God Attachment Healing
Hi everyone! Welcome to the God Attachment Healing Podcast. I'm your host, Sam Landa. This podcast is dedicated to Christians who want to understand why they relate to God in the way they do. I explore how our early childhood relationship with our parents--specifically with how they met or did not meet our needs--influences how we relate to ourselves, the church, and to God. Because much of the pains and struggles of life are intertwined in these three areas, I discuss with my guests how we can find healing from the pain, confusion, doubt, and anger experienced in these relationships. If you're interested in learning more about your attachment style and how to heal from the pain you’ve experienced in the relationships mentioned above, then this podcast is for you. Welcome to the show! I'm happy you're here!
God Attachment Healing
Finding Light in Unexpected Places: Dr. Paul Cooke's Journey and Escape from a Cult
Send Me Questions on Attachment
A chance encounter with a mysterious Bible verse in an old Puritan graveyard set the stage for Dr. Paul Cook's spiritual journey, which he shares with us on this episode of the God Attachment Healing Podcast. Raised in a Jewish family in Houston, Dr. Cook embarked on a path marked by questioning, exploration, and ultimately, involvement in a cult. His story takes us from the snowy landscapes of Vermont to a surprising meeting with a carpenter in Texas, offering a deeply personal glimpse into the ways people search for divine connection and meaning in their lives.
Dr. Cook's narrative challenges us to consider the courage it takes to leave behind familiar paths, especially when entangled in the complex dynamics of a cult. We discuss the pivotal moments that led him to question his upbringing and how these experiences shaped his understanding of spirituality and truth-seeking. This episode is an eye-opener for those interested in the intersections of faith, personal transformation, and the human quest for divine connection. Don't miss this compelling discussion, and remember to subscribe and leave a review to support our exploration of diverse spiritual experiences.
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My mission is to help you understand your attachment style to learn how you can heal from the pain you’ve experienced in your relationship with God, the church and yourself.
I look forward to walking alongside you as you draw closer to Christ!
All right, everyone, welcome back to the God Attachment Healing Podcast. I've been on a mission here to gather a good number of interviews to discuss the different ways in which people try to connect with God, and today I have Dr Paul Cook, who's going to to be joining me, and we are going to be discussing what it looks like to be part of a cult and what it looks like to get out of a cult as well, and Dr Cook has a really great testimony and story around this. We're going to answer some really great questions on the topic and, again, this always goes back to how people try to heal by trying to connect with God in any way that they can. So we'll explore some of that today and, as always, remember to subscribe to the podcast. Leave a review rating.
Speaker 1:I thank you guys for tuning in. I'm glad that you guys have enjoyed the topics that we've covered so far, but, yeah, this is going to be an interesting one. This is probably the second time that I've addressed the topic of cult, of being involved in cults and so on, and, dr Cook, I'm looking forward to hearing you share and, yeah, so is the audience. So, typically, what I like to do is just kind of give you a couple minutes just to introduce yourself, and then we'll jump into our topic.
Speaker 2:Okay, very good, sam. Well, I'm very pleased to be here and have you invited me to speak to your audience and to you about my experience? I was raised in Houston in Texas. At age 18, I went up to the northeast, to Rhode Island to go to college in 1967, a long time ago.
Speaker 2:And after three semesters I found that I just didn't agree with college and it didn't agree with me, and I went on a trip up into the mountains, up into Vermont, and I ended up in a graveyard in southern Vermont. It was an old Puritan graveyard and there were gravestones there that had quotes from the Bible on them. I'm from a Jewish family, so I grew up not knowing much at all about Christianity, but one of the gravestones.
Speaker 2:It had just snowed, it was a beautiful morning. I'd spent the night in this little town of Putney. One of the gravestones had a verse on it which I later memorized. It was Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we all shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound and we shall be changed. At the time I was 19, uh, I had three semesters at school and I I said to myself, the people who were uh burying this person believed that there was a resurrection and I'd never encountered anybody who spoke to me of that before. And I thought the stone, the gravestone, was actually, in a way, witnessing to me that there was such a thing as a resurrection. And I told myself I don't want to be in school. I want to find out about the truth about these things. So I decided that morning that I would drop out of school. I had an argument with my mom and dad on the phone the next day when I went back to Rhode Island.
Speaker 2:That's always fun, don't do it. I said my mind is made up. So I dropped out and, long story short, I ended up back in Houston. I met a carpenter who at the time I was reading Gandhi's autobiography and he didn't eat meat. I wasn't eating meat and I was working at a job site as a carpenter's apprentice, and one of the other carpenters said well, why? I told him what I was doing and I was not eating meat. He said well, you know, jesus ate meat and I was interested in anything to do with Jesus.
Speaker 2:I didn't go to church for anything, of course, or pick up a Bible. And so I listened to that and we talked for a while and he said you know, jesus ate me. So he said why don't you come to church with me? And I said well, I'm Jewish, jews don't go to church. But he was very persistent and gentle and so I went to church with him a couple Sundays later and afterwards he wanted to take.
