← My Victorian Nightmare
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- [00:01]
Quentin
Location the lab. Quentin only has 24 hours to sell his car. Is that even possible? He goes to Carvana.com.
- [00:08]
Genevieve Mannion
What is this, a movie trailer?
- [00:10]
Quentin
He ignores the doubters, enters his license plate. Wow, that's a great offer. The car is sold, but will Carvana pick it up in time for it?
- [00:19]
Genevieve Mannion
They'll literally pick it up tomorrow morning. Done with the dramatics.
- [00:23]
Quentin
Car selling in record time.
- [00:26]
Genevieve Mannion
Save your time. Go to Carvana.com and sell your car today. Pickup fees may apply.
- [00:31]
Quentin
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- [01:03]
Genevieve Mannion
Hello, and welcome to My Victorian Nightmare. I'm your host, Genevieve Mannion, and I'm here to talk about mysterious deaths, morbid fascinations, disturbing stories, and otherwise spooky events from the Victorian era. Because to me, there's just something especially intriguing, creepy, and oddly comforting about horror and mayhem from the 19th century. So listener discretion is advised. Hello, friends, and welcome to this, my 36th episode. I hope that you had a relaxing week. I took myself on a stomachache date this week, which I very much enjoyed until I got the stomachache. But I asked for it. I wasn't expecting exactly what I got. We had a feisty eclipse on the new moon last Saturday, and around eclipses, I just. I stop everything. I take baths, I get a massage. I continue to watch exactly the same horror comfort movies that I watch every night. And I don't feel bad about it. I don't beat myself up for not trying new things. And I treat myself to all of the food that I love that makes me sick. I'm often very good. Even though I love spicy foods, I don't eat the spicy foods because they give me a tummy ache. I love slutty chocolate desserts, but I don't eat them because they make me sick. But guess what? I will not be tyrannized by my sensitive stomach at this time. The energy around eclipses isn't just chaotic. It usually sucks. It's hard. It's an emotional rollercoaster. I will suddenly feel like I must have walked into a spot where a melancholy ghost is lamenting her own death. It's already kind of aw. Not eat something amazing and just also have a stomachache. So I went to a fancy bakery and I got myself a gigantic French cream donut experience. It was caramelized all around and it had like two kinds of cream inside. And they garnished it with like a little powdered Sugar Whisper and I shoved the whole thing down my gullet so fast because I didn't want to have the stomachache yet while I was still enjoying it. And even though I ate it quickly, I enjoyed every microsecond. Barely made it home and then I keeled over in the fetal position on my couch watching a Hell House movie, which was I just described my dream date to you by myself, eating things so delicious that they make me sick, and going back to my place to puke and watch the same movie I've seen 800 times. I didn't actually puke though. I just wanted to I do hope that you were as romantic to yourselves as I was to myself this eclipse week. Okay, what a show I have for you today, dear listener. Today I am talking about Victorian era cults. Not just one, but two. I will discuss the bonkers beliefs, the scandals, the manipulation, the devil children, the messiah, corpses and bathtubs, the proprietary tea blends, the pool tables used for assaulting members, and what inspired these cults to come about in the first place. Now, I know what you may be thinking, Genevieve. Who on earth are you to judge which beliefs are bonkers? You're a witch. You think dead people are coming to you in your dreams to help them escape your apartment building. And you are correct. I am no one to judge other people's bonkers beliefs. So I just want to clarify. When I talk about insights, insane or bonkers beliefs in this episode, I am not referring to the weird stuff we all believe in, our weird lives as weirdos. I'm referring specifically to beliefs that are used as a manipulation tool in the context of cults to hurt other people or cloud their sense of reality for the purpose of more easily controlling them, exploiting them, etc. I just want to make sure that that's clear. Also, just a warning for today's show to those of you who one star my podcast Apple podcasts and still keep listening, which is, I don't know, flattering or something, because I at times discuss current events and how Victorian history relates to our social or political climates. Be forewarned, I'm talking about cults today. So yeah, you're gonna want to skip this episode if you want to treat yourself to a chuckle, Just look over there at the comments on Apple podcasts. You'll find people melting down like toddlers. Like literally whining that I'm not telling them the bedtime stories they want to hear. These people leave their bubble for five minutes and they find my podcast and it's a real traumatic experience for them. For the rest of you who feel perfectly comfortable here at the cool kids table, enjoy the show. But first a little Haunted Housekeeping. Thank you so much for rating the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You know how much your ratings and comments mean to me. Please continue to rate. Please continue to comment. Tell me how you survived eclipse season. Tell me anything. I love hearing from you. Thank you to those of you who listen to the show ad free on my Patreon, which you can find a link to@myvictorianightmare.com where you will also find a link to my very tasteful merch. Also make sure to follow me on Instagram and Bluesky where I post images from the show. Dank memes, weird Victorian images. I'm trying to think about how to expand my social media repertoire. If you have any ideas there, please share in the comments. What do you want to see on ssh okay and I am the worst. I have been trying to figure out how to make this internship position happen that I have been repeatedly mentioning. But to make it a proper legal all above board one, I don't have the time to do that research. I just going to have to wait until I have the scratch to make it a proper gig. So I'm going to have to scrap it for now. I'm sorry. I know I'm the worst. Look at it this way, with all the unpredictability in your life, just take comfort in knowing that I am consistently as the worst as I've always been and will continue to be. That is comforting. All right, spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch. We're ready to go. My main references for today were a utopiabratatanica.uk article, a Wikipedia article, a Digital Commons Hamilton. Edu article, and many more. All of my references can be found.
