Ep.10 The Family International

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to Hidden Cults, the podcast that shines a light
into the shadows. Here we explore the strange, the secretive,
and the spiritually seductive. From fringe religions to doomsday prophets,
from communes to corporate empires. These are the movements that
promised meaning and sometimes delivered something far more dangerous. I'm
your host, and in each episode, we uncover the true
stories behind the world's most controversial cults, the leaders who

(00:47):
led them, the followers who followed, and the echoes they
left behind. If you or someone you care about has
been impacted by a cult, you're not alone. There is help.
Whether you're still inside a cult or trying to process
what you've been through, support is out there. You can
find organizations and hotlines in the description of this episode.
You deserve freedom, healing, and a life that's truly your own.

(01:10):
Reach out. The first step is often the hardest, but
it's also the most powerful. If you'd like to share
your story and experiences with a cult, you can email
it to me and I will read it on a
future Listener Stories episode. Your anonymity is guaranteed always today's episode,
let's begin the Family International Part one. Roots of the Revolution,

(01:32):
the making of David Berg. Before there was a cult,
Before the allegations, the excommunications, the lawsuits, and the televised
survivor testimonies, there was a boy in California born into
a family already soaked in prophecy and contradiction. David brandt
Berg came into the world on February eighteenth, nineteen nineteen,
in Oakland, California. His childhood would set the tone for

(01:54):
everything that followed, a strange mix of apocalyptic zeal Christian idealism,
sexual repression, and missionary purpose. By the time he reached adulthood,
the lines between salvation and control had already begun to blur.
David was born to evangelical parents who lived their lives
by the literal word of God. His father, yalmer Berg,

(02:15):
was a deeply devout Swedish American pastor. His mother, Virginia Brandtburg,
was even more fervent, an energetic, charismatic woman who claimed
to have been miraculously healed after a near fatal accident.
Her story, a mix of spiritual, testimonial and dramatic rebirth,
would follow her into her career as a prominent radio evangelist.

(02:36):
For years, she ran her own show, reaching homes across
the country. With her mixture of personal struggle and divine intervention,
Virginia was the star. Yalmer by all accounts, was quieter,
less intense, But it was David, the youngest of three children,
who would inherit both their fire and their fragility. He
grew up on the road, following his parents from church

(02:57):
to church, watching as his mother delivered sermons and healing
stories to packed houses. He was raised in revival tents
and rented halls, learning early that religion was not just belief.
It was performance. It was spectacle. It was a way
to command a room, win loyalty, and create emotional allegiance.
But it was also, as he experienced it, a source

(03:19):
of shame. His mother reportedly punished him severely. His sexuality
was policed, his natural curiosity was suppressed. The moral expectations
placed on him, particularly around sin and obedience, were crushing.
David's early life was not just steeped in religious extremism.
It was also marked by instability. The family moved often,

(03:40):
there was financial stress, there were rumors of emotional abuse,
and there was David himself who began to exhibit signs
of emotional turmoil that would later manifest in destructive ways.
He was never far from the Bible, but his interpretations
of scripture grew increasingly personal, less about doctrine more about power.

(04:02):
As a young man, he attended various Christian colleges, but
struggled to stay enrolled. He drifted between missionary assignments and
low level pastoral work. He worked for a while with
the Christian and Missionary Alliance, but he clashed with leadership.
He was eventually dismissed allegedly for improper sexual conduct, though
the details were unclear and remained disputed. This early fracture

(04:24):
with formal church authority became a foundational grievance that would
fuel his later anti establishment theology. By the mid nineteen sixties,
Berg was middle aged, disillusioned, and looking for a way
to start over. He had married Jane Miller, later known
as Mother Eve, and the couple had several children. They
lived a modest life, sometimes struggling for money, but Berg's

(04:47):
frustration was growing. He believed the established church had lost
its way. He believed the world was hurtling toward collapse.
He saw in the chaos of the Vietnam era the protests,
the drugs, the breakdown of traditional values, a kind of
sppiritual vacuum, and he believed he could fill it. The
spark came in Huntington Beach, California. It was a popular

(05:07):
hangout for the young and restless teenagers, running from home, drifters,
spiritual seekers. Berg began preaching on the streets, railing against materialism,
war and hypocrisy and mainstream Christianity. But unlike the Fire
and Brimstone preachers who condemned the youth movement, Berg embraced it.
He wore long hair, he spoke their language. He offered

(05:28):
not judgment but purpose, not guilt but love. And in
this message of total acceptance, he began to find followers.
He called them Teens for Christ. The group started small,
just a handful of runaways and spiritual seekers, gathering in
borrowed rooms and beach houses, singing songs and reading scripture.
But Burg's message was different. He didn't just talk about salvation.

