Jemima Farris, 50, was born and raised in a shocking sect which encouraged adults to have sex with children
WORDS: KATE GRAHAM
Standing outside a tent in the dark, waiting to have my fortune told, I began to shake. I knew that inside, the woman would look into her crystal ball and tell me the name of a man I’d have to have sex with, as apparently it was God’s will. I was just 12 years old – and trapped in an abusive cult.
In 1972, while she was pregnant with me, my mother Deborah, now 73, fled her unhappy marriage and joined a newly-formed Christian missionary group called the Children of God, convinced by their promise to change the world. It was the same cult celebrities Rose McGowan and Joaquin Phoenix were raised in.
Mum remarried and had my five younger siblings. We moved constantly, sometimes to a dirty, cold garage, or to a shack on the beach with no walls. Though we stayed together, it was drilled into us that family didn’t matter, and our love and loyalty was to be to the Children of God before each other. Our lives were controlled by the cult leader, self-proclaimed prophet David Berg, who was in his 50s, though we never saw him – he was in hiding and in photos his face was covered.
Berg wrote and distributed books to thousands of cult members worldwide, telling us what to think and do. He declared that the outside world, and everyone in it, was evil. We were cut off completely. Television, films, books and music were all forbidden, and we only mixed with others in the cult. Instead of attending mainstream school, we were trained by parents and the cult’s school for the ‘Great Tribulation’ – the end of the world, which Berg claimed was just around the corner.
SENT ABROAD
Berg was also obsessed with sex. According to his ‘Law of Love’, anyone in the cult could have sex with anyone else – including children. In 1984, when I was about to turn 12, a leader suddenly told me I was being sent abroad to a camp with other teens from the cult. I wasn’t upset at being away from Mum for so long, as we had no bond due to the way the cult forced us to live, but flying to Mexico, I had no idea my life was about to become even worse.
Outside the US, cult followers lived in large compounds behind high walls, far from prying eyes. Teenagers shared rooms that were open to any adult who wanted to enter. All I could do when an ‘uncle’ came in during the night was desperately hope it would soon be over. It was terrifying, but I’d been taught that any doubt, however small, went against God.
Physical puni
