By high school, church wasn't just Shannon McElroy's faith, it was her community and her future. She was going to be a Christian counselor.

Then her youth group took her to something called "Acquire the Fire": a massive Christian youth conference that was part rock concert, part revival, and for Shannon, one hell of a spiritual high.

Before long, she'd be leaving college to join Teen Mania's Honor Academy. A year-long "internship" in rural Texas that promised purpose, ministry, and a chance to change the world. All she had to do was pay hundreds of dollars a month for the privilege of working for them... for free.

All she had to do was pay hundreds of dollars a month for the privilege of working for them... for free.

As you can imagine, what Shannon thought she'd signed up for was not exactly what she got.

Like the retreat where they simulated a prison and made her do wall sits. For Jesus.

And that was just one of their so-called "Life Transforming Events."

Now, to be fair, they did transform her. Just not the way it said in the brochure.

Twenty-five years later, Shannon, now a professor, therapist and social worker, still finds herself untangling from what one very intense year at Teen Mania instilled in her.

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FOLLOW SHANNONWebsite → mendedbeing.com Instagram → @mendedbeingcounselingllc Facebook → Mended Being

More Teen Mania stories → Recovering Alumni

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Daniella Mestyanek Young was born three generations deep into the Children of God and today, she finally gets out.

At 15-years-old, she lands in Texas with no real education, no money and no friggin' idea how life on the outside works.

But true to form, she badasses her way through it. And excels.

Somehow, the girl who escaped one extreme, hierarchical world becomes an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, deploys to Afghanistan, and helps make history for women in combat.

But on her very first day of basic training she thinks:

"Oh... I've joined another cult."

Part Two of Daniella's incredible story is about what happens after you escape.

Because getting out of a cult is one thing.

Figuring out who the hell you are once you're free is another.

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FOLLOW DANIELLAHer website → Knitting Cult Lady Instagram → @daniellamyoung_ YouTube → @KnittingCultLady Her books, Uncultured and The Culting of America → here

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Daniella Mestyanek Young was born three generations deep into the Children of God, yet somehow, that was only the beginning.

She would go on to become a US Army intelligence officer, help make history for women in combat, become Harvard educated in organizational psychology, and write two books.

But first, she had to survive her childhood.

In Part One, Daniella takes us inside the Children of God world she was born into: child labor, child performers, massive communes, David Berg's increasingly deranged teachings, and a family history so complicated Daniella has a name for it... sex cult math.

And one rainy day at 12 years old, one casual comment from her mother about glasses changed what Daniella thought she knew about her own family forever.

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FOLLOW DANIELLAHer website → Knitting Cult Lady Instagram → @daniellamyoung_ YouTube → @KnittingCultLady Her books, Uncultured and The Culting of America → here

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At 21, Stephanie Vaughn wanted to make some extra money. Then she won a "raffle" at her gym for a free case of energy drinks.

Lucky her, that free case won her entry into one of the biggest and most influential MLMs in the world...

AMWAY.

And the Amway lead her to the LTD, the Amway-affiliated training organization Stephanie says would eventually take over nearly every part of her life.

For nine years, Stephanie chased the promise of becoming a "Diamond": financial freedom, early retirement, and the life she was told was waiting for her if she just worked hard enough.

Instead she endured control on every level, including how much she slept, when she could visit family and even... who she was allowed to love.

FOLLOW STEPHANIE

Instagram: @steph.vaughan

TikTok: @steph.vaughan

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Every cult calls itself a family. Audrey's actually was one. For Audrey, there was no guru, no religious doctrine, and the only members were her ten other siblings. And the leader? Her parents, particularly her mother. But from the outside, they looked pretty "normal": a big family living in an ordinary Idaho subdivision, houses close together, neighbors on all sides. Except not one of them was ever allowed to have a friend. And eventually, they weren't allowed to have interactions with anyone outside the family. As the isolation tightened, Audrey got older and increasingly aware that the outside world looked nothing like the one she'd been taught to fear. At 18, she finally made it to community college, where little tastes of independence began to crack open everything she'd been raised to believe. And eventually, one small act of defiance would force her to make an enormous choice: follow her parents rules, or lose her family.

When Audrey finally left in 2020, she thought the separation from her siblings would be temporary. Six years later, nine of them are still living in the family home, cut off from their big sister.

So now Audrey has stopped waiting.

She's taking matters into her own hands, finding increasingly creative, and at times risky, ways to remind her siblings that she's still out there... that there is life beyond the front door.

A big, messy, beautiful world they've barely been allowed to see. And when they're ready to walk into it, their big sis will be there, waiting with open arms.

