By Isolde Walters For Dailymail. A woman who was born into the same religious cult as Joaquin Phoenix and Rose McGowan has revealed the vile abuse and bizarre practices of The Family International commune. Sharen Seitz, now 33, recalled being beaten for disobeying trivial orders and spending hours locked in a closet where she was forced to memorize Bible passages as a punishment for her supposed misbehavior. The Boulder, Colorado woman told DailyMail.
Sharen, pictured far right with her brothers, recalled the vile abuse and bizarre practices she experienced while growing up in the religious group. Sharen's parents, who were given names David left and Mary second right Psalms, joined the cult five to six years before she was born.
The group was made up of communes, known as 'colonies,' consisting of runaway hippies looking for spiritual salvation and happiness with a total distrust of the outside world. The society quickly grew using a practice that Berg termed 'flirty fishing', where he would order females in the group to recruit men by engaging in sexual activities with them.
Cult members were taught to spread 'God's love' through sex and men were allowed to have more than one wife. By the s the organization began to face allegations of incest, child abuse, and rape and was reported to the FBI. It was labeled a cult in by the New York attorney general's office. Several celebrities are known to be former members including Rose McGowan, who was born into the cult's commune in Florence, Italy, before her family fled when she was nine. Joaquin and River Phoenix likewise were part of the Children of God's branch in Venezuela before the family escaped, aboard a cargo ship to Miami.
Sharen said she was raised in the Family International until her family finally fled when she was six years old. She claimed she and other kids in the cult were taught that sex was a way of sharing God's love with people. Sharen bottom left says her parents top left were passionate evangelicals who enjoyed travel and thought they were joining a missionary organization when they joined the cult years before she born. She also revealed how they were taught songs written by Fleetwood Mac guitarist Jeremy Spencer, who joined the group in , while sitting on a fluffy blanket called 'the cloud.
