Cult following, p.11
Cult Following, page 11
By the time I get to the bottom of the stairs, I am sure he is coming back to rescue me. I ignore logic; that people, especially these kids on the stairs wouldn’t know about it if that was the case. My heart is set on it. I imagine us running away, up that driveway, on that road that leads to that city. I see Kris getting really, really angry when I tell him how I’ve been treated. I’ll tell him about Mom and Dad and how they haven’t spoken to me since the day after he left. About how much I hate the Leaders and the horse food and everything.
Who knows what he will do?
I start to plan how I will do it; I need to be clever, I can’t just run up to him. He’s been on the Victor programme too. I’ll have to wait for the right moment; be sneaky.
I can’t believe that he is actually coming back.
*
The half-seconds, seconds, minutes and hours of the day go by in slow motion; people move in and out of focus in a sticky, sludgy forever-of-a-day. It gets dark and still no Kris. It hits me, it’s not true. I feel the bile of anger rising, angry at the stupid kids on the stairs, angry at this stupid, slow day and really angry with my stupid self. Why did I let myself believe that he was coming? So stupid. This is exactly why you shouldn’t ‘listen in’.
It’s dinnertime. We file in line and slop liver and potatoes onto our plates. I can’t tell if it’s rust from the pans or the meat that smells metallic. I take a seat at the end of the table and concentrate on looking down at my food.
‘Can I have your attention, please?’ Mary Malaysia stands on the stairs that lead to the dining room, giving her a little height that she so desperately needs. She is as small as me but that doesn’t stop her from being one of the cruellest Leaders in the country, renowned for her brutality.
‘We have two new Shepherds we want to introduce you to. They will be your Leaders and keep this Victor programme in shape, keep you Teens on fire and make sure that we don’t have any slackers,’ she says through moustachioed lips. She tosses her thick black hair over her shoulder as she moves to the side of the stairs to make space for the new Leaders.
‘Some of you already know them, Ezra and Kris Scott!’
My fork slips. My hand shakes. My ears generate a high ringing sound inside them.
Have they turned him?
Kris walks in. He looks taller, he looks different; he looks more like a man, more angles in his face, his freckles seem to have faded. He stands straight with an expressionless face. If he does see me, he stares right through me.
A piece of liver cements to my throat. Stuck. Dry. Trapped. The rest of my food fights to come up. Every hair on my body prickles as a rush of nausea runs through me.
This must be a trick. This must be his plan. This can’t be real.
Or maybe he really is one of them.
*
The next month with Kris is like someone else has taken over his body. He looks and sounds like Kris, but all the things he does are not him. Whatever it is, to have him here is like living with a ghost.
Every day, I spin dizzily back and forth as to whether it’s an act or whether he has been turned, never truly knowing. He tells me off. He gives me demerits. He leads devotions. But, he never beats me, he never lays a hand on anyone and I never see him be cruel.
Some days, I am sure he is one of them.
But is he?
If he isn’t, he never lets the act slip. Not even in private, not even for a second.
*
A shroud of sweat covers my face – hot, sticky, frantic sweat. I have been lying awake for hours. The sounds of the room are in full swing, the scratch of the eczema skin, the babbling sleep chatter, the rasping asthmatic breath. But the night symphony faded into nothingness when the voices started. First, they whispered, then they murmured, then they screamed.
My arms and legs fight against sheets that feel like restraints, my blanket a noose. The voices are trapped in this bunk bed with me. Close. And loud.
‘There must be something wrong with you.’
‘Not everyone in here can be WRONG, BUT YOU.’
‘What makes you think that YOU know more than THEY DO?’
‘There is something WRONG WITH YOU.’
‘You need to be broken.’
‘Let yourself be broken.’
I can’t tell if the voices are God’s, the devil’s or my own.
Splinters of myself at war with one another.
