This Was Glenn Close's Experience With A Cult

In general, actors are really weird people. For example, Jimmy Stewart starred in some of your parents' favorite movies, but he also once moonlighted as a Yeti smuggler. And you'll probably be surprised to know that Cary Grant claimed his multiple (around 100) acid trips had saved his life. He even became somewhat of an LSD evangelist after his experiences. Then there's Gwyneth Paltrow and whatever Goop is.

Speaking of cults, Paltrow isn't the only thespian to have taken part in a little brainwashing. According to Marie Claire, several famous actors have been involved with cults in one way or another. Joaquin Phoenix was raised in the Children of God cult as a young child. And brother and sister acting duo David and Patricia Arquette were raised in a commune of one called Skymont Subud. Michelle Pfeiffer accidentally got into the cult-like pseudoscience known as breatharianism when she first moved to Los Angeles. And even a classy lady like Glenn Close has ties to a cult. Let's take a look at her experience and how she got out.

Like many actors with ties to cults, Glenn Close was brought into one as a child. According to Now To Love, her parents moved her family to Switzerland when she was just 7 years old so that they could live with the right-wing spiritual movement known as Moral Re-Armament, or MRA. The cult pretty much dictated every facet of her life until she made the bold choice to live it on her own terms in her early 20s. "[For years], I wouldn't trust any of my instincts because [my beliefs] had all been dictated to me," said Close, describing a culture of control and shame. "You basically weren't allowed to do anything, or you were made to feel guilty about any unnatural desire. If you talk to anybody who was in a group that basically dictates how you're supposed to live and what you're supposed to say and how you're supposed to feel, from the time you're 7 till the time you're 22, it has a profound impact on you. It's something you have to [consciously overcome] because all of your trigger points are [wrong]."

It took years of hard emotional work for the award-winning actress overcome the psychological damage of growing up in MRA. She was haunted by dreams of betrayal, but was finally able to turn them around, face her past, and walk away from it all. She was even able to forgive her father for putting her through the terrible ordeal.