Cult-rescue center celebrates 25th birthday

Starting Friday, Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center in Albany will start celebrating its 25^th anniversary. The weekend of events will feature a showing of an award-winning film, a conference on cults and a celebratory picnic.

A faith-based cult rehabilitation center, Wellspring is one of only three post-cult rehabilitation centers in the nation. Until 1999, according to information in the center's 2010 winter newsletter, it was the only such facility in the world. Former Cult members (called "survivors" by Wellspring) come to the center from all over the world.

In addition to providing residential treatment to ex-cult members, Wellspring is a resource center and has provided cult-related information to major news networks such as CNN and MSNBC.

Wellspring defines a cult as an abusive system or relationship. Therefore, it takes in former members of not only religious cults but of corporate cults, in which members are pressured to sell more and more of a product; one-on-one cults, which are similar to domestic violence relationships but usually exist between a professional and a client or student; and other types of cults.

People usually join cults because the cults initially present a welcoming, caring atmosphere, and then gradually show their abusiveness, Wellspring Director Greg Sammons explained in an interview on Monday. He used a metaphor in which a frog placed in boiling water will immediately jump out, but a frog placed in cool water that is gradually brought to a boil will boil to death. Cult members, Sammons said, are like the second frog.

(A statue of a pondering green frog sits by an outdoors bench at Wellspring. The bench was placed there to allow clients to reflect on their cult experience after counseling sessions. The pondering frog represents "the frog that got away.")

Sammons said that most Wellspring clients left their cults willingly after reaching what he calls a "breaking point."

"Many people walk away themselves They hit a place where something happened in the group maybe the leader asked them to do something that they didn't feel right about doing and they walk away," he said.

The process of leaving a cult, however, is difficult. Without a support system outside of the cult, such as family or friends, leaving a cult may seem pointless for a member.

"If I don't have a support system outside, where am I going?" Sammons explained. "It's very similar to someone that's in a domestic violence situation, you know, where the abuser is saying you're worthless you're not going to survive outside of this family or this relationship."

Cults often use fear tactics or "mystical manipulation" to keep cult members from leaving. According to Sammons, one common message is to tell members that, "You're going to be going against God if you leave the group," or "So-and-so left last month and they had this car accident, or so-and-so left a few years ago and they died from cancer."

When a cult member finally leaves a cult, he or she may choose to participate in exit counseling services provided by individuals or groups, a process that typically takes three days. Afterwards, the ex-member may decide to come to a post-cult rehabilitation center such as Wellspring.

WELLSPRING WAS FOUNDED by Paul Martin and his wife Barbara in 1986 when they accepted their first cult survivor into their Albany area home.

Martin was a prominent figure in the anti-cult movement, and served as an expert witness in 29 legal/court cases, including the Muhammad/Malvo D.C. sniper-murder trial, as a psychologist testifying on the role of "brainwashing" causing behavioral changes.

Over time, operating Wellspring became a full-time job for the Martins and their helpers, and in the first 10 years the center served an average of 40 clients per year from over 225 different cults.

Sammons joined the Wellspring staff in 2001 after he and his wife, who is now the Wellspring lodge manager, left an abusive church. Sammons said that Martin hired him to be lodge manager because Martin wanted "someone who's been through what you have, to be here with the clients."

"I was pretty much a host," Sammons said. "I"ve done almost every job here now."

The "Lodge" is a large chtelet-styled cabin located in the woods near Albany the solitude is therapeutic, Sammons said that can hold up to 10 clients, although a maximum of six clients is ideal. Clients stay there for two weeks and participate in counseling both at the Lodge and in the Office, a separate building connected to the Lodge by a dirt trail.

The Lodge also serves as a place where cult survivors can experience a model family life, with assistance from Wellspring staff who reside there 24/7 during a client's stay. Such a life is foreign to many cult survivors, who are often victims of physical or psychological abuse, Sammons said.

During his 10 years at Wellspring, Sammons said that he's heard "horrific" stories about cult experiences from the clients.

"Young people being beat up with boards two by fours We had one lady one time and she said, 'I'm waiting for someone to start yelling at me,'" he said.

Sammons noted that he had to get counseling for himself because clients' stories reminded him of his cult experience.

After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Sammons said it became more difficult for clients to come to Wellspring and that donations have declined since then.

"The economy's tough, and people don't give as much as they used to," he said. This is troubling, Sammons explained, because private and public donations help fund the scholarships that Wellspring gives to clients.

In 2009, Sammons returned to school and received a master's from Ohio University in counseling. Around that same time, Paul Martin passed away from leukemia.

"It was a pretty tough time, our director and founder passing away. We're non-profit, so we've struggled a little bit, but we're coming back and I thought this was a great opportunity to advertise our 25^th anniversary and let the community know what we're about and what we do, and hopefully we can carry on the work that [Martin] started," Sammons said.

BECAUSE OF THE SEVERALpost-cult rehabilitation centers worldwide that have closed down due to lack of funding, Wellspring staff "consider it a minor miracle" that Wellspring is still here after 25 years of service, according to Wellspring's 2010 winter newsletter.

"Last year," Sammons said, "we were in a staff meeting in here, and I said, 'We really ought to hype up our 25^th anniversary; we've been here 25 years and that's quite an accomplishment. And we just kind of brainstormed what are some things we could do."

The staff's brainstorm eventually became the schedule for Wellspring's Freedom Festival and Conference on Cults.

On Friday from 2-4 p.m. Wellspring will host a V.I.P. open house at the lodge. At 7 that evening at ARTS/West in Athens, Wellspring will show "Paradise Recovered," an award-winning independent film about the struggles of a young woman who tries to break free from a religious cult.

The story is partially based on the experiences of the film's screenwriter, Andie Redwine, who was a former client of Wellspring. Redwine and the film's director will be present for Wellspring's 25^th anniversary and will join the film's audience at an after-party at Restaurant Salaam in Athens.

The Conference on Cults will take place all day on Saturday and features seven speakers, including Dr. Ron Burks and Dr. Yegan Pillay, who are both well known in the anti-cult movement. Former Wellspring clients will also speak.

"We're presenting a panel of some of our former clients who have become successful, how they've recovered, how they're still recovering," said Sammons, who emphasized that a cult survivor, no matter how successful, is always in recovery.

"It's going to be a great educational conference," Sammons said. "Anybody that's a friend of Wellspring or anyone that's interested in the cult phenomenon, [they'll get] great information at the conference."

Conference attendees and the public also can purchase donated artwork in a silent auction during the conference. All proceeds will go toward the Wellspring's Victim's Assistance Scholarship Fund.

Finally, on Sunday from 3-7 p.m., Wellspring will host a free-to-the-public celebration picnic at Lake Snowden near Albany. The bands Hook & Strings and Otis Crockron will perform.

To register for the Wellspring's 25^th Anniversary Weekend, call (740) 698-6277 or email Admissions Director Vanessa Vandermark at vanessa@wellspringretreat.org.