Liz Cameron, author of Cult Bride, joins Sam for a conversation that is as grounding as it is eye-opening, bringing her own story and hard-won insight to bear on the realities of life inside a high-control religious group and the long, non-linear road of recovery that follows. Together they dig into the way fundamentalist belief systems shape identity from the inside out, leaving traces that don't simply vanish when you walk away and why that complexity deserves to be named honestly rather than rushed through. Liz speaks with both vulnerability and clarity about abuse, cult dynamics, and the ongoing work of rebuilding a sense of self after years of exposure to oppressive systems, and the conversation carries a warmth that will feel like company to anyone who has ever felt alone in that process. If you're somewhere in the aftermath of leaving a high-control group, this one is for you.

Who Is Liz?

Liz Cameron grew up in fundamentalist Christianity and was brainwashed into the JMS cult at age 18 in 2011. Since escaping in 2013, she’s worked on slowly rebuilding her life while also helping to raise awareness of cults and assisting other cult victims. She now resides in Canberra and balances full-time professional work with cult awareness and advocacy, while also studying a psychology degree. In 2023, after flying to South Korea to film the documentary The Cult Next Door for Channel 7’s Spotlight program, Liz’s public profile grew as she began talking honestly on social media about the insidious nature of cults. In 2025 her memoir, Cult Bride, was published.

Connect

• Connect with Liz via Instagram
• Be sure to grab a copy (or listen) to Cult Bride

• You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
• To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.
• Also check out The Religious Trauma Collective

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work, the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today.

I recognize the deep connection that first nations people have to this land, their enduring culture and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded and it always was and always will be Aboriginal land. Welcome to beyond the Surface.

This is a space for conversations that sit at the edges of faith, identity, power and recovery, especially for those of us who have been shaped so stretched or harmed by fundamental religion or high control systems. Some episodes are personal, some are reflective, some are educational or curious or quietly disruptive.

All of them are grounded in lived experience and a deep respect for the complexity of leaving, questioning and rebuilding meaning.

We will be talking about religious trauma, various forms of abuse, cult dynamics, queerness and recovery, not in answers, but in honest conversations. In listening to these conversations, some parts might be heavy or activating for you.

Please take care of yourself while listening and feel free to pause or step away if you need to. I'm Sam and I'm really glad that you're here with us.

Welcome, Liz. Thanks for joining me.

Thanks so much, Sam. I've been looking forward to this conversation for ages.

I know this has been such a long time coming. We've tried to organize this so many times, guys, and we are both just so busy and it just never happened and but you know what?

We are here and we've got it and so. Oh, we're tired, but we're here and we're good and we're happy to be chatting. So I'm so grateful for you.

I mean, spending my spending time recording because, you know, like we said before we jumped on it is like laborous to tell your story. And I know that you've done this many, many times. Now, if people don't recognize you already, you are the author of the incredible book Cult Bride.

And so we will get into that in a little bit, but for some grounding. Where in the world are you right now?

Yep. So I live and work on unceded Ngunnawala Ngambri land and I also grew up here, so it's very much home for me.

I've lived in other places, but I always end up back here. So beautiful.

Beautiful.

And ironically, we are like an Arrow apart. Which is, was the irony of this is I've not actually had a guest who lives so close to me.

Nearly said, like, why don't I just come? I could come to you. Like, we could do. But then, but then life took over and got busy and, and here we are in line. Yeah. As well be in Guatemala.

Yeah, it's, it's just all too convenient online.

Yeah.

But yes.

Yeah, we're not wearing a.

Okay.

Like, I didn't even have to, you.

Know, it's not either. Well, I'm wearing like, little, like, bike short pants.

So comfy. I'm not like, commitment, but I'm like, I'm not dressed up fully anyway. That's details the listeners need.

No, that's okay. They've had worse details, I think, so it's okay. Real talk. That's what this podcast is about. Real talk.

So I like to start with a really big, broad question, and I have everybody say, oh, yeah, that is really broad. It's broad for a reason. But that's okay. Where does your story start?

Gosh, you know. Yeah, fair enough that they find it a broad question.

Yes.

But it's a one I, I.

And I think it's, it's making me think about, like, you know, you sort of go, well, with the cult, but then you go, but you know, what made me predisposed to that cult? And, and my, my religion growing up in childhood was rather culty, and I didn't realize that at the time because it was all I knew, obviously.

Okay. Yeah. Can we go back to the upbringing, though?

Because, like, it is like, I know that a good portion of your book centers on, you know, the group that you're a part of. And of course we'll get to that.

But it is really helpful, I think, for people to understand that, like, this doesn't just, like, happen out of nowhere and, you know, the way that we are raised plays a part of that. And so, like, what do you think about now in terms of how sort of being raised in, like, I remember.

Did you describe it as, like, fundamental Christianity?

Yeah, I did describe it as fundamentalist.

Yeah.

Was, you know, it's, it's quite a strong term to use, but, you know, it was. There was a very literal belief in the Bible and there was a very little literal kind of sense of Living out those beliefs as well.

And it was very all encompassing. And it was, honestly, looking back, quite scary growing up in that kind of a group, in that kind of a church. And it wasn't hidden.

It wasn't, you know, something that we weren't allowed to share with other people. It was very much a part of our lives and very much something that my family was proud to be a part of. And.

And there are also beautiful people in that church. And, you know, I don't think it had. It certainly was. It didn't have intentions of like power and money.

It did feature a lot of very heavy themes to expose a child to, you know, and you internalize those because you don't have a filter for that.

And when your parents are telling you, you know, you could go to hell if you do this, or, you know, we have to be prepared to become martyrs and the rapture's coming or you're possessed by a demon, you know, that's something internalize really deeply. And one of the most, you know, one of the experiences that really sticks with me, aside from it was a Pentecostal church.

Well, they called themselves evangelical, was Pentecostal kind of flavor.

Um, and every, every week there would be, you know, the altar call and people falling over in the Holy Spirit and shaking and crying and screaming and all of those things, which is also like, rather, I guess, alarming as a child to witness. And when you think very like spiritual warfare is happening in front of you, it's not. It doesn't feel very saf.

And we were encouraged to participate in it from a really young age too, in that kind of culture, you know, getting demons cast out, things like that.

But I remember, you know, that the verse in the Bible that talks about like the one sin that you can commit against the Holy Spirit that you can never be be forgiven for. And I remember my parents telling me about that when I was about 6 or 7.

And I was just inconsolable because as soon as they told me that my little child brain just had all of these intrusive thoughts around thinking the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing. And I thought I just did it. I thought I committed that sin in my heart immediately. And so immediately I was like, I am going to hell.

And that was just too much for me to contain and comprehend at the time. And my parents, you know, they just thought they were telling me, you know, the truth. They had good intentions. They wanted me to be aware.

But it was terrifying, you know?

Yes, absolutely.