I run my fingers across my forehead, slick with sweat, hoping to calm its manic fire. The insides of my head feel like a ball of yarn that’s fallen into the grips of a cat, a cat that claws away at the threads of my sanity, snatching and pulling relentlessly.
I have been fighting this, them, my whole life. Battling, because this, this home, these rules and this life, has not felt right; to see this violence towards my siblings has not been right, to feel this trapped . . . surely, it’s not right?
I raise my heavy head to look around the room of sleepers. Do their minds house the same voices as mine? Are they, too, in a constant state of unravelling? Or do they have peace because they have surrendered? Have they been given a cure? Is God the medicine that they tell us He is? Is that how they sleep?
I have to find a way out of this and if there is no physical door, perhaps surrender is the key. The Leaders, my parents, the kids around me, how can they all be wrong? How would I know what’s right?
How dare I?
I want the yarn back, I want the scratching to stop, I want it safe. I want the vicious tugging of my mind to cease, I want some peace from the ruthless scratching.
I must surrender.
Silently, I mouth these words into the night: Please, please God, show me the way. I know I am a bad girl and I have lied, and I deserve to be where I am.
I turn over, face down in my pillows so no one can hear me.
Please break me and make me a good servant.
Rough cotton fills my nose and mouth. It is old, worn and suffocating.
I am a bad girl and I have lied, and I deserve to be where I am.
I bury my head in further.
Please break me and make me a good servant.
I repeat the words over and over and over until I lose count.
I hope that the more I say them, the more likely He is to hear me. If He hears me, if He believes that I mean it, if I can make myself worthy, He will release me from how I feel.
He will set me free from these invisible bars.
CHAPTER 6
The Twelve Tribes – Stolen Children: 15 Years After
‘How are you feeling about the Twelve Tribes?’ Sofi says.
We’re driving down from Northern California to our next group in San Diego. Our big beige truck thunders beside cliffs, around creeks and over beautiful arched bridges. My face flops out the window like a goofy dog, tongue out, lapping up the tastes and smells of adventure. I want to feel everything. Metallica, German Techno, sometimes classical music pumps out of our ratty speakers, the soundtrack to long stretches of highway so straight, they start to mess around with my perception of time and space.
‘Well?’ she says.
I pull my head in, dry-mouthed. ‘It kind of feels a bit abstract that we’re going into something . . . a little more real.’
‘I am a bit worried, I think,’ she says.
‘Oh yeah?’ I reach for the volume on the music and turn to look at Sofi, hoping I can read how worried she really is.
‘Well, I know you are a tough biscuit. But you are interested in this group because they remind you of how you grew up, yes? What if you regress in there? What if we see some really dark shit and it triggers you?’
‘And I go back to being a scared kid?’ I smile.
She nods, keeping her eyes on the road, but I can feel the concern radiating from her.
‘I have thought about that, yes.’
I have, but maybe not taken it seriously enough.
‘Well then, do we need a system?’ she says.
We have been creating systems for everything – how to survive without hot water, how to keep ‘vegan healthy’ by eating things like ‘magical yeast’. We’re figuring out the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of our van: flipping between a pair of gas tanks because we never know which one is full. Figuring out that our shower is better used as storage. We have these systems so we don’t break down on highways (and now so we don’t break down in more ways). We sing stupid songs, crack inside jokes, create our own language, acronyms like WWFIO . . . Whenever we get stuck, we shout, ‘WEEFEEEOH!’, which means, ‘We Will Figure It Out’ – a declaration of our attitude to being in over our heads. WWFIO camera equipment, WWFIO film funding applications, WWFIO the gas tank, WWFIO dinner and WWFIO getting ourselves into the next commune.
We try, clumsily and unsuccessfully, to flirt our way out of speeding tickets. We sleep under the stars and wake up to sunrises in the hills, or sometimes in the car park of a Walmart. Occasionally, we treat ourselves to nights at what we call ‘Murder Motels’, the ones in movies like True Romance that are anything but romantic (where you definitely wouldn’t want to flick on a black light). But still, they are a treat; we have hot showers, drink burnt coffee and eat rock-hard baked goods known as ‘breakfast included’.
