Speaker 1: Before we jump in, we must warn you this episode
Speaker 1: contains explicit content, such as sexual abuse that may be
Speaker 1: disturbing to some people. Listener discretion is advised. Elisa Flores
Speaker 1: inherited Lalus del Mundo from her parents, as from many others.
Speaker 1: The church was her backbone, her compass, her everything. When
Speaker 1: she finally left, she had no idea how to live
Speaker 1: in a world without the cult. For Elisa, even the
Speaker 1: simplest things like choosing an outfit in the morning turned
Speaker 1: into a struggle.
Speaker 2: In the colts, you wore long skirts every day and
Speaker 2: my whole life that's basically all I wore. And I
Speaker 2: went to the grocery store for the first time wearing pants,
Speaker 2: and I was like so uncomfort I felt like everybody's
Speaker 2: watching me.
Speaker 1: The everyday experiences people like Elisa go through can be
Speaker 1: totally incomprehensible to those who have never been inside a
Speaker 1: high control group or cult, because the shackles these organizations
Speaker 1: impose on their members are invisible to the rest of
Speaker 1: the world, turning the most mundane actions like what to wear,
Speaker 1: into life altering experiences charged with terrifying meanings. My interest
Speaker 1: in Le luzel Mundo is not only professional I was
Speaker 1: raised in Mexico in a high control Catholic group that
Speaker 1: required the surrender of all free thought and will at
Speaker 1: the service of a guy that liked to be called
Speaker 1: Mustro Pardi. Our father, and what a father. He was
Speaker 1: a clean cut and strictly frocked priests that preached purity, devotion,
Speaker 1: and sacrifice. He raped over seventy seminarians under his care
Speaker 1: were twelve or thirteen year olds. He was a painkiller addict,
Speaker 1: liked his cars to be Mercedes and his jets to
Speaker 1: be private, and kept at least two women who fathered
Speaker 1: his own children, whom he also raped. His name was
Speaker 1: marcell Moziel, and there are many people I used to
Speaker 1: be close with who still consider him a holy man.
Speaker 1: In places where Morsiel established his order, if you spoke
Speaker 1: of him or his organization in unflattering terms, or if
Speaker 1: you deviated from his approved norms and behaviors, you could
Speaker 1: get fired, ostracized, even end up going broke or losing
Speaker 1: your business. Defying Mosiel and his organization, as it is
Speaker 1: with any other call to leader with an army of
Speaker 1: zealots at its finger tips, was no joke. He had
Speaker 1: the backing of the country's politicians, media company owners, and
Speaker 1: millionaires whose wives adored him and entrusted him with their
Speaker 1: children to teach them true Christian values. He married after
Speaker 1: daughters and baptized their grandchildren. His photos adorned all their mantlepieces.
Speaker 1: In their eyes, he could do no wrong. He was treasured.
Speaker 1: He had to be protected at all costs. So familiar,
Speaker 1: I understand what Elisa felt after confronting the sick truth
Speaker 1: about someone you and your whole universe looked up to
Speaker 1: as a saint throughout your life. When Alisa saw the
Speaker 1: video evidence from Nason's trial, she couldn't ignore the truth anymore.
Speaker 2: All of the things that I had seen and been through,
Speaker 2: they all started coming back to me. It's like I
Speaker 2: had blocked all of it and I excused it because
Speaker 2: he was my God and he didn't know wrong. I
Speaker 2: couldn't believe that he was, as an apostle of God
Speaker 2: still doing those things.
Speaker 1: The problem is, even though your own blinders may be falling,
Speaker 1: almost everyone around you, everyone you care for still sees
Speaker 1: this person as holy instead of the perverted, cheets and
Speaker 1: frauds that they are.
Speaker 2: I had like a little mini breakdown. My church was
Speaker 2: my life and my life was a lie. My whole life,
Speaker 2: my whole being, everything was a lie.
Speaker 1: But finding out everything you believed and strived for is
Speaker 1: a con is barely the first step in the arduous
Speaker 1: process of untangling yourself from it. You can't stop to
Speaker 1: mourn or lead your wounds because maybe there's rent to pay,
Speaker 1: children to feed, or a job to keep. So you
Speaker 1: pick up the pieces and re engage with the free world,
Speaker 1: where you have to think and decide on your own,
Speaker 1: with no manuals, no priests, no gurus or elders round
Speaker 1: to tell you what's true and what's false.
