Escaping the Cult: One cult, two stories of survival

In order to protect the identity of my loved ones I have changed names, places and personal information.

Family Tree (#u7e83eae7-0420-56e3-a892-eb831942ed33)

Berg’s Household (#u7e83eae7-0420-56e3-a892-eb831942ed33)

Prologue

Ants Are Bitter (#u7e83eae7-0420-56e3-a892-eb831942ed33)

The hot acidic smell stung my nostrils and caught in the back of my throat.

I badly needed to cough. I knew showing any revulsion would result in violence, so I forced myself to take short stabbing breaths through my mouth.

Uncle Isaiah squatted low over the campfire, tossing a heavy metal frying pan back and forth over the flames. A horrible smell floated up from his ingredients. Half a dozen of us children sat in a circle in a small clearing cut from the dense jungle of tropical ferns and leafy plants. We had our legs crossed and our backs ramrod straight, as he had ordered. Tall trees in the canopy towered over us, blocking out the breeze and concentrating the smell.

My younger brother Vincent sat next to me. I could sense his body tensing but I dared not risk turning to look at him. I glanced at the kids opposite, checking their reactions. They stared at the ground or straight ahead, expressions compliant in the mask of submission we had all learned to perfect. They didn’t fool me. I knew they were thinking the same thing as me: How am I going to keep them down?

Earlier, Uncle had shown us how to make fire by rubbing sticks together. He seemed to enjoy seeing us struggle. My hands were sore and blistered from trying. Eventually the fire had ignited, and I felt very proud of myself as I watched orange flames lick at the heavy branches we had cut down and carried through thick bush. It was late afternoon but the temperature was still searing, made even hotter by sitting so close to the fire. Isaiah was crouched over with his back to me. Stubby, hairy legs poked from his khaki shorts, making me think of the scary spiders that ran out from under our beds when we swept the dormitory.

It was April and the start of the monsoon season in Malaysia. My muddy denim dungarees and baggy T-shirt stuck to me.

The jungle terrified me. I glanced over my shoulder to see if I could make out pairs of glowing eyes in the bushes, imagining that at any second a venomous snake might bite me or a snarling tiger would leap from the trees and seize me in its massive jaws. Swarms of buzzing mosquitoes surrounded us like a hive of bees, diving at my head in waves of assault. I had itchy red bites all along my arms; trying to swat them away was useless.

Uncle Isaiah stood up with a grin of triumph, the pan clutched in his hand. He looked over at the assembled group.

He got angry very quickly. So when he held out the frying pan and gestured to us to come and inspect it we did as we were told.

Several huge black ants sizzled in the bottom.

They gave off a sickening, chemical smell that hurt my nose. Most were dead and crispy, but a few were still alive, wriggling their spindly legs in a desperate bid to escape the heat.

‘Take,’ he ordered in a thick Irish brogue.

I tried very hard not to let him see me wince as I gingerly picked up a few ants, trying to avoid any that were still alive or burning my fingers on the hot pan.

‘Eat,’ he ordered.

I hesitated for a split second but the look on Uncle’s face was stern. I took a deep breath, put the ants in my mouth and gulped. I could feel their legs tickling my throat. I felt the vomit rise up. I took a big gulp and swallowed it back down along with the ants.

They were so bitter, so completely disgusting. Yet not a single child failed to eat a handful. My brother Vincent even managed to lie: ‘Mmmm, ants are delicious.’

Clearly happy with us, Uncle smiled. I knew this was all for our own good, so that we grew up brave enough to be allowed our superpowers. But I so hoped his smile meant the lesson was over and we could go home to bed. We had been marching through trees or collecting wood for hours, and my limbs were aching and sore.

His next instruction made me weep inside.

‘Next we learn how to fry grasshoppers. Go find some and bring them back for the pan.’

Without a word we did as we were told.

Half an hour later I was munching on a crispy fried grasshopper. They weren’t too bad – kind of nutty.

Chapter 1

Moonlight and Star (#u7e83eae7-0420-56e3-a892-eb831942ed33)

It was the famously sweltering summer of 1976, with the hottest recorded weather conditions in Europe since meteorological records began. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviets was at its height. The arms race dominated the news, with the omnipresent threat of a nuclear Armageddon giving kids nightmares. On the radio, Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’ and the Carpenters’ ‘There’s a Kind of Hush’ dominated the airwaves. The hippy counter-culture movement that had begun in the late 1960s began to lose out in popularity to disco and glam rock, but not before the hippy ideals had swept up hundreds of thousands of youths around the world desperate to throw off the shackles of their parents’ more conservative post-war generation.

Against this backdrop, in the beautiful bohemian city of Paris, a roguishly handsome 20-year-old Frenchman called Marcel lived in a shared house along with several other young hippies. The housemates were an eclectic lot, from all over the world and from lots of different backgrounds. What they had in common was a hatred of established convention, a desire not to work for a living and a fervent faith in Jesus. They passed their days in a euphoric blur of guitar strumming, tambourine shaking, folk singing and pounding the streets of Paris trying to persuade others to share their faith.

That afternoon, Marcel had walked along the river Seine, attempting to sell radical Christian pamphlets which warned of the end of the world to bemused passers-by. Marcel believed the Antichrist was everywhere, busily plotting the downfall of a human race too stupid to realise it. His warnings were genuinely heartfelt and passionate, but to the hot and bothered grey-suited commuters more concerned with catching the next metro home after a long day at the office, he was a weirdo.

