Trigger Warning – this chapter describes in detail extremely disturbing religious child abuse, including a violent exorcism.

Music featured in this chapter:

Tainted Love – Soft Cell

This chapter of my memoir concerns Merry Berg, the granddaughter of cult leader David Berg. Her horrific treatment by her grandfather and the other adults in his inner circle was published in great detail as a warning and spiritual threat, especially to teens. Merry’s abuse was used as the model for dealing with other so-called delinquent, disobedient teens. I have left out of this excerpt some of the most disturbing details of Merry’s abuse, which a British judge would later come to describe as torture.

Soon after my divorce from Rachelle was finalized in May 1989, James and Sweetie relayed an order for me to move to a secret World Services unit in Hong Kong.

...No one spoke to me about the work they were doing. I wasn’t trusted enough to be involved directly, ...

Everything I did could easily have been done by one of the others, which made me wonder why I was really there. Manipulative secrecy, information provided only on a need to know basis, and the ask no questions mindset made it impossible for me to know the real reason. In hindsight, I suspect it may have been to maintain complete control over me, at least temporarily, after Berg’s team had recruited Rachelle. I had less freedom there than when I lived in communist China. As Berg bluntly put it, WS members were virtual prisoners under house arrest...

... After nearly a year in Hong Kong, I moved to Macau in 1990. It had been five years since I lived in the translation home there. Ho’s compound on the outer island of Coloane now had around 70 people. About half were children and teens, many without their parents. ...

... I soon realized that some of the teens were segregated from the others. They were under a separate, restricted regime and didn’t participate in activities with others in the commune. …

… Seeing up-close how closely controlled they were under Michael’s harsh command, I realized they were being punished with hard labour. Eventually, after chatting with my teen helpers, and overhearing conversations, I learned disturbing details of other ways those teens were being mistreated. Their physical and psychological punishments included being confined in closets or attics, forced fasting, speech restriction, spiritual threats, and brutal beatings with a wooden paddle.

Although I knew that Family children and teens were subjected to harsh spankings, usually with an instrument of some sort, I had never witnessed such beatings, and wasn’t aware of those other forms of cruel corporal and emotional punishments. I didn’t doubt they were happening though, especially after I saw two teen girls subjected to forced silence and public shaming by wearing signs around their necks instructing people not speak to them because they were forbidden to talk.

One of those girls was Amber, an exuberant red-head I knew from a couple years earlier when I lived with her and her parents, Ezra and Ginny, in the Tokyo office. The other teen was Berg’s granddaughter, Merry Jolene Berg,i known in the Family as Mene. She was the daughter of Berg’s oldest son, Paul, who everyone knew as Aaron.ii

… In 1973, when Merry was one year old, her father Aaron committed suicide by jumping off a cliff in the French Alps. At the time of his death Family members were told it was ruled an accident, but many years later Merry’s mother, Aaron’s second wife, revealed on an internet forum for exmembers that after Aaron died she read his suicide note and sent it to Berg.iii In her early years, Merry was shuffled between her mother and her grandmother, Jane Berg,iv before becoming a child performer with the Music With Meaning radio troupe. She moved to her grandfather’s home when she was 11.

A few years after that, in a fit of rage directed at 14-year-old Merry, Berg told her: “Your father Aaron was insane! If it hadn’t been for the Lord, he would have jumped off the cliff a long time before that...”. His acknowledgement of his son’s suicide appeared in a Mo Letter entitled “The Last State – The Dangers of Demonism”,v which describes a violent exorcism Merry endured at the hands of her grandfather. The title refers to a passage in Luke chapter 11 where Jesus is depicted casting out devils from people, and warns them not to allow the evil spirit to return, or they will end up in a worse state than before.

The letter’s cover illustration shows a young girl using a broom to chase off a flying demon, and several shadowy demons surrounding her as she sleeps. The introduction explains that Merry’s minders had previously subjected her to five exorcisms in the span of two months, attempting to expel the evil spirits they said she had sinfully succumbed to. When that didn’t have the desired effect on her behaviour, Berg stepped in to conduct another exorcism himself. His co-leaders Zerby and Kelly participated, as did Sara and Alfred,vi longtime members of Berg’s staff who supervised Merry and the other children.

Most of the letter is a transcript of the exorcism. It started the moment Merry came into the room where the adults were gathered. Berg hugged and kissed her, asked her how she was, then suddenly started speaking in tongues, grabbed her head with both hands and violently shook her. As Berg described it, he “yanked it around and back and forth and side ways to side ways by my hands until I was afraid I was going to yank her head off or break her neck! God was so angry.... And then I hauled off and slapped her I don’t know how many times tonight, hard, right?”vii

After violently shaking her for a full minute, he told her to look at him, slapped her face and began rebuking the Devil. Merry repeated each line of his prayer commanding Satan to leave her. He then slapped her again, pushed her into a chair and began a fierce rant interspersed with repeated prayers and threats. Berg berated and spiritually condemned Merry for a couple hours, and threatened to physically beat the demons out of her. He showed her a wooden rod, told her to feel how heavy it was, then made her bend over and whacked her with it, warning that next time it would be much harder, but on her bare buttocks.

The vicious verbal violence and spiritual threats Berg spat at Merry was fairly typical of his rants when he was speaking about his perceived enemies, but it was shocking to read such vitriolic language directed at his 14-year-old granddaughter, on top of the physical violence he inflicted on her. That’s why Berg published the letter with those details. He intended it as a dreadful warning, especially to teens, not to doubt, disobey, disrespect, question, or criticize their parents or leaders, which apparently were Merry’s sins. …

… Throughout his tyrannical tirade, Berg demonized Merry by claiming she was involved with witchcraft and satanism, and possessed by devils that she deviously let back in after each exorcism. He repeatedly equated demon possession to mental illness, warning her that she would go insane and end up in a mental hospital if she didn’t repent and change. Berg not only told Merry that her father was insane, but that other close relatives were too, including her mother, her grandmother Jane, and her aunt Deborah, Berg’s first child.viii

It’s not surprising that Berg claimed those people were mentally ill. Each of them had intimate knowledge of his immoral personal life, and had criticized or disobeyed him. Labelling them and othersix as insane and possessed was a tactic to discredit them, which was why Merry was facing the same accusations. She had honestly disclosed her true feelings and thoughts, including criticisms of her grandfather, in daily reportsx the children were required to write. The adults who read her diary probably considered her honest criticisms of Berg’s behaviour her worst sin of all. ...

… In August 1987, several months after the events in that letter, Berg banished his granddaughter to her uncle Ho’s commune in Macau. A year or so after Merry’s arrival, Berg instructed his son and the top leaders of the region to set up a separate juvenile detention program in his compound. Known as the Teen Detention Home,xi it was the model for what became Victor Programsxii in other parts of the world. Teens deemed delinquent or rebellious, often over trivial matters, were subjected to punishments, confinement, hard labour and re-indoctrination through constant study of scriptures and Mo Letters, all intended to break their will and force them to submit. …

...After reading that account of Merry’s horrific exorcism, the fact that Berg had subjected his granddaughter to such cruel physical and psychological torture was so disturbing that I repressed it. Merry had been at the Macau compound for almost three years when I moved there. I hadn’t thought of her in that time, but when I saw her on the workgang the first time and realized who she was, my memory of that atrocity she suffered swiftly surfaced. The helpless girl I saw that morning, and later with the humiliating silence sign around her neck, was a disheartened, depressed, abused teen, not the devilishly dangerous one Berg maliciously claimed she was.

A few months later, I got an even closer look at how Merry was still being abused, which shook me to the core. …

… A few days after that shocking evening, I heard they had finally taken Merry to the local hospital. Knowing she was getting medically competent care helped to relieve some of my inner turmoil. I later learned that when Merry was released from the hospital her uncle Ho took her to the United States to live with her grandmother, Jane Berg, who was no longer in the Family, but still friendly. That was the last I heard of Merry until 15 years later when I was under psychiatric care myself and spoke about that horrific experience for the first time.

After those events in Macau, I was ordered back to the Heavenly City School in Japan in early 1990. While there all my doubts about Berg and the cult reached a turning point (see the chapter Losing My Religion in this series), and I began plotting my escape. Less than a year after witnessing Merry Berg’s torture in Macau I left the cult and returned to Canada in September 1991.

Tainted Love – Soft Cell

Sometimes I feel I've got to Run away I've got to Get away From the pain you drive into the heart of me The love we share Seems to go nowhere And I've lost my light For I toss and turn, I can't sleep at night Once I ran to you (I ran) Now, I'll run from you This tainted love you've given I give you all a boy could give you Take my tears and that's not nearly all Oh, tainted love Tainted love Now, I know I've got to Run away, I've got to Get away You don't really want any more from me To make things right You need someone to hold you tight And you think love is to pray But I'm sorry, I don't pray that way Don't touch me please I cannot stand the way you tease I love you, though you hurt me so Now, I'm gonna pack my things and go Tainted love, oh, tainted love

While watching that video as the song played for this podcast episode I noticed for the first time the scene where the male subject of the song is looking at his horoscope, with Virgo highlighted, which coincidentally is also my sun sign. Another example of a pop song mirroring my cult experiences.

i Merry Jolene Berg

ii Paul Brandt Berg

iii Judy Helmstetler (aka Shulamite), Merry Berg’s mother

iv Jane Miller Berg

v David Berg, “The Last State – The Dangers of Demonism”, March 1987 par. 55

vi Alfred Strickland Kelley

vii Supra, note 16 “The Last State”, par. 114

viii Supra, note 16 “The Last State”, pars. 46,47,54,55

ix David Berg, “A Father Applies The Rod! -- Dad’s Phone Call with Ho”, December 1980, pars. 17,18,20

x Open Heart Report

xi Teen Detention Home

xii Victor Programs

Music featured in this chapter:

Mr. Brightside – The Killers

I Don’t Want to Know – Fleetwood Mac

Big in Japan – Tom Waits

Divorce Separation Blues – The Avett Brothers

This chapter of my memoir starts with my return to Japan in 1996 after fleeing Beijing, China one step ahead of the authorities. Shortly after, Rachelle and I were recruited to serve the top regional leaders in their office home in Kamakura, just south of Yokohama. The first part of this chapter describes our time serving those leaders until they forced Rachelle and I to separate because of my jealousy, which was a major sin in the cult.

.... a Family VIP visited the office. Mordecai Printer, or Inky as Berg called him in various letters, helped establish the Family’s publishing operations around the world. As an important Family dignitary, members owed him the same deference we gave leaders. So when Maggie told Rachelle that Mordecai wanted to ‘share’ with her, even though there were two single women in the home, we had to unquestioningly accept it as God’s will.

Whether or not Rachelle was willing, she had to submit or risk being labelled a disobedient “girl who wouldn’t”, like Maggie’s reluctant former assistant. We were under extreme peer pressure to conform and spiritually coerced to obey leaders in that totalitarian environment. Considering the power imbalance, Rachelle couldn’t have freely given her consent, and I certainly felt forced to accept their liaison even though I thought it was unnecessary.

Living closely with those top leaders, I was beginning to more clearly recognize their double-standards. They had more luxuries and freedoms, lived by their own rules, and did things regular members would be reprimanded for. I had to accept that and keep my mouth shut, but it wasn’t easy suppressing my doubts and jealousy when I had to sleep under the dining room table like an obedient dog, while Mordecai was having sex with my wife in our bed.

I was tormented further when Mordecai and Ezra later came into the kitchen and began a long, loud conversation, thoughtlessly uncaring that they were disturbing my sleep. Ezra had helped Faithy kick me out of the Expo home for exactly the same reason. I was furious at his cruel hypocrisy. My blood boiled as I barely contained my anger, but I didn’t dare criticism him.

At least I was aware of that situation. I became even more agitated when I learned that Rachelle was having an affair with Pete without my knowledge or consent. Sweetie shocked me one day when she asked me if I was aware that her husband had been having sex with Rachelle. Apparently, I was the only one who didn’t know about their affair. I was deeply disturbed by their deception, especially when I realized how manipulative their most recent tryst had been.

The evening before, Pete told me he wasn’t feeling well and asked me to take his place on the courier trip to the translation home. When I returned a couple hours later I had sex with Rachelle, completely oblivious that she had just had sex with Pete behind my back. When Sweetie revealed the affair to me, I realized Pete had manipulated me. He wasn’t ill, he was lustfully lovesick for Rachelle. Learning he lied to me and she betrayed me made me sick at heart.

Later that day, I pulled Rachelle aside to the nook under the staircase and confronted her over their deliberate deceptions. Though I didn’t shout or strike her, I could barely contain my anger. I was deeply hurt and heartbroken, so I pushed her away in a reflexive gesture of rejection when she tried to tearfully hug me. I don’t know if others heard me angrily vent my jealousy, or if Rachelle told Sweetie about my reaction.

All four leaders were away at the time, but they sent me a message accusing me of being “out of the spirit” and distracting them from their important work. They said Rachelle and I needed to be separated. They considered her more yielded and useful to them, so deemed me the guilty party and ordered me to move to a regular home. Afterwards, in a small storage room, I broke down and sobbed. It’s the only time I’ve cried aloud as an adult.

Although I had sinfully yielded to jealousy and anger, I thought the leaders unjustly singled me out for condemnation and punishment when Rachelle and Pete were also guilty. I believed they had violated Berg’s initial rules governing sexual relationships, and the leaders’ response to the situation was contrary to the guidelines first set down in the letter, “The Law of Love”. Distressed by their cruel double-standard, I decided to write a complaint letter to Karen Zerby (Maria), Berg’s co-leader.

Berg’s initial explanation of that foundational doctrine included conditions attached to the new sexual freedoms. Their affair wasn’t unselfish or sacrificial love, so in my opinion the leaders also broke that law by excusing the lustful couple while condemning my reaction. I said so in my letter to Zerby, which included the following quotations from “The Law of Love” to support my complaint:

Any variation from the norm of personal relationships, any substantial change in marital relationships, any projected sexual associations should have the willing consent of all parties concerned or affected, including the approval of leadership and permission of the Body. If this is lacking in any quarter and anyone is going to be harmed or unduly offended, then your action is not in love nor according to God’s law of love! ... Are you doing it because you want to unselfishly and sacrificially help someone else who really needs it, and by which you can show them God’s Love, or are you doing it selfishly and unlawfully, not in love for others and God, but merely “to consume it upon your own lusts”?i

Criticizing leaders was taboo, and I had been punished for far less, so writing the letter was risky, but Zerby never responded directly to my letter.

Mr. Brightside – The Killers

It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this? It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss Now they're goin' to bed and my stomach is sick And it's all in my head, but she's touching his Chest now He takes off her dress now Let me go And I just can't look, it's killing me And taking control Jealousy Turning saints into the sea Swimming through sick lullabies Choking on your alibis But it's just the price I pay Destiny is calling me

The second half of this chapter describes the time David Berg, Karen Zerby and their staff showed up at the cult’s Heavenly City School compound in Japan where Rachelle and I had been reunited several months after our forced separation. That compound served several purposes. It was a ‘school’ to continue the indoctrination of children and teens. Conferences and meetings were held there, and it was also a temporary refuge for members who fled persecution in the Philippines. It also had audio and video recording studios, with the cult’s best musicians from around the world there to produce audio and video cassettes for sale. Among them was Jeremy Spencer, who had dropped out of Fleetwood Mac in 1971 when on tour in Los Angeles to join the Children of God.

I Don’t Want to Know – Fleetwood Mac

I don't want to know the reasons why love keeps Right on walkin' on down the line I don't want to stand between you and love, honey I just want you to feel fine I don't want to know the reasons why love keeps Right on walkin' on down the line I don't want to stand between you and love, honey I just want you to feel fine Finally, baby The truth has come down, now Take a listen to your spirit It's cryin' out loud Trying to believe

David Berg’s arrival at the Heavenly City School compound was quite a shocking development for us regular members. Berg had lived in hiding for decades, even from his own followers.

