Was I In A Cult? - Children of God: “The Christmas Monster”

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

A comet. A cultural fever. And a cult’s failed prophecy. In 1973, as the holidays approached and the world felt increasingly unstable, a comet named Kohoutek was predicted to light up the sky in way never seen before… right at Christmas. The media obsessed. The artists sang. And David Berg, an apocalyptic sex cult leader, saw confirmation that judgment was imminent. Christmas would be the end.In this episode, we trace how the Children of God turned a celestial event into The Christmas Monster, sending families fleeing the United States, scattering members across the globe, and quietly erasing the idea of home altogether.We speak with Perry Bulwar, who was recruited into the cult as a teenager and lived inside it for over twenty years. He takes us through belief, fear, failed prophecy, and the moment a pop song cracked the spell.It’s a holiday story - just maybe not the kind you’re used to.___________FOLLOW USFor more culty content - follow us on Instagram & TikTok → @wasiinacultPERRY’S BOOKGet your copy of “Misguided: My Jesus Freak Life In a Doomsday Cult”SUPPORT THE SHOWIf you believe in what we’re doing - shining a light on manipulation, coercive control, and cultic abuse - please rate, review, and share the podcast.Want even more?Join us on Patreon for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and behind-the-scenes conversations.HAVE A CULTY STORY TO SHARE?If you’ve been part of a cult - we want to hear from you.Email us → [e-mail] Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The views, information, or opinions expressed by the guest appearing in this episode solely belong to the guest and do not represent or reflect the views or positions of the hosts, the show, podcast one, this network, or any of their respective affiliates. Welcome, dear listeners, to Was I in a Cult, I'm Liz Ayacuzzi. And that's Liz Ayacuzzi's happy Christmas. Christmas Voice. I'm Tyler Meism. Everything is so lovely. Are you in Chicago with family? I am. Is it madness? Well, compared to what was going on here last year, I would say we're a little bit of an improvement in this house, but I am sleeping in the bed I grew up, and that is a fact. So. Which was outside in the garage, because you were bad. You were such a bad, bad, bad little girl. But yeah, no, it's great. So far. We just, we've just, we've just.

just arrived. Okay. So we'll see. I'll see what the week brings us. But I am very happy. Everybody's healthy. Everybody's here. So it's nice.

Perfect. Well, I have family coming. Ten people will be here pretty much for an entire week. Your in-laws? Uh-huh. I will be cooking basically every night. And I have the whole meal thing. And I love doing it and I'm good at it.

And it also allows me to escape into the kitchen while they're all doing what they do. What time do you have to start your meal? meal prep. Honestly, you think ahead. Like, you start, like some of them, I actually am making and prepping the night before. Some of them, you let sit overnight, like a Pavlova. I'm making a Chateaubillon, a seed of plank salmon. I got them all planned out, Liz, breakfast, lunch, dinner. I love it. My father-in-law buys it. I fry it. So you buy, I fry. Well, you're just trying to make all the men who don't cook feel terrible this Christmas. And you're doing a good job. You are doing a I am.

You can sit and watch football while I'm searing my Chateaubriam. Okay. Speaking of Christmas. Today, everyone, we're bringing you a lovely, happy Christmas story. A festive, heartwarming holiday tale about cults. What could go wrong? Curify me Don't spare my life

Crucify me Now we've done wild Christmas stories in the past One's with a unique format And this episode is no different So the holidays They're supposed to be full of joy and cheer And yes, some of us have the perfect families and the perfect holidays with the perfect cheer,

but for the rest of us, actual humans, the holidays have a way of challenging our nervous systems, I guess, is a pleasant way to put it. So today, our holiday gift to you, dear listeners, is to remind you that it could always, always be worse. Yeah, sure, maybe you're not talking to your brother right now or maybe you're practicing your new boundaries learned in therapy with your mother.

but at least you're not in a horrific sex cult prepping for the end of the world here's the thing cults usually hate christmas and why because christmas is about family your original bc family before cults the family the cult worked effortlessly to separate you from so they do what they do best they rewrite it christmas is capitalist pagan materialistic selfish anti-christian Or better yet, they'd cancel it. Christmas is canceled. Which makes what we're about to tell you... Much weirder.

