Hi folks,
Last week I made a monumental decision; I decided to tell my mother-in-law that we are in a cult. I just could not keep it in anymore. I am hoping that with the NBC DATELINE thing about to explode, it will be the right time to let the cat out of the bag. I am sharing with you the letter I sent her announcing this fact. They live about 700 miles from us and we will be staying with them over the X-mass holiday. This letter is edited to remove names etc., but it’s pretty much what I sent her. Sorry for the length.
Dear (mother-in-law)
I find this letter very hard to write because I love you and don’t want to cause you pain, God knows you have had enough. I have literally been busting to say these things for years now, not just to you, but also to the whole world.
First let me get to the point, and this is the part that hurts. You know how some people say very nasty things about Jehovah’s Witnesses, because they are different right? Sometimes they even call them a so-called cult. Most of the time such people speak from ignorance, and most people don’t even truly know what a cult is or is not. But I do, I’m almost at the point of being an expert on this subject now.
(mother-in-law), they do have this one point absolutely correct, they are a cult! Shocking coming from me right? But it is an absolute fact that your daughter, your son-in-law, and I’m afraid your grandchildren are in a destructive religious cult. I am currently working, and have been working for quite some time to change that situation. I also want you to know that for the most part they are also safe. Some of the inside stuff that this cult does that most people don’t know about is pretty weird, but thank God they do not have any type of suicide pact like the Jim Jones group did. The only thing really dangerous in that sense is the no blood policy. But you should not be worried about that because you better believe that if any of them ever need it they will get it, I will see to that. (my wife) may want to divorce me over it, but I’m not letting her or the kids die over this.
I have not attended meetings for quite some time, I think you realize this. There is a reason, a good one for this and as of this writing I have forbidden (younger son) from attending meetings for a few months now too, also a very good reason for this.
(mother-in-law), this religion is the reason behind many if not the majority of arguments (my wife) and I have these days. It is the reason I sometimes put my fist through walls, (stupid I know but better then hitting someone) and it’s at the root of why (my wife) and I were separated for about a year. For years it has caused me such anger inside. I almost wish I could go back in time, and if necessary to change the future, I would take a pillow and smother Mrs. (xxx), the Witness lady (my wife) worked for years ago. Remember her? This would prevent us from ever getting involved with this religion in the first place. That was the starting point. But of course you can’t change the past, only in the movies, and I’m not a murderer anyway, but that is how strongly I feel about it.
Before I get any further, I want to say that it’s not the individual Witnesses that are bad, it’s largely the organization and perhaps a few at the top that are rotten. The Witnesses are mostly made up of good people, very good people, but they are being used, lied to, and deceived. In fact that is exactly the type of people that get sucked in to something like this. Often it’s the good but somewhat gullible people.
My family is in what is known as “a High Control Group”, that is the scientific name of what some commonly call this type of a cult. And that is what it is all about; control, and they do control all their members to an amazing degree. They have poor (my wife) running around like a robot, always wanting her to do more and more.
Constantly this point is hammered at the meetings so that the members feel guilty if they are not completely exhausted doing their biding; selling their books and magazines, and converting more and more people to do the same. She has no idea how much she is controlled, and it just kills me to see her so tired all the time.
Did you ever see the movie Matrix? I think you did. It’s just like that, everything is normal to them because the matrix is their only reality, but it’s all a deception. In my case, I am now unplugged from the matrix, and once unplugged I can never go back, because I can see the matrix for what it really is, lies.
Unfortunately, you can’t just tell them they are in a dangerous cult; they are programmed to defend it and to shut down their thinking when you say any negative things about it. (my wife) is still very much plugged in, and (older son) is still plugged in but to a lesser degree. I’m trying to disconnect (younger son) at this time, and it’s working. I am doing this by mostly just letting him have a more normal life. Being with other kids, doing normal non-witness things, letting him have some leisure time instead of five meetings a week. By virtue of this and the fact that he is no longer being constantly indoctrinated everyday, he already is showing signs of transition to normalness. I also showed him one or two contradictions or deceptions of the Watch Tower but I’m trying not to be to negative as this could backfire. (my wife), (older son) and to a lesser degree (younger son) are suffering from what is known as Cognitive Disannoyance, am I spelling it correctly, not sure, but that is the clinical name. A bit to complex to explain here, but that is their condition. It is not permanent, and it can be overcome.
