Introduction, Aline Terpstra, 26 March 2021
In this fifth volume of Esther's testimonies, she recounts three events that, among other things, illustrate how the cult systematically perverts Christian terms. Learning to lose yourself' in the cult means immediate obedience and passionate cooperation at all times to whatever the cult wants you to do. To freeze up for a moment at a gruesome assignment, to look at your grandfather in despair, to lose your temper for one moment during a porn shoot as a 7/8 year old - the consequences are enormous. In therapy these three connections through this theme came up at the same time, that is why they are placed together here, although the ages are different. The second part of this testimony tells about the sadistic murder of Esther's two-year-old daughter abroad. The names of the perpetrators - well known people - are left blank.
Esther's own story, by Esther
learning to lose myself
Buried alive 7 to 9 years
We had a meeting in the national group. This group was always large and there were many more people than in the regional group. I had not really noticed this meeting and had kept to the rules. I did not have to do anything this time, except for the sex orgy after the service. I hoped to go home and considered this time a 'windfall'. A boy had died, 2 girls had been badly beaten and a woman had given birth, whereby her baby was somehow specially initiated, but remained alive. If nothing happened to me during the service, I was happy. I couldn't care less about the rest, another month survived. But we didn't go home. We went to the forest house further on, together with 3 other girls and a few men and 2 women. Some adults went into the forest house and 2 men stayed outside with the other girls and me. It was quite cold and without clothes this was intensely felt.
We walked to the back where two crates stood in a hole in the ground and they opened the lid. Lie down, 1 of the men said to us and I crawled right into the coffin. Another girl seemed to be going into the other coffin. As soon as I climbed in, he got angry and I got scared. But he was not angry at me, but at the two girls who were still as stiff as they were. They got on their heads for not listening. Reacting too late is also not listening. One girl got a very hard hit on her head with the hammer he had in his hands and the other climbed very quickly into the other box. This is what happens when you decide not to listen right away, he said. I lay there alone, immobile in the coffin, and heard all sorts of noises. But I stayed put, even though it took a while.
Suddenly something was thrown on my belly and I saw that it was an arm. I felt that it was still bleeding and the head was put on my belly. Hold it, he said. I held it, by the ears by accident and didn't move. There I lay with her head on my stomach, her severed neck on my stomach and I felt the blood seep down my side. The lid closed and I stayed as I lay. The hammer banged on the lid and I heard the same sound echo a little further away.A hard blow landed on the lid and sand came between the cracks and fell on my face. The little light that came through the cracks got smaller with each blow, until it was dark.
I felt so alone, with that head between my hands, so alone. I didn't move for hours. I had been locked in a coffin before and also buried alive. It wasn't the first time and that helped me a lot by not feeling scared, but the loneliness and the waiting and the cold was killing me. The feeling of her head between my hands, her ears and her hair was super strong, sensory hard to process and every move I wanted to make sent a stream of sand between the cracks on my body, which in turn caused itching and discomfort. My back started to hurt and the cold got so bad that lying stretched out was no longer possible. If I moved a little to lie differently, I felt a limb slide down my leg which startled me again and I froze again. It took hours. If you said it was days, I'd believe it too. So long that I came to the point of giving up, then death. They'd forgotten about me and wouldn't come back for me anyway. They had forgotten me.
Suddenly I heard clacking on the lid. I had fallen asleep and woke up to the unexpected sounds. The sand was being shoveled off. I heard the voices getting a little clearer and clearer and they were laughing every now and then. The lid was wrenched open and the light entered my eyes like a bright sun that suddenly appeared behind the clouds and made me close them. The light was too bright, I couldn't stand it and was startled when they pulled the head out from between my hands. I had appropriated it, she belonged to me. She had become my friend in the loneliness and cold and now I couldn't live without her. It hurt. Well the neck was now stuck to my skin and suddenly pulling it off hurt, but especially the bare feeling was unbearable and I broke down. I started to cry intensely, locked in myself and did not realise anymore that there was an outside world. Someone took me out of the coffin and held me.
I was comforted, received a warm blanket and sweet gentle words and for a moment I felt warmth again. As if I came back to 'normal' life and stepped from death back into life. I was carried to the house and put in the bathroom. He turned on the shower and pushed me under it. After a shower and getting dressed, the whole tender feeling and approach was gone again. I stood there alone in the shower and watched the filth flush down the drain. The soft voice and warm gentle hands were gone and I was alone. Again.
