A few months ago, I was reading about the NXIVM cult, if you’re not familiar with it, it was the cult where the actress: Allison Mack from the TV show: Smallville, sex trafficked and used a soldering iron to brand over a dozen women with the initials of her and her cult leader’s name.
I got really sucked into learning about this cult, because some of the victims from some of America’s richest families. Now, this is just a theory, but I think the powers at be are hiding the fact that there are many more branded women, because these brands are different and incriminating. My theory is that they were of the names of other cult members that were from elite families and the elites covered this up in order to keep their family members out of prison.
Anyways, while I was in depths of this NXIVM deep dive, in the comment section I saw post about another cult titled: The Most Destructive Cult in America: “The Group!”
Out of curiosity, I created a throwaway InstaFace account to send the author a message and she took one look at my fake account and immediately responded by playing dumb: “The Group!? What’s that!? Who are you!?”
So after some convincing, that I wasn’t out to kill her, she finally admitted who she was and began to open up, but the thing is, I knew exactly how she felt.
Many of you may know that in 2016, I came to what we now call Hive and met Sarah and we got married... But what you don’t know was that before Hive, I too had spent many years inside a cult and many more years in hiding to avoid other cult members and to try to cope with the trauma of my involvement in The Group.
So, the moment that I picked up the microphone to talk to Sarah on Discord, was the same moment that I finally dropped my guard and re-entered society.
And the only reason that this happened was because of the Steemit Talk Podcast. Even though I protested, @giftedgaia fundraised to buy a microphone for me in order to make me the official mascot of the Steemit Talk Podcast.
So when the microphone finally arrived, like any typical paranoid, agoraphobe, who spent way too much time alone, I began to panic over the idea of people hearing my voice again. Now I'm not exactly sure how she did this, but somehow Sarah managed to talk me into testing the microphone with her.
I had no idea that that one single event would completely change my life and I honestly don't think I would be around today if things worked out differently.
Over the years, I have tried to write about my experiences within the Group countless times, but I always just stopped, I guess I wasn’t ready to deal with all the emotions, because each time I would begin to feel really depressed. Also, I felt like what I was writing, just wasn’t good enough and that the kids, who lost their lives in there, really deserved a better writer.
At this point I have given up on the idea of making this into a proper story with a beginning, middle and end, because for me, it never really ends.
Also, it’s extremely difficult to explain what it’s actually like in there, partly because no two people have the same experience.
So instead of a linear story, I will try to show different perspectives in order to offer a more complete picture, but out of respect for all the other victims and their families, I will have to change the names and some identifying details of those involved.
I have been working on this for about a month now and I have a lot written, but before I get into the more personal stories, I'm just testing the waters with this introduction post to see if there is any interest in this topic on Hive.
And if any of you have had any experiences with a cult, let me know, I would love to read about it.
Helpful Links:
- Punk Legends Discord Server
- Blockhead Games – Official Hive Punks Discord Server
- Punks on Hive - Market
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I'm interested in hearing more
This would be a nice story. Even if you choose not to tell it out because you feel it has no end. Great one with a nice piece. 👍
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Thank you, I'm really hoping to be able to post it here, but Sarah wants me to write it as a book. So I'm hoping that the community will want to support it.
Also, if you want to watch the documentary, here is a link to: The Group but honestly, it glosses over 99% of what goes on in there, along with most of the really tragic stuff, that they can't really talk about on YouTube. So most people, that I showed it to, feel like they have more questions than answers by the end of it.
Alright.. I will just watch the documentary and probably get back to you here.
If you're for real (my apologies, I simply don't know you well), then yes, tell the story.
Will you be including information on what to look out for and the warning signs so others don't get caught up in the madness?
This is all real and I was planning to go over everything to try to warn people about these places, because kids are still being sent there everyday, but I just found out that Google is not displaying links to my Hive posts, in their search results.
I didn't know that this would be an issue and I'm not sure if Google is blocking all content from Hive or just content that doesn't get a lot of votes.
This is really discouraging, because I wanted to make this information easily accessible for parents who are googling it, to try to save some kids from ending up in there.
Over the next few days, I'm going to continue performing Google searches to see if they will add this post to their search results, but if it doesn't show up, then I don't know what I will do.
Not really sure what to say about the google stuff. I get links up nice and high at times but that's because I'm creating something new; one of a kind.
I asked because there's a lot of cult-like behavior happening in crypto, especially when combined with social media. Just thought someone with experience would be able to shed a little more light on how things start and what to look for, in general. That could be a series on it's own but again, in general, people get lured into that stuff, and don't even know it until it's too late.
I'm curious to know which group or crypto you are referring to?
I think a lot of survivors became de facto cult experts, because we all went through this weird denial phase where everyone began consuming as much literature as we could on cults, especially the ones with bullet points with like ten or twenty things that all cults do, to try to convince each other that we were or weren't just in a cult.
Just in general. Look how many got burned by charismatic 'influencers'.
It's funny that you mentioned this, because, a few years ago, I actually made this same comparison about Ned and I think this was probably one of the funniest post that I had ever written, here is a link to it.
https://peakd.com/steemit/@gonzo/ned-s-live-stream-the-good-the-bad-and-the-garage-band
I remember that. Even voted. Some the best satire coming out of the time period. That's a good memory. Now I'm chuckling at the thought of the time I wrote this. Sun basically owned the top trending slot so I showed up outta nowhere and bumped him down to number 2 with that post. I know this is off topic but, that's life sometimes.
The Hivebuzz proposal already got important support from the community. However, it lost its funding a few days ago and only needs a few more HP to get funded again.
May we ask you to support it so our team can continue its work this year?
You can do it on Peakd, ecency, or using HiveSigner.
Your support would be really helpful and you could make a difference.
Thank you!Dear @gonzo, we need your help!