# *For The Healthy Among Us

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Posted by SpudMama [SpudMama] on November 03, 1999 at 11:59:33 {eZOTANvCI6LnU7DNQgZIPGEmg6dhnA}:

In Reply to: For The Healthy Among Us posted by Steve on November 02, 1999 at 16:22:28:

> I recently spoke with an active Jehovah's Witness who is considering leaving the organization for a variety of reasons. One issue which seemed to be of concern to this person was what life will be like on the "outside." This JW had spoken with several others who left and are now less than happy.

I hope he'll read Steven Hassan's books. I'm only familiar with Combatting Cult Mind Control; I haven't yet had a chance to read Free Them!

> Perhaps some on this board could share some short words of wisdom and/or encouragement? I'm certain that many here can remember agonizing over whether to leave or not.

One of the points Hassan makes is that people whose lives crash & burn after they leave a cult is that they are still semi-believers -- at the very least, they have not disabused themselves of the horror stories that cults implant about the fate of those who leave.

In my experience, the Witnesses drew it rather mild -- nothing so lurid as insanity, stillbirths and disease such as other cultists are threatened with by example. My impression was that the fate of unbelievers was unrelieved dullness, misery and insecurity until death. When my JW experience began to resemble that fate, I left.

And I discovered that, actually, everything I wanted from life was out here in "the world", including the Bible if I should ever want it again (so far I've gone 4 1/2 years without it).

Yes, I've had my share of misery -- some struggles with poverty, fears about being unemployable, and a little hysteria about actually being non-existent when I die. But everything else has been fantastic. I still revel in the sheer pleasure of looking into the eyes of a stranger and seeing an equal, even a potential friend, not a doomed soul. I get nourishment from reading books about comparative religion, and history, and all kinds of secular things, and knowing that they are now central to my spiritual growth, and not irrelevant to it. Our home is so much happier now that we can tell each other what we really think, plan for the careers and lives we really want to lead, celebrate the holidays that actually mean something to us precisely as we want to, picking and choosing and even remodeling traditions precisely as we see fit.

One of the most important things I have learned about spirituality since I left is a proverb from the Asatruarer (modern Norse-type pagans): "The gods are your friends, not your masters."

Cheers and good luck

e xuberant potato grrrl

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