A resident of the village of Novosadovoye in the Belgorod Region, a former test pilot Eduard Sergeevich Kuznetsov, 15 years ago, his wife became an adherent of the Jehovah's Witnesses church. At that time, the family lived in Kharkov, where there are a lot of similar organizations. A woman was brought to the Jehovah's Witnesses by her own sister.
Sister Lyudmila Kuznetsova spoke enthusiastically about the sermons of the pastors and their high moral qualities, and very often told her relative that her life had acquired a new meaning. She tried to do all this while her sister's husband was not at home. Lyudmila, apparently, suffered from a lack of communication with her husband, who spent a lot of time at work, and reached out to her sister and her co-religionists
Becoming members of the sect, the sisters walked the streets with sermons all their free time, disappeared at meetings, and gradually completely moved away from their relatives.
The husband of the newly made Jehovist at first did not know what she was doing, and when Lyudmila admitted that she attended meetings of the Jehovist community, he was more or less loyal to his wife's hobby. Well, then, realizing that such a “hobby” would not lead to good, he began to make attempts to protect his wife from communicating with brothers in faith. It was in order to tear the woman out of the circle of old acquaintances that the family moved to Omsk, but even there Lyudmila found fellow believers.
Eduard Kuznetsov in front of the house he now shares with his ex-wife
Now you can’t pick out your wife with anything from there. Perhaps I missed it, the wife boasts that she joined the sect five years before I knew about it, and successfully hid her going to meetings. Most likely, this happened, because flight work requires a lot of effort and time, and behind all these worries I did not immediately notice changes in Lyudmila's behavior, - says Eduard Sergeevich.
When Eduard Kuznetsov retired, he and his family moved to the village of Novosadovoe near Belgorod. Here, too, it was not difficult for his wife to find a community of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Sectarians periodically began to visit the house of Eduard Kuznetsov. His wife received dear guests, despite the displeasure of her husband, who was irritated by constant talk "about the true faith." Jehovists began to come to their homes more often than their closest relatives. No matter what was discussed in conversations with preachers, the conversation always returned to the need to join their organization.
I told Jehovist, who often visited us, that I was not one of those people who could be persuaded. I myself flew and did not see anyone in the sky. I am an atheist and I was a communist in my time, - says Eduard Sergeevich.
His wife also zealously insisted that Eduard Sergeevich repent and "accept God in his heart" and was indignant after his categorical refusals. She began to devote even less time to her husband, and how could it be otherwise, when she had to attend meetings twice a week, and the rest of the time she wandered around the yards and streets and invited passers-by to the so-called Kingdom Hall.
As a result, unable to withstand the constant scandals, sidelong glances of his wife and pressure from her guests, Jehovah's Witnesses, who impose their beliefs on him, Eduard Sergeevich decided to get a divorce. But after the divorce, his life became completely unbearable.
I am being kicked out of the house. Ex-wife she constantly quarrels over the division of property, and her co-religionists constantly hustle in the house. Most of the time I live in a rented apartment in Kharkov. One day I came home and saw: one of the Jehovists and his wife were lying on the bed in the bedroom. The guest came out to meet me in just his shorts and with an impudent air declared that he would not go anywhere and would live here. It was possible to expel the "occupiers" only with the help of the police! - Eduard Sergeevich is indignant.
Grapes planted by own hands
But the main thing that the elderly man is worried about is not the jointly acquired property, which they now share through the courts, but their beloved children and grandchildren, whom the Jehovah's grandmother recruited into the sect.
Now the only way out is to exchange the house and live separately. I won’t save my wife, and now I don’t know what to do with children and grandchildren, ”says the clearly bewildered former pilot.
Jehovah's Witnesses, in turn, argue that the collapse of the Kuznetsov family has nothing to do with their religious organization. Yaroslav Sivulsky, a member of the steering committee for managing the center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, said that the situation that occurred in the Kuznetsov family is their family problems that have nothing to do with religion, and in general, the families of members of their religious organization are very strong and happy.
Yes, he is right, families in which all relatives are sectarians rarely break up, since they have one common main interest in life. Plus, there is a fear of rejection, - says Father Nikolai, rector of the church of St. Theodore from the city of Stary Oskol, author of a book about the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses. - If a sectarian husband leaves his wife, then other members of the sect will no longer maintain relations with him, and he remains completely alone, since sectarians communicate mainly only with their own. In the case when only one spouse is in the sect, they begin to put pressure on the other, forcing them to attend meetings. If he does not give in to persuasion, then the spouse, who is in a sect, begins to treat the "godless" very coolly, considering him a lost sheep.