Speaker 2:I don't remember anything about the sermon, but afterwards he wanted to take. I don't remember anything about the sermon, but afterwards he wanted me to meet the pastor and I didn't want to be impolite. So he took me up front and the pastor we waited for, everybody wanted to talk to him. And after we came up to him and I said I enjoyed being here but I'm Jewish, and he said just a second. And he ran to his office and came back with a little tract with the Star of David on it and he witnessed to me, ran to his office and came back with a little track with the Star of David on it and he witnessed to me with that track. It was called Four Spiritual Laws. It's an old track and he said would you like to pray and ask Jesus to be your Savior.
Speaker 2:That's too big a decision to do that right now. But he said well, you take this and you think about it. So I did, and I came to see him on Wednesday, three days later, and he said well, have you decided? I said no, I've got some questions. And I asked him some questions and then on Friday after work I went again and sometime between Wednesday and Friday I stopped resisting believing and I prayed with Pastor Wall, who went to be with the Lord just a few months ago. We've been friends all these years and so on August afternoon, back in 1969, I officially received the Lord, though I think I started believing in him even before I prayed.
Speaker 2:And so a few months later he went to India on a mission trip and he asked a couple at the church to just keep an eye on me. I was a new believer and they did. And they went to church on December 7, 1969. They said did you read about the hippie Christians camped in the park? I said no, it was in the front page of the Chronicle. We're going to go out and visit them and take them some blankets. It was cold at the time in Houston in the winter. It was December.
Speaker 1:Would you?
Speaker 2:like to have dinner or lunch with us and come out to the park to meet these people, and I said okay. So I went home with them and had lunch and then we drove out to Bear Creek Park, which is about 10 miles west of Houston, and there were about 80, 90 people camped out long hair, hippie looking, Everybody was wearing a little lanyard with a Bible or Bible quotes. They were all quoting the Bible and it looked great to me. It was so interesting. I was completely taken by surprise and I joined them the next day. They said don't you know that the Bible says in Luke 14 that you can't be a disciple unless you forsake all? They're taking it out of context, right?
Speaker 2:You have to just leave your job and leave everything and come and follow Jesus, be really serious about Christianity. And I was naive and inexperienced. He showed me the verse in the Bible. He said look at this, in Acts 2.44,. All that believed were together and had all things in common. See, look, the early Christians were all living communally. We are living communally. Are you living communally now? I said no. Well, if you really want to be a serious Christian, you've got to live communally. So I went home thinking about the whole thing. Meanwhile the couple that had brought me out were very quiet. They didn't say much, but I could tell they had a few objections. But I remember the guy said well, somebody has to witness to the people in the skyscrapers. He had a job in an office building in downtown Houston, but they didn't. They didn't. No red flags went up, but I could tell they were not that interested.
Speaker 2:But, I was, and the next day I literally joined them and I was with that group for nine years. But as time went on, things changed. You know the story of if you want to cook a frog, you don't throw him immediately into the boiling water. The water warms up and eventually he's cooked.
Speaker 3:He doesn't even realize he's cooked a little bit like that way to do it or one other.
Speaker 2:one other quick anecdote is that an old english um epic poem by edmund spencer called the fairy queen, and it's about knights and ladies and dragons and all that sort of thing. And there's a knight who has his true love and he serves her, but he runs into an evil magician who wants to ruin him and he's served by a witch who uses magic to turn into a beautiful woman, and so this he makes him have a dream that makes his true love, whose name is Una, it's like one him have a dream that makes his true love, whose name is Una, it's like one, seem unfaithful, and then so he leaves her. And then he meets Duessa, which is two, she's two-faced who's?
Speaker 2:actually a wicked, evil witch who's been made into this beautiful woman and he falls for her and he goes with her, except one day, accidentally, he he sees her bathing. When her clothes are off, her true identity is revealed she's this horribly ugly witch. I forsook Una that is who Jesus really was for me and I went after Duessa, this group that looks so beautiful. But one day, nine years later, he wrote us a letter about Jonestown, which had just happened a few weeks before, and in the letter he always wrote us letters guiding us. In the letter he defended what had happened in Jonestown. He said that they had been persecuted and they took the only way out mass suicide.
Speaker 2:And when I heard that for the first time this beautiful duessa, I saw her naked, so to speak I saw there was something ugly. I couldn't buy that that the people at Jonestown had done something that was okay, it was horrible. They'd been exploited and coerced and in some way murdered by Jim Jones, their leader, though they had been persuaded it was a holy suicide and all that and so. But then our leader wrote us saying go home and show your parents we're not like Jonestown, that you're free to come and go. And so I wrote my parents and they sent me. I said send me a round trip ticket.
Speaker 2:And they did, even though we'd had all kinds of going. We had all kinds of arguments because they didn't want me to be in the cult. We've had all kinds of arguments because they didn't want me to be in the cult. But they sent me the money for a round-trip ticket and about early January of 1979, I'd been in for nine years and 26 days I flew home to Houston from Santiago, chile, and I wasn't sure what was what. I was still very confused, but somewhere deep inside I realized that I might not be going back. And sure enough, I didn't go back. But it took me I think I was in for nine years. It took me just as long to sort of come out of it, to sort of realize that I'd been in a cult. I mean, I didn't Cults did not have a?