What I am doing with (younger son) is a gentle form of deprogramming. Like I said (mother-in-law), I have become almost an expert in this, I have had to, in order to save my family and even deal with all of this without going crazy myself. I have had a great deal of help from some pretty smart people in this field too, but I have a long, long way to go even with their help.
I can’t go into detail about each and every duplicity and deceit that the Watch Tower is or has been involved in, the list is just two long and the explanations would literally fill a book. Here are just some highlights and facts that should make you think. After you read about some of these things you will better understand why I don’t want my family involved with this corrupt and disgusting organization. And I assure you this is not hearsay; it is verified information. Keep this in mind as you read; and remember this is only the very tip of the iceberg.
· The Watchtower is secretly protecting many pedophiles in their organization. Thousands of children have already been raped in this organization. I know what you are thinking, but don’t be worried. Our kids are OK and (younger son) is not attending meetings anymore. Many have worked very hard to expose this crime and to protect the children. In fact the story will air on DATELINE NBC very soon, the reporters are telling us it will air by years end. The story was ready months ago but they are trying to let the WAR story die down a bit so it will have more of an impact when it airs. By the way, we have people high up on the inside of the organization working with us and now have the internal Watch Tower memos all about it and the cover-up, I hope they show that in the story. If this show should air during our travel time to your house, please tape it for me, in fact, tape it anyway no matter when it airs.
· The Watchtower has lied to the Commission On Human Rights about their blood policy and how they treat others that choose to accept a transfusion or no longer wish to be part of their organization. They lied because they were trying to keep their tax free status. We have exposed their lies and it looks like the Watchtower is now under investigation by a government agency. Another victory for us!
· This supposedly politically neutral organization was selling war bonds during World War I and also called for prays for victory during that time. All this was printed in the old copies of the Watch Tower magazine, the copies they don’t want you to see and now wish they never printed. During World War II they blamed the “Greedy Commercial Jews”, (that’s a direct quote), for the economic problems in Germany. In fact they sent a letter to Hitler himself not only blaming the Jews, but also bashing the UK and the USA. This letter even included an anti-Semitic joke about the Jews. I wonder how the Jews would feel about the Witnesses sharing a place in the holocaust museum with them if they new about this letter.
· The Watchtower owns 50% of another company that makes a high technology device used in some smart bombs. The Watch Tower makes money every time we drop one on Afghanistan. We found this by checking public stock records and corporate profiles of defense related companies (public records). Talk about having blood on your hands!
· The Watchtower owns so many Luxury cars for their big-shots to drive in that they had to create a separate company just to sell the old ones. They sell them when they are one to two years old, mostly to other Witnesses. The name of the Company is “Circuit Leasing”. They sent me a “no-blood” key ring just for inquiring about their program. (bringing it with me to show you)
· From almost the very beginning, some of the higher-ups have lived a very pampered life. During the height of the great depression the second president of the Watch Tower (J.F. Rutherford) had a Mansion built in California and had luxury accommodations in New York too. We found the deed to the mansion and we even have aerial survey photos (public records, you can get almost anything over the internet). He also had two 16 cylinder Cadillac’s, (the most expensive American car made at the time). He had one on the east coast and one on the west coast just for his exclusive use. In sermons he condemned others for drinking and at the same time had alcohol smuggled in from Canada during prohibition. He was known as “Boozy, Judge Rutherford”, he liked to drink quite a bit. Poor members paid for all of this during the great depression. Can you say hypocrite!
· The first president of the Watchtower, Charles Taze Russell, had a little something going on with his secretary while he supposedly was receiving messages from God that were later printed in the Watch Tower. The story of this scandal was in a New York newspaper, now out of business but we got an old copy (public records)! It was also in the court transcripts of his divorce,(public records).
· On many occasions the Watch Tower has deceitfully misquoted others in their books or magazines such as famous scientists or other experts to add weight to their own arguments. I myself on more then one occasion have obtained the original material they quoted from and have found that they left words out or changed it to sound like it meant something else. Most of the time they made it appear to say exactly the opposite of what it was really saying. It took me months, but I checked it out for myself. In one Watch Tower book alone, I found over twenty deceptions. According to others, there are some one hundred such deceptions in this one publication alone, and I have not doubt what they say is true. I have now come to trust the critics; it is the Watchtower that has been lying, not their critics.
