Liz Cameron, Part 2 - Christ is on Earth, He’s in Prison, and You’re His Bride

Summary

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Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation

Episode: Liz Cameron, Part 2 - Christ is on Earth, He’s in Prison, and You’re His Bride

Date: March 11, 2026
Hosts: Lola Blanc & Meagan Elizabeth
Guest: Liz Cameron, survivor of Korean religious group Jesus Morning Star (JMS) and author of Cult Bride

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Episode Overview

This episode continues the harrowing story of Liz Cameron, a survivor of the high-control Korean religious group Jesus Morning Star (JMS), also known as Providence. Picking up from last week's focus on her indoctrination, Liz details the turning points of her time in the group: discovering its leader claimed to be the Second Coming of Christ sitting in prison for sexual assault, being groomed as a "bride" for this leader, her traumatic journey to meet him in Korea, and how the very breakdown in her physical and mental health ultimately led to her escape. Hosts Lola and Meagan, themselves cult survivors, draw nuanced parallels to their own stories and explore the methods, psychology, and aftermath of cultic manipulation with Liz.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Revelation: Pastor Joshua Is the Second Coming (15:12–20:28)

• Shocking Disclosure: Liz recounts the moment group members revealed their “Pastor Joshua" was actually the Second Coming of Christ, currently imprisoned in South Korea for sexual assault. The group dismissed the charges as persecution.
  • Quote: “Yeah. So this is before I moved in with them…they tell me, I think this was over the course of a few Bible studies. But the first bombshell they drop is, yes, our beloved pastor Joshua is actually in prison because, you know, he's been persecuted for many years … they proved that it never happened.” — Liz (16:00)
• Control of Information: Liz was forbidden to ‘Google’ the leader or the group, with leaders describing seeking outside information as “spiritual suicide.”
  • Quote: “If you look at slander, if you look at Satan’s lies, you’re harming your own spirit … Googling is spiritual suicide.” — Liz (19:12)
• Persecution Narrative: The group used a narrative that Christians are persecuted overseas to make the story believable, playing on Liz’s lack of knowledge about South Korea and Christian persecution tropes.

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The Cult of the ‘Brides’: Indoctrination and Spiritual Hierarchy (20:32–24:12)

• Brides Theology: Liz details the esoteric teachings that women could reach the status of ‘brides’ of the Second Coming, which was positioned as a spiritual honor higher than biblical servitude or sonship.
  • Quote: “He set such extreme conditions so that, you know, … He set the conditions to elevate us to the position of a bride before God, which is almost like the fulfillment of, you know, what God had intended for humanity.” — Liz (21:43)
• Not Just Metaphorical: The relationship was presented as literal — the leader was not only a divine figure but actively selecting brides.
  • Quote: “Jesus failed in his mission…you know he died and okay, so crazy.” — Liz (23:41)
• Grooming Specialness: The group made Liz feel uniquely chosen, a classic cult tactic to boost loyalty and compliance.

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Praying for Signs & Self-Surveillance (26:31–31:54)

• Indoctrination through ‘Revelation’: After each bombshell, Liz describes being told to “pray about it.” But by this stage, her thought patterns had been so fully co-opted that “going away to pray” was really just reinforcing cult messaging.
  • Quote: “You go away and pray and all you're doing is reinforcing the messaging that has been superimposed on your psyche… It's God, it's Big Brother in your head.” — Liz (27:10)
• Interpreting ‘Signs’: Liz shares two moments where random events seemed like divinely orchestrated messages, reinforcing her entrapment (28:38–31:54).

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The Mechanisms of Control, Recruitment, and Escalation (31:54–53:16)

• Evergreens & Faith Stars: Her status as an ‘evergreen’ (essentially a spiritual nun) escalated her involvement, her obligations, and her proximity to the leader — including writing to him in prison.
• Photos & Sexual Grooming: Liz describes how her correspondence with the leader turned increasingly sexual and how she and other women were pressured to send swimsuit photos as “brides.”
• End Times Pressure: The group urgency was ramped up by prophecies that 2012 would be the "rapture," a spiritual (not physical) ascension supposedly already happening.
• Family Estrangement: The group discouraged contact with non-member family, labeling concerned outsiders as "tools of Satan." Liz shares a gripping account of hiding in a closet to avoid her parents’ intervention.
  • Quote: “Go hide in the closet … we’ll handle it." — Liz recalling a leader’s instruction (40:26)
• Surveillance, Sleep Deprivation, and Work: Members were only allowed minimal sleep and kept busy with cult “work” and recruitment. This debilitating regimen contributed to Liz’s physical and psychological breakdown.
• Entrapment and Recruitment: Liz was groomed to use the same methods on new recruits, which was later explicitly revealed to her ("Truman Show moment"), highlighting the insidious cycle of victim becoming perpetrator.

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The Breaking Point and Escape (53:16–55:44)

• Eating Disorder as Escape: Liz’s prior anorexia was retriggered, leading to a hospitalization that gave her the necessary space—physical and mental—to begin her exit.
  • Quote: “I started having panic attacks and I started just basically, like, completely capitulating under the intense psychological and emotional pressure…that’s what saved me. It gave me that little bit of time outside of the immersion of the group." — Liz (53:33–53:47)
• Shared Experiences: Host Megan relates this to her own cult exit: “P.S. that’s how I got out of mine too, was going to eating disorder treatment.” (53:42)
• Aftermath: Liz briefly discusses the long and complicated process of recovery, the lack of support for cult survivors, and the fine line cult members often walk between being both victims and inadvertent recruiters.

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Cult Recovery, Advocacy, and the Law (55:45–59:49)

• Legislative Gaps: Liz highlights the lack of adequate support systems or legal frameworks for survivors of high-control groups, with coercive control laws lagging behind the realities of cult manipulation.
  • Quote: “It is the time when people are most likely to take their own lives. And it's a really, really critical time when people need like intensive support — and there is almost nothing.” — Liz (55:44)
• Training Law Enforcement: She explains her current advocacy work helping Australian Federal Police recognize and respond to cult situations.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Googling is spiritual suicide.” — Liz, on policing group members’ access to information (19:12)
• “I was so terrified of seeing what was there… I ran out of the car.” — Liz, on her mother’s intervention attempt (40:23–40:58)
• “The less you can sleep, the better…And that's obviously very destabilizing, greatly interrupts your critical thought and probably intentional.” — Liz & Christina on the purposeful sleep deprivation (48:32–48:59)
• “They tell you essentially, this is what we were doing to you to get you into the cult…It's like the Truman Show.” — Megan (49:46)
• “Almost everyone is charged with recruitment. For most people that’s coming from a place of sincerity, you think you’re saving people… Then there are the groomers who know.” — Liz (50:55)
• “There's so much working against [cult survivors]… they are incredibly unsafe, incredibly destabilized, don't know who they are, don't know what the world is.” — Liz (55:33–55:44)
• “It quite literally could happen to anyone. You just have to be perhaps in a vulnerable space in your life, which we all are at some point.” — Liz (57:43)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [15:15] — Discovery that “Pastor Joshua” is Christ and a convicted rapist
• [19:06] — “Googling is spiritual suicide” and total information control
• [22:39] — The “brides” theology and elevation above Christ
• [26:31] — Praying for signs, indoctrination via self-surveillance
• [31:59] — Explanation of “evergreens” and groomed roles
• [35:35] — 2012 rapture and cult’s pressure-cooker urgency
• [40:15] — Family intervention and hiding from parents
• [43:12] — First in-person prison visit with cult leader in Korea
• [48:32] — Sleep deprivation, burnout, and intentional destabilization
• [53:35] — Hospitalization and the start of Liz’s exit
• [55:33] — Liz on support gaps for cult survivors
• [57:43] — On how indoctrination/brainwashing can affect anyone
• [59:19] — Liz’s advocacy with law enforcement