Speaker 2: It's like going through a divorce. You go through the disbelief,
Speaker 2: you go through, the anger, you go through oh my god,
Speaker 2: it can't be true. And it's every single emotion that
Speaker 2: you go through when you're having a breakup.
Speaker 1: From major life decisions to the most irrelevant choices like
Speaker 1: what to do, eat or how to dress. After you
Speaker 1: leave a cult, your values and beliefs are stripped from you.
Speaker 1: You've become a blank slate and you have to rewrite
Speaker 1: it all alone, unsupported because most of your family and
Speaker 1: close friends have probably chosen to stay. They have chosen
Speaker 1: the cult over you.
Speaker 3: Oh I heard that somebody is talking bad about the apostle.
Speaker 3: Don't even eat with him, all with her, because he's
Speaker 3: like ebola, you know, are like a virus. Suddenly you
Speaker 3: don't have cousins, you not have brothers, you have uncles.
Speaker 3: You're alone because you dare to talk bad about the apostle.
Speaker 1: Juel Silva explains the experience to a tea. Life after
Speaker 1: a cult is incredibly lonely because you're basically living in exile,
Speaker 1: no matter how close you physically remain. So now, leaving
Speaker 1: a high control group isn't as simple as walking out
Speaker 1: to the front door and flipping everyone the finger, because
Speaker 1: a cult is not circumscribed to a physical occasion. It's
Speaker 1: an entire lifestyle, belief system, community instead of mind. The
Speaker 1: conditioning of a high control group can take years to
Speaker 1: shake off, always leaving the newly minted Aposta with three
Speaker 1: precious parting gifts, fear, shame, and guilt. But the good
Speaker 1: news is there is life after a cult, and it
Speaker 1: can be wonderful. I'm Roberta Garza and this is our
Speaker 1: last episode of Sacred Scandal SEASM two, Episode twelve, Finding
Speaker 1: the Force Within? Is it really possible to know if
Speaker 1: the preacher, the fitness class teacher, the yoga guru, the
Speaker 1: beloved politician, or the self help maiben you or a
Speaker 1: loved one are so taken with, is really a narcissistic
Speaker 1: psychopath cult leader in disguise. Maybe there are certainly a
Speaker 1: number of signs or giveaways that can effectively act as
Speaker 1: red flags. The very first thing to SEUs out is
Speaker 1: how much the group is actually about what they claim
Speaker 1: to be, let's say, about fitness or spirituality or professional success,
Speaker 1: instead of about the founder or leader. Diane ben Scotch,
Speaker 1: the cult expert we've met in previous episodes, explains it better.
Speaker 4: There's usually like a mystique around a leader that they
Speaker 4: seem like they are of God, and if other people
Speaker 4: start repeating that and looking to them for sacred truth,
Speaker 4: then there becomes an environment where you feel like if
Speaker 4: you're not experiencing that there's something wrong with you, you're
Speaker 4: not looking hard enough within yourself. Their followers think of
Speaker 4: them as having the answers, as having the truth, as
Speaker 4: being connected to God, and so I think oftentimes they
Speaker 4: begin to believe that about themselves. They start thinking of
Speaker 4: themselves as godlike, and they don't want to be questioned
Speaker 4: by anyone, because they really like to think of themselves
Speaker 4: as being the answer to all of life's questions.
Speaker 1: This is called the cult of personality. Most groups will
Speaker 1: lack knowledge or educate their followers on their founders or
Speaker 1: whomever devise their techniques and methods, and that is perfectly normal.
Speaker 1: But if every class gathering or session you attend, you're
Speaker 1: reminded of the greatness of the fearless leader, of how special,
Speaker 1: how much better than the normal human he or she is,
Speaker 1: if there are more tributes and rights around that figure
Speaker 1: than actual skill set development, or if your mates claim
Speaker 1: here or she has supernatural abilities, then you might be
Speaker 1: swerving in the cultish territory. Be really concerned if whenever
Speaker 1: he or she shows up, people so soon giggle or
Speaker 1: show otherwise heightened states of nervousness, anxiety, or euphoria, because
Speaker 1: that is designed to be contagious, like teenagers fainting in
Speaker 1: unison at a rock concert. The main intention is to
Speaker 1: convince you that the group and its leader are greater,
Speaker 1: more important than anything or anyone else.
Speaker 4: What happens when you join a high control group later
Speaker 4: in life, you're recruited. That means that you have a
Speaker 4: loss of your family of origin. This becomes your new family,
Speaker 4: and there's a grieving that goes on, but you feel
Speaker 4: like you've met your true family. Now.