If one of your loved ones joined a sect, then you don’t need to attack him with shouts and demands that he immediately stop going there or make fun of him and say that he is engaged in some kind of nonsense, Father Nikolai continues. that your loved one went through a certain experience of religious renewal, experienced feelings that he had never had before. The main mistake of relatives is that they begin to say that this is all nonsense, nonsense, you are a zombie, stop talking about religion, your brains are out of place. Like, go back to beer and football. And he answered "I have just the brains in place, I discovered the truth for myself." Attempts to return a person to the world from which he fled will be fruitless, he will only withdraw into himself, seeing that you do not want to understand him.
In these cases, you need to tell your loved one that it's great that he turned to faith, and, for example, stopped drinking, smoking, cursing. But at the same time, you need to talk about the fact that this sect is known for very sad cases, and talk about the negative consequences of visiting such institutions. You need to do this extremely calmly, do not break into screams and do not look at your loved one as if you are insane. In no case do not insult, calling a sectarian or other offensive words. Start the conversation with the following words: "Maybe you are wrong? How can you entrust your soul to people and an organization about which you know almost nothing"?
As for the arguments specifically against Jehovah's Witnesses, here it is necessary to point out obvious inconsistencies in their teaching. Why, for example, do they claim that their teaching is the most correct? Christ lived 2000 years ago and at the same time his apostles created a church that still exists, and Jehovah's Witnesses declare that their teaching is true, despite the fact that it was created at the end of the 19th century in America, but those apostles who learned the truth 2000 years ago from Christ himself and created the church, you see, they made a mistake.
On the territory of the Belgorod region, there is a law on missionary activity, according to which missionaries can talk with Belgorod residents on religious topics and invite them to meetings only "in religious buildings and in territories related to them and in dwellings with the permission of their inhabitants." But the sermon, for example, on the street or in the park must be previously agreed with the authorities. That is, before telling people about your religion, you need to submit an application to the administration and go out to preach only after this application is signed. Otherwise, the preacher faces a fine in the amount of five hundred to two thousand rubles.
In the first half of 2013 alone, we drew up 73 protocols against representatives of various religious movements illegally preaching in the region,” says Belgorod police officer Valery Fedosov, senior commissioner of the group for countering religious extremism. - Therefore, the sectarians are afraid to openly conduct their propaganda on the street. In other areas, it is impossible to attract someone for preaching in the streets, well, unless they are distributing literature that is recognized as extremist. Therefore, the residents of these regions need to apply with a legislative initiative to the regional legislative bodies and seek the adoption of a similar law.
The regional law on missionary activity, which allows law enforcement officers to somehow influence the "messengers of God", has borne fruit - extremely intrusive preachers are becoming less and less common on the streets of Belgorod and the region. But it is not possible to completely get rid of the negative influence of sects.
There are several reasons for this. Firstly, a large number of totalitarian sects in neighboring states, where such organizations are more than loyal. Thus, "saviors of mankind" from Korea and Kazakhstan operate in the eastern part of Russia, and Ukrainian preachers travel to the southwest of our country. In Kharkov, neighboring Belgorod, there are several largest training centers for representatives of various religious organizations. Missionaries from American sects, brought up on Ukrainian soil, come to us after a course of study and create legal and illegal sectarian communities in Russia. It is rather difficult for the Belgorod law enforcement officers to fight such an influx of foreign religious figures.
