Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 474 - Krumping for Christ! The 7M Cult & Christian Nationalism

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

This week, we deep dive into Pastor Robert Shinn, his Shekinah Church, and his management company 7M Films - and examine how a modern cult has (allegedly) exploited TikTok dancers, financially abusing them, sexually abused them and other members, while also possibly being connected to the very popular and scary Seven Mountains Mandate that currently has strong Whitehouse connections. While this cult is scary, a brewing American attempt at a theocracy is the most disturbing part of this week's information-heavy episode for me.  Hail Nimrod! Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What if you were a dancer already enjoying some success on social media? But you, like everybody else, you wanted more. And then, what if a group of people told you they could make your wildest dreams come true? They could land you well-paid brand deals worth tens of thousands of dollars. They could get you a lot more followers, a lot more fame, a lot more opportunities that would eventually lead to you becoming truly rich and famous. What if all that came at the cost of your friends and family? What if you had to say goodbye to all the people you'd known before

and only associate with this new group of people, at least in any meaningful way, going forward. A lot of people, myself now included, believe that performers associated with the management company 7M films face this exact predicament. 7M films is or was a talent agency owned by Robert Shin, who is also a pastor of the Shikina Church in Southern California. He's a pastor with a very shady past since a 2024 Netflix docu-series called Dancing for the Devil, him and his group of being a cult, it seems like 7M may have folded. Or maybe they're just keeping their profile low for the moment, and then Robert will rise again with some new grift, as he seems to have done before.

Performers with 7M were given incredible opportunities appearing in lucrative ad campaigns and nationally televised performances, but these opportunities sure seem to have mostly been lucrative just for Robert. Many former members and their families believe he is a cult leader. I certainly do after watching the docu-series and reading countless articles. Performers with 7M were strongly connected to the Shikina Church, Robert's Church again, based in Los Angeles, although the church is separate as an entity on paper than 7M. The man behind both the church and 7M one of the same,

and some performers reportedly gave up to 30% of their paychecks to the church after giving a 20% management fee to 7M, so 50% of what they made went to different businesses belonging to the same man, and then even more than that went towards other fees paid to other businesses owned by Robert. The Chikina Church clearly mostly a business venture. At Chikina Church, Robert Shin has preached that God wants his followers to make lots and lots of money and that the best way to get a lot of money is to give him a lot of money. You got to plant those money seeds if you want them to bear fruit.

Got to give big to receive big. He's also preached that his followers need to die to their families, meaning they should give up contact with them to focus on self-improvement, which he has preached, will later help these families get into heaven one day. You know, when they join his church as well. Several known 7M performers have done just this. They've gone months without speaking to or seeing their families. This week, we will discuss the mysterious origins of the Shikina Church

in its early years, including the story of two sisters who escape from Shinn's alleged abuse and control. We'll discuss some of the more disturbing allegations against Shin, including claims of both financial and sexual abuse. We'll also discuss how Shin's involvement with social media influencers made this a national viral story that led to 7M films being known as the 7M TikTok cult and this church's possible connection to the 7 Mountain Mandate,

a Christian nationalist ideology on another cult, cult, cult edition of TimeSuck. This is Michael McDonald, and you're listening to TimeSuck. You're listening. to TimeSuck. Well, happy Monday, and welcome and welcome back to the Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan Cummins, a master sucker, ASMR hater, choreographer to the stars, butcher of multiple languages, and you are listening to TimeSuck. Hail Nimrod, Hail Usafina, Praise Beat, a good boy, Bojangles, Corey beat a Triple M.

Only one announcement, just like last week, before I died. in the September bad magic charity is scope summer camp opportunities promote education this non-profit provides children from under-resourced communities with access to life-changing overnight summer camp experiences by offering a pathway that leads from camp to the classroom to college to career uh and this at this past bad magic wet hot summer camp we teamed up with the staff there to donate 100% of all tips to scope which totaled 2,970 then we added in our monthly patreon amounts which was 12,200. $125 for a grand total of $15,200, and $1,350 was also put into the scholarship fund for 2026.

To learn more about scope, visit scopeUSA.org. Thank you, everybody who helped make that possible. And now let's get weird. I'm going to start things off today by finding you, either at work, right, your house, house, whichever place offers the best opportunity for shaming you the most. There in front of your family or coworkers or both, maybe also some friends, I don't know who's going to be around. We're going to record a video of you being held down and wedged so fucking hard. We're going to keep yanking on your underwear until they rip off,

no matter how much force that takes. Even if we have to hold you by your underwear, like pick you up off the ground, spin you around and around and until it rips and you go flying off, so be it. If we have to have one person or a small group of people, pull your arms while another a person or persons pulls you by your underwear in the opposite direction, we're going to get it done. Don't care if you're 20, 30, 80, 10 years old, fucking whatever, no exceptions. And when your underwear rips, holy shit, are we going to point and laugh at you? And then we're going to record people smelling your underwear, talking about how much it fucking

stinks, even if it definitely doesn't. And if you don't wear underwear, well, then I guess we're just going to have to break your legs. I mean, what other option do we have, really? And then we're going to post videos of all that online and also send the video to bosses, spouses, children, et cetera. Sorry, that was madness border on gibberish. That was just for me.

That was more fun for me to say here than it probably should have been. We're not going to do any of that. You're safe, probably, at least for me. I don't know what else is going on in your life. What's really happening in this episode is we're going to start with a brief overview of how difficult it is to become a professional dancer, which is, you know, a big part of what made it possible for the Shikina Church to pray on the aspirations of dancers.

followed by a timeline of what we know about Chikina Church, 7M films, and its associated members. And then following the timeline, I'm going to explain with the Christian nationalist movement Roberts' take on Christianity links to, at least in name, that Seven Mountains mandate. Let us begin. Most people probably understand, I'm guessing.

The professional dance, typically not a lucrative career. I don't know how many dancers you know who've gotten rich off a dance. While so many dancers, are wildly talented dancers have limited income opportunities and the ones they do get often come with pretty low pay. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, backup dancers on tours earn an average of $21.64 an hour, $21.64. But pay differs, of course, based on location, dance style and project. And that low pay is the one and only reason. I'm not currently the

world's most sought-after professional dancer. Didn't you know that Beyonce once told me that the main reason that she believes in God is because she once watched me dance alone in the rain. She said it was proof to her that heaven is real because only an angel can move like that. I can't dance for shit. But I do appreciate watching those who can. Lindsay actually worked on a Rihanna tour years back right before she and I started dating. And her job as a costumer on that tour involved operating the quick change tent beneath or behind the stage, helping with costume changes during the show, maintaining the overall integrity of the dancer's costume. She spent a lot of time around these dancers

as they traveled around the world and even on this huge international tour even though Rihanna, very generous as far as industry standards go she'd hear the dancers talk about money, complain about it, sounded like they only got $1,500, $2,000 a week plus travel and basic expenses.

And these are the fucking best of the best. The real financial play for most elite dancers is in building up your resume and then becoming a choreographer or opening up like a dance studio in your hometown or whatever, both. But even then, you're not becoming rich.

You're making a living. Today, if you're a professional dancer in New York City working on Broadway, your annual salary is going to be about 65K. If you work every single week of the year on, you know, one Broadway show after another, unless you're one of the fucking stars, which as a dancer, you're probably not,

you might make around 125K a year, which, you know, probably sounds pretty good, but the average rent for a studio apartment in Manhattan, currently $37.50 a month. Almost $4,000 a month for a studio. After taxes, that means you're given half your money to just rent. It's fucking brutal financially. And the figures I threw out not attained by most incredible dancers

because most of them cannot find consistent work. There truly is not enough work to go around. Also, it's freelance. You're almost never working year around. Sometimes you're making okay money. Maybe every once in a while pretty good money. Other times making no money. At least not as a dancer.

and, you know, you're probably, you know, scrambling to weight tables, 10 bar, or some equivalent of that if you're lucky. According to ZipRecruiter, the average salary of a professional dancer in California, where today's story takes place is just over $30,000 a year or under $14.50 an hour, right? The struggle's real. Making it as a dancer is extremely difficult, borderline impossible for many, with thousands of dancers competing for the same few paying jobs. However, the ride of social media. TikTok in particular has given dancers the chance for greater income stability and more control over their careers, as well as more opportunities to market themselves to find jobs. If a dancer produces content that, you know, somewhat consistently goes viral, they can

become an actual paid influencer thanks to brand deals, even filming TV deals, you know, they can land those which can expose their work to a national audience. James Derek, a dancer in one of the main subjects of today's story, whom we will meet later, spoke to the Washington Post back in 2019 after blowing up on TikTok and Instagram about how social media gave him independence in his career. He said, with these platforms at the end of the day, you don't need a label.

All you need is fans. That's why social media is golden for people like us because you can become an artist without anyone holding us back and telling us what to do. For some dancers, including James Derek, their dreams of turning a growing following into consistently making money

is what made, you know, or was made possible, excuse me, by a management company known as 7M Films. According to a 2022 article by the Rolling Stone, 7M appears to be capitalizing on the popularity of Dan's videos on social platforms by pooling creators' popularity for views. This follows the example of TikTok content houses, where several popular TikTokers, form a collective, appear in each other's videos, and everyone reaps the rewards. Yeah, 100% good old cross-pollination. Can't tell you how many times various agents and social media consultants that I talked to over the years. pushed me to do exactly that with time suck,

especially when it's first growing. Almost all podcasts do it. Didn't make sense for me, but, you know, makes sense for a lot of people. The Rolling Stone article added, 7M specializes in putting out a high volume of short dance clips, all featuring talented performers

and set in appealing locations like picturesque patios inside fancy homes or near landmarks like the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The videos are polished, catchy, somewhat hypnotic, its content, Taylor made to go viral, and 7M's approach seems to be working. Several dancers who worked with 7M have or had millions of followers.

They've appeared in TV ad campaigns, performed in Super Bowl halftime shows and things like that. But as we will see in the timeline, their success came at a big price. An L.A.-based choreographer spoke to a road and stone journalist about hiring a 7M dancer for a gig in early 2022. The choreographer direct message to dancers she'd interacted with before on social media,

and he told her to reach out to his manager, now for any questions, and she thought that was a bit strange as she, you know, doesn't typically communicate with managers in the dance world. Every follow-up question she asked was met with a response from the dancer, again, directing her to his manager. The dancer also did not seem to know much about the industry, including really basic stuff like standard sag after union rates. Why didn't they know that? Probably because Robert Shin did not want them to know that. Probably because he instructed them to run all business inquiries through him, and not because he didn't want them being taken advantage of by some choreographer or producer,

but because he wanted to take advantage of them. Great managers empower their clients, exploitive managers keep their clients ignorant and feeling like they are dependent on them. Many believe, especially since that Netflix docu-series last year, that the 7-M dancers were and some still are under very strict control and lack personal and financial freedom. One of the main reasons why 7M has become known as a 7-M cult. These beliefs are fueled by the fact that the founder of 7M, Robert Shin, is the pastor and founder of a controversial, very controlling church that has also been called a cult.

There has been some speculation about what 7M means. Some social media users have noted that conservative Christians use 7M or 7MM, a shorthand for the Seven Mountains mandate, which is preached by certain Pentecostal dominionists who believe Christians should take over the seven spheres of societal influence, which includes, media, business, and arts and entertainment. I'll speak a lot more about the Seven Mountains mandate after the timeline, as it is the Christian nationalist connection I referenced earlier. 7M claims to be a secular for-profit business that just happens to be run by Christians, but as we'll soon see, that's a bunch of bullshit. The church and the business are incredibly interconnected, to the point that they're basically

the same fucking business. So now let's begin our timeline, where we will meet Robert Shin, the church's founder, learn about the early days of the church, and how he came to found. 7M films Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time-suck timeline. Okay, just a quick note before we jump in, uh, I'm right outside your house

at the moment, and me and some friends, I just met down at some dive bar, across town they seem like good fellas. Oh, we are good and fucking loaded. Ha ha! Holy fuck, we're gonna savagey wedge you off your underwear. Real quick note now, while the warrant was issued this past July amid allegations of sex trafficking, alleged tax evasion, mail fraud, and money laundering, and Robert Chin was detained. Robert Chin, as of this recording, has yet to be arrested or charged in connection with any of the allegations against him.

You know, all the allegations I'll be going over. These allegations have not been proven yet in criminal court. And the lawsuit against him is set to go to trial in the next few weeks, actually, May October 2025. according to former church member and potential abuse victim, Melanie Lee, who you'll meet soon. Okay, just throwing that disclaimer out so I don't get, so I don't get fucking sued.

And just because, you know, it's the truth. Shikina Church, excuse me, was founded in 1994 by Robert Israel Shin, a man whose early life we know nothing about, which doesn't mean he's a cult leader, but certainly on brand, if he is. Coat leaders, in my experience, tend to be incredibly talented

when it comes to obscuring the truth of their past, which is, you know, very important for their grifts. If no one knows who you really are, gives you a nice blank slate to work with to shape your messianistic backstory. It makes it really hard for people to call bullshit on you if you're blatantly lying about your origins,

which you probably are. Shin established the original church in Santa Ana after he moved to California from Canada. Seems he was born in South Korea, though, where his family is from before he lived in Toronto for a while, perhaps in other Canadian places. According to New York Magazine's The Cut, Shin is a former medical doctor who legally changed his last name from shin with one N,

S-H-I-N to S-H-I-N. And that's suspicious as fuck to me. Why add an extra N? Like, it doesn't change the way it's going to be pronounced. You know, it's not like most people spell shin with two ends and he was just, you know, tired of people getting his fucking name wrong on his mail or something and he wanted to make his life easier. Feels like he's trying to make it harder for investigators to look into his past here.

Or maybe making it harder for people from his past. to find out what he's doing now or find him at all. What did Dr. Shin do if he was a doctor? An archive version of the Shikina Church International website from 2009 states that the church was founded by Dr. Israel Shin, aka Robert Shin. The website describes Shin as a, quote, former medical doctor who had successfully practiced medicine for seven years before God spoke to him to go into ministry full time.

Seven years? Holy number? That's interesting coincidence. Is that true? Was he ever a doctor? he said that numerous times, but what proof do we have other than his word? I don't think we have any other proof. Also, Reverend Doctor, that's kind of nice. Takes me back to some year one time suck jokes. The current church website does not offer much additional information, but their homepage states, Shikina Church International was born with the calling of saving one billion souls, raising up leaders of the body of Christ and supporting the gospel with all means. One billion. Go big or go home. Or go home. Or go bigger go to hell, I guess. I love when they do that. Like, God, God just loves round numbers. God, do you want to save all the people on earth? No, but

I do want you to get one billion. Get exactly one billion people saved. Cool. Another mission of theirs is, quote, raising up leaders. According to the website, we are called to find and teach Christians who have an abundant potential to be mighty generals of God. They will know who God

is when they are called to be and what is the surpassing greatness of his power and his glorious inheritance and I guess that's a paraphrasing from Ephesians the book of Ephesians how important

they're gonna turn you know you into somebody big get fucking get freaking ready a third goal is sharing the father's love again according to the website we are called to aggressively train

God's people to develop the fruit of the spirit which are divine characteristics of God himself so that they may really meet God in the deepest way. Only this way will one handle all the success and prosperity properly. Most importantly, the love of God and the spirit leads to ultimate victory in one's destiny because against such

there is no law. And that's a reference to Galatians. Okay, so prosperity gospel stuff. Very popular amongst the grifty crowd. God wants you to be rich. Rich like me! Let me show you how to make that mother truck and money.

Step one, tithe me a lot of money. Shikina wants to build God's sanctuary their website states We were given the word explosion of God's glory The glory of God will be manifested in the sanctuary It will be powerfully tangible even to the eyes of the world We have no doubt And there has been too many confirmations From other leaders in the body of Christ

The glory of God will hit his people And through their continual demonstration of victorious living The body of Christ will be perfected As we wait for the glorious return of our Lord Jesus Finally Shikina's last last mission is to quote support the gospel with all means we are called to be doers of the word therefore we are called to be givers even though he just fucking takes uh we are devoted and dedicated to give into the kingdom of god we have firmly committed our lives to sow temp time effort money

and prayer seeds so in those temp seeds bro every day to bring every day to bring all of god's family together into his glorious house keep that money seed statement of mind money will become a focal point later in the timeline. I mean, if you're not planting money seeds, are you even Christian, bro? That's what Jesus is mostly about. In case y'all forgot. Dollar, dollar bills, y'all!

That's why he wore a robe woven out of solid gold. Do you remember that? That's why his sandals were studded with, oh, so many shiny jewels, the shiniest of jewels. That's why he had to have his feet washed and rubbed. They're all cut up from those rubies and emeralds. That's why I rocked that platinum and diamond motherfucking grill. That's why he only carried a designer satchel around.

That's why I loved to mum. mock poor people, begging him to help them overthrow the Roman oppressors. Go woke, go broke, son. He used to love to say that. According to California business record, Shin was the CEO of a company called Seventh Millennium Incorporated. I love these names, which was dissolved in 2008. And what did seventh millennium actually do? Uh, probably just grift. Probably mostly just grifting. We don't know. Right, maybe some money laundering. Uh, Robert has allegedly founded numerous businesses in his lifetime, some of which were apparently very successful, like a real estate company with his realtor, excuse me, and office workers

were basically volunteers from his congregation, not taking advantage of them at all. As far as his personal life, we know that Robert Shin is currently married to a woman named Hannah Shin. He's also been married before to a woman named Shirley Kim

and he has at least three kids. Isaiah, Chloe, and Conrad. Sources are not clear on whether Hannah is the mother of some or all of these kids or of Kim or another woman or women are. Again, details of his early life. Very hard to come by. Not even the dancing for the devil document.

series, which went in, you know, looking for details about Shinn's life, not even their producers, who I'm guessing spent a lot of, a lot of hours digging could find much, it seems. We'll learn more about how Shikina Church operated in its early years from two sisters, Melanie and Priscilla Lee, who spoke to the producers of that docu-series in depth about their experiences. Melanie Lee left Chikina for good around 2011. Her sister Priscilla did not leave until 2023. Priscilla claimed she was in the church for 23 years, excuse me.