- [07:54]
Unknown
In the show Notes this episode is brought to you by Pluto tv. Are you looking for your next case? Pluto TV has all your favorite crime dramas streaming for free, which means suspicion is free with countless cases to crack. Watch csi, Criminal Minds, ncis, Blue Bloods Tracker, FBI and swat all for free from all your favorite devices. Feel the free Pluto TV stream now.
- [08:23]
Genevieve Mannion
Pain never in the late 18th century and very early 19th century there was an explosion of revivalist Protestant religions with brand new spiritual ideas and beliefs springing up all across the United States, which inspired many in Europe. The Second Great Awakening as it was called, was the igniting of these new religious movements with the Protestant church, with sects breaking off in every direction. Some forming religious sects that still exist today, like the Mormons, the Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, the Quakers. But some weren't large enough or organized in such a way that they could blossom into religious groups of thousands. Instead, there were a number of smaller cults whose beliefs were a little too much for even the very newly open minded masses looking for a new spiritual path. This new fervor for religious reformation was inspired by the end of the Revolutionary War in the United States. The period after the war saw significant social and economic transformations, urbanization and the rise of a market economy. People were looking to leave old world religions in the past and create a new religious, all American identity. They wanted a more emotional connection to God, a more personal experience of religion in the spirit of the Revolution. A greater focus on individual agency dislocated from the hypocrisy they perceived from the Church of England and Catholicism. Uniquely American moral beliefs, such as the abolition of slavery was adopted by many new religious sects, other than new concepts like temperance, free love, that's the notion that you don't have to marry someone to engage in a loving relationship with them. Veganism, spiritualism, women's rights, transcendentalism, that's the literary movement that emphasized individualism, intuition and the importance of nature. These were all new and exciting concepts that many people were very passionate about. So some sects focused more on these ideas than others. Women in particular were converting to these new religions at a much higher rate than men, although many men were also converting. Many of these sects were rooted in ideas that women cared about. A core religious tenet of the Society of Friends, the Quakers, was women's rights. As with the free will Baptists, many women were passionate about temperance, as they were tired of being beaten by their drunk husbands with no laws to protect them. Many appreciated the notion of free love, not tying themselves down in miserable marriages and loving who they pleased. So there were plenty of women ripe for the plucking by the darker, sicker, more manipulative and charismatic men, equally excited to offer a new kind of freedom to these enthusiastic, very oppressed ladies in their own religious groups. Women were the main marks for these manipulative cults. But men, like I said, were also inspired to join, especially when those men had a lot of money. Today, I will be introducing you to the Koreshan unity cult and the agape monates. Let's start with the Koreshan unity cult. But first, what exactly is a cult? What's the difference between a cult and a healthy religion? The best definition that I've heard for how to, like, easily delineate between the two is in a religion, a healthy religion, the top serves the bottom, but in a cult, the bottom serves the top. I always liked that. And I think that definition is perfect for the cults that I'm going to be describing today. The Koreshan unity cult was a communal utopia cult founded by a man named Cyrus teed in the 1870s. He was a distant relative of Joseph Smith, the man who founded Mormonism. The adherents believed Cyrus teed to be the new messiah. Now in the world. They referred to their beliefs as koretanity. And their beliefs don't actually sound that bad, actually. They were all about equality between the sexes, as God was believed to be equal parts man and woman. They believed in practicing celibacy as a way of achieving immortality. They also had a bit of a wild belief that we were actually living in the center of the earth, that the sky we see was the inside of the earth and there was an outside on the other side of the sky. And want to know how, why they believe this? Well, teed invented a machine, you see, that proved these claims to them called a rectilineator, which measured the supposed concavity of the earth's surface. Their isn't a lot of detail online, at least, about the specific practices or sermons given to this cult. If you read the Wikipedia article about it, it's kind of boring. It wasn't a death cult. No murders, no mass suicides occurred. But I found a personal account of a member that was forced to be a part of it, and he describes a darkness. The leader, according to him, was a twisted manipulator who used others in the cult to get what he wanted. And I will dive into that a little later. But first, that