The Family as a Financial Power

from Jules - Tuesday, November 04, 2003
accessed 1833 times

After decades of pretending not to care that they were so very poor, the Family finally has become a little envious of the other well financed and well managed NRMs (it gets embarassing when Scientology has to pick up the tab at every cult benefit dinner). A few years ago, Family leaders published a series of publications which stated that God had promised them that they would become a financial power. Would the road to wealth come from hard work, wise investments and careful planning? Not likely. Like any good scam, the plan was to target people with money and vulnerabilities. “Reach the Rich”.

Fast forward to 2003 and things have not worked out so well. The Activated magazine is not exactly the must have consumer item that the geniuses in WS thought it was going to be. The Family is in a deep financial crisis, and of course, it’s due to lack of obedience to God on the part of the rank and file members.

The most tragic irony is not even that our parents will now be helpless and dependent on us to provide for them as they reach their golden years, but that the Family had 30 years to reach the rich—their own children. From a purely monetary standpoint, their own children were the best investment they could have made, and it was completely squandered.

The determination and ambition of many of us who have left never ceases to astound me. Despite overwhelming obstacles such as not even a basic education, complete abandonment by many of our parents and lack of even the most basic preparation for life on the outside, we have struggled our way through school, into professional careers and are determined to succeed. All of this has been in spite of our parents, not because of them.

In some alternate universe there are also a group of parents that decide to “drop out” and live a communal and fanatical lifestyle. However these parents also decide to be parents to their children and to support and care for them. These children are well educated past the age of 10 and are encouraged to pursue higher education. Their parents nurture their self esteem, and would never dream of shipping them off to victor programs to break their spirits and make them easier to dominate. They are protected from abuse and harm and cherished and loved. It is not easy for these parents, but they make sacrifices for their children because that’s what being a parent is about, and they value each child as an individual person, not as their own property, little fundraisers or personal guinea pigs.

It’s also 2003 in this universe, and this group is flourishing. The children have grown up and have also gone on to be doctors, lawyers, academics and professionals. They however did not have to fight against their parents or leave the group to do so. They did not have to run away in the middle of the night, or be locked up in a trailer for reading encyclopedias. Some of these children have founded charities and work with the less fortunate at home and abroad and their work is supported and efforts applauded. These young people have memories of a warm, loving, albeit eccentric childhood, and they love their parents dearly. Money is not a concern for this group, and it is a happy and secure place.

Despite all the ranting in the Family in our world about education, outside jobs and “serving mammon”, there are individuals in the Family who have always been warranted rather special treatment. These are the people with incomes. Many children were taken from their Family member parents without too much of a fuss (unless the rescue happened to be featured on 20/20). The Family would have never fought so hard for one little boy in England in the custody case of the early nineties had it not been for the fact that his mother came from a very wealthy family and had access to a sizable trust fund. Jeremy Spencer, despite his mediocre lyrics, vocals, art and music in general, always enjoyed favored musician status, and in a group where almost everyone else with talent was beaten down on a regular basis just so they knew that no one was better than the prophet of God and his mistress, he’s consistently had a pretty good time. Why? He receives a considerable amount of royalties from his time in Fleetwood Mac. Chris Mlot is on the board of directors of the Family Care Foundation, and when she barks, the Family in North America jumps. Her husband (Peter’s brother) does pretty much nothing all day, but gets access to anything he wants. Could it be that she is deeply spiritual, a leader in the Family, has paid her dues and slowly gained trust through the painful process of living with Berg and Zerby like Gary did? Guess again. She is a medical doctor, and an executive of an HMO in California. Without her, the Family Care Foundation was a lot of high school dropouts and freaky cult uncles. The Family’s side of the British court case was funded by a man known to us as Bill. He was married to Judy Woods, who he met when she was prostituting for the Family, and their adopted daughter attended school in a Family home in the UK. Judy made it quite clear that her education had better be up to standard. This home (which I also happened to live in as a teenager) did not teach their children from Superworkbooks. We had access to real teaching materials, and the education of the children there was actually a priority. I was a teacher for the older children and they learned political science, high school math, advanced grammar, and other things that would have (and did) land me in trouble learning myself, let alone teaching.

A TV financial expert once said that the difference between the rich and the poor is the ability to delay gratification. Like a Jerry Springer final thought, that has stuck with me. You have to wonder about the intelligence of a Divine Guide who doesn’t think to tell his elite troops that rather than give that child over to be raped and molested, perhaps they should invest in her, because she will one day be a supreme court judge. I don’t know, perhaps He should lay off the sex with all those brides for awhile. Rather than study, play and develop, we all (except Ne Oublie) were sent to toil away cleaning, raising our brothers and sisters and to sexually service the adults, for compensation that would make Nike look humane. It made the life of the adults pretty cushy at the time, (I mean honestly, how much work does it take to create the schedule) but if they could have seen the potential in each one of us, and rather than sending us on yet another Christmas debt reduction push, they had sent us to school and (here’s the twist) supported us, the investment would have absolutely paid off. When you have 15 children, at least one of them is bound to make it, and there would be a Dr. Chris in every family.

After too much Monthy Python one night I told my parents about our plan to donate them to medical research when they got old and feeble. They failed to see the humor, but have started to make preparations for themselves. I guess that’s something.