(05:50):
He talked about revolution. He said that the church was corrupt,
that the system was collapsing, and that the end times
were near. Painted a picture of a world on fire,
and then offered a family as refuge. This message resonated.
The hippie movement, for all its peace and color, was
burning out. Drug addiction was rising, violence was creeping in,

(06:13):
Disillusionment was spreading. And here was a man in his
forties who spoke with biblical certainty, offered free food and shelter,
and said, you are the chosen ones. He told them
that God had a plan, and that plan began with them.
From nineteen sixty eight onward, the group exploded in size.
They traveled in vans, performed music on street corners, handed

(06:34):
out pamphlets. They grew their hair long, wore bright clothes,
and quoted scripture with the fervor of prophets. Berg encouraged
them to break ties with their biological families. He said
the nuclear family was a trap, that parents were brainwashed
by the system, that only the family of God, the
true believers, could be trusted. It was radical, it was attractive,

(06:55):
and it worked. Berg began writing letters to his followers.
He called them mol letters, short for Moses. In them,
he laid out doctrine, prophecy, and personal reflections. These letters
would eventually number in the thousands, and they formed the
backbone of the group's ideology. They were vivid personal rambling
and laced with apocalyptic imagery. Berg saw himself as God's

(07:18):
end time prophet. He was Moses leading a new generation
out of spiritual Egypt, and in his letters he claimed
that God spoke to him directly, but something darker was
already forming beneath the surface. Berg's letters began to focus
more on sex. He argued that sexuality was sacred that
the church's repression of it was sinful. He said that

(07:39):
the Family of God should express love physically, openly, without shame.
He promoted free love among members, initially between consenting adults,
but over time the doctrine escalated. He introduced what he
called flirty fishing, encouraging female members to use sex as
a tool of evangelism. He published illustrations, cartoons, photographs, staged

(08:01):
images portraying his teachings as divine revelations. He claimed that
Jesus himself would approve that God was love and that
love was to be shared freely, even sexually. He said
this was part of the new dispensation, that the old
moral rules no longer applied, that the family was being
called to live beyond the world's laws. In public, these

(08:22):
ideas were wrapped in soft words, love, sharing, openness, but
privately they created an environment where coercion and abuse could flourish.
By the early nineteen seventies, the group had rebranded. They
were no longer Teens for Christ. They were now the
Children of God. They had communes across the United States,
Latin America, and Europe. They lived communally, pooled resources, cut

(08:45):
off contact with outsiders. They followed the Moe Letters as scripture,
and they believed David Berg, by now calling himself Father
David Dad, was the living voice of God. In Part two,
we follow the explosive growth of the Children of God
missionary work, the rise of flirty fishing, and the slow
slide into secrecy, authoritarianism, and systemic abuse. Part two Kingdom

(09:07):
Come Expansion, evangelism, and the rise of flirty Fishing. By
the mid nineteen seventies, the Children of God was no
longer just a fringe religious group preaching on the streets
of California. It had become a sprawling international network of communes, caravans,
and missionary outposts, stretching from Western Europe to South America,
from the Philippines to Africa. In less than a decade,

(09:31):
David Berg, now known to his followers as Moses David
had managed to turn a small, countercultural street ministry into
one of the most widely dispersed and deeply secretive religious
movements in the world, and with each passing year the
lines between evangelism, control and abuse grew thinner. At its
peak in the late nineteen seventies, the Children of God

(09:52):
claimed tens of thousands of members across dozens of countries.
The structure of the group was deliberately decentralized. Local communes
operated with a mix of autonomy and obedience, guided by
the constant stream of mo letters issued by Berg from
a rotating series of secretive homes in Europe and Asia.
These letters, often surreal, rambling, and heavily illustrated, became scripture.

(10:16):
They were read aloud during group meals, studied in depth,
quoted in daily conversation, and treated as divine instruction. Berg,
though rarely seen by most followers, existed in these letters
as a kind of all knowing patriarch, both comforting and threatening,
distant and inescapable. The early years of expansion were driven
by a potent combination of charisma, idealism, and intentional disruption.

