1. Life In A Religious Cult
By: Awesome 20
It was a hot and sunny day in Florida. I was sitting in my little
bedroom next to the religious cult, meeting place. My parents are
members of a religious cult and use the basement of the house as a
meeting place. Our house was small, my bedroom only had one
window and I was pouring down sweat because there wasn’t any
breeze around.
Being in a religious cult is my family’s tradition. Everyone
wanted it to stay that way except for me Elijah Aayan. This is
probably because I was adopted and put into this family the day
after my 6th birthday and soon became a member of the cult.
Before I was adopted I had a regular life and also went to a
regular school but now I am home schooled. I miss my old school
very much and I also feel I am missing out on good quality
education.
I used to have so much fun learning and playing before but
here everything was very different. Everyday was the same and
very boring. Our daily routines were always the same on everyday
of the week except for Thursday. I first had my breakfast, then read
my book and started some basic learning for example learning
nouns and verbs. Then after the learning we would have a religious
cult meeting or a ceremony with all of the members. The meetings
were everyday and lasted about one and a half hours. After that I
would read until dinner because we were not allowed to go outside.
Every once in a while, one of my parents would come out of a
discussion with other religious cult members and would come in my
bedroom and look what I was reading or doing. This was because I
was also not allowed to know anything about the world outside the
religious cult and therefore my parents would not allow me to read
newspapers, watch T.V, use the Internet or listen to the radio.
There are only 5 children in the cult, Benedict, Bethel, Abigail,
Eleazar and me. None of us got along well except for Benedict and
me. This is a problem because we couldn’t choose friends from
outside our cult. As far as I know none of them have been outside
before. I wanted to change that though.
Every Thursday was our so-called lucky day. We were allowed
to go outside our rented house but our parents still followed us and
that gave us no privacy. It all started on Thursday, May the 15th
when I wasn’t bothered to go outside because I had something
stuck in my mind and I just went out to the balcony with my only
friend Benedict. He was an intelligent boy and had similar ideas to

2. me, he wanted everyone to be more friendly and interactive with
each other in the world. There was no privacy on the balcony too
because our parents always had an eye on us and also could hear
us. Instead of stopping the conversation like we usually do, we
continued because we were determined to change our situation and
also try to help the other poor children that are stuck in religious
cults and having their rights denied without themselves even
knowing it. We decided we had to speak with our parents and tell
them what we were thinking and why.
After my meeting with Benedict I told my parents I had
something important to discuss. I explained why I thought that it
was really unfair to be forced to be a member of a religious cult and
how stopping religious cults would do all of us good in many
different types of ways. I also explained that I thought that I was
being denied my human rights including my right to a good
education, my right to choose my own friends, my right to privacy,
my right to access information and my right to have the freedom to
choose to follow any religion. It didn’t matter how many times I
said it but my parents still didn’t agree. The days went on and on
with the same routine…
A few years later when I was thirteen my dream really
started. All of the children in the cult were getting more mature and
we were starting to become friends. As we became friends I started
to tell the others about the discussion Benedict and me had a few
years ago and how we wanted to help the children that were having
their rights denied because of religious cults. Surprisingly they all
agreed to what I said and wanted to start a group to help people
talk about religious cults. We were not trying to ban religious cults
or ruin family traditions but wanted to make religious cults more
interactive with the world around and give them a wider education
about the world. My parents finally gave up and agreed with my
idea, which was surprising too.
The group got more and more popular around our country
and soon we got about 40 religious cults around the U.S to be
members. This group helped quite a few people to think about how
to stop the denial of other people’s rights. I was really happy and
proud that I achieved my dream, made a difference to the world
and made less people suffer with the denial of their human rights.