Leaving a cult behind - Can brainwashing be reversed? | DW Documentary

[Music] anyone who wants to free themselves from the clutches of a cult must be ready to start over to leave everything behind [Music] my way out began in prison there in isolation I could take a step back find myself and start building my own life when you leave it's brutal you're all on your own in an empty castle with just one room and no light you're all alone in this terrible situation in the dark and you ask yourself what now [Music] the book of Isaiah 26: 20 and 21 go my people enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by see the Lord is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the Earth for their sins the Earth will disclose the blood shed on it the Earth will conceal its slain no longer my name is Nikolai jaet I'm 40 years old until I was 22 my whole life was all about conditioning I was meant to be the perfect propaganda tool for Jehovah's [Music] Witnesses my mother told me about Jehovah while I was still in the womb all Jehovah's Witnesses especially mothers are encouraged to sing hymns to speak of Jehovah and to ensure that even their unborn children are indoctrinated with Jehovah's Witnesses World [Music] Views most kids are scared that there's a monster under their bed and their parents tell them there are no such things as monsters but for Jehovah's Witnesses monsters do exist it's Satan and he's not alone he's surrounded by invisible demons they're all around us and want to ARA as a child I could see them circling around my bed I saw Demons flitting by whenever my nightlight flickered Jehovah's Witnesses populate the psyche of their children with brutal traumatizing images that are impossible to forget adults are convinced that Satan exists and that he's threatening them that everyone will die and that these beasts exist for Jehovah's Witnesses children and adults alike this is all very real it's frightening to have to live like this it takes a huge toll [Music] I once did the math in addition to school children have 23 hours of Faith lessons a week my day was packed with reminders that I was a Jehovah's Witness and that Jehovah was everywhere I couldn't escape it if you're a Jehovah's Witness you see school as a hostile place you make self the enemy I was The Whipping Boy I was laughed at got beaten up and was constantly teased in secondary school I was the perfect victim just the way I dressed or the fact that I went door too on the weekends I was dressed like a sack my mother tried to dress us well but she got everything wrong if I wanted a pair of black jeans she'd respond why because everyone has them niola do you want to copy your schoolmates do you want to look like them do you think Jehovah likes that you want to look like everyone else who chases these fashion trends that influence us all and just make us all look the same is that what you want I couldn't tell anyone what was on my mind especially not my parents their standard response to a problem was let us pray let us read the Bible it was awful I wish my mom would have said I understand sweetheart I get [Music] it yes hello I'm from the criminal investigation department in N I believe you have I represent the governmental mission for monitoring and combating cultic Dev es I have a few cases for you this afternoon as part of our training on combating Cults we are presenting some accounts of those affected it's a very important and interesting topic as you will see we are about to hear from Julie who can also answer some of your questions [Applause] I first came in contact with the University of nature ecology and relationships led by Guru Gabriel in 2005 through one of his followers I was 31 at the time and had finished art school in Paris 5 years earlier I was at a point in my life where I was getting fewer jobs as a freelancer I had just separated and I had to move so there were many reasons to rethink my life and try something new I met this guy we had shared values but they were all pretty vague authenticity the desire to do good for others environmental awareness I'd been suffering from climate anxiety for quite some time so my acquaintance told me about this group and said I could address all my issues there he said there'd be a training course in Morocco and that they'd hold a meeting like it every year and so I flew to Morocco to agader that September and didn't have the slightest idea there was a leader behind the whole thing [Music] my name is Julie and 17 years ago I joined a group that turned out to be a cult I was in it for six years and it did me a lot of harm both from a legal perspective as well as psychologically I think I needed all this time to make a clear definitive break at that first course in Morocco we wanted to launch an environmentalist Collective but we gradually lost sight of that first the guru turned ideas about the environment into thoughts about human ecology and then in the end it was all about ourselves during those three weeks he made us do what he called Energy exercises as well as meditations and physical exercise we had to scramble up Mountains for hours and he said it was to capture the sun's energy and other nonsense like that after all that we had inferiority complexes and were convinced we had to improve ourselves all we had to do was follow his teachings the tenor was that Humanity would change but for that to happen we needed bearers of new knowledge and somehow we had stumbled upon one of the greatest bearers of knowledge and would change the world with his help so we were saviors I am a warrior of light Mantra 50 astrom magnetism means that we connect with our spirit and draw energy from the astral plane it has powers that extend in inverse proportion to a strong ego and doubt the ego is what we have been our experiences our level of Spiritual Development and experiences as a tempter the ego is the unmastered part of our divine nature my name is David I'm 39 years old I joined the Warriors of light cult in 2005 after being in the clutches of the cult for 10 years I now work as a freelancer for a production company we were all United by the hope of finding answers to the big questions in our lives about ourselves we were looking for someone who could give us answers the group dyamics ured we stuck together each of us shared our weakest points that's how we ended up in the structures of a [Music] cult I joined the cult in 2005 I