Not to mention, I mean, like my therapist Brain turns on and goes like, you know, we understand like child development and like six, like a six, seven year old can barely comprehend the rest of the day, let alone the rest of eternity.

Absolutely.

Like, it's wild. It's like, it's like understanding, like brain development, development is wild.

But beyond that, it's so like age inappropriate to put those kind of visuals in an imaginary brain. Like, kids have such a beautiful imagination. To drop that in, so to speak, into those. That imagination is something else entirely.

Absolutely. Yeah. You hit the nail on the head. Yeah.

What is that like for you, looking back on that?

Because I know, like, coming from like, you know, I know Pentecostalism and I know that they talk about it in terms of, you know, personal relationships with Jesus and things like that. And so throughout all of that, what was your personal sense of faith and spirituality?

So I felt that I had a really deep relationship with God in the sense that it was the most. It genuinely was like the most important relationship in my life.

And I saw God as, you know, a heavenly father, and I saw him as protecting me and taking care of me. But I also, you know, because of that kind of fundamentalist upbringing, saw him as retributional. And, you know, they would use the word he's not.

He's not. And that's in Narnia, by the way, about Aslan. And that's in a children's book. You know, he's not safe, but he's good.

And what does that mean as a child? Like, how do you interpret that? Because for me, yeah, I was like, okay, you know, there's retribution if I do something wrong.

And you know that there are real life eternal consequences for me.

And so I was the kid that would obsessively repent for everything just in case I had sinned and wanted to just kind of keep myself on the safe end of things, you know, and hedge my bets, I guess, a little bit. And looking back, it's like, that doesn't make any sense.

But also, you know, if you feature heavily like stories from the Old Testament, that is a particular picture of God, that's pretty frightening. So. Yeah, but I, but I did. I had these two kind of extreme understandings of God and, you know, you can't really resolve those.

But I did pray a lot and I did care very much about God. And it's hard looking back to know how much of that was fear versus how much of that was a genuine love for who I believed God was.

I think I'm probably putting the cart before the horse. Here though.

But not being religious now, I certainly find like I miss that, having that, that energy of like I can ask someone who cares deeply for me to help me or to hear me or. And it's a funny thing to navigate. Like, I hate saying it, but like that Jesus shaped hole in your heart because it.

I know, I'm so sorry, it's triggering.

Oh, I haven't heard that language for.

So long and all the Christians are going, oh my God. See, it's real. She misses Jesus. That's not what, that's not what it is. It's that sense of being able to go to something external.

Like again, so sorry, super triggering thing to say. But yeah, I miss that.

And I remember like the first time I tried to really meditate after leaving religion and having this sense of like being in this internal landscape and it was just I was alone for the first time. There wasn't someone there with me. And that was a real shift for me. And it was also really big.

There was a lot of grief associated with that because I've always had this companion. But then there was a lot of empowerment as well associated with that. But Brocky territory, you know.

Yeah, absolutely.

Navigate all the time with your people you work with.

Yeah, absolutely. But it's also like I, like even personally, like I still can't do like quiet silence based meditation or practices. Like it's just, it's to activate.

Like I could push through it but I'm not going to, I'm not going to push my body to do that when it's, you know, even journaling is still like, has weird connotations and so like there's all of these weird little things and it's not about like grief in this situation I think is not about wanting to go back. It's just about grieving what you've. It's just acknowledging what you've lost.

It doesn't actually mean that you ever want to go back because I'm not sure that there's anything that would make me want to go back.

But it doesn't mean that like I don't hear someone else talking about their sense of faith and spirituality, even in a progressive sense and go, fuck. I really miss that.

Yeah.

Like it's the most realest part of being human. Right.

Like I, Yeah. I so resonate with everything you've said, Sam. Again.

Yeah, it is that grief of something internally, a way of self regulation or you know, something that you held that was precious to you. That was a practice. Yeah.

That involved what like you Said is so inherent to all humans, which is that sense of connection to the divine or something outside of yourself, whether it's nature, whether it's God. And I, that was probably the only time I meditated and it was kind of like amazing for me, but at the same time really hard.

And then after that I was like, I don't know if I really want that experience again for the time being. So I don't do that either. I would much rather go and move my body. I would much rather. Well, actually, you know, there's.

There's the healthy stuff and then there's the numbing stuff.

And I think connecting with that internal landscape is really rocky and you know, difficult and triggering and you know, no wonder people coming out of religion and cults struggle with silence because it's always associated with that, that life, that trauma, that God journaling too. I can relate for sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I do want, I want to talk a little bit about recovery as well, but I feel like we are jumping around and we're like, I mean I'm all for like a, a non linear episode and I don't ascribe to like having to do in chronological how my brain works.

It just.

Yes.

Things around, but.

But also like what you think, because you talk a lot about like the recruitment side of things in the book and I don't necessarily want you to go into those dynamics too much unless you want to because again, like, I know how laborious it is, but like, in what ways do you think that the group that you came from primed you for that recruitment?

So the group that I came from, I mean the main thing that I say is really simple, which is just I wasn't raised to critically think. Like I just did not learn that skill and I.

And to that end as well and connected with that, you know, there was that sense of deferment to authority, there was that sense of submission, there was that sense of, you know, trusting people who are older than you in the church. There was that fear of God and there was the desire to, you know, to do everything you can to follow God.

And I think another important aspect to call out was because of the nature of the churches that I came from which are very focused on, you know, God coming, Jesus coming back, rapture, preparing for the end times or living in the end times. You're already raised with that kind of mentality of language. Exactly.

So when I met this months later down the track church, which I found out at that time was very much like a kind of a, I guess, you know, very focused on the Rapture.

I wouldn't call it a doomsday church, but I would say use that as a tool, a psychological tool to get people to work harder and carry themselves with a sense of greater urgency than is really sustainable. But I was already primed to believe that was happening.

I was already told, you know, growing up, you know, no, no one's going to know the day or the hour, and no one's going to recognize Jesus when he comes back, except for the real Christians and keep your eyes, and it's going to be unexpected. And, you know, it's not like I was every day going out looking for that.

But when they found me and when they targeted me and when they, you know, coerced me, I had all the mental framework to accept what they were telling me, as long as they delivered it in the right order, in the right way, strategically enough. And it worked because they. Cults are very good at what they do. They're very good at reading people, as we all know.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I hope that answers.

Yeah. The scaffolding was there, right? Like, yeah. And so they already. They didn't have to build from scratch, and they can, like, I. I've seen that happen.

They absolutely can build it from scratch. Like you said, they are incredibly, ironically, very skilled at what they do.

Yeah, Yeah, I made it easy for them. You know, I was such a people pleaser as well, because that's the way that I was raised, to be existing in that environment.

That was how you survived. You be submissive, you please, you watch people and make sure that you are doing all the right things.

I was terrified of getting in trouble, and I really wanted to make people happy with me so that I felt safe. And so when I applied that to people in a cult, it very quickly sucked me into that entrapment.

Yeah. Yeah.

