25 VOLUME 7 |ISSUE 2 |2016
conditions, he says, made him vulnerable to recruitment by a
Bible-based group, the New Generation Church, which claimed
its goal was to help vulnerable people. While a member, he ran
a grocery business and employed 10 people who were thus able
to feed their families. Running the business was challenging
for him because of constant pressure from the church to turn
over funds to it. After he had been involved for 2 years, the
cult began to recruit criminals. One of these “saved” criminals
assaulted Alex with a knife. This was a turning point, making him
understand that the church was not a good organization to be
associated with. He managed to disentangle himself from the
group and make his way to the United States. Immigrating to
the states had always been a dream, and its accomplishment is
one of the things of which he is proudest.
Arriving in America, Alex had only a few dollars and a degree
in electrical engineering. After tremendous struggle, and after
teaching himself computer programming through a book (!),
he eventually landed a job at a prestigious company where he
has been employed for the past 10 years and holds the title of
Senior Software Engineer. No longer homeless, he owns his own
apartment.
Alex discovered ICSA in America and in 2008 began attending
its annual conferences. The conferences, he says, empower
him. A session at the 2010 conference, for example, sparked an
interest in critical thinking that led him to read a book on the
subject, which in turn helped him analyze the "bizarre healing
techniques employed by my aunt, who runs a family healing
cult.” At another conference, he learned about how situations
may override an individual’s personality traits. This knowledge
was helpful to him in recognizing and beginning to heal the
self-blame he learned and blame by others he had experienced
“in the USSR cult and in the Bible-based cult.” He himself will be
speaking at the ICSA 2016 Annual Conference in Dallas, Texas
this June.
Alex loves his adopted homeland passionately, and he travels
whenever possible. He has a deep curiosity about everything
and is a lover of all kinds of museums, visiting them as
frequently as possible. Science, of course, holds a particular
place in his life. He says of it, “Science allows me to rediscover
myself.”
Alex hasn’t merely survived one of the most brutal, demented
regimes in modern history: He has courageously cultivated a
rich and active humanity, offering that up as his response. n
conditions, he says, made him vulnerable to recruitment by a
Bible-based group, the New Generation Church, which claimed
its goal was to help vulnerable people. While a member, he ran
a grocery business and employed 10 people who were thus able
to feed their families. Running the business was challenging
for him because of constant pressure from the church to turn
over funds to it. After he had been involved for 2 years, the
cult began to recruit criminals. One of these “saved” criminals
assaulted Alex with a knife. This was a turning point, making him
understand that the church was not a good organization to be
associated with. He managed to disentangle himself from the
group and make his way to the United States. Immigrating to
the states had always been a dream, and its accomplishment is
one of the things of which he is proudest.
Arriving in America, Alex had only a few dollars and a degree
in electrical engineering. After tremendous struggle, and after
teaching himself computer programming through a book (!),
he eventually landed a job at a prestigious company where he
has been employed for the past 10 years and holds the title of
Senior Software Engineer. No longer homeless, he owns his own
apartment.
Alex discovered ICSA in America and in 2008 began attending
its annual conferences. The conferences, he says, empower
him. A session at the 2010 conference, for example, sparked an
interest in critical thinking that led him to read a book on the
subject, which in turn helped him analyze the "bizarre healing
techniques employed by my aunt, who runs a family healing
cult.” At another conference, he learned about how situations
may override an individual’s personality traits. This knowledge
was helpful to him in recognizing and beginning to heal the
self-blame he learned and blame by others he had experienced
“in the USSR cult and in the Bible-based cult.” He himself will be
speaking at the ICSA 2016 Annual Conference in Dallas, Texas
this June.
Alex loves his adopted homeland passionately, and he travels
whenever possible. He has a deep curiosity about everything
and is a lover of all kinds of museums, visiting them as
frequently as possible. Science, of course, holds a particular
place in his life. He says of it, “Science allows me to rediscover
myself.”
Alex hasn’t merely survived one of the most brutal, demented
regimes in modern history: He has courageously cultivated a
rich and active humanity, offering that up as his response. n
