February 5, 2025 • 53 mins
Creator of the one man show 3 Cults Walk Into a Bar, Uriah Wesman, shares about his FIRST cult experience in Church Universal and Triumphant, how they combined Christianity and New Age ideas, the paranoia that was created by beliefs surrounding demons, his mom's mental deterioration that led her to accuse his father of being a demon, and his parents split that led him to his next cult... which we'll discuss next week!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you have your own story of being in a
cult or a high control group.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Or if you've had experience with manipulation or abuse the
power that you'd like to share.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Or shoot us an email at trust Me pod at
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Speaker 3 (00:20):
Trust Me, Trust trust Me. I'm like a swat person.
I've never lied to you.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I never live If you think that one person has
all the answers, don't.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Welcome to trust Me.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
The podcast about cults, extreme belief and manipulation from two
demons who've actually experienced it.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
I'm Lo La Blanc.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
And I'm Megan Elizabeth And.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Today's part one of our two part interview with Uriah Westman.
He is the creator of a one man show called
Three Cults Walk into a Bar, and he is a
former member of you Guessed It, Three different cults. So
in part one today he is going to tell us
about the first one that he grew up in church
Universal and Triumphant, the group's combination of Christianity and New
Age ideas, and how much he believed and some of
(01:04):
the beliefs and rituals around demons.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
He'll also tell us about the constant demon paranoia in
the church, his family, and his own mind, how his
mom's mental health began to deteriorate, leading her to accuse
his own father of being a demon, and his parents
split that led him to cult number two, which we
will talk about next week.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes, there's so much to get into with Uryah. I
am so stoked that he came on the podcast to
tell us all about this because I feel like he
just hits every every type of cold to every type
of cultic thinking in his story and it's really really fascinating.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Also, great show.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
You should go show.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
If you ever get the chance, you should definitely go.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
It's he's doing it about every month, I think in
Los Angeles. But before we start talking to Uriah Megan,
I must know, Okay, what's your cultist thing?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So my cultiest thing of the week was just kind
of sitting with Uriah's experience and looking deeper into let's
call it, for lack of a better word, what's kind
of in the zeitguys cult hopping, you know, the tendency
to find yourself in a new cult, and there's a
million reasons for it. You know, you're used to somebody
(02:15):
having authority, which feels good because they give you certainty.
We're drawn into familiar dynamics, and do you feel special
and chosen and part of a higher truth. There's just
so many things, but it got me thinking about how
I think the main one is just that sense of
a little bit of control. And you really went through that,
(02:38):
I think with your OCD therapy. You did a really
specialized therapy and I'm just wondering how you let go
a little bit of control and if you think that's
also the main reason people find themselves back and also
just the unconscious minds, you know, always going to repeat
terrible patterns to try to fix it. Anyway, what do
(02:59):
you think about that?
Speaker 4 (03:00):
I love that question.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
How I like overcame that need for constant control?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Is that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Because I do you agree that that's probably if we
had to pick up main one. What really draws people
back in is that authority figure or you know, it
can be something as innocuous as like a financial guru
or a wellnessed person He's like, listen, you guys, I
crack the code and you can get just kind of
rest easy and like.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Who, yes, I answer figure it out certainty.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Yes, I think that's a huge part of it.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And I think there's a lot of conversation around the
need for community with colds, but I do think that
a need for a sense of control and safety in
the world is like a huge, huge part of I
mean we've talked about this a million times obviously, but
for me, yes, definitely. And it is so interesting that overlap,
which I'm sure our listeners are sick of hearing about at.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
This point, with those of the stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
But I will say, like it is a skill that
you have to learn to accept that you can't control
the thing. Like I had to literally like rewire my
brain to be like, Okay, if I have a psychotic.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Break right now, so be it.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Oh well, if I can't control that, I will just
have to accept that, you know, and like it's really
really hard work. But I do think it was such
an important skill to have just as a human being.
I wish that there was more of that skill sort
of built into other kinds of mental health programs, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Absolutely, I mean, did you just have to live with
like a constant sense of terror for a while?
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I mean, it's not like it's so weird because it's
like what you do in OCD is typically like the
like unhealthy thing that you're doing is thoughts oppression, right,
So you have to kind of run toward the thoughts
and allow them to be there. But it's a really
fine line between like allowing them to be there and
kind of letting them run your life. So it's really
(04:56):
learning mindfulness. It's really just the skill of mindfulness, like, oh, hello, thoughts,
there you are. I'm going to allow you to exist
in the background and allow that fear to be there
while going about my life as usual, which then over
time teaches your brain that it's not important that you
had those thoughts, so it doesn't have to raise the
alarm bells. Whereas if you have the scary thoughts and
then you retreat into yourself and treat them as important,
(05:18):
then it's like teaching your brain to be hyper vigilant
about those thoughts when they come up.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Does that make sense.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Right, Yeah, of course. Yeah. I had a really good reaction.
Like I got so OCD in high school. That sounds
really flippant, but it was ruining my life and I
would like skip school I couldn't eat. I just would
skip school to clean my room. And then they put
me on prozac and in two weeks I was like
a different person. But you know, you really need to
(05:46):
get to the root of the problem, which I haven't
really done yet. I tried to go to the same
OCD center as you did. Do you remember what happened?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I remember you, it didn't. I don't remember why you
stopped going, but I know I didn't.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Let me tell you. It's because I met my therapist
and sat on my curtain and the curtain rod fell
down onto my head. What It hit me so hard
and I like almost passed out a little bit, and
then I was too embarrassed stop it.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
That is not what happened.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yes, yes again, so so funny.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah, so I still need to confront the real issue,
but thank you for giving me a peek into what
the real work looks like instead of just masking it
with medication, which I will always take. But on top
of it, I would like to go a little bit deeper.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I mean, and I will say, like, you know, antidepressants,
like we know there's typically about as effective as placebo
for depression, but for OCD, I think there's better data
on how they actually are really can be really effective
for OCD.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Prozac and my brain go together like ketchup and French fries.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
So for our ketchup haters out there.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
That there's no French f haters in your world. Yeah,
it just like worked. So anyway, thank you for that rundown.
Should I ask you what your cultist thing is.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Or I'll just race through it really fast?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Okay, what's your cultist thing?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Okay, I know we're taking too long. Sorry you guys.
I'm just I feel like I cannot not address the
uh new administration's actions. So I'm just going to mention
some of the things that are undeniably culty.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
There's no other way to look at it.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
One Trump signed an executive order quote ending radical indoctrination
in K twelve schooling. The radical indoctrination being referred to
here is any teachings about race or the existence of
like transgender people or queerness. That's like the the specific
(07:56):
definition of what that means is totally up to them,
which means they basically this is giving them the power
to completely stop like any kind of education about racial
history in America, about like the existence of LGBTQ people
in case the teacher wants to make a student feel
safer by, you know, just calling them the name they
want to be called. Anyway, the way to foster critical
(08:19):
thinking is not too censor information to push your own agenda.
That is not what critical thinking is. That is what
they are claiming they are doing. That is the opposite
of what they are doing.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
It's very very clear.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Similarly, the CDC ordered government scientists to withdraw or pause
the publication of all papers set to appear in medical
or scientific journals so that the Trump administration can review
the material for quote forbidden terms such as gender, lgbt
or pregnant person. You cannot forbid terms in scientific journals
and have that not be indoctrination. That is literally suppressing education.
(08:55):
There's no other way to look at it. On top
of all the retaliation that he's been doing against anyone
who's spoken out against him in the government, including people
who worked for him in his own administration, including going
against what very conservative Republican senators are advising is He's
gone rug you guys, Elon's gone rogue and listen. I
know that there might be some listeners who like Trump
(09:16):
and I'm not going to judge you for your views,
but this behavior, these actions of this administration are fully
in line with how cult leaders behave and with how
authoritarian governments behave, and I think it's important to be
able to in a clear eyed way look at those parallels. Obviously,
this does not mean that Democrats are not guilty of
stuff as well. Of course they are. But this is
(09:38):
very unprecedented and in my opinion, very very scary.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I mean, it's just it's wild.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I don't want to talk about it too much and
overwhelm people because I know everyone's experiencing a lot of overwhelm,
but I just felt like I had to mention it
and we can go back to cults now.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Well, maybe we should talk to Uryah.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Welcome Uriah Westman to trust me.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Thank you for having me out, Thanks for.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Me in here.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I got like multiple messages about your one man show
that you've been doing called Three Colts Walk into a Bar,
which we had the pleasure of seeing last week. Well, pleasure,
and I feel like pleasure is a weird word because
it's like a complicated story, but like we we loved
the show, so we want to talk to you a
little bit more about your story and go into some
(10:31):
more detail about the three cults you were in and
arguably more of which we can talk about later. Let's
start at the beginning.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Your first cult that you were.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
In was Church Universal and Triumphant, right, Yes, were you
born into that?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yes? What I was born is kind of right after
they got the doomsday date wrong.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
And oh oh okay, yeah, okay, And.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
But still my parents stayed in it, Like my dad
was in it to the where he was donating ten
percent of all of his income to the church, and.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
He he did.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
He helped build the bomb shelters, and they were very
much in it until the end.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Okay, So let's talk about what it is. What is
this church?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
We almost arguably this church was like very much ahead
of its time, as it mixed being patriotic about America
as well with religious beliefs and then scattered in is
a bunch of New age stuff. Mark Lyle Prophet started
the cult back in the sixth season. So and they met,
(11:37):
and which is interesting is there will be a common
pattern of the cult leaders going to Boston University.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Okay, interesting, Yes, he was very.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Much influenced by the I Am movement, which was more
spiritual but also religious at the same time.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
I don't know what this movement, what is this?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
It's tricky to for me to try to explain. But
it's more of getting like a higher consciousness towards God
through decrees and meditation.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Kind of like the Rahm Das thing. But he would
have been kind of young at that time, I guess,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
When you pulled the Wikipedia as is the original ascended
Master Teaching's neo theosophical religious movement, which is a lot
of words.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Gott and this isn't Boston, Like that's shocking.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
There's so many groups that are religious and New Age
at the same time, which just like seems like it
wouldn't make sense together, but we see it all the time.