Now, people who have been listening to the podcast for a while will know that this is not the first episode I've done on Providence, which means that they will know a little bit. But from your perspective, at that point in time, what was the group that you were joining like? What was your understanding of that?

Yeah. So they painted themselves for months as a Christian group.

Yeah.

So when I first met them, I didn't even know they were Christian. They. They said they were students and they wanted to do a survey and they were studying Australian culture, and I detail that in the book.

But they were a little bit, you know, they obviously didn't want to be forthright about being quote, unquote, Christians. And then, you know, the first time I met them, like, met up with them because I met them a couple of times before that.

But then, you know, we arranged to have a coffee and then they shared they were Christians and we went back to their apartment and read the Bible together and prayed for each other.

And, you know, I was at a point in my life where I had just finished school, finished year 12, I was on my gap year, and I had gone to, for the first time in my life for years 11 and 12, a school, a non Christian school. And I felt like I'd let my faith slip and, you know, I'd engaged in normal, typical teenage behaviors of drinking and partying and nothing crazy.

Like, I was still very much like the good Christian girl amongst all my friends who wouldn't engage in anything terrible. But like, yeah, I still felt like it wasn't aligned with, with my values.

And I, I definitely felt like when I met them, there was this growing sense of, oh, you know, maybe God's answering my prayers, of like meeting some women who can help me grow my faith again and kind of get back on track, for lack of a better word, and figure out what God wants me to do with my life. Because I was still trying to figure that out.

And they came, they swept in at just the right time, but yeah, for months, where they were Christians and to.

They went to extreme lengths to conceal who they actually were and who they actually followed such that, you know, about four or five months in, we went on a trip to Melbourne and they held an entire church service with their Melbourne branch. Probably about 60 people at that church service. And they, they redid the entire service to get all references to who they were for me.

And so it was this whole fake church service so that I would keep believing that they were just Christians until I was ready to accept their truth.

Yeah. So, yeah, okay, we're gonna like skip a few things in me asking this question, but who do you know them to be now?

Yeah. So as you mentioned, Providence, otherwise known as jms, which means either Jesus, Morning Star, or the name of the leader, which is Jeong Myung Suk.

He is a twice convicted, twice sentenced serial rapist, serial abuser, and he was in prison for charges to that of that type. Before I got in, while I was in. And after I came out, he escaped or didn't escape. Sorry.

He was released from prison, he'd done his sentence, and then he got convicted again. And he is now back in prison for Repeat offending. And yeah, the whole group really is crafted around grooming women for him.

That's how I understand it now. And there are very many honest and sincere members, of course.

In fact, the majority are incredibly sincere, earnest believers in God who have been tricked. But that doesn't take away from the fact that, you know, the higher up you get, the more it looks like kind of a grooming operation.

They have a lot of money.

They always do.

They always do.

They've always got a lot of money.

I just, I keep thinking, gosh, I could register as a religion and get out of paying tax. That'd be nice, wouldn't it? Just like the gas companies. But I digress. Anyway, so it's a South Korean based cult and widely known as a cult.

And I know that's a bit of a pejorative term, but in this context it fits. So, yeah, and they, they are Christian, like, but they ultimately believe that Jeong Myung Suk is, is the Messiah of the second coming.

Although they do now publicly. They ever said that, oh, you know, maybe they changed their minds, I don't know.

But they probably just want everybody else to think that they've changed their minds.

I think that's, I think in the light of the criminal trial, they were very much like, no, we've never called him the Messiah. And I'm going, this is like, how, how can you be delusional enough to believe that people who have left will believe that?

Because we've sat through all the sermons where you've told us explicitly who he.

Is is like, you would have grown up with language of the Messiah and hearing that language and knowing the gravity of what that means and how it's taught and all of that sort of thing.

Yeah.

And so knowing that, do you remember the moment that you first heard that they were saying that this other person was the so called Messiah?

Yeah, because I just can't imagine like the dissonance and the mental gymnastics that you would have had to do unconsciously in that moment to just like make that make sense based on everything that you knew about that word.

Yeah, good question.

And I love how you said make that make sense because at the point where you are that conditioned and also that socially embedded in that group, you are doing that mental effort to make what they tell you fit. Again, like you said, it's subconscious and at that point it's a survival dynamic in my mind.

Yeah.

They were my social circle.

So obviously came many, many, many months after I met them, after again months of conditioning and they had slowly started to reveal little bits and pieces to me. And I had this growing sense of.

As my trust grew and my love grew and my, you know, connection with them grew, this growing sense of, like, they have something they want to tell me, but they're not telling me yet because they don't think I'm ready. And so I was doing everything I could to make them think that I was ready. Cause I was like, tell me what it is.

These are Christian women that I trusted.

Yeah. Because I imagine the readiness would have been framed as, like, there's something in you that makes you not ready for sure.

Like, it's like, your fault, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I was like, okay, I'm not spiritually advanced enough to receive what they want, to communicate to me, the truth that they want to endow on me.

And so I. And they. The way that they lived was so, you know, so dedicated. Like, they would get up at 2am to pray every morning.

They slept around four hours a night on average. That was pretty much across the cult. That's. That's the directive. They read their Bible for hours a day. They prayed for hours a day.

They went out almost every day on the street to evangelize, you know, which. Well, it was very covert evangelism. But all the same, they engaged in all these behaviors and everything they did.

They were trying to honor God was how I. And I was like, that's true Christianity.

You know, like, it got me to this point where I was like, oh, my God, like, the church that I came from, you know, they go to church on Sundays, and then they just do whatever they want during the week. And maybe they pray if they need something. It was my teenage brain as well, you know, as 18. But I was like, that's not. That's not Christianity.

This is Christianity.

And so I want to reach their level, and I want to do what I can to please them so they know that I'm sincere and that they can tell me what they want to tell me, because I trust them and I want to know. So they did drip feed me information through the course of delivering these Bible studies to me.

And they are Bible studies that have, as I understand it, been adapted from the Unification Church. And then obviously, they just put the new leader as the Messiah. So.

But I thought they were amazing because they were, I guess, a bit different to what I was used to hearing in church, but not so much that my alarm bells went off and I thought, oh, this is blasphemous, you know. But they started telling me about all These timelines and, you know, drawing. It was always drawing from the Bible.

And it was always, you know, everything they said was from what I could see based on what was in the Bible.

And they had this guy, Pastor Joshua, they would keep talking about, and they'd tell me these stories about the amazing things that he did, you know, the prayer conditions he said, where he'd pray for 40 days and 40 nights or, you know, his fasting or how he helps people or whatever. And I was just like, I keep, like, bringing him up. He's the only one they've got stories about, you know, like, what's so special about this guy?

And that was also part of the, like, who is this man? And so I had this very kind of like, mythological idea of this person by the time I got to that place.

And they really carefully told me first that he was being persecuted in Korea, that he.

