‘I Grew up in Apocalyptic Sex Cult, Just Like Rose McGowan’

A new memoir details growing up and life inside the Children of God church, the same apocalyptic cult that Rose McGowan, River Phoenix and Joaquin Phoenix were raised in.

The book is called Apocalypse Child: A Life in End Times, and it will be available on Tuesday, March 13. The author, Flor Edwards, grew up within the cult from the time of her birth until she was nearly 13 years old. She wrote about day-to-day life inside the insular organization, her stilted perception of the outside world and the struggle to re-orient to normal life.

The cult was led by “Father” David Berg, though Edwards told the New York Post that she never met him. Nor did her parents, who joined the cult as it picked up momentum throughout the 70s and met within its social structure. Berg claimed to be the mouthpiece of God. He moved his thousands of followers around the world, positioning them for the apocalypse he was sure was coming in the year 1993. He told them that the world would end and they would be the last line of defense against the army of the Antichrist.

Living in compounds around Thailand, Edwards said that she had lived in 24 homes by the time she was 12 years old. From her earliest memories, she was taught that 12 was as old as she was destined to get.

“12 was as long as I was supposed to live,” she said.

The Children of God’s belief system emphasized communal living and the sacrifice of all material belongings. Edwards said that she and the many other children were constantly preparing for death. “Death was heavy on my mind,” she said. “I’d think about it constantly… and imagine my future in heaven. I’d think about [how] I’d never become a woman.”

The cult was made up of mostly American hippies, who had channeled their hyper-educated disenfranchisement into Berg’s charismatic beliefs. “It started out very innocent. A bunch of young hippies joining together… and trying to do good things,” Edwards said.

Berg himself lived in seclusion, outside of the compounds he placed his followers in, where as many as 50 people could share a small house.

“He was this obscure image that we had in our minds. I never saw him, my parents never met him,” Edwards said of Father David. “He was very much like a monarch. I remember being scared that if I said anything against him it would be blasphemous.”

Edwards also confirmed the stories of polyamory, group sex and even molestation and sexual abuse of children within the group. She said that her tight-knit family protected her from much of the horror, but she was still exposed to sex from the beginning of her memory.

“I am fully aware that all the adults are inside engaging in sexual congregation,” writes Edwards of one of her earliest memories, from age 3. “I don’t know how I know, but I’m certain an orgy is taking place inside.”

While Edwards wasn’t abused, she says that she took part in the “flirty fishing” the group was known for, where women and girls were sent out to tantalize men into joining the church. She recalls going out to sing to sailors with her mother and sisters at as young an age as nine.

“In unison, we gestured open palm to heart and then out to the audience of mostly men, as if to spread God’s love generously to anyone who was willing to receive it,” she writes. “Sometimes the sailors gifted us with souvenirs from their native lands, and we would accept them, allowing the men to wrap their arms around us and pull us in for a hug or a kiss on the cheek.”

The group’s rejection of material goods weighed on Edwards more than anything else. She remembers being sent to beg with the other children and feeling viscerally ashamed, even though it was the only value system she had ever known.

“I was never hungry but the food we ate was quite bland, as everything we got was for free and we didn’t have money for sugar or oil,” said Edwards. “I always felt embarrassed for having to ask for things for free.”

“There’s something inherently humiliating about needing something from another human being,” she went on, “especially when it was not your choice to be in that position.”

The children in the cult were technically “home-schooled,” though Edwards confessed that it wasn’t a very comprehensive program. She told the outlet that most of their days consisted of chores, baby-sitting, and marching drills, as they were expected to be the soldiers of god in only a few years when the apocalypse finally came.

Occasionally, they received lessons in geography and math, and they often read and recited portions of the King James Bible. Other than that, outside books, movies and music were not allowed.
“It was an off-the-grid existence,” she said. “And we weren’t allowed to be children.”

She also spoke frankly about the physical punishments they endured, noting all along that she was spared the worst of it.

One day, “I was told after lunch that I was scheduled for a date with Uncle Paul at 2 p.m. to receive the dreaded board,” Edwards writes, remembering her punishment for a perceived infraction she can’t even recall. According to her description of the cult, it could have been for something as simple as laughing at the “wrong” time.

“Each of the seven strikes sent me into a deeper state of delirium. ‘Please stop,’ I begged,” she continued.

Any level of normalcy and adjustment Edwards has managed, she credits to her parents. She wrote that they guarded their 12 children from the cult’s more grim practices, though they were steadfast believers in Father David’s power.

“Personally, I always felt safe and protected by my parents,” she said. She added that her family usually all shared one bedroom. “Some kids got it a lot worse than me. Some kids were abused, some kids were sexually abused.”

When there was no apocalypse in 1993, Father David announced that the Children of God had been granted an “extension” on their deadline. However, the massive worldwide cult became restless, and in 1994, David Berg passed away. Edwards says that members began leaving in droves, and “the group started to disintegrate.” That same year, the Edwards family was among the many cult members commanded to return to the United States.

Edwards recalled seeing a water fountain for the first time at the airport.

“My brother was there, touching the button, and the water was coming out in an arch,” she said. “All of us crowded around it because we had seen nothing like it before… the fact that this clean water was coming out of this spout was amazing.”

The family first settled in Chicago, then moved to California, where Edwards and her sisters began begging to go to school and leave the church.

“We wanted to go to school,” she said. Many children reportedly lobbied their parents to leave, but “a lot of parents stayed in the group and said, ‘You’re on your own.’ My parents did what was best for us — take us all out, and stay a family. They left the group for us.”

Edwards said she had a tumultuous adjustment to mainstream life. She partied, drank alcohol throughout high school, but ultimately built a positive life for herself. She is now a writer and educator at a community college, and she coaches underprivileged kids in the Los Angeles area. She revealed that her father also finished his colleged degree and now works as a tenured college professor, and she remains close with her family. She also said that they both “loved” her book.

Edwards admitted that she had never met Rose McGowan or the Phoenix brothers within the massive cult network, though she met the Phoenix patriarch, John Bottom. She said that she ran into him in Costa Rica, where she did a stint as a yoga instructor.

“We shared memories of the Children of God and he told me he tried to write a book,” she said. “Then he looked at me in a [funny] way and said: ‘The book has not yet been written.’ I took that as meaning I was supposed to do it.”

“My childhood was taken away from me,” Edwards declared. She said that, to her, the world is “an intense place.” But, she added, “because the world was always a mystery to me, I want to understand it.” She doesn’t hold a grudge against her parents for raising her in a cult, either.

“I read memoirs and there’s always really horrible parents who beat and abuse the children,” said Edwards. “Mine didn’t do that. They just made one big mistake — joining the church.”