Zombie-Trap Part 3

1) The right bait that will have the prey keep "its eye on the prize". Of course flies won't fly into your mouse trap, nor will mice stick to fly attracting glue strips.
2) A confinement system that is easy to get in and hard to get out.  
3) Really mean traps have a function where the animal wounds itself in the attempt to get out, like a wolf in a wolf trap with teeth, getting even more stuck in the trap, eventually tiring out in pain and defeat.  

               (Paraphrased from "The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse", Chapter 17)

Dear Reader!

In the last post I tried to get to the bottom of why I chose to stay in my group, even though we had moved way past the honeymoon stage and I actually suffered emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Today we will look at how everything got nauseating worse as I tried to define the living condition within my jail cell, but instead of running the other way, I still stayed. Trapped in false hope.

Recapping the season I am going to describe to you today is still a raw and painful place to visit for my husband and me- almost 7 years later. We have decided that the major reason for experiencing that total sickening sensation stems from the fact that our lives were led by crazy people. 

My now-husband and back then boyfriend James came to visit me a few weeks after my trip to Elk River. During our time together in Minnesota he had started a relationship with God, after having a very personal revelation. The leaders had suggested he should attend a men's conference that they were offering that fall in Germany. I gladly handed him over to their care, for I trusted that they would disciple him. It soon became clear that they did not see much in him but an over-mothered spiritual baby. The co leader asked me if someone like Peter from the New Testament would date a spiritual baby. James told me that they had made fun of him for not finding a certain book in the Bible straight away. 

Note to self here; Ridicule only serves one end: To elevate the ridiculer and to downgrade the recipient. 

They only saw one solution to the spiritual mess they considered him in- as a Philosophy student not being able or willing to simply repeat decrees of faith or accept certain theologies as dogma without understanding them first; he needed to get baptized. 

James didn't want to get baptized. He didn't think he was ready. He wasn't even sure yet if he believed in Jesus as his personal savior. He wasn't sure yet what that meant. But all that did not matter. So I became the handyman of the co leader in the plot to corner him until he would agree to get baptized asap. I told James that I wanted to go to a certain bar with him, but did not mention the part where the co leader and another guy would be waiting for us there. 

We all were successful. James gave in. It wasn't the promise of an "open heaven" at this step of obedience, nor that he thought it was the right thing to do, he gave in to the pressure. James trusted me. So, in a freezing cold moonlit November night the love of my life James got coerced to be dunked under lake water in the leader's neighborhood, he then had to change outside by the lake into not wet clothes, and then endure an "angel tracking prayer", led by the leader, that went on for about two hours and had us attempt to retrace the steps of an angel that I swore I could perceive in vision. Every once in a while I would open my eyes and see James shiver with his wet hair and stare perplexed, but the sad truth is that I thought to myself that he needs to man up. If the leaders thought this was the right thing to do to help him not be a spiritual baby (aka: a new believer) he should joyfully embrace it. 

He got very sick a day later and we had to part, as he had a return flight scheduled, leaving both of us in an ongoing terribly confused emotional state. We liked each other so much, but could not agree to the spiritual terms that I had been taught were untouchable and unquestionable. That made me question if he and I belonged together. 

Within a few weeks I was told that my personal angel was on vacation time right now because I had lost my spiritual authority by being with James. During that particular prayer meeting it was decided that I had to break up with James and "fast" communicating with him for three weeks. I remember the leader, a high ranking police officer, saying that they could get into a lot of trouble for seemingly coercing someone to break up with their partner. I was just a sad shadow of myself by then. The most gut wrenching part was to call up my James and tell him, with an ocean between us, that we were bad for each other at this point. But I did it anyway. The whole reasoning behind that I explained in the last post. I decided I needed to be loyal to the people that had made such a difference in my life, no matter what I personally thought or felt. I just knew I was in such pain over being with James, whom I loved, that I wanted to believe that they knew how to get rid of that pain, like they had done before.