Speaker 1: Remember how Suchil Martin's aunt used to make her kiss
Speaker 1: the Apostles photo every night, how church members display the
Speaker 1: Apostles portraits prominently in their living spaces. In my school,
Speaker 1: Masiel's mystical gaze adorned every room, right over the blackboard,
Speaker 1: bigger than the Christ on the cross next to him.
Speaker 1: And that's how easy it is for a swindler to
Speaker 1: become a saint. High control groups, at least for a time,
Speaker 1: are very good at hiding their toxicity. They present themselves
Speaker 1: as the opposite of harmful. They are loving, purposeful, and
Speaker 1: embrace new members with warmth and joy, making them feel
Speaker 1: special and wanted. This is exactly what happened when Elissa's
Speaker 1: family found the support they needed to break away from
Speaker 1: her father's alcoholism. It was in l DM that the
Speaker 1: floor is found sobriety through a loving community and a
Speaker 1: clear road to heaven, or so they thought.
Speaker 2: You feel like this was the only place that was
Speaker 2: going to take you to heaven, only through believing the
Speaker 2: Apostle of God, Can you go to Heaven?
Speaker 1: Elisa's experience is not exceptional. No sane person just wakes
Speaker 1: up one morning and says, Hey, I think I'm going
Speaker 1: to join a cult. That's why it's so difficult for
Speaker 1: the average change and Joe's to understand how or why
Speaker 1: anyone would fall for this life. Are cult members too
Speaker 1: ignorant to know better? No, it has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with knowledge or intelligence. People get into these groups because
Speaker 1: of emotional vulnerabilities, you know, the ones we all have.
Speaker 1: Joiners are just longing to be better, more spiritual, happier,
Speaker 1: to be part of something meaningful and relevant, because that's
Speaker 1: what cults usually offer. Yes, it's all lies, but at
Speaker 1: the very start it's not exactly obvious. Instead, it sounds comforting,
Speaker 1: self assured, and convincing. Sochel Martin knows this pattern.
Speaker 5: Well, that's where the dangers are. Any organization that says
Speaker 5: they have all the answers and they tell you how
Speaker 5: to live your life, those are red flags.
Speaker 1: Diane ben Scotter further explains how cults manipulate people's fragilities
Speaker 1: to prey on them.
Speaker 4: They're usually people that really care about the world, that
Speaker 4: care about wanting to make a difference in the world,
Speaker 4: that want to be the best person that they can be.
Speaker 4: So there are some cults that are personal growth cults,
Speaker 4: like Scientology or nxiom or there's a variety of those
Speaker 4: kind of cults that attract people who are looking for
Speaker 4: personal growth. And then there's people that feel like they
Speaker 4: want to be closer to God, they want to be
Speaker 4: more holy, they want a more sacred lifestyle. There's people
Speaker 4: who are idealistic and just really want peace on earth
Speaker 4: and really want to find people who are trying to
Speaker 4: create peace on earth. All you have to do is
Speaker 4: believe in the leader, and that's such a relief.
Speaker 1: As you can see, joiners cannot simply be labeled as
Speaker 1: dumb or gullible. Oftentimes they're good, loving people who are
Speaker 1: hurting or missing something in their lives that they can't
Speaker 1: quite find elsewhere. That's why all the encompassing sense of
Speaker 1: warmth and community calls often showcase in the recruiting acts
Speaker 1: works so well.
Speaker 5: I would say that when you grow up in a
Speaker 5: broken family, if you find a place or you land
Speaker 5: in a place somehow through destiny of life where they
Speaker 5: say they give you all the answers and they say
Speaker 5: you're they're your only family, or imagine even being born
Speaker 5: into that society, that community.
Speaker 1: Soon that belief system becomes foundational to your sense of self.
Speaker 4: What happens is that it becomes more than just a
Speaker 4: belief system. It becomes your identity. You start to think
Speaker 4: that you have found the most meaningful thing in the world,
Speaker 4: and that your life has a normal value.
Speaker 1: Now that that's not just talking theory. In the eighties,
Speaker 1: she escaped a high control group as a young woman
Speaker 1: and has dedicated herself to helping people break free from
Speaker 1: them ever since.
Speaker 4: I was seventeen years old when I met the Moonies,
Speaker 4: and I was idealistic. I was really against the war,
Speaker 4: and I had kind of quit school and was worrying
Speaker 4: my family sick. And then suddenly I met this group,
Speaker 4: and I thought that the Messiah was on the earth,
Speaker 4: and that God had been preparing me to be a
Speaker 4: follower of Christ, and that all of that feeling of
Speaker 4: disconnectedness and loss and confusion about who I was was
Speaker 4: traded in for absolute right, self righteousness, for feeling like
Speaker 4: I was chosen by God to follow the Messiah.
