Misguided: The Soundtrack To My Life

Epilogue: Beware of the Kool-Aid Music featured in this post: What It Sounds Like – KPop Demon Hunters Things Have Changed – Bob Dylan Masters of War – Bob Dylan Teach Your Children Well – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Old Before My Time – The Allman Brothers Band The epilogue in my memoir has two parts. In the first half I discuss the downfall of the Children of God/The Family cult. That discussio...

Chapter 22 – Everything Is Broken Music featured in this chapter: Insomnia – Faithless Everyone’ll Let You Down – The Philosopher Kings Save Me – Remy Zero Everything Is Broken – Bob Dylan (alternate version) In this chapter of my memoir I start by describing the psychotherapy I was eventually able to get after my complex PTSD diagnosis. I also discuss my descent into depression, poverty and homel...

Chapter 21 – Tragedy of the Chosen One Sensitivity Warning: this article contains graphic discussions of child abuse, murder and suicide. Music featured in this chapter: 21st Century Breakdown – Green Day I’m Gonna Get Me a Gun – Cat Stevens Janie’s Got a Gun – Aerosmith In this chapter of my memoir the first half describes in detail my psychological breakdown after I began investigating my cult p...

Chapter 20 – Law and Disorder Music featured in this chapter: Who Are You – The Who Finding Myself – Haley Klinkhammer You Don’t Know How It Feels – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Breakdown – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Pandora’s Box – MARINA Where In The World? – Gavin Friday In this chapter of my memoir I discuss my awkward transition from my cult life to my ordinary life. I kept my complic...

Chapter 19 – Losing My Religion Music featured in this chapter: Life Is a Highway – Tom Cochrane The River, Mother Nature & Me – Jenny Lester Ordinary World – Duran Duran On the Road to Find Out – Cat Stevens Redemption Song – Bob Marley Losing My Religion – R.E.M. It took me many years to write my memoir. The manuscript underwent many major changes until I finally had a draft I was satisfied enou...

Chapter 18 – Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Music featured in this chapter: Losing My Religion – R.E.M. Should I Stay or Should I Go – The Clash Birthday – The Beatles Leaving on a Jet Plane – John Denver This chapter of my memoir continues where chapter 17 left off, when I secretly listened to the R.E.M. song Losing My Religion while at the Heavenly City School cult compound in Japan. It was an “a...

Chapter 17 – Heavenly Lunacy Music featured in this chapter: Strange Brew – Cream Everybody gets to go to the Moon – The Three Degrees Bark at the Moon – Ozzy Osbourne Man On The Moon – R.E.M. This chapter in my memoir starts with my return to the Heavenly City School (HCS) in Japan in early 1991, after the horrific child abuse I witnessed in Macau. Top leaders at the HCS were developing new abusi...

Chapter 16 – The Exorcism of Merry Trigger Warning – this chapter describes in detail extremely disturbing religious child abuse, including a violent exorcism. Music featured in this chapter: Tainted Love – Soft Cell This chapter of my memoir concerns Merry Berg, the granddaughter of cult leader David Berg. Her horrific treatment by her grandfather and the other adults in his inner circle was publ...

Chapter 15 – Mr. Big in Japan Music featured in this chapter: Mr. Brightside – The Killers I Don’t Want to Know – Fleetwood Mac Big in Japan – Tom Waits Divorce Separation Blues – The Avett Brothers This chapter of my memoir starts with my return to Japan in 1996 after fleeing Beijing, China one step ahead of the authorities. Shortly after, Rachelle and I were recruited to serve the top regional l...

Chapter 14 – I Shook Hands With The Butcher Of Beijing Music featured in this chapter: Speaking English – Isle of Man Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Communicating with music China – Joan Baez This chapter of my memoir first describes my return to Japan ten years after the first time I lived there, and the several months I spent evangelizing at the World Expo 1985 in Tsukuba. The rest of the c...

Chapter 13 – Pearls Of The Orient Music featured in this chapter: China – Sammy Hagar Undercover Agents – Enter Shikari As a young teen I knew almost nothing about China, but I was intrigued by it. Many Chinese immigrants had come to our small mill town over the decades. The father of one of my Chinese-Canadian classmates was in the British air force based in Hong Kong during WW2. There was a phot...

Chapter Twelve – On The Road Again Music featured in this chapter: On The Road Again – Willie Nelson Black lightning – The BellRays Jet Airliner – Steve Miller Band This chapter of my memoir opens with my returning to the cult and hooking up with a new member, Rachelle, a mother of two who was nine years older than me. In early December 1979, I separated from the system a second time and left Port...

