America has a weird relationship with cults where they’re terrified of small cults (or organizations they think are cults) but completely normalized massive cults that hurt many more people (eg: LDS Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Amish, Scientology, most Megachurches)

To anybody asking if the Amish are a cult, the answer is yes, very much so.

They’re a high control group that isolate you from society. The cult decides how you dress, how you behave, who you marry and how. They control what you know, blocking all information from the outside world. They control how you feel and what you’re allowed to think with threats of both social and supernatural harm. They’re a cult.

The best method to determine if a group is a cult, in my opinion, is Steven Hassan’s (cult expert and former cult member himself) BITE model.

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

This is a great example of Thought Control used by cults whenever they’re confronted with criticism.

#you might notice that there are a lot of similarities between cult techniques and those of abusive partners#and that is an important thing to be aware of

yah that goes in the post

The creator of the BITE Model considers abusive relationships to be two-person cults.

It’s important to note that almost every sect of evangelical christianity in the US today fails the BITE Model.

This was the post that lead to breaking my JW mindset. Been a while since I seen it.

I’m glad I could help in your deconstruction, if only a little bit. I wish you all the luck in your journey moving forward.

Hey, y'all. I can't find the writeups that I know are out there about the bullshit the Satanic Temple has pulled on whistleblowers. Help a butch out.

Thank you both.

For anyone who is looking for this and doesn't want to have to bookmark a million things, we try to keep our campsite.bio as up to date as possible.

In regards to whistleblowers, there's what TST has been doing to us for what will be four years in April, pursuing frivolous litigation across federal, appellate, and state courts to cause us to incur massive legal defense fees.

There is what TST did to the Satanic Housewife, forcing her to record a retraction for two TikTok videos warning people about them in the context of people thinking the Temple could protect your abortion rights if you were a member (they cannot):

To be clear, what she said was demonstrably true, but even after recording their message verbatim, they filed a suit against her anyway. She talked to Satanic Europe about that almost a year ago:

The Satanic Temple used to, and apparently still does for some roles, force people to sign a Non-Disparagement Agreement for them, which is a red flag in itself even before you find out that yes, the owners do use those to try to intimidate former members into silence.

From leaked meeting notes regarding the 2018 schism and how TST stopped the bleeding there:

And an example of the sort of email they sent out to maybe a dozen or more people who had been part of TST and then were or were feared to be publicly critical of the Temple and its owners (redacted for privacy because these people still fear TST will come after them).

The language of that NDA, by the way:

And of course, when Newsweek wrote an article about the Temple suing us, TST sued the magazine (and its reporter) for libel. Almost all of that case has been tossed out because it was laughable, but it had a chilling effect on lots of reporters and editors thinking about discussing this sort of thing, and TST went out of its way to try to again target the other people quoted in that story, too, despite them using their pseudonyms in part because they expected that might happen.

Funny enough, in the process of doing this retaliation, they submitted as evidence their letter that actually confirmed one woman's story that TST had threatened to tell her superior in the military that she was a Satanist (she was already out to them).

The Satanic Temple has a "threat assessment team" and paid contractors that monitor the Web and former members for critical commentary about TST, the latter of which, again, TST admitted in court for no reason except to establish that they listen to and generate transcripts for review when we go on podcasts and the like.

TST makes use of some paid positions for gathering material and writing smear/doxing articles. They have a whole website and social media presence devoted to generating content about us that, at least externally, has mostly backfired — for example, stalking the social media of the romantic partners of people you're suing to try to justify call them "fake gays" tends to be alarming to most folk.

But internally, at the "definitely-not-a-cult" level where TST make cartoons saying, "Don't listen to former members about us," it works to give people an excuse to keep doing what they're doing.

Yes, yes, that's real.

Before that video came out, we also wrote about this tendency in them and why they are so dangerous to Satanists, rather than to Christians the way the right wing and liberal media like to pretend.