Speaker 1: The group that enjoined was called the Unification Church, but
Speaker 1: nicknamed the Moonies because of their founder's name, Sun Young Moon.
Speaker 1: They gained widespread popularity in the US in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: partially because of their anti war stunts.
Speaker 4: You don't want to give that up. Plus, you have
Speaker 4: this community like minded people that are constantly reinforcing the
Speaker 4: belief system, and no one wants to give that up
Speaker 4: because it feels so good. And so when there's things
Speaker 4: that are contradictory to that, it's easy to rationalize because
Speaker 4: they're telling you, well, no one else understands. They don't
Speaker 4: understand God's will, they don't understand God's way.
Speaker 1: So it should be clear by now that a commentarating
Speaker 1: people who get tangled and sticky Culty spider webs is
Speaker 1: that they are vulnerable. They are in crisis, sometimes in
Speaker 1: desperate need of.
Speaker 4: Help, whether they're seeking comfort in a way that they
Speaker 4: feel confused about the world around them, or they feel
Speaker 4: a loss of community or a loss of purpose in
Speaker 4: their life, or they're depressed for whatever reason, or just
Speaker 4: looking to use their life in a more valuable way.
Speaker 4: Those are just human characteristics. But for a predator who
Speaker 4: is looking to control people, they can take advantage of
Speaker 4: those characteristics by offering them easy answers to life's hard questions,
Speaker 4: a community to offer them a way to feel better
Speaker 4: about themselves.
Speaker 1: Once the kool aid has been fully swallowed, the process
Speaker 1: of isolation begins, and that's when the honeymoon ends, because
Speaker 1: the demands of occult and it's narcissistic overpowering leaders are intense.
Speaker 1: Little by little, the unconditional love and acceptance from before
Speaker 1: may now require you to follow certain rules, change some behaviors,
Speaker 1: or make some sacrifices without questioning any of it, or
Speaker 1: you might lose it all. Is your faith not strong enough?
Speaker 1: Are you not ready? Is your love for the teacher
Speaker 1: or pastor fake? That's what they will start saying to
Speaker 1: you because high control groups only accepts full surrender, and
Speaker 1: that requires you to be completely torn from your previous life,
Speaker 1: to cut all other attachments so that your only allegiance
Speaker 1: remains to the group and especially to its leader. There
Speaker 1: are no rather flags than that. One more on that
Speaker 1: after the break. At this stage, the game of OS
Speaker 1: versus them starts slowly and stealthily. It is not unusual
Speaker 1: that loved ones begin asking why you're spending so much
Speaker 1: time with your new friends, why you have stopped coming
Speaker 1: around or quit your good job, why you have changed
Speaker 1: the way you dress, or any of the other small
Speaker 1: things the cult will gradually ask you to give up
Speaker 1: on their behalf to someone who's starting to grow into
Speaker 1: occult mentality, these concerned questions will often feel like direct
Speaker 1: attacks or accusations, because that's what you would have been
Speaker 1: fed that those people, the others, what do you call
Speaker 1: your friends and family, don't understand your talents, your missions,
Speaker 1: your gifts, that they are dragging you, that you must
Speaker 1: get rid of them in order to reach your full potential.
Speaker 1: Over and over, they would stress that the only people
Speaker 1: who truly understand you are your leaders and brothers in
Speaker 1: the cult, and that's when the abuse starts in earnest,
Speaker 1: because by then you have nowhere left to run.
Speaker 4: Isolation is oftentimes a part of a high control group,
Speaker 4: and when that happens, you can have absolute control over people.
Speaker 4: You control what they eat, control how much they sleep,
Speaker 4: how they pray, and they begin to control their own
Speaker 4: thoughts and emotions. In this environment, there's us and there's them,
Speaker 4: and so you begin to feel like if you go
Speaker 4: outside of the group, you don't fit in anymore. There's
Speaker 4: like a cognitive dissonance that happens outside of the group
Speaker 4: because it becomes so much your entire world, so much
Speaker 4: so that it feels when you go home to family
Speaker 4: members that aren't part of the group, you feel like
Speaker 4: you don't fit in. You have to get back to
Speaker 4: the group where your comfort zone is as soon as possible.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was a younger of fourteen, I
Speaker 1: was convinced by Matielle to leave home and join full
Speaker 1: time what the Order called their consecrated women. Think of
Speaker 1: those as nuns, but their vows were not made to
Speaker 1: the Vatican, or to the Pope or to Masielle's Order alone.
