Was I In A Cult? - Evangelical Dragon Ball Z Doomsday Cult: “I’ll Take Space Dragons for 500, Please”

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

When the pandemic hit, Aaron found himself isolated and searching for community. So when he discovered an online occult group, he thought he’d finally found his spiritual people. What he didn’t expect? Signing an NDA, pledging allegiance to a self-proclaimed “Master,” and being told he was destined for an apocalyptic battle… alongside seven ancient space dragons. At first, the group felt like a place of deep discussion, curiosity, and meaning. But as the leader’s grip tightened, so did the demands for obedience. And when the leader finally revealed his true agenda—a disturbing spiritual “shadow ritual,” Aaron realized he wasn’t just in a mystical study group—he was in a full-blown cult. So how did he go from believer to whistleblower? Listen now, because—like we always say—you can’t make this shit up. LINKS: Find Aaron’s anti-cult shared profile page:  https://www.facebook.com/Michelle.rugsby  And the group email: [e-mail] Follow us for more culty goodness: @wasiinacult  Got a story that’ll make us say, “Wait… WHAT?!” Spill the tea at [e-mail] —we promise we won’t make you sign an NDA Want ad-free episodes? Support us on Patreon and help fund our cult-unmasking, story-telling, snack-buying habits. 

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. piffy describer is evangelical Dragon Ball Z Doomsday cult. It gets across the absurdity. You know, at some point when I was in the cult, I started to get this inkling. I guess I knew it was a cult, but I was coming into the understanding that it was a shitty cult, which now I think I understand them all to be pretty shitty. There's not really a good cult. Now I think I understand them all to be pretty shitty. There's not really a good cult. That there isn't, Erin.

That there isn't. Except for perhaps ours. Welcome everyone to Wozana Cult. I'm Liz Iacuzzi. And on this side, I'm Tyler Meesom. And it's just the beginning of the year of 2025. But guys, let's be real, this year has already been a lot. So while the world kind of jiggles and spirals slightly out of control, we'll stick to what we do best here, which is bringing you wild jaw-dropping tales of individuals who've survived cults.

And today's story is a first of its kind for this show, which is why we're going to keep the preamble a bit shorter, because we're excited to get into it. Yes, our guest today reached out after working with Carol Marcheson, the investigative litigator we've dubbed the Sound Effects... What the... Cult assassin. investigative litigator, we've dubbed the sound effects What's a bar? Pew! Wubbuff! Cult assassin. Who you may remember from a previous episode.

I should have played more video games as a child. And as Aaron said, this cult combines religious lore, doomsday predictions, and yes, ancient space dragons. Hmm. Like we always say on the show, guys, you can't make this shit up. Without further ado. Welcome to the show, Aaron. Take out your knife.

Purify me. Don't spare my life. My name is Erin Jerashen. I grew up here in O'Fallon and then also in southern Illinois, like near Mount Moran. My mom died when I was really young, like five, and my dad did his best, but his best is not very good. So I was mostly raised by my grandparents. So I ended up going to Baptist Church with my grandmother, but eventually it just didn't work for me. And from that point onwards,

I did a lot of exploration of mysticism and the occult. I didn't really get serious about it until I was maybe 20, and I started reading up into a lot of that stuff. I found that the worldview of Gnosticism just makes a lot of sense. It works in the world in which I was living. Gnosticism is an early Christian sect interlinked with lots of different occult philosophies. And so I just branched out. I read about Kabbalah, I read about Bala, I read about the Greek mystery cults. And fast forward to 2020, I had had communities before the pandemic started, but they became disconnected. And over the course of the pandemic, what I was looking for was something like a religious community, because most of my secular communities were canceled for the foreseeable future.

The pandemic is a great example of how someone can wind up in a cult, right? It's not because people and cults are all gullible or lost, it's that humans are wired for connection. And in a time of global uncertainty, when your world is transformed and the future feels unknowable, you become more susceptible to groups that promise answers, stability, and a sense of purpose. Exactly. It's not about intelligence or willpower.

It's really about timing, openness, and someone showing up with what appears to be the solution. Whether it's spiritual guidance, community support, or just a sense of safety, it's easy to fall into the orbit of a group offering certainty. We've had a number of guests on this show who have gotten into or deeper into a cult during and because of the pandemic. Oh, I know that feeling. I joined the cult of gardening in my backyard and trying to perfect pizza dough. That would not make an exciting episode, Tyler. Simultaneously, I felt like I had really stalled out in a lot of my kind of occult research. What I found was that I would do research into an idea and 10 different people would

say 10 different things. What I was looking for was anybody who seemed to credibly have an idea on this that I could learn and then jump off from. And so having something that scratched both edges of a spiritual religious community and also something that is focused on my interests because I had a deep and abiding interest in the occult, in magic, in esotericism. And so what I did was I looked up local occult groups, St. Louis, and the Order of the White Road was the number one option. It is a hermetic, Christian, esoteric, occult organization

teaching the ancient mysteries. It was just exactly what I was looking for. There's a signup sheet basically on the website where they ask questions like, what are your previous traditions and beliefs? You know, what would you do with the knowledge you learn in this group? And I answered it and I received an email from the secretary. Who then introduced Aaron to the leader, a Rotund fella named Anthony Murciel. You were just dying to use that word, Rotund.

