Erika Lantz & Elin Lantz Lesser - Book Burnings, Rapture Drills, & the River Road Fellowship - Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Trust me? Do you trust me?

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Right?

Speaker 3 (00:04):
Ever?

Speaker 4 (00:04):
Lead you astray tr us.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
This is the truth, the only truth.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't
welcome to trust me. The podcast about Colt's extreme belief
and manipulation from two former bookworms who've actually experienced it.

Speaker 4 (00:21):
I'm Lola Blanc, I'm Megan Elizabeth. That introduction will make
sense later, are you guys?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I promise I wish I could honestly say I'm a
current bookworm, but let's be honest. The reading is, the
reading is diminished at the age of social media. That's okay,
thank you? Yeah today. Our guests are Erica Lance and
Alan Lance Lesser, two sisters and hosts of the podcast
The Turning. Each season they cover a different community or

(00:45):
story of devotion and abuse, including previously nuns and ballerinas,
and now their latest season explores the story of the
River Road Fellowship, following a girl named Lindsay. They're going
to tell us about how after a mysterious dinner guest
named victim Or Bernard showed up to Lindsay's house, her
parents moved her family out to his religious compound in
rural Minnesota. We'll talk about how life changed on the compound,

(01:08):
becoming more and more restrictive and isolated from the outside world,
how they couldn't leave a thirty minute radius of the
camp in case Jesus came back, and how Lindsay was
forced to burn her only form of escape, her beloved books.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
We'll also hear about how Lindsay was then selected for
what was seemingly an honorable position as one of Victor's
so called maidens, a group of ten girls and women
sent to live next door to Victor and devote their
lives to him. We'll discuss how things only got more
disturbing from there, with Lindsay and her parents never being

(01:41):
told what this would actually entail, the unusual plans she
was making to try to escape, and of course we'll
talk about how she finally did.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
And this episode will contain descriptions of sexual assault and abuse.
As a heads up, so before we get into it
with Erica and Allen, Megan, what's your callest thing this week?

Speaker 4 (02:01):
My cultiest thing of the week is something that happened
actually two weeks ago, so I hope it's not cheating. Okay,
two weeks ago, I went to the Backstreet Boys at
the Sphere. Oh you did for a bachelorette party. Yeah,
oh I did, indeed. Okay, So let me just walk
you through a few of the culty elements of this

(02:22):
please experience. We're all supposed to dress in white. Really,
yeah because of the millennium.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
I don't know, because they were all wearing white maybe
and yeah, okay.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
So it's at the Sphere. So there's thousands of people
all dressed in white. And people didn't really explain the
sphere correctly to me in my opinion, like they'd be like, oh,
is that the sphere?

Speaker 2 (02:44):
They have images.

Speaker 4 (02:46):
I didn't realize that it was a three hundred and
sixty degree ride that you're essentially going on in this stadium.
It's like the visuals are completely around you. It's like
being on the Back to the Future ride at Whoa
really for two hours?

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Whoa.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
I did not know that either.

Speaker 4 (03:03):
So here's what the Backstreet Boys are hearkening and their
tour that is selling out. Everybody's coming. Very apocalyptic in
my opinion, I've gone full Remember Josie and the Pussycats,
the best movie ever made. Of course, Operation Big Concert.

(03:24):
This is Operation Big Concert. Okay.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
I actually don't remember that, Okay.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
Whatever they're preparing us, they're making it normal for our
brains to think that things are like like they're like
everybody and there's just like cities on fire in the
background of them and like aliens coming down and shit.
And I was like, oh my god. They're like they're
like normalizing all of this.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Like everything's fine, fine, having a good time exactly. Wow.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
I was just like, oh shit. And then all my friends,
I'm sober, my friends were not. And the girl getting
married was wearing a veil, you know, like a pretty
vale and she's super cute, and one of the Backstitt
boys was like hyper focused on big like when you.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Were that close to the stage, were like, wow, You're like,
I'm gonna give you my hat and she like, oh
my god, an honor.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
And she looked over at me because she's like kind
of you know, not on and she goes, is this
really happening? And I was like, yes, I don't know
how any of the wow. And so yeah, you go
on this UFO apocalyptic journey and then why no clue?
Then you leave And like another weird thing was that
all these like ninety celebrities were there, so they're obviously like,

(04:39):
you know, giving people free tickets. It was like the
cast of nine oh two one oh from like from
Sure ninety two. I was just like, this is such
a strange, strange, strange thing that was falty amusing it.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
It sounds fun as hell.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
It was fun as hell, and I was like salty
about going because I don't like the Backstreet Boys. You don't, No,
I don't. I was like a three to eleven prodigy girl,
like I liked, Oh, you were edgy. I didn't know
it at the time, but I guess I was. I
just didn't like.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
I don't. I didn't like it, and I'm not trying
to be cool because I'm not cool. At the same time,
I was reading babies that are club books. While I
was doing it, I liked it. Yeah, so you know,
I wasn't thrilled to go. But then I didn't even
listen to them or look at them. I was just
in the UFO going through like keyholes and space. It
honestly felt like you would like, go through one keyhole

(05:32):
and then they'd beg infinity is real. I can't. I can't.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Okay, Well, now I really you're selling me on it.
Now I have to go. I wanted to go already.
I mean, yeah, the Nick Carter allegations are a bum
and that's what they're their allegations right allegedly there are
several several where there's smoke, there's fire.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Yeah. So again I wasn't walking in with the highest
of hopes. I left knowing that end of the world
isn't I because the Backstreet Boys are telling us so well. Also,
Max Martin was there. He was yeah, and they put
a spotlight on him and they were like, Max Martin,
thank you for everything, like.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Hello, That's how Swedish people talk to Someone's gonna be
offended by that, but they will no, no, no, okay,
you know I I have yet to have an encounter
with the Backstreet Boys, but I feel like I have done.

(06:33):
This is not really relevant at all, but I have
no problem As a songwriter. I have had a songwriting
sessions with like kind of the greatest hits of my childhood.
Cool except for a Backstreet Boy. So I did I
wrote a Britney Spears song, Yes you did. I did
one songwriting session with Scary Spice but her weird ex

(06:53):
husband was there. Who that's an episode, Lolo, Yeah she didn't.
They neither of them remembered me after. It's so the
whole thing was so weird. But then I also did
a writing session with J. C. Chase from in Sync. Okay, okay,
nothing ever happened with that song, but I like, I
need to get the like Backstreet Boys to really complete.

Speaker 4 (07:13):
Well, one of them is very interested in my friend,
so I would choose that one.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Okay, well, I will bring her to the next show
and they just stand really close to her.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
That's wild. Yeah, that was really funny. What about you?
What's your cultiest thing of the week.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
I honestly had so many and I didn't write them down.
So this is a lesson to my future self create
to write the shit down, Lola. I just feel like
there's so much, so much that scamp right now, but
I'll focus on this one thing. So I followed this
account called Perfect Union. They make these great documentaries for
social media. I'm sure they exist off of social media too,

(07:51):
but more Perfect Union they made a fifteen minute documentary
about how they created a wellness scam and how easy
it was to do that, and basically they were like, Okay,
we're going to make up a name for this, like
wellness company, and it was I believe deep State supplement,

(08:13):
like something with deep State at the front, right, so
you know who it's appealing to immediately. And then they
just like reached out to a random pill manufacturer and
they were like, we want to fight five G and
make brains better, you know, just like yeah, these like
wild claims, and of course they responded and were like,
we can do that, and then they did that and
they started marketing it, and it's just so easy to do.

Speaker 4 (08:35):
And in this.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Little doc they point out how you know, supplements are
not regulated like medications are because they're classified as food, right,
and that means that they can be marketed without any
pre market approval and they are not required to prove
efficacy in any way, and they will only be removed
from the market once it's shown to actively cause harm.

(08:56):
So you can just come up with whatever idea, make
any claim you want.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Basically, well, Lola, you're giving everyone, including myself, so many
business ideas.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
This is not business advice.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
I did not know you could do such a thing.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
You can make any claim basically about any supplement and
put it to and like put.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
It on the marks the claim of the supplement.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Theirs was one of them was like fighting five G
and one of them was something else related to conspiracy
theorists beliefs I forget. And then there was one that
was like I can't remember the language, I should have
written it down, but something really really vague about like improving.

