Was I In A Cult? - Gloriavale: "Gloria Fail" (UPDATE)

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

**NOTE: This episode originally aired in 2024, but a LOT has happened inside this cult since then. None of it surprising, all of it sick, and we'll fill you in on all of it.     Jason Christian was born into Gloriavale — a self-proclaimed utopic Christian community of more than 500 people on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. His grandfather, Hopeful Christian, was the leader. Shut out from the outside world and forced to work on the farm at the age of six, Jason was primed to live a life without actual freedom, as this group of true believers was all he knew. But when it was time for him to marry a woman in the community that was chosen for him, Jason made a different choice.     ____________________________   FOLLOW US Instagram → @wasiinacult TikTok → @wasiinacult SUPPORT THE SHOW Join our Patreon! Ad-free episodes, bonus content, behind-the-scenes conversations, and our forever gratitude. HAVE A CULTY STORY? Email us → [e-mail]

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of Lipson or its affiliates. Guest accounts or personal recollections shared from their own perspectives. References to specific individuals, organizations, or groups are presented as commentary, opinion, and personal experience and should not be interpreted as definitive statement of fact. This podcast is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. Welcome back to. Liz has a terrible chest cold. Okay, so Liz and I are doing this over Zoom. I'm just going to describe to you viewers.

Listeners, her hair is wet. You may make them too excited. Her hair is wet and she's in a robe. So she looks comfortable. And I'm suffering from this darn cough. Anybody got recommendations for how to get rid of this? Let me know. Yeah, don't stay out all nuts.

Kissing strange homeless men And doing random drugs that people give you Don't do that, Liz. I'm no doctor. But guys, hi, welcome back to was I an occult. I'm still Liz Ayakuzy. For now, and I'm still Tyler Meesum. And we are giving you an oldie, but a goody.

And by goody, we mean great story, but baddie in terms of the cult because this cult And it's a New Zealand cult We love our New Zealand listeners And we often get emails from New Zealand It's a lovely country P.S. For those who haven't been Did you know that

This is off the top of my head. Durek's actually called New Zealand the most sexually promiscuous country. Oh, well that doesn't bode well for statistics in this episode, Tyler. I wouldn't brag about that. that up now.

But there are more women than men in New Zealand. I've been there back when I was single. That's all I'm going to say about that. Well, anyway, we interviewed this gentleman, you guys, 24. What the heck? March 2024. Life just keeps going too fast, you know? It tends to.

But this man was born into this cult. His name is Jason Christian. lovely, wonderful human, truly. Great story. Great escape story. Great. All kinds of adventure. And I remember we put some good music to it.

Sound effects even. Some horse pitter pattern. Music. Drama, music. But we do have an update on this cult before we get into it today, guys. Because unfortunately, there's some pretty major updates going on. in Gloria Vale. Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Gloria Vail's leader, or as they call him, the overseeing shepherd was Howard Temple. He was the guy in charge when we originally released this episode. Correct. Well, now Howard has officially overseeing himself right into a criminal conviction. Correct.

You see, in July of 2025, Temple pleaded guilty to 12 charges involving the sexual abuse of six girls and young women with offending spanning more than two decades. Yeah, starting at nine years old to 20 when the offending happened. Yeah, that's basically what that means. I didn't want to say it, but I glad you did, Liz. Some of the victims were children, of course. He resigned as Gloria Bale's leader shortly afterwards. Well, that's good of him. I mean, it's good for him for stepping down from a church after that.

Well, it's kind of shocking that he pleaded guilty. Most of these people never do. You must have got some plea bargain deal. Some? Most likely is what happened. The evidence had to be overwhelming. Exactly. That's what I'm saying.

Like, he pleaded guilty to 12 charges. Imagine how many people did not speak up. Yeah. There's always more. Always. And here's the chef's kiss, Tyler, to this whole story. story if chef worked in hell but only six months before earlier only six months prior to this July 2025 sentencing Howard good old howie boy was the man who issued Gloria

Vail's official apology to the survivors for the community's historic abuse he is sorry that's a genuine apology can you imagine yeah can you imagine out there there doing what you're doing and then be like we on behalf. Yeah, exactly. A written statement from HR did he read. Yeah, meanwhile. Ugh. Yeah, he's doing horrible things.

He has been sentenced. He has been sentenced to 26 months in prison. Frankly, they should scratch out the word month and replace it with the word year because 26 month is, what, what, a stand three, two and a half years for God's sake. That's nothing. Oh, but don't worry. It won't be that because... Oh, because in March of this year, he successfully appealed that sentence

and received 11 months of home detention instead. Oh, just a good little slap on the wrist. Why don't you go to your room? Shame on you. That was. Go to your room, Howie. Is this like a New Zealand issue? Because I thought New Zealand was pretty good on this stuff.

I mean, it kind of feels like that's kind of everywhere. Is he a white male? I'm assuming... I'm just going to assume that he is. Of course he's a white male. So we got away with doing horrible, horrible things. I mean, I would imagine if this was in America, if you pled guilty to 12 charges,

you'd be like ditty style, like up in the jail. One would think. Like Harvey style. Like you're there. You're not getting released on detention. One would think that maybe what his plea deal was. I don't know. But Gloria of Fair.

What is Gloria Vail? Oh, yeah. So meanwhile, Gloria Vail is somehow still out there Gloria Vailing. Well, yes, but there is a beam of light coming in. Apparently New Zealand's Ministry of Education moved to cancel the registration of Gloria Vail's private school. They were saying that they had not shown that students were being educated in a physically and emotionally safe environment. That's great. So the school, presumably then, is gone.

I like that you said, presumably, Liz, because it's not. Because Gloria Vail took the government to court and won a temporary reprieve. So the school, yes, is still operating while that fight plays out. So it's not really a beacon of good... It was a light that came in that quickly got... The window got shut. Dark, once again. Oh, Christ.

