A NEW REFUGE FOR WALKAWAYS

Some clients may come from such high-profile communal groups such as Heaven’s Gate and the Branch Davidians. But most will have left largely unknown New Age and religious groups that allow members to live on their own but use coercive means to make them give the group everything, including wages and every free moment

These “walkaways,” as therapists, ministers, and cult specialists call them, often have no money, no job, no friends outside their religious group, and frayed family ties. In addition, they often have a deep fear of leaving groups that work hard at promoting dependency.

“I wanted to call and tell them why I left. For a while, I thought I had made a mistake by leaving, said Jeffrey F. Brown, 50, who spent most of the past five years with the Twelve Tribes on their 11 acre property in East Aurora, N.Y. Brown said he joined the group out of a yearning to study the Bible every day. He was initially captivated by the group’s peaceful lifestyle and loving care of member’s children, he said. He worked long hours in construction and then worked in the group’s bakery. Though he was fed and clothed, Brown was not paid for his work.

An international group with 28 branches worldwide, the Twelve Tribes believe they are direct descendants of the biblical Israelites.

Brown – who was renamed Zacharyah Cham by the group’s elders – said he finally decided to leave last May 5 after he was forbidden from taking anything but homeopathic medicine for his worsening diabetes.

Deborah Reichmann, 26, a divinity school student from St Paul, Minn., left a Twelve Tribes communal farm, in Bellows Falls, Vt., two years ago, after four cult awareness specialists, including Pardon, met with her at her parents request during a visit to her family’s Indiana home. Reichmann said she joined the Twelve Tribes after meeting members at a Grateful Dead concert: in 1995. “I was willing to join them because I wanted to please God, and I wanted to live out the Bible. I believed they knew how to do that,” said Reichmann, who taught the sects children. ‘But I realized that while I was with the Tribe, I could not see things clearly.

An estimated 300,000 Americans like Brown and Reichmann walk away from 5,000 mindcontrol groups or communes each year in the United States, specialists say. Leaving such groups often means having to rebuild lives and deal with guilt fear, and regret, say former cult members.

Therapists who work with former cult members say it can take up to four years to overcome the effects of being in an abusive group. Therapists liken the work they do to counseling substance abusers.

But despite the large numbers believed to be affected, specialists say, there are only two short term treatment centers: Wellspring, run by a cult awareness educator in Ohio, and the Odenwald
Residence in Leibenstadt Germany. Both offer two-week programs.

Meanwhile, Lakeville officials are not at all sure how to respond to the center planned for Crooked Lane. They have met once with Pardon and say they have more questions than, answers. “I don’t even know if this is something I am for or against ” said Selectman Chawner Hurd. “Let me put it this way- This is a nice, quiet neighborhood in a nice, quiet town. We don’t want anything that will cause furor or uproar. But we are not sure what our powers are ”

Hurd said he has asked the town attorney whether the center requires a local or state license, whether children can be allowed to live there, and, if they can, whether those children have the right to attend Lakeville public schools, even though their families would not pay property taxes here.

Pardon said he was not aware of any licensing problems, but he stressed that he wants to work with the town because the services the home would provide are badly needed. “Leaving these group’s is not like leaving the Kiwanis club,” he said. “These people are leaving God’s groups.”

Judith Barba the institute’s associate director, said: “You lose your identity They name you, and every aspect of your life is regulated.”

Pardon and Barba said that one of their biggest hopes is that the center will help dispel myths about cults and the people who join them. For example, studies have shown said people who join cults are no more likely to be mentally ill or depressed than anyone else. And specialists say that, for the most part; people do not knowingly join cult but join what they consider to be a group appealing to their needs.

“We don’t come against beliefs, but we look at abusive practices,” said Julia Brander, executive director of a foundation in Connecticut that helps former cult members. “The halfway house will give people a safe place to work out everything that is conflicting them,” Brander said.