When it comes to The Satanic Temple, there's always more and it's always worse, so the very last thing we'll leave you with is what TST did to someone who reported a sexual assault against the head of their local chapter, which TST now threatens to and actually sues people over talking about.

Unfortunately, none of this makes the news because TST "expertly trolls" the far right, and media cares about easy conflict narratives they can run with, not looking into shit like "is this an abusive religious organization with a track record of targeting former members and critics?"

oh here's the bit that gets me

Normies talking about getting whiplash from recipe blogs. You know nothing

[ID: An AO3 author’s note reading, “Sorry for vanishing, I did a little too much research on cults an coercive control for Damian’s arc, and then realized I was raised in a cult, and THEN I ran away to a fishing town cabin on the other side of the country and had to start learning to be a person in the real world. I also forgot how to write. But I’m learning again, so I’m back now! Have some more.” The “I” in “I was raised in a cult” is emphasized by sparking emojis, and the note is ended with heart emojis. /end ID]

Aaaand THIS is one of the many reasons why it’s not only not a bad thing to portray dark subject matter, but EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to do so!! You can learn a lot when writing, and others can learn a lot when reading! This can save lives, dudes.

I am so proud of the author though. That took multiple kinds of courage at once. Good job, author.

Hi! I’m the original author from ao3!

I want to thank everyone for such hilarious and kind additions/replies/tags on this post, they’ve been so amazing to read. They’ve meant more to me than you guys know. ❤️

I also want to add some information for anyone who wants to know more about recognizing the signs that you might be in a high control group.

High control groups can be small or large, religious or not, clubs, schools, online servers, friend groups, etc.

No human is invulnerable because we all have brains and emotions that can be played like a fiddle. Knowing the red flags can help us all keep ourselves safer!

Please always protect yourself as best you can and never be afraid to reach out for help—even if you’re just wondering, even if you’re not sure about something.

No safe group or person will EVER be mad at you for being cautious and taking things slow, or for changing your mind at ANY point. You’re the one who gets to decide whether you join or stay with a group, no matter what they threaten or love-bomb you with.

If you’re not safe, there’s help.

If you feel trapped, there’s help.

If people are being actively hurt, good people want to listen, understand, and help.

We all deserve freedom. I’m grateful every morning I wake up that I get to live it now, even though it’s hard and I have a long way to go. Thank you for walking this journey with me, for one brief moment or for years, and helping me—and others like me—not be alone.

Take care, stay safe, and happy fanfiction reading!

This is a little funny, but in the specific context of the Amish and related groups "shunning" is a specific and very negative term.

A person is shunned, usually under order of the religious authority of their community, when they've broken the rules of the community. Practices vary by community (in fact, to my knowledge several sect differences are based at least partially on how the sect practices shunning), but usually no one can eat with, do business with, or otherwise help the shunned person. They are isolated and have support withdrawn from them, with the specific intention that they are then forced to return to strict compliance with the community's rules.

The Amish and most similar Anabaptist organizations are high-control groups and cults, and they punish members who seek to leave.

Like, this is exactly what the posts about "turn off your phone if it's going to put you in danger!" were worried would happen.

It's amazing to me just how good the Mormon church has been at hiding just how bad they really are from public view. Even the shit that gets spread around is the relatively harmless bullshit. They had a crazy prophet with magic glasses. They believe in god-mandated polygyny. They think everyone who is good enough will get their very own planet after the world ends. They wear magic underpants. Mormon men are all paladins.

Here's one of the ones you hear less often:

See, like many other Christian sects, the Mormons really do believe that the existence of Christ obviates the existence of Judaism. Judaism was just a placeholder until the "real" church could be established by Jesus.

And the Mormons in particular believe, dead ass, that the entire inheritance of Israel has been given to them, because the Jews failed to recognize the Messiah when he was on Earth. They really do. They have this whole system where people are given a "divine revelation" about which of the Tribes of Israel they're a member of (don't worry, they decided that most people belong to the two tribes that are willing to "adopt" people. Only the most specialest boys and girls are members of the original ten).