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Tone and Dynamic

• Candid, often darkly humorous: The hosts and Liz use humor to process and relay traumatic experiences, always clarifying they take the impacts seriously (“I don’t mean to trivialize the horror of who he was…but it helps me talk about it.” — Liz, 46:08).
• Empathetic and insightful: Parallels are openly drawn between Liz’s journey and those of the hosts, giving listeners multiple perspectives on cult manipulation and escape.
• Largely survivor-focused: The conversation foregrounds first-person experience, minimizing sensationalism and focusing instead on the methods, psychological effects, and long road to healing.

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Further Resources

• Liz Cameron’s Book: Cult Bride: How I Was Brainwashed and How I Broke Free, available in print, on Kindle, and audio platforms.
• Liz’s Advocacy: Working with Australian Federal Police to better identify and triage cult situations.

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Summary Prepared For: Listeners interested in in-depth, first-person explorations of cult manipulation and survival, as well as those seeking nuanced discussions around psychological influence, trauma recovery, and legal reform around coercive control.

Transcript

[Liz Cameron]

This is exactly right.

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[Christina Chamberlain]

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[Liz Cameron]

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[Christina Chamberlain]

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[Liz Cameron]

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[Christina Chamberlain]

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[Liz Cameron]

See full [e-mail] trust me do you trust me?

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Would I ever lead you astray?

[Liz Cameron]

Trust me.

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This is the truth.

[Liz Cameron]

The only truth.

[Christina Chamberlain]

If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't. Welcome to Trust Me, the podcast about cults. Extreme belief and manipulation from two cult brides who've actually experienced it.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I'm Lola Blanc and I'm Megan, Elizabeth.

[Christina Chamberlain]

And this week is part two with our guest, Liz Cameron, survivor of Korean religious group Jesus Morning Star, AKA JMS and author of Cult Bride. Last week we talked about the slow and meticulous process of indoctrination into the group. And this week she'll tell us about how the women revealed that the mysterious pastor Joshua they'd been talking about this whole time was actually not a pastor. He was the second coming of Christ. And he was currently sitting in prison in South Korea for sexual assault. But don't worry, they said it was just because of persecution.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Liz explains how all the perfectly planned indoctrination leading up until this point primed her to be able to accept something like this. How she'd been identified to be one of the brown of this leader, what happened when she traveled to Korea to meet him in person, and how the eating disorder re triggered by the group landed her in the hospital, but ultimately helped her get out of the group, which Lola. We talk about this in the episode, but that's like my story. What?

[Christina Chamberlain]

Oh, my God. I know. It's like, it's such a. It's such a fucked up thing. When someone gets ill because of a group, you don't want them to be ill. But that time spent in the hospital, I mean, we've had on a number of guests like this. That time spent in the hospital is the thing that helps them get out or a.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Or a job. Like, I always go back to Moses Dorm, working in the grocery store for like two weeks and being like, I'm in love with one of the other girls.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Totally, totally.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I'm out.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Totally. Um, well, we will get into all of that shortly. And before we do, Megan, what's your cultiest thing this week?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, my God. I'm so angry, but excited that Prince Andrew, the Andrew formerly known as Prince, was arrested. For the first time in 400 years, someone in the Royal Family has been arrested.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Crazy.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I was on our former guests podcast, Mike Presley. You remember Mike and Abby. He has a new series called Beyond Religion. I did a YouTube video with him, and he asked who my dream guest would be. And I said, Prince Harry, because I think the Royal Family is the wildest of all time, period. And then to see Prince Andrew be arrested right after was like, yes. British people really either are divided where they're like, it's the biggest fraud, crazy thing I've ever seen. Like, get it out of there. Are they, like, so obsessed with the Queen? She's become some projection of like, Mother Earth to them that they get so mad at you. So I'm not, like, trying to come after British people who feel really close to the Queen.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Not the new Queen, I don't think.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, no. Even Camilla. Yeah. I mean. And yeah, I watched the crown religiously. It's wonderful.

[Christina Chamberlain]

I loved the crown.

[Megan Elizabeth]

But, like, she did allegedly know a lot about Andrew's crimes and cover up for a minute. Just, like, get out of here, lady.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Get.

[Megan Elizabeth]

All of you. What is this? This is stupid.

[Christina Chamberlain]

I mean, the. The crown does a great job at depicting, like, how prioritizing pro. Protecting the reputation of the royal family is, like, the number one most important thing.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Correct. And I talk about this. Listen to Beyond Religion. Mike does a great job. And he only speaks sex. Two by twos, but, like, kind of their whole purpose of the royal family, which I find in a lot of cults, the two by two in particular, is to show the rest of humanity, lowly humanity, this example of life. You know, like, we use the fine china.

[Christina Chamberlain]

We're very. Oh, my God.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Like, we have to show people what life. Am I speaking in a British accent?

[Christina Chamberlain]

No, you're not. I'm not. Right.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's just weird.

[Christina Chamberlain]

You just sound weird.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Okay. We have to show the people, like, what it means to be perfect and that that will bring them closer to God. That is crazy.

[Christina Chamberlain]

I mean, listen, I love a castle as much as the next person. I love a fancy room. Um, but it does all feel quite anachronistic in the modern era. Like, we. There is inequality in the world. I mean, but listen, I also understand that we need, like, people in culture to, you know, all rally behind, like, I don't know, I'm. I'm up two minds about it, but it does seem a little bit outdated at this point.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, I mean, like, I don't know shit what would happen if they were like, okay, it's done. Now everybody leave Buckingham Palace. I don't know, like, probably disaster. So this is all hyperbole. But I loved seeing Prince Andrew with his face looking crazy in the cop car.

[Liz Cameron]

Bye.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Bye. Yeah, he never thought that was gonna happen. I know that.

[Liz Cameron]

Allegedly.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Just kidding.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Okay, so that was kind of my. My cultiest thing of the week.

[Liz Cameron]

What was yours?

