sunday School teachers would go back to my parents and they would say Josh is affecting the other children's ability to believe what we're telling them and I wasn't doing it on purpose I was just a curious child and when they would tell me something I would say you know what that doesn't it doesn't make a lot of sense but what about if you do this and then well that's not what happened well like what why didn't he do that then well that's not what happened Josh well he could have done this it doesn't seem like it seemed like it would be easier and they'd be like shut up Josh go sit in the corner Josh you're asking too many questions you just need to have faith you know and they would never engage with me on anything so they kicked me out of Sunday school so when I was in about seventh grade I believe house maybe like 13 years old and my whole life was just like at that time it was playing Halo 2 and halo 3 with with the plasma gun in one hand and the SMG and the other hand and that was like the pretty Opie combo and you know about a rifle and the plasma pistol charged up the noob combo that was my whole life in seventh grade it was just the the nuke combo without my knowledge my parents and grandparents came to this agreement because I was playing too many video games in summer they came to this agreement that I something was wrong with me I had video game demons and I didn't find out about this until I found this like CD cassette tape it was like six CDs and like a pack about how video games are sinful and demons and some some some and I think they fought back a little bit but they came to this agreement that I video games had been affecting me and I had been playing way too much halo 2 and halo 3 and that they needed to send me off to a radical new church camp for the youth that would get me away from those evil video games and so one morning in the middle of summer you know after staying up really late playing video games I got woken up and I got told I was going on a trip I never signed up for a trip never told about a trip I never consented to go on a trip I was just given a duffel bag full of clothes my gameboy advance and I was put on a bus and the bus ride lasted about eight hours and the whole time I was confused I was like what am I going what am i doing did I do something wrong like I'm so what what I was just really confused and then as I talked a couple people on the bus I realized that the same thing had happened to them it was to go to a church camp in South Carolina for two weeks they were about 80 or maybe a hundred of us and we were on a bunch of different buses all going to the same place and then when we got there we were all given the same church camp shirt and then we were put into bunk rooms without air conditioning and each bunk house had a few different like mentors or chaperones and they were a little bit older than us and then as soon as we got there the mentors and chaperones they separated us and they started asking us about ourselves and they started asking about our favorite hobbies our favorite video games our favorite foods you know really they really loved on us and they gave us hugs and they told us you know how awesome we were and how they were so excited for us to start this new journey in our lives and man it was high it was like the bunks like it was just like melting in the middle of the South Carolina humidity and bugs everywhere and it was disgusting so we had about an hour to get unpacked after that and organized and then we were corralled into this worship room and it just kind of looks like a regular Church just had a stage on it nothing too fancy with some speakers and a microphone and stuff when they first started it was regular Church you know just started off singing let's let's look at a couple verses let's read a couple things and then all of a sudden they stopped the band and they told us this was going to be one of the most important days of our lives we were told that we were going to receive our spiritual gifts we were going to receive what's known as our personal prayer language a language that only comes to you when you are pure enough and when you're filled with the spirit and they told us that we were going to be doing this every day and every night for the entire two-week duration of this camp they told us we were going to become completely cleansed from what the outside world had done to us and we were going to be new people when we left this camp and the rest of our summer was going to be pure and we were gonna see everything in a new light as much as I tried this had never happened to me so normally when people are singing in stuff at church they put their hands up and and then you start speaking in tongues whatever right and that never happened to me so I just stood there with my hands in the air just kind of waiting just figuring out like how's this how does this work you know everyone else I'm looking around and everyone else just starts blabbering they just start this gibberish you know whatever I like I don't know I don't remember what it sounds like you could google it if you want but like it definitely wasn't words the pastor and the youth mentor people whatever they started screaming or they just kept screaming honestly they were just up at the top of the stage and they were just like the Lord is here tonight and you know let them fill you up and take deep breaths and repeat after me and we started chanting and breathing deeply and jumping up and down and it was just this constant screaming and you let it flow let it flow