(10:40):
Members referred to the outside world as the system a
corrupt and doomed civilization that would soon be destroyed in
apocalyptic judgment. To survive the end times, one needed to
abandon the system entirely, leave behind family, jobs, schools, and
all worldly possessions. Joining the Children of God meant entering
a new family, a divine family where everything was shared,

(11:03):
every hour was accounted for, and every decision passed through
a hierarchy of spiritual authority. Evangelism was the group's lifeblood.
In cities around the world, followers known as litnessers flooded
the streets with pamphlets and tracts. They sang in parks,
performed in subways, knocked on doors, and handed out gospel
comics drawn in house. They offered food, conversation, and the

(11:27):
promise of radical belonging for those who joined. The indoctrination
process was swift and total. Within days or weeks, new
members were renamed, relocated, and assigned roles within the group's
internal economy. The message was clear. The world was ending soon.
There was no time to waste. As recruitment intensified, Berg's

(11:47):
teachings began to shift. The early emphasis on communal love
and spiritual freedom took on a sharper, more coercive edge.
He wrote obsessively about the coming apocalypse, about the antichrist system,
and about his own role as God's final prophet. He
denounced governments, schools, and traditional families as demonic institutions. He
praised dictators like Francisco Franco and Moammar Gaddafi for their

(12:10):
anti American stances, and he warned that Satan was using
sexual repression to destroy humanity. This last point became a
defining feature of the group's theology. Berg preached that sexuality
was not only natural but holy. He claimed that God
intended for love to be expressed freely, without shame or restriction.

(12:30):
Monogamy was discouraged, celibacy was mocked. Marriage existed only within
the context of the family's shared life. Every act of
sexual intimacy, if done in the spirit of love, was
seen as a form of worship, and under this theology,
the group's practices took a dark and dangerous turn. In
nineteen seventy six, Berg began formally introducing a doctrine he

(12:51):
called flirty fishing. The term came from the Gospels. Berg
often quoted Jesus's line about making his disciples fishers of men,
but Burg gave it a literal twist. He taught that
women in the family could and should use their sexuality
to win new converts. This meant approaching men in bars, clubs,
and public spaces with a combination of flirtation, spiritual conversation, and,

(13:14):
if the situation called for it, sexual intimacy. Berg claimed
that sex was the ultimate expression of God's love and
that sharing it with a lonely soul could bring them
into the fold. He framed flirty fishing as a sacrament,
a sacred mission. He said it was an act of
divine generosity and that the women who performed it were
the true martyrs of modern Christianity, sacrificing comfort and dignity

(13:38):
to win souls for the Kingdom of God. What began
as flirtation quickly escalated. Women were expected to keep logs
of their encounters. These logs were often shared with leadership
and sometimes published in internal documents. The group bragged about
the number of men brought into the movement through these encounters.
Children born from these relationships were called Jesus babies and

(14:02):
were considered sacred. The MOE letters became increasingly graphic with
Burg offering detailed instructions, stories, and illustrations of what flirty
fishing should look like. The line between consent and coercion
became nearly impossible to define. Women who hesitated or refused
were often accused of pride or selfishness. Berg warned that

(14:24):
resistance to flirty fishing was a sign of spiritual immaturity.
He insisted that jealousy was a demonic influence and that
sexual possessiveness was a form of bondage. In some cases,
members reported being ordered to have sex with specific individuals,
whether they wanted to or not. The pressure was spiritualized,
justified in the language of mission and obedience, and while

(14:46):
flirtyfishing was most visibly applied to women, men in the
movement were also expected to practice sharing, participating in open
sexual relationships, and encouraging their partners to do the same.
By the early nineteen eight the doctrine had expanded further.
MO letters began to include sexualized depictions of children, disturbing,

(15:07):
detailed and rationalized as part of the family's liberated theology.
Berg claimed that children were sexual beings and that age
based restrictions were products of the corrupt system. Though not
every member participated in these practices, and some leadership figures
later claimed they were not widely enforced. There is ample
testimony from former members that abuse was widespread, systematic, and

(15:31):
justified through the group's theology. Outside observers began to take notice.
Rumors about the group's sexual practices reached journalists, anti cult organizations,
and government officials. Investigations began in the United States, the
United Kingdom, Brazil, Argentina, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Some communes
were raided, children were taken into protective custody. Lawsuits were filed.

(15:55):
Berg responded with paranoia and fury. He accused the media
of working for the Antichrist. He declared that the system
was trying to silence God's chosen people, and he went underground.
From the nineteen eighties onward, Berg became increasingly reclusive. He
moved between countries, living in heavily guarded compounds, communicating only

(16:15):
through mo letters and tightly controlled recordings. The group rebranded again,
this time calling itself The Family. The name change was
meant to shed the baggage of the past and present
a more sanitized image. Publicly, the group claimed that Flirty
Fishing had ended in nineteen eighty seven, but internally many
of the same dynamics persisted. In Part three, we follow

(16:38):
the movement through the late nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties,
as internal descent grows, outside pressure intensifies, and the consequences
of david Berg's doctrine begin to catch up with those
who lived it. Part three cracks in the sanctuary, descent, exposure,
and the limits of obedience. By the end of the
nineteen eighties, the name Children of God was becoming radioactive.

