The joy of being liberated from cults

Dear Joe,

I have just read your essay on "The Covert Kingdom" and it was very interesting to me when I think of my own long journey to having an open mind, from the time I was a young girl to my retirement. I was born in Durban, South Africa. I lived in Johannesburg, the murder capital of the world. So much of what you recount in your own journey seems similar to mine. From the book bought by my mother from the Seventh Day Adventist who called at the door one day, to the next step of sitting in to a so-called "Bible Study" with a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses, and then being the daughter of a Freemason, and a mother who grew up as an Anglican.

While my parents argued and hated each other every night in the next room, I read "The Bible Speaks". This was a huge book with questions and answers about every subject under the sun in the Bible, as an antidote to the bitter battle between my parents. No wonder I turned to "religion" to cope! I did attend the Anglican Church on and off until I was about 16, when I left home to go to an art school -- by scholarship, my parents were too poor to afford my studies.

I had to give up art school when my parents divorced because I had to look for a job to help my mother survive when we lived in one room at a hotel. I had to sew all my dresses, too. At 20, I married a man of 33 and we lived a loveless marriage of 29 years. That is another long story!

I never knew what the word fundamentalist meant until I opposed the Watchtower Society of the Jehovah's Witnesses in 1968. We had become members along with my sister and her husband ten years before that date.

In 1967 we had left South Africa, because of the race hatred and crime, in order to live in West Australia. A year later due to a dispute with the Watchtower about their anti-blood transfusion teaching, we were disfellowshipped and cut off from their cult, along with my connection to my J.W. sister, who is still in it up to this day.

My own journey from the closed mind of a fundamentalist to an open mind took many years and still continues to this day. Fear is what keeps the cultist inside a cult. Those outside do not realise what goes on inside the mind and heart of a cult member. Only those of us who have escaped can understand the struggle to gain some form of mental balance after years of indoctrination. That is why there are so many ex-cult support groups on the Internet.

• Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses
• Ex-Mormons
• Ex-almost any cult group you can think of now

In fact, it took an ex-Mormon to help me with many questions after I had been searching for truth by reading tons of books on every religion on the planet. So I went from ex-J.W. to joining the non-denominational Church of Christ, only to find out they were just as dogmatic as the J.W.'s and had strange ideas -- no music in church, etc. etc.

Later on I was asked to run a counter-cult Christian work to alert Christians about the cults, but I found very little help and I was mainly dealing with ex-J.W.s and other ex-cultists who could see the bondage of those we left behind in those groups. My back gave in and I was forced to bed rest for months. My marriage gave in and after thinking about my miserable life for 29 years, I decided to learn to drive a car, leave with my daughter and cat and bird and then go to university to study and get a job as a mature age single parent.

That was when my world view and my closed mind started the painful journey of enlightenment and mental balance!!!

Education is the only way to escape the closed mind. I had to study comparative religions, and what amazed me was that there was a whole world out there that I never knew about. Six years of study and a B.A. later, I was ready to find work, but the strain of a divorce, and being a single parent found me with Chronic Fatigue/Fibromyalgia and I was unable to do anything for the next ten years, except read books and take in ironing to help my government pension and budget.

My mind just kept on learning, while my body rested!!! I thought I had gained insights and knowledge that may be able to help others, but instead, found only a few others who wanted to have an open mind. Then I retired and bought a computer and I found the Internet. My mind has been very busy ever since! Finding a few ex-J.W. websites was the first adventure. I told my story again and again, but sad to say, many people were still in bondage to fear, and were afraid to think for themselves.

Critical thinking should be taught in all schools, but of course this is not allowed. Like you Joe, I have realised that most religious belief systems have much the same kind of fundamentalist ideas and are closed minded. Read Karen Armstrong's book The Battle for God on fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Your writing on fundamentalism is similar to her point of view. Her book is powerful and historical.

The problem is that when you take the journey out of a closed mind, you find that you can talk to less and less people. My former friends and some who are still friends, cannot understand my open mind, and I have to talk to them on restricted subjects. The loneliness of learning can be a trial at times, but also a joy when you find another soul who is on the same journey to liberation.

Reading your essay this morning I can totally understand what you are saying. The culture and cults of the USA are invading Australia too. The culture here is more secular, the religion here is SPORT. However, I do think that there is a true spirituality, and a true faith, a personal journey that we take when we are alone and solitude is a great teacher. Nature too can teach us if we take the time to go to wild places. The simple life, living simply that others may live should be our goal at this time of global and environmental turmoil.

In the end only kindness matters. Truth can still be found, inner truth that is. Within your own soul and mind and heart. Who knows what will be in the future for our planet and its peoples? All the cults KNOW, but that is the closed mind!! When will they be able to say "I don't know" and not have a nervous breakdown? What a relief to leave that fear of not knowing answers, of just letting the universe run itself? Let life unfold day by day -- we are only dust anyway.

I am an artist, have painted in oils, watercolour and acrylic. I live for beauty and love and an open mind. Outside my window, I have plants and flowers and a small bird bath. The birds come and have a splash every day. Beyond my courtyard garden, the bush and birds and sky and the clouds and the sea breeze bring me joy. The gift of life is so precious and being grateful is an antidote to all the strife and woes of the political and religious issues of our day. We can share our truth with those who will listen.

However, Joe, there are millions with closed minds who cannot hear or cannot bear to listen. The journey out of bondage to freedom is a wonderful adventure. It takes many years of striving and reading and letting go of hubris and pride and vanity. From thinking you have the right answers, of knowing everything to realising that we know very little and need not have answers to questions that can never be answered, in fact the more we learn the more we realise how little we know!

What a relief that is!!!!

From one open mind to another,

Rhona
Australia