EXCLUSIVE: Revealed - how Josh Duggar was 'cleansed' after sexually abusing his siblings - carpentry, 'lust counselling' and one-on-one talks on Jesus's 'seven stresses' 

• Leader of controversial religious group that Duggar's parents sent him to after he admitted abusing sisters speaks to Daily Mail Online 
• Bill Gothard's IBLP was followed by the Duggars but he quit as leader after allegations of sexually harassing dozens of women
• He reveals Duggar, 15, took part in carpentry and construction to help build center in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he was 'counselled'
• He had 'lust counselling', taught that it is one of 'seven stresses' and told that 'whore mongers' damaged their 'endocrine systems' 
• Daily Mail Online has gone inside the now defunct Little Rock center
• Eldest Duggar has had to quit job and has kept out of public view since admission of abuse while 19 Kids and Counting is off the air

By Ryan Parry In Little Rock, Arkansas, For Dailymail.com

Published: 11:03 EST, 8 July 2015 | Updated: 12:33 EST, 8 July 2015

The full details of the bizarre faith counseling given by a religious cult to 'cure' sex abuser Josh Duggar can today be revealed.

Duggar - who confessed to sexually abusing five young girls, including his own siblings and a baby-sitter - was sent by his parents to a faith training center belonging to controversial religious group the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP).

Now the shamed leader of the IBLP - a group followed by the Duggar family - has revealed he gave the order to send the '19 kids and Counting' star to the special facility and divulges every element of the counseling program the then 15-year-old received.

Bill Gothard, who founded the IBLP in 1961, claims Duggar was 'cleansed' by a 'godly mentor' at the group's Little Rock Training Center in Arkansas, where he is said to have turned his life around and found 'salvation'.

And he reveals the program included a bizarre mix of carpentry, 'lust counseling' and private classes on Jesus' 'seven stresses'.

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'Salvation': The now defunct IBLP 'training center' in Little Rock Arkansas where Josh Duggar was sent by his parents after he admitting abusing his four of sisters and a babysitter

'Cured':  Josh Duggar (with wife Anna who is standing by him) was declared to have got over his abusing tendencies after three months at the IBLP training center in Little Rock. When he was there he worked on construction and was 'counselled' one-on-one

The Duggars: The fallout from the discovery that Josh admitted being an abuser of his own sisters when he was 14 has led to 19 Kids and Counting being cancelled and Josh quitting his job in Washington DC

Inside the counselling center: Daily Mail Online has been inside the building in Little Rock where Josh Duggar was sent after admitting abuse. Stacks of boxes show supplies of a 'Child Training Tips' book

This comes as Daily Mail Online delves deep in to the shadowy religious movement, branded a cult by many former members, and we reveal exclusive photos from inside the sinister looking training facility at the center of the Duggar scandal.

Revealing his role in Josh Duggar's treatment plan for the first time, colorful televangelist Gothard - who left the IBLP last year amid sordid allegations he sexually harassed dozens of women - said: 'Joshua traces his salvation to his time at the IBLP training center in Little Rock. 

'Once he became a Christian his conscience became more delicate and he wanted to follow and please the Lord. It was a turning point in his life.

'The incident happened 12 years ago and since then Joshua has lived an honorable life, that speaks for itself, he certainly learnt his lesson and now he will have a whole new respect for young ladies.'

Gothard, 80, who lives in Illinois not far from the IBLP's headquarters - Little Rock was an outpost - said Duggar was put in to the care of trusted training leader Harold Walker.

Walker ran a construction program out of the Little Rock facility and enlisted the help of several young male followers.

Josh, the eldest of the 19 Duggar children, arrived on March 17, 2003 and joined other boys on the Integrity Construction Institute program and was put to work renovating the huge dilapidated former VA hospital which IBLP had acquired two years earlier.

Josh Duggar apologizes amid child molestation allegations

Out of use: The entrance foyer in the now defunct IBLP building shows some of the religious treatises which were used to 'train' those who were sent there 

Classrooms: Among the classes Josh Duggar was taught was claims that Jesus had taught about 'seven stresses' - and that 'whoremongers' lust' damages the endocrine system

Out of use: The IBLP training center is now left unused after its controversial founder, Bill Gothard, had to quit over allegations he sexually harassed women

Ousted: Bill Gothard, who founded the IBLP

As well as learning carpentry skills Duggar, who had just turned 15 when he arrived, carried out general laboring tasks with a small group of other students.