Rotund is a great word. It cost me 25 cents to buy that word. I'm gonna use it. No, say Caliphaegus or whatever. Not Caliphaegus, he is not Caliphaegus. Caliphaegus. And they were scheduled to meet. We did the Zoom call.

It went pretty well. He seemed pretty interested in the way that I think about things. And so it was basically a shoo-in. Now, the only thing that was irregular in any way at that time was the NDA. An NDA or non-disclosure agreement is a legal contract ensuring that confidential information shared between parties is not disclosed to others With penalties for breaches, but you should not have to sign to be part of an online religious group No, but you should have to sign to be friends with Tyler. Yeah, if you tell everyone they're gonna be very jealous I

Won't have any time for myself. It's a shame that pizza recipe is part of the NDA and I can't tell anyone about it. He showed me his pizza dough. Man, it doesn't rise very well. I'm really not trying to go for a sexual joke here. It just falls into my lap. I know, it's just the way it comes out of it. But it's the pandemic.

I don't have much attachment to almost anything at the time. And so, screw it. OK. Signed the NDA, paid an annual fee, and then there's $25 monthly fee. When I joined, it was probably 15 people, the whole group. And then at its height, it was about 30. They were a pretty diverse group in terms of like where they were coming from philosophically. Some of them were Wiccans, some of them were like ex-Catholics. We had people from Baltimore, we had people from Georgia.

I was living in St. Charles, which is right next to St. Louis. Anthony, he was based in Bonterre, which is in southern Missouri, a tiny town. But everything for the first, like, year was online. It was all Zoom. And like many cults, this one started with classes, led by Anthony, who we will get into more about in a bit. There were PowerPoint presentations, basically, with a Q&A section at the end. They don't start with Christianity because I think they have an understanding that a lot of the folks that they would be attracting would not immediately be into it being a Christian

group. What we started was with basic philosophy, things like Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Ah yes, Thomas Aquinas, born in 1225. He was a Dominican friar, a theologian, philosopher, and he was the guy who basically shaped a lot of Western Christian thought. He famously mashed up Aristotle's philosophy with Christianity to argue that reason and faith aren't enemies but actually work together. He even used Aristotle's ideas to prove that God exists. My favorite Aquinas quote is, the things that we love tell us what we are. Which means I'm a Barada and prosciutto board. Nice.

And I suppose I'm a white male rock album. That's what I am. I'm a double LP like Bruce Springsteen's The River or Physical Graffiti or the White Album for goodness sake. You actually are the White Album. Or Smashing Pumpkins. That was a great double LP. Melancholy. Please keep your hidden tracks to yourself, Tyler. I prefer our friendship to stay blissfully on the surface,

thank you. Just the hits, Tyler. Doesn't this white male joke start to get tiring? We're on like episode 70 of this show, and we're still white male rock album, Tyler. Well then stop talking about fucking white male rock music and maybe I'll stop making fun of you for it. No.

Oh. When was the last time you changed your liner notes? It's been too long. Then we move into the Christianity course we learned about Catholicism he would have elements of Eastern Orthodoxy and he would have elements of Roman Catholicism and the thing is I had no knowledge or understanding at the time of any kind of high ritualized Christianity. So when he would tell me things about what the Catholic church says or what the Orthodox church says,

I was like, all right, cool. That was me for most of this interview. All right, cool. As admittedly, most of what he spoke about kind of sounded like a foreign language to me. I'm really starting to enjoy religion and it was all of the things about the Christian tradition that I had learned were received through this filter of this cult.

But I liked all of these things. I liked the saints and just all the cool stuff. It was great. I liked my friends that I made in the cult. I had an immediate circle of people that I was close to. I had a wider circle of people that were cool. We did hangouts, Wednesday hangouts. Anthony would not be involved in those.

It would just be members in Discord calls, playing video games or watching movies or whatever. Sounds fantastically nerdy. But it's an example about cults, everyone. They often start out benign and even, well, fun. But it wasn't all discord and chill. There was someone who started to notice that something was off. My partner at the time, my present partner, she doesn't really want to be involved. She's got better instincts than I do, and she never really liked the leader. Ah, well, it wouldn't be a cult without a leader.

