FROM THE VAULT - Warren Jeffs & the FLDS: Cult Power, Mormon Polygamy, and Child Abuse (Part 1)

Summary

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RedHanded: FROM THE VAULT - Warren Jeffs & the FLDS: Cult Power, Mormon Polygamy, and Child Abuse (Part 1)

Date: April 8, 2026
Hosts: Anna & Surruti
Episode Theme: An in-depth exploration of Warren Jeffs, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), the roots of Mormonism, and the patterns of abuse, child marriage, and power within the FLDS.

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Episode Overview

This episode marks the first part of a two-part series examining the rise of Warren Jeffs within the FLDS, a fundamentalist off-shoot of Mormonism. Anna and Surruti trace the FLDS’s twisted history, spotlight the horrifying abuses of power, and break down how Mormon doctrine was warped into a cult of control, misogyny, and systemic child abuse under Jeffs. Woven into the conversation are insights into cult dynamics, Mormon history, and the chilling realities faced by FLDS women and children.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Setting the Scene: FLDS, Cult Power, and Child Marriage

• Story opens with the forced marriage of 12-year-old Mary Ann Jessup to the 51-year-old prophet—the beginning of an exposé on FLDS “marriage” practices ([01:06]).
• Warren Jeffs’ control over marriages—trading women and girls, defrauding the government, and treating members as currency ([05:00]-[05:30]).

Surruti [02:33]: "The picture at the top looks like a dad and his 12 year old child and then they're making out. It's disgusting...It's truly vile."

2. Cult Leadership & Obedience

• Jeffs creates a closed, unquestioning community, thriving on obedience with the promise of heavenly rewards ([04:17]).
• Discussion about how “cult” operates—absolute power, deferred rewards in the afterlife, and isolation from the real world ([04:36], [05:00]).

Anna [05:00]: “He traded women, children and families like they were currency...He routinely married the group’s underage girls and pawned others off to his powerful friends.”

3. Mormonism’s Complex Legacy

• Differentiation between mainstream Mormons and the FLDS ([06:56]–[07:11], [09:14]), emphasizing that not all Mormons share these extremist beliefs.
• Warning against uncritical adherence to any doctrine, not just religious ([07:11]).

Surruti [07:11]: “Anytime anybody is asking you to suspend your disbelief, to stop thinking for yourself, to stop critically analyzing anything, this is what you fucking get...loads of kids get fucking raped.”

4. Enter Joseph Smith: Origins and Early Mormon Doctrine

• Colorful recounting of Mormon history—from ancient Israelite migrations to North America, Joseph Smith’s visions, and his founding of the LDS movement ([09:50]-[19:37]).
• Joseph Smith’s background in mysticism, fraud, and charisma ([11:15]-[14:00]).

Anna [13:50]: “And it was in this zeitgeist of less than mainstream religions that the young Joseph Smith absolutely thrived.”

• Smith’s alleged divine mandate for polygamy, leading to decades of plural marriage (bigamy) ([22:43]).
• Shock at how polygamy entrenched itself in early Mormonism ([22:55]) and the resulting child marriages ([23:02]).

5. Polygamy, Power, and Misogyny

• Stories illustrating the destructive, disorienting results of polygamy, even creating “step-grandmothers” from teenagers ([23:30]-[24:23]).
• The toxic legacy of treating women as currency for divine “exaltation” ([29:49]-[31:15]).

Anna [29:49]: “If you don’t have three wives, you can’t reach the fullness of exaltation in the afterlife. So these people are having their eternity taken away from them.”

6. The FLDS Splinters Away

• FLDS foundation in the 1920s: six families flee to Short Creek for polygamy ([31:59]), resulting in a closed, inbred, and increasingly radical community ([33:03]-[33:55]).
• Discussion of the biological and social consequences of this insular community ([33:17], [34:26]).

7. Modern-Day Prophets: From Leroy Johnson to Rulon Jeffs

• The succession of FLDS leadership: from “keep sweet” Johnson to “one man as prophet” Rulon Jeffs ([39:58]).
• Rulon’s absolute authority, believed to be divinely appointed to live 350 years ([40:21]).
• Introduction of extreme restrictions: coffee, swearing, even mass execution of dogs following a child’s death ([41:35]).

Surruti [41:44]: “Men are in charge in the FLDS. When a boy turns 12, he is initiated into the Aaronic priesthood, immediately granting him more authority than his own mum.”

8. Systemic Grooming and Sexual Abuse

• Details of how underage girls were assigned in marriage by decree of the prophet, often to himself or high-ranking men ([44:45]-[45:20]).
• Absence of sex education, coercion, and parental complicity due to religious pressure ([45:20], [46:27]-[46:53]).
• Rulon’s “three-handshake” system to select new (often teenage) brides ([44:45]).

Surruti [45:20]: “These children, these girls' parents hand them over to this 86 year old decrepit man to basically be like maritally raped on a daily basis by him...the power of their belief overrides that deeply, deeply biological instinct to protect your child.”

9. The Rise of Warren Jeffs

• Warren Jeffs’ troubled childhood—early abuse, lack of charisma, and grooming for power ([47:35]-[48:16]).
• Early accounts of Jeffs’ predatory behaviors—sexually abusing siblings, then children at the FLDS school he ran ([48:16]-[52:10]).
• Manipulating school curriculum to indoctrinate and control, especially girls ([50:09]-[51:26]).

10. Consolidation of Cult Power & Final Schism

• Rulon’s health fails; Warren isolates him, seizes power, and cracks down on outside influence ([54:09]-[55:22]).
• Ban on technology, music, traditional holidays, racist sermons, demand for financial assets ([55:42]-[57:58]).
• Failed apocalyptic prophecies (Y2K, Olympics), prompting mass migration to Short Creek ([58:00]-[60:30]).
• After Rulon’s death, Warren asserts himself as prophet, marries his father’s wives (including his own mothers), and solidifies total control ([61:43]-[63:59]).

Anna [63:01]: “Warren Jeffs called all of Roulande’s bajillion wives into his office...he said last night, seven of you married me...over the next few days, Warren Jeffs married all of his father’s surviving wives. He married his own mother, all of his own mothers.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Cults and Critical Thought

  Surruti [07:11]: “Anytime...you’re just being dictated to from a doctrine...it stops you from critically engaging...this is what you fucking get.”

• On Early Mormonism

  Surruti [14:00]: “After this, Joseph Smith became a scryer, which is basically someone employed to find buried treasure using magic...Smith never uncovered a single piece of actual treasure. Instead he was convicted of fraud.”

• On Bigamy and Abuse

  Anna [22:43]: “Joseph Smith himself married more than 40 women. The youngest was just 14. And he told all of these women and girls that unless they married him, they would be damned for all eternity.”

• On FLDS Structure

  Surruti [41:44]: “Men are in charge in the FLDS. When a boy turns 12, he is initiated into the Aaronic priesthood, immediately granting him more authority than his own mum.”

• Sexual Abuse and Parental Complicity

  Surruti [45:20]: “The power of their belief overrides that deeply, deeply biological instinct to protect your child. Which is what's so interesting.”