But unlike the other youngsters on the scheme Duggar received personal one-on-one faith counseling to 'cleanse' him of his sexual thoughts.

Recalling the time the Duggars asked him for help, shortly after parents Jim Bob and wife Michelle learned their eldest son had sexually abused four of his sisters and a babysitter, Gothard said: 'First of all when that [the sexual abuse] came up his father and mother came to me and I, number one, said he [Josh] really should report it to the police, which he did.

'Number two that he should get away from the home there and they sent him to a godly mentor in Little Rock and it was there when he really became a Christian.'

Gothard said that Walker, the mentor, worked closely with the boys in his care and 'helped them grow spiritually'.

He said: 'Josh was put to work helping with the renovations and learning about carpentry and on the side being instructed spiritually.

'Harold Walker personally counseled Joshua. First of all Harold wanted to know Joshua was a believer and Joshua traces his salvation to his time with Harold.

'Once he became a Christian, of course his conscience became even more delicate and he wanted to follow and please the Lord. When Josh came back he was a different person.'

Gothard added that Duggar's parents 'did what was right' by going to the police as well as seeking spiritual help.

'The police wrote it out, they documented everything, so they took it seriously,' he said.

 'The fact is he did touch his younger sisters, he was a teenager at the time, he touched them in the wrong places which was totally wrong but the sisters weren't even aware of it.'

Duggar, now 27, has admitted and apologized for his conduct and since the scandal erupted TV company TLC has been forced to take '19 Kids and Counting' off the air.

Gothard confirmed that Josh had carried out the abuse by sneaking in to his sibling's bedrooms late at night while they were sleeping and fondling them over their night clothes.

Duggar's sisters, it is claimed, were completely unaware of their brother's vile actions.

Jill Duggar breaks down as she talks about Josh with sister Jessa

Inside the training center: More of the 'training material' with a bulletin about 'sloth' and one entitled 'snake'

Former VA facility: Until it was donated to the IBLP by Hobby Lobby, the training center in Little Rock had been a Veterans Affair hospital

He said: 'Josh acknowledges it, he tells his parents and they tell the sisters and that was the first time they have learned about it. Same thing with the babysitter, she didn't know about it.'

He added: 'This is really quite different to what you think. It has been overblown, it is not like he is a sexual predator, he was a teenage boy.

'What he did, touching over the clothing, is not nearly what you think it is. It was wrong, but unfortunately there's a lot of this going on in many families today.'

He said the IBLP has developed a list of 49 character qualities which Duggar will have been reminded of during his faith counseling.

He said: 'Jesus, during his lifetime, gave us 49 commands and every command has a character quality that relates to it. 

'Also Jesus gave us seven stresses, anger, guilt, lust, business, greed, fear and envy, and there are seven commands that can conquer every one of those stresses. 'Seven commands that relate to anger, seven that relate to guilt and so on.

'Joshua and his whole family were all in the Advanced Training Institute (ATI) program, they all grew up learning the ATI curriculum, and so they were learning all of their material on that program.'

Gothard claims that one of the seven stresses, lust, can have a powerful affect on your immune system.

'The endocrine system consists of about 16 or 17 or so glands throughout our body and they are affected by our sexual drive,' he explains.

'Lust can have a positive or negative affect on the body depending on what it's for. God designed us to have an attraction to the opposite sex for marriage. But whoremongers will be damaged by their own system.'

Gothard said Duggar – who had been home-schooled under a rigid IBLP program - stayed in one of the wings on the fourth floor of the Little Rock facility.

Commemorated: Some of the young men who trained at the 'Integrity Construction Institute' feature in a cabinet in the lobby of the now disused IBLP facility in Little Rock where Josh Duggar stayed for three months

Long abandoned: Dates on a clipboard suggest it has been a decade since the IBLP center was fully operational. 

Walker says he recalls Duggar attending the center but can't remember any details.

The more than 500,000-square-foot former VA hospital building was purchased by Hobby Lobby in 1998.

The conservative Christian craft-store company then donated the building in 2000 to Gothard's IBLP after a friend, former Little Rock Mayor Jim Dailey, suggested he create a faith based facility in the city.