Speaker 1: I felt ecstatic to be chosen directly by this most
Speaker 1: Holy Man, but there was a problem. I had to
Speaker 1: wait until I was an adult, so my parents couldn't
Speaker 1: object to losing another child to his group. So he
Speaker 1: asked me not to tell my family any of it
Speaker 1: because they wouldn't understand God's will as he married a virgin,
Speaker 1: and I did. He ended by instructing me that while
Speaker 1: I waited to turn eighteen, I should dress more modestly,
Speaker 1: stop going out to parties, and to avoid all TV magazines.
Speaker 1: And movies. But it was nineteen eighty and The Empire
Speaker 1: Strikes Back had just been released, So I did the math.
Speaker 1: The next episode of the saga, the Return of the Jedi,
Speaker 1: wouldn't see the light of day until three or four
Speaker 1: years later. And what if it was too late? What
Speaker 1: if by then I had already surrendered myself, as one
Speaker 1: of my sisters had done before me, to one of
Speaker 1: the communal houses. Masille's women entered, never again to leave
Speaker 1: unattended or unshackled. Elisa recalls a similar moment as a
Speaker 1: child in Sand.
Speaker 2: Then, when I was young, probably about ten years old,
Speaker 2: I was in school and all of the girls had
Speaker 2: their earspears and I didn't. And I went to my
Speaker 2: dad and I said, I want to get my earspeers.
Speaker 2: And he's like, no, mehow we don't do those things.
Speaker 2: It's against God. And I'm like, what why? And so
Speaker 2: he took me to the minister.
Speaker 1: The minister was not on Alisa's side.
Speaker 2: The minister looks down at me and it's like, are
Speaker 2: you a slave? He doesn't come down to my level.
Speaker 2: He looks down at me, So I'm already feeling threatened.
Speaker 2: Then he goes because in the old days. That's how
Speaker 2: they identified their slaves. So are you a slave, I'm
Speaker 2: like no. Are you an animal? I'm like no? And
Speaker 2: he goes because they pierced the animal's ears and put
Speaker 2: a number on them, so they know who owns that
Speaker 2: particular animal. So if you're not a slave, and you're
Speaker 2: not an animal, then you don't get your earspeers. You
Speaker 2: see all of these people that have their earspeers, their
Speaker 2: slaves to the devil.
Speaker 1: The minister's words rang deep and stayed with Elisa for
Speaker 1: years to come.
Speaker 2: It scared me so much, and so din I was
Speaker 2: going to school looking at my friends, thinking, oh, she's
Speaker 2: the slave of the devil. She's a slave of the devil.
Speaker 1: Elisa headed to school every day, where she was surrounded
Speaker 1: by those satanized by her pastors and parents. Ell DM
Speaker 1: made sure the cute ear rings on her favorite teachers
Speaker 1: and on her little friends. Reminded Elisa how everyone outside
Speaker 1: her community was so sinful and corrupt, and how lucky
Speaker 1: she was to be among the apostle's flock. This inflexible
Speaker 1: barrier between us and them, between the so called chosen
Speaker 1: ones and the leftovers out there being presented as a
Speaker 1: blessing or a privilege, and not as a mental lockdown
Speaker 1: is a telltale sign of a cult's manipulation. It was
Speaker 1: very much a part of Mosille's stick when he asked
Speaker 1: me to join his group of women, but in my
Speaker 1: case it involved something much more powerful than a plain
Speaker 1: pair of hearings. I did not obey when the teachers
Speaker 1: at Mozille's school informed me and my classmates that the
Speaker 1: Star Wars movies were new age and thus satanic, and
Speaker 1: that we should not watch them. But I knew that
Speaker 1: if I became one of Nostropaldi's consecrated women, if I
Speaker 1: entered one of those very restricted communities, I would never
Speaker 1: ever be able to catch up on Hans's solo and
Speaker 1: Princess Leiah's next adventure, and that was too much for
Speaker 1: my teenage soul to bear. Earrings. Movies, pants, make up,
Speaker 1: and music may sound like frivolous, unimportant affairs, yet high
Speaker 1: control groups see them as threats to their very survival,
Speaker 1: as they do anything that sparks imagination, self expression, individuality, joy,
Speaker 1: or creativity. Months later, I bailed out of Mosile's plans
Speaker 1: for my salvation. He wasn't happy and accused me of
Speaker 1: being rebellious and selfish. I guess he found my lack
Speaker 1: of faith disturbing. Thirty five years or so later, Star
Speaker 1: Wars creator George Lucas happened to be staying at the
Speaker 1: same small hotel I checked into, in a lovely corner
Speaker 1: of Iceland. I regret not having the courage to tell
Speaker 1: him this story, or to thank him for ultimately saving
Speaker 1: my life. I hope it's clear by now that people
Speaker 1: don't simply enter high control groups because they lack smart
Speaker 1: or cunning. Drinking the kool aid is not a rational decision,
Speaker 1: but an emotional one, rounded in vulnerability, urgency, and crisis.
