The Link to the article in French Marie Claire has disappeared. If you’re truly interested in this information please reach out to me directly.
RJ Testerman and his group, the Welcomed Consensus, have been operating in San Francisco and Northern California for decades. When I first realized the truth about RJ and the impact his abuse had on my life I was still too close to all of it to understand. I couldn’t see the bigger picture, the context of what had happened to the group that I had believed in so furiously most of my adult life. Once I learned that cults, pimps, and pedophiles all use the same techniques, it made more sense.
Education is the only defense against groups like the Welcomed Consensus. Check out my previous posts about how RJ’s group recruits and how they influence those already indoctrinated. The Welcomed Consensus likes to say that in order to have a better sex life you have to talk about it before, during, and after. Although this may be true, there are many things RJ and the Welcomed Consensus DO NOT talk about, before, or during, any experience with them.
If you’ve never been in a high demand group you might wonder why people stay. Why don’t they just leave? This is an attempt to shine some light on how it happens and how it might finally end.
Stuck
There are many reasons people decide to leave or stay in a cult. The obstacles to leaving can seem insurmountable because your life has become so intertwined with the group. Even if someone has lost faith in the leader of a community, their love for other members can keep them frozen in fear of loss.
Most people think about leaving for a long time (sometimes years) before they take the final leap and make the break. It is difficult for outside friends and family who love someone embroiled in a cult to understand the changes in their loved ones, how to help them get free, or how to help them recover from the experience. The following is a summary of what I have learned. I hope it’s useful.
Why It’s Hard to Leave
This list is copied from Margaret Singers seminal book, Cults in our Midst:
When a person is taken in by coercive psychological and social influence of a cult, she or he experiences what I (Singer) call the five D’s.
1. Deception, in the recruitment process and throughout membership
2. Debilitation, because the hours, the degree of commitment, the psychological pressures, and the inner constriction and strife
3. Dependency, as a result of being cut off from the outside world in many ways
4. Dread, because of beliefs instilled by the cult that a person who leaves will find no real life on the outside
5. Desensitization, so that things that would have once-troubled them no longer do (for example, learning that money collected from fund-raising is supporting the leader’s lavish lifestyle rather than the cause for which it was given, or seeing children badly abused, or even killed)
More in the Way of Leaving
The following are more ways for cults to keep members from finding a their way out:Singer’s 5d’s, and more, work together to keep people in a cult and away from realizing a way out.
Belief
Belief is a whopper. The Welcomed Consensus demands from first contact that you accept their doctrine and their stylized definitions of common words. From the early stages of the recruitment process, all expressed beliefs are being translated into their language. We all want to believe in something bigger than ourselves, something meaningful, and the Welcomed Consensus provides a sexy, compelling version. Belief in the people and the group helps you to go along with things, even if the proposed doctrine seems unclear. Gradually you make changes and take on beliefs to be accepted and be part of what, on the surface, appears to be a fun group. This influence over the initiates’ thoughts and actions is built slowly and is not entirely perceived by the initiate, or ever admitted by the perpetrators.
Decency and Loyalty
Most people are decent and loyal and don’t want to be quitters. Once committed to the “family” and often in love with at least one other person living at Joost or at the Ranch, it is hard to back out. We all want to feel good about what we have committed to. The supposedly “altruistic” food/clothing/vehicle program, Free the Need, enhances the front of decency. . The idea that the group is giving away surplus to those in need helps people emotionally bypass some of the more demanding directives of the Welcomed Consensus. It also helps to smooth the transition into relying on Free the Need themselves.
Singer points out that we tell ourselves, “Well, I said I was going to do this, and I was told it was going to be hard. Now some of this doesn’t seem right to me, but I said I would go along with it and I made a commitment. I’ll stay a little longer.” No one wants to be a quitter or feel unsuccessful in their choices.
Authority Figures
RJ Testerman is the leader and ultimate authority figure of the Welcomed Consensus. Social worth and status is directly related to how much you are “in agreement” with RJ’s point of view. The language used by the Welcomed Consensus includes words of ridicule and denigration to discourage questions or doubts. As in many cults, any doubts are regarded as a reflection of your resistant nature, lack of enlightenment, or unwillingness to be fun.