Speaker 2:sign out front saying you are now joining a cult. The leader does not have a little thing on his forehead. It says I am a cult leader or I am a sheep. I'm a wolf in sheep's disguise.
Speaker 1:There's no sign that says that yeah, but I don't even describe themselves as a cult either, right, I mean, it's they. They would say what? What? Their church or their gathering of people? What do they describe it as?
Speaker 2:Well, it was called the Children of God. Okay.
Speaker 2:And we lived in little communes. Well, first there was only 80 or 90 of us, but we began to grow. We had some good publicity. Nbc came out. This was their first Tuesday show. Every first Tuesday of every month they had this national television news documentary and they came out to see us. We were camp. We find a sort of a ranch in West Texas and they publicized what we were doing and how kids were joining and before long and they were not 80, they were 500 of us.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, and we had another outpost in LA and an outpost in Kentucky, and before long there was 1000 of us. When I left there were over 8,000 people in the group. So it grew. But then my parents were almost immediately suspicious and my behavior towards them changed. The group told me that again there was so much misquotation of Scripture. They used Matthew 10, 36,. A man's foe shall be they of his own household. He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.
Speaker 2:And so the group almost seemed to invite you to make that come true. You know, make your parents. I mean it is true, but you don't need to go about making your parents into your enemies. If they're going to oppose you, they will, you don't have to be mean to them. So my father actually began a group called Free Cog Free Our Children from the Children of God. After I'd been in for about, he came out to visit us in our commune in West Texas and I was very upset that he'd come. And I met him in our visitor's room out there at the ranch and I said, dad, I want you to get on your knees. This is my Jewish father. Get on your knees and ask Jesus to be your Savior. You don't do that.
Speaker 2:You know, if you witness to somebody, that's not how you do it, but because the truth is that I didn't really. What I wanted to do was prove to him who I was I wasn't that interested in him being saved.
Speaker 2:uh, I was a selfish, stupid kid, uh. And there was one of the other members of the group in the same room, one of the leaders, and I wanted to impress that leader with what a true guy I was sure. So my father, instead of saying I'm done with you, he said I don't know what's going on with you, but I don't like it and I'm going to fight it. And he left and before long he'd started this group. He was more of a Christian that day than I was, in that he was gentle and patient and reasonable, and I was being extreme and un, unkind and unloving, even though, of course, he didn't know the Lord. So they fought the children of God.
Speaker 2:My dad spent a lot of money and time. Finally he quit. He quit doing that because the group hired a lawyer and sued my father and three other leaders for a million bucks Wow. But after a couple of years the group realized that they didn't have a case and they dropped the case. But my father in the meantime had to fight them. He had to, you know, deal with that. And he got discouraged. He said if you want to be with them, do it, but I don't understand why, you know he said. He said if ignorance is bliss, you must be so happy. That's what he said. He said, and he reminded me of the guy in Mad Magazine, alfred E Newman. He said what me worry.
Speaker 2:He said why don't you think for yourself? Don't you see what you're doing In the long run? He was right. I wasn't thinking for myself.
Speaker 1:Now let me ask you, dr Cook, I mean that's really interesting, just the whole backstory there, because it is scary to think that they really go through this for nine years and not realize what was going on. And one of the things that piques my interest about what you're sharing is that there had to be and then, especially growing up in a Jewish home, there had to be some view that you had of God prior to joining this cult. I wonder, did that change for you at all? I know they were misquoting passages. I know that that shapes the way that you think about God as well. So I wonder did your view of God shift from the way you view God before joining the cult and then afterwards? And what was that shift like, if anything?
Speaker 2:The only way that the group would have worked that it did work is that it makes the group doctrinally, when I first met them was right off. They had the doctrine right and there was great love between them, the people. There was a lot of camaraderie, which was so attractive, whereas the church I was going to was a solid church. They were a gospel-believing church. The pastor was a nice guy, but they had their other lives People. They were not as seemingly committed as this group was and my view of God didn't change, but my view about how committed I was to him changed when I met the group. I was embarrassed that I wasn't as committed as they were.
Speaker 2:They said you want to forsake all. How much have you Now? I realize, forsaking all means it's a daily thing. It's not something you do once and you sell your stuff and you get rid of your extra stuff and you contribute your money to charity and you go off. No, it's daily. You say no to that old nature. That's selfish. It's a much longer. It's not a one-time thing. Sure.
Speaker 2:My view of God didn't change, but my understanding of what it meant to serve him changed. Of God didn't change, but my understanding of what it meant to serve him changed. And then it changed again, slowly, because then the group, after a few years, the leader, began revealing his heart. And there were things in his heart that were not good.
Speaker 1:You know, a thing that comes to mind about this is there are people who are driven, sometimes emotionally, to join a church, a group, something like that, right, so when you say that your view of God didn't change, did your experience of God or did you feel closer to God after joining the cult? And just, I guess, just for our audience too, can you define just quickly what a cult is and then dive into that?
Speaker 2:Well, a cult is a very easy, easy thing to describe and it's a very complicated thing the easy description is that his son joined a cult and disappeared.
