WEBVTT - Harrison Hill - The Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps

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<v Speaker 1>Trust me? Do you trust me?

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<v Speaker 2>Right?

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<v Speaker 3>Ever?

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<v Speaker 1>Lead you as trust? This is the truth, the only truth.

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<v Speaker 2>If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't

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<v Speaker 2>welcome to trust me. The podcast about cults, extreme belief

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<v Speaker 2>and manipulation from two spiritual soldiers who've actually experienced it.

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<v Speaker 4>I'm Lola Blanc.

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<v Speaker 3>And I'm Megan Elizabeth, a spiritual soldier to My Core

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<v Speaker 3>to Your Core. This week, writer Harrison Hill joins us

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<v Speaker 3>to discuss his new book, The Oracle's Daughter, which follows

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<v Speaker 3>the rise and fall of a small cult called the

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<v Speaker 3>Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Court. WHOA, it's quite a mouthful.

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<v Speaker 3>He explains what the religious.

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<v Speaker 2>Landscape in America looked like at the time, with the

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<v Speaker 2>unrest of the sixties transitioning into a new Christianity movement,

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<v Speaker 2>and how this group's leader, Lila Carter, who later became Deborah,

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<v Speaker 2>began her spiritual journey on a commune called the Bear Tribe.

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<v Speaker 3>The Bear Tribe is something I would probably join. We'll

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<v Speaker 3>discuss the beginning of Leila's own visions of giving birth

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<v Speaker 3>to what she called spiritual soldiers, how her following grew,

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<v Speaker 3>and the parallels between her and Shaker leader Anne Lee

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<v Speaker 3>we'll talk about how the group became more controlling and

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<v Speaker 3>cruel over time, changing people's names to words like despise,

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<v Speaker 3>using physical punishment on its members, and even kidnapping a baby.

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<v Speaker 3>And finally we'll touch on how Llila's daughter, Sarah, the

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<v Speaker 3>subject of Harrison's book, found her way out. Very inspiring

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<v Speaker 3>story lots to dive into before we do that diving.

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<v Speaker 2>Since we're professional divers, are we No? I literally moved

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<v Speaker 2>in with my dad to avoid the diving program in

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<v Speaker 2>my school in middle school.

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<v Speaker 4>You I am like, like diving in the water.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, in Utah, my middle school had like a diving

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<v Speaker 2>like is.

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<v Speaker 3>The Mormon thing, like you guys are gonna have to

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<v Speaker 3>live in the ocean.

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<v Speaker 2>No, it was just like the pe decided like all right,

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<v Speaker 2>this quarter we're doing diving, and I was like, I'm

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<v Speaker 2>not doing that, So I'm gonna live with dad instead

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<v Speaker 2>because I that's how much I'm not a diver.

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<v Speaker 3>I learned to dive in a swimming pool. Well yeah,

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<v Speaker 3>this was a swimming pool as well.

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<v Speaker 4>It wasn't the ocean.

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<v Speaker 3>There wasn't the ocean and Utah, Yeah, okay, anyway, we're

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<v Speaker 3>not divers.

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<v Speaker 2>But on this podcast, sometimes we.

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<v Speaker 4>Dive into stories.

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<v Speaker 3>I get what you're caays, and you're probably wondering what

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<v Speaker 3>my cultiest thing is.

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<v Speaker 4>You're probably wanting to dive. Please let me dive.

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<v Speaker 3>Okay, diving straight in This week, according to The New

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<v Speaker 3>York Times and every other publication in the world, the

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<v Speaker 3>founder of One Taste.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh that was mine. Shit, It's okay, We'll share it.

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<v Speaker 2>We'll share it.

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<v Speaker 4>Nicole. How do you say her last name?

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<v Speaker 3>Day?

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<v Speaker 4>Don't?

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<v Speaker 2>I don't know Day don't. They don't.

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<v Speaker 3>She's gone to nine years in prison. She deserves. She

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<v Speaker 3>as a hefty.

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<v Speaker 4>Million upon million dollar fine.

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<v Speaker 3>We did do a rewind episode because we did speak

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<v Speaker 3>to somebody who very much was a part of One Taste.

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<v Speaker 4>Her name was Alana oak.

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<v Speaker 2>Our back again, another last name. I don't know how

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<v Speaker 2>to say. Why do last names need to be so hard?

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<v Speaker 2>No one's ever said mine correctly? So like, I get it,

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<v Speaker 2>but I'm sorry. If we're butchering, they will call me.

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<v Speaker 4>A Lola blank.

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<v Speaker 2>And by the way, if I mispronounce your name, you

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<v Speaker 2>can call me Lola blank anytime you want.

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<v Speaker 3>We care about mispronouncing names except for Nicoles.

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<v Speaker 4>Yeah, she sucks, Nicole de Doo.

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<v Speaker 3>She really sucks, and tell, since we're sharing a cultius thing,

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<v Speaker 3>tell the people a little bit what Nicole got herself into.

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<v Speaker 2>So for those who were not following this One Taste

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<v Speaker 2>saga that's been going on for years, this was a

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<v Speaker 2>self acclaimed like wellness and empowerment company. They had this

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<v Speaker 2>technique called orgasmic meditation and they were trying to become

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<v Speaker 2>as mainstream as yoga. All these celebrities participated in it.

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<v Speaker 4>Then it must be normal.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, of course Gwyneth Paltrow participated in it, so so

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<v Speaker 2>how could she not? And like it involved stuff like

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<v Speaker 2>group orgasm and was sort of like purporting to be

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<v Speaker 2>this like female led, like feminist, like you know, women

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<v Speaker 2>should have orgasms, they're good for you thing. But then

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<v Speaker 2>of course they were forcing labor from their followers, unpaid labor.

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<v Speaker 2>She was coercing people in all kinds of ways and

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<v Speaker 2>controlling their lives, as cul leaders tend to do.

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<v Speaker 4>So she has finally been sentenced.

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<v Speaker 3>Yes, as well as her co oc comp was Cherwit's

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<v Speaker 3>Rachel Cherwitz.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they were also. I'm reading from the Times dot

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<v Speaker 2>Com an article written by Joshua Thurston called the Fall

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<v Speaker 2>of One Taste Orgasm meditation cult leader Nicole Dato or

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<v Speaker 2>however you say it. It says they used abusive and

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<v Speaker 2>manipulative tactics to gain control over some of the participants

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<v Speaker 2>when they were unable to pay the fees for the courses,

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<v Speaker 2>so they would force them to settle these debts by

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<v Speaker 2>working without pay, including manual labor as well as sexual

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<v Speaker 2>services exactly in some cases seven days, oh fucking week.

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<v Speaker 2>It doesn't say fucking I added the fucking yeah.

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<v Speaker 3>I mean, the sexual abuse is just built into the

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<v Speaker 3>system under the guise of like orgasms for women, and

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<v Speaker 3>then suddenly you're the vagina model that's supposed to be

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<v Speaker 3>uh getting orgasms.

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<v Speaker 2>It's just like, what the hell, yeah, because the conceit

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<v Speaker 2>of it is that someone else who has clothing on

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<v Speaker 2>masturbates a woman, and so like you are expected to

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<v Speaker 2>participate publicly in this like sexual ritual, which I'm sure, well,

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<v Speaker 2>I've actually spoken to at least one person who participated

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<v Speaker 2>and had a great time, but not everybody is going

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<v Speaker 2>to have that.

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<v Speaker 3>A year suggested that we go to it when we

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<v Speaker 3>first started this podcast in the early early days.

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<v Speaker 4>I was like, yeh, we were like, let's go look

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<v Speaker 4>at it.

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<v Speaker 3>Not for as investment to join it as investigative journalists,

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<v Speaker 3>of which we turned out never to, thank God, because

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<v Speaker 3>I would have joined it. You would have joined it,

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<v Speaker 3>for I would have joined it for sure. So yeah,

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<v Speaker 3>I'm glad we never went. I'm glad that they're being

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<v Speaker 3>held accountable, and I'm just feel so sorry for all

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<v Speaker 3>these women whose body was used and what should have

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<v Speaker 3>been a very empowering group.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, just like the time wasted to Sometimes I think

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<v Speaker 2>about that. I'm just like the years of your life

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<v Speaker 2>that is taken from you when you are exploited by

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<v Speaker 2>people like this. Yes, there's so many other wonderful things

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<v Speaker 2>people could be doing with their lives besides being exploited

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<v Speaker 2>by fucking Nicole Didaru. So I'm glad she's finally facing

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<v Speaker 2>some consequences for her actions. Yeah, well, do you know

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<v Speaker 2>who is giving nobody orgasms?

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<v Speaker 4>Pray tell who?

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<v Speaker 3>And Lee a shaker that we're going to get to

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<v Speaker 3>in this podcast.

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<v Speaker 2>That's right, because the leader of the Aggressive Christiani Emissions

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<v Speaker 2>Training Corps modeled herself after Ann Lee, and you'll get

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<v Speaker 2>to hear all about that.

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<v Speaker 4>Shall we talk to Harrison. Let's do.

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<v Speaker 2>Welcome Harrison Hill to trust me. Thank you so much

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<v Speaker 2>for joining us today.

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<v Speaker 1>Thank you so much for having me. I'm so looking

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<v Speaker 1>forward to this conversation me too.

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<v Speaker 2>Your writing is so literary and gripping for something that

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<v Speaker 2>is journalism, like I feel like normally when I read

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<v Speaker 2>a book about something from a journalistic point of view,

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<v Speaker 2>it can be quite dry. Shouldn't say normally, Sometimes it

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<v Speaker 2>can be quite dry. But it was so like gripping

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<v Speaker 2>the way. You're really beautiful writer, So.

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<v Speaker 4>I just want to say that, thank you.

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<v Speaker 2>So the book I'm referring to is The Oracle's Daughter,

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<v Speaker 2>The Rise and Fall of an American Cult, And so

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<v Speaker 2>of course we must first ask you what drew you

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<v Speaker 2>to this topic.

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<v Speaker 1>The story began for me back in twenty eighteen actually,

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<v Speaker 1>when my younger brother and his wife moved to an

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<v Speaker 1>apartment in Brooklyn, New York, which is where I myself live,

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<v Speaker 1>and their apartment flooded one day, and this woman across

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<v Speaker 1>the hallway from them came by and was like, let

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<v Speaker 1>me help clean up, and she did. And so in

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<v Speaker 1>the weeks following that, they of course became friendly and

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<v Speaker 1>you know, just got to know each other. And then

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<v Speaker 1>eventually this woman revealed that she'd grown up in a

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<v Speaker 1>cult and that it was a cult run by her mother,

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<v Speaker 1>and they, of course, my brother and his wife were like, whoa,

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<v Speaker 1>that's wild. We know somebody who's a writer who's always

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<v Speaker 1>looking for interesting stories. We should introduce you to him.

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<v Speaker 1>And that, of course was me and the woman, of course,

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<v Speaker 1>was Sarah Green. So we had our first interview back

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<v Speaker 1>in twenty nineteen. But yeah, it all began with a

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<v Speaker 1>flood in an apartment.

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<v Speaker 4>Whow kind of biblical?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, very serendipitous way

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<v Speaker 2>to get a story. All right, Well, talk to us

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<v Speaker 2>about Lylah Green, who later became Deborah, but let's start

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<v Speaker 2>with calling her Lilah because that was her birth name. Sure,

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<v Speaker 2>what was her early life like? She was kind of

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<v Speaker 2>an overachiever initially, right, and we're talking about the leader here.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So the group in question is a group called

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<v Speaker 1>the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corp. I mean, it's quite

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<v Speaker 1>a mouthful. Whenever I say it, people's eyes kind of

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<v Speaker 1>expand as it gets to the end of the phrase.

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<v Speaker 2>The word aggressive, including that in the title is a

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<v Speaker 2>bold move, right.

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<v Speaker 1>It's not ambiguous what their vibe is.

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<v Speaker 4>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 1>So, anyways, the leaders of the group were these people

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<v Speaker 1>Jim and Lylah Green and Lilah was really the kind

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<v Speaker 1>of spiritual head of the group. She was the real

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<v Speaker 1>person at the top. But before she was a cult leader,

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<v Speaker 1>before she was you know, being tried for all these

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<v Speaker 1>various horrific crimes. She just a young woman in West Sacramento,

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<v Speaker 1>growing up in a very poor family. Her parents divorced

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<v Speaker 1>when she was young. Her father was an alcoholic, her

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<v Speaker 1>mom worked as an a as a she worked at

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<v Speaker 1>an almond processing facility. You know, just a lot of

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<v Speaker 1>poverty and difficulty in her early life. Her younger brother

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<v Speaker 1>died when she was in her early twenties, and this

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<v Speaker 1>for her was just this like incredibly cataclysmic event for her.

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<v Speaker 1>She just was just completely thrown and up to that

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<v Speaker 1>point she'd been something of a hippie and was like,

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<v Speaker 1>I've got to start over, I've got to do something new,

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<v Speaker 1>and so with them, and in practice for her was

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<v Speaker 1>that she joined a back to the land commune called

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<v Speaker 1>the Bear Tribe, which was located about an hour outside

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<v Speaker 1>of Sacramento. This is in the early nineteen seventies. Sorry

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<v Speaker 1>if I didn't mention that earlier. And yeah, she just

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<v Speaker 1>fell in with these group of people doing all this

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<v Speaker 1>wild stuff out in the woods.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna pause you for a sec.

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<v Speaker 4>Much time, a little bit.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I mean well, first of all, I just want

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<v Speaker 3>to say, like she sounds like when she was in

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<v Speaker 3>high school and before she joined the Bear tribe, which

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<v Speaker 3>we need to do an episode on the Bear tribe.

