Cults to Consciousness

**Content Warning: DV, rape, SA** Tia Levings discusses her dark reality in Christian fundamentalism, with evangelical patriarchy and religious trauma.  Having appeared in the Amazon docu-series, Shiny Happy People, and written a harrowing memoir, A Well-Trained Wife she reveals how she had to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.

Recruited into the fundamentalist Q...

Daniella grew up in the Children of God and Mike in Scientology. Together they discuss ways that the military, of which they were both in for many years,  is cultic and their differing perspectives.

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Find Mike!
YouTube: @mikebrown101
Mike’s Interview: “How Scientology Almost Killed His Elderly Mother”

Find Daniella!
IG: @daniellamyoung_
TikTok: search #grou...

Cait West was completely under her father’s rule down to all her decisions. She was told he would even make the biggest decision of her life for her— who she was going to marry. She was gr**med to be a submissive wife under the patriarchy movement and stay-at-home daughters movement. Her homeschooling was completely unregulated and not much attention was paid to her education, because her sole purpose was to be a mother who eventua...

Isolated in a cult within a cult within a cult, Ashley was completely sheltered from the outside world. From infancy she was labeled as unruly and even demon-possessed. Determined to break her as a toddler, then later brag about it, her pastor grandfather took it too far. She would be forced into submission and gr**med to be a “stay-at-home daughter” until her father transferred authority to her betrothed husband. This is how she a...

Scientology doesn’t believe in the young. They teach that they are trillion year old beings in small bodies. Therefore, they are not treated developmentally correct. Neglected, exploited for work and severely mistreated, they suffer the most in this organization. Serge Del Mar tells his story of growing up in Scientology and his advocacy work to make people wake up and listen to the lost souls who are begging silently for help.

At age six, Katherine Spallino is separated from her parents and sent to train for her future in the Church of Scientology’s clergy—the Sea Organization. She rarely sees her parents and never goes to a normal school. Later, Katherine is sent to live at a secluded ranch with other young prospective Sea Org members, called cadets, where she studies Scientology and does manual labor—weeding fields, digging trenches, and works in the g...

Raised by Scientology and forced into the Sea Org and labor intensive youth camps, Mike Brown didn’t have a choice but to be indoctrinated and used by the organization. After he managed to escape, leaving behind his mother and wife, years later he learned of the extreme elder ab*se that was happening. Determined to save his mother who was quickly being worked to death, he devised a plan to break her out and nurse her back to health...

The troubled teen industry has been in the limelight lately for its more than questionable tactics to “reform” kids. Add in a heavy dose of religious extremism and you have the sometimes fatal Independent Fundamental Baptist all-girl’s school Ashley attended. The most common sentence was 1 year of brutal manual labor, peer-inflicted punishments and psychological warfare.

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Find Ashley...

Disguised as a wholesome Christian school for troubled youth, was a house of horrors for those unlucky enough to be placed there. Diabolical and dangerous punishm*nts, intense physical labor left these girls scarred in more ways than one.  The documentary “Let Us Prey”, finally started to expose the secrets behind the walls of the school and within the IFB (Independent Fundamental Baptist) churches as a whole. Amanda shares her sto...

Joined for a second time by Mary (former Amish) and Hannah (former Holdeman Mennonite), we discuss the ways in which being gay/bi in their settlements harshly affected them and how queer plain people are generally erased from society. Bringing awareness and visibility to the LGBTQ community, they share their experiences openly and shed light on the disproportionate harm they faced.

Watch Mary's original episode
Wa...

*Content Warning : SA, CA, CSA, mentions of rape* After enduring an excruciating youth at the hands of her mother and step father, isolated on a mountainside, Misty was forced into an Amish settlement at 18 years old. Though in many ways this new lifestyle was far more liberating than what she was used to, it came with darker days than she could’ve ever imagined. Hurt and blamed by those most trusted she took a risk and tried to es...

*Content Warning: sexual assault, rape, prostitution, attempted murder* Due to lack of education when she left the strict Swartzentruber settlement, Naomi slipped into exotic dancing, prostitution, drugs, and almost getting murdered.  In this episode, she opens up about her trials and tribulations with growing up Amish, her dark reality afterward, and eventually finding the light at the end of the tunnel.

Naomi’s book:  Th...

*Content Warning: eating disorders, mentions of homophobia* In this follow up episode we’re going to continue with Oceana’s story growing up under the strict Institute in Basic Life Principles run by Bill Gothard who was recently exposed for preying on young girls.  She opens up about coming home from the IBLP training camps, her parents’ reaction, how it led to further untreated eating d*sorders, how all of the programming and IBL...

*Content Warning: eating disorders, self harm* Further shedding light on the Institute in Basic Life Principles run by Bill Gothard who was recently exposed for preying on young girls, is Oceana who grew up living by their rules. Extreme patriarchy, silencing and sexualization of women and blaming those who are being hurt, are just a few things that create compounded trauma. Oceana fought through untreated eating d*sorders, because...

The Independent Fundamental Baptist church is known for having extreme views on “worldly” things. Women are over-sexualized to the point where even the very young are blamed and punished for “temping” men into hurting them. Kathy was one of those young women. Her pastor purposely protected the perp and she was ostracized by family, friends and other church members. Our previous episode with her (linked below) illustrates the awful ...

*Content Warning: child sex abuse, child abuse, rape, mentions of attempted suicide* When purity culture is front and center in a strict religious organization, youth are blamed for being preyed on by adults. It creates an unsafe environment for those who don’t understand boundaries, consent, grooming, or have any s*x education at all to even have proper vocabulary for what might be happening to them. Kathy Durbin explains this har...

The cult doc “Let Us Prey” on HBO, highlights the issues within the high control religious group Independent Fundamental Baptist, of which Eric was a part of. From the covering up of predatory behavior of the leaders, to extreme patriarchal control which blames victims and breeds perpetrators, Eric walks us through what his life was like being isolated in this group until his adult years. Which eventually led him and his wife to be...

*Content Warning: rape and sexual assault* Yoga instructor Larissa Anderson took yoga “guru” Bikram Choudhury to court for s*xual assault and blacklisting her yoga business after Larissa rejected a s*xual advance by Bikram (who had r*ped her before).  He refused to promote her studio and she was blacklisted from the Bikram Yoga community.

At the time of the s*xual assault, Bikram had already personally approved her studio ...

“Guru” Bikram was responsible for bringing hot yoga to the states and popularizing it. Without realizing, Larissa Anderson was slowly groomed by her then boyfriend and yoga studio owner to seamlessly fall right into Bikram’s hands. He would eventually request massages from Larissa in front of hundreds of students and get more and more bold when they were alone together.

Larissa underwent the intense 9 week bootcamp-style t...