name, Koreshan probably rings a few bells. You may recall a gentleman by the name of David Koresh whose real name was Vernon Wayne Howell. He was the leader of the Branch Davidian cult who compound in Waco, Texas in 1992 was sieged by federal authorities and 76 members died by both gunfire and an actual fire that started after federal authorities fired tear gas into the compound. It's believed by some that David Koresh essentially molded his cult's philosophies after the beliefs of the Koreshan Unity cult, sans the concave earth stuff, Both the founder of the Koreshan Unity and David Koresh believed that they were the modern day incarnations of kings. Teed believed himself to be the reincarnation of Cyrus, the king of Persia. Koresh said he believed himself to be a descendant of King David, the king of ancient Israel and Judah. The actual meaning of the name Koresh is a Hebrew name which translates to Cyrus, which means shepherd, but again was the name of the Persian king who conquered Babylon and allowed the Israelites to return to Jerusalem. So he was inspired by both kings. Apparently. Teed believed that he had been sent to free the people of Babylon, which to him was the government or pretty much any force that he perceived as evil. The same could be said of Koresh. He believed that he was carrying out a divinely commissioned errand, saving the people from the demonic government, ushering in a new kingdom of God. Although he never said his changed name was the inspiration of the Koreshan Unity cult, there were many more similarities between David Koresh's cult and the Koreshan Unity cult's beliefs. It's likely that he was inspired by them. He just never mentioned it in regard to why he changed his name specifically to Koresh. He just said that he changed it for publicity and business purposes. And he didn't elaborate. Teed denounced commercialism and demanded his adherents hand over all of their property and money to him, because all things were owned by all in the cult. In the personal account of a man who was forced to be in the cult by his father at a very young age, he described Teed as a manipulative, violent man. Elwin E. Damcolara writes in his account, while passing an oyster bar where many birds were feeding, Dr. Teed, founder of the Koreshan Unity, who claimed to be the second Christ, drew his pistol. He shot at the birds, two of which were wounded and crippled. This act decided my future feelings for this man. Though he continued to try to win me over, he then and there lost any hypnotical religious influence over me. Father and mother had taught us never to kill or harm any animal or bird unless it was needed by us. Here the would be second Christ was shooting and crippling birds for fun. I felt this was a ridiculously impossible thing for the savior of mankind to do. End quote. Torturing and killing animals, something psychopaths are known to do, by the way. This man goes on to say that Teed convinced his father to Sign over the deed to their home and all of his money, promising that if he did, he would receive eternal life. His father started by saying that he would give him 300 acres, but he wanted to save 20 for his son. But Tiede convinced him that he would not be allowed into the kingdom of heaven unless he gave everything. He also convinced him, using the cult's women. Tiede had many female followers. Women who, in these very repressive times, loved the idea of equality within the cult. There were no marriages within the cult, as everyone was married to everyone. And there is no evidence or accounts that Teed sexually abused these women. Women as it was a cult founded on celibacy. However, Teed clearly used these women to get what he wanted. Elwyn described how Teed hypnotized his father by sending ladies to, quote, pamper him. It's possible that Teed did use these women to perhaps do other things aside from sex with his father. But that's just conjecture. The word pamper is not very specific. He says, quote, they made good progress with my father, but not with me. Because Dr. Teed could not hypnotize me. The more he influenced my father, the more I hated him. He goes on to say, for a very short instant, his father regretted what he had done. He says, quote, a few nights later, we were sleeping in our little boat. Suddenly, father came out of his hypnotic spell. He cried like a baby, realizing what he had done. Although he was quickly drawn back into the hypnosis. And he says his father became a body slave to him and the unity heads. After some time of this, he realized fully that he had been victimized by a wolf in sheep's clothing. Under cover of a religious mantle of the unusual promises for father and me, such as the great city, New Jerusalem, he was going to build on father's land. Dr. Teed had completely hypnotized my father. This great city, New Jerusalem, was what Teed intended to create on his father's land, A home for his, at the time, 200 or so followers. This was 1894. He prophesied that it would grow to to be a city of 10 million people who would worship him there in their utopia. The community did not grow that large. In fact, it did not grow much larger than 250 people, although there were about 4,000 believers around the country. But a large home was built there using