It was Thanksgivings Day for James and the way he recalls it that phone call could have gone much better if I hadn't cried like I was dying and talked as if I was forced against my will. Looking back over the two year on and off long distance relationship we had, the first breakup was probably the worst, as I would go on having somewhat learned to sound like the person that actually believed in what they're saying, and he got more and more aware of the fact that I indeed was in a cult and my leaders did not want us to be together. 

By Christmas the three fasting weeks were over. I had not received any clarity on my relationship with him, so I had to make it up. I over-spiritualized every little thing about my trip to the US and how "soulish" it was to allow myself to fall for a spiritual baby. But still, when I ended up calling him after those painful three weeks, I knew that he was my homestead on earth. But it couldn't be. I was torn between my hopes and feelings for him on the one side, and knowing about my trusted leader's disapproval of him on the other.  

My transparent upset demeanor at our group's New Years gathering was followed up by one of the famous "being called up by a leader to talk" the next day. In my three years with them I had a few of those and they were all problematic to say the least. The main leader basically said that he was shocked with my appearance and he was wondering if he should just release me to go to the US and be with James. That was a wake up call. Or a turn your brain off even more diligently call, if you will. 

Now I could only see two options: I either would be dishonorably released and delivered over to my own soulful will, wouldn't finish college, marry James right away, or leave James behind for ever but act according to my leader's approval. Why I could not see that neither James nor I were the real problem in the scenario, but it was their involvement that made our relationship so painful, I do not know. 

I also did not see that I really wanted to finish my studies and then go to the US, but that was not part of what they had offered me, so it was not on my radar. I, completely out of trust in my own decisions, caved in. I wrote James an email saying we couldn't have contact any more and that I wish him a nice life. I so badly wanted to feel my old self again. The self that was happy, felt full of purpose, and close to God. It was all gone. And honestly, taking that step with James only helped a little bit, and only for a little while. 

Father, I ask that you would heal the hearts that have been so damaged by entrusting their lives to bad leaders. Knit us closer to your heart as you deliver us from all the emotional and spiritual residue. Teach us who and how you really are. Amen

One Confused Zombie

Dear Reader!

We are still thinking about a spiritually abusive system as a trap one walks into willingly, expecting a great outcome, until it becomes clear that there is no way out. No way out does not mean that someone tells you in a deep voice, swinging a magic stick "You shall not pass!". We are talking about clever mind games and promises that fit the weaknesses and needs of the potential prey. These either lead to the prey running away quickly or, sadly to the prey shutting the emergency exit door from the inside. 

1) The right bait that will have the prey keep "its eye on the prize". Of course flies won't fly into your mouse trap, nor will mice stick to fly attracting glue strips.
2) A confinement system that is easy to get in and hard to get out.  
3) Really mean traps have a function where the animal wounds itself in the attempt to get out, like a wolf in a wolf trap with teeth, getting even more stuck in the trap, eventually tiring out in pain and defeat.                                      
               
             (Paraphrased from "The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse", Chapter 17)

A Chaotic Time

I have often wondered if there was a moment, way before spiritual abuse became our culture, that I could have easily decided to leave. For instance, right after I experienced that very empowering Women's Conference. If I had taken the out-of-the-blue suggestion of the co-leader to start hanging with a friendly Christian student group instead, I would have left for my first trip to the US sometime mid-July and probably kept fond memories of the leaders (assuming those leaders would be easy going like most group leaders I have experienced in the Christian realm). 

But since I didn't leave, for reasons I hope to express in this post, I had to plan my trip in the style the leader fancied: Chaos and confusion. 

I started to have a hard time scheduling my trip to Minnesota in the late spring of 2007 because the leader just wouldn't tell me how long he thought it would be okay for me to leave. I had envisioned to spend my whole school-free summer with my new found mentor friend (and let me spoil the surprise; she's now my mother-in-law Stephanie), to then do a month long internship at a High School. 
But the leader got tired of me nagging and then decided that late August would suffice for a trip. 

When I did book a 7 week stay he was very surprised and told me he was thinking of two weeks tops. Well, he had never said that to me, nor would that have worked with my internship plans. I had no clue how I was supposed to guess that. To my later astonishment he didn't force me to cancel my ticket. But this chaotic and confusing behavior was apparently not strange enough to me, as I just ran with it. Life with them was adventurous and exciting. I started to feel alive, part of a greater purpose, a secret mission to save the world one prayer meeting at a time. I felt fantastic! 

