Few people who know me know that I am also a cult survivor. This knowledge is something I rarely have talked about until now, just another relic of shame from my childhood.
My family (with the exception of my Dad) converted to the Mormon religion when I was 12. I was a baptized member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints until breaking away at age 19. Yes, we even did the monthly fasting thing. Our belief was that the church gave the money it collected from us to the poor for food, which is no different than giving the Sheriff of Knotingham money and expecting the poor of olden-day England to be fed!
So lately, I have exhibited the classic sign of middle age by reacquainting myself with childhood things.
Make no mistake: I am not going to become a LDS member ever again. It was merely my desire to learn more about this religion and so I began with a historical subject of interest to me. No, not polygamy (don't get me started there!). Blood atonement was the topic of my research and I discovered things to make the blood run cold in my veins -- cold-blooded murder of families done in secret by Mormon murder squads called Danites. I read things in history articles that made me physically sick, things that made me wonder for the umpteenth time how I ever managed to survive my childhood. It is my personal belief that the threat of death to apostatizing members exists in the Church still.
Suppressed memories came out and I know I must somehow cleanse myself of any connection with this very sick belief system. I intend to write to Salt Lake City to verify that my name is off of the church records. I also intend to write more about the harmful effects of the Mormon Church in my life.
If any of my readers are curious, as I was, to read about the violent history and machinations of the Mormon religion today, I am offering the following sites as suggestions only: www.exmormon.org , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_atonement , www.mrm.org .
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