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<v Speaker 4>That was fascinating.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it seems like she was a very I would

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<v Speaker 3>imagine her going into woman's studies like the top of

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<v Speaker 3>her class, like, yeah, the treasurer, like a type a personality.

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<v Speaker 1>I mean she literally was the treasurer of her of

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<v Speaker 1>maybe her junior high school class. That's very apt. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>and she was this girl's vice president of her high school.

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<v Speaker 1>She was a real achiever. I mean, she was a

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<v Speaker 1>very very smart young woman who would read ed Girl

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<v Speaker 1>and Poe to for her younger siblings. She's a beautiful

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<v Speaker 1>writer in this kind of wild way. The mailings that

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<v Speaker 1>she made in this in this cult were very well written,

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<v Speaker 1>even though they were kind of insane.

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<v Speaker 4>I didn't notice that. I was like, that's crazy, but

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<v Speaker 4>it's well written. It's written. Yeah.

0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.000
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, she as a young woman, she you know,

0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.520
<v Speaker 1>her mom is off working at this almond processing facility.

0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.120
<v Speaker 1>Her dad is off somewhere else, and so she's responsible

0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:55.960
<v Speaker 1>for taking care of the kids, and she was very diligent,

0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:58.960
<v Speaker 1>very you know, type a as you were saying earlier, Megan.

0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:03.560
<v Speaker 1>But she gets to college and then it's the late sixties,

0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:05.840
<v Speaker 1>it's the early seven is she's sort of letting free,

0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:09.880
<v Speaker 1>and so she had this real change in perspective, as

0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:11.520
<v Speaker 1>a lot of young people at the time did. But

0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:13.400
<v Speaker 1>for her, you know, she was just a woman who'd

0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:17.960
<v Speaker 1>always felt things incredibly deeply. Whatever she was doing, she

0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.040
<v Speaker 1>was doing to like the nth degree. And so when

0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:22.720
<v Speaker 1>she was a kid, that meant she was being very

0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:24.679
<v Speaker 1>accomplished in school. When she was a hippie, that meant

0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:27.080
<v Speaker 1>she was being a full bore hippie. And when she

0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:28.600
<v Speaker 1>was a cult leader, she was a.

0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:34.600
<v Speaker 2>Full cult leader, committing to everything. Can you just talk

0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:36.880
<v Speaker 2>a little bit about I mean, we obviously all know

0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:38.600
<v Speaker 2>that a bunch of people joined Colts in the sixties

0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:40.840
<v Speaker 2>and seventies, but do you talk a little bit about

0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:44.440
<v Speaker 2>that era and how it connects to Christianity, because that's

0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:46.880
<v Speaker 2>something we've talked about quite a bit on here, and

0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.280
<v Speaker 2>how it seems so contradictory that they were so linked

0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.160
<v Speaker 2>at that time, but yet they were right.

0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:54.280
<v Speaker 1>Well, so, I mean the most I would story from

0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.679
<v Speaker 1>a very big picture lens to say that, you know,

0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.000
<v Speaker 1>as I'm sure many of your listeners know, like cults

0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.000
<v Speaker 1>emerge often emerge out of periods of great transition or

0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.560
<v Speaker 1>social instability. People are looking for security, They're looking for

0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:10.120
<v Speaker 1>some kind of spiritual comfort. And if someone knocks on

0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.560
<v Speaker 1>your door and they're like waving little flyers and your

0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:14.839
<v Speaker 1>life is sort of unstable, you're much more likely to

0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:20.400
<v Speaker 1>follow them, as did the connection with Christianity. Yeah, so

0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:26.280
<v Speaker 1>the counterculture, it affected all parts of American society. It

0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:30.199
<v Speaker 1>just seeped into every little nook and cranny, and American

0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:33.360
<v Speaker 1>Christianity was not immune to that. There were parts of

0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.600
<v Speaker 1>the Church that really took on a kind of hippyish sensibility,

0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:41.040
<v Speaker 1>and in many ways sometimes it was kind of funny,

0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:43.320
<v Speaker 1>Like I thought, there was one person who talked about

0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.840
<v Speaker 1>how hippies would sort of coyly refer to this one

0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.800
<v Speaker 1>versus it would quote Genesis and say, you know, Genesis

0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.640
<v Speaker 1>says let the earth bring forth grass, and they would

0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.640
<v Speaker 1>use that as a kind of justification for smoking marijuana.

0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.840
<v Speaker 1>Or there was a bumper secure. I found where it

0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:02.360
<v Speaker 1>turned the anti war slogan hell no we won't go.

0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.960
<v Speaker 1>They turned it into a kind of proselytizing phrase. It

0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:10.520
<v Speaker 1>would be hell question mark no we won't go. So

0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.679
<v Speaker 1>some of it was really funny and some of it

0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:17.720
<v Speaker 1>I think was really sincere and frankly kind of beautiful,

0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:21.440
<v Speaker 1>because you know, American Christianity at the time had been

0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.160
<v Speaker 1>i mean just a painted extremely broad strokes. There'd been

0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.040
<v Speaker 1>you know, coming out of World War Two. People wanted stability,

0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:31.520
<v Speaker 1>and American Christianity reflected that, and so the children of

0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:33.120
<v Speaker 1>the people who had been in World War Two were

0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:37.120
<v Speaker 1>really wanting something different, and in terms of Christianity, what

0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:40.240
<v Speaker 1>they wanted was a more embodied, more emotionally connected kind

0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:43.280
<v Speaker 1>of faith. What that meant was that in terms of

0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:45.840
<v Speaker 1>doctrine things could get a little hazy. They weren't so

0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:48.360
<v Speaker 1>focused on like exactly what is the theology. It was

0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.240
<v Speaker 1>more about feeling. It was more about emotion.

0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:51.680
<v Speaker 4>It was more vibes.

0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:52.600
<v Speaker 1>It was more vibes.

0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:56.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeahseduff was vibes and Christianity was vibes.

0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:01.440
<v Speaker 3>But definitely like hippie bearer tribe pipe blind to Christianity

0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:05.560
<v Speaker 3>is something That is so fascinating to me because it

0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:08.560
<v Speaker 3>is sometimes a leap, but so many people were willing

0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:09.040
<v Speaker 3>to take it.

0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:11.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So so many people went from free love to

0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.520
<v Speaker 2>highly controlled Christian groups, which is really fascinating.

0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:20.240
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, to me, it's all kind of a different

0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:23.480
<v Speaker 1>expression of the same impulse. Like, so I think that

0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.400
<v Speaker 1>the basic kind of aquifer of all this is the

0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:28.960
<v Speaker 1>same body of water. How it comes out is quite

0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:33.400
<v Speaker 1>different and sometimes like dramatically different. But for people who

0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.840
<v Speaker 1>feel things in an extreme way, they're looking for extreme expression.

0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:51.160
<v Speaker 3>When they're at the Bear Tribe, A man named Jim

0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:53.120
<v Speaker 3>comes along, and at the Bear Tribe they're kind of

0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.400
<v Speaker 3>just out in the wilderness, like beaten drums pretending to

0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:58.600
<v Speaker 3>be Native American, pretending to be Native American.

0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:03.800
<v Speaker 4>And her I want to call her Lilah.

0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:05.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we're calling her Lila for now. Yeah.

0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:10.080
<v Speaker 3>Jim and Lilah at first, are like they're not getting along.

0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:11.240
<v Speaker 1>Well, Jim seemed.

0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.600
<v Speaker 2>Crazy at first, right, Yeah, Jim seemed like he was

0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.280
<v Speaker 2>going to be the one who was sending people off

0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:17.280
<v Speaker 2>the loopy deep end.

0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:18.960
<v Speaker 4>Yes, what changed?

0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:24.640
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? What changed? Well, they would say that God intervened.

0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:30.520
<v Speaker 1>I think what's also true is that Jim got very ill,

0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:32.680
<v Speaker 1>which is, you know, for someone living in a back

0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:34.840
<v Speaker 1>to land commune, is not exactly shocking. There's not a

0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.760
<v Speaker 1>lot of sanitation that happens in a place like that.

0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:43.000
<v Speaker 1>And so he came down with something perhaps hepatitis, and Lilah,

0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:45.880
<v Speaker 1>who had previously been just like totally at odds with

0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.000
<v Speaker 1>him because they were both very intense people and there

0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.400
<v Speaker 1>was a kind of competition in their intensity. Anyways, he

0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.920
<v Speaker 1>got sick and she felt called to sort of take

0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.400
<v Speaker 1>care of him. She had previously stolen something from his

0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.280
<v Speaker 1>tent and Jim had forgiven her and that had like

0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:03.240
<v Speaker 1>warm some of the ice between them. But as a

0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:06.200
<v Speaker 1>result of her taking care of him, she one night

0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.600
<v Speaker 1>was called by God to go to his tepee and

0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.959
<v Speaker 1>strip naked and give herself to him. And so as

0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:16.800
<v Speaker 1>a result of that they were pretty permanently a couple

0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:17.280
<v Speaker 1>since then.

0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.200
<v Speaker 2>God definitely told her to do that, and then still

0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:21.640
<v Speaker 2>are together to this day.

0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:24.159
<v Speaker 3>Two things to that, I mean, one thing, when she

0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:27.360
<v Speaker 3>stole food from Gem's tent, he didn't know it was her,

0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.000
<v Speaker 3>and he beat the shit out of a one armed

0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.399
<v Speaker 3>man that he thought did it. So we have a

0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:35.879
<v Speaker 3>little bit of a look in god Gem's personality. And

0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:38.520
<v Speaker 3>then number two she was topless a lot like this

0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.359
<v Speaker 3>was a woman who was just like, I'll be topless.

0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.280
<v Speaker 2>But again, and the setting is they are pretending to

0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:45.160
<v Speaker 2>be tribal people.

0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:45.800
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:50.919
<v Speaker 2>I found the period where they leave that particular group

0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.639
<v Speaker 2>and before they start the cult interesting because it seems

0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:55.919
<v Speaker 2>like their lives just get really small. And she starts

0:17:56.000 --> 0:18:00.520
<v Speaker 2>kind of feeling crazy and stir crazy, trapped, and her

0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:05.639
<v Speaker 2>response to feeling trapped was then to start having these

0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.159
<v Speaker 2>sort of visions.

0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:12.119
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So the way began is that she started to

0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:15.439
<v Speaker 1>feel called by God that he wanted her to start

0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:17.919
<v Speaker 1>raising up an army, that the world was going to

0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:22.880
<v Speaker 1>end soon, and that she needed to produce spiritual soldiers

0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:24.959
<v Speaker 1>who would help hasten the end of the world. And

0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:29.200
<v Speaker 1>so what that literally meant was she would become sort

0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:31.560
<v Speaker 1>of she would feel the presence of God. She would

0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.520
<v Speaker 1>get down on the floor, she would start moaning and

0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:37.639
<v Speaker 1>grunting and screaming as if she were a woman in labor,

0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:42.320
<v Speaker 1>and she would quote unquote give birth to spiritual soldiers,

0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:44.280
<v Speaker 1>which you know, there was nothing there physically, but she

0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:46.600
<v Speaker 1>said there were thousands of spirits that you know, over

0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:48.600
<v Speaker 1>the years came out of her, and those spirits kind

0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:53.960
<v Speaker 1>of went over the world and brought forth God's will,

0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:57.240
<v Speaker 1>And so that was one of the first kind of

0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.199
<v Speaker 1>rituals that she was engaged with. A very interesting thing

0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:02.840
<v Speaker 1>about her is that sometimes people ask me, like, you know,

0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:05.560
<v Speaker 1>how could she trick people into following her and all

0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:07.720
<v Speaker 1>that kind of thing, and then but to her, I mean,

0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:09.280
<v Speaker 1>my reading of it at least is that she wasn't

0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:13.320
<v Speaker 1>tricking anybody. She sincerely believed what she was saying. This

0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:17.320
<v Speaker 1>was a very heartfelt belief in her singular connection to God.

0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:19.639
<v Speaker 1>And there's something about that makes it even more tragic

0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:21.879
<v Speaker 1>to me that she it wasn't sort of nefarious in

0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:23.600
<v Speaker 1>her own mind, In her ow mind, she was doing

0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:24.520
<v Speaker 1>tremendous good.

0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.760
<v Speaker 2>Right right as I was first reading the first scene

0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:30.439
<v Speaker 2>sort of where you set up that she's having these

0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.520
<v Speaker 2>spiritual births or whatever. Of course, the first image that

0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:35.880
<v Speaker 2>came to my mind was the movie The Testament of Annlee.

0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.320
<v Speaker 2>And like three pages later you start talking about ann

0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:42.560
<v Speaker 2>Lee fascinating women, both of them and the connections between

0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.840
<v Speaker 2>them are so fascinating. Can you, briefly, can you just

0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:47.440
<v Speaker 2>tell us who Annlee is? Because a lot of people

0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:48.480
<v Speaker 2>might not know absolutely.

0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:50.040
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I'd love to sort of go a little

0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:52.200
<v Speaker 1>bit broader as well, if that's okay with you all, Yeah,

0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:54.160
<v Speaker 1>just to sort of give a general sense of this book.

0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:56.520
<v Speaker 1>This book is about this woman, Sarah, who escaped her

0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.840
<v Speaker 1>mother Lyla's cult. It's also about the rise and fall

0:19:59.880 --> 0:20:02.320
<v Speaker 1>of this cult, but it's also about much more than that.

0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.159
<v Speaker 1>It's about American history and American religious history and how

0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:10.439
<v Speaker 1>this one group kind of manifest and actors the kind

0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.600
<v Speaker 1>of Petri dish. It showed the broader sweep of American

0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:15.560
<v Speaker 1>religious history was kind of manifest in this group. And

0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:17.960
<v Speaker 1>so for me, what was important in this telling the

0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:19.840
<v Speaker 1>story was to make it clear that this isn't just

0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:23.199
<v Speaker 1>a story of one group. It's about the US more broadly.