Because there was a cult that didn't cancel Christmas. No, they embraced it. Aggressively, like your neighbor Pam, who's had her tree up since Halloween. The cold in which we speak of, oddly enough, called itself the family when they rebranded in the late 70s. In an attempt to destabilize its own. followers around the concept of family, it rewrote the definition entirely, insisting that

we are all family, that family is chosen, not born, not biological, not bound by blood. The cult, of course, was originally called the Children of God, and we've done a couple of episodes on it on this show. One of the most notorious cults in modern history, because of how it weaponized sex. Its founder, David Berg, brainwashed his followers into believing that sex was love and love was God, and withholding sex was unloving, and that anyone, even your best friend's five-year-old, was worthy of, quote, love, openly for all to see. And unlike most heinously abusive cults, this one loved Christmas. And their Christmases looked heavenly, angelic. Innocent and pure. They would carol in public. And they would record their music as well.

Tapes and albums filled with religious and holiday songs. They even had Christmas-themed originals that conveyed innocence and joy and safety. When their reality was anything but. Children dancing everywhere. Hallelujah. All happy children dance for the newborn king. Love and joy forever. To the earth he brings, hey, hey, la la.

In fact, in the early 1990s, members of the family were specially invited to perform Christmas music at the White House for none other than Barbara Bush. And that's what makes this next part so unsettling. Because long before the carols and the performances in the White House, the children of God told a very different Christmas story. Not about joy and laughter, but about judgment and fear and the end of the world, just so happening right around Christmas Day.

Jingle bells, we'll be right back. Hey, everyone, this is Tyler. You know, I have a fuzzy little black and white tuxes. cat named Buzzy, right? And the best thing about Buzzy is he will lay on my chest and he purrs like a tiny little engine. It's basically free therapy. Now, that's the best thing about Buzzy. The worst thing is the litter box and we all know it, right? I love my cat. I do not love pretending that I don't notice that smell and trust me. I've asked Buzzy to change it himself and he's way too cool for that. I mean, he is wearing a tuxedo after all, which brings me to

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So let's rewind. Way back to 1973. 1973. Bell bottoms, cigarettes and airplanes, and the idealization of free love. Yeah, and also the Vietnam War and Watergate and gas shortages and oil crises and as the Cold War hummed ominously in the background people weren't just worried about the future they were worried there might not be one and when

everything feels unstable when the unknown is terrifying people tend to look for meaning in the chaos so as Christmas of 1973 approached people started looking up literally because 1973 was cosmic. Space was everywhere. Books like Chariots of the Gods claiming ancient civilizations were guided by extraterrestrials were flying off bookstore shelves. The sky had become a place where you went to find answers. And if you needed a soundtrack for that feeling, for staring into the void? Pink Floyd was your band. The Dark Side of the Moon dropped that year, an album about time, about death,

about losing your grip in a world that wouldn't slow down. Now, just for the record, I love dark side of the moon, but that's aside from the point. Just got to throw that out there because I have to. And if the band you're in starts playing different shoes, I'll see you on the dark side of the moon. And then, right on schedule, Christmas got a visitor. Not a reindeer.

Not an angel. Not a big, fat, jolly man, and a red suit. A comet. Earlier that year, in March, astronomers spotted something new. A comet, discovered by Czech astronomer Lubash Kohotech. A comet called Kahutek, newly discovered this year. I hope that this comet give us some information, perhaps many information, concerning the evolution, but comets are very nash, harmless.

And not just any comet, a huge one. So big that scientists warned it might. dominate the sky, a once-in-a-lifetime event people would remember forever. And the timing? About December 28, Kohutek should be seen easily in the evening sky. Christmas. And soon Kohotech didn't stay in the science section. It spilled into culture.