So that's it. To recap, just more abuse. revelations, another leader has been convicted, but the government tried to shut down the school. It may be still trying, so please, we hope and we pray that that happens. Right. However, the community is still there, of course. Which makes this episode, unfortunately, just as relevant as it was when we first aired it. Yeah, it's a good episode. I really love this one. I remember making this one and feeling it was great storytelling, trauma, intrigue. I think there was a car chase in there.

Let's just get to the episode. Let's do that. Just buckle the fuck up and let's listen, shall we? Let's go. You go to the leaders and the leaders will sit you down and say, all right, we're going to fast and pray that God will give you a wife. Then you'll go away in probably two or three days fasting. You'll come back together and meet with them again.

And at that point, you're open enough to suggestion, and they'll say, we think, I'll watch you to marry. Welcome to Was I in a cult? I'm Liz Iakuzi. And I'm Tyler Meesam. And on this show, we give those who are in cults or cultic environments a chance to tell their story and take their power back. This show isn't about the cult itself, but the person who lived through it. Yes, we get to hear about the cult, but through their perspective. And sometimes our guests have never actually met. the cult leader.

Sometimes they're in the inner circle. And sometimes the cult leader is actual family. Like our brave guest today, Jason Christian. And a big shout out to our Australian and New Zealand audiences. Oh boy. How you going? This one's for you. Hi, I'm Jason Christian.

Currently, I live in Alabama. I originally from the west coast of New Zealand. I'm 29 years old. Now, keep in mind that Jason is a Kiwi. Wait, is that term offensive? No, but call a Kiwi in Australian, and you might as well call them a racist piece of shit. Right, Bridget and Jack? Okay, who the hell are Bridget and Jock?

Oh, they're my Kiwi and Australian friends. You know, one's a Kiwi, one's an Aussie. I met them last year. Remember when I was living in Australia? Oh, my God, Jock. He makes this incredible ice cream. And he has this really cute little shop in Albert Park in Melbourne. It's called Jock's Ice Cream and Sorbet.

You do know that this is a podcast, Liz, and not a... A vlog. People are actually listening. Other people are actually listening. How about we stay with Jason? Now, due to his kiwiness, Jason, he may be sometimes hard to understand. But not to worry, folks. We have subtitles on this podcast. Or I'll just translate it for them, Tyler. Right? What do you think? How is my Ozzy X and I live there for four months? Is it not bad, eh? It's not great. No. It's not that good, is it?

No, it's not. Oh, well, get ready for a lot more of that then in this episode. I grew up in a Christian-based fundamentalist cult. It was founded by my grandfather in the late 1970s. It's known as Gloria Vail. Guys, this cult is a fun one to deep dive on. Gloria Vail describes themselves as a Christian community on the west coast of South Island in New Zealand. And according to their website, it's currently home to more than 90,

That's around 700 people. It's its own self-sustaining community, completely isolated. And it operates on a property owned by the Registered Charitable Christian Church Community Trust since 1991. Which to me sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo for, I don't want to pay my taxes. My grandfather was Neville Cooper. He was in the Australian Air Force during the Second World War. He had a heart attack in 1948, 9040.

and I think that kind of terrified him, the thought of death. And he became a Christian afterwards. He changed his name to hopeful Christian. He was a traveling evangelist. Yes, this is why our guest's last name is Christian. It should have been Cooper, but alas, hopeful Christian changed all that. In Australia, he was pilot also, so he would fly around the outback and set up like a tent and have a, they called it a camp.

This was at the late 1960s where he was flying a plane with his wife, Gloria, she was pregnant at the time, and two or three Aboriginal converts. And the plane lost an engine and he ended up crashing in the bush. But nobody died and the injuries were fairly minor considering how bad of a crash it was. The baby survived. They named him Miracle. It's my auntie Miracle. You might have caught on, but yes, there is a weird theme to the names in this group.

It's hopeful, there's miracle, there's more. We'll get more later. That was his proof that God had called him and was watching over him. Actually, if God was really watching over him, I don't know if he would have really crashed in a plane in the first place. Yeah, I mean, by that measure, I'd say God actually prefers me more. I've never had an airplane lose an engine and go down in the bush. Why is that funny? Why is it funny when I say go down and go down.

in the bush. I don't understand. Why is everyone laughing? I don't get it. I've never had any problems going down in the bush. Happy 15th birthday, Liz. Regardless, this heavenly incident sent hopeful on a God-inspired crusade. Filled with excessive control, trafficking, child labor, money laundering, and sexual abuse on a criminal scale. But all in the name of God, right? Hallelujah. His belief was that he needed to create a church that was a church that was, emulating the early Christian church in Jerusalem in the Book of Acts. So he moved to New Zealand in the late 1970s, and he settled in Rania. Give it to us, Tyler.

Randagora is a lovely town on the South Island of New Zealand, not far from New Zealand's second largest city of Christchurch. I have been to the South Island of New Zealand, and for the record, it is lovely. It is mountains and green hills and forest and lakes and ocean and great food. and I've been there, and I still don't feel the need to impersonate their accent all the time. Well, that's because you're just not as talented as I am, barely. I am not. That is for sure. And hopeful had a daughter.

Want to guess her name, Tyler? I don't know. Happy? Bashful? Sneezy? We're not naming seven dwarves. Okay. What's her name? Optimistic, high five, fist bump, twerk, what? Faith. Oh. So Faith married someone who had a pretty nice piece of property and was part of a small Christian group. We'll call these the early stages.

They would go out to this property on weekends and do the kind of Christian Bible studies and stuff like that. Yeah, it wasn't even really a compound at that stage was just a farm. Rough guess anywhere between seven to ten families. And Hopeful jumped in on that action and soon bestowed himself the group's leader. And he gave it a name after his wife, Gloria, calling it Gloriaville. And now a nice little Christian group was born, living on a farm as one big happy family. But first things first, they needed to get some rules in place. They created a financial structure first.

It was known as they called it Christian partners, where they would all go out and do their own work in different types of occupations. And the money was all collected into a common pot. And then my grandfather took control of it. He would make it, like they weren't giving them money. to him. They're giving the money, obviously, to God. Obviously. Yeah, because God forgot his ATM pin and he couldn't get his own cash. And it just became more and more closed and more and more communistic. They've created their own school. They started building those hostels on the farm.

