Kitabı oku: «Escaping the Cult: One cult, two stories of survival»

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Family Tree

Berg’s Household

Prologue: Ants Are Bitter

Chapter 1: Moonlight and Star

Chapter 2: God’s Whores

Chapter 3: Fairytales and Thunderbolts

Chapter 4: Dances for the King

Chapter 5: Terror in the Shed

Chapter 6: Candles and Confessions

Chapter 7: Torn Apart

Chapter 8: Ruled by Fear

Chapter 9: From Russia with Love

Chapter 10: Mutiny at Tea

Chapter 11: Walking with Buffaloes

Chapter 12: The Devil’s Land

Chapter 13: Stirrings

Chapter 14: A New Wine

Chapter 15: Changing Tides

Chapter 16: Happy New End Time

Chapter 17: A Door Opens

Chapter 18: A Caged Bird

Chapter 19: The Urban Jungle

Chapter 20: The Prince Is Dead

Chapter 21: Reincarnation

Chapter 22: The Woman in the Mirror

Epilogue: Buckinghamshire, 2014

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

To my co-author, Nadene Ghouri, thank you for your hard work and commitment to this project. With your help my story has been brought to life and I am glad I had someone to share this journey with.

To my wonderful husband, thank you for encouraging me to face up to my past. Without your love I could not have found the immense happiness I feel today.

This book is the story of my past, based on what I saw and experienced in my childhood. It was not written with malicious intent, but as part of my road to recovery. I hope that by sharing it I will help raise awareness of the long-lasting effects a cult upbringing can have on an individual.

In order to protect the identity of my loved ones I have changed names, places and personal information.

Family Tree

Berg’s Household

Prologue
Ants Are Bitter

The hot acidic smell stung my nostrils and caught in the back of my throat.

I badly needed to cough. I knew showing any revulsion would result in violence, so I forced myself to take short stabbing breaths through my mouth.

Uncle Isaiah squatted low over the campfire, tossing a heavy metal frying pan back and forth over the flames. A horrible smell floated up from his ingredients. Half a dozen of us children sat in a circle in a small clearing cut from the dense jungle of tropical ferns and leafy plants. We had our legs crossed and our backs ramrod straight, as he had ordered. Tall trees in the canopy towered over us, blocking out the breeze and concentrating the smell.

My younger brother Vincent sat next to me. I could sense his body tensing but I dared not risk turning to look at him. I glanced at the kids opposite, checking their reactions. They stared at the ground or straight ahead, expressions compliant in the mask of submission we had all learned to perfect. They didn’t fool me. I knew they were thinking the same thing as me: How am I going to keep them down?

Earlier, Uncle had shown us how to make fire by rubbing sticks together. He seemed to enjoy seeing us struggle. My hands were sore and blistered from trying. Eventually the fire had ignited, and I felt very proud of myself as I watched orange flames lick at the heavy branches we had cut down and carried through thick bush. It was late afternoon but the temperature was still searing, made even hotter by sitting so close to the fire. Isaiah was crouched over with his back to me. Stubby, hairy legs poked from his khaki shorts, making me think of the scary spiders that ran out from under our beds when we swept the dormitory.

It was April and the start of the monsoon season in Malaysia. My muddy denim dungarees and baggy T-shirt stuck to me.

The jungle terrified me. I glanced over my shoulder to see if I could make out pairs of glowing eyes in the bushes, imagining that at any second a venomous snake might bite me or a snarling tiger would leap from the trees and seize me in its massive jaws. Swarms of buzzing mosquitoes surrounded us like a hive of bees, diving at my head in waves of assault. I had itchy red bites all along my arms; trying to swat them away was useless.

Uncle Isaiah stood up with a grin of triumph, the pan clutched in his hand. He looked over at the assembled group.

He got angry very quickly. So when he held out the frying pan and gestured to us to come and inspect it we did as we were told.

Several huge black ants sizzled in the bottom.

They gave off a sickening, chemical smell that hurt my nose. Most were dead and crispy, but a few were still alive, wriggling their spindly legs in a desperate bid to escape the heat.

‘Take,’ he ordered in a thick Irish brogue.

I tried very hard not to let him see me wince as I gingerly picked up a few ants, trying to avoid any that were still alive or burning my fingers on the hot pan.

‘Eat,’ he ordered.

I hesitated for a split second but the look on Uncle’s face was stern. I took a deep breath, put the ants in my mouth and gulped. I could feel their legs tickling my throat. I felt the vomit rise up. I took a big gulp and swallowed it back down along with the ants.

They were so bitter, so completely disgusting. Yet not a single child failed to eat a handful. My brother Vincent even managed to lie: ‘Mmmm, ants are delicious.’

Clearly happy with us, Uncle smiled. I knew this was all for our own good, so that we grew up brave enough to be allowed our superpowers. But I so hoped his smile meant the lesson was over and we could go home to bed. We had been marching through trees or collecting wood for hours, and my limbs were aching and sore.

His next instruction made me weep inside.

‘Next we learn how to fry grasshoppers. Go find some and bring them back for the pan.’

Without a word we did as we were told.

Half an hour later I was munching on a crispy fried grasshopper. They weren’t too bad – kind of nutty.

Chapter 1
Moonlight and Star

It was the famously sweltering summer of 1976, with the hottest recorded weather conditions in Europe since meteorological records began. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviets was at its height. The arms race dominated the news, with the omnipresent threat of a nuclear Armageddon giving kids nightmares. On the radio, Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’ and the Carpenters’ ‘There’s a Kind of Hush’ dominated the airwaves. The hippy counter-culture movement that had begun in the late 1960s began to lose out in popularity to disco and glam rock, but not before the hippy ideals had swept up hundreds of thousands of youths around the world desperate to throw off the shackles of their parents’ more conservative post-war generation.

Against this backdrop, in the beautiful bohemian city of Paris, a roguishly handsome 20-year-old Frenchman called Marcel lived in a shared house along with several other young hippies. The housemates were an eclectic lot, from all over the world and from lots of different backgrounds. What they had in common was a hatred of established convention, a desire not to work for a living and a fervent faith in Jesus. They passed their days in a euphoric blur of guitar strumming, tambourine shaking, folk singing and pounding the streets of Paris trying to persuade others to share their faith.

That afternoon, Marcel had walked along the river Seine, attempting to sell radical Christian pamphlets which warned of the end of the world to bemused passers-by. Marcel believed the Antichrist was everywhere, busily plotting the downfall of a human race too stupid to realise it. His warnings were genuinely heartfelt and passionate, but to the hot and bothered grey-suited commuters more concerned with catching the next metro home after a long day at the office, he was a weirdo.

