Cult Survivor Warns Public

Ghosts or abusive cult members targeting individuals? Author Richard Kelly has some fo the answers and is warning the public this week.

A cult survivor has issued warnings to the public Monday in a written statement, shedding light on the difference between religions and cults and the targeting phenomenon many innocent people are suffering globally.

The difference between “religion” and “cult” can often seem slight, but any self-identified “targeted individual” (TI) will say the need to better understand cults these days is paramount. Cult members prey on their targets in ways unimaginable for the average person never exposed to such abuse and the phenomeon is growing rapidly, according to TIs.

These days, many people might describe “believers” as one big community of faith, but there are very important differences among various belief systems, says self-described “survivor” of Jehovah’s Witnesses Richard E. Kelly.

“On the spectrum of faiths, I put the Watchtower Society, Jehovah’s Witnesses closer to the (Charles) Manson Family cult than I do, say, the Lutheran Church,” says Kelly, www.richardekelly.com, author of Growing Up in Mama’s Club – A Childhood Perspective of Jehovah’s Witnesses and The Ghosts from Mama’s Club.

Kelly’s books detail his experiences being reared in a Jehovah’s Witnesses household, ensuing family disharmony and how the cultish legacy contributed to his sister’s murder. 

In the hundreds of emails and Facebook messages Deborah Dupré has received from hundreds of suriviors of being targeted, not one of those self-idientified TIs has not feared for their life. Some have reportedly been murdered, often after years of crying out for help.

Somehow, in most of these cases, the TI’s family members and friends are either coopted to not help the target or they actively participate in the targeting due to lies told to them about the target. The system worls as well as Stanley Milgram proved in his obedience research.

Milgram showed most people will physically harm another if told to do so by an authority. The church is viewed an authority to many people, as Kelly describes below.

Is someone you know in a cult? Kelly says to consider the following four cult constructs:

1. Certainty that the world will end in one’s lifetime:This is a crucial pill to swallow for a subsequent list of cult beliefs, which keep followers in a perpetual state of fear. If only one holds true enough to a strict set of rules – like avoiding pledges of allegiance at school, for example – then they may be spared at Armageddon.

2. Social manipulation:For Jehovah’s Witnesses who are not observant of all rules, ostracism and shunning is used. How to handle someone who questions policy? Make sure their family ignores them!

3. Cripple half of the members (women):For Jehovah’s Witnesses, women are seen as creatures trapped somewhere between men and animals in God’s hierarchy. No woman can have a position of authority, which means it’s men only for preaching, teaching and praying. If there’s an official meeting and a woman prays she must cover her head out of respect for the angels who might be there. 
 
• Scorning education: Who needs advanced learning when the world is sure to end in a few short years? Kelly’s sister, Marilyn, had very little education, so when she was finally able to leave home, she had few coping skills. She ultimately met an abusive third husband, who later murdered her.

4. Sexually repressive:Jehovah’s Witnesses are thoroughly indoctrinated in how to harness the power of the sex drive to please God. It’s obsessive compulsive when it comes to creating rules about sexual do’s and don’ts, from masturbation to the role of women; from conception to sexual pleasure. Sex before marriage is an onerous crime, punishable by shunning and death at Armageddon.

Richard E. Kelly was reared as a Jehovah’s Witnesses. At 20, while working at the religion’s headquarters, he left the group to live with his wife, Helen, in New York City.

Because Kelly’s family believed Armageddon was imminent, his education was limited to what was required by law, since there would be no future. However, he went on to earn a bachelor’s in accounting, a master’s in business and become president of a Michigan manufacturing company. He now enjoys retirement with his family and friends.