And people didn't just observe it. They assigned it meaning. And of course. They sing about it. Music, you say? This episode is really my Christmas gift to you, Tyler. Eat your heart out. I will eat.

Now, this isn't necessarily my style of music, but there were a lot of random comet songs in 1973, like Electronic Music Pioneer Gershon Kingsley. He wrote a track called Kohotech. Sort of the famed German electronic group craftwork. Even British pop singer Neil Christian got into it. And then there was SunRaw, a jazz composer who openly said that he wasn't human, that he'd been sent to Earth on a mission.

For him, the comet wasn't scary, it was confirmation. It was proof that space was communicating with us, so he performed an entire concert called Concert for the Cometcahotech. And somehow, the comet drifted straight into Christmas. Right, because even Burl Ives got involved. Yeah, that Burl Ives, the snowman from Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer. higher and higher with my rear end on fire

like the tail of the comet and for some, it felt like a sign. Because for religious, spiritual, and apocalyptic thinkers, Comets have never just been Comets. Halley's Comet, probably the most famous, orbits into the earth every 76 years. It has coincided with a lot of grief through the ages, like the Norman invasion of Britain. In fact, comets are said to herald the death of kings, plagues, and other misfortunes.

But in 1973, what everyone knew was this. Something unusual was happening up there, and it was happening right at Christmas, which meant for people already wired for prophecy, this wasn't just a coincidence. And no one leaned into that harder than pedophile David Berg. And Dr. Kenneth Franklin of the Hayden Planetarium in New York says there's always somebody around trying to take advantage of our gullibility about comets. David Burke. He started as a preacher who believed early that the world was ending and that God was giving him advance notice. He founded the children of God in 1968, and it took fire, quickly becoming a worldwide religious movement made up of young adults, families, and a whole. lot of children. He lured a lot of college-aged people because he made Christianity sound fun,

hippie-like, focusing on free love and rejecting traditional authority. And he didn't just preach sermons, he issued prophecies. His revelations used world events as signs that the end was near. Wars meant something. Politics meant something. Disasters meant something. Everything was a message. So, when a massive comet appeared in the sky in 1973... Right before Christmas... Berg didn't see a holiday spectacle. No, he saw something else. Because inside the children of God, Christmas wasn't dressed up with cheer,

no ornaments hung, no warm songs to hear. No stockings, no carol, no goodwill to share. Instead, it was warnings that filled up the air. The letters were written, the message was clear, a reckoning. coming and coming quite near. According to Berg, God's judgment would fall on the states of America once and for all. So families were told to pack up their lives get out of the country if they hope to survive. For Berg had a name for the terror that loomed, a prophecy wrapped up in tinsel and doom.

The Christmas monster was coming and the word must be spread. This Christmas not merry, but full of existential dread. Berg's flock took to the streets spreading fear all around. But the end would arrive before Santa touched down. And then they converged in New York City streets with signs raised high at the UN's feet. All warning the world of a singular threat, the Omen, the comet, that is Kohotech.

Just so you know that Liz actually wrote that, no AI here, no AI here. And when we come back, we talk to one of the cult members that was there for all of this. Okay, it's officially drinking season. There's longer nights, there's holiday parties, and there's eggnog. So how about something a little lighter, which is why me, I've been reaching for soul. Souls out-of-office gummies and drinks give you that relaxed, fun vibe, but without the heaviness,

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And right now, Seoul is offering our audiences. That's you 30% off. So go to get-soul.com and use our code cult. That's get-soul.com promo code, cult. 30% off. Happy holidays. Okay, we're back. So we were lucky enough to have interviewed a great storyteller, a man who lived inside Children of God for more than 20 years. His name is Perry Bullwar.

He was just a teenager when he was recruited into the Children of God in 1971. And today we're not telling his entire cult story, albeit it's a great one, just his experience around Kohutek. The Christmas Monster. Well, my name's Perry Bullwer. I'm from a... a small town on Vancouver Island on the west coast of Canada called Port Albarnie. I was raised very young as a Catholic, so I was indoctrinated in the Catholic dogma. And I was really enthusiastic. I became an altar boy.