Tatiana Grigorieva
I will share my story: Being married, I unexpectedly, unexpectedly fell in love with a sectarian, at first I did not know about this hobby of his. I don’t tend to fall in love without memory at all, I am a practical person, I have always been interested in the material side of a man, and I reacted calmly to beautiful men without any great sympathy. But then something out of the ordinary happened to me, I rushed to meet him at least at 6 in the morning, at least at 12 at night, while the material side did not bother me, and he was a rogue, rented a bed in a hostel, I was interrupted by odd jobs, I bought coffee and chocolates, on March 8, 1 flower. At first it was funny, for me he was like an unknown animal, some kind of caveman. He did not joke like others, he spoke in literary phrases, it was clear that he was a very well-read person, tall, handsome, did not drink, did not smoke, despite the fact that he lived in a hostel and worked as an electrician, he looked clean and tidy. It didn’t fit in my head that a man of normal appearance, hardworking, without bad habits is alone. I tried to get to know him better by asking questions. He said that he had lived with his wife for 7 years and she had thrown him, that her mother was more important to her than him, she wanted to give birth to a child from him, but he did not give her, said that the relationship was already bad and he did not want her went to her mother with a child, and he paid alimony for the rest of his life. It sounded strange to me. Then he lived with a girl with a child, the relationship ended there because of her mother, mother said either he or we. In general, although he asked me to divorce my husband and live with him, for some reason I couldn’t, as if something didn’t let me in, we often cursed and didn’t understand each other, when I cursed, I was shaking at night, I burned out from the inside, I often cried, and said to myself, if this is my fate, my man and we love each other, then why am I nervous and constantly roaring, because love should be warm and my soul should be good and I should not cry, I must trust him. And I constantly have doubts about his faith in God, about his love for me, it seemed to me that he would throw me at any moment. I didn’t understand why you can’t believe in God and at the same time earn money, I didn’t understand why you have to wander and go hitchhiking, at someone else’s expense, live in a tent, and not on your earnings, at least in a three-star hotel. I did not understand why he writes in his blog what has already been written in books by others. I didn’t understand why to live in a community when you can live in your own house with your family, I didn’t understand why you need to do something for people, help them, and not visit your mother and not want to maintain family ties. I did not understand his mission to save people when there is a war. He wanted to build a community in the mountains, he believed that this was the only way to survive in conditions of devastation and hunger. But at the same time, he does not have money to build a community, and this money should be given to him by people who want to be saved. I didn’t understand why I should live in a community, work hard there for the common good, when I can perfectly sit in my dacha and grow beds in conditions of hunger, and not work hard in the field. I did not understand his religion, his passion for meditation, why go to the astral plane. He told me how you were flying somewhere at great speed, I didn’t understand why I was flying somewhere, when I still didn’t fly far beyond my body. When we die, then we fly. To my questions, I received strange answers that were not logical for me. He said that he was going the hard way so as not to be reborn in the next life. I did not understand where the guarantee was that if I went with him on a difficult beggarly path, I would not be born in the next life. In general, during the year of our communication, I began to go crazy, I began to tell my friends, mother, sister about karma, about the harmfulness of meat-eating, about the fact that material values are not needed, you can’t take them with you to another world. Everyone told me that I was talking nonsense. My thoughts were confused, today I thought one thing, and the next day another. Nobody understood me, and I understood that I had no definite position. Probably, if I had not been married, I would already be in a sect and build a community. But my husband is an atheist, he doesn’t believe in anything, he eats meat and drinks beer, so I didn’t have the opportunity to completely give up meat and alcohol, too, and I noticed when I drink, I come to my senses. My friend told me so, don’t talk nonsense, drink better vodka and told how in one film the sectarians were going to jump off a cliff, so they were given vodka to drink so that they would come to their senses. My sectarian wanted me to leave my husband and we got married, and my mother told me: mark my words - you will give him all the money, sell the car and he will dump with this good to another country, and you will be left with nothing, without everything and without a husband. I didn’t particularly believe my mother, she had never seen him, but doubts were deposited in my head. And then the moment came when the husband found out about his lover and said not to come home anymore. The sectarian and I went to my sister’s apartment, to the bare walls of a new building, we wanted to make repairs and live there, there was very little money accumulated and he was not going to invest his money in my repairs. I gave him money, went to work, and he bought the cheapest sockets, boards, from which he was going to put together a bed. I tried to reassure myself and him that this is all temporary, we will do everything slowly, I will go to work. And at that moment, he directly shouted out: so go to work. To be honest, I was taken aback. Then he told me that I urgently needed to sell my car and buy it cheaper, otherwise we would do repairs for 5 years. He called my car for a million and a half trachoma, my seventh iPhone-shit phone. I remembered my mother's words that he would force me to sell everything and dump me with the money. He did incomprehensible things for me, I didn’t understand why bash the bed when you can buy it ready-made even for 5000 rubles. He hung ropes all over the room and dried the washed things, and he washed them with laundry soap in a bucket, since we didn’t have a bath or a washing machine, he walked barefoot on the concrete floor, and every five minutes