freedom


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Posted by long time exer on April 12, 2011 at 12:18:27

In Reply to: Re: Work in progress posted by cb on April 12, 2011 at 01:42:50:

I agree that people born and raised in something have a whole "other" experience, but I also realize that the first target of David Berg and others of his ilk (others that come to steal and to kill) was the youth that first comprised COG membership. I can understand Skep's comment about oppression. When entering the community with a focus on having a real cause (not fighting with physical weapons, but changing the world by fighting "spiritual warfare") COG presented as quite innocent. I don't believe that people who joined in early days were willingly choosing to "sin against the holy spirit" but were out witnessing and in endless classes and yes, a system of very strong peer pressure to have a singleness of mind and purpose which seemed at first to be good.
What happened, imo, was an intensely controlled environment where every moment of the day was guarded and filtered from the top.
We were people with little life experience to draw from that would be sending out red flags. So earliest things that felt bad were things like not opening my own mail and having even what letters I wrote to anyone, pored over and brought back to me for revisions if there was anything in them that should not be there. Having a "buddy system" where even going to the toilet was something you experienced with your buddy. No doors on bathroom stalls, rules for everything including how much toilet paper to wipe my butt.
Long classes, purging sessions, emphasis on Wurmbrandt and Frankl, strict obedience without question, and a belief that what I had experienced in "getting saved" as being something very very real, were parts of what oppressed me. I see it more as a slow poisoning that you don't realize how sick you are until you are breaking down from the effects of the toxins and sometimes people get out, still feeling wrong for resisting, until they can get healthy enough, apart from that system, to come to their senses.
Then, looking back, there are things each person has to deal with regarding what they did to others and to themselves in that toxic state. There was so much more to deal with than the effects of participation. But participation was not like going to the bank with an intent to rob. It was more like Patty Hearst, going to a bank with the SLA after humiliation, degradation in a tight system where she was also raped and survived by becoming a willing member- and then she walked into the bank as Tanya-
The justice system at the time understood very little about Stockholm Syndrome. But in part, though she went to prison for her "sin" she was released in a shorter amount of time with investigation of what took place and a beginning of trying to understand what happened to her.
Yes, there are wrongs that people who "joined" have to look at and 'repent' of- damages done to self and others as a result of having joined.
But there is a huge difference between intent to do harm, and doing harm as a result of a toxic environment one becomes a part of, having no idea what the nature of the beast was.
Sometimes I get so tired of this debate because I believe we all (all who were in COG/FOL) whether joining, growing up in it- were harmed greatly. I believe we were all oppressed, with distinctions of how that occurred between generations.
So yes, there is a "they"
Meaning starting with David Berg (or other cult leaders who set up sick systems using their own children or wives or whatever) and the issue of oppression is real for all generations.



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