0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.199
<v Speaker 1>And so you mentioned the Anlee and the Shakers. So

0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.080
<v Speaker 1>this was this group of religious dissidents that came over

0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:33.640
<v Speaker 1>from England in the late eighteenth century, and they they're

0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:36.080
<v Speaker 1>one of the groups that's profiled in this book. I

0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.359
<v Speaker 1>bring in sort of case studies of some kind of

0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:42.200
<v Speaker 1>religious movements throughout the book to just sort of demonstrate

0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.000
<v Speaker 1>how the cult in my book is in fact on

0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:48.359
<v Speaker 1>this continuum that contains other cults or religious groups throughout

0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.479
<v Speaker 1>American history, but the Shakers are an especially interesting example.

0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.400
<v Speaker 1>And I'm sure many of your listeners and viewers saw

0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:56.879
<v Speaker 1>the Testament of Anlely. I myself saw it. It's a

0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:01.320
<v Speaker 1>very generally accurate rendering of this woman, Ann Lee's life.

0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:05.000
<v Speaker 1>So Annlee was born in the eighteenth century. She had

0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:08.399
<v Speaker 1>several children, who all of them died. She had a

0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.440
<v Speaker 1>lot of really horrible experience with childbirth. As a young woman,

0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:14.400
<v Speaker 1>she'd been able to see and perhaps even hear her

0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:16.520
<v Speaker 1>parents as they were having sex in this sort of

0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:18.919
<v Speaker 1>squalid shack where they lived. So the result of all

0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:21.760
<v Speaker 1>of this, which was that she had a very she

0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:24.920
<v Speaker 1>was very against sex, really, I mean sex was for her.

0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:27.399
<v Speaker 1>There was just so much wrong with the world was

0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:29.520
<v Speaker 1>manifest in sex. And so just to make it all

0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:33.560
<v Speaker 1>summarize it much more cleanly, like, she founded this group,

0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.280
<v Speaker 1>this group of people called the Shakers that would shake

0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.080
<v Speaker 1>to manifest God's presence in their lives. And they were celibate,

0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:43.800
<v Speaker 1>and they built a number of villages in America. And

0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:48.480
<v Speaker 1>those villages have really dwindled since the nineteenth century for

0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:50.960
<v Speaker 1>reasons I probably don't even have to explain, you know,

0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:56.040
<v Speaker 1>if you're a celebrate, you're not having a lot of children, and.

0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:56.880
<v Speaker 3>You might have been having a lot of spiritual children.

0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:01.080
<v Speaker 3>Sure exactly, thank you, yes, very but yeah, but no, Lila,

0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:03.800
<v Speaker 3>Lila in this group, she was she was sort of

0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:07.040
<v Speaker 3>obsessed with Ann Lee. She became convinced that she herself

0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:09.880
<v Speaker 3>was a kind of second coming of Anlee. I think

0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:12.320
<v Speaker 3>that there was maybe an element of I mean, she

0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:14.399
<v Speaker 3>was sort of like a fan, you know, she was

0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:16.639
<v Speaker 3>like she was like an Ann Lee stand. She was

0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:18.480
<v Speaker 3>like I love her, I love her, I love her.

0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:22.880
<v Speaker 3>Vibe you and so yeah exactly. And so the group

0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:27.000
<v Speaker 3>AGGRESSI Christianity Missions Training Corps. They would do these Shaker dances.

0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:28.680
<v Speaker 1>And the Shaker rituals, and they even had a shake

0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:30.720
<v Speaker 1>They had a restaurant for a little while they called

0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:35.280
<v Speaker 1>Shaker Square. They made Shaker boxes and Shaker furniture and

0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:37.439
<v Speaker 1>all that kind of stuff. They kind of left it

0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:41.280
<v Speaker 1>behind somewhat after a kind of brief foray into it.

0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:45.400
<v Speaker 1>But for me it was all part of this broader context,

0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:47.639
<v Speaker 1>this idea that like this isn't just one group. This

0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:49.920
<v Speaker 1>is a group that I always think of them as

0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:52.840
<v Speaker 1>a kind of Forest Gump of American religious history. Like

0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:55.280
<v Speaker 1>they there's an element of them that's always popping up,

0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:57.639
<v Speaker 1>you know, we always see them in all these different ways.

0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:02.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Interesting you bringing up and Lee losing all those babies.

0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:06.000
<v Speaker 2>Did Lilah's behavior begin to change after she lost her brother?

0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:08.000
<v Speaker 2>Do we think that's a contributor to the shift?

0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:11.000
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I obviously, obviously I can't speak for her,

0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:13.840
<v Speaker 1>but as an outside of the observer observing her life,

0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:15.919
<v Speaker 1>I mean absolutely I would say that I think that

0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:18.520
<v Speaker 1>the loss of her brother was the I don't know,

0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:21.160
<v Speaker 1>the kind of black hole of her life. Everything circled

0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:22.240
<v Speaker 1>around that point of gravity.

0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:25.240
<v Speaker 2>It's fascinating because so much of the time that type

0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:27.959
<v Speaker 2>of loss can be anything that sends people into colds.

0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:31.280
<v Speaker 2>But then the rare personality type is that's the thing

0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:33.840
<v Speaker 2>that I guess leads them to start one. You gotta

0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:34.840
<v Speaker 2>find meanings somehow.

0:23:35.040 --> 0:23:35.240
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:37.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So how did she trans She starts having these

0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:41.639
<v Speaker 2>spiritual births and making these like big sounds and these

0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:43.000
<v Speaker 2>big movements, and.

0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:47.520
<v Speaker 3>You know, she's literally giving she's giving birth. Yeah, that's

0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:48.240
<v Speaker 3>how I pictured it.

0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:49.680
<v Speaker 1>Oh you should have seen me. You should see me

0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:51.720
<v Speaker 1>when I was recording the audiobook. I was like, I

0:23:51.720 --> 0:23:56.199
<v Speaker 1>feel like this's school. I'm like, I mean it was

0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:59.359
<v Speaker 1>like wacky, that's great. So yes, by the audiobook and

0:23:59.359 --> 0:23:59.880
<v Speaker 1>you can hear.

0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:04.320
<v Speaker 2>Me which, by the way, she was very anti Christianity

0:24:04.520 --> 0:24:07.919
<v Speaker 2>until she had this awakening. And yes, also fascinating and

0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:10.320
<v Speaker 2>just another example of how like the beliefs actually don't

0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:12.080
<v Speaker 2>really matter. It's more about what people are looking for

0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:12.600
<v Speaker 2>in that moment.

0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:15.480
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, of the question of being anti Christianity, to me

0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:18.400
<v Speaker 1>is part of what's most fascinating about this group because

0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:21.119
<v Speaker 1>they viewed themselves as one hundred percent Christians and regular

0:24:21.160 --> 0:24:23.880
<v Speaker 1>Christians is what they call ten percent Christians. And their

0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:26.919
<v Speaker 1>chief enemy was not just like the secular world. It

0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:31.160
<v Speaker 1>was quote unquote mainstream Christians. Those were enemy number one

0:24:31.200 --> 0:24:33.119
<v Speaker 1>because they were practicing faith, but they were doing it

0:24:33.200 --> 0:24:36.080
<v Speaker 1>a kind of diluted right, fake way.

0:24:36.240 --> 0:24:38.880
<v Speaker 3>I will bring that back to my growing up experience

0:24:38.920 --> 0:24:42.040
<v Speaker 3>with the two by twos. The Christians who were not

0:24:42.760 --> 0:24:46.160
<v Speaker 3>taking it as seriously as us were way more scary

0:24:46.240 --> 0:24:49.679
<v Speaker 3>and harmful, very understandable that world.

0:24:49.720 --> 0:24:52.040
<v Speaker 2>To me, the smaller the difference is, the more of

0:24:52.119 --> 0:24:54.560
<v Speaker 2>that we hate them.

0:24:53.640 --> 0:24:55.680
<v Speaker 1>Right, so true, so true?

0:24:55.920 --> 0:24:58.720
<v Speaker 2>So how does this start to transition into her being like, no,

0:24:58.840 --> 0:25:01.359
<v Speaker 2>I'm literally a prophet and people should follow me. Jim

0:25:01.440 --> 0:25:03.159
<v Speaker 2>is just cool with it. Jim's like, yes you are.

0:25:03.800 --> 0:25:05.600
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So Jim is a very interesting part of this

0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:08.960
<v Speaker 1>because he was, you know, wild when he was in

0:25:09.000 --> 0:25:11.200
<v Speaker 1>the bear tribe. He was you know, cutting his arms

0:25:11.200 --> 0:25:13.120
<v Speaker 1>and raising his blood to the moon, you know, doing

0:25:13.160 --> 0:25:17.000
<v Speaker 1>all these wild things. He converts with Liola Christianity and

0:25:17.760 --> 0:25:20.080
<v Speaker 1>he really believes that she's a prophet too, and that

0:25:20.160 --> 0:25:23.119
<v Speaker 1>belief is held so sincerely that he really kind of

0:25:23.880 --> 0:25:26.919
<v Speaker 1>subjugates himself to her, you know, in a funny way.

0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:30.719
<v Speaker 1>It's like very feminist marriage, a real really like a

0:25:30.760 --> 0:25:33.400
<v Speaker 1>real expression of this kind of equality. I mean, that's

0:25:33.440 --> 0:25:35.280
<v Speaker 1>part of what's so interesting about this group that there

0:25:35.320 --> 0:25:37.680
<v Speaker 1>are elements of it that are like radical to the

0:25:37.760 --> 0:25:39.560
<v Speaker 1>left and radical to the right, and it's all mashed

0:25:39.600 --> 0:25:42.640
<v Speaker 1>up here. Anyways, he was just sort of following her

0:25:42.760 --> 0:25:46.400
<v Speaker 1>and really believed her. And how did she become who

0:25:46.400 --> 0:25:48.040
<v Speaker 1>she became from there? I mean, I think it's all

0:25:48.119 --> 0:25:51.240
<v Speaker 1>just the sort of slow dialing up. If the death

0:25:51.240 --> 0:25:53.719
<v Speaker 1>of her brother was the like I don't know, turning

0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:57.280
<v Speaker 1>the record player on now, we're just like slowly turning

0:25:57.320 --> 0:26:00.360
<v Speaker 1>the volume up. I think you know, she just kept

0:26:00.400 --> 0:26:03.160
<v Speaker 1>on having visions, she kept having. She just got farther

0:26:03.240 --> 0:26:05.960
<v Speaker 1>and farther away from the outside world, farther and farther

0:26:06.040 --> 0:26:08.439
<v Speaker 1>from external perspectives you could push back against her, and

0:26:08.480 --> 0:26:10.119
<v Speaker 1>so she was just sort of free to kind of

0:26:10.560 --> 0:26:14.240
<v Speaker 1>riff on her own what I would call mania.

0:26:14.320 --> 0:26:17.240
<v Speaker 3>And as you were saying earlier, the outside world is

0:26:17.400 --> 0:26:21.359
<v Speaker 3>just serving her so many experiences that reflect back to

0:26:21.359 --> 0:26:23.119
<v Speaker 3>her that she's on the right track. I feel like

0:26:23.480 --> 0:26:26.920
<v Speaker 3>you are corrected as the forest gump of like everything

0:26:27.000 --> 0:26:30.680
<v Speaker 3>kind of aligning and happening, and this interesting time frame,

0:26:30.760 --> 0:26:33.879
<v Speaker 3>like right as she's amping all of this up, a

0:26:33.960 --> 0:26:36.560
<v Speaker 3>volcano goes off and covers.

0:26:36.160 --> 0:26:39.320
<v Speaker 4>The whole sky. It's raining ass, it's raining ash, it's dark.

0:26:39.359 --> 0:26:42.000
<v Speaker 4>It's like a prophecy in the Bible is coming true.

0:26:42.119 --> 0:26:44.679
<v Speaker 4>So like she is like I told you so.

0:26:45.000 --> 0:26:48.040
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so this is Mount Saint Helens, which interrupted and

0:26:48.080 --> 0:26:50.840
<v Speaker 1>I'm forgetting nineteen eighty eighty one, early nineteen eighties. Yeah,

0:26:50.840 --> 0:26:53.120
<v Speaker 1>and so this is just as the ministry is sort

0:26:53.160 --> 0:26:56.560
<v Speaker 1>of getting going and yeah, what is a what is

0:26:56.560 --> 0:26:58.960
<v Speaker 1>a volcano if not evidence that you know Satan is

0:26:59.000 --> 0:27:01.439
<v Speaker 1>on the move. And the demons are spewing outward. And

0:27:01.480 --> 0:27:03.840
<v Speaker 1>that also has a really interesting parallel to the Shakers,

0:27:04.320 --> 0:27:08.880
<v Speaker 1>where there was a wildfires in Canada caused the sky

0:27:08.960 --> 0:27:10.879
<v Speaker 1>to go really dark at one point when the group

0:27:11.080 --> 0:27:14.119
<v Speaker 1>was in its early years, and that, to an Lee,

0:27:14.280 --> 0:27:16.400
<v Speaker 1>was the signal that they needed to take their message

0:27:16.760 --> 0:27:18.680
<v Speaker 1>farther out into the world. So I love this idea

0:27:18.720 --> 0:27:22.200
<v Speaker 1>that like the outside world, you can what do they say,

0:27:22.440 --> 0:27:26.240
<v Speaker 1>you find what you're looking for. They're looking for signs

0:27:26.280 --> 0:27:27.160
<v Speaker 1>and so they find them.