We are raised to believe in authority figures and to adapt to our environments. When our environment (finances, work, free time, social circle, sex, information access) is controlled, we adapt to survive. It is easier and more fruitful in a cult to follow along than to be accused of “resisting”, to be shunned, or to be ostracized.. The closed logic of the group reaffirms itself constantly with a good dose of peer pressure. Your sex life and friendships depend on you being “in agreement” with the authority of the Welcomed Consensus.
Peer pressure and Lack of Information
RJ’s daughters, Ginger and Mallie, run the house in San Francisco. Although they are puppets for the edicts coming down from ”the Ranch”, they also benefit financially from their leadership. They control the peer pressure and dissemination of information in the main recruiting group in SF. They are also used to propagate myth and disinformation about the origin of the group, what is really going on with the leadership, and the back-stories of people who have come and gone.
In the Welcomed Consensus courses, you are told right away that you are part of the elite, that you are better than others, because you are willing to look at your sex life. It feels good to be superior and more enlightened, more loving than everyone else in the world. This is also Sales 101, flattery will get you somewhere. It’s easier to believe and go along when everyone around you believes the same thing.
The numbers of “students” in the Welcomed Consensus courses are distorted and usually padded with people who live in one of the houses. Shills are commonly used in courses and social gatherings to give the group a look of normalcy. Dennis and I were used in this way many times. RJ’s reputation and history is embellished and his and the group’s influence exaggerated–a common trait in cults and narcissistic leaders. This is to make the group seem larger and more important than it really is. Most of the group members aren’t aware of who is who, or how everyone came to be in the course/group.
Exhaustion and Confusion
The constant demands on members’ time and social lives helps to create confusion and exhaustion. Once you move into a Welcomed Consensus house, you are expected to put the group above all other people and interests. There is no time off or vacation from the group. Some of the people in the community can seem like they are out of touch with the physical world, or have veiled eyes. This is partly from exhaustion and partly from the constant DOing.
Once someone is locked into the pace of the group there is no time to think, or ability to think straight, or opportunity for different points of view. If you add on the constant grasping for pleasure and orgasm, there is no time for quiet reflection or investment in outside interests. This quickly becomes addictive.“DOing” is social capital. The more you are DOne or DOing, the more respect and positive attention you will produce in the group. This adds another layer of confusion, physically and mentally.
Separation from the Past
The disintegration of friendships, family relationships, and sometimes even your name and career, makes it logistically hard to leave. The longer you are part of the Welcomed Consensus community, the more you have given up to the group, and the scarier it is to try and reverse direction. Inside the W.C. houses, your entire universe becomes the people you live with, to the point where you forget your past, who you were, as well as any previous goals. Even more commonly with the Welcomed Consensus, your past is reworked to fit their belief system and confirm their doctrine. After a while, the ability to communicate with “outside” people atrophies and it feels unbearable to function outside the protected world created by the Welcomed Consensus and their followers. RJ uses this discomfort to reinforce how awful it is “out there”, and how only community members are “right”.
Even if the thought of leaving is entertained, who is going to take you in and care for you until you get back on your feet? How do you explain the missing 1-5-10-15 or more year gap in your work history? Any person voicing thoughts of leaving will be pushed out hard and fast and usually results in the doubter grasping to get back into “agreement” and back into the community. Most of the members of the community are broke and have nothing but the second-hand clothes from Free the Need on their backs. Only people who live at Joost generate income and have jobs.
Finally, it’s hard to leave when you have to denounce what you have been doing so single-mindedly for months, years, or decades. It is even harder when you have nowhere to go and no money. The worst is to have to ask for help from those you have been defending your lifestyle to, the family and friends you abandon for the Welcomed Consensus.
Fear
It is always scary to make a big life change, regardless of the circumstances. After having been conditioned to believe that everyone on the outside is having a meaningless life, bad sex, and a generally miserable experience, it is difficult to imagine how you would get by. Having heard stories of people who leave the Welcomed Consensus community, it is certain you will never be happy again, or enlightened, or “get off” well.
Your superiority for choosing this life is consistently reinforced in the Welcomed Consensus’s “courses” and social groups. In leaving, you become just another mundane pleasure-resisting human. If you have witnessed someone leaving the community this adds to all the other fears. Once your doubt is voiced you are literally removed at once. The person may live with someone in the surrounding community for a while. Dennis and I took in members who had “blown out”. This meant it was just too much fun and you couldn’t hack it. Your things will be put in black bags and sent on later.
