Clip from God Willing: A Mother's Search for Her Daughter

The Brotherhood (AKA The Garbage Eaters) are a high demand totalistic religious group which targets young college aged adults and exploits their vulnerabilities around identity, piety and scrupulosity.

Using the bible to justify their teachings, they are most known for two major factors - first for scavenging for food in dumpsters (leading to the name "Garbage Eaters") and secondly, and most tragically, for compelling their members to take on a new identity and a new name and cut themselves off from their family of origin. The young students who get swept up in this movement will suddenly tell their family that they should not expect to ever see them again and then disappear with the group, moving frequently and changing appearances which make it difficult for the family to locate their loved ones.

As a result, a network of concerned parents has been formed to try to locate their lost adult children. They have to balance their efforts to make contact with their loved ones with the sensitivity that the group has to family contact which would cause them to flee.

In the 2010 documentary "God Willing" there are several accounts of family members discovering the location of their lost children and attempting to make contact. One of those stories is about a mother of "Brittany" who has not seen her daughter for 7 years. A possible sighting of her daughter is reported to the parents network and she makes the trek across country to try to catch a glimpse of her loved one and see if there is any hope to reconnect with or rescue her daughter.

These clips from that documentary provide a harrowing account of how powerful the psychological hold on a mind can be - even turning a young adult against their family. It also shows the power of a mother's love and dedication to the wellbeing of her daughter.

Typical strategies to alienate the family from the member are employed:

- demand for purity
- us vs them thinking
- relational control
- elitism
- Reformed identity and new names
- spying and reporting
- physical isolation

By giving the members a new name which is tied to the teachings of the group, rather than the family of origin - the group is able to better cut ties and reliance psychologically from the family and bind the member to the group more closely. They believe they are doing this to serve as a high path in life which is more righteous and above the wicked ways of the world - appealing to the young person desire for goodness and validation.

You will notice that the members travel in pairs so that if one of them is confronted by a parent there is always someone watching who may report or help to keep the person on the path of devotion to the group.

This group is one of the most striking examples of how a high demand ideology will cut off outside influences by alienating members from their family of origin and the identity tied to their upbringing. This creates a greater dependence on the group and shields the member from any information or influence which could free them from its hold.

Red flags to notice in this regard from any group or ideology are:

- Teaching that if you family doesn't agree with the ideology - then they are bad.
- Teaching that you should not listen to any family who try to cause you to doubt.
- Teaching that other members of the group can be a substitute for your family of origin or a "found family"
- Framing normal family concern or disagreement with the teachings of the group as "Abusive" so that cutting off ties to the family can be justified
- Teaching that a new name should be taken to go along with a new identity in the group which may also include reframing the old identity as "dead" or bad in some way.
- Isolating members from contact with or access to their family of origin.

Check out the full God Willing Documentary for the complete story: http://godwillingmovie.com/