That's a long-ass time. time. The Lee sisters grew up in South Korea, claimed to have had a tough childhood. Their mother struggled with alcoholism. Their dad abandoned them at a young age. Their mom moved them to the U.S. when they were young, and the three settled in Southern California. Their mom worked nights and slept during the day. According to the girls when she was home, she was typically drinking and also developed a gambling addiction. Priscilla would become Melanie's main caretaker. In her interview, Priscilla recalled how their mother would sometimes leave for up to a month. They didn't even know where she

was they didn't know what she was doing she wouldn't even call to check in as she got older melanie started visiting she kind of church mostly because she felt lonely neglected which makes sense right she was desperate for community for some fucking parental guidance for consistency and structure people she could depend on melany explained how priscilla didn't allow her to make any friends at school because she worried her friends would get her involved in drugs but at church that felt safe one of Melanie's only friends was a young man named Mark Richardson got a sneaky

That's a sneaky dick Sneaking in the last name with this one But you have to get him in the episodes Mark Mark Dixon was Richardson Was interviewed Recalled that Melanie had a very strict home life And it always seemed like there was more going on

At home than she told him That she was like ashamed of what was going on Hiding something Melanie also explained that church is a common way for Korean immigrants To find a sense of community in the states And the majority of Shikina's small Congregation back in the late 90s

and early 2000s was Korean, almost entirely. She said, when you enter a church like that, you're automatically accepted. I was really longing for that. According to a 2023, studied by the Pew Research Center, 59% of Korean Americans are Christian, and most of them are Protestant.

Christian Korean Americans have a long and fascinating history. The first major wave of Korean immigration to the U.S. was to Hawaii's sugar plantation, start in 1903. Most of those immigrants were Christians. The Sugar Planners Association, and previously sent missionaries to Korea, and those missionaries settled in port cities and ended up recruiting people to go to Hawaii,

promising an opportunity for religious freedom. Once they arrived in Hawaii, Korean immigrants built churches for worship and community. Then after Japan colonized Korea in 1910, churches back in Korea became places where Koreans could discuss anti-colonialism. According to encyclopedia.com, in many Asian countries, Christianity was long identified

with European and American colonialism. But in Korea, the colonizing power was Japan. Christian missionaries, particularly Protestants, showed themselves willing to identify with the Korean people, to the point that some were imprisoned by the Japanese. Their resistance to foreign aggression against Korea won the hearts of many Koreans who became converts to Christianity. Korean immigrants soon moved to the U.S. mainland and all across North America, and churches with primarily Korean congregations started popping up across the U.S. in the early 20th century. And while there's so much more about Korean immigration history I could share, like how a notable number of Americans, soldiers brought back uh korean wives after the korean war with over six thousand women married to the u.s military personnel immigrating to the u.s let's now refocus on our cult cult to melany lee

she kind of seemed like a perfectly normal you know but small church there's only about 15 members when she started showing up so real small and then included robert shin's family and the family of robert's sister katherine yee so really more of a family gathering at a church at that point Catherine basically took Melanie in as a fourth daughter which of course made her very happy she was so desperate for some maternal stability according to Melanie Robert and Catherine promised the love and support

she'd never had before and now Melanie started inviting her friend Mark to church Mark Richardson Mark will later say that at first he thought it was just a friendly invitation but he also felt like he was being recruited for something a little weird his something fucking strange here senses were tingling

or something is strange here but he didn't think it was dangerous he had no interest in joining Chikina but he still thought it was quote a cute multicultural organization by this point Melanie was telling her sister Priscilla how amazing Chikina was and now Priscilla starts to attend

she doesn't have obviously any parental stability either Melanie will be baptized in the church in 2005 when she's a freshman in high school at 15 years old and the story of her baptism is weird at the time of her baptism Melanie had some kind of painful persistent rash

she tried all kinds of treatment but nothing seemed to work. Church members were praying for a rash to be healed. Well, two days after Robert Dunker in the water for her baptism, no more rash. And everyone at the church came to the conclusion that that was definitely a miracle. Because, you know, rash has never ever just go away?

Now one time in history, as anyone had a rash just disappear. Only powerful medicine or powerful miracle can ever get rid of a rash, obviously. Rash Angel, one of the top miracle workers in heaven. Much kids starving to death in Gaza or Sudan. man, no angel for them, but some Korean kid gets a rash in L.A.? Fucking on it! Go, Rash, Angel, go! Get that rash! Go and get it!

Yeah, yeah, yeah! According to Melanie, Robert took immediate credit for being God's conduit for this miracle, and several people came up to her and told her they wanted to truly commit their lives to the church after seeing her be miraculously healed of her annoying, but definitely not life-threading or that serious or that debilitating rash in any way. Good job, Rash, Angel, you did it, bro. Well, Robert will teach that it takes more than baptism in faith to be seen. saved now. You can't just show up believe. Pray to get a visit from Rash Angel. You got grow the fuck up.

According to Priscilla, Robert would tell his congregation even if you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you're not going to necessarily get your rash fixed. No, you're not going to be saved. This message of salvation, nobody else knows. I'm the only one that knows this message. Yeah, buddy. Getting a lot of mileage

out of that rash. Jump straight to follow me and only me if you want to live. Priscilla, out of that Robert preached that, and I have heard recordings of him saying things like that in his sermons quote you're you're going to die and you're going to go to hell strong opening they just they describe hell as an abyss and everybody's tortured by their sins on earth you feel the pain that you did to other people some people there's maggots coming out of you your skin's getting burned then it reheels itself and it starts all over again

she said it gave me such a fear of hell my mission was to never go there now that became my mission in life robert was my connection to god by getting close to robert i was getting close to God, and then she wasn't going to go to hell. Fear, fear, fear. Nothing sells better than fear, does it? You will burn in hell. Unless you listen to me, do what I say, and give me some money. It's the best sales pitch of all time.

Follow me or rash angel shall forsake you. And your rash will be itchy forever. Yeah, the more you know. Around the time, things started to change at Robert's Church, and they changed quickly. Some other church members moved into the same apartment complex as Melanie, and then Melanie and Priscilla moved into another house, or a house, a house the church owned, with other church members, which they called, quote, glory girls.

So they moved into a compound. Or a house just chock full of glory holes, or both. Uh-oh, rash angel! Looks like the glory hole girls are giving folks rashes again. I don't know why this song makes sense. This is me right now. It does. That's a great way to get a nasty rash on your balls. I'm feeling weird in this episode, as you can't tell.

And now, since I've already taken this out of the story, how about we take today's first two mid-show sponsor breaks? If you don't want to hear these ads, Ever again, please sign up to be a space lizard on Patreon. You can help us contribute to charitable, monthly donations, get the catalog, ad free, get episodes three days early and more. Thanks for listen to our sponsors. Hope you heard a deal you liked.

And now let's return to the early pre-dancing days of the Shikana Church. When Robert is separating the Lee Sisters, make it easier to control them. So Robert, Shannon, Catherine, you own several houses in the area, and they assign members to different houses and assign them roommates, right? Excerting more and more control over their lives. the girls were also moved around every six to eight months now and Melanie and Priscilla were

separated. Keep them confused, keep their social ties severed or limited, keep all focus on Robert and not burning in hell. Soon Melanie was room with the girl. She didn't know. Now she literally wasn't allowed to visit Priscilla and talk to her, right?

We're going to break down those familial connections, form new connections dependent only on the church, destroy somebody's previous identity, rebuild them a new one that is intertwined with the church, so very culty. Their, quote, house captains ran tight ships. They couldn't stay up past 10 p.m. Everybody had to get up at 5 a.m.

Had to be at the church at 6 a.m. for one hour prayer session to kick off the day. Seems a bit much. Had to eat the meals. They were served. Couldn't choose what to eat. Everybody had to get approval to leave the house for any reason. Regular members also didn't get direct access to Robert Shin.

Instead, they were assigned spiritual mentors who would contact Robert with their concerns on their behalf. During this time, Robert was teaching. in his congregation things like your thoughts are not your own that's fun your thoughts are not your own uh he told him that their thoughts were either from the devil or from god fuck is that is actually true i hope not i feel like if it is at least 90% of my thoughts come from satan murder fantasies jerk off fantasies uh thinking about how funny it would be to smear peanut butter all over the dog's faces and wondering if they'll lick it off each other's faces the next time they beg for it when i'm making a protein shake daydreams those are all devil-based right anyway members were

encouraged to report every concerning thought to their spiritual mentor, that's a little bit of mind control. And if somebody committed a transgression, it would be most definitely reported by another member. Everybody's goal was to get closer to Robert, who called himself a man of God in order to receive blessings. This created a competitive environment in the houses. Priscilla Lee explained that Robert intentionally created this system that would make people fight for his attention and approval and view other members, not as fellow followers of Christ, but as, you know, like spiritual competition. People didn't do what they were told. Robert would publicly call them out during sermons, list out everything they did wrong, shaming them, causing other members to shun them.

At the same time, members felt like God did not love them. If they were never mentioned in service, they wanted to learn how to improve themselves. They wanted to please Robert, do as he asked. Most members of Shikina were very young, people with no job experience, who came from very low-income, unstable families, you know, people who didn't know the ways of the world, much easier to take advantage of. These young cult members so desperately wanted to be blessed to get closer to God, and according to Melanie, Robert took advantage of that by using them as free or almost free labor. Robert opened several businesses during Melanie's time in the cult, including a cafe, two mortgage companies, two real estate companies, and two flower shops. Church members worked for all these

companies and earned, like, extremely low wages if they made any money at all. So fucked up. If you're a pastor and you exploit members of your church by having them work for free, for you in businesses outside your church businesses you profit from you know you're a fucking predator right or do you still somehow consider yourself a good godly person are you able to rationalize your bullshit uh Melanie worked Monday to Saturday 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. over 60 hours a week and she was paid a hundred bucks breaks down to less than two dollars an hour about a buck 60 an hour uh priscilla worked for robert's mortgage company and his real estate company she was paid next to nothing, not enough to be able to save up and find a new place to live,

not enough to save up for a car, not enough for a phone. She had nothing. She was completely dependent on the church for her social life, for a place to live, for access to a car or phone or fucking anything. Exactly the way Robert wanted it. And instead of resenting him, she adored him. She desperately wanted to earn his approval. Priscilla and the other employees were also being exploited in the same ways.

In 2021, they collectively brought him more than a million dollars in real estate commissions and didn't see any of that money. I mean, not really. You only saw their hundred bucks a week or whatever. Robert's wife Hannah Shin had full access to Priscilla's bank account. Priscilla felt she had to give her this to get right with Robert, which would be equal to getting right with God, right in her eyes. That's what she'd been told.

And to get right, she had to pay. She had to plant those money seeds. Hannah told Priscilla that she ordered checks for her and instructed her to sign all of them, totally on the up and up. Nothing to be worried about. Hannah wrote checks, deposited them into Priscilla's bank account, then withdrew much of that money by writing checks to Shikana Church or to Robert or his other business entities. And Hannah didn't stop there.

She paid off other people's expenses or credit cards with most of or more of Priscilla's money. In the end, no matter how much Priscilla worked, no matter how much profit the business made, she was only given an $80 stipend every two weeks. It's fucking crazy. So way less than $100 a week. She's given $40 a week. But still she remained faithful. You know, Robert taught her and the others to be givers.

Robert was recorded saying in one sermon If you want to reap something big What do you have to sew? You have to sew something big. Big sewing, big reaping. Small sewing, small reaping. Your giving has to reflect your receiving desire. That fucking slimy asshole.

He knows exactly what he's doing here. In addition to cafes, real estate, flower shops, you know, etc. Robert also dabbled in filmmaking before he founded 7M. You know, he was starting to want to break into showbiz. Be a big Hollywood producer. producer. He was an executive producer, i.e., he helped with the funding for a couple of indie films, such as random encounters, a 2013, you know, nice, wholesome family movie starring Megan Markle, partially funded by an exploitive, godly cult leader. The premise of that movie is as follows. What seems to be a chance encounter one day at a coffee shop leads to a full-fledged romance, but the couple must fight for their relationship to survive the craziness that is show business. Sounds incredible.

Robert also helped produce a 2018 film titled The Cyclist Here's a description for that one When a Korean-Canadian director's wife goes missing He will stop at nothing to find a new bike to ride as soon as possible A newer younger bike And then he'll find another bike and another and another And he'll ride them all He'll start an entire cult almost exclusively devoted to finding new bikes

That have been abandoned, shining them up, riding them So fucking hard Down as many hills over as many jumps And crashing them into as many ditches while trying out every conceivable trick imaginable. Dr. Robert Shin is the cyclist. No. No, the second movie he invested in is called abducted.

And here's what it's really about. When a military veteran's daughter is kidnapped and the police come up empty, Dane decides to take matters into his own hands and a heart-pounding race against the clock to save the girl and serve justice to the kidnappers. So low rent-taken. Not sure if either film made money.

Neither was shown in theaters. Robert wanted to be a big-time Hollywood producer, but it wasn't working out, not until he founded 7M films and got into talent management. Yeah, the name's a bit of a misnomer there. Sounds like it's a production company, but it's a management company. Robert's daughter Chloe had a semi-successful singing career under a record label founded by Robert, but she never launched to stardom. Never gained many fans at all, actually. However, due to her dad's business savvy, her music was featured on Dancing with the Stars, love and hip-hop, real housewives, queer eye, and the view. I think her biggest song was this one, which is called,

stop. Oh, no, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. That's, no, that's a, sorry, that's wrong button. Sorry, here it is. Oh, shit. Dang it. No.

Dinosaur bones. Yeah, where can we see them? Wow, sorry. Me and my dumb fingers. Here's her actual song. I mean, yeah, she tells of us Because it's been burning on to love Running on us

Calling in love When there's no fire anymore I mean, yeah, she talents it You know, not my kind of music But yeah, she's got a great voice But again, she never took off To a level that satisfied Robert's thirst For fame and power

Robert also managed his son-in-law, Daniel Joseph, Chloe's husband Set him out on auditions He was one of the stars That abducted independent movie But Daniel's acting career never seemed to really go anywhere. I mean, you can buy somebody's way

into a low-budget movie, but it's hard to make somebody a star that way. Robert didn't just work with his daughter, son-in-law. He often has mixed business with family. His wife, Hannah Shin, the registered CFO of Chikina Church. His ex-wife, attorney Shirley Kim, has registered a number of Shin's companies. He's had at least two sisters work for him.

His son, Isaiah, has worked for him. And his son-in-law, Daniel was the registered secretary of Chikina Church. Daniel Joseph's family, they were founding members of Shikina. However, his sister Leah Perra told the cut that the family left the church after a few years due to some type of disagreement

with Shinn over finances. Yeah, maybe they got tired of him blatantly take advantage of them and essentially stealing from them. Shin then gave them an ultimatum to stop talking to his sister Julie Shinn and when they refused to cut contact with her, Shin kicked out anybody still friendly

with them, including his future son-in-law. Daniel Joseph later rejoined Shikina Church when he was in college and he became Robert's right-hand manned. And now this transitioned back a few years to discuss one of the earliest scandals within the church. Roughly a decade before,

Robert started working with TikTokers. His congregation had a big schism. In 2008, after Robert was accused of sexual assault, he lost about half his members over this. Melanie Lee was there when it happened, and she said she was attending what she thought was a normal church service. Robert was standing at the pulpit,

about to make an announcement when a group of six girls, six different young women, all members of his church, exact ages not given. came barging into the building they were crying hysterically they were pointing at Robert

they were saying versions of you sexually assaulted me according to Melanie quote Robert had been soliciting sexual favors from different women and these women were giving it to him because he was promising the position of his wife which is also called

woman of God but they didn't know he had already taken a wife Robert's sister Catherine became the spokesperson for these accusers which seems a little crazy but she stood up to her brother she told Robert that he was no man of God that he needed to pay for what he had done. Unsurprisingly, while Robert did not deny having sexual relationships with these women,

he did blame them for what happened. Of course he did. He made it seem like they seduced him. He was taken advantage of. He told his congregation that he was only human. A godly man, yeah, but a man with temptations and struggles like everybody else. I mean, he has a wiener. And he asked for their forgiveness.

And some gullible motherfuckers were so touched by his perceived humility and his plea for forgiveness that they did forgive him. and they stayed with Shikina while his accusers and a number of others left, including his sister, Catherine Yee. And now since Catherine has just taken most of Roberts, barely paid workers out the door with her, he asked Priscilla Lee to help rebuild his companies. And he just gets to keep on drifting.

And again, I'm surprised that more of these pieces of shit don't get murdered or have their churches burned down by somebody they have fucked over, or literally fucked. Or by like the brother or father of somebody, you know, they fucked over or fucked. Priscilla said that Robert So manipulative Now love bombed her Made her feel like she needed to be loyal to him

And Shikina He also focuses attention on Melanie But a different kind of attention He invited her to his house Made overt sexual advances towards her Told Melanie that he had done so much for her And now she needed to quote Pay her price

Because quote everyone has a price No excuse me Everyone has paid a price According to Melanie His sexual abuse started off With her massaging him After he would take his clothes off even though she would ask him not to.

They'd have a lot of one-on-one time. Robert told her that he was the man of God, and like King David in the Bible, he was allowed to have mistresses, and he wanted Melanie to be one of his mistresses. And yes, the biblical King David did have mistresses. He had at least eight wives and an untold number of mistresses. Not as many as King Solomon.