· For years the Watch Tower has had an official and secret association with the U. N. while at the same time they have condemned this very organization over and over as belonging to and being in allegiance with the Devil. This scandal would be the equivalent of learning that the Vatican owned abortion clinics. We blew the whistle on them and it wound up in the newspaper. One day later, the Watchtower revoked their membership because of the exposure of their blatant hypocrisy. I myself wrote a letter to the U. N. and they confirmed all of it. I have the signed letter on official U.N. stationary. I’m bringing the letter with me to show you). It was lots and lots of fun exposing them! Now there is a big cover-up. They are lying to their members saying they were only using the U.N. library. Well we have all the proof that shows they are liars.
· The Watch Tower has a past history of being involved with the “occult”. It’s never a good thing to be involved with devil worship if you are a religious organization, wouldn’t you say?
· Did you know that at one time this wacky religion forbade their members from getting vaccinations? They even denied the very existence of germs; they said illness was cause by “biting worms” on the inside of the body. They blasted Louie Pasture and his pasteurized milk as a fake and a con artist. Do you have any idea how many Witnesses died from smallpox alone during this time? For many years they also forbad members from getting organ transplants too. They said that was a form of “cannibalism”. They changed the rules now, but think about all the people that died before they were allowed these medical treatments. Again, much blood on their hands.
· There are just to many money making and tax dodging scams that they have been involved in to list all of them here. But the bottom line is it adds up to millions and millions of dollars.
(mother-in-law) I promise you I will continue to do my best to get them out but it will take time, perhaps even years to do this. I just don’t know how long. I can’t think of anything you can do to help other then praying for us. I know I’m taking a bit of a chance telling you all this, so I implore you (mother-in-law) that you please treat us just the same and not raise any suspicions. And please don’t have bad feelings toward the Witnesses; it’s really not their fault. They are victims too. In fact an ex member of the Witnesses governing body, Mr. Raymond Franz, once said, “they too are victims of victims”.
What a wonderful man Ray Franz is, I had lunch with him some twenty odd years ago and I was impressed with his humility and humanity even back then. This man was kicked out by the leadership because he started to find some of the skeletons that the Watch Tower had buried and they saw this as a serious threat. It was a pretty big scandal at the time. There was a nice write-up in Time Magazine about it in the early eighties. I don’t know how he can remain not bitter after what they did to him, but he is truly a good, good man.
The most stupid thing the Watch Tower has ever done was to kick this guy out. Because so many people loved him, he just could not keep up with all the letters inquiring as to what had happened to him. Also the Watchtower started some very nasty roomers about him so he decided to tell his story, the whole story. He wrote a book and my God, it just exposes so much. Since they were making up all these lies about him, he decided he would document everything in his book so nobody could say he was just making it up. In his case he was one of the top guys, so he had many documents and internal memo’s etc. I would like for you to read it, its called Crisis Of Conscience, BY: Raymond Franz. It’s printed by Commentary Press. The softbound is something like $11 or $12 dollars. Perhaps it’s in your local library. Because of me, it’s now in mine. :)
Another small victory.
Sometimes I feel like I’m leading a double life, like a secret agent or something, doing all this undercover stuff. In a way it’s kind of neat, I just wish my family were not part of it. But hey, I have to look at the bright side; it is starting to pay off now. We have forced the Watchtower to make some major changes, and we are protecting innocent children. Imagine, an energetic group of people from all over the world have taken on a multi-billion dollar outfit like the Watchtower. Collectively we have had newspaper articles written, we helped start government investigations, we got lawsuits started, and now we even have an upcoming news show. It just shows you, don’t screw with people’s loved ones!
Oh, and before I forget, I want to thank you for a birthday present you gave me when I was twenty-one. Do you remember it? It was a Bible, not a Watch Tower written Bible, but one called “the Living Bible”. You said to me something like ‘so you could have another point of view’ or something close to that. You were right; I did need another point of view. In fact as I latter found out, the Watchtower Bible was changed in certain key places, and the meaning was changed from what it originally said. The Living Bible, the Bible you gave me (mother-in-law), helped me discover that. It helped me break free and free my (younger son). What a wonderful gift. I just thought you should know that.
And (mother-in-law), try not to be too upset by all this. The kids and (my wife), and I will come out of this OK, I’m very hopeful of this. You don’t know how many times I went back and forth trying to decide if I should say something or not. I sent this letter to just you because I was worried about (father-in-law) and not sure how this could affect him with all the health problems he has. I leave it up to you if you want to tell him about it, or show him the letter or anyone else for that matter, I trust your judgment.
And with that I will close now. Just remember, we all love you and (father-in-law), and we know you love us too. We will get through this somehow.
Love,
Freeman