In 1979, at the age of eighteen, I joined a cult. At the time I didn’t know it was a cult. I thought that I was dedicating my life to Jesus by bringing lost souls into our “church”, by living communally with my “brothers” and “sisters”, and by raising money for our orphanage in Haiti. I thought I was making the smartest decision of my life.
Companion with After the Cult
The Cult is David Patteson’s no-fear, autobiographical account of straying into a religious cult when he was eighteen, and his family’s attempt to prevent his stolen youth and rescue him from psychic obliteration. Using a simplistic and naive drawing style that reflects his teenage innocence, David takes us into the meetings and lifestyle of this “carpet cleaning” cult, famously spoofed in a Seinfeld episode. We get a look inside the mind of a person who is being broken down, and we get to see the damage that cult brainwashing creates. David takes us through the steps of his realization of abuse, and his ultimate exit from the Church of Bible Understanding, a cult that still exists to this day.
