Ex JW Documentary: Losing My Religion
A trailer for the documentary Losing My Religion has been released to raise awareness (and funding). I am very pleased to be involved with this project.
Contact Stephan T. McGuire to contribute to this unique film. Please support this effort if you can.
Losing My Religion: In and Out of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Organization
That knock on your door is meant to save your life! Daily, over 6,000,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses are being instructed that very soon, those who do not obey their exact teachings will be ferociously exterminated by God himself in Armageddon at the end of the ‘world’!
So who are these people? And what is it like to be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses?
Losing My Religion is a soul-searching, interview-style film documenting the experiences and exoduses of Jehovah’s Witnesses as they leave behind family, friends, their acquired interpretation of “Godâ€, and a very unique ‘fundamentalist reality’. Losing their religion, many who leave must undergo an often emotionally agonizing and dramatic transition into the once ‘forbidden’ world.
Jehovah’s Witnesses who ‘awaken’, who figure things out and leave; who permanently lose their religion, and speak up against the Watchtower Society, are in fact accused of being the absolute worst of all creation. Basically, the Watchtower Society’s stand is: You are either with us or against us.
Why Losing My Religion?
A deep conversation and intelligent study is needed on the effects of extreme fundamentalism in the world today. There are currently millions of ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world who struggle with adjustment to their new lives. Billions of other people find their life purposes and identities almost solely through their religions, political persuasions, marriages and/or other relationships, their corporate careers, nationalism, the military, etc. Upon close examination, most of us are willing to throw out our own personal reasoning capabilities and deny our own personal experiences to be relieved of the oppressive burden of figuring out life ourselves. Why? What is happening?
The interviews in Losing My Religion will serve as a metaphor highlighting the disservice of extreme fundamentalist ideology and the triumph of the human spirit.
Losing My Religion will be a powerful journey into the life of the filmmaker, Stephan McGuire as documents the dilemmas of current Jehovah’s Witnesses, other ex- Jehovah’s Witnesses, solicit the opinions of cult specialists and psychologists who focus on identity and life purpose. So far we have been interviewing ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses, and already the dynamics of self-realization being revealed before the camera will make for a psychologically fascinating study. Once film production begins, we will want to document several Jehovah’s Witnesses as they are leaving the ‘truth’.
With a kaleidoscope of cutting edge style, highly informed specialists and provocative footage, Losing My Religion will be an experience of synergized story telling, deep healing and an exploration of our insatiable quest for real truth.
Ex Jehovah’s Witnesses and other experts on Identity and Life Purpose:
- Dr Jerry Bergman, Human Biologist who has written over forty books including Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Problem of Mental Illness
- Richard “Shining Thunder†Francis, Author of Jehovah Lives in Brooklyn
- David Icke, Researcher & Author of Infinite Love Is the Only Truth: Everything Else Is Illusion
- Brenda Lee, Author of Out of the Cocoon and the Cocoon Newsletter
- Dr Heidi Nordberg
- Diane Wilson, Author of Awakening of a Jehovah’s Witness: Escape from the Watchtower Society
Links
Silent Lambs– Protecting JW children from abuse
Watchers of the Watchtower World
A tribute and a memorial to Jehovah’s Witnesses who have taken their own lives
Recovering ex Jehovah’s Witnesses Webring
Lightbearer’s Escape from the Watchtower
Survivors of Abusive Religions Outreach & Self-help
12 Steps of Ex JW Theocratic Addiction and Religious Abuse
Former Jehovah’s Witnesses Helping One Another Outside the Watchtower
See also my JW-related links, helpful books, and the Forward You Ex-JWs webring.
If you need a little distancing humor, see the JW jokes.
