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McCloskey

Thought Reform

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Dear Mr.Schaefer:

    I was both pleased and surprised to see your page on the web.  It may be
old news for you that the Opus Dei is not a great gift from above, but to me
it was overwhelming to see that there were other people out there who have
not only gone through what I went through, but recognize it as traumatic and
malign.

   My family is from Spain.  I was born there.  My parents emigrated to
XXXXXXXX when we were still children.  In our midst, there has been both the
horrors of the Opus with the fact that my parents are extremely controlling
and radically catholic people.  There has been both a culture gap and an age
gap.  It has been quite traumatic.

   There are 3 children in my family.  Three different attitudes and 
outlooks on what my parents believe, and we have pretty much all come to 
the conclusion that it is not the right attitude to have towards 
spirituality.  All three of us have had some form of residual effect 
from our upbringing, and it is only now, when we have left home, and 
have tried to start life for ourselves that we can begin to end the 
cycle.

   My father is a supernumerary.  They live near the centre in xxxx-town,
and are quite active there.  As children, they would 'teach' us the Way, and
read to us, and explain to us how things were.  I know you are probably
quite aware of how different life is from what the members would have you
believe, but we, as children, didn't know.  I believe we all experienced a
form of betrayal of trust when we finally discovered that our parents'
description of God and Right and Wrong were erroneous.

It is easy to discuss here, but quite difficult to actually experience.

   I don't know of your background, but you must have had some type of 
contact with the Opus Dei and it must have been a negative contact for 
you to initiate this form of awareness.   I want you to know that it is 
quite helpful to hear of people who have some type of related experience 
to mine.  None of my friends can identify with me when I mention some of 
the things that I have seen and gone through.  Their eyes widen, they 
glance around, and finally fidget nervously.  They have nothing to 
compare it to, and it scares them.  Some can't believe it, others look 
at me as if I'm a freak.  In a way, they are right.

   I am a teacher, a good one, believe it or not.  I teach mathematics 
in a highschool nearby.  And another great experience has been to be 
able to contradict what I was taught with the kids around me.  I refuse 
to enforce rules blindly, to ignore reason, to believe that pain is good 
for them...you get the picture.  Certainly, the kids love it, but I 
needed to know I wasn't alone.  It was really good to see your web page.

    One last word.  Please let me remain anonymous.  You can use any 
part of my letter that you want, but keep my name out of it.  I know you 
will.  And please write back.  I would love to hear what you have to 
say.

                                Thank you again,

                                          xxx

        I am writing to thank you for talking to me.  I realize that you
must get an enormous amount of mail pretty much every day.  So, my thanks. 
But there is another reason for my letter.

       I wish to talk to someone who has experienced what my siblings and I
went through.  I don't need to know personal details, or even their real
name.  I think that it would be really great if I could share thoughts and
personal experiences with someone who knows what it is like to live with the
Opus, and has managed to get out.  I realize that a lot of the people who
write to you wish to remain anonymous.  I also asked you for the same thing,
when I first wrote.  But I would really enjoy talking to a survivor of this
cult (for want of a better word.) I think it would be almost beneficial in a
cathartic way.  Please consider my request.

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If you want to write to her: I told her to set up an anonymous email account
and you can send her email jadin@mailcity.com (jadin is not her real name).
if you want to remain anonymous as well, then you should also use an
anonymous email account. e.g. use yahoo, usa.net, gmx.net, lycos, mailcity
etc.. test that with a technically savvy person to make sure the address is
really anonymous) Even thought I have no reason to doubt that this email is
not genuine, I can not give you a 100% guaranty.

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