I am writing this letter to serve as a personal testimony, regarding cult activities in my area.
About four years ago my wife became involved with a small group of people who claim to be "prophets" and "prophetesses" of God and to have "secret knowledge."
Not long after my wife's involvement she was told that she was inhabited by many "demons," which needed to be exorcised out of her body. This claim plunged her into deep depression. She was then given several videotapes and books to reinforce this message. I can remember for the next month coming home from work to see her viewing these same tapes over and over again--while crying.
My wife would not eat because she was told that she must fast. She would not sleep because she was told she had to pray. We also did not have sex--another rule.
She was eventually exorcised of her "demons" and began to follow all the proscribed practices of her newfound faith. She gave her public testimony at the Baptist church we were attending, but as a result was asked to leave. She also had purchased many more books and tapes, which described various demons and how to recognize them in people and objects.
During the first year of her involvement with this group, she began to attend their "camp"--where all the followers of this group would come together fasting, experience sleep depravation, peer pressure--working themselves into altered states of consciousness. In these sessions, participants would make animal noises, throw up "demons," laugh uncontrollably and it was necessary for some to be physically restrained when they became too aggressive.
My wife began pouring our money into the "camp" and her new found "church." She even tried to have me give my car to her pastor because he needed one. I found out that before this man became a self-proclaimed pastor, he was in and out of trouble with the law. The pastor's wife is supposedly an ex-Satanic church member, which of course makes her an "expert at recognizing demons and satanic activities."
To make things even more difficult my then 10-year-old daughter was diagnosed with cancer and this plunged my wife even deeper into these practices--in an attempt to please the "prophets" and somehow save her. I resisted such ideas after I found out that these people at their camp subjected my younger daughter (six years old) to exorcism.
Ultimately, due to my criticism of all this I became an "agent of Satan," who was somehow preventing
Our daughter from being healed. My wife was told that if she entered our house, because of the demons present there, my daughter would die. So, I came home one day, and my wife and three children were gone. It was a week later before I found out that she was in battered women's shelter--claiming that I was an abusive husband.
I am soon to be divorced as a direct result of all this. I hope this testimony will help others.