He certainly didn't want to hear me complain about not having anything to do until late August, especially when I pointed out that 
"I knew that my time would be better spend in Minnesota, than vegging day to day here in our city". 
But he had just the perfect reply: 
"Stop blaming me, it was God who said to go in late August". 
Well, that certainly ended all discussion. 

In the meantime the group had developed a very tight core of young adults as you can hardly avoid when you are asked to meet almost every day, pray together for hours, and listen to sermons and teachings. 
We, the main core of the movement, all had one thing in common; We were loyal to the leadership- all having our individual experiences to believe that the leaders had good intentions and would help us mature in mind and spirit.  

"I am shocked about your attitude"

The night before I finally left for my trip to Minnesota we had our usual group meeting and everybody was asked to choose a picture representing how they felt at that time. The leader's main occupation was being a police trainer with a strong interest in psychology and adult education, which he ended up getting a PhD in. So, a lot of the time he would use the methods, techniques, or teachings he came across in his studies. 

I only recall my friend's and my own picture. Our hearts, especially in the beginning with them, were always unguarded and childlike trusting. It had gotten us mostly positive attention and encouragement. Well, this time it should be very different.

My friend was choosing the picture of a bouquet of flowers. It represented her desire to mend her relationship with her parents. Today, as I write this 7 years later, she is one of the hardcore left-over members of the group, and her relationship to her family is as broken as it could be. 

I shared a picture of sitting on packed suitcases, as I felt like I should have left a month ago to seek out what God had in store for me in the US. 

Well, our honesty got both of us an "apostolic" fiery announcement that started with "I am shocked about your attitude" and ended with my friend thinking she could never be close to her family again (I guess she wasn't wrong!), and me feeling like it would have been better if I had to cancel my trip. Apparently God was only going to be at work in Germany that summer and how could I, being part of this powerful group, want to miss that. We both felt terrible. We felt we had to repent and ask for forgiveness for missing the heart of God so badly and being so humanly soul-ish. 

But I still went to Minnesota and within a few days it was obvious that I not only was supposed to come to visit, but to become a part of their lives. My now husband and I knew we wanted to get married within three weeks, thought about eloping, but then decided to come up with a plan of him meeting my leaders in Germany first and to go from there. I was actually quite afraid to tell them over the phone that we were seriously together. Fear... another great indicator that something is wrong!

The Nightmare Begins

When I returned to Germany after 7 weeks of sheer empowerment and joy the leader called me that night to tell me that he knows that I am planning on heading back to the US, but he must warn me as he had a prophetic dream. He basically told me that if I went back to the US I would be spiritually spoiled there and lose my strong anointing and calling. 

He went on to tell me that he had to dismiss my very good friend from college that I brought into the group because he was making bad choices and was disobedient. I knew that meant I had lost him as a friend forever.
On top of that they had a major falling out with the Christian student group we had started to mentor before I left, including one drug addict I and the co-leader had invested intense prophetic healing and deliverance prayer into. 

That night I had an anxiety attack. How could the world I returned to have fallen apart and the new world I thought God had introduced me to turn out to be a robber of my destiny? It didn't make any sense. What was God doing? 

I confided in my mom the next day and she was of course very concerned. But I did decide to have her drive me back to the college city and meet with the group, just to see what they had to say. I felt like a shadow of myself. Just a day ago I was walking on sunshine and now everything I had was confusion.  

During this meeting the leaders were unusually serene. They were so glad to see me again! The main leader, as if he knew what I needed to hear before I did, used words that turned out to be the magical key to my compliance; 
The leader said that I am free to go and lead the life that I think I should, but he would be very sad because we are friends.

Slavish Loyalty 

Looking back I heard him use this kind of language around me at a few pivotal times when something very extreme was asked of me. It worked like a charm. It was a new bait; the privilege that this authoritative, powerful, charismatic, and respectable man saw me as a friend. It implied that we saw eye-to-eye. It meant I was of value to him. It was the bait I needed to be presented with in order to be distracted from everything else that was going on. 

