Joy Kuo and her husband moved to Sydney from Taiwan in 2000, and the couple both began working for the University of Sydney Library the following year. They both studied for and gained their masters degrees, and enjoyed their work. By 2012 they had had a son together, and Joy found herself wanting to help humanity in some greater way. She was looking for something she could really dedicate herself to in her career.

Iphigenie Amoutzias moved to New Zealand from Germany in 1996. She completed postgraduate studies in her new home country, and had practised Buddhism for many years. By 2011 she had reached a point in her life where something seemed to be missing. She felt that the modern world was lacking in connection, that technology was driving people apart, and that she wanted to be surrounded with a greater sense of community.

Both women came across the same new age group at this point in their lives. They had no idea that years later they would find themselves broke, emotionally affected, and questioning all of their previous decisions to become involved.

Special Guest: Joy Kuo & Iphigenie Amoutzias.

Full research sources listed here. You can support us on Patreon or Acast+, with a one-off donation, or grab some merch. Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is available on audiobook now.

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, contact Cult Information and Family Support in Australia, or the International Cultic Studies Association outside of Australia.

If you or someone you know is in crisis or needs support right now, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia, or find your local crisis centre via the International Association for Suicide Prevention.

Links:

• KF website
• Bad Vibrations – The implosion of a New Age cult — by Steve Kilgallon and Tony Wall, stuff.co.nz, July 2018
• NZ Cult List — Entry for KF
• KF Foundation webpage
• KF Chronicles — blog credited to Ananya Bhakt Niranjana
• Awakening with Joy — YouTube channel by Joy Kuo
• Joy’s Story — by Joy Kuo, via the Cult Information and Family Support (CIFS) website

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Grace J. Adams and Poia Alpha are two sisters from New Zealand, who joined David Koresh’s Branch Davidians in the 1980s along with their other sister, the younger Rebecca. Poia left the sect in early 1990, and Grace in late 1991. Rebecca remained with the group at the compound in Waco, Texas, and perished in the fire of April 1993. Grace and Poia have recently released their memoir, called ‘Hearken O Daughter’, and I caught up with them on a recent trip to Auckland.

Special Guest: Grace J. Adams and Poia Alpha.

Full research sources listed here. You can support us on Patreon or Acast+, with a one-off donation, or grab some merch. Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is available on audiobook now.

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, contact Cult Information and Family Support in Australia, or the International Cultic Studies Association outside of Australia.

If you or someone you know is in crisis or needs support right now, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia, or find your local crisis centre via the International Association for Suicide Prevention.

Links:

• Hearken O Daughter — by Grace J. Adams and Poia Alpha, 2018
• Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships — by Janja Lalich and Madeleine Tobias, Bay Tree Publishing, 2006

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Laura left Outreach International when she was 32 years old, having been born into the sect in the late 1970s. Hear her story as she relates the experience of being a young woman in a highly patriarchal and controlling organisation, the difficult decision to leave, the trauma of starting her life from scratch, and the joy that she's found in this new life – a kind that most of us take for granted. You'll also hear from other ex-members about their experiences, and where the sect stands today.

Special Guest: Laura Sullivan.

Full research sources listed here. You can support us on Patreon or Acast+, with a one-off donation, or grab some merch. Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is available on audiobook now.

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, contact Cult Information and Family Support in Australia, or the International Cultic Studies Association outside of Australia.

If you or someone you know is in crisis or needs support right now, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia, or find your local crisis centre via the International Association for Suicide Prevention.

