The following media reports, reviews and podcasts are listed in chronological order.
*****
"Vancouver Island author recalls ‘Life in a Doomsday Cult’ in new memoir"
Perry Bulwer escaped from the religious cult Children of God
by Brett Josef Grubisic, Vancouver Sun October 6, 2023
Misguided’s not that, it really isn’t. Bulwer’s not a humorist, for one, and irreverent witticisms don’t appear on his pages. Nor does he make light of the damaging events of his past.
Informative and fascinating, the memoir is disturbing and not a little saddening. Bulwer’s well-intended “cautionary tale” recounts a dedicated search for meaning and a promised land that led him to a confining place of falsehood and lasting psychological harm.
Broken, impoverished, licking his wounds, and living in reclusive solitude at the end of the memoir where there’s “no happy ending,” Bulwer’s account of his decades being swayed by “irrational religious dogma” is an exceptional story. How unfortunate, though, that he draws the tale from personal experiences.
Bulwer’s history begins in the early 1970s, with a large Catholic family in Port Alberni, then Vancouver Island’s primary mill town.
Eager to not follow in the family’s tradition of mill work, young Bulwer, a thoughtful if impressionable altar boy, began to question norms. After an impromptu hitchhiking trip to California, he met groovy evangelicals, “part of a wave of Jesus People who came to Canada from California.” Their promises of peace, a new path, and being “set free by the truth” enticed him. Only later would Bulwer — taking the biblical name Obil — learn they considered themselves “endtime Christian soldiers fighting a spiritual war.”
Listless and lacking in adult guidance, the 16-year old quit school, left his family, and moved into the first of many, many Children of God communes. This “teen menace” and “radical religious sect” — as a Vancouver Sun article deemed Children of God — assigned him to a new commune in Nanaimo for basic training. Bulwer did not see his family again for four years.
Bursting with startling information, the memoir chronicles Bulwer’s indoctrination and years of travel across North America and Southeast Asia.
Misguided also describes daily life and routines; and Bulwer explores the effects of toeing the line and remaining obedient to the orthodoxy of his community, where “doubts were devilish.” “It narrowed my worldview, closed my mind, and broke my will,” he summarizes.
The portrait of the self-described “God’s final endgame prophet,” Children of God founder David Berg, a.k.a. Moses, is likewise remarkable. The man’s history as well as his beliefs and claims are never short of astonishing.
In voluminous writings, called Mo Letters — that covered everything from vaccines and homosexuality to masturbation and Ronald Reagan — he both addressed and attracted followers. Letters included 40 Days and a prediction that the U.S. would be destroyed the Kohoutek comet in 1973, Revolutionary Sex (which celebrates sex, including polygamy and child marriage, but labelled male homosexuality, abortion, and birth control contrary to God), and The Little Flirty Fishy, where Berg approved of prostitution in the name of religious gain.
In hundreds of communes, converts “litnessed” on street corners, asking donations for Children of God pamphlets; all communes tithed income to Berg and his management.
The man — autocratic, paranoid, capricious, punitive, and somehow charismatic, too — proclaimed himself to be clairvoyant and a visitor to the heavenly realm, which he believed was inside the moon; he also had a direct line to God.
He preached that he’d send messages to a wicked world and point to specific events with biblical significance. After the appearance of the Antichrist in Jerusalem, Jesus would return in 1993. His “chosen cadre” would then frolic in paradise for the next 1,000 years.
Needless to say, Bulwer observes, Berg was a “master manipulator.”
Later renamed Mike — after Michael, the archangel named in Revelation — Bulwer continued to work overseas. After a spiritual crisis in 1977, he returned home as “a high-school dropout with no work history, money, possessions or plans.”
Bulwer quit his mill job before his first shift ended and turned to “drinks and drugs.” Finding the “real world” difficult he soon learned the autocratic and paranoid Children of God had rebranded itself as tolerant, inclusive, and sexually progressive Family of Love, albeit still apocalyptic and advocating exorcisms: Reagan and Mount St. Helens proved to Berg that “the end is coming, & it’s getting might close!”