..... Then one day in February 1988, I saw the end-time prophet in person.

Mid-morning that day everyone in the compound was called to gather in the dining hall, which was unusual. Curiously, all the curtains were closed, so clearly something important was up. A stranger with an air of authority came into the hall and started speaking about the importance of staying security conscious. He told us we would start to see numerous unfamiliar faces around the compound and warned us not to speculate or gossip among ourselves, or talk to anyone we didn’t know unless they talked to us first.

I was sitting beside one of the windows and noticed the silhouettes of two people in the parking lot. Curious, I peeked through a crack in the curtains and saw the profile of a bearded man wearing a cloak walking arm in arm with a woman. They were headed up the hill behind the compound to a small pyramid shaped building Mrs. Narita built as a prayer room after reading Berg’s letter about the supposed supernatural powers of pyramids.ii I suddenly realized that the mysterious couple was Berg and Zerby, and the stranger speaking was their right-hand man, Steven Kelly,iii known to us as Peter Amsterdam.

This was both a thrilling and terrifying turn of events. Although it was exciting to be at the centre of the action, I was spiritually intimidated by the prophet’s presence. Berg’s end-time predictions motivated me, but his dictatorial, capricious nature frightened me. His letters contain many examples of how, in a fit of self-righteous indignation, he lashed out at those around him with wrathful verbal abuse and punishments for minor matters.iv He published those accounts as warnings to toe the line, or else, so I was treading carefully after Peter’s lecture.

A few days later, as I was about to enter the front door of the main building, I heard someone call out “good morning son” from the window on the upper floor of the white house directly across the street. Immediately recognizing Berg’s voice from audio recordings, I froze, afraid to turn and face him. Was he talking to me, or to Silas who was doing some landscaping nearby? Relieved when I heard Silas answer him, I entered the building without turning around and replying to Berg.

Considering how things turned out, Berg may have seen my failure to face him and respond as a disrespectful insult, and formed a low opinion of me from that first impression. If Berg did feel slighted by that I’m sure he would’ve held a grudge against me, even more so if he learned I was the one who had challenged authority by criticizing Maggie and her co-leaders in my complaint letter to Zerby about the Law Of Love.

The Children of God/The Family cult was very big in Japan for several decades, with dozens of communes around the country, and hundreds of Japanese members and their children. Disappointingly, through research I’ve done and communications with academics in this field, I’ve discovered that there are no academic studies of this cult in Japanese. One Canadian professor I communicated with told me he searched for information on that cult in Japanese and all he could find was a couple paragraphs about the Children of God in a general study of religious groups in Japan. It’s almost as if the cult and hundreds of Japanese members and their children never existed. There is no cultural or academic memory of that cult and its infamous leader, David Berg, being in Japan. The Miriam-Webster dictionary defines the informal noun Mr. Big as “a very powerful or important man, especially the leader of a group of criminals”.

Big in Japan – Tom Waits

I got the style, but not the grace I got the clothes, but not the face I got the bread, but not the butter I got the window, but not the shutter But hey, I'm big in Japan I'm big in Japan I got the moon, I got the cheese I got the whole damn nation on their knees I'm big in Japan

By the way, regarding those lyrics about the moon and cheese, stayed tuned for chapter 17 in this series titled Heavenly Lunacy, all about Berg’s insane beliefs about the moon.

My reunion with Rachelle was short lived. She was recruited to join Berg’s staff as a childcare helper, but for her to do so, we were required to get a divorce. We had legally married in Hong Kong, obeying Berg’s suggestion for couples in our situation. Now Berg was forcing us to divorce. We got a legal divorce through the Tokyo Family Court, after which I was exiled to prevent me stirring up trouble before Rachelle disappeared with Berg’s inner circle.

Returning from town one evening, I saw Rachelle with a top leader I knew as Garyv strolling on the street between the main building and the white house. I had never spoken to him, but knew he was in Berg and Zerby’s trusted inner circle, so I immediately suspected something significant was up. They both looked at me as I drove past to the parking lot. The timing and location could’ve been coincidental, or perhaps Gary intentionally planned it so I would see them.

After awhile Rachelle came to our bedroom and told me she was asked to serve on Berg’s support staff. Her voice quivered as she explained we would have to get a legal divorce first before they allowed her to join them. That was an emotional gut punch, and felt like another betrayal approved by leaders. I didn’t dare express my resentment like I did when I learned of her secret affair. I suppressed my feelings and accepted the inevitable.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that they only recruited Rachelle. She was more obedient and submissively servile, while my disposition made me a less desirable servant. I was more likely to occasionally question, criticize, and express minor disagreements instead of keeping my thoughts to myself. After Berg arrived at the HCS, top leaders reprimanded me more than once for trivial things, including expressing my opinion, which they considered talking back and challenging authority.

I shouldn’t have been surprised about a forced divorce, either. Most top leaders, and staff members in Berg’s inner circle, were purposely separated from their spouses, ensuring they had no divided loyalties. We didn’t really have a free choice about it. We risked the wrath of God if we refused a request from his prophet. There was no point objecting, so I made it easy for her and bluntly said I agreed to the divorce. Broken-hearted, my emotional connection to her finally broke in that moment.

The leaders wasted no time getting me out of the picture. It would take a few months to get the divorce, so to avoid any awkward tension or disharmony between Rachelle and I while we waited, they sent me away a couple days later. I moved to an office home in the residential neighbourhood of Shin-Urayasu near Tokyo Disneyland. James, formerly Mark, and Sweetie were in charge. Both were also separated from their spouses and children. He was the leader in Hong Kong who recruited Rachelle and I, and she was formerly Maggie’s secretary who informed me of her husband’s affair with Rachelle.

In our divorce application, we claimed irreconcilable differences. We told the Family Court mediator that Rachelle wanted to return to Canada. I had no idea how close to the truth that was. Many years later I learned that Berg and his staff had moved from the HCS to Canada where they lived until 1993 in a rural area near Vancouver, British Columbia. I realized then that one reason Berg’s team recruited Rachelle was her Canadian citizenship.

I didn’t see Rachelle again until 1993, the year Jesus failed to come back.

Divorce Separation Blues – The Avett Brothers

I'm gonna keep on livin' Even though I sometimes do Fantasize about disappearin' Down in the ocean blue Just to get some peace and quiet From the warfare inside my heart Why, I've been under ear-splittin' fire Ever since we've been apart Well, I'll sign on The line beneath my name The road is gone I can't go back the way we came I got the tough education No celebration Divorce separation blues I got the tough education No celebration Bad communication Worst interpretation Love deprivation Pain allocation Soul devastation Cold desolation Life complication Resuscitation Divorce separation blues

i David Berg, “The Law of Love”, March 1974, pars. 14,16

ii David Berg, “Pyramid Power”, January 1975

iii Steven Douglas Kelly

iv David Berg, “Obedience in Little Things”, 1984

v Grant Cameron Montgomery

Jeremy Spencer https://www.xfamily.org/index.php/Jeremy_Spencer

Music featured in this chapter:

Speaking English – Isle of Man

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Communicating with music

China – Joan Baez

This chapter of my memoir first describes my return to Japan ten years after the first time I lived there, and the several months I spent evangelizing at the World Expo 1985 in Tsukuba. The rest of the chapter describes the year I spent in Beijing, China in 1985/86 as an undercover missionary disguised as a school teacher.

Back in Tokyo, reunited with Rachelle, I heard about a meeting on evangelizing China that occurred while I was away. It was led by Maggie (formerly Keda) who was now a co-leader of the Asia-Pacific region with Chris,i Ezra and his wife Ginny. The meeting provided practical information for anyone interested in teaching English there.

Inspired by my two courier trips, I was intrigued by the idea of living in China as an undercover missionary. Though I was a high school drop out, I thought being a native English speaker would be sufficient qualification, like it was for my teaching job in Macau. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity, so after discussing it with Rachelle, I wrote to Maggie expressing our desire to go to China.

My letter arrived at an opportune time. Maggie had just ordered a couple, Sam and Angel, to remain in Japan where they were visiting during the summer break from his teaching job in Beijing. Thinking I might be able to step into Sam’s job at the start of the fall semester, which was just a couple months away, she approved our request. She told me to meet with Tommy, who would help me forge a university degree, a required credential for getting a work visa in China.

Like many members, I had committed immigration fraud by illegally working as a missionary, but I had never used fake documents before.ii Tommy had all the necessary materials, and I copied the design layout from his fake degree. I then made photocopies to conceal the crude counterfeit. If anyone asked to see the original I would tell them I left it with my parents in Canada.

In September 1985, Rachelle, Peter and I were on the move again, flying to China on a wing and a prayer.

... the only school that replied [to my resume], the Central Institute of Finance and Banking. Renamed the Central University of Finance and Economics,i it is now China’s top economics university. It was shut down during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and early 70s along with all other educational institutions, and some of its buildings were taken over by a tobacco factory. It had reclaimed most of them since then, but when I went for an interview I could tell from the aroma wafting through the campus that the factory was still operating in at least one building.

My interviewer told me that a teacher they were expecting to come from the U.S. had backed out, so he was relieved to receive my letter. After a brief interview, he was doubly pleased to hire me on the spot.

The university in Beijing where I taught English in the 1985/86 school year. I did not take this photo, but it was probably taken around the time I worked there.

Speaking English – Isle of Man, 1986, the same year I’m teaching English in China. It’s the 3rd song in this full album.

We are standing face to face Here to talk and not debate To reach a common ground at a common place We need only communicate Just because we're speaking English Doesn't mean we're talking sense To share a common light under a common sun We need not share a distant tongue

I taught twelve hours of classes a week to first year students. One introduced himself as the spokesperson for the others and said he was a member of the Communist Youth League, a branch of the Communist Party. I assumed he was assigned to monitor the content of my classes in case I strayed into forbidden topics. His English was better than the other students, and a few times he pointed out a grammar mistake I made, a subject he might’ve had more formal training in than I did as a high school drop out.

Although I had no professional training on how to prepare appropriate lesson plans, I had various teaching materials left by Sam that were useful for reading and writing exercises. I also taught one class a week in a new language lab, giving my students aural exercises such as transcribing the lyrics of an English song. But both my students and I preferred conversational lessons. For those, I had everyone sit in a circle so everyone could more easily participate in discussions.

My democratic approach was probably unusual in that authoritarian education system where teachers feed facts to passive students for the purpose of passing exams. Some students were uncomfortable with my teaching style at first, but I invited them to ask me personal questions about life in Canada, or talk about any topic they wanted, which helped draw in those who didn’t see the value of unstructured learning.

There were few opportunities outside of class for students to hear native English speakers, so showing them a movie was another tool I used to help them improve their aural comprehension. I had a videocassette recorder that Sam and Angel left behind, and about 50 films to choose from. Movies were the only form of outside entertainment Family members were permitted. We couldn’t watch any movie, though, only ones that were approved by leaders based on Berg’s spiritual criteria. They couldn’t contradict his teachings in any way and had to have positive, inspiring messages with happy endings.”ii

The Family’s spiritual censorship was similar to China’s censorship of “spiritual pollution” from western culture that was proliferating after the “open door” economic reforms. At the beginning of 1986 the government issued strict censorship guidelines for foreign films: no sex, violence, decadence, superstition, distorted history or science, or anything that could harm diplomatic relationships.

I wasn’t aware of those new guidelines yet, but knew I had to carefully consider the government’s political sensitivities when choosing a movie to show my students. The first one I chose was the 1977 film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I thought its happy ending, with its positive message of learning to communicate with aliens was a good metaphor for students studying a foreign language with one. It was a rare chance for them to see a foreign film that wouldn’t be released in China until 1990.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Communicating with music

Me in the white coat outside the Beijing Friendship Store with a fellow cult member visiting from Harbin.

My school also gave me a ticket to the opening ceremony of a special Communist Party National Conference of Party Delegates held in the Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square, where I joined other foreign experts, dignitaries and diplomats invited to witness that public part of China’s political process.

Among the politicians seated on stage were the paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, the General Secretary of the Party, Hu Yaobang, and Premier Zhao Ziyang. Hu was a reformist whose death in 1989 prompted pro-democracy protests. Zhao was the principal architect of the open door policy established by Deng. He was later denounced and purged for supporting the protesters in Tiananmen Square.

I had a kind of Forrest Gump moment at another official event I attended, a banquet for foreign experts to thank us for contributing to China’s modernization. Among the uniformed officials at the banquet’s head table was the Vice Premier at the time, Li Peng. After speeches and dinner, Li strolled the room speaking with some of the guests. When he got to my table, he addressed me through his interpreter. After a brief conversation he shook my hand and moved on.

I didn’t know it then, but I shook hands with the Butcher of Beijing.iii That’s the epithet given to Li by those holding him responsible for the Tiananmen massacre three years later. By that time he was the Premier, the person who declared martial law and sent troops and tanks to violently end the student-led democracy protests. Thousands were injured or killed. I was living in Hong Kong then and watched news reports of the protest and slaughter, wondering if any of my former students were in the crowd.

A photo of Tiananmen I took looking across to the Great Hall of the People.

China – Joan Baez

In the month of May, in the glory of the day Came the descendants of a hundred flowers And their fight it did begin with the aging Mandarin And they fought with an extraordinary power Everyone was smiling, their hearts were one In Tiananmen Square But it seems that the Spring this year in Beijing Came just before the Fall There was no summer at all In Tiananmen Square China... China There's peace in the emerald fields, there's mist upon the lakes But something is afoot in the People's Hall The spirit of Chu Ping is alive in young Chai Ling And the Emperor has his back against the wall Black sun rising over Tiananmen Square Over Tiananmen Square In the month of June, in the darkness of the moon Went the descendants of a hundred flowers And time may never tell how many of them fell Like the petals of a rose in some satanic shower Everyone was weeping in all of China And Tiananmen Square And even the moon on the fourth day of June Hid her face and did not see Black sun rising over Tiananmen Square And Wang Wei Lin, you remember him All alone he stood before the tanks A shadow of forgotten ancestors in Tiananmen Square

i Central University of Finance and Economics

ii David Berg “Happy Endings”, June 1979, pars. 5,9,12

iii “’Butcher of Beijing’ tries to clear his name”, The Guardian, August 19, 2004

Also see: “‘Every year I get new pictures’: the fight to preserve the memory of Tiananmen” The Guardian, June 4, 2026 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/04/tiananmen-square-massacre-preserving-memory

Music featured in this chapter:

China – Sammy Hagar

Undercover Agents – Enter Shikari

As a young teen I knew almost nothing about China, but I was intrigued by it. Many Chinese immigrants had come to our small mill town over the decades. The father of one of my Chinese-Canadian classmates was in the British air force based in Hong Kong during WW2. There was a photo of him in his uniform on their living room wall. My classmate was a second generation Canadian, so he and his siblings were well assimilated into Canadian culture, but a new immigrant family from Hong Kong moved across the alley from our house. I quickly made friends with their two children, the younger was my age and the other a couple years older. I especially liked visiting them in their home because it gave me a glimpse of a different culture. I went over one time while they were eating dinner, and was fascinated by their unfamiliar foods and ways of eating with chopsticks out of shared dishes and lots of slurping noises (acceptable when eating soup or noodles), which was quite a contrast to my own quiet family dinners.

Perhaps the biggest Chinese influence on me was Steve, a classmate in junior high school. He was also a recent immigrant from Hong Kong, who longed to return there. He found small town Port Alberni boring after living in that bustling city. He told me stories of his life in Hong Kong that fed my wanderlust to see that city and the world. In this photo we are on a field trip with our grade 9 class. Notice the headband and flower in my hair.