not just this man's father's money and land, but the money of all of his members. It was a lavish home with many manicured gardens, A bakery that could bake up to 600 loaves of bread a day. Tennis courts. They also had baseball and boating. All sounds pretty nice, but let's circle back to that Concave Earth theory. A common tactic that cult leaders use to manipulate their adherents is introducing insane beliefs. Beliefs that are so strange you. You wonder how anyone with a brain could believe them. Like the Heaven's Gate cult. They believed the Hill Bopp comet was going to fly over their dead bodies and scoop up their souls and take them to a spaceship. The Universe people cult believe the Earth is under control of the evil reptilian beings that want to microchip your brains. And Scientologists believe that 75 million years ago and even galactic overlord named Xenu ruled over vast intergalactic confederations of planets. And to deal with overpopulation, he froze billions of beings, shipped them to Earth and dropped them in volcanoes and nuked them with hydrogen bombs. Their disembodied spirits now cling to humans and cause all of our emotional problems, fears and trauma. Your mental problems have nothing to do with watching Artax the Horse drowning in this swamp of sadness because he was too sad to prevent himself from drowning in the never ending story when you were six. Disembodied spirits are the real culprits here. What is up with this and why do people believe these things? It's actually really simple and it has nothing to do with intelligence. If you can make people believe something insane with no proof whatsoever, you can make them believe anything with no proof whatsoever. Like you're the Messiah, you're all knowing, all powerful, deserving of worship. Bananas. Ideologies are features of cults because they are an essential manipulation tool. And the really insane stuff isn't usually introduced in the beginning. Most cults, like the Nexium cult, start as things like self help organizations of some kind, how to achieve business success, for example. They start off meeting an initial need of an individual, then get crazier and crazier slowly. There was a woman in one of the NXIVM documentaries that said something along the lines of as things got slowly crazier, she started to feel like, well, I believed all of this up until now, but if I don't still believe, I will either have to face that I failed or that I've been lied to all along. The introduction of insanity is so slowly introduced that you don't even realize your reality is becoming distorted. And even if you do have a moment of clarity and you realize you don't believe anymore, you have to face shame, embarrassment, Guilt. The idea that you. You've been duped, that you did everything you were told to do, you cut off your family, you disowned your children, etc. So you make yourself believe because that pain is too hard to take. Just like with Elwyn's father, who it sounds numerous times came to his senses and wept about being taken advantage of by T. He went right back to the cult. Probably because that pain was too much to take and he'd already given everything. He had nothing left. Elwin said that Tiede tried to prove that we lived on the inside of the earth while using his crooked religious influence. He was just as crooked there. In all of his other wonderful claims. He gave his slaves just what he wanted to. No one could do anything about it except leave without a penny. That is what some of the residents did. Quite a number died there. They were buried in the private cemetery of the Koreshan unity with Dr. Teed's promise of immortal life. He goes on to give numerous accounts of where he was denied education and instead made to fish for the entire community. How he had to lock a captain in a closet on a boat who Teed appointed who knew nothing about being a captain and almost sunk a ship in a storm. Appointing the most loyal to positions of power, not necessarily the most qualified, is also a very common practice that cult leaders often adhere to. Sound familiar to a certain government's operations? I wonder if they gave that signal group chat a cute name. Patriots 69 or something like that. Putting it in a bubble, letting it float away. This young man left the cult in his teenage years and it didn't sound like he got too much resistance. Unlike many other cults that try to force their members to stay. But his father did stay. He didn't go into detail, but he said that he finally left because the treatment of Teed's members and the religious services that were required to participate in I felt were disgusting. End quote. After many years, his father did finally break through and sued Teed to get his land back. This ended in a compromise where he got back 80 acres of his original land of the 320 that were there. Elwin, his son, helped him sell it for a thousand dollars to help him restart his life. Elwyn said he was 72 years old when he took a small bundle of his possessions, some matches and a little food, and started off for Fort Myers. He traveled along the same sandy trail I had taken previously. I found my father a place to stay. He did some jobs for Lewis Hendry, the attorney who had handled his case, both of us had to start our lives over