I forgot about this. Bible says he had 700 wives. And another 300 mistresses. That dude had a fucking working dick. My God. and you can be sure that future cult leaders will continue to use that justification to sexually abuse followers going forward

there's quite a bit of creepy sexual shit in the Bible that cult leaders can use to justify doing creepy sexual shit Melanie finally confided in her friend Mark about what was going on he told her that she needed to leave as soon as possible but she wasn't ready wouldn't be for several more years the very next year in 2009 a former member

named Lydia Chung attempted to sue Robert Lydia was part of the church from 1996 to 2008 so quite some time her suit alleged friends and labor law violations, she claimed the church and Robert, quote, exerted undue influence mind control, coercive persuasion, oppression, and other intimidating tactics. She claimed she was defrauded out of $3.8 million in property and funds, my God, and alleged she was forced to work six days a week without pay. Leigh claimed she transferred substantial sums to Robert Shin and the church because of, quote, mind control tactics. Oh, man, they got her.

she also alleged it because her husband disliked Shikina Shin told her she quote Must get away from him Because he's influenced by a demon And that led to her divorce For fuck's sake A lady has lost to allege that the church took over Her email, passwords and bank accounts

To get her to turn over money that Shin And his family used to pay for entertainment Living expenses, medical bills And Robert's girlfriend's law school tuition In 2022 Lydia Chung gave an interview Where she said that Robert preached That quote All worldly people are Satanic

Fuck Oh God I'm superworldly you guys I guess I'm satanic as shit But what What about all the times That I push this button Huh?

Why would Satan is Constantly tell the devil to go back to hell I guess I've been tricking you I guess I've been tricking myself I don't even remember worshipping the devil one time Apparently that's what I've been up to And I apologize Lydia said when you look at this

you can understand how I was how I was psychologically manipulated and damaged. What they are saying is that I was not smart and savvy enough. They had to break me down. They had to destroy me to get my money. They made everyone in the church believe I was the dumbest person. They physiologically broke me. Lydia also called Robert a narcissist in her interview, said she was never in love with him, as was alleged online. And she noted Robert Pine for fame long before he started working with TikTok dancers,

saying he had this ambition when he first came to California in the 90s. she said early on he had tried to get the church into media and entertainment it just wasn't successful he claims god called him to california god did not call him to california power and money did well while he didn't get the uh the showbiz power he wanted early on he would uh get a little bit of it later and he did get some money according to a 2010 deposition given under oath by robert chin between 2000 and 2008 the church peaked at just 70 members that no more than 70 members but those members had donated a total of $4.7 million to him. That's fucking insane.

Didn't recruit a lot, but he did recruit people with some deep pockets. At least a few. He encouraged his congregation to donate to the church as much as possible and to also donate to him directly as a quote man of God. In October of 2007 alone, his congregation, his small congregation, gave Shin almost $300,000 in checks personally made out to him so fucked up. I hate shitty, you know, seeing shitty people be rewarded for being shitty, but it happens so often. The cut reported last year that Robert lives in a nice $2.5 million home in Studio City,

paid for by exploitation and spiritual abuse. And he owns a whole bunch of rental and business properties as well, so that's awesome. Lydia's suit against Robert went to a bench trial where the judge did rule in favor of shin. Damn it. Judge found that Lydia acted on her own free will, but did note that the defendant's behavior was outside. the norm for clergy and the church's practices bordered on coercion. Not illegal to be a shitty, manipulative, exploitive person, unfortunately. You can legally lie your ass off about what you think God's will is, what you pretend to think it is.

You can legally pressure somebody to give you their money by making them think they're going to burn in hell forever if you don't. Yeah, you can legally do all sorts of shitty things. 2011, former Chikina member, Jung He Lee, an employee of Robert's company Alpha Plus Realty, sued him for allegedly forcing her to work full time for $30 a week just keeps getting lower that motherfucker. Judge He Lee asserted that Chikina controlled

all members bank accounts, or excuse me, not judge. Jung Healy asserted that the Chikina controlled all members bank accounts and that they were told their work was done to serve God. Lee actually won her suit. And the judge ordered Shin to pay an amount based on the compensation she would have received

for regular work week. And so now she received $9,215 an unpaid wage. And so now she received $9,215 dollars in unpaid wages and damages, but that's fucking nothing. That 2011 ruling didn't do shit to stop Shinn from exploiting people going forward. A little slap on the wrist. 2011 was

also the year that Melanie Lee finally left Shikina Church. She set a date, made arrangements for her friend Mark to pick her up. She coordinated her exit around the time she was supposed to move from one house to another again. The final straw, according to her, was when Robert called her and told her he wanted her to have sex with another member.

Melanie says she told him, how many days do I have to think about this? He asked for how many days she needed. She said 10. Robert told her she had three. Now Melanie called her friend Mark told him she needed to leave the next day. And when the time came, Melanie waited until everybody left the house. Mark arrived with his van and I love this, a baseball bat. Melanie's plan was to pack the car up, drive to where Priscilla was staying, and pick her up as well. Get them both out. Melanie said she was prepared to literally shove her sister into the car and kidnap her. But while she and Mark were putting things into the van, a member returned home, blocked his van

with her vehicle. Mark said he was fully prepared to use his bat on this fucker. now if he had to. The Shikina member asked what they were doing, to which Mark replied, get the fuck out of the way. This person moved their car, allowing Melanie to get away, and Melanie called Priscilla to tell her she was leaving and wanted her to come to, but Priscilla refused. She'd already been told that her sister was leaving, her sister was damning her soul to hell. Members had been sent to her house to protect her, to ensure she did not leave as well. Priscilla explained that Robert taught them that if you leave Shikina, you are disobeying God, you are cursing yourself, you will go to hell.

Robert told Priscilla that Melanie betrayed him and was now cursed. He said, you are the only one that can save your sister from going to hell. They wronged me. Priscilla now became the new target of Shin's alleged sexual harassment. And while Melanie won't say for sure what happened to her regarding Robert's sexual abuse, her sister will share more details. Like with Melanie, she said it all started with massages. And then Robert became more aggressive as time went on, more demanding.

She eventually gave in to his demands, had sex with him. Priscilla hated what was happening, but felt she knew. needed to, quote, repent. She told herself, I just need to not kill myself. And until the day I die, I just need to do my best, my best at everything so I can ensure the salvation of my life and my direct family. Oh, man. Robert visited Priscilla constantly. The stress caused her to develop stomach pains, acid reflux. She had trouble eating. She vomited often. She told Robert what was happening, and he told Priscilla that spending time with him was purifying her, that evil was literally coming out of her body. That's why she's throwing up, getting that evil out. And now Priscilla had to

spend more time with Robert to continue this purification, which only made her more sick because the purification was more sexual abuse. Priscilla started to believe she actually had demons inside of her, though, that she needed to be healed. Priscilla said that the sexual abuse lasted for about 10 fucking years. She said she turned to scripture for healing. She printed verses, put them all over her walls. She didn't leave her bedroom unless she had to, even though her room also not safe because Robert would come to her room without warning and assault her. The alleged sexual abuse was detailed in Priscilla's later lawsuit, which states Robert started making unwelcome sexual advances to Ms. Lee around 2009,

even though she was married to Shirley. At the time, Robert was 51 years old, Ms. Lee, 29. He started grooming Ms. Lee to have sex with him by coming to her home when she was alone, asking her to massage his thighs. This continued for about one year, and each time Robert ordered a massage, he instructed her to get closer and closer to his crotch. Robert's behavior did not change once his relationship with Hannah

began around 2010. Between 2010 and 2011, Ms. Lee was living in Tustin with another Shikina member, or other Shikina members, in a home Robert owned. Multiple times a week, Robert met Ms. Lee, ordered her to take a shower with him, wash his body, and have

oral and penetrative intercourse with him. Immediately afterwards, she had to return to work at RCP Financial Incorporated one of Robert's company. When Robert lived in Laguna Beach from 2011 to 2012, he coordinated the schedule of his wife, Hannah, and his children, so that the house would be empty at least once a week. When the house was empty, he ordered Miss Lee to visit him and shower with him, wash his body, have oral and penetrative intercourse with him, and return to work just as the case had been in Tustin. Robert made Ms. Lee feel like she needed to do this to keep her job and good standing in Shikina Church. Ms. Lee felt that she had to serve and obey Robert,

including having oral and penetrative sex with him in order to stay employed by him, stay in Chikina, be supported by Robert and Chikina, and go to heaven. So fucking gross. Twist somebody's mind around to the point that they literally believe that if they don't suck your dick, they're going to burn in hell. Oh my gosh.

We'll check back in with the Lee sisters later in the timeline. Let's now look at Chikina in the late 2010s in the years after the 2020 pandemic, when Robert founded 7M and several dance got involved with Chikina. Melanie and Miranda Wilking are two sisters from McComb and Outer Suburb of Detroit, Michigan

for only two years apart. Melanie was born in 1999, Miranda born in 1997. They have no other siblings. They were super, super close growing up. Watched a lot of videos from their childhood. They're fucking adorable. Beyond best friends, inseparable.

They both absolutely love to dance. Melanie and Miranda grew up dancing together. It was their main passion by far. and soon both dreamed to becoming professional dancers. The girls even started their own dance camp of sorts in their backyard. When they were still in elementary school, they both attended at Performing Arts High School. Their father, Dean, was a teacher, their mother Kelly, a counselor.

They didn't make a ton of money, but they did whatever they could to support their girls' dreams. I watched a lot of footage of them as well, and they seemed like the most loving, most devoted parents. So sad what happened to them. The girl's collective goal was to move to Los Angeles, dance at an elite level. After Miranda graduated high school, she told her parents she was either going to do a theater program or move to L.A., and she chose L.A.

The change was hard for everybody because the Wilkins are so close or were, but they were happy to see Miranda, you know, going for a dream. She called her family every day to keep them updated on what she was doing. At one point, Miranda was feeling sad and homesick, but she said, I want to come home, but I want this more. Year later in 2017, Melanie followed her sister to California. She had finished her senior year of high school remotely to do that, right? The sisters, they just couldn't bear being apart any longer. That's how close they were. When Melanie moved out to California, Miranda was doing background dance gigs,

teaching at the International Dance Academy in Hollywood. They performed at different dance competitions, taught dance classes at studios in L.A. And dance at events like VidCon and the TikTok gala. They audition for all sorts of jobs, you know, as they're running their social media accounts. They're often told they couldn't dance next to each other or auditioned together. Oftentimes producers only wanted one of them, you know, not both of them. and that didn't sit right with them, and they decided to shift their goals.

They realized they could build their careers on social media. Just keep doing that and do what they wanted to do together and monetize that. They'd been filming videos for the app musically, which would merge with TikTok in 2018 and online dance videos, especially popular on the app. And their dance videos, you know, they blew up under the username Wilking Sisters. Their dance videos gained them over a million followers and soon brands are reaching out directly to them for projects.

By 2020, the Wilking Sisters had amassed over 2 million. followers on TikTok alone, and they're living the dream, making a living, doing what they loved, working together, but they're still not making that much money. They don't know how to fully capitalize on and leverage their popularity. Melanie said in her interview for the dancing for the devil docu series, so when we got a manager and saw the money that was to be made in this industry, there was no looking back. In April of 2019, Melanie and Miranda received a DM from B-Dash underscore 2 a popular crump dancer

whose real name is James Derek who's even more popular than they were and unfortunately Crump will lead James Derek down a real dark path and then he will drag Miranda one of the sisters down with him over a decade before he got involved

with Chikina in 7M James is part of another high control religious group slash cult started in 2008 called Hospitality Church this church is definitely worth diving into for a second. So many of these TikTok dancers were primed to join Roberts Colt because they had already been in another very similar cult. So now I'll explain a bit

about Crump, which will lead me into explaining about this church. And I'll do that right after today's second-to-two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thank you for listening to those sponsors. Now I'll really explain a bit about Crump to lead into explaining about the high-control church slash cult. Many of the dancers joined dancers who will later join the 7M cult. As reported by The Cut, Crump is characterized by its energetic, sharp freestyle movements and dance battles. Crump was unofficially founded by a group of L.A. based dancers, which included Marquisa Miss Prissy Gardner,

Chisare Tidey's Willis, aka the president of Crump, Christopher Lil C. Toler and Joe Artis Big Mejo Rattie, aka the creator of Crump. Crump became popular over a decade ago when this dance style was featured in movies like Bring It On on on dance shows like America's Best Dance Crew. which ran from 2008 to 2012 with an additional season in 2015.

Crump also showcased music videos on tours with artists like Missy Elliott, Madonna, and Chris Brown, Marquisa Gardner. Previously trained in classical ballet was called the Queen of Crump. Still is called The Queen of Crump. She had a successful career in Hollywood, performed in movies like Stompe the Yard, Alvin and the Chipmunks. Christopher Toller went on to become a choreographer for So You Think You Can Dance. This Fox Show, the first aired in 2005. Chazare tied-eyes Willis told a Washington Post reporter in 2005 Crump led us to Jesus and got us saved

Also took them into a cult That took a whole bunch of their money Willis believed Crump was a religious expression Many of these dancers did And criticized dancers who used it for financial gain Which you know made him of course a perfect A perfect target to be grifted Which is sad because he is so talented

Willis has been described as the Michael Jordan of Crump Which gave him a lot of influence over other aspiring dancers who were searching for their big break. Tide Eyes Willis became a mentor to his dance family, a group called Street Kingdom. Former collaborators said that Willis agreed to mentor them if they came to services at a church in South Central called hospitality. Hospitality was led by Pastor David Gurley,

a former college basketball player who served several years in prison in Oregon for sexual assault before he found God. Gurley is sometimes described himself as a prophet. Cult, cult, cult! On August 29th, 1994, the Seattle Times, Times reported former University of Oregon basketball player David Gurley was arrested Saturday on charges of rape, felony sex abuse, and kidnapping involving two teenage girls. Gurley 29 also charged with coercion and contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor.

He later pleaded guilty to five sexual abuse charges. The incidents involved women between the ages of 15 and 18. He was sentenced to six years in prison and fines totaling $25,000. And then, of course, he found God so fucking convenient. No amount of prayer can turn. a sexual predator into a good dude. That is a hill I will die on. If you truly care about protecting your kids or yourself,

you would be wise to believe that. The dude who used to be a sexual deviant before he found God, he is still a sexual deviant who at best just isn't acting on, you know, his dangerous impulses. And you should fucking never let him spend time around your kids. Truly playing with fire.

Tidey's Willis gave a statement to the cut for their 2022 article that said members of Street Kingdom were not required to attend services at hospitality led by David Gurley. I invited all my friends and crew members to practice and dance all the time regardless of the crew, Street Kingdom. That's what we did. We got together and danced. If you were a member of the crew, then you would need to participate in rehearsals or performances like any other dance crew. Former friends said that Willis was raised in church, often quoted scripture to dancers. He believed the theory that Crump was an acronym for Kingdom radically uplifted mighty praise.

and while it was not required he did strongly encouraged dancers to dedicate their talents to church according to Marquesa Gardner the idea was if you are a believer of Christ and you believe that all works that are in the entertainment business are the devil

then you followed kingdom radically uplifted mighty praise tied ice told to cut Crump is kingdom radically uplifted mighty praise to me personally I can't speak for other people a belief is not something you can force on anybody oh man I wish more people believe that

friends alleged that Tidey's, despite what he had denied, along with the formerly imprisoned sex offender, David loves young girly, helped create an environment that was rigid, prohibitive and financially exploitative. Joey Terman was at answer in his early 20s when Tidey's invited him to join Street Kingdom. And according to Terman, they would do tides and offerings. The pastor's right-hand man would go into his office, count the money. He would come back out and tell him the amount, and the pastor would say, okay, this is how much we are missing. be like, God said somebody is wanting to give $20, but you're trying to hold on to it. You're going to be cursed, and church literally would not go forward until they got that amount.

That's wild. Church also wanted people to renounce family and friends who were not believers, a process called dying. According to term, the pastor had taken a scripture that talks about how you have to die to the flesh, saying you have to ignore and push away anything that could be a distraction. And family members who are worried that this church was exploiting their kids, well, I guess they were nothing but distractions. A dancer named Tyree, no last name given in sources, who trained with Willis and sometimes visited hospitality church, said he was threatened with being cut off from the dance

crew if he didn't stop communicating with his brother because his brother had concerns about the church's involvement in all this. So now, you know, the church and the crew are definitely becoming very, very intertwined. Tyree said to the cut, we were told that hanging out with people who were not of the church, not of the same beliefs, was against the religion. It was because of those words that I stopped hanging around my blood brother. damn joey termine explained that street kingdom often booked work through girly the rapist he discouraged industry jobs arranged for street kingdom dancers to do crump christ shows at churches on the west coast they were also strongly encouraged to marry fellow members of the church some say if they did not marry who they were told to marry they risk expulsion that's some high control several members including tight eyes willis and james derrick they got married and they had kids while they were with hospitality church according to Joey Turman

because their partners were not part of hospitality they were considered their backfall Thurman said that these romantic partners took care of the bills between shows oh Jesus the crump cry shows allowed a street kingdom to build up the reputation but not their finances Termin said it's like

if you're married well then you got somebody that's taken care of you that's so fucking manipulative most of them have never worked a regular job in their life for some of them it's like dancing is my life this is the way I'm going to survive this is all I have, this is all I'm good at. And that's fine, but like, that's crazy.

Just to make, yeah, I don't need to make any money. I got a spouse. They'll take care of everything. Joey Termin and the dancer named Tyree believed that Street Kingdom was going to get them more opportunities, so they stayed and gave in to the demand to the church. Tyree was a teenager at the time, so he believed that older members were wiser than him.

Terman was skeptical of the church at first, but he started to truly believe there was a higher power at work when Gurley discussed details of the dancer's lives that had not been shared publicly. and the new leader found out the tight eyes was being fed or the tight eyes

was feeding Gurley information about them of course Termin started to change his mind about the church around 2011 he said he told the cut while we were a part of the cult

we were never allowed to do industry jobs but for some reason God okayed us to go on America's best dance crew Gurley told street kingdom dancers that God gave them a pass to compete

that's so fucking crazy when people start doing this with like God's word Well, they're like, no, God doesn't want you to take any gigs. Now, you guys stick with me. Just stay here in the church, no gigs, no gigs. Uh-uh, uh-uh. And then all of a sudden, there's like a Hollywood opportunity.

