Making Waves with “Undertow” – Why I Wrote the Book

Hi subscribers! Time flies: Undertow’s 7th birthday is this November. I’m celebrating two ways: 1) Sending you extra bonus material, such as this post about writing the book, and 2) On Nov. 1st, offering seven FREE signed copies of Undertow, plus FREE shipping. Stay tuned to this blog.

Why did Charlene write Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International ?

The short answer: I felt compelled to write it for my own good. Also, I wanted to take other former devotees of Victor Paul Wierwille’s teachings behind the scenes of The Way International’s biblical research department. What happened there in 1984-86 that convinced me to reject Wierwille and his fundamentalist cult? Few know much about that inner circle who did this work. Not many know of (or admit to) the cover-ups of Wierwille’s self-serving research, psychological manipulation of members, and deliberate corruption of Scriptures that went on over the years.

A longer answer includes things like my wanting to answer outsiders who ask, “How does anyone get caught in a cult?”

The following gives you some insights into why I wrote and published Undertow, including some thoughts about writing memoir. That’s what Undertow is—a memoir.

I felt compelled to write my story

After I escaped The Way International headquarters in New Knoxville, Ohio, in 1987, I began to understand there are good reasons to acknowledge The Way as a fundamentalist cult. I had 17 years’ worth of experiences that validated that. Over time, a little engine inside me kept chugging away, nudging me to write, write, write all those experiences down, reflect on them, and try to understand them.

How did I write Undertow?

For many years, I wrote in journals—black and white composition books full of blue-lined paper. On those pages, I did a lot of freewriting, as the author, Peter Elbow, calls it, to sort out my Way experience, find meaning in it, and heal some of my wounds. I kept all that Way-related examination to myself. No one read those copybooks.

After many years went by and a lot of things happened, I decided to shape my former life into a story so anyone interested could read it. That was an entirely different level of work. To me, structuring raw material like that felt like trying to rake leaves during a wind storm. Some call that process “making order out of chaos.” That’s the writer’s challenge.

Structuring a readable story was a monumental task I was not equipped to tackle right away. I needed to develop more skills, like writing dialog, creating a scene, developing a theme. To focus on this project 100%, I was fortunate I could retire from my technical writing job early, in 2007. At home, I sat at my desk, wrote and wrote, then solicited thoughtful feedback from a few readers and skilled help from professional editors. I read and examined other people’s published memoirs, tried to follow advice from other writers of memoir, and studied a boatload of books about working in this often-misunderstood genre of literature called memoir.

What is memoir?

It’s not autobiography, which covers an entire life. Memoir is only a slice of a life. In writing a memoir, you take a topic of personal interest (what happened to me in a cult) and catapult it to a level of general interest (how and why do people join cults?). Writers are supposed to include what happened THEN and how they look at it NOW. Want to know more? Check out a slim but powerful little book by Sven Birkerts, The Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again.

In my second book, From the Porch to the Page: A Guidebook for the Writing Life, I include a section on memoir, as well as a timetable revealing Undertow’s journey from inception to publication.

Why did I choose to self-publish Undertow?

For about a year, rejection slips from agents and small publishing houses piled up on my desk. One publisher said the book was publishable, just not with them. I could well imagine publishers scratching their heads, hesitant to risk publishing a true story about a group they’d never heard of.

On and on it went like that until I talked to some writer friends about how they self-published their books. After one such conversation, my husband and I drove down to our local Barnes & Noble store, and I scoured the shelves for help. Bingo! I bought a really thick book about self-publishing: The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing: Everything you need to know to write, publish, promote, and sell your own book.

Then I rolled up my sleeves. I dove into that guidebook’s instructions and tackled the project with my husband’s love and support—the amazing Hoyt Edge, who had never heard of The Way before our first date. That monumental-to-me task of writing Undertow took a village, and I thank those dedicated friends in the Acknowledgement section of Undertow.

By November, 2016, I’d established New Wings Press, LLC, I’d finished the book and published it myself. I used IngramSpark to print and distribute Undertow (and my second book) through all its magic channels to booksellers worldwide.

How’s Undertow doing?

Today, sales reports show that by the end of September this year, we’d sold 1,809 copies of Undertow, paperbacks and eBooks combined. Books were/are sold to readers in the U.S., Canada, The United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and other countries.

Advice to writers

If you have a story in you that you yearn to write, do it. Don’t wait any longer. No one can do it but YOU. During the years I worked on Undertow, I kept a piece of paper within view printed with these encouraging words from André Dumas, author of First Books,

 … but the writer who endures and keeps working will finally know that writing the book was something hard and glorious. … This is splendid work, as worthy and demanding as any, and the will and resilience to do it are good for the writer’s soul.

Writing this book WAS good for my soul. It brought me more peace, confidence, and joy as it connected me with folks like you. In the Preface of the book, my intention was to welcome you into my process and guide you into my story. For the record, here it is.

The Preface of Undertow

Preface

In its heyday in the 1980s, The Way International was one of the largest fundamentalist cults in America, with about forty thousand followers worldwide. Founded in 1942 by a self-proclaimed prophet, Victor Paul Wierwille (1916–1985), who marketed the group as a biblical research, teaching, and fellowship ministry, The Way still operates in the shadow of its dark history. I knew Wierwille personally. As one of his biblical research assistants and ministry leaders, I am a witness to his charisma, as well as his abuse of power and manipulation of Scriptures to serve his own agenda. I discovered his sexual abuse of women and chronic plagiarism. Today, those underbelly facts are hidden, denied, or otherwise squelched. The years of Wierwille’s authoritarian reign and the chaos after his death provide the context of my story.

In 1987, after seventeen years of commitment to The Way, my life was a wreck. I rejected Wierwille’s ideology, escaped, and resumed my education. At Rollins College, my essay “Somewhere between Nonsense and Truth” laid the foundation for “An Affinity for Windows,” a short memoir in Shifting Gears: Small, Startling Moments In and Out of the Classroom. These writings are woven into this book. My recruitment story is included in Elena S. Whiteside’s book, The Way: Living in Love.²

This book is a memoir. It is my recollection of events related to the best of my knowledge and ability. The story’s crucial facts are true. Some events and conversations are combined in the interest of storytelling. Besides my memory and bits from others’ memories, my sources include my extensive collection of notes, journals, letters, calendars, books, newspapers, photographs, and copies of The Way Magazine.

Names in this story that I have not changed, besides mine, are those of current or former public figures in The Way International: leaders at the state level or higher, Way trustees, and a few members of The Way’s Biblical Research Department. For privacy reasons, other identities have been changed or are composites. I recognize that others’ memories or interpretations of the events I describe herein may be different from my own. My book is not intended to hurt anyone. This is a recollection of life in a cult that in recent years has become a topic of public interest.

My title invites the question, what makes The Way International a fundamentalist cult? Here is the crux of my answer: Wierwille believed in scriptural inerrancy, a cornerstone of Christian fundamentalism. As the biblical scholar James Barr tells us: “It is this function of the Bible as supreme religious symbol that justifies us in seeing fundamentalism as a quite separate religious form.” The Way International is also a cult, or at least was while I was in it. I use the definition of cult I found on The International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) website: “An ideological organization held together by charismatic relationships and demanding total commitment.”

Scripture quoted in this book is from the King James Version of the Bible.

Any errors of fact, interpretation, or judgment in this book are my sole responsibility.

I hope you enjoy reading my story.

Charlene Edge

Winter Park, Florida

October 2016

Next blog post – October 28: First public kudos for Undertow from former Way devotees

Thanks for reading!

Your writer on the wing,

Charlene