Chapter 11 – The Prodigal Child Returns Music featured in this chapter: Mr. Robot – Styx Family Affair – Sly & the Family Stone Gotta Serve Somebody – Bob Dylan (Take 1 - Slow Train Coming studio outtake) One of Wiktionary’s definitions for “prodigal” is: 4) Behaving as a prodigal son: 1. Having (selfishly) abandoned a person, group, or ideal. 2. Returning or having returned, especially repentantl...

Chapter Ten – Welcome to the Jungle, or The Guest Who Wouldn’t Leave Music featured in this article: Run Through The Jungle – Creedence Clearwater Revival Country Roads – John Denver El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could) – Simon and Garfunkle Morning Has Broken – Cat Stevens Moonshadow – Cat Stevens An Unwelcome Guest – The Lodger This chapter of my memoir has an unusual title. As I explain in the Introduct...

Chapter Nine – I Felt The Earth Move Music featured in this chapter: I Feel the Earth Move – Carol King What Is A Youth - Glen Weston I Don’t Need No Doctor – Ray Charles There is double meaning to that title, which readers of my memoir might have realized. As discussed in the previous chapter, my pre-cult sex education both at home and at school was quite inadequate. In this chapter I discuss my...

Chapter Eight – Revolutionary Sex Music featured in this chapter: Sexual Revolution – Macy Gray This chapter of my memoir opens with my arrival in Hawaii after fleeing what I believed was the imminent destruction of the United States. A couple months later I left for Japan. After describing my first few months in Japan, I stop that narrative just before describing my first sexual experience, which...

Chapter 7 – Fleeing Babylon The W***e Music featured in this chapter: American Pie – Don McLean I Shall Be Released – Bob Dylan Human Be-In videos from the first one in San Francisco and later ones in Vancouver Kohoutek – R.E.M. The Message Of Jeremiah - J. Russel This chapter in my memoir opens with these paragraphs: The Children of God in the U.S. and Canada began fleeing to foreign mission fiel...

Chapter Six – The Endtime Prophet Music featured in this chapter: The Prophet’s Song – Queen I thought it was important to include in my memoir David Berg’s origin myth in which he declares himself the final endtime prophet before the second-coming of Jesus, which he prophesied would be in 1993. It helps readers understand the influence he had on tens of thousands of followers around the world, an...

Chapter Five – Indoctrination Music featured in this chapter: Little Boxes - Malvina Reynolds School’s Out – Alice Cooper Another Brick In The Wall, Part Two – Pink Floyd Dust In The Wind – Kansas No Time - The Guess Who In this chapter of my memoir I provide the full text of an article published in the Alberni Valley Times a month or so after I “joined” the local commune. At the top of the articl...

Chapter Four – Revolution For Jesus Music featured in this chapter: Revolution – The Beatles This is one of the shortest chapters in my memoir. I cite a 1971 TIME magazine article titled, “The Alternative Jesus: Psychedelic Christ”, about the Jesus People Movement. The cover pictured a hippie-like Jesus, haloed with the words: “The Jesus Revolution”. I then cite a publication by cult leader David...

Soundtrack To My Life – Chapter Three – He’s Leaving Home Music featured in this chapter: Woodstock – Joni Mitchell Woodstock - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Big Yellow Taxi – Joni Mitchell Eve Of Destruction - Barry McGuire Getting Better - The Beatles She’s Leaving Home – The Beatles Can’t Buy Me Love – The Beatles Brother Sun, Sister Moon – Donovan Freedom - Richie Havens The title of Chapter 3...

Chapter Two – California Dreamin’ Music featured in this chapter: California Dreamin’ - The Mamas & The Papas San Francisco - Scott Mckenzie With A Little Help From My Friends – The Beatles Across The Universe – The Beatles Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds – The Beatles Time - Pink Floyd Question - The Moody Blues Jesus Christ Superstar - Superstar (1971) All Things Must Pass - George Harrison What I...

Chapter One - Gotta Serve Somebody Music featured in this chapter: Gotta Serve Somebody - Bob Dylan Sixteen Tons - Tennessee Ernie Ford Murder Most Foul – Bob Dylan Abraham, Martin and John - Dion Into the Ocean - Blue October How Great Thou Art - Elvis Presley Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles All You Need Is Love - The Beatles I open my memoir with a flash-forward to the time I...

Soundtrack To My Life - Introduction Music featured in this post: To Be Free - Glyn Lehmann, sung by Shrewsbury International School children Stereo - The Watchmen When I created the outline for my memoir, Misguided , as a guide for writing the first draft, I found that naming the chapters with song titles or lyrics was a useful way to summarize or foreshadow the subject of each chapter. I did tha...

Children of the Cult – episode 5 – Fighting Back Finding justice becomes a compulsion for Hope and Verity, a necessary step towards their healing. They tell their stories to Scottish detectives. Up to then there had been no criminal convictions of COG/Family cult child abusers in the UK, and only a few in other countries, because of the cult’s secrecy, multiple aliases, frequent moves and other le...