(17:00):
Media scrutiny, law enforcement investigations, and survivor accounts were beginning
to pile up. David Berg, still issuing his mo letters
from hiding, was no longer just a spiritual patriarch. He
was now a wonted figure in several countries, a man
whose teachings had not only guided a movement, but helped
normalize behavior that crossed into open criminality. The group had

(17:22):
already begun the process of rebranding, now calling itself simply
The Family, but the new name couldn't erase the old stains.
The contradictions at the heart of the movement were growing
too wide to contain, and the people inside, especially those
who had grown up in the group were starting to speak.
By this point, the family operated like a religious nation

(17:44):
without borders. There were estimated to be over ten thousand
active members living in hundreds of communal homes around the world.
These homes were often registered under benign sounding names or
local nonprofits. They focused on childcare, music, ministry, or community service. Outwardly,
they appeared clean, organized and calm. Inside, the environment was

(18:05):
tightly controlled. There was a structured daily routine of prayer, memorization, confession,
and work. Every aspect of life, what to eat, how
to dress, whom to marry, how to raise children was
filtered through decades of Berg's writings, and every question had
a precedent in the mo letters. But the children were
growing up. Throughout the nineteen seventies and early eighties, children

(18:27):
had been born into the group. By the thousands. They
were often called second generation members or SGAs. Unlike their parents,
they hadn't chosen this life. They didn't remember the early
days of street ministry or flirty fishing. They were raised
in the movement's schools, studied from its materials, and were
isolated from outside influences. In theory, they were the purest

(18:48):
expression of Berg's vision a generation shaped entirely by the family,
free of the system from birth, but in practice they
were also the most vulnerable. Many of the these children
were subjected to corporal punishment, labor expectations, and sexual abuse.
Though the group would later deny that this was ever
widespread or officially sanctioned, the accounts from former members are overwhelming.

(19:13):
Rules about modesty were inconsistent. Conversations about sexuality were not avoided,
but often encouraged in disturbing ways. Some children were shown
mo letters with sexual content, others were shared between adults.
There were lessons in obedience, cleansing sessions, and spiritual exorcisms
used to deal with dissent or trauma. The family had

(19:36):
by then developed a system to respond to potential whistleblowers.
If an outsider asked questions, members would pivot. If authorities
visited a home, it was scrubbed and sanitized beforehand, children
were coached, materials were hidden. Leadership often relocated families across
borders to avoid local legal systems, and because they operated

(19:56):
in dozens of countries with vague addresses and informal oversight,
this kind of movement was difficult to track, but in
the late nineteen eighties, Cracks began to form a handful
of SGAs now in their late teens or twenties, began leaving,
and they didn't just walk away, they started talking. One
of the most prominent early whistleblowers was Ricky Rodriguez. Born

(20:18):
in nineteen seventy five. Ricky was the biological son of
a woman known within the movement as Mama Maria Karen
zerby Berg's partner and successor. From birth, Ricky was treated
as spiritual royalty. His childhood was recorded in internal publications
where he was praised as a divine prototype for the
next generation, but behind the public image, his experience was dark.

(20:41):
He later revealed that he had been sexually abused by
adult members from an early age and raised in an
environment where boundaries were non existent and exploitation was normalized.
By the time he left the group in the early
two thousands, Ricky was carrying not only trauma, but a
desire for justice. He gave interviews, he published documents, he

(21:04):
named names, and then, in a tragic turn, he filmed
a video explaining what had happened to him, expressing his
anguish and saying he could no longer live without accountability
for the people who had hurt him. In two thousand
and five, he murdered a former member who had been
involved in his abuse and took his own life shortly after.
The case made international headlines. It shattered whatever insulation remained

(21:28):
around the group's image, and it forced even the most
loyal defenders to confront the movement's past. But Ricky was
not alone. More and more former members began coming forward
in the nineteen nineties and early two thousands. They described
childhoods filled with spiritual jargon and emotional manipulation. They spoke
of isolation, of being cut off from family, of fearing

(21:49):
the outside world because they had been told it was demonic.
Some had been beaten, others had been passed between adults.
Many had never attended school, held a bank account, or
received proper identification. They were, in a very real sense,
raised to be invisible. These stories reached journalists, documentaries were produced,
books were published, and investigators in multiple countries reopened cases

(22:12):
against the family. Australia, Argentina, France, and the United States
all launched inquiries. In some cases, homes were raided and
others members were deported. The family responded with a mix
of deflection, and partial apology. They insisted that the past
was misunderstood, that the doctrine had changed, and that current
members were raising their children in safe and modern environments,