About the age of 14, I stopped going to church. You know, teens become sort of at that age very sensitive to hypocrisy. And there's something about going to church, it just no longer fed something in me. But I still believed. And so now 16 comes along. I was kind of a loner at that point at 16, and that's when I met these Jesus freaks. They came into a restaurant where I was sitting. So these guys are preaching to me using the Bible, and it really affected me because they were geared at young people like me.

In my small town, it was a mill town, a forestry town. Pretty much everybody worked in the forests or in all the different mills. That was my future. and that future scared me because it had no appeal to me and I was like desperate to get out of there and all of a sudden I come across these Jesus freaks who are telling me

we're going to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature and this caught my imagination. Wow, not only do I believe in Jesus in the Bible but yeah, I want to go into all the world I want to get out of this valley, right? Within days I visited their commune. small commune about a dozen adults and I walk in the first time and everybody hugs me, you know,

with what they call holy hugs, which is very shocking to me because in my family and in the culture in those days, hugging was not a thing. And so that really struck me and they were very musical. And so it was just like this hippie commune that I just got really sucked into. So for a new recruit like me for the first three months, you're just fed the very basic Christian doctrine from their perspective. Nothing weird. And then the next three months is when you get into all the esoteric teachings. That's where I learned that this group had a founder and a leader called David Berg who considered himself to be the end-time prophet. And so that's when we start reading all these prophecies and predictions that Berg had wrote and had been giving lessons to

and I just very quickly bought into this idea that David Berg was the end-time prophet. The end of the timeline was Jesus returning in 1993. So Berg, he often saw signs in pop culture. A very good example of this was the Don McLean song, American Pie. So bye-bye, Miss American Pie. but the levee was dry. And then good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing, this'll be the day that I die.

This will be the day that I die. He said that Don McLean was a messenger from God, and there's a religious aspect to the song, which is what Berg picked up on. The lyric about the children crying in the streets, to him, that was us, the children of God. selling our literature and our warning messages on the street. And in the streets, the children screamed.

The lovers cried and the poets dreamed. Yeah, the lyrics about the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, taking the last train to the coast. This was God abandoning America. And the three men I admire most, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. They caught the last train for, It wasn't until the day the music died.

It wasn't until maybe about 10 years ago that Don McClain came out and actually discussed the lyrics and for the first time gave his take on what the lyrics meant. And, I mean, it was very political. He talked about the Vietnam War, the protests in the streets, all the political turmoil.

He saw America on a downwind. trend, just like Berg saw America on a downward trend. And so that's leading up to this Cahoot Comet thing. So this is discovery of the comet, which was in the spring of 73, was when astronomers first became aware of it. And all the calculations seemed to indicate it would be the comet of the century. Kehotech will be the most spectacular sky display in modern times, the comet of the century.

Berg used this. Well, let me explain that he understood comets the way that they were understood in, let's say, the middle ages, that when a comet came, it was a sign from God of some major event. And then his wheels start clicking, right? And then he starts writing, I don't know, in total, maybe he wrote four or five, six different, we call them letters, publications. And they were very specific. The comet was supposed to be spectacularly visible around Christmas. of 73 and then 40 days later. America's being destroyed, right?

Berg, for a couple years, had already been preaching the destruction of America. He said America, they disobeyed God, so God was going to punish them. Berg had been preaching and writing letters to his followers to get out of North America. The majority of members are still in North America, where the group formed, right? He was really trying desperately to get as many people to get out. and go spread the gospel, and he had different reasoning for it. So these comment letters were just another big push. Thus, one of Berg's letters about it was titled The Christmas Monster.