Speaker 2:You know, um, a cult, it has two ingredients it has a leader, who? Who is in some way disguised in other words, you can't tell who he really is and it also has followers who want to be led. Yeah, in other words, you can't tell who he really is, and it also has followers who want to be led. In other words, a cult will not work unless you've got people who are really looking for someone to show them the way, and so you put those together. You know, pt Barnum said, or supposed to have said, there's a sucker born every minute. Well, in a way, people are. You know, he's like. Well, that couldn't happen to me, I couldn't be. Well, it could.
Speaker 2:If you're in a place in your life where, all of a sudden, the rug is pulled out from you. You've just been rejected by your girlfriend, you've just gone through a divorce, you've just lost your job or who knows what happened. You can be in a certain place in your life and suddenly you're vulnerable and along come these people who show such interest in you and are so encouraging to you and say, ah, but once you're in, then there are all kinds of ways to keep you in. But then later on those wonderful things may fade a little bit and other things are introduced. Things may fade a little bit and other things are introduced. One of the great signs of a cult is a misuse of human sexuality. You give somebody too much power and he's got a lot of followers and they have a weakness. Along that line it'll come out, and that's what happened in my group. I mean it happens in. I mean you see it in the Catholic Church, you see it in leading Protestant conservative churches. You can read Proverbs 6 and 7 and 5. You see all those warnings about not being led astray by your physical desires, because it's easy to do if you're not sticking close to the Lord, you can get stripped up.
Speaker 2:Well, our leader apparently had had that issue for long before he started the group, but it was hidden, except from some of his closest advisors. He began revealing to them that Christians are this is antinomianism In other words, free from the law. If you're a believer in Christ, you're free from the law, which is not true. You're not justified by following the law. You're justified by God's grace as a redeemed sinner, but you're saved, so that then you can follow the law. Jesus turns up the heat and the Spermion on the Mount. He says not only what you do, but what you think. If you even look at a woman and lust after her, you're guilty of adultery. That's just. The thinking is a sin. So we're not told to forget the law, but we're told to live it. We can only do it by God's grace and his forgiveness when we fall, but in the children of God.
Speaker 2:We were beginning around three or four years after I was in our leader. His name was David Berg, but he adopted a Bible named Moses David. We called him Mo and Mo began to tell us that we were free from the law, that every generation of believers has been more free and we're in the last generation. This is the end time and we are finally. God can trust us with this freedom and as long as you're done and do it in love, you can do anything.
Speaker 2:Well, that's not what the New Testament says, but we took his interpretation. You know the New Testament says flee fornication. I mean the Old Testament. Look at Joseph with Potiphar's wife. When she started to, you know she liked this handsome young man and he ran away from her because he said I can't do that to my master. So the Bible makes it very plain. But you get somebody who you begin to trust teaches you the wrong way, then you can be seduced into the wrong way, and that began to be more and more the case. That began to be more and more the case, and so my view of God didn't change, but my view of what I was doing for him. I suddenly realized there's something wrong here. It took me a long time to realize it.
Speaker 1:Did you ever have like little inklings or feelings about it, Like oh, something's off?
Speaker 2:Yeah, many, many times. But we learned in the group that doubts were sins, doubts- about the group times.
Speaker 2:But we learned in the group that doubts were sins, doubts about the group, and so you learn to push them down and hide them and not let them rule you. And I was pretty good about with that until this. The thing that finally, as I've said before, jonestown really freaked me out. But when I first heard about it I said I said well, we're not like that. Even though they called their leader dad, the children of god called mo dad. I said we're not like that. Then, a month afterwards, he wrote us this letter justifying what jones had done with his people and for the first time I looked at him like oh, you know, it's like a little in the movie Wizard of Oz, when the little dog Toto pulls the curtain behind and there's a guy running and he
Speaker 3:says in the microphone pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, but I saw him for the first time there was this guy and Mo was a little guy, you know, he was only five foot six.
Speaker 2:But I suddenly thought am I being taken for a ride? But I've been in it so long it was hard for me to really believe that. Took me a long time to finally realize I sure was taken for a ride wow, that's crazy, sir.
Speaker 1:I, I and I, I know that. I mean you hit it on the nail when you said, um, when you hit a very dark spot in your life, like everyone is vulnerable to bad teaching or just any type being involved with the wrong people, and yeah, that's really what we find. I mean, this whole concept of God attachment is really an exploration of that is that, when people hit rock bottom or they hit a very difficult situation, is that they start searching for what's gonna keep me afloat, whether it be money, whether it be vices, sex, whatever power, and at some point, for those who are believers, they're like God is are you really here? And they hit these dark and they'll choose anything that gives them a semblance of what that could be. And it seems like the people who joined cults are in that stage, like they went through something difficult and they find this community that's accepting them, that's giving them teaching, mentoring them, and that's appealing for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, so. So, as you were going through that, you mentioned that a lot of the stuff that they were doing was kind of this brainwashing and thought control, right? What did that look like? Were there any specific messages that were told to you, because I imagine the first one of the passages that came to mind was Acts 17, 11, when it's discussed about right and the Bereans studied the word day and night to make sure that what Paul was saying was true.