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Episode Structure & Key Timestamps

• [01:06] – Shocking story: 12-year-old forced into marriage by the prophet
• [05:00] – FLDS as cult; details of systemic abuse
• [09:50] – Brief, tongue-in-cheek retelling of early Mormon history
• [13:50] – Joseph Smith’s charisma and rise
• [22:43] – Early church bigamy and abuse
• [23:30] – John Krakauer’s account of Debbie Palmer: polygamy’s effects
• [29:49] – Modern Mormon schism; “exaltation” and celestial promises
• [31:59] – FLDS isolating to Short Creek in the 1920s
• [39:58] – Transition: FLDS leadership to Rulon Jeffs
• [44:45] – FLDS marriage rituals; girls assigned as wives
• [47:35] – Warren Jeffs’ upbringing, abuse, and rise
• [50:09] – Indoctrination at altar Academy
• [54:09] – Warren isolates and usurps power from Rulon
• [55:42] – Warren’s purges: technology, holidays, music
• [58:00] – Failed doomsday prophecies; mass migration to Short Creek
• [61:43] – Rulon’s death and smooth Warren Jeffs’ total ascent

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Memorable Moments

• The hosts’ dark humor and irreverent tone pepper the episode, helping to balance the distressing subject matter with sharp asides and relatable observations—e.g., riffing on the cost of printing ([18:28]-[19:01]) and soaking in Mormon sexual practice ([42:39]-[43:26]).
• Notably, the episode is empathetic to victims, avoids painting all Mormons with a broad brush, and maintains a focus on abuse and power—not faith itself.

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Looking Forward

Next week: Part 2 will dive into Warren Jeffs’ reign, the escalation of abuses, his fall, and the lasting scars left on survivors and communities he controlled.

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Closing Quote:

Anna [64:00]: “Blessed are the meek, for they may inherit the earth.”
Surruti [64:03]: “Bye.”

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Transcript

[Saru]

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[Anna]

I'm Anna. I'm Surruti and welcome to Red Handed, where this week we've got my absolute favorite topic, Morbids.

[Saru]

It is your favorite. I am getting, after having gone through the script for this, I'm getting pretty sick of them, but I have to get through it now.

[Anna]

We saw Two in the Wild yesterday.

[Saru]

We did, you're right. Yeah. They're everywhere. They are, they're surrounding me. It's like they know that we're gonna do this two parter and they're onto us.

[Anna]

When Mary ann Jessup turned 12, her father decided that she was ready for marriage. But who she married wasn't up to her. Wasn't even up to her dad. The only person who could decide was the Jessup's prophet, a man who they believed had a direct line to God. The prophet conducted one of what he called his heavenly sessions. He jerked around wildly like he was in a trance and cried out messages from his God to be transcribed. And this time it was God's will that the 51 year old prophet himself, she'd marry the 12 year old Marianne.

[Saru]

How convenient. And so, three weeks after her 12th birthday, they were married. Marianne's father, a high ranking bishop in the church, presided over the nuptials at the 1,700acre yearning for Zion complex in Texas. After the ceremony, the gangly 6 foot 5, 51 year old prophet posed for a photo with his new bride. And I would urge you dear listeners to come and follow us on social media so you can take a look at this horrifying picture that I am currently gazing upon.

[Anna]

Horrifying is the word.

[Saru]

I hate it. It's so the picture that's like at the top of the three, we're looking at a little triptych of horror. The picture at the top looks like a dad and his 12 year old child and then they're making out. It's disgusting.

[Anna]

It's truly vile. And because she's in one of those like Mormon dresses, kind of looks like fancy dress.

[Saru]

Yeah. Not liking it. So. Yeah. Let me just describe for you in a bit more of a visual way what's going on here. You've got this old man with his arm wrapped around this child and he leans down for a passionate kiss. And although in the picture it looks like Marianne is thrilled by what is happening, there is no doubt that this must have been a strange and confusing experience for her, because her upbringing had taught nothing but purity and chastity above all else. But if this kiss is horrifying for all of us to look upon, and presumably for Marianne to have gone through, it was nothing compared to what would happen to her later on. A bright white custom built ceremonial bed in a secret room in the Prophet's temple.

[Anna]

And poor little Mary Ann was far from the only one. Over the years, Warren Jeffs, the man in the photo, married as many as 80 wives.

[Saru]

Who has got the energy for that? I, like, don't know. I, like, do not know what this man is taking, what a lot of the people in this are taking. But like, where is that energy coming from?

[Anna]

I've just. No, well, it's coming from God.

[Saru]

Quite.

[Anna]

For decades, the man that thousands called Prophet ran a devoted community with an iron grip. The community was severed completely from the outside world. They had their own parallel reality of unquestioning obedience in exchange for huge rewards in the afterlife.

[Saru]

That is always the best way to manage your cult because that's what it is. By just being like, yeah, yeah, yeah, just do everything I say and then I promise, when you're dead, jackpot.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Saru]

Because guess who's not gonna be around to have to answer questions then? You.

[Anna]

Yep.

[Saru]

Genius.

[Anna]

I can't prove it to you, but you just have to believe.

[Saru]

But believe me, it's going to be fucking great. Yeah.

[Anna]

And if you don't believe me, prison in hell. Yeah, Religio prison. Warren Jeffs in this community that just pretended the real world didn't exist. He traded women, children and families like they were currency. He defrauded the government for hundreds of thousands of dollars. He routinely married the group's underage girls and pawned others off to his powerful friends. These girls were encouraged to conceive as early as humanly possible because they had to keep the community's numbers up and presumably give him more wives. And despite how it all sounds, this really wasn't some random cult in the middle of nowhere. In the 70s, Warren Jeffs built his sinister community rife with blatant sexual exploitation in the USA in the 2000s, using the doctrine of a religion that's practiced by millions. And this is a two parter for you. A two parter on the man himself, Warren Jeffs. We're going to look at how he went from a fire and brimstone preacher to joining Osama Bin laden on the FBI's top most wanted list. And we weren't going to let you get away with our red handed rundown. Saru's so happy about it.

[Saru]

Look, I haven't got anything against it and I am, I am pumped for this episode. Like this was, this was my suggestion to do this two parter. I'm fascinated by Warren Jeffs because I'm fascinated by cult leaders. And anyone who listened to any of the episodes we ever did on our short lived year long series Sinister Societies will know that Warren Jeffs is very industrious. He's this very industrious cult leader, right? He really has his finger in a lot of horrible disgusting pies. And I'm sorry to put that image in your head, but there you go. I'm just like the Mormons. Shut up. But not all of them, not all of them, like we're going to go on to talk about, obviously not all Mormons are the same, same. But this is, it's just so ludicrous.

[Anna]

And it's also something we've spoken about a lot. When people are like, oh yeah, sure, like they are of my religion, but they're not really. Yeah, I'm not responsible for this. But it's all part of the same rich tapestry.