Speaker 1: And once the cult works their dark magic and people
Speaker 1: are separated from those they love, alienated from their past lives,
Speaker 1: first through seduction and then through fear, guilt, and abuse,
Speaker 1: they have nowhere else to go. Yet, against all odds,
Speaker 1: some people do muster the courage to leave. Once they do,
Speaker 1: one of the first things survivors have to work on
Speaker 1: is recalibrating their minds, fogged by years of neglect, suppression,
Speaker 1: and denial. They might be the ones telling the truth,
Speaker 1: but they will be called liars by the members who
Speaker 1: stay behind. They might want to stop the cult leader's perversion,
Speaker 1: but they are the ones who will be called slots
Speaker 1: and whores by their community for the first time in years.
Speaker 1: They might see clearly, but people will accuse them of
Speaker 1: being crazy, of exaggerating or distorting the facts. That was
Speaker 1: the case for Elisa when she tried to help her
Speaker 1: family see the truth behind el a DM's version of
Speaker 1: naissance crimes.
Speaker 2: I didn't say anything to my other siblings for a while,
Speaker 2: and then I said, I don't believe in the Apostle
Speaker 2: of God. He is guilty of the things that he did.
Speaker 2: And I wrote down some of the things that I
Speaker 2: had seen and my siblings they didn't accept what I
Speaker 2: was telling them, and they made me feel like a liar.
Speaker 1: Even though Elisa had left the cult, she couldn't shake
Speaker 1: off the trauma that followed her, and her family did
Speaker 1: not make it any easier.
Speaker 2: They revictimized me, and it put me back into that
Speaker 2: vulnerable state like I was a child again and the
Speaker 2: words of the Apostle of God were coming true because
Speaker 2: nobody was gonna believe me over him.
Speaker 1: I left Myseille's group, my family, and my city over
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, but I still remember when I began
Speaker 1: doubting him, the endless sleepless night praying my soul would
Speaker 1: not be done to hell, and the unshakeable anxiety and
Speaker 1: the panic attacks that dragged on for years. I don't
Speaker 1: believe in that hell anymore, but those panic attacks still
Speaker 1: visit me to this day. As Elisa shares, the healing
Speaker 1: might take a lifetime.
Speaker 2: I still have different things that I'm working on deprogramming.
Speaker 2: It's not something that's going to happen overnight. It's a process.
Speaker 2: I'm still working on that, and I'm still working on myself.
Speaker 2: I'm still working on healing and realizing that that marriage
Speaker 2: that I had to the cult is no longer.
Speaker 1: People who leave cults have to contend with the fact
Speaker 1: that the darknesster trying to leave behind is not gone
Speaker 1: after they depart. It stays alive and well, eating up
Speaker 1: their fellow members. A predatory leader like Nason quaquin Garcia
Speaker 1: can hold disturbing amounts of power cast out in white
Speaker 1: nets before it wins. Nevertheless, when Souchil Martin was told
Speaker 1: Nason had been arrested, she was elated.
Speaker 5: We did have tacos that night. We want to go celebrate.
Speaker 5: We were all very excited. My husband was ecstatic.
Speaker 1: But as consequential as it was, she knew the arrest
Speaker 1: was only a weakening blow to lledm's powerful organization.
Speaker 5: But me particularly, I felt like, no, this is just
Speaker 5: one we need to focus on the rest now.
Speaker 1: Nason is currently serving his sixteen year sentence. Temple attendance
Speaker 1: has definitely dropped, but LLEDM has adapted to the challenges.
Speaker 1: They have successfully remade the apostle into a martyr, and
Speaker 1: his designated substitutes firmly ruled the church.
Speaker 2: In his name.
Speaker 5: They're very much still powerful within the organization hierarchy, and
Speaker 5: that means that they have the ties to the government
Speaker 5: and political officials and government officials of Mexico.