In mid 1983, Rachelle, Peter and I arrived in Penang, the Pearl of the Orient. That Malaysian tropical island shares the title with a few other places, including Hong Kong and Shanghai. We would soon live in the former and I would visit the latter, but Penang was the perfect place to start our foreign adventure, especially for Rachelle and Peter. Our life there was fairly laid-back, so they were able to slowly adapt to the culture shock of living outside Canada for the first time.

...

... After nearly four months in Malaysia, we received a message from the top leader of the Asia-Pacific region. Keda had read our letter replying to the help wanted ad by a couple in Macau. She instructed us to go there as soon as possible to help them so they could work full time translating Berg’s writings into Chinese.

...

... We arrived in Macau near the end of 1983. Situated on the west side of the Pearl River estuary across from Hong Kong, it was still a Portuguese colony at the time. Macau was the first European colony in 16th century China, and the last one remaining when China resumed its sovereignty over the territory in 1999. Parts of the city are frozen in time. Centuries-old forts, churches, temples and neoclassical buildings stand in sharp contrast to the gaudy bright lights of modern casinos.

...

... American Danny and Taiwanese Becky lived with their three young boys in a three-bedroom apartment near Senado Square, the historic centre of Macau. We arrived in the middle of a meeting they were having with other Chinese translators based in Hong Kong. We were surprised to see Keda there too, who was overseeing their work. She explained she recruited us because unlike most Family couples, we only had one older child, so we were well-suited for this situation. Taking care of Danny and Becky’s children and running the home would enable them to focus full-time on translating Berg’s letters.

…

… I felt honoured she recruited us to help Danny and Becky’s important work. After being closed to the outside world for over 25 years, communist China was just beginning to open up, so I was excited to be part of that mission. Although we weren’t personally evangelizing, the literature Danny and Becky were translating would reach far more people than we ever could ourselves. By serving them, we served God.

…

China – Sammy Hagar

But that China wind keeps callin' me It knows where I want to go You see, I really don't have the choices My life is torn between lovin you and them So I pretend to chart my courses But I listen to that China wind Oh China, I can hear you call You're a riddle wrapped up inside a mystery

While living in Macau, Peter and I were some of the first foreign solo travelers, that is we were not part of a tour group, allowed to enter China after it began to slowly open its doors to the world. The government office that issued our visitor visas insisted we hire a car and driver to cross the border, claiming it was for our safety, but it was really just a money grab. However, we felt like real VIPs when our Mercedes Benz was quickly waved through the border crossing, while tourists in buses had to get off their bus and be processed individually. We only spent the day in China, returning to Macau after meeting two of the undercover members living there and delivering them new cult publications and household items not yet available in the newly industrializing country. After about a year in Macau, Rachelle and I were recruited to work in a leadership home in Hong Kong.

In September 1984, there was a fellowship conference for all members in Hong Kong and Macau, except for those living incognito in secret World Services units. About a hundred of us gathered for four days at a YMCA campground in rural Hong Kong that had cabins, a communal kitchen, and conference hall. On the last day, Mark, the leader in charge of all the regular homes pulled Rachelle and I aside and recruited us for his office home in Hong Kong.

A suggestion or request from a leader was essentially an order. We were expected to respond with, “thy wish is my command!”.

...

... Like in Macau, Rachelle helped care for the kids, while I cooked, did chores and ran errands. I also got to take another courier trip to China, this time alone by train, taking publications and products to Family missionaries disguised as English teachers in the southern cities of Guangzhou (formerly Canton), Hangzhou and Shanghai.

I was extremely excited to once again participate directly in our undercover mission to the communist country, one of the last we still had to reach with our end-time gospel message before Jesus returned. I was also a bit nervous smuggling sensitive Family material, which I buried at the bottoms of my backpack and large suitcase, hidden under a pile of products I was bringing that weren’t yet available in those early years of China’s modernization. Almost everyone in the customs line had similar overloaded baggages, so fortunately, the agent only did a superficial inspection before waving me through.

1984 Me and Rachelle at the Hong Kong fellowship conference where we were recruited to work in a leader’s home.

Undercover Agents – Enter Shikari

And I said, "Park your car and come on up to my house We'll plan a revolution" And I said, "Yeah, I think I'm ready to begin We'll destroy the disillusion" I am currently under construction Thank you for your patience We veneer and veil, we present a cold disguise We're all undercover agents It's only in our heads It's only in our heads

Living in Macau and Hong Kong for a couple years, with those two courier trips I made to mainland China, made me eager to become an undercover missionary there. However, in early 1985 all regular members were told to evacuate Hong Kong due to government persecution targeting the cult. Some of the cult’s super-secret cells that controlled the cult’s international finances were located there, so the evacuation was to protect them from being discovered. About 10 years after I left Japan, I returned there. China would have to wait, but not for long.

Music featured in this chapter:

On The Road Again – Willie Nelson

Black lightning – The BellRays

Jet Airliner – Steve Miller Band

This chapter of my memoir opens with my returning to the cult and hooking up with a new member, Rachelle, a mother of two who was nine years older than me.

In early December 1979, I separated from the system a second time and left Port Alberni to rejoin the Children of God, now known as the Family of Love, or just the Family. I had accepted Fai Lok’s invitation to join her in a small commune in Nova Scotia on the opposite side of the country. I spent the entire six-day, 6,000 kilometre train trip from Vancouver to Halifax in a coach car. I was on the road again. My indoctrinated mindset and missionary zeal was reemerging as I returned to the Family and a life of constant change. In just a couple months, I would be headed back west, but not alone.

...

... Rachelle’s kids, Karen and Peter, were 12 and 9. She had recently joined the Family with them, recruited by her sister-in-law, Bobbie. Rachelle was in the process of divorcing Bobbie’s brother, Steve, who was neither a Family member, nor the children’s biological father. That was a married man Rachelle had a long term affair with before she married Steve. He was a businessman in Halifax and both kids had his last name. Because their affair was illegitimate, Rachelle didn’t tell her devout Catholic parents about Karen until a year after she was born.

...

... Less than two months after I arrived in Halifax, Rachelle got a phone call from Bobbie and her husband Norm inviting her and the kids to join them in Calgary, Alberta. Bobbie had recently received a small inheritance and used it to buy a school bus that was converted into a motorhome. They were following Berg’s latest instructions to hit the road with mobile ministries. Their initial plan was to travel around Alberta and British Columbia visiting Family homes and evangelizing along the way. When Rachelle told them about me, I was invited too.

...

... With few other options, and bearing in mind Berg’s end-time predictions, we accepted their invitation. Living on the road would give us the ability to quickly head for the hills and avoid the chaos that would follow America’s imminent destruction.

...

... For the next nine months we travelled around Alberta and British Columbia visiting Family homes, and going door-to-door in the towns we passed through selling literature and yellow plastic buttons with slogans like “God’s Only Law Is Love”. Bobbie was also very skilled at convincing businesses to donate goods and services to us, including restaurant meals, groceries, and gas. Having her niece and nephew with her helped when making appeals in person, as people were more likely to give when children were present.

In the earliest, hippy years of the cult, David Berg took his followers on the road in a hodgepodge caravan of converted school buses, vans, campers, travel trailers and other vehicles that crossed the U.S. from California to Quebec, Canada. They likened themselves to a band of Gypsies, and they wrote songs accompanied with circle dances that expressed that spirit of travellers with no earthly place to call home, often persecuted and forced to move on. Berg picked up on that and claimed in a series of letters to his followers that one of his “spirit helpers” was an old Gypsy king named Abrahim. Bizarrely, he also claimed other fictional characters were his spirit helpers, such as the Pied Piper, who was helping him steal children away from their parents.

On The Road Again – Willie Nelson

On the road again Goin' places that I've never been Seein' things that I may never see again I can't wait to get on the road again Here we go, on the road again Like a band of Gypsies we go down the highway We're the best of friends Insisting that the world keep turnin' our way

In this chapter I also discuss the person referred to as Black Lightening, the creator of cult deprogramming.

Ronald Reagan was Governor of California in the late 1960s and early ‘70s when Berg formed the Children of God in Huntington Beach. After the group was accused of brainwashing its members, Reagan’s Special Assistant for Community Affairs, well known African American community activist, Ted Patrick,i became personally involved in helping parents rescue their children from the Children of God.

In 1971, acting on a mother’s complaint that the police would not search for her missing 19 year old son, Ted Patrick discovered that he had joined the Children of God. He then learned that the group tried to recruit his own son. Patrick began an investigation, which included briefly joining the group under false pretenses. It was from his experiences with the Children of God that Patrick developed his controversial theory on how to extricate people from cults, and became known as Black Lightening, the father of deprogramming.ii A 1974 report described his deprogramming process:

Enter Ted Patrick, kidnapper of kids, deprogrammer of Jesus freaks. Black Lightening, as he likes to be called. His technique sounded a little heavy: getting parents to abduct their kid from a colony, locking the kid in a motel room for three days, berating the kid to “think for himself” until – sometimes – “the fever broke.” The kids Patrick worked on often went through “relapses” and escaped back to the Children of God.iii

Patrick started working closely with concerned parents and helped form the Parents Committee to Free Our Children From the Children of God (FreeCOG).iv He and his accomplices began kidnapping and deprogramming Children of God members, with varying success.v Berg described Patrick as “a Satanist ... who believes in voodoo and demonology ... a Black devil!”vi

That danger put the group on high alert, leading to the kind of serious security measures I was part of as a night watchman in the Burlington, Washington compound. Securing our safety became a central feature of life in the Family, which included using aliases, fronts, secret cells, encrypted communications, nightly security checks, and even home invasion escape drills in the event of raids by authorities or enemies. We lived in a heightened state of fear, always ready to run at a moments notice with packed “flee bags” prepared for any emergency.

Black lightning – The BellRays

Storm cloud coming Coming straight to you You can’t run for shelter There’s nothing you can do I’m a new sensation. I’m on fire Overload your systems. Gonna jump your wires I’m Black Lightning I’m a sinner baby I’m all the power you need Now I’m out of the bottle I’m gonna set you free I can strike a hundred times a day Nothing ever gets in my way I’m Black Lightning I’ll be in your mind I’ll be in your soul No matter where you are. I’ll be in your head Never gonna rest until I’m dead I’m Black Lightning All across the world. Every night and day I’ll be your Sun to light the way I’m Black Lightning

We watched TV coverage of the November 1980 U.S. election while we were in Alberta. Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory worried us because he was our enemy.

Reagan’s election made us even more anxious to head south to safer foreign fields. However, our plan abruptly ended when the bus broke down on the highway between Edmonton and Calgary. Norm had it towed to his parents empty farm house about an hour away, but after Berg’s recent recommendation to abandon the mobile ministry they weren’t sure they would keep the bus after it was repaired. They intended to stay there until then, but the house was too small for all of us.

We were homeless now. With few options and almost no money, Rachelle and I decided going to Port Alberni was our best move until we could figure out a new plan. We were able to get travel assistance from the government welfare office, which paid for our bus, train, and meals for the overnight trip. When I left Port Alberni almost exactly a year earlier, I was single and had one suitcase. I returned with a wife, two kids and about a dozen bags. We crowded into my parents’ house and spent the Christmas holidays there, while we considered our next move.

...

...Our initial plan was to go to India, based on Berg’s recommendation for Commonwealth citizens. We kept our options open though, by answering a few appeals for help in the Family magazine. One was from a family in Macau, a Portuguese colony on China’s southern border. The other was a couple with two children in Malaysia. We didn’t hear from the Macau family, so we accepted the invitation from the other couple to join them on the tropical island of Penang. We left Canada in the summer of 1983.

Jet Airliner – Steve Miller Band

Leavin' home, out on the road I've been down before Ridin' along on this big ol' jet plane I've been thinkin' about my home But my love light seems so far away And I feel like it's all been done Somebody's tryin' to make me stay You know I've got to be movin' on Goodbye to all my friends at home Goodbye to people I've trusted I've got to go out and make my way I might get rich, you know, I might get busted But my heart keeps calling me backwards As I get on the 707 Ridin' high, I got tears in my eyes You know you got to go through hell Before you get to heaven

i Ted Patrick

ii “From the Archives: Mind Control U.S.A. (1979)”, High Times, April 9, 2022

iii Thomas Moore, “Where have all the Children of God gone?”, New Times 1974-10-04

iv FreeCOG Parents who did not see the Children of God as a harmful group set up a counter organization called Thankful Parents & Friends of the Children of God (ThankCOG). They challenged FreeCOG claims and negative publicity with a newsletter supporting the group. My mother received some of their material.

v Ted Patrick & Tom Dulack, Let our children go! Ballantine Books (April 12, 1979) First chapter of Let our children go!

vi David Berg, “Jimmy Carter – America’s last chance?”, June 1976, par. 23

Music featured in this chapter:

Mr. Robot – Styx

Family Affair – Sly & the Family Stone

Gotta Serve Somebody – Bob Dylan (Take 1 - Slow Train Coming studio outtake)

One of Wiktionary’s definitions for “prodigal” is:

4) Behaving as a prodigal son: 1. Having (selfishly) abandoned a person, group, or ideal. 2. Returning or having returned, especially repentantly, after such an abandonment.

The title of this chapter in my memoir, like a few others, has a double meaning. I first abandoned my family to ‘join’ the cult, then abandoned the cult and returned to my family, only to abandon my family again and return to the cult.

In the summer of 1977, a year after I left the Children of God, [in the Philippines] I returned to Canada. After three and a half years in Asia, and five years since I dropped out of the system to follow the end-time prophet, reverse culture shock hit me doubly hard. I felt like a foreigner in my own country, an outsider who didn’t fit in. I was nearly 22 years old, a high school drop out with no work history, money, possessions or plans. Fortunately, I had a family to return to, which made my readjustment to life back in Port Alberni easier than if I had no one to depend on for help.

...

... I was no longer certain what God’s will was for me. I still believed in the Bible and Berg’s end-time prophecies, but my indoctrination marred my mind, making it more difficult to reintegrate into society. My abnormal transition from adolescent to adult while socially isolated in the Children of God left me unprepared to live in the real world. I believed it would soon end anyway, so it seemed pointless to plan my future. I just needed to get by until the Antichrist appeared, signalling the final few years before Christ’s return in 1993. I kept my beliefs to myself, though, and never talked about my Jesus freak life to anyone.

...

... I remained chained to dogmatic Christian indoctrination, so had difficulty conforming to a world I believed would soon collapse into chaos and end in 1993 when Jesus returned. My dead-end jobs were just means to an end while I waited for doomsday. Getting drunk and stoned helped me endure the wait.

Readjusting to the real world was difficult. Revealing my radical religious beliefs would’ve made it even harder, so I never discussed them with anyone. I kept my past a secret and friendships superficial, staying emotionally aloof, never letting anyone get close enough to know the real me. How could I? I was a stranger even to myself, living an unexamined life. I had platonic female friends, but I was unwilling to get intimately involved with a woman who didn’t share my beliefs, which impeded any possibility of a romantic relationship.

While back in Canada for a couple years, I kept my cult life a secret from everyone. I didn’t even discuss it with my family. Because of cult conformity and groupthink, cult members are often considered by outsiders as brainwashed automatons, acting like robots without minds of their own. That isn’t an entirely accurate characterization. Although heavily indoctrinated, they still have the capacity to exercise their own will. However, that capacity is squelched, resisted, buried in the unconscious to make it easier to conform with the group.

Mr. Robot – Styx

You're wondering who I am (Secret, secret, I've got a secret) Machine or mannequin (Secret, secret, I've got a secret) With parts made in Japan (Secret, secret, I've got a secret) I am the Modern Man I've got a secret I've been hiding under my skin My heart is human, my blood is boiling my brain So if you see me acting strangely, don't be surprised I'm just a man who needed someone and somewhere to hide To keep me alive, just keep me alive Somewhere to hide to keep me alive I'm not a robot without emotions, I'm not what you see I've come to help you with your problems, so we can be free I'm not a hero, I'm not a savior, forget what you know I'm just a man whose circumstances went beyond his control Beyond my control, we all need control I need control, I need control all need control

In this chapter I describe my father’s family history, which he never talked to me about, and my shock to meet his mother, my grandmother who I had always thought was dead.