Speaker 4 (09:37):
Your brain state or whatever got you.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
So there's no like actual thing that is based in
science and what they're saying. But the pill manufacturer is
immediately like, of course we can do that, in other words,
just to demonstrate that, like you can make anything up
as the stated goal of your pill, and you will
have people who want your money responding to being like totally, yes,

(09:59):
we got and just like making a random ingredient the
ingredient for that exactly exactly, and then the fact that
you could just put it on the market and like
something that I just am finding so interesting is like
we're obviously, you know, rightfully much of the time a
critical of the pharmaceutical industry, but the wellness industry is
estimated to be worth two hundred billion dollars by the

(10:19):
end of this year, and it's completely unregulated. YEA, why
is that not something that we're critical of? In the
same way when there's so many random influencers online telling
you they're going to fix everything about your body and brain.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
The only thing that can actually help you is my supplement.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
And what's it called. It's called Perfect Life. Is there
something called I bet you there's one called Perfect Life.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
Megan's Perfect Life TM and no, it's true. It's true.
It's a completely unregulated market. You and I have very
different opinions on the wallness industry. Some of it I'm
find to be very helpful and legitimate, but it is
not helped by the fact that you can do that.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Anybody can do it and say anything. Yeah, like I'm
of course, there are going to be some supplements that
are helpful for certain things, but it's impossible to determine
without like picking apart what works and what doesn't through research,
and that just isn't being done, is the problem exactly.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
That's why when we made Megan's Perfect Life, we ran
test trials for three to five years.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Oh yeah, oh that's that's great. Yeah, so go buy it.
Yeah yeah, there's so much more to say on the
wellness industry. Also, yeah, you know what we should, let's
do that, all right, But for now we should hear
Lindsay's story. Yes, through the voices of Erica and Allen,

(11:51):
who got to spend so much time with her. Let's
do it. Welcome Aileen and Erica to trust me. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
We're so excited to be here.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
We're so excited to have you. This is such an incredible,
harrowing season and you guys did an incredible job on it,
and we have so many questions for you. First of all,
so this is actually the third season of your podcast,
The Turning, and each season delves into a different sort
of story in different people, but they have recurring themes.

(12:33):
Can you tell us what made you decide to start
the podcast in the first place and what the other
seasons were about? Whoever wants to begin Hayleen, do you
want to go?

Speaker 1 (12:42):
You can take it?

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Erica, Well, we are very interested in how abuse happens
and how it often happens while people are pursuing a
very important, lofty goal or something that they love. So
season one was about Mother Trees's really religious order and
former nuns who were there to help others and wanted

(13:05):
to follow Mother Teresa help the poor, were there to love,
but the order was so conservative and intense and restrictive
and controlling that it led to a lot of abuse.
Season two was about ballerinas who want to pursue their art,
and when art is like a religion to you, when
art it means everything to you, you're willing to give

(13:26):
up so much for it. That also leads to a
lot of complicated power dynamics and often abuse. You know,
Seasons one and two were really about cult like groups
that are very accepted by society. Season three was about
a cult whose leader is now in prison. So it's
kind of the next level of this type of group.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
Yeah, much smaller, much more cut off from the mainstream.
And how are you introduced to the story at all?
How did you find it? Well?

Speaker 3 (13:56):
I think we just encountered it in the media, but
I remember I encountered it actually years after it was
really big in the news, so I felt behind on it.
Now at the time, I was living elsewhere in Philadelphia,
so and this takes place in Minnesota, where we're from,
So maybe I missed it for that reason. But I

(14:16):
couldn't believe that having been from Minneapolis, and then now
I live here in Minneapolis again, I couldn't believe that
I hadn't heard about this story when it was so
extreme and so wild. When also, I'm somebody who's interested
in cults, and here we were with this podcast focused
on problematic power dynamics and power hierarchies. I just thought,

(14:40):
why don't we focus in on this because there's something
that just feels personal about it because it existed about
two hours away from where we grew up while we
were growing up. And then when we looked into it
more and looked up one of the whistleblowers of the group,
who was also one of the youngest of the members

(15:00):
and also held a special role in the hierarchy of
the group. When we found her online and we saw
she was in her thirties somewhat near our age, and
got connected with her. Her name is Lindsay Tornambi, and
we started interviewing her. We really thought, Wow, this is
quite a story that more people need to hear and
that deserves more space to get more deeply into. You know,

(15:24):
it is kind of a luxury to be able to
have ten episodes plus maybe some bonus episodes totally focused
on one group and what it actually feels like and
really homing in on just a few stories within that
world and getting to know what it actually felt like.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
I really appreciate how much time we spend with Lindsay
listening to her experience. It just like it reminded me
of so many different groups. But I feel like, you know,
we hear a lot less about the ins and outs
of the dynamics of what exactly was going on in
their minds all the time, because just isn't that much
time to talk to people.

Speaker 4 (16:00):
Honestly, absolutely, yeah, And I could have listened to ten
more episodes you know the story. Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Was there something I mean, I want to get into
Lindsay's story as well, but I'm just curious, like, is
there something in particular in your lives growing up that
drew you to this kind of topic.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
I think, I don't know, there's so many layers to this.
I mean, well, I think one thing about my background
in particular was that I actually used to study psychology
and did psychology research and was trained in giving therapy,
and I worked with a number of people who experienced

(16:48):
manipulation or also experienced sexual abuse. And I think just
the extremes of the human experience has always been something
I've been fascinated with and I don't know why, even
though it's I mean, it's a history of mine. That's
I guess professional When you're seeing patients, it starts to

(17:11):
feel personal in hearing their stories and how deeply it
impacts them for decades. And honestly, in each of the seasons,
we look at power dynamics and how they play out
in groups, but also how that can lead to these
abusive dynamics, whether it's emotional abuse or physical abuse, financial abuse,

(17:34):
simple isolation, or sexual abuse. I think we touch on
all those topics in each of our seasons, and it's
certainly true for this one. I also think, I guess,
just on a personal level, we grew up going to
a Catholic school when we weren't Catholic. We were also,
did I mention that we are sisters, So yeah, that's.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
An important detail. So you're saying, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
We do everything together.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
I don't know if you want to speak to that
at all, Erica, I don't need to answer the entirety
of the question. Well, yeah, I think we just grew
up very interested in comparative religion and how different religious
organizations work because we were living in sort of different
religious worlds and seeing like learning different dogma, different ceremonies,
and I don't know, I think that made me very

(18:24):
fascinated with religion. The reason I said earlier Alan, that
I think of you is she has, I think, because
of her experienced treating patients, just been very passionate about
child sexual abuse and how it is portrayed in the media,
what kind of space it's given, how survivors are treated,
and so I think that made us just very passionate

(18:46):
about this season in particular.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Well, can you tell us a little bit about Lindsay,
the protagonist of the series, and what her life was
like before her parents met Victor Bernard.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
Had such a classic nineties childhood, which Alan and I
really related to. So many things she told us about
her childhood were like us too, us too, us too,
two boys, beanie.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Babies, Yeah yeah, same yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
So you know, as you talk about constantly on your show,
it can really happen to anyone. Her parents were religious,
and they were in an organization called The Way, which
has also been accused of being a cult, which the
leader of River Road Fellowship was also in, and they
also were involved in things like Amway and The way

(19:36):
Lindsay puts it is her parents were always looking for
a leader or someone to follow, and they were seeking
and they would hold religious fellowships in their home, like
prayer meetings and speak in tongues. So religion was a
big part of her childhood. But was it nine years
old Alan that she her parents had some dinner guests over,

(19:57):
one of whom was Victor Bernard, the leader of River
Road Fellowship, and they learned that he had created this
compound in rural Minnesota where a bunch of families were
living together in what seemed like a really idyllic, beautiful way,
and that was how they got introduced to River Road
Fellowship and changed all their lives. What stood out to

(20:17):
me about that was that she loved gymnastics, and then
suddenly they were like, no more gymnastics. I mean, it
really was like the childhood version of a dinner from
how that your parents go to and suddenly everything.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Semeed portal to a nightmare.

Speaker 4 (20:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Well, firstly, one detail about Lindsay that I thought was
so relatable was they were still in the previous church
or cult. She was talking about how she didn't know
how to speak in tongues, so she would plan, she
would like write out in advance what she was going
to verbalize when she was speaking tongues, which feels totally
like something that I would do. And yeah, I just

(20:55):
thought that was It's really cute, really cute.