Anthony Mercile has an incredibly sordid history. I want to preface this by saying that he put himself forward as a, like, intense Christian mystic, embodying all of the Christian mystic ideas. It was a little bit odd that he was like an ascetic. An ascetic is the term for someone who practices self-discipline and avoids worldly pleasures, often for spiritual or religious reasons. They seek spiritual growth instead

through simplicity and self-denial. It was a little bit odd that he was an ascetic and also 400 pounds, but he basically didn't practice any kind of asceticism whatsoever. He just did whatever he wanted. So not at all ascetic. Again, like most cult leaders, they rarely ever practice what they preach. He's like 6'4 or 6'5 and he's got this aggressive hunch. He's a very strange looking man.

I initially thought he was kind of a goofball. I didn't take him very seriously at all. I just thought that this was kind of a rinky dink operation and that this was something to fill time. But to him, he with a capital H. He is a self-proclaimed master of the order of the light road. Nothing gave him authority. The only thing that he has is he has a license to marry people, the one that anybody can get. Well, let's not diminish it.

I mean, I too have a clergy license. License to marry people the one that anybody can get well, let's not diminish it I mean I too have a clergy license It was years of training and dedication a very stringent scholastic and theological process Which he got in minutes guys by giving fifty dollars to the Internet gods I did I did I it's very easy to get a clergy license You can just basically get online and get one but they did send me a certificate Oh, or I think I may have just printed it out. I can't remember but it's very official I can basically marry people with it, which I've actually done multiple times

Dogs, right just real people real human real human beings that have asked me to marry them and but also sometimes I'll just marry two people. If I see two people in a grocery store and I think they might match, I'll just marry them in my mind. Yeah, just in my mind mostly. Do they then know that they're married? No, that's sad.

They don't, but I do. You have quite a power, Tyler. It is, I have quite a powerful clergyman. And Anthony, who also had this prestigious license. Wait, is that it, guys? Is that that's his entire resume? He said that he had a master's in computer science, but he also claimed to have a PhD from Aquinas Institute, which is a Catholic seminary in St.

Louis. Impressive. Except for the part where you fact check it and discover that Anthony's relationship with Aquinas involved one call to their office and no enrollment. I did my research and I contacted Aquinas Institute and in their records, Anthony called them and asked about it, but never joined. What I think he did was he looked at their book list and then read enough of each of them to sound like he knew what he was doing. So the man with a mail order clergy license crowns himself a master theologian.

And Aaron, the dutiful student, awaits his grand mystical teachings to be revealed. So we've been doing these classes, when are we doing the magic? When is the witchy shit happening? Almost never, very seldom. I used to joke that if somebody asked me what's it like to be in a magical order,

I would say it's mostly committee meetings. As anyone who has ever worked in an office setting can certainly attest, there is little magic in meetings. Especially meetings in which the boss keeps you waiting. Anthony would show up either two or three hours late and it would be like 10, 11 o'clock, folks got to go to bed. The worst cases would be when we would be waiting around for two or three hours and then you would cancel.

And on that note, we will be right back. But don't worry guys, it won't be two or three hours. Although it might still feel longer than you'd prefer. But as any great cult leader would say, patience is a virtue, especially when it serves me. Whether it's a first date or a meeting or a dinner with new friends we are always concerned about how we appear. But what we should be concerned about is well how we smell. Which is why we use Lumi and trust me guys compared to other brands that I've used this one keeps me smelling good far longer. Yeah, Lumi makes me confident

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Okay, so you want to watch that new show that everyone's talking about. So you sign up for a subscription, thinking you'll just cancel it later. But eight months go by and you forgot you even signed up. Yeah, I mean, I just learned that 85% of people have at least one paid subscription going unused every single month. That was me, at least until I got Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions. It monitors your spending and it helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Instead of simply growing your subscription collection.

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Go to rocketmoney.com slash Colt today. That's rocketmoney.com slash Colt, rocketmoney.com slash Colt. Now what should I watch? And we're back, see? That wasn't two or three hours, just, how long, wait, how long was that, Rob? If I had to guess, I'd say two minutes and 38 seconds.

Unless you skipped them, then it was nothing. But you shouldn't skip them because our ads are actually pretty good. They're fun and like, get over it. We're not like Flow, and we make better ads than than Flow and we make a lot less money than Flow. So like... You're gonna skip the ads at the Super Bowl? No.

No. So why skip ours? So Aaron, he's committed and for the first year it's fairly status quo. But then... So almost exactly one year. I was initiated August of 2021. Initiation in the order context is a kind of stylized baptism. We would do like a 20 minute kind of abbreviated mass.

So initiation was that, except with robes. It's about to get culty, y'all. So what I would learn is that Anthony can't plan for shit. And so we had a plan that we were going to use another member's house, but the area of the other member's house that we were going to use was no longer available. So we had to use the dog's room, and that's where he set up the altar and the carpet that you like kneel on. And it smelled like pee. Or at least strange.