[Saru]

All I would say is obviously there are different types of Mormons. There is like a big, big spectrum of them. We're going to go on to discuss that in this episode. So if you are Mormon, like, look, I'm not trying to offend you, we chat shit about all religions because all it does, and this is perfect proof of the problem with this kind of like non thinking community, right, where you're just being dictated to from a doctrine that is thousands of years old, or in this case not even thousands of years old by like one person who holds all the power and all of the knowledge. It stops you from critically engaging. And you don't just see that in religion, you see that all over the place these days. And anytime that anybody is asking you to suspend your disbelief, to stop thinking for yourself, to stop critically analyzing anything, this is what you fucking get. And I'm just feeling in a bit of a tetchy mood about it because loads of kids get fucking raped.

[Anna]

Yeah, I mean tetchy is putting it lightly.

[Saru]

I'm feeling tetchy about all the child rape we're going to have to discuss for the next two weeks. But it's all right. I've had a fucking massive Coffee. So let's do it.

[Anna]

I get like notifications when you use your amic. And I was like, oh, she's on her way in.

[Saru]

She's in Starbucks. Yes. So much coffee. So much coffee.

[Anna]

I've had quite a lot of coffee too. Anyway, it's red handed rundown time. Mormon styling. We need to understand the Mormons or we're not going to be able to understand. Well, I mean, we're not going to be able to understand Warren Jeffs, but we can give it a good go. We're going to tell you the story behind the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and how the visions of a 17 year old farmhand. I'm trying to. My brain is working so slowly. What I was trying to do, I was trying to make a joke about how in the live show you are Joseph Smith.

[Saru]

Yeah.

[Anna]

So just pretend I do.

[Saru]

Sure, sure, sure, sure. Very niche for the thousands of people that have seen the tour. But yes, spoilers for anybody who has yet to see the show when we eventually take it to Australia and New Zealand. I do role play as a 17 year old Joseph Smith.

[Anna]

Yeah. Wonderfully Oscar worthy.

[Saru]

Thank you very much. And that is it. I just want to clarify like who we're talking about today, like Warren Jeffs, this whole group, it's the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So it's not even just the regular Mormons, it's the Fundamentalist Mormons.

[Anna]

Yes. And those fundamentalist Mormons really believe that a 17 year old farmhand had the answers and it grew into a major world religion. And in this episode we're going to look at how Joseph Smith's slightly bonkers but mostly harmless teachings were warped into a systemic cult of child abuse, underage sex and absolute power.

[Saru]

And yes, to do that, we are going to start with a little Mormon history lesson. In Jerusalem, 600 years before the birth of Christ, an ancient Hebrew prophet told his followers that he was done with the Middle East. So he all jumped in a big boat and sailed to North America. They split here into two. The Nephites and the Lamanites. The Nephites went on to become God's chosen people on earth. Hooray. And they were led by their awesome prophet, Mormon. And the Lamanites, who God didn't like. Boo. Were cursed with dark skin for their sinfulness. I'm not making this up. This is what they believe. And just in case you're like, well, what happened to these Lamanites? Well, you might know them as the native Americans. So hundreds of years later, just after Jesus was resurrected in Jerusalem, he teleported to the States to preach to his most venerated saints. He revealed that they had reached the Promised Land and would soon head up the creation of a brand new religion. And its followers would not just be worshippers, but Latter Day Saints. So this is the backstory that opens the Book of Mormon, and we're telling it to you to show just how much the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints believe themselves to be God's chosen people on earth.

[Anna]

Like every religion, I was just gonna say. And just before we get into the modern fundamentalists, let's do a quick refresher on the roots of the Mormon Church. Its founder, Joseph Smith, was born in Vermont two days before Christmas, which makes him a Sagittarius, and he should stay away. I actually think he might be a Capricorn. Sorry? Never mind. Found out Mabel's a Pisces yesterday. Absolutely devastated.

[Saru]

I'm lost. Probably because I'm a Scorpio, Right?

[Anna]

Exactly. Joseph was the third of 10 children raised on a basically unfarmable plot of land that his father rented because he lost all of his money trying to export ginseng to China. Doesn't ginseng grow in China?

[Saru]

It's literally like trying to sell tea to the Chinese. He's like, I've got a great idea.

[Anna]

Joseph moved five times before he was 11 years old. His family settled in Palmyra, New York, which I believe is upstate. Joseph's mum, Lucy Mack Smith, was a superstitious woman who was obsessed with black magic and mysticism. She claimed that God spoke to her constantly, in her dreams and through regular little miracles. And Lucy wasn't the only one. The early 1800s was not only a period of massive economic depression in New England. It's also when what's known as the Second Great Awakening happened. Essentially, people got a bit wary of mainstream churches and looked elsewhere for religious inspiration, like the Imperial Tsarina in Russia.

[Saru]

And the Japanese.

[Anna]

And the Japanese, yes.

[Saru]

After the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, I do wonder if there's some sort of connection. You know, I've talked about it on the show before, about the link between the hemlines, like the height of hemlines. Is that the right way to phrase it?

[Anna]

Length.

[Saru]

The length of hemlines that are in fashion and the current economic situation. And when the economy is up, hemlines are up and we're all in miniskirts. When the economy's down, we're all in midis and maxis. And I wonder if there is also a connection between the economy being up and everybody getting batshit for the occult.

[Anna]

Maybe, maybe you need to find hope somewhere, you know, I'll find a graft. And it was in this zeitgeist of less than mainstream religions that the young Joseph Smith absolutely thrived.

[Saru]

He was hyper ambitious and super charismatic despite his humble beginnings and minimal schooling. And Joseph was quite the showman. He really takes after his mother because he reports seeing his first angel at the age of 14. Two angelic figures he said had visited him and told him that all of the world's religions were wrong. He then got into necromancy and crystal gazing. And when he learned that a girl in his town had a seeing stone, he shot round to have a look. And this girl put a small green stone in a hat and told him to put his face fully into the hat. And immediately Joseph Smith started having insane visions, which, as luck would have it, told him the location of a better seeing stone than this stupid girl in his town was just around the corner. Which I have to say is probably the most typical teenage reaction I can imagine possible. He's like, can I have your stone? No. Well, I know where there's a better stone, so fuck you. So after this, Joseph Smith became a scryer, which is basically someone employed to find buried treasure using magic. And in six years, despite making absolute bank being a scryer, Joseph Smith never uncovered a single piece of actual treasure. Instead he was convicted of fraud.

[Anna]

In autumn 1823, yet another angel appeared to the 17 year old Joseph Smith conveniently in his bedroom.

[Saru]

Sorry, I was just laughing when you said autumn because I was talking to ACD face about something and he was like, oh yeah, I think it's in spring. Or as the Americans call it, fall. That's not what the Americans call it. I was like, it's just spring. Oh yeah. He just said it with such like contempt. And I was like, that's not what they call it.

[Anna]

I feel a bit delirious. I don't know whether it's the heat. Anyway, so this angel was a pretty top dog angel. The angel Moroni.

[Saru]

If you're gonna pretend to have hallucinations about angels, you might as well go

[Anna]

for the big dog.

[Saru]

Though I do think there is a level of believability if you drop it down a few rungs.

[Anna]

Very true.