Speaker 4 (20:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, she was planning ahead.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, very responsible.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
It's amazing how sometimes you feel like, oh, I'm the
only person who has to plan, but then when you
get older, you learn how everyone is planning what they're
going to say, and everyone is feeling so self conscious
about it.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
I mean, isn't that kind of becoming an adult? You're
kind of like we're all frauds, you know.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
Yea, the Emperor has no clothes is what I always
go back to, Like it's that childhood story, you know.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, I mean we've talked a million times about like
trying to feel the spirit when everyone else is feeling
the spirit and they're crying and you're like, I'm doing
it wrong.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
He must have been the most compelling dinner guest of
all time, because how can that much happen from such
a dinner? Like, did you get any details about what
was discussed?

Speaker 3 (21:46):
I mean I think I think it was like kind
of a friend of a friend. What's interesting to me
is that Lindsay describes remembering him as sensing right away
that this was someone of importance. He had a certain
presence and he did also have a charisma. But also
it's interesting how and I feel like I sense this

(22:06):
across numerous of our seasons. It's like the people that
are idolized both feel very special, but also they're very
ordinary too, Like she talked about how he really smelled
strongly of cigarettes and they were like basically chain smoking
cigarettes on the front porch when they visited, and just
felt very ordinary at the same time, and in a way,

(22:29):
Lindsey remarked on how it didn't actually feel that significant,
you know, and they were, you know, putting on a
little singing and dancing show for them in their living room.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
Like the children.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
It was very casual and kind of ordinary, And I
do think it wasn't just like one dinner and they
were in there moving to Minnesota. It was actually a
gradual process where, you know, first they would join some
fellowship meetings where the way the group started out were
just in fellowship meetings in people's homes kind of basically
prayer groups, and then over time it became more defined,

(23:04):
and eventually they bought the property in Minnesota for everyone
to move to. And so then Lindsay's family started visiting
the camp, the compound basically in Minnesota, and they went
there and they saw the beautiful lake and the pond
and all the trees, and basically it felt like a
summer camp where there are all these cabins and trailers

(23:26):
and a lodge and there's a dining hall and they're
all singing songs together and enjoying each other's company.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
And as a kid, they're playing.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
Sign me Up.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah sounds right, Yeah, yeah, I'm men.

Speaker 4 (23:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
It felt like this wonderful place, and I can I
can see the temptation of just letting it all go
and moving to this place where everyone seems so happy,
and that's what her parents decided. After multiple visits, Victor,
the leader of the group, Victor Bernard, gave them an
ultimatum and said, if you're going to continue to be

(23:59):
a part of our group, River Road Fellowship, you need
to move out to Minnesota. And that required them to
sell their home, sell all their quote earthly things, and
even getting rid of family members photos and all that
kind of thing. They sold their home very quickly, I
would imagine, probably getting a bad deal on it, and

(24:21):
within weeks they were moving out to Minnesota after that
ultimatum conversation. So I do think it wasn't like that
one dinner change everything.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
It was a gradual thing.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Right right, right, That is my miss for memory now.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Well, I mean also at the same time, it was
a pivotal moment, was.

Speaker 4 (24:40):
His message from the beginning, this is the one true
way come to this compound, this is where and like
I'm the prophet, You're going to be saved. I mean,
I know there was a very like when Jesus comes back,
like the compound's going straight to Heaven. Did it start
off that way? Like was that the impetus of like,
let's hurry, let's move.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
My impression is that it didn't me imediately begin with
Jesus's coming any day. You know, even before Lindsay's family joined,
it was so much more casual, and it was these
casual prayer groups. And I also think he catered the
message to what people needed. Another person we interview is
named Christa, and like Lindsay, she was a child in
the cult, but in her case, she was basically born

(25:19):
into it, and her parents joined long before Linday's parents did.
And in the case of her parents, they were already
friends through work with Victor and his wife, and they
were very done with organized religion because they'd had bad experiences,
and they said, look, we believe in God, but we're
done with organized religion. And Victor said, if you love God,
you will love this, and so that was what they
needed to hear to join. And so I don't think

(25:41):
they ever thought, oh, yes, let's join a cult, let's
join organized religion. That's what they didn't want. But as
time passed, you start getting more messaging about Jesus's return
is coming, we have to be ready. And it was
much easier to have those more extreme, urgent messages once
they were all living in the same place, right as.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
Typically it will escalate over time once everyone's under control
because no one's advertising where it's going to go.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
The playbook the playbook at play Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Side note, So in the podcast, y'all talk about how
Victor Bernard was class president, right, Yes, my profit in
quotes that I believed in was also a class president
I found out, which is fascinating to me, it's like
they want to lead somehow, and they you know, they
could have gone into politics or you know, some other

(26:32):
like less nefarious path, but instead they chose to control
people for a living.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
Oh yeah, and they have that training of getting people
to vote for them. I mean, I'm rising high school.
I always thought, how does anyone go for class president?
Maybe I just was so unpopular that I was like,
how do you convince the school to vote for you?

Speaker 4 (26:50):
Yeah, It's it's funny how those dynamic There's an ambition,
there's a desire to be above people, or it could
just be an ambisson to organize your school, you know,
but like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
I just I've never heard of that before. So you
drew a connection.

Speaker 4 (27:05):
Yeah, I get Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
And it's also the age old question of is it
that people who seek power are those who are more
likely to abuse or is it that power corrupts? It's
like I can never figure out what the answer is.
And there's some kind of interaction there.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
So once they get there, I mean the fact that
they immediately had to get rid of all of their possessions.
I mean people were also they burned their possessions and
a fire. Can you talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
The whole idea was that they were supposed to leave
behind their earthly life, So leave behind anything that reminds
you of your past, of your childhood, of anything that
happened before you were part of River Road Fellowship. And
so one way that they wanted to literally do that,
but also kind of I would argue symbolically, was they

(28:04):
built this big bonfire in the middle of the back
of a yard, behind a barn on their compound in Minnesota,
and they just started throwing belongings from their past into
the fire, and everyone was encouraged to burn things from
their past, anything that would hold them back from giving
all of themselves to the group. They threw in couches,

(28:27):
they threw in you know, all kinds of things, to
the point.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
A motorcycle, I think a motor cycle.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Just wow, all these.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
Belongings that reminded them of the past, VHS's like videotapes, books,
And then Lindsay felt like she had to throw something in.
And she was so young she was she thought to herself,
what's something that's important to me from my past that
I can give, And so she threw in her Teddy
Bear into the fire.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
And watched That's so sad burned for like three days
and was gigantic. Correct.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah, that's creepy. That is really creepy. I wrote a
scene in a cult movie that's almost exactly this, but
I've never heard of it actually.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
Can Wow, how do you responsibly keep a fire?

Speaker 2 (29:17):
That? I guess it's not irresponsibly?

Speaker 4 (29:20):
Yes, and how you I don't know.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Also, just the pollution anyway, I mean, yeah, it's just
like the elimination of identity and attachment to one's previous
life and connections to other people or things that might
remind them of anything outside the cult is just so malicious.

Speaker 4 (29:40):
And then your childhood literally goodbye.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah. Can you tell us about Christa and the Little
House on the Prairie books also, and the fact that
I have to know more about her mom's sickness.

Speaker 4 (29:52):
Can you just tell us that story?

Speaker 3 (29:54):
Well, Christa's mother had something called sarcoidosis, and in her case,
it was affecting her lungs and she was having trouble breathing,
which sounds miserable, and she talked to Victor about it.
Because Victor started having he would advise his followers, especially
the women in the Lodge, which is where he lived.

(30:15):
I'm hoping I think he was living at the lodge
by that point. And he told her it's not physical,
this is spiritual. There's something wrong that you're doing that's
causing you to be sick, which I just think is
one of the worst things you can ever tell someone
on so many levels. So she's looking for something that's wrong.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Now.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Christa, who we haven't talked about much yet, but she's
a big part of the podcast. She was a child,
and I love talking to Christa because she just she
kind of talks about how she saw things differently than
the people around her, and she said, you know, come
to find out that as an adult she's neurodivergent, and that,
I think, she said, both ate it and like made

(30:53):
it difficult to live life in the cult. But she
loved her books and that was how she escaped. She
was a huge book where and she loved reading Little
House in the Prairie. Now it turns out that River
Road Fellowship had this belief that certain things, certain items,
had double spirits attached to them and were filled with darkness,
and Little House in the Prairie books was one of
those things. We're not entirely sure why I think Aylen.