I mean, what were some of the things that you
believed when you were a kid?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
So part of the New Age would be like them
adopting the idea of chakras, where you have energy in
your body that if you're feeling negative thoughts, it's because
a darkness of a demon has actually entered your consciousness
and is feeding off of your light, your soul.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
So that would be what I believed in.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
And thought was real was demons, and my parents would
say that they're attracted. If you're negative, if you're angry,
you're opening up your soul to the demons, as well
as if you listen to rock music, if you see
violent movies. It's almost like their response to a new
generation of people growing up was this is their response
(13:27):
to like eighties music and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So was there a little satanic panic in their kind
of yes, demonic panic?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
If you will, can you give us some examples of
some of the bands that were considered demonic?
Speaker 3 (13:40):
So so many, I mean, Areo Speedwagon, Michael Jackson.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
What's interesting is I was able to figure out what
music was okay to listen to, and some for whatever reason,
the Eagles was fine, Oh well.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Okay, that makes sense, I get it.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Ever, listen to the lyrics is why do you have
to pay the doctor in cash?
Speaker 5 (14:04):
I was so confused by that.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
I having no idea that that Saul was about cocaine, right.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I think I think that probably the leader and the
adults just like the Eagles, and so they were like,
it's fine, that's my theory.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
You were a child of the nineties or ninety two,
So was like Celene Dion allowed was like.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Wow, honing straight in on Selene Dion.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Loan because moms love Celdia, you know, like religious families
like Celenion was a okay. In our family, it was
Selene and Shanaya, you know.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, yeah, okay, Yeah, that's a good question. Was Selene Dion?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
There was never any problems with Celen Dion. I do know.
We weren't allowed to watch Titanic.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Oh, well, there's boobs in Titanic, so that's fair.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Well there's also death, which do you think it.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Was worse than death? Megan?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Was it the boobs or the death?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
There's probably both?
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Okay? Was there any TV shows that were like that?
One's funny, like you can watch Wings.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Not really so a lot of Like the TV that
was watched was Zaboomafoo. It's a it's a as much
as I can remember of it, it's it's, uh, two
guys go in nature and there's a.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
A boon that's like maybe a lemur. I think it's a.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, okay, I feel like I vaguely remember this because
we didn't have real TV, so we only had PBS
most of my childhood.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Well, you guys at least had PBS because I had
no TV. I didn't know what anything was. Yeah, we
were cultured, Megan, Okay, so everything's kind of demonic, but
some things are allowed.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I want to go back a little bit though, because
I'm really curious about your parents and who they were
and how they kind of ended up in this group.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
It's it's so the past of my parents is very
like neither of them will talk about it. What I'm
gathering is my dad was already in Montana and Livingston
was like the base for where it was, and I
think with my mom being in Santa Barbara, California, they
(16:21):
also had a church there that they both ended up
because they're kind of still into the New Age religious stuff,
that they both ended up in the church.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
And when they built the large Royal.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Tetne branch in Montana, I feel like that's when they
met each other and the leader declared them as twin Flames,
which is the cult version of soulmates. Interesting enough, my
dad actually already was married with the cult leaders saying
that they were twin Flames and then got it wrong.
So it's actually he ended up with total three twin Flames.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I feel like by the second time, it's like, I
don't I don't think you're right.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
It's like you're a bad matchmaker.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I think it's quadruple flames.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
The two's the wrong number here.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Do you know if they did they convert to the
religion or did they grow.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Up in it? They definitely didn't grow up in it.
What I'm piecing together from both of my parents' upbringings
is for my dad, there's definitely I think physical abuse,
just as being a kid, like the classic like yelling
or maybe a belt if he was in trouble. And
then my mom is I think that the cult was dry,
(17:39):
so they didn't drink, and my mom's dad was an
alcoholic and I think he was abusive as well, So
I think there's both those through lines had them look
through look for a community and ended up finding the place.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
M makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
They really were looking for community. That's it's like a
theme kind of throughout your life. Do you know Killian Allenbacher.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Did he write Aragon?
Speaker 4 (18:06):
No?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
No, No. He was like a previous guest on this
podcast who was also in Church Universal on Triumphant.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Though I wish I'd listened to a few episodes, I
can't believe.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
I missed that one.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
It was a while back, but he was.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
He really was, Like he talked to us a lot
about the bomb shelters and what it was like, you know,
basically like playing in bomb shelters and constantly thinking that
they were gonna have to go down there because the
world was going to end at any moment. Is that
similar to your experience?
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Yes, So even after the prophecy was wrong, my parents
still especially with Y two K that would have been
like the next big one, but it was very much
so that at any moment the world could end. Was
how I fell.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Okay, talk me through this. So when was the first prophecy,
what was the date, what did y'all do when that
date came, and what did it feel like when it passed?
Speaker 5 (19:07):
So I wasn't alive during the first main one.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
My older sister was but just a baby, and I
think it was in nineteen eighty eight or something, and
they kept doing basically drills of going into the shelters
and then staying there. So it's almost like a constant
like the world is going to end sort of mentality
(19:35):
almost to the fact that I feel like is the
amount of money that they put into it. Amount of
planning is a sense that I feel like a portion
is they would want the world to end, so they
are right, same as like a fundamental Christian in the sense.
But afterwards, so when my youngest memory is actually of
(19:56):
the leader herself. I met her, and I shouldn't remember
this all because of how young I was. But the
detailed I remember the most is the intense eye contact that.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
Through each of the leaders.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
It was almost uncomfortable in terms of how intense eye
contact was, and forever reason. I remember that her pinky
toe was somehow covering her other toe, a detail that
I still remember pictures to this day. But I think
what it was it was the overall I could feel
(20:34):
that everyone idolized her so much, which as a kid,
I recognize that, and that's why I remember little minor
details are stupid things like that.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And you say her, because that's Elizabeth Claire Prophet, who
was the wife of the first man that you mentioned, right, Yes,
she kind of became the leader after him.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
How many people left after this failed prophecy? The first one, I.
Speaker 5 (21:01):
Think a lot.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
At its height is I think it was like fifty
thousand people around the world.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Yeah, Wow, And that is just an estimate.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Like they had their marketing down and had chapters everywhere
and they would do recruitment there. I mean, I joke
about the bomb shelters being built really badly, but they
had like real people building them and like a lot
of money into making them.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
So they definitely had no issue with that.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I remember it is because it would be the huge
retreats and then from there it was less and less people.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
Every time.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
It used to be hundreds and then it started being
less and less. So I would say thirty to forty
percent because they basically after the prophecy.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
She said they decreed it. Because they decreed.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
So much, which is the cult version of prayers is
they got rid of it and most people.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Just didn't buy it.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
They got rid of what the nuclear bomb that was
going to be set by Russia.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Oh so not only did it not happen, but it
didn't happen because of their prayers. Yes, which is tricky.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
A typical response to you when a doomsday or prophecy
does not come true, it's like, oh God, you know,
we did it.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
We stopped it, or God spared us.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
But it's interesting to hear that that many people left
because I feel like commonly, you know not I mean
a lot of people's day.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah, I think a lot of that was because so
many of them gave all of their money, sold their houses,
all this to build the shelters, and when that didn't happen,
they really had no way to live other than to
work and make money.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
That's so sad. Were you were they living in the
shelters or were they just kind of nearby?
Speaker 5 (22:56):
There might have been some like living in the shelters.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
There was a subdivision that we lived on called Glastonbury,
so that was all members of the church would would
live there.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
So I think a lot of them would either live
and work.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
There are off site that they could quickly get to
the branch if anything where that happened.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I think I asked this in Killian's episode, but can
you buy one? Like are they still around? What's happened
with the bomb shelters?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Do we know they're selling them? So it's oddly enough
when I would is that there's videos that you could
just look up on YouTube and people are just buying
them and converting them because when the leader died, they
never picked anyone else to lead and be the new
ascended master, and because of that, there's no one for
(23:53):
anyone to follow other than plain old decrees of previous times.
It was basically, I call it like the grit. They
were playing the greatest hits of what it was like
to be in the eighties and nineties, and most people
would just find something else because you have a dwindling community.
Mostly at that point, it's just older people that are
(24:14):
just there because they don't want to go anywhere else.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Right, heartbreaking. Was there benefactors that had a lot of
money or was this completely built on the working man
and woman's back, because it seems like these were expensive.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I would say mostly it was just small donations. I
don't think there was like like one person financing everything.
It's definitely if you wanted to be a main member,
then you would be giving ten percent of your income
to the church, which.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
My dad was, which is true in Mormonism too. I mean,
so many churches are funded that way.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
To make those mini bomb shelters is a lot of motive. Yeah, yeah,
I guess there's fifty thousand members, so go off Queen's
you know, they get both.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Was fifty thousand how many members or how many members left?
Speaker 5 (25:04):
So this fifty thousand is the estimated number.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
But what is so odd about everything is maybe they
could fit one thousand members in the bombshelter stop it.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
How did they explain that away?
Speaker 3 (25:15):
I don't know. I've read Prophet's Daughter that try to
piece things together. They never explain that in the book.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Oh my god, it is Titanic.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
It is Titanic. Yeah, I'm not going to be leo.
If I've spent ten percent building that thing, I'm getting
in there, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, when you're a kid, this prophecy's already happened and
didn't come true. But your family is like, no, we
still believe. Like so, what was the conversation around the
end of the world then?
