My boyfriend was devastated when I told him we were done. So his mother urged him to go back to church. He, then, brought this church’s teachings to me and I was intrigued. I was just a teenager who was leaving for college that summer. And I had always been a Christian in one of the more orthodox traditions. But the church his mother wanted him to return to was – and is – anti-medicine.

I could look back and think, “How strange that I would even have considered such a church!” But it isn’t strange. I had hardly ever been to a doctor my whole life. My family wasn’t against it, but nothing much warranted the trip as far as we were concerned.

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I got out…

I got out of a regime behind a Buddhist veneer. A regime that had me working every day, every night. I worked a full-time job and I worked another full-time job.

When I was home in lockdown I slept. I walked. I made food. I rested – and it felt good.

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“They shouldn’t be asking you about that. You need to work through it with leaders only.”

I had been living with the community for a month or two. I’d moved in with them, in order to escape an abusive relationship with my college boyfriend, and was going through “counseling” with our “pastor”. A friendly couple in the community took me to lunch one afternoon, and asked to hear my story. I felt uncomfortable sharing, but didn’t know it was because I had been traumatized.

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I was recruited into the famous soap company MLM when I was 22 years old by my best friend (we both have got out since)! I was in a vulnerable spot in my life after graduating college. They preyed on my financial instability and naivety of the world.

During the 5.5 years with the company, I spent over $100k on coaching/mentorship, hypnosis, and other business support materials and related products.

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(mention of religious abuse, cultic control; readers be advised)

they made my life a cold, black hole,
their cultic mind, I feared it -
no warmth or safety in their “light”
god the father, god the son, holy hollow spirit

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“Your platelets have dropped to 88, you need to get here right away so we can get the baby out! You have what’s called HELLP syndrome!

I could hear the panic in the doctor’s voice despite her valiant attempts to stay calm.

“But I’ve JUST made it to 35 weeks, that feels early for us!” I immediately grabbed my packet containing my birth plan— the very packet that listed all the reasons I willingly would die before receiving a blood transfusion.

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I first encountered this cosmetics MLM when a young friend added me to her new MLM group on Facebook. I don’t normally like people adding me to groups unasked. I was about to say ‘Thanks, but no thanks’, but she was selling a liquid lipstick which actually looked like it worked, and came in heaps of colours, and I wanted to support her. So, I said “OK, maybe I’ll just order one or two things.” I had never heard of the company before, and really didn’t know anything much about MLMs.

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I have been part of the cult I am going to tell about for 21 years.

From the age of 24 until I was 45; when it finally became clear to me that the people involved in this organization were there either for their own private individual economic and or social advantages, or (as in my case) in need of an efficient and professional mental health help rather than a brainwashing cult.

In my youth, I have always been fascinated by philosophy: I was yearning to understand why some people encounter, apparently without any reason or fault, so many difficulties and hardships.

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I ordered this book out of one of my Dad's hunting magazines. I wanted to know everything about my Dad's world "The Great Outdoors".

It was so much, much, much bigger than my own world. I had just turned 13 and something changed in our relationship. I craved the good old days with Dad. I read the entire book so I could have something to offer on our next hunting trip.

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As a child, men would speak to god for me.

If I wanted to speak to god, i could speak to god in only two ways. In private.

In a group of women but with a napkin on my head.

It could never be in the presence of a man.

I had to apologize for being a female.

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I am a survivor of spiritual and narcissistic abuse. I was raised within a family dynamic of two Christian based cultic practices. As an adult I managed to get involved with a very dangerous international Japanese Buddhist cult.

I was deeply indoctrinated for nearly 13 years.

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My former self would have interpreted the way I met my guru in a completely different way: as a divine blessing. Turned out it has been the curse of my life!

My mother's best friend, Claudia, often looked after me when I was little. Her apartment was filled with pictures of Indian saints, deities like Krishna, and paintings of hearts and angels. While she cared for me and several other children, melodious Indian music played in the background. She lit fragrant incense, wrapped us in colorful cloths, and showed us how to protect our auras from harmful energy.

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