again from scratch after some 17 years. End quote. Now this is where things get strange. I'm not talking inside out earth strange, I'm talking crazy corpse strange. Another important, important belief of the cult was a belief in reincarnation. Not in the eastern sense of your soul transferring to another body, but that your body, like Christ, will rise again. Members who died at the New Jerusalem were buried in shallow graves without headstones, because what would they need those for? These were just temporary measures. They would soon rise again. And when he'd died in 1908, his followers propped up his corpse in a tin bath on a stage of a lovely little art hall on the property, assuming that he would resurrect himself like Christ. After three days, this did not happen. He just remained a corpse in an upright tub on a stage for a number of days, longer than three. Eventually, the county health inspector demanded that they bury him. Exactly how the county health inspector knew what was going on is a mystery. But the members just thought that he was being a stubborn decaying corpse. So rather than bury him, they made him a lovely mausoleum on the beach with a 24 hour watchman, so that when he woke up, there would be someone there to greet him. Although in time like years, the 24 hour watch ended, many of his members continued living in New Jerusalem, believing one day that his body would resurrect until his body was swept out to sea in a hurricane. This reminds me of the Love has Won cult, where when the leader Amy Carlson died, they kept her blue corpse, which was destroyed with alcohol and anorexia and OD'd on colloidal silver. They carted her corpse around to like the forest and did a little camping trip with her, waiting for her to reincarnate. And then when that didn't happen, they brought her back to their home, surrounded her with Christmas lights, and eventually a similar thing happened. The city got wind of it and they were forced to hand over the body to the coroner. There is a wild documentary on that cult. It's just called Love has Won, the Cult of Mother God. You gotta check it out. This cult, the Koreshan Unity cult, lasted until the 60s, which was 50 years after Teed's death. And the last remaining member left the New Jerusalem home to the state of Florida. It's now known as the Koreshan State Historic Site and you can visit if you like on the State Park Information center website. It says visitors can fish, picnic, boat and hike where team visionaries once Carried out survey experiments to prove the horizon on the beaches of Collier county curves upward. End quote.
- [29:30]
Unknown
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- [29:59]
Genevieve Mannion
Okay, let's talk about the Agape Monites. This cult is upsetting again. No deaths, no mass suicides. Just a rapist who considered himself to be the Holy Ghost immortal, surrounded by soul brides in a large compound built with the money of his followers, Guarded by bloodhounds, plagued with scandals, dramatic rescues, devil children, forced admissions to insane asylums, etc. The agape monites, originally known as the Lampeter brethren, were led by a man named Henry Prince. He was a clergyman who claimed to hear a voice in his head that was the Lord God himself. His holier than thou themed sermons em and insistences that church members and authorities were submitting to the insinuations of carnal desire got him shipped off to a quieter village church. Authorities hoped he wouldn't cause too much trouble there, but he did. From his pulpit in the Char lynch church, he lambasted the local population as sinners preached instructions from the Holy Ghost who spoke inside his very brain, thumping away at the Bible. He quickly began to realize that this voice in his head wasn't merely the Holy Ghost, but was his very own thoughts as the Holy Ghost. While here in challenge, he would attract congregants by acting possessed, throwing himself around the church. This drama queen did quite a convincing performance. People were very interested and his flock quickly grew. His first wealthy wife died while in this village, leaving him a great sum of money. He then quickly married the sister of the church's rector, another woman of wealthy, independent means. Despite his wild sermons and insistences that he was the living embodiment of the holiest of ghosts, he attracted a wave of very wealthy, mostly women to his parish. When the Church of England got wind that he may be sleeping with women in his church, engaging in carnal pleasures, he was defrocked by the bishop of Bath and Wells for good. They realized they can't just keep shipping this guy off so he took the opportunity to go completely insane and spread his Holy Ghost wings. He claimed not only to be this trinitous ghost, but the visible manifestation of God on earth. Denouncing the Church of England as ignorant bigots, he moved his operations to the south coast of Brighton, where he would quickly gain a large following. Like Cyrus Tiede, he would whip his congregation congregations into frenzies with talk of the end of the world, judgment day, the return of the Lamb of God, and other such nonsense, persuading both the rich and poor to fork over all of their money and belongings to him so that they