And then eventually, everyone kind of just moved in. It's mostly internal growth that happened, meaning large families and having lots of kids. Like, I'm the eldest of 11. My grandfather had... 17 kids, this is his first wife. But that's where most of the growth came from. But that didn't stop them from trying to bring in more people. Recruitment, recruitment, recruitment, recruitment. Wouldn't be a call without some recruitment.

New album coming out. Recruement! Rangior is about an hour away from Christchurch, and they would send the young people into the city square, and they would actively recruit people from there, and invite them around to the farm to see it. My grandmother was one of them. My mom was four years old when they got recruited.

So my grandmother was recently divorced, single mother, early 1980s actually. And being a single mother, New Zealand back then would have been pretty tough. Just looking at pictures of my grandmother, I'm pretty sure she was kind of into the hippie movement. So, you know, I think a lot of that appealed to her, that lifestyle. So would you say this is born out of the hippie movement? Absolutely.

But it was with a very Christian twist. It started out. They were a lot more open, very artistic. They did a lot of plays, a lot of music like my grandfather, which kind of ended up being a part of his downfall. But he taught a lot of sexual freedom, which wasn't getting taught by the other churches at that point in time as well. And when I say sexual freedom, for him it was within the context of marriage. He did teach the couples to be more open about talking about stuff like that, not only with him and with other couples, but with their children.

Open affection was encouraged, and since families all lived in the same room, it was common to see your parents engaged in sexual relations. But it wasn't just in the privacy of their small hostels, because hopeful was hopeful he would get a look at some of the action. Oh, you mean he's a creepy cult leader? Ugh. You know, he would get couples into couples' nights and he'd have them doing full play and kissing and stuff

all together in a pool, like multiple couples in a pool or like a sauna. Just as the good Lord would want. But not everyone was open to that sex sauna. So there was a shift in the community, and actually a lot of it was to do with my uncles and aunts. They started to see some of the sexual shit that was, going on and they're like this is weird and then ended up believing. However, because it was a commune, the people had ownership and when they left, they wanted money. But hopeful couldn't pay

everyone who left the community, right? And so that's when the control really took it a turn for the worst. They made them sign away everything that they owned and say, if we ever leave this place, we're not entitled to anything when we leave. My grandfather, his control was. was very tight on people. And he realized that they were kind of too close to the outside world. The farm was like literally on the side of a road. It was easy for young people, just walk off the property if they wanted to go. So they ended up deciding to relocate to a larger dairy farm on the West Coast.

And that was an hour away from the nearest small town. It's harder for people who have no personal means of transportation to leave. The relocation happened around early 90s. And around that same time, my grandmother, Gloria, she ended up passing away. And so my dad was pretty shook up by it as a young teenager. He lost his mom. And my grandmother had already recommended to my grandfather that he married my mom, which name was Charity.

So his father married Charity. So I was born just over a year later, I think. 1990-93 was the year I was born. And what's up with all the names? People came from all kinds of different backgrounds and wanting to leave their past behind. They wanted to give themselves names with meaning. It was either like a biblical name like Sierra, James, or it was like an adjective or a verb. There was names like willing, trust, welcome, conqueror, faithful.

One of my siblings is truly. My dad's name is Pilgrim. Pilgrim Christian, and that's based off of the character in Pilgrim's Progress. The Pilgrim's Progress is widely regarded as one of the most significant works in Christian literature. Written in 1678 by John Bunyan, no Liz, no relation to Paul Bunyan in the Blue Ox. That big guy, the big strong one? No. Paul Bunyan, oh my God, he's so hot.

The book is a religious allegory that follows the journey of the protagonist, Christian, as he embarks on a pilgrimage from the city of destruction to the celestial city, symbolizing the Christian journey towards salvation. That would be my Gloria Ville name. Salvation. Do you want to marry me? My name is salvation. No?

No, takers? No. Yeah, so the farmer's located in one of the most beautiful spots that I've ever seen in the world. Honestly, there's is a mountain backdrop. And as you drive in, you drive past a beautiful lake sitting in the bottom valley. There's a clear water river that runs right through. the middle of the property.

Just beautifully green, dairy farm. They have several large structures that they've built on the property. They call them hostels where they live, single-family units. Sounds lovely. In America, that would be the perfect place to build a Walmart. Do you know there's no Walmarts in New Zealand? That's because you can fit most of New Zealand in a Walmart super center. So great view, beautiful location.

What the fuck did this group do all day? It would start off at about 6.30, 7 in the morning. Mom would get us up and we would dress for school and a school uniform like navy blue pants and then a light blue shirt and always a tie, black tie. Every single day we had to show up to breakfast on time, 7.30. Punctuality was very important. Then we go to the dining hall. You could easily fit 500 plus people.

How did you guys feed 500 people? They have a account that called the sharing account where they funneled the money for food and then they would buy it in bulk to say money. Like, I mean, we're getting one metric ton crates of corn or apples. Buy in bulk and then they would preserve it, meat. Most of that came from the farm, sheep, deer, cows, chickens. My grandfather couldn't handle spices. and therefore no one else was led.

Sure, you can fondle each other in the community pool all day. But heaven forbid you order the spicy chicken wings. This has some like weird Mormon rules to it. No coffee, but drink all the Diet Coke you want. We had to eat all our food. We had to eat all our food on our plate. And, okay, so to do the prayer, everyone going to step down. The first five minutes or so would usually be just, you know,

a whole bunch of noise of people eating or talking and just fairly happy noises. about five to ten minutes. And usually my grandfather would start making announcements and that would kind of lead into him reading passage from the Bible. And there's like seven massive long white tables and he would put the leaders on the very end at the head of each table. And they were kind of like had a microphone and they would kind of have brainwashing sessions two times a day in the morning meal and the evening meal.

