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- [00:00]
Felix Salmon
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- [01:45]
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- [02:17]
Nikayla Matthews Akome
Super real.
- [02:24]
Matt Thomas
I was part of a cult in Australia called Shincheonji for four years and the worst part about it is that they did not let us sleep. So we had to arrive at the building at 5am sharp and we would leave by sometimes 1 or 2am and the car accidents, like, there are some people way worse off than I was. They rode off more than one car because of the steep deprivation.
- [02:46]
Julian Morgans
This was just a regular thing. Like everyone was having car accidents. And it was an accepted cost of being awake all this time.
- [02:53]
Matt Thomas
They even priced it. You're so devoted that you are even sacrificing all your sleep. And so we would feel pride when we started getting nosebleeds because, well, on top of the sleep diversion, we weren't eating. So everyone was just like super skin and bones. And then every time we go out to drive, we're like, you know, we're sleep deprived and we just. We're just laboring. And we just looked so unhealthy. We looked like zombies. And then, you know, every now and then someone would get a nosebleed and they'll send a video like, look at me. Like, I'm up here at 2am and my nose is bleeding. And we're like, oh, I want to be like that. I want to sacrifice that much that, you know, I'm giving myself health problems. It literally was like that, you know,
- [03:34]
Julian Morgans
hey, I'm Julian Morgans, and you're listening to what it Was like, the show that asks people who have lived through big dramatic events what it was like. So here's something you probably don't know right now. The world's fastest growing cults are all coming out of South Korea. And by that I mean that if you look at questionable religious groups around the globe, the three with the fastest expanding congregations are either headquartered in Korea or. Or they sprang out of Korea. They are in no particular order, the World Mission Society, Church of God, the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, and a splinter group from the Unification Church known as the Rod of Iron Ministries. And all three are expanding around the globe, including here in Australia. And unlike the cults we've all seen a billion times on Netflix, you know, vegans in robes, in the desert, in the forest. Just those sort of cult cliches of the 1970s. These groups are very sleek, very rich, and incredibly well organized. They recruit quietly in shopping malls and in university campuses, targeting young people by offering them free Bible studies and social events. And that is exactly how today's guest, Matthew Thomas, got sucked in. Matt is a young South African guy living in Perth, and in 2019, he thought he was joining just this casual Bible study group at university, but instead he found himself slowly absorbed into one of the groups I just mentioned, the Shinji Onji Church of Jesus, which Is a highly secretive Korean movement that started in the 1980s and has been accused of manipulation, coercive control, and basically existing only to extract money from its followers. Matt spent four years inside this organization and eventually became a recruiter himself. Today, he lives with the shame of that and with a deeper understanding of how modern cults actually operate, because that's really what fascinates me about this story. Cults haven't disappeared. They've just kind of evolved these days. They're more mainstream, yet more underground, and they all seem to be coming out of Korea. So let's explore this pretty strange development with my guest, Matt Thomas. Hey, Matt, welcome to the show.
- [06:09]
Matt Thomas
Thanks, Julian. It's an honor to be here.
- [06:12]
Julian Morgans
Oh, no, it's an honor to have you here. The pleasure and the honor is all mine. Let's start with a big question. What do you think it is about your personality that made you susceptible to being approached or sucked in by a group like this?
- [06:29]
Matt Thomas
That is a great question. For me personally. I. I guess just that point in time in my life where I was looking for a community and, you know, around that 18, 19 years of age where you're just transitioning out from high school to university. But then I guess, yeah, I have a sociable personality, maybe a bit of compassion, because the way I was recruited, I was reached out by this cult asking for help. I was 19 at the time, and I was first year psychology student at the university of western Australia. Loving life uni was a great time in first year. And it was around August that I was first approached on campus by a uni student. And I put that in air quotes because I didn't know at the time that actually he wasn't a uni student. This young man approached me from out of the sliding doors of the gym. I was sitting there on the bench and he said, sorry to bother you. I just have a psychology survey and I'm just wondering if I can steal five minutes of your time. To which I responded, you know, that's. That's absolutely fine. I get you. But where it went differently was when he asked me about my religion. And, you know, raised in a Christian household, which is the case for, I would say, probably a lot more South Africans. I had the familiarity of Christianity in my life. And so I told him I was a Christian. To which his eyes got large, and he looked at me with this new excitement. And then the whole conversation, it was now just about Christianity. It was about my religion, it was about my faith. And he even started presenting questions about my Mental health. And he got really deep. But it was all part of the tactic because he was analyzing me to see if I was a worthy recruit to join the organization. One of the pieces of information which was in his favor was that although I was a Christian, I didn't know a lot about the Bible. And so he said, okay, well, we have this Bible fellowship group on campus, and it's great for someone who doesn't know much about the Bible. I mean, you've told me that you have had a Christian background, and, you know, Bible is a really important thing. And so we do this fellowship thing, and. But he didn't want to creep me out, you know, overwhelm me with this whole Bible study kind of idea. And so he made it sound a little bit more relaxed than that. And he said, no, no, we sing songs and we eat food together, and we do fellowship, and it's an opportunity for you to meet with other Christians. And so I promise you that you'll have a great time. But nonetheless, we exchanged numbers, and he contacted me over the next couple weeks. But almost excessive contact, like, not the usual, you know, but this guy, to be honest, I just thought that he was perhaps a bit lonely, and I think that that's where I felt for him. And I eventually gave in. I had no idea what to expect. But, man, that Bible study, I will never forget it. The people in there were just so well trained to get you to feel comfortable. I rocked up and I was greeted at the door with food on a plate, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, have some of this. Like, let me prepare some food for you. And, yeah, I was just like, man, this is the loveliest group of people I've ever met, to be honest.
