Johan Oscar Smith (JOS) is the founder, but not
the actual leader. He died in 1943. His successors were Elias
Aslaksen (died 1976) and then Sigurd Bratlie sen. (married with
a daughter of JOS, died 1996). The two actual top leaders are
Kaare Smith and Sigurd Johan Bratlie jun., both grandsons of JOS,
the latter being a son of Sigurd Bratlie sen. and the official
chairman, while Kaare Smith is the spiritual leader.
Resource Links:
Please be aware that, after a several months interruption,
my website http://griess.st1.at/sf.htm
is again fully equipped with critical documents about the Smiths
Friends from the last 10 years, but most of it is in German or
Norwegian.
I want to point especially to quotes from their
(German) song books. Some samples translated to (my bad) English
are:
"Reason and family ties now break with power."
"Hatred is required, the hatred drives us forward.
Hatred gives us victory in the battle of life. Death to all enemies,
I beat without any consideration. There is no peace in this battle."
"Reason and forms do not count any more, now
we are breaking all rules."
"The spirit gives me light, and inflamed
by the spirit of war all human good god things are banned
forever."
"Refuse reason resolutely, come to the circle
of brothers".
A time ago, I have answered all the detailed BITE
model questions concerning the Smiths Friends on Steves website,
but I did not see any reaction since. Shall I do this again.
Please be aware that, after a several months interruption,
my website http://griess.st1.at/sf.htm
is again fully equipped with critical documents about the
Smiths Friends from the last 10 years, but most of it is in German
or Norwegian.
I want to point especially to quotes from their (German)
song books, http://griess.st1.at/sflieder.htm.
Some samples translated to (my bad) English are:
"Reason and family ties now break with power."
"Hatred is required, the hatred drives us forward.
Hatred gives us victory in the battle of life. Death to all
enemies, I beat without any consideration. There is no peace
in this battle."
"Reason and forms do not count any more, now
we are breaking all rules."
"The spirit gives me light, and inflamed by the
spirit of war all human good god things are banned forever."
"Refuse reason resolutely, come to the circle
of brothers".
Our daughter Wiltrud, born 6 march 1963, completed
high school in the year 1981 without any major problems. She
was intelligent, creative, socially engaged and especially
fond of music. At that time she was regarded as an adult person
within the family. She had also interest in religion, she joined
my wife and me every Sunday to go to church, and she was working
in a parish group of young people caring for handicapped children.
She was also a good friend to a young priest whom she called
"big brother" and who called her "little sister".
She had a flat where she was independent from us (not financially
of course), but she came home every weekend.
But she had problems with her further education:
she wanted to become a music therapist, but she failed twice
at the entrance examination, and she was desperate because
she could not study what she would have liked most. Studying
psychology, but with little enthusiasm, she also participated in
a Norwegian language class at the University where she met
Peter K., an attractive young man who paid much attention
to her, and she fell in love. He invited her to "meetings",
and she told us that the people there were very narrow-mindset,
but they were nice and reading the bible which she also was
interested in, and she would sometimes go to those meetings again,
but we should not worry about, she would remain catholic.
People from this group also came to concerts where Wiltrud
was playing violin in an orchestra, just to meet her. My wife
and I went also to some of those "meetings" and we realized
that it was a cult, but at that time we did not yet know about
mind control. In one of those meetings, the "eldest" held
a long sermon, and after that, a man stood up and shouted:
"Brother W., no priest can preach as you can". I
said: "How many priests did you ever hear preaching?"
This caused a turmoil. Another time, the "eldest" came
back from a missionary trip to South America where he had
been for a few weeks, and he said. "There are no good marriages
any more there in South America." Then another man stood
up and said: "I have been in Germany and there are no
good marriages any more there either." Black/white. And so
on.
At Easter 1983, Wiltrud was invited to an "Easter
Conference" in Vienna where cult members from all about
in Europe participated, and there Wiltrud obviously "snapped":
she came back and said: "If you do not join this group immediately
together with me, you will not be saved". My wife and I were
completely shocked. We invited the priest whom she knew to
talk to her, but she came together with a "brother"
who should "convert" the priest. Soon afterwards, she
stopped playing piano and violin "because all artists are immoral",
and she refused to undergo any education because she said she was
only allowed to wash the floor. After a long discussion, she
finally was willing to enter a class of physical therapy,
but she soon was not able to follow the lectures and they
said in school that a therapist who refused to touch sick
people ("I do not touch men, this is a sin"), was not
suited for that job.