Let's sum up so far. The Mormons believe that they are the people of Israel, chosen and protected by God. If Jews want to get back in on that party, they can always repent and convert to Mormonism, the one true church to which God gave all the rights and blessings that were originally bestowed on Abraham's house.

But it doesn't stop there!

The Mormons also believe, in all seriousness, that all Indigenous peoples of the Americas are descended from a small group of Jewish people who left just before the fall of Jerusalem (~600 bc iirc). Their entire weird-ass extra bible is a chronicle of those people's history in [unspecific part of America]. At the very beginning of the book, two brothers in the original family turn away from god, so they and all their descendants are cursed with dark skin, so that the good Nephites (who remain "white and delightsome") will always be able to tell themselves apart from the wicked Lamanites.

So, you've got supposedly Jewish people running around the Americas. And the "good" ones are white, and the "bad" ones are brown. Then, ofc, Jesus comes to visit them (I guess supposedly that's part of what he was doing during his dirt nap? Or possibly after he left again, it's not clear), and they all convert to Christianity, which they think is clearly the natural evolution of Judaism. Well, at the end of the book, all of them become wicked, in a kind of weird pseudo-apocalyptic series of events. They are all cursed with dark skin, until such time as they repent for their ancestors sins and return to the gospel.

But of course, Mormons being the good and kind people they are, they want everyone to receive the blessings of God and be brought into the houses of Israel etc etc. And it isn't the fault of those poor little Indigenous children that their distant ancestors turned away from God and became wicked.

So what's the natural answer? Well, Mormons are real big on missionary work, as we all know. But apparently that wasn't enough in this case.

Because the Mormon church has been one of the big players in abducting as many Indigenous children as possible, in order to indoctrinate them into being good Mormons, so that they can turn white again and be blessed. My mother remembers hearing talks about this in the 70s and 80s. The church literally had a "Lamanite Adoption Program," where families in the church were encouraged to get as many Indigenous children as possible away from their families and not let them be reunited until they were fully assimilated and ready to go back and proselytize about how wonderful the church is.

The church leadership literally talked about how wonderful it was to see these children becoming whiter. Actually whiter. Like, saying that when they finally saw them with their families again, it was beautiful how much paler they were.

I'm pretty sure this program has been officially ended, but it doesn't take a genius to speculate about who might be behind the curtains on the movement in the western US to gut the ICWA....

So yeah. Next time someone tries to tell you that the Mormons are just harmless weirdos, please remember that they're an antisemitic cult that advocates for the forced assimilation of Indigenous children to help them escape the cursed brown skin of their ancestors.

Also, cults are never harmless. If it's harmless, it's not a cult.

“Page-Sister Deborah was caught reading ahead of the group. As punishment, we will now be reading her old Star Trek fanfics aloud.”

Joking aside, there are cults that start out as book clubs or local film societies, and if a group starts meeting the BITE model definition of a cult, the fact that it started out as a completely innocuous book club or local film society doesn't really matter. If your mom's book club genuinely does sound like it could be "technically a cult by those definitions", please reach out and make sure she has the help and support that she needs to leave.

Which is why it’s important to not be mean.

Their cult teaches them that the world is full of scary monster people who hate them for being so good and loved by god. If you swear at them and call them names or get in their face you’re just doing the cults work for it.

I’m not saying you have to listen to their presentation or try to debate them (and really getting into a debate without thoroughly understanding what they’re being taught will just make things worse)… I am just saying to be polite and say no thank you like if they were trying to hand you a flyer for something you don’t care about.

It’s easier for them to see the world outside their bubble as less scary if they see everyday people just going about their business and being as nice to them as you are to everyone else. This goes doubly for anyone who happens to dress modestly, not swear, and not drink or smoke because whatever you believe, they’ll see you as a “good” person who happens to strangely have no interest in their “message”, and that might be enough to get some curious about the possibility of themselves living in the real world.

