Heaven's Harlots: My Fifteen Years in a Sex Cult (6 page)

Only she said it with such sincerity and belief that it came alive.

The bus began to fill up, and after a while we were packed. The young man who had greeted us stood up at the front.

“Okay. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord. Is everyone here?” Most of the crowd became quiet and looked at him with respect. He was obviously some kind of group leader.

“All right. Well, we are going to pull out of New York City now. So everyone who wants to stay in hell better get off, because we are going to heaven.” Half of the people on the bus started screaming, “Hallelujah— praise the Lord—we love you, Jesus,” in a confused type of unison.

A few people left. Daisy and I stayed on.

“Praise the Lord,” said the man again. “I see we have some new people coming up with us. I hope you are all saved and filled with the Spirit. If you have any questions, please ask the people sitting next to you. I want you to be sure you know where you are going.” I wasn’t sure if he meant where we are going when we die, or right now.

But since I knew both of these answers, I didn’t ask anyone.

After a few minutes, some more people got off the bus.

“Okay. Let’s say a prayer for this old bus and get going. I don’t know if we have gas or not. The gauge doesn’t work. But God is not bound by a gas gauge, is He?” The bus gave an uproar of “Hallelujahs” again.

The man led us in a spirited prayer, which was interspersed with more “Praise the Lords” and emphatic “Amens” from the crowd.

I wrapped myself in a blanket I found next to me since it was getting cold and the prayer was long. Finally, the bus started up. Another round of praises!

Praise brought the other boy back to our corner. I found out that his name was Ezra. Evidently, he had been in the Children of God (COG) less time than Praise, indicated by the way he kept looking to her for approval of what he said.

“I think Miriam might want to ask the Holy Spirit in,” said Praise, “and I thought you might like to be here, since she is your sheep. ” Ezra and Praise quoted all the verses they knew on the Holy Spirit, what it meant to be filled with the Spirit, and what would happen to me afterward. They protested when I told them I had already been baptized, saying that was not really enough. I looked out the window at the dirty city going by, so happy to be leaving it. Why should I not ask the Spirit in again? It seemed to mean so much to them, and it certainly would not hurt.

“Okay,” I said,“I’ll ask the Spirit to fill me.” Praise gave a squeaky sound of delight, and she called over a few more people to pray with me. Suddenly there were about a dozen pair of hands on my head, shoulders, and back. While Ezra led a prayer asking the Holy Spirit to fill me, the people holding me captive began a praise session of “Hallelujah—praise the Lord—we love you, Jesus” that lasted at least twenty minutes. I had my eyes closed the entire time, and when I opened them, I looked out the window. It was snowing.

The event seemed so symbolic. I had closed my eyes when we were in the filth of the city, and now, after asking to be filled with the Spirit, we were driving by a clean, snow-white field. Maybe I really did get filled with God’s Spirit after all. It reminded me of the Bible verse I had memorized recently,“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall become white as snow.”

The bus stopped frequently on the way up. Each time this happened, everyone would start praising the Lord while the leader and some boys got out to tinker with the motor. The story I heard was that the bus was really out of gas, but the Lord just made it start anyway, contingent on the amount of praising we would give Him.

Eventually, I fell asleep, but not before I had concluded that this was my fate. Had I not been searching for something to dedicate my life to, having found nothing for me in all the usual places? Had I not seen a film on this very group just weeks before, and even then decided I would like to live in such a place? Had I not gone through one of the most hellish and depressing experiences of my life and been rescued by these people—perhaps my spiritual family?

It was the middle of the night when we arrived at the campsite in Ellenville, New York. Awakened from a deep sleep, I followed Praise in a daze to a bunkhouse and crashed. I woke the next morning to a group of girls crying,“Hallelujah—praise the Lord—we love you, Jesus. ” This was a frequent event throughout the day, and soon I would participate in the praise sessions myself.

