On March 15, 1990, nearly 800 members of the Church Universal and Triumphant braced themselves for the end of the world by nuclear holocaust. And then midnight struck ... and nothing happened.

When a preacher says the world is going to end next week ... and it doesn’t ... there’s only one way to keep people believing: tell them a good story.

Stories of people raised inside insular religious groups. In this hour: escapes from an apocalyptic 'cult,' a New Age sect and the most hated church in America.

First-person accounts of people who grew up inside insular religious groups. In this episode: escapes from an Orthodox Jewish enclave, a polygamous sect and a Wiccan commune.

These days, Safran is a lawyer and advocate for women's rights. We caught up with Safran in August 2016 to ask how his relationship to his mother, Claudia, has evolved in the past few years.

Joshua Safran was born in 1975 into a coven of radical feminist witches. His mother revered a pantheon of goddesses, spirits, and energies, and was determined to keep her son out of the mainstream and off the grid.

Carolyn Jessop is a sixth-generation descendant of one of the most powerful religious families in Utah. At age 18, Jessop says she was forced to become the fourth wife of a man 40 years her senior, Merril Jessop.

Since his 2010 radio story, Twersky's exploits have included a radical makeover, a stint on Amazon's Transparent, and even a modeling gig for the men's designer, Duncan Quinn.

When Luzer Twersky was in his early twenties and already a married father of two, he decided to leave the only world he had ever known, a close-knit Hasidic Jewish enclave in Brooklyn.

The simple act of giving thanks before a meal is one of the most universal prayers, found all over the world and stretching back thousands of years.