0:27:27.400 --> 0:27:29.760
<v Speaker 3>It's so apt for today too, because I just saw

0:27:29.760 --> 0:27:32.000
<v Speaker 3>something in social media a week ago where it was

0:27:32.040 --> 0:27:34.560
<v Speaker 3>like the sky is black in a war zone when

0:27:34.600 --> 0:27:35.439
<v Speaker 3>it should be sunny.

0:27:35.480 --> 0:27:36.720
<v Speaker 4>This is a sign of the prophecy.

0:27:36.760 --> 0:27:38.960
<v Speaker 2>And it's like, yeah, you just blew a sign of

0:27:39.000 --> 0:27:39.320
<v Speaker 2>a war.

0:27:39.440 --> 0:27:42.040
<v Speaker 4>You just blew it up. Yeah, there's dust everywhere.

0:27:43.000 --> 0:27:46.639
<v Speaker 2>I mean, such is the nature of humanity.

0:27:47.200 --> 0:27:48.080
<v Speaker 4>I hated so much.

0:27:48.359 --> 0:27:52.119
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we will truly see whatever we were looking for.

0:27:52.400 --> 0:27:55.640
<v Speaker 3>Yes, Yes, really shitty time for the volcano honestly, which

0:27:55.680 --> 0:27:58.439
<v Speaker 3>it hadn't happened, because it seemed to really amp her

0:27:58.520 --> 0:28:00.960
<v Speaker 3>family up to where they were like, she's real.

0:28:01.400 --> 0:28:02.879
<v Speaker 1>I would say it was sort of a it was

0:28:02.960 --> 0:28:04.720
<v Speaker 1>more a quarter of sort of whipping. They say correlation

0:28:04.840 --> 0:28:07.159
<v Speaker 1>rather than causation. I think it was just sort of confirmation.

0:28:07.520 --> 0:28:09.080
<v Speaker 1>It just was going on in the background. She wasn't

0:28:09.119 --> 0:28:11.320
<v Speaker 1>like this volcano went off and like wow, next level,

0:28:11.400 --> 0:28:13.920
<v Speaker 1>let's go. It was all just part of this intensification

0:28:14.000 --> 0:28:14.440
<v Speaker 1>that was going on.

0:28:14.960 --> 0:28:18.080
<v Speaker 2>How did they start actually gaining followers? That's always the

0:28:18.119 --> 0:28:19.960
<v Speaker 2>part that's so interesting to me. I'm like, how are

0:28:20.040 --> 0:28:21.520
<v Speaker 2>you marketing this to people?

0:28:22.000 --> 0:28:24.639
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well, it just was like one by one. So

0:28:25.400 --> 0:28:28.440
<v Speaker 1>the very first members were a man and a woman

0:28:28.520 --> 0:28:31.119
<v Speaker 1>named Maura and Steve. Mora had been close friends with

0:28:31.280 --> 0:28:33.920
<v Speaker 1>Lyla back around the time when Lila's brother died, and

0:28:34.000 --> 0:28:36.240
<v Speaker 1>so they'd been they'd kind of bonded over the death

0:28:36.320 --> 0:28:38.640
<v Speaker 1>of the brother. Mara had gone off and gotten married

0:28:38.640 --> 0:28:41.880
<v Speaker 1>to this man, Steve, and after Jim and Lyla had

0:28:41.920 --> 0:28:45.000
<v Speaker 1>got had converted, they'd gotten back in touch with more

0:28:45.560 --> 0:28:48.640
<v Speaker 1>and that had led to the resuscitation of their friendship.

0:28:49.360 --> 0:28:51.680
<v Speaker 1>Steve kind of had probably had a bit of a

0:28:51.760 --> 0:28:53.920
<v Speaker 1>crush on Lila. I mean, Lilah. Both Lylah and Jim

0:28:54.080 --> 0:28:58.040
<v Speaker 1>extraordinarily beautiful, physically beautiful. They just were very striking, and

0:28:58.120 --> 0:29:00.120
<v Speaker 1>so I think that's actually part of their appeal. Well,

0:29:00.520 --> 0:29:02.080
<v Speaker 1>so yeah, Steve has a bit of a crush on

0:29:02.160 --> 0:29:06.000
<v Speaker 1>Leila maybe and more as a real secret type. And

0:29:06.560 --> 0:29:10.320
<v Speaker 1>they sort of start going to these these ministry meetings

0:29:10.400 --> 0:29:14.400
<v Speaker 1>that the Greens start having and it's just very very slow,

0:29:14.760 --> 0:29:17.160
<v Speaker 1>just peop, you know, words, spreading a little bit by

0:29:17.200 --> 0:29:19.360
<v Speaker 1>little bit. They got a radio show, they got a

0:29:19.360 --> 0:29:21.360
<v Speaker 1>show on Christian radio, so some people came through that.

0:29:21.760 --> 0:29:25.400
<v Speaker 1>They would put flyers around town, they would give people

0:29:25.440 --> 0:29:28.520
<v Speaker 1>free meals. I mean, you're hungry and someone's saying, here,

0:29:28.640 --> 0:29:30.680
<v Speaker 1>have some soup, and you know you can listen to

0:29:30.680 --> 0:29:32.520
<v Speaker 1>the sermon. It's like, okay, well I won't listen to sermon.

0:29:32.560 --> 0:29:33.760
<v Speaker 1>I'll have the soup. But then you know it's in

0:29:33.800 --> 0:29:35.760
<v Speaker 1>the background. Okay, whatever, I'll come for dinner tomorrow.

0:29:35.760 --> 0:29:36.000
<v Speaker 2>Why not.

0:29:36.040 --> 0:29:37.880
<v Speaker 1>Blah blah blah. And it can really kind of build

0:29:37.960 --> 0:29:39.840
<v Speaker 1>from there. I mean, I think it's sort of it's

0:29:39.880 --> 0:29:42.600
<v Speaker 1>like the prototypical story of how people join this classes

0:29:42.680 --> 0:29:44.080
<v Speaker 1>is just one by one, one by one, And a

0:29:44.120 --> 0:29:46.880
<v Speaker 1>lot of people didn't say a lot of people were like, no,

0:29:47.040 --> 0:29:49.040
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to beat my children. I don't think

0:29:49.120 --> 0:29:53.080
<v Speaker 1>that's great. But others did. I mean she would the

0:29:53.160 --> 0:29:55.440
<v Speaker 1>force of her charisma was so strong that she was

0:29:55.480 --> 0:29:57.800
<v Speaker 1>able to really draw people in. I mean she was

0:29:57.840 --> 0:29:59.880
<v Speaker 1>never the group was never more than like thirty f

0:30:00.000 --> 0:30:03.520
<v Speaker 1>treaty fifty people max. It wasn't like hugely successful, right,

0:30:03.640 --> 0:30:05.000
<v Speaker 1>but it was successful enough.

0:30:05.320 --> 0:30:08.080
<v Speaker 2>But so many groups start out at that size and

0:30:08.240 --> 0:30:10.280
<v Speaker 2>do balloon up like so, like, those early days are

0:30:10.320 --> 0:30:14.120
<v Speaker 2>always super interesting to me. Some of the abuse stuff

0:30:14.800 --> 0:30:17.600
<v Speaker 2>with the kids and with the adults that was surely

0:30:17.680 --> 0:30:20.360
<v Speaker 2>not present in the beginning, right, correct.

0:30:20.720 --> 0:30:23.560
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I wouldn't say too much because the I hope

0:30:23.560 --> 0:30:25.280
<v Speaker 1>people will check out the book, but a lot of

0:30:25.360 --> 0:30:27.360
<v Speaker 1>unfolds from the stuff that we're talking about, which is

0:30:27.400 --> 0:30:29.320
<v Speaker 1>really the beginnings. But yeah, the group, as you know,

0:30:29.560 --> 0:30:32.120
<v Speaker 1>like shockingly, there were a lot of abuses that ended

0:30:32.200 --> 0:30:35.360
<v Speaker 1>up happening in the later years of this story, and

0:30:35.480 --> 0:30:37.920
<v Speaker 1>at the very beginning. No, there was no there are

0:30:37.960 --> 0:30:41.080
<v Speaker 1>no whippings that kind of thing. But what there was

0:30:41.400 --> 0:30:45.400
<v Speaker 1>was this general ethos of any relationship that is not

0:30:45.600 --> 0:30:48.640
<v Speaker 1>oriented towards the group or towards Lyla and Jim, that

0:30:48.840 --> 0:30:52.240
<v Speaker 1>relationship is evil, and that even extended to relationships between

0:30:52.280 --> 0:30:56.320
<v Speaker 1>spouses and relationships between parents and children. So if you were,

0:30:57.400 --> 0:30:59.920
<v Speaker 1>say a guy married to a woman in the group

0:31:00.080 --> 0:31:03.440
<v Speaker 1>and you're you know, showing affection for your wife, you're saying, oh,

0:31:03.520 --> 0:31:06.640
<v Speaker 1>let me get you another you know, baked potato at dinner. Whatever.

0:31:07.240 --> 0:31:09.160
<v Speaker 1>That was evidence that you were guilty of what they

0:31:09.200 --> 0:31:12.160
<v Speaker 1>called spiritual adultery in the group. You were cheating on

0:31:12.360 --> 0:31:15.479
<v Speaker 1>God with your earthly husband. Same thing. If you were

0:31:15.600 --> 0:31:17.680
<v Speaker 1>nice to your children, if you were saying, you know, here,

0:31:17.760 --> 0:31:19.600
<v Speaker 1>let me let me comb your hair, no, no, you

0:31:19.680 --> 0:31:22.200
<v Speaker 1>were guilty of spiritual adultery. You were cheating on God

0:31:22.480 --> 0:31:23.520
<v Speaker 1>with your child.

0:31:23.840 --> 0:31:24.320
<v Speaker 4>Horrible.

0:31:24.760 --> 0:31:26.600
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it just speaks to how there's this weird

0:31:26.680 --> 0:31:29.240
<v Speaker 1>sexual energy is really at the core of the group,

0:31:29.800 --> 0:31:31.560
<v Speaker 1>largely because you know, it was just sort of like

0:31:31.640 --> 0:31:34.640
<v Speaker 1>by crying sexuality, they were really focusing on it. It

0:31:34.720 --> 0:31:36.640
<v Speaker 1>was part of what was so strange about it. But anyways,

0:31:36.680 --> 0:31:40.160
<v Speaker 1>that's sort of where the abuse began. Yeah, start small

0:31:40.240 --> 0:31:41.320
<v Speaker 1>and balloons from there.

0:31:41.560 --> 0:31:44.160
<v Speaker 3>So the spiritual affair is like you're supposed to be

0:31:44.200 --> 0:31:47.160
<v Speaker 3>partnered with God and that's your outlet for everything.

0:31:47.640 --> 0:31:48.840
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, pretty much.

0:31:48.920 --> 0:31:51.360
<v Speaker 2>Like when people are married to Jesus. That kind of vime.

0:31:51.640 --> 0:31:55.320
<v Speaker 1>I think it's sort of yeah, sort of, it's hard

0:31:55.360 --> 0:31:57.680
<v Speaker 1>to kind of pin down, because I think it was

0:31:57.720 --> 0:31:58.800
<v Speaker 1>hard for them to pin down.

0:31:58.880 --> 0:31:59.760
<v Speaker 4>You know, some of these groups.

0:32:00.760 --> 0:32:03.320
<v Speaker 1>You're kind of like, I think I know what you're saying,

0:32:03.360 --> 0:32:05.360
<v Speaker 1>but like what she was saying was always kind of

0:32:05.440 --> 0:32:07.640
<v Speaker 1>more thing, and it was always sort of what this was.

0:32:07.680 --> 0:32:09.440
<v Speaker 1>The convenient thing about being a prophet is that you

0:32:09.480 --> 0:32:13.200
<v Speaker 1>can always get new information correct, you can pivot.

0:32:13.600 --> 0:32:15.880
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, and when did she pivot into being Deborah?

0:32:16.360 --> 0:32:18.680
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, So this is a big event in the book,

0:32:18.760 --> 0:32:21.920
<v Speaker 1>which is sort of a kind of culmination of those

0:32:21.960 --> 0:32:25.960
<v Speaker 1>early years and before things really explode. She decreed that

0:32:26.440 --> 0:32:29.920
<v Speaker 1>some of her followers should take new names, as people

0:32:30.080 --> 0:32:32.760
<v Speaker 1>in the Bible did, as people in just culture have

0:32:32.840 --> 0:32:35.640
<v Speaker 1>often done, sometimes to indicate a huge change or growth

0:32:35.680 --> 0:32:39.600
<v Speaker 1>in someone's lives. Lilah says, you know, we need biblical names,

0:32:39.640 --> 0:32:43.000
<v Speaker 1>we need new names that indicate we are reborn. And

0:32:43.240 --> 0:32:44.680
<v Speaker 1>some of the people took new names. Some of the

0:32:44.720 --> 0:32:48.960
<v Speaker 1>people didn't. But Lilah took the name Deborah, who's a

0:32:49.160 --> 0:32:53.280
<v Speaker 1>female prophet from the Old Testament, and from then on

0:32:53.480 --> 0:32:55.200
<v Speaker 1>she was known as Deborah.

0:32:55.360 --> 0:32:57.520
<v Speaker 2>Which is so funny to me because Deborah just seems

0:32:57.640 --> 0:33:00.920
<v Speaker 2>like the lady at the pot luck next door, whereas

0:33:01.040 --> 0:33:03.120
<v Speaker 2>Lilah feels very like beautiful and biblical.

0:33:03.160 --> 0:33:04.479
<v Speaker 4>I'm like, who chooses Debbie?

