Bexy Cameron was born into a notorious sex cult. From a young age, she knew it wasn't right.

Bexy Cameron was born into the Children of God, one of the world's most notorious cults. She was nine years old when she experienced her first exorcism, held in a secret commune deep in the British countryside. At 10, she was placed on Silence Restriction, forced to be silent for a whole year. 

Even from an early age, she knew what was happening was not right. At the age of 15, she escaped, leaving behind her parents and 11 siblings.

Haunted by her past, Bexy set off on a road trip across America, embedding herself in the underbelly of religious cults, living with children who, like her, are born into the worlds their parents and cult leaders have created for them.

The following is an extract from Bexy's memoir: Cult Following: My Escape and Return to the Children of God.

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This post deals with sexual abuse and might be triggering for some readers.

The office is small and dark, tiny windows barely allow natural light onto the numerous desks crammed into the space. When the adults work here, the florescent lights are always on. I keep them off. This is where I prefer to be. Out of the way. Alone. I sit on the beige carpet, papers spread out in front of me, my afternoon's work. I have worked in the office long enough for my parents to trust that I will 'just get on with it'. The paperwork is simple: Collate. Staple. File. Every day is the same.

The only thing that has changed since Maria has gone is that my parents have made a new outside friend, someone we would call 'A Big Fish' or 'A King'. He has said that he will help our home record some of our family music using his equipment, so every now and then me and two other girls go with him to sing our family songs on tape. Short breaks out of the house. Short breaks from this.

The work in the office is mundane. And it doesn't take long for me to get distracted. But I know I can make up the time if I need to. The office has computers, a phone, the fax and piles and piles of papers in filing cabinets. I open the top cabinet; the smell of ink and toner is not unpleasant as I run my finger across the different coloured cardboard dividers. The second cabinet clatters open when I pull its silver handle, there are a few folders lined up. My finger stops on a dark blue leather folder with a label that says 'Press Clippings'. It's clear that someone has taken some time and care with this. I sit on the floor behind a desk, hidden from the door, should anyone use it.

I thumb open the leather folder and flip through the first few pages without pausing; every page has cut-outs of news articles stuck onto it. Pieces of see-through tape hold through their history of us. As I flick through, I realise there are hundreds. Sometimes three or four stuck on a single page, sometimes there are articles so long, they are cut up over a few pages.

Big bold black titles shout at me from grey backgrounds:

'Sex Cult in Tiny Village'
'Crazed Cult Leader Abuses Children'
'Orgies and Prostitution for Christ'

Black-and-white photos accompany the articles. Many of them are of my parents. I look at my mum and dad's faces, smiling in different places in the house, sometimes outside; their 'worldly' haircuts, blazers, my dad's 'prop' moustache, my mum's wide smile.

My dad's face sits next to text that reads:

The group's leader is 41-year-old former fireman Gideon Scott, self-styled 'House Shepherd' of the British branch of the Children of God, which shares the same leader, David Berg. Mr Scott, whose wife Rachel is a psychologist, has 11 children. He said yesterday: 'We have nothing to hide. We threw open the house in accordance with what Jesus has said.'

Mum's not a psychologist, is she? I know she went to university, but I thought she dropped out. Maybe it sounds better to say she is one. My dad goes on in the article:

'We are a normal Christian group, and there are many millions of Christians whose beliefs are as real and as full as ours. We allow free love between consenting adults and our children can have sex if they are over 16, but not with mature adults. I don't believe in contraception, I suppose that's why I have 11 kids – and as far as I know, they are all mine.'

I flip the pages onto an article titled 'Hookers for Jesus':

Soon after the cult's inception it moved to Britain, where the practice of attracting new recruits by seduction earned its proselytisers the name 'Hookers for Jesus'. The cult was accused of kidnapping and brainwashing young people, denying them contact with their families while they were indoctrinated. More recently, it has been associated with allegations of sexual abuse, and several state authorities in Australia had begun to investigate.

Image: Supplied.

'Brainwashing,' I mouth the word. It's interesting, my parents talk about it all the time. How do you wash a brain? Mine feels full, too full, not clean and washed. My finger pauses on an article describing the kids during the raids. A scene I have imagined so many times.