Speaker 2:So I'm guessing, and you correct me if I'm wrong that cult leaders typically do not ask you to read the Bible for yourself. You're so right, in fact, when I've been in the group for about a year and two of the leaders I was in LA in our house in downtown LA. About 70 of us were there. It was Christmas time and the leader's daughter and her husband had met a guy named Richard Wurmbrand, who was a Jewish guy who became a Christian in Romania and was a pastor. The communist authorities arrested him and put him in prison for 14 years for being a Christian and the Norwegian Lutheran Church ransomed him. They paid the Romanian government communist government $15,000, and he was ransomed, came to America, he testified before the US Congress about persecution of Christians behind the Iron Curtain and then he settled in LA and he wrote a book called Tortured for Christ about how he didn't give in, how the communists.
Speaker 2:Really, if you stand your ground, some of them can even be converted. And he talked about how that happened. So the leader of the LA commune and his wife, which was Mo's daughter, bought 100 copies. We all had a stocking for Christmas. We all got an orange and an apple and a copy of Tortured for Christ. And Mo, her father, found out about it and he said don't read anything but my stuff. Nobody else has the proof that they're the true church for the end time, except us. Why are you wasting your time reading Richard Wurmbrand or anybody else? Just read your Bible and read my letters and I'll tell you. And so reading outside of that was banned. And I said well, mo's, our leader, he's right, right. And so I. For many years I didn't read anything. And and so, and if you, if you had a thought?
Speaker 2:this is what thought control and you learned that that one of the one of the leaders had a saying. He said if you think, think, think, you'll sink, sink, sink, because you stink, stink, stink. In other words, you can't trust your own thought. Now the big leader, moe, said don't say that, don't use that saying. It doesn't sound right. It's not that he didn't believe it, it was too honest, right right. You're not supposed to think for yourself, because you'll go off the wrong way. You can't trust yourself.
Speaker 2:But you can trust us. Just follow us so that's how it worked and you learn to casting down. You know misuse of 2 Corinthians, 10 and 5, casting down imaginations and every thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. And bring into obedience every thought, bring into captivity every thought misappropriating Scripture. To keep or how? About this. It was said that God chose.
Speaker 2:Moses to lead the children of Israel, misappropriating scripture to keep, or how about this? It was said that God chose Moses to lead the children of Israel, and when they murmured against Moses, they complained against Moses. They weren't really complaining against Moses, they were complaining against God, right, so okay, so now we have a Moses, moses David, our leader, and if you murmur against what's going on, you're not murmuring against Moses David, no, you're murmuring against God, who chose him to lead us. So you see how you paint yourself into a corner and you can't think. You're not allowed to think outside the box.
Speaker 1:It's a lose-lose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a word that's used in cult studies, now called bounded thinking. You, you create boundaries and you can't get outside you're, you're stuck and the only thing that can uh free you is if somebody comes in and breaks those boundaries. Um and uh there's another story that goes with that After I left the group it was maybe 20 years ago. I left the group in 1979. That was what is that? 50 years ago?
Speaker 2:40 years ago a long time ago 45 years ago, something like that, about 20 years ago I read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress for the first time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in Pilgrim's Progress for the first time. Yeah, and in Pilgrim's Progress he and his friend Hopeful are a little bit lost. And they come to a crossroads and they don't know which way to turn. And suddenly this guy appears wearing a white robe and says I'm going to the heavenly city too. And he said oh really, we are too. He said, well, follow me. I said okay, and they do.
Speaker 2:And it turns out this guy is a false teacher, he's called the flatterer and he's in a direction in which they're going exactly the opposite direction, away from the heavenly city. And then he leads them to a net and they're caught in a net and they're trapped and then he runs away. He leaves them trapped in the net and they could have easily died there. But the story says along came the shining one who's the Lord and he cuts them out of the net and they can follow the truth again.
Speaker 2:So if you're looking for the right way and you get a little lost, somebody can come along and say I'll show you the way. And he may be dressed in white, he may look like he's your champion and your friend, but he can lead you into a net and you'll be caught there. And so this is what happened the the group used flattery said you god has really blessed you that you have all the people in the world who could have run into us. You were chosen, you, you, you were chosen to be part of this group. That has the full truth. Nobody else does. You're special, um, you're god's green berets, and so by telling you stories like that so brainwashing doesn't necessarily look ugly it can be a way of making you think you're something special when really you're just a saved sinner.
Speaker 1:That's your point about them being at the lowest point of their lives. That's a good esteem boost for them and it makes them feel that more accepted and part of the group too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they were believers I mean hopeful and Christian are on the way and, as you know, when you reach Pilgrim's Progress, they run into all these things that are trying to stop them to getting there. And so, when you become a Christian, you don't stop having battles. In fact, you really start having them because you're going against the way of the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's true, sir. You know there's a lot of talk in modern day about either mega church pastors or cultish leaders. One of the words that's being used for them often is narcissist, right, and you know some characteristics of a narcissist could be dominant, very charismatic, friendly, good stage presence, all those things right, and they're characteristics. So just being careful with not using, because a lot of people do this. They say, oh, he has narcissistic personality disorder. That's different than having narcissistic characteristics or qualities. So I'm curious, as you talked about some of the characteristics of a cult leader, did you find that to be a pretty common thing among cults during that time where you know typically they're very charismatic, they're they're friendly people, they can speak very well, very articulate and so on? Um, and they just have this message again, this kind of authoritative or authoritarian type of approach to leading. Did you find that? What are some characteristics of co-leaders, so that the audience can know what that could look like?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say, the word I would use first is charming. And not in a positive way.