may build a home for themselves where only those who will be saved will abide. With his ghostmanship, he waxed between calling himself God, the Messiah, the Son, Son of God, back to the Holy Ghost again, and only those that accepted him specifically as the Son of God would be saved from Armageddon and admitted into his abode of love. And guess what, folks ate it up. Regardless of how confusing the guy was, 500 people, mostly rich, older, single women, couldn't get enough of this guy. 200 acres of land were purchased in the Spaxton Valley to build this abode of love. Much like the Koreshan unity cult, this home was big and beautiful. In the summer of 1846, the house was built with 18 bedrooms, sitting rooms, servants quarters, dining rooms, gardens, gazebos, stables. They served their own blend of tea every afternoon at 4. The home also had a bar and a small house located next to the main house. This loving abode was also surrounded by a very high brick wall guarded by vicious dogs designed both to keep prying eyes out and members in isolation, another essential tool that cults use. It didn't take long before Prince began taking numerous soul brides, as he would call it, who he referred to as his closest saints, specifically three sisters. The Nottage Sisters, who conveniently came with an inheritance of $6,000 each. They were separated from their family and prevented from speaking with them or seeing them. They were the only ones in their family in the cult, and those on the outside were very unhappy with the young ladies being part of the group. The older sister, although still in adherent to the faith, was not pleased with this enforced union. Even though she was told that she could remain celibate and the union was only of the soul, she was actually more mad that it meant that she couldn't have sex with anyone, ever. While Prince, now referred to as the beloved, set his sights on the fourth sister of the Nottage family, another $6,000, the oldest sister Agnes told her to sit. Stay away from him. For this betrayal, she was cast out as a whore, as she was also pregnant by another member of the group whom she did not identify. The youngest daughter, Louisa, was absorbed into the soul. Bridegroop. And if you would follow me along the inside of this tall brick wall of this abode of love, I want to show you something. It's 2am November 1846. It's also a bit chilly here. I brought some hot cider because isn't that just so lovely in November? I even put a little cinnamon stick and orange slice in the thermos to make it extra cozy and comforting for us because we're about to witness something a bit intense. Everyone is asleep. A few gas lamps light the grounds, which are tastefully adorned with manicured greenery. The boxwoods lit with moonlight. Let's nestle over here in this corner by the fountain. No one will see us over here, but we will clearly see what's about to happen. All right, get ready. That screaming woman is Louisa Nottage. At the moment, three of her brothers who are not part of the cult are capable kidnapping her. And there they go. They've tied her up and they're running to the front gate. Members are starting to emerge from their cottages to rescue her, but the men have already thrown her in a carriage and they're speeding off down the street. Outside the compound, other members are trying to chase them, but to no avail. They got her. And the members and priorities Prince have no idea where they're taking her. They're taking her to an insane asylum to have her locked away and prevented from returning to the cult. After some time she managed to escape this asylum, but was returned and locked up for two years. When Prince learned of her location, he promptly filed an application to the Commissioners of Lunacy that she was saying. They agreed and upon her release, she signed over all of her money to Prince. Prince lived in luxury with all of his worldly needs, met all of his members. Tending to the gardens, cooking, cleaning. Again, most of his followers were wealthy women. But for those couples that did join the group, the husbands were to stay separated from their wives in separate cottages. Celibacy was the name of the game, but it didn't appear that that rule applied to Prince. There were rumors written in the press that Prince would give sermons naked, that he had women of the congregation arranged on a special wheel and spun with the woman who ended up closest to him being his bride of the week. Whether this is true or not, it's not clear. The Press really dug into this community and the high walls and kidnapping scandals made for creative storytelling without reporters necessarily seeing anything for themselves. A number of reporters were invited to the compound to see how lovely their existence was. And indeed they'd find Prince surrounded by pretty ladies, all playing pool together, tending the gardens, sweeping the grounds. But their beliefs of free love were repugnant to many on the other outside of their compound. I've mentioned before that in the 1800s, free love was this idea that you didn't need to be legally married to enjoy romantic relationships with others. This was a pretty out there concept to a lot of Victorians who clung fast to their institutions, especially those sanctioned by