The camp was a beautiful nature retreat that would have been comfortable in the summer. Unfortunately, it was not built for winter use, and every room was freezing except in the main building. There were two bunkhouses, a large one that held the girls and a smaller one for the boys. There were also a few cabins down by the wooded area and a bungalow set off by itself. On that cold December morning, I was grateful to leave the freezing bunkhouse and go into the warmth of the main building.

The main building contained a large meeting hall, a huge industrial kitchen, some rooms reserved for special classes, one bathroom, and a second floor. I would not even see the second floor for months. I stayed in the meeting room or kitchen those first few days.

In the morning we had a collective breakfast in the meeting hall converted into a dining room. There were close to a hundred bedraggled young people forming a line. Ezra came in and took me through the food line, quoting verses to me that I later learned he was memorizing.

“Wow, we got some doughnuts this morning, praise the Lord,” he exclaimed, referring to a big cardboard drum filled with squished pastries. “Don’t you want any?”

I declined. Instead, I took a bowl of watery oatmeal and some very weak coffee. I was soon to learn that choice of food was limited, but in those early days, food was the last thing I was concerned about.

Ezra ate with an enthusiasm that struck me as rather exaggerated. He always came with me when we went through the food line, and when I realized he was hungry, I took everything allotted me and offered him what I could not eat. He seemed to really appreciate this, although he never said anything but “Thank you, Jesus!”

Someone talked with me every minute of the day. Either Praise or Ezra or one of the two hundred or more other people who lived there. By design, I was never alone, and I hardly ever saw Daisy alone either.

However, when Praise came with me to the bathroom, I protested.

“Okay, praise the Lord! I’ll be right out here,” she said sweetly.

It was quite interesting. I had no idea what commune life would be like, but this seemed to be a prime example. We ate together, worked together, sang together, and (separated into boys, girls, and married couple dorms) slept together. The main purpose seemed to be training new disciples, like me, to become full-time witnessers for the Lord. I learned that the Children of God had set up witnessing homes in many big cities across the nation, and would soon be setting one up in Manhattan.

In addition, they made weekly trips to New York City and came back with dozens of new recruits. Most of them were drugged-out hippies. Many stayed on for days, weeks, or months, and during this time no one touched any dope. Thorough searches for drugs were conducted frequently, and no smoking or alcohol was allowed.

A few days after I had arrived—I lost count of the exact number of days that had gone by—a “sister” suggested that I go to the “Forsake All” and get new clothes. She explained that like the early disciples in the Bible, we shared everything here, including our worldly possessions.

When I told her that I had brought enough clothes with me, she informed me that I would have to forsake those, or give them up. “Old things are passed away, all things become new,” she said, quoting II Corinthians 5, 17.

The Forsake All held the discarded clothes of all the people who had joined at this particular commune, or “colony,” as they called it.

The Forsake All room was large and orderly. Boys’ clothes were neatly folded in one area and girls’ in another. The sister who took me suggested I get a few skirts.

“We believe that girls should dress feminine and modestly,” she said with authority, as if she were my fashion coordinator.

She chose two long, shapeless skirts that were similar to the ones that most of the other girls were wearing. She allowed me to pick two blouses and a sweater. Those five items, along with a few pairs of underwear, would be my clothes for the next couple of months. I was also allotted a long warm coat. My army jacket, along with my beloved embroidered jeans, were taken away. I later saw the army jacket on a boy, but I never saw my jeans again.

It seemed that the members who had been with the Children for a while “had the faith” and that I was a disciple. Being a college student and having some definite goals in life, I was quite different from the regular recruit they picked up in New York. They informed me that I was a “chosen one” of God, like the rest of them there. I felt a surge of pride and recognition. I knew I was different—no wonder they had found me! Then I brushed it aside out of ingrained humility, probably learned in Sunday school as a little girl. Instead, I should be thankful that He had chosen little, insignificant me. I would have to prove I was worthy.

The Bible did say,“Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you” (John

15, 16).