Why didn't I leave then? A part of me thought I was being loyal and consistent. I thought after leading a life of making emotional and unwise choices I had finally found mature people who taught me how to think, how to live close to God, how to be powerful in the kingdom of God, that to leave now would mean to go back to making emotional and unwise choices. 

I remembered how it hurt to be told to have to come to that expensive Women's conference. But it all turned out so wonderfully and it was because of them! I thought I needed to honor them as the leaders that helped me get free from depression and gave me a vision for my life, and introduced me to hearing the voice of God. They also were the reason why I met my husband-to be. It all seemed to point in their direction. They considered me a friend. And, to be really thorough, I was also afraid to fail as I would have to venture out on my own again. So, I stayed. 

The story goes that a monkey can be trapped by putting a banana on a table, making a wall with a hand-sized hole in it, so it can grab the banana, but cannot get it through the hole. If he is willing to let go of the banana he would be free. But the idea of that banana is just too good to give up, so he sacrifices his idea, gets caught and put in a cage, and as they carry him away he has his banana and momentarily forgets about the fact that he just lost his freedom forever.  
I now had the idea that the leader was my friend, that we saw eye-to-eye, and that he was my necessary spiritual guide without who I would not be able to arrive at God's destiny for my life.


In the next post we will look at the third part of a great trap. We will focus on how the desire for spiritual sanity in a spiritually abusive system will be answered with religious insanity.

To discovering that the Good News is much better than we thought!

How To Catch A Sickly Human In A Zombie-Trap

Dear Reader!

Did you ever have to set up traps in your house to catch flies or mice? Then you know what the key to a great trap is: 

1) The right bait that will have the prey keep "its eye on the prize". Of course flies won't fly into your mouse trap, nor will mice stick to fly attracting glue strips.
2) A confinement system that is easy to get in and hard to get out.  
3) Really mean traps have a function where the animal wounds itself in the attempt to get out, like a wolf in a wolf trap with teeth, getting even more stuck in the trap, eventually tiring out in pain and defeat.                                      
               
               (Paraphrased from "The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse", Chapter 17)

We can note that there is a perfect trap for each little critter or bugger in the world. In the same way it works with spiritual abusive systems. 

Even though my focus in this blog is on religious groups, you could transfer these observations to people prone to finding themselves in abusive relationships or even addictions. 

Perfect set up

When I encountered the two men that ended up turning into the focal point of my life for about three years I was simply in need. Since I was raised in a Baptist church and spent most of my childhood and youth in a christian setting it was a natural choice for me to eventually- and hesitantly- show up in the Baptist church of the city that I had moved to to go to college. 

I want to honor the Baptists for their approach to educate their members, addressing the mind that can be filled with and influenced by Bible stories, encouraging fellowship, evangelism, and charity. I first came to know about Jesus in the Baptist church and I had considered the Baptist church in my home town a spiritual home of sorts. But being released into the great big world I wasn't equipped with much more but a head knowledge of God and no clue how to shape my life. From early childhood on I had aspirations of grandeur, I wanted to be famous and really important. I wanted to be loved and accepted, and thought that to find a husband would be the cure for it all, next to winning an Oscar. 

My dreamworld collided with reality when it was time to set sail to make my dreams come true and I found myself depressed and visionless in a service of the Baptist church in my new town. I sat in the back and could hardly make out the face of the short but charismatic preacher, and it was to me in that wasted August of 2006 as if God was speaking to me and telling me that I need to stick around this man. I decided that God had told me that I was going to marry this man. Hope entered my heart and life.

Perfect bait

I stuck around this man and was invited to a service of his and the aspiring new pastor's ecumenical project. I ended up in a two-on-one meeting with those two and was showered with love, open ears, and the promise they see potential in me. I was walking on sunshine. We met a lot, they were very interested in getting to know details of my life which I was willing to share, and I met other "members". They taught me how to control my thoughts, how to call upon the help of the Holy Spirit, transform my mind with sheer power of the will, and to hold Bible verses against thoughts of depression. By golly, it worked! 