0:33:04.960 --> 0:33:07.400
<v Speaker 1>It's funny, you say Debbie. She never she never went

0:33:07.480 --> 0:33:09.440
<v Speaker 1>by Debbie. It's funny. I never thought of that.

0:33:09.640 --> 0:33:12.160
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I just I assume all Deborah's are Debbie is.

0:33:12.200 --> 0:33:15.560
<v Speaker 1>So I don't know, it's funny. I like the name Deborah.

0:33:15.600 --> 0:33:18.280
<v Speaker 4>I like Debbie, but Lilah is like such a dope.

0:33:18.400 --> 0:33:21.280
<v Speaker 2>Name Lyla feels more mythical to me somehow, it is

0:33:21.320 --> 0:33:24.960
<v Speaker 2>a little mythical, yeah, versus like grounded in like Suburbia.

0:33:25.400 --> 0:33:28.200
<v Speaker 2>But interesting that for her it was like she was like,

0:33:28.360 --> 0:33:31.240
<v Speaker 2>and now I am Deborah the Lord.

0:33:32.080 --> 0:33:33.120
<v Speaker 1>Yes, wild stuff.

0:33:33.760 --> 0:33:36.000
<v Speaker 2>And at that point they also changed the name of

0:33:36.280 --> 0:33:36.680
<v Speaker 2>the group.

0:33:36.840 --> 0:33:37.000
<v Speaker 4>Yes.

0:33:37.240 --> 0:33:39.320
<v Speaker 1>At this point originally had it had been called Free

0:33:39.400 --> 0:33:43.200
<v Speaker 1>Love Ministries, and then they were like, nope, now we

0:33:43.360 --> 0:33:46.320
<v Speaker 1>are the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps.

0:33:46.960 --> 0:33:52.000
<v Speaker 2>So there, from Free Love to Aggressive Training Corps is

0:33:52.400 --> 0:33:57.600
<v Speaker 2>wild C MTC. You got it, that's it a CMDC

0:33:57.760 --> 0:33:59.760
<v Speaker 2>of course. Yeah, I love ACMTC.

0:34:00.120 --> 0:34:00.840
<v Speaker 4>Gotta go join it.

0:34:02.800 --> 0:34:07.760
<v Speaker 2>So basically, over time, things just start getting weirder and

0:34:07.960 --> 0:34:13.680
<v Speaker 2>more controlling, and she gets fixated on getting children. Can

0:34:13.760 --> 0:34:14.400
<v Speaker 2>you explain this.

0:34:15.040 --> 0:34:18.120
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so she Lilah slash Deborah, now we're going to

0:34:18.200 --> 0:34:21.400
<v Speaker 1>refer to her as Debra. She really predicted that there

0:34:21.480 --> 0:34:24.120
<v Speaker 1>was going to be this thing called the Children of Nations,

0:34:24.480 --> 0:34:27.320
<v Speaker 1>and it was going to be this huge group of

0:34:27.440 --> 0:34:29.840
<v Speaker 1>children who are going to be soldiers on behalf of

0:34:29.960 --> 0:34:32.400
<v Speaker 1>the group, and they were going to kind of be

0:34:32.600 --> 0:34:36.880
<v Speaker 1>this children's army. And the problem was that they needed

0:34:36.920 --> 0:34:39.319
<v Speaker 1>to get children. And so there were people in the group,

0:34:39.719 --> 0:34:42.040
<v Speaker 1>women who had children, but they weren't having them at

0:34:42.080 --> 0:34:46.040
<v Speaker 1>the rate that Deborah wanted them to have, and so she,

0:34:46.800 --> 0:34:49.239
<v Speaker 1>according to one of the members in the group, she

0:34:49.480 --> 0:34:53.880
<v Speaker 1>directed this woman to effectively try and kidnap a baby

0:34:54.000 --> 0:34:56.680
<v Speaker 1>from the Mexico border. By this point, the group had

0:34:56.800 --> 0:34:58.799
<v Speaker 1>fled to New Mexico because they'd run into all these

0:34:58.880 --> 0:35:00.560
<v Speaker 1>legal troubles that you can read a out of the book.

0:35:01.040 --> 0:35:06.759
<v Speaker 1>But this alleged kidnapping did not come to pass. But

0:35:06.880 --> 0:35:11.920
<v Speaker 1>what it did lead to was a just truly truly

0:35:12.080 --> 0:35:16.000
<v Speaker 1>shocking act of child trafficking that I'll sort of speak

0:35:16.000 --> 0:35:18.560
<v Speaker 1>about in kind of vague terms. But what happened was

0:35:18.719 --> 0:35:23.080
<v Speaker 1>that Deborah was so insistent on not only having children,

0:35:23.120 --> 0:35:26.400
<v Speaker 1>but having children from all over the world that she

0:35:26.520 --> 0:35:28.400
<v Speaker 1>and the group conducted all these mission trips abroad, and

0:35:28.440 --> 0:35:29.840
<v Speaker 1>some of that was about children, but some of that

0:35:29.960 --> 0:35:33.359
<v Speaker 1>was just about spreading God's word. But when the group

0:35:33.520 --> 0:35:35.880
<v Speaker 1>was in Uganda at one point, because they took mission

0:35:35.920 --> 0:35:39.080
<v Speaker 1>trips all over the world, they got in touch with

0:35:39.400 --> 0:35:42.719
<v Speaker 1>a woman who was pregnant and you know, long story short,

0:35:43.280 --> 0:35:46.759
<v Speaker 1>the baby that the woman was going to have, I'll

0:35:46.800 --> 0:35:49.040
<v Speaker 1>just say that the baby ended up having a kind

0:35:49.040 --> 0:35:51.800
<v Speaker 1>of lifelong association with the group in a way that

0:35:51.920 --> 0:35:55.080
<v Speaker 1>unfolded in a way that was kind of to me,

0:35:55.360 --> 0:35:56.160
<v Speaker 1>just mind.

0:35:55.960 --> 0:36:00.480
<v Speaker 2>Blowing, truly horrendous, Like what was described in the book

0:36:00.520 --> 0:36:01.239
<v Speaker 2>what happened.

0:36:00.960 --> 0:36:03.440
<v Speaker 4>To that child is truly like it's tragic.

0:36:03.480 --> 0:36:04.440
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it's totally tragic.

0:36:04.600 --> 0:36:07.120
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the group escalates in other ways as well, like

0:36:07.760 --> 0:36:10.960
<v Speaker 3>it seems like people weren't really seeking medical treatment for

0:36:11.040 --> 0:36:11.760
<v Speaker 3>a lot of things.

0:36:11.840 --> 0:36:14.879
<v Speaker 4>And this ends and disaster and a part of your book.

0:36:14.920 --> 0:36:18.120
<v Speaker 3>And again we won't give too much away, but what

0:36:18.400 --> 0:36:21.200
<v Speaker 3>other ways were they just kind of accelerating.

0:36:21.600 --> 0:36:23.600
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, I mean it was accelerating is the right word.

0:36:23.640 --> 0:36:26.520
<v Speaker 1>It just built and built and built. So yes, medical treatment,

0:36:26.600 --> 0:36:30.239
<v Speaker 1>they were really against medicine. A lot of people were

0:36:30.320 --> 0:36:34.840
<v Speaker 1>denied were allegedly denied medication, and you know, after surgeries,

0:36:34.880 --> 0:36:38.600
<v Speaker 1>they didn't get pain medication, horrible things like that. They

0:36:38.640 --> 0:36:42.040
<v Speaker 1>were also they didn't get enough food. They were just

0:36:42.200 --> 0:36:45.160
<v Speaker 1>always hungry. They're reading a largely vegan diet by the time,

0:36:45.360 --> 0:36:47.160
<v Speaker 1>by you know, the two thousands or so, just like

0:36:47.719 --> 0:36:51.640
<v Speaker 1>alfal fatigue and okra and you know, peanut butter and

0:36:51.880 --> 0:36:55.440
<v Speaker 1>so on, and then just the I mean, there's all

0:36:55.480 --> 0:36:57.840
<v Speaker 1>sorts of like sort of physical things, like they're working harder,

0:36:57.920 --> 0:37:01.720
<v Speaker 1>they're sleeping less. There the punishments are more and more intense.

0:37:01.880 --> 0:37:03.919
<v Speaker 2>The punishments were so bad.

0:37:04.160 --> 0:37:08.440
<v Speaker 1>They're rough, They're pretty rough, like medieval medieval, Yeah, I

0:37:08.840 --> 0:37:10.759
<v Speaker 1>should remember that word. That's the right word. But I

0:37:10.800 --> 0:37:14.080
<v Speaker 1>think the biggest kind of acceleration is there was a

0:37:14.200 --> 0:37:18.000
<v Speaker 1>tolerance for this, is that people were so embedded in

0:37:18.080 --> 0:37:20.360
<v Speaker 1>it that it became just so difficult for them to

0:37:20.480 --> 0:37:23.239
<v Speaker 1>see that it was bad. And to me, that's sort

0:37:23.280 --> 0:37:25.880
<v Speaker 1>of chilling because a lot of these people were pretty

0:37:26.000 --> 0:37:29.560
<v Speaker 1>normal people and in a lot of ways, and these

0:37:29.600 --> 0:37:31.200
<v Speaker 1>are people who I got to know in the course

0:37:31.239 --> 0:37:33.680
<v Speaker 1>of my reporting, and they struck me as totally normal

0:37:33.719 --> 0:37:34.960
<v Speaker 1>in many ways. I mean, none of us are like

0:37:35.040 --> 0:37:38.399
<v Speaker 1>quote unquote normal, but like, these are people who now

0:37:38.560 --> 0:37:40.400
<v Speaker 1>live regular lives and such. But when they were in

0:37:40.480 --> 0:37:43.680
<v Speaker 1>this group, they were party to or witnessed things that

0:37:43.880 --> 0:37:46.640
<v Speaker 1>just kind of blow your mind. So I think that

0:37:46.800 --> 0:37:47.760
<v Speaker 1>is the biggest acceleration.

0:37:48.160 --> 0:37:51.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but that process is slow and happens step by step,

0:37:51.280 --> 0:37:53.319
<v Speaker 2>and one thing is normalized and then the next thing

0:37:53.400 --> 0:37:55.440
<v Speaker 2>is normalized and it doesn't look that crazy compared to

0:37:55.520 --> 0:37:57.439
<v Speaker 2>the previous thing, you know what I mean, Like, yeah,

0:37:57.520 --> 0:38:01.200
<v Speaker 2>it never happens overnight, which I think, right, it's important

0:38:01.239 --> 0:38:05.640
<v Speaker 2>to note about groups like this, Yeah, for sure, but yeah,

0:38:05.719 --> 0:38:07.880
<v Speaker 2>some of the abuses were truly terrible.

0:38:09.400 --> 0:38:12.360
<v Speaker 4>Were they wearing a uniform towards the end of.

0:38:12.400 --> 0:38:18.080
<v Speaker 1>This Yeah they were. They were wearing military uniforms. A

0:38:18.160 --> 0:38:20.360
<v Speaker 1>lot of the time. They had a couple of different uniforms.

0:38:20.400 --> 0:38:23.400
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I'll just say, there's like a big arrest

0:38:23.480 --> 0:38:26.120
<v Speaker 1>at the end of the book. And at the time

0:38:26.160 --> 0:38:27.920
<v Speaker 1>of the arrest, I mean I looked at the police footage,

0:38:28.719 --> 0:38:32.360
<v Speaker 1>Deborah is wearing this wild outfit. It's this kind of

0:38:32.480 --> 0:38:36.520
<v Speaker 1>in a weird way, kind of stunning white military get

0:38:36.600 --> 0:38:40.080
<v Speaker 1>up where she has a long, a long skirt, kind

0:38:40.120 --> 0:38:44.799
<v Speaker 1>of buttoned down white white jacket and a beret. I mean,

0:38:44.840 --> 0:38:46.920
<v Speaker 1>I'll actually tell your listeners. So this book began as

0:38:46.920 --> 0:38:48.839
<v Speaker 1>an article I wrote for The cut Back in twenty

0:38:48.920 --> 0:38:51.080
<v Speaker 1>twenty one. And if your readers want to look up

0:38:51.120 --> 0:38:52.239
<v Speaker 1>that article, they can see.

0:38:53.160 --> 0:38:54.600
<v Speaker 4>Oh see the photo.

0:38:55.040 --> 0:38:55.840
<v Speaker 3>I want to see it.

0:38:57.080 --> 0:38:59.719
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, oh my god, Okay, why does she look

0:38:59.800 --> 0:39:01.440
<v Speaker 2>like Vader Ginsburg.

0:39:02.680 --> 0:39:07.400
<v Speaker 1>And she hates Ruth Badergans work with different politics, very different.

0:39:08.560 --> 0:39:10.880
<v Speaker 1>I mean they would show up at the Undershriff's office

0:39:11.360 --> 0:39:14.839
<v Speaker 1>near their near their compound in just like complete head

0:39:14.880 --> 0:39:20.400
<v Speaker 1>to toe, perfectly ironed, spotless military uniforms. They instructed the

0:39:20.520 --> 0:39:22.759
<v Speaker 1>under sheriffs. They were like, you know, you will, you

0:39:22.800 --> 0:39:25.839
<v Speaker 1>will address us as generals and we will blah blah

0:39:25.840 --> 0:39:27.960
<v Speaker 1>blah blah blah. Wow. And so there was this real

0:39:28.040 --> 0:39:30.200
<v Speaker 1>I mean again, it's like there's a confidence. It's like

0:39:30.360 --> 0:39:33.360
<v Speaker 1>you can't make up, you can't fake that kind of confidence.

