The Alternative Thinking of the Children of the Cults

The effects of alternative thinking on the lives of young people has been one of the most extensive influences on my life as part of an end-time doomsday cult. One instance that came to mind this morning finally linked to the intensive research into my past to figure out exactly where I came from, fully what I was a part of, as steps of healing in my ongoing journey of de-programming and cult recovery.

There was a season in my young life as a second and third grader that, for whatever reason, I had to convince my classmates that I had supernatural abilities that I did not have. For many of the classmates, it simply did not work. But for one, it did work. It validated my "powers" and my "abilities".

One might consider this perfectly normal for the imagination of a small child in his first years of primary school. Imagine the kid pretending to be Superman, jumping off a small rock and "flying" all the way across the back yard. Or the small child on his tricycle, imagining he's zooming in and out of asteroids on a "star trek" through the neighborhood's church parking lot. Those are the imaginations at work - healthy and part of a brain's natural development.

In my environment, I was taught "not" to engage in "pretend" - or unrealistic imaginations on paper, like coloring the sky purple or the grass red. "pretending" was wrong - as wrong as reading fiction, or listening to different varieties of music. Adherance to realism was paramount. Pretending was to engage in a lie. And lying, after all, was a sin. My family took Armstrongism literally, and seriously.

Enter in the belief system that I had as a child, directly from all of my information sources. I was told I was in training to be God. I was told I would get my own planet. I was told this would happen in just a few years (I didn't quite grasp the fact that my parents were the ones to be converted into a spirtual superpower, and I had to remain on Earth because I was not baptized - this happened a little bit later.) Of course, I was also fully indoctrinated with the whole mother-load of Armstrongism dogma, including the Bible Story imagery from Basil Wolverton. Those who were a part of the cult, or take the time to study into it, can get a good grasp of what that contained.

The difference between the young child pretending on the street - and what my episode in elementary school was - is a matter of belief.

The young child playing superman understood the difference between "pretending" to be Superman, and the thought of actually becoming Superman. It was play, and pretend-time. Once the young child was done "pretending", the mind switched to the next event - peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a glass of milk before running out the door for a full afternoon of more playtime (in the summertime, of course).

The young me believed what he was told. He was going to be God. He was going to have powers and his own planet. He was excited that in a few years, he was going to be one of the pioneers of the Wonderful World Tomorrow. And in the next year or two, our going home from the Feast would be the last physical Feast we would ever experience. For me, this was not pretend. This was real life. It was going to happen. Herbert W. Armstrong said so. And what he said was reality.

I thought of myself as superior to the other children - a higher standard. I thought of myself as different and set apart. I had to set the example. I had to be as perfect as I could possibly be, because I did not want to make my parents, or God, mad at me.

I had spent decades wondering exactly why I acted in the way I did back in the second and the third grade. I attributed everything to an overactive imagination - a normal part of growing up. However, when you have an intentionally stifled imagination and a grounding from pretending - and then actual imagination turned into an alternative "reality" - then you've got a very messed up and abnormal psyche and way of developing as a child. Add on to that weekly meetings of fiction turned into an alternative reality - and again - you're just feeding the brain delusions.

This is one reason how the Church is responsible for the psychological harm and abuse of the children of the Church - from Herbert Armstrong to the ministry to the regular people to their children - weaving a wave of deception from the top down with pure goals of self-centered greed. The methods that Armstrongism used to infiltrate it's members with alternative facts - blatant misuse of mind conditioning and cult psychology to achieve an agenda - were criminal.

I know that those in Armstrongism will turn right around and say that that's what "the World" always does, with teaching about Santa and the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy. These things that we were taught were not fairy tale stories that you grew out of. These thngs that we were taught were not metaphors such as puppets and Sesame Street that teach a lesson and are understood as people grew older and could understand the concepts as an adult. These were beliefs that stuck with you and were reinforced week after week, and year after year. No child grows up to believe Santa is real, or that the Easter Bunny will hop around when you are 30. Those in Armstrongism built a whole religion on one man's fairy tale of becoming Gods and rulers in a universal real estate development program and ruling the whole agri-centric world based on a wholly racist and wholly physical interpretation of the plan of God - where people to this day still believe it, and mess up their children's lives to this day in the process.

Not only do I talk about this for my personal healing - but to show others how whacked and how deep of a con-job the whole mess was, and what it did to the psyche, the imagination, the centers of logic and reasoning, and the faith and belief of God himself. It is incumbent on those who were and have been a part of the entire scam to realize the depth of the deepness of the cancer of Armstrongism, that metastasized itself to delusional psychosis in the worldviews of so many.

Respect. It Makes or Breaks... Well, Everything.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. 





The words echo in my head from one of the great vocalists of our time, who recently passed into the Great Beyond, leaving a legacy of incredible melodies that will certainly live on for many generations to come. "Find out what it means to me", as the lyrics go.

A very valid question. What does respect mean to me? And to us?