(22:35):
and in some ways that was true. As the nineteen
nineties continued, leadership, now under Karen Zurby and her partner
Steve Kelly, began to change course. They distanced themselves from
Berg's more extreme writings. Certain MO letters were quietly removed
from circulation. Public statements emphasized the group's humanitarian work. Homes

(22:56):
were less isolated, children were enrolled in local schools. Rules
members were allowed to keep jobs outside the movement. There
was a deliberate shift toward normalcy, but the past didn't
go away. The survivors couldn't forget, and the world didn't
stop watching. Berg himself died in nineteen ninety four in hiding,
having evaded all legal accountability. Zerbi took full control of

(23:20):
the movement, though she remained largely unseen by the public.
She issued statements through leadership and continued to circulate edited
MOE letters. Under her direction, the group once again rebranded,
this time as the Family International. They said it was
a new beginning, a fresh start, but the foundation remained
the same. Internally, many members struggled to reconcile their faith

(23:43):
with the movement's history. Some left, others stayed but quietly
stepped back from leadership roles. Some convinced themselves that the
past had been exaggerated. Others tried to forget it altogether.
But among the second generation, the damage was clear. Rates
of depression, anxiety, addiction, and suicide were high for those

(24:03):
raised in the movement. Rebuilding life in the outside world
proved a slow and painful process. The things most people
take for granted, IDs job histories, basic education, were missing.
The trauma, by contrast, was always there. In Part four,
we examined the years after Berg's death, the transition to
Karen Zerbey's leadership, the group's attempts to modernize, and the

(24:25):
long bitter battle between public image and private accountability. Part
four The Shadow of the Prophet, Karen Zerby and the
Digital Exodus. David Berg died on October first, nineteen ninety four.
He passed away quietly, without the fanfare he once believed
would accompany his final days as God's end time profit.

(24:45):
For the majority of his followers, the announcement came not
in person, but through internal communication, letters, tapes, and carefully
worded memos explaining that their founder had graduated to his reward.
There was no public funeral, no media address, no accountability,
only a vacuum immediately filled by the woman he had
long prepared to take his place. Karen Zerby, had been

(25:07):
Berg's partner since the early nineteen seventies. To the outside world,
she was an enigma. To those inside the movement, she
was Mamma Maria, a spiritual mother and in time, the
queen of the family. She had always been close to power,
ghostwriting letters, coordinating doctrine, and serving as Berg's mouthpiece during
his increasingly reclusive years. But now she was the one

(25:29):
at the top, and her first task was monumental, transitioned
the group from a collapsing scandal into a sustainable future.
She didn't do it alone. Steve Kelly, known within the
movement as Peter Amsterdam, had also been groomed for leadership. Together,
the two positioned themselves not only as Berg's successors, but
as reformers. They issued new letters and directives that declared

(25:52):
a change of course. Flirty fishing was over, sexual contact
with miners was now banned, Doctrinal emphasis shifted towards spiritual outreach,
humanitarian aid, and online ministry. The rhetoric softened. The mo
letters were edited, redacted, and in some cases permanently removed
from circulation. In nineteen ninety five, the group formally renamed

(26:14):
itself the Family International. It was not just a branding choice,
it was a plea for relevance. The new leadership hoped
the change would mark a break from the past, a
signal to the world that this was no longer the
cult of David Berg, but a modern religious movement ready
to engage with twenty first century values. But for former members,
the rebrand only deepened the wounds. To them, the new

(26:37):
name didn't erase what had happened. It only made it
harder to hold anyone accountable. As the nineteen nineties came
to a close, the Family International began to reshape its image.
Homes that once operated as closed communes began to open up.
Some were disbanded entirely. Members were encouraged to pursue outside employment,
to integrate with local communities, to focus on project that

(27:00):
could be seen as socially beneficial. Online outreach became central.
Websites appeared showcasing the group's music, humanitarian initiatives, and spiritual teachings.
The language was careful, sanitized, and designed to appeal to
a broader audience. Gone were the explicit doctrines of sexual
freedom and apocalyptic prophecy. In their place were messages of love, peace,

(27:23):
and self improvement. Internally, however, the structure remained largely intact.
Members were still expected to tithe. Leadership was still hierarchical.
Zurbi and Kelly now rarely seen, communicated through email, bulletins
and digital publications. While some teachings were toned down, others
remained unchanged. The belief in Berg's prophecies, the rejection of