[Christina Chamberlain]

I listened to a podcast, which I don't do very often, weirdly for a podcaster. I listened to the Being well podcast, which is like a therapy podcast, and the guest was Nedric, lover to Wab, and she was talking about her book, the Balancing act, her new book, which is about codependency, but also healthy dependency. And I thought it was really interesting because they were having a conversation about something that I feel like comes up a lot in sort of the survivor world, which is like this need to have boundaries and how that's really important. But one of the unintended consequences of this boundaries movement is people become over boundaried and they start to fixate on this idea of loving yourself, loving yourself and not needing anyone else. But in reality, we're human beings, we are social creatures, we need people, we do need people. And we're not going to meet our own needs by ourselves forever. So how to develop connection that is healthy and be able to maintain community without doing this sort of, you know, you meet. I, I certainly know my share of people. I'm sure you do too. Where they're like kind of hyper boundaried, where they're like cutting people off left and right. Instead of navigating conflict or like finding a healthier way to have a relationship with that person, it almost becomes a, a replacement for like communication. And then that leaves people. That can leave people, I should say isolated because instead of deepening their connections with people through the process of navigating conflict and communicating, they're just isolating themselves essentially. I just thought that that was really interesting, especially in the context of just like, you know, we talk so much about community on this show and how much we need it, but how that need can go badly. And then I think there's this tendency for many of us to overcorrect or if we've gotten out of a bad relationship and then we're dating again, there can be this knee jerk need to like be a little bit hyper vigilant about whether somebody is crossing our boundaries. And the communication can kind of get lost in the sauce, I think.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Absolutely. When it comes to dating, I am in the latter camp. I'm not even going on a date because my boundaries are so strong.

[Christina Chamberlain]

They are very strong.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's not happening. But I do live by that quote. That's like the cost of community is showing up when you don't want to. So I love that I'm going, I'm going to a lot of kids birthdays and, and you know, and I'm glad that I do every time I leave, but I never want to leave my house. Same, you know, but even I saw you at a birthday party the other night. Like that was a hard news day for me. And the last thing I wanted to do was to like go out, but I did and it. And I. The connections to people I haven't seen in a while and stuff. It does help. So certainly I don't know anything about dating because at this point, to me, romance just seems like a bad idea. Red flag.

[Christina Chamberlain]

And I'm having the opposite experience where I'm just dating everyone. I'm dating all of the men.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Like, if somebody's like, I want to be in a relationship, a man, I'm like, oh, that's a red flag.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Oh my God.

[Liz Cameron]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I'm, I'm, I'm in like the wrong genre because I used to live in a romantic Hallmark movie, so I need to get it together. But yeah, it is balance.

[Christina Chamberlain]

It is balanced.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

But I would say I think it's better to be by yourself than with bad people.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Well, I think that's absolutely true. No one should be with bad people. You, you joke, but I, you know, there are a couple Facebook groups I'm in that pertain to dating and I will see posts sometimes that are like, this man asked me for a second date. Is that a red flag? Girl, Girl interest is okay.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Right, Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, I'm in, I'm in those groups too.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And I'm. And I'm the person replying. Yes.

[Liz Cameron]

Run.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Block him.

[Liz Cameron]

Call the police.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Connection is good. We like connection. We just, you know, just, just try to do our best to make sure it's healthy. And if we conclude that it's not, then we can separate or, or just distance ourselves a bit. But like, we do need that. We need connection, we need friendship, we need relationship, we need community. So that's, that's my cultiest thing.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Okay, great. Well, the only man I'm interested in talking to is Prince Harry about escaping the royal family. So if anybody has the H, let us know. And for now, let's talk to Liz.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Let's do it.

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[Christina Chamberlain]

We left off last week talking about how you have this bombshell dropped on you that Pastor Joshua who you'd been hearing about for months Is this amazing?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Just annoying off. Yeah, formally annoying. Opposition of like I'm supposed to meditate and fast as much as him. Now we realize he's.

[Christina Chamberlain]

He's actually Jesus in prison.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

In Korea for sexual assault. But don't worry because he didn't do it.

[Liz Cameron]

That's totally chill. Yeah, yeah, he didn't do it.

[Christina Chamberlain]

That was just persecution.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

What is your response? Like what, what's going on in your head when they drop this on you?

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah. So this is before I moved in with them. This is when I just come back from Europe with my friends and spent the whole time, of course, being a weirdo and was like getting up praying every morning at 5am they're sleeping in because they're normal. And all I wanted to talk about was God and Jesus in the Bible. And they're just trying to have fun, you know, exploring them all. And so I, I came back and I'd missed them. They'd missed me, evidently, and they wanted to tell me everything, you know, and the whole time that I was in Europe, they maintained a really strong connection with me. They would call me, they would email me, and they also put me in touch with the local group in London and I spent time with them and it was comforting to me because I felt at that point so divorced from everything outside of that group. It just didn't feel like it was important or like I, I just didn't relate to it anymore. I didn't fit in that world. I wanted to be around these that I had been getting to know and slowly aligning myself with. I come back and, yeah, they, they tell me, I think this was over the course of a few Bible studies. But the first bombshell they drop is, yes, our beloved pastor Joshua is actually in prison because, you know, he's been persecuted for many years because he has this very strong faith. And basically Satan used these women to bring false accusations against him that they had been raped and it was just all salacious lies. And they did a test and they proved that it never happened.

[Christina Chamberlain]

This is what they're saying to you, correct?

[Liz Cameron]

Correct, yes. Categorically not true in reality.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Yeah.

[Liz Cameron]

And so I. A few things going on. Obviously, being a much younger, much more naive person who has no idea about the nature of sexual assault claims and how true they normally are. And why would you make a claim like that unless something horrible had happened to you and you were just trying to find justice? Why would you make something up like that? What is there to gain? I, I didn't know about believing women all I knew about what was, you believe, the authority figures in the church, which, again, obviously, I don't align myself with that way of thinking anymore. But I trusted these women. They were women. And, and, and over time, they had been telling me about this incredible, beautiful person, including stories of his childhood, including stories of his mother. They'd really humanized this man to me, well before they told me that he was being persecuted. Add to that, I didn't really know much about South Korea or its culture. I didn't know how well accepted Christianity was over there. I. I just knew it was a country that I didn't know much about. And I'd grown up with, you know, an understanding that overseas, as a general sweeping term, people are persecuted for their faith all the time. Because we love Christians. Love a persecution narrative. They do, yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's so convenient.

[Christina Chamberlain]

It is so convenient, isn't it? And they told you not to Google him when they told you this information. They didn't want you to look it up.

[Liz Cameron]

Correct.

[Christina Chamberlain]

It had to come through their narrative and their framing. Or it was. Was Satanic, basically.

