In Reply to: Bashings in the ML's posted by Freeatlast! on November 05, 2003 at 15:45:01:
"River Phoenix (backsliding message) "
I've never seen that one. I'm guessing it says that God punished River Phoenix with death as a penalty for his family leaving The Family?
I've always thought that ex-members may have missed a good opportunity to create mainstream press regarding the true nature of The Family when it came to the death of River Phoenix.
The reason being is that he really was a huge star. Even today everyone knows him. His brother Joaquin has a larger body of work, but more people would still recognize a photo of River than his brother.
I would guess that if you walked up to ten random people with a photo of River Phoenix, most would be able to tell his name, but very few, if any, could tell you that he grew up in a cult that had institutional child abuse as a doctrine. I'm sure none of them could tell you that the cult may have blasted him in writing after his death (if that's what that letter does do).
I remember reading an interview with him a long time ago where he claimed to have had his first sexual intercourse at a very young age (something like 8 years old). The public reaction to it was typical to that when boys say that kind of thing. Either it was wishful thinking, or he was a very lucky little boy. I don't remember anyone putting that together with The Family, and that during that time, it was a typical experience for both boys and girls to be sexually abused.