When I was growing up, the notion that was impressed upon me was very simple: Respect was achieved, not by how one earned respect, but upon the position that the person was in. Respect, thus, was an entitlement granted upon one's rank or level in any given area - regardless of the person's abilities, accomplishments - or lack thereof.

Not that this isn't necessarily an inappropriate way of thinking in it's proper light. The military, law enforcement, medical professionals, fire safety, judicial members - they all deserve respect due to who they are and what they do. We know they have earned respect because it takes a certain amount of training, in every one of these professions, to do what they have to do to either save lives, or protect lives. When we arrive at the doctor's office, we give them our respect by our trust. When we are pulled over by a law enforcement officer for speeding, we give them our respect by our behavior. When something is found to be on fire, we give the firefighters our respect by clearing out, and letting them do their job. We know that they know what they are doing. That's entitled respect, based on what we know.

Then there's earned respect.

An employee brand new on the job has no entitlement of respect. It takes years to earn it - and five minutes to lose it. A new acquaintance does not gain the respect of their new individual right off the bat. That, too, takes years to build - and can take one wrong thing to end it. Your favorite food - you could love it for ten years. Then, buy one bad box, and never, ever buy it again.

It would seem that entitled respect is only broken by losing the ability to perform the task that granted the respect. It would also seem that earned respect is like a Jenga tower. It can be built high and strong, but one false move, and it can all fall like a ton of bricks. Or, if built poorly, can collapse before it ever really gets going at all.

It would seem to me, then, that there are two types of respect. There's professional respect, and then there's personal respect.

Yet, then, there is the public servant whose very profession demands personal respect, due to the intimate closeness that this individual has with those they claim to serve. This would include psychologists, ministers, clergy, social workers, and the like. One might think then, that that particular type of person would know that their professional respect is only based on how much personal respect they have built.

In the environment that I grew up in, the very reversed happened. I'm talking about the ministry of the Church that I grew up in. Those who had the profession of Minister - under the employment of an organization - who claimed the requirement of professional respect - but neglected the necessity of the requirement of personal respect that their very profession requires.

Their basis was simple: Their calling was God-Ordained, through the laying-on-of-hands of the one human being who was believed to be called by Jesus Christ himself, and only under the authority of Jesus Christ. Therefore, their personal respect never had the chance to be earned. It only had to be professionally obtained. Any "personal" respect was simply coerced, or forced, because it was not allowed the time or the ability to be genuine.

Often, within five years or so, this person would be shuffled off to another congregation to be replaced by another individual, who mandated the same professional respect. It seems that any attempt to build "personal" respect was deliberately and intentionally cut off by this system. "Familiarity breeds contempt", it was often said. Therefore, the only thing that we needed to know, as members who were "under" the authority by office of this individual, was that they spoke under the authority of God, and to respect "the office", and not necessarily the downfalls of "the person", because "God will take care of it, it is not the responsibility of the members to try to."

This professional, demanded respect - without the build-up of personal respect - required uncompromising obedience - as if we were in a military operation, not a church. It led us to become mindless drones - under the threat of professional expulsion from the church itself. It was not balanced, and it was not a normal relationship you would expect in a church, which by it's very nature requires an abundance of personal respect. The very structure of the church's government eliminated any build-up of personal respect. The minister's professional respect - and unrelenting accompanying business authority - would far overrule any personal respect built up anyway.

The emotional imbalance of this cannot be underestimated, when you take what is supposed to be a church comprised and built upon the standards of professional respect of knowledge and personal respect of person - and end up with something like I grew up in which had neither. The church I grew up in was a dysfunctional, chaotic, imbalanced den of debauchery with tyrants at the helm, demanding, but not earning, any form of respect - either professionally, or personally - due to the overbearing, dictatorial regime of taskmasters who were pursuing their own wicked agendas at the very top. I feel bad for the few who DID try to earn personal respect within the ranks, but were quickly squelched by those who took advantage of the "weakness" of the good to earn a higher place with the wicked. Where there's a den of sin, there's always those who try to push their selfish agendas to gain higher goals of selfishness.

Respect was never mutually shared, either. Respect is never a one-way, bottom up street, because of the necessity of personal respect given in those who hold professional respect. Those who hold professional respect always should be able to return personal respect to those they serve. In the environment I grew up in, it was purely a one-way street: My way, or the Highway. You obey, or you get out. Pay, pray, or hit the hay.

When those who have an office of professional respect fail to understand the requirement of giving personal respect to those they serve - whether it's a public servant or a family member - the result is always terrible. It's those who do not understand the two-way street of respect - both professionally, and personally - who end up the abusers, the dictators, the tyrants, the merciless.

Respect is either entitled by profession, or earned personally - but professional respect always gives personal respect to those they serve - no matter what the profession, or the task, profit, or non-profit. Any organization that does not understand this principle - especially churches and ministries - cannot be trusted in any way to be what they claim to be, or who they claim they are.