Links:

• Billy Graham in Australia, 1959 - Was it Revival? — by Dr. Stuart Piggin, Lucas: An Evangelical History Review, no. 6, Oct 1989
• Letters to the Editor — Vision Magazine, No. 9, May-June 1975
• Salaries for ministers rapped by church founder — by Rose Simpson, The Ottawa Journal, Wednesday July 25, 1979
• Outreach International website
• Tony Kostas' personal website
• Seek Ye First — by Tony Kostas, Outreach International, 1975
• The Ultimate Attainment — by Tony Kostas, Outreach Media, 1983
• Building with God — series by Tony Kostas, 1985
• Led Into Love — by Tony Kostas, 2016

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In May 2017, a sect that started in Melbourne, Australia, 50 years ago, and has been highly secretive over the last few decades, decided to change its closed-doors policy and go public with a website. Whilst up until now very little has been known about the group except by direct conversations with former believers, its members go to government schools, attend public universities, and work in everyday jobs. They could be your neighbour, your colleague, or even a friend, and you’d have no idea what’s really going on in their private lives.

CORRECTION: There is a mention of the Book of David in this episode – this was a slip of the tongue, it should be the Book of John.

Special Guest: Laura Sullivan.

Full research sources listed here. You can support us on Patreon or Acast+, with a one-off donation, or grab some merch. Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is available on audiobook now.

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, contact Cult Information and Family Support in Australia, or the International Cultic Studies Association outside of Australia.

If you or someone you know is in crisis or needs support right now, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia, or find your local crisis centre via the International Association for Suicide Prevention.

Links:

• Billy Graham in Australia, 1959 - Was it Revival? — by Dr. Stuart Piggin, Lucas: An Evangelical History Review, no. 6, Oct 1989
• Letters to the Editor — Vision Magazine, No. 9, May-June 1975
• Salaries for ministers rapped by church founder — by Rose Simpson, The Ottawa Journal, Wednesday July 25, 1979
• Outreach International website
• Seek Ye First — by Tony Kostas, Outreach International, 1975
• The Ultimate Attainment — by Tony Kostas, Outreach Media, 1983
• Building with God — series by Tony Kostas, 1985
• Led Into Love — by Tony Kostas, 2016

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In October of 2013, the British organisation Freedom Charity received a call on their hotline. The woman on the other end said that her housemate had been held captive in South London for 30 years.

At the time of this call, Katy Morgan-Davies was 30 years old, and the period of her imprisonment was her entire life. She, and the women she lived with, believed that an invisible machine called JACKIE could control household appliances, read their thoughts, and would incinerate them if they tried to escape the man they called ‘Comrade Bala’ – who was the covert leader of the world, and, in fact, God himself.

Full research sources listed here. You can support us on Patreon or Acast+, with a one-off donation, or grab some merch. Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is available on audiobook now.

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, contact Cult Information and Family Support in Australia, or the International Cultic Studies Association outside of Australia.

If you or someone you know is in crisis or needs support right now, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia, or find your local crisis centre via the International Association for Suicide Prevention.

Links:

• Caged Bird — by Katy Morgan-Davies, Random House, 2018
• The Cult Next Door — BBC documentary directed by Vanessa Engle, 2017
• Aravindan Balakrishnan: the Maoist cult leader who used brutal violence and rape to strip women of their dignity — by Victoria Ward, The Telegraph, 4 December 2015
• Thirty Years in Captivity — by Simon Parkin, The New Yorker, 3 December 2016
• The Classification and Dynamics of Sectarian Forms of Organisation: Grid/Group Perspectives on the Far-Left in Britain — by Stephen Frank Rayner, PhD thesis for University College London, 1979
• Maoist cult follower: “I think he’s being framed” — Channel 4 News segment with Josephine Herivel, 4 December 2015
• The radical ideological background of 'slave women' suspects — by Jake Wallis Simons, The Telegraph, 24 November 2013

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Synanon began as an addiction support group that gathered in a grimy Californian flat in the late 1950s. It would grow to become a well-funded utopian society throughout the late ’60s and early ’70s, before declaring itself a religion in 1974. This organisation would attract Hollywood stars like Leonard Nimoy and Jane Fonda to participate in its so-called “Game”, and eventually break up married couples, force men to have vasectomies and women to have abortions, amass assets worth tens of millions of dollars, and become entangled in a web of violence.

