The authorship of these files on cults has his or her own motivations for providing them a

    [Fredric Rice, The Skeptic Tank:  The authorship of these files on
    cults has his or her own motivations for providing them and will
    contain his or her own bias.  What I find typical is that
    individuals and organizations which report on cults are usually
    themselves a competition cult yet like to think of themselves as
    "a religion, not a cult."  In actual fact, _ALL_ religions are
    cults by the primary, secondary, and terciary usage definition of
    the term.  Some of the information you find here is inaccurate and
    contains urban legend -- take what you find with a grain of salt.
    If you wish to acquire a copy of the Law Enforcement Guide on
    Occult Crime, contact myself at frice@stbbs.com or at The Skeptic
    Tank (818) 335-9601 and I'll forward the address and information
    you need.]

Children of God

It is difficult to find a cult with a worse reputation than the
Children of God (now known as The Family). Despite an Aids-prompted
clean up, it is still the target of regular tabloid campaigns. As
recently as October of last year a teenage girl was awarded
£5,000 by the British Criminal  Injuries Compensation Board,
having been abused by members of the sect from the age of three.

It is estimated that of the 9,000 current members of The Family,
6,000 are children; many of them the offspring of the sect's
'Hookers for Christ' campaign in the 1970s and 1980s, in which
women members seduced potential converts and bore their children.

The Family's image has improved slightly with the death last year
of its maverick leader David Berg. Born in 1919 to preacher parents,
in the late 1960s Berg took hisanti-establishment word of God to
California, where he became known as 'theoriginal hippy'. As his
communal movement spread from America to Europe, Indiaand
Australasia, Berg issued his followers guidelines through
gaudily illustrated pamphlets. Members were urged to 'share' each
other's wives andhusbands, pornography was circulated, sex with
children was ellipticallycondoned and 'God's Whores' were instructed
to pick up men in discos and bars. One infamous pamphlet showed a
picture of a naked woman sitting astride a man, with the caption:
'Receiving God is like sexually going all the way'.

Despite the liberal nature of the cult's philosophy, discipline
within the communes was harsh and provisions spartan - children
were brought up by the commune ratherthan by their parents.
Conditions within Family communes throughout the worldare now
monitored closely by police and health authorities.

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