Heaven's Harlots: My Fifteen Years As a Sacred Prostitute in

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Glossary

Family Lingo

BABE -- a new disciple or new member in the cult

BACKSLIDER -- one who has left the cult

BAIT -- analogous to the bait used on a fishing hook. In the Family method of "flirty fishing" this was the lure to attract men to the hook or the message. The bait was usually women who would eventually give the men sex.

BATTLE -- an internal spiritual struggle, supposedly between good and evil

BROTHER -- any male member of the cult

BURDEN -- a heavy, usually sorrowful, spiritual load to bear without complaint

BY FAITH -- usually meant without visible means of support and used in phrases such as "living by faith," living without a salary; "healed by faith," become better without going to the doctor or using medicine; and so on

FAITH TRIP -- an extended excursion made in order to witness or distribute literature and usually undertaken without money, transportation, or room reservations

FAMILY -- the Children of God, later called the Family of Love, and finally just the Family

FF -- verb signifying the giving of sex in order to tell the person about God's Love

FFING -- short for "flirty fishing"

FISH -- a person who is being witnessed to through the method of FFing

FLIRTY FISHING -- a method of recruiting men or women into the group by attracting them with sexual activity or innuendos of a sexual nature; eventually used as a way to tell the message of salvation by asking Jesus into one's heart

FORSAKE ALL -- to give up all worldly possessions for the community of the Family to use as needed

GET THE VICTORY -- an expression used to insinuate that the person addressed was not in a good spiritual state and needed to pray or seek the Lord in order to become more spiritual minded; often this expression was directed to members who were not obeying leadership or were having doubts about what the Mo letters were saying.

GOAT -- a person who does not want to hear the Word of God

HALLELUJAH -- an exclamatory expression used in much the same way as "Praise the Lord" (see below), but employed more often in the sense of glorifying God

INSPIRATION -- a time of songs, dancing, and telling stories and motivational speeches

IN THE WORD -- reading and studying the Bible and later the Mo letters

KING -- a person outside the cult who helped the group in some way, usually through money, housing, or political influence

LEADERS -- sometimes called shepherds or servants, the persons with authority and final decision-making power

LITERATURE -- Family publications of letters from Moses David, advice from the leaders, and testimonies from the group around the world. This was classified as DO, "for disciples only," and GP, "for the general public." GP literature was distributed on the street while asking for donations.

LITNESSING -- a method used by the Family to collect donations. It involved distributing Family literature on the streets and asking for money; LITNESSERS are those who go litnessing.
Mo -- Moses David

Mo LETTERS -- the letters written by Moses David to the Children of God, which were distributed around the world and eventually bound into volumes; the sacred text of the group

ONE WIFE -- term used to connote the concept of everyone being married to everyone else

PRAISE THE LORD -- an exclamatory statement often heard in evangelical church meetings but which became a common expression in the Family: employed to emphasize a statement made by either the speaker or the audience, to contribute to the general inspirational atmosphere, to fill in awkwardness in speech (much as the word "like" or "uh" is used in general conversation), and also in a command-like interrogatory sense, as when a leader is asking someone to do something that is not being accepted. For example: "This is God's will. Praise the Lord, sister?" The answer in the affirmative was "Praise the Lord" (see "Hallelujah").

PROVISIONING -- asking for something for free or at a greatly reduced price; begging

QUEEN -- Moses David's daughter, our top leader for a while; later a title given to any woman who was close to Mo

REVOLUTION -- a term repeated often at inspirational meetings as a motivational force, which signified that the speakers were in a spiritual revolution against the society. A common expression was "Revolution for Jesus."

SAVED -- having gained salvation through asking Jesus into one's heart

SERVANTS -- sometimes called shepherds or leaders, the persons with authority and final decision-making power

SHARE -- most often used as the verb meaning to have sexual relations

SHEEP -- a person who supposedly wants to hear the Word of God

SHEEPY -- the adjective describing a person who wants to hear the Word of God

SHEPHERDS -- sometimes called leaders or servants, the persons with authority and final decision-making power

SISTER -- any female member of the cult

SYSTEM -- the world outside the cult environment, especially the capitalistic societies

SYSTEMITE -- a person who lived in the system and followed a system way of life, such as having a regular job, marrying one person and raising a family in one's own home, saving money for the future, and consistently putting individual and family needs above the needs of the community; used in a derogatory sense in the COG

TESTIMONY -- a personal story, often one's own salvation experience or the story of how one met and joined the group

THREESOME -- the term used for relationships involving three adults who live as one marriage unit, either two women and one man or one woman and two men. As in many marriages in the COG, this was not legally binding and was often broken.