(31:16):
We asked Lindsey, why Little House in the Prairie like
a double spirit, and if I remember correctly, she was
kind of positing that maybe just because it had these
like strong women and like female main characters. And it
seemed like there were other books too that featured women
who you know, they were double spirit.

Speaker 4 (31:34):
Books and family oriented, not like giving your you know,
like it's a very strong family unit in those books.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
So true, but not all books were banned. It was
like the specific ones we have double characteristics.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
That's my understanding.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
I don't think all books were considered evil, which also,
I'll add, I feel like that's something about this group
in general, that Victor would just kind of come up
with new rules as.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
He went about life.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
You know.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
Yeah, it's hard for me to even say we're fully
familiar with the belief system because it did evolve over time,
I mean, as.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
It often does in these types of groups.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
But yeah, I'm sure that that list of what had
devil spirits attached changed over time.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yes, right, Yeah, I mean she did talk about how
it was like one of the most important things in
her life, and yeah, and yeah, it was taken away
from her by her mother. There are so many mothers
in this podcast that I'm really mad at. There's a
lot of really unfortunate mothering happening.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
And one thing I should say, just to explain to
listeners the end of that story is that, you know,
because her mother was looking for something wrong, she took
those books from under Christa's bed and burned them in
their woodstove in front of Christa while Christa was just
crying and screaming and digging for her to stop. And
Christa actually burned her hands trying to save her books.
And she said it was like this incredibly traumatic of

(33:00):
her childhood because reading books was how she escaped the
harshness of cult life, and so her escape was gone,
and you can't just read buy the books like they're
not going to bookstores and buying books like those are gone.
As far as she knows, she will never see those
books again in her life. And she felt that she
was the cause of her mother's illness because then after that,

(33:20):
her mother's illness improved, as it can happen with the
condition saracoidosis, and so it felt like she had caused it.
And even I think Victor announced to the community like
this is an example, and so Christa felt also a
lot of guilt and shame around that.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
Right, Oh my god, I cannot imagine.

Speaker 4 (33:43):
And just a reminder to listeners who might be from
a different generation, there's no iPads or anything right to
be looked at at this time, like the books were
her only real source of entertainment.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah, sad, yeah, yeah, credibly said, can we discuss Jan
for a moment, because you know, we were saying before
we started recording that we see so many men like Victor,
so many of these abusive men who are manipulating people
and controlling them for the purpose of abusing them. But

(34:17):
the Jans of the world are always just so interesting
to me because she is this woman who's kind of
his right hand person, right, Like, what was her deal?

Speaker 3 (34:28):
So we should acknowledge that Jan actually isn't her real
name for reasons that I won't get into. But she
was a person who people described as being kind of
a second hand authority to Victor, although I mean there
were also other people really high up in the group.
It's kind of a complicated thing, but she worked very

(34:48):
closely with him, and she was actually there that first
night at the dinner party when Victor came to their
home in Pennsylvania and introduced them to the idea of
the group.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
And so she was often there and she was a
mother herself. I know you mentioned motherhood earlier, but essentially
what ended up happening is that Lindsay, along with nine
other girls or young women, were selected to be what

(35:19):
they called maidens.

Speaker 4 (35:21):
What is a maiden?

Speaker 3 (35:23):
So essentially ten young people, all girls or women who
would move away from their family homes live right next
door to where Victor lived on the main camp property,
because the group actually had multiple different properties. So for example,
Lindsay's family lived elsewhere pretty close but still technically on

(35:45):
a different property, and so all of these girls would
go and live right next to the lodge where Victor lived.
And basically what they said was kind of devote their
lives to God and commit to help the church. What
that actually looked like was cleaning Victor's house, cooking for him,

(36:05):
taking care of things, providing company for him. And one
could argue that jan was heavily involved in kind of
organizing this group of girls, watching over them, and in fact,
one of her own daughters was one of the ten maidens.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Oh gosh.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
And so all these families are basically giving up their
firstborn daughter to Victor and to the community.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
And one day, in the middle of.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
Their worship time in the chapel, at the front of
the chapel, Victor tells everyone, I have selected these ten
girls to commit as maidens, and he named them one
by one and Lindsay heard her name, and so it
was decided that they would move to the camp. Lindsay

(36:59):
thought for the summer. She thought it would be like
summer camp, basically to help, I don't know, help around
the camp and everything. But then when the summer was
nearing the end and she thought she was going to
go home, she was doing something in the garden with Jan,
and Jan told her, no, Lindsey, this commitment was for life.

(37:22):
You're not going home.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
And she was thirteen thirteen. The feeling that I felt
hearing that just like imagining being her.

Speaker 4 (37:33):
It's a nightmare.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah, the claustrophobia, the terror, like wait, what they signed
me up at age thirteen for a permanent Yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:42):
How has this floated to the parents, Well, initially it
was seen as this honor and I do think it's
interesting that there are more than ten families in this camp,
but he picked ten families who were sort of seen
as like the elders, the special people.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
So the special family's, their firstborn daughters were being chosen.
So already that's signaling this is quite an honor. And
then he said that this is a huge honor. And
Lindsay even said, you know, as the years passed, because
she was a maiden for a long time, it felt like, wow,
out of the entire world, I was one of the
ten chosen. I am so lucky. She had very complicated feelings,

(38:18):
which we can get into. But in addition, after they
had lived there for a while, let's see, how do
I what order would I tell Thissen. I guess one
thing we should say is it became clear that it
wasn't just taking care of Victor. It was also he
was going to sleep with these children or young women
and rape them regularly, and that was the role that
they were going to serve. And after some time had passed,

(38:42):
he had individual meetings. Well actually first he had every
single maiden write a letter saying that they wanted to
remain maidens. Of course, there was a lot of manipulation
going into that, but Lindsay, really feeling like she was
trapped at this point, did as she was told and
wrote this line and said, I want to be a maiden.
Then he had one on one at a time meetings

(39:04):
with the parents of each of these maidens, and an
elder in the church was there as well, to again
give this sense of legitimacy, and he told them, we're
going to keep them here and when they turn eighteen,
I may sleep with them as part of that. Of course,
at this point he'd already been raping them. But the
fact that parents would hear your teenage daughter, I'm going

(39:27):
to sleep with her when she's eighteen, and then then
they would say all of them said yes, take her
is so unfathomable to me, and there are many that's
something we wrestle with in the show, like clearly they
were brainwashed, and then also at some point, don't you
protect your child regardless of brainwashing.

Speaker 4 (39:44):
It gets complicated because yeah, they can't all be terrible parents.
It really speaks to the power of the trust that
they trust and this is the right thing to do,
and it's just a mind warp that is really hard
for people to understand. How old was Victor when this
was taking place. I think he was in his forties

(40:06):
at this point, Alen, does that sound right?

Speaker 3 (40:08):
I mean I think he was kind of in his
mid thirties when he really started the group, but either
late thirties or early forties when when he introduced the
idea of the spiritual marriage ceremony, which is what he
called it and they called it, which that even on
its own, is telling a spiritual marriage ceremony? Why is

(40:28):
marriage involved in this for these underage girls right right?

Speaker 2 (40:33):
Just to kind of like paint the picture of like
the level of indoctrination that was happening in the group
at this point, because it is so unfathomable that a
parent could could do that. Like what was the general
belief about who he was, Like, was he in touch
with God directly? Like? What was his authority in the group.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Well, he basically called himself an apostle, so he saw
himself as this representative of God.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
He called himself a shepherd.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
At some point along the way, he even started wearing
shepherd's clothes.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
And held a staff. Stop the pictures are wild.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
Yeah, he basically had this ability to discern what was good,
what was bad, what had devil spirits attached what was
in the light. He also used a phrase called living
in the light, where people are expected to live in
a way that he should be able to know everything
about them and if there's anything that they wouldn't want

(41:34):
him to know, that that's bad. That basically everything should
be brought to the light and open, which I feel
like theoretically, on a religious level, maybe that makes sense.
You want to be good and not be harboring these
like evil whatever, like bad behaviors or something. But ultimately
that's about control and that that means he's allowed to

(41:57):
ask you whatever he wants about you, and you should
be honest. And if you're not honest, well then you
might not get this special heaven that is promised to
you if you are part of this inner circle of
the group.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
Yeah, And what I gathered from it was that he
was kind of inferring like I can also read your
mind a bit, or like I also know what's in
your heart, and also like why would a man in
his forties need to know everything about a little girl?