Speaker 2:But charming, you have a, you know if you remember seeing the Music man with Robert Preston, you know he goes to a town and he gets everybody to believe that he can teach them to play a musical instrument using the think method. Just think you can play that instrument. And he gets everybody to believe that. And he sells them, all these instruments. And then he collects the money and says the main instruments will be coming soon and then he skips down with all the money. But he's so charming that they willingly give him the money, believing the story that when the instruments come they'll learn to play just like that, with the think method. So that's an example of charming. You know, you persuade people that you've got something that they want or that they may not know they want it, but you teach them that you really need this oh yeah, okay, like salespeople almost yes, they're a good salesman and they're charming.
Speaker 2:They can be uh, they know how to read people. Well, a charming person knows how to read his audience. He knows what to say to get them to believe in him. Yes, it is in some way. Of course, a salesman can sell a good product, or he can sell a lemon.
Speaker 2:Some of these cars that you get sold are very good cars and you need someone to help you buy it. But a lot of salesmen can tell you well, this is a wonderful car, but actually it's got some problems. They're not telling you about so, but if you're charming enough, you can get people to buy something like that. And so a cult leader, in his way or her way because it can be a woman too can be charming, though you can push charm too far and it becomes harsh and pushy, so you have to. And another thing is that they use other people to charm and to attract. Our cult began the children of God with his adult children who were his followers, and they were young and attractive and friendly, and they won a few hippies and college dropouts and veterans. This is out in California in 68.
Speaker 2:And they looked like 60s radicals, except they were Christians and they attracted people to him. So the cult leader uses his lieutenants, and they can be pretty girls or handsome guys, nice guys.
Speaker 1:Is that intentional? Do you see it as it being an intentional, like I'm training these people to do this, or is it more of those who hit that position because they're close to him? They kind of take on that same role, Cause I usually see that when you follow a leader, you want to become like him or her right. So was it more of an intentional thing, like I'm teaching you these things explicitly, or was it more implicit?
Speaker 2:It was implicit, because the cult leader is not a pure cynic. Maybe the guy who founded Scientology said well, I'll invent this religion, I can make a lot of money. I don't know what he thought, but I think the leader of our group or Jones, I think, to a certain extent they believe their own propaganda.
Speaker 3:I believe our leader really believed he was God's end time property.
Speaker 2:There must have been times when, because he knew the Bible fairly well, there must have been times, on occasion, when he wondered if, when he was convicted, you know of you're not doing the right thing, but you know the Bible talks about you can become hardened, calloused, you know, so that your conscience no longer feels conviction. And so I think that what happened to Mo was that he had a lot of good intentions and he really did believe in what he was doing, but on certain things he knew it was wrong. He knew that sleeping with girls early on, because he had been visiting prostitutes before he even started the group he confessed later on that it was okay because he was done in love and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:Well, the bible makes it very plain that's not good, but he he said, no, that we're free from that.
Speaker 2:This is the word antinomian against the law. We're free from the law. One other thing that comes to mind is I read John Bunyan's autobiography. It's called Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, and in there he talks about running into a guy. This is around 1650. You know, we're talking 400, almost 400 years ago.
Speaker 2:He ran into a guy who had belonged to a group called the Ranters R-A-N-T-E-R-S and the Ranters were also antinomian. They believed that you could do all kinds of things sexually and it was okay. And so his friend joined the Ranters and said this is the truth of Christianity. And Bunyan said I wasn't sure I was a young believer, so I prayed. I prayed, lord, I'm a foolish person, I don't know how to go in or go out. If this is of you, show me, and if it's not of you, show me and keep me, protect me from this. And I said, oh, that I had had the wisdom of a young John Bunyan when I ran into the children of God, because the first thing he did was truly go to the Lord and say I can't tell, I'm ignorant, I'm stupid, I don't know enough to know. Help me.
Speaker 2:And, of course, the answers of all the questions are in the scriptures, but you've got to find them and believe them. And if you're new in the Lord, who do you trust? You've got to trust him to help you by his Holy Spirit. And then you know, join a group of believers, a church in which you can, you test it out. Like you know, there was no greater teacher than Paul. But, as you said before, the Bereans, even though they were being taught by Paul, went back every night after hearing from him and said check the Old Testament to make sure that what he was saying was right. So if they had to test Paul, how much should we test our teachers?
Speaker 1:Absolutely absolutely, that's a great point, sir. You know, in your book or in one of your talks, you talk about the cult leader or the phenomenon of the cult leader and the true believer. Have you touched on that as we've been talking, or is that something you wanted to elaborate on?
Speaker 2:I'll say one thing about that. I read a book by a guy named Eric Hoffer. He was a stevedore. He used to work at the docks in New York or in California, but he used all his spare time to read and he was sort of a people's philosopher and he wrote a book. His first book was called the True Believer. It was published around 1951. And he talks about the kind of people who join groups. He was talking about joining a Marxist group, but it could be any group and they're looking for an escape from what is ordinary and what makes them feel ordinary. They want to be special. They're so unsure of the value of their own lives and they're looking for something that will make them feel good about themselves. A challenge too. They're looking for a challenge in which they can prove themselves to be a somebody.