The police commissioner in charge of the operation was taken aback by the children's condition. 'They seemed like Martians, autistic,' he said. 'They were living in compartmented cells and answered questions like automatons. Whenever one of them tried to say something, another would look at him and he would fall silent, terrified.'

I start to imagine what we do look like from the outside; I think about how we police ourselves, and each other, even the kids. It's how it has always been. Do we really come across as autistic martians in comparison to kids 'out there', the kids outside the gate for example, who are given free money and spend their time shouting at us? Are we robotic versions of those children?

The shutters have flown up; I have been given a peek through a window from their world into ours; it's in black and white in front of me. How they see us. My finger follows lines and lines of memorised answers in print on the page: 'no abuse', 'never happened', 'happy lives'.

The black-and-white words that my parents spoke, words that I have been so proud of them for, for their quickness, their wit, their razor-sharp answers. I was so proud that they were chosen to protect our generation of kids. Even when I knew they were lying, they had lied to protect us.

They were protecting us, right?

I can't put the book down, I can't stop my finger racing through the articles, each one revealing more. I speed through a journalist talking about confiscated videos with sexual content: 'There are amateur videos said to be taken by members of a religious sect that calls itself the Family of Love. The video tapes, shown by television stations in Argentina, depict nude girls, some no older than eight, dancing in provocative poses. Officials in Argentina say pornographic videos and literature were confiscated in raids on seven homes run by the sect. Court sources say some of the tapes depict sex between children and adults, one between a father and daughter.'

I didn't know that they confiscated anything in the raids. My parents hadn't told us anything about this. But, as I read, a memory rushes front and centre from South Africa, of me as a five-year-old watching these films that had been made for Moses David by the young girls. We were told they were beautiful, expressions of love. I remember the day some of the Aunties and young girls filmed them in our home. We weren't allowed to walk past a certain window, in case we were 'in the background'. I could hear the music playing loud from the room that the camera was set up in. Me and Joel found a spot to watch. I could just about see their outlines through the net curtains. They stripped off their clothes erotically, slowly, gyrating to the music. Joel and I mimicked the dancing from our hidden spot, rubbing ourselves mockingly and laughing silently.

Image: Supplied.

The title on the next page reads:

DAVID BERG ABUSES HIS OWN GRANDDAUGHTER.

'His granddaughter has accused him of starting sexual practices with her when she was five...'

I have lived every day of my breathing life in this group and even for me, with my knowledge from the inside of this world, to read this feels shocking. It's not news to me, but I am reading it in a new way. Like seeing your face reflected in a mirror from behind, your features are reversed. You have seen your face one way your whole life, and now you look at it and you don't recognise it, everything seems to slip off sideways. I had read Moses David's writings about his sexual fantasies with his granddaughter Mene, but somehow this knowledge just faded into the full tapestry of what we experienced and were taught. Just a small part of it. It didn't even stand out. Now these words leap off the page and I feel a little sick, sick that it only registers as truly messed up when I read it in this dim, beige office from a book of clippings.

I turn the page again. My hand shakes, wondering what I'll see on the other side. My sharp intake of breath cuts through the dim room. A photo screams from the centre. It's a few years old, black and white and grainy, but it's definitely me. I touch the edge of it and a grey smudge appears on my finger-tip, revealing just how real it is, so real it leaps off the page and puts a mark on me. It was taken on the day we went to London for the demonstrations. I stand outside the Argentine Embassy, wearing that denim jacket they gave me that I loved so much, my childish face contorted from shouting with raw enthusiasm.

I didn't realise that I looked like that. My hair flies out of its ponytail, frizz frames my face. I look so much smaller than the people around me. Smaller than I imagined. I look like a child. I didn't feel like one on the day that this was taken – I felt grown-up, I've felt like an adult for years. I don't recognise myself.

The headline reads, 'CHILDREN OF GOD FIGHT BACK'.

In my tiny, outstretched arms, like a shepherd's staff, is a placard painted with large words by my amateur brush.

It reads, 'Let our Children Go'.

Image: Supplied.

This is an extract from Cult Following by Bexy Cameron. RRP $29.99. Published by Allen & Unwin, on sale now.

If this post brings up any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service. It doesn’t matter where you live, they will take your call and, if need be, refer you to a service closer to home. 

Feature Image: Supplied.