Speaker 3 (25:45):
At that point it was still to make sure that
you decree every day keep your aura vibrant and be positive.
Otherwise the negativity would bring on a negative change in
our lives. So if we did ever feel bad, my
mom would get mad at us in the sense of
(26:05):
that we our own behavior would have ramifications on the world.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Oh, it sounds like the perfect recipe for OCD.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
If you have a negative thought, the world safety could
be at the stake.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
What yeah, Yeah, you seem like a very positive person.
Were you able to keep the negativity at bay as
best as you could?
Speaker 3 (26:32):
It's so funny that I come across as a really
positive person. But but that's great if I really take
my memories of what I remember in Livingstone. Was always
scared that there were demons and monsters in my room.
I would so, uh, the best I can kind of
(26:53):
explain this is if you if it's if you have
the lights on in your room and you close your
eyes and then open them up right away, those kind
of those like black dots that you'll see just like
flow the around. I was terrified that those those were
entities and those were demons.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Oh no, yeah yeah, And your parents aren't like no,
they're not. They're like, yeah they are.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
So that would be the good time to bring up
that my parents would use a sword that the cult
leader blessed that they would keep on the altar where
they would uh pray and decree, and they'd use that
to scrape it down my spy and that would kill
the demons.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I have to know, how hard of a scrape are
we talking?
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Not like very hard? I mean it was a doll sword.
It was like it's it would be the same as
like like a backscratcher.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
I would compare it to.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Okay, I mean that's better than literally like cutting your
back all the time.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
But Jesus Christ, did.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
You feel like it worked like were You're like, oh,
thank God?
Speaker 3 (27:55):
So if you felt like like I was particularly on
your spine, because that's where the main chalkras are, and
that's w your light is the little lake tingles those
I was told were demons. So the sword to me
was a comfort thing because it was a positive thing.
It was only till afterwards where I started questioning everything.
(28:17):
Did I realized that, oh, this is more this was
actually more harmful than a positive thing in my life?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Right, I mean yeah, it kind of sounds like somebody
comes in and kind of tickles your back every night.
But I'm sure once you start I'm wondering out loud.
Do you think that the leader was like, how do
I put this? Was this something that the leader encouraged?
And do you think it was kind of too unconsciously
(28:46):
scared children that your parents have a sword to your
back and neck every single night of your life.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
Question?
Speaker 3 (28:51):
So when they would do the retreats, is some people
would have swords, and they would do it in like
a like a pattern of making like an X. When
they're doing the decrease, they're releasing the demons. But reading
the Prophet's Daughter book that was written by the daughter
of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, she does not bring up the
sword once.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
In the entire book.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
But I've received dms from people on Instagram that saw
a clip of me talking about the sword, and they're like,
the same thing happened to me. So I actually think
it's something that just started happening and members started taking
it on as an extra step.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
If somebody scratches your back, now, is it triggering for you?
Speaker 3 (29:31):
No?
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Okay, cool.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I've talked about this a bunch on here before, But
I also believed in demons, but I didn't have it
to the extent where like I thought they were constantly
on me. It was more like I was warned that
if I were to sin, generally this was associated with
sexual sin, then they would, like you know, I would
wake up and I would see them. And of course
sleep paralysis is a thing, so I was just in
(29:59):
com to Terrri. I had sleeperrouses last night and a
little part of me was like, might be a demon.
I didn't see one, but you know, you get that feeling.
I'm like, might be a demon. Maybe you've been saying.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
If you put them in there early enough, demon theology
isn't going anywhere.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, Bran, Yeah stuck, it's in there. But it sounds
so scary to have that, like to just have this
like sort of constant paranoia and even just from negative
thoughts that like that that would conjure a demon, just
a negative thought. So if you were sad about something,
even just sadness, demons.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yeah, so, uh, I can't remember all of them. So
there's this decree book my mom would have. It's like
five hundred pages and in it is each of the
names of all the all the.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
Demons, and there would be a demon.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
So if you're gay, it's because you have a gay
demon that has taken over your soul. Same thing that
if you were addicted to the cocaine, drugs, alcohol, all
that is that is entity is taken overy for And
it's a long list of all these things basically is whatever.
And this is more like the religious like Christian Christianity,
(31:10):
all that of being homophobic. They just threw that in
that it wasn't normal. It's because there's an entity there
that has taken over.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
It's so interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
It's like Greek mythology, where there's a god for absolutely everything,
except that there's a demon for absolutely everything.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
And I'm pretty sure the names are Greek. They're definitely
like there.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
They they looked like they just took things to just
change it enough to make it sound like it was anything.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Well, it sounds like that's what they were literally doing.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Yeah, so what.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
They all do?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
So how did things start to go awry with this
group and lead your family to the next one?
Speaker 3 (31:49):
So kind of what ended up happening is when my
parents stop living together and split up, my dad wanted
to get custody of us, and and that's when my
mom actually started calling my dad a demon because we
were trying to take her away.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
Because a lot of the.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Things about why they had us this idea is that
we're meant to stick around in the church and that's
why we would have the kids, and that's why the
cult leaders named gave us the name of Riah and
then my sister's names. So because my dad was doing that,
she basically just turned the ideology of the cult on
(32:29):
my dad, which essentially caused us to leave Montana to
Santa Barbara the North Carolina, and then throughout the two
years or so, we moved back to Montana. And then
this is where I'm at this point. I'd be around
(32:50):
like twelve years old, and that's when my dad gets
full custody of us, and then we're visiting my mom,
who has declared Livingston Montana gateway to hell. Oh and
really is I feel like because this church was so
vast in its ideology, it was very very easy to
pick and choose something that makes sense to you and
(33:12):
then justify how you react and treat other people. I
feel like my mom genuinely believed that my dad was
a demon and that you would be in trouble and
this was the future. Almost to the world was at
stake if we weren't actively decreeing and with her this
(33:34):
entire time.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Can I ask what was going on with your mom
mental health wise at this time?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Right at this time would be when it really started
to decline.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
I don't know whether or not.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Mentally, I feel like there's she was never diagnosed with anything,
but definitely looking back, there is something wrong that was
never treated and helped with. She was very much a
horror so we would live in these environments just full
of just clothes. She would just buy clothes and never
(34:08):
wear them. I later find out that we almost never
had money for basic needs, but she was out either
donating a ton of money to the church or just
buying buying stuff wow, which I think I feel like
both of them are just more just trying to fill
the void of whatever she never dealt with as a
child and a teenager.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
What were your thoughts about her at this time? Were
you like, yeah, my dad is a demon and Montana
is a gateway to how or were you like what
this was?
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Right where it got confusing because it was with my dad,
And when I started being with my dad there started
just being stability with just knowing.
Speaker 5 (34:50):
Where I was going to sleep.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
What was like was big and I was able to
then because we weren't moving. I was able to make
friends and living living and everything was fine. So it
kept like when I was hearing the things she would
say and it wasn't reflecting my reality. That's where I
really started to question what was happening and started like
(35:16):
getting almost angry with it. But that's also where my
mom escalated and started having more fits of rage where
she was screaming, yell where I almost feel like she
had tunnel vision where she couldn't stop and just directed
all of her pain onto us, and particularly me because
(35:37):
I was the man of the of the of the kids,
so because my dad's a man, she also directed a
lot of that rage towards me, which she also used
movies to show how bad men are. I watched the
original IT TV series, so my mom would be like,
(35:58):
see how bad men are?
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Wow, the clowns show.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
I was going to mention that because that was considered
an evil movie in our house and the VHS I
thought was haunted. And that's so funny that you're now
that she used that. I mean, it's not funny, this
is terrible, but like that's terrifying.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Why does that.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Movie come up all the time with religious people but
it was not a man?
Speaker 4 (36:22):
How was this?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Like?
Speaker 4 (36:23):
How did she use that?
Speaker 3 (36:25):
It would be just she would see someone thinking that
if I saw another I guess it almost would make
sense that even if the clown was a demon, it
would make sense that it was it was my dad,
it was she would it wasn't that that's just one
of the other things that she would have us watch
that would make try to screw it. So my dad
(36:47):
looks bad. Even at this point, as I was able
to connect with my dad, You're watching hockey, and that
was as close as it would still not be, like
knowing much about his backstory, but as my mom would
be doing this, I would be bonding with my dad
through ways that would be outside of talking about the church.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Right, it sounds like he would he was sort of
your lifeline to some kind of grounded reality that you
really didn't get with your mom.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Yes, but I mean he was still would be like
if an ambulance drove by, he would quickly do like
decrees and stuff. He would always so when I talk
about this with him, he would still be like, I
was never in it as much as your mom, So
we kind of deflect almost. I feel like there might
be maybe a little bit of shame and regret from
(37:42):
how much he spent. But he's also now a Quanon
conspiracy theorist, so I feel like he's just moved into
another realm, which has made it harder to one. If
I see him watch hockey, because it'll advertise five g
and then immediately we're talking about how five G is
controlling our brains. So even stuff like that now, like oh,
(38:04):
and then during COVID he's like, oh, look they're shutting
down hockey because of COVID. It's like, okay, it's sports.
Let's just leave it as sports, dad.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
What does a decree sound like?
Speaker 3 (38:25):
This is what I'll remember is I called to Lord
Michael and his twelve legions of angels to protect the souls.
Speaker 5 (38:36):
Who are I get it, I'm butchering right now. But
essentially you have to say it out loud to give
it power. So let's say that you were.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Going to prayer decree and you're going on a plane
and you want to be safe, so you would be like,
I call the Lord Angel Michael to watch over this
playing to make sure that it's and crash. But you'd
say that out loud, so everyone would hear you.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Would you do it like at school?
