Cults to Consciousness

TIMESTAMPS UNAVAILABLE FOR THIS EPISODE CW:  CA, DV, Mentions of CSA Material & Suicidal Attempts/Ideation.  Zett Espinoza was born into a professional criminal family in Los Angeles. Her mother struggled with mental illness and that often left the children neglected and afraid. Initiated into gang life around 12 years old, Zett’s father was conditioned for illegal activity. He start...

CW: Suicidal ideation, self harm.  Born in the 1970s in Wisconsin, Arno grew up in a turbulent environment with alcohol, fighting, and family dysfunction around him.  As a teenager, he was angry, rebellious, and looking for belonging. That led him toward white power skinhead culture in the late 1980s. He became a founding member of a major U.S. skinhead gang and the lead singer of a hate...

CW:  SA, ED, Suicidal Ideation.  Growing up Ultra Orthodox in an extremely abusive home, left Tzivya Murrin completely unprepared for the outside world. She tried to get help multiple times to get away from her parents, but the system failed her. Once she finally got someone on the outside to listen, hands were held out to pull her out of her dangerous situation. However, some of those h...

CW:  CSA, CA, ED, Suicidal Ideation.  In a system that keeps victims silent in their pain, perpetrators go unchecked and are further emboldened to inflict harm. Tzivya Murrin was trapped in this system. No matter what she did, her parents found reason for extreme punishment. She asked for help multiple times from her community and instead was handed right back to her abusers. Time and ti...

Targeted violence hit a Mormon church in Michigan which claimed at least 5 lives. The same day, it was discovered that the LDS prophet had passed away at 101 years old. A weekend full of grief. We will discuss the events, hold space for those lost and talk about what might be next with the new prophet Dallin H Oaks. Joining us to speak on the history of Oaks is Bryan from True Mormon Quotes. ...

Tamara was a new mom seeking connection and community in a scary world where simplicity was romanticized. She was introduced to the Twelve Tribes by a family member and after some love bombing on some overnight trips, she was hooked. She convinced her husband to sell all they owned including their home and even clothes to leave society and move their family into a single bedroom in a communal TT h...

Just before Emmet Mathieu was 2 years old, his mother Tamara longed for community and simple living, so she convinced her husband to permanently move into the Twelve Tribes commune. Immediate regret set in, but it was too late. Forced to conform to extreme chiId discipline, Emmet was punished every day just for doing developmentally normal things. Immediate compliance was mandatory and if not give...

After joining what Tamara Mathieu thought would be a wholesome, down to earth, communal family group in August of 2000, things quickly went downhill— she immediately regretted her decision.  At 23 years old, Tamara, her husband and their 17-month-old son gave up EVERYTHING to join the Twelve Tribes worldwide religious organization.  In return they received a militaristic, impossible-to-p...

Lured into the TWELVE TRIBES (Yellow Deli) Cult TIMESTAMPS UNAVAILABLE FOR THIS EPISODE Tamara Mathieu was a new mother in a scary world where Columbine had just happened. Romanticizing a simple life and craving safety for her family, she began visiting the Twelve Tribes. She noticed a village raising the well behaved chiIdren, homemade food and happy families. Feeling alone, isolated and overwhel...

Featured in the Shiny Happy People 2 doc-series, Cindy was deep in evangelical nationalism when she was hired as head of PR to silence whistleblowers from the Honor Academy at Teen Mania. She was told they were simply disgruntled chiIdren who were lying to defame the massive enterprise. Years later, she would realize, not only were the alumni telling the truth, but the upper management knew about...

Mica Ringo was heavily invested in Teen Mania and went through the whole program completely ignoring xyr inner voice of authenticity. Being yourself was never an option in a group that specifically molds teens to be extremist warriors for Jesus. The program was grueling and even abusive in an attempt to break down the character of teens coming in.  Mica would go on to create the Recovering Al...

