The Cult Dossier · No. 182 · Second Generation / Born In
Leaving Without a Before
Second-generation exit; what an SGA has to invent
Continuous · Wherever anyone born in gets out
XVIII. THE SECOND GENERATION — THE ONES WHO NEVER CHOSE
None. This entry is about the exit, not the belief.
Who led it
No leader. The people in this entry left on their own and mostly separately.
What it worshipped and taught
THE PRACTICAL CONTENT OF LEAVING WHEN YOU WERE BORN THERE. A convert who leaves resumes a life. SOMEONE BORN IN HAS TO ASSEMBLE ONE FROM NOTHING, USUALLY IN THEIR TWENTIES, USUALLY WITH NO QUALIFICATIONS, NO CREDIT HISTORY, NO REFERENCES AND NO RELATIVES WHO WILL SPEAK TO THEM. The recovery literature describes identity reconstruction rather than recovery, because there is no prior state to recover.
Who was in it
JENNA MISCAVIGE HILL (L188); ELISSA WALL (L197); REBECCA MUSSER (L199); CAROLYN JESSOP (L198), who left with eight children; NANSOOK HONG (L194); CELESTE JONES, KRISTINA JONES and JULIANA BUHRING (L196); SARAH MOORE HAMILTON-BYRNE (L200); the fifteen anonymous participants in the 2013 study.
How it ended, or where it stands
ONGOING, AND THE ONLY REMEDY IN THIS ERA THAT DEMONSTRABLY WORKS. It is also the slowest, and it costs the person applying it everything they had.
The dead
NOT COUNTED ANYWHERE. Suicides among second-generation former members are reported repeatedly in survivor accounts and have never been systematically recorded, which this file notes rather than estimates.
Of note
THIS ERA ENDS ON THE ONE THING IN IT THAT ACTUALLY WORKS, AND IT IS NOT A POLICY.
The raid failed (179). The prosecution succeeded only years later and only on individual evidence (179). The law is split against itself (181). WHAT CHANGED THESE GROUPS, WHERE ANYTHING DID, WAS PEOPLE WHO WERE RAISED INSIDE THEM WALKING OUT AND THEN TALKING. Warren Jeffs was convicted on testimony from women born into his church. The Children of God's second generation is documented because its own children wrote it down. THE REMEDY IS RETROSPECTIVE, VOLUNTARY AND ENORMOUSLY EXPENSIVE TO THE PERSON PROVIDING IT.
THAT IS ALSO WHY THIS FILE'S TRANCHE 3 IS NOT A COURTESY. The defector accounts are not colour; in several of these cases they are the entire evidentiary basis on which anything was ever proved.
ONE CAUTION AGAINST A TIDY ENDING. The people named here got out and became able to describe it, which selects for exactly the ones who did well enough to be heard. THE SECOND GENERATION THAT DID NOT GET OUT, OR GOT OUT AND DID NOT RECOVER, IS BY DEFINITION ABSENT FROM EVERY SOURCE THIS DOSSIER RESTS ON — including this entry.
The raid failed (179). The prosecution succeeded only years later and only on individual evidence (179). The law is split against itself (181). WHAT CHANGED THESE GROUPS, WHERE ANYTHING DID, WAS PEOPLE WHO WERE RAISED INSIDE THEM WALKING OUT AND THEN TALKING. Warren Jeffs was convicted on testimony from women born into his church. The Children of God's second generation is documented because its own children wrote it down. THE REMEDY IS RETROSPECTIVE, VOLUNTARY AND ENORMOUSLY EXPENSIVE TO THE PERSON PROVIDING IT.
THAT IS ALSO WHY THIS FILE'S TRANCHE 3 IS NOT A COURTESY. The defector accounts are not colour; in several of these cases they are the entire evidentiary basis on which anything was ever proved.
ONE CAUTION AGAINST A TIDY ENDING. The people named here got out and became able to describe it, which selects for exactly the ones who did well enough to be heard. THE SECOND GENERATION THAT DID NOT GET OUT, OR GOT OUT AND DID NOT RECOVER, IS BY DEFINITION ABSENT FROM EVERY SOURCE THIS DOSSIER RESTS ON — including this entry.
Its timeline
- The decision LEAVING MEANS LOSING THE FAMILY, NOT ESCAPING IT. In most groups in this dossier the people who will shun a departing member are that member's parents and siblings.
- The first year Documents, schooling and money. SEVERAL OF THE ACCOUNTS IN THIS FILE DESCRIBE ADULTS LEARNING TO USE A BANK, A DOCTOR'S SURGERY OR A SUPERMARKET FOR THE FIRST TIME.
- 2013 THE GROUNDED-THEORY STUDY OF FIFTEEN SECOND-GENERATION ADULTS (177) is published. Later work by its lead author describes working out who they are apart from the group’s doctrine as a central and ongoing task of recovery — BUILDING AN IDENTITY RATHER THAN RESTORING ONE.
- After A DISPROPORTIONATE NUMBER OF THE PEOPLE WHO EVENTUALLY TESTIFY, WRITE OR CAMPAIGN AGAINST THESE GROUPS ARE THE ONES WHO WERE BORN IN. Tranche 3 of this file is substantially their work.