I eventually could have taken these thoughts further and come to the logical conclusion that God doesn’t go around “choosing people” in this way, but I was never left alone to think for myself. As a new disciple, I constantly had a big brother or sister at my side, usually quoting scriptures that reinforced the Children of God lifestyle and beliefs. “All that believed were together and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men” (Acts 2, 44). “And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12, 2). I learned that new disciples should never be left alone with their thoughts, and that I should not think like a “flatlander,” who could only see in a flat dimension. I tried to discipline my mind to not think of anything but biblical, spiritual, higher thoughts.

Although I don’t remember making any verbal decision to join or signing anything, I handed over to the group all my belongings, including my driver’s license, which was never returned. In my purse, I’d had only the few dollars we had panhandled in New York, which was also handed over, and I never held money again for years. It would also be years before I went to a store to buy anything, read a book, listened to radio, or watched TV. How I spent every minute of my life was decided for me, or rather, I let them decide it for me. Many nights as I lay in bed—the only time I was alone—I would review my past life, which now seemed so very distant. At first I was saddened that I would never finish college, but soon these thoughts receded further and further away, and finally they never appeared again. I missed my family, but I believed I had met God’s True Family. After all, that was what I had been praying for, and didn’t God answer prayers? I read a passage from a booklet that was given me, which said, we belong to the greatest Family in the world, the Family of God’s Love. Surely God must think you worthy to give you such a priceless privilege to be a member of His Family! we’re the mighty army of Christian soldiers, fighting a relentless war for the truth and love of God, against the confusion of Babylon, the anti-God, Antichrist systems of the world…we are the hard-core, the spearhead, the avant garde of this last spiritual revolution. We are the Cadre, the leadership of it, that requires one hundred percent dedication…

We called ourselves “revolutionaries” in a spiritual and material sense combined. I knew it would be hard. It was like joining an army, giving up my personal desires for a greater cause. But I felt like I was meant to do this—it was my purpose in life. And as I was told, I was still young enough to change, In another few years I would have become so ingrained with “system” thoughts, I could never be a “revolutionary.” My life in those days as a new disciple meant waking up early to pray alone for one hour and then together with a group of girls led by our “tribe leader.” After a breakfast of powdered milk, doughnuts, and oatmeal, I helped to clean the camp, which, considering that it sometimes housed up to three hundred people, was kept fairly clean. Then began a long day of Bible classes, broken only by a small lunch of a sandwich or sometimes a fruit salad. At the end of the day, we were given time to memorize verses, always with an older brother or sister to guide us, and then to read the Bible silently, but not alone.

A late dinner was followed by “inspiration,” which included a few hours of singing and then a message from our leader. it was after a few weeks of those messages that I understood that our top leader and founder was a man who called himself Moses David.

Moses, called Mo for short, based his philosophy of a Christian communal life—which he preached, taught, and enforced through writings called Mo letters—on the biblical scriptures. Just as the Russian Communists were inspired by the Communist Manifesto, and the Nazi movement by Mein Kampf, the Mo letters told us what to believe in, and how to live this belief. Like those other revolutionary works, the Mo letters gave us the hope that we would change the world. However, the big difference was—our leader heard straight from God, and God was still speaking!

Mo wrote that “ninety percent of our ministry here is condemning the church and the church people and the damn system” (“A Sample, Not a Sermon” J, 55). When he began preaching that to the hippies gathering in a coffeehouse in Huntington Beach, California, they listened to this strange man in his late forties wearing a beard and sunglasses. He looked like one of them, only older and wiser, and he had a plan taken from one of the greatest plans ever written for humanity—the New Testament.

But Mo wasn’t always a bohemian prophet. He started his adult life in the shadow of his famous evangelist mother, Virginia Brandt Berg, whom he claimed had been paralyzed by a car accident and miraculously healed.

She became a relatively successful Christian evangelist and eventually had her own radio program called Meditation Moments. Her third child (second son), David Brandt Berg, was born after the accident and healing on February 18, 1919, in Oakland, California.