‘Yeah, we probably do need a system – and to keep a lookout on each other.’
My reflection in the wing mirror challenges me: Are you going to lose it in the Twelve Tribes?
We can do it, we’ll be fine. Twelve Tribes are small fry in comparison to where I am from.
*
The Twelve Tribes have been on my radar for a while. I had seen similarities to the Children of God – they are Armageddonists who believe in the second coming of Christ. Although the Twelve Tribes call him ‘Yahshua’ because Christ is apparently possessed by Satan – the devil moved in a while back, but most Christians just don’t know about it yet. The Twelve Tribes believe that after the Rapture, believers reign for a thousand years with Yahshua before the Last Judgement. The Last Judgement is a pretty big deal for a lot of Christian faiths. It’s kind of like their Oscars, a massive event where there are winners and losers: the righteous and the filthy and unjust. The filthy are sent to the Lake of Fire, while the righteous live for all eternity. I’m pretty sure which camp they would believe I belong in.
Filthy as.
Best get my swimsuit on for that lake.
Other similarities with the Children of God are their friction with the establishment and how they shunned the Churches. Another strange coincidence is the name of the café the group started in: The Lighthouse. The same name as one the Children of God started in. Gene Springs, their founder, created it as a ministry for teenagers in 1972. I had to double-check if it was the same one, but no, this one was in Tennessee. Maybe there’s a book, How to Start a Cult for Dummies? Part One: ‘Getting Café Branding JUST Right’.
The group is an attempt to recreate the first-century Church in the Book of Acts: ‘All that believe were together and sold their possessions and goods’ (Acts 2: 44, 45), a scripture I know off by heart. It’s one of my parents’ favourites to prove that communal living was conceptualised by Jesus himself. Not by wacky cultists trying to get their hands on your car, house and cash.
The Twelve Tribes give this explanation of why they live as a separate holy nation:
As we studied the history and prophecies of the Old Testament, there had to be a holy nation that proved their love for Messiah before He could return to the earth. There would have to be a people separate from the nations of the world who would live their lives obeying His commands.
The only time they participate ‘in the world’ is when they preach and dance (Hebrew-style) and by running their Yellow Delis, which is a way for them to financially support their communities and recruit members. They are sometimes called ‘The Yellow Deli People’ because of their bustling restaurants serving organic (and delicious) food, matcha lattes, bean salads and homemade burgers.
There are some stand-out classic ingredients here. Heroes (them), villains (the system), the rebellious youth, a charismatic leader and then a structure and story that wraps around the whole thing to make ‘sense’ of it. Creating a world outside of society is so much easier if you are in glorious battle with it. But the Twelve Tribes take it a step further. The group believes that all other denominations are fallen, that the world is the filthy Whore of Babylon. The Twelve Tribes are the new Israel, creating a righteous generation to ensure that the rapture happens. Within all of these familiar beliefs, the one that really interests me is their aim of ‘raising a generation that are pure’. How does this play out? How does this affect the children growing up in the TT communes? Are they allowed to play? Are they allowed to be kids? Do they have the freedom to speak?
‘What is it with people trying to turn their kids into the “Bride of Christ” or soldiers?’ Sofi asks.
‘I think they thought if they raised us right, without outside influence and completely clean of the “system”, it’s like they are, I don’t know, finding a cure for the world in a way.’
I realise I have slipped into talking about my childhood.
Is their world already mingling with mine?
The Twelve Tribes wear matching outfits – gold-rimmed glasses, maxi dresses or balloon pants, tabards and Birkenstock-style sandals. Besides the tabard accessory, I’ve seen this look in San Francisco, London and NYC on many an organic hipster. But these clothes are designed to create modesty and unity between the members rather than a sign of being ‘woke’.