he's here tonight and you know everyone else is screaming and crying and it's just very hysterical and there's clips from Jesus camp where they were doing this to other children and you can just see how hysterical it is and how loud and crazy it is and now I now do that for two weeks straight all day every day it's very intense it's very creepy and a lot of people probably watching the video are like Josh does it speaking in tongues thing you know like you need a translator there otherwise take those people out of the church they didn't care about any of that like Pentecostal people are very it's all about spiritual gifts as the night went on more and more of my fellow children receive their gift and they started screaming and shouting in this gibberish and then there would be some lulls of quietness it was very trance-like very hypnotic you know I'm just kind of standing there just waiting for my turn you know everyone got their gift except for me so that implies that something is wrong with me obviously I this point in my life I think that everyone was just bullshitting and I'm not saying that if you're religious like it's all [ __ ] but I'm just saying like I'm pretty sure that these kids just wanted to fit in because they were getting screamed at and then they started crying and like I don't know I think I was just never the kid that cared to fit and I wanted to fit in but I wanted to do it authentically and I never wanted to fake it so I didn't think that other people would be faking it I just thought something was wrong with me and I tried and I tried and I went to the pastor and I went to the youth mentor and he told me that something was wrong with me he told me that there was some sin that I hadn't confessed for and like I was thinking you know I'm like this kid I'm like what did I do wrong what I do wrong I think I like I said like I called someone a mean name on like Xbox Live when I played a hell like Halo 2 once or you know said some about his mom cuz he said something about my mom you know I guess I don't know I think I forgot to like feed the cats one night you know or I did it later and like I couldn't think of anything that I have done wrong to anybody but he sent me to a corner and isolated me and said figure it out son you need to figure out what what what sin you're not really confessing you're not you're not letting it out you need to go have a one-on-one with the Lord over there in the corner and they made me sit down on my knees with my hands out like this and face the wall and just figure it out and there was one other kid over there and I was like what's wrong man like you're here too like what what's happened and he looks over he's like I don't know man like I'm trying to like everyone else is doing it and I'm not doing it like I don't I don't get it and I was like yeah dude I don't know what's what's wrong and then later in the night he started doing it and now I don't know if he just decided he didn't want to be stuck in the corner on his knees on a wooden gym floor like this for hours just facing a wall and decided to just fit in or if he was authentic I'm gonna guess it's the first one and none of that ever happened for me um so I went back to the pastor and he told me that I had to let it flow he's like I I didn't I didn't do anything I didn't I can't think of anything I'm sorry for everything and he's you need to let it flow and and which I said I don't know how to do that I don't know how to let this thing flow I'm pretty relaxed everyone else is screaming they don't seem very relaxed I don't know how they're doing it and the other kids came over to me and they said yeah Josh just let it flow with big eyes and wide pupils just let it flow let it flow let it fill you and to be honest it kind of freaked me the [ __ ] out but I really just felt like something was wrong with me and I started crying you know I got vibe gets not filled sort of crying like that like I'm really sorry like I didn't do anything to be here and like my parents sent me here and I started I started telling everyone that I was sorry that I couldn't do it I said I'm sorry I can't and I'm crying and snorting and like I don't understand how the everyone is doing it I'm really sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I don't know what I did I'm really sorry please let me have my gift you know that's what I was like saying like praying out loud in the corner and was like I'm sorry I'm sorry please please just God give me you know please help me like I'm sorry I don't know what I did I guess my 14 year old voice you know I can I was really upset and I was really sad and I'm just like I don't know what I did wrong I'm like what why why me so that was the first night that we got there and then we were there probably till like 12:00 1:00 a.m. and they sent us back to our bunks and none of us wanted to sleep we're all a bunch of just young seventh sixth seventh and eighth graders none of us wanted to sleep and they were all energized from receiving their spiritual gifts I was just like depressed and sad because I didn't know what was wrong with me and because I was the only kid in that corner that night the rest of the kids in the book automatically pinned me as the kid that was weird that couldn't do it and so they didn't want to talk to me in the bunks and I just kind of laid there in my bunk and the rest of the kids were you know making jokes and throwing stuff at each other and I just sat on the top bunk like three inches away from the ceiling just kind of like I'm sorry I don't know