No Regard for Personal Property: My Experience as a Christian Cult Member, Part 5

As a cult member, I had very few possessions. But the few possessions I had were precious to me, in part, I suppose, because they were so few. You would think that no one would bother the little I had, but unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

One more than one occasion I had something that belonged to me taken away and given to another person. The first time, it was a sweater. One thing that I had when I first arrived was nice clothing. I remember when I had been there only three weeks, meeting one of the overseas leaders. He looked me up and down and then said, "You haven't been here long, have you?" The tip off was that I was wearing expensive clothing, and had perfectly manicured nails. I had actually come from a life of abundance, and that was obvious in the possessions I brought with me.

As time went on, I understood how unusual my wardrobe was, and although I was more than happy to share my clothes with others, I wasn't prepared for that decision to be made for me. That's why it totally caught me off guard when the leader of the cult demanded that I give him a particular sweater so that he could give it as a gift to his wife. Every time I saw her wearing "my" sweater, I was reminded of the fact that I was no longer an individual, but was rather simply part of the whole, with no rights to speak of.

Another time, I noticed a woman who was new to the cult wearing a pair of shoes that looked awfully familiar. I ran upstairs to the girls' dorm and checked the box underneath my bed, and sure enough, my shoes were missing. I said something about the shoes to her, and she told me with a smile, "Stacy (the leader's wife) gave them to me!" When I confronted Stacy, she admitted that she had given the shoes to this woman, because she really needed them. "I knew you wouldn't mind," she stated. I did mind, but I knew that making a stink over it would only result in some sort of disciplinary action, so I swallowed my words, and acted like it didn't matter.

The final straw happened when for some reason, all of the single women went out of town at the same time. Because of this, the girls' dorm was completely empty. During this time, a motorcycle gang came through town, and for whatever reason, stopped at the compound. They were given a free place to stay -- which just happened to be the girls' dorm. That was understandable, in a sense, but what didn't make sense is that they were left in the dorm, unattended. This resulted in everything of value that was owned by the single woman being stolen.

We returned from our trip, and one by one, we discovered our missing items. My stolen items included a radio, jewelry, my passport, towels, and an electric typewrite that worked on solar power -- something I planned on using when I went overseas in an area with an unreliable power supply. As is often the case with theft, I felt extremely violated, knowing these men had rifled through all of my personal belongings, and helped themselves to what they wanted.

The other women in the group were similarly upset over the incident, so we went together to one of the elders to complain. We were chided and told that our response was evidence that we were too materialistic, and that it served us right to have the items stolen from us.

That incident left me feeling even more vulnerable and unprotected.

The next installment will cover the double standard that existed between the cult leaders and the rest of the people in the cult.