In the Family, I was told, “You don’t own yourself. You belong to God” (1 Corinthians 6:20). But what the leaders meant was, “Your body is our property, and you need to do with it whatever we tell you.” This lie is harder to detect because it sounds so noble when shrouded in scripture.
This illuminates for me the big mistake of many Family members and people who follow charismatic leaders. People who buy into the lie that they do not own themselves, can justify, or at least excuse themselves for, committing all kinds of violations against humanity, including child abuse, religious wars, or the millions slaughtered under communist regimes. Because when a person turns over ownership and control, they also turn over their sense of moral responsibility to the leader. After all, “If I’m following God’s will (or the government’s), then any pain caused is God’s (or the government’s) fault, not mine. I’m just doing what I’m told.” But just as we cannot give up our property right in our own body, neither can we abdicate moral responsibility for our actions. People shy away from this principle because accountability is scary.
Our susceptibility to cults comes from our desire to have a source, an authority, to tell us what to do and what is true. This is how we are trained by the school system that specializes in telling us the “right answers” and giving us an A for regurgitating them, instead of teaching us to use a logical process to figure out what must be true for ourselves.
But, as I discovered, accepting absolute responsibility is power. Only I have the ability to make my decisions, control my thoughts, dictate my emotions, and succeed or fail. It’s too easy to slide into the quicksand of blame. How many times have I seen friends and family say, “I can’t get better until you do X,” or “I can’t move on until you say Y”? How many have let this hold them back from healing and happiness? Never again will I wait for someone else to hand me my power. I’m able to move forward only when I acknowledge that what I do is up to me.
I draw a third circle around the smaller two, labeling it “Creations.”
If I own my body, I also own everything my body and mind creates: my services, inventions, art, products, and even my reputation.
One of the cornerstone beliefs of the Family was that everything belonged to the group, communist style—our money, possessions, art and songs, hard work and service. Not only were we supposed to do everything for free, we didn’t own our work in the first place because we didn’t own our bodies.
As I draw a fourth circle, I think, What comes next? After I create something, I have the right to exchange it for something else I want. I label it “The Deal.”
I think back to my contracts law class, remembering the five governing principles of a valid agreement. I realize that just as “undue pressure” in the creation of a contract makes the contract unenforceable because the other party did not willingly accept the terms of the deal, when we use manipulation like guilt, lies, and fear of punishment to pressure someone to do what we want, that amounts to theft, or worse.
The Family and other cults use a twisted interpretation of religious texts, lies, and psychological punishment to get us to do what they want. My grandfather, like many leaders, was not content with just sharing his message; he had to control how people lived it. This is the line where even a good philosophy can become a violation. Many of Grandpa’s messages were taught, and still are taught, in society and churches. He made a lot of good points, which is how he got so many people to follow him. But he wanted to control every part of his followers’ lives. How did a practice ostensibly conceived to lovingly and sacrificially care for the needs of others, sharing, become rape? It all came from the same model of power: coercion for control. He proclaimed freedom from the law but was steeped in a patriarchal model of top-down control that demanded obedience.
I also realize that power is the key to sexual abuse. Anytime there is sexual trauma and abuse, there is a power disparity—either real or perceived. Where one party in the interaction is in a position of power, whether physically stronger or higher in a hierarchy or even a social position or age, there is a possibility, not a certainty, of abuse, and the situation must be handled with extra care. This was why I didn’t have any trauma associated with sex play with my childhood peers.
But in any kind of sexual relations between adults and children, the power disparity is inescapable. A child is biologically programmed at an unconscious level to please adults who represent power and survival. This means children cannot give meaningful consent, and any “consent” involves undue pressure. They also don’t have the emotional maturity to understand the nature of the act—which violates the fourth principle of mental ability. Which is why even if they engage “willingly” at the time, they experience emotional trauma, sometimes delayed, when they realize what was done to them, what was taken from them.
But it doesn’t have to be something as serious as sexual abuse. How often is my daily life overrun with things other people guilt me into doing?
I realize if I fully own something, I don’t owe it to anyone else unless I make a free agreement to provide it in exchange for something else I value—not manipulated through guilt, fear, or lies. What freedom! I begin to pay attention to any feelings of pressure or obligation as a red flag, and I ask myself, Why am I doing this? What would I choose without any guilt?
I flip the paper over, and on the back side I draw the same set of circles for the law.
Violations of the body: Slavery, murder, rape, and assault.
Violations of our creations: theft, slander (violating reputation), copyright or patent infringement (stealing ideas).
Violations of the deal: blackmail, fraud, and breach of contract.
I realize I need to add one additional circle: “Impact or Effect.”
Violations of Effect explains how much responsibility you bear for things that you contribute to but are not fully within your control; for instance, a mob boss telling his henchman to assassinate someone, even though he didn’t pull the trigger himself; or my grandfather telling his followers to molest children even though he didn’t physically touch each child himself.
I’m blown away to discover that everything that we consider the moral law fits into one of these circles. These principles are not the law. They came before the law, and the law was written to codify them. Unfortunately, the judges, lawyers, and legislators often lose sight of the fundamentals and modify the law to please the people in power. How often are these core principles obscured by people who use our confusion about these rights for their own benefit?
I stare at what I’ve drawn, and I realize I’ve crystalized our fundamental moral philosophy, the DNA of our legal system, morality, and human rights into a single simple diagram that I can teach to a curious eight-year-old.