Hi! My name is James J. Knoke. I am 17 years old and like many others here I was born and raised in the family and didn’t come from an abusive childhood; nor have I known (heard) of anyone in the family who has.

So, to be honest, I find the thousands are methodically abused and raped statement to be a little perverse, but at the same time kind of funny. It’s like saying –very seriously- that two-hundred pound weightlifters are physically unfit and malnourished. Honestly, we have so many posts here already saying what I have to say that I’m a little reluctant to write this as I’d rather use my time for other purposes. But for the sake of “adding another unabused life to the list,” I’m writing this. Hey, that rhymes! Slap myself for sappiness (Uh-oh! He’s abusing himself!)

Along the lines of the “suicide because they can’t cope with life outside the group” accusation: I know people who left our group who have excelled in whatever job they took. I don’t know anyone who went plunker and ended up a distressed bum or committed suicide. Weird huh?

I must have been brain-washed to somehow forget those horrors (the rapes, abusive upbringing, suicides, and whatnot). Oh yes, I must be hypnotized by the alien faced, Family-made machine sitting above the PC, using its twirling eyes (stolen from “Ka” in the jungle. Mind you, it was hard as they had to grab the eyes out at a time when he was using them on Mogoly so they’d still be twirling when they put them in the machine) to hypnotize me into forgetting my horrid, horrid past and rewriting it with memories of playing sports and games with peers, reading books, writing fantasy stories, writing emails, snowboarding, drawing, watching movies in the cinema, birthday parties, talking with friends, and all other sorts of typical “non-abusive” things.

Wow! I didn’t know the family had such technology to make such outstanding machines. Hey, with something like that you could make that policeman forget you went forty over on the highway yesterday! Oh, What people would do to get their hands on them machines. –Maybe that’s the ulterior motive behind all the wacko publicity.

Okay, I could go on parroting what all others have said but they’ve covered it thoroughly so I needn’t repeat.

While there may be “abuse” incidents occurring once every blue moon, those cases are very few and almost nonexistent in comparison to amount which much of the general public experiences – especially because The Family doesn’t allow alcoholics or drugs (another abusive doctrine). So tata with your fairy tales and instead, let’s investigate abused (oppressed) society of Iraq or Palestine. –Hmm, actually, maybe not. The papers wouldn’t sell as good that way.

James J. Knoke is a second-generation member of the Family International.