their churches, like rules of marriage and the upbringing of children. Suffice it to say, these folks were often ripped apart in the press, regardless of how lovely their tea and pool playing ladies were. In the Bristol Times and Bath Advocate paper, a May 11, 1850 volume, I found a little article called Agape Monite Pilgrims which reads, Hasselbury for the last fortnight has been visited by hordes of pilgrims, making the Swan Inn a halfway house. On their road to the Agape Mane near Bridgewater. There were wagons filled with furniture and with many of the good things of Egypt bearing on them, the village name of Preston. The villagers of Hasselbury report that they go up to receive or rather purchase absolution for the past and indulgences for the future. The heresies of this modern sect of socialists seem compounded by Mahamadou as well as popery. End quote. Interestingly, that word Mohammedanism was essentially a slur for Islam. And that term poppery means doctrines and ceremonies associated with the Pope. In other words, Catholicism. That reference to the quote many good things of Egypt is interesting. This was a time when many Victorians were obsessed with the exoticism of Egypt, believing that Egyptian artifacts were conduits to the spiritual world, often used in rituals and tended to contact spirits. But reporters didn't really seem to know what these people really believed, other than that they were a free loving sect and they assumed that they knew what they were up to. But if they really knew what they were up to, they would find themselves much more disgusted and likely enraged. The number one selling product of its kind with over 20 years of research and innovation. Botox Cosmetic Adobotulinum toxinae is a prescription medicine used to temporarily make moderate to severe frown lines, crow's feet and forehead lines look better in adults.
- [41:15]
Unknown
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- [41:57]
Genevieve Mannion
See for yourself@botoxcosmetic.com One day Prince performed a ritual inexplicably to his celibate congregants that was so horrid, sickening, twisted and luckily lost him a good many members. He truly believed that he was infallible and could simply do whatever the hell he pleased with anyone he pleased, and to prove this to his congregants, he raped a 16 year old girl on a billiard table in front of all of them. He called this the Great Manifestation and Divine Purification. A Victorian male obsession in general was the virginity and chasteness of young girls, and there was no two ways about it. He wanted to have sex with a virgin and he wanted his cult to watch him do it. He demanded that a group of the prettiest young virginal women be made available and he was to choose the most favored. He chose 16 year old Zoe Patterson and in the chapel he raped her in front of a shocked and meekly compliant congregation. As the organ played and they were instructed to sing hymns, Prince exclaimed, thus the Holy Ghost took flesh in the presence of those whom he had called as flesh. He took this flesh absolutely in his sovereign will and with the power and authority of God. Throw up. While some of the quote unquote saints of the congregation felt that this was amazing and isn't he holy or something, many did not, and large numbers of them left, taking their money with them. A short blurb that I found in the Independent, a paper from April 25, 1850 states without giving details, in fact I couldn't find any papers that described these details. Departing congregants must have kept their mouths shut about exactly what made them leave. But this article states that it is said that there is a general split among this deluded sect at their abode in Bridgewater. Many, seeing their folly and disgusted with their course of life, have intimated their intention to return to their homes and families. Young Zoe was impregnated by this rape and her child, who you would imagine would be regarded as some kind of Son of God or daughter of God, was referred to as a devil child. Teed swore that this holy union would not produce a child, but that's exactly what happened. So he shunned the child and washed his hands of her. This poor little girl grew up in the community, quiet and shy. Her name was Eve, and her mother took Prince's hand in marriage as the first true bride of the lamb. Prince had a thing for pool. Apart from assaulting a girl on a pool table, that table was an honored addition to the sporting atmosphere of the cult. It reminds me of Keith ranieri with his 4am volleyball obsession. He was the leader of the NXIVM culture. Prince would receive many more wives with different special little titles and commissioned the building of a large church with a 155 foot tower of Portland stone, intricate oak beams and stained glass windows depicting the submission of women to men. Shortly before he died in his mid-80s, he brought on a preacher to pass his baton to a Reverend Smythe Pidgeot. Prince's death was greeted by his followers mostly with disappointment that he wasn't actually immortal. But they didn't try to prop his corpse up in a bathtub or anything. He was simply buried in the cemetery on the grounds by weeping congregants with no belief that he would claw his way back up again in three