By the end of the day he had sold only a handful of pamphlets, earning just a few francs. He was only allowed to keep 10 per cent of that to buy food for the day; the rest of his takings went to his overseer – a kind of manager. He looked despondently at the coins in his hand and decided, despite being extremely thirsty, that he didn’t have enough to buy a cold drink. ‘Get the victory, Marcel, get the victory,’ he repeated to himself determinedly, before heading off down another boulevard.

As the rush hour ended and the streets emptied out, he saw no point in staying and headed for home, hoping for a lie down. But it wasn’t to be. His overseer was in the hallway waiting for him. Unsmiling, the man handed Marcel a smart shirt and trousers and ordered him to change out of his T-shirt and red velvet bell-bottoms. Perplexed, Marcel did as he was told. Next the overseer told him to go into a quiet side room and write out a report detailing his movements throughout the day as well as admitting to any wicked or impure thoughts he’d had.

Two hours later he was still sitting in the room wondering why. He didn’t dare leave without permission but he had no idea why he was there in the first place. He was getting nervous.

Eventually the man came back. Stony-faced, he ushered Marcel into the main living room. As Marcel entered he saw all of his housemates standing in a circle. They began cheering and clapping. Marcel felt a rush of relief that he clearly wasn’t in trouble, but he still had no idea what was going on.

A beautiful green-eyed woman wearing a long cotton dress walked out from behind the circle. A ring of daisies crowned hair that fell to her waist like a golden waterfall. The overseer broke into a huge grin, clapped him on the back and announced the evening’s entertainment.

Marcel was my dad and the beautiful woman my mom, Geneviève. It was to be their wedding.

And that, without warning, was how their life together began.

The shared house Marcel lived in belonged to the Children of God, an evangelical Christian cult which later changed its name to The Family of Love, or The Family. My mother, who was 18 at the time of her marriage, had been a member for just a few months. My father had joined three years earlier, when he was 17.

The group was founded and led by David Berg, an evangelical preacher’s son from California. The Children of God were unashamedly Christian but also tapped into the hippy anti-establishment zeitgeist of free love, East/West spiritualism and philosophy. That mixed-up combination was popular at the time, and Berg wasn’t the only well-known spiritual guru to emerge in those years. Berg was, as successful gurus always are, a charismatic and powerful orator with the ability to influence others. He was also a sexual predator who liked his disciples to send him videos of themselves having orgies. He preached that Jesus was a man who liked sex, therefore it was not something to be ashamed of.

Across the USA and Europe, tens of thousands of young hippies like my parents eagerly signed up to the Children of God, believing the group represented the greater good – love, freedom, peace and a desire to save the world.

My mom and dad didn’t know it then, but their wedding day was just a taster of how the group would go on to define every single aspect of their lives in future. And of mine.

My dad had a very tough upbringing. Family life was difficult for him because his family was very poor. But he did well at school and was the first person in his family expected to go to university.

His elder brother, Frederique, had encountered a Children of God commune in Switzerland whilst on a long hiking trip. He regaled his younger brother with his adventures. The teenage Marcel was stifled by country life and desperate for a way out. His brother’s tales had opened his eyes to the possibility of a much wider and more exciting world, and school no longer seemed as interesting.

Then he met a group of travelling musicians in Toulouse. They weren’t much older than him but they were funny and full of life. They invited him to join them for dinner. He was overwhelmed with their warmth and concern for him. When they told him they belonged to a group called the Children of God he remembered the stories Frederique had told him about the fun he’d had staying at their Swiss commune. The next day, when the musicians checked out, he asked if he could tag along. They whooped and hugged him.

A day later he found himself in the bustling capital city of Paris, where the Children of God had their French headquarters. The group had grown in number very rapidly from its inception in California in 1968 and now boasted thousands of young members from all around the world. They included the parents of actor brothers River and Joaquin Phoenix and the parents of Hollywood actress Rose McGowan. Even the celebrities of the day joined up. One of the most famous bands of that time was Fleetwood Mac. After playing a live concert one night guitarist Jeremy Spencer suddenly disappeared without telling his bandmates. Some Children of God devotees had been in his audience, and after talking to them for a while he had joined up that same night, cutting his long hair and renouncing all his material wealth.

In the French HQ lived 200 under-25s. They were well organised, with song and dance troupes whose job it was to spread the word and raise funds. People slept several to a room and referred to each other as brother and sister, giving my dad an instant sense of kinship. Girls floated around in flowing skirts and translucent tunics (those were the days when young women burned or threw off their bras as a political statement). In the group, females were encouraged to be free and without inhibition. For the lost and lonely country boy this new life was nothing short of a revelation. When it was explained to him that followers were expected to cut off all ties with their biological families in order to devote themselves to the group, he had no qualms whatsoever. The Children of God were his family now, and he couldn’t have been happier about it.

The group had a very strict no drugs or drink rule. Instead followers were encouraged to ‘get high on Jesus’.

A few weeks after arriving in Paris, Marcel received the news that his brother Frederique was dead. About a year earlier Frederique had been committed to an asylum. In those days they could be brutal places where doctors often tested out experimental drugs or treatments, like lobotomies, on patients. Frederique had been unable to survive this torture. He had escaped through a barred window and killed himself by jumping into a quarry. They found his body three days later. For Marcel this was tragic news.

He was baptised shortly afterwards within the cult and renamed Moonlight.