That said, I was high on the whole thing. And so I didn't so much notice. That bothered Anthony more than it bothered me at the time. Yes, nothing says magical spiritual enlightenment quite like kneeling on the same carpet that Rover uses when he's been a bad boy. But continue sad mystical initiation, please. The initiation rites are secret, but the first one is like a baptism. And then the second one is this kind of ritualistic thing in which somebody stands in symbolically as the church and then you take off your robe and you put your robe on her to symbolize sacrificing, taking the shirt off your back for the sake of the group.

I want to backtrack for a second because where we're going from here, I have to explain a couple bits of cult lore, how certain things work. There's one, two, three, four, five ranks. Told you I was about to get culty. So the first rank is Neophyte. The second rank is Gate Prozolite. The third rank is Prozolite. The fourth is Acolyte.

And then the last is Master. I didn't know you meant that culty. Oh, this is Cult Leader for Dummies, guys. Chapter 1, Intro Cult Class Curriculum. Assigning very important mystical names to meaningless bullshit rankings. And then dreaming up brave tests and quests that one must pass in order to advance said imaginary levels. You do a test. Part of it is memorizing lore.

Then the next part of it is like he'll ask you a question that's catered to you. And you have the answer in the way that he thinks is correct. For me, it would be like, what two things would prevent you from succeeding in the order? And if I guess them correctly, then I pass that test. And then the third one is like magic shit. It's like, we've put an invisible orb of energy into one of these objects. Which one is it? Yeah, you have to guess it right one out of three times.

But of course, they were making it up up and so probably this was their stopgap To let the people that they wanted to be at the next rank To the next rank and the people that they didn't want to be at the next rank stay where they are so classes continued to be online, but once a month we would meet to do a mass and do other kind of ritual stuff. Occasionally with readings and usually a overlong, bloviating homily sermon from Anthony. We would either rent a Freemasons lodge or we would do it at someone's house. Quick time check, we are now in year two of Aaron's cult membership.

Do's have been paid. It gets culty late 2022, early 2023, we started doing other stuff. We had already done history of Christianity. The second year was a history of magic, and that is the mytho historyhistory of like, where does the Order come from? He created this vast mythology for the Order of the White Road that goes back, way back.

He said that it was a esoteric organization like the Order of the Golden Dawn or the Freemasons or the Rosicrucians that has existed for many years. So it is a mashup of Roman Catholic theology, evangelical eschatology, Eastern Orthodox marriage practices, because they can have married priests. Oh, it was it was polygonists as well. He had all these justifications of like David had many wives and David's good. So this is good. Oh, is this the same good King David from the Bible, the one with many wives and concubines that saw Bathsheba bathing and despite knowing she was married summoned her and got her pregnant. And to cover up the affair, he called her husband back from battle and when he refused to go home

David arranged for his death. That good King David? Yes, that one. However, according to Psalms 51 and what you wrote for me here to read on this script Liz say these words, oh my god, David did repent. So he's good. Yes. Gosh, you see what happens when a man splains me. So Anthony, well he used these Bible stories much like this as well as other religious and mystical tidbits to create the Order of the White Road, which frankly sounds a bit like the name of a group that Trump would praise during a debate, but we're not gonna go there. But for Anthony, guys, this wasn't his first cult rodeo.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Anthony Mercile has been running cults for the better part of 25 years. And the first name of the cult was the Celestial Dragon Covenant. and he started this in high school. The way I've heard it described is gangs of teenagers fighting each other with sticks. All of those people, they quit. They got married, had kids, and went to work, but Anthony decided to stay in the cult game. The remnants of that first group were the Celestial Dragon Covenant again,

and that ran until they all moved to one person's house and it became the Acolytes of the Seven Thunders. It started out as a evangelical Dragon Ball Z Doomsday Cult. What I mean by that is what they would do was like Qigong. They would like put their hands forward like they were shooting energy beams and that was their stick. And it was evangelical because it's like a evangelical point of view of the Book of Revelation. Revelation 10 is the centerpiece of the whole thing. Oh yes, once again, Colt's favorite Bible book, Revelation. Been a while since we've heard from you, Revelations. I know, we've missed you. This particular one is Revelation 10 in which the Apostle John sees a mighty angel descending

from heaven. He's clothed in a cloud with a rainbow over his head and his face shining like the sun. That angel is giving gay icon energy, which is fabulous, but also strange because I thought God hates gay people. So yes, this rainbow cloud angel, he holds a scroll, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, which John eventually eats. This is all in there, etc., etc. The angel then places one foot on the sea and the other one on the land and cries out with a loud voice

like a lion's roar. Roar, bitch. Roar, bitch. Roar, bitches. Yes. And then naturally, Seven Thunders respond. Clap back, Thunder. Clap back. And then naturally, seven thunders respond. CLAP BACK THUNDER CLAP BACK. Now, the seven thunders are seven magical dragons who appeared in the Garden of Eden. I do know that members at this time found that he got a lot of the dragon stuff from a video game called Legends of the Dragoon. of the dragon stuff from a video game called Legends of the Dragoon.