If I had known my dad’s story I might have at least partly understood why he never talked to me about his parents or his childhood. But not knowing those facts, I always assumed both his parents died while he was very young, so he had few memories of them to talk about. That’s why I was so shocked when, out of the blue, my dad introduced me to his mother and half-brother.

It happened after I had moved out of my parent’s house. When my mum called me one day to come meet some relatives, the last thing I expected was to be introduced to my grandmother, who I thought was dead, and an uncle I didn’t know existed. Dumbstruck and confused, my head was spinning trying make sense of this revelation. We made small talk, but our conversations stayed superficial, and I didn’t ask her or my dad the questions I had. Did he always know she was alive and where she was? If so, why did he keep her a secret from us until now?

Perhaps I was hoping they would provide the answer to those and other questions in the various conversations going on, but that didn’t happen. By the time she left a few days later, all my unasked questions remained unanswered. I still knew next to nothing about her or her relationship with my dad. I don’t know if they stayed in contact with each other after that, but I never saw or heard of her again.

Family Affair – Sly & the Family Stone

It's a family affair Over there, world gone bad You can't leave 'cause your heart is there But, sure, you can't stay 'cause you been somewhere else You can't cry 'cause you'll look broke down But you're cryin' anyway 'cause you're all broke down

In the last part of this chapter, I tell the story of hearing Bob Dylan’s song Gotta Serve Somebody and how that reactivated my cult indoctrination and led me back to the cult. I foreshadow that event in the opening paragraphs of the first chapter in my memoir, which you can also read about in the second episode in this Soundtrack To My Life series here

[this is an excerpt from my memoir]

Shortly after that I heard the song “Gotta Serve Somebody” from Bob Dylan’s new gospel album, Slow Train Coming. I interpreted it as an even more direct message from God. When I first heard it on the car radio I immediately parked so I could listen to the lyrics. It was astonishing to hear Dylan paraphrasing the same scripture that Children of God recruiters first impressed on me seven years earlier when they encouraged me to drop out and serve Jesus: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24) The song evoked a strong emotional reaction. My indoctrination had been reactivated.

While I was considering the changes in the Children of God, and contemplating the divine signs calling me to return to the Family, I suddenly became homeless. When my uncle verbally abused me in a drunken rage, I packed my bags and moved out the next morning. For the next few weeks I slept on couches, first with a friend and then with my cousin, until I finally found my own furnished apartment. It was the first time in my 24 year-old life that I lived alone, but it didn’t last long.

A couple weeks after I moved in, my landlady gave me an eviction notice without any warning. She lived directly below me and claimed I was making unreasonable noise. I was shocked by her unreasonableness, but I was too inexperienced to know I could’ve fought the eviction and probably won. That was the last straw. I gave up trying to conform to worldly expectations.

In some ways life with the Children of God had infantilized me. My abnormal adolescent transition to adulthood within the strictures of a secretive, socially isolated, sect had not properly prepared me to handle the responsibilities, difficulties and uncertainties of living independently in the real world. I saw my inability to stand on my own and secure stable housing as another sign directing me back to my spiritual life as an itinerant evangelist.

For quite awhile I had been feeling unfulfilled, frustrated and lonely living a mundane life while waiting for doomsday. Serving God with like-minded disciples in the Children of God had given my life meaning and purpose, and provided many exotic adventures. Now, with no anchors keeping me grounded in reality, nothing was stopping me from returning to them. So, before my eviction took effect and I had to find a new place, I decided to dropout a second time and rejoin what I was convinced was the new and improved Children of God, rebranded as the Family of Love.

Gotta Serve Somebody – Bob Dylan (Take 1 - Slow Train Coming studio outtake)

But you’re going to have to serve somebody, yes indeedYou’re going to have to serve somebodyWell, it may be the devil or it may be the LordBut you’re going to have to serve somebody

Music featured in this article:

Run Through The Jungle – Creedence Clearwater Revival

Country Roads – John Denver

El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could) – Simon and Garfunkle

Morning Has Broken – Cat Stevens

Moonshadow – Cat Stevens

An Unwelcome Guest – The Lodger

This chapter of my memoir has an unusual title. As I explain in the Introduction episode of this series,

the chapter titles changed during the drafting process. Initially, all the titles were song titles or song lyrics, but not all those titles survived the final edit. In this case, I couldn’t make up my mind, so I just left this working title as the final version because it describes a major development in my story.

One thing that didn’t make the final cut was an anecdote I started this chapter with about a Japanese soldier who hid in a Philippine a jungle for decades after WW2 ended, because he didn’t know the war had ended. I thought that story was a good metaphor for the events I tell in this chapter, how I left the cult while stationed in the Manila commune, and fled on my own to a remote jungle village on the southern island of Mindanao. This is the paragraph cut from the final version.

In March 1974, a WW2 Japanese soldier emerged from a Philippine jungle where he had been hiding since 1945.i Persuaded that the war he continued to fight alone all those years ended decades earlier, he finally returned to Japan. The next year I left Japan to join my fellow Christian soldiers in the Philippines. Then a year after that I too fled to a jungle hideout, deserting my spiritual army, but still believing endtime wars would soon lead to the rise of the Antichrist.

When thinking of relevant music for this chapter, I first thought of the Guns and Roses song Welcome to the Jungle, because the residents of that jungle village welcomed me with open arms. However, those lyrics, which are about a concrete ‘jungle’, don’t match the subject of this chapter as good as the Creedence Clearwater Revival song Run Through the Jungle, with its war theme and references to the devil and Satan.

Run Through The Jungle – Creedence Clearwater Revival

Whoa thought it was a nightmare Lord it was so true They told me don’t go walking slow The devil’s on the loose Better run through the jungle Whoa don’t look back to see Thought I heard a rumblin’ Callin’ to my name Two hundred million guns are loaded Satan cries, “Take aim!”

This chapter in my memoir covers the entire two years I was in the Philippines, the first year in the cult, and the second year out of it, as I’ve explained. I tell the story of my second love affair, this time with a Filipina cult member, which was also forbidden by the leaders. We ran away together for several days, but finally returned to the commune only for her to leave the cult without me. Several months later I left too.

I also describe my travels all throughout Luzon, the main island of the archipelago, while in the cult, and throughout the southern island of Mindanao after I left the cult. During my time in the Philippines I often evangelized with my guitar, singing our cult songs, but also including some mainstream gospel and pop songs. The first paragraph in this excerpt is when I was in the Baguio commune, the rest describes my arrival in the Mindanao village after I left the cult.

Our house was walking distance to the main parts of town where we litnessed, including the large park in the centre of the city where we sang and danced to attract people. Some evenings a few of us sang our gospel songs in coffeehouses and bars that had open mic nights. Road teams also regularly travelled to towns in the other northern provinces.

...

It was twilight when my companion suddenly called out to the driver to stop. We seemed to be in the middle of a jungle. At first I saw only palm trees and other tropical vegetation, but then spotted a few bamboo houses on the ocean side of the road. The bus left us in a cloud of dust and once that settled I saw a few more houses on the other side. One of them was his mother’s humble hillside hut.

Strolling around the next morning, I realized the village was larger than it first appeared in the dark. Word had already spread that there was a foreign visitor. When I stopped to chat with a few people setting up a fiesta stage in the square they seemed relieved when I told them how I met the guy I arrived with. They explained that his mother was one of the poorest villagers, so it would be more appropriate for me to stay in one of their homes instead. I later learned they were concerned because he had a bad reputation.

The Barrio Captain said I could stay in his home, proudly explaining it was the only one with a refrigerator, but Ricky had invited me first. He was a security guard in Medina and his wife, Gloria, was a teacher at Portulin Elementary School. They spoke better English and were closer to my age, so I preferred to stay with them in their bamboo stilt house near the beach.

Ricky showed me around the community, pointing out the outhouse I should use and the communal well where I could take an outdoor bath. When he learned I played guitar, he encouraged me to join the performers on stage that evening. I borrowed a guitar and sang some Children of God songs and a few by Simon and Garfunkle, Cat Stevens, and John Denver. When I sang Denver’s “Country Roads”, they enthusiastically sang along. The music helped me break the language barrier, and befriend the entire village.

Country Roads – John Denver. This song was a real crowd-pleaser everywhere I played it.

Country roads, take me home To the place I belong I hear her voice in the morning hour, she calls me The radio reminds me of my home far away Driving down the road, I get a feeling That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday

El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could) – Simon and Garfunkle

I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail Yes I would If I could I surely would I’d rather be a hammer than a nail Yes I would If I only could I surely would Away, I’d rather sail away Like a swan that’s here and gone A man gets tied up to the ground He gives the world Its saddest sound Its saddest sound I’d rather be a forest than a street Yes I would If I could I surely would I’d rather feel the earth beneath my feet Yes I would If I only could I surely would

Morning Has Broken – Cat Stevens. The religious lyrics made this song acceptable to play in the cult.

Morning has broken like the first morning Blackbird has spoken like the first bird Praise for the singing, praise for the morning Praise for them springing fresh from the world Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning Born of the One Light Eden saw play Praise with elation, praise every morning God’s recreation of the new day

Moonshadow – Cat Stevens. Placing this song here foreshadows a strange moonshadow cast by David Berg’s bizarre beliefs about the moon, coming up in chapter 17 of this series, Heavenly Lunacy, that you don’t want to miss.

Yes I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow Moonshadow, moonshadow Leapin’ and hoppin’ on a moonshadow Moonshadow, moonshadow Did it take long to find me? I asked the faithful light Oh did it take long to find me And are you gonna stay the night?

After staying in that jungle village for about six months, I moved to Cagayan de Oro, a city on the north coast of Mindanao, hoping to find a legal way I could stay in the Philippines so I didn’t have to return to Canada. One of the villagers gave me a referral to his good friend who owned a motel in the city. I ended up living with his family for several months, before I had worn out my welcome.

Jun gave me a free room and we had regular conversations for the week or so that I stayed there. He was a very kind man who probably would’ve helped me even without a referral from his friend. When the motel became fully booked he extended his hospitality, inviting me to stay with him and his wife, Amy, and their three children, Whilcey, Sandy and Maris.

...

...Initially, I considered looking for a job, assuming that would allow me to get a work visa. I spoke with a lawyer who explained that I was only eligible for a work visa if I was indispensable to a potential employer because no Philippine citizen was suitable, able or willing to do the job. But I was a 21-year-old high school drop out with no skills or work experience. It was highly unlikely I could find a job that fulfilled the visa requirements for foreign workers.

Other visa categories also allowed extended stays in the country, if I had a substantial amount of money. The only other way was to marry a Filipino citizen, but in my desperate situation finding someone for a legitimate marriage, or even a marriage of convenience, seemed just as impossible as finding an eligible job. I was also reluctant to return to either the Children of God or Canada.

The only other way I could stay in the country was if Berg’s endtime predictions happened before I had to leave, and I became a refugee. So, I continued to rely on Jun and Amy’s hospitality, while waiting for America’s destruction. I stayed with them a couple months, usually going out for the day and returning for dinner. Instead of making practical plans, I continued to delusionally delay the inevitable, until my hosts gave me a much needed wake-up call.

At Christmas that year, 1976, they included me in celebrations with their extended family. At times over the evening I sensed some conflict between a few relatives when they spoke Filipino, which I didn’t understand. Everyone was very friendly with me, though, so I assumed either I misinterpreted the tone of their conversation or it was merely minor family tensions that typically arise on such occasions. It didn’t occur to me that they might have been talking about the guest who wouldn’t leave.

My hosts eventually had enough of my freeloading, but like those in Portulin, they didn’t directly confront me and ask me to leave. Instead, I came back early one evening to find my backpack outside their front door. They had buzzed me through the security gate so I could get it, but wouldn’t open the door when I knocked. I deserved to be evicted, so didn’t blame them, but I was shocked and not sure where to go.

Fortunately, I had made friends with a nearby squatter community of tinsmiths, and they gave me a place to stay for the final couple months before I had no choice but to leave the Philippines and return to Canada. The following song captures the confusion I was in as I fled cruel cult leaders in the Manila commune, but still believed in Berg’s endtime predictions. I hid out on the island of Mindanao for a year, over-staying my welcome in two places as I waited anxiously for World War 3 and the rise of the Antichrist.

An Unwelcome Guest – The Lodger

Listen to the words Come out of my mouth I′m leaving this place And moving down south This time It’s a new way of life I haven′t got much hope It’s gone beyond a joke I find I live my life in a daydream A reverie A constant stream Would you like to extend your hand And help a man who can’t understand? Why everyone is leaving the nest I′m feeling like an unwelcome guest

i Hiroo Onoda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda

Music featured in this chapter:

I Feel the Earth Move – Carol King

What Is A Youth - Glen Weston

I Don’t Need No Doctor – Ray Charles

There is double meaning to that title, which readers of my memoir might have realized. As discussed in the previous chapter, my pre-cult sex education both at home and at school was quite inadequate. In this chapter I discuss my sexual maturation, which was occurring in the context of Berg’s deviant sexual teachings within the closed community of the cult. In the following academic article published in the International Cultic Studies Association journal, International Journal of Coercion, Abuse and Manipulation, Vol 8, 2025, I describe Berg’s sexual grooming of his followers through a series of publications:

As each new doctrine filtered down through the ranks, there was often a disconnect between what Berg taught in his letters addressed directly to all his followers, and what regional and local leaders were allowing and implementing. In this chapter I describe my first secretive sexual experiences and my confusion over what I was permitted to do or not.

In the first part of this chapter I describe my first few months in Japan, evangelizing on the road in southern Honshu with another member. On that long road trip my partner had a sexual encounter with a non-member, and when he reported it to our leaders in Tokyo he was reprimanded for it. We both thought he was just obeying Berg’s teachings, so that added to my confusion over the new sexual doctrines. I was then recruited to work in the regional leaders home in Tokyo, where at age 18 I had my first sexual experiences. My first teen love story did not end happily.

I befriended other neighbours too. On the block beside our building there was a small convenience store. I quickly made friends with the owner who often invited me into his home in the back for tea. ...A few times he invited me to join him and his wife for dinner.

At one of those meals he introduced me to his niece, Keiko, who had recently moved to Tokyo to attend school. She was about my age and lived nearby in her own apartment a short walk up the narrow lane that separated the two blocks. ... I invited her to one of our weekend parties.

... Near the end of an exuberant evening of spiritually inspiring singing and dancing, one of the hosts led our visitors in a group salvation prayer. Caught up in the infectious enthusiasm, Keiko joined in. She was probably still emotionally aroused when I walked her home soon after.

Outside her building I said goodbye and reached out to give her an habitual holy hug, a non-sexual brotherly love embrace we used as a greeting or when departing. Before I joined I never saw people, including my own family, hug like that. It wasn’t part of Japanese culture either, so while I naively intended my hug as a purely spiritual gesture, Keiko interpreted it differently. Tightening our embrace, she suddenly started kissing me, taking my breath away.

I succumbed to the sensuality spreading from her soft lips and tongue, and we continued kissing for several minutes before I left. That was the first time I had kissed a girl, and I was infatuated by it. After the next party she came to, instead of walking her straight home, I took her to the roof top of our building.

... I wasn’t sure how Abby and Laadah would react, even though I was 18 years old, so I didn’t tell them about those two make out sessions. If they had known, they might not have given me permission when Keiko invited me to go out with her and her friends for a meal and a movie.