I suddenly had to get out. My thoughts kept floating in another dimension and they kept pulling me back into the now. Dry yourself now lady, someone called. I dried myself and walked to the room, naked, as I should be. I was raped and taken home soon after. I didn't see the other girls, that box wasn't visible when I got out. From that day on, I always reacted super fast. I was obedient. I did what I had to, because then sometimes you get a hug and warmth. Then the rape afterwards doesn't matter so much.
Refrigerator 11 years
I come into the barn, grandpa sent me. The barn of uncle 2. Everything is ready. Cameras, mattresses, lamps and there are some men standing around talking to each other and another girl is sitting on a stool next to them. She looks sad and is silent and watches me enter. I came in quite naive and relaxed, even though I never know what will happen when I have to go here, but when you don't know much yet, you can't be so scared. Only when I see the lights and the cameras and the whole setting I set myself up for a few hours in front of the camera doing whatever they want. I'm going to go out a little bit inside. I don't want to feel anything right now.
I walk up to uncle 2 and give him a kiss on the mouth. He always wants that when I see him and on automatic pilot I do it now. I don't even mind it anymore, it's part of the deal. Thanks for coming girl, he says. You can undress now. I do what he asks, put my clothes on a chair and wait quietly. I scan the men and already have a preference as to who I want to avoid and who not. I always try to get some control in it, although it doesn't always work. One man, who is often there, but usually does not participate when the cameras are rolling tells the men and us what he wants to have on today. Multiple positions, pulling out and back in as fast as possible, are words that stick. So they are going to be unpredictable. I don't think about the fact that they are going to be unpredictable, but I feel how I am prepared for that inside, as if it is being heard and known unconsciously. We both get a pyjama shirt in our hands and we put it on. Our hair is tousled and we have to sit on the mattress.
We're sitting on the mattress together, chatting. As if. I have to ask her if she's ever kissed and she shyly nods no. She's drilled too. I've been in situations like this with her before and she was pretty good then. I had looked up to her. She could take a lot and was used to a lot and the acting she did flawlessly. I was afraid to be worse than her again and became even more insecure.
While we are chatting, she suddenly strokes my hair and starts kissing me. I know everything that happens happens because she has to and don't feel anything about it, but I was expecting painful sex and not a soft kiss. I let myself fall on the mattress and while she kisses me again the men come closer. We would like to join in, may we? The girl reacts very enthusiastic and I am silent. I don't want to be here like this today. Often I can take it, but not today. I don't react and that's what they react on. The girl gets involved in raping me. She holds my wrists and kisses everything she encounters in the meantime and I just stand off. I fight so many times, cooperate so many times, but today it doesn't work. I don't know what's causing it, I just feel so horrible and let everything happen that's happening. I'm 1 big salt bag and the boss who decides what gets filmed goes out of his way to call me trash. I hear uncle 2 speak up for me, that I'm never like this and that he will get it out. You'd better, the man says and walks away. Cut boys, tomorrow again.
I see the girl looking at me angrily and I feel so mega bad. Uncle 2 pulls me over to the other side of the barn, where there are two cold stores where he normally keeps his flowers, before they go to the auction. He tells me that I will be put here, because I didn't do my best and he walks away.
The door of the cell closes and it's dark. And so cold. I feel the cold penetrate more and more and when I start shivering, I can't stop. The walls are even colder and sitting in the middle of the room is much nicer, but I get too tired to stay upright. I crouch down even more, but my body is getting stiffer and moving around is starting to hurt. I feel the pain in my body reach a kind of climax and I break. I can't go on and I break. It feels like my lungs and heart are breaking in half. I stop breathing for a moment and I feel myself detaching from the pain of the cold. I enter a state of unconsciousness but in my body. Everything is off and every feeling is gone and I am floating in my own body. I'm still just awake and can hear sounds outside the cold room, but my body is disconnected, taken away and safely stored in a small box.
When Uncle 2 returns, he smiles. My eyes have to get used to the light and to his face, but I heard the smile appear on his face and when he talks I hear that he is happy. He lifts me up, I wouldn't be able to walk anymore, but he lifts me up and I don't feel his warmth. I don't feel his arms around my legs. I'm still floating the same way as before. When I wake up in bed my feelings are more in my body again and everything hurts terribly. Every time my feeling gets too big like on this day, but nothing happens, I get into the same state of unconsciousness in my body and I can stay with it. I am strong when I feel nothing. Of iron. Then I can handle anything. This is what I needed and I feel a kind of power arise from the unconscious realisation that I can handle anything. A new part is born.