what I did wrong I wish I could just fit in please help me just as I was about to fall asleep just I had received no sleep just on a bus the day before stayed up all night crying really like intense hysterical experience just as I was about to fall asleep close my eyes they blow a horn into the bunks and wake everybody up at 4 a.m. so we have no sleep like at all and then they wake us up again and they Corral us into this the same worship room the night before for an early morning worship service and it was the same thing you know 10 minutes of a regular church service let's open our Bibles to this verse and let's read it and then again alright kids it's time to invoke our spiritual gifts again but today we're going to practice more on filling ourselves with the Holy Spirit so it was four hours of speaking in tongues again where again I sat on the corner of a gym room floor facing a wall and I apologized for literally everything that I ever did in my life like I accidentally stepped on a crack and broke my mother's back you know when I was like a kindergartner I apologized for that I probably stepped on some bugs in the grass when I was walking through my backyard I apologized for literally everything that I did wrong in my life because I didn't know that something I you know your child this [ __ ] you up then they gave us a break they gave us a 20-minute break to go to a lunch room where they had been building up and describing the most delicious cheese pizza that you would ever taste it in your life it was just going to be better than Domino's Papa John's you know whatever your favorite pizza is ten times better than that and we get to this little lunchroom and it's a stale piece of toast with three melted slabs of cheese on it about that maybe about that big very very small just kind of like a circular maybe like a lunchable size but a stale piece of toast with someone that had already melted the cheese and they just slapped it on there so it wasn't even melted to the toast no sauce nothing it was like three bites maybe and so we sat quietly in the lunchroom trying to let the spirit fill the room and then we went back in to the gym and the latter half of the day the other four hours are left it was more than four hours probably probably like 10 hours honestly but it was split into two sections so the first right after that went back to go practice speaking in tongues again and then they stopped us and we did something different we were going to practice being touched touched by the spirit but what what that really meant is that the pastor was going to come over and touch you and fill you with his energy the spirit energy and then we all lined up into a prayer line that's what he called it a prayer circle prayer line the prayer line was where we had to stand in a line multiple lines because not all 80 of us could fit in a line in the gym room but we were standing in a line next to each other and holding hands like kind of like Red Rover and we were supposed to start singing and which would end up in a bunch of people screaming gibberish and then the pastor would come over and he would push you on your head and you were supposed to fall over touch that's glowing on these kids touch pick it up fire Anya look look look at them crying there look at [Music] and just kind of flail on the ground a little bit because he was going to imbue you with the spirit and the reason that you had to all hold hands now it makes sense to me is so that if one kid was pushed over he would kind of weigh on you and make it easier for you to fall over when he came to push you so that's what he did we all wind up and he walked over to us and he started pushing us over pushing us over one by one saying fire touched by fire fire you know just doing like this kind of like kind of like Benny Hinn where he just kind of points at you or gently pushes you or touches your face like this and you just had to fall over you know I'm just oh wow just like fus-ro-dah and skyrim he came up to me and he just squeezed my face you know like your grandma does to you oh you're so cute I missed you so much that's what you do to my face like this who said you're reviewed with the whole new spirit and then he put his hand on my head and he shoved me over and I just took a few steps back and when I was about 13 I was already kind of this size so he didn't really work and I just took a few steps back and off and then all these kids this kid on my right was falling over and the kid on my left was it was his turn next and so I'm holding this kid you know cuz I didn't want to fall over because I didn't feel anything and the kid on my left it was his turn and then he falls over and now I'm just like this holding two kids arms up that are laying on the ground and I'm the only one again standing in the prayer line Oh everyone kind of like laying on the ground they kind of turn their head over to me the one that's still standing there because I didn't feel anything I wasn't doing it to be a jerk I wasn't I was trying to be authentic by you know I was trying I just I'm a very logical person and I was trying to figure out the best I think the way to do this I would never want to lie you know I would never want to lie to the man upstairs that would be crazy so again I thought something was wrong with me and then he brought us up one by one to the stage to do the same thing and this time you would have a couple people behind you ready to catch you or a couple people kind of holding you under your arms where you would kind of flail and again he kind of