I first suspected it five years ago. I was 29 then and I was very involved in the Jehovah’s Witnesses movement. I grew up in the strict precepts of this religious community [qui croit à l’Apocalypse prochaine], to which my parents belong. He himself has been a Jehovah’s Witness from an early age, and he has educated us in the teachings of the movement. A few days before my “awakening,” I also went to the organization’s world headquarters, the Governing Body, in New York State—a trip that happens when someone is very involved in the movement. I had complete faith in what I was taught.

To date in October. I was listening to a video recorded monthly by the Governing Body, and suddenly something startled me. The video explains that news and research articles, when contradicted by community posts, are based on lies.

He took as an example the dating of the construction of the Sphinx of Gizeh in Egypt: the speaker said that the official date was incorrect because, according to his own interpretation of the Bible, the flood would have followed and then destroyed it. they just insisted that the encyclopedias had ” wrong “, but without extending another date, and it made me question. A host of questions awoke in me, shaking the very foundations that I had been taught not to question.

Interruption with other children

It was a click. Over the following months, I began to deconstruct all of the beliefs that I was steeped in and that patterned our entire relationship to the world and the taboos that resulted from it. I realized then that I had been inducted into this community since childhood. From a very young age, I had a teaching based on the publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses, some of which are for children. Every night my parents read me a story based on their interpretation of the Bible. We went to three meetings a week given by the community. When I was able to go out, I accompanied my parents on their proselytizing activities, on the street or at people’s doors. And at the age of 15 I was baptized into Jehovah’s Witnesses.

“Free time was devoted to meetings and was strongly advised by the “elders” to meet only witnesses”.

We only visited the community infrequently, as free time was devoted to meetings and were strongly advised by the “elders” (responsible in the organization) to meet only with the Witnesses. All of my childhood best friends and those I later became were Jehovah’s Witnesses. There is an aspect to some of the rules which I consider to be communal today. There is a huge demand for investment in the community and monitoring of followers: if a Jehovah’s Witness sees us breaking a rule, he will feel obliged to defame us in front of the elders. “Protecting Our Spirituality”,

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