And one of the Seattle communes had a printing press in the basement. So they are printing out massive amounts of Berg's writings in these pamphlet forms, so much so that the various comet letters, we just mass distributed them all over Seattle. So we go to the supermarket, sports stadiums, plaster all the cars. We just littered the city with these warnings. And we also had billboards. There'd be different messages on these billboards. I think they said 40 days in Nineveh will be destroyed, leaving that kind of a mystery that Nineveh was America. So this is 73. I'm still in British Columbia. I'm assigned to a top leadership couple who had four kids, I believe. I was assigned to be their helper to help them

move out of the U.S. They were going to be going to Australia, but the stopoff was Hawaii. As we were making all our preparations, because there was about a dozen of us that would be flying to Hawaii. Our flight out of Seattle wasn't until like December 28th or 29th, like one of the last days in the year. Berg was really big on Christmas. and Christmas was something we celebrated in the group, that we celebrated Christ's birth, and it was like a big deal. We had a Christmas celebration. We visited a local commune where they had a big Christmas dinner.

We had really wild stuff like bear and venison. Like I guess they were either hunting or we were getting that donated. We ate some wild game for Christmas. And it's weird to think because we were expecting God to destroy America. But for us, that was a good thing. If God destroys America, it means Berg is really the prophet. So it sounds strange, but we cheered on the end of the world. We cheered on the destruction of America because that would prove our beliefs were right.

But anyway, some media outlets were already referring to how the children of God were fleeing America. So the cult leader that I was assigned to, who got the bright idea of calling the local dinner news. a camera crew came to the commune where we were packing up the vehicles. So they interviewed the cult leader outside the commune, and he's giving the message of America being destroyed, and this is why we're leaving. And then the camera crew get in their car, and they're following our convoy down the highway to the airport.

We check in, and then we start singing one of our warning songs. We're singing this song called The Message of Jeremiah, which is a song all about God warning America. to get right with him, or he's going to destroy America, right? The message of Jeremiah, God is committed into my hands. The judgments of God are soon to be poured out upon these wicked lands. Better get right with God, receive Jesus. Before it is too late.

So, if you don't intend to repent, you better be better to meet your coming fate. You better get right with God. And don't be a hypocrite. Stop doing your own thing. Oh, the Lord is tired of it. So now imagine all this buildup for a couple years. I've been reading all this stuff about America's going to be destroyed. There's World War III's coming, you know,

and all the energy and excitement and exhaustion of the trip getting to Hawaii and we get into this home and it's late in the evening. So you go to bed and all of a sudden I'm jolted out of sleep by these sounds of explosions. And I'm waking out in this haze and I'm like, oh my God, it's happening. It's World War III. And then, like, I fully wake up and I go, oh, dang, I just realized it was New Year's Eve fireworks.

But anyway, I'm in Hawaii for about two months after these Kohutek letters. And, of course, things didn't not happen the way that Berg described them, right? I mean, within weeks, it became clear that what Berg had predicted about the comet did not happen the way he said they would happen. didn't ignite a war 40 days after the comet appeared. America wasn't destroyed. And so how do cult members respond or react to something like that, what appears to be failed prophecy or failed prediction? So Berg wrote a letter called the Comets T-A-L-E.

And in that, he explains that it doesn't matter that the comet wasn't this big, bright sign in the sky, because his followers had done the work of the comet by warning America. Like all our literature, billboards, all our preaching, warning the world, that was the tale. That was the true tale. I was able to accept Berg's explanations as to why it didn't matter that it wasn't this spectacular thing, that we were the true story. he conceived of himself and his followers as the true rulers of earth, that we were going to be the rulers in the millennium after Jesus comes back and that we were just in practice mode for the time we took over the world.

I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, thus said the Lord, but to provoke the most tired of anger, oh, this you can't afford, You better get right with God And don't be a hypocrite Quit doing your own thing For the Lord is tired of it

My first 16 years of life I celebrated Christmas with my family All the presents on the tree And in the cult we've celebrated Christmas We'd have Christmas trees Byrd was really against the materialism of Christmas which is partly why we didn't give gift-giving, and it was also a very important time for proselytizing.

Later on in the cult history, when there was a lot of kids, they'd form music troops and perform at Christmas, Christmas caroling, became an important part of proselytizing. So after 20 years, basically, this is 1991. I'm in Japan. I had seen things that I couldn't make sense of. I had seen some abusive treatment of kids and teens. Berg's prophecies of the end time were not happening the way he said they would.