Yeah, eventually, of course, somebody was like, what the fuck is this? And then they found all this dragon bullshit. I didn't learn about the dragons for a long time because he worked out this is silly. Nobody's going to get this. I have to save this shit for later. Once they are nice and indoctrinated already, because as we know from cults, once you've entered full indoctrination stage, you might believe anything the leader says to be true. He talked about it to people that he thought wouldn't freak out at Doomsday Revelation.

But the whole idea is that he's supposed to gather these seven people together and that these seven people will be inhabited by the spirits of these seven dragons and then they'll fight the forces of Satan in the Valley of Megiddo at the end of the world. It's a literal battle happening on the Valley of Megiddo with swords. For some reason, there's no guns. Nobody uses guns in the end of the world. I don't know Yeah, my Mormon upbringing it taught us the same warlike Apocalyptic good versus evil sword battle would eventually happen and now we're in chapter 3 of cult leader for dummies

apocalyptic sword fighting Now keep in mind that a lot of Aaron's interactions with the cult at this point were mostly online. At this time, I lived a solid hour and a half away from him. And so I had this element of separation. If he wanted me to come down, I felt completely comfortable just saying, oh, no, my car broke down. I had other things that were going on. These all helped me to not be that deeply programmed because I had this layer of separation

that other people didn't necessarily have. They were either closer or they made a decision to engage more. It's something that I'm still working out, why these people became so deeply brainwashed. And I was, but I was able to snap out of it in a kind of a split second. But I had a rapport with him.

I had started to become interested in theology. We could talk for many hours about it. I had been to his house a couple times. My fiance would go down to visit him and he engages my fiance in theology talk. My fiance is absolutely uninterested in theology. So she's not really jiving with what he's saying. And she starts just saying, nah, to everything he's saying. So he gets mad and like yells at her. And she just gets up and goes to the other room and we leave. Yeah, it was bad. What I didn't know was that he started running PR on this. He starts telling everybody else in the cult, well, Erin and Kathy came over to my house

and she just starts berating me, personally insulting me. And he always positions it as like, well, you know, she pushed it on me. And everybody knew about this. Chapter five. This is known as preemptive framing, which is where you spin the narrative first. So by the time the truth comes out, your followers already have a preloaded excuse to dismiss it. Cult leaders, politicians, con artists, and your ex who claims that no, he broke up with you are big fans of this move.

But I did break up with her. I did break up with her Liz. Sure you did Tyler. Sure you did. We'll be right back. All right, I have to admit I'm not really a gamer. I mean I do some online crosswords, but most of the time I just find games kind of a waste of time. However, I do make an exception for June's Journey,

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All right, so a friend of the show and mine, Mara Streppa is a very talented singer songwriter in Nashville. And you know what? I asked her if she could do a fun little jingle for the show, cause I mean, well, who doesn't want a fun jingle? Is that so wrong? Yeah! I mean, all the good 80s sitcoms had jingly theme songs, so we want one as well. Play, Mara. Give us our jingle. Don't fret it, don't sweat it. don't even regret it if you ask yourself that little question. Liz and Tyler will make the connection. Scientology or anarchy,

Jone's town or on your own dang street. Just pull out your phone and listen to a Zion cold. You probably were. We would do retreats and retreats were twice yearly trips to a Airbnb and It would mostly just be hanging out. That was the central idea the thing that usually happened at retreats is The thing that usually happened at retreats is you get a special reading. The special reading is with an entity that Anthony claims to channel into his body, who then speaks to whoever is getting the reading.

This entity was a space dragon, an ancient space dragon. Hmm. Can't seem to find that in the book. So he would put out all the lights and he would make it into a kind of a show, but it never worked out that way. Because he was just lazy or he didn't feel like doing all the theatrics. So he would just sit and then do a grumbly voice. He would just lower his voice like an octave and tell people these things. Now an element in the cult that is pretty important is the idea of past lives. So one of the principal things that a reading would entail would be telling you about your past life and then giving you some kind of direction with that. And the

dragon is the one who's giving you the direction. The first thing is if you ask a question 99% of the time if it's not very specific, he'll just repeat the question back to you. It is basic cold reading. It's just very basic god reservations about them to make it compelling and maybe some really fabulous crazy shit to get him pumped up. So why an ancient space dragon? It's probably something he came up when he was 19. And then he's just, like, magicked it up. The next event that happens is the retreat in the following year.

This was the biggest retreat that we had, I believe. I think it was something like 20, 25 people. It was a good number. I go to this retreat and I get my reading because I've just ranked up in the organization. And the reading, it was presented in a kind of a riddle. The lore that he gave me is that in a past life I made some kind of deal with a wizard and so I was told that you have to give back what the wizard gave you. And there was a heavy implication that what the wizard gave me was my fiance. Ah, here we go.

