David Freeman was handed over to Anne Hamilton Byrne at the age of two, when he went to live with the other children at The Family’s Lake Eildon property. It took 12 years before he was rescued by the police, and given his freedom. At 15, he vowed not to tell anyone about his childhood in the notorious Victorian cult, and it was a promise he kept for 25 years. Guest: David Freeman Full research sources listed here . You can support us on Patreon or Acast+ , with a one-off donation , or grab some...
Jun 29, 2021•1 hr 18 min
Gloriavale Christian Community is recognised around New Zealand for the distinctive dress of its members, especially the women, who wear headscarves to denote submission to men, and a neck-to-ankle garment designed by the group’s Australian founder, Neville Cooper. Some say the community represents a pious life set up around ideals of sharing everything, but others say the way it’s set up is breeding predators. Guests: Hannah Harrison, Liz Gregory Full research sources listed here . You can supp...
Apr 20, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Gloriavale Christian Community has found itself in the New Zealand media headlines on multiple occasions. Its founder was once jailed for sexual abuse, but community members were convinced that it he was jailed for preaching the gospel. Followers claim that their way of life is all about the common good and nobody having more than anyone else. Former members say their time there was dominated by endless work and an overriding sense of fear. Guests: Hannah Harrison, Liz Gregory Full research sour...
Apr 13, 2021•58 min•Season 4Ep. 32
Violet Pryor told her followers that she was God. They gave up their money and possessions to keep her in comfort. David Ayliffe became one of her key Pillars, a right-hand man. After her death, he became the leader of the cult she had created in Sydney, Australia – the Zion Full Salvation Ministry. Guest: David Ayliffe Full research sources listed here . You can support us on Patreon or Acast+ , with a one-off donation , or grab some merch . Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is available on ...
Mar 16, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Season 4Ep. 31
As he was about to turn 17, Remy Attig was keen to get away from his parents’ fracturing marriage, and ready for something to give his life purpose. The Master’s Commission program seemed like just the thing to set him up for a life of travel and spreading the word of God. Instead, it ran him ragged, instilled fear, built on his internalised homophobia, and set him up for unhealthy relationships and trust issues. In hindsight, he believes that the Master’s Commission was a cult. Guest: Remy Atti...
Feb 16, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Season 4Ep. 30
Lindy Jacomb was born into the Exclusive Brethren in Auckland, New Zealand, and was told there was no longer a place for her there in 2008. Her family cut off all communication with her and she was forced to start a new life at the age of 20, without any of the people she knew and loved. Guests: Lindy Jacomb and Michael Bachelard Full research sources listed here . You can support us on Patreon or Acast+ , with a one-off donation , or grab some merch . Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is ava...
Jan 19, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Lindy Jacomb was born into the Exclusive Brethren in Auckland, New Zealand, and was told there was no longer a place for her there in 2008. Her family cut off all communication with her and she was forced to start a new life at the age of 20, without any of the people she knew and loved. Guests: Lindy Jacomb and Michael Bachelard Full research sources listed here . You can support us on Patreon or Acast+ , with a one-off donation , or grab some merch . Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is ava...
Jan 19, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Season 4Ep. 29
As a disaffected youth, Shannon Bundock was drawn to progressive ideas. In her late teens she moved into the city, to a poor neighbourhood in Vancouver, Canada, where she became hyper aware of the inequality all around her. The activists who were trying to do something about this in the early 2000s ignited her passion for radical politics. At 19, Shannon was ready to dedicate herself wholeheartedly to doing her part to change the world for the better. Five and a half years later, she’d find hers...
Dec 15, 2020•1 hr 33 min•Season 4Ep. 28
Natasha Tiku wrote for Gawker in 2013, “Everyone is interested in doing fun things with their bodies. But the impulse to systematize, replicate, package, sell, and build an ideology around it is uniquely Silicon Valley.” She was writing about an organisation that was monetising the female orgasm. And they weren’t the only ones doing so. Guests: Christine Talbott Acosta, Ruwan Meepagala, Sasha Nelson Full research sources listed here . You can support us on Patreon or Acast+ , with a one-off dona...
Nov 24, 2020•1 hr 16 min
Natasha Tiku wrote for Gawker in 2013, “Everyone is interested in doing fun things with their bodies. But the impulse to systematize, replicate, package, sell, and build an ideology around it is uniquely Silicon Valley.” She was writing about an organisation that was monetising the female orgasm. And they weren’t the only ones doing so. Guests: Christine Talbott Acosta, Ruwan Meepagala, Sasha Nelson Full research sources listed here . You can support us on Patreon or Acast+ , with a one-off dona...