would go like this and it was more like a little more like a Dragonball Z type of energy wave at that at that point you know and you were supposed to fly back went through all the children he got to me and he did his thing he threw some Holy Spirit in my direction or something and I just stood there because again I didn't feel anything other than the air that was him moving his hand and then he came a little closer and did it still nothing he came a little closer and did it still nothing he moved his head next to my head when my ear was and he said her son like fall over kid like stop making me look like I'm a joke you know and he said it with like a deep southern accent fall over son you know like and and then he backed up and he did it again and I just kind of like did this I just I just kind of like you know okay and I just kind of did that because that's what I had to do and everyone started clapping after I laid down just like you would lay down on the grass in the park you know one leg down let me bum arm and just leave it and everyone started clapping because they thought I that I had finally received my gift now rinse and repeat that day for two weeks it was miserable I have never experienced anything like that at all and I just eventually I came to the conclusion someway Midway like the first week through that I came to the conclusion that I had just not been chosen something was wrong with me and then when you were kid and you start thinking that [ __ ] [ __ ] you up bro like when it comes to the man upstairs and that's all you know like there were a couple nights where he would kind of end the hysterical stuff a little bit early and he would ask us really [ __ ] weird questions really weird questions that are just why would you ever ask kid that you know so one night he had a microphone and he was pointing at children in the audience and he would just ask us different sins but this night he happened to be very dead set on finding out your sexual sins you know jerkin the Gherkin boxing the one-eyed champ slapping some cake whipping the Willy grow up in the Rope choking the chicken you know fasted fappa dextrous isn't what i would say you know which was just really weird really weird I'm not sure why that was important to him as the youth pastor and at first everyone laughed when he says son do you masturbate everyone's like ha ha ha ha ha ha yeah I'm sorry it's kind of [ __ ] weird bro and then he went one by one to every male in the group and asked us then I just when he got to me like I didn't even honestly I didn't really even knew what that word meant I know what the action was but I didn't know that was a word for it like you know but obviously I'm gonna be like no because I'm not gonna like as much as I felt bad I knew that it was more weird that an adult was asking me what I do at night by myself like all right that was really [ __ ] weird I went home and I told my grandparents and my parents about it and they told me that they were really proud of me for going but they were really disappointed in me for not receiving my gifts and now normally when you tell someone this everyone says well you must have a different gift or a different gift or some other gift you know everyone has a unique gift but at this church camp everyone has the gift of speaking in tongues and being filled with the Holy Spirit no matter who you are and if you don't you have some sin or something wrong with you that you haven't confessed and Sam's on something and I remember them just being very like disappointed with me and the ride back was absolutely miserable everyone was wearing their church camp shirts and they were so excited and it was just like I just thought I was broken something was wrong with me and so there's a lot of different examples of kind of what I went through but I can't like I can only find some stuff on YouTube that kind of shows you what I experienced and then I would say take everything that you see that I've shown you and amplify that by like 10 and it messes with you it messes you up I forgot to mention that the first night we were finished with the worship service we came back and they emptied all of our stuff onto the floor because they wanted to see if we had brought any sinful items so we're all in our worship mode whatever right and we come back and we see all of our duffel bags all of our stuff just all over the floor everywhere just all just dumped out everyone's stuff dumped out everywhere but not just like dumped out on your bed like onto the floor everyone's was dumped out onto the floor in the same spot and so people's stuff started mixing together in fact I don't that's how I lost my gameboy advance some some guy just took it it's gone forever my gameboy vans and my games and my whole little peck I'm actually a little bit upset about that I ended up like if I could find my own toothbrush so I just found someone else's toothbrush like I don't know why they did this but it's very like confusing and like they wanted to make sure we didn't bring any contraband into the compound oh man dude it was nuts bro it was absolutely nuts this whole experience has just like when people say what are you Josh I'm just like um no I'm not not that's not really important to me I just not talk about it I'm good you know like I'm good but again if you're watching this video and I think if you're a Christian you would probably agree that that is not what that is all about in this yes Josh that is in fact a cult so let me back up to again tell you the core tenets of the cults and if you didn't