Escape and Recovery from Warren Jeff’s FLDS Polygamous Cult

[Zzyzx]

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I am honored to be married to a remarkably self-made woman. She was raised in perhaps the most indoctrinating and limiting of environments of modern America – the Fundamentalist Later Day Saints; the polygamous offshoot from Mormonism. She escaped as a teenager and spent twenty years deprogramming herself and learning to live successfully in the real world.

The former “Prophet” of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), Warren Jeffs, is her uncle. He is currently serving “five years to life” in prison after being convicted for his role in a forced marriage and rape. My wife, fearing a fate like that of Elissa Wall (the girl that Jeffs forced to marry at 14 and who was subsequently raped by her husband/first cousin), escaped from the cult as a teenager and later helped her mother to escape and to literally kidnap her younger siblings.

FLDS members practice Polygyny today (multiple wives) and preach that a man can “gain the celestial kingdom” only by having a minimum of three wives – and that women can do so only by being “sealed” (church married) to a man who is going. http://www.apologeticsindex.org/f/f39ac.html.

The FLDS broke away from mainstream Mormonism (LDS) after the main Mormon church disavowed polygamy (after a convenient “revelation from god”) just in time to meet a condition for gaining statehood for Utah. FLDS members were excommunicated by the LDS.

Polygamy (multiple mates) / Polygyny (multiple wives specifically) is only a part of cult beliefs and practices. The church rules in all matters and owns most property. Men are “given” wives by church elders in accordance to their standing with the church. Powerful older men often have scores of wives. My wife’s grandfather (Warren’s father Rulon Jeffs) had something like 75 wives and untold numbers of children when he died as an old man – some of his wives were quite young).

Women are property of their fathers until marriage, then property of their husbands thereafter (but ultimately property of church elders). Young girls raised in the cult are indoctrinated to be totally subservient to males and to do exactly as they are told. Their education is preferably limited to church schools teaching religious dogma and making no effort toward true education. Women must be covered from neck to ankles and wrists with “proper” blouses and skirts (even when swimming). They have absolutely no choice in who they marry. Girls / women are “assigned” to a husband (who can be totally repulsive to them). Courtship is not involved. The two may have never met and they may be totally different in disposition and age. No matter. The church rules.

This is NOT a made up condemnation of the FLDS even though it sounds ridiculous that any such thing could happen in the United States in modern times. Any Internet search will yield abundant information and verification. For a quick overview see http://www.religioustolerance.org/flds.htm

My wife knows the difficulty of overcoming cult teachings through deprogramming, and she knows what is required to learn about the real world after being sequestered throughout childhood and taught only church dogma. It took this wonderful, highly intelligent woman twenty years to “become a whole person” and to lear to successfully function within the real world.

She has done an outstanding job of learning to be a strong, confident, well informed woman. Most escapees that we know have not done the hard work necessary and therefore are not strong or independent people. They, males and females alike, tend to be meek, indecisive, confused and beset with low self-image. They typically lack social skills and therefore struggle with personal interactions and with personal relationships. Their decision making ability is usually very poorly developed, so they allow others to make their decisions (often disastrously) – or they make a series of terrible choices on their own without knowing how to make informed decisions.

Alcoholism, drug addiction, prostitution and other forms of self-destructive and escapist behavior are very common among ex-cult members that we have known. Even suicide is not unknown. We do not choose to associate with the “walking wounded” that have not recovered from cultism (including family).

It is all but impossible for those without inside information to understand how thoroughly cult indoctrination limits individual thinking to church dogma and how little the cult people know about the outside world. Many live in the LDS communities of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona (or similar communities in several states and Canada) and rarely or never venture into the real world.

Those raised in the cult have never known anything except total domination by church elders. They are discouraged from associating with people from “out in the world” as they refer to general society, so they do not learn about individual freedom, legal protections, sources of assistance for those who wish to leave the cult, etc. They attend church schools and are typically forbidden to socialize with “gentiles”.