Chapter 7, Wizard Fuckery. When you use made up wizards to isolate your followers from their loved ones because they threaten your control, authority and ability to make up absolute fucking nonsense without question. And so I heard that and pretended to not know what he was saying, but I immediately understood what it meant. If you want to go anywhere in this organization, you have to leave your fiance. And I'm having a head time because I'm just running through the shit in my head and I can't talk to anybody about it. It was pretty explicit. A lot of like dominoes falling with this because it was like, oh, OK, so

this is made up. I'm like, OK, so if he made up the dragon, then it's all suspect. At the most, it's completely fabricated for people's purposes. My faith in the cult never recovers from this, more or less. My participation continues, but my indoctrination is essentially broken. And this is where the split that had started goes very distinctly, because I still have to talk to people in the cult that are more indoctrinated than I am. So we're talking about past lives, we're talking about like, order lore and all of the shit that I don't, I just don't believe in anymore. This was the first time that I almost quit. But then he came up with a mission, which was, we need our own church. We need our own building, is what he put

it as. And so he came up with a committee, a special committee, to acquire funds and purchase a church building to run a church from. And this is where my best friends in the cult were being brainwashed a lot more severely. He was particularly paying a lot of special attention to them because one of them had about $500,000 that they had inherited from their recently deceased mother. And so that person got a special role. That person got to hear the deep lore about the apocalypse. What happens next is that this member decided to donate $200,000 towards the purposes of buying property. A committee is formed by a building, by a temple, as they call it, through which communities of people that might become interested in

becoming members of the order can be found. And eventually the committee decides on a building in Festus and purchases it and we move towards development. All of this gave me a job and that made me like feel at least somewhat fulfilled. And here we are, Chapter 8, getting followers to work for free. The subheading while making them believe it's for their own good. We haven't figured that one out quite here yet. No, we haven't. Apparently, Rob still wants to get paid. Which is why we do this.

My Rolls Royce isn't going to put gas in itself. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. Okay, so last week after a trip to the store, my young son from the backseat perks up and he says, so wait, people just make money so they can buy stuff at stores and then the stores take that money to buy more stuff and then we make more money and buy more stuff and the stores then buy more stuff and on and on. That's so silly, he said. Sounds like he should teach a course in capitalism.

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Hi, everyone. This is Jillian with Court Junkie. Court Junkie is a true crime podcast that covers court cases and criminal trials using audio clips and interviews with people close to the cases. Court Junkie is available on Apple podcasts and podcastone.com. You know, my faith is broken, but my willingness to work, but particularly work with my friends, is undercut because Anthony, he is consistently hours late. So we would have new members who wanted to come and see the service that we have, and

they would show up, sit around, and then three hours go by, and then they leave, another hour goes by and he shows up and then says, where is everybody? And we've shed a few members at this point for lots of reasons. Eventually, I come to the church for a prayer service and I overhear that the member who donated all that money is going to be participating in something called the shadow ritual. And remember this, you can't have a shadow without throwing some shade. This is something that he explained to us several months earlier as an old order ritual by which one can do this kind of like Jungian merging with the shadow, incorporating the shadow self, and that this is done via an incredibly stressful,

near traumatic thing so that you can symbolically deal with these past traumas. What I know about it at this point is that you're naked and you're blindfolded and it's dark. So the idea is that Anthony is chanting or whatever and another person stands in as your shadow self and you're not really told exactly what's going to happen and the other person engages in some kind of sexual contact. Strange traumatic sexual contact with the person who is participating in the shadow ritual. So I overhear this person saying that, and so I talk to them and I say, I'm sorry, did

I hear that's happening tonight? And she says, yes. I ask, why would you do that? And she says, I just think that I have too much marshmallow and that I need to scrape some of the marshmallow away if I'm going to accomplish my destiny. And her destiny is supposed to be that in the lore of the Doomsday Cult stuff, that she's supposed to sacrifice herself to close up all of these hell portals in the Battle of Megiddo. And I realize at this point that there's nothing I can do to change her mind.

There's not anything that I can say to her that can convince her not to do this thing that is some form of traumatic sexual contact. So I go upstairs where Anthony is and I tell him pretty explicitly, like, have you lost your fucking mind? Are you crazy? So he shows me what's called a sexual indemnity contract. Apparently this is what people who are involved in extreme BDSM sign before a scene. And then he goes, yeah, you know, this other person in the cult really pressed me into doing this with her and it's really helped her. He believed that it was something that I and

another person should eventually do. I go home in I would say a lot of despair that I have no power to do anything about this, that this person who was really kind of like my best friend in the group, that I didn't see what was happening, that I didn't see what had happened to these people and how they had been changed. So what happens next is I fake COVID so that I can get two weeks to think about all of this and figure out what I'm gonna do. I do some research. Anthony would tell stories about previous cult events, and he would always talk about his ex-wife. I do a little bit of a Google, Google-foo, and I find her phone number, and I just send a text. and we start talking back and forth. One of the first things she asks me is, has anyone been raped yet?