By the end of the day he had sold only a handful of pamphlets, earning just a few francs. He was only allowed to keep 10 per cent of that to buy food for the day; the rest of his takings went to his overseer – a kind of manager. He looked despondently at the coins in his hand and decided, despite being extremely thirsty, that he didn’t have enough to buy a cold drink. ‘Get the victory, Marcel, get the victory,’ he repeated to himself determinedly, before heading off down another boulevard.

As the rush hour ended and the streets emptied out, he saw no point in staying and headed for home, hoping for a lie down. But it wasn’t to be. His overseer was in the hallway waiting for him. Unsmiling, the man handed Marcel a smart shirt and trousers and ordered him to change out of his T-shirt and red velvet bell-bottoms. Perplexed, Marcel did as he was told. Next the overseer told him to go into a quiet side room and write out a report detailing his movements throughout the day as well as admitting to any wicked or impure thoughts he’d had.

Two hours later he was still sitting in the room wondering why. He didn’t dare leave without permission but he had no idea why he was there in the first place. He was getting nervous.

Eventually the man came back. Stony-faced, he ushered Marcel into the main living room. As Marcel entered he saw all of his housemates standing in a circle. They began cheering and clapping. Marcel felt a rush of relief that he clearly wasn’t in trouble, but he still had no idea what was going on.

A beautiful green-eyed woman wearing a long cotton dress walked out from behind the circle. A ring of daisies crowned hair that fell to her waist like a golden waterfall. The overseer broke into a huge grin, clapped him on the back and announced the evening’s entertainment.

Marcel was my dad and the beautiful woman my mom, Geneviève. It was to be their wedding.

And that, without warning, was how their life together began.

The shared house Marcel lived in belonged to the Children of God, an evangelical Christian cult which later changed its name to The Family of Love, or The Family. My mother, who was 18 at the time of her marriage, had been a member for just a few months. My father had joined three years earlier, when he was 17.

The group was founded and led by David Berg, an evangelical preacher’s son from California. The Children of God were unashamedly Christian but also tapped into the hippy anti-establishment zeitgeist of free love, East/West spiritualism and philosophy. That mixed-up combination was popular at the time, and Berg wasn’t the only well-known spiritual guru to emerge in those years. Berg was, as successful gurus always are, a charismatic and powerful orator with the ability to influence others. He was also a sexual predator who liked his disciples to send him videos of themselves having orgies. He preached that Jesus was a man who liked sex, therefore it was not something to be ashamed of.

Across the USA and Europe, tens of thousands of young hippies like my parents eagerly signed up to the Children of God, believing the group represented the greater good – love, freedom, peace and a desire to save the world.

My mom and dad didn’t know it then, but their wedding day was just a taster of how the group would go on to define every single aspect of their lives in future. And of mine.

My dad had a very tough upbringing. Family life was difficult for him because his family was very poor. But he did well at school and was the first person in his family expected to go to university.

His elder brother, Frederique, had encountered a Children of God commune in Switzerland whilst on a long hiking trip. He regaled his younger brother with his adventures. The teenage Marcel was stifled by country life and desperate for a way out. His brother’s tales had opened his eyes to the possibility of a much wider and more exciting world, and school no longer seemed as interesting.

Then he met a group of travelling musicians in Toulouse. They weren’t much older than him but they were funny and full of life. They invited him to join them for dinner. He was overwhelmed with their warmth and concern for him. When they told him they belonged to a group called the Children of God he remembered the stories Frederique had told him about the fun he’d had staying at their Swiss commune. The next day, when the musicians checked out, he asked if he could tag along. They whooped and hugged him.

A day later he found himself in the bustling capital city of Paris, where the Children of God had their French headquarters. The group had grown in number very rapidly from its inception in California in 1968 and now boasted thousands of young members from all around the world. They included the parents of actor brothers River and Joaquin Phoenix and the parents of Hollywood actress Rose McGowan. Even the celebrities of the day joined up. One of the most famous bands of that time was Fleetwood Mac. After playing a live concert one night guitarist Jeremy Spencer suddenly disappeared without telling his bandmates. Some Children of God devotees had been in his audience, and after talking to them for a while he had joined up that same night, cutting his long hair and renouncing all his material wealth.

In the French HQ lived 200 under-25s. They were well organised, with song and dance troupes whose job it was to spread the word and raise funds. People slept several to a room and referred to each other as brother and sister, giving my dad an instant sense of kinship. Girls floated around in flowing skirts and translucent tunics (those were the days when young women burned or threw off their bras as a political statement). In the group, females were encouraged to be free and without inhibition. For the lost and lonely country boy this new life was nothing short of a revelation. When it was explained to him that followers were expected to cut off all ties with their biological families in order to devote themselves to the group, he had no qualms whatsoever. The Children of God were his family now, and he couldn’t have been happier about it.

The group had a very strict no drugs or drink rule. Instead followers were encouraged to ‘get high on Jesus’.

A few weeks after arriving in Paris, Marcel received the news that his brother Frederique was dead. About a year earlier Frederique had been committed to an asylum. In those days they could be brutal places where doctors often tested out experimental drugs or treatments, like lobotomies, on patients. Frederique had been unable to survive this torture. He had escaped through a barred window and killed himself by jumping into a quarry. They found his body three days later. For Marcel this was tragic news.

He was baptised shortly afterwards within the cult and renamed Moonlight.

All new recruits were expected take part in several hours of Bible study each day. They read the New Testament and took part in ‘inspiration’ classes, where disciples sang, danced and gave out group hugs. They even had a special term for the hugs – love bombing.

At the weekends they went out with more experienced group members who taught them how to raise funds by selling flyers or begging for donations. They also went on evangelical road trips to different cities to preach the word of God. On these trips they were encouraged to ‘live by faith’, which basically meant not spending any money and attempting to solicit free meals and lodging. More often than not they didn’t have much success and would find themselves huddled up in their thin sleeping bags in freezing basements or car parks. Most thought that this was all incredibly exciting.

Whatever funds they did raise they were expected to bring back to the group. Only a maximum of 10 per cent could be set aside for subsistence. That meant if they raised 100 French francs a day, only 10 francs went towards their food.

Children of God leader David Berg was at this time based in California, but he very quickly became a huge influence on his young followers overseas. They were encouraged to read Berg’s prolific writings, known as Mo letters, and to listen to his tape-recorded sermons. He became a role model, almost like a parent, who gave his disciples guidance and advice about life.