- [09:56]
Julian Morgans
Yeah.
- [09:57]
Matt Thomas
You know, that was the first half an hour of it. Then the mood shifted, and everyone took their seat. Then this teacher came in the room, this young Malaysian man. And there he had a Bible in his hand. And he said, okay, everyone, get out your Bibles. And then the lesson started. And that lesson went for two hours. We sat there for two hours. This man, his name's Nate, he just went on, and it was powerful. It was some really interesting stuff. He must have gone through 20 to 30 Bible passages, and he had memorized all of them.
- [10:31]
Julian Morgans
Wow.
- [10:32]
Matt Thomas
And he had a full narrative. Like, he was just going on and just, like, speaking this message that was just so powerful. And what caught me was the way he spoke. He was so passionate, and he was just so locked in, but specifically locked in with me, which, you know, I didn't understand. It at the time, but the other five people next to me, they weren't first timers. That was the fresh meat. And so he really locked in on me. And throughout his kind of speech, he would compliment me here and there, be like, oh, look at this handsome man joining us for the first time, everyone. And then at the end of the Bible study, he left us with a cliffhanger and said, okay, well, you're going to need to come back if you want to know the answer to this question. You're going to have to come to the next one. We finished that Bible study session after two hours. I don't know what it hit me. It felt like I was hit by a train of just all this theology. I'm like, man, I've never been in anything like this. And this friend of mine who brought me, he walked me all the way to my car. I was in a rush when to get home. And he's a lot smaller than me, and he's kind of like trotting along and he's like, so what did you think of the class? Like, wasn't it amazing? A couple days later, that same friend of mine calls me up. There's a new session. Are you going to come along to this one? I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I've got my studies and I've got work and, like. And he says, well, we'll work around your schedule. Teacher Nate, he's got all the time in the world. You tell us when you're free and we'll make it work. I said, okay, well, you know, feeling that little bit of pressure, I'm like, okay, well, you know, how about this time on Wednesday evening? He says, great, let's do it. We'll meet at the same place. And so there I went to the second one, and from there it just got more and more intense. And it felt like I needed to be there because there's a bit of a social pressure, like they're expecting me to be there. But half of me also felt like they wanted me there because they really care about my faith. And so part of me was open to it, and I kept going to these sessions. What started off with once or twice a week became a solid two times a week, a set schedule, and the buildup just went on from there. Wow.
- [12:47]
Julian Morgans
The thing that was just hitting me just then was that as a recruitment process for them, it is so labor intensive. They are willing to just single you out and just pour all these resources, all this time and effort just into you. You know, it's like, one person at a time. That's. That's huge.
- [13:05]
Matt Thomas
Yeah, absolutely. They really, really do. And I've recently realized that there's a term for that, and it's called love bombing.
- [13:15]
Julian Morgans
Wow. Well, you get it in manipulative relationships.
- [13:20]
Matt Thomas
Yeah.
- [13:20]
Julian Morgans
You hear people on the dating scene talking about, oh, he was just totally love bombing me. And it kind of works the same way it does in, like, a cult recruitment process. Like, you fall for it, but then you regret it forever after. Okay, before we move on, just a couple of really quick questions. So in these initial Bible study groups, was everyone Korean, or was it kind of a mix of locals? Like, what was the sort of organizational setup?
- [13:45]
Matt Thomas
Yeah, so this cult group, it did originate from Korea, but it has grown across the world now, and there's so many different nationalities that have been brought into it. And so was not exposed yet to the Korean teachers. It was only after the first few months, which is when they told me that I needed to join the bigger class. And now the bigger class was serious. It was one that required a contract, and I had to sign off. And I said, okay, I'm gonna give you three days of my week, and I'm gonna commit to this class for at least 10 months. That was the contract.
- [14:22]
Julian Morgans
That's huge.
