Heaven's Harlots: My Fifteen Years in a Sex Cult (7 page)

His father, Hjalmer Emmanuel Berg, was a handsome Swedish singer who met Virginia before he was converted to Christianity by her father, a wealthy preacher. Virginia and Hjalmer both dedicated their lives to Christian work. He became a pastor, but according to Mo’s testimony, he played second fiddle to his more successful wife.

David Berg eventually became a pastor himself, ordained by the British-American Ministerial Federation in 1941. Berg details his personal history in a publication he wrote dated January 1976, titled “Our Shepherd, Moses David.” In it he claims that he graduated from Monterey Union High School in California with the highest scholastic record in the school’s eighty-year history, and was offered numerous scholarships for college. He was drafted into the Army a few days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but since he did not believe in killing, he claims, he served as a conscientious objector with the U. S Army Corps of Engineers at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, until he received a complete-disability discharge due to heart trouble. According to his story, the Army thought he was dying of double pneumonia, but when he promised God he would serve Him faithfully, he was instantly healed.

After a few years of evangelistic work, he returned to college on the GI Bill, studying philosophy, psychology, and political science, and became seriously involved in the study of socialism and communism. He later wrote,“I soon saw that the purportedly unselfish goals of these political systems could never be achieved without the love of God in the hearts of men, as in the pure Christian communism of the Early Church” (“Our Shepherd, Moses David” 351, 18). After attending various colleges, with no record of ever obtaining a degree, he took a private teaching job for a few years and then several positions with television and radio evangelists.

Finally, at forty-nine years of age, without a ministry or job, he brought his wife and four children to live with his retired mother in Huntington Beach, California, in 1968. There he began to preach in the small coffeehouse run by a church group called Teen Challenge. He once wrote of this event,“I’ll never forget the first time I walked into the club and lay down on the floor with you [the hippies] in my broken sandals, ragged old jacket, lengthening hair and graying beard, and one of you lying next to me spoke up with the cheery greeting of welcome, Hi, Dad! What’s your trip?” (“Our Shepherd, Moses David” 351, 29).

His trip was the supposed revolution for Jesus, and within months a handful of the searching young people who had become disillusioned with the world began following his teachings. Known as “Uncle David” then, he opened his home, or rather his mother’s home, to them, and so began the model of communal living that he believed the Bible taught.

From a pragmatic point of view, Berg just happened to be in the right place at the right time. The California flower-power scene had attracted not only drug users and freedom seekers, but also the dropouts from staid academic institutions, including some of the cream of America’s upper society crop. When the adult children of wealthy families joined, these rich kids gave all their possessions and money to the group, and Mo had the financial means to live incognito for the rest of his life.

He started to go underground, and his whereabouts were known only to a faithful few.

Knowing none of this when I joined the Children of God, I was told that Mo was the endtime prophet spoken about in the Bible, which said “Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God and David their king, and shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days” (Hosea 3, 5). Mo was a charismatic leader, but most of his followers, including me, never even saw him in person. Whenever doubts entered my mind about following a “personality,” I reminded myself that it was the ideal I was following, not the person who expressed it. I never met Mo and did not desire to meet him, but I thought the ideals he preached could change the world.

Our so-called prophet wrote hundreds of letters to us over the years, which were eventually published in eight volumes. Mo’s control over our minds and bodies developed through a gradual process. In the beginning, I was allowed to hear only certain letters, which taught me his “revolutionary rules” such as, attend all classes, study the Bible, go witnessing, do not leave to go anywhere without permission, absence without leave will be considered desertion, no dating, no smoking, no smooching, obey leadership absolutely!

It was very difficult living in such a suppressive environment, but for idealistic reasons, I accepted it. By the end of my first week, however, I was looking forward to going out on a witnessing trip to New York City. But when the weekend arrived, Praise informed me I should stay at the camp and “get into the Word.” Getting into the Word meant reading my Bible and memorizing scriptures.

I was given an old King James Bible, and my New Testament was now in the Forsake All room. Classes on the Bible were held every day. A “set card,” which contained over one hundred verses that should be memorized by every new disciple, was given to me with instructions that I should learn at least two verses a day.

One morning, as I sat memorizing, a sister whom I had been told was my “tribe leader” came and gave me a piece of paper. She was the only girl in the camp whom I did not like. A few years older than I, she was always rushing around like she had more important things to do than the rest of us.

“This is your new name,” she said curtly. “I got it for you in prayer this morning.” Quoting the now familiar verse “old things are passed away and all things are become new,” she explained that each of the disciples took a new name from the Bible when they joined. I was thinking of a pretty name, like Crystal, from the Book of Revelations, or Joy, mentioned throughout the Bible, not realizing that my name would be picked for me.

I opened the folded paper she had given me and read,“Jeshanah. ” “Where is Jeshanah in the Bible?” I asked.

She told me some chapter in Chronicles, but I did not write it down, and I was too intimidated by her to ever ask again. So I was called Jeshanah for years without ever knowing where it came from. Much later I found out it was the name of a town.

Daisy was given a name from the New Testament, Berea, which I thought was much prettier. However, she did not like the fact that she could not choose her own name, nor did she like not being able to sing and play guitar at the nightly inspiration. According to people whom we found out were the “leaders,” new disciples must “prove” themselves before they played at inspiration. The songs of the group were inspired by God, and they didn’t want any “worldly music” around.