_________________

FOLLOW AUDREY Follow her story as it unfolds → TikTok @audreyinreallife

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**NOTE: This episode originally aired in 2024, but a LOT has happened inside this cult since then. None of it surprising, all of it sick, and we'll fill you in on all of it. Jason Christian was born into Gloriavale — a self-proclaimed utopic Christian community of more than 500 people on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. His grandfather, Hopeful Christian, was the leader. Shut out from the outside world and forced to work on the farm at the age of six, Jason was primed to live a life without actual freedom, as this group of true believers was all he knew. But when it was time for him to marry a woman in the community that was chosen for him, Jason made a different choice. ____________________________

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Everyone gathered on the deck the day Yo promised the mothership was finally coming. They waited… but alas, it never came.

In PART 2, the magical fairy tale capsizes. Laurien becomes one of Yo's chosen women, and soon finds out exactly what that costs.

And when she finally tries to leave, they abandon her at a foreign train station with a stolen passport, no money, and 25 cents for a phone call.

She got out. But getting out wasn't the end. Decades later, the experience still leaves her caught somewhere between grief and longing, showing us all just how powerful belief can be. Especially when it's backlit by yachts, beautiful people and the glistening sea.

The group, by the way, is still going strong, but mostly on land now, in an apartment complex in Ibiza. Cult paella anyone??

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FOLLOW LAURIEN Her book, The Golden Shawl → Brave New Books

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Laurien had already been in one cult before she was old enough to understand what a cult was.

At 22, she was invited onto a fleet of white "pleasure" yachts traveling the rivers of Europe, not knowing the warm, beautiful, angelic fairies gazing deep into her eyes would become her new family. And then she met the 60-year-old Frenchman leading this pleasure cruise who called himself "Yo." Yo claimed he channeled messages from extraterrestrials, and taught that beauty was the path to enlightenment, which was rich coming from a man with a belly, an open blouse and ridiculous facial hair. The rules? No meat, no coffee, no alcohol, and no sex.

Unless, of course... it was with him (how original).

In PART 1, Laurien takes us inside a French UFO-tantric-doomsday-alien-fairy-angel sex cult. A cult she knows was filled with abuse and coercion, and yet still sees as one of the greatest adventures of her life.

____________________________-

FOLLOW LAURIEN Her book, The Golden Shawl → Brave New Books

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Before Stevie Nicks. Before Lindsey Buckingham. Before Rumours.

There was another Fleetwood Mac. And one of its lead singers was a young guitarist named Jeremy Spencer.

This week, we goes deep into a strange, dark, and almost unbelievable chapter of rock-and-roll history involving early Fleetwood Mac, Los Angeles in the '70s…

And, of course, a cult.

Oh, and F-you, Uncle Jerry.

——————————————————

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In 2007, at 19-years-old, Hella had a boss who molested her at work, and no one to turn to. Then one day, walking through her university square in Amsterdam, she met a group of people full of conviction. Passionate about the injustices in the world. And passionate about doing something about it.

They were a far-left political group. A Trotskyist splinter organization called the International Socialists (aka Internationale Socialisten). They knew who was to blame (the capitalists). And they knew what it would take to fix it...

...a goddamn revolution.

14 years later, after giving them her money, her twenties, and her autonomy… after the tragic death of a fellow female comrade… Hella woke up to something she couldn't unsee:

The exact thing she'd been fighting against was running rampant inside the group that claimed to be against it.

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FIND HELLA

You can find Hella on Facebook (Hella Baan). She said if you'd like to send her an email, go for it! [email protected]

HELLA'S WRITINGS DURING HER TIME IN THE GROUP

Hella's article archive at socialisme.nu (in Dutch) — the articles she published as a comrade, a rare window into her voice from inside the organization

REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

The Guardian's 2013 coverage of the SWP / Comrade Delta case -- Shiv Malik and Nick Cohen's reporting on the Martin Smith rape allegations and the party's internal cover-up

Monty Python's "Splitters!" scene -- the People's Front of Judea vs. the Judean People's Front

Monty Python's "meeting" scene -- where the People's Front of Judea proves you can have all the feminist rhetoric in the world and still be an all-boys club

IF YOU WANT TO GO DEEPER

"The SWP Crisis: Some Reflections" -- a widely-cited insider account of the 2013 crisis at the SWP, written as it was happening

"Apology Not Accepted" -- a 2024 follow-up from ex-members proving the pattern Hella describes is alive and well today

The Party is Always Right: The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism by Aidan Beatty -- the definitive account of the abuse and authoritarianism inside one of the most infamous British Trotskyist groups, and the lineage Hella's organization descends from

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