Water as a punishment 7 to 8 years
Water is a common punishment tool used to get me to cross a line. To make sure my will to survive broke down and I did what they wanted. Especially Grandpa, but Uncle 3 could do it too. The large basin they used to water the plants was behind their house. It was always quite dirty and the black edge around it, from the bag that hung in it, was always dirty and slippery. My cousins were always releasing fish into it, saying it was to eat the dead bodies that lay inside. I thought it was a very dirty idea and believed it.
One day there was a sex party in the barn. A film was made of me and another girl having sex with dogs. I hated these kinds of movies, because I couldn't just pretend to be good and do my best for the men. The dogs were too predictable and just did their thing and it was always heavy-handed. You couldn't influence it much. The licking in the beginning wasn't a big deal. Although I was always deeply embarrassed because I already knew that behind those cameras people would be watching and thinking all kinds of things about me. People who could hire me and therefore get ideas of what they could do with me. But the worst part was when the dogs got excited and had the freedom to pounce on me. The violence with which they push in and the claw you are in when they put their paws in your body is overwhelming. When they're done thrusting they're still attached, but actually want to break free. You feel yourself being ripped open that you can't do anything about. When they calm down and finally let go, you feel their filth come out of you and the smell enters your nose. You feel raped. Even though I've been raped hundreds of times, this really felt like it.
I had not wanted to excite the dog by touching him. I would have looked at Grandpa like he was crazy, I couldn't do it. I don't know why. The idea that the same thing would soon be inside me and stuck, I somehow couldn't bear it and I didn't grab it or do anything. I just watched with questioning eyes. My thoughts went from grandpa please no, I will have sex with you but not this dog. You, yes I had to say that and I said it faithfully. Until his death. He had seen the doubt in my eyes and after everything was fixed on film, he took me to the basin in Uncle 3's backyard. He lived next door to Grandpa and so was near the same barn, where the film was shot.
Jump in, he said to me, as I stood naked next to him. I still felt dirty from what had happened, but wasn't fully aware of it. I looked at him questioningly again, kind of helpless eyes I could describe if I had been looking at myself and he became enraged by my look. My glance of less than 3 seconds enraged him. He pushed me forward into the pool and the ice cold water hit me. You just keep floating around here girl, he said. You will learn your lesson. After saying that he walked away. I lay in the ice-cold water and couldn't move. I was convinced that there were corpses under me and fish around me. The edge was slippery and slanted, I had no chance. I felt hopeless.
I got hypothermia and I know I started seeing things blurry. I heard voices, but I couldn't make them out. But I never, ever looked at Grandpa like that again. Never looked at anyone else like that. Only when I had to. Asking eyes meant punishment. I became confident, did what I had to do and stopped wondering if they really meant it.
Daughter 2 years- Simone- Jos
We are in a big mansion. I came on the plane with HX and Jos and 2 girls. I am about the same age as them, about 16. When we arrive it looks like a holiday resort. We are allowed to swim in the pool, they have bikinis for us. The three of us have a great time. In the evening I am lent out to the 2 people who own the estate. I do what I think they want from me. I am good here. I am sent to my own room when they are finished and we sleep a normal night. In the morning there is a generous breakfast and I am enjoying myself here. The sex is not very[1]although I never like several people at once, but living like this I have no problems with it. I hardly say anything and do what I can do and enjoy the food and drink. Jos wants to take me for a walk through the estate and he throws me halfway on a bench, pulls down my bikini pants and rapes me.
HX is usually not there and that saves a lot of extra attention and stress. In the afternoon we go swimming again and when I let myself go a bit more, one day HX is standing at the edge of the pool with a little blond girl in front of me. I look into her eyes and I know who she is. My heart melts and at the same time fear and panic jump into my head. HX has her by the neck and she doesn't look happy. She doesn't know who I am anymore, it's also been a few months and she's still so young, but everything in me screams that I want to hug her.
I look at HX, is there room for it? Well, go ahead, go for a swim he says in English. She takes off her clothes and jumps into the pool, naked, after HX put on her straps. My heart jumps up, I can swim with my daughter.[2]. I can be close to her and have fun. She is very hesitant and a bit distant towards me, but soon the 4 of us are doing games of pushing and tossing in the water. How I enjoy my little girl, here in a strange place, in the middle of summer, in the pool. Of course there was a fear and a certain premonition, but with a lot of naivety I can hide it all.