Synanon’s leader Charles Dederich is often credited with coining the phrase “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

Full research sources listed here. You can support us on Patreon or Acast+, with a one-off donation, or grab some merch. Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is available on audiobook now.

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, contact Cult Information and Family Support in Australia, or the International Cultic Studies Association outside of Australia.

If you or someone you know is in crisis or needs support right now, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia, or find your local crisis centre via the International Association for Suicide Prevention.

Links:

• American National Biography: Supplement — Oxford University Press, 2002
• Self-Reliance — by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1847 edition, Wikisource full text
• Estimating Emerson: An Anthology of Criticism from Carlyle to Cavell — edited by David LaRocca, A&C Black, 1 January 2013
• Charles Dederich, 83, Synanon Founder, Dies — by Lawrence van Gelder, The New York Times, 4 March 1997
• Paul Morantz's website — with extensive writings by the attorney and investigative journalist about Synanon
• The Man Who Fought the Synanon Cult and Won — by Matt Novak, Gizmodo, 27 August 2014
• Synanon's Sober Utopia: How A Drug Rehab Program Became A Violent Cult — by Matt Novak, Gizmodo, 20 April 2014

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2018 marks the 25-year anniversary of a 51-day siege that ended in tragedy, following a shootout between the U.S. government and members of a sect called the Branch Davidians. The gunfire exchange lasted for well over an hour, killing four U.S. agents and six Branch Davidians, and wounding their leader Vernon Howell, also known as David Koresh. Yet this violence was just the beginning of an ordeal that would culminate in an inferno later to become known as the Waco Massacre.

CW: references to manipulative behaviours, suicide, murder, and physical abuse and sexual assault, including of minors. Please consider whether this is suitable for you and those around you who may be listening too.

Full research sources listed here. You can support us on Patreon or Acast+, with a one-off donation, or grab some merch. Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is available on audiobook now.

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, contact Cult Information and Family Support in Australia, or the International Cultic Studies Association outside of Australia.

If you or someone you know is in crisis or needs support right now, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia, or find your local crisis centre via the International Association for Suicide Prevention.

Links:

• The Sinful Messiah — The Waco Tribune-Herald's 7-part investigative series, 1993.
• The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation — by Dick J. Reavis, Syracuse University Press, 1998
• Breaking through the myths surrounding the 1993 Branch Davidian raid — by Lee Hancock, Dallas News, 27 February 2018
• Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectives on the Branch Davidian Conflict — by Stuart A. Wright, University of Chicago Press, 1995
• Four Years After the Flames of Waco, a Film Keeps the Doubts Smoldering — by Sam Howe Verhovek, The New York Times, 19 August 1997
• Who was David Koresh: Ex-followers describe life inside apocalyptic religious sect involved in 1993 Waco siege — by Muriel Pearson, Spencer Wilking & Lauren Effron, ABC News, 2 January 2018

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Over recent days, several of the 13 incarcerated Aum Shinrikyo members sentenced to death have been moved to new facilities, prompting speculation that their execution is imminent.

In this bonus episode, a follow-up to our third episode about the infamous Japanese sect, Let's Talk About Sects spoke with a woman who has researched the group for over 16 years, and has also been in direct contact with ex-members. Sarah Hightower (who went by the name Sarah Skibtower) was kind enough to share her expertise and opinions with us ahead of this big development in the “Aum Affair”, which she considers to be one of the biggest tragedies the world has ever seen.

Includes a correction from episode 3 about Aum Shinrikyo.

UPDATE: The death penalty was carried out in Japan in July of 2018. Aum sympathiser Kazuhiro Kusakabe left 8 injured on 1 January 2019 when he drove into a crowd of people in the Harajuku district of Tokyo.

Full research sources listed here. You can support us on Patreon or Acast+, with a one-off donation, or grab some merch. Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is available on audiobook now.

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, contact Cult Information and Family Support in Australia, or the International Cultic Studies Association outside of Australia.