Speaker 1: We thought without Nasson, LERDM continues to hold sway over
Speaker 1: their communities with the same iron grip, as if nothing
Speaker 1: had happened. But things did happen, awful things. More on this.
Speaker 1: After the break, religious cults tend to marry each other.
Speaker 1: Mastro Padre's order is not so different from LERDMS. Before
Speaker 1: he died, the Vatican sentenced Marcelle Macielle to a life
Speaker 1: of prayer and penance, conveniently proof about his crimes and
Speaker 1: transgressions only came out after he was buried, in the
Speaker 1: form of three children with two different women for anyone
Speaker 1: to in the math. That's three children too many for
Speaker 1: any forcefully celibate Catholic priest. And yet the organization he
Speaker 1: founded is still alive, diminished maybe, but ruled by the founders,
Speaker 1: very same accomplices and enablers. Because even after these groups
Speaker 1: are revealed in their true ugly faces, many in their
Speaker 1: wake would rather forget those parts ever existed, minimizing the
Speaker 1: pain and dismissing the abuses. But that can't erase the
Speaker 1: fact that people were brutalized and lives were destroyed, and
Speaker 1: not everyone got their happy endings.
Speaker 6: Jane Doe four, in her victim impact statement said something
Speaker 6: that was really kind of heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: That's joy j Editson, lawyer for the Jane does speaking
Speaker 1: on behalf of Jane do.
Speaker 6: Four, and it was that of all the things that
Speaker 6: she lost, the thing that she was most devastated by
Speaker 6: was that she lost her belief in God because that
Speaker 6: was what was the most important to her. And now
Speaker 6: that she is left with all of her broken pieces,
Speaker 6: and now that she's left shattered, she has nowhere to
Speaker 6: turn to.
Speaker 1: And some victims lost way more than their joy, their youth,
Speaker 1: their families, for their faith, They lost their lives. Like
Speaker 1: Karim lyone what such a reminds us never found her
Speaker 1: way out from her ledm ordeals.
Speaker 5: Got him was not lucky. She put herself out there,
Speaker 5: and she went to the authorities, and she did the
Speaker 5: right thing as a citizen. And in the end, she
Speaker 5: wasn't listened to. Her voice wasn't heard. She never got
Speaker 5: her justice. This piece of she died Samuel, and he
Speaker 5: did the most disgusting crimes and committed the most disgusting
Speaker 5: crimes upon children and women. And Gottim was one of
Speaker 5: these victims, and she was not heard.
Speaker 1: Every day there are people out there trying to break
Speaker 1: free from high control groups and other types of destructive,
Speaker 1: abusive relationships. They weigh the odds, the struggles to come.
Speaker 1: They might feel tired to their bones, and they might
Speaker 1: remember those that didn't make it and maybe think there's
Speaker 1: no way out. But like Elisa shares, there is.
Speaker 2: There is life outside of the cult. And everything that
Speaker 2: we were told that our cars would break, our kids
Speaker 2: would get sick, all of those things are not true.
Speaker 2: You can still be happy people are like, if you
Speaker 2: get out of the cult, you're going to be miserable,
Speaker 2: You're gonna be on drugs, you're gonna become an alcoholic.
Speaker 2: I'm none of those things. We were always taught good
Speaker 2: citizens make good Christians. Well, I'm going to tell you something.
Speaker 2: Good hearts and good people are what make good citizens,
Speaker 2: not Christians, not religion.
Speaker 1: The first danger for regular folks is to assume that,
Speaker 1: as they themselves are good, smart people, these horrors would
Speaker 1: never happen to them. But falling prey to a cult
Speaker 1: can happen to anyone. Sachel Martin knows this firsthand.
Speaker 5: Destructive cults they're everywhere, and you don't know you're in
Speaker 5: a cult. And that's the danger of what these organizations do.
Speaker 5: And so when you destruct the mind, which is what
Speaker 5: this leadership of this organization did, the light of the
Speaker 5: world to all of us, to all of the people
Speaker 5: inside of it.
Speaker 1: There's a reason it takes so long for cult survivors
Speaker 1: to break free, if they ever do so. Just imagine
Speaker 1: the kind of strength a victim has to muster when
Speaker 1: a district attorney or judge asks them to revisit their
Speaker 1: darkest days and give public testimony to expose themselves all
Speaker 1: over again to the hate and harassment they thought was
Speaker 1: behind them, that they might have even managed to avoid.