already connect the dots I'll connect the dots for you so have a mission time is running out very urgent the world is going to end right now offer them something for free they gave us a free t-shirt so that we would all be cool and be together and be a uniform they didn't give us time to think from the time we got off the bus to our bunk they started interviewing us and love bombing us and telling us that they were interested in us and they loved us for who we are no matter what bla bla bla and they just kept us on the move the whole time when you couldn't do what they wanted they weren't loving to you anymore they sent you away into a corner and they used love as a reward let's see they controlled our behavior with a rigid schedule so we were moving non-stop he had 20 minutes to eat some food and then you were back in there worshiping again and that's all you did all day we had very little sleep it makes it easier to go into like a psychosis when you don't have a lot of food and you don't have a lot of sleep and there was very little food and I didn't sleep almost I don't think anyone's leaped at all they induced guilt so they told me that something was wrong with me no matter what I did there's nothing I could do about it no matter who I accepted what I accepted what I apologized for they told me there was going to be consequences and if I didn't receive this gift and I couldn't become like everyone else that I was going to be I was going to be burned forever and I was going to suffer forever we all had the same clothes again I said that like we all wore the same thing we're all very uniform one of us type deal mental breakdowns disguised as a spiritual awakening so when I was like in snot and tears and crying and saying sorry for everything that I've done even though I don't know what I did and yeah anything you tell me just let me have and they told me that like just keep trying Josh you're so close you're so close to being there just let it flow you're on the right track to enlightenment and and spiritual growth and you know I can see he's in he's right in there with in that corner with you I can see him with my own eyes the presence of the Lord is just hovering over you and I'm like where bro like I just like there's a cockroach and a spiderweb in the corner like where are you seeing this you know like and then I started like oh maybe something is wrong with me and well actually maybe something is wrong with them and maybe they're faking it and I said are you sure are you sure everyone can do this are you sure everyone has a gift everyone can speak in tongues everyone can and they were like yes I'm positive everyone if you are of the Lord then you can do it and you you must just be battling your own sinful nature that you can do nothing about and so they make you paranoid about your own thoughts of questioning whatever they're telling you it was very trance-like very hypnotic we had actual chants chanting different hymns of different songs we had like hypnotic stuff where people are just holding hands and kind of like moving around mmm at some point you weren't allowed to talk and we had to just sit like this and look up at the ceiling we weren't allowed to talk we weren't allowed to move or look around or any of that kind of like a meditation we had breathing activities he was like breathe in with us now breathe out and let yourself filling with the holy spirit they encouraged separation from friends and family they told us that if you were to go back and talk to your friends and they didn't want to come back to church camp with you next time and they didn't want to receive their spiritual gifts they were not worthy and you are wasting your time with non-believers and so then you start to think that well maybe I'm one of those even though I don't want to be you know and then maybe your friends are wrong and then I don't know you just become a confused teenager yeah I'm pretty sure that that was a cult experience and again like I said they've done other things like this like my grandparents thought the world was ending and they gave my family me my mom and dad pamphlets on how to make clean water and grow your own food because we were the unsaved family that was going to be stuck here on earth and we're gonna have to fight for our lives and obviously he was wrong it didn't end when he said it was going to and no one ever called him out on it but there's a lot of stuff like that and if you want to hear about the other experiences that I've had maybe I'll make other videos about this but the [ __ ] is nuts bro like this is how you push people away and they always throw Bible verses at you if you ever question anything if you like these kind of life story videos I wish I was making this up maybe hit subscribe maybe hit like leave a comment keep them civil keep them respectful I'm trying to be respectful thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next [Music] you

Channel: Joshua Fluke

Views: 366,386

Rating: 4.9026799 out of 5

Keywords: joshua fluke, code bootcamp, javascript, how to code, web development, brand, developer interview, developer jobs, corporate cringe, divorce, story i dont talk about, entrepreneurship, digital brand

Id: i2-db9u0Jno

Length: 35min 31sec (2131 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/GubbeningBooby]

Yh love this guy. Helped me land a job in programming. Inspired me to do better careerwise while I was a Jdub.

I felt I could relate to him. Didn't even know he was also in a cult. Probably would have flipped out if I was still a Dub.