Escaping the Cult: One cult, two stories of survival. Kristina Jones

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СКАЧАТЬ the responsibility of leading a small fundraising team. At the end of each month all funds raised within the house were totalled up, less the 10 per cent spent on evangelism costs. Half of what was left was kept back to pay for the house bills – food, heating and clothes. The other 50 per cent was posted to Berg’s headquarters. No one questioned why this was.

      New recruits – meaning new mouths to feed – arrived all the time. When supplies fell low followers were simply instructed to pray, and if they went without they were told they hadn’t prayed hard enough.

      After a year or so my dad was promoted again, this time to Home Shepherd, meaning he was responsible for ensuring the good behaviour (no alcohol, drugs or sex) of his housemates. He was charming and popular, but he could be stern and command respect when needed, so he excelled in this new role.

      He climbed the ladder even higher at the age of 19 by reaching the rank of Regional Shepherd. His role was like that of a roving manager, creating new communes in different towns and leading a musical troupe around the country singing folk songs in restaurants, schools and old people’s homes. He was expected to spread himself across several different communes, often hundreds of kilometres apart. The group didn’t provide vehicles or pay for transport, so he had to hitchhike everywhere. He often arrived at a house after days of travelling and sleeping rough to find himself bedded down in a corridor or on a cold kitchen floor. But he didn’t care because for the first time in his life he had a purpose. The fact that Children of God missionaries were young beautiful people who seemed to love their life and exude a sense of fun and passion meant it wasn’t too hard for them to win over others. Marcel would tell anyone who listened how God and the group had saved him from a life of despair. Every recruit he brought in was seen as a soul saved and another brownie point for him in the eyes of the leadership. His ascent through the ranks seemed assured.

      In the early summer of 1976, Marcel was leading a team of four ‘on the road’ disciples. They had hitchhiked across the west coast of France, busking in bars and selling the ‘prophet’s messages’ – pamphlets written by David Berg. By now Berg’s stature had grown, so much so that his followers referred to him as either Moses David, King David or Father David.

      One of Marcel’s team members left due to ill health so he requested that the leadership find him a replacement.

      Earlier that spring he had gone to a training centre for new recruits in the city of Bordeaux to stock up on boxes of pamphlets. As the troupe performed a few songs a new ‘babe’, 18-year-old Geneviève, danced for them. Marcel found her alluring but, wary of breaking the rules, he held back. Luckily, she was to be his new team member.

      The pair soon fell in love.

Chapter 2

       God’s Whores

      ‘I want to play! Let me. They won’t let me play. Mommy, tell them!’ I stamped my feet in the sand and stuck my bottom lip so far out it could catch flies.

      ‘Who, ma chérie? What’s the matter?’ smiled my mother absently from where she was sitting on a blanket tending to my baby half-sister, Thérèse. She didn’t look up but continued to blow big fat raspberry kisses on the baby’s face, causing her to gurgle with pleasure. Seeing that added jealousy to my anger.

      ‘Them,’ I yelled, pointing angrily at my elder brothers who were jumping up and down on a driftwood log, pretending it was a pirate ship. ‘They won’t let me play with them.’

      ‘So play something else, Natacha,’ she replied without taking her gaze from the baby.

      I let out a grunt of rage. Even at the age of three I had a real temper when I didn’t get my way. Leah was sitting next to my mother. She cocked an eyebrow at me and when I glared back at her she burst out laughing indulgently. I ran to her across the sand, throwing myself onto her lap, burying my head into her soft bosom and wrapping my little fingers around her frizzy curls.

      Leah was baby Thérèse’s mother and my father’s lover. Thérèse was his child. They lived with us in our new home, a group commune in Phuket, Thailand, that we shared with 20 or so other adults and kids. The whole group was my family but within that I had my dad, my mom, Leah, three big brothers and baby Thérèse. The set-up might have been unusual but to me it was completely normal, with the added bonus that I had two mommies when most little girls only got one.

      A couple of years after my parents’ surprise wedding, David Berg had instructed followers to ‘hit the road’ and go find new souls to save.

      My parents, who by then had my elder brother Joe, took him at his word. They joined forces with three other young families to travel the country in a convoy of battered caravans. Their mission was to give ‘a final warning to France’ before the Antichrist took control. They were pretty much left to their own devices and had a lot of fun thinking up shock tactics. They saw themselves as evangelical commandos, invading church services and shouting at the stunned congregation that the world was about to end. To survive financially they went back to performing music in bars, with my dad playing the guitar and my mother singing. Mom, who was known as Etoile (French for ‘star’), admits that these weren’t the best conditions to raise a small child in, especially when dragging a tearful baby into a church invasion. Yet this was the life they had willingly chosen, and it was one they enjoyed. They were deliriously happy together.

      But both were experimental young people who didn’t hold any truck with conventional ideas about marital fidelity. After one gig they picked up Leah, a pretty young hippy, and took her back to their caravan. Leah never left. There was no risk of censure because the group had recently relaxed the rules on relationships by declaring that consensual threesomes and sexual swinging were allowed. Homosexuality was strictly banned, but in a reflection of his own sexual fantasies leader David Berg said it was OK for women to have sex with other women in threesomes as long as they weren’t lesbians and still preferred men. They had also changed their name from the Children of God to The Family, in part to reflect their new approach to sex and relationships. It goes without saying that for Leah the deal for joining the relationship was joining The Family too.

      For two years the three of them travelled round France, enduring cold winters and tough times, but generally loving both life and each other.

      My mother gave birth twice more, to Matt in July 1980 and Marc in November ’81. She was just 23 when Marc was born. She had always loved little babies and found each pregnancy thrilling. Her dance training meant she was extremely fit, so she coped easily.

      My dad was less sure of how to behave as a parent. Luckily, as he saw it, King David (Berg) gave a lot of advice about parenting and how to raise kids. What pleased my dad was that King David never insisted someone should do what he said, instead he only offered advice through his regular Mo letters. But the letters made it clear that a true believer should indeed naturally want to do as he suggested.

      Berg had four children of his own and lived with a harem of lovers, whom he called wives, at his base. His favourite lover was Maria, known to followers as Mama Maria. He claimed to have a series of spirit helpers who possessed his body and handed down God’s prophecies. His most common helper was Abrahim – an ancient gypsy king who demanded wine before making his revelations. In several of the Mo letters of this time Maria is questioning Abrahim as he (really Berg) demands more alcohol. In one dated from 1978, Abrahim the spirit is apparently promising he ‘knows everything’ and will tell ‘everything you want to know’ if only he is allowed one more sip of wine.

      Yet for ordinary members drinking was still very much frowned upon.

      As СКАЧАТЬ