Hi All.
A news article regarding Ali Millar popped up on abc here in Australia.
Some of you folks in the UK may have heard of her.
She has released a book entitled 'The Last Days'. I guess from the article that her story rings true to anyone aware of the WT religions' modus operandi.
Here is the link and I will paste some of the news article.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-09/ali-millar-jehovahs-witnesses-leaving-her-religion-being-shunned/101266998
Ali Millar's upbringing in the Jehovah's Witnesses was traumatic. Now she's speaking out
ABC RN / By
Anna Kelsey-Sugg and
Catherine Zengerer for
Late Night LivePosted Tue 9 Aug 2022 at 5:00amTuesday 9 Aug 2022 at 5:00am, updated Tue 9 Aug 2022 at 5:16amTuesday 9 Aug 2022 at 5:16am
Former Jehovah's Witness Ali Millar had panic attacks after writing about her upbringing. (Image: Desiree Adams, Penguin Random House)Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article
For Ali Millar, the experience of writing her difficult life story wasn't cathartic, it was traumatic.
"I
would be sick. I had panic attacks. I've never showered as much in my
life. Every time I finished writing, I would really need to wash," she
tells ABC RN's Late Night Live.
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Read moreNow
London-based, Millar was born and raised in a small village in the
Scottish Borders among the Jehovah's Witnesses, a religion with around
eight million followers around the world.
It's a religion she now firmly rejects.
She
says growing up she was told what to read and wear, experienced
oppressive guilt and shame, and was constantly terrified of an impending
Armageddon.
After documenting her story, Millar began to change how she felt about the past.
"I
started to realise that a lot of things that I blamed myself
for weren't my fault. I started to understand the [Jehovah's Witnesses]
organisation and its mechanisms far better," she says.
Millar, whose
memoir is The Last Days: A Memoir of Faith, Desire and Freedom, argues
there's a common misconception of the Jehovah's Witnesses group as
"benign".
But she describes it as a "deeply coercive and manipulative organisation".
"And that's really why it's important for me to speak out."
In Australia, there are roughly 70,000 Jehovah's Witnesses today.(Four Corners)
'The end is always imminent'
When
Millar was born, her mother learnt that she'd been deceived by her new
child's father, and that he was already married with children. He didn't
stick around.
"When he left, she was really vulnerable," Millar says.
"And the Witnesses came knocking."
The young family entered the organisation voluntarily but they needed to adopt new beliefs.
"[The Witnesses] believe that God's kingdom was established on Earth in 1914," Millar says.
"They believe that Armageddon is imminent, and that war, famine, pestilence [and] earthquakes are all signs of the end."
She
says in Witnesses' teachings "the end is always imminent" and only
Witnesses will be saved, "to live forever in a paradise on Earth".
"We
were told as Witnesses that when the end came, worldly people would eat
their babies because there'd be so little food … that mobs would roam
the streets."
Doomsday images from Jehovah's Witnesses publications.(Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania)
Avoiding this fate is not as simple as being a Witness, however. "Membership doesn't guarantee your salvation," Millar says.
"It's God who gets to decide at the end, so you're constantly worrying about your behaviour."
As are other members of the organisation.
"There's
quite tight peer control over what you listen to, what you read, what
you watch ... It's all very carefully monitored," she says.
Millar says the organisation is also "completely patriarchal" and that women are "encouraged not to pursue further education".
The women who left a 'cult like' religion
Sherrie
and Naomi were raised in devout Jehovah's Witness families and lived
most of their lives under strict religious conditions — then they "woke
up".
Read moreShe
says that in the community she grew up in, "Women aren't allowed to
lead in any kind of worship. If women pray in public, they have to have
head coverings on … Women aren't allowed to wear trousers to the
meetings or on field service.
"What they wear is tightly controlled," she says.
"People
think, 'Oh, these are nice people' … but their beliefs aren't. And the
structure and the system which they live inside is deeply, deeply
coercive."
In a statement to the ABC, Jehovah's
Witnesses Australasian spokesperson Tom Pecipajkovski denied that the
religious group controls what women wear, stating: "Each individual
Jehovah's Witness has the freedom to choose what type of clothing to
wear. Our organisation does not list which styles of clothing are
acceptable and which are objectionable."
He also
denied that women are discouraged from further education,
stating: "Enrolling in a post secondary education course is a personal
decision completely unrelated to a person's gender, age or race".
"We
commonly encounter the false allegation that Jehovah's Witnesses
'control' various aspects of a congregant's life. There is no basis for
this," the spokesperson said.
He also referred to international international human rights cases, such as a 2010 Russian case,
recognising the right of Jehovah’s Witnesses to practise their
religion, and questioned the reliability of former members' perceptions
of religions they have left.
Inside the secretive world of the Jehovah's Witnesses
Not
much has changed since the cruel treatment of abuse victims in the
Jehovah's Witnesses was exposed. Now, former members are fighting back.
Read moreEating disorder was a way 'to be pure'
By
her teens, Millar says she was doing "normal" things like having
relationships and experimenting with alcohol. But she was hiding all of
it from her mother and the church.
"I was really ashamed … and I just wanted to be pure," she says.
She developed an eating disorder as a "way of me trying to become clean".
jtg