But if one of them was going off down a track that he disagreed with, he would shut them down in a very humiliating way. Like, he would just tell, hey, sit down, and they would just have to comply. And it was like super embarrassing for them because it would be like mid-sentence. I think they were always kind of in fear of being embarrassed by him. But at the same time, you know, he was the source of their power. He was the source of their authority. So they protected him.

Classic cult leader, fear me, but worship me at the same time. And it was definitely his personality. that held the thing together. Why, I don't know, because he had a way of making people feel warm and he would use, I love you a lot. Just love bombing all the time. But he also knew how to break people emotionally. He had a way of just being able to make you feel like the worst person in the world.

Jesus, this guy really is the classic cult leader. Break you down, then build you back up again. and there was some weird things that would happen sometimes like my grandfather would say all the men crow like a rooster and even all the men would like do their best rooster pressure and all the women clock like a chicken or moo like a cow like kind of weird things

that in hindsight is kind of degrading I think it was his way of trying to make it fun for everyone as how he was and he was really hard on people that were well in his opinion I've a weight. And so he would even do things like make us all run on the spot. Sounds super fun, reminds me of my favorite sleepovers as a kid where we would moo like cows and run around fat shaming each other. Yay! The best. And they would just do them because they were told to do them. That's part of the brainwashing. It's that you just do things because you're told. And it takes

away your individuality. Everything was uniformity. And then after that, it would be a prayer to end the meal, then they would have music practice. So, nearly everyone was taught a musical instrument. My dad played the double bass. I was never really a musical talent when it comes to playing instruments. All the adults would kind of split into various groups. They had a brass band group. It's fairly large. I mean, it's 20 to 30 men and this one fairly loud brass band. The kids would go brush their teeth for school, but we'd always hear that, you know, the adults are practicing music in the background. And then, yeah, school started about 9 o'clock. The classrooms were usually in the same building as we ate, kind of like side rooms of that same building. We got taught English

math. I mean, you know, the first subject of every day was always, you know, a Bible reading of some kind. So, yeah, indoctrination was first and incorporated into it. And what type of Christianity was it? So, yeah, fundamentalist Christian beliefs with a lot of emphasis, placed on certain things. Like, we were taught the godly order, as they called it. God at the top and then the church and then dad and then mom and then kids. That's the way they taught it. They emphasized God's message to us came through the church.

But for my grandfather, I mean, God talked directly to him. So all we had to do was listen to them. The most strong teaching in terms of the brainwashing was the fear of it. It was so strong. Like, I was constantly in fear that I would do something that would put me in hell. The other thing that really contributed to that was the doomsday teachings of, you know, Jesus is going to come back and all the people that are living right with Christ, as they would say, are going to be taken into heaven and everyone who's not is going to be left behind.

Unlike some other cults where they put a date on it, my grandfather taught that it could be at any time at any moment. So you always have to be ready. Damn, that's brilliant. This cult leader outsmarted them all, Tyler. He is truly the poster boy for cult leaders. Yep, him and Hitler. Hopeful and Hitler sitting in a tree. S-U-C-K-I-N-G. Yeah, and on that note, we will be right back. First came coercion, then came sucking more. We're back. Guys, definitely recommend looking up, Gloria Ville, to at least get the visual of the compound and the people. Now, like any good cult leader, Hopeful did a good job of really isolating

everyone from the rest of society. He really is like the best co-leader I've heard of. He's smart. He checks all the boxes. Yeah, and it gets worse. All the media was tightly controlled. Like the radio, television, there was none of that in a vehicle. They would take the antenna out. And I figured out how to take the radio out and reinstall an antenna on the radio. And then I would find a quiet place where no one would find me to listen to the radio. Occasionally we'd get newspapers that would use mostly for starting the fire in the morning. You know, when those newspapers would come in, I would grab one and hide somewhere and read it. So that was kind of the closest thing to rebelling we could do as a teenager.

And what about holidays? We didn't celebrate Christmas. We didn't celebrate Easter. Yeah, even birthday. There's no individuality birthdays. I knew I celebrated a birthday. But they did have special holidays called Celebration Day, the date chosen, of course, by Hopeful Himself.

Not to be confused by the great Led Zeppelin song. Not to be confused by the pretty good Led Zeppelin song. Don't play it. Rob, just don't play it, please. Just a touch of it. Just play a touch of it. Here we go. And they would have like a picnic outside food.

They had people that would dress up as well. clowns, they had a swimming pool that they built, a bunch of really fun activities. Those days were great and it was kind of a relief from the monotony of everyday life. Part of that monotony was the damned meetings. On Sundays, we would have to fast from the evening of Saturday before. Then the whole Sunday, there was no food. And then about five o'clock in the evening, our meeting would commence. And the meeting wasn't like a regular church service. at all. Your own would sit around in a circle. All the men were expected to contribute. Women were not allowed to preach, but they were allowed to pray.

Oh, well, thank you for allowing me to not open my mouth and just sit quietly with my thoughts. So, very kind of you. School usually would be out around 1 p.m. And from there, we were all assigned a job. I remember that the first time I was assigned to go work on the dairy farm, I was about Six years old is dairy farm was running five to six hundred cows at this point and I wasn't really given a specific assignment like I was kind of just expected to know where to go and who to report to and so I went out to the bush or wherever and started picking blackberries and distracted myself but eventually the person who I'd been assigned to work for found me

and was not happy at all he pulled out the nearest thing you could find which was a steel Feintz Pickett and thrashed me with that. As a six-year-old, we're not going to work on time. Hashtag compound life. We got it. We got it. Record it. Maybe I should read the scripts before you just put him in front of me.

This is why we have rehearsals so that I just don't read what Liz. This is where I don't have edit control. The beatings were regular and came out of nowhere. violence was just part of life. I mean, we got beaten with so many different objects from plastic pipes to wooden handles. Very much they believed to spare the rod, spoil the child. Oh yes, the old spare the rod, spoil the child proverb.

Most certainly, tens of thousands of children have been beaten by their parents who have used this familiar phrase. Allegedly from the Bible as a justification for their actions. And yes, there are at least five verses in the Bible's book of proverbs that talk about using a rod to beat a child. For his own good, naturally.