[Liz Cameron]

Right, exactly. And, and like. Which sounds crazy, right? Like, it sounds like, oh, my God, that's such an obvious tell. But back then it was, what, 20, 2011. I was not chronically online like we all are nowadays. I didn't know the name of the church because they had their own name for their own church in Canberra, and I didn't even know it was connected to, like, a larger church. And, you know, it sounds so creepy that they said, don't look it up immediately. You'd want to look it up. Right. But the way that they've presented it to me, and again, in the context of they've earned my trust and they've cut me off from the outside was, you know, if you look at slander, if you look at Satan's lies, you're harming your own spirit.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Spiritual suicide, they called it.

[Liz Cameron]

Correct.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Oh, my, yes. Googling a spiritual suicide.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You're taking your spiritual self and just killing it and ruining the whole.

[Liz Cameron]

That's right.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Secret revelation that the world is trying to take from you.

[Liz Cameron]

Exactly. It's like drinking poison. It's like putting a gun to your head in the spirit. And so I was like, well, I don't want to hurt my spirit. I don't want to dirty it with these satanic lies. Yeah. And again, talking about it now, I'm like, this is so insane. We all know that.

[Megan Elizabeth]

We all feel that way. Don't worry. That's. That's the way it is, yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

You had been primed and indoctrinated and manipulated. Like literally them strategizing together how to get you to believe at the appropriate pace.

[Liz Cameron]

Correct.

[Christina Chamberlain]

He also has or wants wives. Yeah, brides. Explain the brides. Because this is an important turning point.

[Liz Cameron]

I feel it's quite important. So how would I start with a theology of it? A very loose term for what I'm about to explain. So basically, and again, this was presented much further down the track. This was one of the biggest secrets. This was where a lot of like biblical cherry picking and timelines and, you know, Nostradamus prophecies and all this stuff came into play. And they explained that, you know, and we're familiar with, right, the Old Testament in the Bible is where God was almost like a master in relation to human beings. That, you know, when he described human beings, he said, this is my servant Moses, this is my servant Job. So we were slaves in relation to God. And then Jesus came in the New Testament and he elevated the relationship of humans to God, to children. This is my son, you know, and, and he afforded, you know, according to that theology, afforded all of humanity that. Right. And then along comes this, this dude from Korea and he. He's set the conditions, he's laid the foundation. And this was where the setting conditions came in. He set such extreme conditions so that, you know, according to their law, he created the conditions where God could enact the second Coming through him. And he set the conditions to elevate us to the position of a bride before God, which is almost like the fulfillment of, you know, what God had intended for humanity.

[Christina Chamberlain]

So this isn't a metaphorical, like, I'm spiritually married to God because Joshua himself represents Christ. Is Christ. Is the second coming of Christ better than Christ?

[Liz Cameron]

Because he's better than.

[Christina Chamberlain]

He's better than Christ Better than. Wait, how?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Because he didn't get crucified. He's still alive.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Right, right.

[Megan Elizabeth]

So now you're with Christ 2.0 and they're saying he actually specifically likes you. God, essentially Joshua, Liz, who was identified

[Christina Chamberlain]

in a public place as a young, beautiful woman. Yes.

[Megan Elizabeth]

But he sees your spirit and you're

[Christina Chamberlain]

like, oh my God, I'm chosen.

[Liz Cameron]

Yes, exactly. And when this was first introduced to me, it was like, he is who Jesus works through. And that took me a while to get my head around because, you know, sounds like blasphemy. Right. And I can explain the weird coincidence that happened there. But then down the track, like maybe a year down the track, they were like, actually he's not who Jesus uses. He is better than Jesus. Like you said, Jesus failed in his mission. You know he died and okay, so crazy.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Jesus failed in his mission.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah. Wow.

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[Megan Elizabeth]

You're living with these women at the time, same point, Correct?

[Liz Cameron]

Yes. So when they tell me about the fact that he is basically that, you know, the second coming of Christ and I go away and pray about it, because that's what they always say. But what, you know, you don't realize at the time is that if you're going away and praying about it, they're telling you to do that because they've already implanted a framework in, in your mind through which you interpret the world and your inner thoughts and feelings. Such a good sensations. Totally. And then so you go away and pray and all you're doing is reinforcing the messaging that has been superimposed on, on you, your psyche. And so it's really like this self surveilling kind of faith. That's what indoctrination is. Right. You're like, you, it's God, it's Big Brother in your head. And I'm praying to God and I'm interpreting everything through the way that I've been indoctrinated.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Looking for signs.

[Liz Cameron]

Exactly.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And finding them everywhere, which is so annoying.

[Liz Cameron]

It's so annoying. Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

This is so really convenient to your mom.

[Christina Chamberlain]

This is so similar to my mom.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Really? Yeah. Because my mom was targeted by a man at a Mormon dance. Singles dance. And right already, from the beginning, there was like a really freaky thing where he looked like a man she had dreamed about and she had had and she was. And this is through the framework of Mormonism where there's a lot of sign interpretation and look and praying for a feeling and that kind of thing. Um, so she already has that framework and then she has this dream that feels really infused with meaning. And then she meets this guy and it's game over.

[Liz Cameron]

Right.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Like fricking game over. And she. I can't now. I'm blanking on specifics. But she definitely like prayed about whether he was really the one and like was looking for some kind of sign. And as we know what we look for, we will find if we look hard enough.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yes.

[Christina Chamberlain]

But if we don't understand that going into that, then, you know, we're just gonna see the magic. And that's all we're gonna see.

[Liz Cameron]

Exactly.

[Christina Chamberlain]

So can you tell us briefly about your. The prismatic light coincidence that sort of solidified your feeling that this was. This magic was real?

[Liz Cameron]

Yes. So, like, there were two things that. Well, two key instances that stuck with me that were like, oh, wow, this is real. So the first one was the prismatic light. And that was, you know, when I was in my old church. I remember before I joined, I remember praying and kind of having this almost vision, but it was in my head. So really it was just my imagination of, like, this kind of waterfall landing on my head as I prayed. And it was like this. Yeah, like, very colorful rainbow, like, water that was splashing over me. And it was. My Christian brain interpreted that as like, oh, the Holy Spirit. And then I think it was that day another woman came up to me after the service and said, hey, I had this. This vision of you. And she described what I'd seen in my head, which. Look, there are so many ways you could interpret it. I'd like to hear your thoughts, but I feel like there's a lot of symbology that we all share, you know, religious symbology. And maybe that was just a coincidence. I don't. I don't know.

[Christina Chamberlain]

For all we know, there could have been a rainbow that morning that you both saw, and you, like, did a certain gesture that, like, you know, so many subconscious things going on in our brains at all times, like, who freaking knows?