Because he was a Christian and that he was imprisoned under, you know, false pretenses, you know, had influenced these women because he was spreading the gospel, had influenced these women to accuse him of. Of sexual assault. I, gosh, I wish I knew better back then, you know, but I wasn't raised to believe women.

And I was also raised with this very Westernized, colonial Christian, whitewashed understanding of. Of, you know, countries that weren't white being persecuted for their faith.

Yeah. Like, voice the martyrs. Like, it was like everywhere. Like the idea that, like. And you grew up knowing that you had to at any point.

Yeah.

Could have to be asked to defend your faith because, like, Christians are going to be persecuted. Like, that's just what's going to happen. And it happens more over there. The over there was just always used. So, like persecutory language.

Language, again, would have just been the norm that you grew up with. Of course he's being persecuted.

Yep, absolutely. It was. It was a. It was like a dream to be martyred, you know?

Yes.

That's the ideal. Right. Like you hope, like Rachel tears book.

Like.

Yeah.

You know, like the Columbine story.

The Columbine, Yeah.

Like, I remember in youth group being asked, like, if you had a gun to your head, would you deny Christ? Like.

Yeah.

Like, we're in Australia, we have gun wars. Like, that's not going to happen. But I was still asked it.

Isn't that insane?

Yeah. Oh, man.

We love Christians religion. Maybe I don't want to generalize too much, but that brand of Christianity loves a persecution narrative.

Absolutely.

And they are the ones persecuting as well. So.

Yeah. Anyway, so, like, why would you have known any different in that moment other than, of course, this guy is being persecuted.

Yes, yes. When you've only heard these wonderful things about him.

And when these men that you trust think he's incredible, you know, and have so much respect for him. And. And, yeah, I was naive and trusting, and I was also by that time, already quite. Quite brainwashed. Yeah. But even then.

So they told me that, and they said, just don't, like, don't look anything up about him. Because really all it does is encourage that false narrative, you know, and this was a time when no one was really chronically online anyway.

So I was kind of, well, I'm going to trust these women. I don't want to harm him by, you know, Googling him. And they also had this thing of, like. And again, spiritual language, very familiar to me.

If you look up these kinds of things, if you expose yourself to information that's slanderous towards God's people, it's gonna be damaging to your spirit, you know. So I was scared of Googling it. Cause I didn't wanna see anything that would hurt me spiritually, I guess, or my relationship with God.

And I didn't wanna read anything that would poison me, you know. And so I didn't. And that wasn't the time they told me. They just told me about him being in prison. And they were, like, so sad when they told me.

Like, they. They were close to tears, you know, I was like, gosh, this is really, really sad. And then a few weeks later, maybe.

Oh, it's probably sooner than that because I was just. I was like, galloping through those Bible studies at that point in time, because I was like, I want to find out what's going on here.

Like, what do they have to tell me? And.

And then the final Bible study, I think it was one of the final ones, was essentially saying, like, he's God's chosen vessel for the second coming. And that was. It was hard to swallow. I didn't swallow it immediately. I wasn't like, for sure. No worries. Like, I was like, whoa, hang on. Like, this is.

This is big. Could this be real? You know? And they knew that that's how it would hit me as well. Because, you know, it's blasphemy if that's not true. Like, that's.

And so they told me what they always told me, which was, go home and pray about it.

But of course, all of that conditioning, all the ways they taught me to think about the world, all of my beliefs about faith were really already engineered to make me believe what they were telling me.

But one of the weirdest coincidences happened, which I still to this day struggle with a little bit, which was that, you know, I went home and I prayed for like a couple of good, solid couple of hours. You know, I was really emotional.

I was like, God, I need you to tell me, like, give me a sign that this is real or not, because I'm not going to believe something like this without a sign. And for some reason, I just got this thing in my head that was telling me to go to my parents, a bookshelf and pick out this particular book.

I don't know why I thought of it, but I did. And I picked it out. And then that kind of sense or voice told me to like, open the book to the first page.

Like, just open it randomly and read the first thing you see. Now, the theology around Providence is that people are brides of God instead of children.

And so anyway, the first sentence that hit my eyeballs was something along the lines of, like, the time has come for my brides to stand up, says the Lord. And I was like, okay, if that's not a crazy divine sign, then I don't know what is.

Yeah.

And all I can kind of, I guess conceptualize now is that, you know, the way that again, the conditioning had made me much more attuned to reading into things and seeing them as divine signs when they were in fact a coincidence or just something benign. Yeah. So at that point I was like, okay, I've been told, you know, and I went back and I, I told them the next day, like, I believe you.

Yeah, yeah.

I want to, I want to talk about the bride narrative in a bit, but I also want to just ask, like, because, you know, you've talked about the other women a little bit already. I think anybody who understands the way that cults work knows that they are victim term perpetrators typically.

Like, they are just as indoctrinated and conditioned as well. But, like, what is it like for. How do you view those women now?

Like, because that's a really, like, it's very complicated and messy when cognitively we know that they are indoctrinated and conditioned and victims, but also they perpetrated a lot of harm too.

Yeah. Yes. Oh my God. And isn't that something so common for cult survivors?

Because even the lower level members, which I was one, you know, you are still told to go out and try and bring people in and that's causing harm, but you think you're helping them and that's it's so hard to come to terms with. Oh, I put people in danger, actually, like through my involvement.

Fortunately, I was terrible at evangelizing and I didn't manage to get anyone in, so it was okay. But like, at the same time, there's still that guilt of I expose these people.

But you're right, most people are incredibly sincere and so earnest, and the cults just exploited.

I love the way Sarah Steele puts it, and I can't remember her exact words, but they exploit all the best things about people, all the best qualities, and they twist them. And so that's the majority in my mind.

And many of the women that I've lived with or knew through the cult, you know, I adored, and many of them I'm still in contact with now that they're out as well. And we're close and they're beautiful people. And then.

Then you kind of start to go higher up and it becomes a little bit more blurry, which I think is what you're getting at. And so the way I believe it is is that, you know, yeah, you're right, like first a victim, then a perpetrator.

But I don't actually believe that many of the people at the top of the chain or at the top of that organization actually believe this man is the messiah. I think that they've.

They're working with a combination of sunk cost fallacy and also the realization that they will get more power and money and all the things that they could want if they stay in that cult and continue to perpetrate. And so I think a significant number of them make the decision to. To groom girls on purpose.

And that was certainly what I believe about my head leader at my local level, where she was 100% grooming me on purpose because of the explicit language she would use and the way that she would speak to me. But then, yeah, there are some that. That just where they.

They sit kind of in the middle, and you're just not sure, you know, how much do you know and what do you really believe? And have you just got to a point where the cult has completely annihilated your outside life and you have nothing to go to on the outside?

And so you've made the choice to become numb to the truth a bit and to participate in that system? Yeah, I don't know. What do you think?

It's very messy. What do I think? Yeah, it gets. Absolutely. It's messy. Yeah. I mean, I. I would agree.

I think at some point, any cult survivor or any high control, like system survivor Irrespective of it being religious or otherwise, reckons with the people at the top. Top of that system or even like top adjacent.