Speaker 3 (39:08):
So there was only one time where I would do
it out loud.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
School was like very much.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
I substituted it or I sucked my thumb instead. That
was my coping mechanism. So like I would just like
pull up my sweatshirt and like I would think no
one would notice, but eventually people would know this. But
I actually only vividly remember decreeing one time because my
mom's cat went missing and I was petrified of how
(39:38):
she was going to react to potentially cat dying. And
that's the only time I vividly decreed myself.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
You were like, Michael, get me that cat. I cannot
have my mom freaking out tonight. Yeah, what an odd
thing to watch people around you do I, at least
in my religion growing up, You like, did it in
your head?
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (40:01):
I was just say I would.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
I would say prayers about stuff all the time, but
it would be in my head typically unless unless.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
I was alone.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Hello, Dear Heavenly Father, I'm thankful for this day. I'm
thankful for all these many blessings. Please bless that I
will get X.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
Thing that I want. That's how it would go. And
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ.
Say it.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I'm like, I just have a couple more questions about
your mom, because this part of your story there's just
so much going on at once for you. It just
seems like so much for a kid to process, because
like already you're in this religion that I'm guessing makes
you feel kind of weird at school and makes you
think about the end of the world way too much
(40:47):
and obsess over whether demons are around.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Like that's already a thing.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
That's like a huge, huge thing to be dealing with
at such a young age or at any age. But
then on tif of that, you have this like mentally
ill mother who's like kind of having a maybe a
breakdown of some kind like and it's not even like
a normal divorce where parents are yelling at each other
or whatever. It's like, No, your dad is literally a
(41:15):
demon and you're living in.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
A portal to hell.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
You also mentioned that with your dad who got some
like like physical like residential stability.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
Were you moving around constantly with your mom?
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Yes? So, uh from Montana. So I'll break it down.
Where we're in Montana. We leave in two thousand. Then
we live in Santa Barbara. We're there for maybe two
or three months until we moved from Santa Barbara, California,
all the way to North Carolina. Then we're in When
we're in North Carolina, we're in one house and then
(41:49):
we moved to another and then we're there for about
almost two years. Then we moved back to Montana, but
this time instead of moving back to Montana, this is
when my mom kind of realizes the gravity of my
dad trying to get custody. So we're sleeping even either
in the car or in a hotel, and that's when
(42:11):
she starts saying Livingston is a gateway to hell. So
that's why we leave the hotel to then sleep in
a car. So in this but even when we were
in North Carolina, I went to three or four different
schools because one time they redrew the districts, so we
(42:32):
were not we're at the school that we first went
to was one I have the fondest memories of where
I was more or less accepted and was able to
be myself and like tell jokes and that was fun.
But because we moved and at the same time they
redrew the districts to because we were living by upper
(42:52):
middle class neighborhood, so they moved it over, so we're
no longer being that school. So we went to another
public school until my mom got a job somehow at
a Montessori school, so then we go to another school.
So even if we're living we keep switching schools, where
I also just am done with trying to meet people
because I know we're going to move again.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah, I mean we moved like maybe seven times, and
that felt crazy. You know, I went to like three
four different high schools. But that is like on another level,
like how how did you ever feel grounded?
Speaker 3 (43:30):
I didn't, and I don't have this in the show.
But at the same time, we had four cats with us,
so no.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
Yeah, babies in like the.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Car, yeah, in a Honda Odyssey, one like the like
nineteen ninety. And one thing is I don't bring it
up in a show because I realized people love animals
a lot more than humans. Because also people are going
to be like, what about the cats? Cats were? And
what I'm forgetting is we were then in Montana, where
(44:03):
we go to Virginia Beach, where we're there for a
few weeks until that's when my mom gets arrested or
kidnapping us.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
Then we move again back to Montana.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Then even in Montana, we live in three different houses,
and then I'm traveling back and forth with my mom,
who also moves multiple times. So wasn't just moving to
different cities, it was just moving different houses I mean, so.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
While you're physically bouncing all over the place, what's your
emotional and I'll just say quote unquote spiritual state, like
are you still believing in any of this religiously or
what are your feelings on it at this point?
Speaker 3 (44:49):
So my mom would just wear headphones and listened to decrees.
So I would just kind of be in the back
of the van and look through So i'd pick up
at like the rest shops, like discounts on hotels and
like places we could visit. So what I was focusing
more on is looking out the window are different places
(45:11):
that we could that we would never go to, but
then imagining that we went there, and like how that was?
So I was very uh, it was It was fun
because I would I'd be like, hey, mom, this this
is the best deal on the hotel, even though it
wasn't at school.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
Yeah, okay, so your mind was kind of on survival
and the quote unquote demon thing wasn't really on your
mind as much as it was just coming from your mother.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
Yeah, because it was a lot of what we didn't
really know what was happening all this time, and it
and when we would just kind of go with what
my mom would say, but it was very much is
when my dad came and picked us up, we were
I was mad, I was angry. I was also confused
(45:58):
because I to the level did kind of.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
Believe that my dad was a demon.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
But it was all that would have like fixed things,
is if my dad just communicated to us what was
happening and why. I think it would have at least
we might not have digested it right away, but we
would at least had more of an idea other than
just imagining or like having our mind run wild with
(46:27):
what is happening?
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Right, So he like got custody of you, but didn't
necessarily explain that this that your mom is kind of
having this breakdown of sorts.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
Yeah, that must have been super confusing because.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
You're like, my dad is a demon, but like he's
also being really nice and we're watching hockey. Is that
like how did you kind of deal with that contradiction?
Speaker 3 (46:51):
I think my dad, because I also was a guy,
he was able to h relate to me by using
hockey and then using oddly enough super tramp. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (47:07):
I might even be like.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
Viewing the songs differently, but he's like the school song
that's about getting indoctrinated into the school system.
Speaker 5 (47:15):
I'm like, well, that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Because I was a class cloud. I'm like, I hated
these authority figures. So I think I just it was
one thing. I just stopped thinking about it after a bit, right.
And the biggest thing, though, was my my dad would
still yell and well, it was as bad as my mom,
but it was very much it felt because my dad
(47:38):
remarried and had another kid. It's still kind of like
I felt in limbo of who am I at?
Speaker 5 (47:47):
Who am I in this like dynamic.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
I wasn't my own individual self when it came to
my mom, and it seems like I was just kind
of there in terms of existing because basic things like
just like cleaning up after myself was just something that
was never taught. And if my dad was like, clean
up after yourself, my mom would be the exact opposite,
(48:10):
and that would be what she was. A hoarder anyways.
But it was the same thing with when I sucked
my thumb, my dad would get like hot sauce and stuff.
Speaker 5 (48:20):
It's like, we're gonna put this on.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
And then you're gonna stop and now all now it's
just like spicy food so it didn't really change anything.
But then my mom would encourage it, so it was
a back and forth with whatever my dad said was good,
what my mom said was bad. I wanted to play hockey.
My mom put me in ballet, so it was wow.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
Yeah, man, what a whirlwind of a childhood.
Speaker 4 (48:47):
Rayah, this is so crazy.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Yeah. I wouldn't even know what was up and what
was down. Yeah yeah, whoa Okay? Part one with your Yah.
Can't wait for next week's episode with him. It just
gets more and more intense in my opinion, Lola, Yeah,
you had a thought that you thought might be a
good conclusion to this episode. What is it?
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Well, I I don't know if it I would call
it a good conclusion or even a well formed thought.
I have a vague thought which just what this interview
brought up for me, and you know, we'll maybe see
a little bit more of it in part two next week.
But is just how when when ideology is rooted in
(49:32):
just like feelings and just like what someone said is
true instead of like evidence or whatever, the way that
they are just so completely subject to transform into literally
anything because of what someone said or what someone felt,
and not because of anything it's just so striking to me.
I know this is not insightful in any way, but
(49:54):
like how their first group believed these like New Age
ideas and these Christian ideas, and then the second group
was like able to just morphit so easily, and then
his mom was so quickly was able to say, actually,
my ex husband, that's the demon.
Speaker 4 (50:10):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Like once once we're working in a realm of well,
it's just my feelings, then it can be anything, and
then any behavior can be justified, any action can be
justified because your feeling is present to make it justified.
Speaker 4 (50:25):
Does this make any sense?
Speaker 1 (50:26):
I'm having a little trouble, but I feel like I'm
just tired.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
No, I think I'm not making good sense. I think
it's my fault. I think I am the problem. I'm
just saying, like when beliefs are rooted in abstract ideas
that are put forward by just like an emotion or
a feeling or a whim of a human, like they
could change it any moment, and they do change at
(50:52):
any moment. And we see this in so many groups
where the ideologies are just morphs and morphs and Morse
and morse. Because it's not rooted in anything concrete totally.
And that that's just like something that always amazes me
about the human mind and about human groups is that,
like the ideology actually isn't really that important. It's really
only about is there somebody who's deciding that people believe
(51:15):
in and that's it?
Speaker 3 (51:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Is there somebody I can hand my authority to who
seemingly is getting super good information from something.
Speaker 4 (51:23):
From on high?
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (51:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (51:26):
And how and how there are new profits who are like,
actually I have it, Actually I have it, Actually I
have you know, you see this in Mormonism all the time.
Actually I'm the one. Actually I'm the one. Yeah, Like,
show me the proof, buddy, Furnish the angel.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Furnish the angel? What does that mean?
Speaker 4 (51:43):
Produce the produce the age is.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Not what you guys say it more, you know, I
just just give out.
