It takes a miracle to get out

Byron Shire Echo, March 28, 2000
by Ian Blair Hamilton

Thank you for the article on my book Awake Among The Sleeping, and for publishing the letters referring to it. The Echo really does work. I have had emails from Germany, Poland and the USA, and many phone calls about the article, from people whose loved ones are in the miracles cult.

It is quite eye-opening to see the common symptoms of spiritual addiction from the point of view of loved ones. In every case the same symptoms: increasing alienation, disinterest in family, absence of responsibility for children, lack of any system of ethics, and a great proclivity to hitting on everyone for money.

I was especially moved by one lady who said that since her husband had joined the cult she had had four years of great anger, but the article in The Echo allowed her to view her husband with compassion; an emotion she has not yet seen her husband display towards her two children who cry when he calls once every three months from America, still chasing God after all this time.

Spiritual addiction is a real thing and we certainly have a large scale creator of it right here in our own town, inviting all comers to enter in, give up the world and hand over their cheque account, not to Freedom From Hunger, not to East Timor, but to the man sitting up front telling you that you will rot in hell if you don't.

Thank you again.