It’s sometimes hard to be nice to people who seem to represent something you dislike. Just remember these “elders” are sheltered young men, some of which are getting their first real contact with people of other/no faiths.

They are not your enemy. They are victims.

Absolutely. Cults thrive on persecution. To the point that they’ll invent it when no sufficient amount of it exists.

Persecution lets them better separate the “us” from the “them” and keep members trapped. It also allows them to exploit the sunken cost fallacy, convincing members to stay to make the pain they suffered “worth it” and making them reticent to leave because that would mean their hardships were “for nothing”

Not enough people know the Mormons believe Native Americans are Jewish people who turned away from God and got cursed by having their skin darkened, or that Mormons literally have Manifest Destiny right there in the text, no extrapolation. I’m not Native at all, but frankly, it’s one of the most disgusting things of that faith that caused me to utterly reject it. It is a vile religion that is white supremacist to its very core.

I know most everyone sees Mormons only as annoying missionaries who won’t get out of your face (including in the third world, where missionary work is a vital part of the colonization process), and some folks vaguely know they’re also big homophobes, and that is true, but they’re so much worse than, eh, “only” all that. They’re rabidly anti-communist, highly patriarchal, incredibly homophobic and transphobic, and highly nationalist - obedience to the state is one of their articles of faith, and it isn’t in there as a token gesture so they can get into most any country unmolested, either.

To be sure, most Mormons aren’t Nazis and don’t have favorable views of Nazis, but they are about as reactionary as Nazis, particularly with their obedience to the church hierarchy. Mormons like the conservative who hates everyone the fascists hate, but hates the fascists because “I’m an American, and we Americans love democracy and hate fascists,” obviously knowing nothing about, say, Chile in 1973, or how NATO was totally cool all that time working with Spain while Franco was still in charge, or how American industrialists coordinated with the Nazis before the war, or literally anything about the deeper history of America and fascism. But whether they know how fascist they are or not, they’re comfortable doing fascism, and a hiccup away from realizing they really do fundamentally agree with fascism, so long as their “prophet” is in charge.

I guess what I’m saying is, by all means, poke fun at Mormons, and make jokes about them. They really are ridiculous, and I agree as someone who was, unfortunately, raised as one. But they’re not only a joke, they’re also a threat wherever they are in numbers.

A note on mormon beliefs about natives: they believe that by marrying natives and having children with us that they can “restore” us to our supposed previous esteem.

A small excerpt from one of Joseph Smiths “revelations”

“For it is my will, that in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites, that their posterity may become white, delightsome and Just”

i was raised mormon + its genuinely horrifying. like 

they also own the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii and several elementary and secondary schools in mexico and the pacific islands. given the information previously provided in this post, this is particularly alarming.

during the obama romney election the leaders of the church sent out a letter to be read in every congregation that was like…remember to vote in a way that god would appreciate or else :) he may be upset w you :)

they also have $32 billion in business assets that they handle through church-owned finance companies (look up Deseret Management Corporation) so they don’t have to report their expenses. their holdings include swaths of land in utah, america’s 14th largest radio chain, and utah’s largest newspaper. oh and they’re just sitting on SO MUCH FUCKING LAND WHY DO HTYE OWN SO MUCH LAND????

tl;dr: the church’s racist rhetoric doesn’t just encourage racism in its members. church assets are actively used to “educate” + convert indigenous people and maintain political control in utah

Don’t forget curating, owning, and otherwise gatekeeping the world’s largest collection of geneological records with which basically every piece of archival history work has to interact *at some point*!!!