Speaker 4 (51:49):
I'm out.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Okay, So if anyone would like your emerge that says
furnish the Angel on, it will be available.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
Wait, where is our merch available? We should do a.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Merch shout out yes bitt l y slash trust me merch,
which we always forget to tell you about.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
And also rate the podcast if you feel so inclined
to give it five stars. I'm full stars, great points, Lola,
great episode, Let's do it again next week, Finish your
Riya's story. Anything else to add, No, ma'am as, always
remember to follow your gut, watch out for red flax,
and never ever trust me. Hey.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
Trust Me as produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and
Steve Delamator.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
With special thanks to Stacy Para and.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
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Speaker 1 (52:51):
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Speaker 2 (52:56):
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Speaker 2 (00:27):
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Speaker 4 (00:32):
Welcome to trust Me.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
The podcast about cults, extreme belief and manipulation from two
demons who've actually experienced it.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
I'm Lo La Blanc.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
And I'm Megan Elizabeth And.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Today's part one of our two part interview with Uriah Westman.
He is the creator of a one man show called
Three Cults Walk into a Bar, and he is a
former member of you Guessed It, Three different cults. So
in part one today he is going to tell us
about the first one that he grew up in church
Universal and Triumphant, the group's combination of Christianity and New
Age ideas, and how much he believed and some of
(01:04):
the beliefs and rituals around demons.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
He'll also tell us about the constant demon paranoia in
the church, his family, and his own mind, how his
mom's mental health began to deteriorate, leading her to accuse
his own father of being a demon, and his parents
split that led him to cult number two, which we
will talk about next week.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes, there's so much to get into with Uryah. I
am so stoked that he came on the podcast to
tell us all about this because I feel like he
just hits every every type of cold to every type
of cultic thinking in his story and it's really really fascinating.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Also, great show.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
You should go show.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
If you ever get the chance, you should definitely go.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
It's he's doing it about every month, I think in
Los Angeles. But before we start talking to Uriah Megan,
I must know, Okay, what's your cultist thing?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So my cultiest thing of the week was just kind
of sitting with Uriah's experience and looking deeper into let's
call it, for lack of a better word, what's kind
of in the zeitguys cult hopping, you know, the tendency
to find yourself in a new cult, and there's a
million reasons for it. You know, you're used to somebody
(02:15):
having authority, which feels good because they give you certainty.
We're drawn into familiar dynamics, and do you feel special
and chosen and part of a higher truth. There's just
so many things, but it got me thinking about how
I think the main one is just that sense of
a little bit of control. And you really went through that,
(02:38):
I think with your OCD therapy. You did a really
specialized therapy and I'm just wondering how you let go
a little bit of control and if you think that's
also the main reason people find themselves back and also
just the unconscious minds, you know, always going to repeat
terrible patterns to try to fix it. Anyway, what do
(02:59):
you think about that?
Speaker 4 (03:00):
I love that question.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
How I like overcame that need for constant control?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Is that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Because I do you agree that that's probably if we
had to pick up main one. What really draws people
back in is that authority figure or you know, it
can be something as innocuous as like a financial guru
or a wellnessed person He's like, listen, you guys, I
crack the code and you can get just kind of
rest easy and like.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Who, yes, I answer figure it out certainty.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Yes, I think that's a huge part of it.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And I think there's a lot of conversation around the
need for community with colds, but I do think that
a need for a sense of control and safety in
the world is like a huge, huge part of I
mean we've talked about this a million times obviously, but
for me, yes, definitely. And it is so interesting that overlap,
which I'm sure our listeners are sick of hearing about at.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
This point, with those of the stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
But I will say, like it is a skill that
you have to learn to accept that you can't control
the thing. Like I had to literally like rewire my
brain to be like, Okay, if I have a psychotic.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Break right now, so be it.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Oh well, if I can't control that, I will just
have to accept that, you know, and like it's really
really hard work. But I do think it was such
an important skill to have just as a human being.
I wish that there was more of that skill sort
of built into other kinds of mental health programs, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Absolutely, I mean, did you just have to live with
like a constant sense of terror for a while?
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I mean, it's not like it's so weird because it's
like what you do in OCD is typically like the
like unhealthy thing that you're doing is thoughts oppression, right,
So you have to kind of run toward the thoughts
and allow them to be there. But it's a really
fine line between like allowing them to be there and
kind of letting them run your life. So it's really
(04:56):
learning mindfulness. It's really just the skill of mindfulness, like, oh, hello, thoughts,
there you are. I'm going to allow you to exist
in the background and allow that fear to be there
while going about my life as usual, which then over
time teaches your brain that it's not important that you
had those thoughts, so it doesn't have to raise the
alarm bells. Whereas if you have the scary thoughts and
then you retreat into yourself and treat them as important,
(05:18):
then it's like teaching your brain to be hyper vigilant
about those thoughts when they come up.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Does that make sense.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Right, Yeah, of course. Yeah. I had a really good reaction.
Like I got so OCD in high school. That sounds
really flippant, but it was ruining my life and I
would like skip school I couldn't eat. I just would
skip school to clean my room. And then they put
me on prozac and in two weeks I was like
a different person. But you know, you really need to
(05:46):
get to the root of the problem, which I haven't
really done yet. I tried to go to the same
OCD center as you did. Do you remember what happened?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I remember you, it didn't. I don't remember why you
stopped going, but I know I didn't.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Let me tell you. It's because I met my therapist
and sat on my curtain and the curtain rod fell
down onto my head. What It hit me so hard
and I like almost passed out a little bit, and
then I was too embarrassed stop it.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
That is not what happened.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yes, yes again, so so funny.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah, so I still need to confront the real issue,
but thank you for giving me a peek into what
the real work looks like instead of just masking it
with medication, which I will always take. But on top
of it, I would like to go a little bit deeper.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I mean, and I will say, like, you know, antidepressants,
like we know there's typically about as effective as placebo
for depression, but for OCD, I think there's better data
on how they actually are really can be really effective
for OCD.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Prozac and my brain go together like ketchup and French fries.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
So for our ketchup haters out there.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
That there's no French f haters in your world. Yeah,
it just like worked. So anyway, thank you for that rundown.
Should I ask you what your cultist thing is.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Or I'll just race through it really fast?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Okay, what's your cultist thing?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Okay, I know we're taking too long. Sorry you guys.
I'm just I feel like I cannot not address the
uh new administration's actions. So I'm just going to mention
some of the things that are undeniably culty.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
There's no other way to look at it.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
One Trump signed an executive order quote ending radical indoctrination
in K twelve schooling. The radical indoctrination being referred to
here is any teachings about race or the existence of
like transgender people or queerness. That's like the the specific
(07:56):
definition of what that means is totally up to them,
which means they basically this is giving them the power
to completely stop like any kind of education about racial
history in America, about like the existence of LGBTQ people
in case the teacher wants to make a student feel
safer by, you know, just calling them the name they
want to be called. Anyway, the way to foster critical
(08:19):
thinking is not too censor information to push your own agenda.
That is not what critical thinking is. That is what
they are claiming they are doing. That is the opposite
of what they are doing.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
It's very very clear.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Similarly, the CDC ordered government scientists to withdraw or pause
the publication of all papers set to appear in medical
or scientific journals so that the Trump administration can review
the material for quote forbidden terms such as gender, lgbt
or pregnant person. You cannot forbid terms in scientific journals
and have that not be indoctrination. That is literally suppressing education.
(08:55):
There's no other way to look at it. On top
of all the retaliation that he's been doing against anyone
who's spoken out against him in the government, including people
who worked for him in his own administration, including going
against what very conservative Republican senators are advising is He's
gone rug you guys, Elon's gone rogue and listen. I
know that there might be some listeners who like Trump
(09:16):
and I'm not going to judge you for your views,
but this behavior, these actions of this administration are fully
in line with how cult leaders behave and with how
authoritarian governments behave, and I think it's important to be
able to in a clear eyed way look at those parallels. Obviously,
this does not mean that Democrats are not guilty of
stuff as well. Of course they are. But this is
(09:38):
very unprecedented and in my opinion, very very scary.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I mean, it's just it's wild.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I don't want to talk about it too much and
overwhelm people because I know everyone's experiencing a lot of overwhelm,
but I just felt like I had to mention it
and we can go back to cults now.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Well, maybe we should talk to Uryah.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Welcome Uriah Westman to trust me.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Thank you for having me out, Thanks for.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Me in here.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I got like multiple messages about your one man show
that you've been doing called Three Colts Walk into a Bar,
which we had the pleasure of seeing last week. Well, pleasure,
and I feel like pleasure is a weird word because
it's like a complicated story, but like we we loved
the show, so we want to talk to you a
little bit more about your story and go into some
(10:31):
more detail about the three cults you were in and
arguably more of which we can talk about later. Let's
start at the beginning.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Your first cult that you were.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
In was Church Universal and Triumphant, right, Yes, were you
born into that?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yes? What I was born is kind of right after
they got the doomsday date wrong.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
And oh oh okay, yeah, okay, And.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
But still my parents stayed in it, Like my dad
was in it to the where he was donating ten
percent of all of his income to the church, and.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
He he did.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
He helped build the bomb shelters, and they were very
much in it until the end.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Okay, So let's talk about what it is. What is
this church?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
We almost arguably this church was like very much ahead
of its time, as it mixed being patriotic about America
as well with religious beliefs and then scattered in is
a bunch of New age stuff. Mark Lyle Prophet started
the cult back in the sixth season. So and they met,
(11:37):
and which is interesting is there will be a common
pattern of the cult leaders going to Boston University.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Okay, interesting, Yes, he was very.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Much influenced by the I Am movement, which was more
spiritual but also religious at the same time.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
I don't know what this movement, what is this?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
It's tricky to for me to try to explain. But
it's more of getting like a higher consciousness towards God
through decrees and meditation.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Kind of like the Rahm Das thing. But he would
have been kind of young at that time, I guess,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
When you pulled the Wikipedia as is the original ascended
Master Teaching's neo theosophical religious movement, which is a lot
of words.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Gott and this isn't Boston, Like that's shocking.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
There's so many groups that are religious and New Age
at the same time, which just like seems like it
wouldn't make sense together, but we see it all the time.