was visiting the food market in laet and saw about 25 or 30 people doing kung fu [Music] who later became the leader of the cult struck up a conversation he soon noticed that I was physically fit we talked and he asked a lot of questions I was totally clueless he took me on as a philosophy teacher and offered me what later became these therapy sessions we were to become Warriors of light and save all of humanity but to do this we had to work on our egos otherwise we wouldn't be up to the task he claimed he had freed himself from his ego at an early age he said he had taken a journey into the astral plane with his grandfather and had fought demons with Fireballs now he no longer had an ego and could spread the good word to [Music] everyone if you truly believe that you have been chosen you bear great responsibility it's not about earning a living having children starting a family building a house or holding down a job instead you are responsible for saving Humanity when it collapses that's a lot to shoulder he taught Kung Fu he offered therapy and he even took care of everyone's personal lives he chose your clothes and your first name all of this B created a Gateway just like the group itself was a gateway to integrate you into this cocoon make you part of a structure where you could always ask the others for help with your problems it's like your one big family that is there for each other in everything what would you ever do without them people often think that if someone has freedom of movement that they're free in their minds but the grip of a cult is like a mental prison where your body goes along with it you can no longer do what you want or make decisions freely your mind is caged in [Music] our Guru created a kind of parallel logic to completely alienate us from life it's like little by little you're immersed in a gigantic video game that feels real because everything is internally coherent once we got back from Morocco when we arrived at shigo airport we had a different way of seeing the world somehow I no longer saw things the same way you immerse yourself in this 3D game bit by bit you become part of a program kind of like the Matrix you perceive understand express yourself and interpret the world in a completely different way it only works because subconsciously you lose touch with reality your relation to the world your own personality that's the last thing to go once you've been initiated but you're no longer the same person you no longer have the same standards love is not the same sex is not the same food stops being food it's a subtle shift unspoken and difficult to explain and share with others it becomes overpowering and is a huge driving force Jehovah's Witnesses deeply believe that God created everything and Satan is Jehovah's greatest adversary everything ends with Armageddon when Jehovah separates the faithful who have resisted Satan from those who followed him Jehovah's Witnesses called them [Music] worldly at the end of this war Jehovah's Witnesses stand at top a mountain of corpses and create a paradise on Earth the more I think about it the more I say to myself you're not just surrounded by Jehovah's Witnesses who are not necessarily the most cheerful people I know but the idea that everyone is dead and we get to grow vegetables and play with koalas and cobras fine but I can imagine a better life than that [Laughter] [Music] when I was 15 I realized I couldn't keep living like this I wanted everyone to know my parents my siblings the Jehovah's Witnesses my schoolmates the school I wanted them all to know that they were to blame for how unhappy I was that they had made my life impossible and that every day was torture because they never left me in peace the Distortion of values can be found in many movements including the Jehovah's Witnesses you are taught that torture is actually proof of love that making your own child suffer means loving them at that point I saw no other way I thought I would have to kill myself the only thing that prevented me from going through with it was that Jehovah's Witnesses forbid suicide for them life is sacred you don't have the right to take it the only thing that stopped me from committing suicide was the thought that if I did it would be seen as a failure on my parents' part and they wouldn't go to paradise I couldn't do that to them somehow this belief saved my life otherwise I surely would have killed myself my name is Yan I'm 37 years old and I write about cults I joined one in 2005 at the age of 20 and stayed for five [Music] years Julie was a friend of mine who joined at the same time I did after a year or two the whole thing became more and more sexually charged there were regular parties that were something like a write of Passage there was this ceremony where I experienced punitive sodomy the guru told the women it was a sensitivity test he always came up with something that sounded different sort of scientific or spiritual I guess so the women hit us to test our sensitivity basically the women sexually assaulted us men I think we accepted it because we believed in our mission to save the world that also meant suffering to some degree that's why we also had to inflict violence on each other the terrible thing about being dehumanized like this is that this kind of perversion works the longer it goes on the more numb you become to the suffering of others that's how the system functions everyone gets closer and closer to the [Music] horror one day in Costa Rica some new devotees were to undergo an initiation [Music] [Applause] ceremony after the ceremony the guru suggested that Julie and I became God Parents to a young girl we saw her as a young woman but she was just 14 years old she was with the group for two weeks while her parents were away and she was all alone he told her she had to learn how to satisfy men orally to become a woman she would have to learn to serve men that was one of the reasons why juli and the guru were later arrested for raping minor I was that man's sex slave for 5 years I shared a bed with him every night it wasn't pleasurable for me but the Fulfillment of my duty to him we held a lot of orgies always unprotected we thought we couldn't get AIDS because we were on a different energy level I wasn't afraid of getting pregnant either I was much more concerned with whether I could adapt well whether I would look good and not make a fool of myself I didn't realize