Speaker 1 (42:24):
So true?

Speaker 2 (42:25):
You know, yeah, I mean clearly controlling everyone was was
his bag. Like, you know, my mother believed that my
profit was a prophet, and he told her that we
had to be separated, and she wouldn't do what he
told him. But we were separated, and it was because
of just the threats that he was making to her
ability to see us in the afterlife, Like he was

(42:47):
threatening her to never see us again in heaven for
all of eternity if she didn't comply. So there was
this coercion that was happening. I'm curious if there were
any like, you know, eternal threat to anyone's salvation if
they didn't do what he wanted.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
It's amazing how similar it is, the exact same threat
of you won't necessarily go to hell if you leave
this group. Maybe you will, but you won't be in
the special heaven that your on entire family will be,
So your family will you'll never see your family again,
not only in this life but in the next life.
So it's amazing how these same themes come back over

(43:25):
and over again. And I'm so sorry that you went
through that, and I could imagine you relating to a
lot of Lindsay's story, but yeah, that was an absolute
threat that hung over everyone. And then there's also like
that's both the carrot and the stick because the carrot
is you get the special heaven. And he said, in
this special heaven, you get your own planet, and your
own planet can be anything you want, and this is

(43:47):
going to be your reward in afterlife. And they would
talk about what their planets would be like all the time.
So that's so enticing and exciting, and you also know
what you'll lose if you don't obey.

Speaker 4 (43:56):
That reminds me of yours, Tula la, like the we
were special.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
H well, we didn't talk about the planet, but Mormonism
talks about the planet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you get your own.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
Michael sucked so bad that it was you won't know
who's in heaven at all. You're never going to see
your family again because you're going to be so sad
that so many of them aren't there. Oh my good god,
so crazy. He's so mean. It's so mean.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
So yeah, but just you know, for people who cannot
fathom how that would happen, it's like there is so
much going on in your brain about the stakes of
if you do not comply, and there's so much that
needs to be done to you know, there's so much cognitive.

Speaker 4 (44:40):
Distance, and it's like eternity versus whatever years that are
like not great.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
Yeah, and also just like the level of denial that
people are capable of in terms of like, well, he
wouldn't do it to my child, or if he wouldn't.

Speaker 4 (44:54):
He's holy, he's not really going to sleep with them
on the turn eighteen. He might just be saying that,
but like he's actually.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
You know, nobody wants to believe that that could have
happened on their watch. Yes, nobody wants to believe that.
It's important point.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
Which is why it's so important to talk about these
stories and have podcasts like yours and what we're doing,
so that it's like, that is a reality that happens
to people, and it's not just this far off thing
like it can happen to anybody.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
Yeah, what was the age range of all the maidens.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
I think it was about age twelve to twenty three,
So Lindsay was the second youngest. There was one younger
than her, named Jess, whom she was really close with.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
Their besties. They're quite young through early twenties. That is
horrifically young. So they do this spiritual wedding ceremony. My
mom was also spiritually married to It's just crazy how
much they do the same thing. And also this other
Warren Jeff's cult leader replacement, same thing with him with

(46:02):
children as well.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
What was this sah? So they marry he married ten
girls all at the same time, Like what was that
in the group?

Speaker 3 (46:12):
I mean, the way I think it was framed is
that this was a spiritual marriage ceremony sort of to
the church, to God, but also kind of to Victor.
And the idea was again that they would live together
and totally devote their lives to serving the church, but
also since Victor was the apostle, essentially serve Victor. And

(46:36):
they had this ceremony in the middle of winter, on
one of the coldest days, and it was in the evening,
so it was dark, and they had these lanterns and
it was all sort of like candlelight, and they wore
little kind of crocheted lace veils, which Lindsay showed us,
and they each got a gold ring with a symbol

(46:57):
on it, and they took salt with which is something
that happens in some marriage ceremonies, and Lindsay's own parents
had taken sult at their wedding, so it it felt
very similar on sort of a visibility level to each
of them. Ten in a row lined up marrying Victor

(47:19):
that day, and all the parents were there, many of
the elders. So this community just accepted this is the
way it is now. One thing that strikes me about
how that was primed as well. And when we were
talking about what is Victor's role in the church and
what do they believe, he started leading up to this
talking a lot about the Song of Solomon and all

(47:39):
of this sort of erotic love of always in the.

Speaker 4 (47:43):
Bye David King, David, Yeah, Solomon, Yes, exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
So this, you know, this romantic poetry of like you know,
and then these metaphors of the church and God, and
you know, it really turned into this like feat pitch
of love. And there is even this one year that
they called it the Summer of Love, and all of
the women were very much falling in love with Victor,
and actually Lindsay talks about how she felt like her

(48:10):
mother was jealous of her, and there is this idea
like you're supposed to almost kind of show romantic love
to Victor, who is like representing God. So he called
himself an apostle, but he became like God to them,
and he started laying out these rules, one of which
was you weren't allowed to touch each other anymore, and
it was very like keep your hands to yourself. The exception,
of course, is Victor. You're supposed to hug Victor, touch him,

(48:33):
show physical affection to him. So there's this weird like
romantic vibe going already between everyone and him before this happens,
even the men, I think, not so much the men.
And that's why the women like started to I don't know,
they were centered in this way. I mean initially, like

(48:53):
as I think Aileen you mentioned earlier, it's like the
men were centered and they went off on this these
spiritual retreats just the men, and there was this sexism
inside the group where men have certain authority that women don't.
But then women also have this like special relationship with Victor,
and so.

Speaker 4 (49:12):
Right, I mean, he's like, let's go on a special
camping trip where we talk about how men are more important.
I'll stay back behind, yes and take care of the women.
It's like a very clever exact card trick. And your
first season, when you were talking about the nuns, you
were talking about how they were so not supposed to
touch each other or anything, like they weren't even supposed
to hold babies for a very long amount of time.

(49:34):
Like how is this bleeding into family life and how
they were taking care of their children.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
That's a good question.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
Well, one little detail that comes to mind is one
of Lindsay's aunts early on in their time there, actually
visited the camp, or visited the location at least where
Lindsay's family was staying as part of the group. And
first of all, she saw red flags when she heard that, oh,
Lindsay is no longer living with us, She's living on

(50:03):
the main camp with some families there. And even the
ant at the time thought, oh my gosh, I mean,
is Lindsay pregnant. That's a horrible thought. She's still so young,
but like, why can't I see Lindsay. So that was
a red flag for her. But then I think one
other detail that is interesting is just that the ant
wasn't allowed to be alone in the room with the kids,

(50:27):
even with the door open. And so I would imagine that,
especially with these rules about touch and everything, that there
is this extra distance, like you always need to be
sort of watching each other and you can't kind of
have intimacy, because I do think like in childhood, learning
intimacy and love and warmth in like a healthy way

(50:52):
is so important. But if you always feel like you're
being watched, and also maybe are you supposed to hug
your kid? And even Lindsay during the spiritual marriage ceremony,
felt like she couldn't even look her parents in the
eye because another thing they had been taught was that
you should save your eyes, which interestingly also occurred in

(51:14):
season one what they called Dove's eyes in the Missionaries
of Charity, where you shouldn't be looking outward at the world.
You should be looking down, keeping your eyes kind of
focused on, you know, your spirituality or whatever. But a
similar thing happened here, And so even just things like
that physicality and where you're looking, and how that impacts

(51:35):
your social relationships, especially growing up in that. I guess
that doesn't exactly answer your question, but I can certainly
imagine that affects family dynamics.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Yeah that's horrible. Yeah, yeah, I can't imagine growing up
like that. It makes me think about scientology too, totally,
Jenna Miscabbage and how children, yeah, just weren't allowed to
to experience joy or express joy or like.

Speaker 4 (52:03):
Yeah, yeah, I will say another priming thing that I
saw and the two by twos, and we might have
to take this out because I'm not even sure if
it applies. But like, there's this verse in the Bible
that was very drilled into our heads that was like
in the End of Time's father against brother, brother against mother,
like family against family. Like we were very taught that

(52:26):
when Jesus returned, the family would be divided and we
would have to fight against each other for good and evil.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
Wow, so my god.