Yes.

And what their motivation is.

Yeah.

Do they actually believe the ideology or do they just like the power control?

Absolutely, yes.

Yeah. And I think that sort of like, you know, if they were recruited also, potentially that's what the recruiter saw in them.

Like, remember that the recruitment is not always exploiting vulnerability and need for belonging and things like that. But, you know, the desire for control and power and money can also be exploited in a different way. Yeah. So I think it very.

Yeah, it very much gets messier the closer. The closer to the top that they are. Yeah.

And I will say though, caveat for certainly some people who were in those top circles were complete victims and you know, they were pulled up to that level because of their vulnerability, because of their looks, because of something that they had that they thought they could pedestal. But obviously. Yeah, it's not always the case.

No. And, and like to sort of like, you know, flip.

One of the, the reasons cults function, which is like black and white thinking, is that it's never black and white, like why someone was recruited or what happens after they were and motivation and vulnerabilities and all of those different things. There is nothing about that that is black and white and clear cut. It is hugely messy and hugely complicated. And you know, it is not.

There's no textbook here. Like, it's not like there's a textbook in cult dynamics, but not in terms of like what happens after that point.

So it's far more messy and complicated.

Yeah, yeah. And it's like what gets people in versus what, what keeps people in as well.

But like, you know, I feel like sometimes I paint myself as like, yes, I was naive and yes, I was, I was earnest. And yes, all those good qualities were exploited in me. But also there's.

There was a real sense of like, they exploited that sense of elitism, like wanting to, you know, be special and that sense of that There's a really dark side to wanting to be special because there's that inherent like, well, everybody on the outside is not special, is lost, is somehow like worse than us, to put it crudely, which sounds awful, but cults really use that as leverage.

And you know, as someone who was craving validation and wanting to be part of something important and wanting to do something with my life, the sense that I could be, you know, almost like a character in the Bible was like, wow, how amazing is this? You know, and that's embarrassing. Like, that is. It's straight up embarrassing. But it's true. Because I'm a human being. I'm not like, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I had like, an internal. When I heard you phrase yourself as naive, I was like, no, you're not. No, not naivety. Like, that's. But like, I, you know, I understand that.

Like, you know, that's definitely, like, how it can. Can feel. For sure.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think it probably is even more than cults leveraging the whole us versus them dynamic. I don't think they can function without it, honestly.

No. Yeah, yeah.

Like, they need a scapegoat. They need an enemy. Whether it's like. Like it doesn't really matter what or who it is. Yeah.

But there has to be that us versus them, because otherwise you don't get any of that moral superiority complex or anything like that.

So a really powerful us versus them too, is people who've left.

You know, even in the Christian church, it was this kind of thing of, like, don't be them, because that's even worse than never believing in the first place. You know, like, how can you come in?

You were never a real believer to begin with, but it gives you this sense of superiority of, like, oh, you were here. But I stuck with it.

And I, you know, and that was certainly like, our biggest enemies were the people who'd left and were slandering because they were like the worst kind of evil in our mind, which they had.

The truth and then they rejected it, and now they're using it against us.

Yes. Satan won with them and such a powerful motivator to stay in because I don't want to be that person that everyone looks at and talks about and.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Before we get to that bit, I want to go back to the bride, because again, I imagine, like, the minute I saw the title of your book, I was like, I hadn't. At that point, I didn't know what culture was. I just saw the title of the book and I was like, okay, like, let's look at this.

And immediately, based on the upbringing that I had, I hear the word bride, and I think bride of Christ. Right. It's like. It's the automatic connotation.

Yes.

So, like, I. Again, similar to, like, the Messiah comment. Like, what.

What did that language of being like a bride due to your sense of self, your sense of femininity, your sense of just, like, being a woman in this space.

Yeah.

So one of the ways that they framed it, which shaped the way I understood it was that in the New Testament Christians are positioned as children towards God. So Old Testament servants, New Testament children and, and now complete Testament they called it is brides.

And the way that they compared it and this was another way that they othered people, you know, on the outside of this very tight knit group was to say like you, the Christians of the, of the New Testament, they understand God as a father. And, and what's a relationship like between a child and a father? Well, it's asking for things.

It's dependence is, you know, it's being immature spiritually. It is a position of like no responsibility. And that's the way they kind of frame that.

And then they said, well, if you're a bride, you know, you do everything you can to make your, your husband's life easier.

But, but it was that sense of like, you've got to take, you've got, you have to grow up, you have to mature spiritually, you have to do hard things, you have to put your life on the line.

And it was this sense of like, oh, I, I really need to snap out of like, you know, I guess seeing God as someone who's going to save me and help me and see myself as someone who's going to help God. Which you know, like could sound really noble on the surface and really like dying to self and all of those things.

But it definitely shifted my sense of safety with God because I was like, if I'm supposed to be operating on an equal or just underneath because we weren't perceived as equals to God, but if I'm supposed to be God's partner, then I'm also culpable for a lot more. And that was leveraged into only allowing your mind and heart to love God and to not seek love in worldly relationships.

You have to deny that part of yourself that would try and find a partner because God's your partner. And that doesn't just extend to how you act, that extends to how you feel and how you think.

And it's so invasive, you know, and the sense that, oh, if I betray God in that way, he is going to be incredibly hurt and angry at me.

Yeah, and there was also obviously that sense of like, yeah, I've got to be submissive and I have to be feminine and I have to embody all the qualities of that. Proverbs 31:Woman. Yeah, people will know what I mean. It is, it's, it's, it's yuck.

Um, and yeah, that really, I don't think it was a dramatic shift in the sense that, like, I wasn't some empowered woman beforehand. I was still very much, you know, had that idea of traditional Christian marriage, which was a submissive kind of.

And that's the modeling I grew up with. But, yeah, I don't know. Very long winded way of answering your questions, Anne.

That's okay. It's fine. I love a long winded answer. It's usually how I give them. I ask long winded questions, really good questions.

Like, I'm loving these questions.

I mean, to sort of like, flip that in terms of like, the, like, what has it been like for you to become an embodied, empowered, like, to not have, like, your femininity wielded against you, like, to like, like, you know, to not be submissive and to not see that as, like, rebellious or anything like that. What has that been like?

So the first thing that helped me shift that was anger.

Anger's my favorite thing to talk about. I have a. I'm a resource called Fck Being Holy.

Well, yeah, I love that. Okay. I want. I need to look at that. I love that. And also, like, no, rage is so, like, oh, it was pivotal for me. Yeah. Okay.

I feel like we could talk for ages about the rage thing, but yes, and I want to hear what your take is on it.

For me, it was like this compass because even growing up as a child, but especially in the cult, there was this sense of internal disconnection from my intuition, and therefore I couldn't understand or didn't have access to understanding when I was being. My boundaries were being violated. You know, when I was being mistreated, you know, I had no sense of that.