Speaker 2:And you get this group that comes along saying we are denying the easy way, we're going to live hard, difficult lives because we're living the truth, and the truth is challenging and difficult, and so there's an appetite, especially, I think, among young men, for a cause to believe in, to give yourself to, and that's the true believer. But the trouble is you've got to find a cause that's worthy of that, and a lot of causes sell themselves as that but they're not really. They don't live up to their promise, and I think, to some extent, this is what. Well, I think in a way, the church needs to be seen as that calling, that high calling. And if you are running into other believers who just seem it's an adjunct to their lives, it's not the main thing, it doesn't make you feel excited. So you want to run into people who believe the life of Christ, the following Christ being a disciple is really important, it's the center of their lives, and if you can find that, then you want to be part of that, I think. So that's what, really, when I left my job and joined those people, there were only 80 of them and they were living. They were all memorizing scripture. You joined, you had to memorize five verses a day. Uh, everybody was all for one and one for all, like the three musketeers. It looks so attractive, but after after a while, it took a, took me a while I I swallowed a lot of things that I shouldn't have, but finally God, in his mercy, got me out, because I knew people that stayed in all their lives and died in there. And I knew another guy. When I left, I left.
Speaker 2:Around the same time another guy I knew left and he was out for about a year In the group. He was a special guy. He was kind of a leader, a musician. He had a music group that he led and outside the group he was just doing construction. He, a music group that he led and outside the group he was just doing construction. He was just a regular guy and we were so programmed against the established churches he wouldn't go to church. So after being out for a year he went back in and he stayed in for another 15 years. Wow, then finally, so he was in all he was like 24 years in the group. But finally he left too. But his whole life was in there. It was, I think, a very sad thing, and I was in for nine years. I can't be too hard on him, because it could have been me too. I mean, I realized that it was God's grace that got me out of there. I could have stayed in law. It was just his mercy.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, sir. You know I keep on thinking about the shock factor that you may have experienced afterwards when you come to a realization. I'm assuming that these questions may have come into your mind where you think to yourself how could I be so dumb, how could I believe this? How did I even trust this man? Look at how he's done all these things. So I wonder, what was the recovery process for you? Like to reshape in some ways or heal from your view of God, of the church, maybe even yeah, what was that process like for you? So you get out, you go through that initial shock factor, like did I really believe all of this? That would just happen. So how did you recover? How did you restore your relationship with Christ after that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, good question. How did you recover, how did you restore your relationship with christ after that? Yeah, good question. Um, the first thing that what comes to mind is that I was able to come in contact with other people who were also from the group, who were leaving and we could talk to each other in the group.
Speaker 2:You'd never express doubts to another member yeah, never did. But outside of the group, after we've been out for six months or a year, I met with some of these folks, just went over for coffee or met them at their house or their apartment, and I was shocked to hear them talk about doubts. I was still afraid to express doubts myself. I listened to them and I agreed with them, but it was so hard to express yeah, moe's a fraud, he was a false prophet, he was a liar, he deceived us. I said we can say this, and you know, lightning doesn't come from the sky. So that helped me realize how seriously I had been hemmed in. And so and then I began reading books. There's a whole lot. There's a whole industry of books. In fact.
Speaker 2:I just wrote a note to a woman named Alexandra Stein. She was a British woman, young like I was at in my. She's not a religious lady, but she had the same realization that she was being taken for a ride, and she is now a professor of sociology in England and she'd written a whole book about, and I think the title of her newest book is like. I think it's called Love, freedom and Terror, something like that. Uh, because you're terrified of doubting the group and until you can get free, you say you can doubt, you don't have to be afraid uh be.
Speaker 2:In fact, if some group functions along the lines of using fear to keep you in line, that's a sign that you're in a group that's not good. Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2:So I began by reading people like her book and she read a book of another guy who had been a Mooney and he wrote a book about it. So there's a lot of things in common with cults and to realize that you've trusted somebody who, uh, was untrue to you, in a way, promised to be something that they weren't. So, uh, it was a long process. It's been a long process and, uh, I wrote a memoir of it, uh, when I've been out for five years. It never got, but just writing it was therapy. And I went back to college and I shared it with some of my professors and one professor. He was a professor of the history of religion. His name was William McLaughlin and he knew a lot about the history of American religion and he was a very nice guy, nice to me. He read my book and he said it was so interesting me. He read my book and he said it was so interesting.
Speaker 2:But you know what? You still don't know what hit you. This is five years out, you're still too fresh. It may take you another 20 years he was wrong, it took me another 40 years how profoundly susceptible we are and how you know cults can be as small as a family, a husband and a wife. A husband can become as abusive of his wife or as big as a country. The guy who runs North Korea, he's the cult leader. The Bible even talks about the Antichrist, you know, in Revelation 13. He's the supreme cult leader, right. In some way he is because we're supposed to follow Christ. He is our leader, right. But cult leaders are false Christs and someone's going to come along who wants the whole world to worship him.