0:39:33.360 --> 0:39:35.160
<v Speaker 1>I don't think. I think it's a confidence born out

0:39:35.200 --> 0:39:39.640
<v Speaker 1>of a deeply deep conviction of certainty.

0:39:40.200 --> 0:39:44.200
<v Speaker 2>Right. Yeah, And so Sarah throughout the book, So Sarah

0:39:44.520 --> 0:39:50.720
<v Speaker 2>is Deborah's daughter. Yeah, I find her pathory interesting because

0:39:51.239 --> 0:39:53.399
<v Speaker 2>these are her parents, This is her whole life.

0:39:53.480 --> 0:39:54.440
<v Speaker 4>This is her community.

0:39:55.040 --> 0:39:57.279
<v Speaker 2>It's always interesting to me how people who are that

0:39:57.480 --> 0:40:01.160
<v Speaker 2>deeply in the thick of the cult are able to

0:40:01.520 --> 0:40:01.960
<v Speaker 2>get out.

0:40:02.360 --> 0:40:04.680
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely. I mean, that's sort of the central miracle of

0:40:04.760 --> 0:40:07.160
<v Speaker 1>the book in my opinion. So the book is called

0:40:07.200 --> 0:40:10.120
<v Speaker 1>The Oracle's Daughter, and the daughter in question is this woman,

0:40:10.200 --> 0:40:13.720
<v Speaker 1>Sarah So. Sarah's parents were Jim and Lila Slash Deborah.

0:40:14.400 --> 0:40:16.640
<v Speaker 1>She was a young kid when her mom started having visions,

0:40:16.680 --> 0:40:18.520
<v Speaker 1>which is to say that she knew something of the

0:40:18.560 --> 0:40:22.000
<v Speaker 1>real world before everything started to kind of fall apart,

0:40:22.280 --> 0:40:25.520
<v Speaker 1>and I think that that was essential in her being

0:40:25.560 --> 0:40:27.480
<v Speaker 1>able to imagine a life outside of the group. I

0:40:27.520 --> 0:40:29.920
<v Speaker 1>think if she'd been born in it, it would have

0:40:29.920 --> 0:40:32.480
<v Speaker 1>been another story, because then it's like, you have you've

0:40:32.640 --> 0:40:34.800
<v Speaker 1>never gone to the park, you've never gone to the movies,

0:40:34.840 --> 0:40:37.680
<v Speaker 1>you've never had like Lomain. You know, you've never you've

0:40:37.800 --> 0:40:41.520
<v Speaker 1>never done the things. Yeah right, she likes Lomaine. That's

0:40:41.520 --> 0:40:46.319
<v Speaker 1>why it came to mind, she yeah. So, I think

0:40:46.400 --> 0:40:48.480
<v Speaker 1>that was a big part of how she was able

0:40:48.480 --> 0:40:50.840
<v Speaker 1>to able to escape, because the book does open with

0:40:51.040 --> 0:40:52.759
<v Speaker 1>her escaping in the middle of the night when she's

0:40:52.800 --> 0:40:54.600
<v Speaker 1>twenty six years old, running away in the middle of

0:40:54.640 --> 0:40:57.640
<v Speaker 1>the New Mexico desert. It's a wild moment. She does

0:40:57.719 --> 0:41:00.120
<v Speaker 1>manage to get out, but she knew something of what

0:41:00.239 --> 0:41:02.000
<v Speaker 1>she was missing. I also think it was just a

0:41:02.120 --> 0:41:05.759
<v Speaker 1>question of character. It's like some of us are one

0:41:05.840 --> 0:41:07.440
<v Speaker 1>way and some of us are another way.

0:41:07.480 --> 0:41:07.600
<v Speaker 3>You know.

0:41:07.680 --> 0:41:09.200
<v Speaker 1>Some of us are good at basketball, some of us

0:41:09.239 --> 0:41:11.240
<v Speaker 1>are good at knitting. You know, Like she just happened

0:41:11.239 --> 0:41:15.400
<v Speaker 1>to be really good at holding onto a part of

0:41:15.440 --> 0:41:18.080
<v Speaker 1>herself that a lot of people gave away. And because

0:41:18.120 --> 0:41:22.239
<v Speaker 1>she never because she never chose to join the group,

0:41:22.680 --> 0:41:24.680
<v Speaker 1>she was always a little There was always a little

0:41:24.680 --> 0:41:25.520
<v Speaker 1>bit of resistance.

0:41:25.880 --> 0:41:26.000
<v Speaker 2>You know.

0:41:26.160 --> 0:41:27.880
<v Speaker 1>If she had been like, oh, yes, I want to

0:41:27.920 --> 0:41:29.359
<v Speaker 1>go in, I think that there would have been maybe

0:41:29.440 --> 0:41:32.840
<v Speaker 1>less resistance. But because she never chose, she just just

0:41:33.040 --> 0:41:36.040
<v Speaker 1>roped in. She was able to hold onto a little

0:41:36.080 --> 0:41:37.680
<v Speaker 1>something else. I mean, there's more to it, but that's

0:41:37.680 --> 0:41:38.720
<v Speaker 1>some of the stuff i'd mentioned.

0:41:38.960 --> 0:41:42.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's true we rebel against our parents, and that

0:41:42.239 --> 0:41:44.920
<v Speaker 2>makes sense. And also I forgot that she actually was

0:41:45.000 --> 0:41:48.000
<v Speaker 2>not born into it, that she witnessed the beginning of

0:41:48.120 --> 0:41:51.120
<v Speaker 2>her mother having these spiritual bursts and being like, why

0:41:51.239 --> 0:41:54.680
<v Speaker 2>is my mom making these crazy sounds in the basement

0:41:54.760 --> 0:41:57.840
<v Speaker 2>that I used to play, and like I can imagine

0:41:57.880 --> 0:41:59.960
<v Speaker 2>that would be a very jarring transition.

0:42:00.880 --> 0:42:03.520
<v Speaker 1>Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, and an upsetting one because

0:42:03.560 --> 0:42:06.439
<v Speaker 1>she had friends. I mean, this is a woman who's

0:42:06.520 --> 0:42:08.480
<v Speaker 1>just as an extraordinary zest for life. And I think

0:42:08.480 --> 0:42:09.960
<v Speaker 1>that's part of why I wanted to write about her,

0:42:10.000 --> 0:42:15.080
<v Speaker 1>is that she's just an incredible person. And so she Yeah,

0:42:15.120 --> 0:42:16.960
<v Speaker 1>she wanted to go to school, she wanted to take

0:42:17.080 --> 0:42:19.720
<v Speaker 1>history class, she wanted to go play with her friends.

0:42:19.800 --> 0:42:22.680
<v Speaker 1>I mean she actually ran away from home for one

0:42:22.760 --> 0:42:25.239
<v Speaker 1>night when she was a teenager and tried to enroll

0:42:25.280 --> 0:42:27.640
<v Speaker 1>herself in high school. She missed that world so badly.

0:42:28.280 --> 0:42:30.960
<v Speaker 2>There's a moment in the book where you write about

0:42:31.239 --> 0:42:35.520
<v Speaker 2>how there's someone who kind of becomes a whistleblower, but

0:42:35.680 --> 0:42:39.279
<v Speaker 2>then it's like that person is kind of discredited, but

0:42:39.800 --> 0:42:43.320
<v Speaker 2>they are ordered to produce like twelve children.

0:42:43.239 --> 0:42:44.720
<v Speaker 4>Yes, and they just don't.

0:42:44.960 --> 0:42:45.200
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:42:45.480 --> 0:42:48.760
<v Speaker 2>But what's fascinating to us we were talking about earlier,

0:42:48.880 --> 0:42:52.320
<v Speaker 2>is like the justice system just was like oh whatever,

0:42:53.040 --> 0:42:54.759
<v Speaker 2>Like they was like a wake up. There was a

0:42:54.840 --> 0:42:57.279
<v Speaker 2>post wag thing going on again.

0:42:57.160 --> 0:43:00.520
<v Speaker 3>The like outside world events are kind of protecting them

0:43:01.120 --> 0:43:01.959
<v Speaker 3>in real time.

0:43:02.520 --> 0:43:04.680
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, the fact that the abuse of children

0:43:04.800 --> 0:43:06.400
<v Speaker 1>was allowed to go on as long as it did

0:43:06.600 --> 0:43:09.200
<v Speaker 1>under the circumstances in which it progressed were to me.

0:43:09.480 --> 0:43:11.400
<v Speaker 1>I mean, that's the thing that makes your head explode.

0:43:12.440 --> 0:43:14.680
<v Speaker 1>I hope reading it, and certainly made my head explode

0:43:14.680 --> 0:43:17.000
<v Speaker 1>while I was reporting and writing it. As to the

0:43:17.040 --> 0:43:19.800
<v Speaker 1>Waco stuff, Yeah, I mean, so, you know, the Waco

0:43:20.040 --> 0:43:23.400
<v Speaker 1>disaster happens in the mid nineties, and law enforcement afterwards

0:43:23.520 --> 0:43:27.080
<v Speaker 1>is kind of understandably spooked. They don't want to interfere

0:43:27.239 --> 0:43:29.760
<v Speaker 1>with religious groups who were maybe a little bit different

0:43:29.920 --> 0:43:32.800
<v Speaker 1>and have something bad happen and then be called in

0:43:32.880 --> 0:43:35.080
<v Speaker 1>front of Congress to testify and get raked.

0:43:34.880 --> 0:43:37.640
<v Speaker 2>Over the coals because all those people were killed in

0:43:37.840 --> 0:43:42.400
<v Speaker 2>Waco by the authorities because this cult showdown for youngsters

0:43:42.400 --> 0:43:42.880
<v Speaker 2>who don't know.

0:43:43.080 --> 0:43:45.239
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and you said something in your book I'd never

0:43:45.320 --> 0:43:47.440
<v Speaker 3>read before that one of the agents when they were

0:43:47.480 --> 0:43:50.719
<v Speaker 3>going to Waco to bust it up, one of the

0:43:50.800 --> 0:43:53.080
<v Speaker 3>agents had like golf plans that afternoon.

0:43:53.280 --> 0:43:56.800
<v Speaker 4>They were like, this will be easy, and it was not.

0:43:57.760 --> 0:43:59.720
<v Speaker 4>So this man thought he was going to golf.

0:44:00.280 --> 0:44:05.440
<v Speaker 3>Fifty one days later, they have basically burned down people

0:44:05.520 --> 0:44:08.320
<v Speaker 3>inside of a house and everyone's mad at them and

0:44:09.000 --> 0:44:10.680
<v Speaker 3>they don't want anything like that to happen again.

0:44:10.840 --> 0:44:12.560
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, no, and they're like, I don't want to

0:44:12.600 --> 0:44:15.360
<v Speaker 2>be the one in trouble for no, no killing the

0:44:15.480 --> 0:44:16.120
<v Speaker 2>people Nicole.

0:44:16.440 --> 0:44:18.960
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and there's a there's a part of that impulse

0:44:19.000 --> 0:44:21.600
<v Speaker 1>that I really respect, you know. I think that like

0:44:22.280 --> 0:44:25.080
<v Speaker 1>freedom of religion is at the core of the idea

0:44:25.120 --> 0:44:26.680
<v Speaker 1>of this country, and it is something that I think

0:44:26.760 --> 0:44:30.279
<v Speaker 1>is like a very good thing. But the underbelly of

0:44:30.360 --> 0:44:33.080
<v Speaker 1>it is that like the American justice system, to my

0:44:33.239 --> 0:44:37.040
<v Speaker 1>eye at least, just feels really reluctant to interfere when

0:44:37.360 --> 0:44:42.040
<v Speaker 1>religion is a is a factor. And so for ACMTC,

0:44:42.320 --> 0:44:46.080
<v Speaker 1>that meant that they were really able to function even

0:44:46.120 --> 0:44:48.320
<v Speaker 1>when all this evidence came up, they were able to

0:44:48.400 --> 0:44:51.600
<v Speaker 1>kind of continue operating. And yes, the thing again, the

0:44:51.640 --> 0:44:53.120
<v Speaker 1>thing that just blows my mind is that like they

0:44:53.160 --> 0:44:56.880
<v Speaker 1>were they were ordered to bring the children into the

0:44:56.960 --> 0:45:00.800
<v Speaker 1>authorities at least one moment throughout the story didn't and

0:45:00.880 --> 0:45:02.640
<v Speaker 1>then law enforcement kind of moved on.

0:45:03.040 --> 0:45:07.440
<v Speaker 4>They're like, well, they're probably fine, Like yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:45:07.480 --> 0:45:09.440
<v Speaker 1>There's there's like a there's a phrase at the end

0:45:09.440 --> 0:45:10.960
<v Speaker 1>of one of the documents I found that says like,

0:45:11.000 --> 0:45:13.880
<v Speaker 1>you know, the investigation was closed because they were unable

0:45:13.960 --> 0:45:18.000
<v Speaker 1>to locate the children, and it's like, yeah, that's the problem.

0:45:17.880 --> 0:45:19.440
<v Speaker 4>Right, No exactly.

0:45:19.560 --> 0:45:22.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So I mean, you know, it's like very limited resources.

0:45:22.600 --> 0:45:25.040
<v Speaker 1>This is big, open, wide spaces. It's tough.

0:45:25.160 --> 0:45:25.600
<v Speaker 2>I get it.

0:45:25.760 --> 0:45:28.719
<v Speaker 1>But I also think you know that failure led to

0:45:29.840 --> 0:45:30.960
<v Speaker 1>extraordinary suffering.

0:45:32.239 --> 0:45:32.439
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:45:32.880 --> 0:45:35.279
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I've never heard of this group and the same.

0:45:35.480 --> 0:45:37.480
<v Speaker 4>It is so fascinating.