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. So I was like, wow, that's wild. But didn't really think too much of it. Months later, I've met these women and someone who comes from, like, Korea, who is amazing artist, she paints me and surprises me and some other girls with paintings of ourselves. And they are beautiful portraits. And for mine, not everybody else's, everyone else's was just, like, this gorgeous likeness of them and. And, like a different colored background. But mine had that waterfall kind of coming over my head, and it had sparkles in it. And it was. You know, and I was praying and my head was down and my eyes were closed, and it was very distinct. And I immediately was like, that is what I saw. And that's what someone else told me they saw. And it was this world like, oh, my goodness, God is telling me he wants me to be here. The second coincidence, and again, one of many, because you do, like you said, interpret the whole world through signs. I just saw signs everywhere because that's how I was set up to think. So this second time, they've just dropped the ultimate bombshell of, like, this dude is the second coming. Go home and pray about it. I do. I lock myself in their room for a couple of hours. I'm praying in tears because they tell you to do that, which is weird. So I felt inspired at a certain point to get up and go to the bookshelf at my parents house and take this book which was written by a Christian self identifying prophet, and just open it and read the first page that I open. And I opened it, random page, first thing that I see is the time has come. God has called his brides to stand up or something like that.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Damn it, These signs.

[Liz Cameron]

You don't stand a chance, dude.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I know, I know, right?

[Liz Cameron]

Like, how do you, how do you get told to go in, pray and you get that? Yeah, like immediately I was like, oh, it's absolutely game over. Like, you know, this is it. God's given me the message I asked for. He's like, right, yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

And so then can you explain what an evergreen and a faith star are?

[Liz Cameron]

Yes. So that is the term that is used to describe what I thought or interpreted to me at the beginning as like a nun, but the JMS version of a nun. So they were interchangeable terms. They both essentially meant the same thing. But it's basically you, you don't get married, you dedicate your life to the church and yeah, you just live like this very kind of separate, your holy life. And I was riding such a wave of like spiritual euphoria at that time. And I was, when I heard about it, I was like, I want to be that. Like, I also just, you know, I, I was still recovering from anorexia. I, I didn't have any like, sex drive to speak of. I wasn't interested in dating anybody. You know, I, I, I'd grown up thinking, oh, you get married, you have kids and whatever. But it looked like that. The concept of that seems so silly in light of what I just learned that I was like, oh my God, like, why would I do something as worldly as that when I could live, you know, this super spiritual life? Never get married, you know, never have to deal with all that stuff. And so that's kind of how it was presented to me. And it was like, you are everyone's the bride of Christ in this history quote unquote. But evergreens or faith stars, you are like the next level kind of of brides. And a lot of cults use this sense of like elitism, right. To get you to buy into something because you feel so special. You feel like you've been Chosen. Everyone wants to feel like that. So that's. That's essentially what that was. What I didn't realize, you know, and what I would come to learn down the track was that it meant that you had to be a lot closer to the leader of the group, Jung Myung Sook. And I was encouraged to start writing to him. And so I would write letters to him and they would be translated to Korean and then sent to his, as I learned, sent to his prison cell. And you were encouraged to like write to him really warmly and make him feel loved and less alone. And, you know, he's going through this persecution, so, you know, try and put yourself in his head and think of what he would need to hear from you. And yeah, basically, like, keep him company by writing him letters.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, it's like you're his girlfriend or something. Like.

[Liz Cameron]

Exactly.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Keep him company in jail. And it's so disappointing to see what you would write compared to what he would write you back. It's so heartbreaking.

[Liz Cameron]

So obviously I knew him as Pastor Joshua when I was just starting to learn the Bible studies. But when they told me his real name, I learned that that was kind of a pseudonym for him, but he was actually called Jung Young Sook, which is why the group is called jms. But it also means Jesus Morning Star.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Got it. So if we use these names interchangeably, we're still talking about the same man who is the God on earth, basically.

[Liz Cameron]

Yes. Okay. Correct. Great.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Wonderful. You start exchanging letters, his letters start getting creepier. The asks of you start getting creepier. Photos where you're in swimsuits and just like the bait and switch of this is just so extreme. Like, you think it's like this group of women who, you know, you might get to be a nun in a group of women who are doing Bible study, but then. Just kidding. Actually, it's run by a man who's convicted of rape. And actually you're supposed to be one of his brides. Potentially. Like, what a freaking bait and switch. It's crazy.

[Liz Cameron]

100%.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And it's 2012. So there's this whole end of the world, it's about to be 2012. There's this whole end of the world narrative prophecy written into it where you're like, I don't give a shit. Like, you're thinking about quitting college. You're like, I have to fucking save people. Like, we're running out of time.

[Christina Chamberlain]

It's about.

[Megan Elizabeth]

This is all. And very like pressure cooker.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Oh my God, I forgot about that element.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're. You're tripping out at this time.

[Liz Cameron]

Yes. There's like. No, you're right. There is, like, so much going on, and my. My little brain is having such a hard time.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Yeah.

[Liz Cameron]

Processing it all. But it helped that, you know, to me, at the time that I had this structure in my life where I was told what was right and wrong. I was given this binary way to view the world that helped me compartmentalize and have a sense of certainty about what I was supposed to do, who I was supposed to be, how I was supposed to spend my time. So, yeah, all that was happening, the Nostradamus prophecy was being preached about in the sermons. You know, the end of the world is happening in 2012. And they talked about it like, this is the rapture, but the way that they did it was so sneaky. They were like, it's a spiritual rapture, so no one else will know. You've raptured, but you'll know inside of you.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, and people in Korea have started already? P.S.

[Liz Cameron]

yeah, correct, by the way. There's no pressure, though.

[Christina Chamberlain]

What does that even mean? They're just spiritually ascending invisibly inside, but their bodies stay.

[Liz Cameron]

Wow. Yes.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Very, like, confusing.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And very, very smart.

[Liz Cameron]

Very smart. Because you'd be looking at each other going, have you.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Are you ready?

[Liz Cameron]

You know? Yeah. Yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Okay. I need to hear about finally going to Korea with a group of women. Wild. And meeting this man in person in prison.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Liz Cameron]

So he, Jong, or JMS had written to me and said, come to Korea and visit me. And that was, like, the ultimate honor. And if he says that, you know, you have to go. And a couple of other people had received a letter as well, like that. And by that time, obviously, I'd been told that I was an evergreen or a faith star, and we were all going to go to Korea and visit him and, you know, visit just the compound that they have out in rural South Korea that is dedicated to him and the church. So there is a compound just to bring in another little cult cliche. But something happened before I left, which, you know, was really one of the punctuation marks in. In my experience. I'd moved out at this point. I'd moved in with them and moved

[Christina Chamberlain]

in with the girls from the group, Correct?