Shortly after the institute acquired the building, Gothard began renovating the vast space, saying it would be used as a juvenile center, orphanage for foreign children and base for growing his ministry in Arkansas.

But those plans failed to materialize and the renovations were never fully completed.

One small section of the large building is now leased by the Little Rock Police Department and the car park is filled with police cars and SWAT vehicles.

On the second floor is the offices of the Arkansas Prison Ministries, a Government run organization which teaches IBLP material to inmates.

But when Daily Mail Online visited the IBLP training center, to the rear of the building, our reporter found it to be eerily quiet.

Only a small notice on the door and a blue crucifix made from decorators tape give any indication it's a religious center. 

After claiming God's work was still being done inside the building Gothard finally conceded that it is 'not active right now'.

And from the evidence it's clear the center has been dormant for many years.

In these exclusive photos the large lobby area at the front of the training center looks like the lobby of a grand hotel – albeit one with no guests.

Scattered around the large room are several ornate cream colored armchairs and sofas where IBLP followers can relax in between bible studies.

Mahogany coffee tables, some of which had copies of The Bible on them, are also dotted around.

A deep pile red velvet carpet and expensive lamps, ornaments and floral decoration finish the room.

Along the walls a number of mahogany display cabinets house various religious texts, including faith booklets called 'Commands of Christ', among other religious texts. 

The Duggars say goodbye to Jill and Derick in home video

Most recent appearance: The Duggars in their most recent public appearance - without Josh. They were filmed for a sequence which aired on Youtube of them sdaying goodbye to Jill Duggar and her husband Derick Dillard

Victim: Jill Duggar - now Dillard - was molested by her brother. She made the disclosure in an interview on Fox News. She was hugged by her father Jim - who sent Josh to the IBLP center - as she left for 'missionary work'

One shelf displays photos of some of the young men who were trained under the Integrity Construction Institute from June to November 2003 – overlapping the period when Duggar was there.

Oddly that's the most recent date on any of the photos displayed.

To the right of the main entrance is a training room set up like a class room and with a projector table in the center and large speakers off to the sides so staff can play religious videos.

In a storage room at the back of the center we found shelves stacked high with boxes containing the institute's bizarre training manuals.

One box is entitled, 'Child Training Tips Book', while others are tagged, 'Children's Institute Songbook 2' and 'Character Sketches Coloring Book 1'.

Also seen were boxes of manuals for adult followers including some labeled 'Men's Manual Training Bulletin 1 – Sloth'.

On a white board at the back of the storage room is an inventory of items dated 10/20/2004 – more than a decade ago.

Items listed include a book called 'Our Jealous God', a CD called 'My Son - Will I Praise Him' and a book Gothard wrote called, 'The Power of Crying Out: When Prayer Becomes Mighty'.

A host of Christmas decorations also filled the room, including a Christmas tree and decorative snowmen.

It appears the storage area also acted as a shop for followers with a raft of stationary, writing paper and material, cards, books and DVDs all for sale.

On the IBLP's website it lists nine U.S. training centers spanning five states and three international centers in New Zealand, Australia and Romania.

At one stage Gothard could attract 10,000 to his seminars.

But it's believed his reach has widely diminished in recent years with apparently only a few training centers still operational due to economic constraints and a drop in support.

According to a former IBLP member, Pastor Greg Lentz, who now runs Rudd Baptist Church and owns a farm in Rudd, Arkansas, the IBLP's Eagle Mountain Training Center in nearby Berryville is among those not used.

Mr Lentz says he leases the property for his own company and said the IBLP has not used it for eight years.

The pastor, 44, says he headed up the construction project at the Little Rock Training Center and was there when it opened in 2001.

He said his team had worked on converting four floors for institute use, including a sleeping quarters, but when he left shortly after it opened there was still much work to undertake.

Mr Lentz, who says he has nothing to do with the IBLP these days said: 'We were builders, we remodeled stuff, it was one big project. It was a rotted, gutted out shell.'

He said he was long gone by the time Duggar arrived in 2003.

'I left that organization in 2001,' he said.

'I worked for them for a long time, helped them for a long time and I still care for the people.'

But others aren't so enamored by the IBLP.

Former Gothard student Micah Murray believes the group is nothing more than a 'cult' that preys on naive families wanting the best for their children.