Unfulfilled, sad, lonely, and fearful in 1991 Bulwer returned to Port Alberni, done with the “strangeness of (his) Jesus-freak life” and a stranger to his own homeland. Despite plans and considerable efforts, breakdowns, rebounds, and acceptance of his brokenness ensued.
Documenting a hard-won release from bondage, Bulwer’s memoir offers innumerable revelations and the price paid for blind faith.
Salt Spring Island resident Brett Josef Grubisic is the author of five novels, including My Two-Faced Luck and The Age of Cities.
*****
He is the author of the new memoir "Misguided: My Jesus Freak Life In a Doomsday Cult", A unique first-hand account of a life spent in the Children of God, the millenarian doomsday cult under the sway of the charismatic leader, David Berg.
In this engrossing and insightful conversation, Perry unpacks some of the indoctrination tactics he came to understand after leaving the cult. He goes on to share some important points about the history of this dangerous group and how his own experience ties in with it outlining how some of the horrors he witnessed became a catalyst for the courageous advocacy work he does today.
Review in BC Bookworld Magazine
BC Bookworld and its associated website ABC Bookworld promote author's and books published in British Columbia, the province with the highest per capita book reading rate in Canada. This review was published in the autumn 2023 edition of BC Bookworld Magazine. It is a free publication distributed to almost 700 bookstores and libraries throughout British Columbia, so it gets directly into the hands of book readers.
Here is the review on the ABC Bookworld website: https://abcbookworld.com/writer/bulwer-perry/
Reviewed by Nori Muster
I remember the Jesus freaks. They were everywhere in the 60s and 70s, and whenever you ran into them they wanted to pray for you. The Children of God (COG) started in the late 60s and still stands out as one of the most abusive and manipulative cults in modern history. Although it's diminished now, in the late 1960s it was one of the most well-known cults, right up there with the Moonies, Jonestown, and Scientology.
David Berg (1919 - 1994), known to his flock as "Moses David" or "Mo," founded COG in 1968. Over the years the group has gone by many names, including Teens for Christ, The Family, The Family of Love, and most recently, The Family International.
Berg promoted incest and child molestation in his group, along with ordering members to give out sex to raise money and indoctrinate new members. The organization also hosted abusive marriages and random rapists and pedophiles taking advantage of the situation. The sexual abuse in this group destroyed lives, destroyed families, and left a wake of death by suicide. Plus, their lax sexual morals spread through secular communities as "free love."
The sexual abuse secrets were taboo subjects for conversation in the group. To know about the crimes, you would either have to be one of the perpetrators or one of the victims. Word did not get around. Keeping things quiet made it easier for the leadership to pass COG off as a legitimate Christian group. However, they were forever changing the rules about who could have sex and with whom. They published updates to the sex rules in the group's newsletter, but the new rules didn't change much for the victims. It amounted to nothing more than subtle euphemisms to spread the message: "Stop raping children or we could get in trouble."
The author of Misguided, Perry Bulwer, knew nothing about what was going on behind the scenes when he joined the Children of God. He first got involved in 1972 and dropped out of high school. He stayed with the group for 4 years and returned home in 1976. Then he joined again in 1979 and stayed for 12 years, returning home in 1991. Bulwer is about the same age as me, and I was in the Los Angeles Hare Krishna temple during a similar timeframe. (For me, it was 1978 to 1988.)
During his time in COG, Bulwer never became aware of the child abuse. However, there was an incident he describes in great detail in the chapter "The Exorcism of Merry." Due to the group’s belief in demonism and exorcism (p. 190), Merry had to go through multiple exorcisms. She was the 14-year-old granddaughter of David Berg, and Berg himself conducted a brutal exorcism. Bulwer describes the horror of it (pp. 190-191). He says Berg first hugged and kissed Merry (disgusting), then shook her, slapped her, beat her, yelled at her, and after 2 hours of violent abuse, threatened to beat her with a stick.