Speaker 4 (52:34):
Yeah, so this breaking up of the family unit is
such a like important tactic. And if you're not feeling
close to people, and if you're not, you know, you're
scared that they might tempt you out of your salvation,
et cetera. It just is this perfect storm for the
cult leader to get more power.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Yeah, exactly. And the scientology reference was not completely random
because they were also the children were kept separate from
the adults. They were not supposed to have relationships with
each other, at least in the sea. Org. Yeah, it's
perfect recipe. You can't have people be close to each
other because then they might talk, and then they might
think differently, and then they might question, and then the

(53:15):
power might be at risk.

Speaker 4 (53:16):
And if you're like child is crying and you emotionally
bond with them, suddenly that's more important. Yeah, Victor isn't
at top of money.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
Well it makes me think of this one story Lindsay
told us about one time she had a cavity or
something and she had to go to the dentist, and
eventually she wouldn't even be allowed to go to the
dentist and they would just kind of like get dental
tools and like treat each other and clean each other's teeth.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (53:41):
She had to go to the dentist and her mother
took her and now she I think she was fourteen
at this time, and she had this gold ring on
that married her to Victor, and the person at the
dentist asked, oh, what's that like, trying to be friendly
with the ring, and Lindsay didn't know what to say,
and her mother just kind of jumped in and was like, oh,
it means her commitment to the church. But as soon
as they got back to the camp, her mother went

(54:04):
straight to Victor and like told on Lindsay. So Lindsay
got in huge trouble and he's yelling at her and
she has to learn right like if she ever does
go to the outside world again, like you have to
have a story ready for what your role is or why.
Or they used to talk about like if someone comes
into the camp, why aren't you living with your parents?

Speaker 2 (54:21):
You have to have a story.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
But it just struck Aylen and me how her mother
is turning on her already, like her priority is Victor
and she's tattling essentially that's a mild way of putting
it on her own daughter.

Speaker 4 (54:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yeah, at every stage, her mother chooses Victor, yes over Lindsay,
I mean, and it's just so heartbreaking to hear.

Speaker 4 (54:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
So Lindsay and Jess were kind of talking about escaping,
and Lindsay had a plan that is kind of shocking.
Can can one of you describe that plan? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (54:56):
Well, she and Jess, the other youngest of the Maiden,
often just fantasized about, oh, what could we do to
escape to get out of here?

Speaker 1 (55:06):
And they talk.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
About just somehow stealing a car or something and going
to the local just little shop in town and getting help.
But then they were like that could never happen. But
as also the sexual abuse continued. Eventually, Lindsay thought to herself, well,
and this is getting a little graphic here, but Victor

(55:30):
would have them use some kind of spermicide when he
would abuse them, and so she tried to use it
incorrectly so that in theory, maybe she would become pregnant
and go to the hospital and she could tell someone
what was happening, and that might be a way out.
But of course Victor noticed that she didn't do it correctly,

(55:53):
and then also eventually he got a vasectomy. So Lindsay
never became pregnant from Victor, but she clearly was desperate
to escape. And I think what's interesting too is, and
I guess we don't actually talk about this in the podcast,
but I get the sense that in some ways it
wasn't even like fully thought out in her brain as

(56:16):
like I am trying to find ways to escape, like
doing this spermicide thing. It was just like, oh, like
maybe I could get in touch with someone and that
would lead something to change. And on some level, deep down, yes,
of course it was to escape. But I almost think
it's like this is just my impression, but that it
was like her mind couldn't even fully go there, if

(56:39):
that makes sense. Like fully leaving the church probably wasn't
necessarily the goal because that would mean so many bad
things for her soul, et cetera, et cetera, But like
she needed to get out too.

Speaker 4 (56:51):
Right, maybe of the maidens at least when did she
have her quick trip to Brazil? It feels like that
might have been pretty what is the word I'm looking for,
pivotal momentous?

Speaker 3 (57:04):
Yes, that was in two thousand and nine, okay, And
so she had been a maiden for quite a few
years at this point. And one thing that's interesting is
she'd been a maiden for quite some time, and I
really appreciated how open Lindsay with us was with us
about how her perception of the abuse changed. So initially
she's I will get pregnant to escape if I have to,

(57:27):
but she's told over and over again, this sexual abuse
is God's love, and she's kind of convinced to fall
in love with Victor, as everyone else in the cult has.
And I think that was something that we really wanted
to get across about child sexual abuse because I think
a lot of survivors feel so much shame about that,
and they think, oh, like I was in love with him,

(57:48):
or I sometimes tried to get him to have sex
with me, because now that is associated with like the
good things, and withholding sex becomes a punishment.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
Really, withholding rape becomes a punishment.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
So it's very complicated, and so by the time she
went to Brazil, she was much more like in the cult,
like much more like brainwashed and deep in it. But
the reason she went to Brazil is because one of
the maidens was originally from Brazil and was having some
immigration issues and so had to move back to Brazil
for a while while they sorted it. And one of

(58:22):
the rules they had was maidens could never really be alone.
They're always in pairs, which is something we heard in
other seasons of our podcast and I think is in
many cults, which is so fascinating. So the maidens would
take turns for a while going to Brazil and living
with this other maiden in Brazil, and it was here
she is flying on a plane for the first like

(58:42):
leaving the compound first of all, which is wild, and
then flying on a plane and seeing regular life again.
I think that was where some things started to be
sparked of there is life outside of this compound in Minnesota.

Speaker 4 (58:57):
Right, that's just such an exciting feeling to imagine being
like reintroduced to the world and going to the airport.
I remember her saying, like there were TVs on the
back of the seats yet yes, it's yeah what a
I can only imagine what was happening in her mind
at that time. That must have been so surreal.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
Yeah, and it just echoes of so many stories we've
heard of people experiencing anything outside of the group or
getting a little bit of time alone, and that being
just you know, starting to crack a little bit of
the indoctrination, like, Oh, I don't have to live like that. Oh,
these people aren't all evil. Hmm, that's interesting. That's different

(59:39):
from what I.

Speaker 4 (59:41):
And I mean.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
And still you're scared.

Speaker 4 (59:42):
Like she speaks about wanting to watch a movie on
the plane in the and she was like, I can't,
I can't. Victor, well, no, like kind of he's watching
her even when he's not watching her, you know, like
he has special powers or something. But the littlest cracks
can sometimes really take a hold.

Speaker 2 (59:59):
Yeah, And the best way there was a fake rapture moment, right,
love a good.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
Fake rapture moment for any group experience like this. Yeah,
obviously that was sarcasm. But Victor told them all that,
you know, one day Christ will come back, and he
will come back at their camp right by the pond

(01:00:28):
where they lit a lantern every night to show Jesus
where to come to find them. And it even brought
forth this policy of eventually the members were expected to
never leave a thirty minute radius of being near to
the camp, so they couldn't go beyond thirty minutes outside

(01:00:49):
of the camp without special dispensation or for particular reasons,
which when you're in rural Minnesota, you can't go many
places in thirty minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
So that's how wow.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
And part of the reason for that policy was that
you needed to be close enough so that if Christ returned,
you'd be able to get to the camp in time.
And so much of Victor's talk and preaching focused on
the sense of urgency. If you need to be ready,
you need to be ready. He could come at any time,

(01:01:22):
and you need to you know, be staying in the
sufferings and following all these rules so that you are
ready when he comes. And you don't know when he'll come,
and it would be an announcement of the eagles are gathering.
It was a code that indicated that Jesus Christ had
returned and was at the camp. And so one day

(01:01:43):
the alarm bells start going and everyone at all their
properties which are nearby start yelling out the eagles are gathering.
The eagles are gathering, and everyone is freaking out. Lindsay's like,
oh my god, the oh my goodness. The endles are
gathering and people leave their showers with shampoo, and they

(01:02:05):
leave their ovens on, they're ironing thing on. You know,
they're doing things that are you know, normally kind of irresponsible.
They go to the camp, their victor is to meet them,
and it turns out it was just a test. Jesus
hadn't returned. He was just making sure that they were

(01:02:25):
ready for when it actually happened.