Obviously it all builds up in your body, but I didn't have access to it.

And so when I came out, because anger was so demonized as part of being feminine, I guess, and also being in a cult, I don't really understate that, but that was an evil emotion. It was something you had to repent for. And so having access to that internal compass was huge for me.

And then it was a bit of a pendulum swing because I was like, well, I'm angry at everything and I don't trust anyone. And any kind of organized anything is. Is evil and bad and scary and dangerous and fck everyone.

And then kind of swinging to the other end on men as well. Swinging to the other end of like. Well, I didn't really swing back all the way to the other end, but kind of.

I think I found a bit more of a middle where I can, for example, enter a Workplace.

And I still really struggle with being triggered in workplaces because of that hierarchy and, you know, but I can still get myself there and engage with that environment whilst also recognizing dynamics that are dangerous and knowing a bit more of how to navigate them. And I'm still not very good, but, man, there are triggers everywhere once you become aware of those dynamics.

But get anger and a lot of trial and error and a lot of pain. I think I was in and out of dissociation for really solid hardcore dissociation for about 12 months. And. And then I. I thought, you know what?

I'm gonna go to Bible college. And I don't. I don't recommend at all. Saw your face. You're like, no.

Oh, no.

The amount of guests that I've had and the amount of people that I've spoken to, just, like, broadly, who's, like, everything crumbles when they go to, like, yes, theological college. Like, everything crumbles at that point.

Wow. So I'm not alone in that.

No, not at all. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. Because I was kind of like, you know, I wasn't willing to give up. I wasn't ready. It's not that I wasn't willing.

I wasn't ready to give up faith in God in general and in Christian. In the Christian God. And there was also this sense of, like, well, there's gotta be some kind of atonement for what I went through.

There's gotta be some kind of divine lesson completion, something, you know, And I felt like God owed that to me in a way, you know, And.

And I was also terrified because when you come out of a cult and your whole worldview crumbles, you kind of think, if they were able to make me believe something like that so intensely, so much so that nothing else felt as real as that did, then how do I trust anything I believe in? Like, how is anything real? And then, you know, I'm sure so many listeners are very familiar with that very frightening sense.

And then you sort of feel like the grounds just open up underneath you. And I just remember having a moment in that first year after I. And sort of making the decision almost of, like, I can't handle that right now.

I can't go there because I. I don't know what I'll do, and I'm scared of what I do to myself. And so I decided to cling harder to the faith that I came from originally. And you're right, it did unravel everything for me.

Once you see those coercive control, psychological manipulation Types of dynamics, especially in a religious setting. You can't unsee it and you see it everywhere. And I saw it everywhere. And that was like a. It was also just like a mega church. Terrible choice.

Like, shocking. You know, I should have just gone to a quiet little Baptist, you know, church, but I didn't. I went really hard and. And that was. I was. I had.

I've had that many exorcisms, Sam, I, you know, but none of them worked. So.

Shocking. I'm so surprised by that.

What was it like for you to realize that this was not some divinely ordained part of your story, actually just human coercive control?

It was really heartbreaking. Like, it was really shattering because again, that's what I built up my whole. If you're.

If you follow the rules, if you do everything God wants, if you are earnest and sincere and a good Christian, then you will be rewarded. And it's not that my whole relationship with God was transactional. Very far from it. Very far from it. It felt so real as a relationship to me. But.

But, you know, yeah, I. I thought that. That someone would save me and. And there was no saving in that environment. It re traumatized me in that. In that environment.

And I also really had this sense of. Yeah, like, to that end, that. That I was owing something.

And it was kind of a hard realization to come to in those early years of, like, oh, yeah, no one owes you anything, really, actually, like, you have to do this yourself. Like, not alone, but ultimately it's up to me. And I had to stop. Not stop, but I had to balance out that sense of like, oh, I'm a victim.

And that's not something you do until you're ready because you very much are a victim when you've been in an experience like a cult or a high control group of any kind. But I didn't want to carry that with me forever because it's not helpful energy to carry around feeling entitled to reparations and.

And yeah, so I kind of worked really hard to not have that mentality.

And then after that came a lot of freedom of like, okay, it's really scary that I can pick where I go and what I do because I thought God had a plan for me. And there's a lot of years where I was just terrified because, fuck, it's up to me now. Like me, the person who got myself into this mess, like me.

But you figure it out. And yeah, I don't know.

Like, I feel like it's just a very universal experience for a Lot of us, you know, I feel like you're resonating with that in your own way. But yeah, it's, I don't want to speak for you though. But yeah, it was, it was hard.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean like, I, I would love, and I don't necessarily, Again, I don't want to.

This is probably the only episode that people will listen to and go like, it's, it's a different story style episode. And it's because like, I know how many fucking interviews you have done about your story and I just didn't want to do same style of interview.

And also I'd prefer to pay for people to just go and read or listen to your book.

Thank you.

I appreciate so, But I do want to touch on the deprogramming and I use that word because that's the word that you use.

Yeah. It's controversial, isn't it?

Yes.

Yeah.

So like I would, I mean like double barreled question a little bit which was like, how do you look back at that experience and how do you now hold it knowing the harm that can happen to a multitude of other people doing that same process.

Yeah, yeah. To be totally transparent, Sam, like, it wasn't something that I understood to be harmful.

No, of course not.

The longest time. Yeah.

And the reason I use the word deprogramming is because that's what I understood it was at the time because that's what it was called by the person who did that work on me and it saved my life, essentially got me out of the cult and I was at risk of my life at that point in time. That does not justify the practice one iota.

But we're really fucking glad you're here so we can balance those three things.

I, I, yeah, and, and so am I. You know, I'm glad now.

Yeah.

But I think also deprogramming, when you use that word and again doesn't make it right.

But for people on the outs who don't understand cult dynamics, it's a much easier word for people to connect with than intervention, which doesn't sound as serious as maybe what it actually is, which is the process of completely unraveling your entire worldview.

And then it's the same reason I use the term cult because it has connotations and people on the outside recognize that, that as it's got a certain meaning attached to it, rightly or wrongly. But yeah, I also completely recognize like how incredibly harmful it can be. And I wouldn't advocate for someone to be deprogrammed. I Pro.

I probably have some work to do in stopping using that language, because this is a.

Your language, Liz.

Yeah.

So, I mean, like, in some ways like that, I. I just think that there is, again, we throw the binary thinking of, like, how we talk about things out the window a little bit.

And. And.

And it can be your language in. In the sense of, like, that was your experience, it's what saved your life.

And yet, like, can we understand that there are really fucked people out there using those methods in really harmful ways? Yes, absolutely. We can do both of those things.

Do you want to talk about that for a bit? I don't want to direct you.

No. I want to talk about you, Liz.

No, but I want to not like, I wanna. You know, because I know. I know it's. It's incredibly harmful.

I have heard things, terrible things, you know, and I know that it was deeply unethical and made illegal to, for example, kidnap people when you're. You know, that's.