Nov 17, 2020•1 hr 28 min•Season 4Ep. 27
Laura McConnell was born into a fundamentalist Christian sect that claims it has no name. Former member Elizabeth Coleman told Nathan Jolly for news.com.au earlier this year that, “It is of utmost importance to them that they do not have an official name or headquarters or centrally identifiable presence anywhere on earth.” From his investigative reporting in 2013, journalist Chris Johnston estimated there were 20,000 members in Australia, and hundreds of thousands around the world. Sometimes re...
Oct 13, 2020•1 hr 16 min•Season 4Ep. 26
Helen Zuman describes herself as “a tree-hugging dirt worshipper devoted to turning waste into food and the stinky guck of experience into fertile, fragrant prose.” Her memoir ‘Mating in Captivity’ details her experiences joining Zendik Farm, a commune in North Carolina with the motto ‘Stop Bitching, Start a Revolution’, which she came across in 1999. Helen stayed until 2004, but it wasn’t until the following year that she recognised she’d been in a cult. Special Guest: Helen Zuman Full research...
Sep 15, 2020•1 hr 53 min•Season 4Ep. 25
Journalist A.M. Gittlitz released his book I Want to Believe: Posadism, UFOs and Apocalypse Communism earlier this year. In it, he explores the fascinating world of the Posadists – a Latin American Trotskyist group who are best known today for their zany beliefs around extra-terrestrial and dolphin intelligence. But their movement had a lot more to it than this, and in its later days would devolve into a cult around the authoritarian leadership of J. Posadas. Gittlitz drew on considerable archiv...
Jul 21, 2020•1 hr 4 min
The Children of God, later known as The Family, became notorious for their practise called “flirty fishing”. They believed in bringing up their children to have no inhibitions around sex, but the ramifications of their approach to this would echo through the generations as trauma, and result in a shocking murder-suicide committed by the very son prophesied as the Prince who would lead them through the End Times. Full research sources listed here . You can support us on Patreon or Acast+ , with a...
Apr 21, 2020•1 hr 6 min
The Children of God, later known as The Family, became notorious for their practise called “flirty fishing”. They believed in bringing up their children to have no inhibitions around sex, but the ramifications of their approach to this would echo through the generations as trauma, and result in a shocking murder-suicide committed by the very son prophesied as the Prince who would lead them through the End Times. Full research sources listed here . You can support us on Patreon or Acast+ , with a...
Apr 14, 2020•1 hr•Season 3Ep. 24
John Robert Stevens wrote when he was just 14 years old: “My joy must be in doing His will, in being His slave, in the confidence that whatever comes to me, when following Him, is His doing. In a real sense, I make Him responsible for my life.” He was writing about Jesus Christ, but it would turn out in the decades following that he could well have been writing to his future devotees as to how they should feel about himself. UPDATE: The Oops! I'm in a Cult podcast found that John Robert Stevens'...
Mar 17, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Season 3Ep. 23
In 1996, journalist Madeleine Bunting wrote for The Guardian UK: “Most of the 130,000 Buddhists in this country are in the caring professions, or are academics, or are part of an ex-hippy culture; they are trusting, idealistic and naive. They thought Buddhism was immune to the fanaticism and hypocrisy which riddles all religions. The controversy surrounding the NKT is shattering illusions that Buddhism was the one fail-safe religion.” Twenty years later, clinical psychologist Dr Michelle Haslam ...
Feb 11, 2020•1 hr 33 min•Season 3Ep. 22
Hare Krishnas are often seen as joyous, harmless people, dancing their way through the streets, chanting to bells in their colourful robes. But in one particular Australian offshoot, a young woman named Lina told me about her not-so-harmless experiences. Full research sources listed here . You can support us on Patreon or Acast+ , with a one-off donation , or grab some merch . Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is available on audiobook now . With thanks to Audio-Technica , presenting partner ...
Jan 14, 2020•53 min•Season 3Ep. 21
WANTED: families to volunteer to live for six months in the Australian outback “to advance the frontiers of social science.” Be part of a cutting edge research project to test the ideal human environment. In a country known for a population that loves to travel, the write-ups appealed to plenty of adventurous spirits. Little did they know the reality of what they would be getting themselves into. Full research sources listed here . You can support us on Patreon or Acast+ , with a one-off donatio...
Dec 17, 2019•47 min•Season 3Ep. 20
Followers of The Move rejected mainstream society and headed into the wilderness in the 1970s, building isolated communities that were to set them up for the coming Apocalypse. Many ex-members would later tell stories of physical hardship, beatings, and worse, experienced in these communities. Move leader Sam Fife told devotees that should he ever die, they could consider it proof that he was a false prophet. Full research sources listed here . You can support us on Patreon or Acast+ , with a on...