And I explain the shadow ritual process and it's like, oh, OK, he's a little bit smarter now. He's writing contracts for it. And I get in touch with a bunch of people and we start making plans. I'm assembling an army. Not all wars are fought with swords. There are three people who were statutorily raped. They were members in older version of the cult and his ex-wife, Brandy has- oh, wait, that's the ex-wife.

Brandy has five boxes full of papers from the cult. So this would be older versions of the rules, things that show that he's not a priest. Old documents where he's just behaving like an insane person. There were times where it was discussed outlashing people, hitting them with objects that had barbed wire. We have video of old members doing this and that.

We go to the local Festus newspaper. We're able to have like two or three people willing to go on the record and they assemble a story based on that. The article comes out, the title is like, Members of Antecedent Orthodox Church Speak Out. Alright, so that sours the milk and festus. That creates a domino. And we take every possible official course that we can.

So we contact state representatives, state senators, and the governor. We didn't really think most of that was going to come to very much, but we wanted to cover our bases. Their primary and highest recruitment was always the Pagan Picnic in St. Louis. It's like the biggest Pagan Picnic in the Midwest. We would always get five or six members. So I contacted the Pagan Picnic Committee and was speaking with them extensively.

Eventually they went to their board and they were like, oh, yeah, okay, so this is, they're permanently banned. They forget to remove me from the Google Calendar, and so I can see all of their upcoming events. And so I call the people hosting all of the upcoming events and tell them, these are the people that you're doing business with. And so all of those events are cancelled. One of the Georgia guys calls me up, and so I explain it to him, and I say, every single thing that I tell you,

I have a scrap or a shred of evidence that it's true. And he says, okay, send them to me. And a couple days later, he messages me back says, all right, we've all quit. We're all out. I was able to pull about 13 people, I think, in total. Well done, Aaron. And because of all of Aaron's, Penn is mightier than the sword battles. No one was coming to the church and no one was giving him money. Basically that they can't really operate as a church in the way that they wanted to.

They own a brick and mortar church. It's for sale now. There's a for sale sign out there. Yeah. So Anthony is selling his house and they're selling the church. And so they're doing all their culty stuff at people's houses again. And by a thread, the cult, it still survives. they're selling the church. And so they're doing all their culty stuff at people's houses again. And by a thread, the cult, it still survives. I would say three or four people in particular that I was very close to. They're still part of it, as far as I'm aware. And it is a great sadness to me that so many of these people who came into the cult, just so unique and creative and beautiful,

just these beautiful souls came in and were made into little monsters. They just had been indoctrinated to such a degree that they were unrecognizable. But for Aaron, he was able to come to an awareness and get out and able to find a more solid and sane community. Yeah, he's going back to church, a regular church, one without dragons and NDAs.

Then I contacted them again about a month after I left the cult. And it's been incredibly healing and they've been very supportive. The head priest particularly, he knows the whole story and he's always been available when I just need to talk about it with somebody. But he also talks to a professional. I'm going to therapy. I got a therapist. I'm undergoing EMDR. My future, I think, is just trying to get some feet under me.

I just want really normal, boring stuff. Just like beers with friends on the weekend, nice garden, bunny rabbits. And his fiancee, you remember, the one he didn't get rid of in order to repay his debt to the wizard. She was happy when I left. Very supportive. And now happy when I left. Very supportive. And now they are getting married. Cue those damn bells, Robert.

Thank God Tyler is not marrying them. So the wedding, the great advantage of getting married in the Eastern Orthodox Church is we don't have to plan shit. These rituals were all written out a thousand years ago and they still do them that way. I think that the after party I want to take to my favorite karaoke bar. That's the plan for that because I love karaoke. Oh, my go-to karaoke song. I always start with Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis. ["Don't Look Back in Anger"] ["Don't Look Back in Anger"]

["Don't Look Back in Anger"] Fade away, Anthony. You and your rapey committee meetings. And thank you, Aaron, for sharing your fantastic story and your bravery in going after cults like this and trying your best to get them taken down. And also, thank you for sharing your go-to karaoke song.

Yes, it's a solid opening number, Oasis. Okay, Liz, what's your go-to karaoke song? What do you think it is? I'm guessing it's like Katy Perry, Roar. Oh. Kelis, Milkshake. Yes. Eh, it's any song where you don't actually have to sing.

So, Britney Spears, Eminem, or Salt and Pepper. Just the rap part. I just said your go-to song. I rap or I just go. Oh baby, baby, oh yeah. You'll be in my heart. Was that Britney? Or Emin baby, again. You're baby in my heart. Was that Britney? Or Eminem rapping.