But I also felt like the whole process of deprogramming, for me, it did feel violent, but so was the process of getting into the cult, like, it was both. Both ends of deeply violating, because, again, it's reaching into the innermost parts of you and fucking with it. And that's not a nice experience.

And I also could see how that could go very wrong. Been on both ends of the deprogramming process. I was also helping after.

After I came out with other Providence members, and there was only two that I did with, but one of them went brilliantly, and we were able to carry this person through unraveling what she believed. And it's. It's a really intensive process, and it is incredibly traumatic for them. And so you really need someone safe there, there.

And that's one thing that I will say is you'd want someone there who's psychologically, you know, qualified. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Like, it is. It's something that people. I don't ever want to cause more harm to a community that's already very, very harmed.

And I know when I first started speaking out after the documentary, I didn't know that it was. That it was understood that way. And so I would say things like, yeah, I advocate for deprogramming.

And in my book, I do say, like, I was incredibly privileged to receive that because, again, it helped me. But. But it's also not accessible for many people.

There are a lot of exploitative operators, operators out there who will charge tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars and do a bad job by the way sometimes as well, which is deeply unfair for people that are in a vulnerable position and their families. Yeah, it's really complicated.

Yeah.

And I, and I don't think that there is any, like, there's no neat way to wrap this part of the conversation up because there is like, fraught aspects to all forms of, like cult exit strategies and approaches. Like, there is no.

We don't have one standard way to do that in a trauma informed and safe way because it needs to be so personalized to the person in the group that they are coming from.

And so, like, this is not like any sort of like stock standard thing that we can do, which means that of course it is always going to open up for problematic people to do it in problematic ways and really harmful ways.

But you'd see that, like, you'd see the, the negative, like, outcomes of that as well, I'm sure.

Yeah.

And it's, it's sort of. You kind of hit the nail on the head. Like, it's like, what do we recommend? And it does need to be tailored to the individual.

But like, not everyone leaves by walking away. Not everyone gets there. And some people die before they get there, you know, and then some people stay in forever and nothing works.

And it's, it's so difficult. And I wish we had some kind of magic procedure, you know, but. Could help. Um. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

In terms of like, once the recovery portion of this. And I say recovery portion because, like, it's.

That's probably now the rest of your life, I imagine it feels like, what was the thing that felt the most surprising of like, oh, fuck. I didn't realize that that would be something that I would have to, like, recover from through this.

Gosh, that is a good question. I think, I think we've touched on a lot of it, which, you know, one of them is, is not having a very safe internal landscape to engage with.

And so it feels kind of perilous to sit in silence. It feels just wrong. I'm the sort of person who, whatever I'm doing, I'll have something in my ears. I'll be playing music. I'll be.

I, you know, I, I need the sound and the activity and it's very difficult for me to sit still. And then also just that I didn't realize that I always felt unsafe in my body and I didn't realize I always felt disconnected from my body.

And I still really struggle with navigating what, what I do when I feel unsafe. Like, I, I don't think I've ever felt like, relaxed, like chronic jaw clenching, like constantly wound up.

And I don't know what it's like to exist where I don't feel like everything's an emergency because that's how my nervous system is attuned. And so that's a really big body of work for me to do personally. That is taking a really long period of time.

And I, you know, I tend to get addicted to that sense of urgency and over commit myself to things and. And it's almost like I'm fighting for my salvation all over again by trying to do all the right things and be all the right to everybody and.

And I don't really know how to be a messy, imperfect human without being incredibly stressed and troubled by it. Yeah. If that makes any sense at all.

Absolutely it does. I also think it's really hard.

I was only saying to someone not too long ago that I think it's really hard when you come from like urgency culture in a high control system, again, irrespective of what that group is about.

Yeah.

Because then you come into like, like the secular world, so to speak. Only religious people use it.

Yeah, I know.

But anyway, the rest of the world and then you have productivity culture and hustle culture. And so you just go from one type of urgency to another.

And so it's like, it's actually really hard to like, to unlearn that because you are just in a different version of it.

True. Yeah. It's not, it's not unique to people who've left a cult for sure. Although the stakes might feel a little bit higher. I will say that.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah. If you're attuned to the sense of like the rapture is happening.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, you're right. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. And going back to what we said at the beginning. I'm tired.

Yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I've seen people talk about this online and, and I've had it in my rooms and in all sorts of conversations.

As somebody who grew up with end time theology, what is it like for you to watch the state of the world right now?

I mean, I don't even know how to put words. It's just like we know what the Christians, you know, those Christians in those circles, if they're not all Christians.

And I will always say, like, I don't, I'm not against religion. No. I completely back anyone who wants to believe something and have faith in something. I think that's beautiful.

But when I talk about the Christians, I mean in the circles that I came from, I know they're all like, oh my, this is end times. You know, know it's end times. What are you gonna do? They kind of throw your hands up like God's just speeding up the rapture.

We're gonna see him soon. And that is so unhelpful. It's so profoundly unhelpful because I remember thinking that way and going, yeah, great, let's bring the Rapture.

Like things are gonna get crazy. But like that is such a privileged, that is such a privileged wealth view.

Imagine like, you know, sitting here in, in Australia, safe, fed, well, healthcare, all of it, and thinking, well, well, everything that's happening across the world that's not happening to you is God wanting to bring you home and it's costing their life. Like I don't even know where to begin with it. It's, it's so fucked up to think that way.

And also just seeing the very cult like dynamics play out globally is fucking scary. And yeah, I think it's just a really triggering time for people who've come out of van times group groups for sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

What's it like for you? I'm not.

Well, it's, I'm actually really lucky in this sense because the group that, like the church that I was a part of was like, yeah, I got taught hell, but I didn't get taught heavy end times rapture. Okay.

Yeah.

And so, so I'm sort of sitting here going like, I can see that and I can recognize that, but that's not the, that happens in the world that activates my nervous. Which in some ways I'm very grateful for.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What is it like in terms of recovery, like in terms of relationships and just building relationships with people. You were a part of a group that referred to you as a bride. What is it like for you to consider what if I want to get married someday?

Yeah.

Like weird little things like that that I imagine a lot of people are not going to, to think. Yeah, like, well, yeah, of course that's going to activate your nervous system. Just like language is activating sometimes.

Yes, yeah, that's a good point. I think it's.

Again, it's, I find it complicated because I didn't have a clean out from this group like I did, but then I plunged straight back into Christianity and, and so I think I was probably more shaped by once I left the cult. Yes. For a period, period of time there was this really strong like sense of like I'm seeing signs everywhere.

And weird conn. And everything's triggering and then.

But because I. I knew it wasn't real because when I was deprogrammed, it did such a good job of just completely collapsing that reality that I didn't really feel associated with it in a really lasting way. So when I talk about it, I really feel like I'm talking about a completely different person.

For me, it's more, you know, it's more the stuff that I maybe don't realize is still in my body. Like. Like sleep deprivation was a really big thing. Massive. And you know, I was so chronically sleep deprived.