at the time that I was being drilled into becoming a perfect little soldier but I was I was drilled into it and that's why I was as tough as a bulldozer it was always about overcoming yourself and under that pretext you did all sorts of things [Music] at some point he selected me and some other women for what he called a Prana initiation after a 3 we introduction we were meant to change our diet completely and stop eating first week you're not allowed to eat or drink anything you're only allowed to drink a drop of water on the e8th day day but by then I couldn't even kneel my body started to break down muscle tissue it goes into your reserves in order to survive first it breaks down fat then muscle and so it went on and on it was bad I was extremely emaciated two women in the group thought I was going to die when they saw me lying there my diaphragm was completely hollowed out you could see my ribs they were so scared I wasn't afraid of dying because fear was forbidden in the cult he wanted to become a superhuman and save the planet you couldn't dwell on fear there were several occasions when I suppressed my feelings of fear I think because I couldn't let myself be afraid my body tried showing me in other ways that I was in Mortal danger I had lost control after I left I realized that my family wasn't a family at all this myth about family is a Lie from one day to the next total radio Silence from everyone and I had helped them all hadn't hurt anyone and suddenly I was shot out like from a clan people won't say your name it just doesn't exist anymore I had already observed that with others who had been expelled it's very problematic some people are suicidal when they leave they need close relatives friends I appeal to All Families stay in touch with relatives who are in a cult if one day they decide to leave it will be extremely difficult for them because leaving is brutal [Music] it started when I was away during the day to go to university the distance meant I could finally breathe a sigh of relief and I realized that being away from my parents meant I was no longer under their thumb all day only in the evenings it was so liberating [Music] later when I moved to Paris my circle of friends and my environment became more diverse I met jhome who became my best friend and helped me leave Jehovah's Witnesses he's been my partner in our agency for 14 years now Jerome and other friends who started the organization they called operation Nicola the first thing they did which was absolutely right and which many don't do was find out what Jehovah's Witnesses actually are they didn't know like many others they only knew that they were considered a cult under French law my friends tried to understand me and prepared a soft Landing for me with operation Nicola they created an emotionally safe environment to replace what I would lose it's inevitable Doctrine states that all my close friends my family and everyone I had met in Paris through the Jehovah's Witnesses would have to turn their backs on me [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so my friends mobilized all their friends I was constantly being invited to outings people did some really exciting activities with me cultural events lots of things that broadened my Horizon and that I found immensely interesting I had great conversations with people who led full lives that also broadened my Horizon it soon became obvious who I prefer to spend my time with people who saw me as a human being and not an ant in an antill after that I moved away from it inwardly in my heart I spent less time thinking about the dogma and it lost its power over me it was still there but it wasn't as influential anymore at some point the veil lifted and I realized that everything I had ever been taught as a child my whole reality the world as it had been presented to me it didn't exist it was not different it simply didn't exist this reality was entirely false and unreal suddenly I faced a total vacuum absolute nothing I had no foundations left if my parents had been deceived and they had deceived me in this matter what else had they been wrong about what could I believe could I believe anything that they had ever told me what was left of their teach what could I rely on to live my life I had nothing left I had to rebuild everything which was terrifying and fabulous at the same time when I told my parents that I no longer wanted to be a Jehovah's Witness they just said we'll pretend you're dead that was easier for them I was practically dead already because they were living in a reality where the world could end tomorrow [Music] one day as I was alone with the guru a whole team of police officers showed up they told us straight away why they were there and the accusation was clear child abuse he had committed the biggest stupidity of his life and had been caught by the police I was prepared to defend him to the death even if I got beaten for it just so he could go on saving the world and I didn't have to wake up at that moment if anything it fortified my conviction as the guru's defender hello everyone I'm Nikola a police captain I've been with this unit for a few years now I was involved in the arrest of Gabrielle loon and his partner Julie what was unusual with this case was that Julie remained loyal to her leader for a very long time that was quite a mystery to us we would all like to be able to flick some secret switch to free someone from such dependency I haven't found it yet but I think I've said enough now I'll let her have the floor my way out was when I was arrested I was charged with terrible things I could hardly have been accused of anything worse I went to prison for it and that saved me the forced isolation the separation from my tyrannical self that was my first step towards leaving before I was arrested I was taken into police custody noola asked me what made you do it he didn't bring up rape at all he didn't attack me he never dealt what would have been my death blow if I had realized at the time that there could be no consensual sex at all with a young girl it would have been hell for me instead he talked about the context he asked me what made you do it what did this man give why do you care about him I honestly felt like he was speaking directly to me I felt understood and it was awful because that meant I had to admit that I had failed I also felt like he realized I wasn't the sexual predator he