[Saru]

It's like in hereditary they don't just go straight to everybody being devil worshippers. So passe. They go for, oh, it's like his minion. It's much better. It's much smarter, much more believable.

[Anna]

Very true. So this angel Moroni told Joseph of a sacred text written on some golden plates which had been buried 1400 years earlier in, you guessed it, basically his back garden there in New England. So Joseph went to go and have a look, but he was forbidden to take the golden plates with him. In fact, Moroni revealed a rule straight from the big man that there was only one way that the human race would get to read this new scripture that was on these golden plates in New York. And that way was if Joseph Smith got to marry his neighbour Emma.

[Saru]

It's like the weirdest reference only library in the world.

[Anna]

Yes.

[Saru]

Can't take the book unless you marry a neighbour who you desperately want to marry but who doesn't like you.

[Anna]

Yes, he did desperately want to marry his neighbour Emma. He'd already asked her dad multiple times if he could marry her, but Emma's dad said, no, you're a fraudster. You can't marry my daughter. So, yes, more teenage stuff. You're probably familiar with the rest of the story. Joseph Smith put on a pair of magic glasses given to him by the angel Moroni. And these magic glasses allowed Joseph Smith to read the strange hieroglyphics that were on these golden plates. And then Joseph Smith dictated the entire Book of Mormon live out loud to his friend Martin, Martin Harris, to give him his full name. Then Martin silly Martin loses the whole transcript. So Joseph Smith had to recite the whole Book of Mormon again, and he did that with his head in a hat. And we've just got one last example of what Joseph Smith could get away with with pure charisma. It seems when he finished the transcript, he took it to a local paper and asked them to print 5,000 copies, which they said would cost $3,000, which in 1892 is an enormous amount of money.

[Saru]

I'm glad to see that printing costs have stayed remarkably the same since 1829 to 2023. Have you ever tried to print something? It's so fucking expensive.

[Anna]

Oh, my God, tell me about it. At uni even we had to pay for our own printing. Like, you can't. Yeah, yeah. You had to like top up your card and pay for printing and photocopying.

[Saru]

Oh, maybe we did. I don't know, it was such a long time ago. Also, like, I don't want to just become like these weird shit, like observational comedians. Do you know how much printing costs? But, like, I couldn't leave that one. Yeah.

[Anna]

What's with bottled water? Am I. Right. Anyway, Joseph Smith did not have $3,000, so he had a word with God. And God told Joseph the following. My will is that Martin Harris pays it. So Martin Harris sold his farm, footed the bill, and the Book of Mormon was printed. On April 6, 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was born.

[Saru]

So Mormonism has always centered on this kind of extreme, unquestioning, blind faith. John Cracker talks about this in his amazing book under the Banner of Heaven, which if that name sounds familiar and you haven't read the book, is because this story of a murder in the Mormon Church also became a series starring Andrew Garfield.

[Anna]

Apparently it's very good. I haven't seen it.

[Saru]

I haven't seen it, but it is on my list to watch. So the book has actually been a huge help when we were researching these two episodes. And John was actually a massive part of the investigation into Warren Jeffs himself. So we will definitely be coming back to him next week. So in the book's intro, John writes, the faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness, a crucial component of spiritual devotion. Common sense is no match for the voice of God. Look, I'm not here to be like one of those wanky teenage like, oh, you believe in God? Like. No, believe in whatever you want to believe. It's when it becomes organized and it's when it becomes a tool to oppress and control and abuse and that I have issues with. And that's a very human. Yeah, that's a very human condition. That's a very human behavior. And you don't need religion, you don't need God to do that. We see plenty of ways in which people are controlled and censored and abused. Now with non religious theocracy, I would even say. But you know, I think it comes back to that statement that I like, which is you can't reason somebody out of an argument that they didn't reason themselves into. Nope. And that is pretty much the fundamental basis of this entire episode. Yeah.

[Anna]

And that's Richard Dawkins's approach, is that you cannot argue with someone about faith because you will always hit that wall.

[Saru]

Exactly. And in Mormonism, especially in the hardcore fundamentalist kinds that we're going to talk about today, their extreme level of unthinking dedication is matched one for one with incredible rewards. As we've said before and at the start of this show, not all Mormons are quite the same level. And the split between the kind of Donny Osmond kind of Mormon and the Sister wives, prairie dresses, kind of Mormon Happened because of one thing and one thing, bigamy. Plural marriage is not just a custom or a quirk in Mormonism, Treating women as currency is absolutely fundamental to the foundations of the church. Shortly after Joseph married his neighbor Emma, who was central to the setting up of the church, he suddenly said he'd had another revelation. He was impelled by God to marry loads more women. Emma obviously wasn't that happy about this plan, but what did she know? And soon this idea of multiple wives was written into scripture.

[Anna]

In section 132 of Mormon Holy book, the Doctrine and the Covenants, Smith called plural marriage. And this is a quote, the most holy and important doctrine ever revealed to man on earth.

[Saru]

Kind of makes me suspicious about your motivations. Yep. But again, where are you getting all this energy?

[Anna]

Over the years, Joseph Smith himself married more than 40 women. The youngest was just 14. And he told all of these women and girls that unless they married him, they would be damned for all eternity. And if this 1850s nonce is making you feel grossed out, probably don't listen

[Saru]

to next week's episode. Yep. Because we will be hop skipping and jumping into the 2000s where things are not much better. In fact, I'd say they're much, much worse.

[Anna]

Let's have a quick example of what bigamy can mean within a community. Here's an example from John, who wrote the book.

[Saru]

This is so disgusting. This is horrifying. I hate it.

[Anna]

So in under the Banner of Heaven, he tells us the story of fundamentalist Mormon girl Debbie Palmer. When Debbie was 14, she married the 57 year old leader of her sect. She was his sixth wife and she instantly became stepmother to 31 children, most of whom were older than her.

[Saru]

Yep.

[Anna]

Debbie's new husband also happened to be the father of her own stepmother. So Debbie became a stepmother to her own stepmother. And I'm really trying to figure this out. Debbie managed to become her own step grandmother. My head hurts.

[Saru]

That is so horrendous.

[Anna]

So, yes, polygamy is gross, confusing, weird, and from the very start, it gave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints quite a bad name.

[Saru]

And we've talked about this before on the show. All of the research, all of the evidence shows that countries that engage in polygamy as, like, part of the norm have much, much, much less stable economies and societies than in countries and societies that don't practice polygamy as, like, a regular thing. Because all that happens is exactly what's happening here. A few powerful men take all of the women and all of the other men become disenfranchised. And then you have this condition that young men developed where they're like unattached. And it's. I've forgotten what it's called, but it's something like Viking, like a Viking syndrome or Viking mentality.

[Anna]

Oh, interesting.

[Saru]

Where basically unattached men, their tendency towards violence and aggression is tempered by having a partner and having a family, because it forces you to take responsibility, et cetera, et cetera. I'm talking on a very base biological level. So when you have huge groups of unattached men, their sort of proclivity for violence and aggression doesn't get tempered. So you end up having really unstable societies, which I think is really interesting.

