Portrait of the Author: Statement of Intent
- Tori Louise
- Aug 20, 2022
- 8 min read
Hello,
My name is Tori Louise. I was raised in a cult.
There were no blood sacrifices or mass suicides, no shame chairs or branding. My escape from the cult was not secretive, was not conducted under the cover of nightfall, in fact it was the easiest thing that I have ever done, because once I had done the hard part of leaving, the illusion of belief that I had used as protection was no longer needed, and the belief simply fell away.
Easy right? Take the girl out of the cult, take the cult out of the girl. If only.
As I would discover over the next decade, when it comes to the brain and behavior, nothing is ever that simple.
In fact, The Cult of Christianity has a 2000 year history of complicating the brain and behavior, and society for that matter.
Oh, there we go. I've got your attention now, and probably your anger, and skepticism. Hold on to whatever emotions you just felt.
How fast did those emotions arise?
What counter argument did your inner narrative produce?
When do you remember first feeling like that?
When did you first hear whatever words sprung to mind?
Did they come from you?
Or did someone put them there?
These are the questions that I began to ask myself, years after the belief had fallen away. I was raised primarily Seventh Day Adventist, which is a relatively new sect of Christianity that differs only slightly from the common doctrine, in their adherence to Old Testament laws and practices, and their particular affinity for the book of Revelations, which the religion's founder and prophet Ellen G. White loved so much she spent her life writing fan fiction about it. White's writings are now upheld as quasi religious texts, and copies of many of the 500 books and pamphlets she penned in her lifetime can be found in any of the church's institutions.
I know, that doesn't sound like Christianity at all, that's just a radical fringe group. Bear with me, Okay?
Key beliefs of the religion include:
-Keeping of the Old Testament Sabbath
-Belief in the imminent 2nd coming of Christ and the apocalypse
-Paying of tithes (10% of income) to the church
-Dietary restrictions, similar to kosher minus the Rabbi.
While these beliefs are more strict than many modern christian practices, they are directly supported by the Christian bible, in fact Adventists favor the Modern King James Version, which is commonly used in Christian churches today.
But they're weird right?
Yeah they are. Additional beliefs include:
- No dancing
- No alcohol
- Purity Culture, no sex before marriage
- Corporeal punishment for children
- Women submitting to their husbands and not holding positions of power
- Anti LGBTQIA
- Creationism ( sorry Dino lovers, the bones are fake)
- Encouragement of religious education, often by the church itself
- Restrictions on media consumption
- Encouraging fasting as purification rituals
Okay yeah, most of the modern Christians today are moving away from those beliefs. Thats great, we love inclusivity, harm reduction, and ya know, science.
Adventists are just one christian denomination of 200 in the U.S, and 45,000 globally.
Just because a few groups are a bit cult-y doesn't mean that Christianity is a cult, right?
Well, decide for yourself. Here are the common criteria for cults:
A charismatic leader: Cults always follow a charismatic leader, living or dead, whose teachings are considered of the highest importance. This leader may be considered a genius, or may be considered a religious figure like a messiah or prophet.
Ideological purity: Members are strongly discouraged from questioning the cult's doctrine and any doubts are met with shame or punishment.
Conformity and control: Cult leaders often exercise an extreme degree of control over members' lives, including dictating what they can wear and eat and what kinds of relationships they can have. Conformity is also enforced by group members who police one another.
Mind-altering practices: Sleep deprivation, chanting, meditation, and drugs are often used to break down individuals' defenses and make them more susceptible to cult ideology.
Isolation and love-bombing: It is common for people in cults to be encouraged to cut contact with outsiders, including close family members. Within the cult, new members are often subjected to love-bombing, a practice where new initiates are showered with love and praise to bring them deeper into the cult and foster a sense of belonging.
Us-vs-them mentality: Cult members are often encouraged to see the cult as superior to life on the outside and to feel that those outside the cult lack understanding or insight.
Apocalyptic thinking: Preparation for a supposed apocalypse or cataclysmic event is a major characteristic of many cults, especially cult religions.
Time and energy: Followers are expected to dedicate huge amounts of time and energy (and often money) to the cult to the exclusion of their own lives, interests, jobs, and families.
Now you're either thinking, yeah I've never experienced any of that, or you're gonna need a moment. I'll wait.
Just because Christianity technically fits the definition of a cult doesn't mean that it is. Because of the variability of practice and culture, everyone's experience with Christianity is different. If you don't think that you've experienced harm or control within your religion, that's wonderful, it sounds like religion is playing it's intended role in your life, bringing you community, meaning, morality, and a sense of belonging.
However, we can't ignore that Christianity as a doctrine supports the development of cults. Christianity has been used to support harmful beliefs and behavior through out history.
Which brings me to the darker side of my indoctrination. This may be triggering to read for some, particularly the anyone in the Muslim and/or LGBTQIA community.