...I also don’t know if Keiko, or her friends, intentionally chose the movie, 1968’s Romeo and Juliet, which was re-released in 1973. The love story, and particularly the bedroom balcony scene, fuelled my desire and inspired me to find a way to be alone with my Juliet. I had to be as sneaky as Romeo to make that happen without anyone knowing.

Fortunately, I wasn’t as closely supervised in that commune as in previous ones. A few times I had the staff apartment to myself when the others were out of town on a litnessing road trip or some other mission.

... I had no intention of telling Abby and Laadah about that sexual tryst with Keiko. Mindful of how Brother Sun was reprimanded for his flirty fishing sexcapade, I was sure they would disapprove. Keiko was also trying to keep our affair a secret from her uncle. She was worried her nosy neighbour might tell him if she saw or heard me coming and going from her apartment late at night, so she came to my place the next time I was alone for the weekend. However, considering the almost Shakespearean way we were discovered, we were apparently star-crossed just like the playwright’s forbidden lovers.

We had just started to make-out, playfully rolling around on the floor semi-clothed, when the floor itself began to rock and roll. It wasn’t us making the earth move, it was an earthquake! When an earthquake strikes, it can take several seconds to realize what’s happening. Our sexual arousal probably also delayed our reaction as the building began to sway, until things started falling off a shelf.

We jumped up and dashed to the window, sticking our heads out to see what was going on. Abby and Laadah were doing the same thing in their apartment directly above. Looking down, they saw two heads where there should have only been one and called out to me. Caught in the act, I didn’t know how to react. Keiko left, and I never saw her again.

...

I Feel the Earth Move – Carol King

I feel the earth move under my feet I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down I feel my heart start to trembling Whenever you’re around

Here is the Japanese poster for the 1968 movie Romeo and Juliet, which was re-released in 1973. It played in Tokyo in 1974, which is when I saw it with Keiko.

What Is A Youth - Glen Weston, love theme in the 1968 movie Romeo and Juliet. Spoiler alert: Romeo and Juliet die, just like my secret relationship with Keiko did.

What is a youth Impetuous fire What is a maid Ice and desire The world wags on A rose will bloom It then will fade So does a youth So does the fairest maid Comes a time when one sweet smile Has its seasons for awhile Then Love’s in love with me Some may think only to marry Others will tease and tarry Mine is the very best parry Cupid he rules us all Caper the cape, sing me the song Death will come soon to hush us along Sweeter than honey and bitter as gall Love is a pass-time that never will pall Sweeter than honey and bitter as gall Cupid he rules us all

In this chapter I also describe the time I almost died because of Berg’s doctrines regarding medical care. After the leaders discovered my affair with Keiko, they feared problems with her uncle and father, who was a policeman, so they sent me away from Tokyo.

I soon left on a road trip to Shikoku island where my next sexual encounter got me into more trouble. My partner and I were staying in a youth hostel in the city of Komatsushima when I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst abdominal pain I’ve ever experienced. I suffered for hours, barely enduring the agony, waiting for the day to start. My worried partner told the hostel manager who suggested I go to the Red Cross hospital, which fortunately was right across the street. My partner insisted I go, but I resisted at first, reluctant because of my indoctrination.

Berg taught that God allowed sickness to punish us for our sins or to test our faith. He made it clear from the beginning that going to a doctor showed a lack of faith and trust in God’s healing power. One of the earliest Mo Letters was “Faith And Healing”. It concerns Japheth and Hannah, the leaders of the Port Alberni commune where I joined. ...

...

I didn’t know if God was punishing me for my sins or testing my faith. Regardless, hours of excruciating pain eventually overpowered my fear of failing God. I agreed to go to the hospital. After an examination in the emergency ward, I waited unbearably long for the blood test and x-ray results, moaning, groaning and pacing around the waiting area.

...

As they wheeled me into the operating room, I was dreading both the surgery and the consequences of disappointing God and my leaders. The kind nurse who prepped me must have noticed how nervous I looked because she comforted me by holding my hand as I went under. Afterwards, the doctor told me he operated just in time as my infected appendix was close to rupturing. If it had it could’ve caused serious problems, even death, if left untreated. My indoctrination almost prevented me from getting that treatment. Pain probably saved my life.

...

According to Berg’s dogma, God allowed my appendicitis for a reason, so Abby and Medad came down from Tokyo to find out what that was. Suggesting I was out of God’s will in some way, they pressed me to confess. In my fragile state, facing another interrogation about sex so soon after the other, it didn’t take much pressure to break me.

If God was testing my faith with the illness, then I failed him by having surgery. If he was punishing me, I wasn’t sure why. It was like I was back in the Catholic confessional booth, childishly trying to think of some sins I must’ve been be guilty of. I couldn’t think of anything I did to displease God prior to my illness that Abby and Medad hadn’t already dealt with in Tokyo. Needing to confess something, though, I told them about the gaijin hunter in the hospital. ... I remained based out of the Osaka commune for a few more months, until I was arrested by an immigration officer.

I Don’t Need No Doctor – Ray Charles

I don’t need no doctor For my prescription to be filled I don’t need no Aspirins (I don’t need no doctor) I don’t need no lotion (I don’t need no doctor) I say, I don’t need (I don’t need no doctor) No vitamin pills (I don’t need no doctor) I don’t need no surgery (I don’t need no doctor)

Music featured in this chapter:

Sexual Revolution – Macy Gray

This chapter of my memoir opens with my arrival in Hawaii after fleeing what I believed was the imminent destruction of the United States. A couple months later I left for Japan. After describing my first few months in Japan, I stop that narrative just before describing my first sexual experience, which happened in Tokyo, in order to discuss the cult’s sexual doctrines and my own sexual education before I “joined” the cult.

Before I joined the Children of God I was quite awkward around girls. I didn’t have female friendships and was too shy to talk to girls I was attracted to, so I never danced at school dances, dated, or had a girlfriend. One time my high school friend Dave set up a blind date for me with his girlfriend’s friend. He didn’t tell me, though, so I wasn’t expecting them when they showed up at his place. Soon after they arrived, Dave and his girlfriend disappeared to his room. I was extremely uncomfortable in that situation, alone with a girl I didn’t know and wasn’t attracted to. Embarrassed, unsure how to act or what to say, I panicked and ran out the door without a word.

Soon after that I joined the Children of God, so never developed the social-emotional skills that teens and young adults typically learn through dating rituals. Members were forbidden to date or have any sexual contact of any kind outside of marriage, which required a leader’s approval. However, unknown to all but his inner circle, Berg had been living a sexually permissive lifestyle secretly behind the scenes, while imposing those strict rules on most of his followers.

Berg eventually began to relax those rules by publishing his boundary-breaking beliefs on sexuality in a series of letters. He began grooming his followers to accept his unorthodox sexual doctrines in “Revolutionary Sex”,i in which he emphasizes the godly naturalness of nudity, masturbation and sexuality in general, and criticizes religious dogma that sees sex as shameful. Some passages foreshadow later letters that opened the door to almost every kind of sexual activity.

Sexual Revolution – Macy Gray

Everybody shake it time to be free amongst yourselves your mama told you to be discreet and keep your freak to yourself but your mama lied to you all this time she knows as well as you and I you’ve got to express what is taboo in you and share your freak with the rest of us cause it’s a beautiful thang this is my sexual revolution Everybody break it Every rule every constriction My papa told me to be home by now But my party has just begun Maybe he’ll understand that I got to be To be the freak that God made me So many things that I want to try Got to do them before I die

I discuss in detail my own inadequate sex education both at home and at school prior to the cult. I also thoroughly document David Berg’s sexual grooming of his followers over several years through a series of publications that gradually removed almost all sexual boundaries and taboos. I have also summarized those sexual doctrines in an academic journal article, David Berg’s Perversion of Biblical Bridal Theology in the Children of God/The Family, published March 14, 2025 in the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) journal International Journal of Coercion, Abuse and Manipulation, Vol 8, 2025, which you can read here:

i David Berg, “Revolutionary Sex”, March 27, 1973

Music featured in this chapter:

American Pie – Don McLean

I Shall Be Released – Bob Dylan

Human Be-In videos from the first one in San Francisco and later ones in Vancouver

Kohoutek – R.E.M.

The Message Of Jeremiah - J. Russel

This chapter in my memoir opens with these paragraphs:

The Children of God in the U.S. and Canada began fleeing to foreign mission fields in 1971, heeding Berg’s doomsday warnings about the impending destruction of America. That same year, Don McLean released his album American Pie, and the title track became a number one hit in 1972. Although McLean has always refused to explain the meaning of the song or confirm interpretations of its many cultural allusions, he did say he was reflecting on the decline of America when he wrote it.

Berg’s interpretation of the lyrics twisted the song’s metaphors to fit his doomsday message. In the Mo Letter “Bye, Bye, Pie”, Berg said the broken church bells and the children screaming in the streets represented the Children of God decrying the ineffective church system and warning of God’s abandonment of America, which he claimed was depicted as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost taking the last train to the coast when the music died. He wrote that the song was “an uncanny prophetic parable about the death of America”, and he connected it to his 1961 Message of Jeremiah doomsday prophecy:

It not only mourns the passing of America, but also the death of a lost generation and the end of their music of hopefulness! In fact, I am sure that the inspiration of this ballad of gloom goes far beyond the significance the composer dreamed! The kids understand its spirit even if they don’t comprehend the meaning of the words. It’s like the lamentations of Jeremiah over the ruins of Jerusalem. It’s youth’s lament over the death of America and the music that died with her and her lost generation. … This song reminds me of what God gave us about America in ‘America the W***e’, as Babylon in the Bible, Revelation 18:21-22: “Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down and shall be found no more at all!--And the voice of harpers and musicians and of pipers and trumpeters shall be heard no more at all in thee!”

Two months before that letter, Berg published “America the W***e”, claiming that the U.S. was “tottering and reeling on the brink of economic and political disaster, about to fall to her doom, a perfect picture of the certain self-destruction of corrupt Capitalism by its own selfish weakness and rottenness and cruelty, as predicted by both Marx and the Bible! … and when she falls, the whole world capitalistic System is bound to fall with her!” Many Mo Letters in that period contained similarly extreme anti-American diatribes warning of its impending destruction, and pushing members still there to flee to foreign fields.

The lyrics in McLean’s epic song, with their many references to songs, personalities and pop culture, capture the zeitgeist of the 1960s perhaps even better than Dylan’s Murder Most Foul does.

American Pie – Don McLean

Did you write the book of love? And do you have faith in God above If the Bible tells you so? Now, do you believe in rock ‘n’ roll? Can music save your mortal soul? ... Oh, and there we were all in one place A generation lost in space With no time left to start again ... I went down to the sacred store Where I’d heard the music years before But the man there said the music wouldn’t play And in the streets, the children screamed The lovers cried and the poets dreamed But not a word was spoken The church bells all were broken And the three men I admire most The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost They caught the last train for the coast The day the music died And they were singing bye, bye, Miss American Pie

In the early years of the Children of God, before it had an extensive catalogue of songs written by members specifically based on the cult’s teachings, we also sang some well known gospel songs, such as Oh Happy Day, which was a big hit in 1967. However, I was unaware at the time that some songs we sang paraphrased hit pop songs of the day, replacing some lyrics with religious words, phrases and imagery. This confused me when I went home for Christmas 1972, only about 9 months after I had left home to “join” the cult.

At the end of November I moved to Vancouver. As Christmas approached, the leader advised those of us with families in the province to go visit them over the holidays. Though partly a public relations ploy to convince critics we were not brainwashed captives, it was also a test of commitment that weeded out those who were weak in faith and not fully dedicated disciples. Not everyone who went home for Christmas returned to the group. It was the first time I went anywhere alone since joining about nine months earlier.

Once I was on my own in Port Alberni, without the constant peer pressure from other members, it was the best opportunity anyone would have to try and persuade me to drop out of dropping out and return to normal life. With each move to a new commune, I was getting farther away from my family. That visit was the last chance for someone to offer me guidance and suggest alternatives to life with the Children of God. I might’ve been susceptible to such persuasion.

I stayed two weeks, which was longer than I had planned. Perhaps I was just enjoying the comforts of home, or maybe I lingered because subconsciously I hoped someone would intervene and discuss my future with me. I participated in my family’s holiday rituals and visitations with relatives, but I don’t recall having any meaningful conversations.

While visiting relatives during that holiday visit, I heard a song played on the radio that really puzzled me. It was Bob Dylan’s I Shall Be Released. I wasn’t very familiar with Dylan’s songs at the time, not like I was with The Beatles, so when I heard it on the radio I was confused. We sang that song in the cult, with the word “light” in the lyric changed to “Lord”, so I thought that somehow our cult song was playing on the radio.

I Shall Be Released – Bob Dylan

I see my light come shining From the west down to the east Any day now, any day now I shall be released

In chapters two and three of my memoir and this series I refer to the 1967 Summer of Love, which followed the first Human Be-In in San Francisco earlier that year. That Be-in was imitated in other cities, including Vancouver, British Columbia.

... We often got more than enough free food to feed ourselves, so we used some of it in our street evangelism. On weekend evenings we parked our converted school bus on the Granville strip, one of Vancouver’s busiest shopping and entertainment areas. A sign outside our bus advertised free food, usually peanutbutter and banana sandwiches, and our gospel music played over external speakers. Songs and sandwiches were lures we used to try to hook people on Jesus.

The summer of 1973 we took the bus to one of the last hippy be-ins in Stanley Park, held annually since the first one there in March 1967, modeled on San Francisco’s Human Be-In that same year. We set up on the edge of the festival, passed out sandwiches, sang songs and witnessed to anyone interested. The Hare Krishna were there too, also giving out free food to the tie-dyed crowd. I often encountered them around Vancouver doing the same things we were. Though we had different religious messages, our proselytizing methods were similar: using music and food to lure people, selling literature on the street, and setting up evangelistic missions abroad. I would next encounter Hare Krishna members on the streets of Japan, and one in an immigration office where we were both being interrogated.

The following videos capture some scenes from those musical gatherings.

The first Human Be-In takes place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park January 14, 1967

First Vancouver BE-IN, March 26th 1967

Vancouver Easter Be-in, Stanley Park April 6, 1969 [no volume in this video]

David Berg had long predicted America’s destruction as a precursor to the rise of the antichrist and the second-coming. Now he believed that a heavenly doomsday messenger confirmed his dire predictions.

On March 7, 1973 the Czech astronomer, Lubos Kohoutek, discovered a comet passing through the solar system. Scientists speculated it would produce a spectacular display as it passed by Earth at the end of December that year. Anticipating that effect, various news media, including TIME magazine, described it throughout the ensuing months as the “comet of the century”, until its unimpressive arrival.i Encouraged by those media reports, Berg proclaimed his own ominous prediction. He wrote a couple lettersii about the coming comet before predicting, in the Mo Letter “40 Days!”, that the United States would be destroyed 40 days after Kohoutek appeared.iii

In a subsequent letter, “The Comet Comes”, Berg discusses an article headlined on the cover of the British magazine SAGA, “The Christmas Comet: Omen of Peace--or Doomsday Messenger?” The article confirmed Berg’s beliefs about comets being harbingers of historically important events. Relying on the article’s questionable scientific and historical claims, other pseudoscience such as predictions by well known astrologers, and his own numerology, Berg agreed with the author that the comet was having negative effects on the world even before it was visible. They both connected a variety of significant political, social, and environmental events around the world to the comet. Berg also believed that the predictions by astrologers matched his own end-time prophecies:

All of these predictions coincide almost exactly with the interpretations of Bible prophecy and our own personal revelations in recent years which place the Second Coming of Christ about 1993 after all these foregoing events. What an amazing correlation of the forecasts of scientists, astrologers and prophets alike!iv

Although Kohoutek was a little brighter than most comets and visible to the naked eye, it didn’t come close to being the comet of the century as expected, disappointing most observers, though not Berg. He simply reinterpreted events after the fact, explaining in the letter “The Comet’s Tale”v that because the Children of God had warned the world with his message, God didn’t need the comet’s tail to be a visual warning sign of doomsday. Whether observable or not, he insisted the comet did portend all the significant world events that preceded its arrival, and the ones he predicted would follow.