Mostly, Berg’s writings were a treatise on the evils of the ‘system’ world – governments, corporations and people who had jobs. Berg claimed to be a prophet, saying God had personally given him a message, which foretold the end of the world. The End Time Tribulation, as it was known, would be marked by a series of wars and natural disasters. He used the threat of nuclear war and imminent global financial crisis to back this up. To a naïve hippy like Marcel this was all too easy to swallow. Berg promised his followers that when the End Time came they would be God’s Chosen Warriors at the battle of Armageddon. They would fight the Antichrist in the skies and be the saviours of a new, more peaceful world. He backed it up with a series of sci-fi-style posters depicting the fight. Antichrist soldiers in grey uniforms and helmets zapping scantily clad young women into oblivion before they float up to a heavenly paradise, their faces ecstatic with joy.

His young devotees lapped it all up, whipping their tambourines to new heights of frenzy as they hung onto his every word.

Marcel was a fast and enthusiastic learner, carrying out each new task with a joyful smile on his face. His eagerness to please caught the attention of the French leadership, and after a few months he was given 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 the winter of 1981 approached, my parents couldn’t face staying in the caravan any longer. Life had become almost impossible with three adults and the little boys all jostling for space.

King David had decreed that his followers, who now numbered close to 10,000, should move to the ‘fertile lands of the East’. He explained that these countries were less corrupt and it was easier to find souls to save. There was also the added advantage of less intrusive governments allowing large communes to operate unhindered. My mom and dad immediately volunteered to go and were sent to a farmhouse in southern France for special training.

While they were there the dictates around sex and marriage changed again. King David began promoting the ‘Law of Love’ – something mentioned in the Bible to mean that what is done in love is good. Berg’s version was more to do with physical sex, what he called ‘sharing’. He sent out new Mo letters stating it wasn’t fair that single members should feel lonely and unloved. His solution was for married couples to agree to ‘share’ their partners by allowing them to sleep with other cult members of the opposite sex. Women especially were encouraged to willingly submit to sex if it was a way of helping someone.

When my parents first heard the rationale behind it they were surprised but not offended. King David explained that it would promote humility and unselfishness, and give a person a closer connection with God.

Another new idea was ‘flirty fishing’ (or FF’ing), where female followers were told to go to bars and pick men up for sex with the intent of either converting them to the cause or bringing in a financial donation. FF’ers were told they were ‘God’s whores’. Posters with instructions on how to be a ‘good flirty little fishy’ were distributed. One image depicted a naked woman wriggling on a fishing hook with the words Hooker for Jesus. Another depicted a woman sitting at a table with a man she is attempting to fish along with the words, If they fall in love with you first before they find it’s the Lord, it’s just God’s bait to hook them!

The method was so successful that The Family also encouraged women to sign up to escort agencies in order to guarantee fixed payment for sexual services. Some members were worried because they feared the FF’ing might put women at risk of rape or violence. Sharing with men they knew was one thing; picking up strangers alone in a bar was another. King David happily admitted violence might happen but said women should accept it, comparing ‘our gals’ to early Christian martyrs who had been raped by Roman soldiers.

Contraception was strictly banned. At one point Berg sent out a Mo letter advising people to look out for the symptoms of common STDs, like crabs and herpes, because there had been a mass breakout.

But if a few dissented from all this, the majority accepted it without question. Berg’s power base was growing. By now the group had 1,642 communes all across the world. Between them they claimed to distribute a staggering 30 million pages a month of literature produced by the cult.

In early 1982 my parents and Leah were sent to their new mission destination, a commune in the city of Phuket in Thailand. None of them had left France before, so this was an epic adventure.

It was there in September 1983 that I was born, a much-longed-for first daughter. A year later Leah gave birth to Thérèse.

My dad’s Regional Shepherd role had transferred with him to Thailand, and as such he was hardly ever at home. The Family-related business generally kept him in Bangkok. My brothers missed him and cried for him a lot, but Mom told them to be proud, not sad.

I recall little of those very early years except for that one day out on the beach with my mother, brothers and Leah. I think I remember it so clearly because it is the only family day out we ever had.

I don’t know how Mom managed to persuade the house overseer to let us go to the beach – it certainly wasn’t usual. But I do clearly remember the sense of excitement as we helped her to pack water, bread and fruit for our picnic. As we walked down the driveway and out of the gate I remember feeling very special and hoping the other kids were watching me.

As we waited for the bus my pride turned to abject fear. System people were everywhere. They looked normal but I knew they weren’t; they even dressed differently to us. As we boarded the bus the driver smiled at me and I started to howl. I thought he might be the Antichrist, driving us straight into hell, because in my child’s brain anyone who wasn’t part of our group was pretty much the devil.

As the rickety old bus traversed busy traffic lanes with honking horns, motorbikes and rickshaws, I could not have been more terrified. The other passengers were local Thais who found white Europeans a funny novelty. Back then Thailand wasn’t the popular tourist destination it is today. Women kept ruffling our hair and making clucking noises at us in their strange language. I recoiled every time someone touched me. My mom seemed oblivious to the danger we might be in and was smiling at people. At one point she even handed over some Christian leaflets to a young couple sitting near the front. ‘God loves you,’ she told them, bathing them with a beautiful smile. I was so confused. Why did she do that when she knew the system people wanted to hurt us?

The ten-minute journey was unbearable, but when the bus pulled up opposite the beach I gasped with wonder at the sight of the sparkling blue water. I’d never seen the sea before because we never left the compound, except on a few occasions when I was dressed up and paraded before the public as a cute money-making machine for fund-raising.

Joe was first off the bus, hollering, ‘Come on, let’s run.’

The others sprinted off after him. I forgot my fears and chased behind. The hot sand burned the soles of my feet but I loved the grittily soft sensation between my toes.

We had spent a blissful day making sandcastles and eating our sandwiches until my brothers upset me by refusing to let me play pirates with them. As I sat on Leah’s lap, sobbing with fury, she quietly held me until I calmed. She chastised my brothers for being so mean to me, something that made me smile triumphantly.

Joe, already well versed in the assumption that women were second class and subservient to men, shrugged. ‘She’s a girl, so she can’t play a boys’ game.’

Leah and my mother were complete opposites. Even in her missionary uniform of baggy T-shirt, long skirt and no bra, Mom still held herself like the elegant prima ballerina she had almost been. Having kids had barely affected her slender body and she still wore her hair flowing to the waist, the same way she had since her teens. In contrast, Leah was voluptuous, with frizzy hair and piercing turquoise eyes.

Their personalities were just as distinct. My mother was serene to the point of detachment. She had recently been renamed Patience, replacing her earlier given name of Etoile. Patience suited her because she was genuinely submissive and willing to play second fiddle to her husband. That was what she believed Jesus wanted from her.