Of those who do leave the cult, very few do the hard work necessary to overcome their indoctrination and to learn how to function in general society. An outsider cannot comprehend the totality of church domination and the lack of socialization that is inflicted upon members. All decisions are made by the church. Marriages are “arranged” by church elders – courtship is not involved – you marry who you are told to marry – possibly someone you dislike intensely. Men make all decisions for women and children – in accordance with church doctrine.

A man is “given” wives in some relation to his devotion to church elders and to his usefulness to the church. He is also “given” a house – but not the deed to the house. If the man falls out of favor with church elders, his wives and children are “taken from him”, and he is ordered to vacate the house. A high proportion of young men are driven from the cult – in order that “faithful” men can have a minimum of three wives (required to attain the “celestial kingdom” according to church doctrine).
http://www.childbrides.org/boys.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamenta ... Day_Saints

According to doctrine, a woman can attain the “celestial kingdom” only by being “sealed to” (church married) to a man who is going there. Men reign supreme. Women are nothing but baby machines and property of males – first their father, then their husband – for life – no exceptions. Men are similarly submissive to church elders. And, Warren Jeffs was the ultimate authority.

Utah and Arizona authorities have overlooked the crimes committed against women and children in the polygamous communities (somewhere around 10,000 people belong to the cult) for fear of bad publicity (as has occurred previously). In the last few years, however, enough attention has been drawn to the situation to make it unavoidable.

Warren Jeffs has been convicted and sentenced to five years to life in prison. The husband/cousin involved in the underage marriage faces rape charges. Perhaps this will be enough to break up church domination of the cult members (though many won’t know what to do or how to live).

Internet information is readily available about Warren Jeffs and the FLDS cult.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Jeffs
www.polygamy.org/about.shtml
www.exmormon.org
www.rickross.com/groups/polygamy.html
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19102395

This is intended as a brief overview and sample of a very involved story. I will add information periodically as appropriate, answer questions or engage in discussion.

If anyone has questions about life inside (and after) the cult, please feel free to ask in this thread or in a PM. My wife and I will give as good an answer as we can. However, we do not have information about recent inside developments, particularly those during the upheaval after Warren Jeffs was imprisoned.



What distinguishes a religious cult from a religious sect or denomination?

Is there any basic difference between cult indoctrination and “religious teaching (or training)”?

[The Nice Centurion]

[Replying to Zzyzx in post #1]
But it is a historical fact in the Mormon Universe that at last the prophet Joseph Smith himself was EXTREMELY RELUCTANT to allow poligamy

Or why else would the (suspiciously unnnamed) angel have had to threaten Joseph with a sword

The angel announced to kill the prophet if he wouldnt introduce poligamy into the mormon world.

For no other revelation from the mormon god, Joseph had to be forced in the slightest to follow order.

So obvious was the fact that no one hated more than Joseph to tolerate poligamy, that later a precious book was written by members of the church that was refounded by his surviving family after the prophet dieing a martyrs death at Carthage Jail:
JOSEPH SMITH FOUGHT POLIGAMY
https://restorationbookstore.org/pages/ ... amy-online

Poor Joe must have suffered heavily when he was thusly forced to marry his first plural wife Fanny Alger and all the others afterwards

[Ross]

The angel announced to kill the prophet if he wouldnt introduce poligamy into the mormon world.

Such an obvious sign that the angel was a legitimate one and from the God of the Bible.

[The Nice Centurion]

The angel announced to kill the prophet if he wouldnt introduce poligamy into the mormon world.

Such an obvious sign that the angel was a legitimate one and from the God of the Bible.

Isaiah 37:36 and Kings 19:35 shows well the biblical angelic brutality. An angel who goes on a killing spree.
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/16 ... ngs-19-35/

So, yes you are right

On the one hand Joseph Smiths reluctancy was proven, on the other hand the angel with a sword proves how important poligamy was to the mormon god

Thus how can it logically follow that a few decades later same god sends a new revelation to the than current prophet to instantly end poligamy

According to FLDS he didnt. And to make a point of that he allows only men in Celestial Heaven, that are triple married as a minimum.

Still, what has the mormpn god to gain by watching foursome sexual intercourses