Naturally. The most famous is Proverbs 1324. Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent and discipline them. However, the phrase, the actual phrase, spoil the rod, spare the child, doesn't come from the Bible, Liz. What?

Allow me to regale you with a story. Most people think the phrase, spare the rod, spoil the child, comes from the Bible, but it doesn't. It comes from a 17th century satirical and erotic poem entitled Hutebrus. It was written by Samuel Butler

and in it he openly mocks puritanical belief and rails against religious sectarianism. So the poem features a very lascivious lady. Lachievous means lewd, lustful. It just means a woman who actually isn't afraid of her sexuality. Well, this one

is pretty open about it, this particular woman. She's going for it. She is trying to convince her lover to let her lash him sexually as a way for their love affair to grow. It's true. And the man, he's a bit hesitant. So like BDSM. Yeah. The original. Yeah. The old school. The man's a bit hesitant to

to receive the whipping, and the woman then gives a spiel all about the joys of the whip. And she ends it with, this is a quote from the poem, What medicine else can cure the fits of lovers when they lose their wits? Love is a boy by poet styled, then spare the rod and spoil the child. Yes. Come on. It's true. That's crazy.

The phrase is way more 50 shades of gray than it ever is Bible. Take that Bible. Yeah, take that Bible. So this phrase that has been used as justification to beat the shit out of your kids with plastic pipes comes from a poem about sex and BDSM. Wow. Right. So instead of hitting your child, maybe what you should be doing. Hit your husband instead.

Get him in there, tie his arms up and kachia! Kach! This is so our love will grow, man. I had this memory, and I think it really. really kind of defines my childhood in the sense of how normal it was for these things to happen because like all my good memories are kind of intertwined with these things too. They have swimming pool there and I remember going to the swimming pool after one of these days where I'd had a beating at work, pulling down my pants to go to the swimming pool and I had bruises

all over my body, you know? I remember things that happened to other people that were far worse than what happened to me. Like one of my friends was caught lying or something like that. her mom took her out of the classroom and she's gone for about 30 minutes and when she came back the farm of her hand was burnt brown her mom had placed her hand on a hot stove with a fire underneath it to give her a taste of what hell was like that's the kind of things that were done like I look back on her and there was actually a lot of idyllic in the sense of growing up on a farm around

animals in a beautiful valley with waterfalls in the background. At the same time, just this violence and this sense of control and entrapment. It was constant in my life. And I didn't even know how to express all that, but it was there. But I remember trying to talk to my mom about it and she would kind of just justify it. Which isn't surprising, his parents had been successfully indoctrinated into Hopeful's ideology. To them, he was God, and God's word was everything. Like every son I had a connection with my mother.

It wasn't the greatest relationship, but there was definitely, you know, natural bonds there. I think most of that was because the community was what was raising us, not our parents, per se. From my dad's side, it was kind of the fear of him because he was expected to discipline me like the other in the community. And he did at times. And I don't hold that against him now because he's made amends for it. his abuse was a product of the abuse that he had. I'm not saying that it justifies and makes it all right. It doesn't at all.

Did you ever get beaten by your grandfather himself? No, I don't think I ever got beaten by him. However, he definitely encouraged that sort of thing. You know, if babies were crying, he encouraged parents to put their hands over their mouth to silence them. He would say, count to three. And if they don't stop, then you discipline them with sticks. The bullying was encouraged and it was done from the.

the top down. My grandfather would bully people under him and they would in turn bully people under them. Parents would bully the children and children would end up bullying other children. You couldn't really trust anyone. I mean, I remember being falsely accused of things and like just getting into trouble for things I didn't even do and it's encouraged to backstab and tell tales and I got to the point like when I was a kid I became very antisocial. I didn't really have a lot of friends of people that I was close to. Definitely weren't people I could confide in because you were always afraid of, you know, if you say the wrong thing to the wrong person, you're getting in trouble for it. We were made to do public apologies for, you know, anything that

was a wrong and it was always like a fear that even one had because there's no currency. We didn't handle money, but your reputation and the organization becomes the currency. And so, if you have to stand up and apologize, it kind of like lowers your status in the community. Yes, there was no currency, but they did have money. Well, the leaders did, of course. The dairy farm was the backbone of their businesses. They also have a meat processing plant. It's like the guts and the heads and the gross stuff that comes from a meat processing plant.

It's disgusting, absolutely disgusting. And they would basically boil it down and dry it out and then make powder out of it. You sell that powder to dog food companies. And this company was making millions of dollars. Were you getting paid for it? No, no. When I was about 16, I think they made me sign some documents saying that, you know, I was basically working for my food and board.

They'd set up a bank account for me and they were putting about $1,200 every two weeks into a bank account. and then they would donate that money to a charitable trust, and that the charitable trust is their tax avoidance. And if you donate all your money to charity, then you can write all that off. And so you get the full benefit of the child tax creditor, and it's per child.

So imagine you've got 10 kids. The figure that I've heard thrown around is being their tax credit from the government is about $3 million a year. So that's a big part of their scheme. There's so many intricacies in this, honestly, we probably could be here for us. The girls, they were working just like the boys from a very young age, right? Yeah, they had a sewing room where they would sew all their uniforms that they would wore,

and it was all out of the same material. Women would wear a very dark, blue, long dress, get coverings were considered mandatory, that it was supposed to be covering when you pray. This, of course, comes from 1st Corinthians, chapter 11 verse 5. which states, quote, Every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven, unquote.

Too bad a woman didn't write this. Well, if a woman had written it, Tyler, it would say, quote, Every woman who doth pray with her head uncovered shall not be judged nor shamed. The mere idea that a woman's spirituality is tied to her physical appearance undermines the agency and the dignity of women. In fact, if a man were to shame a woman for praying with her hair down,

I give unto the permission to go ahead and gently punch him in the balls. End quote. Anytime you were outside of your bedroom, you have to wear this thing. It doesn't matter if you're praying or not. The justification was, well, you should always be praying. So you should always be wearing it. Okay, this one's going to make you laugh, but maybe not in a ha-ha way. One verse earlier in 1 Corinthians, it says, quote,

Every man who prays with his head covered dishonors his head. And I'm sure this had to do with body heat, right? Men are biologically warmer than women. So the Bible is just looking out for the cold ladies and keeping the men cool. Uh, sure, Liz. Here's another quote from Corinthians. A man ought not to cover his head since he is the image and glory of God. But the woman is the glory of man.