In Bulwer's last 6 months with COG, while living in Macau, China, he saw Merry. The encounter took place at a COG safe house. The house attendant took Bulwer to the door of Merry's room where he noted she was "lying on her bed half-naked, her hands tied to the bed frame on either side" (p. 194). The attendant explained they had to restrain Merry at night because she was a danger to herself. Bulwer stood by the door watching Merry babble, oblivious, lost in some other world. Bulwer remembers meeting Merry in better days. Seeing her in that condition he says "was permanently impressed on my memory" (p. 194). , to comply, Bulwer knew he had to keep quiet. He explains:
Uncertain who I could trust, I was trapped, wrapped in spiritual chains that made it difficult to escape my indoctrination and kept me from doing the right thing. So I kept what I saw to myself, even as it ate at my conscience (p. 195).Bulwer had hard times during his years in the Children of God. His main challenge was having to constantly move from one center to another. First, there was a center in Port Alberni, Canada, his home, but once he was on the hook they moved the center 50 miles away. After that, they lured him to another location in Canada, then to Hawaii and Japan. The second time he joined, his life was a mandala of COG centers in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, and Beijing, China.
Moving people around is a hallmark of the mysterious hand of the COG leadership. They manipulate their followers like chess pieces on a board. For example, if two members fall in love and the leadership doesn't like the match, they can move one of them to a faraway location and tell that member to discontinue the relationship. COG leadership may or may not help financially when they make members move; so, like many others, Bulwer endured times of poverty in unfamiliar places. Despite the hardships, Bulwer stuck with COG. However, his doubts started to add up, especially after witnessing the horror of what had become of Merry.
Bulwer takes you along as he goes from country to country. Some of the adventures were fun, while others brought deep sadness or struggle. It was an unpredictable lifestyle with real dangers. He ran into a friend who had spent time in jail when he was arrested in a raid of a COG campus.
I found it an exciting adventure; but on the darker side, he's lucky he survived. I see his subtitle as a cynical nod to the ordeal: "My Jesus Freak Life In a Doomsday Cult." It's an invitation to hop on the Misguided roller coaster and take a fun but frightening ride.
Another reason I see this as a positive telling of a dark story, Bulwer names all the chapters after song titles or keywords to pay homage to the songs that tell his story.1 When you get about three-quarters of the way into the book you come to chapter 18, "Should I Stay or Should I Go Now," and chapter 19, "Losing my Religion."2 In these chapters Bulwer tells the reader how it ended for him. He leaves COG for good. He found enough to discourage him even without finding out about the child abuse.
In the remaining chapters, Bulwer describes his emotional struggle, including the death of his father who never supported him in life. Bulwer could not come to peace with the years he spent in COG, and that's the way it is for many of us who leave cults disillusioned. There's always that thud that comes after being out for a while when we find out all the things the cult leaders were hiding from us. It's especially difficult if one of the secrets is widespread child abuse.
Child abuse was a factor in my cult too. When I was there I didn't know about it, but 5 years after I left, in 1994, the children of Krishna, then in their 20s and 30s, told me what happened. I spent several years researching the history, interviewing the children, and collecting their autobiographical writings. The first cohort of Hare Krishna children are now in their 40s and 50s.
After getting away from COG in 1991, Bulwer earned his bachelor's degree, then a law degree. He used his education to do altruistic work helping others, then retired. And I get this because we may feel a need to clean up our lives and do something to help the world after we leave a cult. Bulwer still struggles to come to terms with his COG years, and he leaves us with these words:
It's too late for me, but let my story be a cautionary tale. Beware of blindly believing and being misled by persuasive proselytizers of all kinds. Don't allow yourself and your children to be misguided. (p. 277)Notes
[1] The chapter titled "The Exorcism of Merry" pays homage to the soundtrack of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a 2005 movie based on a true story from another Christian-based group.