I mean, what were some of the things that you
believed when you were a kid?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
So part of the New Age would be like them
adopting the idea of chakras, where you have energy in
your body that if you're feeling negative thoughts, it's because
a darkness of a demon has actually entered your consciousness
and is feeding off of your light, your soul.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
So that would be what I believed in.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
And thought was real was demons, and my parents would
say that they're attracted. If you're negative, if you're angry,
you're opening up your soul to the demons, as well
as if you listen to rock music, if you see
violent movies. It's almost like their response to a new
generation of people growing up was this is their response
(13:27):
to like eighties music and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So was there a little satanic panic in their kind
of yes, demonic panic?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
If you will, can you give us some examples of
some of the bands that were considered demonic?
Speaker 3 (13:40):
So so many, I mean, Areo Speedwagon, Michael Jackson.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
What's interesting is I was able to figure out what
music was okay to listen to, and some for whatever reason,
the Eagles was fine, Oh well.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Okay, that makes sense, I get it.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Ever, listen to the lyrics is why do you have
to pay the doctor in cash?
Speaker 5 (14:04):
I was so confused by that.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
I having no idea that that Saul was about cocaine, right.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I think I think that probably the leader and the
adults just like the Eagles, and so they were like,
it's fine, that's my theory.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
You were a child of the nineties or ninety two,
So was like Celene Dion allowed was like.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Wow, honing straight in on Selene Dion.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Loan because moms love Celdia, you know, like religious families
like Celenion was a okay. In our family, it was
Selene and Shanaya, you know.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, yeah, okay, Yeah, that's a good question. Was Selene Dion?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
There was never any problems with Celen Dion. I do know.
We weren't allowed to watch Titanic.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Oh, well, there's boobs in Titanic, so that's fair.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Well there's also death, which do you think it.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Was worse than death? Megan?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Was it the boobs or the death?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
There's probably both?
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Okay? Was there any TV shows that were like that?
One's funny, like you can watch Wings.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Not really so a lot of Like the TV that
was watched was Zaboomafoo. It's a it's a as much
as I can remember of it, it's it's, uh, two
guys go in nature and there's a.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
A boon that's like maybe a lemur. I think it's a.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, okay, I feel like I vaguely remember this because
we didn't have real TV, so we only had PBS
most of my childhood.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Well, you guys at least had PBS because I had
no TV. I didn't know what anything was. Yeah, we
were cultured, Megan, Okay, so everything's kind of demonic, but
some things are allowed.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I want to go back a little bit though, because
I'm really curious about your parents and who they were
and how they kind of ended up in this group.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
It's it's so the past of my parents is very
like neither of them will talk about it. What I'm
gathering is my dad was already in Montana and Livingston
was like the base for where it was, and I
think with my mom being in Santa Barbara, California, they
(16:21):
also had a church there that they both ended up
because they're kind of still into the New Age religious stuff,
that they both ended up in the church.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
And when they built the large Royal.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Tetne branch in Montana, I feel like that's when they
met each other and the leader declared them as twin Flames,
which is the cult version of soulmates. Interesting enough, my
dad actually already was married with the cult leaders saying
that they were twin Flames and then got it wrong.
So it's actually he ended up with total three twin Flames.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I feel like by the second time, it's like, I
don't I don't think you're right.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
It's like you're a bad matchmaker.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I think it's quadruple flames.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
The two's the wrong number here.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Do you know if they did they convert to the
religion or did they grow.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Up in it? They definitely didn't grow up in it.
What I'm piecing together from both of my parents' upbringings
is for my dad, there's definitely I think physical abuse,
just as being a kid, like the classic like yelling
or maybe a belt if he was in trouble. And
then my mom is I think that the cult was dry,
(17:39):
so they didn't drink, and my mom's dad was an
alcoholic and I think he was abusive as well, So
I think there's both those through lines had them look
through look for a community and ended up finding the place.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
M makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
They really were looking for community. That's it's like a
theme kind of throughout your life. Do you know Killian Allenbacher.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Did he write Aragon?
Speaker 4 (18:06):
No?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
No, No. He was like a previous guest on this
podcast who was also in Church Universal on Triumphant.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Though I wish I'd listened to a few episodes, I
can't believe.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
I missed that one.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
It was a while back, but he was.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
He really was, Like he talked to us a lot
about the bomb shelters and what it was like, you know,
basically like playing in bomb shelters and constantly thinking that
they were gonna have to go down there because the
world was going to end at any moment. Is that
similar to your experience?
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Yes, So even after the prophecy was wrong, my parents
still especially with Y two K that would have been
like the next big one, but it was very much
so that at any moment the world could end. Was
how I fell.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Okay, talk me through this. So when was the first prophecy,
what was the date, what did y'all do when that
date came, and what did it feel like when it passed?
Speaker 5 (19:07):
So I wasn't alive during the first main one.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
My older sister was but just a baby, and I
think it was in nineteen eighty eight or something, and
they kept doing basically drills of going into the shelters
and then staying there. So it's almost like a constant
like the world is going to end sort of mentality
(19:35):
almost to the fact that I feel like is the
amount of money that they put into it. Amount of
planning is a sense that I feel like a portion
is they would want the world to end, so they
are right, same as like a fundamental Christian in the sense.
But afterwards, so when my youngest memory is actually of
(19:56):
the leader herself. I met her, and I shouldn't remember
this all because of how young I was. But the
detailed I remember the most is the intense eye contact that.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
Through each of the leaders.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
It was almost uncomfortable in terms of how intense eye
contact was, and forever reason. I remember that her pinky
toe was somehow covering her other toe, a detail that
I still remember pictures to this day. But I think
what it was it was the overall I could feel
(20:34):
that everyone idolized her so much, which as a kid,
I recognize that, and that's why I remember little minor
details are stupid things like that.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And you say her, because that's Elizabeth Claire Prophet, who
was the wife of the first man that you mentioned, right, Yes,
she kind of became the leader after him.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
How many people left after this failed prophecy? The first one, I.
Speaker 5 (21:01):
Think a lot.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
At its height is I think it was like fifty
thousand people around the world.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Yeah, Wow, And that is just an estimate.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Like they had their marketing down and had chapters everywhere
and they would do recruitment there. I mean, I joke
about the bomb shelters being built really badly, but they
had like real people building them and like a lot
of money into making them.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
So they definitely had no issue with that.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I remember it is because it would be the huge
retreats and then from there it was less and less people.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
Every time.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
It used to be hundreds and then it started being
less and less. So I would say thirty to forty
percent because they basically after the prophecy.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
She said they decreed it. Because they decreed.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
So much, which is the cult version of prayers is
they got rid of it and most people.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Just didn't buy it.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
They got rid of what the nuclear bomb that was
going to be set by Russia.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Oh so not only did it not happen, but it
didn't happen because of their prayers. Yes, which is tricky.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
A typical response to you when a doomsday or prophecy
does not come true, it's like, oh God, you know,
we did it.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
We stopped it, or God spared us.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
But it's interesting to hear that that many people left
because I feel like commonly, you know not I mean
a lot of people's day.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah, I think a lot of that was because so
many of them gave all of their money, sold their houses,
all this to build the shelters, and when that didn't happen,
they really had no way to live other than to
work and make money.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
That's so sad. Were you were they living in the
shelters or were they just kind of nearby?
Speaker 5 (22:56):
There might have been some like living in the shelters.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
There was a subdivision that we lived on called Glastonbury,
so that was all members of the church would would
live there.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
So I think a lot of them would either live
and work.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
There are off site that they could quickly get to
the branch if anything where that happened.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I think I asked this in Killian's episode, but can
you buy one? Like are they still around? What's happened
with the bomb shelters?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Do we know they're selling them? So it's oddly enough
when I would is that there's videos that you could
just look up on YouTube and people are just buying
them and converting them because when the leader died, they
never picked anyone else to lead and be the new
ascended master, and because of that, there's no one for
(23:53):
anyone to follow other than plain old decrees of previous times.
It was basically, I call it like the grit. They
were playing the greatest hits of what it was like
to be in the eighties and nineties, and most people
would just find something else because you have a dwindling community.
Mostly at that point, it's just older people that are
(24:14):
just there because they don't want to go anywhere else.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Right, heartbreaking. Was there benefactors that had a lot of
money or was this completely built on the working man
and woman's back, because it seems like these were expensive.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I would say mostly it was just small donations. I
don't think there was like like one person financing everything.
It's definitely if you wanted to be a main member,
then you would be giving ten percent of your income
to the church, which.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
My dad was, which is true in Mormonism too. I mean,
so many churches are funded that way.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
To make those mini bomb shelters is a lot of motive. Yeah, yeah,
I guess there's fifty thousand members, so go off Queen's
you know, they get both.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Was fifty thousand how many members or how many members left?
Speaker 5 (25:04):
So this fifty thousand is the estimated number.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
But what is so odd about everything is maybe they
could fit one thousand members in the bombshelter stop it.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
How did they explain that away?
Speaker 3 (25:15):
I don't know. I've read Prophet's Daughter that try to
piece things together. They never explain that in the book.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Oh my god, it is Titanic.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
It is Titanic. Yeah, I'm not going to be leo.
If I've spent ten percent building that thing, I'm getting
in there, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, when you're a kid, this prophecy's already happened and
didn't come true. But your family is like, no, we
still believe. Like so, what was the conversation around the
end of the world then?
Speaker 3 (25:45):
At that point it was still to make sure that
you decree every day keep your aura vibrant and be positive.
Otherwise the negativity would bring on a negative change in
our lives. So if we did ever feel bad, my
mom would get mad at us in the sense of
(26:05):
that we our own behavior would have ramifications on the world.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Oh, it sounds like the perfect recipe for OCD.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
If you have a negative thought, the world safety could
be at the stake.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
What yeah, Yeah, you seem like a very positive person.