Speaker 4 (01:02:28):
So yeah, wow, it's such a movie. I were standing
there with shampoo in my hair. I think, break, yeah,
now you're you know, bad hair day.

Speaker 5 (01:02:41):
You know, yeah like that, And I just there's this
personality type just pushes shit so far like and and
there's something about it that I think they do on
purpose so that people who aren't as invested are like fuck.

Speaker 4 (01:02:59):
This, I'm leaving a little bit, you know what I mean,
so that they can keep a control on a tighter group,
because that's so, and like to state dates that then
don't come true. It just seems so. But they all
do it. But they all do it, and it works.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
It does work. It's weird, yeah, and it makes people
double down. It makes people down.

Speaker 4 (01:03:20):
This like a trauma bond. I don't know what it is.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
It does like you enact this thing and that cognitive
dissonance thing like I did this. So I have to
believe that it is true and it was for a
good reason. Otherwise why did it do this crazy behavior?
Also one piece to the story that was fascinating to me,
I specifically was asking lindsay, like how did people react?

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
Were they pissed? Like I would be so let down.

Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
I would think, Oh, I'm about to go to heaven
and now I have to go back to shower the
shampoo out. You know, I'd get a little annoyed or
maybe even angry. But she said the general mood was
laughter and like kind of a oh, Victor, you pulled
that one on us, and kind of like a bonding
moment of happiness as opposed to anger, which I don't know.

(01:04:07):
I just I thought that was so fascinating.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
That was interesting to me too. I was like, they
wouldn't beat, they weren't pissed.

Speaker 4 (01:04:13):
It reminds me of a Guenevere Turner's book where in
the very beginning they're getting ready because they've announced that
Jesus is coming back, and everybody has their best outfits
on their best handbags, and it doesn't happen, and the
mood is slightly similar. It's like a it's so strange.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
Well, before we were talking to you guys, we were
also having this conversation about a former guest, Victrm Gandhi,
who made a movie called Kumara, documenting him basically pretending
to be a guru. And at the end of the
film he reveals to these followers he has gotten that
he's not actually Kumara, he's just a regular guy. And

(01:04:55):
some of them are really angry at him, and some
of them are like, that was the lesson you are
our leader, that was the real lesson, you know, And
it just goes to show that like, once you believe
in a person, nothing, it doesn't matter what they say,
it doesn't matter how much they change the belief for
the ideology. It doesn't matter if the thing doesn't come true,
because they'll just come up with something else. Once you

(01:05:17):
trust the person anything.

Speaker 4 (01:05:19):
Yeah, because that's a great point because no other leaders
to my knowledge, have been like just kidding, I was
full of complete shit. He did it, and it's still
people are still like, we believe you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
But yeah, leader, it's like, once you've established this connection
in your mind that no, this person is the source
of truth for me. They can say anything and they
can tell you to do anything. It's so scary, it's terrifying.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
Yeah. I saw that movie years ago and that was
mind blowing.

Speaker 4 (01:05:43):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
So how did Lindsey get to the point of actually
getting out of the Maidens and then the group.

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
Well, I think it was a gradual process, but also
happened all at once, as these things do. She had
been exposed to the outside world a little bit more
in Brazil, as we discussed then. Actually, because of some
interesting laws in Minnesota around people of the church or

(01:06:13):
clergy having relationships with people they lead, and the fact
that that can be charged criminally, they actually moved their
base to Washington State, and part of that which maybe
we don't need to get into because we don't need
to get into every detail of the story. Was that
one of the adult women in the group had gone

(01:06:34):
to police and reported that he had been coercing her
and women into sex. So we don't actually get as
much into that in the podcast because we were really
focusing more on the child experience and we can't get
to every single perspective. I wish we could spend another

(01:06:55):
five years on this story. But presumably based on everything else,
I would assume he was likely also abusing a lot
of adult women.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
Anyway, Lindsay hears about this.

Speaker 3 (01:07:08):
He victor tells the maidens that he's been having sex
with adult, married women in the group.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
Because it's out now.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
He kind of has no choice.

Speaker 3 (01:07:17):
It's out in the in the public, and he's even
kind of on the run a little bit. He doesn't
really let anyone know where he is. He kind of
bops in and out, blips in and out. Lindsay somehow
clings on too that as a reason that it just
feels wrong to her. Now, what's interesting is the deeper
we talked with her about why she left, she kind

(01:07:40):
of used that ask for reason to state why she
was going to leave, and I do think that might
have been part of it, but I do think underneath
it all, it was just more exposure to the outside
world because also in Brazil and that in Washington, she
had more exposure to the outside world. The Maidens developed
this like house cleaning service. She was in people's home
seeing TVs, exposed to more media, and one day she

(01:08:04):
was watching TV March of the Penguins with another maiden
and she just looked over to the other maiden and
without planning much, said, I don't feel good about what
Victor's doing with sleeping with the married women, and that
ultimately led her to talk to jan that second in
command woman, and ultimately she basically said I want to leave.

(01:08:27):
And she says to this day that because Victor wasn't
with her physically and they just had a phone conversation
about it, she thinks that if Victor had been there
in person, he would have convinced her to stay, just
as he'd done many times before. But somehow she had
something in her that just said this is enough, and

(01:08:48):
she said I want to leave, and so she was
allowed to leave in sort of this condoned way. She
moved back in actually with her parents that had since
they'd moved back to Pennsylvania when the Minnesota kind of
commune broke up. Anyway, it's kind of complicated, but the
point is it was kind of like her saying, I
am leaving, moving out, and then getting more and more

(01:09:11):
exposed to the outside world and eventually moving away from
her parents as well, who are still following Victor. Because
when she initially left, she was leaving the Maidens. She
was staying in the church but living with her parents.
But you know, then she started really experiencing the outside
world and left entirely.

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
People are going to have to listen to the series.
I mean it goes everywhere to the Doctor Phil show
to you know, it takes twists and turns, and there's
a manhunt for Victor most Wanted manhunt. Yeah, it's a
very compelling story.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
And after doing this, how is Lindsay now, how's she doing?

Speaker 3 (01:09:54):
I think she's doing well. She has a daughter now,
and so I think being a mother brings up so
much for her. She understands even more what it meant
when her parents gave her up, and also what it
meant when her parents didn't fully support her after especially
her mother who actually wrote to a judge against Lindsey

(01:10:14):
supporting Victor.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
That was so upsetting. Yeah, yeah, it's so upsetting.

Speaker 3 (01:10:18):
And so then becoming a mother, it's she can it's
hard to imagine, you know, doing that to your own daughter.
But it's also I think is very healing because she
is going to make sure that nothing like this happens
to her daughter, and she's trying all kinds of ways
to have conversations with her daughter about things like this,
you know, to preventing abuse from happening, by just speaking

(01:10:40):
more freely with her daughter. Her daughter doesn't know everything
that happened in her past, but knows like kind of
the short version PG version. But she just has such
a beautiful relationship with her daughter, and I think that
is so uplifting and gives me so much hope because
she's creating the childhood she didn't have. Her childhood was

(01:11:02):
fully robbed from her, and she is like giving that
to her daughter. So I think she's just building a
beautiful life for herself. And she also really wants people
to hear her story and just understand how this can
happen a little better.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
Yeah, Well, it's an incredible podcast, and I don't want
to spoil everything or I feel like I'd have more
and more.

Speaker 4 (01:11:22):
I know we have to leave, we have to leave
it up to mystery.

Speaker 2 (01:11:27):
But he is in prison right now, right, Yes, Yes,
Victor is in prison. They did, they got him, and
Lindsay was an instrumental.

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
Part of that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
Absolutely. What are some takeaways for both of you after
doing this season and maybe also how it connects to
the other stories that you've explored in previous seasons.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
One thing that strikes me is how often these same
themes come up again and again. And that's I think
what your show shows like so many people have these
similar stories and same with us, even though here we're
talking about this full blown cult, but we also see
it in the ballet world in different ways. How people
are using these same tools of control, even things we

(01:12:07):
didn't get in well maybe we touched on a little bit,
but even things like roles of women enforcing certain gender roles,
or controlling body and wanting thinness and like how that
can be connected to cults and just seeing again and
again these same patterns is really fascinating to me, and
I think it helps me then recognize, like in other

(01:12:30):
communities that aren't cults yet when something bad is going on, Like,
I think it's helpful to understand these red flags. And
it doesn't have to be a full blown cult whose
leader is in prison for us to see those red
flags and like try to stop something earlier in the process.