For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. This sounds like his first crushed and liked him back, and we just went off on a woman hating tirade. Like, don't take your shit out on millions of people who are going to read your diary later and think it's the Bible or something. My grandfather was very, very strong on women should just be homemakers, stay at home and look after the children.

name because he encouraged having big families as well i don't think you need them would have had time for jobs yeah why don't you explain how the arranged marriages work yeah it's almost run like how breed animals cue animal breeding music rob whatever that is no it's good but try again louder bring up the oink the oink the oink Oh, there we go. The first step for any young person, male or female, is making what they call the declaration of commitment to the community. This was a document where basically you're saying that I'm never going to own anything myself. It's all belongs to the community.

One of the last lines in this document read something like, if I break any of these vows, then you lose your immortal soul and you can never get it back. Like if you ever leave, you're going to help. You have to prove your loyalty to them. Once you've made that commitment, you go to your parents and basically say, hey, look, I think I want to get married. This happens as young as 17. Actually, it has happened as young as 16. Anyway, so then the next step is with your parents' approval, you go to the leaders, and the leaders will sit you down and say, all right, we're going to fast and pray that God will give you a wife.

and then you'll go away and probably two or three days fasting, you'll come back. Hungry as fuck. Meet with them again. And at that point you're open enough to suggestion and they'll say, we think, oh, once you marry, you know, X.

They have a list of the girls that you have going to choose from. These are girls whose parents have told the leaders that their daughters are ready for marriage. But in saying that, there's times when the leaders will say, hey, we think your daughter's ready for marriage because they, you know, want to get it married off. You know, and then from that point, once they've told you who you're going to marry, they'll arrange for you to get in a room with the girl to propose to her. So sorry, love is blind.

Looks like Gloria Vell had the concept way before you did. We grew up knowing of all the girls in there, but we weren't allowed to have a relationship with any of them. There was no dating process at all. Once you propose, then you are engaged to be married. And here's the kicker, you're going to be married within six to eight weeks and you're going to be stuck with the person for the rest of your life. And the dating, courting process is hands off, completely no touching. And it's supposed to be a chaperone process until their wedding day.

And then the wedding day is very strange because there's the meeting part of it and I guess the ceremony part of it. The Vowse basically says that a woman is expected to give herself to a man whenever he desires. I mean, at that point, you've got two pent-up young people who have not been able to hold hands, touch or anything. Then you've experienced this before. They're having to do this in front of their family and friends. And so, yeah, it's super awkward for them.

But it's also there's an expectation to show that you love each other. And so that was even worse because they were like expected to have this long kiss. and, you know, girl might be grossed out by him. Even more awkward as they would then go away to consummate the marriage, immediately after that ceremony. So, everyone knew where they were going and what they were doing. I mean, everything was all set out for the reception. Everyone wouldn't be waiting around.

I mean, we'd play card games. These poor girls, I mean, the first time you have sex, it's not the most fun. Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. I'll tell you another thing that I'm not sure how common this particular thing was, that I know my parents, there was a camera set up in the room for their first time. Oh, God. So that tells you something.

He had a video of his son having sex? I mean, there's worse things that he did. As far as my grandfather being involved in people's sexual lives, and it's very common place for my grandfather to take them to the place where they're going to do this. You go and go and have a shower. And he went like, the guy coming out of the shower and he would like literally put lube on them. Like, he would touch them. He would do things like that.

My dad said that this happened to him. All this stuff was like, I mean, at the time it was normal. It's, I thought that was just how it was. But, you know, you look back on this, like, wow, it's so not okay. You know, like I said, he was convicted of sexual assault. I mean, he originally was charged with, I think, about 30 counts of sexual misconduct. But for some reason, the thing got dropped on a technicality. The second time around, they kind of just went after the one person that he had really abused the worst, I guess, because kind of the other ones were probably a little bit harder to prove.

So they went for the one where he molested a young girl with a wooden dildo. Her and a young man in the cult wanted to be together outside of their rigid marriage structure. And so, from what I understand, they did leave together briefly. And then they both decided to kind of come back. And basically, my grandfather told her that for her to be together, he had to prepare her for her life as a wife. Okay, I'm just going to go ahead and say what everyone else is thinking. Hopeful Christian is a genuine piece of shit.

And he was convicted on that one of five counts of aggravated sexual assault. The singer's for five years for sexual assault, and he only did one, and he was led out on an appeal, and then he went on to carry on running the group. That was in 1995 that he was released, and he ran it up until his death in 2018. And this is why cults are so scary, because your leader could be imprisoned for horrific sexual assault, and as his follower, you completely ignore it, continue to blindly follow his doctrine and false promises. But of course, the truth is never what is conveyed to the group. When I was a teenager, I was told he went to prison for spreading the gospel, you know, and he was persecuted.

Nobody knew, even up until recently, why he was convicted for because he managed to keep it secret. And the people who did somewhat know, or who had maybe went to court with him, see, they didn't believe in it. They just denied it. And at some point, things started to come into focus for Jason. I started seeing that certain things just didn't make sense. For instance, we were told that everybody on the outside was unhappy and miserable. But whenever I did interact with people on the outside, which was not very often, they usually was not the case.

In fact, sometimes they were way more happy than anybody I knew in there. And my cousin, who was a year older than me, he'd been allowed to go live with some relatives on the outside. And I thought, why can't I do that? But he was only 14, so legally he was still under his parents' control. My dad, he said, give it till you're 18. If you still don't like it, then you can leave. For the next few years, it almost was a constant back and forth between should I leave or should I stay.

