I Believed It. My Youth in the Labyrinth of a Cult-Like Group

By Gabriella Rahoy

This is the story of how I got hooked to a radical movement as an adolescent and how I stayed there for over twenty years.

From age sixteen to thirty-nine I belonged to this movement, first in Rome (Italy), then in Cameroon (Africa), in Lisbon (Portugal), and, finally, in Chicago and New York (USA). Not only Christians but also faithful of other religions and even people who are not affiliated with any religion at all belong to this movement, attracted by one or the other of its aspects or ideas.

As a person who believes that I am responsible for the good of my neighbor, besides my own, I already shared with the proper religious channels my experience in this movement as well as my deep perplexities about its theological and psychological soundness and I invited them to intervene for the good and well-being of all its members.

I won’t name names since I do believe in the right of each person, each group, and each movement to their good name. I also believe that any organization, any institution, civil or religious, can become at any time somewhat of a cult, of a dictatorship, or the likes, if its members forget to remain vigilant and allow this to happen. I hope that, once this group reaches maturity, it will realize what is happening and will correct what needs to be corrected. I hope this with all my heart.

At this point of my life, this booklet is not driven by feelings of revenge or anger against anyone. I offer it simply as a “cautionary tale” to help people not to fall into the traps of cults, of cultic minded groups.

I’m aware that whoever reads these pages will notice that English is not my first language. However, I did not want to hire anyone who would write my story in a professional style. The words that you find here are my very words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664153806

Gabriella Rahoy

Gabriella Rahoy is a retired English-Italian translator, interpreter, and voice-over who was born in Rome (Italy) and lived close to the Janiculum Hill, at about thirty minutes walking from St. Peter’s Square, with her family who is still residing in that city. Even if her education would have prepared her as a Philosophy teacher in Italian high schools, her life decided differently for her. She says today that instead of teaching Philosophy she found herself having to learn how to “live philosophy”, that is how to live what she had studied, especially what she had learned during several fundamental courses in Psychology and one in Psychiatry. While in the USA, she obtained her Master’s Degree in Theology at St. John’s University, Queens, New York, which gave her the basis for serving as a Coordinator and Director of Religious Education in some R.C. Parishes in Queens for about ten years. The tennis courts at St. John’s University were the occasion for the author to know better her neighbor, Michael Rahoy, whom she had seen once with his tennis racket and had invited to play with her. Those games were the beginning of a friendship that evolved into something deeper, culminating in their marriage. Today, she decided to help people who, like her, had once been members of very “cultic” minded groups and had the courage to leave these kinds of movements, ready to go through the classic “hell” that, generally, follows their departure. [e-mail]

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Copyright © 2021 by Gabriella Rahoy.

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

All biblical quotations were taken from:

NEW AMERICAN BIBLE

St. Joseph MEDIUM SIZE Edition

CATHOLIC BOOK PUBLISHING CO., NEW YORK

Rev. date: 01/22/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

825426

Contents

Preface

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

This booklet is dedicated to my friend

Aiysha Glenn-Bradby PT, DPT,

my former physiotherapist,

on her way to become also a

Certified Holistic Nutritionist.

Excellent in her profession,

she is a great listener.

Thank you, Aiysha, for lending an ear!

Preface

This is the story of how I got hooked to a radical movement as an adolescent and how I stayed there for over twenty years.

From age sixteen to thirty-nine I belonged to this movement, first in Rome (Italy), then in Cameroon (Africa), in Lisbon (Portugal), and, finally, in Chicago and New York (USA). Not only Christians but also faithful of other religions and even people who are not affiliated with any religion at all belong to this movement, attracted by one or the other of its aspects or ideas.

As a person who believes that I am responsible for the good of my neighbor, besides my own, I already shared with the proper religious channels my experience in this movement as well as my deep perplexities about its theological and psychological soundness and I invited them to intervene for the good and well-being of all its members.

I won’t name names since I do believe in the right of each person, each group, and each movement to their good name. I also believe that any organization, any institution, civil or religious, can become at any time somewhat of a cult, of a dictatorship, or the likes, if its members forget to remain vigilant and allow this to happen. I hope that, once this group reaches maturity, it will realize what is happening and will correct what needs to be corrected. I hope this with all my heart.

At this point of my life, this booklet is not driven by feelings of revenge or anger against anyone. I offer it simply as a cautionary tale to help people not to fall into the traps of cults, of cultic minded groups.

I’m aware that whoever reads these pages will notice that English is not my first language. However, I did not want to hire anyone who would write my story in a professional style. The words that you find here are my very words.

Chapter One

Dear Aiysha,

While in your office for the many physiotherapy sessions following my bilateral total knee replacement, you asked me once where was the booklet that I wanted to write with my story of how I got hooked to a radical movement as an adolescent and stayed there for over twenty years.

Here it is at last!

I was fifteen years old, living in Rome, Italy. Born there a few years after World War II, I remember that, when we five children (well, actually the last one was about to be born!) were still very young, my parents moved us from a working-class neighborhood to a quite upscale area. My siblings and I started to go to the neighborhood public school and I happened to end up in a class where the teacher used to spank us, children, on our head every time we would give a wrong answer.

Coming from a family environment where a strict education was considered an asset, I never thought to tell anything to my parents about the spanking which went on from age six to ten. I remember that my biggest fear of those years in grammar school was that one day the golden medal attached to my teacher’s bracelet would land in my