Leah was more outspoken and a confident, playful joker. She was very affectionate with me and my brothers, forever scooping us up into her arms and smothering our faces with kisses. I was in no doubt that Geneviève/Etoile/Patience was my main mother but I loved Leah just as much.

I felt another pang of jealously as Leah gently lifted me off her lap and picked up Thérèse. ‘Isn’t she the sweetest, prettiest baby in the world?’

‘She certainly is, isn’t she?’ my mother sang back in a silly song voice. ‘Yes she is, she is, she is.’

Both of them cooed over the baby as if she was the most amazing thing they’d ever laid eyes on. It might sound odd that my mom was so rapt by a child her husband had with another woman, but that was not how she saw it. Leah was her best friend and she was closer to Leah than my father was. At times it wasn’t easy but their friendship always won the day and got them through any tough patches.

With the leadership’s consent, many of the overseas communes provided high-class escort services to high-ranking officials, police and businessmen. It didn’t always involve sex; sometimes it was just about accompanying the men to events as arm trophies. After all, the cult included a variety of beautiful women from across the globe. From Europeans to Asians to African-Americans and Latinos – there was something to suit all tastes and fantasies, and for the cult it made perfect business sense. Escorting certainly brought funds in but it also served as a convenient way of ensuring local authorities didn’t ask too many questions about the group’s wider activities. I remember watching as the ladies would get dressed up to go out at night. Normally they looked so plain in their baggy everyday clothes, but as they got ready and put on fancy dresses and make-up they were, in my eyes at least, transformed into magnificent birds of paradise.

I was a very teary child at that time. Going to bed terrified me and I would often scream and cry. It was usually left to Leah or another ‘aunty’ to calm me. We were meant to be one big family so we referred to all other adults as aunties and uncles. Any adult was allowed to discipline any child as they wished – it didn’t matter if they weren’t that child’s actual parents. I made such a racket that people became very impatient with me. If Leah hadn’t been there to protect me I am sure I would have been treated much more harshly.

A part of my dad’s job was to match women – other men’s wives – for sharing. My dad insists most people did it willingly and no one was forced into it if they didn’t want to do it. But in an atmosphere where not going along with things led to accusations of being unspiritual, a doubter or what was called a ‘backslider’, it was very hard to say no. Dad insists he always tried to make people happy with it, aiming to match people he knew liked each other anyway. Only once did a woman refuse to be part of his sharing schedule, and that was because she was five months’ pregnant. Women were supposed to share at up to eight months but this woman didn’t think she should have to.

‘King David’ had also declared that 12 was the age when a child reached adult maturity, essentially setting the framework for young girls to be forced into sex. He wrote about the importance of teenage marriages, saying Jesus had blessed them so they should be encouraged. He had already published a pamphlet called ‘The Little Girl Dream’, which depicted a cartoon likeness of himself and his lover, Maria, in bed with a pre-pubescent girl. Within the cult literature he was normally depicted in animation, with a long beard and wearing robes. On the rare occasions that a real photograph of him was published it always had a cartoon lion’s head drawn over it, completely obscuring his face. We were told this was to help protect him because if the Antichrist knew what he really looked like it would risk his safety. In reality he was cautious because he was fully aware some of his publications could be deemed immoral or illegal by outsiders, whom he referred to as ‘systemites’. Several of his books and Mo letters came with the instruction ‘BAR’, burn after reading.

But, as ever, nothing he wrote was a ‘must-do’, rather a ‘should-do’. As such, my dad says he didn’t match 12-year-olds under his watch and that he doesn’t recall any other local leaders in Thailand doing so either. Different communes around the world had different norms, and thankfully, in Thailand at least, this bit of depravity didn’t seem to be standard practice.

Chapter 3
Fairytales and Thunderbolts

I was fast asleep when I felt something tickle my face, waking me up. It took me a second to register what was happening as the thing ran right across my cheeks, scratching me with sharp little toes.

I screamed out in terror. ‘Arrrggggh. Moooommmmmmy’.

My yelling woke the others. I shared my bedroom with four other girls under the age of ten. ‘Natacha, be quiet,’ snapped my friend Anna who was sleeping in the bunk above me. She leaned over to chastise me, but as she looked down her eyes fell on what had made me scream. Her mouth opened in horror for a split second before she started yelling too. A brown lizard stared back at us, probably more terrified than we were. It ran for cover under the bunk, making me scream even louder: ‘MOMMY! HELP!’

The door flew open. My brother Matt stood there with an exasperated look on his face. ‘Natacha, what is this racket?’

Great gulping sobs came out as I tried to explain: ‘Lizard … bed … it was … on me … want … my … mommy.’

Matt sighed and shook his head at me with annoyance. ‘Cry baby. Mom is out. It’s only a silly lizard.’

He disappeared for a second and came back with a broom. He poked it under the bed, ordering the lizard to shoo. I watched with relief as it slithered out of the door and down the corridor, no doubt to join the rest of its friends in the attic where they nested.

I was just about to throw my arms around my big brother in thanks when the shape of adult bulk appeared in the doorway. Uncle Ezekiel. He was a heavy-set Australian man and probably the meanest uncle in our house.

‘What in God’s name is going on here? You children could wake the dead. Get back to sleep immediately or you will get a spanking, mark my words.’

‘There was a lizard,’ Matt tried to explain. ‘It scared them. They are only little. We should do something about that nest.’

Ezekiel stared at Matt with a look of disgust.

‘How dare you speak to me, boy. I was not talking to you. Nor did I give you permission to talk to me. Get out!’

He raised his fist in warning. Matt ducked under his arm and ran out.

‘We are sorry, Uncle. We promise it won’t happen again,’ said Sara.

‘It had better not or you will get the swat. Do you understand?’

I pulled my sheet up to my chin and nodded with wide-eyed fear. The swat was a plastic fly-swatter, which was used to discipline us when we were naughty. You got hit on the bare bottom with the handle and it stung like mad.

Uncle closed the door. I could hear Anna and the other kids breathing. I could tell they were still awake but no one dared talk in case Uncle heard us and came back. Our teacher, Aunty Joy, usually slept in the room with us. Her presence always reassured me, but tonight her bed was empty. I wondered if she was upstairs in Ezekiel’s room or if she’d gone flirty fishing with Mommy and the other ladies.

I tried to go back to sleep but it was too stuffy and the polyester sheets itched. I was terrified the lizard would climb inside my mouth or my ears when I was asleep. I was also bursting for a pee but I knew that if anyone heard me I would get the swat for sure. Under the commune rules, children were expected to last a full night without needing the toilet. I tossed and turned half the night, trying desperately to control my bladder and not wet the bed.