And I had that feeling that I'm in a fishbowl. I can kind of see some of what's outside, but I've never been able to experience it. and if I keep going down the road, I'm going to be trapped here and I'll never will get to experience any of it. But the same time, like I said, I made the commitment and I was kind of exploring that period of time for them to evaluate you and prove your loyalty. And during that time, there was a really interesting thing that happened because my dad had falling outs with the leaders and disagreements with them. My mom came to me and started accusing my dad of things that were 20 years old, like basically trying to tear him down. And so as soon as he started to fall out of

favor with the leaders, he fell out of favor with her as well. So I started to realize that the marriages weren't based on love, that they were based on their commitments that they had made through the leadership. And by the time I got to 18, I had actually told my dad that I wanted to leave and that I was very serious about it. And he'd say go talk to your grandfather and tell him that. And so I actually did, going and talk to my grandfather and it was just, hey, I don't think I'm cut out to be here. And if possible, I'd like to, you know, leave with the blessing. And he basically just ignored the request. And he started berating me and telling me how bad I was going to make my mother feel.

And he just, he knew all the buttons to push to make me feel guilty for even considering such a thing. And now he was of marrying age in the community. Yeah, I mean, I was one of the older. young men at that point at 19. And there was other people in the community that were encouraging me to go down that line of marriage. And so I actually started pursuing a little bit more. I went down the line of, should I get married here? And so then I'd actually go on and talk to my grandfather and the leaders called me into a meeting about it. And this was like, prove your loyalty type meeting. The police, if they call them servants to shepherds, there's probably

about 12 to 15 older men. It was basically an interrogation, and they were expecting me to say the right words to prove to them that I was going to be a loyal servant of the community. And they ended up outright saying it, they said, well, if you want to marry one of our daughters, then you have to prove to us that you're not going to get her and take her away from here once you're married. When they outright said that, and I walked away from it just thinking, wow, if I get married here, my relationship's going to be totally in their control. And they're always going to have power over it.

And I also came to the realization that day that what about the women? Don't they get a choice? Come on, Jason. You know we don't get a choice. Did I say you could speak, Liz? No, sir, sorry. That was the final straw, honestly. At that point, then I was determined this wasn't something I was going to pursue.

any further. The next step was to figure out the how of escape. Oh, hell yes. My favorite part is coming up. My favorite part is coming up, but you're just going to have to wait because we have to take a break. Right, Rob? It's a hit. Jason, having decided not to marry, is now figuring out how the hell to get out of here. Like I mentioned before, the property is, it's in the middle of nowhere. It's an hour or from the nearest town. I don't really know anybody in that town. The only relationship that I had with some next door neighbors, when I say next door, like this is a four to 500 acre property. So that was the closest contact I had. And I started forming a friendship with them probably

two or three years before I left. And there's a big river between the neighbor's place. So I would have to either cross the river on a full-size farm tractor or on a horse. If I didn't want to get completely soaking wet and cold. The cousin that I talked about earlier who had left, his whole family had ended up leaving. That was my Auntie Miracles family that had left. Anyway, so I got that phone number. Next time I went and visited the neighbor's place and I used that to give him a call.

And I arranged for him to come pick me up that night. So he was living in Christchurch at the time. It's just about four hours drive from the community. And the deal was that he was going to come and pick me up. at midnight and so I went back to the farm that was staying that night and my dad and my brother came and stayed the night with me. I waited till they were asleep and got up. The moon was pretty bright so I didn't even need a light and I knew that my dad even though he's had his doubts at that stage I knew that he was going to try and stop me if I left and I think he had

his suspicions that I might try. But I wanted to block him from being at a lot of to catch me and there was three vehicles on the property there's a tractor a four by four utility vehicle and a horse but I went and found the tractor took the keys out of the tractor and like hit them in the tractor itself just to buy myself as much time as possible I didn't know where the horse was and then I got the keys for the four by four and as soon as I started it he was going to wake up because it's like right outside the place we're staying and so I just took off and there was about 20 minutes drive through the woods to where I was going to meet up

with my cousins. I got there. They didn't know exactly where I was and so might have driven past a couple of times. I tried to flash my lights at them and had to wait for about 45 minutes to an hour. Eventually they found me and I'd asked them to bring some clothes for me so I literally took the clothes that I was wearing on my back that I've been told my whole life for a privilege to even have, and I threw them on the vehicle that I'd taken, and I'm leaving with nothing. I don't want anything from you anymore. I literally stripped down to my own way, put on the clothes. My cousins have brought me and climbed in the vehicle and ready to go.

As they were turning around, all of a sudden, this horse jumps out into the middle of the road. in front of the vehicle and there was my dad had ridden the full speed after me through the woods in the middle of the night he tried to convince me to stay and give it more time

and he was pretty desperate I think at that stage so he's pleading with me and tears pretty much at that point I was just done I was done being convinced by people that this was the life

that was for me at. I had decided that I needed to see what the rest of the world was like, and I told him, no, Dad, I'm going. I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know where it was going to work. I didn't know where it's going to live, but anything's better than this. And so, yeah, we took off into the night.

And that was it, one of the bravest things, and I'm sure hardest things anyone has ever done. He left behind everything. He knew he broke his signed commitment and lost his soul, his clothes and his family. I knew that I was not going to be able to talk to the rest of my siblings. I knew that I was going to be cut off. And I think that if I had a thought too much about that, that I wouldn't have done it. And his mother?

I didn't get to say goodbye to her. She sent me a letter a few days later, and she basically said that she was really disappointed, and she asked me not to contact my other siblings. So, yeah, that was pretty hard. When I left, the first night I stayed with my cousin. My uncle Phil gave me a job the next day. I had a building company in Christchurch. That was a minimum wage job, but to me, it was great.