And then the guy's like, hey, hey, God and I talked last night. And God was like, I don't want these guys, you know, just going out and working, like, on a regular basis. But yeah, God's a big fan of America's best dance crew. And God, God said, yeah, let him do it. Let them do the show. Let them dance on that show. I'll make an exception. It's fucking crazy to me.

It'll never stop being crazy to me. that there's so many other adults out there who have thoughts like that and don't immediately think that's fucking insane. Okay, so Gurley told as the rapist told to his dancers that God, you know, was cool with that TV show.

But they would have to make sacrifices. They were prohibited from spending time with family and friends who came to support them, gross, and had to spend time between episodes continually praying. Well, their team was eliminated, which added determines doubts about everything because, you know, God was supposed to have him win, I guess.

After they lost, he and several other members, they stopped going to the church. And then tight eyes stopped being a friend with him. Wouldn't collaborate, wouldn't even speak to him. Willis later moved to Las Vegas. He too will sign with 7M in later years. Gurley, by the way, still pastoring today. That motherfucker, now the head of a church called Ph.D. Ministries. Oh, yeah, because he's real smart.

In Long Beach, California. I've watched several of his videos. He's fucking dumb as a rock. I mean, except for a grifting. He's very good at that, but you listen to him. You're like, this is not an intelligent person. Check out his current bio, though, on the PhD ministry's website. Pastor David Gurley was first used by God when he was only five years old.

The Lord woke him from his sleep by calling his name and gave him instructions to prophesy to several people. By the age of 12, Pastor David was casting demons out of his brother. The anointing and calling on his life was evident from a very early age. Like many believers, it took Pastor David many years of being in the world until he found that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. It was in 1994 that Pastor David responded to God's call and began his deliverance ministry. God gave him a specific commission. My people are hurting, God said. And I need an uncompromised selfless vessel to be able to send to them so I can heal them.

I'm not sending you to pat them on the head and move on. I'm sending you and equipping you to stay with the people. until they give you that pussy! Get that fucking pussy at all cost! No. He said, with the people until they are delivered, and prayer, healing, and deliverance ministries were born. Pastor David answered that commission, began speaking to and praying for those who were hurting, those needing deliverance, and those seeking the next level in God.

He began by ministering to inmates in prison in Eugene, Oregon. Also worked in the inner city with gang members, helping them to give up their guns and their rags and give their life to Christ. They had rags, and that's all they had was guns and rags? His ministry now stretches across the United States and includes revivals, conferences, training, and motivational seminars, as well as Bible study classes. David has been the keynote speaker for many notable ministries as well as hosting men's and women's conferences. I bet he's been hosting some women's conferences. Pastor David has a weekly television ministry broadcast nationally.

This national television show airs on the Impact Network every Saturday night at 8.30 p.m. Pacific Time and again at midnight. He also has weekly broadcast on the Now Network on Wednesdays at 7.30 a.m. Pacific. time. And on the GEB network, all these networks, on Saturday evenings at 6.30 p.m. Pacific Time. It's crazy that he just seemed to forget to mention that the reason he was pastoring inmates in Eugene Oregon is because he was an inmate in prison there who spent around three years in prison for raping two teenage girls. I think maybe some of you should email the church. Just remind them, update, you know, his bio. They probably just forgot. You can email info at Ph.D. Ministries

I.N.t.org. That's info at PhD ministriesin.org. I already sent them an email to get it started. I wrote them just the other day. Hello. I really did do this. I just finished reading Pastor David's bio on your website, and it seems to be missing some important information.

Namely, that he served several years in prison in the late 90s in Oregon after being convicted of raping two teenage girls. Here is the link to those case files. I gave him the link. Just thought your congregation should know who they're being led by. and then he should never be allowed to be around teenage girls if you do, in fact, care about them not being harmed. God bless, Dan.

I do realize that adding the God bless was snarky, but come on, it's kind of funny. And fair, it's fair. But probably they sadly already know. And, you know, they're like, no, no, he, Christ forgave him. We prayed over it. He's fine now. Oh, boy.

No response from them so far, by the way. I sent that email about 36 hours ago. Anyway, after Street Kingdom broke up, James B-Dash Derek continued working in commercials and posting viral videos on social media. At some point over the next few years, James left that creep David Gurley's church. What a terrible name for a fucking rapist, Gurley. Circling back to the spring of 2019 now, the Wilking sisters decided to collaborate with James after getting that DM and continue communicating with him in a group chat. Soon it became clear that there was an obvious attraction between James and Miranda and Melanie eventually removed herself from the group chat so that James. and Miranda could speak privately and that led to them starting to date and they have been together

ever since. James came to the Wilking family home in Michigan during the early days of the pandemic back in 2020, ended up staying for about seven weeks with the family. He became quite close with Miranda's parents who liked him a lot. He became close with Melanie as well. James is featured in several Wilking's sisters' dance videos from this time. The sister's social media accounts and James accounts. They all get a bunch of new followers from doing this. Miranda, James, and Melanie eventually make their way back to California as pandemic restrictions begin to loosen up and now Miranda starts spending more time with James's friends

and one of his longtime friends is Kevin Concrete Davis Kevin and James in a crump group together they both had competed on the NBC show World of Dance in 2018 Kevin said in his docu-series interview me and B-Dash created such an impact just two of us we blew up the industry and they are fucking insanely talented I will say that oh for sure my god so many these dances I'm going to talk about it if you look them up

It is mind-blowing, their body control and just innovation. Kevin Davis, also a member of that Street Kingdom group connected to David Gurley's Hospitality Church previously. Kevin describing himself as a starving artist at this point in his life was struggling financially despite being a name in the online dance community, despite being on TV numerous times, despite having over a million followers on TikTok, but he was also sleeping on friends' couches or in his car for about a year. While filming one of his music videos, he met a woman named a,

Kaila Gray, and they started Dayton, and they're still together as well. They'll both get dragged into 7M films and the Shikina Church. According to Kaila, one day Kevin received a call from James, whose friends often called him B-Dash. James told Kevin that he was hanging out with some people who he'd filmed with before. Among the group was a young talented videographer, an editor, Isaiah Shin, Robert Shin's son. They've been working together on and off for about a year. Isaiah had started working as a production assistant for his dad when he was a teen, and by 2018, he had his own company, called high freak films as in like freak is in frequency within a year he was working with

the roster of a dozen dancers he had found on social media and i got to say the videos he was making around this time were phenomenal very cool shot selection filters effects etc never distract from the dancing definitely add to the experience of watching it you know also another very talented person uh james first met isaiah in 2019 when he was working for cinematographer tim milgram james was looking for a videographer but didn't have a lot to spend on one uh but Isaiah had the ability to produce videos that were previously outside his budget. James' videos had mostly been filmed on iPhones, but with Isaiah, now he has access to expensive equipment, expensive homes for sets, stunning background views.

Kevin Concrete Davis, James, aka B. Dash's old friend, another, again former member of the Street Kingdom Group, started doing videos with James and his friends, got to know some of the dancers like Aubrey Fisher, another former Street Kingdom member. According to Aubrey, James told him all about how he hung up. out at Isaiah Shinn's house. He mentioned that Isaiah's dad was a pastor and said, quote, you got to hear him talk about the word. Aubrey agreed to come over, meet Robert. And Robert asked Aubrey if he was going to church. Aubrey said he'd fallen off, but he knows looking for a new church. And Shin now told him, let's go to the scripture. He then showed Aubrey a passage

from Revelations. So because you are lukewarm, you know, i.e. spiritually useless. And neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth. So I will, I'll reject you, you know. this conversation inspired Aubrey to start attending church services and Bible study at Robert's home and Bible studies with Robert would now last for hours every time they would do them

at the time Aubrey is dating another dancer named Kylie Douglas Kylie recalled that Aubrey started staying out until after midnight wasn't telling her where he was going and she thought the worst suspected he was cheating until she found out

that he was at a Bible study which actually would turn out to be worse for her in the end than if he had been cheating on her Aubrey and Kylie started they've been filming Dan's videos together Aubrey who had over 2 million followers on TikTok was amazed that he could make money from his art

He also understood that it took a lot of work To produce popular content on social media Isaiah and his team were making it easy To produce high quality content He didn't have to do any of the work on that end When he's working with them So with his popularity growing Aubrey is now struggling though

To keep up with emails, brand deal offers One day while they're all hanging out at Isaiah's house James is telling everybody how he's struggling To get brand deals His management team is not responding to him Robert Shin is present during this conversation and asks Aubrey about his follower count you know turns out he has several million followers

between Instagram and TikTok already most of the dancers I've been talking about had amassed seven figures worth of followers on their own, a few in the six figure range but they couldn't figure out most of them how to properly monetize that but Shin he's seeing dollar signs and he says he's going to start a management company for them and he's going to call it 7M or 7M films

soon this is 2020 now or 2021 now excuse me two more dancers named Vic White and Nick Rayano who went by Rayno are added to the group. Aubrey's girlfriend, Kylie Douglas, Kevin Davis, Davis's girlfriend, Kylea, Gray. They're also joining, you know,

they're ready to join this management company. Of course, Miranda Wilking is aware that all this is going on. Miranda told her sister Melanie that she'd been having dinner. She'd been reading the Bible at Isaiah's house with James. And, you know, Melanie thought this was a little odd. Melanie and Miranda had both technically grown up Catholic but not especially religious.

It's more like a Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter kind of crowd. The girls' parents soon learned that the pastor's wife, Hannah Shin, is acting as James' talent manager. And Melanie said she felt a little bit funny about that. She didn't like that the church and the management company were very closely connected. In the fall of 2020, backing up a little bit, Melanie was invited to Robert Shin's house in Los Angeles for dinner. Other dancers in attendance included Miranda, James Derek, Kevin Davis, Kylai Gray, Kylie Douglas, Aubrey Fisher. After they sat down for dinner, Robert asked Melanie if she would consider her. herself a sinner. And she said, I don't think so. So given this, like, backing up a little bit to

explain why she's a little worried about the connection between church and company, because she hadn't had great experiences with the church. She said that Robert then told her, what if I told you you've already sinned, let's say, a thousand times today? Melanie didn't know how to respond to that. She thought, this is fucking weird. Robert told her that if she died right now, she would definitely go to hell. But of course, he could, you know, help her avoid that terrible fate. Sales pitch used, I'm guessing, hundreds of millions, if not billions of times over the past 2,000-ish years. After dinner, everybody sat in a circle and held hands. Melanie's like, what the fuck? Roberts in the middle of the group. He put his hands on Melanie's head,

right? They're doing the laying on of hands. And then everybody started speaking in tongues around her, which really weirded her out. Remember speaking in tongues? It's been a while since we talked about that. Angels are being released right now. Angels are being dispatched right now. Sanda, Ata, Ambo Osa, Tata, Ritsa, Eke, Ata Riki, Diyah, for angels have even this film. Okay, all right, that's enough. That's Pastor Paula White, by the way, a current senior advisor to the White House faith office right now. And if that doesn't alarm you, what if this is what you would just hurt? Just a morsel I will take in the cauldron boil and bake.

Your youth and flesh the only price. to ensure me of eternal life. What if the White House had a trio of witches who were senior faith advisors? Would that be alarming? I would love the next president to have that, by the way. God, that would fucking amuse me to no end. A trio of witches with a cauldron in between some.

And not like wicked witches, not like real life witches, like Wizard of Oz, wicked witch of the West type shit. You know? Just fucking brewing potions in the background of press conferences. Nothing to see here, my pretty.

Just protecting our great nation with some eye of newt. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. That's basically where we're at now. Anyway, after speaking the speaking in tongues, Robert then told Melanie she was saved. Melanie thought this whole experience was fucking strange as hell, because it is.

Can we all agree that even if you practice it, speaking in tongues is so fucking weird? she'd never been exposed anything like that before she wasn't sure what to think because the room was full of people she looked up to not only was skeptical but no one else around her seemed to be other dancers mostly seemed eager to deepen their relationship with God Aubrey wasn't skeptical he'd grown up in a Christian home

wanted to feel close to God again he was curious to see what Chikina Church was all about Kylie Douglas had stopped attending church regularly when she moved to L.A., but she grew up in the church also longed to be part of the Christian community again she felt that Chikina was the right place for her to be Kevin Davis wanted spiritual guidance thought Robert was going to be the one to give it to him the right one. He felt like

it was just an added benefit that he could also help him with business affairs, right? How wonderful, what could go wrong? Kalea Gray would later say about this time in their lives. Yes, we were in church and yes, we were talking about God, but our day to day was like making content, hanging out with each other.

Melanie had done everything with her sister, her whole life. She had a growing social media business making dance videos with her sister. They had about two million followers by Now, so naturally she wanted to join, but as she explained in the Dancing for the Devil docu series, James had always been very religious. Miranda joined to be with him, but now she didn't have that pull, right? She's not dating somebody who wants to be part of this, and she's the odd man or odd woman out. Miranda and James were often going to dinners at Robert's home now.

Melanie not typically invited. I'm sure Robert sensed that she wasn't, you know, feeling this. That was fine by Melanie's parents. They were glad at least one of their daughters wasn't getting fucking dragged into this weird shit. Miranda's mom, Kelly Wilking, told her daughter that something didn't feel right about the whole thing. James said that Robert and his family, they're just some really nice people. Still, Kelly warned him, please be careful. She suspected they wanted something from him more than having him as just a member of the congregation.

Kevin Davis later reflected on why they were also easily influenced by Robert saying, when you hear somebody talking about spirit, you know, and then on top of that money, which is the most dangerous thing to talk about to an artist, made us perfect prey. Melanie Wilking will note that one of the things that struck her as odd from the very beginning with all this in addition to what we went over is that you have to be invited

to Shikina Church. Unlike almost all Christian churches, you can't just show up. They're very wary of outsiders because they're a fucking cult. That's a huge red flag. She explained how an incident related to the invite system

put her off of Shikina for good. One weekend, Melanie did not receive a Sunday invite. So she made plans to take a friend the airport, and Miranda went to church without her because she did get the invite. Then Melanie received a last-minute call from Robert's daughter, Chloe Shin. Chloe said she had spoken to Robert, and Robert now needed Melanie to hear his word today, right now. So she asked Melanie to come right away immediately, suggesting that her friend, she could just get an Uber,

you know, when Miranda told her what she was doing. And Melanie was basically like, no, fuck that. That's absurd. I'm not going to ditch my friend, because now you suddenly feel like last minute I get to come over to your weird little church. and then she decided no i'm fucking never going back after that and good for her smart nobody needs that bullshit level of control in their lives pretty sure whatever pastor shin had in store for her that sunday he could have shared another sunday or wait or actually did he demand that she come

over that sunday because he knew that he and the congregation were going to be visited again by none other than Rash Angel Tis I Rash Angel How is your skin Child of God Too dry

Worry not Partake of my heavenly lotion Rub my miraculous salve Into your eczema And be healed Child of God Okay That's kind of fun for me

Meanwhile all the other dancers keep getting sucked in deeper and deeper into this madness. According to Aubrey Fisher, a lot of that has to do with Robert telling them over and over and over again that he's going to make them rich. That and also they're going to go to hell if they don't stick around with him. Robert now tells Kevin Davis and Kylia Gray

that he has two empty bedrooms and a home in Sunland, which he can rent to them for $2,200 a month. Here we go again, right? Running a new cycle of what he has ran in the past. He's got a new crew. Papa's got a brand new grift inside the house for two music studios with equipment, two

dance studios pretty badass he told him that somebody could edit their content work out brand deals for him he told him the house was an extension of the church that essentially god wanted them to live there god wanted them to rent from him which makes sense god has always obviously been very involved when it comes to landlords and tenants that's what god likes to do god's up there in a fucking desk so much paperwork just making sure that everybody's paired up properly housing wise uh getting the right leases signed obrey fisher described how on content days everybody went to Robert's home to shoot a few videos. At first, they did whatever they wanted, but soon Robert started exerting more control over them, giving a song suggestions. They questioned his

choices, which were mostly oldies, but they did it anyway because Robert convinced them that his suggestions came straight from God since he was a man of God. Cote, cult, cult. And then it worked. Their new videos did start to consistently go viral. It was not common for people to dance to older songs. At the time, the internet ate it up. Robert, of course, credited himself for their success. I mean, it was his idea. And then he used this success to bolster his reputation as having God's ear. God is speaking to him. The dancers truly believe that if they dance to songs chosen by Robert, they will receive blessings. Fuck me in the face. Now let's back up. Just a bit again to check in with the Wilkins

sisters. In January of 2021, Melanie and Miranda's grandfather passed away back in Michigan. They were super close to him. Melanie described him as basically a second father to them. The girls were supposed to leave Los Angeles on January 18th to get back there for the funeral arrangements but minutes before they're supposed to go to the airport Miranda calls her sister says she tested positive for COVID told her parents this as well and then when they question how how did you just find that out at the last minute uh they all felt like she was lying she just hung up mid conversation just hung up on him Melanie then pleaded with her sister sending texts you know telling Miranda that you know they have to get back to Michigan it's gonna be

okay even if you're a couple days late please come according to Melanie Miranda said no I just can't go I just can't go Melanie then told her sister so now they're talking on the phone not just texting this has nothing to do with COVID does it and Miranda starts to cry. She called her parents, asked if she could still come, even if she was late. Of course, they're like, yes, just come. Come to Michigan. But Kelly Wilkins said that after that conversation, she called and texted both Miranda

and James Derek and received no response. It's ghost her now. So fucked up. She just fucking bailed on her family. Completely shut it out, shut them out, you know, as she had been instructed to do, I'm sure, by Robert Shin. Killing her husband, Dean, were now becoming very worried about Miranda. So they decided to call the police to do a welfare check on her.

an officer spoke to Miranda to her home and Miranda told the officer quote I just chose not to go home out of my own grieving purposes she explained that her family were not taking this well the police called Kelly and Dean informed them that they entered the home

everything seemed fine that Miranda was with a friend when they arrived and based on the description of that friend Kelly and Dean believed she was with Chloe Shin so now Dean and Kelly now they fly out to California find their daughter Miranda in her condo Miranda clearly wanted to leave once she saw them

kept saying she had to go it was awkward as fuck She repeatedly said, I'll see When asked if she would come to the funeral Such bullshit Kelly and Dean asked Miranda Who she needed to get permission from And Miranda said according to them I have to ask someone closer to God than you

Ah, more than a little alarming For any parent to hear They later said that this was the moment They realized their daughter was gone That she had truly been brainwashed by cult Melanie was on the phone during this ordeal She told her parents, if you let her go She's not coming back

Miranda got in her car trying to leave And Dean held the car door open Miranda shouted, just let me go. He eventually gave up, and she left. Kylie Douglas, one of the dancers in the friend group, another cult member at this point, was with Miranda that day. She said Miranda was in a lot of emotional pain. She was crying. She felt broken.