mormon kids under the age of 18 being told their church is a cult

mormons 18-24 after they go through their endowment ceremony and receive their new name and secret clothing and learn the secret handshakes and passwords and realize everyone around them has been secretly doing this the whole time and now theyre going to be sent away from their family for 2 years where they will literally not be allowed to be alone for 1 second of the day except to go to the bathroom and they have no idea how to get out of what they just got into

one of the only perks of being a mormon woman is that i didn’t get my endowment at age 19 and i had a little extra time to mature and be out on my own. that’s all i needed to make a clean break and i got out at 21 before i wouldve gotten my endowment. 

wait what? can anyone elaborate on this? because I had no idea this was a thing

basically when youre a mormon kid growing up you realize your church is a little strict but you’re like whatever. i have friends at church because i go to church 6 days a week and everyone around me is affirming that this is the right thing to do and we have special knowledge no one else has otherwise everyone would be like this. so youve gotta go teach them & it’s the greatest thing in the world to be a missionary. also the temple is beautiful and amazing and spiritual and holy and everyone wants to go there. but it’s a secret! :) because it’s holy and sacred

then if youre a boy and u turn 18 they’re like wow amazing!!! you get to go on a mission and be like all the great men around you!! and now you get to go through the temple! so #blessed!

and then you go through the temple and all the above mentioned SECRET CULTY SHIT happens (EXPLANATION HERE http://mormoncurtain.infymus.com/topic_templeceremonies.html) and youre shipped off to a strange place where everything you eat, wear, go, listen to and do is controlled, and you’re not allowed to talk to your family or friends (except through a once-a-week email) and you literally are being watched by your companion at all. times. 

some might say “you can leave at any time” but consider that i never went on a mission and i never went through the temple and i still consider leaving the mormon church the hardest thing i ever did. you have no social network outside the church. you are lacking major knowledge and skills. you have to grapple with the fact that you may never see your family again.

I’m reblogging this again bc I have Thoughts.

Leaving is such an isolating experience. No one inside wants anything to do with you anymore and no one outside understands the scale of messed up that Mormonism is. Like it’s easy to point and laugh at the ridiculousness, but it’s literally a cult. There’s so much trauma involved and there’s trauma in leaving.

People on the outside don’t understand how hard it is to leave. I grew up where all my friends were catholic and are no longer religious and they’re like “well everyone hates church, you just stop going” but Mormonism isn’t like that at all. For starters I had to get a lawyer involved to leave and then the ostracization from the entire community that nurtured me growing up was just the cherry on top. It’s effectively being shunned. Everyone you were forced to call sister and brother growing up no longer wants anything to do with you. And you deserve it, because you shouldn’t have fallen for the anti-Mormon lies.

Leaving The Church was the hardest thing I ever did and my family accepts me so I’m a lucky one. But they still ardently adhere to the institution that hurt me and has resulted in the deaths of people I love. I will never understand.

“There’s so much trauma involved and there’s trauma in leaving.”

It’s easy for people looking in from the outside to forget this. Thank you for the reminder. Can anyone recommend resources for young Mormons looking to explore their options?

Please note: this post will be directly addressed to those hypothetical young Mormons

If you know you’re ready to leave, use quitmormon.com. It’s run by the guy from reddit who is now famous in exmormon circles for offering absolutely free legal services to anybody who needs help leaving. You can give your church id number if you know it, but it’s not required (I never memorized mine, and I sure wasn’t going to ask for it). He takes care of everything. This keeps TSCC (the so-called church) from getting all your latest info and keeps them from hassling you or harassing you. They have to talk to your lawyer instead. Pre 2015, it felt almost impossible to try to leave, but it’s a lot easier now! The years of picketing General Conference to force an excommunication trial are over!

Find a support system. Lean on your friends that have never been mormon, any family members who left, anyone you know who left. I’m an exmormon happy to answer any questions, and I’m sure there are plenty others in the notes who would be super willing to be supportive too. Exmormon groups are many and varied now, and it’s best to find the one that vibes for you. There’s a subreddit that’s popular, but I personally used - and I know this sounds weird, since I don’t have kids - a forum called Mormonism & More on the site babycenter.com. It was started several years ago by some mormons who had questions they weren’t allowed to ask on the normal mormon board (because that board required uplifting, mormon-approved answers at all times). It’s since shifted to ex-mormons or people who want to leave but can’t right now because of family situations. Even though the threads were years old, I spent weeks on that forum, reading about what other people had gone through and how they got through it, and to me, that was super helpful.

