CCChat-Magazine_Issue-27-Survivors-Speak

same because she had this background
in psychology which is now actually
disputed but she understood how
marketing worked and she understood
how to make him look like the height
of human potential. She understood
how him cutting his hair and putting
him in a polo shirt, taking a snap of
that and putting it on the company
website said there was a leader in the
company. She was the missing
ingredient for him becoming so
prolific.
Naomi: I think the dangerous thing of
the organisation was that Keith was a
master of keeping secrets. Everyone
asks what does this person know?
organisation is beyond words, it’s
beyond what second, third and even
first generation people have had to live
with – the guilt and the shame that
goes along with that and I think that
the consequences are so dire I mean
120 years is not a laughable sentence.
Serial killers don’t even get that and
that makes it feel so much more real
and validating, that these types of
organisations are very, very dangerous
and the level of abuse and destruction
that follows is something people have
to live with for the rest of their lives.
Keith created a predatory environment
that fostered his predatory nature.
That is what these people do, just like
David Berg from The Family,
"Keith was a master of keeping secrets. Everyone asks what does
this person know? They had to have known something,
all these people had to have known the truth."
Naomi
They had to have known something, all
these people had to have known the
truth.
Morgan: He was a master of having
other people keep his secrets.
Naomi: Yes, exactly. He was a master
at making people feel special, Oh you
are one of the only few, and then it’s
that slippery slope of how he turned
victims into victimisers and how there
are now women who are going to be
going to jail. For me, the great thing
about this case is, having grown up in a
cult and one of the most disruptive
cults there is, is the validation that
enough is enough. These people
cannot continue to run amok and
destroy people’s lives. Period. In the
Family – the Children of God – the
level of abuse that happened in that
he created an environment that got
people comfortable with the idea of
child abuse so much so that people did
it because they thought they had to.
From the outside you think those are
crazy people or that they also had it in
them, but it’s an indoctrination- if you
don’t do this, you are a sinner from
God and you are going to be punished
and before you know it, you are
committing crimes.
Morgan: Touching on what Naomi
said, from the outside and looking in,
and people thinking that’s nuts, how
could you ever get to that place? For
me, personally, working on this
project, I had a couple of profound
moments and one of the biggest one I
had to grapple with was looking back
at my Mom who is a funny bright and
vivacious woman but in my childhood
Making The Invisible Visible