Speaker 1: Elisa asks us to have a little patience for those
Speaker 1: still in the path.
Speaker 2: It takes a while for us to get out of
Speaker 2: that if we can get out, because there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people that can't get out. It takes a lot
Speaker 2: for a person to doubt their faith, to question their faith.
Speaker 2: But just be patient with the person that has been
Speaker 2: in a cult, because it takes a long time to
Speaker 2: heal what was done to them, the different traumas, the
Speaker 2: different coortions, the different manipulations that we have gone through.
Speaker 2: It's not going to be something that's held overnight. Because
Speaker 2: your patience and your love is needed. You can't leave
Speaker 2: us alone because if we don't have that support, so
Speaker 2: many have lost their lives because they don't have that support.
Speaker 2: And a lot of us we didn't know any better.
Speaker 2: A lot of us thought that this is the way
Speaker 2: that life is, or the life was supposed to be,
Speaker 2: that we were born into this and this was our God.
Speaker 2: Please be patient with us. Please understand that we're not
Speaker 2: doing things out of spy or at an evil or
Speaker 2: just to be mean that we're depprogramming, but we have
Speaker 2: to do it in our own way and our own time.
Speaker 1: There is hope for those looking to get out from
Speaker 1: a controlling environment, be it l a DM or otherwise.
Speaker 1: There is help. If you're a victim of a cult,
Speaker 1: you are not alone, so Chill. Martin champions a group
Speaker 1: called survivors Org that helps people share resources and build
Speaker 1: critical momentum for activism against sexual predators. There's also a
Speaker 1: wonderful podcast in Spanish called Salidi on Asecta or two
Speaker 1: sisters joyfully recount their journey from LEDM to freedom one
Speaker 1: day at a time. Outside l a DM, Sarah Edmondson,
Speaker 1: an XM survivor, has another podcast called A Little Bit Culty,
Speaker 1: where she and her expert guests explore how people get ensnared,
Speaker 1: how to get out, and how to survive the experience.
Speaker 1: Our resident expert, Diane ben's Cutter, found an Antidote, an
Speaker 1: organization that fights for education and awareness against high control
Speaker 1: groups in public policy, and the Lalage Center in California
Speaker 1: offers meetups and courses centered on coping with the trauma
Speaker 1: left behind by high control groups. And those are just
Speaker 1: a few Life after LDM has been incredibly challenging for
Speaker 1: all the people whose stories you've heard throughout the season
Speaker 1: of Sacred Scandal, that is, all the people who are
Speaker 1: still with us, Some of them are lucky enough to
Speaker 1: be healing and slowly finding their footing. For her part,
Speaker 1: Eliza finally feels empowered enough to make decisions about her
Speaker 1: body without feeling ashamed. She pierced her ears and even
Speaker 1: God at attoo.
Speaker 2: I decorated my temple with the tattoo of flower. I
Speaker 2: felt like I was a butterfly because I was just
Speaker 2: in this cocoon and had no color. I couldn't look
Speaker 2: to the side or anything like that. But when I
Speaker 2: started getting out, I started ripping that cocoon and started
Speaker 2: getting color and started being able to fly. And now
Speaker 2: I can fly and have color and be free and beautiful,
Speaker 2: and that's how I feel.
Speaker 1: Second Scandala zel Mundo is a production of Exile Content
Speaker 1: Studio in partnership with Iheartsmichael Tura podcast Network, and it's
Speaker 1: hosted by me Robert ta Garza, produced by Sabinn Johnson
Speaker 1: with the help of Stella, Emmett, Reynolds Gutierrez and Anna
Speaker 1: Isabel Octavio written by myself with help from Marivel Q. Salasmith.
Speaker 1: Researched by ROBERTA Garza with help from Reynolds Gutierrez. Additionally
Speaker 1: reporting by Florence Second schilest Gaa Garcia. Engineering by Uamendos,
Speaker 1: Hann Samine Jensen. Sound designed by patrickinionis original music by
Speaker 1: Patrick Hart, edited by writer also Rose Reed and marievel
Speaker 1: Kezada Smith. Executive producers are Rose Reed, Carmen graterol Isaac Lee,
Speaker 1: and Nando Villa. Daniel Bautista oversees Audio Exil Content Studio.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are iHeart, ar Gisel Vancez and Arlein Santana.
Speaker 1: Sacred Scandal was created by Melanie Bartley and Paula Varos.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Mock Music Studio. For more podcasts, go
Speaker 1: to the Higheart Radio app or anywhere you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite podcasts.