The next morning in school I could hardly keep my eyes open. We sat at rows of little wooden chairs and desks. Children of all ages shared the one large classroom, with the little kids at the front and the older kids at the back. A small fan buzzed in the corner but the windows were closed, allowing precious little breeze into the stifling tropical atmosphere. Everyone was quietly reading on their own, with the older kids occasionally pausing to scribble down a note. The quiet, the lack of sleep and the heat made my eyelids heavy. I could feel my chin about to droop down onto my chest when Aunty Joy’s voice startled me: ‘Natacha, wake up please, little lady.’

I sprang to attention, sitting bolt upright on my chair with arms folded tightly across my chest. Aunty Joy pulled up a seat and sat down next to me. Her youthful Thai features erupted into a pretty smile that lit up her face. Joy was my favourite teacher.

‘Natacha, I have something very special for you to read today.’

She handed me a large comic book, wrinkling her nose with excitement. The humidity made its greying pulp pages feel slightly moist to touch. I stared at the cover. It had a picture of a pretty young teenage girl with lustrous long black hair in a braid. Aunty Joy began to sound out the title for me.

‘He … van … s. Can you say that?’ beamed Joy.

‘Hev …’ I stammered, struggling to match the letters she pointed to with the correct sounds.

The next word was easy. I could guess its meaning from the picture.

‘Girl,’ I said triumphantly.

‘Well done, Natacha, you clever girl.’

A thrill ran through me as I looked at the image.

‘Do you want to read it together, Natacha?’ she asked.

I nodded so hard I thought my head might fall off. I rarely got individual adult attention and was determined to milk this for all it was worth. My clammy fingers fumbled with the thin paper as I opened it several pages into the story. A girl dressed in a short white robe was throwing two men backwards as if using magic. Her robe was see-through and her nipples stuck out through her dress. I was a bit fascinated by that because a couple of days earlier a visiting uncle had shown us a poster of another lady with similar sticky-out nipples and told us that nipples were his favourite thing in the world. He had grinned when he told us all little girls would grow up to have sexy nipples like the lady in the picture, too. Anna had whispered to me afterwards that the uncle was naughty to say that to us.

The men in the picture were dressed in helmets and sinister uniforms with armbands marked 666.

‘What’s Heaven’s Girl doing, Aunty Joy?’ I asked, puzzled and happy at the same time.

Joy laughed and pulled me closer to her.

‘She’s using her powers to fight the soldiers of the Antichrist. See, she’s shooting them with lightning. What do you think that word says, Natacha?’

She pointed to the large graphic letters drawn above the image of the dying men. I shrugged.

‘Zap!’ said Joy.

‘Zap!’ I repeated back, feeling very pleased with myself. ‘But Aunty Joy, why is she doing that?’

‘Because she’s in the End Time Army. You’ve heard your Grandpa David tell us about the End Time Army in his letters, haven’t you?’

Of course I had. For as long as I could remember it had been drilled into me that I was an elite child soldier in God’s army. Every day we were training and preparing for the End Time war, which would mark the beginning of end of the world. We were told Grandpa (which is what we children were instructed to call our leader, David Berg) had been sent a prophecy directly from God that the war would begin in 1993. My brothers assured me I would be ten by then and definitely old enough to fight.

Every day we listened to tapes of Grandpa talking to us. He explained how the Antichrist was already living on earth and making his evil plans to destroy the world. He said Europe and America were already under the devil’s control but the system people who lived there didn’t even know it. That’s why they laughed at us. They thought we were crazy but that was because they were the stupid ones.

Grandpa’s tapes also explained that when the war started, floods and earthquakes would ravage the world and a deep darkness would cover the earth. Joy showed me pictures of what this would look like. It was really sad – there were no flowers and all the buildings had been destroyed. He called this the ‘great tribulation’. At the very end of the war there would be the battle of Armageddon, which is when God would fly down from the sky on his chariot. We would fight by God’s side and die, and then we’d go to live in heaven.

I couldn’t wait to get to heaven. Art was my favourite lesson because we got to draw heaven with crayons. I especially loved colouring in the outside walls of the heavenly city because they were made of precious stones, like rubies and emeralds, so I got to use lots of different colours. The main city was shaped like a pyramid and right in the middle of it there was a giant crystal skyscraper over 600 metres high. Aunty Joy said that was twice as high as the Empire State Building, which she explained was an important government building in America. Joy said anything wicked men could build God could do twice as well.

And there wasn’t just one pearly gate like the stupid system people believed, there were twelve – three on each wall.

People didn’t need to walk anywhere in this magical city, they whizzed through the air instead. And because I was going to be a glorious martyr it that meant my family would get a solid gold house on one of the top levels of the pyramid, areas reserved only for important people like us.

But absolutely the best bit about the war was that I would have a special superpower. I wanted this more than anything in the entire world. Joy promised us God would give all the children in the End Time Army an individual power when he was ready. But first we had to prove to him how brave and worthy we were.

I turned another page of the book.

Heaven’s Girl had been captured and was about to be fed to some lions. She looked really worried and I was scared for her. But as Joy continued to read out loud I worked out that the nasty men had changed their minds about throwing her to the lions because they said they wanted a bite of her themselves instead. That really got me confused. Why would they want to eat her?

In the drawing on the next page she was being held down by the soldiers. Two of them had her by the ankles, spreading her legs, while a third loosened his belt buckle.

I suddenly felt very flushed and uncomfortable.

‘Aunty Joy, what are those men doing to Heaven’s Girl?’

I knew what sex looked like – I’d seen the adults do it in their love-up sessions lots and lots of times – but this was different.

‘Can’t you see, Natacha, my dear?’ said Joy. ‘Look at what a wonderful example Heaven’s Girl is setting for you. They want to rape her by force, but Grandpa David tells us there is no such thing as rape if we follow the true laws of nature. A woman of the Bible should submit willingly to a man and satisfy him. God created sex and he created a man’s need for sex. He created woman to serve a man’s need. Heaven’s Girl is using this God-given opportunity to share the love of Jesus with these soldiers. She is going to love them so much that she will turn them back to the path of Jesus. She shares her love with a big smile and a song in her heart like all good girls should. Isn’t that a beautiful thing?’

After Aunty Joy and I finished a few more pages of the book she closed it and promised we’d read some more tomorrow. I didn’t really mind her taking it – that picture had made me feel a bit sick. I couldn’t shake the thought of Heaven’s Girl’s smiling face as the soldiers did things to her. Would I have to do that when I was bigger? Would I be brave enough?