0:45:37.719 --> 0:45:41.400
<v Speaker 3>I mean it covers every single thing we see in

0:45:41.520 --> 0:45:45.840
<v Speaker 3>Culled to the ultimate degree. We've got death, destruction, abuse,

0:45:46.000 --> 0:45:50.879
<v Speaker 3>some quirk cases, all of it, and a female leader. Yeah,

0:45:50.960 --> 0:45:55.879
<v Speaker 3>and she really really turns into something quite monstrous. Yeah,

0:45:56.040 --> 0:45:59.640
<v Speaker 3>it's very interesting to watch somebody go from a hippie

0:45:59.719 --> 0:46:01.080
<v Speaker 3>too a profit.

0:46:01.640 --> 0:46:04.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's an abusive, destructive, controlling profit.

0:46:05.160 --> 0:46:06.120
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah.

0:46:06.560 --> 0:46:09.520
<v Speaker 2>How many people were you able to actually speak to

0:46:10.160 --> 0:46:10.759
<v Speaker 2>from the group?

0:46:11.160 --> 0:46:13.719
<v Speaker 1>All total, I spoke to about there were about two

0:46:13.760 --> 0:46:16.799
<v Speaker 1>hundred interviews that I did over the personal researching this book.

0:46:17.520 --> 0:46:19.480
<v Speaker 1>What was nice also is that, like, even aside from

0:46:19.520 --> 0:46:22.279
<v Speaker 1>the interviews, is that I had access to a lot

0:46:22.360 --> 0:46:26.799
<v Speaker 1>of huge troes of documents, and so this group, as

0:46:26.840 --> 0:46:28.680
<v Speaker 1>I mentioned, ran into a lot of legal trouble, and

0:46:28.800 --> 0:46:31.880
<v Speaker 1>so there was a lot of stuff that former members

0:46:32.000 --> 0:46:34.719
<v Speaker 1>or current members were required to say under oath, and

0:46:34.880 --> 0:46:37.480
<v Speaker 1>so I got a bunch of people that way. The

0:46:37.560 --> 0:46:41.719
<v Speaker 1>group documented its activities quite extensively, and so I was

0:46:41.760 --> 0:46:44.360
<v Speaker 1>able to love it when they do people's perspective from that,

0:46:44.520 --> 0:46:46.200
<v Speaker 1>I know, it's very helpful. I mean, it's very very

0:46:46.239 --> 0:46:48.000
<v Speaker 1>helpful for a reporter to be able to do that.

0:46:48.160 --> 0:46:51.680
<v Speaker 1>But there was like a group of five or so

0:46:52.400 --> 0:46:55.799
<v Speaker 1>former members who were for me, the kind of core crew.

0:46:55.920 --> 0:46:58.000
<v Speaker 1>There were others I spoke with, but it was a

0:46:58.080 --> 0:47:01.359
<v Speaker 1>pretty contained group that were I like, you know, week

0:47:01.440 --> 0:47:02.280
<v Speaker 1>by week sources.

0:47:03.040 --> 0:47:05.960
<v Speaker 2>There is a woman in the book Maura, who underwent

0:47:06.239 --> 0:47:15.320
<v Speaker 2>such intense punishment, isolation, separation from her children, humiliation, ritual,

0:47:15.520 --> 0:47:17.719
<v Speaker 2>like just every freakin' thing.

0:47:18.120 --> 0:47:20.759
<v Speaker 3>I you know, they started giving them names like the

0:47:20.800 --> 0:47:25.120
<v Speaker 3>people who are being punished like forsaken, Barren de spies, You're.

0:47:24.960 --> 0:47:29.279
<v Speaker 2>Now called despised. Imagine your new name is despised like.

0:47:29.760 --> 0:47:33.560
<v Speaker 3>And they're being accused of things like spiritual adultery or

0:47:33.840 --> 0:47:37.880
<v Speaker 3>whatever crime the only Deborah can see because she's the prophet.

0:47:37.760 --> 0:47:42.439
<v Speaker 2>And spiritual adultery is literally like being nice to someone yeah. Yeah, Yeah,

0:47:42.640 --> 0:47:43.560
<v Speaker 2>that's insane.

0:47:44.040 --> 0:47:46.200
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, it's wild. It's just wild. Yeah.

0:47:46.480 --> 0:47:49.000
<v Speaker 3>It seems to have a lot of really kind, wonderful

0:47:49.040 --> 0:47:52.600
<v Speaker 3>people in it and to see them all get wrapped

0:47:52.640 --> 0:47:53.439
<v Speaker 3>up and this is hard.

0:47:53.760 --> 0:47:56.480
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, just the point of them being kind of wonderful, Like,

0:47:56.680 --> 0:47:58.840
<v Speaker 1>I just couldn't agree with you more. And that was

0:47:58.880 --> 0:48:01.160
<v Speaker 1>actually something Part of what I really enjoyed about this

0:48:01.800 --> 0:48:04.560
<v Speaker 1>book is that, you know, getting to know people, getting

0:48:04.600 --> 0:48:07.279
<v Speaker 1>you know, any repertorial job is interesting because you get

0:48:07.320 --> 0:48:09.719
<v Speaker 1>to meet people that you would never otherwise get to meet.

0:48:10.120 --> 0:48:13.600
<v Speaker 1>But these folks, you know, they've been through something really rough,

0:48:13.760 --> 0:48:16.680
<v Speaker 1>and they were often, by definition, people who were looking

0:48:16.920 --> 0:48:20.680
<v Speaker 1>for something beautiful and meaningful in their lives. And so

0:48:21.280 --> 0:48:23.200
<v Speaker 1>if they managed to get out, I think a lot

0:48:23.239 --> 0:48:26.800
<v Speaker 1>of them still hold on to that sense of trying

0:48:26.840 --> 0:48:28.879
<v Speaker 1>to find and make something beautiful. And so when I'd

0:48:28.920 --> 0:48:31.560
<v Speaker 1>speak to them, I'd just be really moved by by

0:48:31.640 --> 0:48:35.560
<v Speaker 1>that impulse. And Yeah, a strange kind of and beautiful

0:48:35.640 --> 0:48:38.719
<v Speaker 1>kind of intimacy grows out of that connection, for sure. Yeah.

0:48:39.680 --> 0:48:40.880
<v Speaker 4>Are they okay?

0:48:41.239 --> 0:48:41.399
<v Speaker 3>Now?

0:48:41.760 --> 0:48:42.760
<v Speaker 4>Are people okay?

0:48:43.680 --> 0:48:46.920
<v Speaker 1>I think I think they're sort of like provisional okays.

0:48:46.920 --> 0:48:50.640
<v Speaker 1>I think they're okay. In the way that they're okay

0:48:50.719 --> 0:48:54.080
<v Speaker 1>in like a real world kind of way. They you know,

0:48:54.400 --> 0:48:56.840
<v Speaker 1>some parts of life are great and some parts of

0:48:56.960 --> 0:48:58.560
<v Speaker 1>life are hard. I mean, I think that's true of

0:48:58.600 --> 0:49:00.800
<v Speaker 1>anybody obviously, no matter they were in a culture not

0:49:01.560 --> 0:49:05.000
<v Speaker 1>I'll speak specifically of Sarah because the book is mostly

0:49:06.040 --> 0:49:09.000
<v Speaker 1>like her journey growing up in the group, escaping and

0:49:09.120 --> 0:49:12.920
<v Speaker 1>starting over is like the narrative is the central narrative

0:49:12.960 --> 0:49:16.600
<v Speaker 1>thread for the book, and so she has really managed

0:49:16.640 --> 0:49:19.680
<v Speaker 1>to rebuild a life, a new life on the outside

0:49:19.680 --> 0:49:23.200
<v Speaker 1>of ACMTC. She's still you know, she went through an

0:49:23.239 --> 0:49:25.239
<v Speaker 1>extraordinary amount of trauma and so that's very much still

0:49:25.280 --> 0:49:27.320
<v Speaker 1>with her, but she's really found very healthy ways to

0:49:27.400 --> 0:49:29.640
<v Speaker 1>deal with it. Something I find really extraordinary is that

0:49:29.719 --> 0:49:32.440
<v Speaker 1>she's just a huge runner. She's run like, I don't know,

0:49:32.520 --> 0:49:35.239
<v Speaker 1>a couple dozen marathons or something. She's running one in

0:49:35.360 --> 0:49:37.880
<v Speaker 1>London coming up, I think, and amazing, and so it's

0:49:37.920 --> 0:49:41.439
<v Speaker 1>a really important way for her to just pound it out,

0:49:41.680 --> 0:49:44.239
<v Speaker 1>you know. And she also was able to start a

0:49:44.320 --> 0:49:46.480
<v Speaker 1>new family, and I think that you know, she got

0:49:46.560 --> 0:49:49.359
<v Speaker 1>married and she had some kids and they're just sort

0:49:49.400 --> 0:49:53.320
<v Speaker 1>of have allowed her to find meaning and beauty and

0:49:53.360 --> 0:49:55.520
<v Speaker 1>all of that and then to other people. Yeah, it's

0:49:56.400 --> 0:50:00.759
<v Speaker 1>people find their way to various degrees, and I think

0:50:00.880 --> 0:50:03.200
<v Speaker 1>most of them. I mean, all the people I spoke

0:50:03.280 --> 0:50:07.040
<v Speaker 1>to were together enough that they were able to talk

0:50:07.080 --> 0:50:09.200
<v Speaker 1>to me about their experiences. So there's a bit of

0:50:09.239 --> 0:50:11.040
<v Speaker 1>a sort of self selection thing going on there. But

0:50:11.320 --> 0:50:13.560
<v Speaker 1>like I do want to offer like a little bit

0:50:13.600 --> 0:50:15.719
<v Speaker 1>of hope more than a little bit I hope. You know,

0:50:15.760 --> 0:50:19.880
<v Speaker 1>the book is talks about some really wild things that happened,

0:50:19.960 --> 0:50:23.759
<v Speaker 1>but there is this element of like, you know, you

0:50:23.840 --> 0:50:30.399
<v Speaker 1>see people with extraordinary resilience pushing through, managing to start over,

0:50:30.600 --> 0:50:33.480
<v Speaker 1>And to me, it's just like endlessly inspiring. When I

0:50:33.600 --> 0:50:36.439
<v Speaker 1>get really stuck in my own way of thinking about

0:50:36.480 --> 0:50:38.840
<v Speaker 1>things and thinking you can't break out of something, you know,

0:50:38.880 --> 0:50:40.920
<v Speaker 1>I think like, well it would be much heart Like

0:50:41.000 --> 0:50:42.680
<v Speaker 1>what I'm stuck in is a lot easier to get

0:50:42.719 --> 0:50:45.120
<v Speaker 1>out of than like what Sarah or Mora was stuck in,

0:50:45.239 --> 0:50:46.800
<v Speaker 1>you know. And it's very inspiring.

0:50:47.040 --> 0:50:49.799
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, true, And Mara had a big win.

0:50:50.040 --> 0:50:52.960
<v Speaker 2>I mean, there are big wins for survivors in this book,

0:50:53.040 --> 0:50:56.600
<v Speaker 2>which wins is really so great to read because that

0:50:56.719 --> 0:50:57.880
<v Speaker 2>is not always the case.

0:50:58.719 --> 0:51:01.120
<v Speaker 1>Sure, And you know, I I do honestly hope that

0:51:01.680 --> 0:51:04.440
<v Speaker 1>my book can be a win for them. You know,

0:51:04.760 --> 0:51:07.040
<v Speaker 1>I think that it's important to me that you know,

0:51:07.120 --> 0:51:08.920
<v Speaker 1>like you're saying, this group has not been covered. I mean,

0:51:08.960 --> 0:51:12.040
<v Speaker 1>I've basically written everything about this group that's been out there,

0:51:12.080 --> 0:51:13.239
<v Speaker 1>and that was part of why I wanted to write

0:51:13.239 --> 0:51:14.840
<v Speaker 1>the book, was because it was like, I feel like

0:51:14.840 --> 0:51:17.600
<v Speaker 1>I'm like sort of breaking news. But I hope that

0:51:17.719 --> 0:51:21.239
<v Speaker 1>the book can feel like a kind of you know,

0:51:21.400 --> 0:51:25.000
<v Speaker 1>a two hundred and eighty page meaning making device, you know,

0:51:25.400 --> 0:51:28.680
<v Speaker 1>taking things that happened that were really tough and making

0:51:28.840 --> 0:51:31.359
<v Speaker 1>hopefully something beautiful out of them. And that can also

0:51:31.440 --> 0:51:34.759
<v Speaker 1>be like just like literally useful to someone who's trying

0:51:34.760 --> 0:51:36.319
<v Speaker 1>to deal with extremism in their own life.

0:51:36.520 --> 0:51:38.800
<v Speaker 3>You can textualize it in a way that makes it

0:51:39.040 --> 0:51:42.719
<v Speaker 3>both micro and macro at the same time, and you know,

0:51:42.920 --> 0:51:44.680
<v Speaker 3>you can really see how we got here, how we

0:51:44.760 --> 0:51:46.440
<v Speaker 3>can get out of here, and it's just it's a

0:51:46.440 --> 0:51:46.879
<v Speaker 3>great book.

0:51:47.200 --> 0:51:47.600
<v Speaker 1>Oh great.

0:51:48.120 --> 0:51:51.000
<v Speaker 2>And my final question is, do you think we are

0:51:51.200 --> 0:51:52.720
<v Speaker 2>entering a new age of cults?