By 1991, a whole series of events should have already happened that hadn't happened. And Berg was starting to write letters excusing and justifying and changing the timeline. We weren't allowed to doubt was a sin in the cult. Like it's a very bad thing to doubt. So you always suppress your doubts. Now I was feeding my doubts. I was entertaining my doubts. I was like, what is happening?

We were allowed Walkmans to listen to our own music. I sort of sneakily bought one when I was in Hong Kong that had a radio, AMFM radio. In Japan, they got several U.S. military bases with what's called the U.S. Armed Forces Radio Network or something like that. I tuned in to the radio station where they played pop music all day.

We're allowed an hour of exercise every day. I'm walking around the compound. And so I'm in this turmoil, and this song comes on that just, like I just stopped. It froze me. Oh, life is bigger. It's bigger. You are not me.

Spring of 1991, the song would just come out. It was a big hit. That's me. the corner that's the in the spot like losing my religion that's me in the corner losing my religion

like the song losing my religion just that phrase just hit me it was like an aha moment that was enough for me to start really contemplating getting out like how do I get out how do I escape this cult

I made an elaborate plan It took but five months after hearing that song, I escaped the cult. I got out of the cult. That was just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, just a dream. So now when I get back to Canada, I was 36 with no money, no possessions, no education. I had to create my life from scratch. I went to university, best decision ever in my life, going to university, reading books, understanding history and science. That became my cult recovery process. Oh, and I'm going to go back to the

hugging thing that I mentioned at the beginning and how profound that was for me, that whole thing. So now I come back to Canada. And now hugging's now a thing, right? Everybody's hugging. But just the fact that I associated hugging with the cult, I just couldn't get into it. I still have a very difficult time. People want to hug. Oh, like, can we bump fists instead? You know, that. And in the same way, Christmas is like that for me. And I understand, and I try to overcome some of my, you know, sort of issues with it where I can allow people to just let them do their thing. I approach it now as from the winter solstice sort of thing, a winter celebration, right? That's my way of sort of dealing with the holiday season, that it's winter solstice.

And yeah, that's just normal for people to get together and have their feast. and, you know, that's kind of where I am now with Christmas. Let's be honest, hearing stories about cults, crime, darker corners of human psyche can be unsettling. But there's a difference between being disturbed and being distressed. If you've ever had an intrusive, violent, or taboo thought pop into your head out of nowhere and then immediately thought, what the hell does that say about me? You're not alone.

Because almost everyone has unwanted thoughts. But for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD, those thoughts can feel sticky. They don't just pass through. They latch on. And OCD has a way of convincing you that having the thought somehow means something about who you are. It doesn't, but it sure can feel that way. That's where real specialized help matters.

No CD. That's no CD is a virtual therapy provider built specifically for OCD. Their licensed therapists are trained in exposure and response prevention or ERP, which is the gold standard treatment. for OCD, they actually understand intrusive thoughts and they know how to treat them. No CD accepts many major insurance plans and they offer support between sessions so you're not left alone when your brain is doing laps at 3 a.m. To learn more about therapy with noCD, go to nocd.com and schedule a free 15-minute call with

our team. That's N-O-CD.com to learn more and book a free 15-minute call. That's N-O-C-D. leaving, Perry became an advocate, speaking publicly, writing, and helping others who were trying to understand or escape high control groups like the one he was in. Today, his voice is one of the most thoughtful and most important sources for understanding what the children of God truly was and what it did to the people inside it. He also has a book. So my memoir is called Misguided, My Jesus Freak Life in a Doomsday Cult.

It is available to purchase. We will have a link in our show notes. I'm shocked, Tyler, you resisted the urge to hype in there when he was talking about American Pie and R.E.M. I mean, that's... I did show restraint. I don't love American Pie. It gets a little tired, but I do love me some REM. But I was also still listening to the Kraftwerk Comet Cahutec song. So Cahotech did not. to end the world. But it did change the cult. People really left and scattered around the world. And when the prophecy failed, well, Berg didn't bring everyone back because there was no home left to return to. From that point on, it became true that wherever the family was, was home.