Research the culty stuff at your own peril. I liked learning about that stuff for a really long time, because I felt learning about all those secrets (I especially liked learning about the truth of the Book of Abraham) … it helped me feel valid in my choice. It helped me keep in mind that this was something that I had escaped, something that had wanted to hurt me. Missing your abuser doesn’t mean you should go back, it means you should keep moving forward. Missing your cult has the same solution. Lots of people fell for the “we’re totally not a cult!” line by TSCC. Some of them will not offer sympathy. If you want to watch the hidden camera videos of endowments and other temple stuff, I would super super recommend you have a trusted friend watch them with you. And bring comfort food. You’ll probably need it.

TSCC put out a series of essays on controversial (read: faith-killing, eye-opening, omg how could I have ever supported the people who did this) issues in mormon history. They are the Orthodox LDS pre-approved responses to a lot of the more incriminating accusations that have been leveled at TSCC over the years. They should be hosted on TSCC website somewhere, and would have been posted around or after 2015. They may reaffirm your faith now that you know TSCC’s defense, but they may push you right out the door. (Or break the shelf? Do Mormons still use the shelf analogy, or is that retired now?)

Lots of mormons become atheists after leaving. Many join mainstream xian churches. Some become witches, some study every religion they can get their hands on, some try to go back and realize all the magic (or holy spirit, if you prefer) is gone. Don’t think you have to know right away. Some people throw away or burn all their mormon stuff, some people keep it to show their kids, but again, you don’t have to make that decision right away. Some people call TSCC a cult after they leave, myself included, but you don’t have to if it makes you uncomfortable or it it doesn’t feel true to your experience.

Look up religious trauma syndrome. It’s real. The pain you will probably feel is real, the grief you will probably feel is real, and in many ways, you may have to mourn the death of what you were always told Life Will Be For You.

And learn that the world is not half as evil as TSCC told you. Your coworkers who drink a beer at the end of the day are not evil or abusive. Your friends who wear sleeveless shirts are not evil or promiscuous. You’re allowed to wear short shorts! You’re allowed to drink coffee! You’re allowed to ask questions in a faith community without being silenced or condemned! You’re allowed to not want kids! There’s a lot of unlearning here.

TLDR? You have options. You have freedom. Find nonmormon friends who will support you. Be kind to yourself.

People joke about Mormons but this is the first time I’ve seen anything at all directed towards people who need to get out.

I had a high school friend turned college roommate who left, moved 4 hrs away, and I had to lie to people who showed up repeatedly that he wasn’t home. That’s just the smallest outside perspective of this. They kept coming.

It is a cult. It operates by manipulating people. My aunt, who also left, converted from Catholicism when she was a single mother in her 20s who needed help. The church gave her a network of tangible support and got her through a vulnerable, scary time in her life–and used that

I keep seeing people talk about the "oncoming cult boom" like we haven't been here for like three years.

Here's a fun game:

Go onto incognito mode and start a fresh account ok the social media website of your choice. When it asks you about your interests, pick "health and wellness" and/or the religion of your choice and fill the rest in with whatever you like. See how long it takes the algorithm to give you straight up cult recruitment videos.

When I tried this on TikTok I got some in under 30 seconds.

this is important information but i also feel like a lot of people aren’t really able to identify cult-produced media on their own. here is a (non comprehensive) list of red flags for this:

BTW "thought stopping" is both a brainwashing technique and a highly useful cognitive behavioral therapy tool.

You "thought stop" by throwing a label on a thought in order to interrupt it and redirect your mind.