Speaker 1 (01:12:48):
So, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:12:49):
I think it's just been so mind blowing for me
over the past five years making this podcast. How often
we hear things repeated that I expected it a little bit,
but just not to be act that we have seen it?

Speaker 4 (01:13:02):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
Am I allowed to ask you to a question?

Speaker 4 (01:13:07):
All is.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
What Erica just touched on, I think is the crux
of my endless fascination with this issue of groups pushing
people to do things that in maybe a typical setting
or something they would never do. But yet also then
we see some of these power dynamics play out in
real life. I'm just curious what you two see as

(01:13:32):
what a cult is or you know, where does that
edge end or what? Because Yeah, I think part of
Erica's point is that we see similar themes just even
in what people would consider normal, healthy communities.

Speaker 4 (01:13:47):
Yeah, I mean, we go so far as to be
like a narcissistic relationship. Our use of relationship is culty. Like,
there's so many different things that can be dynamically like
a cult. Yeah, and also it's a slippery slope where
people are like, that's a narciss sister, that's a cult. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
We can over use the words as well, and the
main's meaning I this question. I feel like we need
to just have our own list of what we've seen
over the years. But you know, there's different frameworks. Of course,
there's Steve Hassen's BITE model, former guest of Ours Cult Expert,
stands for behavior control, information control, thought control, and emotional control.
He presents it in the influenced continuum because these things

(01:14:27):
can exist in varying degrees. But you know, of course,
the more extreme they are, the more likely it is
to be a cult. And there are other frameworks as well.
But for me, I like being the single source of
truth and no other sources being valid in any way
is one of the biggest red flags. Obviously controlling behavior,

(01:14:49):
isolating people from outside community, which again comes back to
the single source of truth and really just yeah, the
levels of control, because like different variations of that can happen.
But if it's not controlling your life. Then I don't
think it necessarily matters that much, but when it is
making you make decisions that you wouldn't make and disconnecting

(01:15:09):
you from your gut, from yourself, from and from your family,
and from your values. Yeah, and with red flags where
there's smoke, there's fire, you know, like that sometimes helps
me get through to maybe people and the group that
I grew up in, Like, hey, listen, if there's like
this much chatter, maybe it's not exactly the worst conclusion

(01:15:31):
of the rumor mill, but like it's worth looking into,
it's worth looking at. And if you feel like you
are forbidden from looking at it exactly and having doubt
is off the table or having conversations about it is
off the table. I mean that's a major sign of
an abusive dynamic, I would say, totally so true. Yeah,
that's our that's our take. We definitely we need to

(01:15:54):
make a sense like, well, how do we not have
a an I mean, trust me, yeah, we'll do that today, rus.
But yeah, I mean we do think of colts as
this really extreme thing that happens in these really extreme circumstances.
But then once you start applying some of those principles

(01:16:16):
more broadly, It's happening everywhere in so many different forms.
And yeah, I think what you guys are doing is
so important, educating people and helping them see the parallels.
You know, so many people have emerged from their indoctrination
simply from hearing someone else's story that isn't attacking their

(01:16:37):
exact belief system or group or leader, but it just
is helping them to like see their connection. Yeah, I mean,
that's just it helps so many people. So I'm glad
you guys aren't doing your show.

Speaker 4 (01:16:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:49):
Where do people find it?

Speaker 4 (01:16:50):
Where do they find you?

Speaker 3 (01:16:51):
Well, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts.
It's called The Turning River Road and The Turning has
two other seasons as well, but this is the third season.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
So The Turning great.

Speaker 4 (01:17:07):
And go listen.

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
And I cried while listening to it in several episodes.

Speaker 4 (01:17:13):
Yeah, so be prepared. Yeah, yeah, it's truly great. So
thank you for doing it and for coming on and
sharing it. Thank you so much for having us. That
is such a crazy story. I am so grateful they
came on and did all that work to expose it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
I know, it's a great podcast. Everybody, go listen to it, Megan.
You know, I was going to ask you if you
would join this one, but I kind of think the
answer is.

Speaker 4 (01:17:37):
No, No, absolutely not, And I'm so sorry for anybody
that had to go through that. That is not my
kind of cult. But I do want to tell you
guys about their first season, the turning that they did.

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
Yes, the Mother Teresa season.

Speaker 4 (01:17:52):
Yes. So when we originally were doing this, I thought
that that was the season that was the newest season.
So I listened to it the whole.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
Thing, and I did not, So can you tell me
because I listened.

Speaker 4 (01:18:07):
To the correct season, I also listened to the correct season. No,
MEA just did extra list I just did extra listening,
which I'm glad I did because, like, I don't know
how to say this, but it kind of sounds like
Mother Teresa is a bit why you're gonna have to listen.
But it's like she was really into like self flatullation.

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
I think I did mention this somewhere in the episode.

Speaker 4 (01:18:36):
This episode, like she didn't want people touching each other,
like don't even hold the baby for too long because
she just didn't want any human emotions to.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
Form between No, because you only should be connected to
God and like kind of an in her and her
Oh no, and she was like very self promoting.

Speaker 4 (01:18:58):
Oh no, Yeah, I'm like, listen, I'm sure Mother Teresa
is very important to a lot of people, and like,
I'm not gonna die on this hill. I don't. I
didn't know her, don't know her at all.

Speaker 2 (01:19:11):
Yeah, that I that I knew. Megan just did not
know Mother Teresa.

Speaker 4 (01:19:17):
We didn't hang out. Yeah, but I always just kind
of took it at face value that she was really
the best person.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
Yeah, like, yeah, what do you what am I Mother Teresa?
Like she's used as this like sort of elevated sure.

Speaker 4 (01:19:32):
Yeah, So to even consider the fact that she might
not be was news to me.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
That's all I'm saying. Well, it's disappointing, but it's not
surprising because anyone we've ever held up at that kind
of godlike status is always just a human person who
sure probably got the reputation that they got on some
level because they wanted to create that reputation.

Speaker 1 (01:19:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:19:57):
I mean, listen to all the seasons the Turning, and
let me know what you think about the first one. Obviously,
let us know what you think about the third one too,
because Lindsay's story is beyond compelling, but I just thought
i'd throw it out there that that mother Teresa is
a bitch allegedly. And if that offends you, like I,

(01:20:18):
please don't rate us one star.

Speaker 2 (01:20:20):
No, please just us, then just go away.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:20:25):
I don't mean it, I just stars only. I'm just
making an observation.

Speaker 2 (01:20:31):
So season one of their show, like, who are the
people that it's focused.

Speaker 4 (01:20:35):
On, like the people that were in her covenent.

Speaker 2 (01:20:43):
Convent, convent, her coven covenant ship, she was a witch.

Speaker 4 (01:20:51):
Yeah, okay, yeah, it's like the opposite of the sound
of Music's Nunnery.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
I don't know the reference. I haven't seen that movie
in so long. I don't know anything. We're talking about.

Speaker 4 (01:21:03):
No singing, there's no there's no hills, there's no alive,
there's just hitting yourself with like whips.

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):
Well that is of common. Yeah, that is not a
big catholic nanda.

Speaker 4 (01:21:16):
And again like I don't no events.

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
And now none will be taken because you said that. Yeah,
I'm just throwing it out there, all right, Well great,
yeah we did it.

Speaker 4 (01:21:28):
We did it. Thank you so much for listening. Please
come listen again next week, And as always, remember to
follow your gut, watch out for red flax, and.

Speaker 2 (01:21:39):
Never ever trust me Bye. This has been an exactly
right production hosted by me Lo.

Speaker 4 (01:21:48):
La Blanc and me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is
Gee Holly. This episode was mixed by John Bradley. Our
associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker is
Patrick Kuttner.

Speaker 2 (01:21:59):
Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.

Speaker 4 (01:22:02):
Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth, Georgia Hartstark
and Danielle Kramer.

Speaker 2 (01:22:07):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me podcast
or on TikTok at trust Me Coult podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:22:12):
Got your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation,
Shoot us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts

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Erika Lantz & Elin Lantz Lesser - Book Burnings, Rapture Drills, & the River Road Fellowship

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The Breakfast Club

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Erika Lantz & Elin Lantz Lesser - Book Burnings, Rapture Drills, & the River Road Fellowship