Just, you know, I was earning money. It was freedom comparison to what I'd come from. I had a plan, you know, I wanted to go to college. And within a year, I did that. So I went to Lincoln University. It was a farming university. and my goal was to study real estate and rural property management. I ended up doing one year of it and then I moved to Australia

because I found kind of the ideal opportunity. I wanted to develop rural land. It seems that an American investor had purchased some 300 acres of land and Jason was hired to tend to it. And started clearing it with a really old broken-down bulldozer and it was in a month or two. the investor came over and he was pretty impressed with my work, I think. Of course he was. The man has been working since the age of six.

And I look over at his phone and I see his son and daughter on his screenstap and it's like, man, she's pretty hot. And so I asked him, how old are they? And he'd tell him, she's 21 and he's 18. I'm 21 too, kind of planting the seed there like, hey, you should introduce us. But, you know, he kind of gave you this look like you stay away from her. But apparently he went back home and told her all about me. So whatever I did, it worked. And a few months later, I added her on Facebook and, you know, we definitely were attracted to each other. There's no doubt about that. And they started to chat and eventually they met up.

And we're able to talk about very deep and intense things together. And it just happened to be, you know, the stars did align for us. And slow dissolve to. And we've been married since. seven years now. Married to a woman that he chose. Not from a list. And without a creepy-ass grandpa, leering over his every move. Or lubing him up.

Here you go, Sonny. You're going to need this. Also, like, never mind. I don't need to go there. No, you don't. So I have two young boys, all the oldest is five,

and the youngest is, is a year younger. Are their names service and gratitude? No, they're not. Jonah and Josiah. Both have their own personalities for sure. It's not all me. My wife has a pretty strong personality too,

so a lot of that shines through. And his wife is allowed to pray without a hat on. Hallelujah. And what happened to his dad? He was burnt out from working for the community for many, many years, doing very long hours under a huge amount of stress. And I think loving the place like that does that to you because there's so many contradictions

that eventually you get confused over what you believe or what you don't believe. And so, you know, he ended up leaving. But he didn't leave, leave, leave. No, he only left the community in New Zealand. He went to another chapter of the cult in Australia. His goal was to bring my mom over to Australia, but the leaders wouldn't get him,

permission or help him with that at all. It wasn't until about two years later that he actually went back to the community again and trying to get my mom out. And sadly that failed. His mother stayed. But he ended up leaving again with one of my younger brothers

who was like 12 years old and I actually went and picked them up from the community and took them out. And then within a year of that another one of my brothers came out and one of my sisters came out. So there's currently four of us siblings out of 11 that are not in the community.

And what of the cult itself? Still going. So it's a glared male's going to last. And it's on its layout. It's just slowly collapsing under its own weight. And our dear piece of shit leader, he died. He died 2018. And when he did pass away, they put him in the ground like the very next day.

They didn't want any family members or anyone from the public and press of the media. to show up for that. When Jason first left, he didn't know what exactly he was leaving. He just knew he needed to get out. It took me about a month to admit that it was a cult. I got a phone and started just looking around at things, and I started to realize that there were certain things that made up what a cult was and that it ticked all the boxes.

The major one was the fact the family cuts you off because there's plenty of organizations that have a leader with a strong personality, you know, like churches and businesses and all that other thing, but they don't, you know, try and separate you from your family and your life. Mind you, those might be cults too, Jason. And where is Jason today? I moved to the United States in 2018, got citizenship to my wife as American citizen, and almost straight away walked into Army recruiting office, and I joined as a,

a mechanic and it's spent three years as a blackawk mechanic and the last year I've been in training to be a helicopter pilot and it'll be fully fledged Army aviator with my wings and everything and at this stage I'm set to be flying. Well move over

Maverick because there's a new guy in town and his name is Jason Christian from Colt to Copter Hi everyone It's been an honor to serve. That's one thing I actually did like about my childhood, that there was something taught about service that I believe

is a good thing. The difference is that now I get to choose where my loyalties lie and I'm doing this for my children and for their future and for the legacy that I leave behind for them and the stories that they'll tell their children. If every story started out with genuine service and everybody gives something, then that's our way of making the world a bit of place. That's my way. God, I love his story. He comes from a truly isolated cult knowing nothing

else in the whole world to being a pilot in the U.S. Army. A badass, indeed. We hope you're doing very well, Jason, and thank you again for sharing your story with us. We will put some links to the Glory Vail stuff in our show notes so y'all can

do a deep dive into this cult. That's our show. Thanks for listening. And thanks for and reviewing us if you have done that. And make sure you spread the word that we are back on. Next week we'll bring you another great story. My partners and I wound up baptizing tons, hundreds. We just baptized families. We wound up like in northern Argentina, finding pockets of indigenous people that had not assimilated. And we preached to the entire congregation. And

after we were done, the entire congregation accepted baptism and became Mormons. These people are lost Israelites. Now they're gathered back into God's one true religion, learning about Jesus Christ who appeared to their ancestors 2,000 years ago. And we just baptized like 58 people. And like in one day, so we thought we were living out a book of Mormon fantasy. We're like, we are Book of Mormon heroes, man. Until next week, stay safe.

Hug your loved ones. grateful that your grandpa wasn't hopeful. Was I an occult is written, produced and hosted by me, Tyler Meesum. And me. Top Gun, Lazy Akuzi. Found design and edit by Mr. Rob Perra. Call me Iceman. Iceman, Rob Perra.

I'm just, I'm an extra. You know, the guy who moves those little flashlights that bring the planes in, that's me. That's Tyler. A young and charming day, Ryan. That's, right. You've got the hair. And I can fake an orgasm like her. And studio engineer today is Brett Neese.

He is the sexy pilot that comes in to make all the other pilots jealous. And our video engineer is Gabby Rap. Wrap it up, bitches. Yes, please. All right, Tyler, I want you to crow like a rooster. Tyler does. That actually says. but.

Cuckadoo! Gacado do! Do! Cagoodoo! Gah! Gah! Hold on. I know what a rooster is.

I've been on a farm. Your turn, Miss Zoology. Boo like a cow. City girl. Cluck like a chicken. Cluck like a chicken. Can you know?

Anybody know I'm being? Rest of development. Of course. A coo-lid-l-o-ooo. A coodle-a-l-o.