he washed his feet in a bucket, so as not to stain the mattress on which we slept. Then he freaked out that the concrete walls are not his, his is India. In general, we lived in concrete walls for three days. I realized that I was not happy with him in poverty, as I imagined that I would no longer eat red fish and caviar, that I would not drink a glass of wine, instead of a jeep I would ride an ocean, that I would sleep on boards, and then he he will take me to beggarly India and throw me in the mountains if I say a word across to him. And in general, it turned out that we didn’t have any common topics for conversation and what we would do together, where should we go together, the community is not mine, we have a different god with him, he didn’t want children. In general, I ran away from him back to my husband. With my husband, I at least know what to do, we have a dacha, there are my beloved neighbors, friends, mother, there are holidays. And with a sectarian, I would have nothing. Then I began to be drawn to him again, as if he hypnotized me, I began to think, maybe I just broke down in such conditions, could not stand the difficulties. My husband flared up again, remembered the betrayal, kicked me out. I again tried to live with a sectarian, worked myself up, which means this is really fate and God wants me to save people. This time we did not go to the concrete walls, but went to the hotel. I did not like that I paid for the hotel, the sectarian said that he would give me the money later. There was a creaky bed in the hotel, a drunken girl screamed outside the window all night, in general, we didn’t get enough sleep, but we had to go to work, I endured all the hardships as best I could, but the sectarian was capricious that everything was not for him, the pillow was not the right one for him, the bed creaks , as if he had slept on royal featherbeds all his life. And I noticed, as soon as he felt that I was his, and not someone else's wife, he began to order me, said do what I say and began to freak out, raise his voice. I ran away to my husband again. But still, the thought did not leave me that maybe the sectarian didn’t want anything bad, just a little crazy. I tried to believe that he could predict something, that he could heal people, that he could be so sensitive, hate lies and feel them. He told me that my husband was cheating on me, that he did not love me, but simply used my body for supporting me. But the last straw was that he said that I was a slut, when I asked why, he said that I was sleeping with my foreman friend. And I realized that in front of me was a sick person who imagined himself a clairvoyant. I cut off all communication with him. And my husband wept bitterly that he loved me very much and in his thoughts he never had to change me. And tried for me, spared nothing for me. And at the same time he did not command, to do what he says. I read some forums about meditation, people wrote that they picked up some entity in the astral plane and only the church cured it. At the beginning of my acquaintance, I had a dream about a beautiful demon. Now I think that the angels tried to save me, they didn’t let me go to the sectarian, which made me constantly shaking at night and it was scary to leave my husband, and even in a situation where my husband no longer wanted to accept me again, I prayed to God, Jesus, Holy Mother of God, all saints. And my husband accepted me. I now know for sure that God exists.
About Torsunov's lectures. My husband gave me them to read, but he made a mistake and downloaded me a lecture about the duties of a husband (sorry, maybe I’m calling the name of the lecture incorrectly). I wanted to hear about the duties of a wife. I listened and there were a lot of questions for my husband. After all, between what I heard and saw at home, there was a big difference. The short answer was that I didn't want to change. It was not clear to me how a person listening to all this can continue to drink even with his son. I don’t understand how with a child, instead of taking a walk, he sits with him in front of the TV and plays computer games for 4.5 hours. How can you ask a person to change if he himself does not want to change. Maybe of course I misunderstood something in the lectures. On the contrary, I would be happy if a person followed what he reads. My father also read these lectures, he would also not mind if my son-in-law took on the role of husband and father. This is how my grandfather has to do it. They call themselves the public organization 'People of Steel'. It's just my opinion. By the age of 30, a person had questions about the meaning of life. I started looking for answers. And on this fertile ground they inflicted such a thing. I do not think that Torsunov or Vedas recommends taking loans with equipment, tying Christmas trees to the child's wrists (instead of medicines) when the child has a temperature of 39 for five days. Call everyone vegetables and subhumans. Each information interprets somewhat in its own way, but so much so. I am a family man and if it was done as intended. I would follow him. But outright nonsense. Sit to read, not work, play computer games. To my questions, what should the family eat? I was told that I lived for a week on buckwheat. It's just incredible. The husband has a trait, he quickly lights up some ideas, tries, and if it doesn’t work out, then he throws everything. I realized that all this applies to the family. He and I got married. He was 22 years old, and I was 25. He was under the supervision of his parents, and as I now understand, he just had to escape from surveillance. And the role of responsibility to the family, which we created, he tried, it turned out to be difficult. I do not relieve myself of any responsibility, because both are involved in the relationship. Therefore, I also bear the burden of the whole situation. but as I think, we must love each other and everything can be overcome. And I came to a disappointing conclusion for myself. It's just that I, and then my son, were just a flash in his life. And he doesn't love anyone. He destroys everything around him and now he has other values. Although for whom. He thinks he's growing. But we, this is a second matter. The child should not suffer.
Everything is clear here, a person said one thing, but did it differently, apparently he didn’t have enough strength ... Or he deceived himself, passing off wishful thinking.
According to Torsunov, now you must try with all your might to get him out of this with the right behavior and mood, and try to save the family.