[Anna]

That is really interesting. Let's get back to little old Joe with his scrying stone. In 1844, Joseph Smith was sent to prison for his fraud. It finally caught up with him and a furious mob of more than 200 anti Mormon folk, painted their faces black, stormed the prison where he had been incarcerated. And then they killed him.

[Saru]

Pretty extreme.

[Anna]

People felt very strongly about Morton asking my. Before the first leg of the American tour, I said to my American friends, I was like, you know, I need to tone down the Mormon jokes. And they were like, no, I mean, it depends where you are. But as long as you're not in a super mountainous region, which is where they were all driven to because nobody wanted them to live there, you'll be fine.

[Saru]

It's just very like in the face of classical Christianity, right? One man, one woman, et cetera, et cetera. And then here's Joseph Smith being like now one man, 57 women and your grandkids and your fucking step grandmother or whatever the fuck you want.

[Anna]

After Joseph Smith was murdered, a man named Brigham Young took over the church and he led 15,000 followers to salt Lake City, Utah. And there he started to build an empire. But still the American public were pretty loudly appalled by the Mormon marriage Customs. And in 1857, opposition to the Mormon lifestyle culminated in what is known as the Utah War.

[Saru]

The US President himself, James Buchanan, sent the army into Utah to stamp out this budding theocracy and wipe out plural marriage for good. But as you could probably predict, when you try to wage war against a religious group, it doesn't really tend to kill out that way of thinking. It just martyrs the people that get killed and then it just makes the rest of them double down on it. So yes, as you can imagine, this idea did not die out. Legislation after legislation tried to crack down on plural marriage. And it just didn't work until the Edmunds tucker Act in 1887, which forced the Church to disincorporate and surrender all its hefty funds to the government. There you go. When they come after your money, that's how you force some sort of change. Because it was at this point, with their holy backs against the wall, the LDS Church finally officially renounced plural marriage entirely. I think it's at this point that they realise not only will the government keep coming after us if we don't stop this practice, but also will never go mainstream because too many people, they can read the room. Too many people aren't totally game for this as much as we thought they might be. So they do what you need to do. They evolve to prevent their death. Now, in 1904, the church's sixth president, Joseph F Smith, the nephew of Big Joseph Smith himself, made a declaration called the Second Manifesto. It said that the Church would no longer sanction marriages that violated US law, so basically outlawing bigamy within the church. And he also said that anyone carrying out polygamous marriages would be excommunicated. So quite the turning. And it was that move, more than anything else, that made Mormonism into what it is today. Finally free of the association with huge crowds of sister wives dressed in prairie dresses, Mormonism exploded into the mainstream. Today, by some estimates, There are almost 17 million Mormons around the world. So that means there are currently more Mormons out there than Jews. That's crazy.

[Anna]

That is crazy.

[Saru]

I mean, you gotta hand it to them.

[Anna]

You know what? I will.

[Saru]

Good.

[Anna]

Well done, Mormons.

[Saru]

Here you go, Mormons. I'm handing it to you.

[Anna]

But still, even when the Mormon Church modernized and toed the line on the bigamy question, some of them just couldn't let it go.

[Saru]

Imagine you're like, that's the whole reason I'm fucking here. And now you're saying we're not doing that. But that's the best bit.

[Anna]

Yeah. I also find it interesting that, like, interesting but not surprising that the US government are like, no plural marriages. Fucking stop it. We know you hate black people. That's fine, that's fine. Keep doing that. And some of these Mormons were, as Saroo said, outraged. You know, they've got 57 wives. What are they going to do with them? And it was in the book. It was in the Book of Mormon in black and white. If you don't have three wives, you can't reach the fullness of exaltation in the Afterlife. So these people are having their eternity taken away from them.

[Saru]

This is the thing. It was all obviously based on the idea at the very start that as a budding new religion, you need to have loads and loads and loads of kids, like you see in cults being born into the group so that your numbers can grow fast and you can establish yourself as a religion. And then now you're suddenly saying that's not the case. Obviously it's going to throw a bunch of people off because, yeah, they're going to say, well, what else in the book then? Should I not follow if you're saying this doesn't count anymore?

[Anna]

So what do we mean when we say fullness of exaltation in the afterlife? It means quite a lot. If you don't get to the fullness of exaltation in the afterlife, you don't get your own star children, you don't get to create a galaxy for yourself, and you certainly don't get to live forever as a God.

[Saru]

Well, I'd be pissed.

[Anna]

Yeah, we just don't have time this week. But if you want to hear more about the star children and the celestial sex, you need to go to Australia, because it's in the live show. And these Mormons were not going to give up all of that because of some stupid US law. So offshoots of the faithful went their own way. In the 1920s, six families headed to the absolute arse end of Bumfuck nowhere. Short Creek, which is a very remote stretch of land. Also, some people pronounce it short Crick, but I'm not going to do that because I think it's dumb.

[Saru]

This root in creek. Mmm.

[Anna]

Might be an accent thing, maybe Short Creek. But as I've said time and time again, I'm not mispronouncing things, I'm saying it in my own accent.

[Saru]

Yes.

[Anna]

Short Creek is quite so remote because on one side it has the high plateaus of the Zion national park and on the other side, the Grand Canyon. Just hanging out. So it's very isolated, to be honest.

[Saru]

You know what? Like, if you just spent all your time hanging out there with a group of other people who only ever talked about God and visions and angels and all that, you would be forgiven on some extent for believing it, because it must be absolutely beautiful up there.

[Anna]

Yeah.

[Saru]

And I think when you are surrounded by that kind of natural beauty, it's hard not to look at it and think that there must be some sort of creator who made it.

[Anna]

And there, away from the world, away from prying Eyes. Those six families of fundamentalist Mormons married and multiplied like Easter bunnies.

[Saru]

Like Randy Easter bunnies. Yeah.

[Anna]

Because quite the shallow gene pool.

[Saru]

Yeah. Because this is the thing, although it must be very beautiful, nice place to go start your little cult. It is when people go off grid like that, into the middle of absolutely nowhere, that all sorts of abuses start to happen.

[Anna]

Yeah. Within a few decades, there were hundreds of them. And if you are thinking what we're thinking, which is that's a lot of inbreeding, you are correct. Purifying the bloodline was an active aim for Mormon sects. And inevitably it does have its downsides. Some women could have up to eight or nine pregnancies without ever giving birth to a living child. Which of course was chalked up to the women's sinfulness. It's like, was it Queen Charlotte who in the favourite Olivia Colman plays her and she has loads of rabbits because she has so many miscarriages like that.

[Saru]

Yeah. Because, you know, if there's anything we know that purifying the bloodline worked out so well for European royalty.

[Anna]

I actually was reading an article the other day of Charles of Spain, I think, who was so inbred that he couldn't eat properly and he, when he died, so he couldn't really talk, couldn't really walk and he was the king of Spain for whatever and yeah, had to be fed, couldn't eat, but lived into adulthood. And when he died, they opened him up and apparently his heart was the size of a peppercorn.

[Saru]

Oh, I know what, I think somebody's taking liberties there, but I will have it. I mean, also the Egyptians, they were fucking inbred like crazy and just don't watch Cleopatra on Netflix because.