If you or someone you know is in crisis or needs support right now, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia, or find your local crisis centre via the International Association for Suicide Prevention.

Links:

• Aum Shinrikyo Anime OP (English Subbed) — Aum Shinrikyo anime with the real audio (correction from original episode), featuring the voice of Shoko Asahara
• Japan prepares to execute up to 13 members of Aum Shinrikyo cult — by Daniel Hurst, The Guardian, 20 March 2018

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William Kamm has a 10pm curfew, and is not allowed to spend time with girls under the age of 17. He is prevented from entering the Shoalhaven district of New South Wales, and his movements and communications are monitored. These are conditions of his release after serving 9 years in jail for crimes he committed against two teenage girls – yet his followers still believe that he is the next true Pope, and that the Virgin Mary speaks to him on the 13th day of every month.

Special Guest: Claire Ashman.

Full research sources listed here. You can support us on Patreon or Acast+, with a one-off donation, or grab some merch. Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is available on audiobook now.

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, contact Cult Information and Family Support in Australia, or the International Cultic Studies Association outside of Australia.

If you or someone you know is in crisis or needs support right now, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia, or find your local crisis centre via the International Association for Suicide Prevention.

Links:

• Claire Ashman's website — where her book 'Lessons from a Cult Survivor' is available for pre-order
• Lessons From A Cult Survivor — by Claire Ashman, 2018 – book pre-sale link
• A WOLF Among the SHEEP: How God's Prophet the Little Pebble Became a Womanising, Millionaire Cult Leader — by Graeme Webber, KeyStone Press, 2008
• The Little Pebble: The Last Pope, A Man of Contradiction, Petrus Romanus, Sinner or Saint? — by William Costellia, self-published, 1999 (volume 1)
• Official website of The Little Pebble
• William 'Little Pebble' Kamm's supervision to continue — AAP, The Illawarra Mercury, 8 January 2016
• South Coast cult leader William 'Little Pebble' Kamm fails to have supervision order lifted — by Angela Thompson, Illawarra Mercury, 14 August 2017
• Cult leader and convicted sex offender William Kamm to be freed within days — AAP, The Age, 11 November 2014

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The Koreshans believed that the earth was hollow, and that humans lived on the concave inside surface of it. They theorised that the moon and stars, and indeed the rest of the universe, was contained within. On the outside? A void. When they formed the utopian community in Estero, Florida that they called the Koreshan Unity Settlement, a common greeting of one member to another was, “We live inside.”

Special Guest: Lyn Millner.

Full research sources listed here. You can support us on Patreon or Acast+, with a one-off donation, or grab some merch. Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is available on audiobook now.

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, contact Cult Information and Family Support in Australia, or the International Cultic Studies Association outside of Australia.

Links:

• The cellular cosmogony, or, The earth, a concave sphere, Part 1 — by Koresh and Ulysses G. Morrow, The Guiding Star Publishing House, 1898
• The Immortal Manhood: The Laws and Processes of Its Attainment in the Flesh — by Koresh, The Guiding Star Publishing House, 1902
• The Allure of Immortality: An American Cult, a Florida Swamp, and a Renegade Prophet — by Lyn Millner, University Press of Florida, 2015
• Author turns over every rock to reveal Estero’s Koreshans — by Dayna Harpster, Spotlight Estero News Magazine, 1 November 2015
• Cyrus Teed, Estero's Koreshans get their due in new book — by Amy Bennett Williams, News-Press, 19 October 2015
• The Teed House at Koreshan State Historic Site — Video uploaded by YouTube user Florida Trailblazer, 15 November 2013
• Koreshan State Historic Site History — page on the Friends of Koreshan State Park website
• Koreshan State Historic Site plans for future — by Maryann Batlle, Naples Daily News, 31 July 2016
• Sr. Marco Pagano's YouTube Channel — Includes a variety of videos about the Earth as a concave sphere, with over 500K views to date

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