We are called to lunch. Champagne is poured and a servant or waiter brings fresh hot sandwiches to a large table. It is luxurious and even though HX is there and I behaved nicely, I enjoy every moment. I am sitting here next to my daughter, eating deliciously and so is she. I help her with greasing, and play games to take a bite and she smiles. With her wide smile and blonde hair, elongated face, she gives me an intense deep real smile. This was a dream for me.
After lunch I have to show up at the couple's house. Again trio and they like to give me assignments. They humiliate me, but I see it as work and think of my daughter, I want to go to her. The man asks me when they are finished if I want to see her and I say of course. I have to shower and a little later I wait in the garden until she comes again. I don't know where she is but they asked if I wanted to see her so I expect to see her again. After a while I am called by the man. I walk with him, he is sitting on my ass in the meantime. When we arrive in a kind of shed Jos is there as well and so is my daughter. She lies quietly waiting on a bench. I have to stand near her head and she smiles at me. She recognizes me. I fake smile back and suddenly realize where I have ended up. I have to hold her arms and the man opens his pants and rapes her. The expression on her face changes like snow in the sun. She looks at me in despair and I say sorry, several times, but I can't look into her eyes anymore. I wish it would end soon. When he stops Jos takes over and she screams. She's bleeding but stays still as she cries and is turned in on herself. The saw starts, I hear it behind me and for a moment I am afraid I will die now.
But then the man with the saw comes to her and says to me hold her tight. I know exactly what he is going to do and brace myself. I don't look into her eyes anymore, I can't do it. The guilt is too big and the pain too deep. He uses the saw on her limbs and laughs exuberantly. He is having a great time. Jos helps him hold on and makes sure he doesn't fall. I let go of her when she doesn't move anymore and after her arms her head goes too. Jos grabs her head and comes to me and says give her a kiss. The man laughs loudly and I look. I see her face covered in blood and feel 100 times more guilty than 5 minutes before. I give her a kiss out of fear that I also have to suffer the same when I don't obey, after which he throws the head into a corner. I fall to the ground, I can't take it anymore.
G. comes in, is quiet and looks around and then says dinner is served at 7pm. Jos says I have to be ready to eat in an hour, then we go home. He means I have to take a shower and pack my things. After a short while I gather myself, look around and walk away. I get under the outdoor shower and walk like a zombie to my room and change. An hour later we are sitting at the table. Everyone is sitting around relaxed and acting like nothing happened. The other teenage girl wants to sit next to me, on my daughter's chair and I pull the chair towards me and say no in a very mean tone of voice. She walks over to another chair. I did not mean it like that but this chair is hers and nobody is going to sit on it. When the plates are brought in there is a decent piece of meat with sauce. On the table there are baked potatoes and lettuce and other garnishes. G says, look there is your daughter and points to my piece of meat. I laugh about it. I see HX looking at me, I have to behave. I act normal and start eating. Every now and then she looks at me and smiles. When we are almost done eating, G lifts the lid of a bowl, which is in the middle of the table. On the dish lies the head of my little daughter. I switch. I can't look and feel my eyes staring at the bowl, but the information doesn't come in anymore. In one blow I am dead inside.
A while later we go to the airport. The man gives me a present and I unwrap it. Look, he is always watching your steps! He says when I unwrap the bear. Jos laughs out loud. A bear with very big eyes is looking at me. I know they are always watching me, I am never allowed to talk about it. The 2 girls stay there and I go home.
[1] This kind of comment, that something was 'no big deal', must of course be read in the context of Esther's life. In relation to worse torture, she experienced this sex as 'no big deal'.
[2] The background of this daughter's existence is not told here. It concerns a daughter that was born about two years earlier in the context of a foreign meeting with high-ranking people. This daughter was taken away and raised elsewhere. Taking a child, letting it grow up elsewhere and later blackmailing the victim with it, is one of the often for the outside world invisible ties that bind cult victims to the cult. In this case, the girl's first two years of life were spent in regular contact with the cult so that the bond remained strong. The girl is used to satisfy the perverse sadistic murder tendencies of 'the man' and at the same time to pull the net tighter around this personality part of Esther: She feels complicit in the murder of her daughter and the despair, pain and agony of her little daughter, which she had to stand on top of, are engraved in her soul. For the other parts of the personality this memory remains inaccessible for many years.
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