Nov 12, 2019•57 min•Season 3Ep. 19
Australian esoteric healing organisation Universal Medicine teaches that entities known as The Four Lords of Form rule over 9-foot-tall spirits that are all around us, and that most people have lived at least 2,300 lives before. Former student Matt Sutherland told Sunday Night journalist Matt Doran that he would describe Universal Medicine’s founder Serge Benhayon as “a human wrecking ball.” CORRECTION: The 'groping' allegations were found to be conveyed by the publication but the court did not ...
Oct 15, 2019•1 hr 18 min•Season 3Ep. 18
Edgar Bronfman Sr. of the Seagram liquor fortune once wrote a testimonial for a course he had taken through an organisation called Executive Success Programs, or ESP. He said, quote, “If everyone were to go through this training, the world would be a much better and safer place to live.” Seventeen years later, the leader and inner circle of that same organisation, now going under the name NXIVM, would be on trial for charges including sex trafficking, forced labour, fraud, extortion and child po...
Sep 17, 2019•1 hr 13 min•Season 3Ep. 17
On the 14 June 2019, news broke in Australia that many people had been waiting on for a number of years. That news was the death of this country’s most notorious cult leader, Anne Hamilton-Byrne. In this bonus episode, I’m bringing you an interview with investigative journalist Chris Johnston, who has been looking into The Family for quite some time. He worked with director Rosie Jones on her recent documentary ‘The Cult of the Family’, and they also co-wrote a book together about the group and ...
Jul 18, 2019•56 min
Chung Moo Quan positioned itself as a superior martial arts school that taught eight different practices at once. Though this may have originally struck prospective students as a bargain-and-a-half, many who chose to take it up would come out the other end having lost thousands of dollars, personal relationships and job opportunities, and even their sense of self. Before the school’s founder and four other defendants were jailed in 1995, various experts had told reporters that Chung Moo Quan fit...
Apr 16, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Season 2Ep. 16
The Order of the Solar Temple was a secret society that would go down sharing the pages of history with Jonestown, the Branch Davidians and Heaven’s Gate. But is it fair to compare the groups? When it comes to incidents of mass violence and cults, perhaps it may be unavoidable. Because whether they ended in mass murder-suicide or a different form of violence, in spite of the striking ideological differences between them, there were some similarities – in all of these groups that ended with such ...
Mar 12, 2019•58 min•Season 2Ep. 15
A New Zealand-born man who moved to Australia in the 1970s and started a sect, telling his eventual 9 wives and 60-plus children that he was Jesus Christ, was put behind bars for 7 years in Victoria in 2000. In spite of the fairly sensational nature of his lifestyle and crimes, his name is not well-known here, and his polygamous group gained the most media attention when a recent Bachelor Australia contestant was outed by the press for her childhood involvement. This episode we’re talking about ...
Feb 12, 2019•26 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Joy Kuo and her husband moved to Sydney from Taiwan in 2000, and the couple both began working for the University of Sydney Library the following year. They both studied for and gained their masters degrees, and enjoyed their work. By 2012 they had had a son together, and Joy found herself wanting to help humanity in some greater way. She was looking for something she could really dedicate herself to in her career. Iphigenie Amoutzias moved to New Zealand from Germany in 1996. She completed post...
Jan 15, 2019•55 min•Season 2Ep. 13
Grace J. Adams and Poia Alpha are two sisters from New Zealand, who joined David Koresh’s Branch Davidians in the 1980s along with their other sister, the younger Rebecca. Poia left the sect in early 1990, and Grace in late 1991. Rebecca remained with the group at the compound in Waco, Texas, and perished in the fire of April 1993. Grace and Poia have recently released their memoir, called ‘Hearken O Daughter’, and I caught up with them on a recent trip to Auckland. Special Guest: Grace J. Adams...
Dec 18, 2018•55 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Laura left Outreach International when she was 32 years old, having been born into the sect in the late 1970s. Hear her story as she relates the experience of being a young woman in a highly patriarchal and controlling organisation, the difficult decision to leave, the trauma of starting her life from scratch, and the joy that she's found in this new life – a kind that most of us take for granted. You'll also hear from other ex-members about their experiences, and where the sect stands today. Sp...
Nov 20, 2018•1 hr 22 min
In May 2017, a sect that started in Melbourne, Australia, 50 years ago, and has been highly secretive over the last few decades, decided to change its closed-doors policy and go public with a website. Whilst up until now very little has been known about the group except by direct conversations with former believers, its members go to government schools, attend public universities, and work in everyday jobs. They could be your neighbour, your colleague, or even a friend, and you’d have no idea wh...
Nov 13, 2018•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 11