(27:44):
mainstream Christianity, and the idea of being a chosen remnant endured,
and while overt abuses may have slowed, the psychological imprint
of the earlier decades lingered. For the second generation, those
who had grown up in the movement, the tension became unbearable.
These were adults now survivors of isolation, manipulation, and often

(28:05):
direct abuse. Many were struggling with mental health, education gaps,
and a profound sense of betrayal. Some had never learned
how to navigate life outside a tightly controlled environment. Others
were dealing with complex PTSD, unable to make sense of
a childhood built around obedience and fear. The Internet became
their lifeline. In forums, blogs, and early social networks, former

(28:28):
members began finding each other. They compared stories, They named abusers.
They posted scans of mo letters, excerpts of teachings, and
long essays describing life inside the group. What emerged was
a kind of grassroots truth commission, collective survivor led effort
to document what had happened and demand recognition. Zurbi and
Kelly responded with damage control. They denied that abuse had

(28:52):
been sanctioned. They insisted that any wrongdoing was the work
of a few misguided individuals and not the result of
official policy. They highlighted the changes they had made, the
banning of child adult sexual contact, the shift in language,
the new community guidelines, But these changes came too late
for thousands who had already left. More importantly, they failed

(29:14):
to address the deeper trauma. The pain wasn't just about abuse.
It was about stolen identities, about being raised to fear
the outside world, about having your entire understanding of love, truth,
and selfhood filtered through the lens of one Man's theology.
Survivors didn't want reform, they wanted accountability. Lawsuits followed, some

(29:35):
were dismissed, others ended in quiet settlements. The group's diffuse
structure made legal action difficult. Many of the key leaders
were outside the reach of local jurisdictions, and because so
many of the crimes occurred in countries without strict child
protection laws at the time, prosecution was inconsistent at best. Still,
the survivors pressed forward. They gave interviews, they published memoirs,

(29:59):
they made document entries. Slowly, the veil of secrecy was
torn away. By the early two thousands, the Family International
was a shell of its former self. Membership had declined sharply,
communes had mostly dissolved. The days of globe spanning evangelism,
of public concerts and mo letters were gone. What remained
was a decentralized spiritual community with little visibility and even

(30:22):
less relevance. The leadership, now entirely online, offered spiritual materials,
approved blogs, and links to charitable causes, but the fire
was gone. The few who remained loyal were mostly older members,
those who had been with Berg in the early days,
or who had weathered every controversy with unshakable faith. For them,
the new version of the movement was not a betrayal,

(30:43):
but a correction, a return to the core message of
love and service. But even they could not deny that
something had broken outside. The Group's legacy was being redefined
by those who had escaped it. In books, podcasts, and
public talk, survivors painted a picture that Zerbi and Kelly
could no longer counter. This wasn't just about a few

(31:06):
bad actors. It was about a system built on secrecy, obedience,
and exploitation. It was about a prophet who claimed divine
authority while hiding from the world. It was about a
generation of children taught to call their abusers uncle and auntie,
who grew up knowing that saying no meant losing everything.
In Part five, we turned to the long Road of recovery,

(31:29):
how survivors built lives outside the movement, how the media
finally caught up with the truth, and how the Family
International faded from view while its victims continued to demand justice.
Part five Aftermath Survivors Reckoning in the Long Road to Recovery.

(31:51):
In the years following the group's rebranding as the Family International,
a quiet exodus continued For most outsiders, the movement had
already slipped out of public consciousness. The headlines had faded,
the homes had been disbanded, the last wave of lawsuits
had gone quiet. But for those who had grown up inside,
the real work was just beginning. Because survival was not

(32:13):
the same as recovery, and leaving was not the same
as healing. For many second generation members, those born or
raised within the group, the process of building a life
outside the family was disorienting and deeply painful. The rules
they had lived by no longer applied. The authority they
once feared no longer held sway. But the trauma didn't

(32:34):
vanish with freedom. It followed them into adulthood like a
shadow they couldn't outrun. Some had no high school education.
Others had no personal identification, no social skills, no concept
of financial independence. Everything they knew about love, trust, and
morality had been shaped by a system built on control,
and that control hadn't always come in the form of

(32:56):
direct violence. Sometimes it was simply the belief that the
out side world was wicked, that people who left were doomed,
that anyone who questioned leadership was siding with the devil.
These internalized fears didn't disappear overnight. Even after walking away
from the group physically, many survivors found that the group
still lived in them, echoing in their thoughts, shaping their instincts,

(33:20):
haunting their dreams. Throughout the late nineteen nineties and into
the two thousands, former members began connecting through early message
boards and private email lists. Some were hesitant, unsure if
they could trust others who had lived inside the same system.
Others were angry at Berg, at Zerbi, at the people
who had enabled the abuse, and at themselves for not