TITHE -- 10 percent of all income, which should be sent to world headquarters

TRIAL -- a lighter version of a battle, or an internal spiritual struggle

VICTORY -- what one achieves when the good overcomes the evil after an internal spiritual struggle

WITNESSING -- a method used to tell people the message of salvation and eventually the Family message of forsaking all and joining the group, usually by going on the streets or to public places and starting up a conversation with strangers; WITNESSERS are those who go witnessing.

WORLD SERVICES -- the main organizing center of the group to which reports and tithes were sent and from where each home received the Mo letters, Family News, and other cult publications.

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My father, John Fred Williams, in one of the few photographs that I have of him, taken around 1949. My father had not yet met my mother.


My mother, Elfriede Seeger Williams, in a photo taken in the late forties while she was working at a German newspaper in Philadelphia. Shortly afterward, she would meet my father.


Before my family moved out west from Philadelphia, my grandparents snapped this photo of me. I was two years old.


In 1956, my family was living in Venice Beach, California. My mother is holding my sister Marlene. I'm in the center, alongside my brother, Steve.


My high school senior picture. I graduated from McCaskey High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1971. At this point, I was seeing my sister's teacher and had stopped hanging out with the "hippie" crowd at school.


Wedding day for Cal and me in the summer of 1972 at the Ellenville camp in upstate New York. Cal, the drummer in Jeremy Spencer's band, is twenty, and I am nineteen. The long skirt I am wearing was standard for a woman in the Children of God -- the bare feet must be attributed to my rebellious streak. The entire camp was present for the "ceremony." Cal and I wouldn't get married officially until I was nine months pregnant with Thor, about one year later.


The nursery of the Essen, Germany, colony. Thor, less than a year old, is in the arms of a nursery worker. The conditions of this particular nursery were quite good by Children of God standards -- some colonies did not even have money for cribs at that time. There are Scriptures written on the chalkboards in the background. We were required to memorize two a day.


Cal, Thor, and I appeared on the cover of New Nation News!, the Children of God newsletter. While we lived in Paris, photos were always being taken of us. On the outside, we must have looked like well-adjusted models of happiness. Sharing, threesomes, and flirty fishing were to come.


One of the first publicity shots of Les Enfants de Dieu, taken in the Massif Centrale in France. I'm standing sixth from the right and Cal is standing third from the left. Also shown are Jeremy Spencer of Fleetwood Mac; my dance partner, Jon; my busking partner, Nahum; Hopie; Esther; Micah; James; and Ruth. Timothy, Sharon, and Breeze would come into the show Group later, although Breeze's husband, Abraham, was present here.


I'm posing with Mara (left) at the port of Monte Carlo in 1978. Mara had officially, according to COG standards, become another wife to Cal at this point. Ironically, people were always telling us that we looked alike.


Here I'm standing between Sharon (left) and Breeze in our Beausoleil home. The three of us were quite a force as flirty fishers. Our home contributed thousands of dollars to the Children of God World Services.


Moses David (with beard), also known as David Berg, and his mistress, Maria (to his right), surrounded by the Tenerife flirty fishing colony in 1977. Popular magazines like Germany's Stern besieged the small island with photographers and reporters. Moses David was forced to flee after the scandal hit the press.


Illustration from the Mo letters, dated April 26, 1976. Many controversial teachings were in this pamphlet, among them the idea that husbands should show their love for God by willingly sending their wives to bed "fish," and the idea that female members of the Family were whores of God. Moses David wrote, "He's [God's] going to put so much love in your heart for them [fish] that you're going to want to take them to bed ... " (#560:24). Later he said, "God is a pimp!" (#560:27).


Here I am at the Beausoleil home. Although I was part of an FFing house, I always felt that I was doing these acts for God, or a higher cause.


In Perpignan, near the Spanish Basque border, in the summer of 1983. I'm breast-feeding Genvieve, and Thor is ten years old. After the kidnapping and recovery of Thor, I tried to visit him as often as possible.


Charles took this picture of my family, in Liguria, Italy. I'm standing behind Genvieve (left) and Athena, holding Jordan. This was one of the busiest times of my life, and I often felt I was living on faith alone. I had no car and had to go out singing every night from 7 P>M> to midnight to earn money. And there were two nursing babies to attend to.


I'm with Thor at a 1995 blues festival in the South. At the time, Thor was living with me. He's now a graduate student in mathematics in Germany.