Supposedly, this hasty departure is good for you because it makes it possible for you to “bounce” (hit bottom) and come back sooner. It also serves RJ and the Welcomed Consensus because they don’t have to answer any questions or even pretend that you have any reason to be unhappy or unfulfilled. It is your fault for not being willing to have that much fun. You decided to go, they were just helping you, loving you. How hard they “push” you also depends on how many resources you have and what they feel they could still access at a later point. The uglier and broker you are, the harder the push.
Shame and Guilt
Being out of the group brings shame and guilt. The influence of the cult creates a forced dependence. By being told what, where, when, and with whom to do things, people become dependent on the group for social and family needs, a good self image, and even survival. This regression leaves you like a child, unable to believe that you can function without the group and good will of the leadership.
Worse, though, is having to make amends to those you’ve rejected. If you’ve realized the truth about RJ Testerman and the Welcomed Consensus, then you have realized your complicity. Not only in recruiting friends and family, but also in helping to deceive others who come around the group. I have been in contact with many survivors of Welcomed Consensus most have expressed shame and guilt, mostly for being duped but also for the sexual intimacy they had shared with the leadership and others in the house and in courses.
Regardless
All of these factors combine to make it difficult for a person to give up the commitment to the cult, while the environment of intense peer pressure can make it practically impossible. Still, most people do end up leaving. Many people have lived with the Welcomed Consensus and have left. Very few continue to take courses and support the community after moving out, while only a small percentage of those who have left maintain any contact with the group at all.
3 Most Common Ways of Leaving
First, there is burn out. People just become too tired and disillusioned. Too many rules and glaring contradictions. A particular incident can be the catalyst that sparks the move, but chances are it’s been building. The Welcomed Consensus says they are living a pleasurable life in a deliberate community, but the burn out is high and is part of what has kept the group so small. These people are known as walkaways.
Second, people are thrown out. RJ and the Welcomed Consensus say they never refuse anyone or throw anyone out. What really happens is there is a house meeting where someone will be sacrificed in front of the rest of the group. The “house meeting” is always a group therapy session with a plan of action laid out by RJ and his women. Any doubts and “resistance” will be called out, usually by RJ, but reinforced by everyone else. If there is dissent in the group, the person least connected and with the least resources, will be pushed out. I’ve heard RJ refer to/brag about this more than once. It is a deliberate way to trim the fat off the group and to get everyone else to straighten up. These people are known as castaways.
Third, is intervention. Family and friends intervene with exit counselors and ex-cult members to give the cult member an opportunity to rethink their commitment and re-evaluate their membership. Leaving the cult can be the most difficult thing someone ever does, especially if it is done alone. It can take years to recover from this experience and see it clearly for what it was. Without the support of family and friends, it may never happen.
Some Never Leave
If the person leaving has resources the Welcomed Consensus still wants, they will be monitored and surrounded by trusted community members. Without an intervention, exit counseling, or a sober look at what the group is really doing , the effects of being involved with Welcomed Consensus can take a long time to wear off, if ever.
Aftermath
Adjusting after leaving is a whole other phase of a cult experience. Singer describes it as peeling off the outer layer of identity from the cult–the process of recovering one’s self and value system–discarding the unwanted conditioning while holding onto the learning that was beneficial.
The table below describes the major areas of adjustment someone goes through when they leave a cult like the Welcomed Consensus. This is not a linear process or as orderly as the chart may seem. Like life, it is multi-level and multi-dimensional. Not all former members go through all of the below, or experience all in a severe or extended form. Singer suggests that it takes 6 to 24 months for ex-members to get their lives functioning again. That is the external experience. Internally, it can take years to sort out the conflict and harm from the group.
Major Areas of Post Cult Adjustment
Table 12.1 from Cults in our Midst; The Hidden Menace in our Everyday Lives, by Margaret Singer
Staying Safe
Systems of control exist in all walks of life, families, relationships, and communities. Some systems are more harmful than others. The chart in my previous post lays out the difference succinctly. The system employed by RJ and the Welcomed Consensus is common and born from the oldest profession. The one man that has the key, surrounded by women who do his bidding, is the world’s oldest business model. Protect yourself and your loved ones against these harmful individuals and groups by educating yourself and others.
Thanks for reading,
Christine
Good short article about the warning signs in a leader and group: “Cult leader personality traits; what to look for”