I began to feel a bit shaky so I tried to think about what always made me feel happy – what superpower was God going to give me? My brothers and I used to argue about it all the time. Was it better to be invisible or be able to run really fast? Did boys get better ones than girls? I bawled my eyes out when my brothers teased me by insisting that they did.

I was really into the idea of shooting thunderbolts from my eyes. I would practise my pose for hours, standing with my feet firmly planted one in front of the other, and trying to look as mean and scary as possible as I narrowed my eyes into my best thunderbolt death stare.

‘Nap time.’

Aunty Joy’s voice snapped me back to reality.

‘Children, back to your room, PJs on and get on your beds, please.’

I groaned inwardly. I hated nap time. I would much rather have been allowed out to play in the garden where there was the big flame of the forest tree. The tree had big orange feathery plumes on its branches, and whenever we got a chance the other little girls and I would skip around it pretending to be princesses in a castle.

Without a word we filed back to our room, stripped down to our underwear and put on the sleeveless T-shirts that we wore as our pyjamas, before climbing onto our bunk beds. Some of the uncles had built them out of salvaged wood. The bolts holding my frame together were loose, and whenever I moved it creaked and swayed.

Uncle Ezekiel came into the room to supervise us. I hated the way he spoke through his nose.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but the images of Heaven’s Girl and the soldiers invaded my mind. I was always a fidgety child, and being mentally uneasy made it worse. I couldn’t keep still.

‘Natacha,’ barked Uncle Ezekiel. I froze at my name.

Ezekiel and Aunty Joy were sharing the single bed – she was bare breasted and her hand was moving up and down under the blanket.

‘Keep still. Go to sleep. All you children go to sleep. Now.’

I screwed my eyelids tight, willing myself to sleep, trying to ignore the squeaking and animal grunting coming from Joy’s bed. I shuffled around in a bid to get comfortable.

A strong hand clamped around my forearm. Uncle Ezekiel’s face was glaring at me.

‘You disobedient girl. Get here now.’

He dragged me out of the bed so roughly that I fell face down onto the cold floor.

Uncle Ezekiel, now completely naked, stood over me – his penis wagging like a disapproving finger. He reached towards me and pulled down my underwear. I knew better than to struggle, instead clenching my jaw for what was to come.

The fly-swat slapped down hard across my buttocks, biting at my tender skin.

I squealed, more from shock and indignation than pain, and clenched my jaw tighter, determined not to give him the satisfaction of making me cry.

‘Naughty, wicked girl,’ he cried as the swat struck again. Then a third time. ‘I hope you understand why I had to do that, Natacha. It was for your own benefit, because I love you. Now get into your bed and ask the Lord to forgive you.’

Tears silently rolled down my cheeks as Uncle Ezekiel shoved me roughly back onto my bed, my knickers still around my knees.

I lay still, my face pressing into the wall.

‘If I catch any children not sleeping then they will get the same thing,’ hissed Ezekiel, slightly out of breath.

With tears streaming I pushed my face into the pillow to wipe my snotty nose, daring not to move further. My head was throbbing and filled with images of Uncle Ezekiel cowering before me, pleading with me not to shoot him with thunderbolts from my eyes. This made me feel better, and I drifted into a fitful sleep, with pictures of Ezekiel begging for mercy.

When I woke up he was gone and Aunty Joy was smiling again.

‘Come along, children, back to class for Memory Time,’ she trilled in her sing-song accent.

In silence we climbed out of our beds, filed back into the classroom and took our seats at our little desks. My bottom still stung and my eyes felt puffy.

Joy had written some words on the blackboard and started to read them out loud: ‘Then … shall … they … deliver … you … up … to … be … afflicted … and … shall … kill … you … and … ye … shall … be … hated … of … all … nations … for … my … name’s … sake. OK, children, Bibles open at Matthew, please. Let’s all practise the verse together.’

We repeated it in unison. I couldn’t say the word afflicted. Joy saw me struggling and laughed indulgently: ‘Oh, little Natacha. AF FLIC TED. It means to suffer, like when you die.’

‘Will I suffer when I die, Aunty Joy?’ I asked her.

‘Yes, of course, little one,’ she cooed as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

‘What if I don’t want to?’

Aunty Joy laughed again, bathing me in her warm, beautiful smile.

‘Little Natacha, if you are not willing to suffer and die for Jesus how will you get to heaven?’

Knowing I would die at a young age was not scary for me. It was a completely normal part of my life that was reinforced by every adult I knew, including my mom and dad. But it was the suffering bit that got to me. I would spend hours secretly worrying about it. Would it hurt? Would it be slow or quick? Would the person who killed me feel bad and say sorry or would they laugh and enjoy it?

Those thoughts often kept me awake at night.

Joy’s voice snapped me back to reality. ‘Very good, children. Let’s do it again. Then … shall … they … deliver … you … up … to … be … afflicted … and … shall … kill … you … and … ye … shall … be … hated … of … all … nations … for … my … name’s … sake. And again please, children.’

And on and on we repeated it. Again. And again. And again.

Chapter 4
Dances for the King

Aunty Joy had sent me to an upstairs storeroom to fetch some books. Thrilled to be out of the stifling classroom for a few brief moments, I walked as slowly as I possibly could.

At the top of the stairs I paused, wondering how I could drag the errand out even longer. I hit upon the ruse of pretending to be a princess inspecting my castle. Haughtily I practised an exaggerated princess walk, imagining that my brother’s old hand-me-down jeans, which were two sizes too big and held up with a nylon belt, were in fact a beautiful ball gown with a big petticoat skirt. I pranced along, swishing my imaginary dress from side to side as I went.

The sight of a bedroom door, left ajar, stopped me hard in my make-believe tracks – one prancing leg still raised up above the floor. Why oh why hadn’t I noticed it sooner? Being seen or heard by the occupants was something I really didn’t want to happen.

Gingerly I put my foot down, trying to be an ever-so-quiet tiny-little mouse.

I heard the people in the room giggling.

‘Who’s there? Come on, nothing to be scared of. Come and say hi,’ said a male voice.

I winced. Saying hi was the very last thing I wanted to do.

‘Heeeelllooooo?’ came a female voice I recognised as Aunty Salome. She was from Minnesota in the United States and was married with one son, a few years older than me. I got the impression she didn’t like children very much, so I usually tried to avoid her.

The male voice spoke again: ‘Is that a demon? Or is it a little person? Is it an embarrassed little person?’

At that the pair started to giggle again, followed by a few seconds of silence before the woman let out a low little moan.