Were you able to keep the negativity at bay as
best as you could?
Speaker 3 (26:32):
It's so funny that I come across as a really
positive person. But but that's great if I really take
my memories of what I remember in Livingstone. Was always
scared that there were demons and monsters in my room.
I would so, uh, the best I can kind of
(26:53):
explain this is if you if it's if you have
the lights on in your room and you close your
eyes and then open them up right away, those kind
of those like black dots that you'll see just like
flow the around. I was terrified that those those were
entities and those were demons.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Oh no, yeah yeah, And your parents aren't like no,
they're not. They're like, yeah they are.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
So that would be the good time to bring up
that my parents would use a sword that the cult
leader blessed that they would keep on the altar where
they would uh pray and decree, and they'd use that
to scrape it down my spy and that would kill
the demons.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I have to know, how hard of a scrape are
we talking?
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Not like very hard? I mean it was a doll sword.
It was like it's it would be the same as
like like a backscratcher.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
I would compare it to.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Okay, I mean that's better than literally like cutting your
back all the time.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
But Jesus Christ, did.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
You feel like it worked like were You're like, oh,
thank God?
Speaker 3 (27:55):
So if you felt like like I was particularly on
your spine, because that's where the main chalkras are, and
that's w your light is the little lake tingles those
I was told were demons. So the sword to me
was a comfort thing because it was a positive thing.
It was only till afterwards where I started questioning everything.
(28:17):
Did I realized that, oh, this is more this was
actually more harmful than a positive thing in my life?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Right, I mean yeah, it kind of sounds like somebody
comes in and kind of tickles your back every night.
But I'm sure once you start I'm wondering out loud.
Do you think that the leader was like, how do
I put this? Was this something that the leader encouraged?
And do you think it was kind of too unconsciously
(28:46):
scared children that your parents have a sword to your
back and neck every single night of your life.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
Question?
Speaker 3 (28:51):
So when they would do the retreats, is some people
would have swords, and they would do it in like
a like a pattern of making like an X. When
they're doing the decrease, they're releasing the demons. But reading
the Prophet's Daughter book that was written by the daughter
of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, she does not bring up the
sword once.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
In the entire book.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
But I've received dms from people on Instagram that saw
a clip of me talking about the sword, and they're like,
the same thing happened to me. So I actually think
it's something that just started happening and members started taking
it on as an extra step.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
If somebody scratches your back, now, is it triggering for you?
Speaker 3 (29:31):
No?
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Okay, cool.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I've talked about this a bunch on here before, But
I also believed in demons, but I didn't have it
to the extent where like I thought they were constantly
on me. It was more like I was warned that
if I were to sin, generally this was associated with
sexual sin, then they would, like you know, I would
wake up and I would see them. And of course
sleep paralysis is a thing, so I was just in
(29:59):
com to Terrri. I had sleeperrouses last night and a
little part of me was like, might be a demon.
I didn't see one, but you know, you get that feeling.
I'm like, might be a demon. Maybe you've been saying.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
If you put them in there early enough, demon theology
isn't going anywhere.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, Bran, Yeah stuck, it's in there. But it sounds
so scary to have that, like to just have this
like sort of constant paranoia and even just from negative
thoughts that like that that would conjure a demon, just
a negative thought. So if you were sad about something,
even just sadness, demons.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yeah, so, uh, I can't remember all of them. So
there's this decree book my mom would have. It's like
five hundred pages and in it is each of the
names of all the all the.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
Demons, and there would be a demon.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
So if you're gay, it's because you have a gay
demon that has taken over your soul. Same thing that
if you were addicted to the cocaine, drugs, alcohol, all
that is that is entity is taken overy for And
it's a long list of all these things basically is whatever.
And this is more like the religious like Christian Christianity,
(31:10):
all that of being homophobic. They just threw that in
that it wasn't normal. It's because there's an entity there
that has taken over.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
It's so interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
It's like Greek mythology, where there's a god for absolutely everything,
except that there's a demon for absolutely everything.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
And I'm pretty sure the names are Greek. They're definitely
like there.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
They they looked like they just took things to just
change it enough to make it sound like it was anything.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Well, it sounds like that's what they were literally doing.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Yeah, so what.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
They all do?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
So how did things start to go awry with this
group and lead your family to the next one?
Speaker 3 (31:49):
So kind of what ended up happening is when my
parents stop living together and split up, my dad wanted
to get custody of us, and and that's when my
mom actually started calling my dad a demon because we
were trying to take her away.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
Because a lot of the.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Things about why they had us this idea is that
we're meant to stick around in the church and that's
why we would have the kids, and that's why the
cult leaders named gave us the name of Riah and
then my sister's names. So because my dad was doing that,
she basically just turned the ideology of the cult on
(32:29):
my dad, which essentially caused us to leave Montana to
Santa Barbara the North Carolina, and then throughout the two
years or so, we moved back to Montana. And then
this is where I'm at this point. I'd be around
(32:50):
like twelve years old, and that's when my dad gets
full custody of us, and then we're visiting my mom,
who has declared Livingston Montana gateway to hell. Oh and
really is I feel like because this church was so
vast in its ideology, it was very very easy to
pick and choose something that makes sense to you and
(33:12):
then justify how you react and treat other people. I
feel like my mom genuinely believed that my dad was
a demon and that you would be in trouble and
this was the future. Almost to the world was at
stake if we weren't actively decreeing and with her this
(33:34):
entire time.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Can I ask what was going on with your mom
mental health wise at this time?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Right at this time would be when it really started
to decline.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
I don't know whether or not.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Mentally, I feel like there's she was never diagnosed with anything,
but definitely looking back, there is something wrong that was
never treated and helped with. She was very much a
horror so we would live in these environments just full
of just clothes. She would just buy clothes and never
(34:08):
wear them. I later find out that we almost never
had money for basic needs, but she was out either
donating a ton of money to the church or just
buying buying stuff wow, which I think I feel like
both of them are just more just trying to fill
the void of whatever she never dealt with as a
child and a teenager.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
What were your thoughts about her at this time? Were
you like, yeah, my dad is a demon and Montana
is a gateway to how or were you like what
this was?
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Right where it got confusing because it was with my dad,
And when I started being with my dad there started
just being stability with just knowing.
Speaker 5 (34:50):
Where I was going to sleep.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
What was like was big and I was able to
then because we weren't moving. I was able to make
friends and living living and everything was fine. So it
kept like when I was hearing the things she would
say and it wasn't reflecting my reality. That's where I
really started to question what was happening and started like
(35:16):
getting almost angry with it. But that's also where my
mom escalated and started having more fits of rage where
she was screaming, yell where I almost feel like she
had tunnel vision where she couldn't stop and just directed
all of her pain onto us, and particularly me because
(35:37):
I was the man of the of the of the kids,
so because my dad's a man, she also directed a
lot of that rage towards me, which she also used
movies to show how bad men are. I watched the
original IT TV series, so my mom would be like,
(35:58):
see how bad men are?
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Wow, the clowns show.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
I was going to mention that because that was considered
an evil movie in our house and the VHS I
thought was haunted. And that's so funny that you're now
that she used that. I mean, it's not funny, this
is terrible, but like that's terrifying.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Why does that.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Movie come up all the time with religious people but
it was not a man?
Speaker 4 (36:22):
How was this?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Like?
Speaker 4 (36:23):
How did she use that?
Speaker 3 (36:25):
It would be just she would see someone thinking that
if I saw another I guess it almost would make
sense that even if the clown was a demon, it
would make sense that it was it was my dad,
it was she would it wasn't that that's just one
of the other things that she would have us watch
that would make try to screw it. So my dad
(36:47):
looks bad. Even at this point, as I was able
to connect with my dad, You're watching hockey, and that
was as close as it would still not be, like
knowing much about his backstory, but as my mom would
be doing this, I would be bonding with my dad
through ways that would be outside of talking about the church.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Right, it sounds like he would he was sort of
your lifeline to some kind of grounded reality that you
really didn't get with your mom.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Yes, but I mean he was still would be like
if an ambulance drove by, he would quickly do like
decrees and stuff. He would always so when I talk
about this with him, he would still be like, I
was never in it as much as your mom, So
we kind of deflect almost. I feel like there might
be maybe a little bit of shame and regret from
(37:42):
how much he spent. But he's also now a Quanon
conspiracy theorist, so I feel like he's just moved into
another realm, which has made it harder to one. If
I see him watch hockey, because it'll advertise five g
and then immediately we're talking about how five G is
controlling our brains. So even stuff like that now, like oh,
(38:04):
and then during COVID he's like, oh, look they're shutting
down hockey because of COVID. It's like, okay, it's sports.
Let's just leave it as sports, dad.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
What does a decree sound like?
Speaker 3 (38:25):
This is what I'll remember is I called to Lord
Michael and his twelve legions of angels to protect the souls.
Speaker 5 (38:36):
Who are I get it, I'm butchering right now. But
essentially you have to say it out loud to give
it power. So let's say that you were.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Going to prayer decree and you're going on a plane
and you want to be safe, so you would be like,
I call the Lord Angel Michael to watch over this
playing to make sure that it's and crash. But you'd
say that out loud, so everyone would hear you.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Would you do it like at school?
Speaker 3 (39:08):
So there was only one time where I would do
it out loud.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
School was like very much.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
I substituted it or I sucked my thumb instead. That
was my coping mechanism. So like I would just like
pull up my sweatshirt and like I would think no
one would notice, but eventually people would know this. But
I actually only vividly remember decreeing one time because my
mom's cat went missing and I was petrified of how
(39:38):
she was going to react to potentially cat dying. And
that's the only time I vividly decreed myself.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
You were like, Michael, get me that cat. I cannot
have my mom freaking out tonight. Yeah, what an odd
thing to watch people around you do I, at least
in my religion growing up, You like, did it in
your head?
