Although Robin Barbosa’s memoir about her cult experiences has been out for 8 years, a new review might be useful following renewed media interest in her old group. In her account, the author disguises the so-called cult, or new religious group, that she encountered in 1975, was in for many years, and left decades ago as a result of an intervention (or deprogramming) her parents arranged.
Full Court Press. 2016. 298 pages.
Readers with a long interest in cults that emerged in the mid-1960s might readily identify Barbosa’s group, which she calls World Organization for Righteous King Service (WORKS). Her alias, WORKS, reveals two things: It is a clever reiteration of the actual group name, and it is a pun for Barbosa’s Christian awakening by the end of her story. Throughout the dialogue, her Christian daughters offer scriptural insights that influence and clarify the author’s new world view.
Bible scriptures and ideas drive the memoir from beginning to end. As an example,
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2: 8,9,New International Version) encapsulates this book’s thematic sentiment.
We learn from the story that members’ merit in the cult was shown by their submission to service for the divine deity of WORKS and its leaders. Service could be anything from working in an ashram restaurant to cleaning it, or by fundraising through the distribution of the leader’s books on the streets and in malls. At the end of her account, the author finds that the God of the Gospel
Came not to condemn but to rescue. . . I had left WORKS with the ashram door forever closed behind me and walked through the veil of the Temple of the living God. (p. 279)
With that said as a warning to readers and former members who might find the not-so subtle if unintended proselytizing awkward or offensive, the approach works well in this memoir. It serves as a testament to the wisdom of a former member sharing a dark past with adult children who had no clue about what their parent might have gone through previously. With respect to sharing, I suggest you do it.
Barbosa’s daughters, named Mahlia and Saadya in the memoir, operate as foils for curiosity and intrigue that encourage the narrator to keep talking. To me, the value of that approach is the core message for anyone who remains shy about revealing embarrassing self-stories for fear of ridicule or rejection. No one likes to reveal how stupid or vulnerable they were in context—unless, perhaps, they get accolades at a TED Talk or other similar venue for doing so. And maybe even more significant, getting into the thorny and chronically misunderstood definitions and behaviors of a deceptive or harmful cult with disinterested people can lead to crickets in the room. The author chooses these risks based on her intuition that it is time to tell her daughters about her past.
As Barbosa (“Mom”) introduces daughters to the radical us-against-the-world of WORKS—and that she was totally into the mission, Saadya asks, “But how could you?”
Mahlia, in defense, retorts, “This is exactly what Mom wants to tell us about.” Then, as the author (Mom) writes,
In short, I stayed, taking one day at a time, getting hoodwinked and beguiled by various means used at the Center by everyone, even the ashram girls. The basic premise was that the ends justified the means; and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. (p. 9)
Barbosa’s telling of her deprogramming back in the day when some interventions involved what amounted to kidnapping and house arrest offers realistic insight into the techniques and caring approaches her ethical interventionists used, all their valid concerns about potential illegality aside: “The subject of my deprogramming remains a very sensitive topic. . . I froze, unnerved and suspended. . . I had to be prepared to be raped” (pp. 226, 227). (Her cult leaders had told her lurid stories about abusive techniques that deprogrammers used to break a devotee’s will).
In fact, Barbosa’s deprogrammers told her what the cult probably said about their techniques, and then they proved the cult wrong by engaging her with a gentle, educational, and discursive approach. After days of talk and the comparisons the deprogrammers shared with her between her group and other known cults (one was named CAUSE in the book), she describes to her daughters how she emerged with the conviction that she did not have to give up on God to quit the group: “I was not being asked to abandon my ideals. But I no longer had to be a worker in WORKS to be a candidate for spiritual life” (p. 245).
After her deprogramming, the author went to a rehab for former members for further debriefing and a chance to recover from the intense intervention session. The rehab at the time functioned as a supportive respite where a former member could unwind safely for a week or more while their emotionally exhausted family resumed their lives.
At the end of telling this story to her daughters, Barbosa describes how God revealed Himself as not a “what” but a “WHO,” or a personal savior, as God (“I Am WHO I Am”) revealed Himself to Moses in Exodus 3:14 (p. 279). The title of the book, I Am Revealed, therefore functions both as a sacred pun and the theme of the story about one mother who had the courage to reveal her dark past to two daughters who, as a reward, in effect brought her to a clearer grasp of God in her life.
The ending of the book complements the opening, unnumbered page before the author’s Dedication to her supportive husband:
I AM: The Beginning.
Deuteronomy 29:29: The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us; and to our children forever . . .
Overriding Barbosa’s intent to educate readers about the potential damage to spiritual growth from life in a constrictive cult, I AM Revealed remains a testament to the rewards of opening up to and trusting in the people who matter to us.