She still wanted to be with James, you know, be part of Chikina Church, but also wanted to be with her family. She said that Miranda was, quote, dying to herself, a phrase often used by Robert Shin. According to dancer, Aubrey Fisher, dying to yourself means that whatever you want or whatever you need, die to it. Because whenever you die to something,

it'll come back to life and resurrect. Oh, you gotta love twisted cult logic. They just fucking flip everything around. Make wrong seem right, right seem wrong. So good at twisting the truth. You know, just confusing the shit out of people. Shin was recorded saying that the following, saying the following to his church,

when God said love one another, your family, your sister, it doesn't mean love with human love. It's love with God kind of love. Different kind of love. You're not Jesus, disciples. until you've died to your loved ones. Oh, man, just go suck all the dicks.

And yet that motherfucker hasn't died to his loved ones. Nope. He's worked with his wife and kids. Other family members brainwashed enough to believe is bullshit for years and years and years. So many of these co-leaders, they just never practice what they preach, right? Especially like the hard stuff. They never do that themselves. But they'll claim to.

They'll claim to do it when no one saw them. Before you knew me, I was doing that. Well, there's no record to me doing that. Kylie Douglas explained that they were taught that they had to die to their families in order to save their families, which meant getting them into heaven. If church members could get into heaven, their families could come with them,

which is just fucking craziness. Kaila Gray said that they were told to cut off their families to work on themselves. That this wasn't supposed to be a permanent separation. Eventually, they could reach back out when they were fully indoctrinated, of course, with the goal of getting their families

to follow God. And by follow God, I mean follow Robert. Aubrey Fisher, Kylie Douglas, they both stopped talking to their families too. Ken Davis, or Kevin Davis, excuse me, was told to die to his son his toddler like two-year-old son who of course adored him

to help him and that's fucking evil that makes me want to read a new story about how somebody locked Robert up in one of his homes and maybe burn it to the ground Kevin asked how he would go about this and did not get a straight answer

ultimately he decided you know he couldn't do it he couldn't abandon his child not for Jesus, not for anybody old friends of dancer James Derek started to notice a big change in his personality around this time and to worry about him his friend Samantha Long

who had known James since 2015 spoke to Rolling Stone about a strange conversation she had with James in early 2021 it was their first phone call in months and quote it was essentially

two hours of conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory from things like COVID isn't real the theory is about Biden who's about to be sworn in his president he would say things along the lines of just do your own research the tone he was speaking

it was really concerning to me I could tell something was really wrong oh fuck the do your own research crap why are they almost always fucking terrible when it comes to researching shit. Doing your own research is only a good thing if you have the critical thinking skills necessary to filter out fraudulent sources. If you can't do that, it's a great way to go from being like a little bit wrong to being very, very wrong. David Ike does a lot of research.

I know because I've read fucking too many of his big, thick books and looked at the pages and pages of bibliographies. And he is wrong about literally almost everything, right? His sources, if you look into his bibliographies, they're just a bunch of other big books also written by people as fucking crazy as he is who referenced their books on other books that are equally insane referencing their books. It's just like a big whack-a-doodle circle jerk. You could research the shit

out of Dave Nike. You can do a lot of research, do your own research, and just get dumber and dumber. Samantha also recalled how she reached out to James after the pandemic set up a time to hang out. They agreed on a meeting time, but then he bailed on her last minute. Samantha had also noticed a change in James content

told Rolling Stone B-Dash was always open to trying new styles, doing new trends. but I can say that this style of dancing and the music that he would dance to is completely different from the music that he dances to now. She felt like he's losing himself. Early 2021, the Wilking sisters

stopped posting together on social media. Melanie now appeared to, excuse me, alone in videos. Posted on their shared account because her sister isn't talking to her. Or barely talking to her. Soon after the funeral debacle, Miranda cut off almost all contact with her former friends and family.

She even blocked her fucking grandma, her recently widowed grandma on social media. That's some e-buckle. evil shit. I mean, she had to. You know, she had to die to them, you guys. She cut her hair, died it blonde, changed her appearance, started posting on new Instagram and TikTok accounts. Robert Isaiah Shin formerly founded 7M Films in July of 2021. Once 7M films became official, all-say dancers who worked with the company did start to get amazing opportunities. Shinn clients, they're now booking commercials, regional and

national commercials, also appearing on national shows like the Ellen Show, dancing for the L.A. Clippers basketball team. and the success, of course, adds to the dancer's belief that Robert truly is a man of God, that everything they're doing, including cutting off their families. It's all working, right? They're blessed. In church, Robert shared when congregation members got brand deals or booked in appearance. He shared exactly how much money they made, created an environment where dancers wanted to make more money, land bigger gigs, not just for their own financial benefit, but to please Robert to be exalted by their cult leader. Also, the number on the paper regarding how much dancers made was not actually what was going into the dancer's bank accounts.

7M charged a 20% management fee which is somewhat normal but it's on the high end for the industry most managers that I know in entertainment and you know I've talked about for years charged 10% 20 years ago

some did charge 15% a few charged 20 but everybody I ever talked to felt that 20% was pretty predatory and then 20% not all the Robert charged I went over you know earlier on Robert Shikina's church

also strongly encouraged a 10% tithes on top of the 20% and then another 10% offering is a gift and yet another 10% that would go directly to the man of God for all that he had done for them. Oh my gosh. And by encouraged to do this, you know,

I mean, these percentages were just taking directly out of the dancers' accounts by Robert or people working for him. And I'm guessing all the dancers understood that if they protested that, they would be dropped by 7M films and no longer invited back to church. On August 9th, 2021 now, Miranda Derek posted a video to her Instagram showing how James proposed to her. And that's how her family found out they're engaged.

The couple did not contact them at all before or after posting. Miranda later changed her Instagram handle to It's Miranda Derek, taking James' last name. Melanie was not there for her sister's wedding, which broke her heart. She wasn't invited, even though they had each talked about being each other's bridesmaid for as long as they could remember. neither, you know, were any other family members invited her family, not even sure, you know, if the marriage was legal. And this pushes the Wilkins to reach out to see if other families are going through the same type of shit with 7M. Around that time, Dean Wilking emailed Lawrence Ryano about what was happening to Miranda. Everything that was happening to Miranda had already happened to their son, Nick, it turned out.

If you recall, Nick Rayano, a popular dancer going by the username of Rayno, Nick, part of the 7M crew now, or has been. part of the 7M cruise excuse me Nick had always wanted to go to LA and at first when he got out there he called his mom every time I got a new gig but eventually after meeting Robert Shin he started to say he was too busy to talk to them and then he just cut him out altogether

and his parents didn't know why right again just so heartless the Rayano family didn't know about the Shikina Church until they received the email from Dean Wilking they didn't know what was going on they gave the Wilkins a call and quickly the two families were meeting in person

at Melanie's LA apartment they called a human trafficking hotline together to report 7M films and Shikina as a cult. Dean told the operator he was worried that most of the dancers money was going to the pastor. And then the operator explained that they were limited and what they could do because the people involved were adults. Not illegal to be foolish with your money. Not illegal to talk somebody into gifting you large amounts of money.

Right again, not illegal to be a blatantly immoral grifter. They don't take action with adults in labor trafficking or sex trafficking unless the adults reach out for help, the operator explained. understandable, frustrating, but understandable, right? Freedom means freedom to make terrible choices. More frustrating, the operator explained to the families that if the police came, it would make things worse for the victims in all likelihood, that survivors had told the operator that this can cause the control,

the violence to worsen, or the violence to start. If it hasn't happened already, the cult will punish the family members and trapped inside the cult for what people outside the cult are doing. Dean asked how they could get their children back, and the operator encouraged them to keep lines of communication open because in the event that things do go south, you know, they want to be the first people their family member calls.

So essentially, calling that human trafficking hotline gave them zero consolation. If anything, their fears deepened. Meanwhile, from the outside, Miranda and James' lives seemed to be perfect. They're dancing video after video. They're getting more followers, more views. They look so happy.

In November of 2021, they walked the red carpet at the American Music Awards. A few months later, Miranda appears on Ellen. then in December of 2021 Melanie decides to go to Miranda's public show to see her one of her shows and she's able to find Miranda in the bathroom and Miranda's shocked to run into her sister

Melanie hugs her but she says Miranda does not hug her back. It's like hugging a wall. She tells Miranda that she's doing great and that she just you know or yeah Melanie tells Miranda that she's doing great and that she just wants to see her show Miranda in response very cold shows no emotion

and Melanie leaves feeling further disheartened. Her dad Dean now speaks to some therapists who say that Miranda might be willing to meet with him if they tell her they have big news to share. So that's what they do. But, or that's what they want to do. But Miranda has blocked her parents from all her social media accounts, changed her number. Luckily, Kelly, her mom is able to text her husband James.

And now a meeting is set up. Miranda comes, but she's clearly not happy at all to be there. When Kelly asks her daughter, if everything is okay, Miranda spits back, what do you have to say? What's the news? And now Kelly tells her daughter, Miranda, I, I'm so sorry. Maybe there's just a lot of things that you've been holding inside

that you've never really been able to process or deal with. I'm sorry if you didn't feel like you could come to me with all this other stuff. And Miranda, Sampley coldly says, is that it? I've got to go.

And then just walks out. This is such a fucking nightmare for the parent of an adult child to not be able to do anything when your kid just starts acting like a piece of shit, just a brainwashed piece of shit, to not be able to get your kid out of this mess.

To be treated like that by somebody you've raised, somebody you've supported, and loved throughout their childhood. You know, I feel bad for Miranda, but I also fucking hate Miranda for this. Throughout 2021, Melanie posts old videos of her sister and on her and her sister's channel.

Tries to make it seem like things are okay, but their audience, of course, notices that she's posting old videos. They want to know what the hell's going on. Where's Miranda? And first, Melanie says she's sick, but eventually she posts a video explaining that Miranda has chosen to take a break from the Wilking sister's brand, and that leads to rampant fan speculation

and more questions and rumors. So now her business, suffering, being punished because her sister chose to join a cult, not sharing the real story with her fans, a constant source of stress for her. And so on February 24th, 2022, the Wilking family goes live on Instagram to publicly discuss for the first time everything that's been going on within their family. It was Miranda's 25th birthday. James Derek had posted a nice tribute to his wife. Melanie left a harmful, happy birthday, sis. Love you so much. Hope you doing great, type of comment. you know harmful sarcastic being sarcastic there and that was immediately deleted within a minute

she was blocked uh kelly dean wilking they'd also been blocked this was the second birthday where they had not heard from miranda and couldn't get in contact with her and so at a loss you know for what else to do that was why they decided to go public they explained that they lost all contact with miranda that she was involved with a quote religious organization you could you can tell they wanted to say cult uh they did not name the chakina church you know Kelly wilking said she cut off all ties i don't know of all ties i don't know of any that has spoken to her from before. The only people that I think speak to her

are whoever is involved in this religious organization. They said that Miranda stopped communicating with them about a year earlier, which lines up with the time she and James started working closely with Robert Shin. The family described how Miranda had started attending church, got married without telling them.

Kelly Wilking said at one point, she got married, we don't even know when she got engaged. She never told us where she moved to. She ended up blocking us, changed her phone number. Whatever she's involved in, It's got some kind of control over her that's making her afraid of something. They discussed how she refused to come to her grandfather's funeral in 2021.

Melanie described how she attended the church but was put off by the airport incident, which caused her to stop going. She thought to herself, this is not healthy and this is not normal. Their concerns led them to research cults to try to learn how to convince Miranda to come home. Their story went viral. The media latched on to it with sensational headlines, outlets like the Rolling Stone, New York Magazine's The Cut, release in-depth articles exploring the allegation surrounding 7M films and Shikina Church.

Both Miranda and James then issue statements denying their in a cult. I'm sure those statements were reviewed by Robert Shin before they were released. Miranda claimed she had spoken to her family multiple times over the previous year, but it chose not to communicate with them as frequently because they disapproved of her decision to move in with James because he's black. And that appears to be a total lie. Melanie is currently also married to a black man. family seems to have fully embraced him. So now she just landed her family.

For what? Darren to speak the truth? Darren do care about her? Still want her in their lives? She's so brainwashed. She explained that she missed the funeral because she was afraid she would be, quote, held captive in Michigan. Didn't feel safe with her dad. My God. Miranda described the altercation with her parents where she returned to her old apartment to get her things.

It was trying to drive away. She said, my dad took his car and blocked me in my own driveway. My mom was holding my arm speaking out to me, reading what a cult meant saying I was part of one, uh, yeah, because you definitely are in a cult. She also claimed that her parents called the police after she left and alleged that James kidnapped her. The police demanded that she meet with them to assure them she was okay. And she said, they saw that I was fine. And we actually laughed about the situation because they said, wow, it seems like your family is really upset. They moved out. And a statement

posted Instagram stories, James wrote, first of all, there's two sides to every story. This is the other side of the Wilking family drama. Started with the white, beautiful woman, moving in with the poor black man from Compton that the parents did not approve of. I get it. I was rent in a room and I had no car. I was a divorced man with his son. And that is so shitty of James, right? They're both just twisting things around, just fucking lying on behalf of God, I guess.

James, too, claimed that Dean Wilking told the police he was worried about Miranda. And the dean had falsely accused James of kidnapping and domestic abuse. James also praised 7M films for allowing him to pay off his debt, purchase a new car, move into a nice home. he described 7M as a secular for-profit company run by people who have faith in God and wrote to the company, manages his bookings and helps with taxes and finance. He continued talents pay agencies and management companies to control their bookings and finances. This is not a cult activity.

It's called doom business. A lawyer for 7M also offered a statement on behalf of the company. Part of which said Miranda Derrick is a successful businesswoman and a loving wife and daughter who cares very much about her family. it is pathetic and contemptible to try to turn her private family matters into a tawdry public scandal for clicks and clout the wilkins video caused a stir amongst the congregation at chikina church robert believed that miranda's family went on instagram to start a campaign against the church by calling them a cult he was recorded telling his congregation we have now attention from media we have every day production companies wanting to do a documentary series with our group we're quite famous and everybody laughs According to dancer, Kylie Douglas, Miranda was frequently crying because of how much she missed her family around this time. She wanted to see them when she saw that they were in town, but Robert consistently told her not a good idea. Miranda decided to make a video responding to her family.

I'm guessing after being highly pressured by Robert to do so, where she said there was a lot of things happening between my family and I, disagreements. There's a lot of issues that we need to work out. I'm excited to move forward and work those things out amongst us. No, she wasn't. This is just PR. After the family went live, now some people accused. accused Kelly and Dean of trying to control their adult, trying to control their adult daughter Miranda, and they accused Melanie of being petty and jealous of her sister's solo career, claims the family has denied.

Jessica Acevedo, the executive producer of The Dancing for the Devil docu series, told Glamour magazine that the family's video was not about getting attention at all. It was a last resort. And it will lead to helping people finally free themselves from 7-M. In March of 2022, James and Miranda traveled to Michigan for a, family meeting. That does not go well. Kelly Wilking will post on our Instagram that very little progress was made. Robert Shin was recorded saying that the meeting was a sneak attack. Miranda said she wanted to see her parents. Robert reportedly told her to go on live during the meeting. Miranda met her parents at a hotel recorded the entire interaction. She said,

quote, since they wanted to make our lives public, we're going to go live. And she did. She went live before she even said hello to them, which seems so gross to me, just petty. Not in the spirit of understanding or reconciliation at all. According to Kelly Wilking, Miranda asked if it was okay if she recorded their conversation. Kelly said no. Miranda then asked them to take down anything on social media. That had anything to do with her or Shikina or 7M so they could have a fresh start. And Kelly said no.

And then she and Dean left. Right? So much for coming together, squashed anything. According to Kevin Davis, Kylie Douglas, around this time, Shikina members were called to attend a service where they were told that everything the family was saying about them was wrong. The service lasted about four hours. And Robert asked the congregation to sign NDAs regarding anything he said to them, or any, you know, about this family situation. Aubrey Fisher was one of the people who signed Kevin Davis did not.

He's now almost done with this. He's like, this is fucking weird. 7M issued a statement in March of 2022 describing themselves as a talent management company that was born from a series of collaborations between a video director Isaiah Shen and a group of talented TikTok dancers who felt they were spending too much of their creative energy focused on business deals that often went unfulfilled and unpaid. Without proper representation, the dancers felt like the industry was taking advantage of their hard work and skills. The dancers knew that Isaiah's father, Dr. Robert Shin, was a respected businessman, and asked if he could help with their business affairs, so they could focus on the creative side of the work.