[Anna]

Oh, is it bad?

[Saru]

It is categorically the most bullshit, nonsense, inaccurate, just gibberish I've ever seen in my entire life.

[Anna]

Really.

[Saru]

It is the worst thing that I think has ever been made. Like, and I'm not. I'm not alone. It is so factually incorrect. The people they've cast are completely wrong. Like, it's just. It's like the people who made it have had Egyptians described to them by five year olds.

[Anna]

Okay, well, I want to watch it now.

[Saru]

Well, there you go.

[Anna]

I'll watch it and then we can discuss it on under the Duvet.

[Saru]

Perfect.

[Anna]

We can bring out your notes app that's entitled Problems, Issues.

[Saru]

So the descendants of those six families became known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So here, obviously just a reminder, because we weren't quite off track. Those six families are the six that were hanging out in the mountains near the Grand Canyon and breeding like randy little Easter bunnies. And this group of people is not to be confused with the other similar sects who were nearby with names like the Latter Day Church of Christ. But it all gets very People's Front of Judea. So from now on we'll call our group the flds. And they didn't fare much better than poor old Brigham Young.

[Anna]

I don't, I don't care about Brigham Young. Fuck that guy.

[Saru]

On the 26th of July 1953, more than 100 police officers and state officials turned up for a dawn raid and arrested 122 polygamists. And 263 children were taken away and placed into foster care. Now look, I am all for like minimizing government overreach, etc, etc. Maybe you're out there thinking like these people just want to do polygamy, like who gives a fuck, Just let them do what they want. No, the problem here is, and it will always be when people go off grid like I said, and they're doing whatever the fuck they want with no intervention from social care, doctors, schools, etc. Children are going to get raped. Yeah, that is what's going to happen. And so they take these children away and this whole raid made the front page of the New York Times. The reading public were horrified though at the pictures of children being ripped from their mother's arms. So really it didn't go down quite the way the state thought it would. And so the government was forced to return the children. And from then on the church was kind of given a wide berth and its members therefore spread across the state. Through the years there were several high profile arrests and convictions of FLDS members. Those included charges of surprise, surprise child abuse when errant kids were savagely whipped for protesting against their lifestyle. And there were even allegations and convictions for first degree rape of a child when underage girls as young as 13 were found pregnant and married to significantly older men. But mostly the FLDS and its customs just kept on trucking.

[Anna]

What's the marriage age in the UK?

[Saru]

I think it's 16, but I think you can get married younger if you have parental consent.

[Anna]

That's what I was thinking. I think you can get married at 14 with your parents consent. Let me check. Oh, 18. Oh, this is interesting. Zeitgeist. The Marriage and Civil Partnership Minimum Age act will come into force February 2023. The change in law will make it illegal for 16 and 17 year olds to get married or become civil partners in England and Wales.

[Saru]

I think that's a good thing because this parental consent thing is fucking nonsense. The number of forced marriages I used to produce child protection conferences in certain parts of the country, forced marriage is a massive problem. So saying parental consent is good enough for a 16 year old to be able to get married? Bullshit. No.

[Anna]

So the FLDS sort of toddle off on their own and they just keep on trucking until the mid-80s when it was being run by a farmer called Leroy Johnson. He sounds like a basketball player. Leroy set a precedent of total obedience. His motto, keep sweet no matter what came to define the flds. When Leroy died, a former tax accountant named Rulon Timpson Jeffs took over the presidency. Up to that point a seven strong priesthood council had made decisions for the church altogether. But it was decided that only one man should rule as a prophet. Roulin Jeffs in his followers eyes was the living representation of God on earth. When has that ever gone wrong? Chapter 85 of the doctrine and Covenants I the Lord God will send one mighty and strong to set in order the house of God. And despite being about as mighty as a Communion wafer, the 77 year old Roulin Jeffs was the guy. He was believed to have been divinely appointed to lead the church. With a lineage tracing from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses to Jesus through Joseph Smith and onwards from there.

[Saru]

I mean you can't argue with that.

[Anna]

Yeah, and presumably King David as well. Anyway, Geoffs installed himself just outside of Salt Lake City in Utah. He was the boss. He had power over the town hall, the police department, the schools. Absolutely no one could question him because his words were words of a prophet.

[Saru]

FLDS followers believed unquestionably that their prophet would live for at least 350 years. That or you know, whenever Christ returned to destroy all the horrible gentiles, whichever came first. They believed that Uncle Rulon, as they called him, knew all of their thoughts, dreams and desires. And they knew that if they ever broke even one of the many, many, many rules, they'd lose their shot at everlasting life and all those tasty star children. The church officially outlawed coffee, cigarettes and swearing. Horrifyingly, and this is a good example of like the extreme lengths they went to in retaliation for literally anything. When a Rottweiler tragically killed a child in town, every single dog in the city was rounded up and shot. Members wore long old and timey underwear beneath their clothing at all times, all dating and even Flirting was completely forbidden. Technically, according to the law of chastity, sex is officially forbidden, even between man and wife, unless the wife is ovulating. So no sex even between married people unless you're doing it to have a baby.

[Anna]

Maybe that's why he's got so many wives.

[Saru]

Well, quite.

[Anna]

They'd all sync up though, wouldn't they?

[Saru]

Apparently that's a myth.

[Anna]

Is it?

[Saru]

Yeah. Apparently the whole sinking up thing isn't real, which is quite interesting.

[Anna]

How funny.

[Saru]

I know. Anyway, this is a good point to mention that the FLDS roadmap for post life salvation is pretty detailed and specific when it comes to the men of the church. It doesn't really say what happens to all the obedient women and girls who spend their whole lives, you know, praying and obeying and keeping. Sweet. The book just helpfully says, wives, submit yourself to your own husbands as to the Lord in every conceivable way. Men are in charge in the FLDS. When a boy turns 12, he is initiated into the Aaronic priesthood, immediately granting him more authority than his own mum. And it probably goes without saying here that homosexuality was also definitely considered a sin. The punishment straight from God was death on the spot. Oh, and dad, just in case you're wondering, the same went for sex with a black person.

[Anna]

Yeah. I learned something about Mormon sex the other day. So I was familiar with soaking. Right. Where it's where they just stick it in and don't move.

[Saru]

Yeah.

[Anna]

But there's actually another level to soaking that Mormons do. So for them, like, the act of sex is the thrusting bit. Right. Which is why soaking is kind of okay. But what they do is they get their mate to shake the bed. So they're not moving, but the bed is. And that is so, like, inherently so much more kinkier than just having sex. You should get your pal to, like,

[Saru]

shake the bed, honestly. But this is the thing. The more these people are like, you can't do it, you can't do it, you can't do it. The more energy they have for it and the more energy they have for all this fucking kinky shit. It's so weird.