Speaker 2:So the kind of cult I was in was small potatoes, according to uh uh, uh, when you consider the potential using, you know, modern technology for yeah, that's true yeah so, uh, I realized that what happened to me is not just some thing that happens in a corner that I was of dupe of, but it's something that human beings have always been susceptible to.
Speaker 2:And so what you need to do is you should be. It's not easy to think for yourself. All kinds of people tell you which way to go. All kind of people telling you which way to go. But learning to think for yourself is so important, and the first thing you need to do to think for yourself is you need courage. Courage is um it's not the absence of fear, it's um being willing to make a stand in spite of fear and so learning to think for myself about all kinds of things.
Speaker 2:I can't say I've mastered that, but I know that I need to be working on that. Another lesson that I've learned is that if you're part of a group and the leader is not checked, there's no elders, there's no checks and balances, there's no. He does whatever he wants and nobody could say no to him. That's not good. You want to stay away from groups in which there and nobody could say no to him. That's not good.
Speaker 2:You want to stay away from groups in which there's there's nobody can say no to the leader yeah um and uh, the very importance of spending time in god's word, having, you know, a personal relationship with the lord um and um, because the whole world conspires against you. Having that. That's a good, it's a vital, in fact it's the most important thing. You can do it all kind of ways. In my particular life, I try to spend some time in God's Word and prayer every morning, and then, of course, you have to make sure your doctrine's right, but then you have to make sure your life is right. Keep an eye on your doctrine, yes, but also on your life, that you're living what you're. You spend an hour reading and praying. That shouldn't be the end of it. That should be the beginning of what you do that day, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sir, and you kind of alluded to this already, but it reminded me of the passage I forget where it's at I want to say Corinthians, but it talks about if any man thinks he stands, let him take heed lest he fall right. And, to your point, that idea of when we think that, oh no, I got it, I got it together. All you need is just that dark moment, that horrible situation that you go through, and you're going to be vulnerable to this and to your point. That's why we need to be continually in community in God's word, in prayer, to be able to identify when things seem off. And usually we get that little red flag inside of our hearts, like we see it. But because it's so hard to believe that that's actually happening to us, that pride kind of kicks in a little bit right, it can't happen to me, and so we ignore them and we continue on. And again, I understand to your point like we are susceptible to things, and I think that's just part of human nature on both ends. People are susceptible to being convinced or tricked or manipulated, and other people are prone to do that, to manipulate, trick and, you know, confuse other people.
Speaker 1:So very interesting thoughts here on just human nature, but everyone is trying to find a way to connect with God and you know, thankfully, sir, I really really appreciate, as we've been talking, you have a really humble, soft heart, kind of talking about this experience.
Speaker 1:That was very painful and shocking, I'm sure, and I really appreciate that, sir, I think this is going to speak to a lot of the audience, because I don't think we think about this enough. You know, there's so many people going to church, so many people kind of put it on the name or the label of Christian, but you look at their lives and you touch on this, the aspect of, okay, you're being taught, but your life is not lining up with your values, with what you believe about scripture, about Jesus. So so, yeah, I appreciate all of those points and, just to kind of close out here, is there anything that you'd like to share with the audience that you feel we didn't touch on or that you think it's important for them to know, maybe even some resources that you have or anything like that yeah, let's see.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the thing I would leave with the christianity first of all is about who jesus is and what he's done and what he's going to do, and it's not about how we earned anything we are saved sinners but that relationship with him. To think that the king of kings wants to have a personal relationship with us individually is such a incredible thing. But it's credible, it's believable that it's real and I think that that should be, as a believer, the the first and most important thing that personal relationship with him. And yet I believe, um, as uh, somebody else, I'm fond of reading Oswald Chambers Love Oswald.
Speaker 2:He says the whole world conspires against that relationship. The world, the flesh and the devil all conspire against you having that personal relationship with the Lord. And, as you said before, you need fellowship and you need prayer, you need the Word of God and you need the doctrine, the right doctrine, and God has provided all. But you have to be aware that you need all those things. You need to be in a good fellowship, you need to stay in the Word, you need to have a prayer life and you know, someone said recently to me pray until you pray.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. I like that Because.
Speaker 2:I'm guilty, right, I pray all the time, I've done that, but there's not that peace that you really have been praying right, which comes with really. Ah yes, lord, you're there. Thank you, lord, and so that's what I would leave. Is that it's all about him, knowing him, that he loves you and he cares about you and he'll provide for you, and in doing all that, then you are free to love others and serve him. And doing so, beware that there are wolves and sheep's clothing out there who would like to success to reach us from I love that, sir.
Speaker 1:Um, dr cook, I appreciate your time so much being on the show. I I know that this uh episode is going to be a blessing to a lot of people. Um, again, I just thank you for sharing your story as well, and I would love to have another conversation with you, just talking about a different topic. I think this was a really good conversation. I think we I think we flowed well too. It was a really good ebb and flow, so I appreciated that.
Speaker 1:I'll definitely shoot you an email and we'll try to catch up again.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I'd love to do that. Thank you, sam. That's awesome, so have a good day you too. God bless you.