[Liz Cameron]

Yes. So we'd all found a bigger house together. We all moved in. There were probably about eight of us, I think, at the time. It was seven in this big house. And so. And I was, what, 19 at the time? So just first time I'd ever lived out of home. I'd made the mistake of leaving some printouts of a sermon under my bed and Mum must have been cleaning up my old room and she came across them and she was already suspicious about this group, which made me distance myself further and made her more anxious. So it was kind of like this vicious cycle. But. And so I wasn't really advised or allowed to see her very much or see my family much because they were concerned that she would, you know, make my faith a bit more shaky. She destabilized me. Visited them maybe like once a week to go have lunch or something. Part of it was, you know, because it's my family and I, you know, wanted to see them. But I think a larger reason was that they knew that if they fully dis allowed me from seeing my family, then they would escalate and they would, yeah, you know, become more of a threat to them. And so, yeah, she was dropping me off back at the house, the group house at one point, and she looked quite anxious and I didn't know why, but when she stopped the car outside of the house, she. She was like, hey, Lizzie, there's something that I want to share with you. Like, you know, I found some papers under your bed and I. I looked it up and she pulls this stack of printouts that she's done, like she's printed. And immediately I knew what it was because I knew what do to the, you know, the quote unquote lies were about this group. I knew that she'd found out what the group was. And because I'd been told, you can never look at this material. It is literally the equivalent of spiritual suicide. And. And I'd been told that she was a threat and that she was going to try. Satan was going to use her to try and get me to stop believing in the truth. I immediately, I had this absolute fear response. I was like, get those papers away from me. I don't want to see them. You don't know what you're talking about. And I ran out of the car. I was so terrible, so terrified of seeing what was there.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Wow.

[Liz Cameron]

Slammed the door, ran inside. My poor mother. Like, what would that have been like for her? And I told my leader about it and she was like, well, I kind of expected this would happen. At some point you're obviously going to need to keep your distance from your mom. Satan's using her. And then at some point later that day she let me know that my dad and my mum had both come back. So Obviously, Mum had sat there, gone home, got dad and thought, we need to get her out now. So both my parents come back. She was just like, go hide in the closet. Like, get out of here. We'll handle it.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Wow.

[Liz Cameron]

And so I'm hiding in the closet and my dad knocks on the door. And they get one of the Korean leaders to open the door. And I can hear voices, but I can't make out much, but it sounds like Dad's upset, he's escalating. They're staying kind of, like, quiet. And then they close the door on him and he's yelling out for me. And it was such a horrible. Yeah. Experience, because I was like, I don't. I'm so scared of my dad and I'm so scared of my mum because, like, Satan's working through them, but also, like, they're worried about me. And, you know, there's a part of me that misses them and, you know, I'm putting them through this distress and it was just awful. It was awful.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Liz Cameron]

And then there was also this sense of, like, excitement, of like, oh, my God, I'm living through this wild biblical story.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Like, yeah, you're, like, the main character and, like, in, like, the new Bible.

[Liz Cameron]

Embarrassing. Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

No looking back. But, like, that's how it's being framed. You're one of the. You're one of the main things. So to just, like, ignore your parents for an afternoon isn't really that big of a deal.

[Christina Chamberlain]

You're chosen by the Lord.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

And it's the end of days.

[Megan Elizabeth]

So, like, awful hard, but, you know, worth it.

[Liz Cameron]

Unnecessary. Right. And, like, a necessary sacrifice. And. And then eventually they just. They left. The car idled for a little bit, then they left and they were like, okay, we need to get you to Korea, like, Like, now. And so I remember them when dad came to the door and he was trying to talk to them and ask them where I was. This head leader pretended not to speak any English. And so it was just this way of effectively just barring him from being able to have any meaningful communication with us at the time. Such a cliche. We had a big van, and they put me in the back of the van and they threw a blanket over me. And they were like, we're going to drive you out of the state undercover, just in case, because your parents are still kind of hanging around and we don't want them to see where we're taking you. Drove out of the state, stayed with some members in Sydney, and then the next day was our flight. So We. We went out to Korea and, yeah, we went to visit this man in prison.

[Christina Chamberlain]

And what was that like?

[Megan Elizabeth]

I mean, what was your impression of him? He walks in. This is God.

[Liz Cameron]

Who.

[Megan Elizabeth]

What does he actually look like?

[Liz Cameron]

Well, I expected to have, like, this big spiritual experience, you know, when I saw him, because I was like, this is like, basically God, you know, or basically the second coming of Christ embodied. We were encouraged to, like, dress up, make ourselves beautiful, because that was part of the point of the group was like, the way that you show glory to God, like we said, is, yeah,

[Megan Elizabeth]

you were nuns, but you were hot nuns.

[Liz Cameron]

We're hot nuns. Exactly. Yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Yeah.

[Liz Cameron]

Okay. Yes, exactly. So makeup. Full face of makeup. My headband is, like, fiddling with my hair, trying to make it perfect. I didn't realize she was, like, effectively showcasing us to this man. Like, look at the fish I caught, basically.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And he.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Was he gonna get out of prison at some point? Was that.

[Liz Cameron]

Yes, yes.

[Christina Chamberlain]

So this isn't just like, for a visual thing. Like, the idea is he's gonna get out and then have his brides.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah, correct. And he already had bikini pictures of me and, you know, like, of all of us, essentially. And he had already written to me saying, like, he strokes the pictures on the wall of his cell. Like, that's the correspondent I received from him, allegedly. And there was this weird, like, I, again, very naive, like, did not think this was ominous. Didn't think it was as sinister as it really was, because I was that naive. And I really thought this is some giant spiritual metaphor, which sounds insane looking back, but that's. That's kind of what so many of us really believed because we were so, you know, earnest and sincere in. In our beliefs and our faith. It didn't even cross half our minds that this was something more than that. And. Yeah, anyway, so went in and we were taken in by a prison guard. His second in command also accompanied us in there, who is actually now in prison as well, for grooming, as I understand it.

[Christina Chamberlain]

But she.

[Liz Cameron]

She takes us in, head leaders on the other side. There are a few of us, two women and a man who were visiting him, some of us for the first time. And then he gets brought in by a guard on the other side of this plexiglass wall. This is like out in Daejeon in South Korea.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's very Warren Jeffs, you know, when he gets his followers brought to him in jail.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah. Yes. It's absolutely. Yes. So. And he comes in and he's, ah, hello, hello. And he's just like this very small, very old Korean man wearing a tracksuit, you know, prison tracksuit. They definitely made him look a lot taller in his photos and a lot younger. And not that that matters at all, but I. But. But. But not a little bit of a

[Megan Elizabeth]

cat, but it is like meeting your hinge date in real life.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Not your.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Your God is a catfish.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But I'm sure the cognitive dissonance is like, okay, he's old and smaller. Who cares?

[Liz Cameron]

He's still.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Exactly, yeah.

[Liz Cameron]

100%. Like, that's not the point. But I think. Think, you know, but also, when you bring into. To play the fact that you know how you are physically was meant to reflect how you are spiritually.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Right. That applies to women only.

[Liz Cameron]

Apparently, there's anything for us. And by the way, I know that I seem like I'm speaking lightly about this stuff and I joke, but I know you get it in that, like, humor. It helps me talk about this sort of thing because there is so many elements of the absurd to this story and to the whole premise of jms. But I don't mean to trivialize the horror of who he was and what the group was, and I know you don't either, but I just want to clarify for any listeners, like, I don't think any of this is a joke. It's horrific. I've been healing for many, many years, but I find it so much easier to find the humor in it, as morbid as it seems. So I hope that's okay. And I don't want to offend anyone.