And I know how I get when I get sleep deprived now. And it's not. It's not nice. I feel really scared and agitated and quite triggered by it. So sleep is a big thing for me.

And then also, like the sense that, like, well, I can't. I don't know if, you know, aside from all the other reasons not to have kids in a world like this, and I'm not against having kids, but. But you.

You get it.

Yes.

There's also the. Can I. Can I actually physically cope with being chronically sleep deprived or is that going to push me into a really dangerous psychological state?

You know, stuff like that? Um, yeah. And. And I think for the longest time I really glorified marriage because I thought that was the ultimate. Of what. Of what a woman could be.

Yeah, yeah. It'd be chosen. Like, how amazing. And God, no, that's not what I identify with at all. Like, at all.

So, yeah, I feel neither here about some issues and then others, I'm like, oh, that's still in there somewhere, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I, I appreciate you pointing that out because I think for a lot of people, you know, there are like the stock standard things that I talked about in terms of cult recovery and reintegration and the hypervigilance and the dissociation. But I, I think there are really specific situations. Like, you know what you just explained that people are not going to automatically think about.

No.

And so, yeah, I really appreciate you pointing that out. For people to sort of go like this can show up in really hyper specific. Sometimes might seem really bizarre, really strange or really obvious ways.

There is no one way for that to land.

Yeah.

Our nervous system is not logical. So I think, yeah. Where do you land on faith and spirituality now?

I love this question. So I am not religious, so I'll just say that up front.

I definitely feel like, probably agnostic, but then there's also kind of very atheist Part of me. So I don't really know where I land.

And I think the important thing for me is that it's okay to exist in those non binary kind of, of like very nuanced area where maybe one day, you know, I think I want to pull some tarot cards and it really speaks to me.

And then maybe another day, you know, nothing exists except for science and, you know, so I just kind of vacillate and I let myself, because I cannot bring myself to fully commit to a belief that's of that nature. Obviously I have beliefs that are grounded in reality, but, but of that nature, it's, it's really rocky territory. So I don't.

But I also, like I said before, you know, I believe in faith, and I think faith's a really important part of being human. And my mother, for example, has remained like a really strong Christian and it gives her so much in her life.

And I think, you know, if every Christian was like my mom, the world would be a better place because she's beautiful.

And I remember when I first left religion, I was really trying to like, you know, hit her with all the logical fallacies and, you know, kind of just tell her, like, try and convince her why this actually makes no sense at all from my perspective. And then I realized that that was hurting her, hurting her feelings. It wasn't helping her, it was hurting our relationship.

And it wasn't my place because she wasn't harming anybody. And so, you know, and it does so much for her. And, and you know, our dad, my dad, her husband, he had Alzheimer's for 15 years.

And we all dealt with that in different ways. But for her, she was his primary carer and she was up all throughout the night, you know, helping him.

And he was her life for a really long period of time towards the end. And the one thing that got her through was, was her faith in God.

You know, she would get up in the morning, she'd put the heater on, she'd open her bible, she'd sing a song, she'd pray. And that was what anchored her. And without it, who knows? But I also think faith is such a squishy, vulnerable thing to engage with.

And so when you have something as vulnerable as faith, safe, no wonder institutions and exploitative people like to take it and use it to exploit, because it's the most vulnerable thing you can engage with, in my view, like emotionally, because you're believing in something you can't see. So I just don't understand why there aren't Better protections for faith communities in our legislation.

You know, you are getting people at their most vulnerable, at their most susceptible, and you'd hope that it's a positive environment. And many faith environments are, but many aren't. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's tricky. There's like a. Yeah. Faith is. It's so. It's so malleable, which means there is so much that can be done with it. So much for good or so much for bad.

And it is just. Yeah, it's really. It's so malleable, but it's also so personal. It's hyper specific to the individual.

There is no stock standard here with that either. It's so. It's so unique.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What does joy look like in Liz Cameron's life, post cult?

Oh, what does joy look like? Gosh, I don't want to say something like super kitsch. I'm like, you know, what's on the beach?

Yeah.

Nice meal. But no, probably the simple things. Like, it's. It's. It's really just straightforward for me. I. I actually, I'm a bit of a heater goodness.

So I love, like, you know, a glass of wine and a trashy series like Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Yeah.

Salt Lake City Girl.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

That's good too. It is, yeah. Yeah. Something really vapid, you know, because life can be heavy. And. What else?

I mean, I genuinely love talking about cult stuff with people. Like, it.

It gives me a lot of joy to connect with people, you know, know who understand, who get it, like you and like so many other people in this beautiful community. And I fucking love it. It gives me life. Yeah. I just get so much joy when I. When I get to talk freely about this stuff.

As hard as it is in some ways, like going for walks, exercising, I. I'm still figuring it out, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Beautiful. I mean, and also, like, that's gonna change. Like, joy changes on any given day. Like, what gives me joy today is going to be different.

Tomorrow, 10 years time, it'll be completely different.

Yeah, Yeah.

I like to finish these episodes with some encouragement for people. So what would you say to someone who is in the really disorienting, vulnerable place, they've just left the group that they were a part of.

What would you say to them?

Gosh, I get emotional when I think about it because, like, you know, every time you hear from someone who is in that state, your heart breaks a little bit. Right. Like, it's like, I would never wish that on anybody. And I also, I'm just. There are so many things that I want to say that sound really cliched.

Like, you know, it's hard now, but it's not going to be hard for everyone, even though it feels like it will be. You're not alone. I guess I would just. Those things are true.

And I would say I'm so sorry that you're experiencing what you are and just acknowledge that, like, you've been deeply violated, you've been deeply hurt, and everything that you're feeling is so valid. And I just hope that wherever you are, you have even one person or one animal around you that gives you comfort and love and a sense of safety.

Yeah, beautiful.

I like to ask those questions not so that they can those comments can be heard in isolation, but so they can be heard in conjunction with the over a hundred stories on this podcast and the hundreds on other podcasts podcasts, where the comments and the encouragement in conjunction with the story upon the story upon the story might just tell people to feel not so alone in what they're going and going through.

That's really, really beautiful.

So, yes, it's hard to not make it cliche, but alongside of everything else is what we want it to sit with.

So I imagine so many people are feeling left in this episode with many, many gaps, which was a little intentional for me, like I said, for them to go and listen and read. And again, thank you so much for joining me and for talking about, you know, what your experience was in, you know, before, during and after.

I am, you know, ever grateful for people who sit in this position and have a chat with me.

Thank you, Sam. I'm just so grateful for the work that you do and that you create a space for these conversations to be held.

So thank you for all your beautiful questions and it's been an honor. I really appreciate it.

Thanks for listening to beyond the Surface. If this episode resonated, challenged you, or named something you've struggled to put words to, I'm really glad you found your way here.

You'll find ways to connect, learn more, and explore further in the show. Notes as always, you are good. You have always been good and your story matters always.