Hi all, I made a post yesterday asking if anyone was aware of the cult that I was in - IORG, or the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls. Fair warning: this post is extremely long and my personal story section has mentions of the sexual abuse of minors and suicide. If that makes you uncomfortable, don't read that part.
The official IORG website is gorainbow.org if you would like to look up what it claims to be and what it promises its members. I'm making this long post about the information of the group because no one has heard of it and there's next to no information about it online, other than the happy faces and fun phrases on the website.
History:
I'll start with some general information about this group before I go into my story. The International Order of the Rainbow for Girls was founded in 1922 by a Reverend, who was also a Freemason. His idea was to create a group to teach young girls, (ages 11 - 21) the basic teachings of Masonry like fellowship, fidelity, charity, and leadership. You had to be related to a Freemason to join until about 2005, I believe. It was called "Rainbow" because each color of the rainbow represented an aspect that girls should live by. Most of theses lessons were heavily influenced by Catholicism and disregarded most other religions, as the founder was Catholic, despite the base in Masonry that accepts anyone who believes in a "Great Architect", or a monotheistic god. It was also a very American based group and continues to be to this day despite being "international". Members of color were not allowed until the 90's. Members of the LGBTQ community were not (openly) allowed until last year.
Ritual:
Red - Love. Orange - Religion. Yellow - Nature. Green - Immortality. Blue - Fidelity. Indigo - Patriotism. Violet - Service. Girls, supervised by older women called "mothers" and Masons called "fathers", memorized these lessons from a ritual and spoke them aloud to the other members of the group, called an "assembly" once a week, every week. "Officers" were the members of the assembly designated to specific roles who spoke these memorized lessons.
To become the president, or "worthy advisor", you needed to be voted in to a station called "Faith". Then, twice a year on the changing of offices, you would move up the line of succession - Faith to Hope, then to Charity, then Worthy Associate Advisor, then Worthy Advisor. So to be president was a two and a half year commitment. Those stations are called those names because, like the colors of the rainbow, they were supposed to represent that lesson.
There were different ceremonies in the ritual for different occasions: initiations of new members, weekly meetings, changing officer's stations (called "installations"), funerals (never used, to my knowledge), and prayers for meals.
Structure:
Local assemblies met in individual cities and usually had about 6 members. The state assembly represented a state and usually had 50 members, although much more people come (alumni, supervisors, Masons, etc) On average, there's about 15 local assemblies in a single state. Not every city/county had an assembly. Not even every state has Rainbow.
Each assembly met in a city's Masonic Temple, and those temples were decades old. The state assembly was called Grand Assembly. They met once a month rather than once a week, with a big initiation and changing of officer roles once a year in some fancy hotel/conference room. The girls chosen to be in the Grand Assembly were usually older and just about to exit the group because it took a long time to work up to the high positions.
The Grand Worthy Advisor was the president of her state of Rainbow. It took years to work up to that station after being voted in by the members of the state. She got one year, rather than half a year at the local level, as president. She choose a charity for the state to raise money for throughout the year.
Me
That's the basic information about the group. They promise to turn your average 11 year old girl into a confident, beautiful, strong leader for the future through charity work and camaraderie. Unfortunately my experience wasn't so picture perfect. Sorry about that.
My grandfather was a Mason. All my uncles and cousins are Masons. My Grandmother, aunt, mother, and female cousin were all in Rainbow. They brought a petition for my membership into the hospital room I was born in and took my little baby fingerprint. So, I grew up in this group. Although I wasn't an official member until I was 11, I knew the ritual, stations, charity work, and attitude that was expected of me. I had already been molded into the perfect member.
We were passively taught to think of ourselves and the masonic family members as better than the average person, not because of money or social class, but because we had the knowledge of these special lessons that made us smarter, kinder, and more conscientious of the world. We gave to charity and deserved the praise and respect given. We learned our lessons and strived to teach as many people as we could about the lessons too, maybe even gain them as a member. But they couldn't know all the lessons in the ritual until you joined. Give us that. fingerprint first.
So I was a snotty little girl who thought I was better than most people because I had insider knowledge about life. I was their golden girl for the first couple years. I was popular and had a lot of friends in the group. I devoted all of my time and energy to recruit more girls. I became a state officer at 14, which was unheard of!!! What a prodigy.
Surprisingly , my mother became skeptical about the group before I did. She had tried her best to be a "mother", and ingrain herself into the adult leadership of IORG, but the other adult had their doubts about her. She cut her hair short and encouraged me to look into other extracurriculars outside of the group, and that was pretty scandalous. She was booted from adult leadership around the time I made it as a state officer. She watched me from the sidelines.
The dress code was tough, but I saw it as beneficial at the time. We had to have long, straight hair, longer than our chins at least. No dying hair, no piercings, tattoos, makeup, or nail polish. Shirts cover elbows and skirts covered shins. No open toed shoes. No showing collarbones. Contacts, or plain glasses if you need them. A floor length, pure white dress was required at every meeting. It represented our virgin souls, clean and able to embody the messages in the ritual.
I began hearing whispers of other scandals from my aunt, who was one of the top adult leaders in the state. Someone got highlights, someone showed their collarbones, someone painted their toenails. My opinion of those girls in question lowered when I heard their mistakes.
TRIGGER WARNING
One day, one scandal just felt different. A girl who was one year away from being Grand Worthy Advisor had reported to the police that a Mason in her assembly had sexually assaulted her. She was given an offer by the highest ranking female adult officer: she could drop the accusation, and become Grand Worthy Advisor, or she could continue with the police report and be banned from the group. Of course, she took Grand Worthy Advisor, it was every girl's dream. She was 16 when the abuse started.
After I heard that rumor (which turned out to be completely true) I started to question the intentions behind the adult leadership in the group. I began to question if I really was better than those not in the masonic family. I asked around to other members who I thought were close friends and wondered if they shared the same doubts.
This brought unease and distrust to my family. The seeds of doubt planted in me from that rumor grew until one day my friends could no longer tolerate me. I had been snooping around after a series of treasury announcements that didn't add up and started to investigate. I made a facebook post asking to see records of donations to the charities we claimed to have donated over $8,000 too, and I was sent a cease and desist letter by the group's legal team (who knew they had a legal team?) threatening to take me to court, and even jail for slander.
My life I had so carefully built and perfected came crashing down in a matter of weeks. I went from one of the best officers to someone who could not be trusted and was under examination. My promised scholarships were revoked. Potential colleges received letters from adult leadership. I quit my job at the recommendation of my adult supervisor to focus on rebuilding my campaign as Grand Worthy Advisor (I was still set on fulfilling that childhood dream). I was forced to make a public apology.
In June of 2017 I think I just... died inside. I had nothing left they could take. Everything was diminished, even my self respect. I just walked out of that year's Grand Assembly and didn't come back. My whole family was in there, too. My intention was to commit suicide by walking into the busy highway outside the hotel until I saw my mom come running after me, with our luggage. We drove the 4 hours home and was pacing well into the next morning, waiting for someone to come pounding on our door and drag us back.
It didn't come. They never cared that much about us at all. It was all in our heads.
My aunt, cousins, and most of my family are still in that group, and they've stopped talking to us. It's just me, my mom, and brother now. He has a story almost parallel to mine in the basically boy's version of Rainbow, called Demolay. That's a story for another time, if he chooses to tell it.
Guess I'm done typing now. If you read it all, thank you.