TIMESTAMPS UNAVAILABLE FOR THIS EPISODE Celebrating 250 episodes with these 5 incredible women!  We explore ways in which different Amish and sometimes Mennonite settlements had the same methods of control and even ab*se. We cover their rules, restrictions, medical allowances (or lack thereof), why CSA is rampant and how the perpetr*tors are often protected rather than truly held accountable....

Following up our initial interview with the incredible April Ajoy, we go LIVE with her to further discuss her upbringing as a Christian Nation*list, in which they drilled into teens a persecution complex that would put their life on the line as a declared “believer”. Fresh off the heels of “Shiny Happy People: Teenage Holy War”, April is a successful content creator and podcast host, sharing stori...

Last month the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints lost an appeal to remain blameless in the case of two bishops not reporting egregious acts of CSA in the state of Arizona.  Today we go in depth with former guest and current lawyer Kolby Reddish to further discuss the case and potential legal outcome. Click here to watch on YouTube Check out our interviews with Kolby:   Mor...

After escaping the COG cult in Australia with her husband, Maria Esguerra spent years in higher education so she could become a psychologist and better understand her past. Her mission now is to help other survivors of high control groups and people, move through their trauma and find healing in understanding. She is even doing her best to help legally forge a path for those who are victims of coe...

Fresh off the heels of “Shiny Happy People: Teenage Holy War” we sit with April Ajoy.  She wouldn’t have called herself a Christian Nation*list when she performed her original song “America Say Jesus” on the Jim Bakker show, or when she participated in Jesus Marches across America. April just considered herself a good Christian: faithful, and determined to make America a Christian nation once...

Featured in the new and second season of Shiny Happy People, Dani was determined to live a life dedicated to Jesus as a young teen. She attended Acquire the Fire events in her early years which eventually led her to officially joining the Teen Mania Honor Academy program. She spent years paying thousands to work for free to travel on a bus and put on these huge events weekends at a time. She would...

Isolated within a world of a strict Independent Fundamental Baptist, Drew McCoy was more than invested in his beliefs. He would proselytize to anyone who needed God, even if it meant sacrificing his social status amongst non-believers. The closest he came to breaking the rules as a teen was hanging out with non-church friends who would smoke we*d in front of him.  A health scare drew him even...

The Lebaron group fled the US after being excommunicated from the Mormon church for still practicing polygamy. While in Mexico, the group split and the Ervilite side started implementing blood atonement in an attempt to wipe out the other. Pamela Jones grew up in fear that the Ervilites would come for them any moment. To escape the extreme abuse, she got married at 15, not realizing she was enteri...

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In the Vampyre community that Father S was the head of, it was sometimes the case that the group rituals and spiritual practices were manipulated into something far more insidious. Khassa and Ashra describe what happened at the group ceremony called Babyl*n. They were each told something different by Father S about the intention of the ceremony concerning Khassa’s role. In the end, Khassa was seve...

Ashra was looking for a sense of community and understanding when she came into contact with Father S, the most public face of the Vampyre community. Eager to learn from him, she entered into a mentor/mentee relationship. Things would eventually devolve into conversations about sex magick and rituals that he wanted her to be a part of. She didn’t realize she was being groomed to be one of his many...

Growing up, Khassa’ Kaikesi's mother felt plagued by her abilities as a medium. Even though Khassa came from a long line of Magickal practitioners, when she started understanding her own gifts, she was left with no support and felt isolated. She was bullied for her practices and attended 4 different high schools because of it. Once introduced to Vampyrism, the spiritualism resonated and she found...

After 34 years of being abandoned, neglected, and brainwashed, Pamela Jones and her nine children escaped a fundamentalist cult out of Mexico and fled to a new life in the US. She had 2 cars and nothing more than $5 and two credit cards which she didn’t know how to use. Her biggest challenge was acclimating to a life of leadership and tasks she was never allowed to do in the cult. Getting the cour...

Pamela Jones was born in Los Molinos, Mexico to members of the Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times,  a fundamentalist, misogynistic cult. She was the 11th of her abusIve father’s 57 biological children and 2nd of her mother’s thirteen children and it was from that moment on that Pamela held one single belief:  She existed for one reason and one reason only,  to be her e...