must have thought I was and that I felt guilty that I felt sick from being away from where I thought I belonged from needing to save the world but not being able to he got me in touch with a young girl it was terrible but it made me human again I wasn't a Monster who would destroyed a young woman's life she was worried about me too he didn't create a situation in which I felt even more guilty it wasn't a power Dynamic along the lines of she's part of our world and you and your sh world are going to pay for it and that triggered a landslide inside of me I don't even know if the police realized just how much it affected me I don't know if anything else happened in custody or what I might have forgotten by now but that moment was incredibly important to me and its impact only became apparent much much later in the end I was in prison for almost a year when I went back to my parents home it was like being thrown out naked in the middle of [Music] winter I felt like everyone was staring at me everything stressed me out so I started counting every minute every hour every day that passed for at least a year then after quite some time quitting became more and more realistic it had a huge emotional impact on me in so many ways it would take too long to list everything here but suddenly it felt like my senses were able to breathe a sigh of relief it was as if I had emerged from a black and white world could see color again as if I hadn't truly loved for 6 years I had been in an emotional psychological and mental straight jacket and then one day I was suddenly coming back to life it was crazy Julie was a warrior the guru spearhead you couldn't get through to her anymore she was so fanatical fanatical is the word she was completely fanatical she no longer called me Dad she couldn't call me dad anymore she called me Luke he had told her that she had to let go of everything when she wrote me a short letter one day I'm coming home and I'll give you a hug dad I thought this is it the day she could call me dad again I thought that's it it's over that made me very [Music] happy yes I remember that a demon that's what he is to me a hideous individual he disgusts me just thinking about his face and beard disgusts me I made sketches of him during the trial he is a hideous demon here look what I found I put horns on him and he's spitting Venom [Music] the Jehovah's Witnesses weaponized my family and made it even harder for me to see them again one day as life goes I ended up in the media when I left I wrote a book about it and Jehovah's Witnesses didn't like that one bit they sued me several times for defamation but they lost all the lawsuits I won but one thing I can say is that when you face them in court it's not a pleasant experience I've never seen people turn up in a courtroom and stand up in front of the judge gripping a Bible and hoping to win like that [Music] the proceedings went on for 4 intense days all the cult members are there looking at you all 25 are full of hate and look at you as if you're an [Music] executioner when I saw car's smile I knew we were on different sides that was a long time ago yes it was a long time ago and I saw the fanaticism in her eyes it was a smile of a joker half crazy I still think about how I can get her out but that's not up to me you have to look forward if you focus on them you can't focus on yourself we have to leave that time behind us enough is enough 10 years in a cult 10 years out now off to new Shores [Music] CH today the criminal court handed down their verdict in a serious case we don't have the full statement yet but the court has ruled that this is a spiritual leader a guru not simply the head of a group of friends with a few crazy ideas but the leader of a cult [Music] he was sentenced to 30 months in prison with 3 years of probation under the condition that he compensates his victims this means that if he doesn't compensate the victims he risks his time being commuted to a prison sentence and going to jail it is of course disappointing that he was not convicted of sexual assault [Music] this passage refers to psychological reports the experts who examined Gabriel loon also examined Julie in her case they found neither perverse personality traits nor manipulative Tendencies on the contrary she exhibited characteristics of a victim of indoctrination despite everything the trial was nothing short of a miracle it wasn't at all certain that I would be acquitted and then he got 15 years 10 years after the trial he's still the person I hate the most in the world you might think that as long as nobody gets hurt it's no big deal but that's not true by the time the court recognized the damage that had been done to me everything was so messed up at least the Judiciary has confirmed that this case was complicated we feel so guilty and ashamed of our involvement and the Judiciary has actually certified that we are indeed victims after six years in the cult and one year in prison so a total of seven years in another world it's really hard to find your way back into the world of the living you don't know how it's supposed to work I felt like I was dead like I had no right to be here I couldn't allow myself to live like others I had done something wrong and despite the aquid it was very hard for me to get out there again but it was nice to see that people weren't afraid of me and that I was able to make friends that I didn't hurt [Music] them the price for my my freedom today was accepting that I had been in a cult I had to pay the price for being stuck in something for 10 years losing 10 years of my life at the same time I've learned a few things and I want to take something good from it to all those who are still part of a cult to all Warriors of light I say know that the price is high what you go through when you leave is so hard the time you spend the deeper you go the harder it gets but afterwards you can look forward to being free and having the opportunity to think for yourself again and that is priceless when I left Jehovah's Witnesses at the age of 22 I was finally able to celebrate my birthday and Christmas for the first time it was also the first year I was really me Nikola jaet who could decide for himself what he wanted to do with his life so I'm actually only 18 years old and will turn 20 in 2 years it's like a second life and that is very special special [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music]