It's incredible how cult leaders can deliver prophecies with absolute certainty, convince hundreds or thousands of people to rearrange and uproot their lives. And then when nothing happens, just rewrite the meaning, you know, no big deal. And no one blinks. No one bats an eye. Because to bring it back to Christmas, I think there's a part of every human psyche that wants to believe there's a reason we're here. That this chaos that we live in has meaning. And cults prey on that desire, that longing to be part of something bigger.

Because otherwise, how do we make sense of everything? Is it all just random? Good people die young, terrible people become billionaires. Does being kind actually matter? Does being awful ever come with consequence? We want something, anything to make it all make sense. And whatever happened to Kohotech, you might be asking yourself. Well, for all the hype, all the countdowns, all the comet of the century headlines,

Kohotech didn't really show up. No, I was supposed to light up the Christmas. sky like a cosmic firework show. Instead, most people in 1973 stepped outside, they squinted up at the sky and they went, wait. Is that it? It wasn't spectacular. It wasn't life-altering. It was underwhelming at best. Now, astronomers later explained why. Kohotech was a first-time visitor from the Ort Cloud. It blew most of its flashy material early way before anyone could see it. And by Christmas, well, the poor thing was basically out of gas. Which is exactly what cults do.

Over promise, under deliver. Every single time. Now that is a promise that we can keep. Incidentally, another piece of music, kind of like opening a present hidden deep under the tree. In 1985, R.E.M. put out a song on their album, Fables of the Reconstruction called Cahotech. it's an okay song decent album it's basically about a relationship that builds and builds and

then quietly fizzles out sort of like prophecies and with that we too are going to fizzle out so whether you celebrate christmas honica kwanza or the winter solstice or for that matter nothing at all we hope that you have the best of it. I'm going to go get back to watching the joy of belief through my three-year-old's eyes because it is magical and it brings me immense joy and I get it. I get why people believe. I get how belief makes living with life's uncertainties possible.

And if believing makes you kinder, more generous, more humble, then go ahead. Please believe. Just not at the expense of yourself. Or anyone else. And if anyone tries to control your beliefs through fear, question it. Or just walk away. Because remember, we've been here before.

People have always been afraid of the future. Yet somehow, we're still here. At least until we're not. Next week, we wish you a happy new year. We will be releasing an oldie, but a goodie, and we'll see you all in January. Thank you to the team that makes this show possible. Rob, Chandler, Greta. And to you, Liz, thank you.

And to you, Tyler. I believe in you, Liz. I believe in you, too. And you, Rob, you too, Rob. Go ahead and say something. I believe I will enjoy not working for a week. Merry Christmas to all. Now, the most important part of was I in a cult is you,

the people we've had on the show and our listeners. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you for spreading the message, telling your friends. Thank you for buying from our sponsors. And thank you for contributing to our Patreon. Thank you also for sending us email messages and Instagram messages. We listen to them. We read them.

We love them. Yes, we love getting them. And we love continuing to make this possible for you guys. Yep, we love what we do. Couldn't do without you. Thank you, everyone. Have a lovely culty, non-culty Christmas. And whatever else you celebrate, and we will see you in 2026.

Good Lord, that makes me feel old. Hi, I'm Jesse Prey, and I'm Andy Cassette. Welcome to Love Murder, where we unravel the darkest tales of romance turned deadly. Our episodes are long form, narrative-driven, and deeply researched, perfect for the true crime officinados seeking stories beyond the headlines. Like the chilling case of Blanche Taylor Moore, the so-called Black Widow who left a trail of poisoned lovers. Or the shocking murders of Chad Shelton and Dwayne Johnson, where family ties massed a sinister plot. Subscribe to Love Murder on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Joy to the world, Pluto TV is free with all the best movies.

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