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So You Want to Get Out... A Guide to leaving the fold, safely and sanely. |
| Making the decision to leave one of these religions may be one of the most difficult decisions of your life. In fact, if you are reading this and already thinking about leaving you may feel very anxious and likely very depressed as well. We want to preface our suggestions here with the recommendation that you do get some professional help from a therapist and if you can't afford that, call around the local universities and see if their psychology department students take clients on a sliding scale, they usually do. It's important especially if you are like a lot of other people in these religions and have forgone professional and real-world help in favor of paying con-artists to straighten out your life, which is likely caused even more problems for you emotionally and possibly physically. We would also recommend a visit to a doctor for a physical exam as well, if it has been a while since you have had one of those. After arranging to do these very sensible things, which will start you on the path to being grounded in reality and you would like another ex-believer to commune with, feel free to email us here. One of us will be available to answer your email and chat with you as a friend. The other things you are probably thinking about is what to tell people in your "house" or what to tell your "godfather" or feeling fearful that someone will "curse" you or that "orisha" or "spirits" will come after you. These are all very natural fears. Sometimes it may take several months or even several years to work through all of this to the point that you can chuck all of your initiations in the trash or sell them as decorative items someplace like Ebay without worrying that the gods are gonna "getcha." One of the authors of this site spent over 6 years gradually getting rid of all of his stuff and changing his dietary habits from the time he had been a Santero. After booking yourself for some appointments with professionals to evaluate your health the first thing you can do is to simply pack up all of your things in some boxes and put them in storage for a while. You'll be amazed at how nice your life is and how NOTHING bad will happen to you if you just put the stuff in a closet and don't pay attention to any of it. The second step of this exercise is to eat some good meals of any of the foods you may have been restricted from while in the religion. We suggest doing these exercises first for a few weeks before telling your house or godfather you are leaving. This will prepare your mind for the ultimate conclusion you will come to, that all of this is simply a figment of imagination and group hysteria. Once you see for yourself that nothing bad will happen to you by eating the restricted foods or putting away orishas, pots or initiations and not feeding them, your mind will not play tricks on you when your godfather pretends to "curse" you for leaving. Do a lot of reading. May we suggest science books? If you never had an interest in science before, now is a good time to start. The more science you read the less control these con-men will have over you. A good title to start with is Carl Sagan's book, "The Demon Haunted World," he digs a nice deep grave for all this nonsense and puts it to rest once and for all. Carl Sagan literally saved my life when I was leaving the religion. Now is not the time to join another religion. Now is the time for healing yourself and putting your mind back together. Be good to yourself, do nice things for you, spend your money on YOU, not on feeding, clothing and worshipping inanimate objects. Eventually you are going to want to get rid of your clothes, tools, orishas, pots, etc. Do this when you are ready. You shouldn't do it when you are afraid, wait until your mind becomes retrained in reality and this exercise will not make you anxious. It does get better with time, one of us managed to smash everything, throw it in the trash and spit on it. What an exercise in bravery that was! And life coudln't be better or more peaceful! |
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