Kohoutek – R.E.M. Somewhat similar to R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion, which is about unrequited love, in Kohoutek an attractive girl is compared to the comet – flashing, beautiful, and gone all too soon. Interestingly, the cover of the album this song is in shows a bible on fire.

She wore bangles, she wore bells on her toes And she jumped like a fish Like a flying friend, you were gone Like Kohoutek, can’t forget that

Although the comet itself was a let down, it did help Berg put pressure on his followers to flee America. I was in a group that left for Hawaii on our way to various countries in East and Southeast Asia and the South Pacific thought to be safer in the event of nuclear war.

Amos had prearranged for a television reporter from Seattle’s most popular evening news program to come to [our commune] to interview and film the Children of God fleeing America. The morning of our flight, a few days before the end of the year, the reporter interviewed Amos and filmed us packing our vehicles. The TV crew then followed us to the airport, filming our motorcade, which included other members just there for the camera. With the camera rolling, the reporter followed us inside to the check-in counter, and then to the waiting area where we sang the doomsday song “The Message of Jeremiah”.vi

When we arrived in Hawaii later that evening we learned that the final scene of the news report showed our exit through the boarding gate and the plane taking off. Caleb and Lydia, who went to Hawaii several weeks before we did, excitedly told us that the report’s dramatic scenes of the Children of God’s departure from doomed America had been rebroadcast around the country.

Message of Jeremiah – words and lyrics by J. Russel, who was a member of the Children of God. As part of our evangelistic doomsday warnings, we frequently sang this song in public, in parks and city streets, while distributing literature, such as America The W***e, referenced at the beginning of this post.

The message of Jeremiah God has committed unto my hands. The judgements of God Are soon to be poured out Upon these wicked lands. You better get right with God, Receive Jesus, before it is too late. If you don’t intend to repent, You better prepare To meet your coming fate!

i Comet Kohoutek

ii David Berg, “The Christmas Monster”, September 8, 1973

”More on Kohoutek” --The Coming Comet of the Century!, November 4, 1973

iii David Berg, “40 Days!”, November 12, 1973

iv David Berg, ”The Comet Comes”, December 20, 1973, pars.3,33

v David Berg, “The Comet’s Tale”, January 24, 1974, par. 34

vi The Message of Jeremiah song lyrics Full lyrics here: https://www.nubeat.org/audio/1ad/dm-btb/LYR15.html

Music featured in this chapter:

The Prophet’s Song – Queen

I thought it was important to include in my memoir David Berg’s origin myth in which he declares himself the final endtime prophet before the second-coming of Jesus, which he prophesied would be in 1993. It helps readers understand the influence he had on tens of thousands of followers around the world, and gives context to my own story. After just a few months of indoctrination, I fully believed Berg was the endtime prophet, and I believed his predictions of a specific timeline of end of the world events.

I had now finished my first three months of basic training, studying the Bible, memorizing the set-card scriptures and reading Mo Letters that prepared us for the next stage of indoctrination. After that test period, new members were ready for a deeper dive into the group’s dogma, which included learning Mo’s real name, David Berg. We were permitted to read a series of letters that revealed he was God’s final end-time prophet. Study sessions now focused on Berg’s origin story, his doomsday warning message for a wicked world, and a timeline of specific biblical end-time events that Berg predicted would culminate with Christ’s return in 1993.

...

It wasn’t just Berg’s radical Christian message, but his autocratic control of the Children of God through a chain of command that made them different from the Jesus People Army, some of whom rejected the merger of the two groups because of his leadership role. Berg believed he was the final end-time prophet, the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies that refer to a king named David living in the last days before the second coming of Christ.

...

To convince his followers that certain scriptures refer specifically to him as the last true prophet before the Second Coming, Berg created an origin story ...

...

Within fours years of founding the Children of God, Berg declared that he was personally named in the Bible as the prophet-king who would lead God’s people in the end-time, that his word was God’s word, and that Jesus was coming back in 1993. After six months of indoctrination I believed him. I hadn’t learned to think critically about claims like that, and it was even harder to doubt or question them when the information presented to me was supported by the moral authority of the Bible, a holy book I believed was absolutely true, like many do. My indoctrination ensured I didn’t doubt the Bible, or Berg.

...

I quickly learned to squelch my doubts and bury them in the back of my mind. No longer thinking for myself, but conditioned to groupthink, Berg’s end-time prophecies convinced me Jesus was coming back in 1993. That belief kept me committed to his doomsday mission.

Jesus told his disciples the end would only come after the gospel was preached to the entire world. “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” (Matthew 24:14) I would soon flee the impending destruction of America and become a missionary spreading Berg’s end-time message in Asia, eagerly waiting for Jesus to return.

The Prophet’s Song – Queen

“Oh-oh, people of the Earth Listen to the warning,” the seer, he said Beware the storm that gathers here Listen to the wise man “Oh-oh, people of the Earth Listen to the warning,” the prophet, he said For soon, the cold of night will fall Summoned by your own hand Oh-oh, children of the land Quicken to the new life, take my hand Oh-oh, children of the land Love is still the answer, take my hand The vision fades, a voice I hear “Listen to the madman”

Music featured in this chapter:

Little Boxes - Malvina Reynolds

School’s Out – Alice Cooper

Another Brick In The Wall, Part Two – Pink Floyd

Dust In The Wind – Kansas

No Time - The Guess Who

In this chapter of my memoir I provide the full text of an article published in the Alberni Valley Times a month or so after I “joined” the local commune. At the top of the article was the transcription of the note I put in a Mother’s Day card that the reporter obtained from my mum. That note started with these lyrics to the Children of God song, “All I Want To Do Is Serve Him”.

One day I took, I took an honest look, I tried everything, I played every game in the book, And I saw there was nothing in this world to live for any more. Then one day, one day I heard about, A certain man, a man who could work things out, So I came to Jesus, you know He came in and showed me the way. Now all I want to do is serve Him That others may know Him And the power of His love.

In that note to my mum I wrote: “Other mothers can say: my son is a doctor or lawyer, or my son lives in a mansion with two swimming pools. But you can say, my son lives and works for Jesus.” And in an endnote about that AV Times article I wrote:

“My reference to “a doctor or lawyer” in the Mother’s Day card is directly related to lyrics in the 1960s folk song “Little Boxes”, a satirical song about middle class conformity, with specific references to university, doctors and lawyers. We often sang it in an elementary school music class, and I absorbed its nonconformist attitude along with other countercultural influences of the time.”

Ironically, I did become a lawyer after I escaped the cult, which my mum was very proud of.

Little Boxes - Malvina Reynolds

Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes made of ticky-tacky Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes all the same There’s a pink one and a green one And a blue one and a yellow one And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky And they all look just the same And the people in the houses All went to the university Where they were put in boxes And they came out all the same And there’s doctors and lawyers And business executives And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky And they all look just the same

Although that newspaper report included community religious leaders expressing concerns for young teens like me being recruited by the cult, none of them mentioned educational concerns.

An important fact not mentioned in the article is that I dropped out of high school midway through grade 11 to join the Children of God. It’s an odd omission considering all the concerns parents and pastors had about their children being led astray by the group. Although the head of the ministerial association criticized the group for shunning social responsibilities and paid employment, he said nothing about their rejection of the education system. Neither did the reporter, even though the recent Sun series reported stories similar to mine of teens dropping out of school.

If the reporter had been allowed to interview me, she would’ve learned that several days after joining the group, I returned to school to clean out my locker. I didn’t intend to talk to anyone, but a couple of my teachers coming out of the staff room saw me. Knowing I hadn’t been in class recently, they asked me what I was doing. I told them I was quitting, which surprised them because I wasn’t the typical student who dropped out. They asked me if I was willing to talk to the guidance counsellor before I left.

I had never spoken to him, or received guidance from any teacher before. No teacher ever told me that I had the intellectual potential to do almost anything I wanted, pointed out all the possible options, and encouraged me to pursue a university education. Perhaps more importantly, my educators hadn’t taught me the critical thinking skills required to recognize and resist irrational religious dogma. Though I did talk to the counsellor that day, his inadequate advice was far too late.

... When I told him I had left home to serve Jesus and didn’t need more education to do that, he looked puzzled and took a moment to look at my school record. I doubt he ever had a student tell him that. He suggested I take time over the summer to reconsider my decision, probably assuming it was just a pie-in-the-sky fantasy I would soon give up.

Since there were only two months left in the school year, and I wasn’t failing my classes, he said I could go straight into grade 12 if I came back in September. Unfortunately, that guidance counsellor didn’t guide me by discussing the value of higher education and the opportunities it would provide me. In fact, no teacher or any other adult had ever discussed with me the possibility of going to university. I just assumed that it was both financially impossible and beyond my intellectual ability, so didn’t see it as an option.

School’s Out – Alice Cooper

School’s out for summer School’s out forever No more pencils No more books No more teacher’s dirty looks Out for summer Out ‘til fall We might not come back at all

Another Brick In The Wall, Part Two – Pink Floyd

We don’t need no education We don’t need no thought control No dark sarcasm in the classroom Teacher, leave them kids alone All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall

In the rest of this chapter I describe the initial indoctrination process I was subjected to in the first six months of my new cult life. I wrote:

… I was still unaware that the Children of God had a leader, that his real name was David Berg, and he considered himself a spiritual king, but in a very real sense I was becoming his servant. For now, though, his true name and role was kept hidden from me for the first three months, until they considered me indoctrinated enough to be trusted with his prophetic origin story.

On my second evening in the commune Japheth read us an essay he said was from a spiritual elder who often wrote the group letters of guidance. They called him Mo, short for Moses, and I soon learned there were many more of these Mo Letters, which we read daily as part of our Bible studies.

“Diamonds of Dust” was my first exposure to those letters. It’s a short reflection on the common experience of watching dust particles sparkle in a ray of sunshine coming through a window. It’s a simple spiritual meditation that paraphrases various Bible verses about serving God. The theme of the essay is that we are essentially nothing but a temporary dot of dirt, good only for reflecting God’s light.

The thinner you are, the more the light gets through. The less there is of you, the more the light shines through! … For they can sparkle so short a while, and then they’re gone, like a man’s life – like the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow is gone! For what is your life? It’s but a vapour – a vapour that reflects His rays of light for a little while and then it’s gone! You have no guarantee of tomorrow. You better sparkle now while you have the light, or you’ll fade into oblivion and no one will know you even ever existed.

Japheth then read from the Bible the various scriptures cited at the end of the tract, including James 4:14, Psalm 14:2,3, and Romans 3:10,23. They emphasise that we are all unrighteous, filthy sinners and can do nothing good without God. The most descriptive verse says, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isaiah 64:6) Japheth explained that the original meaning of the word translated as “filthy rags” was soiled menstrual cloth.

That belittling of any sense of self-worth became a constant refrain in my life.

Dust In The Wind – Kansas

Dust in the wind All we are is dust in the wind Now, don’t hang on Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky It slips away And all your money won’t another minute buy

The Children of God’s evangelical message to go into all the world and preach the gospel appealed to my wanderlust and desire to see the world beyond my small valley town, so much so I was willing to leave my family.

“No Time” by The Guess Who, a Canadian band, captures what I was feeling.

No time left for you On my way to better things No time left for you I’ll find myself some wings No time left for you Distant roads are calling me No time left for you

Music featured in this chapter:

Revolution – The Beatles

This is one of the shortest chapters in my memoir. I cite a 1971 TIME magazine article titled, “The Alternative Jesus: Psychedelic Christ”, about the Jesus People Movement. The cover pictured a hippie-like Jesus, haloed with the words: “The Jesus Revolution”.

I then cite a publication by cult leader David Berg titled “Jesus People? Or Revolution!” in which he writes:

“This is a Revolution! We are not compromising and conforming to the damnable System church! We are not conforming to the damnable Commercial System! We have dropped out economically! We have dropped out religiously, spiritually! And the only reason we stay at peace with the political System is because God’s Word commands it for the sake of peace! We have dropped out educationally from the hellish, fiendish, Devil’s own Satanic propaganda education--educational System! You, the Children of God are God’s revolution for this hour and this day!”

I then write:

... a common call-and-response slogan in the group started with someone shouting, “Revolution!”, and everyone else responding, “For Jesus!”, as they thrust one arm in the air with a three-finger salute representing the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It was a unifying gesture, one of several characteristics that set the Children of God apart from other groups in the Jesus movement.

A follow-up TIME article describes the Children of God as “the storm troopers of the Jesus Revolution”.

As the previous chapters in this series show, I was heavily influenced by The Beatles. I had memorized almost every song in their double White Album, including this one.

Revolution – The Beatles

You say you want a revolution Well you know We all want to change the world You say you got a real solution, well, you know We’d all love to see the plan You say you’ll change the constitution, well, you know We all wanna change your head You tell me it’s the institution, well, you know You better free your mind instead

Unfortunately, that spiritual revolution did not “set my mind free”. Instead it “changed my head”, chained my mind to dogma within a spiritual prison, as I wrote in the final paragraph of this chapter.

I was a disciple of Jesus now, set free by the truth, or so I was misguided to believe by John 8:31,32: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” I never anticipated that the same dogma that supposedly set me free would come to control every aspect of my life. It narrowed my worldview, closed my mind, and broke my will. I was now a prisoner of God’s will, as determined by my new spiritual superiors with their literal interpretation of the Bible.

Music featured in this chapter:

Woodstock – Joni Mitchell

Woodstock - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Big Yellow Taxi – Joni Mitchell

Eve Of Destruction - Barry McGuire

Getting Better - The Beatles

She’s Leaving Home – The Beatles

Can’t Buy Me Love – The Beatles

Brother Sun, Sister Moon – Donovan

Freedom - Richie Havens

The title of Chapter 3 in my memoir is an obvious reference to a Beatles song. The chapter opens with these paragraphs:

The Beatles song, “She’s Leaving Home”, in their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, depicts the moment a teen runs away from home. Paul McCartney said the song was inspired by a newspaper report about a missing 17-year-old runaway, noting there were many at the time. In North America that year, the Summer of Love influenced tens of thousands of young people to leave home. Three years later, Joni Mitchell’s Edenic call to “get ourselves back to the garden” in her counterculture anthem, “Woodstock”, expressed the essence of the era, as idealistic drop-outs from an alienating politico-economic system dreamed of creating a peaceful, egalitarian society.

From 1967 to 1971, an estimated 500,000 young American drop-outs experimented with alternative lifestyles and communities. In her book, Runaways: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped Today’s Practices and Policies, Karen M. Staller explains the impact of the counterculture on the phenomenon of young people running away from home. She describes the surge of teenage runaways sparked by the Summer of Love as a crisis that continued for several years, ...

I should’ve added how highly relevant the lyrics “I came upon a child of God”, “get my soul free” and the reference to the garden of Eden were to my personal story.

Woodstock – Joni Mitchell

I came upon a child of God He was walking along the road And I asked him, “Where are you going?” And this he told me I’m going on down to Yasgur’s Farm I’m gonna join in a rock and roll band I’m gonna camp out on the land I’m gonna try and get my soul free We are stardust We are golden And we got to get ourselves Back to the garden

Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” was covered by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. This rockin’ version has clips from the movie, which I watched twice as a teen.

I also refer to another Joni Mitchell song:

“In 1970, activists in Vancouver trying to prevent that third test created Greenpeace and held a benefit concert there headlined by Joni Mitchell to raise funds for a protest ship to sail to the testing ground. Her hit song that year about deforestation and pesticides, “Big Yellow Taxi”, was part of my environmental awakening ...”