The man spoke again: ‘Hey, you kids shouldn’t be wandering about. Aren’t you supposed to be in Word Time? I’m in no mood to come out there and chastise you so pop yourself right in here and tell me what your business is.’

The tone of his voice made it clear I didn’t have much choice. Reluctantly I hovered by the entrance, trying very hard not to look inside.

‘It’s Natacha. Aunty Joy sent me up here to get some books from the cupboard. I have to get them and go back to my class. Sorry if I disturbed you, Aunty Salome.’

At that I turned to make my escape. But the man, amused now, was having none of it.

‘Why so shy, little one? We aren’t demons either. Come and say hi.’

‘I really need to get back to my class. Aunty Joy said …’ I trailed off nervously.

‘Joy won’t tell you off for being a polite little girl. One minute to say hello, that’s all we are asking. You wouldn’t deny your uncle and aunty that, would you?’ he countered.

The woman’s voice spoke back to him, slightly impatiently. ‘Stop teasing her, Peter. It’s putting me off.’ Then she snapped to me: ‘Natacha, stop being a silly girl. Show yourself like your uncle has asked you.’

I took a step into the room, still trying to avert my gaze from the bed where the two were lying. That made them laugh even harder.

‘Oh my, look at her. What a little prude. Natacha, LOOK. AT. US. We don’t bite.’

I lifted my head up. On the little side table next to the bed was a bottle of Dettol disinfectant spray, a big box of tissues and a candle. That’s what all adults kept by their bed. I knew the Dettol and tissues were for hygiene because we kids used the same. Joy had explained to me that the candle was to help them make the room look pretty and give it a nice mood during love-ups. Lying in the bed next to Salome was a man I didn’t recognise. The crumpled sheets barely covered their naked bodies.

‘I am Uncle Peter,’ he explained. ‘I live in Bangkok. I’m just visiting. Natacha? Natacha, Natacha … I know your name. I know your daddy, don’t I? You are Shepherd Moonlight’s little girl?’

I nodded.

‘Ah, you are as cute as a button, just as he said you were. Well, lovely to meet you, Natacha. You had better get those books then, hadn’t you?’

At that he stuck out his hand, offering it for me to shake. I didn’t move.

‘Come on, silly girl. I already said I don’t bite. SHAKE. MY. HAND.’

I reached forward and with the merest hint of my fingertips gave him a tiny shake. He lunged towards me, making a growling noise: ‘Grrrr. I fibbed. I do bite. Grrrrrrrrrr. Come here little girl. Let me eat you!’

I yelped, stumbling into the table.

‘Peter, quit it now. You’re scaring the poor kid!’ snapped Salome. ‘Natacha, please don’t be scared. Peter was just joking with you. He’s a big silly billy, aren’t you, Peter?’ At that she raised herself onto her elbow and leaned over him, her breasts dangling in his face. The sight of that made him forget all about me.

‘Oh, am I now, my lady? Well, maybe I am going to bite your titties. Grrrrr. Come here and let me eat YOU.’

At that the pair of them collapsed into a heap, her squealing with excited giggles, him still making the stupid roaring noise. I seized my chance and ran out.

This kind of thing was par for the course. Everywhere I looked grown-ups were having sex. They left the doors open, they had orgies in the living room, they stood kissing and groping each other in the hallways. They never made any attempt to hide it from us because they thought sexual openness was not only healthy, it was divine. Grandpa preached that love – sex – was something Jesus wanted his believers to do lots of. By being so open about it the adults weren’t trying to harm us, they genuinely thought it would make us healthier adults and better Christians too. But I hated seeing it. For me, the sight of adults making out was just gross.

Grandpa was completely open about his attitude to sex and children. We were read to from a book he wrote called The Devil Hates Sex but God Loves It. The cover of it had a naked couple making love as God smiles over them. In it Grandpa talked about children and sex: ‘How beautiful it is and how true and how Godly and how Biblical and so on, and yet how dangerous for us to even put out such a truth! I mean if you want to infuriate the system, just talk about teaching sex to children, or allowing children any sexual activities or to explore sex or anything. Whew! They’ve passed so many laws against sex it’s almost unbelievable!’

In another letter Mama Maria wrote: ‘It’s pure to us, there’s nothing wrong with it, so we let our kids be in on it, we let them get in on it if they want, we even play it with them because it’s nice, it makes them feel good and they enjoy it.’

Masses of similar letters were sent out with the instruction BAR, burn after reading. Not all of these letters were taught to us in the classroom; others were read out during group prayer sessions where the whole house, children and adults, gathered together in the dining hall for worship. I hated these occasions, not least because I always struggled to sit still. I couldn’t help but fidget, which more often than not got me a spanking.

I had a little friend called Simon who was my age. We used to hide under the stairs and have pretend sex. He would mimic exactly what he’d seen the adult men do and hump at me, pretending to penetrate me. Instead of finding it shocking the adults laughed at us. ‘Ah, they are sharing already. How cute.’

Times were financially tough in the commune and our food rations were smaller than usual due to a lack of donors willing to provide us food. We ate a lot of boiled rice or mangoes, which often had maggots inside them. One of the aunties was heavily pregnant around this time. She clearly wasn’t getting enough nutrients and didn’t look well. She was sent on a fundraising trip in the middle of the monsoon season when it was so hot and sticky that being outdoors for even a few minutes was uncomfortable. In a crowded side street she began to miscarry. She was rushed to a filthy local clinic where she delivered a stillborn baby. When she got back, white-faced and shaking, the other adults urged her to ‘get the victory’, the term they used for overcoming any and all adversity.

One morning I woke up to find everyone talking in hushed tones and looking very worried. We were ushered into the dining hall and told God had sent word that the End Time was getting nearer. I felt a shiver of fear run through me. They told us agents of the Antichrist had located Grandpa’s whereabouts and had made an attempt to capture him. I gasped. Grandpa was our King – the thought of people trying to hurt him was terrible.

The adults explained that if the devil’s forces killed our prophet, they could destroy the army he had formed to save the world – us. Therefore Grandpa had to be protected at all costs. From now on only a few trusted aides could know where he was. What wasn’t explained to us that day was that those aides were the only people, aside from Berg himself, who knew the real truth about why he needed to go into hiding. The authorities were investigating him for child abuse and suspicion of pimping.

New instructions were sent out to all communes urging us to be more cautious. Adults began to use a code of secret knocks whenever they entered a building. Anyone who went out witnessing had to telephone in before coming home again, using a secret code to gain entry. And all mail was to come in and out through secret PO boxes, which were checked twice a month in military-style operations carried out by adults in disguise. Children were given extra drills urging us not to talk to strangers or answer any questions about who we were or where we lived. We were told only to say: ‘I am sorry. I don’t know anything.’