It is not true that there is any business affiliation between the two entities. That is absurd. It is quite common for a person of faith to own and operate one of many secular for-profit businesses. Yeah, a lot of people are able to make a lot of terrible things sound good. sounded pretty good there but not good also in early 2022 numerous people

took to social media created accounts dedicated to exposing secrets about 7M some of which were already discussed earlier in the timeline among the most popular

is an Instagram account named exposing 7M Kelly Wilking now heard about people who had private meetings with Robert Shin where they were

being groomed for sexual abuse she wondered and worried if this had already happened to her daughter Miranda Kylie Douglas soon will come forward and explain

that the dancers had been separated from longtime members of the church. After the Wilkins video went viral, she learned how members of Shikina Church were being treated behind the scenes, which marked a turning point for her. Aubrey Fisher, Kevin Concrete Davis,

Kylie Douglas, discussed some of the things that had happened to them in vague terms, realize they had seen, quote, some weird shit, or sorry, some weird stuff. They didn't say shit. For example, Aubrey Fisher claimed

that if he wanted new shoes, he had to submit his request to his spiritual mentor, Daniel Joseph. Remember, we discussed spiritual mentors, early in the timeline, members of Shikina who act as a middleman between lower members and Robert Shin, which is especially crazy for a church that doesn't have that many members. Aubrey explained that you had to make requests for things you wanted or needed, and if

your spiritual mentor said, no, well, that was it. You didn't get it. Totally normal to give people that amount of control over your adult life. Around this time, Robert started asking the dancers to post on social media whenever they saw their families to make sure everything seemed normal, also told them not to believe everything they saw in the media. Now, more dancers start to realize they're probably an occult.

Members of 7M and Shikina continue reading articles and social media posts. Unsure of who to believe, Melanie Lee, who had been free from Robert's control for over a decade now, remember her.

She watched the Wilking family video after her friend sent her the link. She's confused at first. Didn't realize they were talking about Robert Shin until the end and she couldn't believe it. She's like, that motherfucker. He's still at it.

He's still around. And she decided to do some digging. Melanie, who is now a mother at this point, thought she had finally left her past behind until Miranda's story broke. One of her first questions was, where's my sister? Priscilla was still a member of the Shikana Church at this point. Melanie called and texted but received no response from her sister. With 7M's reputation on such shaky ground, several dancers are cut from their gigs with the LA Clipper, or from their gig, excuse me, with the L.A. clippers.

Kevin Davis recalled how the public rebukings at church got worse because of that. he thought Robert was starting to panic and he's going to panic some more on May of 2022 Robertson's daughter Chloe her husband Daniel Joseph leave Shikana Church abruptly the account without a crystal ball run by a content creator named Katie Paulson

posted a statement from Chloe and Daniel as to why they left they said though we prefer for our personal lives in business to be private we understand there was a lot of interest due to the recent media coverage regarding 7M films since it has been made known to us

that people plan to report on our personal situation without having spoken to us. We are making the statement to set the record straight and it is our only statement on the matter currently. At the beginning of May of this year, we parted ways with Shikana Church and have no business with any company connected to the church or its

associates. We also parted ways with 7M Films Management at the beginning of May of this year. We have no business with 7M films, its associates or its clients. We have not spoken to any media outlets on the matter and any report claiming we have spoken to us claiming they have spoken to us are patent

or falsely reporting. We ask for respect and privacy at this time for us and our families. Thank you, Daniel and Chloe Joseph. His own daughter and son-in-law are out. What led to that? Also in the spring of 2022, 7M films and founder Robert Shin

followed a lawsuit against Katie Paulson, the Without a Crystal Ball creator, alleging defamation, tortillas interference of contract, commercial defamation, intentional affliction of emotional distress, negligence, deceptive trade practices, and intentional interference with prospective advantage.

They demanded an injunction that would require her to private all her social media posts about 7M, but then Paulson filed a motion to dismiss that later in the month, and she was able to keep her post up. Chakana congregation members, including Priscilla Lee, were watching all this unfold, unsure what to believe. During the summer of 2022, Robert's second wife, Hannah Shin, now started being especially cruel to Priscilla Lee under all this stress. Priscilla said she was working in her bedroom one day

when Hannah came in, started tearing her room apart, took her photos, some photos. Hannah kicked her, bit hit her. Priscilla said that Robert came in during this assault and told her that Hannah had done nothing wrong. Hannah told Priscilla, I'm the woman of God. I'm the pastor's wife. Basically, she could do no wrong.

Not sure why this happened. Maybe, I don't know, maybe Hannah found out that Robert was sleeping with Priscilla and got mad about it and didn't want to blame Priscilla. Well, now Priscilla finally comes to the realization. Asian, quote, I'd rather go to hell than stay here. You know, fear of hell was all that had kept her in for years now. She finally left Chikina in spring of 2022, reunited with her sister Melanie.

Priscilla said that she thought about ending her life directly after she left Chikina, but she decided that she wanted to pursue justice for herself and Melanie. With all these departures, especially Chloe and Daniel, the 7M dancers are questioning if they should still believe Robert. And some of them leave. Among those who left in the summer of 2022 are Kevin Concrete Davis. Calia Gray, Aubrey Fisher, Kylie Douglas, Miranda and James Derek, Nick Rayano, or Rayano, they all stay, though. Miranda's family again devastated.

They were hoping that she was going to leave once the allegations against Robert were made public. After a large amount of the congregation left, Robert now changes his former views and tells remaining followers, no, they need to meet with their families. He's desperate. He said in one recording, it takes diligence to be able to cut your friends and family out in a way that they don't even know that they've been out. you've got to be undercover. Oh yeah, that's some real godly advice. A dancer Nick Rayano or Rayano texted his parents, asked him to meet him at a Panda Express.

Miranda Derek called her parents, also asked for a meeting. At the meeting, Kelly tried to talk to Miranda about Robert and all the allegations they'd heard, but Miranda not having it and said she gave her parents an ultimatum. If they were going to keep talking about Robert and 7M, she did not want to see them again ever.

So in the name of keeping communication channels open, they promised not to talk about it from then on. The last time they spoke about it publicly, the Wilkins felt like their encounters with Miranda were very superficial, not indicative of a real relationship. At one point, they contacted Melanie Lee for advice and what she said surprised them.

She told Kelly Wilking that if she continued to be nice to Miranda, then Miranda was going to think that she's done nothing wrong. She won't make amends. She won't try and have a real relationship. She won't leave the cult. She told the Wilkins that everybody was looking to them now, to keep speaking about 7M being a cult.

They had to keep speaking. They'd gotten the closest anyone has ever got into bringing shin down. So risking a relationship with their daughter, they keep fighting. In the spring of 2022, Miranda Derrick gave a statement to the cut via 7M's lawyer saying, I am not held against my will. I have never been a hostage.

I go to church. I have faith in God. If one day I wish to pursue my faith elsewhere, I will and feel completely free to do that. As far as my career, my time at 7M films has been one of the most exciting years ever. And if one day I wish to partner with a different management company or start my own company, I will. No one's forced me to do anything. Her statement continued with that, when they, my parents and sister, really did not respect my wishes and only did things on their terms.

I saw a different side of them. I'd never seen before that was concerning to me. I was very hurt that my voice was not heard. The more they obsessed over my choices and totally going against a simple thing that I asked, wanting space, I felt the only thing I could do is distance myself from them in hopes they would see my heart in time. She wrote that her relationship with her parents is, quote, a very unique. dynamic, and though I loved them with all my heart, and the long term, it was not healthy, especially for me being in an adult relationship.

On August of 2022, Miranda released another statement on TikTok, or she explained that she had set boundaries with her family for her well-being. She alleged that Melanie had locked her out of their joint TikTok account, after she'd expressed interest in moving out of their shared apartment. She accused her parents of disapproving of her decision to move in with James, and that her choice to, you know, decrease contact was a result of them, quote, calling the cops on my black boyfriend. Fucking hate that she brought race into that again. It's not about race.

It's about brainwashing, right? Control, abuse. In Miranda's statement, she also said during the pandemic, a lot of people, including myself, had time to reflect since normal life was disrupted and on pause for everyone. Towards the end of 2020, she said she started her walk with God in a serious way.

She felt a spiritual shift and started going to Bible study, learning about God. I know that my family and friends saw changes in me along the way because it was true. I was changing for the better and in love like I'd never been before. Miranda said she asked her family for space and patience and I told Melanie I would love to continue doing videos with her as Wilkins sisters, but I just didn't want to continue doing it as we did.

I wanted more control over my schedule and I wanted to be an equal partnership rather than her controlling our business like it had been. I wanted to make time for other things including my relationship with James, Bible studies, making music, and just having some time off to myself. James Derek also gave a statement to the cut through 7M's lawyers. he said he connected with the shins at a time when he quote needed help financially at the time and was in the middle of closing a really big deal that could help me with my finances closing this deal was something i needed help with i got the help i needed and that's partially how seven m was formed

i was able to pay off my debt fix my credit own a car have my name on my house that i live in evidence that the jobs i've booked through seven m have helped my career and my life he maintains his quote walk with god began at age 17 before he met the shins quote so when i found out that the shins were of the same mind in their pursuit of God, I was excited to work with him on a business level. I bet he was also excited to work with them because, you know, their high control style just felt familiar, thanks to him already being in another cult. Dude probably has no fucking clue what a healthy spiritual life looks like,

because he's never had one. Meanwhile, Priscilla Lee now tells her sister that she wanted to sue Robert for ruining her fucking life. Priscilla showed Melanie evidence of financial misconduct, which included bank statements and canceled checks. But then Robert Shin would beat her to that punch. In October of 2022, Robert filed suit against two former members of Chikina Church and moderators of social media accounts. Best defense is a strong offense. Priscilla Lee, Melanie Lee, Haley, Marie Carroll, Haley, Elizabeth Phipps, Kaylee, Irene Schaefer, named in the 22 suit as plaintiffs.

The lawsuit accuses former members of defamation and trade libel and alleges that the defendants made false statements referring to Chikina and 7M as a cult and launched a campaign to, cancel Shin through flagrant, defamatory attacks on social and other media. How dare they point out what he's doing? In his lawsuit, Shin described the connection between the church and his other businesses. He described Shikina as a small and tight-knit group of Christian believers committed to spreading their religious message through peaceful religious study and outreach. The suit states that for-profit businesses were established as part of their mission and to support their religious efforts.

To prepare for the lawsuit, Melanie Lee met with former 7M member Aubrey Fisher. in February of 2023, Aubrey broke down where his money went every time he was paid. First, he paid his rent to one of Robert's companies, then a photography fee

to another company associated with Robert, then a 20% management fee to 7M, which is Robert's company, then a 10% tith to Shikaina, Robert's church, then another 10% offering

directly to Robert, and then another 10% offering directly to Robert as the man of God. So he was losing between 60% of his income before taxes that is just gratuitous financial abuse and then former 7M dancers

got into contact with Priscilla Lee heard more of them heard her allegations of sexual abuse against Robert Shin and said they had been abused as well not all of them are named on sources now Priscilla told them she was going to sue Robert invited them to join her if they wish to

Priscilla said in her interview for the docu-series if you ask me what I believe justice would be I want Robert to lose every dollar he has down to the penny because that's all Robert cares about. On March 17, 23, three dancers, who previously worked with 7M, joined four other complaints accusing Robert Shin of running a cult and taking advantage of his followers. The dancers in the suit are Aubrey Fisher, Kylie Douglas, and Kevin Concrete Davis. The filing named Shin, 7M, Shikina, and 17 other entities and individuals. The dancers joined a cross

complaint filed by former members who were sued by Robert Shin. The cross complaint accuses Shin and other entities of fraud, forced labor, human trafficking, and sexual battery. The lawsuit alleges, quote, brainwashing, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, manipulation and exploitation. According to the cross complaint, Shikina is a cult operating under the guise of a religious institution. Robert refers to himself as the man of God and preachers to Chikina that without submitting to him and without Chikina, their lives will be cursed. Robert requires full physical and economic control over Chikina members. The suit claims that Shin instructed members to apply for COVID relief funds

and then collected about $100,000 of that that went to his corporations and not church members the filing alleges that when Kylie Douglas visited her family for holidays, her church mentor said in front of others that she was sucking on her mama's titties

and that her mentor screamed at her and berated her when she wanted to have her taxes done for free by a family member instead of paying a church member to do them. It's not like some normal church talk. Stop sucking on your mama's titties. fucking control you uh in early 2023 the wilking family decided to take action to see if they could bring criminal charges against robert shin as well melany wilking was of the mind that her

sister would not leave the cult unless robert was brought down and put in prison in april of twenty twenty three dean wilking asked the police what they needed from them to bring a criminal case uh the wilkings were uh told they had to bring numerous sexual abuse victims to the station and the victims had to say they wanted to press charges and give detailed statements regarding their abuse. The family reached out to several women to see if they're willing to file these kind of reports against Robert. One woman who asked to remain anonymous spoke to the docu-series team described how church members were told it was an honor to be close to the man of God. She was aware that people gave Robert massages, and she said that she too was asked to massage him.

She said Robert told her to take her bra off, but she refused. She was told to put on a blindfold. She did, and then realized that he took his clothes off while she was blindfolded before getting massaged. She was told not to discuss things like this with anybody. Kylie Douglas shared a story about an incident involving Robert where she said, Robert and a group of dancers were at the gym. She was experiencing back pain, was talking to him about it. At this time, they believed Robert could literally heal them. He's a healer. She thought he was going to pray for her, but he offered to crack her back instead. She agreed, not thinking anything was wrong. However, it did not feel like he was trying to crack her back when he started to touch her. Just felt like he was trying to, you know, essentially

touch her all over her body. She thought it was weird, but rationalized it at the time as some form of treatment she just didn't understand. Kylie later ended up filing a report against Robert. The police asked her why she waited so long to come forward. They made her feel like she did something wrong, she said. Then they told her that they needed something more to make an arrest. They asked Kylie to bring in a few more women to file a report in person. One anonymous woman came forward to make a report that was told and was told, excuse me,

that the case would have to be presented to the DA. The Wilking family, that's very difficult, these situations. to get the police involved. And I do understand on the police aside, they're worried about people not shut up to court. They're worried about there not be enough evidence to get a conviction, not just being dicks. The Wilkin family asked Priscilla Lee

about filing a police report, but at the time she did not feel comfortable going to the police. The transition out of the cult, hard for these former dancers, of course. Aubrey Fisher, Kylie Douglas, they broke up after almost five years together. They both lost their passion for dancing,

but they were able eventually to get back to doing what they loved. Kylie took a job as a choreographer working with some kids at a dance studio Aubrey Fisher still dances he has 2.2 million followers on TikTok as this recording 2.1 million on Instagram

over 550,000 subscribers on YouTube in 2024 he released three music singles on Spotify and other streamers fucking wildly talented Kevin Concrete Davis suffered in the immediate aftermath of leaving thinking to himself

quote, what the fuck happened to me I went in for spiritual guidance but I left the church but I left with church being tainted to me now. But he bounced back in 2023, landed a gig, dancing with Beyonce on her Renaissance tour.

He's also modeled for Louis Vuitton, performed with 65 other dancers for Ryan Gossian's live performance of I'm Just Ken at the Oscars, amongst other things. He's got over 430,000 followers on Instagram, over 860,000 followers on TikTok, YouTube channel, no longer active,

but he's working doing what he loves. Kevin is now married to former 7M member Kaila Gray, Priscilla L. Lee reconnected with her dad and Seoul South Korea Has complex feelings towards him Doesn't think he was much of a father But at least they're talking

Summer of 2023 Priscilla decided to file a police report against Robert Said she felt like she was taking her power back Nick Ryano, aka Rayno deleted his TikTok, Instagram and YouTube accounts Which all had large followings After the Dancing for the Devil docuseries premiered The Account Exposing 7M

posted that he is still part The account Exposing 7M that's the name of the account, posted that he is still part of 7M, which was sadly confirmed by his parents. His parents have limited contact with him to this day. They don't speak with him in person, and they believe his messages are written by some other church member.

That's fucking scary. Meanwhile, the police told the Wilking family in 2023 that they needed a few more reports, again, from women to make an arrest. Shin has still not been arrested. Kelly and Dean Wilking have filed complaints with the LAPD, the FBI, IRS, the Attorney General. TMZ reported that two.

sexual battery cases were filed against Shinn reported to LAPD in August at 23. One case filed by former member Kylie Douglas, as I mentioned, LAPD conducted an investigation and the case went to the L.A. City Attorney's Office. Sadly, these cases were rejected by the police in April

of 2024 due to insufficient evidence and a delay in reporting. However, the fight not over. I'll share more recent law enforcement action before we bounce on out of this timeline. Miranda Derek visited her family for Christmas in 2024. posted about it on her IG stories

Melanie felt like it was all for show which might have been true I watched it it seems or I watched a recording of somebody recording you know her stories there and yeah it seems a little for show Robert was recorded saying to his congregation

ahead of the holidays that year when we have Christmas I don't care whether you want to go or not you go like regarding the families if you cut their family all it does is cause us trouble Melanie claimed that she told her sister we went over a year without hearing your voice

and Miranda allegedly responded You act like a year is a long time It's not a long time That's not a normal response May 25th, 2024 Melanie married Austin Echler NFL running back Currently with the Washington commanders

They've been engaged since August of 20203 And Miranda did attend the wedding Dancing for the Devil That docu series released on Netflix May 29th, 2024 After the series premiered Miranda of course called it one-sided Although she loves her family she said

she still does not see eye to eye with him. On June 4th, Miranda refuted claims from the documentary on her Instagram stories saying, hey, everybody, just wanted to hop in here and say that I've seen the documentary. I want to start by saying that I appreciate the concern that has been expressed

for my well-being. Due to pending litigation in which I'm a plaintiff in a defamation lawsuit, it's not appropriate for me to comment on specific allegations, though I will state that I do not condone abuse in any way. I cannot speak for anyone else but myself.

I love my mom, dad, and Melanie, and they will forever be a part of my life. The truth is, we just don't see eye to eye at this time. I believe that this documentary is a one-sided story. I gave my life to Jesus Christ in 2020 and asked my family for some space in the very beginning to collect my thoughts and process my new walk I wanted to take with God. I also told my sister that I wanted to continue our Wilkins sister's social media page. She logged me out of our account and when I asked for access back, she denied my request. So I had no other choice but to start my own account and pursue my own career. I still have yet to receive access into our account. My family didn't honor the space. I

for, and I saw a different side of them I've never seen before. Honestly, it made me mad, frustrated, and annoyed, that they were being so overbearing and chaotic. In 2020, I went to Michigan to visit my family for Christmas. My papa was taken to the hospital due to medical issues. We got a phone call saying that he had a short time before he would pass. Mellie and I drove to the hospital to say our last goodbyes. Before we went to the hospital to do so, I started to pray for Papa in the car, and Melanie got offended, angry with me and told me to stop, and to never pray around her.

