The Grand Plan

About the Book

This story has many victims but one person survives against great odds. The process of mind control and the evil that results when a group of people fall under the power of evil men who masquerade under the guise of religion is explored in explicit detail. It is September 19, 1990 and Agnes Elizabeth is having her ninety-sixth birthday. The setting is her luxurious bedroom and it would appear that she is a spoiled, pampered old woman who expects to be treated with great deference. She quickly dismisses a reporter who wants an interview and she treats the minister who comes to pray with her with disdain and some rather irreverent, salty language. Some of the minister´s words trigger past memories. To recollect and make sense of those memories, she relies more and more on her box of mementos which is the record of her life. These memories manifest in a haphazard manner depending on which keepsake she happens to pick up. She removes a piece of rubber hose - a catheter - and recalls the day when she inflicted great pain on her father-in-law who was unable to talk and had very limited ability to move, and also the occassion she refrained from giving him his sorely-needed pain killers. She seemed to take a vindictive pleasure in making him suffer. Then she recalls the sadistic pleasure she got from measuring out justice to the Reverend Black and her brother-in-law, Jonas. As the box reveals more of its secrets the reasons for her behaviour can be understood. She grew up the eldest of ten children in a Colony of a fundamentalist religious cult called the ´Church of God´s Labourers´ in which the members gave unquestioning loyalty to the minister, or Reverend, who claimed to get his instructions directly from God. Under the perverted guidance of the Reverend Adams women are treated as mere chattels who are to be totally subservient to the men in their families. Guilt, punishment and fear are powerful tools in insuring compliance. Agnes Elizabeth´s father is a fanatic who is physically and mentally abusive to his wife and children. Her mother has long ago lost all ability to think for herself - her mind has been totally programmed in accordance with the church´s teachings as relayed by the Reverend Adams. On the Sunday after Agnes Elizabeth´s fourteenth birthday events are set in motion which result in getting her mentally receptive to dedicating her body and soul to God´s Will for her. She is ´inspected´ by a wealthy businessman, Mr. Hansen, from a distant Colony of the same religious cult, who is seeking a wife for his eldest son, James who has been twice widowed. A deal is struck whereby her father will receive a sum of money as soon as it is verified that she is a virgin and then a specified amount each time she gives birth to a live child. In exchange, there is to be no interference in her new family´s affairs. In her new home there will be a cook, a housekeeper, a gardener and nursemaids when children arrive. Agnes Elizabeth´s only duties will be to look after her own quarters and live up to the vows that she will take on her wedding day. She is married in a confusing ceremony in which she vows to dedicate her body and soul to her new family. On her wedding night she discovers the true meaning of those vows. She has to submit to the other men in her husband´s family as well as her husband. She is brutally tortured and assaulted by not only her husband, James, but also by his father and four brothers to make sure that her spirit is broken. She realizes that her only purpose in life is to obey them in all things without question or complaint. Such is her training that she is constantly in a state of terror and fear of Hell´s Fires because she may have committed sins such as pride, wilfulness or lack of submission. The Reverend Black, their Colony´s minister, is even more warped and sadistic than the Reverend Adams and he keeps exhorting the men to be ever more vigilant in insuring her compl

About the Author

Alethea K. Addams was born in rural Ontario, Canada in the early 1930’s at a time when a woman’s place was considered to be in the home and education for women was thought by many to be a waste of good money. Alethea wanted to have it all - a career and a husband and children. The first in her family to go to university, she holds undergraduate degrees in English and Education and a Master’s degree in Psychology. She has many hobbies and interests and has always been an avid student of the human condition. A mother of four, she is now retired and lives in the National Capital area where, in addition to her writing, she spends as much time as possible with her three grandchildren.