The fact that they failed to stay in contact with me during a month of an out of town internship, where I was again confronted with my depression, I forgave willingly because the co-leader apologized and presented himself as one of my best friends. But yet I was hesitant to sign up for the international women's conference put on by them that would be unusually expensive to attend. The leader gave one of my first "announcements" - a rather harsh admonishing-  in front of the whole group that he was disappointed by my hesitation and that I needed to learn to invest my resources into valuable opportunities. He said I needed to attend expecting a pool rather than a puddle, and that I'd miss out big time if I wouldn't attend. 

One of the other guys that hung around them talked to me after the meeting and uttered concern that the tone the leader used was inappropriate and that he had put pressure on me. Even though I had sort of noticed that, it felt astoundingly familiar. Who would have thought that growing up with a rather harsh father, ready to give me a piece of his mind at any moment, would prepare me for learning how God brings correction to my life?! (I hope you picked up on the irony here...)

Needless to say I attended the conference in the spring of 2007. I met a wonderful woman and her family from Minnesota that I planned on visiting that summer. The leaders were confirmed by respected international guests as apostolic leaders with a calling to all of Germany (in case you didn't know this about me- it all took place in Germany). I was prophesied over that I would have a prophetic gifting and calling for leadership. There was the pool I had expected and also the game changer! 

Suddenly I was respected, my opinion started to matter, and the leaders asked me to partake in leadership related meetings. When God clearly spoke to me that the co-leader was never supposed to be my husband and that He actually wanted to address and heal my sad need for finding a husband, the promise that the leaders would help me find my place in the kingdom of God kept me with them. The bait was perfect. 

Where else was I supposed to go, now that I had encountered the Holy Spirit for the first time in my life, experienced the power of the Gospel that seemed to be such a theoretical matter in my Baptist upbringing, getting to know God as a personable, talking, opinionated force in my life? When the two leaders dramatically fell out with the Baptist church (more about the pattern of leaving a trail of broken relationships in a later post) the co-leader offered me to release me to a student church group, but I had no intention of leaving! This is where I thought I was filled with the Holy Spirit and became a powerful citizen of the kingdom of God. I was certain I belonged with them. My life had made a tangible turn to the better. They had genuinely earned my trust and powerfully displayed that they are very close to God, and that He is working through them.

What bait would work for you?

I have met some people that are certain when hearing my story that they could never end up in a situation like me. They would know better. They would have a better sense of protecting their boundaries. They wouldn't fall for someone promising them the stars in the sky. Intuitively I feel like everybody has a weak spot, something that would get them to believe that it really is a good idea to go after the bait. On the other hand there may very well be people that at the end of the day decide they don't need other people to get to where they want to be. They just may be a little safer off than the ones that do go out and make themselves vulnerable, daring to let their guard down, and believe. Anyway, the better we are aware of our hopes and needs the easier we recognize that someone will end up preying on them. 

I encourage you to think about relationships in your life. Predators put out bait, but the prey falls for it because it has a motive. 

What are your motives? 
What are you looking for? 
What kind of abuse would you be willing to endure because you believe that you really need to be in relationship with that person?

If you are a Christian I want to remind you that Jesus promised us abundant life (John 10,10). But we don't have to go striving to find it. HE has it for us. By being transparent and honest with what is really going on in our heart we can encounter this God who loves us and truly knows what we need. When He healed my heart from longing to fill the void with a husband, I was finally secure in the knowledge that God's love is what I am really looking for. So, when I met my actual husband I wasn't needy and desperate for love anymore. I was filled with the experience that God sees my heart and if I let Him, He fills it with His love. This can start really small, but my faith and trust in God has organically grown by experience. 

Of course you can interject that I had thought the same about my eventually bad leaders, but I need to point out that the fruit of my life back then when I put most of my trust into my leaders versus now, that I'm in the process of putting all my trust in God, is fundamentally different. It's a matter of fear vs. freedom. 

In the next post we will be addressing the second part of a great trap.


To discovering that the Good News is much better than we thought!