Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 6, 2006, Page 64
group leaders‘ authority, and by being made to feel they are doomed if they question or
leave the group.
Marcia R. Rudin, M.A.
Out of the Cocoon: A Young Woman’s Courageous Flight from the Grip of a
Religious Cult
Brenda Lee, Robert D. Reed Publishers (Brandon, OR). January 2006. ISBN:
1931741654 (paperback), $14.95. 238 pages
Nearly 15 years ago, Pennsylvania singer-songwriter Rick Maas penned these lyrics
portraying his impression at the age of five of the conversion of his family to Jehovah‘s
Witnesses:
When I was a little boy,
Religion never brought me joy,
I used to think a lot about confusion.
The day they took our Christmas tree,
I couldn't sit on Santa's knee,
There was no more make-believe,
Just to please them.
No more birthday cake for me,
If you are cut, just let it bleed,
Dedicate my life
To Armageddon.
Now another child convert and ex-member of that group has given voice to the deep sense
of loss, and subsequent rage, experienced by children whose families enter high-demand,
restrictive groups that rob them of the normal joys of childhood. Brenda Lee was born into a
materially poor, but heritage- and relationship-rich, farming family in rural Pennsylvania,
where a child learned early the value of his or her labor to the family, where cousins were
as close as siblings, and where animals and the outdoors taught as many lessons as books.
Her life was not idyllic there were stresses on the family, to be sure, and her parents were
no more perfect that anyone else‘s. But her prospects for solid, healthy development into
adolescence and adulthood were good on that 1962 day she was born, and they stayed
good until she was nine years old. When her mother accepted a ―free home Bible study‖
from visiting Jehovah‘s Witnesses, the Methodist Sunday-school teacher had no idea that
this study would end up costing her a relationship with one of her children and her own
relatives, and that Brenda, younger by a decade than her siblings, would pay with her
childhood.
Lee‘s descriptions of the agonizingly boring and interminable meetings and assemblies, and
the way that ―witnessing‖ devoured her mother‘s attention and ate up family life, will be
familiar to all who were kids in the Jehovah‘s Witnesses‘ organization. But unlike those who
were raised in it from infancy—such as me, a third-generation JW—Brenda and others
whose families convert during their childhoods experience searing losses. Beloved friends
and relatives are labeled ―bad associations,‖ joyous holidays become shunned ―pagan
rituals,‖ and hopeful dreams for the future morph into nightmares of what JWs call ―the
battle of Armageddon and God‘s destruction of this wicked system of things.‖
For Lee, the destruction of these relationships and the emotional damage the association
with the Jehovah‘s Witnesses did to her life are the unifying themes of her narrative. She
begins her book with a dedication to her son, Derek, and the promise that she will always
love him ―unconditionally.‖ This is the love she longed for from her own mother, love that
group leaders‘ authority, and by being made to feel they are doomed if they question or
leave the group.
Marcia R. Rudin, M.A.
Out of the Cocoon: A Young Woman’s Courageous Flight from the Grip of a
Religious Cult
Brenda Lee, Robert D. Reed Publishers (Brandon, OR). January 2006. ISBN:
1931741654 (paperback), $14.95. 238 pages
Nearly 15 years ago, Pennsylvania singer-songwriter Rick Maas penned these lyrics
portraying his impression at the age of five of the conversion of his family to Jehovah‘s
Witnesses:
When I was a little boy,
Religion never brought me joy,
I used to think a lot about confusion.
The day they took our Christmas tree,
I couldn't sit on Santa's knee,
There was no more make-believe,
Just to please them.
No more birthday cake for me,
If you are cut, just let it bleed,
Dedicate my life
To Armageddon.
Now another child convert and ex-member of that group has given voice to the deep sense
of loss, and subsequent rage, experienced by children whose families enter high-demand,
restrictive groups that rob them of the normal joys of childhood. Brenda Lee was born into a
materially poor, but heritage- and relationship-rich, farming family in rural Pennsylvania,
where a child learned early the value of his or her labor to the family, where cousins were
as close as siblings, and where animals and the outdoors taught as many lessons as books.
Her life was not idyllic there were stresses on the family, to be sure, and her parents were
no more perfect that anyone else‘s. But her prospects for solid, healthy development into
adolescence and adulthood were good on that 1962 day she was born, and they stayed
good until she was nine years old. When her mother accepted a ―free home Bible study‖
from visiting Jehovah‘s Witnesses, the Methodist Sunday-school teacher had no idea that
this study would end up costing her a relationship with one of her children and her own
relatives, and that Brenda, younger by a decade than her siblings, would pay with her
childhood.
Lee‘s descriptions of the agonizingly boring and interminable meetings and assemblies, and
the way that ―witnessing‖ devoured her mother‘s attention and ate up family life, will be
familiar to all who were kids in the Jehovah‘s Witnesses‘ organization. But unlike those who
were raised in it from infancy—such as me, a third-generation JW—Brenda and others
whose families convert during their childhoods experience searing losses. Beloved friends
and relatives are labeled ―bad associations,‖ joyous holidays become shunned ―pagan
rituals,‖ and hopeful dreams for the future morph into nightmares of what JWs call ―the
battle of Armageddon and God‘s destruction of this wicked system of things.‖
For Lee, the destruction of these relationships and the emotional damage the association
with the Jehovah‘s Witnesses did to her life are the unifying themes of her narrative. She
begins her book with a dedication to her son, Derek, and the promise that she will always
love him ―unconditionally.‖ This is the love she longed for from her own mother, love that