“Music is the language of this generation, and we speak it” (“London” 58, 33), Mo wrote. “Our music is the miracle that attracts so many to our message about the Man. It’s the magic that heals their souls and wounded spirits and proves our messiahship, that we are their saviors” (“Thanks and Comment” 157, 6). For idealists who were disillusioned with the sex, drugs, and rock and roll that hippiedom offered, the fresh and hopeful sounds of the group’s music was a definite attraction. Mo’s early disciples each played a musical instrument, usually guitar, and many were accomplished musicians and songwriters before they became his disciples. Hard-beating contemporary melodies were accompanied by catchy, meaningful verses such as the following, written by a young man who joined when he was fourteen years old, Life is a lonely highway with no reason to travel on, And you don’t know where you’re headed, but you know you’ve got to go on, And you don’t want to walk alone, but you’re seeking a better home, Oh, Lord, how long will their search go on?

Since I had already been initiated to the dangers of worldly music by the Jesus People, I did not find this so difficult to accept. Daisy, however, missed playing her songs, which she claimed were not worldly.

Inspiration time started after dinner and lasted late into the night.

Since I did not have a watch, and there were few clocks around, I never knew what time it was, but I suspect that we stayed up in inspiration until past midnight, and sometimes until two or three in the morning.

Inspiration started with a prayer, like everything else we did. The room seemed to shake, with two to three hundred people gathered tightly and praising the Lord for up to an hour, depending on who was leading the inspiration. When the praises slowed down, someone started a prayer, then another and another. Finally, one of the leaders plucked a tune on a guitar, which was a sign to start the music, and everyone who was allowed to be an “inspirationalist” would grab a guitar and join in the singing. Most of the songs told tales of being lost, or lonely, or searching for the truth, finding it in Jesus, and now happily serving the Lord. Some songs were apocalyptic, about an endtime that was fast approaching, and warned people to turn to the Lord. Many of the songs had lively Gypsy tunes, and we danced holding hands, going around in a circle, and kicking up our feet in what we thought was a traditional Jewish dance. When this lively activity became too hectic, we divided into groups of two and danced with partners, always holding hands and swinging around in a circle.

There was no slow dancing and no touching body-to-body. It was very innocent and extremely exhilarating.

Often these meetings were led by a visitor, whom I later learned was a traveling leader. That person, male or female, eventually took over the inspiration by giving a talk, leading a Bible class, or reading a letter from Moses David.

I was not interested in who Moses was at that time. I was more interested in how to contact my mother. I had lost track of time, but it must have been a week since I had left Lancaster. My mother knew that Berea and I had gone to New York City, but I told her I would call collect in a few days. I knew she would be worried by now. In addition, our family, like most, were always together for Christmas, but for reasons explained emphatically to me, the COG leaders did not want me to go home for Christmas. They explained that Christmas was a “systemite” (meaning worldly) idea, and that to partake of the Christmas holiday spirit was almost like worshiping the devil.

Actually, I could not find any verses in the Bible encouraging believers to celebrate Christmas, so there was little I could say to counter their argument. However, I did want to call my mother and tell her where I was. It was difficult to find someone among all those people who knew how I could make a phone call, even though there was a phone booth in the hallway of the main building. Since I was never alone, and had no money, I could not simply make a call.

The day I decided to confront one of the leaders with my request I became violently sick. After vomiting all morning, I went to the bathroom every five minutes with diarrhea. At mealtime I could not even look at food, but since the bunkrooms were so cold, I came over to the dining room anyway, went through the food line, and gave my food to some boys. Every one was very concerned about me, which they showed by constantly laying hands on me and praying that I would be shown why I was sick and “get the victory.” Praise suspected that I was sick because I wanted to call my mother, and she frequently showed me Bible verses that said I should forsake my family.

“And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10,

36—37).

“And everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life” (Matthew 19, 29).

By now I had decided that I wanted to serve the Lord, and it was becoming clear that included giving up my past life and starting anew.

I could hardly believe it meant leaving my family, but there it was— written in the Bible. I cried for days, and I remembered when I was younger and had told my mother that I wanted to be a missionary when I grew up, she had cried and said,“Don’t do that, I’ll never see you again.” Although it made me very sad, this seemed to be my fate.

Everywhere I went, I was crying, and my new brothers and sisters prayed for me. This was normal, they explained. “No victory without a battle.” One evening, as I was sitting in the hallway with my full plate of food beside me on the floor untouched, a young man came and sat next to me.

I knew he was an “older brother,” meaning he had been in the group for at least a few months, but he looked to be not much older than twenty.

I was considered a “babe,” a new disciple. I had also noticed him because I thought he was cute, but those thoughts were supposed to be prayed out of my mind.

“What’s the matter?” he said in a kind voice, noticing I did not have a smile on my face like everyone else in the camp.

Like a volcano erupting, I blurted out all my complaints. “I can’t stand this anymore,” I whined. “I have no time to myself. I can’t read anything but the Bible. I don’t wear clothes I want, or talk about things I like, or even to the people I want to talk to. And this food. It’s horrible. I can’t eat. I probably got food poisoning from it. ” I felt terrible for being so ungrateful after all they had done for me, and I stopped as mixed emotions of shame and anger filled my eyes with tears.

He put his arm around me, which even in my emotional state I knew was not allowed. He was unusually tender and caring.

“Hey, I didn’t like this food either, but you get used to it. And it isn’t always like this. We’re just in a big colony here, but when I was up in the home in Boston, we ate some real nice food. You know, when I first came here, I used to steal yogurt from the refrigerator when no one was looking.”

“There’s yogurt in the refrigerator?” I asked, surprised, since yogurt was my favorite treat and I had not seen any since I’d been here.

“Yeah, sometimes. They buy it for the pregnant mothers upstairs. So, it really is a sin to take it. But hey, I know Jesus loves me, and he’s forgiven me for more than that.” He went on to tell me that he used to be part of the Mafia in New York City and had committed terrible crimes. He used to take drugs and sell drugs and worse. But now, with this Family and God’s help, he was a changed person. And so what if he could not eat everything he wanted? He could help people like me find a new life.