Micah spent time at several IBLP training centers and once met the Duggars at a conference in Indianapolis.

He said: 'My family started using the basic life principles' home-school curriculum when I was in first grade and all the way through 12th grade and after that I volunteered for two years as staff at the Indianapolis Training Center.

'During my teen years I also volunteered to teach children's programs so I was fairly involved.'

But Micah, 29, who these days builds websites for a living, said he quickly became disillusioned with IBLP and left the program age 21.

He said the 'bizarre' level of control IBLP has over its followers was unnerving.

'We weren't allowed to wear jeans and cargoes except only on Saturdays. We weren't allowed to have facial hair. If I went two days without shaving I'd get the 'why aren't you shaving?', he claimed.

Family compound: The Duggar family home in Arkansas where they are now spending time after Josh was revealed to be a child abuser

'We had to wear suit jackets at dinner every night, weren't allowed to talk to girls. If a group of staff members wanted to go out to get fast food we had to fill out a request form and have it signed.'

Micah said he was brain-washed by the aggressive training methods but grew to dislike heavy emphasis on performance and appearance.

'I became increasingly cynical about the top down authoritarian approach of the organization and the idolization of its leader Bill Gothard,' he said.

'It's been 10 years since I left and I have come to believe that the IBLP is essentially a cult run by a manipulative narcissist that used religious language to prey on sincere families who wanted the best for their kids.

'The worst thing about brain-washing is that you can't see it for what it is. You never think you're in a cult when you're in a cult'.

Micah recalled how the system forced children to appear 'happy, grateful and cooperative all the time', even if that was not how they felt.

But he said the secret behind it all was that for the most part it the approach was a disaster for family units.

'There was depression, marriages were falling apart, there was sexual molestation in some cases,' he said.

'The situation with the Duggars comes as absolutely no surprise to me. A lot of the happiness of the families in the group is in fact false.'

Micah said Gothard prevented his followers from becoming interested in other intellectual pursuits such as science, the arts or psychology.

'He painted a world that was out to destroy families, and then humbly volunteered to show us the way to safety,' he said.

Abandoned: Inside the 'training facility' where Josh Duggar was 'cured' by becoming a Christian, according to the former leader of the IBLP which owned it

Stacked up: 'Training manuals' have been left abandoned in the center which is still owned by the IBLP

Gothard even told his followers that further education was liberal brain-washing and he would recommend working at one of his training centers instead of enrolling at college.

Eventually IBLP created the Verity Institute – their spiritual college - to keep the more ambitious youth from leaving.

Unusually, Gothard isn't awash with money like many televangelists, instead the 'cult' leader got his kicks out of the power he wielded over others.

Micah recalls: 'He had 10,000 people ready to act on his whim, he had access to eager, naive, impressionable young people, especially women. That power was motivation enough, that was his award.'

But in January last year Gothard's power base suddenly collapsed.

He resigned under a cloud of accusations that he had 'sexually groomed' and harassed young women and teens in his ministry.

More than 30 women came forward to accuse him, although it's believed there are a lot more out there.

But when asked by Daily Mail Online whether there was any truth in the allegations Gothard simply said: 'Absolutely not, I have never touched a girl sexually, I've not looked at pornography, God has given me grace over all these years to stay clean for him.'

Bizarrely, Gothard claims that the allegations are God's way of punishing him for not reading scriptures day and night – something he has now resolved.

He also claims many of the women who have made allegations against him have written to him in the past telling him how grateful they are that he helped them.

The minister says that now he has 'voluntarily' stepped down from IBLP, he wants to set up a 'men only' church and already has 2,000 new followers.

'Paul said, "I would that men pray everywhere". When you get the men to be godly they are going to encourage their wives and their family. We have teams of ten men, so far we have hundreds of men in these teams and they encouraging each other and praying for each other.'

Gothard has also written a series of new books which he hopes to have published and has already sent manuscripts to 'hundreds' of his male followers. 

Rambling Gothard said he believes the scandal surrounding reality star Duggar was a wider attack on his faith.

'What this is about is an attack on Christianity,' he said angrily. 'They are out to discredit and destroy Christianity.'

The Duggars have maintained a public silence since the revelation and Josh has stayed out of the limelight.

He was absent from a group video produced to mark the departure of Jill and Derick Duggar, who are going abroad for 'missionary work' and which was released this week.

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