[Megan Elizabeth]

No, that's how we feel.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah. I feel like that's. The spirit of your podcast is like, you know, you can see that the insanity of it all as well, and you can break it down so well.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Thank you.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

So in your book, you just. You have some excerpts of letters he started sending you after that, which are quite graphic and gnarly and disgusting. And then can you just walk us through how you started to get sick and had to go to the hospital and how that played a role in your exit from the group.

[Liz Cameron]

So obviously met him in prison. That was a wild experience. Just to wrap that little piece up. Like, I. It was supposed to be a really profound experience, and I left feeling guilty that I hadn't felt more than I did. It was just a very benign kind of like, he waved at us. He spoke in Korean a bit. And then time was up, and he was. He was shuttled out. When I came back to Australia, the intensity of it kicked up A lot. It was 2012. It was the year of the Rapture. And the concept behind it was we were supposed to perfect ourselves physically, spiritually, everything. It was not just what we did, but it was also just taking relentless inventory and meticulous inventory of all of our thoughts and feelings and emotions and kind of self monitoring and trying to achieve this impossible standard of perfection in order to rapture. His letters became more graphic and explicit to me and to many other women. Obviously he was still in prison. He didn't come out until 2018. And he is now back in prison for the same charges.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Because he just kept doing it.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Christina Chamberlain]

As soon as he got out.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah, yeah. And so we were sleeping very little. I was getting up. I mean, we were supposed to only sleep four hours a night. So I was sleeping. I was sleeping four to six. Anyone would struggle. Right. But a lot of people were very puritanical and they were only four or less. The less you can sleep, the better. And that's obviously very destabilizing, greatly interrupts

[Christina Chamberlain]

your critical thought and probably intentional.

[Liz Cameron]

Absolutely intentional. Yes, yes. And so much of it was. We were worked insanely hard. And that's not unique to that cult. It's common for most cults and just this sense of, like, busy work is very common. So it's not, it's not necessarily meaningful work. It's repetitive work. It's boring work. It's, you know, the point of it isn't what job you're doing, the point of it is just keeping you kind of.

[Megan Elizabeth]

That you're doing a job.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Right, right.

[Liz Cameron]

Mechanically moving along. And then they started to, like, we were quote, unquote, evangelizing a lot, so trying to recruit new women. That was a very, as I describe in the book, really targeted, strategic, scarily methodical process.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And we have to point out just really quickly here that, like, they tell you essentially, like, this is what we were doing to you to get you into the cult. And you're like, wait, what? This is how we did it to you? And we were like essentially pretending that we worshiped this way and took all the pictures off the walls and so

[Liz Cameron]

that you would like it.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And you're the Truman Show. And you're like, what? But it makes sense because you're like, of course they had to kind of trick me to get me in this group because I wouldn't have believed it any other way. And so now I have to do this to other people. And your book just goes into the most amazing crevices of this process.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Crevices Crevices.

[Liz Cameron]

That's a good way.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I said it's crevices.

[Christina Chamberlain]

No, yeah. Yeah. No, it does.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah. It really gets in the scratch.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Cause I don't.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I mean, I've just never heard of them, like, really spelling out to one of their devotees the exact way that they.

[Christina Chamberlain]

It's true. Usually people will realize that that's what happened, and then they'll justify it to themselves. And I feel like it's rare it's explicitly acknowledged like that.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Do you think that they knew, like, this was basically sex trafficking, or were they, like, this is a spiritual program? Do you know if they were a little of both or.

[Liz Cameron]

I mean, it's such a good question. And I think there is a really fine line in cults between victim and perpetrator. And I touch on this a lot because I think it's something that a lot of us, as survivors are scared to kind of touch on, because there is such a fine line, especially in a cult that's centered on grooming women. And everyone in cults, almost unanimously, unless you're too young or too old or incapacitated in some way, is charged with recruitment, like, With. With trying to save people. Yeah. For most people, that's coming from a place of, like, utmost sincerity. You think you're saving people, and you also think you're doing work that's gonna, you know, help you be better. And then there are the groomers who know. Specifically for jms, there were people who knew what was happening at a higher level and who knew what the purpose of all this recruitment was. Who knew why they focused on getting tall, slim, beautiful women into the group and who were intentionally grooming women. And I think it's almost impossible to know which was which. I think that there were one or two individuals in that group, specifically, like, the leaders of the group locally, that they knew what they were doing. And there were a lot of tells. There was the. The way that they would speak to me in private. Like, they were telling me this really important secret about how to get closer to him and would make reference to my genitals or his genitals or, you know, like.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah. So confusing.

[Liz Cameron]

Incredibly confusing. I was like. I really struggled understanding what she meant because, again, I thought it was like a metaphor. And then there was a part of me that was like, I don't know if it's a metaphor. And I found that. I did find that frightening. And I didn't know what to do with it. And fortunately, I was so lucky. Like, I had a horrible experience. They did end up restricting my food, you know, and I. My eating disorder came back with a vengeance, and I started having panic attacks and I started, you know, just basically, like, completely capitulating under the intense psychological and emotional pressure and the psychological abuse, the lack of sleep, the lack of food. And the worse I got, the harsher they were on me because they told me it was my fault.

[Megan Elizabeth]

What a perfect storm.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah, it was really a perfect storm. And in the midst of this, I'm like, well, if I don't make myself perfect, then I'm gonna go to hell. Like, I, you know, sorry, I just went off on a massive tangent.

[Christina Chamberlain]

No, that's perfect, because that's how Hugh ended up in the hospital and getting the fuck away from these people for a second.

[Liz Cameron]

Yes, yes, yes. And. And honestly, like, that's what saved me. It gave me that little bit of time outside of the immersion of the

[Megan Elizabeth]

group P. S. That's how I got out of mine too, was going to eating disorder treatment.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

We have a lot to talk about.

[Liz Cameron]

We do.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Yeah.

[Liz Cameron]

I feel terrible that, like, the time's nearly up and I'm like, there's. It's like we haven't even gotten to the programming or.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I mean, there's just so much there that people have to read your book.

[Christina Chamberlain]

The people will just have to Cult Bride and where can people find it and find you?

[Liz Cameron]

I'm not sure how easy it is to get in the States. I know that it's available on all the audio platforms, on Spotify, that sort of thing. And I think you should be able to buy the book, the physical book, via Amazon. I know that's true in Australia.

[Megan Elizabeth]

We got it on Kindle in America. So you did.

