Testimonies

My Deliverance from a Cult

by Matthew Sieger
01/14/26
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In 1974, prior to my senior year at Cornell University, five dorm mates and I decided to live off campus. An acquaintance had a rented house and needed five roommates. He seemed like a great guy, but when it came time to move in, he opted out and replaced himself with another guy, whom I will call Fred. 

Fred was introverted and depressed, but so was I, so we gravitated toward each other. He told me about an encounter group he was in. Encounter groups were all the rage in the 1970s, group therapy sessions in which participants bared their souls in a quest for self-improvement. 

Fred kept trying to get me to participate, but I shrugged him off. I graduated in the spring of 1975 and was accepted into the magazine journalism master’s program at Syracuse University. 

The beginning of trouble 

Things started off well there, but I got into a relationship with a woman which soured badly, leaving me devastated and depressed. I was still in touch with Fred, who urged me to attend a weekend introductory encounter group. I was so down that anything sounded good, so I went. 

The first thing the leader did was have us stay up all Friday night, weakening our defenses for the Saturday sessions I soon discovered this was a primal scream group, a form of psychotherapy. It was developed in the late 1960s by psychologist Arthur Janov. Janov believed that neurosis is the result of repressed childhood pain—especially unmet emotional needs or trauma. He maintained that fully feeling and releasing these emotions, often through screaming, could lead to deep emotional healing and relief. 

As an introvert, I never would have believed I could engage in that behavior, but by Saturday’s twilight hours, the leader, whom I will call Mark, had me on the mat expressing those feelings. 

Hooked

That provided some temporary relief, but when I returned to school at Syracuse, I found myself not only more depressed, but angry and tense, as if something malevolent had entered my soul. I would later discover why. 

I graduated in December 1976 and found a job as a sports reporter in Cortland, New York, in January. I loved the job but had now begun going to the encounter group every Monday night. The sessions, led by Mark, were cathartic, so I felt great immediately afterward. But back on the job I was even more tense and oppressed. 

The group provided support and friendship, and I wanted to be around them. So I made the terrible decision in the summer of 1977 to leave my job and move back to Ithaca, home to Cornell, and where they were living. I took clerical jobs to keep afloat and looked to the group for emotional fulfillment. 

Bamboozled 

I felt better that summer and tried to end my Monday sessions. But the group leaders were very well trained in guilt-tripping and compliance methods, and they said what I really needed was to take their intensive session, where I would be isolated with the leader for three weeks for individual sessions that would “cure” me. Oh, and it would cost $3,000. 

Believe it or not, I went for it. A lot of the time I was alone in the attic of the house they used for therapy. The sessions didn’t seem special or especially helpful. At one point, I was reading a small Gideon’s New Testament that a doctor had given me at the Syracuse University clinic, and Mark saw me. He frowned and tried to discourage me from reading it. I later found out why. 

I fell hard for one young woman in the group, imagining a future with her. However, she became interested in another guy in the group, and they became an item, further adding to my depression. Then in late 1977 almost the entire group said they had found a “better” psychotherapy and they were all moving to Boston to try it out. They wanted me to go, but no way was I going to go and be around the woman I liked and her new boyfriend. 

Deliverance 

So there I was in Ithaca in the bitter winter, all alone. One of the young women in the encounter group was a Christian and had given me a Living Bible. Desperate for meaning in my life, I began to read it. I picked the book of Job to start with, as I knew that guy had a lot of reasons to be depressed. I also began to listen to C.W. Burpo, a radio evangelist. 

Through a miraculous event, I came to ask Jesus into my heart in August 1978 (you can read about that here). Shortly after, I began having terrifying dreams in which a man wearing a black mask was choking me. I could barely breathe and had to shake myself awake. One Sunday I told the pastor of my church about it. He called for the elders, who anointed me with oil and prayed for me. While they prayed, God revealed to me the man behind the mask—Mark. I never had those dreams again. 

Bad angel 

I then realized that Mark, like Satan, was masquerading as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). That’s why after that initial primal scream weekend, I felt oppressed. An evil spirit entered me when I opened myself up to Mark in that session. Now that spirit had been expelled. 

I later learned that Mark, who was married and had a child, had been sleeping with many of the young women in the encounter group. I heard, though I can’t verify it, that one of those women was an underage teen. In any case, he left New York State. 

In reading my Bible, I found an apt description of Mark; “These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots;  raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 12,13). 

Redemption 

God redeemed me from the ravages of that cult. One day I was reading my Bible and saw this verse: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). The primal scream group had taught us to blame our parents for our neuroses. That had caused some emotional distance between me and my mom and dad. That verse hit me right between the eyes. I began to honor and love my parents, and we maintained a warm relationship until both of them passed away. 

I moved to San Francisco in 1980 to work with the Jews for Jesus organization. I met my wife there and we were married in 1981. For our wedding gift, my parents, who knew nothing about how much I had spent for that intensive three-week session, gave us $3,000 – the exact amount I had thrown away. 

I worked as a writer and editor for Jews for Jesus in my second stint with them, from age 55 to 66. Then God gave me a position as a sports reporter in Vacaville, California. So I bookended my career with my favorite job. Since retiring, I have written a book. My journalism training did not go to waste. 

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things. 

Psalm 103:2-5

Matt Sieger, now retired, is a former sports reporter and columnist for The Cortland (New York) Standard and The Vacaville (California) Reporter. He is the author of The God Squad: The Born-Again San Francisco Giants of 1978.