Do you have the strength and desire for this - I don’t know ... But I believe that in this situation it would be difficult and difficult for everyone.
It's easier to leave and run away... Maybe even right, especially considering the world we live in... At least you will be understood and supported....
He was always interested in various esoteric, spiritual practices, teachings and philosophies. Some pamphlets about search and faith were scattered around the house, and in his headphones, phrases from esoteric audiobooks that were already familiar to her sounded. From time to time, he disappeared at meetings of either seekers, or meditators, or some other people she did not understand. She didn’t even immediately tell her friends about his interests, once hinted - she immediately received a bewildered look in response and a diagnosis: “Yes, he’s a real sectarian!”
“But why a sectarian right away? She mentally defended him. - They showed a report on TV about such people, they are quite strange there, they give away apartments, go to live in their sects. No, he's not like that."
When they met, he immediately told her: “My faith will always come first, and you will come second. Do you accept it?" She nodded her head approvingly, because his hobbies seemed interesting and unusual: this is not some kind of football or fishing for you! He said that most of all he liked her quiet and soft voice. It also seemed strange and mysterious to her.
He always spoke with such enthusiasm about some newly found idea that she herself involuntarily began to believe in his words. Sometimes for some reason it even became a little scary and creepy, but he spoke so confidently about the structure of the world, the matrix, God, illusions and other things that she didn’t quite understand, that she got the feeling that he knew and understood everything - and fear gave way to confidential calmness.
However, his enthusiasm did not last long. After some time, he abandoned the found idea, somehow closed himself in and disappeared for whole nights on the net. In the morning he barely woke up for work, absently wandered around the apartment, trying to find the keys, then cigarettes, then the phone. After he left, she found a cup of half-drunk coffee on the table and an open pack of headache pills. When she tried to drag him somewhere to unwind, he said that he did not want anything and that it was a waste of time.
At such moments, she did not understand him at all: well, he was tired of another society of believers, what now - life is over? They even fought over it. She was indignant that he completely stopped paying attention to her, and he dismissed that she did not understand anything and left in an unknown direction, taking his favorite headphones with him.
She began to worry seriously after he refused a new, higher-paid position. He explained his refusal by the fact that he would have to devote too much time to work and he would not have time for his spiritual practices. He didn't even think about her!
She already forgot the last time they spent time together. All her attempts to arrange a romantic dinner and impress her husband with new underwear failed: he either did not notice her at all, or started talking about the meaninglessness of life. She no longer found anything interesting in his conversations. He began to seem more and more alien and distant, she no longer knew if he loved her. Here it seems to be sitting very close, but as if not here at all.
Recently, he has changed a lot: he almost stopped eating, began to smoke more, did not communicate with friends. At any attempt to talk irritably snapped. She even got into his computer and looked at what he was doing on the Internet at night. I found in the history of visits dozens of different sites about the meaning of life, the knowledge of the soul and other, as it seemed to her, nonsense. She suffered from his lack of attention and did not understand why he could not live normally. All this caused only anger, and the thought that her husband was really some kind of sectarian did not give her rest. Doesn't this problem have a solution?
No matter how hopeless this situation may seem, there is actually a way out. First you need to understand what pushes a person out of social life into various teachings, esotericism and sects. System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan explains that everything we do depends on our desires, and identifies 8 groups of innate properties and desires - vectors. Each person is endowed with certain properties that set the direction of his whole life. Depending on this, our life values and various aspirations are formed.
For some people it is important to build a career, for others it is important to have a strong family, for others it is important to find true love. There are also people for whom the most important thing is to understand what the meaning of their life is. This desire is due to their nature. System-vector psychology says that such a person has a sound vector.
A person with a sound vector is noticeably different from all others. Usually, people around say that such people are the least sociable, they prefer silence and loneliness to any noisy companies. They are a little distracted, it seems that, being in their thoughts, they do not notice anything around. In fact, it is.
The soundman is an absolute introvert. Plunging into his thoughts and states, he does not show it at all from the outside. It may seem that he is simply looking at one point, as if sleeping with his eyes open. However, at this time he has inside him a real boiling of experiences that are completely unrelated to the physical world. He is interested in the inner component of the human soul.
The article was written based on the materials of the training " System-Vector Psychology» I didn't explain who the devil is, I didn't explain who Jesus is. I was actually a Buddhist then when all this happened. I think that the priest is right - your husband will not hear all these explanations and subtleties. Because he doesn't want to hear it. It is necessary that these questions were "born" in HIM's head, and not in yours. To start looking for answers on his own. And then you can help him with it.