(33:41):
seeing it sooner. Slowly, communities began to form. Forums became lifelines.
First names turned into shared memories. Details confirmed what many
had once feared were false memories. For the first time,
survivors had language for what had happened to them. They
talked about grooming, coercive control, emotional incest. They traded notes

(34:02):
about therapy. They posted scans of the MO letters, exposing
the teachings that had shaped their childhoods. They laughed, they cried,
They sometimes fought, but most importantly, they found each other.
The psychological burden many of them carried was immense anxiety
depression complex PTSD, self harm, addiction. Some had gone years

(34:23):
without understanding that what they'd experienced was abuse, because it
had been framed as love, as spiritual growth, as obedience
to God, and when they tried to explain it to
people outside the group, they often met disbelief. How could
something so extreme happen in so many countries to so
many people for so long, But it had, and now

(34:44):
the survivors were forcing the world to see it. Some
began writing books, memoirs that pulled no punches, detailing not
only the systemic abuse, but the day to day life
inside the movement, how meals were eaten, how prayers were recited,
how confessions were forced. Others appeared in documentaries and investigative reports.
They showed childhood photos. They described flirty fishing, not as

(35:06):
theory but as memory. They gave names. Some of those
named denied wrongdoing. Others simply disappeared. A few even apologized,
though rarely in public. For many survivors, justice proved elusive.
Legal systems in various countries were limited by statutes of limitations,
lack of evidence, or bureaucratic complexity. By the time many

(35:27):
victims were ready to come forward, too much time had passed.
Some alleged perpetrators had fled, died, or changed their identities.
Others had reintegrated into society, quietly burying their past. Even
when survivors had proof documents, testimonies, photographs, prosecutors often declined
to pursue cases, citing the challenges of trying crimes that

(35:48):
had occurred under the guise of religious practice in foreign jurisdictions. Still,
the survivors pressed on. They turned the media, to advocacy organizations,
to podcasts and blogs. They told their stories over and
over again, not because it was easy, but because it mattered,
because silence had protected their abusers for too long, and

(36:08):
because they knew there were others still living in the
echo chamber of that childhood, too afraid or ashamed to speak.
Some survivors became advocates, working to support others from high
control religious groups. They spoke at conferences. They partnered with
cult recovery therapists. They created educational content to warn the
public about the warning signs of coercive spirituality. In doing so,

(36:30):
they helped reframe the public conversation around cults not just
as groups with strange beliefs, but as systems of control
that weaponized trust and love. Meanwhile, the Family International continued
its slow retreat from visibility. By the twenty tens, the
group had all but abandoned its communal structure. It no

(36:50):
longer claimed thousands of active members. Instead, it presented itself
as a loose spiritual network. Its website featured generic messages
about God, love and personal growth. The most controversial aspects
of its past were either omitted or glossed over. A
few legacy publications remained carefully edited to remove incriminating content.

(37:12):
Zurbi and Kelly remained the spiritual heads of the group,
but they were almost entirely absent from the public sphere.
They issued occasional updates to a dwindling number of loyal followers,
many of whom were aging and disconnected from the digital
world that had exposed so much. But erasure wasn't possible anymore.
Too much had been documented, too many voices had spoken,

(37:33):
too many survivors had refused to be silenced. The story
of the Family International could no longer be told by
its leadership. It now belonged to the people who had
lived through it, and they weren't just telling it, they
were owning it for the survivors. Healing remains an ongoing process.
Some found peace and faith, Others walked away from religion entirely.

(37:55):
Some found it through therapy, through community, through art. Others
still struggle, caught between a world that never quite understood
them and a past that refuses to stay quiet. But
in speaking out, they've reclaimed something precious, agency, identity, and
the truth. In Part six, we look at what remains,
what the Family International looks like today, how the next

(38:15):
generation remembers or forgets, and what this long, painful story
tells us about power, belief and the cost of unquestioning devotion.
Part six The Quiet End, Legacy, denial, and the long Fade.
By the early twenty tens, the Family International had become
almost invisible. It still existed technically. The website was up,
the leadership issued sporadic newsletters. There were a few people

(38:39):
still calling themselves members scattered across countries and continents. But
the movement that had once spanned dozens of nations, claimed
thousands of followers, and attracted global controversy had all but
disappeared from public life. What remained wasn't a cult or
a religion or a movement. It was a shell, a name,
a lingering ghost of a story too painful for most

(38:59):
to revisit and too strange for anyone else to fully understand.
It wasn't a sudden collapse. It was more like a
slow implosion, one loss at a time. The Family had
already rebranded twice, first in nineteen eighty two, when it
distanced itself from its earliest practices and adopted the name
of the Family, then again in two thousand and four,
as it tried to shed the past entirely and become