days. They were mostly in a state of confusion and shock that he died at all. Smyth was prepared to keep speaking nonsense to these people. He announced that God was no longer in heaven, confusingly as Prince was supposed to be God and the Holy Ghost and Jesus or whatever. Bottom line is, he was already there, buried on earth. He explained that Prince was indeed the Holy Ghost, but now a fresh, shiny new Messiah had come to take his place. Who's got two thumbs is God and is ready to exploit all of the women he can get his hands on this guy. He announced to the congregation that he was now their new Messiah and they split in two, with half of the church shouting loudly, calling him a heretic. Smyth did not live on the grounds of the abode of love, but by the time he left the church, word had already spread through the town that this man proclaimed himself to be the one and only Son of God, and 3,000 people quickly surrounded his carriage as he tried to leave, shouting and threatening violence. Police were assembled to quell the crowd and he was allowed to leave. But amazingly, or I guess not so amazingly, a whole half of the cult stayed. And we're like, sounds good, let's go play some pool. And what to me is one of the most deflating and sickening situations that happened in this cult. The grown devil child of Zoe, the raped 16 year old girl, young Eve, who, when Smythe was anointed to the new leader of the cult, personally vetted Smythe's 50 new soul wives. She had come to hold a senior position in the community by that time. What an inspiring coming of age tale. From discarded devil child to the devil's right hand. I always find this aspect of cults to be the most insidious when women are groomed and manipulated into doing the dirty work of cult leaders. You saw this with the NXIVM cult. In the Twin Flames cult, it's very common. Men are also expected to do this as well. But in most cases where young girls are groomed for sexual exploitation and abuse by the cult leader, it's so often women who help to get the ball rolling. It kind of makes me think of a scene in the Menendez Brothers docudrama on Netflix where Lyle explains why he himself molested his brother, who was also being molested by their father. They both were, so they claimed. When asked why he did it, he said something so simple, I had to make it normal. I don't know if this is an actual quote of his. He did admit to molesting his brother and did apologize publicly, so that did happen. But when I think of the women who are manipulated into further exploiting and abusing other women in these cults and why they could possibly do to other women what has been done to them. Abuse or help the abuser. Abuse. That quote just makes so much sense, doesn't it? They have to make it normal. I think it's so similar to why Elwyn's father stayed in the Koreshan Unity cult. The truth is too painful to admit to themselves that they've been victimized, so they submit to the fantasy. There's obviously much more to this complex behavior than just this aspect. I just find that particular aspect so heart wrenchingly fascinating. And I think it explains a lot about why so many women enable men to abuse other women in general. I gotta make it normal. Smyth would go on to claim to be able to walk on water, and his final years were marked by mental illness and physical decline. He died in 1920 a few folks still remained in the cult without a new Son of God to call their own. They continued to worship the previous Holy Ghost Jesus Messiah gods, with the last member dying in the 1950s. Okay, as usual, tough episode. Lot of upsetting information there. But here is something to make you feel a little bit better. Thanks to the tenacity of family members, the courage of cult survivors, the work of psychologists who have created effective systems of deprogramming and actionable steps that families can try to convince their family members stuck in these monstrous organizations to leave, many modern day cult leaders will be spending the rest of of their lives in prison. Just a couple of examples of these bastards getting what they deserve. Here's a fun little Keith Raniere, leader of the NXIVM cult that branded women's vaginas with his initials. He got 120 years for racketeering, conspiracy and sex trafficking. Elijah Bishop, sex cult leader, otherwise known as Nature Boy who posted revenge porn of women who tried to escape his cult life in prison. Manson obviously nine life sentences in prison. Larry Ray, the Sarah Lawrence College cult leader who manipulated young women into sex work for him. 60 years in prison. Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and rapist life plus 20 years. Tony Alamo, the leader of the Alamo Christian foundation gave bashing child rapist 175 years in prison and on and on. Folks aren't getting away with this stuff quite as easily as they used to. Again, thanks mostly to victims who have come forward to tell their stories. If you want to help those who help these victims, visit safepassagefoundation.org if you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please Rate, Review, subscribe, comment, say hi on Instagram and Blue sky or join my Patreon to listen ad free and support the show. Be kind to yourselves and I will see you in your nightmares.