How to build a fireproof religious cult: The JW example
When I was 11 years old in JSS 1, my parents gave me a card-sized legal document to keep in my wallet, stating that in the event that I suffered any injury or sickness that required a blood transfusion, under no circumstances was the hospital permitted to administer one.
Even at that age, I clearly understood how incredibly insane it was to make a preteen carry his own death warrant around in his pocket at school. I kept it in my wallet, but I refused to sign it, which was my own little rebellion against what I could clearly see was a David Koresh-type cult hiding behind well-ironed shirts and feigned politeness.
My siblings, however, ranged from merely mildly rebellious to fully signed up JW Kool Aid-drinkers, so it was unsafe to share my full-scale rebellion anywhere but in school. School became my refuge, and books became my mental fortress where “Jehovah” and the “Organisation” could not get to me. I had to develop the capacity to live an epic double life so as to survive and retain my individuality.
I mention this because it is unhelpful to think of JWs as merely a religious group. Think of them more as an immersive, full-body experience that seeks to completely uproot and replace all types of intellectual curiosity, creativity and normal human relationships.
What makes the JW cult such a tightly-knit one is it successfully insinuates itself into all aspects of a member’s life. Members are constantly told that they are a special, ‘chosen’ people. They are repeatedly encouraged to reduce communication and contact with people who are non-JWs, which helps with the organisation’s internal “cross-pollination.” For this reason, dad spent most of his life isolating himself from his family, and it wasn’t until his death that I found out that I have literally hundreds of cousins, nephews, aunts and uncles.
Competitive activities like sports are highly frowned upon, and anything at all that can take a member’s attention away from the cult – including work, hobbies and family – is portrayed as a ‘lesser god’ fighting with Jehovah for attention. Needless to say, higher education is especially frowned upon.
The aim is for members to be just educated enough to be literate evangelists, but not enough to start asking questions and looking at things the organisation considers “dangerous.” Things like the fact that the JWs once subscribed to a theory of white racial superiority, as evidenced by this quote from their own publication in 1929.
Question: Is there anything in the Bible that reveals the origin of the Negro?
Answer: It is generally believed that the curse which Noah pronounced upon Canaan was the origin of the Black race. Certainly it is that when Noah said, “Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren,” he pictured the future of the Coloured race.
They have been and are a race of servants. There is no servant in the world as good as a good Coloured servant, and the joy that he gets from rendering faithful service is one of the purest joys there is in the world. – Golden Age (now Awake!) 1929 Jul 24 p.702
Clearly, either “Jehovah” was a racist in 1929, or this cult has always been and still is complete horse manure. Only someone with a certain level of education and intellectual curiosity, however, can achieve this level of inquiry, which is why “independent thinking” is frowned at so aggressively.
At school, JW children are not permitted to sing the national anthem, recite the pledge, partake in birthday celebrations or be involved in anything related to Christmas and Easter. This kill-joy aspect of cult creation is essential because it creates a traumatic experience.
Being the child who is constantly left out and not part of the group is a highly painful experience for a child, and this permits the organisation to further embed itself in the child’s life through “trauma bonding.” So a JW child gravitates toward other JW children because of a shared ongoing experience. All of this is by design.
Needless to say, dating or marrying outside of the JW cult is expressly forbidden and is grounds for serious disciplinary action. Both of my parents were conspicuously absent at 3 of their 5 children’s weddings for this exact reason. This brings us to the most potent and dangerous aspect of the JW cult system: – its ability to transcend natural relationships.
The ultimate cult triumph: Breaking the family unit apart
As I have mentioned elsewhere, I grew up in a materially prosperous family of seven. This family has now completely disintegrated, spread across different continents and living separate lives that do not intersect. The victory of JW fanaticism over familial ties is more evident in my family than even the Esabunor family. The insane child abuse that came with it is a story for another day.
I have all sorts of pleasant childhood memories of my four siblings, Rhoda, Jonathan, Blessing and Victoria. I remember throwing a tantrum and hitting my head on a table, raising an egg-sized lump because Rhoda once wanted me to leave her room – such was my fondness for my oldest sibling.
I remember Jonathan as a medical student in Ghana being my hero when I was an awkward, self-aware teenager. He was my plug for new clothes and music CDs, and he would lecture me for hours about the wonders of life outside Ogudu GRA, and why I needed to do well in school. I remember Blessing using a blackboard to teach me how to read and write in the open penthouse overlooking the valley, a full year before I entered school at 5.
Read also: The Jehovah’s Witnesses cult tears families apart. Here’s how it tore mine (1)
I remember Victoria being my partner in mischief and my very first disciple as we navigated the strange world of living under repression amid privilege. I remember dad being a smart, kind, funny man who always had the solution to any of my problems before I even asked. These are all distant memories now.
The JW cult stole our innocence and turned us on each other. Our parents were happy to use their financial ability to reward any of us who would snitch on others for not being JW, or not being JW enough. Overtime, we have lost all trust and connection with each other, and we are all strangers now.
Dad died in 2017, during a period when we were not on speaking terms because he made our relationship contingent on returning to the JW fold, which I declined. I have not seen Jonathan in person since January 2008.
Rhoda is somewhere in the UK, and I have not seen her since 2011. Neither of them bothered to show up for dad’s funeral. Mom and Blessing are complete strangers to me now, despite living in the family house less than 20 minutes from where I live. Victoria is somewhere outside Nigeria and she replied, “Who is this please?” when I texted her to say happy birthday the last time I bothered to do so in 2019.
The ultimate triumph of religious cults like Jehovah’s Witnesses is that they replace normal human morality and societal behaviours with artificial rules of their own. The use of aggressive shunning is a cruelly effective tactic for keeping members in line because they know that if they leave, they lose everything – friends, family, colleagues, everything.
JWs are not supposed to even say a greeting to people who are being shunned, even if they live in the same house. When called up on this cruel practise, they simply lie, obfuscate and derail the conversation, which is a standard cult tactic.
From a Nigerian point of view, what everyone should be worried about is not just that Jehovah’s Witnesses command such a large following here – at least 200,000 people according to them.
It is the fact that a new generation of pentecostal and charismatic cults are springing up, borrowing aspects of their ideology and rituals from Jehovah’s Witnesses and similar cult groups like the Mormon Church.
Religion is such an existential problem for Nigeria already, that the very last thing anyone should want is a society of Rita Esabunors, and unfortunately, it is already happening.
Just look around you