Unfortunately, adherence to one cult's doctrine was not enough. Though I wouldn't discover it until years later, when I stumbled upon #exfundietok, we also adhered to many Fundamentalist beliefs. Adventism shares many similarities with Fundamentalism, including an emphasis on religious education, purity culture, and gender roles. I grew up in a tiny town in California, and the closest Adventist church was an hour drive away, so besides a few friends in the community we mostly practiced independently for most of my childhood, sporadically attending the local non-denominational church. From ages 7-13, I was homeschooled for religious reasons, and at my own request as I was experiencing chronic bullying.
For a while I was in a structured program, but that didn't last long, and soon my school day consisted of prayer, daily devotions, copying bible verses in cursive, independent reading (my favorite) usually of adult christian romance and suspense novels, which we had an unlimited supply of, and I was allowed to read because they didn't have sex, and book reports. Whichever science, history, or math instruction I received was in the form of workbooks, which were usually 2-3 years below what my grade level should have been.
Somewhere along the way, I don't really remember when, we started listening to Christian radio. We always had, usually just for music on the Sabbath (we didn't consume any media that wasn't god-related on Saturdays), and sermons. Eventually this went from once a week and in the car, to all day. I really wish I was exaggerating, but for at least two years we listened to sermons, music, and political talk shows for 8hrs a day. This is when things started to get (comparatively) weird. Also around the time I started to realize maybe I wanted to have a normal life and started asking to go back to school. By this time it was too late, the osmosis of radical Fundamentalism had already occurred, carried from the midwest to liberal California on the radio waves. The following doctrines/beliefs entirely originated from public Christian radio, circa 2007-2012.
The rational for not sending me to back to school included:
- Praying is illegal in school
- The pledge of allegiance is being taken out of school
- Trans kids in bathrooms (yeah this one has been around for a while)
- The gay agenda
- Sex education
- Evolution
- They're overmedicating kids with ADHD
- They require vaccines (I think it had already diffused away from autism at that point and it was viewed as a violation of religious freedom)
-They'll encourage abortions
Other radical beliefs we picked up during this time was an intense fear of sharia law, which was believed to be "taking over america". Gun control was taking away our rights because we were about to become a military state, and christianity would be outlawed, punishable by imprisonment or death. Obama was the antichrist, and going to bring about a socialist new world order. There was a universal currency which everyone would be forced to use, and it would be the mark of the beast, a micro chip in your left hand, or a barcode, and no one would be able to participate in the economy without it. Bluetooth and our phones were giving everyone cancer.
To most Christians reading this, I'm sure it sounds absurd. And it is. But the sinister nature of my experience is how easy it was for us to go from slightly odd practicing Christians, to terrified conspiracy theorists, whose beliefs were being directly influenced by the Alt-Right.
I got out in 2012. I went to live with my sister, and ended up graduating high school, something I had always dreamed of, and just recently college, something I had never even thought to consider. Almost immediately I realized that I was Queer, and with time my conditioned homophobia faded. I quickly realized that most of what I had been taught was complete nonsense, which at some level I had known for some time.
I started learning more about the history of racism and white supremacy in 2016, and I thought how weird it was that I had shared so many beliefs that supported these systems but had somehow managed to avoid them. After taking my first sociology class I realized just how wrong I was and began the very painful process of coming to terms with and dissecting that unconcious coding. When Trump was elected, I didn't know how to describe the fear that I felt to anyone. I thought that I had left those beliefs behind, and I never considered that they would continue to be apart of my reality, or my future. How do you explain to your friends and family, that you know exactly how the crazy people on TV feel? That you're not surprised by the seemingly sudden rise in hatred, and that there's so much more of it than anyone seems to understand? How do you explain that on Jan 6th, as armed radicals stormed the capital, that you understood that fear and hatred intimately, because it had been conditioned in you just as it had in them? How do you explain to people that haven't experienced what you have, that everything that is happening right now is the culmination of years of misinformation, that we are seeing the results of multiple systems of oppression working in tangent, and that a religious doctrine is being exploited, that human nature itself is being exploited, that fear and hatred are being bred because people who are afraid are easy to control, and easy to make money off of.
I've wanted to write this for a while. I know that this is one of the most important stories I have to share, but it's also the most difficult. I don't like thinking about that time in my life, but lately, it's impossible not to. Instead, I am going to find answers. Through my writing I intend to explore and dissect the foundations of society, a lofty goal I know, but a necessary one as I am no longer able to ignore that our beliefs, reality, and lives are largely dictated by forces beyond our control. My indoctrination violated my autonomy at the most fundamental level, my freedom of thought and belief. As divine retribution, motivated at times by pure spite, I have begun a journey to discover the origins of these beliefs, to understand them fully within the context of history, to analyze how they affect our actions and our roles in society, and to try to understand what is happening today. Regardless of your religion and beliefs, I invite you to join me on this journey, as we search together for the answer, and find power through knowledge.
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