*
We pull into the small town outside of San Diego, where we are meeting our Twelve Tribes contact. The meet-spot glows green with the light from a gas station, it’s dark and quiet, with only the occasional sound of a car passing. I flick on my phone, our faces instantly bathed in a blue glow that changes to red as I hit ‘Record’ on voice memo: ‘So here we are. We move into the Twelve Tribes tonight.’ I pull the glow closer to my mouth.
‘We’re tired,’ Sofi cuts in over me.
‘It’s taken so much longer than we thought it would to get here,’ I say.
‘Mamacita has her own way of riding the roads, she will not be confined by ETAs,’ says Sofi.
BANG-BANG-BANG!
The sharp rap of knuckles on the window pane makes me jump. A woman’s face stares through the glass, an inch from mine. She wears no make-up, her grey hair parted down the middle.
‘Jesus!’ I say as my phone leaps out of my hand.
‘Are you the British girls?’ she says with a tone and expression you might give to someone who has just rammed into your car.
‘Hi, yes, that’s us,’ I say.
‘I am Derusha. Follow me. It’s hard to find our ranch, especially in the dark,’ she says.
I see her looking at the glow of red coming from my phone in the footwell. It’s like I’ve already pissed her off.
Should I pick it up or leave it?
‘You coming?’ She says this as if she’s been waiting all day.
I’d called the commune a few weeks ago to explain that we were documentary makers interested in the Twelve Tribes. I reassured them that we wouldn’t film unless they were happy for us to and that we wanted to experience their way of life. I love the idea of Gonzo journalism and having grown up in a group that were wary of outsiders, I figured the only real way to get an inside look would be to live with them and build personal relationships. They had agreed to let us stay and said they would ‘see’ about the filming element.
What I haven’t said is what I am really interested in is the kids.
*
‘She seems nice,’ Sofi says with a half-smile as we pull out of the gas station.
We are arriving at the Twelve Tribes during one of the most tumultuous weeks in their history. Synchronised raids have just happened at their communes in Germany – their children have been taken away. An undercover journalist named Wolfgang joined and lived for six months as a member of the Twelve Tribes (that’s dedication). He installed secret cameras throughout the commune because he wanted to capture the abuse that he was certain was happening. His mission was to give it to the authorities and to do an exposé. Police stormed four communes in Germany and took 80 children away. We’d already made contact and had an agreement with this group before the raids happened. But, still, I am surprised that they are letting us stay.
Derusha’s truck takes off quicker than we expect, flying down a pitch-black road. Mamacita lurches through the dark to catch up with her; there are no lights and no signs. We kick up dust, creating an almost cinematic haze illuminated by the truck lights. Trees overhang the road and feel like something out of a creepy kids’ book; silhouettes of crawly, spikey, shadowy arms.
‘Bleugh!’ I say with a shiver. ‘It’s like the trees are trying to grab us.’
‘Or maybe keep us away?’ Sofi keeps her eyes on the road as she asks, ‘Would you be able to find your way back out of here if we needed to?’
‘Not sure,’ I say.
I need to pay better attention to the road.
‘No GPS?’ she asks.
‘Not a lick.’
We pull into the ranch. The hills cut an outline into the night sky – the stars are bright and beautiful, but also clear enough to signify we are far from a city. Far from civilisation. We step out of the truck into fresh, cold air. The mix of muddy farmlands and sharp animal manure stings my nostrils.
‘Follow me,’ Derusha says without turning to see if we do.
The sound of our feet crunching on the gravel is amplified by the quiet of the night as we walk towards the glow of the commune. It reminds me of the gravel around my own home as a teenager, so loud you could hear it up from the top of the house if someone was outside. Almost like it was a homemade alarm system. We shadow Derusha closely to a small back building. She opens a wooden door on to a simple room with two sets of wooden bunk beds.
‘This is where you will stay – with me,’ she says.