Yet this didn’t stop the sexual nature that defined so much of life within The Family from getting more and more depraved. In Greece the group had a large commune led by a man called Paul Peloquin. The commune’s role was to produce Music with Meaning videos, which were used as learning tools for members.

We watched a film they had made called Glorify God in the Dance, in which naked pre-pubescent girls and women danced suggestively or, as it was explained to me, ‘joyfully for God’. The film had originally been made as a present for Berg but he apparently loved it so much he ordered copies of it to be sent to all communes along with his advice on how each of the women and girls could be a ‘dancing girl’ too.

This was read out to us: ‘When you rub your hands on the sides of your belly and down your crotch it’s really exciting. It really is thrilling to watch a girl caress herself, very stimulating, masturbating breasts and bum with your hands!’

I can’t say for sure if I took part in this but I think perhaps so, because today I have flashbacks of dancing while wearing a thin veil.

One thing I remember more vividly is the day Joy showed the class a book called The Story of Davidito. Like most books she showed me it didn’t make a great deal of sense to me. There was a lot of very hard to understand writing and biblical quotes. But mostly the book was a series of pictures of a little boy. There he was as a baby, then walking along a path, then lying in bed with an aunty kissing him on the lips. Joy read me the words above the picture: ‘When two lie together they shall have heat.’

Joy said this little boy was very important. His mommy was Maria, whom I knew was Grandpa’s favourite wife. She explained how Davidito had been the very first ‘Jesus baby’ born to The Family, meaning Jesus had sent him to us as a gift. Davidito’s father was a Spanish waiter and Maria had only one night of love with him. When she found out she was pregnant the man was not interested and disowned his child. Grandpa David offered the man all the riches of the spiritual world, Maria as his wife and a place in his home if he would only accept God’s will and his little baby. But the man preferred his evil path within the system and said no.

So in an act of the highest kindness and grace, because of course as Joy explained, Grandpa was the world’s nicest person, he adopted Davidito as his own son and heir.

Grandpa also decreed that more Jesus babies should be born, and this is why he invented flirty fishing – so that God could bless us all with lots of babies. She said that within our family there were at least 300 other Jesus babies who had come to us through FF’ing.

The numbers were boring me by this point but I started to listen more intently when Joy mentioned Armageddon again. This always made me serious. But whenever I got worried about it I tried to focus on the solid gold house that we would live in. I wondered what my bedroom might look like and if I would have to share it or if I would have one of my own. I was also comforted by the fact that there would be no systemite people in heaven. Given how they terrified me, this sounded very good indeed.

Joy’s voice built to a crescendo as she told us Grandpa had been given a new prophecy directly from God. ‘Can you guess what it said, children? I bet you can’t! Can you? Try!’

‘More wars?’ suggested one kid. ‘Jesus will give us more powers?’ tried another.

Joy laughed her shiny tinkling laugh and shook her head.

‘This prophecy is about the End Time itself! It is so very exciting. Davidito will be the general of our army, leading us all – and leading all of you – at the battle of Armageddon.’

We all stared at her blankly as she shrieked with exhilaration.

‘Davidito will die and be the most glorious of all martyrs! He will fight a brave fight but he will fall in battle, brutally slain by the Antichrist himself! The Lord will lift him up and place him right by his side where he will live in praise for evermore. Children, you too will fight bravely with him. And we know many of you will be martyred too. But Davidito will be the greatest martyr of all. Praise be to Grandpa, wise Grandpa, for choosing this special child as his son.’

My bottom lip stuck right out in temper.

I glared at Joy. I was furious with jealousy. How come he got to be the prince? I was going to die too, so why was he more glorious than me? And why did they have to make a book about him? I didn’t know this little boy but I decided right there and then I did not like him.

I stared down at the book. To me it was just more evidence of the special attention this horrible boy was getting. Attention I wanted.

I was still sulking about it when the weekend came around. Unusually my father was home and we got to spend all day Sunday with him. As we sat on the end of my parents’ bed I demanded to know why Davidito was so special.

‘Because he is, Natacha,’ said my father. ‘Jesus sent him to Moses David. David is our King and Davidito is our Prince. One day you will make me so proud when you bravely follow him into battle.’

‘But why is there a book about him?’ I demanded.

He looked a little perplexed and asked where I had seen it. I explained that Joy had shown it to us. ‘It’s not really a children’s book. It’s a guide for us grown-ups. I am frankly surprised Joy showed it to you. She shouldn’t have.’

As he said all that he frowned, something that made me even more curious. ‘Daddy, what are they doing in the pictures?’

He went quiet for a moment, then looked at me intently. ‘They are just playing, Natacha. It’s not how we play.’ With that he started tickling me until I laughed and squealed at him to stop, all thoughts of the little boy now forgotten.

In truth my dad had been disturbed by the Davidito book. He felt that children should not be raised with a feeling of shame towards sex, but he found the pictures of naked women fondling a little boy quite unsettling and definitely not the type of ‘play’ he’d ever do with his own kids.

My parents had taken another book, called the Little Girl Dream, in much the same way. That book had a cover depicting a cartoon likeness of Berg and Maria in bed with a naked little girl. It was presented to members as ‘spiritual guidance’.

But some members were beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable about the way other teachings were heading. New recruits had been expected to spend hours poring over the New Testament, the actual Bible. But as the years progressed they read the real Bible less and less. David Berg’s writings had grown in importance and volume. So much material – books, Mo letters, videos and tapes – arrived at the communes that sometimes they barely had time to digest it before the next boxes of new material landed.

The Mo letters were unapologetic about this. ‘And I want to frankly tell you,’ he proclaimed, ‘if there’s a choice between your reading the Bible, I want to tell you, you had better read what God said today in preference to what he said 2,000 or 4,000 years ago!’

His followers bought this because, after all, in their eyes Father David/King David/David Moses – however they chose to refer to him – was undoubtedly God’s true prophet.

Those who did question were labelled doubters and put under watch for suspected mind poisoning of other members, which created an environment of fear and paranoia.

During sharing sessions women were often asked to reveal if their husband was having doubts or struggling with ‘demons’. They were told that revealing any doubts would help their partner to overcome them. This served to break down trust between couples and it’s no surprise that many marriages broke up because of this.

Soon Mom was pregnant again. My little brother Vincent arrived screaming into the world in winter 1986.

I will never forget the moment I first laid eyes on his wrinkled pink face. He was adorable. I felt such a rush of love as I solemnly promised him that his big sister would always be there to look after him.