0:51:53.640 --> 0:51:56.799
<v Speaker 1>Oh gosh, the question. I mean, I guess, like from

0:51:56.800 --> 0:51:59.239
<v Speaker 1>a historical point of view, like it would be like

0:51:59.280 --> 0:52:02.000
<v Speaker 1>a categorical yes, because I think that this is a

0:52:02.040 --> 0:52:08.040
<v Speaker 1>period of tremendous instability with political, environmental, economic, sociop I mean,

0:52:08.120 --> 0:52:09.040
<v Speaker 1>like every possible way.

0:52:09.160 --> 0:52:09.359
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.

0:52:09.960 --> 0:52:12.040
<v Speaker 1>What that means with the Internet, I think is a

0:52:12.200 --> 0:52:15.440
<v Speaker 1>really interesting question because to me, like the idea of

0:52:15.480 --> 0:52:20.520
<v Speaker 1>a cult is really defined by like physical isolation, but

0:52:20.760 --> 0:52:23.200
<v Speaker 1>with the Internet you can have a kind of isolation

0:52:23.400 --> 0:52:26.160
<v Speaker 1>that's physically diffuse. You know, people are not literally next

0:52:26.200 --> 0:52:27.719
<v Speaker 1>to each other, but they are in a kind of

0:52:27.840 --> 0:52:31.279
<v Speaker 1>cultish relationship with each other. I don't think that to

0:52:31.520 --> 0:52:33.480
<v Speaker 1>me that would quite qualify as a cult, but I

0:52:33.520 --> 0:52:36.920
<v Speaker 1>think that there's maybe a tremendous amount of Internet based

0:52:37.320 --> 0:52:42.799
<v Speaker 1>cultishness going on, and I can't see it changing a lot.

0:52:43.000 --> 0:52:46.480
<v Speaker 1>I certainly hope it does. Yeah, Yeah, I'm curious what

0:52:46.480 --> 0:52:47.080
<v Speaker 1>would you all.

0:52:47.040 --> 0:52:51.360
<v Speaker 2>Say, yes, billion, I mean, because many of those online

0:52:51.360 --> 0:52:55.319
<v Speaker 2>cults do then become physical cults, and right, of course, yeah,

0:52:55.560 --> 0:53:00.440
<v Speaker 2>even the online ones often impact people the exisact same

0:53:00.480 --> 0:53:02.560
<v Speaker 2>way as the real life. Once it's not like there's

0:53:02.600 --> 0:53:05.719
<v Speaker 2>a distinction in our brains. Once we have accepted that

0:53:05.840 --> 0:53:08.560
<v Speaker 2>somebody is the ultimate authority over our lives and we

0:53:08.640 --> 0:53:10.399
<v Speaker 2>have to listen to them, it's kind of it's kind

0:53:10.400 --> 0:53:12.440
<v Speaker 2>of irrelevant whether we're physically next to them or not.

0:53:12.719 --> 0:53:15.000
<v Speaker 2>I mean, a lot of our guests never met their

0:53:15.120 --> 0:53:16.759
<v Speaker 2>leader of their groups, you know what I mean, but

0:53:16.880 --> 0:53:17.799
<v Speaker 2>they still.

0:53:18.840 --> 0:53:21.799
<v Speaker 4>You know, there's nothing to do with their devotion meeting

0:53:21.880 --> 0:53:23.399
<v Speaker 4>the person, yes matter.

0:53:23.440 --> 0:53:25.160
<v Speaker 2>I mean, it can like be a thing that really

0:53:25.360 --> 0:53:27.440
<v Speaker 2>like pulls you in or whatever. But like there were

0:53:27.600 --> 0:53:30.240
<v Speaker 2>so many children of got outposts where nobody ever met.

0:53:30.120 --> 0:53:32.600
<v Speaker 3>That dude, so many people who just saw them on

0:53:32.680 --> 0:53:35.839
<v Speaker 3>screens or like heard their boy yeah, yeah, yeah. It's

0:53:36.040 --> 0:53:38.919
<v Speaker 3>it's crazy and every group, every group that I'm looking

0:53:38.960 --> 0:53:42.040
<v Speaker 3>at right now, whether it's like a pilates class, is

0:53:42.080 --> 0:53:47.160
<v Speaker 3>getting so much crazier where it's really yes, yes, yes,

0:53:47.239 --> 0:53:51.279
<v Speaker 3>because everybody feels so insecure and everywhere all feels so

0:53:51.320 --> 0:53:53.279
<v Speaker 3>out of We're so out of control that it's like,

0:53:53.480 --> 0:53:53.799
<v Speaker 3>this is.

0:53:53.800 --> 0:53:56.000
<v Speaker 4>My Monday night pilates class, and we all better be here.

0:53:56.040 --> 0:53:59.400
<v Speaker 3>Because we have to be together because like it's just

0:53:59.600 --> 0:54:03.440
<v Speaker 3>really yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, strange times, strange times we

0:54:03.560 --> 0:54:05.200
<v Speaker 3>all want to feel in control.

0:54:05.600 --> 0:54:08.399
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it doesn't have to be a bad thing either.

0:54:08.520 --> 0:54:10.719
<v Speaker 1>That's sort of the kind of most interesting part of

0:54:10.760 --> 0:54:12.560
<v Speaker 1>this to me is that like Platti's cross could be

0:54:12.640 --> 0:54:14.080
<v Speaker 1>like really lovely and maybe you have like a really

0:54:14.120 --> 0:54:17.080
<v Speaker 1>wonderful community. It's only when it kind of tips into

0:54:17.360 --> 0:54:19.600
<v Speaker 1>something differently that it becomes destructive.

0:54:19.719 --> 0:54:20.960
<v Speaker 4>No, no, so far, so good.

0:54:21.120 --> 0:54:23.839
<v Speaker 2>But you know, like, although we've heard about a lot

0:54:23.840 --> 0:54:26.040
<v Speaker 2>of yoga classes that did not go well.

0:54:27.719 --> 0:54:30.600
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, yeah great. I can't wait to see which

0:54:30.680 --> 0:54:33.919
<v Speaker 4>cults come up next. Oh boy, yeah, where can people

0:54:33.960 --> 0:54:34.279
<v Speaker 4>find you?

0:54:34.680 --> 0:54:38.480
<v Speaker 1>They can find me on Instagram at one Harrison Hill.

0:54:38.600 --> 0:54:40.800
<v Speaker 1>So that's at the number one. H A R R

0:54:40.880 --> 0:54:43.680
<v Speaker 1>I S O N H I L L TikTok is

0:54:43.719 --> 0:54:46.520
<v Speaker 1>the same and the book title. The book title is

0:54:46.560 --> 0:54:49.360
<v Speaker 1>The Oracle's Daughter. The Rise and Fall of an American

0:54:49.480 --> 0:54:54.200
<v Speaker 1>Cult comes out April seventh from Scribner, and hopefully it's

0:54:54.239 --> 0:54:55.960
<v Speaker 1>got a little something for everybody in there.

0:54:56.960 --> 0:54:59.440
<v Speaker 3>I think it sure does. It's a fascinating book. Thank

0:54:59.520 --> 0:55:04.440
<v Speaker 3>you for writing, Thank you for being a guest. All right,

0:55:04.719 --> 0:55:08.440
<v Speaker 3>and there we have it with Harrison. Go check out

0:55:08.520 --> 0:55:12.800
<v Speaker 3>his book, Megan. We have two cults to ask about

0:55:12.840 --> 0:55:15.680
<v Speaker 3>right now. The first one is, of course, the Aggressive

0:55:15.719 --> 0:55:22.920
<v Speaker 3>Christianity Missions Training Corps. Thoughts couldn't last an hour, I

0:55:23.080 --> 0:55:25.440
<v Speaker 3>guess I could last two hours if I got to

0:55:25.520 --> 0:55:26.919
<v Speaker 3>watch her do a spiritual birth.

0:55:27.120 --> 0:55:30.279
<v Speaker 2>I think the spiritual birth would be very compelling for

0:55:30.440 --> 0:55:31.279
<v Speaker 2>a day for sure.

0:55:31.560 --> 0:55:31.799
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.

0:55:32.080 --> 0:55:37.040
<v Speaker 2>However, you did mention the original group that Leilah aka

0:55:37.200 --> 0:55:39.279
<v Speaker 2>Debora was a part of in the beginning, which is

0:55:39.360 --> 0:55:41.440
<v Speaker 2>the bear tribe, and how you would maybe like that

0:55:41.560 --> 0:55:43.440
<v Speaker 2>one get me.

0:55:43.560 --> 0:55:44.440
<v Speaker 4>To the bear tribe.

0:55:44.520 --> 0:55:52.440
<v Speaker 3>Yesterday a lot of hot people cause playing as nature people.

0:55:52.560 --> 0:55:55.120
<v Speaker 3>It almost sounds like a reality show like Love Island

0:55:55.280 --> 0:55:55.720
<v Speaker 3>or something.

0:55:56.920 --> 0:55:57.320
<v Speaker 4>Doesn't.

0:55:57.560 --> 0:56:00.560
<v Speaker 3>It's a little because it was just hot young people

0:56:00.880 --> 0:56:02.759
<v Speaker 3>like pretending to be native a bear.

0:56:03.920 --> 0:56:07.399
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, that part not so much. But I will say

0:56:07.560 --> 0:56:08.320
<v Speaker 4>you guys.

0:56:08.760 --> 0:56:12.160
<v Speaker 3>To live like that, never waste any part of an animal,

0:56:12.800 --> 0:56:16.279
<v Speaker 3>be close to nature. Although I don't like camping, So

0:56:16.600 --> 0:56:18.920
<v Speaker 3>who the fuck am I to say any of this?

0:56:19.120 --> 0:56:21.520
<v Speaker 3>I don't know shit about shit. I wouldn't join the

0:56:21.560 --> 0:56:24.480
<v Speaker 3>bear tribe, I know. I'm like, could I actually picture

0:56:24.520 --> 0:56:25.600
<v Speaker 3>you living off the land?

0:56:25.880 --> 0:56:25.920
<v Speaker 1>Like?

0:56:26.160 --> 0:56:29.600
<v Speaker 2>I don't think so. No. I think I could picture

0:56:29.640 --> 0:56:33.040
<v Speaker 2>you on like a beautiful Joshua tree home where you step.

0:56:32.800 --> 0:56:35.440
<v Speaker 4>Outside once in a whole. Yeah, like once a day.

0:56:35.440 --> 0:56:38.520
<v Speaker 3>I'd go outside and and be like I am one

0:56:38.600 --> 0:56:41.040
<v Speaker 3>with you, and then I'd go back into the air conditioner.

0:56:41.320 --> 0:56:44.840
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, that's so Yeah. I feel that I'm.

0:56:44.760 --> 0:56:48.879
<v Speaker 3>Having delusions of me being in the Bear tribe. It's

0:56:49.040 --> 0:56:52.200
<v Speaker 3>absolutely false. I'm so sorry we wasted all of your

0:56:52.280 --> 0:56:55.200
<v Speaker 3>time and me figuring out in real time.

0:56:56.800 --> 0:56:59.600
<v Speaker 4>That I wouldn't join either of these groups. But you'd

0:56:59.680 --> 0:57:00.919
<v Speaker 4>visit for a day.

0:57:01.280 --> 0:57:01.480
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:57:01.880 --> 0:57:04.399
<v Speaker 3>Same, I'd visited any cult for a day. I would

0:57:04.480 --> 0:57:05.920
<v Speaker 3>visit any cult for day. We need to go do

0:57:06.120 --> 0:57:07.239
<v Speaker 3>we need to go do that? We need to go

0:57:07.320 --> 0:57:10.360
<v Speaker 3>do an investigative undercover thing. Yeah, let's do it.

0:57:10.480 --> 0:57:13.360
<v Speaker 4>You can wear a mustache, okay, and I'll wear a hat. Okay.

0:57:15.320 --> 0:57:17.600
<v Speaker 3>Thank you so much for listening to another episode of

0:57:17.640 --> 0:57:20.320
<v Speaker 3>Trust Me. We appreciate and love you so much. Rate

0:57:20.440 --> 0:57:22.720
<v Speaker 3>us five stars if you feel the same way, and

0:57:23.120 --> 0:57:26.240
<v Speaker 3>as always, remember to follow your gut, watch out for

0:57:26.320 --> 0:57:30.480
<v Speaker 3>red flags, and never ever trust me.

0:57:31.040 --> 0:57:31.560
<v Speaker 4>Bye bye.

0:57:33.800 --> 0:57:37.120
<v Speaker 2>This has been an exactly right production hosted by me Lola.

0:57:36.880 --> 0:57:40.720
<v Speaker 4>Blanc and me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is Gee Holley.

0:57:41.040 --> 0:57:42.840
<v Speaker 2>This episode was mixed by John Bradley.

0:57:43.000 --> 0:57:46.280
<v Speaker 3>Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker

0:57:46.440 --> 0:57:47.480
<v Speaker 3>is Patrick Kottner.

0:57:47.800 --> 0:57:50.120
<v Speaker 2>Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.

0:57:50.440 --> 0:57:54.480
<v Speaker 3>Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hartstark,

0:57:54.560 --> 0:57:55.480
<v Speaker 3>and Danielle Kramer.

0:57:55.720 --> 0:57:58.000
<v Speaker 2>You can find us on Instagram at trust Me podcast

0:57:58.160 --> 0:58:00.280
<v Speaker 2>or on TikTok at trust Me coult Podcast.

0:58:00.640 --> 0:58:03.680
<v Speaker 3>Got your own story about cults, extreme belief our manipulation,

0:58:04.080 --> 0:58:06.880
<v Speaker 3>Shoot us an email at trustmepodat gmail dot com.

0:58:07.120 --> 0:58:10.000
<v Speaker 2>Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

0:58:10.160 --> 0:58:11.680
<v Speaker 2>or wherever you get your podcasts.