The father of Peter K., also a member of the cult
and a doctor in medicine, invited my wife and me to talk about
Wiltrud. He gave the advice that Wiltrud should not study
or work for the time of at least one year. We did not understand
at all why a young person should not have any education or work.
Soon, as I said above, we understood that she was not able
to do any useful study or work, caused by the indoctrination,
and that obviously should be hidden. When we, in June 1984,
once again went to a "meeting", we asked the people
there: "What have you done with our child, she is completely
confused", and the answer of the cult people was: "Yes,
that's just in the beginning." This proofs that they
knew about.
At the same meeting the "eldest" was preaching
again, talking a lot about other "bad" christians.
After the sermon, being a custom that, first the men and then
also the women, were allowed to say something, but they were of
course expected to praise the "brotherhood". I said: "Mr.
H., usually christian groups try to find out what is wrong
with themselves and not what is wrong with the others."
He replied that "he came around in the whole world and
had nowhere found another group of active christians." I told
him that for an individual it is impossible to know all other
christians, and so on. Finally he tried to impress me by his
age, but it turned out that he was 4 years younger than I
am (I look relatively young). Then he gave up, and my wife
and I understood that further discussions would be useless.
In summer 1984, I had to work for some weeks at IBM
in Boca Raton (FL), my wife came with me and we took, for
safety reason, also our youngest son with us, because Wiltrud
had tried again and again to "convert" her younger brothers.
When we came back, Wiltrud told us that she was now damned by God,
even God cannot save her any more, she only wanted to convert her
parents and then she would commit suicide. She had played
for about 2 hours with some children instead of studying,
that was done against her consciousnes and that was a sin against
the Holy Spirit which cannot be forgiven. We tried to get
her to a therapist, but first she refused and said, she was
treated anyway by the father of Peter (who was a doctor of internal
medicine, not psychiatry). Later on she went to a psychiatrist,
but this guy had no idea about cults either: Wiltrud tried
to tell him about the "fellowship" and he said he
was not interested in that. Then she discontinued the therapy.
Soon afterwards, she started to be violent against
me. She started conversations, for example: "Father,
the bible says that God created the world in six days, and
the bible also says that for God 1000 years are like one day.
Consequently, God created the word in 6000 years. Do you also believe
that?" I replied that the one day for 1000 years is not meant
literally, this just shows that God is ruling also over the time,
and a God who has to wait one day to let 1000 years passing
is just ridiculous. When she had no arguments any more, she
used the fists. Twice we had to call the rescue party because
she was so violent that we did not know what to do. This lasted
from autumn 1984 until Christmas 1985. Then she just threatened:
"Father, if you say one single more word against the fellowship,
you will die on the spot; this has happened already to many people,
and you will see it."
Some months later she felt mentally so bad that she
went to a doctor by her own. This doctor understood that it
was a mental problem, and he sent her to a psychiatrist who
gave her injections. These injections had the result to calm
her down, and after a while she lost interest in everything, also
in the cult, and she did not go to meetings any more. But
then she again felt to be damned and she tried to commit suicide
with tablets. She was saved and then she agreed for a (speaking,
not medical) therapy. First, the therapy was successful, she
could study again, and she managed most of the final examinations
for the physical therapist class. But then she worried, because
the cult people had said to her: "Anybody leaving our group
can never again do any positive thing in his/her life". She
thought they must have been wrong, and she felt obliged to
tell them and "to save the poor children who are grown
up there in erroneous believings". She went to the cult
people and they managed to turn her around again. She came back
and said: "No, I was wrong, those are the only people
in the world who know the truth". Again she was not able
to concentrate and as she did not manage the very last two
examinations, she had to leave the school for ever. One probable
reason why she returned to the cult was that Peters' mother said
to her: "Peter will soon complete his studies, and you
also will soon complete your studies." This gave her
new hope to get Peter whom she already had given up in the
meantime and who had "fished" some more girls in
the meantime by the same method. When he finally engaged himself
he told the "fellowship": All those girls who had
fallen in love to him he did not have any usage for, because
that was human love which was worthless for God. He would marry
the most humble girl who had not fallen in love to him.
This was in 1987. I think I stop here for the moment.
If you are interested what happened since, I will tell you
later: Only in short: she is still in the cult and our contact
to her is very very difficult. On the other hand I became
a cult expert in the meantime, and as I speak Norwegian, I have
investigated a lot about the origin and the behaviour of the
cult in Norway and in other countries, as you already have
seen.
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They appear because we have received inquiries and have established
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