(39:21):
the Family International. Each rebrand came with a promise that
the group had changed, matured, evolved, but the past never
really went away. It hung in the air around every
public statement, every public denial, every softly worded press release.
By the time the group had filtered its theology down
to vague Christian platitudes and online devotionals, it had already

(39:43):
lost the only thing it ever had, its narrative control.
For a group once obsessed with secrecy, the Internet had
proven its undoing. In earlier decades. The Family operated behind
closed doors inside communal homes with strict internal oversight. Outside
side scrutiny could be dodged with border crossings and name changes,

(40:03):
but when former members started posting their stories online. The
Family couldn't outpace the truth blogs, video testimonies, court documents,
leaked MO letters. There was no putting that back in
the bottle. The leadership tried. Karen Zurby and Steve Kelly,
still in charge but no longer in public view, made
every effort to fade without admitting defeat. By two thousand

(40:25):
and nine, they announced that the group was decentralizing entirely.
Members were free to live independently, can hold outside jobs,
and define their own expressions of faith. No more tithes,
no more communal mandates, no more directives from on high.
The Family International was in effect disbanded, though the word
was never used. To longtime outsiders, it may have looked

(40:47):
like a responsible evolution, but for survivors it felt like
abandonment without apology. There was no reckoning, no public admission
of what had happened to thousands of children inside the movement,
no office atonement for the years of abuse, control and trauma.
Just a quiet side step, a retreat into vagueness, and

(41:08):
an ongoing refusal to say the one thing that would
matter most, We were wrong. That silence has been the
final betrayal. Survivors spent years waiting for acknowledgment, waiting for
Zerbe to speak plainly, for Kelly to step forward, for
the group to release a clear statement that didn't hide
behind passive voice or deflect blame onto isolated incidents. It
never came. Instead, the family's website shifted again, this time

(41:31):
to a sparse page offering general spiritual encouragement and a
few vague mission updates. Gone were the old MOE letters,
Gone was the sexual theology. Gone was anything that might
resemble a memory. But memories didn't go away for those
who lived them. The second generation, the children raised inside,
grew into adults marked by pain that never quite settled.

(41:54):
Some went to therapy, some struggled with addiction. Some disappeared,
Some took their lives. Others became advocates, refusing to let
the silence win. They wrote books, gave interviews, created support
groups for others who'd survived coercive religious environments. They shared
photos from inside the communes, described punishments, recited scriptures once

(42:14):
burned into their memories. For them, healing came in pieces,
never linear, never complete, but defiantly real. A few tried
to stay in touch with former members who had remained loyal.
These interactions were often painful. The loyalists spoke of spiritual growth,
of cleansing, of forgiveness. They said the group had moved on,

(42:35):
that it had changed, but change without accountability was not healing,
and for the ones who had grown up in the
group's care, no amount of rebranding could rewrite the facts
of their childhoods. Even among the loyalists, belief became a
solitary act. Without community infrastructure, without the common language of
the old letters, the Family ceased to function as a movement.

(42:57):
It became an echo, a belief that no longer organized lives,
just occupied them. For some, it brought comfort, for others shame.
The group's final act, it seems, was disappearance, But disappearance
is not the same as closure. The Family International may
no longer exist as a functioning organization, but its legacy

(43:17):
is still being written, not by its leaders but by
its former members, not in hidden letters but in public forums,
not through prophecy, but through testimony. And that legacy is
not just a cautionary tale about cult dynamics. It's a
living document about the costs of silence, the resilience of
survivors and the deep human need to reclaim a story

(43:38):
once stolen. What the Family teaches us, perhaps more than
any group we've covered, is that the worst damage done
by belief isn't always what's shouted from pulpits. Sometimes it's
what's whispered in bedrooms, what's justified in secret, what's hidden
behind the language of love. And when those systems finally collapse,
the people left standing in the rubble aren't just rebuilding

(43:59):
their lives, they're rewriting the truth. In our next episode,
we shift to another spiritual revolution, one born not in
secrecy but in spectacle, a movement that swept through India
and into the American West with open arms, luxury watches,
and a philosophy of radical freedom. But beneath the orange
robes and meditation halls lay a world of manipulation, surveillance,

(44:22):
and bioterror. Join us next time on Hidden Cults as
we unravel the rise and fall of the Ragniche movement
and the man who called himself Oh Show. That's next time.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep.10 The Family International

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

The Joe Rogan Experience

All Episodes

Ep.10 The Family International

On Purpose with Jay Shetty