In CBT that might look like:

In stereotypical brainwashing, thought stopping might look like:

Thought stopping can be a good tool! But I think it sometimes gets used the bad way in therapist's offices and social justice spaces. So I want to talk about the deeper mechanics of how to thought stop without accidentally brainwashing yourself.

I think healthy thought stopping is inconsistent. Nineteen times out of twenty, you might think, "Oh, failure is a global label. I'll rephrase."

But one time in twenty, you'll think, "Huh. Am I failure? What does it mean for a person to be a failure? Can other people be failures? If so, what are the criteria? Is the word 'failure' always misleading when applied to a person?"

With healthy thought stopping, critical thinking is allowed. We just section off lines of thinking that we don't usually have the time or energy to be adiquately critical about.

Brainwashy thought stopping may not be airtight, but it is consistent enough to stop you from thinking critically about certain things. Brainwashy thought stopping makes some thoughts forbidden. When you think forbidden thoughts, you feel too shitty about it to think clearly at the same time.

The mechanism for this is usually shame. If you think the wrong thoughts, then you're evil, or problematic, or not committed to recovery.

But you have to think things that might be evil, or you can't resist evil disguised as religious authority.

And you have to think problematic thoughts, or you won't figure out why bigoted ideas are false. (Please note that analyzing bigoted thoughts is very different from stating bigoted opinions.)

And you have to think things that might run counter to recovery, or you won't fire therapists who are manipulative jerks.

Healthy thought stopping is driven by the intention to thrive and think clearly. You hear that global labels can distort thought and perpetuate mental illness, so you practice alternately avoiding the thought and challenging it.

When you challenge a thought, it might turn out to be true. If you're never willing to give the bad thoughts that opening, you might be a little bit brainwashed.

I found this really important tiktok about what to do if a Jehovah's Witness or Morman missionary comes to your door:

I spent some time in a Jehovah's Witness church. They're exceptionally skilled at recruiting people into their church. (And I was an ATHEIST)

I left after a couple months, I stayed just long enough to see that they explicitly believe women are inferior to men, and of course, that homosexuality is a sin on par with murder.

The whole missionary door to door thing is NOT how Jehovah's Witnesses recruit. That is how they convince their members that the world is out to get them. One of the first things they teach is that Jesus requires you to try to convert non Christians to the faith. (They say non Christian but mean non JW.)

Then they say, "look how people treat us, just for the crime of wanting to save their soul"

They have long time church members tutor the incoming members to smooth the process over. They're trained to smooth away any doubts you may have about the church.

It is a textbook cult but because it's a Christian cult, nobody will do anything about it.

I just wanted to share, in case no one realizes how messed up JW can be, my family only left after the elders followed around my teenage aunts and other young women to "ensure they weren't sinning" and my great-grandparents STILL stayed!

Exmormon here, this is TRUE, to reiterate from satanslover above, “The whole missionary door to door thing is NOT how Jehovah's Witnesses recruit. That is how they convince their members that the world is out to get them.”

The same is true of mormonism. I know how annoying the missionaries are, but please take just ten seconds to be polite to them instead, please support cult victims 💖💖

My family got put on a blacklist by the Mormons. They haven't visited since before I was born.

Last time they did, my dad invited them in, let them sit down and talk with him. Then he started asking questions, about their history, the fact that they had to change their official doctrine to allow black people to join, etc. The elder got angry and started SCREAMING at my dad, cursing and yelling. My (very) pregnant mother came into the room to see what was happening, and the man turned bright red and left the room.

Leaving his young protégé behind him. With my father.

"Is that how Jesus wants you to act?" My dad asked him. No, the young man replied, very apologetic.

"If he gets upset by honest questions," my dad said, "and doesn't want to talk about the truth, then there's something wrong. You should ask yourself why."

The elder came back, but not before my dad had spent several minutes in frank conversation with the young man. And no one ever came to our house after that. But I hope that conversation helped that young man.