[Anna]

And unsurprisingly, within the flds, the only person who could decide who married who was the boss, Rulon Jeffs. When a family decided that their daughter was ready for marriage, whether that's age 12 or 20, they brought her to the prophet. He and only he would reveal God's will and tell them who their daughter should marry Should. Sounds like they have a choice. They don't would. And remember, the number of wives you have is a direct reflection of your spiritual status. And the honour was always reserved for the most eminent men of the community. Older high up men who served God the most devoutly would be rewarded with more wives. Sometimes God would decide that a girl should marry the prophet himself. Rulon had a secret handshake. If he squeezed your hand three times, you knew that you had been chosen to become his next wife. When Alicia Roebuck's hand was squeezed by the 86 year old prophet, she couldn't believe her luck. They were married that same night and Alicia was his 23rd wife. Every night the wives would form a queue outside Roulande's bedroom and take it in turns to kiss him goodnight. When it was Alicia's turn, the prophet suggested something she didn't quite understand. He said that they should try a little lovemaking. Alicia had no idea how babies were conceived and absolutely zero sex education. All she knew was that sexual impulses were wrong. Rouland got on top of her and asked her to spread her legs. His younger wives would do anything they could to get him to sleep. Massages, foot rubs, etc. Because they were trying to avoid having to have sex with him.

[Saru]

Oh, I feel sick. It's all just so gross. He's 86. He's 80 again. What is he fucking taking? But no, the thing that's also here, right, is that none of this is happening in secret, right? He's not kidnapping girls off the street and forcing them into this situation. Obviously there's coercive control, there's grooming, but there's grooming of entire families like these children, these girls parents hand them over to this 86 year old decrepit man to basically be like maritally raped on a daily basis by him. And that is the power of this whole situation of cults of any kind of like super, super in believing crowd, which is that it completely interestingly overrides the biological drive of a parent to do everything to protect their child. On a fundamental level you know that this is wrong. But the power of their belief overrides that deeply, deeply biological instinct to protect your child. Which is what's so interesting. So Roland Jeffs, despite being 86 years

[Anna]

old, well he's going to live to 350. He's in the prime of life.

[Saru]

This is true. He's just a teenager. He never slowed down on claiming new wives. He married his first wife in 1940 and was still selecting teenage girls because yes, all of the girls he gave three handshakes to were the youngest of the young in the late 1990s. That's 50 years I was alive.

[Anna]

Oh, God.

[Saru]

And just to put it into perspective for you, Rulin Jeffs would eventually marry 75 girls in total. Needless to say, he also had an absolute army of children. Now, when you have 65 siblings, the middle child syndrome is very real. And you really better be someone pretty fucking special to stand out from the crowd. Someone charismatic, intelligent and charming, someone that people look up to. Warren Jeffs was none of these things. Warren was born eight weeks premature on 3rd December 1955.

[Anna]

That's early.

[Saru]

That is very early. Yeah, two months early. That is a lot. And his mother, Marilyn Steed, believed herself to belong to a royal bloodline. And when church elders assured her that the early sickly baby Warren would pull through, she knew that he was destined for greatness. Because that's the thing. It's not just the rivalry between the children and the siblings. It's also the rivalry between their various mothers and which one of their children is going to like, take top spot for their father. Now, unfortunately for Marilyn and her beliefs, that miracle baby Warren grew into quite a weird, lanky, awkward and abrasive teenager.

[Anna]

My fave.

[Saru]

And he only got worse because when he was 16, he was found by one of his many, many brothers molesting their sister. This was reported to Roulon, who in classic religio style, told them never to speak of it again. Because despite it all, Roland had seen something special in young Warren and gave him a teaching post at the church owned school alter Academy.

[Anna]

I don't think churches should be able to have schools just going to put that out there. But this school had been started by Roulon just to educate his own gigantic family. But soon the school was big enough to take on fundamentalist Latter Day Saints kids from across the state of Utah. The school was built in somewhere called Little Cottonwood Canyon, which sounds very quaint. It's just outside Salt Lake City.

[Saru]

It does sound quaint. It sounds very nice.

[Anna]

It does. But unfortunately it's where Geoff's had his mansion with his enormous family in it. And we probably don't need to spell this out for you, but just in case the education that these children were getting at their Mormon school was about as well rounded as a square or a star or a spiky sea urchin. The school was not built to teach children about the world and history and stuff like that. Cleopatra. The only function of this institution was to prepare the children for a holy Mormon life.

[Saru]

I wonder if the people who wrote Netflix's Cleopatra went to this fucking. Because they don't know shit.

[Anna]

You should write them a letter. I will.

[Saru]

It will just say that cut out of magazine bits. I would love if there was now an advert for Netflix immediately. As soon as I stop speaking. If there is, it's a pure coincidence.

[Anna]

The children were only taught what they called priesthood history, which is the story of their church. And also they learned everything you needed to know about being a good Mormon. Husband, wife, father or mother. And soon Warren Jeffs was the principal of the whole school.

[Saru]

Yep, that's it. Make the principal of the school your son who you call raping one of your daughters.

[Anna]

And this was Warren Jeffs first taste of real power. He didn't waste any time upping the obedience ante. All books not personally approved by Warren Jeffs were swiftly removed from the school. That included any young adult books about smart inspirational characters who blazed their own trail, especially girls. Matilda's out. And surprise, surprise, whole sections were literally cut out of textbooks. Anything to do with human biology, reproduction, space gone. It's like in teeth where they just put a sticker over the vagina in the textbook. The new curriculum made by Geoffs was brought in specifically to teach female obedience. It taught chastity, suppressing urges, sexual purity and essentially how just to be a baby having God loving husband, pleasing machine. Warren Jeffs also instituted a new even stricter dress code at the school. And to enforce that dress code he would often have cause to bring young children into his office by themselves. The children lived in constant fear of being whipped as punishment. And under this authoritative guise, Warren Jeff started acting out even more of his own sick urges. Several accounts of molested children come from this time, including his own nieces and nephews. So already Jeffs predatory behaviour has gone from errant to systematic.

[Saru]

In the late 1990s, Roulin Jeffs decided to move the family, yes, the whole family, to rural Hilldale to avoid the incoming apocalypse. In 1984 the previous prophet, Leroy Johnson had prophesied the redemption of Zion according to the revelations of God is to commence in the seventh period of time. According to our reckoning, that seventh period of time is only about 16 years off. That's ballsy. I'd go a little bit later than that. Maybe you're thinking, well why did he go for that? Why on earth did he make such a ballsy claim? Well it's because 16 years off, 1984. What's that? It's Y2K baby.

[Anna]

I never would have worked that out on my own. Thank you for spoon feeding it to me.

[Saru]

Don't worry, that's why I'm here. So yes, that classic belief that the year 2000 would bring about a worldwide computer crash that would somehow cause havoc, nuclear war and the end of the world found its way into the Mormon belief system too. And we all know that the Mormons absolutely bloody love a rapture story. They believe that a patch of earth containing only the purest believers will be literally lifted up into the sky whilst the rest of the world burns in a fiery pit of agony. Then they'll be placed back down to reinherit the earth and fill it with Mormon babies. Roulon Jeffs was almost 90 years old when he relocated. And it was really beginning to show because although he's meant to live until he's 350, Roulin Jeffs had a severe stroke that made it difficult for him to follow even simple conversations. He was physically weak and occasionally forgot names and faces altogether. During this time, his son Warren really started to buddy up to his father.