[Liz Cameron]

Okay, There you go. Okay, that's good to know. Yes. It goes into a lot more. There's a lot more to the end of that story and how I was deprogrammed and what the recovery journey is like is a whole other conversation, as you would both well know. That's almost like a whole story in itself. Right. Like, I think that's the hardest part for people is the leaving and realizing what happened to you and coming to terms with it and trying to heal and how confusing and overwhelming it is. And I think that's why I speak out now is. Is because there is so much that's not addressed in legislation, in policy, you know, at least speaking for Australia, in our mental health services, in our referral systems, to provide people the help that they need and the support that they need when they come out of a group. You know, when people come out, they are incredibly unsafe, incredibly destabilized. Don't know who they are, don't know what the world is, how to deal with the world. They don't often have any real skills that they can get a job with. They often don't have any money, they don't have any contacts. They. There's so much working against them.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Yeah.

[Liz Cameron]

And it is the time when people are most likely to take their own lives. And it's a really, really critical time when people need like intensive support and there is almost nothing.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Yeah.

[Liz Cameron]

And then there's also the legislation side of it where coercive control laws. I actually believe it's a lot better in the United States is my understanding.

[Christina Chamberlain]

But depends on the state, Right?

[Liz Cameron]

Of course.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Very state dependent.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah, that's the case with us too. But I think what we're seeing over here is finally there's this movement towards recognizing coercive control and criminalizing it, which is groundbreaking. I mean, it's taken way too many tragic events for that to be the case. But that's almost always how it happens. Right. It doesn't necessarily provide legislation that works for people who have come from the kind of scaled coercive control that we see in, in high control groups. It's really more about those interpersonal one on one dynamics. And that doesn't always translate. And a huge part of trauma when you come out of a cult is not being believed. That's very re. Traumatizing, as I'm sure you've experienced as well. There's so much rhetoric out there that's like, why would you choose that? Could you be so gullible? And that's, I'm sure you as well. Often it's like, well, that's water for duck's back. Because I know you just don't understand how that works. And that's why I tried to break down those dynamics a bit more in my book and explain what that process is like externally and also internally. But legislation hasn't caught up yet. And it's hard because it's a pattern of behavior. It's not an instance, it's not a single thing that happens. It is a pattern over a long period of time that constitutes the crime. Not one thing.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Well, and that is why I am glad that in your book not only do you break down a lot of the psychological dynamics, but like we talked about earlier, step by step of like, here's how I believe the next thing and here's how I was primed for the next thing. And here's why the next thing wasn't that much of a stretch from the previous thing and why we talked about it so much today, because I think just being able to observe how that happens and how gradual it is, is. Is just instrumental for, you know, raising more understanding about how this actually works.

[Liz Cameron]

Absolutely. It's that. It's that understanding piece and that's what I wish I had known when I was that age. Like, I wish I had that understanding. My toolkit, as we all do, right. It's. It's building that community understanding and the recognition that it quite literally could happen to anyone. You just have to be perhaps in a vulnerable space in your life, which we all are at some point. And then it's also like, you know, the frontline workers recognizing being able to pick up on the signs of brainwashing and cults and. And that kind of activity. Because I know that when my mum called the AFP when I was dying, like, effectively dying in this group, they were like, well, is she there against her will? And we know that if they'd come to our house and knocked on the door, I would have said, absolutely, I'm here of my own free will. I love being here. This is the best experience of my life and I'm not leaving. So what's their remit? And so one of the things that I'm working on now, like, I've kind of. I do struggle with being online a lot because it's such a brutal space to exist in. Watching everything happening in the States as well.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I've taken it all off my phone. I can't.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah, it's, it's. It's re. Traumatizing in so many ways. Right. To see what's playing out and even more so for you who are living in it. So our thoughts are definitely, like, all of us survivors over here in Australia, our thoughts are. So with all of you in. In the US and what you must be going through. But, yeah, one of the things that I'm working on is I'm working with our Federal Police at the moment in helping to develop like. Or to increase frontline police understanding of how to understand what a cult looks like from the outside.

[Christina Chamberlain]

That's awesome.

[Liz Cameron]

How do they. And what's the triage system look like? How do they refer? Like, what resources can they give? You know, what questions should they ask? When should they just, like, check back in again? It's a more intuitive way of assessing a situation than just ticking a box.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Right.

[Liz Cameron]

I'm excited about where that work takes me. And, yeah, I think the whole online world is really. I find it quite overwhelming, as I'm sure you do, too.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Understandably so.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Yes.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Well, you're doing amazing work and we. So writing the book, coming on, doing your advocacy, it's all very important. So thank you.

[Liz Cameron]

Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for letting me ramble.

[Megan Elizabeth]

No, that's perfect. Likewise. And we'll see you online if we're ever on there again. Last week, we asked if I would join this cult. I think the answer was kind of, yeah.

[Christina Chamberlain]

I think we both maybe would, depending.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I mean, it turns out it would be the wrong decision by a long shot. But, Liz, we totally get how you ended up where you ended up. And your book is phenomenal, and y'

[Christina Chamberlain]

all should go buy it. And it is called Cult Bride. How I Was Brainwashed and How He Broke free.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah. And when I first heard the title Cult, right, I was like, oh, she got married to somebody in the cult. I didn't realize she was, like, marrying Jesus, essentially, that was coming through a profit.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Yeah. Pretty wild. Pretty wild. I mean, thank God she didn't have to actually do it in the end. Thank God that did not get to that point.

[Liz Cameron]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Please rate us five stars. We would appreciate it. Follow us.

[Liz Cameron]

Subscribe.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Do whatever you can.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Please buy our [e-mail] this is the

[Megan Elizabeth]

begging portion of the show where, please, we try to drum up some interaction because we need to be better about it, Lila. We need to be on social media. We need to be making videos and stuff and communicating with the people listening to the show because we love you guys so much.

[Christina Chamberlain]

We do.

[Megan Elizabeth]

So anyway, remember to follow your gut, to watch out for red flags and

[Christina Chamberlain]

never ever trust me.

[Liz Cameron]

Bye.

[Christina Chamberlain]

This has been an exactly right production,

[Megan Elizabeth]

hosted by me, Lola Blanc, and me, Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is Ji Ha Lee.

[Christina Chamberlain]

This episode was mixed by John Bradley.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker is Patrick Cotner.

[Christina Chamberlain]

Our theme song was composed by Holly Amber Church.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Trust Me is executive produced by Karen Kilgareth, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.

[Christina Chamberlain]

You can find us on Instagram @TrustMe podcast or on TikTok at Trust Me Cult Podcast.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Got your own story about cults, extreme belief or manipulation? Shoot us an [e-mail].

[Christina Chamberlain]

listen to Trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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This episode is brought to you by Bobcat. They started the compact equipment industry through grit, determination, and a whole lot of think we can't do that.

[Liz Cameron]

Watch us.

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They set standards, broke records, empowered people to build bigger and higher, to dig deeper, to make the impossible possible. We've all been there with doubters telling us what we can't do. Who cares what they think? We don't need their permission or forgiveness. We just get things done. So go ahead and doubt me, judge me, challenge me. But when the time comes, watch me. Bobcat

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