I doubt that happened. our Papa passed away that day. Fast forward about a month and a half, Melanie and I are in L.A. And we're about to head back to Michigan for our Papa's funeral. I was at a place with my family where I felt like I was being harassed. My parents and sister are not religious. They immediately called me going to church twice a week a cult. I felt that if I went back for the funeral, they would try to keep me there and not let me come back to L.A.

So I told my family that I would not be going to Michigan. And then I wanted to move in and begin my life with James. To keep it simple, I did not want to be around them at that time because I felt threatened by them. I have been getting together with them over the past couple years to make amends move on and work things out as a family this documentary has created a further challenge between us as I worked to overcome this public

attack. No one likes to be portrayed as they're brainwashed, not in control of their own life, shell of herself, human traffic daughter, sister, when that's just not the truth. I will add that I would have preferred that my family's circumstances remain private. I'm forced and I feel like I have no other choice but to defend myself because of all this.

I can't convince anyone to believe anything. I am just a woman trying to live my life. I'm not a victim. I am not in any harm. I'm not being abused. I've never asked my family or anyone else for help. Not in any way. Respectfully, what I choose to do with my life is up to me. As I take time to process and reflect on the situation, I would appreciate your continued support. I mean, you know, very well spoken. But like, it is just so sad where it's like, oh, you're just irrationalizing all this horrible shit that's going on with you. And you'll see that, yeah, they're not in a good place here soon. It doesn't seem to be. June 2010, 2024, Miranda claimed that since the premiere, she and James had been followed have been followed in stock, that they've received hate mail and death threats. She blames the docu-series for increasing the divide within her family, saying, I don't understand how my parents and my sister thought

this documentary would help me or help our relationship in any way. I've been getting together with my family for the past couple of years privately to work on our relationship, to make things right, to men what has been broken, and I've been loving it. This documentary has made it very difficult to continue doing that. Honestly, I think that my parents and my sister have focused so much on this documentary that they've forgotten on working on any relationship with me,

and that hurts. It hurts me to say. Miranda, how do you rationalize all the other dancers who have left, who have now filed lawsuits, all your peers who are saying this is a cult? So frustrated when somebody just gets so good at rationalizing bullshit and just won't wake the fuck up. James Derek reposted an Instagram story from his sister Tamara Derek that said, that shit is one side of story. Why wasn't James family interviewed for this documentary?

He has family too. And he added the caption, she said it. And that's a fair point. This family should have been interviewed. I wonder if maybe they weren't because they're also in some kind of high control group, right? Maybe his relatives are all as brainwashed as he is. In response to Miranda's claims of threats, Melanie told People magazine in June of 2024 that she was, quote, very sorry that she has experienced that because our only intent was to save her

from an unsafe environment and to give her love and know that we're here to support her. She denounced she, is that her sister's claims were the work of the pastor did not represent Miranda's views. Quote, hearing these things from my sister, it saddens me. But then I have to know that she's not, then I have to know that she's been under his control for over three years. And so the person that's sitting in front of her camera and making these posts, that's not my true sister. I kind of have to separate my emotions a little bit and just take it at face value

and that this is from the church and Robert. If my sister were who she was previous to this, she would never be in this situation. She's so loving and kind and she loved our family. And so for her to point fingers at us, it's just not her true self. 7M posted on Instagram called the series a slanderous, work of fiction born from a failed extortion attempt.

The post alleged the Lee sisters and co-conspirators launched a concerted smear campaign in 2022 and continues with, we will continue to pursue, excuse me, all legal remedies available to stop the spread of salacious lies and expect to be fully vindicated in court. That post, they're one and only post, and they have not allowed anyone to comment on it. Melanie Lee responded in June on Instagram regarding the baseless statement Mr. Shin's camp has posted to a social media I will say one thing

the lawsuit and documentary speak for themselves Mr. Shin has already been ordered by the court to pay over $75,000 in attorney's fees for having filed meritless claims against me and Mrs. Me and Ms. Lee, excuse me, and we are looking forward to presenting our case to the jury and seeing justice served.

According to a statement from Brown, Neri Smith and Khan LLP, Council for the Lee Sisters, the dancers and other individuals, the lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial or was scheduled to go to trial July 7th, 2025. It's been moved to this October,

just here in a few weeks. Then for about a year, things go quiet on this case. But then this past July 25th, Robert Chin's property in the Tunga neighborhood of L.A. was raided by the FBI in conjunction with their ongoing investigation into several accusations,

including sex trafficking and money laundering. At least six people, people were seen detained, taken out of the home in handcuffs. Robert not arrested, but he was one of those detained for questioning. Investigative journalist, Katie Joy, said after the raid that the allegations leveled at Shin are just the

tip of the iceberg. Joy also alleged Shin has changed his name. I don't know to what. Previously accused of sexual assault by no less than six women. Now, Joy says, his current operations leave members of his church more isolated. It's not just dancers that are involved in this, Joy wrote. There are individual human beings that are being

labor trafficked, sex trafficked. They're having their entire lives controlled. He is dangerous. Then early last month, August of 2025, James and Miranda Derek deleted all their active social media accounts. That's fucking insane. Not sure about Miranda, but James had almost 6 million followers on TikTok. Almost 2 million other followers on Instagram.

Just shut it down. Robert had to have convinced him to shut those things down. But why? To hide some kind of evidence. I mean, essentially, this guy just shut. down his whole career. That's wild. He's probably done now. They both probably are done now. Highly unlikely. They're going to rebuild their careers. Not to those levels. Very likely. They're going to be hurting and so embarrassed when they finally leave his cult and leave it with

nothing or close to it. Oh man. And yeah, and just guessing that Robert is the one again who had him shut those accounts down. Why else would he have shut down those accounts? According to web sleuths on Instagram and Reddit, no one has heard from James or Miranda since the FBI raid. Finally, when I look for any more recent information, I found that the church has blurred photos of their organization on Google Maps. 7M films website, 7mfilms.com, has just been deactivated.

A lot of people are claiming that Robert has hired some sort of company to erase most of his digital footprint. Robert's son Isaiah, the videographer, that first brought TikTok dancers into his father's church. His social media accounts are still active, but he is no longer collaborating with dancers

and barely putting out any new content and what content he does put out not seeing much life. For example, he has almost four million subscribers on YouTube. Neither one of the only two videos he has put out in the past year have cracked 7,000 views.

The majority of the dancers in the 7M cult have seen their dance careers fall off a fucking cliff since this cold imploded. But Robert, Robert's probably still doing great. You know, so unfair. And that's it.

Now I guess we just hope that Robert and anyone associated with him who helped exploit or abuse his followers finally faced justice. Again, a mid-October 2025 civil trial date has been set for the lawsuit against Robert involving Melanie Lee and other former members of the Shikina Church and 7M films.

Please, rash angel, help them win. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. Okay. I know there was a lot of info. Hopefully it was somewhat compelling and not just a lot of. the wall of fucking dates and names.

It's fucking crazy. These cults, they just, these leaders are so fucking sneaky, so hard to pin down, so hard to put in prison. Okay, now let's break down that seven mountain mandate, the supposed reason behind the name 7M and something much, much more concerning to me than a small, largely defunct cult in Southern California. The seven mountain mandate, sometimes called the Seven Mountain Prophecy, is a strategy for cultural engagement popularized by Lance Smooth Daddy Walnau and Bill Bonsai Balsack Johnson

in their 2013 book Invading Babylon. I made out of those nicknames, of course. Lance Walnau is a televangelist based in Dallas, Texas, known primarily for popularizing the concept of President Donald Trump being a modern-day biblical king Cyrus from the book of Isaiah. You heard that right. Our president is the modern-day equivalent of a godly biblical king. totally normal. Not weird at all to think that. Not weird at all to think that the president has been sent to us literally by God. We're living in very reasonable times. A prominent religious scholar Matthew D. Taylor described while now in 2024 as one of the chief propagandists of the Christian MAGA movement and the most consequential evangelical Christian figure of the 21st century. Bill Johnson, on the other hand, is a high-end male escort and longtime companion of Lance. No, no, that's just something that makes me laugh to say.

Bill is the senior leader of Bethel Church, a charismatic megachurch in Reading, California. He is pro-conversion therapy. He openly despises homosexuality, not as somebody's natural biological sexual persuasion, but as something devilish, demonic, disgusting sin. Their book, subtitle, The Seven Mountain Mandate, truly calls for evangelical fundamentalist Christians to literally take over America. And ideally, the whole world, by taking over seven spheres or mountains of cultural influence. Religion, family, government, education, media, arts, entertainment, and business.

They truly, I'm not being dramatic, want to make a version of the Handmaid's Tale, a reality. I wish I was kidding. I'm not, this is fucking true. This is real shit. Their call for this takeover based on an interpretation of the Book of Revelations, advocates of the 7M mandate find their biblical warrant for retaking the church in Revelation chapter 17 versus 8 through 10. This passage that describes a scarlet beast with seven heads, which John says are seven mountains. The lady speaking tongues earlier in this episode, White House spiritual advisor, Paula White, big time, seven mountain mandate advocate. And, you know, she has, as I said, the president's here. And that makes these folks, you know,

a bit more concerning than a random tiny cult. I mean, imagine if Robert Shin was fucking behind Trump and photo ops. I mean, that's basically what we have. We're basically there. We're real close. In 2020, the late Charlie Kirk said, quote, finally we have a president that understands the Seven Mountains of Cultural Influence during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. And he was not, of course, talking about Biden there. Biden didn't seem to always know where he was in 2020. A January 2024 Denison University poll found 41% of American Christians believed in the Seven Mountain mandate. And that scares the shit out of me because I don't want to live in a country where

dudes like Robert Shin are not the exception but the norm, a country where versions of the kind of zealots I've announced time and time again since year one on time suck are now somewhat perceived as you know good godly men passing laws that all of us have to follow whether we're cult members or not by framing LGBTQIA plus inclusion as a quote demonic ideology and working to establish biblical law over all aspects of society this movement makes make no mistake does for sure seek to dismantle the civil rights and protections of gay lesbian and trans people and reverse social progress, including taking away many rights from all women. They want to make abortion absolutely illegal everywhere under any and all circumstances.

They want to outlaw divorce. They want to make men subservient to men. The movement is intertwined with the American Christian nationalist movement, and many members of this movement, have already openly publicly advocate. I've been seeing this for fucking months for repealing the 19th Amendment, women's right to vote. They want a patriarchal family structure where the man is the head, the public representative, of the entire household, and the wife fucking submits to her husband's will, including giving away her vote. They want my running, submit, bicycle gag to be reality. Some followers of the

mandate, like Pastor Doug Wilson, an evangelical Christian theologian, pastor at Christ Church, just down the road from me in Moscow, Idaho, believe that restricting women's suffrage is part of a larger plan to challenge precedent and shift society towards an honest-to-God theocracy based on interpretations of biblical law. How has that worked out in all the cults we've covered, right? Fucking interpreting biblical law. You know, old white dudes enforcing biblical shit on people. Fucking horrible every time.

Back in 2019, and he is an old white dude. Back in 2019, Doug stated that his church aimed to, quote, make Moscow a Christian town. And that he favored, quote, theocracy, as opposed to, quote, civil government, which are in necessary degrees, satanic, demonic, and influenced by, the god of this world who is the devil that's fun uh this movement of religious radical extremism is definitively linked to the current white house in numerous ways and that is not me talking political shit it's facts just fucking relates to this episode uh current secretary of defense pete hexeth has a strong publicly acknowledged connection to the christian nationalist pastor

doug wilson i just fucking went over uh through hexas church and an open public admiration for wilson's writings uh hexeth and his family have attended a church that is a member of the communion of reformed evangelical churches, CREC, a network co-founded by Wilson. Current House Speaker Mike Johnson linked to the Seven Mountains mandate through his ties to leaders and groups within the new apostolic reformation. Johnson has close ties with influential figures in the NAR movement, including Pastor Jim Garlo, an advocate for the Seven Mountains mandate. Garlo, a leader in the so-called pulpit freedom movement, which insists that pastors should carry out political advocacy from the pulpit in defiance of internal revenue service.

regulations regarding religious nonprofits. And I can go on and on with mega political connections to the Seven Mountains mandate. There are so many. A recent deranged gunman, part of America's recent wave of political violence also connected to the Seven Mountains mandate, right? Vance Belter, the dude who shot and killed Melissa Hortman, Democratic Minnesota State Representative and her husband, Mark Hortman on June 14th, studied at Christ for the Nation's Institute in Dallas. The group is a Bible school strongly linked to the new Apostolic Reformation, or NAR. NAR, a loosely organized but influential charismatic Christian movement that share similarities with Pentecostalism, especially in its belief that God actively communicates

with believers through the Holy Spirit, you know, speaking in tongues, all that, and the Seven Mountains mandate currently a, quote, key ideological feature of NAR. Crazy to be watching religious extremism, right? Like cult thought invade mainstream American culture in real time. Just like we watched fringe conspiracy culture, invade mainstream American culture in real time during the pandemic. Where am I going with all this? Well, I just think it's fucking important to bring it to your attention in case you

know that the crazy kind of cult shit we've covered for fucking almost a decade here, that it's becoming like normalized. And that's all. I just want awareness around this. This is happening right now. And this is not an endorsement on my behalf of any political party. If cult like zealots are infiltrating the fucking Democratic Party or some movement within it, well, fucking tell me.

I'll talk shit about them too. I just don't want to see the majority of Americans become some version of James and Miranda Derek. No one should have their lives controlled by anybody, cult leader or politician, interpreting scripture to inevitably control and abuse people. No one should have their lives controlled by governmental policies that follow religious mandates designed to control everybody whether they share these religious beliefs or not. It's fucking crazy. Not saying that's what we have right now, to be clear because we don't, but there are for sure current political operatives. that truly want to make this a reality and are working towards that.

That's concerning. Weird fucking times. Feels like we're living in the longest fucking episode of the Twilight Zone. I just think we should all be given the maximum amount of autonomy possible. Right?

As long as our choices don't hurt others directly, we should be left alone to decide for ourselves how we want to live. I don't have to live the way some shady false profit like fucking Robert Shin or that fucking dip shit

down in Moscow wants us to live. Hail Nimrod. Time for the takeaway. voice. Time suck. Top five takeaways. Number one, Robert Shin, a former medical doctor, founded Shikina Church in Southern California in 1994.

His congregation has always been small, extremely loyal, right? They're very reluctant to let people in their doors. Chikina has been accused to be an occult many, many times by many, many people, with claims such as members are told to die to themselves and their families by cutting off contact with them. Number two. In 2021, Robert Shin, who has owned many businesses and wanted to break into Hollywood for a long time, founded 7M films, a talent management company. He'd already been working with a group of talented dancers who had a large social media followings, and they became his first official clients. All of these dancers also heavily involved with Shikina blurring the lines between business and church, blurting it to the point of non-existence.

Number three, one of Shin's 7M clients is Miranda Wilking. Miranda ran a popular TikTok account with her sister, Melanie. Or I should say was, since 7M doesn't appear to be open. Yeah, she ran a popular TikTok account with her sister, Melanie, but they became separated after Miranda got involved with Chikina and 7M. She cut off contact with her family, refused to see them for months at a time. Her family believes she's an occult still, still under Shin's control,

while Miranda has said she just wants space, just focusing on her walk with God. Number four, Robert Shin is thought by many to have named his management company 7M after the Seven Mountains mandate, a Christian nationalist ideology that calls for Christians to take over every single aspect of society and align governmental law with interpretations of biblical law. Oh, boy, under his eye. Number five, new info, Conrad Vassa. In November of 2022, Robert's other son, Conrad Vasa, no idea how he got that last name, issued a lengthy, arguably bizarre statement about his dad that sheds light on some of Robert's background and his family dynamics. one part of this weird statement reads

I want to set the record straight that my brother, referring to Isaiah, was never a cult recruiter. He was an aspiring film director looking to make content to practice his craft and he did videos for B-Dash and some of his friends for free because that's what you do

when you start out in the entertainment industry. My brother had no way of knowing that after getting my father involved to help them with the business side of things so they could actually be lucrative that all these crazy scandals that none of us knew was going on for years. So yeah, my father has great business acumen

and he gets involved and everyone is an overnight success. Respectfully, I ask all of you, if you've ever had a mentor figure in your life, who made a difference because their advice actually worked, would you not listen to the next piece of advice that they had to give? It's called feeling indebted to someone who made a difference. My dad didn't have charisma.

He had results, and results are what spoke to people. Did he end up doing some shitty things and trying to use the Bible to justify it? Yes. But the allegations of brainwash are very exaggerated. My father's not a cult leader. He didn't trick people. He produced.

There's a difference. to all the crazy sexual stuff I am hearing well I do not condone it because to do so would to say sexual abuse is okay which it isn't but I do know one thing about my father no one has considered

this is where it gets real fucking weird I have high functioned autism and 75% of kids with autism and inherit it from their father I don't know if that's true when you stop to consider the implications of that for someone raised in an environment where not only they contended with the disability

they would never be diagnosed properly with in the 60s with and being an immigrant in a white dominant Toronto on top of that, then I need to point out that on paper my father didn't stand a chance. Conrad discussed century overload now and how it applies to pleasure.

And then wrote, So you have an undiagnosed 60-year-old man with a libido that if it's anything like mine is unbearable to live with. You poor bastard, you're in your libido just being tortured. It's fucking jerk off you did it. He then wrote about his personal experiences,

saying that he was accused of molesting a child and that he craves sex 24-7. More this dude shares, the worst his dad looks. I love how he was trying to use autism as an excuse for fucking followers, for like sexual abuse. Of course he fucked sexist abuse as followers.