[2] "Should I Stay or Should I Go Now" is a 1982 song by English punk rock band the Clash, and "Losing my Religion" is a 1991 song by American rock band R.E.M.
About the Reviewer:
Nori Muster, MS, Arts Editor of ICSA Today, is an artist, writer, and teacher. From 1978 to 1988 she was a full-time member of the International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), then left and earned her Master of Science degree at Western Oregon University in 1991. Her thesis is on whether to use creative art with juvenile sex offenders. In 1997, she published her memoir, Betrayal of the Spirit: My Life Behind the Headlines of the Hare Krishna Movement (University of Illinois Press, 1997, paperback 2001, ebook 2014), in 2000, Cult Survivors Handbook: Seven Paths to an Authentic Life (Kindle Paperback 2017), and in 2012, Child of the Cult (revised edition 2015; Kindle Paperback, 2017). Her web page for cultic-studies information is surrealist.org/cults/
Bulwer has written a book entitled Misguided: My Jesus Freak Life in a Doomsday Cult, taking the podcast listener on a journey through his tumultuous experience with the Children of God cult.
Starting with his initial encounter at a Chinese restaurant in Port Alberni, Perry recounts the allure that drew him into the depths of the cult.
“They saw something in me, something receptive,” said Bulwer. “The dogma and the teachings I learned in the Catholic Church weren’t that much different from what they were preaching and they were taking advantage of that.”
Bulwer explains the origins of the cult, tracing its roots back to California in 1968 and the charismatic leader David Berg, the cult’s radical preaching, its migration to Canada, and the controversies surrounding its practices add layers to the story.
The podcast reflects on the emotional toll of living in a cult, as the author describes the internal conflicts and doubts that eventually led him to leave.
Upon returning to Canada, he faced the daunting task of rebuilding his life, marked by educational pursuits and personal rediscovery. The episode captures the resilience required for post-cult recovery, offering a glimpse into Perry’s transformative journey.
Bulwer has been an advocate for cult survivors since 2004.
“There’s a lot of psychological damage to that generation who were born in the group,” he said. “Once I turned my mind to it and understood what had happened to them, I had to speak up. I started doing that in 2004 and basically have continued to this day to be an advocate in that sense.”
by Perry Bulwer
Reviewed by Ryan Mitchell February 28, 2024March 3, 2024
https://thebcreview.ca/2024/02/28/2087-mitchell-bulwer/
Perry Bulwer’s Misguided describes his decade-spanning journey of joining and eventually abandoning the Children of God (C.O.G.) cult on 1960s Vancouver Island. A shy teen without a dedicated support network, Bulwer succumbs to peer pressures and becomes withdrawn from school and his family. Encountering a pair of proselytizers at a local diner in his hometown, they engage him in a thought-provoking conversation about faith, and soon after invite him to their commune. Bulwer’s recounting of the events that would lead him into the ‘Family’, are remarkably detailed and candid. Writing his story years after having left the cult for good, he contextualizes his decisions and emotional state throughout his indoctrination. The book forms both a personal case study in the psychology of how vulnerable individuals are susceptible to cults, and how destructive to one’s worldview it can be trying to leave one.
Bulwer describes his upbringing as emotionally stunted, leading him to search for acceptance in others. He did not have any mentors, real friends, hobbies, or much social skill development; leading him to spend most time alone, increasing his alienation from his peers. Bulwer’s school did not offer a world religions class, and failed to teach the critical-thinking skills that he suggests may have prevented his indoctrination. Once Bulwer begins spending most of his free time with the cult members, his parents arrange a talk with the family church’s pastor. This ironically only solidifies Bulwer’s interest in joining the group, as the pastor is shown to be open-minded to many of the C.O.G. and the group’s efforts in principle.