Big Yellow Taxi – Joni Mitchell

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin’ hot spot Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone? They paved paradise, put up a parking lot

I wrote:

Humanity was facing the existential threats of nuclear war and environmental destruction, while men were landing on the moon, and the Beatles sang it’s “Getting Better” and “All You Need Is Love”. I didn’t know if I should be hopeful or fearful, which added to my adolescent angst. Not only was my childhood ending, it seemed the world’s end could be near too.

I then provide a quotation, which I’ve excerpted here:

In 1965 a song lamenting that we were on the “Eve of Destruction” became the first song on a political issue to become a number-one popular tune in the United States; the nineteen-year-old writer explained that he felt war like “a cloud hanging over me all the time.” ... By the 1960s, observers from Teller to Dr. Benjamin Spock of SANE were reporting talks with young people who said it was pointless to save up money or study when the world might end tomorrow. In 1982 a psychiatrist, summarizing decades of studies, said that the nuclear problem had left many young with a “sense of powerlessness and cynical resignation.”

Eve Of Destruction - Barry McGuire. All the lyrics in this song are highly relevant to the current state of the world. https://genius.com/Barry-mcguire-eve-of-destruction-lyrics My story comes full circle in the Epilogue of my memoir, where I describe the similarities between the existential threats of war and environmental destruction in the 1960s, and the rise of new cults, to the current existential threats to the environment, world peace and humane civilization, and a new wave of thousands of cults, all of which are worsened by the digital world of disinformation and Artificial Intelligence.

But you tell me over and over and over again, my friend Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction Don’t you understand what I’m tryin’ to say? And can’t you feel the fears I’m feelin’ today? If the button is pushed, there’s no runnin’ away There’ll be no one to save with the world in a grave Take a look around you, boy, it’s bound to scare you, boy

Getting Better - The Beatles. This is the 4th song from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album that I’ve cited so far in these 1st three chapters. I dropped out of high school to “join” the cult.

I used to get mad at my school The teachers who taught me weren’t cool You’re holding me down, turning me ‘round Filling me up with your rules

I also wrote:

Like the runaway teen in that Beatles song, I was living alone though living at home, increasingly alienated from my family, friends and community, wondering who I was, what I would do, where I fit in the world.

She’s Leaving Home – The Beatles This is the 5th song from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album that I’ve cited so far in these 1st three chapters. It obviously had a huge influence on me.

She (We gave her most of our lives) Is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives) Home (We gave her everything money could buy) She’s leaving home after living alone (Bye-bye) For so many years

I don’t reference the following song in my book, but it does represent my lack of interest in money and material things, and how those didn’t motivate me in my search for a meaningful life.

Can’t Buy Me Love – The Beatles

I’ll give you all I’ve got to give If you say you love me, too I may not have a lot to give But what I got, I’ll give to you I don’t care too much for money Money can’t buy me love

In this chapter I also describe the interaction between my Catholic indoctrination by Franciscan priests and my indoctrination into the Children of God cult. My parents, worried about my recent involvement with that group of strangers, asked me to talk to a priest, even though I had stopped attending church a couple years earlier. I went willingly, but it wasn’t the result my parents hoped for.

… Certain similarities between the Franciscan Order and the Children of God must’ve been obvious to Father Mark. He would’ve understood their literal obedience to Jesus’ command to give up everything to preach the gospel, and he lived a similar communal life, sharing everything in common with his brethren. He also seemed sympathetic to their criticism of churches in general, and admitted to me that he took issue with some aspects of the Catholic Church, but he hoped to help reform it from within.

It seemed to me that Father Mark was more inspired by my description of the Children of God than he was concerned about my involvement with them. Instead of discouraging me, my talk with him pushed me closer to the group. The only advice he gave me was to not make any sudden decisions that would upset my parents, but I ignored him and did exactly that. Ironically, it was this follower of Saint Francis, not a San Francisco flower child, who influenced my decision to drop out of society.

In an endnote for chapter 3, I wrote: “A year after I joined the Children of God, their founder, David Berg, compared his group to the Catholic Franciscan Order in his review of Franco Zeffirelli’s 1972 film, Brother Sun, Sister Moon, based on the life of St. Francis.” Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan sang all the songs on the soundtrack.

Brother Sun, Sister Moon – Donovan

Brother Sun, Sister Moon Brother Sun and Sister Moon I seldom see you seldom hear your tune Preoccupied with selfish misery Brother Wind and Sister Air Open my eyes to visions pure and fair That I may see the glory around me I am God’s creature, of Him I am part I feel His love awakening my heart Brother Sun and Sister Moon I now do see you, I can hear your tune So much in love with all that I survey

At the end of this chapter, I write about the moment I left home:

“The only other possessions I planned to take were my transistor radio and bongo drum. Both were Christmas presents from my parents.Throughout my childhood I dreamed of playing the drums, and did play a rented snare drum in the junior high school band, but after seeing a conga drummer play with Richie Havens in the Woodstock film, I begged my parents for one. A conga was too expensive, but I was happy with the bongo.”

Within weeks of “joining” the cult, the leaders took my bongo and sent it to another commune where musicians were creating cult music.

“Freedom” by Richie Havens at Woodstock 1969.

Sometime I feel like I’m almost gone A long way from my home

Music featured in this chapter:

California Dreamin’ - The Mamas & The Papas

San Francisco - Scott Mckenzie

With A Little Help From My Friends – The Beatles

Across The Universe – The Beatles

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds – The Beatles

Time - Pink Floyd

Question - The Moody Blues

Jesus Christ Superstar - Superstar (1971)

All Things Must Pass - George Harrison

What Is Life - George Harrison

Awaiting On You All - George Harrison

Chapter two of my memoir opens with this paragraph:

In the summer of 1971, a couple months before my sixteenth birthday, I hitch-hiked with my classmate Dave to California, where I had my first LSD experience. I first got high with a little help from my new friend two years earlier at a junior high school dance. Dave brought a few cannabis joints and we smoked them behind a classroom building bordering the forest. There were a few of us gathered there, but when Dave lit a joint and passed it around a couple of them fled the scene of the crime. That was my initiation as a counterculture freak.

Like chapter one, this chapter is also titled after a song, The Mamas & The Papas - California Dreamin’. Coincidentally, on that long hitch-hiking trip to California I describe in this chapter, we also “stopped into a church” that gave us a place to sleep for a night. It was a Catholic church, and I used my past as an altar boy to beg the priest to give us a place to stay for the night. He let us sleep in a storage room.

California Dreamin’ - The Mamas & The Papas

Stopped into a church I passed along the way Well, I got down on my knees (got down on my knees) And I pretend to pray (I pretend to pray) You know the preacher like the cold (preacher like the cold) He knows I’m gonna stay (knows I’m gonna stay) California dreamin’ (California dreamin’) On such a winter’s day

San Francisco - written by John Phillips of the The Mamas & The Papas, sung by Scott Mckenzie. This song was the publicity showcase of the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival, one of the best known anthems of the hippie movement.

All across the nation Such a strange vibration People in motion There’s a whole generation With a new explanation

As that first paragraph of this chapter describes, I first got high with a little help from my friend.

With A Little Help From My Friends – The Beatles, featuring Ringo Starr, the 2nd song on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

I had my first LSD experiences on that California trip.

The hallucinations on my first acid trip were pleasantly mild, mostly a cool fractal kaleidoscope of constantly shifting, swirling, pulsating patterns. Inanimate things seemed alive. At times it got a bit more intense, like when we were making faces in a mirror and Dave’s face seemed to melt like a surrealist painting by Salvador Dali. We tried playing pool, but the balls wouldn’t cooperate, so we went night swimming instead. Swimming underwater on LSD was such a sublime feeling of freedom I almost forgot to surface, until my brain alerted me to breathe. Floating on my back, staring at the stars, it felt like I was drifting across the universe.

My second acid trip a few days later had an even more profound effect. Dave and I dropped a tab before heading to the Santa Clara County Fair with his relatives. The hallucinations began by the time we got to the fairground. With all the intense sensory input from the crowded, colourful sights and loud sounds of the midway amusements, it was an odd place to have a spiritual epiphany.

I was sitting alone on a bench waiting for the others, when I became entranced by a large leafy tree that pulsated as if breathing. It suddenly started shaking and swaying like it was about to walk away at any moment. It seemed alive in a supernatural way. I thought I was seeing the life force in the tree and glimpsing another dimension, a spiritual world hidden from the physical one, which is how I interpreted the drug-induced experience for many years. That hallucination seemed to confirm my religious belief in the spirit world.

Across The Universe – The Beatles

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes They call me on and on across the universe Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds – The Beatles, the 3rd song on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. That album obviously had a big influence on me.

Picture yourself in a boat on a river With tangerine trees and marmalade skies Cellophane flowers of yellow and green Towering over your head

The next two songs are very relevant to an experience I had after I returned home from California. While high on LSD sitting in a pub, I stared at the clock on the wall and hallucinated that I had grown old and wasted my entire life sitting in that bar.

My last trip was the worst.

It started at the Kingsway Hotel beer parlour. A year earlier, the legal drinking age in British Columbia dropped from 21 to 19. After I turned 16, I went to that pub with an uncle a couple times and the bartender didn’t check my ID, so I thought I could get away with it again without my uncle. It was more about bragging rights than drinking, because I couldn’t afford more than one or two beer. I dropped the half tab of LSD before I went in with two older looking classmates and, surprisingly, we all got served. The pub was packed with the usual crowd of mill workers, loggers, longshoremen and fishermen. As the acid began to take effect, I felt the stubble on my chin and I felt like I was growing old on the spot, turning into a grey-haired old-timer like some of those around me.

While staring at a clock on the wall, I had this intense perception that time had slipped away, that I had wasted my entire life sitting in that bar. I panicked and headed for the exit, followed by my puzzled friends. Passing by the pool table, I pulled a cue off the wall rack and carelessly tossed it as I walked out the door. The guy it hit chased after me, lifted me in the air by my hair, and punched me in the mouth. For a moment, I was Alice Cooper hanging by a noose, an hallucination triggered by a calendar photo I recently saw of Cooper doing exactly that. As he punched me my friends began screaming, “he’s high on acid, don’t hit him”, so he dropped me and we took off.

Time - Pink Floyd

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

In that LSD anecdote I describe how I hallucinated that I was Alice Cooper hanging on a noose, an image from the calendar that was included in his 1971 album, Killer. This is that photo in the calendar:

Another song from that era similar to Pink Floyd’s “Time” that made me question my life is the Moody Blues song “Question” I had the song memorized, and after I ‘joined’ the cult, I learned to play guitar and often played this song.

Question - The Moody Blues

Why do we never get an answer When we’re knocking at the door With a thousand million questions About hate and death and war? I’m looking for someone to change my life. I’m looking for a miracle in my life.

Also in chapter two, I mention the huge influence that George Harrison’s music and the musical Jesus Christ Superstar had on me.

Since its release in 1970, I had listened to George Harrison’s highly spiritual triple album, All Things Must Pass, over and over again until I had memorized most of it, including the hit songs “My Sweet Lord” and “What Is Life”. Now, after my LSD experiences, contemplating the notion of the spirit world and the concept of time in relation to my mortality, the lyrics from that album meant more to me as I questioned the meaning and purpose of my life.

That wasn’t the only spiritual music I was listening to. The rock opera album Jesus Christ Superstar was also released in 1970, and I memorized that entire album too. Singing aloud along with those albums when no one else was home rekindled the inspiration that singing hymns in church had once sparked. I was super excited to attend a theatrical production of Superstar that came to town towards the end of 1971, performed in the high school’s 1,000 seat auditorium. After the finale, in a reprise of the title song, audience members were invited on stage to sing along, and I didn’t hesitate to join them. Though I stopped attending church a few years earlier, I was still spiritually stimulated by the gospel and willing to publicly profess my faith. Soon, scripture-quoting strangers would take advantage of that and misguide my youthful search for meaning and purpose.

Jesus Christ Superstar - Superstar (1971)

Jesus Christ Who are you? What have you sacrificed? Jesus Christ Superstar Do you think you’re what they say you are?

All Things Must Pass - George Harrison

All things must pass None of life’s strings can last So I must be on my way And face another day Now the darkness only stays at night time In the morning it will fade away Daylight is good At arriving at the right time But it’s not always going To be this grey All things must pass All things must pass away

What Is Life - George Harrison

Tell me, what is my life without your love Tell me, who am I without you, by my side? What I know, I can do If I give my love now to everyone like you

I especially related to those two songs because of the political, environmental and personal tragedies I describe in my memoir that had a major influence on me, impressing on me the impermanence of life and causing me to question everything. But it was this next song that I related to when I was being recruited by the cult to drop out and serve God with them.

Awaiting On You All - George Harrison

You don’t need no church house And you don’t need no Temple You don’t need no rosary beads or them books to read To see that you have fallen If you open up your heart You will know what I mean

Music featured in this chapter:

Gotta Serve Somebody - Bob Dylan

Sixteen Tons - Tennessee Ernie Ford

Murder Most Foul – Bob Dylan

Abraham, Martin and John - Dion

Into the Ocean - Blue October

How Great Thou Art - Elvis Presley

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles

All You Need Is Love - The Beatles

I open my memoir with a flash-forward to the time I first heard Bob Dylan’s song “Gotta Serve Somebody”. Here is the first paragraph:

I believed God was speaking directly to me through the car radio the day I first heard Bob Dylan singing “Gotta Serve Somebody”. The lyrics surprised me so much I pulled over to the curb to make sure I was hearing them right. I didn’t know that Dylan had converted to evangelical Christianity, so he seemed like an odd messenger for that clearly Biblical message. Hearing those familiar words reactivated the dormant dogma I had been indoctrinated with. I immediately recalled a Bible verse I memorized seven years earlier, after I dropped out to follow Jesus with the Children of God.

To avoid the copyright issue of citing lyrics from the song, I instead cited the Bible verse that Dylan paraphrases in his song.

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24

Here is how Dylan paraphrased that scripture in his song Gotta Serve Somebody:

You’re gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody

By the way, there is an “easter egg” in that first sentence, where I write “I believed God was speaking directly to me through the car radio...”. I wonder how many readers made the connection between that and the 1977 movie Oh, God!, in which George Burns plays God. There’s a scene where he speaks through the car radio to the character played by John Denver that he is trying to recruit.

After that flash-forward introduction to my story, I describe my family and first 16 years of my childhood. I write about my existential fear of spending my life in the drudgery of mill work as “a cog in the machine”.

Dylan’s song sent me right back to the moment I first learned that scripture from a Jesus freak street preacher. As he showed me those words from his pocket Bible he pointed to the pulp and paper mill in the distance where my father worked, explaining that the factory represented mammon, a Biblical term for money, material possessions and related greediness. I was an impressionable, immature 16-year-old in grade eleven, worried about my future and the lack of options the small, forest industry mill-town held for me. Then that stranger appeared and offered me an alternative way of life.

My father, maternal grandfather and uncles all worked in the logging industry, either in the woods harvesting the trees, or in the mills that processed the logs into lumber or paper. Even my mum worked in the plywood mill before she got married. So, growing up it seemed to me that there was an unexpressed expectation that I would wear the same working class boots just like most in my family and community did. As a teen, I dreaded the thought of following my father’s footsteps in the factory, becoming merely a cog in the machine. It was not a life I wanted, but I had no guidance from reliable mentors showing me other possibilities.

I felt trapped in that town, so when that evangelist offered me a way out of the valley into what I thought would be a life of freedom I grabbed the chance to escape. Within weeks I would become a COG of a different sort, but still controlled by the machinations of others. Biblical truth did not set me free, as promised. Instead, I became a prisoner of Christian dogma, bound by spiritual chains.

Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford

You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt Saint Peter don’t you call me, ‘cause I can’t go I owe my soul to the company store

In this chapter I also describe two events that had a major impact on my childhood, reminding me of the impermanence of life: the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the huge tsunami that hit Port Alberni hours after the 1964 earthquake in Alaska.

I was sent home from school after John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. I was in grade three when the shocking news reached my little four-grade River Bend Elementary school that November 22nd morning. The principal sadly explained that the US President had died and that out of respect the school would close for the rest of that Friday. It was the first time I saw an adult cry. Over that weekend I was fascinated by the constant television coverage of events, including the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, the first murder ever televised live, and Kennedy’s elaborate two-day state funeral.

Murder Most Foul – Bob Dylan. In this epic 17-minute song Dylan not only describes Kennedy’s assassination in great detail, but he references many songs from that era that capture the zeitgeist of the 1960s culture, which I describe in the early chapters of my memoir as having a huge influence on my teen anxieties.

‘Twas a dark day in Dallas, November ‘63 A day that will live on in infamy President Kennedy was a-ridin’ high Good day to be livin’ and a good day to die Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb He said, “Wait a minute, boys, you know who I am?” “Of course we do, we know who you are” Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car Shot down like a dog in broad daylight ... The day they blew out the brains of the king Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing It happened so quickly, so quick, by surprise Right there in front of everyone’s eyes Greatest magic trick ever under the sun Perfectly executed, skillfully done Wolfman, oh Wolfman, oh Wolfman, howl Rub-a-dub-dub, it’s a murder most foul ... Hush, little children, you’ll understand The Beatles are comin’, they’re gonna hold your hand ... I’m goin’ to Woodstock, it’s the Aquarian Age Then I’ll go over to Altamont and sit near the stage Put your head out the window, let the good times roll There’s a party going on behind the Grassy Knoll ... The day that they killed him, someone said to me, “Son The age of the Antichrist has just only begun”

Abraham, Martin and John by Dion

Anybody here seen my old friend John? Can you tell me where he’s gone? He freed a lot of people, but it seems the good, they die young I just looked around and he’s gone

Five months after that assassination, a tsunami hit Port Alberni on Easter weekend 1964. It was caused by a magnitude 9.2–9.3 earthquake in Alaska, known as the Good Friday earthquake, the largest ever to hit North America. I refer to the tsunami as a metaphor for the “spiritual wave” that would soon sweep me out of my family’s life.

Those two momentous tragedies, the assassination and tsunami, had a significant impact on my young psyche, impressing on my eight-year-old mind the impermanence of life. Disaster or tragedy could strike at any time, and things could change in a moment. The tsunami also portended two pivotal, life-changing events that would wash over my world on two other Easter weekends, in 1966 and 1972. The first, involving two uncles, was a personally traumatic tragedy that triggered existential questions about death and the meaning of life. The second was my encounter with the Children of God, part of a wave of Jesus People who came to Canada from California and swept me out of my family’s life.

Some of these lyrics in the song Into the Ocean by Blue October express the essence of my existential crisis as a “normal boy” trying to figure out my life.

Into the Ocean by Blue October

I’m just a normal boy That sank when I fell overboard My ship would leave the country But I’d rather swim ashore Without a life vest, I’d be stuck again Wish I was much more masculine Maybe then I could learn to swim I want to swim away, but don’t know how Sometimes it feels just like I’m falling in the ocean Let the waves up, take me down Let the hurricane set in motion, yeah Let the rain of what I feel right now come down

This first chapter also describes in detail my childhood Catholic indoctrination, and how it made me more susceptible to the manipulations and tactics of cult recruiters who took advantage of my Catholic beliefs.

Father Sigismond Lajoie, or Siggy as we called him, approached my mum and I with the idea that I become an altar boy. The notion of playing a part in Mass, wearing robes and assisting the priest, appealed to me. I always enthusiastically took part in the call-and-response prayers of the Catholic liturgy, and I especially loved singing hymns with their unifying, spine-shivering emotional power. Father Siggy’s favourite hymn was “How Great Thou Art”, which we sang at nearly every Sunday service. Perhaps Elvis Presley’s 1967 hit recording of the song had something to do with that.

How Great Thou Art sung by Elvis Presley

As a young teen in the late 1960s and early 1970s I was heavily influenced by the counter-culture. I wrote:

For my 12th birthday in 1967 I got my first album, the boundary-breaking Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. A few months earlier, in June, I watched the Beatles sing “All You Need Is Love” to hundreds of millions of people around the world on the first TV show broadcast globally by satellite. It was the Summer of Love. The short-lived hippy movement had erupted earlier, in January, when 30,000 people with flowers in their hair held the Human Be-In in San Francisco, ending that summer with the three day Monterey Pop Festival.

The counterculture, anti-establishment, anti-war, pro-drugs spirit of the sixties played a large role in my adolescence. I was attracted to the psychedelia of both the Beatles and the Flower Children, so I changed my greasy 1950s hair style to a Beatles mop top and started growing it long. It wouldn’t be long before psychedelic experiences on LSD opened the “doors of perception” to what I interpreted as the spirit world, and I walked into the arms of Jesus freaks, the spiritual offspring of hippies.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

All You Need Is Love - The Beatles

Music featured in this post:

To Be Free - Glyn Lehmann, sung by Shrewsbury International School children

Stereo - The Watchmen

When I created the outline for my memoir, Misguided, as a guide for writing the first draft, I found that naming the chapters with song titles or lyrics was a useful way to summarize or foreshadow the subject of each chapter. I did that for every chapter in the first draft of my manuscript. Under each chapter title, I also included a few lyrics from the song. However, I later read in various articles on the subject of writing that using song lyrics in a book can be problematic because of copyright issues. All the advice I read said that obtaining permission to use song lyrics could be very difficult and expensive, and cautioned against citing lyrics to avoid copyright claims.

However, it is permissible to use song titles, which can’t be copyrighted. So, to avoid that issue of copyright, I removed all lyrics at the top of each chapter, and in several places in my book where I explain the importance of various songs to my story, I carefully paraphrase the relevant lyrics. It’s unfortunate that I had to do that, because many of the songs I cite in my book, such as Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody”, several Beatles songs, Don McClean’s “American Pie”, and R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” had significant influence on me.

Over the several years I worked on writing my memoir, I made many changes to the initial manuscript, including reorganizing and renaming some of the chapters. Although many of the chapter titles in the published book are still named after a song title, or paraphrase a song title (Chapter 3 – He’s Leaving Home) some are not. But as well as the songs I did cite in my book, there are several others that also had an impact on me, or are relevant to certain parts of my story. Often they played in the back of mind as I wrote some of those stories.

Although unlikely, if the film rights to my book were ever sold and a movie version was made of my memoir, I have imagined a soundtrack that would be a very entertaining aspect of that movie. So, in this series of articles I provide my suggestions for that soundtrack, with a few lyrics from each song, and links to the songs on YouTube. Each of these posts will cover one chapter of my book, starting with the Preface.

In the Preface to my book I cite a section of the United Nations Convention On The Rights Of The Child, and write:

Children have an inherent right to freely form their own thoughts and conscience, and choose their own religious beliefs, or have none at all, since freedom of religion necessarily includes the right to be free from religion. ... A parent’s right to religious freedom does not give them the right to deny that same freedom to their child. As the U.S. Supreme Court famously ruled: “Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make that choice for themselves.”

Song to play while the Preface is being read or shown onscreen.

To Be Free - Words and music by Glyn Lehmann https://songlibrary.net/To-Be-Free/

Song to play during the opening credits of the film.

“Stereo” by Canadian band The Watchmen [crank it up for this one]

This poem is also relevant to my story.

This Be The Verse By Philip Larkin They f**k you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.

Finding justice becomes a compulsion for Hope and Verity, a necessary step towards their healing. They tell their stories to Scottish detectives. Up to then there had been no criminal convictions of COG/Family cult child abusers in the UK, and only a few in other countries, because of the cult’s secrecy, multiple aliases, frequent moves and other legal obstacles. Hope assists the investigation by trying to identify the locations of the cult’s communes in Scotland where her abuse occurred. Verity becomes a witness in Hope’s case.

After leaving the cult Celeste seeks justice against her main abuser, a top leader in the cult. She receives a letter of apology from him admitting his guilt. She sends the letter to her dad who is still in the cult. Although that top leader admits to systemic sexual child abuse in the cult, Celeste’s dad remains in denial of child abuse in the cult and continues to fully support it. Celeste reconnects with her sister and begins a happy life with her real family.

Verity speaks with her brothers, who both gave statements to the police about their childhood abuse. She tells her father she is bringing a legal case against him. He apologizes and begs her not to, but tells her he will plead guilty. At trial he changes his mind and pleads not guilty, but does eventually plead guilty to four sex assault charges as part of a plea deal. Verity is shocked to learn his sentence is merely 240 hours of community service and being on the sex offender registry for only 3 years, despite his extremely cruel sexual abuse of his daughter and another girl. It was the first criminal conviction of a COG/Family child abuser in the UK.

Hope’s abuser is arrested in France, extradited to Scotland and charged with 9 sex assault offences against Hope and another girl. He pleads guilty to 7 of the charges. Hope screams for joy, “that’s justice”, on hearing that he was sentenced to 11 years 6 months in prison and put on the sex offenders registry permanently. Hope: “He took around 12 years of my life, and justice took around 12 years of his.”

Verity: “Every single court case that’s successful, every single conviction, is a little bit of justice for everyone that grew up in that environment. Even if it wasn’t their abuser, it’s an acknowledgement that the abuse happened and these people should be punished.”

Verity’s brother Ken: “Surviving and thriving is the best revenge you can ever have, it’s the best victory you can ever have against your abusers.”

Hope: “My call to arms to second generation survivors who have suffered like I have suffered: ‘come forward, speak out, speak your truth, you’re not alone anymore.’”

***

This five-part documentary series, Children of the Cult, charts the remarkable true story of three British women born and raised in the infamous cult Children of God, now known as The Family International. Hope, Verity, and Celeste speak out about their years of abuse within the cult and their incredible fight for survival, escape, and quest for justice. Hope and Verity both successfully brought criminal convictions against their abusers, a very rare outcome for survivors of that cult. I participated in this documentary, primarily by giving many hours of interviews to the producer’s research assistant for background information. I appear briefly in a couple of these episodes. I consider it the best documentary on that cult so far. It is no longer available anywhere, so I am making this important documentary series available here. Subscribe for free to my page and you will receive emails with links to each video or article I post.

This episode starts and ends with disturbing clips from the murder/suicide video of Ricky Rodriguez, the son of cult leader Karen Zerby. Early 1990s, global media scrutiny intensifies as many in the second generation escape and expose child abuse in the cult, which is now rebranded as the Family. Fearing persecution, members are ordered to burn all incriminating evidence of abuse in the cult’s documents, photos and videos. Children and teens are coached on how to deceive and lie to media and authorities.

The largest ever UK child custody case exposes mountains of evidence of extreme child abuse in the cult. Celeste’s sister testifies against the cult, Celeste is forced by cult leaders to oppose her sister’s testimony and defend the cult, which causes her great psychological distress. The judge believes Karen Zerby’s lies that they now denounce the perverted sexual teachings of the deceased David Berg, so he allows 3 year-old to remain in the cult with his mother.

Teen Hope is trapped in Europe and sex-trafficked by the cult. She secretly plots a dramatic escape from Prague back to the UK and sets herself free. Celeste is recruited into Karen Zerby’s secretive household in Portugal and discovers Zerby is still sex-obsessed. Celeste meets Zerby’s son, Ricky, who is disgusted by his mother’s leadership and tells Celeste they are in a cult. Ricky leaves the cult. Celeste gets pregnant and doesn’t want to raise her child in that environment, so asks to leave Zerby’s home, but she’s told she can’t because she knows where Zerby lives. When Zerby moves, Celeste leaves the cult and returns to the UK, where she has the support of her mother and sister. Many of the second generation didn’t have that support when escaping the cult, so life after the cult was very difficult, with many spiralling into dark paths, including suicide.

Second generation survivors organize to expose the cult’s systemic abuses, and provide the FBI with evidence, but the legal system fails to bring justice to those survivors. Ricky, recognizing there would be no justice for most survivors, plots to murder his mother, Karen Zerby, but unable to find her he murders her assistant, one of his abusers, then kills himself. It made headlines around the world. Zerby has no remorse, she blamed Ricky for yielding to the devil. Verity and Hope begin their quest for justice by separately reporting their life-long abuse to Scottish police, who believe their stories and start their investigations.

***

This five-part documentary series, Children of the Cult, charts the remarkable true story of three British women born and raised in the infamous cult Children of God, now known as The Family International. Hope, Verity, and Celeste speak out about their years of abuse within the cult and their incredible fight for survival, escape, and quest for justice. Hope and Verity both successfully brought criminal convictions against their abusers, a very rare outcome for survivors of that cult. I participated in this documentary, primarily by giving many hours of interviews to the producer’s research assistant for background information. I appear briefly in a couple of these episodes. I consider it the best documentary on that cult so far. It is no longer available anywhere, so I am making this important documentary series available here. Subscribe for free to my page and you will receive emails with links to each video or article I post.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

It is the early 1990s, police and child protection authorities in many countries conduct raids of the cult’s communes. Hundreds of children were taken into custody, but children of the cult were heavily indoctrinated to deceive and lie to outsiders, including authorities, so they were all soon returned to the cult where they continued to experience systemic abuses. As the children become teens, many begin to rebel against their abusive upbringing and receive brutal corporal punishments. Teen training camps were set up to indoctrinate them even more, forcing them to be Christian child soldiers in their parents’ fantasy of a spiritual endtime war. So-called delinquent teens were sent to a Teen Detention compound in Macau. Members who had joined the cult to escape the oppression of their parents, churches, governments, etc, became the oppressors of their own children. Teen Verity, desperate to escape the cult, has a brilliant tactic: purposely collecting contraband items then laughing in the faces of her abusers when they attack her as being demon possessed. Finding her own power, Verity physically fights back and sets herself free, but life after the cult won’t be easy. David Berg dies, none of his so-called endtime prophecies fulfilled, and Karen Zerby takes over the cult.

***

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This five-part documentary series, Children of the Cult, charts the remarkable true story of three British women born and raised in the infamous cult Children of God, now known as The Family International. Hope, Verity, and Celeste speak out about their years of abuse within the cult and their incredible fight for survival, escape, and quest for justice. Hope and Verity both successfully brought criminal convictions against their abusers, a very rare outcome for survivors of that cult. I participated in this documentary, primarily by giving many hours of interviews to the producer’s research assistant for background information. I appear briefly in a couple of these episodes. I consider it the best documentary on that cult so far. It is no longer available anywhere, so I am making this important documentary series available here. Subscribe for free to my page and you will receive emails with links to each video or article I post.

Episode 2 - For Grandpa

Starts with a shocking story of a 3-year-old child bride, “married” to cult founder David Berg, who was on the run from the FBI and Interpol. The psychosexual aspects of Berg’s childhood described, which led to his perverted sexual doctrines in the cult. Children were denied a regular childhood and were raised in a highly sexualized abusive environment. They were not raised as children, but as endtime soldiers in a spiritual war, so they got no real education. The cult’s Music With Meaning ministry begins, child performers exploited. Celeste, Hope and Verity describe the horrific child sexual abuse they suffered, which was systemic and normalized in the cult. Scotland detectives begin investigations into Hope and Verity’s cases.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Episode 1 - Welcome to the Family

This episode covers the founding and early years of the doomsday cult, Children of God, aka, The Family International. From one family in California in 1968, it quickly spread to thousands of members in over 100 countries. Hope, Celeste and Verity were born and raised in the cult, and they recount their parents’ stories of joining the cult and their devotion to their leader. They describe the systemic child abuse in the cult based on twisted biblical interpretations in the writings of the self-professed endtime prophet, David Berg. Their quest for justice begins.