Sexual Recovery after the Cult

2

Lee Marsh Oct. 19, 2016

In college I took several course on human sexuality. The very first course was on the psychology of human sexuality and the professor started it off by saying that people were much more comfortable having sex than they are talking about it.  She then proceeded to ask the class for all the names for sexual bodies parts that they could name. Whoa. I had probably only heard of 10 of them while she went on to cover the two boards at the front of the class and moved on to another 1 ½ boards along the side of the room. Needless to say the course was an eye-opener for me especially since I was newly out of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. 

Continue reading this article…

Undue Influence and Watchtower’s Blood Transfusion Policy

3

By Malcomb Landis with help from Lee Elder (first posted on Open Minds Foundation)

arm-with-needle_wwp40xnlPeople are far more influenced by situations and social pressure than they realize. In fact, the power of our free will can evaporate when someone is being unduly influenced by a cult-like group, or, in my case, the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs). To help you understand why I believe this, I want to share my story about Watchtower’s blood transfusion policy.

Continue reading this article…

Helping Families Cope with a Cult Member

3

Just Like the Watchtower
Interesting things that I learned at the 2016 ICSA Conference
By Lee Marsh on August 16, 2016

One of the most interesting things I learned at an ICSA conference this summer was that 80% of cult members leave between 5 to 7 years after they were recruited into the cult. This statistic was shared during Rachel Bernstein’s presentation.

Continue reading this article…

Special Needs for Second Generation Ex-Cult Members

11

By Lee Marsh on July 20, 2016

One of the highlights of the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) conference that I attended in July 2016 was Lorna Goldberg’s presentation about the unique needs of second generation ex-cult members, which includes ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses. The title of her talk was Some Considerations Working with Former Cult Members.

Lorna was quick to remind her audience that in the ex-cult member community there is a growing awareness about the special needs of second generation ex-cultists (SGAs) – those who were born in or raised in a cult compared to first-generation former cultists (FGAs) – those who joined.

Continue reading this article…

What Do Violent Extremism and Watchtower Have in Common?

4

One of the most competent educators on violent extremism in the world today is Sweden’s Robert Örell. He is definitely receiving well-deserved attention for not only what he knows, but how he is helping to reclaim the lives of thousands of victims of hate groups and radicalization.

Robert was recently asked to deliver an 18-minute TED talk on violent extremism and how hate groups influence their victims. It is a must-watch watch video, which you can access at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNIgKsb1QbA

Continue reading this article…

Karpman’s Drama Triangle

16

One of the tools I have found very helpful for people exiting a cult who want peace of mind and to find their authentic identity is Karpman’s Drama Triangle.

The Triangle can help people understand their relationship with a spouse, an ex-spouse, a boss, employees, friends, parents, children, neighbors and their church leaders.

In fact, I just shared the Drama Triangle with my local, Ottawa, Canada, ex-JW Meet-Up group to see if they could find uses for it in their lives, and it turned into a lively positive conversation.

Continue reading this article…

The Ethics of Evangelism

5

InHungarianButtonWhen I was a Jehovah’s Witness, I thought evangelism or preaching was bad if it was not Watchtower-based. For many years as an ex-JW, I was convinced that any kind of religious proselytizing was nothing more than unethical persuasion.

So I was intrigued, while at a 2012 ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association) conference, in Montreal, Canada, by a session addressing the pros and cons of evangelism. I attended the one-hour meeting facilitated by a retired college professor, Elmer Thiessen, and his insights proved to be a real eye-opener for me.

What was particularly impressive was Thiessen’s list of Fifteen Criteria that one could use to determine the ethics of a church group’s proselytizing methods.

Continue reading this article…

Claiming Your Repressed Authentic Identity

12

By Richard E. Kelly

Finding and claiming one’s repressed authentic identity will not be easy for most adults who were raised as children by Jehovah’s Witness parents. First, there’s familial undue influence—close family members trying to reshape the child’s personality—and then there’s the non-familial cult-like identity being imposed upon children by Watchtower’s “new personality” policies and apocalyptic beliefs.

However, it can be done and Bonnie Zieman’s memoir, Fading Out of the JW Cult, makes a strong case for how it can happen. But what makes her story so special is that the protagonist is an experienced psychotherapist. While sharing her story, she explains the psychological manipulation at play in trying to shape her personality.

Continue reading this article…