Give me some pepper, give me Eminem. I just asked for your song, not the whole playlist, Liz. There you go. Don't hog the mic. What's yours, Tyler? I'm guessing it's I Don't Wanna Know because we've already heard all of it. You know what's a good one is I guess that's why they call it the blues by Elton John. Is that your go-to?

It's good, it's fun, it's solid, it's easy to sing. And if it's a duet, it's leather and lace by Don Henley and Stevie Nicks. But we usually like to switch the male, female. That's cute. Rob? Oh, I usually just do the male and female parts of a whole new world at the same time.

One of my favorite ones to do that people maybe don't know by name quite as much is True by Spando Ballet. Oh yeah, that's a good song. They all know it, they don't know the artist. Oh, you know what my go-to is forever was Billy Joel. We Can't Stop the Fire. That's a fun one. That is a great karaoke song.

If you have that one down, that's a winner for sure. Man, we should go do karaoke, guys. Well, if this episode has taught us anything, it's to not sign NDAs for a religious group and to always have your go-to karaoke song at the ready. Thank you for listening, everyone. And if you want to hear this episode and all of our episodes without ads, and you can also help us out, the lousy cult leaders that we are, you can join our Patreon. Just like the sword wielding soldier,

Suzanne Osga just did. And Mark, he's just Mark, but thank you, Mark. We love you, Mark. We appreciate your Patreonism. And a special shout out to Floor Fenner, who is actively promoting our show. She painted our logo on her amazing Sacramento community garden. That was so cool. Thank you, Flora. I was floored.

Truly untouched. May your melons grow large and your cucumbers have sizable growth. Wait, Tyler made me say that line. I did not write that line. We're gonna lose it. It's juvenile. It's funny. Editor's note, we didn't lose it. Next week is another pandemic-inspired online cult, a la astrology. Get your stars in order, guys.

Your moon sign is gonna be in Virgo next week guys I couldn't think of it I don't know me there because you're Sagittarius is in Tyler's Capricorn Tyler is totally in retrograde right now yeah Tyler's always in retrograde I'm like when is this fucker gonna get out of retrograde and my astrologer's like, he's not, so if you wanna keep working with him, just know he'll forever be in retrograde. What did I do in a past life to deserve this?

And during the live streams, this is where they started to tell you that their system of astrology is the only system of astrology that works. And that every other astrologer out there is a scammer and is a liar. Other astrologers will not help you align with your energies,

but if you are aligned with your energies, you will live a good life, you will make money, you will have good relationships. But the only place that you could learn how to align with your energies is right here in this online group. To all you cult survivors, don't look back in anger. At least not today. At least not today.

What's In A Cult Guys is written, produced, hosted by me, Liz Neophyte Iacuzzi. And me, Tyler Gate Prosletite Meesum. Now, PS, I also story edit these interviews and Liz conducts the lengthy interviews. You know, we kind of skip over that well-earned credit, don't we? That deserves to be on our name tag. There you go. And we also have sound design and edit by Rob. Here he is right here with us, Rob the Prosletite Para. Assistant editor is Greta

Acolyte Stromquist. And our executive producer is Steven, obviously the master, Labrum. You know what? Let's hear that jingle one more time. Take us out, Maristrepa. Was I in a cult and Tyler and Liz say funny, weird things and then people say I wanna be on their show about cults, cults, cults, cults, cults, cults. That's why she's a professional and you ain't. Don't fret it, don't sweat it. Don't even regret it if you ask yourself that little question. Liz and Tyler will make the connection. Scientology or anarchy.

Jolestown or on your own dang street. Just pull out your phone and listen to a Zion cold. Probably were We're not like Flow And we make better ads than Flow and we make a lot less money than Flow You're gonna skip the ads at the Super Bowl? No! So why skip ours? Matthew McConaughey made Show His Balls We're not gonna do that, but like, hey.

We're gonna do other fun things. New from Lincoln. But I will. Matthew McConaughey's balls. The seat warmer really warms up my balls. I don't know about y'all guys, but this new Lincoln's got my balls going real. Going really good.

Do you know what he said after he had the, after he had one of his testicles removed? He did? Really? Yeah, now he's all right, all right, all right. Oh boy. You have like the worst jokes in the history. Yeah, you really. And they're just there. They're like right at the ready. But he says them with like such,

like he's like so convinced it's gonna be a great joke. Like he's stepping up on stage. Cause he had his left ball removed. Now he's all right. You know what Matthew McConaughey said when somebody punched him in the face. All right. Excuse me everyone, excuse me.

No, he had his left ball removed, that's why he's all right. Oh God, that's even. You didn't even get it. You didn't even get it. They're too smart. My jokes are too smart. Yeah, he had his left ball removed.

When you have to explain. For the record, I got it. He just knew it was a regular bad joke. When Matthew McGonaghy sawed off his whole right, left side of his body. Now he's all red. All right, all right, all right. Damn it.