Bulwer balances recountings of his personal experiences with the C.O.G., with depictions of the group in the media at the time. He explains how they preyed on the uncertainty and naivety of its youngest members, claiming they helped turn youth away from drug addiction and criminal behavior, stories frequently embellished or fabricated to gain public sympathy. Bulwer relates the media panic covering the rise in teenage-runaways at this time, which the C.O.G. capitalized on to present their communal religious lifestyle as a preferable alternative for the children of nervous parents.
By the end of 1973, Bulwer states over 2,000 C.O.G. members were present in 40 countries, living in 140 communes. Self-appointed C.O.G. leader David Berg declared himself the prophet of the group within 4 years of founding it, and through a combination of literal biblical interpretation and his personal opinions, predicted Jesus’ second coming in 1993. Berg announced the C.O.G. efforts to spread to Southern and Eastern continents due to America’s supposed ‘imminent destruction’ due to its supposed sinful trajectory. Coincidentally, Berg along with other high-ranking members of the C.O.G. hierarchy were constantly moving to evade authorities, the media, and deflect criticisms from within the group itself. Bulwer was transferred from communes in Seoul, to Tokyo, then Manila; facing occasional trouble with police for not having proper documentation.
Throughout the book, Bulwer includes excerpts from proclamations by the C.O.G. leader, which were avidly read in the group’s communes. Berg’s proclamations covered all topics from proselytizing to permitted sexual activity, and conveniently parroted his own self-interests as he worked to promote “flirty fishing”, a manner of influencing non-members into benefiting the group by using sexual advances.
Bulwer’s missions proselytizing for the C.O.G. in foreign countries also allowed him to be exposed to other cultures, lifestyles and languages than he likely ever would have known had he remained in Port Alberni. However, his travels were never unrestricted; for one, the Family prohibited visiting man-made attractions such as the Great Wall of China, considered blasphemous and contrary to the spiritual importance of God. Despite this, particularly in his early years with the church, Bulwer often found himself able to travel alone and occasionally have private use of apartments while his preaching partners were out. After being discovered engaging in some intimate relationships with non-Family members, the C.O.G. reprimands Bulwer for his disobedience and began monitoring his activities much more closely, causing him some understandable paranoia.
After returning to Canada to live with his family, Bulwer decides to leave C.O.G. for some time and works odd jobs, but is unable to fully integrate back into society and retains beliefs in certain C.O.G. teachings (including the Doomsday prophecy). Faced with few professional prospects, lack of social skills or formal education past a high school level, a run-in with members of the group leads Bulwer back into the same church he previously abandoned. Bulwer eventually takes on a job teaching English at a Chinese university (through forged paperwork provided by another C.O.G. member), while technically still being a high school dropout. Bulwer describes his slow fallout with the C.O.G.; expressing doubts in secret, noting the hypocrisy of the leader’s actions, group humiliations, and physical abuse particularly of its youngest members. As the C.O.G. practices left him spiritually, socially, financially, and psychologically dependent on the Family, Bulwer illustrates his tremendous fear and agitation to leave permanently.
Readers will be interested in the book’s insight into cults from a non-academic insider’s perspective with lived experience. Bulwer writes with compassion for other members of the cult who were forced into circumstances they did not understand or could not control. He also openly writes with disdain about the movement’s leaders who upheld the practices and methods of the group for decades. Bulwer’s transformation throughout the book is self-evident; he starts as a naive youth yearning for life’s answers through any means, then as a mature adult becomes an activist in the judicial system aiming to protect the vulnerable (sex workers, unhoused people, and addicts) in his community of East Hastings in Vancouver. He also attempts to connect with other ex-members of the C.O.G. to archive their stories and perspectives. Parallels can be drawn with Bulwer’s dedication to fighting for at-risk communities and his own former existence on the fringe of society that led to his indoctrination.
*****
Podcast for Inquiry - Misguided: My Jesus Freak Life In A Doomsday Cult with Perry Bulwer
Podcast for Inquiry is hosted by Leslie Rosenblood and brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada.
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