[Anna]

When the family moved, Rouland shut down the altar academy. So in 1998, Warren Jeffs, now jobless, was made first counsellor. The first counsellor is the second most important position in the church after the prophet. Obviously. Usually it's just an administrative role, managing the church's affairs. Bank accounts, invoices, probably. But still, Warren Jeffs bit by bit wrestled control from his father. And he also asked his brother Isaac to stand guard outside their front door to make sure only a select few people could see the prophet. Warren said that his father needed time to heal, but he actually just pushed everyone out of Rouland's life. And he would enforce increasingly savage rules on his father's behalf. Saying that he was just passing on the Prophet's words. Warren started to say that he was now consulting with God on a daily basis. And unlike his father who prayed with wrongdoers to help them absolve their sins, Warren Jeffs was a lot more about retribution. If he identified a problem in a family, he would break that family up and reassign the wife and children to a new husband.

[Saru]

That is crazy.

[Anna]

Yeah. And you know, just proves the point that women are currency.

[Saru]

Yeah. And that families are not, you know, independent units of people. It's all ruled by the state in this situation and will make the decisions of who can go with who and who needs to be where.

[Anna]

He also ordered that all FLDS families cut connections to the modern world. There was no tv, no Newspapers, no magazines, no Internet. And he started preaching a new kind of violent racism, saying things like, the black race is the people through which the devil has always been able to bring evil unto the earth. He organised groups of young men to start going around inspecting people's houses for wrongdoing. So he's got his own morality police, like the. What's it, the Hebda.

[Saru]

Hezboh.

[Anna]

Hezboh. He also didn't want anyone to have any fun. He cancelled all traditional holidays, including Christmas, and outlawed dancing like the town in Footloose. And this is shocking. The worst thing he did was banned all recorded music except songs that he had written and performed himself.

[Saru]

Yep, okay. Warren also took on the job of marriage matchmaker. From rule on, he'd approve or disapprove of a match based mostly on physical features and genetic makeup because, yes, he wanted to keep things, in his words, racially pure. He said that the devil was actively trying to get people to mix with different coloured people and that his job as the prophet was to prevent that from happening. This is why the devil's always been cool, man. He's fine with it. So Warren Jeffs ordered his followers to turn any businesses they owned over to him and transfer their savings over to the church. With the new end of the world looming, he told them all to withdraw all of their cash and take out as many loans as they could. Need a lot of money. Do you?

[Anna]

When.

[Saru]

When the big JC turns up. Why? I don't know. Like he's telling everybody to do this. And sure there's a never a borrower or a lender be, but who's going to be demanding it back when all the Gentiles. A bird to a crisp. Quite what they thought they'd do with all that cash in the new Zion is another question. But who are we to question the profit?

[Anna]

Absolutely no one.

[Saru]

They took so much cash out that one local bank, as happens when everybody goes on a fucking bank run as ordered by their bloody prophet, collapsed. And when the millennium came and went and everything was very plainly not on fire, Rulon had a chat with God. And God said that he hadn't been quite convinced that they were worth saving just yet, so he'd given them a bit more time. How gracious of him.

[Anna]

Thanks God.

[Saru]

It was a gift, an opportunity to be even more faithful and obedient. The real Apocalypse, Rouland now said, was coming just two years later in 2002, the year that the Olympics came to Salt Lake City. Big year for Salt Lake Apocalypse. And The Olympics.

[Anna]

Ooh.

[Saru]

Warren Jeffs.

[Anna]

Warren Jeffs preached unreservedly that if the Olympics came to Salt Lake City, that would mean the end of the world.

[Saru]

It's literally the same as what people were yelling about during like, what year did we have it? 2012. So no, it was fine.

[Anna]

It was fine.

[Saru]

It was fine. The world didn't literally end.

[Anna]

No, it was a bit busy.

[Saru]

Fucking joy killers, wicked people.

[Anna]

And even worse, other cultures were gonna come in their hordes from all over the world and they'd be in Salt Lake City just down the road. Ooh. So God wasn't gonna have that. He would be forced to wipe them all out. So Warren Jeffs made the most drastic move yet. He ordered every single one of his followers to move to Short Creek. And you'll probably remember Short Creek from the start of our story. It's the uber remote settlement just past the Grand Canyon where the original six families moved to be left alone. By the early 2000s, the FLDS followers were spread all over Utah. But they all moved in their thousands to Short Creek. The population grew from fewer than 1,000 people to almost 10,000. Basically overnight, 250 truckloads of furniture convoyed down the highway in 30 days. And just like that, Warren Jeff suddenly had his whole church right where he could see them and control them. As the Olympic torch was lit 300 miles away, thousands of faithful FLDS members sat in their home praying, readying themselves for the destruction to come. But quite embarrassingly, once again, the world was not destroyed. 2002 came and went. We all saw it. And for a while, Geoffs didn't have a single word of explanation. Thousands had packed up their lives and moved 300 miles away, all to avoid a fiery death that didn't come. The Gentiles and the apostates were still living their lives. Even still, they didn't dwell on it too much because their invincible prophet's health was declining even more rapidly than before.

[Saru]

Almost like he's just a man. A randy, randy man. So at the Jeff's family 30,000 square foot compound, Warren gave an announcement over the house intercom. He urged all of Roulan's sister wives to go to the prophet's side immediately and sing to him as they entered. His skin was grey and Rulon was visibly fragile. The sister wives sang all night, but by the next morning, the prophet was dead.

[Anna]

It was another inexplicable development. The whole church had been taught from birth that Rulon was going to live for 350 years. There was no plan for a successor because they didn't think they were ever going to need one. But one candidate had been laying the groundwork for years. At Rulon's funeral, Warren Jeffs made sure that he was the only one of his dozens of siblings to stand near the casket. And over the next few days, Warren Jeffs started to speak more and more cryptically.

[Saru]

He seemed to be implying that his father's spirit had transferred into his body like some kind of devout incesty doctor who. He started to call people up to the pulpit and ask them directly, who will be the next prophet? The FLDS community was confused and terrified. But the prophet had to be somewhere. And if this really was him reincarnated, could you risk refusing his orders that had come directly from God? These people had only ever known extreme, increasing obedience for their whole lives. What was the alternative?

[Anna]

Well, we're about to find out. One night, Warren Jeffs called all of Roulande's bajillion wives into his office. It must have been quite large. And he said last night, seven of you married me. And he asked those that had married him to stand up. And the rest, he said that they were soon to be married to him too. Over the next few days, Warren Jeffs married all of his father's surviving wives. He married his own mother, all of his own mothers. Before long, Warren Jeffs was the prophet, just like he had planned. There was absolutely nothing standing in his way. And that is where we're going to be picking up this story next week when we take you through the rise and the luckily fall of Warren Jeffs totalitarian regime.

[Saru]

We'll see you then.

[Anna]

Blessed are the meek, for they may inherit the earth.

[Saru]

Bye.

[Anna]

Oh, yeah, bye.