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (40:01):
I was just say I would.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
I would say prayers about stuff all the time, but
it would be in my head typically unless unless.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
I was alone.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Hello, Dear Heavenly Father, I'm thankful for this day. I'm
thankful for all these many blessings. Please bless that I
will get X.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
Thing that I want. That's how it would go. And
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ.
Say it.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I'm like, I just have a couple more questions about
your mom, because this part of your story there's just
so much going on at once for you. It just
seems like so much for a kid to process, because
like already you're in this religion that I'm guessing makes
you feel kind of weird at school and makes you
think about the end of the world way too much
(40:47):
and obsess over whether demons are around.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Like that's already a thing.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
That's like a huge, huge thing to be dealing with
at such a young age or at any age. But
then on tif of that, you have this like mentally
ill mother who's like kind of having a maybe a
breakdown of some kind like and it's not even like
a normal divorce where parents are yelling at each other
or whatever. It's like, No, your dad is literally a
(41:15):
demon and you're living in.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
A portal to hell.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
You also mentioned that with your dad who got some
like like physical like residential stability.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
Were you moving around constantly with your mom?
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Yes? So, uh from Montana. So I'll break it down.
Where we're in Montana. We leave in two thousand. Then
we live in Santa Barbara. We're there for maybe two
or three months until we moved from Santa Barbara, California,
all the way to North Carolina. Then we're in When
we're in North Carolina, we're in one house and then
(41:49):
we moved to another and then we're there for about
almost two years. Then we moved back to Montana, but
this time instead of moving back to Montana, this is
when my mom kind of realizes the gravity of my
dad trying to get custody. So we're sleeping even either
in the car or in a hotel, and that's when
(42:11):
she starts saying Livingston is a gateway to hell. So
that's why we leave the hotel to then sleep in
a car. So in this but even when we were
in North Carolina, I went to three or four different
schools because one time they redrew the districts, so we
(42:32):
were not we're at the school that we first went
to was one I have the fondest memories of where
I was more or less accepted and was able to
be myself and like tell jokes and that was fun.
But because we moved and at the same time they
redrew the districts to because we were living by upper
(42:52):
middle class neighborhood, so they moved it over, so we're
no longer being that school. So we went to another
public school until my mom got a job somehow at
a Montessori school, so then we go to another school.
So even if we're living we keep switching schools, where
I also just am done with trying to meet people
because I know we're going to move again.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah, I mean we moved like maybe seven times, and
that felt crazy. You know, I went to like three
four different high schools. But that is like on another level,
like how how did you ever feel grounded?
Speaker 3 (43:30):
I didn't, and I don't have this in the show.
But at the same time, we had four cats with us,
so no.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
Yeah, babies in like the.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Car, yeah, in a Honda Odyssey, one like the like
nineteen ninety. And one thing is I don't bring it
up in a show because I realized people love animals
a lot more than humans. Because also people are going
to be like, what about the cats? Cats were? And
what I'm forgetting is we were then in Montana, where
(44:03):
we go to Virginia Beach, where we're there for a
few weeks until that's when my mom gets arrested or
kidnapping us.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
Then we move again back to Montana.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Then even in Montana, we live in three different houses,
and then I'm traveling back and forth with my mom,
who also moves multiple times. So wasn't just moving to
different cities, it was just moving different houses I mean, so.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
While you're physically bouncing all over the place, what's your
emotional and I'll just say quote unquote spiritual state, like
are you still believing in any of this religiously or
what are your feelings on it at this point?
Speaker 3 (44:49):
So my mom would just wear headphones and listened to decrees.
So I would just kind of be in the back
of the van and look through So i'd pick up
at like the rest shops, like discounts on hotels and
like places we could visit. So what I was focusing
more on is looking out the window are different places
(45:11):
that we could that we would never go to, but
then imagining that we went there, and like how that was?
So I was very uh, it was It was fun
because I would I'd be like, hey, mom, this this
is the best deal on the hotel, even though it
wasn't at school.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
Yeah, okay, so your mind was kind of on survival
and the quote unquote demon thing wasn't really on your
mind as much as it was just coming from your mother.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
Yeah, because it was a lot of what we didn't
really know what was happening all this time, and it
and when we would just kind of go with what
my mom would say, but it was very much is
when my dad came and picked us up, we were
I was mad, I was angry. I was also confused
(45:58):
because I to the level did kind of.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
Believe that my dad was a demon.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
But it was all that would have like fixed things,
is if my dad just communicated to us what was
happening and why. I think it would have at least
we might not have digested it right away, but we
would at least had more of an idea other than
just imagining or like having our mind run wild with
(46:27):
what is happening?
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Right, So he like got custody of you, but didn't
necessarily explain that this that your mom is kind of
having this breakdown of sorts.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
Yeah, that must have been super confusing because.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
You're like, my dad is a demon, but like he's
also being really nice and we're watching hockey. Is that
like how did you kind of deal with that contradiction?
Speaker 3 (46:51):
I think my dad, because I also was a guy,
he was able to h relate to me by using
hockey and then using oddly enough super tramp. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (47:07):
I might even be like.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
Viewing the songs differently, but he's like the school song
that's about getting indoctrinated into the school system.
Speaker 5 (47:15):
I'm like, well, that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Because I was a class cloud. I'm like, I hated
these authority figures. So I think I just it was
one thing. I just stopped thinking about it after a bit, right.
And the biggest thing, though, was my my dad would
still yell and well, it was as bad as my mom,
but it was very much it felt because my dad
(47:38):
remarried and had another kid. It's still kind of like
I felt in limbo of who am I at?
Speaker 5 (47:47):
Who am I in this like dynamic.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
I wasn't my own individual self when it came to
my mom, and it seems like I was just kind
of there in terms of existing because basic things like
just like cleaning up after myself was just something that
was never taught. And if my dad was like, clean
up after yourself, my mom would be the exact opposite,
(48:10):
and that would be what she was. A hoarder anyways.
But it was the same thing with when I sucked
my thumb, my dad would get like hot sauce and stuff.
Speaker 5 (48:20):
It's like, we're gonna put this on.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
And then you're gonna stop and now all now it's
just like spicy food so it didn't really change anything.
But then my mom would encourage it, so it was
a back and forth with whatever my dad said was good,
what my mom said was bad. I wanted to play hockey.
My mom put me in ballet, so it was wow.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
Yeah, man, what a whirlwind of a childhood.
Speaker 4 (48:47):
Rayah, this is so crazy.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Yeah. I wouldn't even know what was up and what
was down. Yeah yeah, whoa Okay? Part one with your Yah.
Can't wait for next week's episode with him. It just
gets more and more intense in my opinion, Lola, Yeah,
you had a thought that you thought might be a
good conclusion to this episode. What is it?
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Well, I I don't know if it I would call
it a good conclusion or even a well formed thought.
I have a vague thought which just what this interview
brought up for me, and you know, we'll maybe see
a little bit more of it in part two next week.
But is just how when when ideology is rooted in
(49:32):
just like feelings and just like what someone said is
true instead of like evidence or whatever, the way that
they are just so completely subject to transform into literally
anything because of what someone said or what someone felt,
and not because of anything it's just so striking to me.
I know this is not insightful in any way, but
(49:54):
like how their first group believed these like New Age
ideas and these Christian ideas, and then the second group
was like able to just morphit so easily, and then
his mom was so quickly was able to say, actually,
my ex husband, that's the demon.
Speaker 4 (50:10):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Like once once we're working in a realm of well,
it's just my feelings, then it can be anything, and
then any behavior can be justified, any action can be
justified because your feeling is present to make it justified.
Speaker 4 (50:25):
Does this make any sense?
Speaker 1 (50:26):
I'm having a little trouble, but I feel like I'm
just tired.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
No, I think I'm not making good sense. I think
it's my fault. I think I am the problem. I'm
just saying, like when beliefs are rooted in abstract ideas
that are put forward by just like an emotion or
a feeling or a whim of a human, like they
could change it any moment, and they do change at
(50:52):
any moment. And we see this in so many groups
where the ideologies are just morphs and morphs and Morse
and morse. Because it's not rooted in anything concrete totally.
And that that's just like something that always amazes me
about the human mind and about human groups is that,
like the ideology actually isn't really that important. It's really
only about is there somebody who's deciding that people believe
(51:15):
in and that's it?
Speaker 3 (51:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Is there somebody I can hand my authority to who
seemingly is getting super good information from something.
Speaker 4 (51:23):
From on high?
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (51:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (51:26):
And how and how there are new profits who are like,
actually I have it, Actually I have it, Actually I
have you know, you see this in Mormonism all the time.
Actually I'm the one. Actually I'm the one. Yeah, Like,
show me the proof, buddy, Furnish the angel.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Furnish the angel? What does that mean?
Speaker 4 (51:43):
Produce the produce the age is.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Not what you guys say it more, you know, I
just just give out.
Speaker 4 (51:49):
I'm out.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Okay, So if anyone would like your emerge that says
furnish the Angel on, it will be available.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
Wait, where is our merch available? We should do a.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Merch shout out yes bitt l y slash trust me merch,
which we always forget to tell you about.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
And also rate the podcast if you feel so inclined
to give it five stars. I'm full stars, great points, Lola,
great episode, Let's do it again next week, Finish your
Riya's story. Anything else to add, No, ma'am as, always
remember to follow your gut, watch out for red flax,
and never ever trust me. Hey.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
Trust Me as produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and
Steve Delamator.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
With special thanks to Stacy Para and.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,
Twitter at trust Me Cult pod, or on TikTok at
trust Me Cult Podcast.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
I'm Ula Lola on Instagram and Ola Lola on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
And I am Megan Elizabeth eleven on Instagram and Babraham
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