Escape by Carolyn Jessop

Try and imagine being born and raised in the warped world of a cult society led by men who call themselves priests and regard themselves super human, and where a woman’s rights are few and choices fewer. Now try and imagine that this is the only world you’ve known your whole life, and aren’t aware that life can be any different. I bet you’ll struggle to imagine such a thing. It’s too absurd.

I have always held a fascination for the power of religion. It’s such a clever construct – you almost have to admire the first people who decided to use fear as a means to gain control over his fellow man. What is surprising is that people allowed and still allow themselves to be indoctrinated so easily. I suppose it’s the burning desire to know what happens in the hereafter, or trying to find a source of forgiveness, or simply needing a crutch to lean on, that make people subject themselves to dogma.

Even more astonishing is how seemingly intelligent people (in this day and age) allow themselves to be caught up in the bizarre rip current that is cult life, where they willfully submit and devote their lives to liars and fraudsters. Liars and fraudsters who still pull the wool over their followers eyes by selling a belief system and even a key to eternal life, posing as a source of forgiveness, providing a so called safe haven, or simply cutting them off from the real world and selling their way of life as the only way.

In her book Escape, Carolyn Jessop tells the story of her life as a young girl and later a woman and a wife in the absurd world of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints. A world where individual choice, books, television, normal clothing and even the colour red are banished and considered evil. Of course, these rules have only one objective: to cut their followers off from the world in order to control them.

Carolyn was forced into marriage at a young age and, for seventeen years, endured her husband’s control and abuse as one of six wives, bearing eight of his dozens of children. When Warren Jeffs takes over as the highest priest of the cult and starts marrying girls under the age of 14, Carolyn’s motherly instincts sober her and lead her to make a break for it in order to protect her own daughters.

But how does one escape out of a secure society where even the police officers are members of the cult, which instructs that women have no rights? A society that doesn’t afford you the right to carry money or use transport, and prevents you from receiving outside help.

This is the harrowing story of Carolyn’s life and ultimate triumph. I am tempted to tell you more, but I’d rather encourage you to take this journey into absurdity yourself. Learn how people can be indoctrinated to adhere to the most ridiculous rules and suffer the most horrendous abuse just to ensure eternal blessing in their afterlife.