Hello, and welcome to Stop Doug Riggs.
This website is intended to call attention to the destructive and abusive therapy of this supposed "man of God." In time, as more information about the history of his "ministry" is compiled through research and anecdotes, I will post it here. What is known is that Doug Riggs, along with his wife Lori, have traveled across the United States with a small group of utterly devoted followers. He practices "deprogramming" and exorcisms through intense multiple hour counseling sessions, and it has been speculated that these have often been abusive in nature.
As for myself, I was involved in his church in Tulsa, Oklahoma during the 1990's. I was only a pre-teen at the time, but I still remember the screaming, the exorcisms, the hand-drawn diagrams showing how each one of the congregational families were linked to shadowy organizations that wanted to subject us to unspeakable horrors. I remember hours and hours of a charismatic, intelligent, physically imposing man filling my head with fear of the most absolute kind. Through his lessons, my world grew darker. My family isolated themselves from their relatives. This is par for the course for someone in Morningstar Testimonial Church, and is practically lifted out of any cult leader's handbook. Convince your flock that their own families and existing support systems are part of "THEM," and your control of them is that much stronger.
Why even do something like this? Why call out a person from behind the anonymity of the Internet? It's because the Internet is a double-edged sword, and impossible to silence. As much as it has been used to spread misinformation and bizarre destructive beliefs and foster the communities that espouse them, it has also exposed many charlatans and provided a networking opportunity for their victims to find solace in their shared experience.
We don't know a great deal about his background prior to beginning his demon-blasting, and in all reality, it isn't particularly relevant.
(What is known is that he is not a licensed mental health professional. Keep that in mind.)
Let's begin taking at Mr. Riggs' bread and butter as a "pastor" and self-styled "therapist" - and if you are a prior victim of his ministry, you know this term very intimately.
Let those words hang in the air for a moment.
Sounds powerful, frightening. Conjures up images of shadowy figures in the dark unleashing untold horrors upon innocent men, women, and children. Human sacrifices, mutilated children, ingesting the severed limbs of children, bizarre sexual rituals, programming with thousands of separate personalities designed to carry out an agenda paving the way for Satan's destruction of the Church.
When taken to that extreme, most objective observers would start to raise an eyebrow and note its resemblance to any number of bad horror films.
According to some, this horror is not only plausible, but is currently being inflicted on untold masses of people. To what end is not always specified. The ultimate agenda of the programming and abuse tends to change depending on what SRA proponent you ask.
If the proponents of this phenomena are to be believed, there is an unseen and bloodthirsty cabal of ancient European bloodlines with their fingers in every corner and facet of society, playing the innocent like meat puppets in an opera only they understand.
This should alarm and shock us all, right? To the point of action, even.
Not so fast.
To trace the roots of this phenomena, we look not to ancient European bloodlines, or Anton Szandor Lavey. We will not trust in the cartoon ravings of Jack Chick, the nearly self-parodying earnestness of Bob Larson, and will absolutely not take one Pastor Doug Riggs at his word.
When the history of claims of this type of abuse are traced through the objective lens of verifiable factual information, they converge on one man in the early 1970's - the late Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder, and his therapy sessions with a patient by the name of Michelle Smith.
What happened in the aftermath of of those counseling sessions is an astounding lesson in the infectiousness of fear, the effects of confirmation bias, the complete breakdown of critical thinking, and twisting a person's earnest search for faith and acceptance into an abuse far more heinous than what it purports to treat.
In postings to come, we will take a closer look at Pazder's saga - as it cuts to the very heart of what Riggs preaches and instills in his flock. In the meantime, make sure to check out a few of those links above.
-StopDougRiggs
There should be some You Tube Videos that you could link on here too.
ReplyDeleteIt is very concerning when someone takes over a person's life by saying to cut off from family, friends either because they are involved in the big conspiracy or even if they are Christians or not! And using it as a guideline of whether they can come to "his church" or not. Of course it says things such as to not have fellowship with darkness but this man was involved hiding his own darkness yet only accused his "flock" about their so called ritual activity and their darkness until his hand was caught in the cookie jar!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean "caught in the cookie jar?" From the rest of your post, that seems to imply that Riggs ritualistically abused his own congregation. While there may be a shred of truth to that in that his therapy is abusive and dangerous, I highly doubt that Riggs himself participated in the bizarre and heinous ritual murder and sacrifice he accused people of.
ReplyDeleteI suppose it goes without saying that there's no reason to believe any such mass murdering ever happened.
Good read: http://swallowingthecamel.blogspot.com/2010/08/wednesday-weirdness.html
ReplyDelete