He's autistic. Of course he would. He's good with numbers and he's bad with social boundaries including sexual boundaries, okay? He doesn't understand proper consent. He continued by emphasizing that he does not condone

know what his father did, writing, my father coped with sex drive in the most unforgivable manner possible by any standard

of society neurotypicals or otherwise but there's one thing I've learned about silent suffering is that this is the kind of

suffering that manifests in the darkest behaviors he claimed that age 12 his dad was taught that he had to

fight to assert himself and then at age 16 he was a member of the shin family clan a powerful Christian clan

in North Korea and a wealthy one is there a fucking powerful wealthy Christian Clan of North Korea I don't think there is

I don't think they would allow that he said he never questioned his faith because his father taught him that not being a Christian would be betraying his family he also wrote that he would not tolerate anyone saying his father is anti-LGB because Robert was his strongest ally

and supporter and publicly stated that Shikina Church supported gay marriage I think that's Conrad's way of saying that he's gay and then Conrad wrote I am pissed all caps at him forever disowning me over promiscuant

and to my last breath I will openly say that Robert Shinn is no father of mine as a fucking weird turn in his statement but he adds I will always consider Israel Shinn

the man that steered me off the path of certain self-destruction that is being a gay Christian in an anti-gay Christian world my pastor but Isaiah is not a pastor this poor dude is

he's mentally ill obviously Conroy goes on to say that Robert taught him to look at every person as a package deal and decide of good outweighs bad and that his views and that he views his dad

the same way adding quote and to that end I'm not going to fear being kicked out of my father's church or life anymore because he already did that and I will say that he did his best. Okay, so I hope that cleared a lot of shit up. So, Robert Shin is fucking insane

as is the son Conrad. Conrad, please go find a good therapist. Holy shit, you have a lot of work to do. And maybe you can talk your dad into joining you. Time shock. Top five takeaways. Crumping for Christ, the 7M cult and Christian nationalism

has been sucked oh yeah thank you to the bad magic production team for help making time suck thanks to Queen of Bad Magic Lindsay Cummins giving me the space spent a little burn a little extra midnight oil on this one

thanks also to Logan Keith helping to publish this episode designing merch for the store at bad magic productions.com thank you to Olivia Lee for her research thanks to the all seen eyes moderating the cult of the curious

private Facebook page mod squad making sure discord keeps running smooth and everybody over on the TimeSuck Subreddit and Bad Magic Subreddit. And now let's head on over to this week's Time Sucker Updates. Updates? Get your Time Sucker Updates. First up, something so positive. Sweet, sweet sack, Emily Chambers sent in a message to Bojangles at Timesugger Podcast.com

with the subject line of Dan Lindsay and Mushrooms, Save My Husband's Life. Before I say anything else, Emily wrote, I need to say thank you, thank you so much. I will try to consolidate this year's long story as much as I can. My husband has always struggled with depressive episodes and panic attacks, but both were manageable. Around two years into our marriage, a series of things happened that triggered another depressive episode, but this one didn't end. For over two years, he couldn't work, and I couldn't leave the house, because if he was left alone, he would have panic attacks so severe that he would think he was dying and call an ambulance. Our lives were fully put on hold.

We have two children, now they are 11, my daughter, from a previous marriage, and, and and three, who was born only months before this horrible period began. And for two years, I solo-parented, worked, cleaned, ran our home, handled our finances, everything. I never blamed him. I love him so much. I, too, have struggled with depression, anxiety, and panic attacks in the past, so I know how debilitating all of that can be. And I did my absolute best to support him, but it was very, very hard.

He was doing everything he could do to get better. His psychiatrist had him on the maximum dose of antidepressants. He had emergency Xanax for panic attacks. he was in weekly therapy we even tried ketamine treatments none of it worked no matter how hard he tried he started to talk about taking his own life

he would say he would just handle it and release the kids and I from the burden of him when I would beg him to keep fighting he would tell me to leave take the girls not let him hold us back anymore I was so scared we both were then one day I heard about psilocybin therapy I've done shrooms a few times in my life

always have had amazing experiences and honestly my first thought was this is incredible finally maybe that's work my husband's immediate response as someone unfamiliar with psychedelics aside from horror stories about people going into psychosis was absolutely not I struggled with that for a while

I didn't want to push him but I believe this could help then I remembered your episode on psychedelics my husband is not a regular listener of any podcast but I dragged him to your stand-up show at Cap City in Austin, Texas, he loved you now we often asked to turn on time suck when we're in the car together if you have a time suck to catch up on

is a regular phrase when we get on the road so I asked him if you'd be willing to listen to the episode and he said yes. So he pulled up the episode's YouTube video. We watched the whole thing in place of our usual bedtime TV show and he was fascinated. He started doing his own research.

I showed him clips of scared-to-death bonus episodes where you and Lindsay talk about your psychedelic use. He was intrigued. He started looking for a treatment center. A few months ago, we made the trip from South Texas to a treatment center in Ashland, Oregon. We couldn't really afford it, but we made it work. This was our Hail Mary, our last chance,

skipping ahead for the sake of time. It worked. I have my husband back. he is the man I fell in love with again. He is himself again. I know that you and Lindsay did not directly save his life, but I don't think I would have been able to open his mind to that type of treatment without you. The two of you speaking openly, honestly about your experiences, opened his mind to give him to try, and the treatment truly did save his life. He is currently halfway through weaning off of his antidepressants. We are saving so he can do another treatment

once he is fully off the antidepressants to reinforce the progress he's made, as was recommended by his therapist. He is still in therapy. He still has work to do. But the psilocyllis cybin treatment truly did save his life, and he's improving every day. I've been listening to Time sucks since the pandemic, scared to death from the inception. I'm sure you hear it all the time, but I'm going to say it again to reinforce it. The work you two are doing is important. Sharing your opinions, experiences is important. You truly are changing, in my case, saving lives.

So thank you, thank you for being unapologetically yourself, speaking about things that are important to you. If you ever doubt it, I want to make sure you know you're making a positive difference. Forever a Space Lizard and Annabelle, Emily. Wow, Emily. uh that's fucking amazing to hear yeah thanks for the uh yeah the the kind words that it does matter a lot you know uh i i needed this positivity there's so much negativity in our culture now love the reciprocal relationship i have with so many of you where you know maybe i help you in some way and you help me in some way uh yeah i'm not a therapist i'm no expert but i have read a lot about

clinical trials combining psilocybin and therapy and yeah the results have just been fucking beyond encouraging when it comes to treating things like anxiety depression you know like longstanding depression PTSD and more uh i do realize brains are so complicated you know i highly doubt it'll work for everyone there's rarely in life i find like a one size fits all and the trials do speak to that they don't help every single person you know different strokes for different folks but it sure seems to help most people more than half nothing has helped me uh pull out of my own little depressive episodes more than psilocybin uh you know molly has in the short run uh nothing has ever made me feel better for a few hours in mdMA but when it's talking about like long-term effects

psilocybin consistently seemed to give me the best you know afterglow mood correction perspective shift uh those little fucking nasty tasting mushrooms they do seem to be truly magical all of the time yeah i barely drink alcohol anymore i just i don't care about it anymore i strongly prefer weed trumes basically all the rest of the psychedelic spectrum it is what works for me again not going to claim that it works for everybody else you know do your own research in a good way look at fucking academic peer reviewed studies don't good don't go to fucking 4chan uh but i like who i am a lot more than i liked you know who i was when you know i was drinking a lot more so truly wishing that you and your husband uh have the best journey going forward really

hope that the recent therapy uh leads to a lifelong shift hail nimrod and yeah thanks to mother nature And now let's keep it positive with Latina Sucker. Monsei Pena, writing in with the subject line of Selena, are you kidding me? And Monsei wrote, wow, Daniel, I don't even know where to begin with this message. First of all, love the show, three to five stars, wouldn't change the thing, et cetera. I'm an OG listener. Look forward to weekly episodes like church. You cannot imagine how many people I talk to daily about time.

Thank you. Because I genuinely love it. It's like that every week, it's something new and different. But for some reason, never would I have imagined that you would have imagined that you would pick Selena as a topic. You don't know how excited I was to listen this week. Growing up as a Mexican girl during the height of her career, I was obsessed with Selena, was devastated with her murder. She was such a positive role model. It was important to have her as one since representation matters. She will forever be missed, but never forgotten. Thanks for

doing such justice to her story, and your Spanish was great. Also the fact that you hate Yolanda, just as much as every Hispanic person that knows her story does, is also appreciated. Hope to listen to many more years of time suck and scared to death. your little space lizard, Monsei. Monsei, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I got some similar messages. Sabia, tan, Pocco, sobre Celina. My Alagra, Mucho, concedera,

so history. She really was incredible. I'm fucking always amazed by people who touched the world so deeply, touched so many people, even though they were only with us for a very short amount of time. She was 23 years old

when that evil fucking munchkin did what she did. And she did more, good for the world than most people will who will live to a hundred it's just incredible yeah she will forever be missed but never forgotten very well said once say and yeah thank you and finally raw sweet on a sack victoria g uh wrote it with a simple subject line a thank you uh hello so i've been listening to time suck probably since 2017 or 18 i don't know 20 20 messes with my timeline uh the jimmies from small down murder is how i found y'all don't tell them but the guys uh

but you guys knocked them out of my favorite spot thank you that's that's probably pretty rare they're they're fucking huge good for them uh i've listened to scared of death since the beginning my number one favorite show to listen to thank you but honestly i have to say the patreon shows on scared of death have helped me through life a lot through life the part where you guys open up just share it's truly appreciated in fact maybe it'll help save a young life and here's why my daughter's 21 a fairly responsible young lady which he's recently single for the first time since high school and branching out to do things that as a parent makes me nervous oh my god yeah uh now that i didn't do uh most if not more than she did

or she is hell she knows i grow shrooms and just uh shakes her head at me uh jack frost an enigma or life changing that thank you for that tip uh not that i think she shouldn't be responsibly experienced life let's face it the ecstasy roxy all the other stuff is not the same as when we were young uh she recently told me she's going to her first rave on halloween and apparently it's a big one in los angeles not scary at all yeah i hear the sarcasm i had a very open conversation with her about most of my rave drugs, my experiences with him. And then if she does then make sure she has safe, she has someone to take care of her and a ride home. Also, I did that. You can call me any time and I will give you and your friends a ride home. But probably just

important, I ordered her fentanyl testing strips and some Narcan. Even though she expressed, she's not necessarily interested in partaking in party drugs. When I offered it to her, she said she would happily carry it on her even if it's to help a friend or a stranger. Now, of course, she could not be wanting to tell her mother if she wants to do some X, a rave and get freaky, and that's cool too, but I never would have known those things were available had you guys not talked about it a while back, so thank you, thank you. I also had another talk with her about why I have such strong rules regarding partying, come from a long line, alcoholics on both sides. I don't know if she knows her dad has

had his own addiction struggles with pills, not for me to share with her, but I told her rules I never drink, smoke pot, or take shrooms if my headspace is in any way not right. Oh, that's so important. I cannot use those things to escape because it would be way too easy for me to keep escaping. I also know which drugs, no matter how fun they are, I can never touch again, mostly Coke. I may or may not have worked at a strip club in Pasadena when I was 19 through 20, and I may or may not have made that choice as well. You're only young once, get all the partying out of the way now. I don't regret any of it. And then I may have decided to drink all the way from 21 to 22 as much as I could. It was a conscious choice. I decided when I was 22, I was going to

start taking life responsibly, or living life responsibly. And I almost made it to 22 before I got blackout drunk and really sick. I think somebody slipped me something. They didn't touch anything. Then I didn't touch anything for probably 15 years. So I told her my rules, no drinking, no smoking pot, no shrooms, if I'm looking to get out of my head, away from my inner demons, or feel like a wave of dark emptiness is trying to drag me down.

No coke ever. My friends who do it, no to never offer, never give it to me if I did ask, and they're the type who will listen. If partaking and above, always have a way to leave. Never go with strangers. Always have someone I trust who can keep me safe from assholes. Being sexually assaulted as a teen means I always have a way to. flee. I once walked home five miles in the middle of the night, shit-faced, because a drunk friend tried to make moves. Always get the fuck out. Hopefully my experiences can help her, or anyone really. Sorry for the ramble. Three out of five stars wouldn't change a thing. Love you. Victoria G. P.S. Regarding shrooms, just for fun, two Christmases ago after all the young people left, a few of us did a good amount of Jack Frost mushrooms. I honestly can't tell you how much, because throughout the night, I just kept taking more. At one point, I kind of got sucked into a cushion.

A couch thing, I just floated in. Life was great. Then after everyone went to bed, I turned off the stupid country music we listened to, put on Nirvana unplugged. I was transported through time and space to watching it be performed live with the spirit of Kurt Cobain joining me.

Kurt Cobain was my first love in life. Oh man, a lot of people's. He talked to me about regrets and stuff as well. It was kind of fun. Then I realized, if I could see him, I could see my best friend who died 13 years ago, my heterosexual soulmate, if you will, who took a piece of my heart and soul with her

and I still feel empty because of it. So I yelled at a love. Lexa to switch it to corn unplugged. My best friend and I loved that band from the first time we heard them, and I used that to help me find her. And I got to see her. And it was one of the most healing nights of my entire life. Writing this out now still brings tears to my eyes or is making me ugly cry or whatever. So yeah, people should just be able to do shrooms or whatever they want. People just need to leave them alone, stop putting them in jail, and just get over themselves.

Victoria, fucking, wow, I love your rambling. You're a great mom. I love how you're so open and so honest with your daughter about your past about with your advice but you know there's no judgment it's just about safety you're not trying to control her not trying to forbid her from doing things that you know you can't stop her from doing but you want to educate her right that's going to keep her safe you want to give her the tools to experiment responsibly and i think that's the best healthiest most loving way to parent uh i could literally feel the love you have for her in this message and thank for the message about opening up more about our personal lives um you know like on the scared of death episode i you know i've been on the fence about doing that for so long i go back

and forth. I never would have shared, I don't know, my more sensitive, vulnerable side, I don't think like I have, without Lindsay's prodding. Uh, it's always just made me feel weak, maybe just the way I was raised, you know? It's always been embarrassing to be more revealing and sensitive. Uh, still in moments, I feel that way. But, but I'm working on getting over that, getting those little voices to be quiet. Uh, when I was younger, I never stood why anybody would want to listen to other people get personal, but now as I approach 50, I fucking get it. Life is hard. It's hard. It's hard to be a human. Hard even when it's, uh, you know, things are going well but you're still watching time march relentlessly forward you know you're

seeing more death experiencing more heartache as you age and to have good friends to lean into when life gets hard to be vulnerable with uh to be able to learn from others who are being vulnerable even if you don't know them personally to see them be honest about going through the same shit to see how they deal with life's problems yeah fucking helps me too now i'm like okay now i see the value in that i'm slow to come around on some shit uh collectively you all you know and how much you have shared of yourselves have made me such a better person, much better than I was when I started this podcast. I feel like I have a lot more empathy, a lot less ego. I think I'm a lot more humble, you know, quicker to share what I think is right, but also, you know, more open to being wrong and being okay with being wrong. I'm definitely more spiritual, way more grateful to do what I do. More loving while also, you know, remaining protective and still willing to point out and rebuke those who try to hurt others, you know, even when they think they're being loving. Thanks for being open with me, Victoria. Thanks for being open with all of us.

Thanks for sharing so much of your life with strangers. Strangers who, you know, are also probably friends. You just haven't met in real life yet. I love you, sweet sex. Fucking hail Nimron. Hail Nimrod. Hail Nim. What the fuck am I even saying?

Hail. Nym. Did I say Nid, rom? Who knows? Hail Mitt Romney. Or whatever. Hail yourselves. I'm going to, I got to get out of here.

Next time, suckers. I need it. that we all did. Thanks for listen to another bad magic productions podcasts. Be sure and rate and reviewed TimeSook. If you haven't already, check out Nightmarefuel. I want to put some Nightmarefuel episodes on the TimeSug feed close to Halloween. So you can hear it if you don't want to check it out.

Hopefully some of you really like it, if I haven't heard it. Don't expect me to adhere to your religious beliefs this week. You do God, you know, for you, the way you want. And let me and everyone else God or not God the way we want. Never submit. No. Nothing. You just don't turn it off. And never stop sucking.

No more ASMR this week. No lotion, no chips. They probably bother me more than they bother most of you. How about instead something nice? Something sounds good. uh have you heard of stephen wilson junior this dude sang a song on a youtube channel called live at the print shop listen a year ago he has an interesting backstory too he came to uh you know music later in life and the more i hear this song the more i like this song man it's him in general raw talent great writing a lot of soul uh probably probably more enjoyable to listen than a dude jerking off or girl lotion up her hands or eating tortilla chips so uh that's all i got

just a little first part of stephen wilson junior song just the song i like that i wanted to share with you. It's called I'm a song. I'm the show. I'm the show in San Antonio, the middle of the rodeo. Daddy's hand it used to hold when you walk back. to the car I'm the sound of the county fair Ferrisville kisses high up in the air I sip of brandy when your soul is bare

and you need to share your heart I'm the words that'll hit you that'll get you where you're going so you never go there alone I'm the malady glued to the memory that you can't share when it comes on I'm the part of you that you listen to riding in the radio all night long. I'm a song. Oh, oh, I'm a song.

Oh, oh. I was there the day you learned to die. The first time that you got hired, I even helped you realize. It wasn't right for you. If you fall down, I pick you up again. I helped boy become a man. When your best friend died, I helped you cry

and finally turn them loose. I'm the words that will hit you that'll get you if you're going so you never go there alone. I'm the malady glued to the memory that you can't shake when it comes on. I'm the part of you that you listen to you. But you listen to riding in the radio all night long. I'm a song. Oh, oh.

I'm a song. Oh. Oh. Oh. I'm a song.