- [14:23]
Matt Thomas
It was really massive. I mean, I'm just going into second year uni now. Beyond that, they're requesting 10 uninterrupted months, meaning no travel. And I had a trip coming up actually to South Africa with my family within the first two months of the start of that course. This teacher who had taught me up until that point, he was so desperate. I just saw the look in his eyes when I was kind of giving them this half hearted, like, yeah, maybe I'll join. And this look of desperation in his eyes, like, I was gonna miss life. Like, if I don't do this, like, I'm risking something massive here. Something came over me, like, man, wow, these guys, they must really, really have something to offer here. And, you know, maybe it's something that God wants for me to do. I convinced myself. So eventually I agreed. I. I signed the contract. And that was when I met the Koreans. To be fair, it was only one Korean, but she was the head teacher of the class. And if I thought that the first guy was good, she was something else. And she had this almost like, authority as she spoke. Like, she was kind of almost scary in a sense, but also in, like, a motherly way. And this is the important part. She had memorized a teaching plan that has been around for the 40 years that this cult has been around. And that means that there is 40 years of modifying and improving and just making this really robust teaching plan. And every teacher for the generations that Shincheon Ji has been around for has just memorized it word for word. Imagine if you joined a class where there was a teaching plan that had 40 years to build the best content of a two hour lecture that will appeal to anyone. It's going to be good.
- [16:23]
Julian Morgans
Yeah. Wow, so you're really falling down the rabbit hole at this point. You had to also tell your parents, hey, I'm not going to come on this trip to South Africa. How did you frame that?
- [16:35]
Matt Thomas
That was a really hard one for me at the beginning. If I told you what then they like, well, we're going to help you with this. Anything that you have a burden on your heart right now, like, we promise we're going to give you the answer. And they said, look, we know if you go on this trip to South Africa, the devil's going to snatch you up and he's got you, and you're not going to be able to come back to us after that. We can't do anything once the devil's got you. And I'm just thinking to myself, I have so much to learn from these people, and I wouldn't know how to protect myself from the devil. But clearly they know how to do it, so I got to listen to them. But they promised me. They said, we will help you. And here they created this fake Christian course, like a full itinerary, you know, they made this pamphlet for it, and they said, okay, give this to your parents and show them that you found this really great Christian organization in Perth. And it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to study with them just for three weeks. I came home and I said, mom, dad, like, this is this really great opportunity for me to study at this institution. And I'm torn right now because I really want to grow in my life. And I just fed them something to make them feel empathetic for me. And all of which was given to me by my teachers.
- [17:52]
Julian Morgans
It was a script.
- [17:53]
Matt Thomas
It was a script. They told me what to say. I completely manipulated my parents right there and then at the dinner table. It was terrible. I lied straight to their faces.
- [18:04]
Julian Morgans
Yeah. So you didn't go to South Africa, and you ended up doing these. These 10 months of intensive Bible training, and I guess 10 months of intensive indoctrination. And who were you by the end of those 10 months?
- [18:19]
Matt Thomas
I was a whole different person. I, I didn't even look the same. Even that, you know, they control, even the way you look. Like they got to a point where they just started cutting off everything that matters in your life prior to the group, they start shaving them off one by one. That started with friends and family. I was convinced by them that if I told my friends and family that I was doing this 10 month course, learning the greatest truth that I could ever ask for, then the devil would you use my friends and family? And they would say, would you want that? Would you want your friends and family to be used by the devil? Of course I'm going to say, no, no, no, shut my mouth. That's for sure. No one knew I was in that place. They said to me, look, is there a woman in your life? I said, okay, well, I'm starting to see someone. Cut it off. You're not a relationship. It's going to stumble you. And in my heart of obedience, I'll do that. That night they said, matt, your hair is too long. You're coming to class and looking shaggy. Cut it off. I said, okay, I'll do that. I need to honor God. I said, matt, your clothes, they're not honorable to God. Too casual. You're weak in faith. So I said, okay, show me what I need to get. The teacher took me to a shop and bought me nicer clothes, business shoes, business shirt, business pants. And that was me by the 10 month mark, fully obedient. But it was at that point that they revealed to us for the first time in 10 months that the people who first approached us and invited us to the first Bible study sessions that they weren't our buddies, but they themselves were actually our recruiters. And they had pretended for 10 months. And I looked at this guy next to me and I said, you just pretended this whole time. And you know, we're only human. We're going to feel a level of broken trust. But then this teacher gets up on the stage or the altar and she rebukes us. How could you have such little empathy for your. They don't call them recruiters. They call them leaves.
- [20:34]
Julian Morgans
Leaves.
- [20:35]
Matt Thomas
They call them, they call them healing leaves. It's a biblical term, but they've used it in the wrong way.
- [20:41]
Julian Morgans
Okay.
- [20:42]
Matt Thomas
Anyways, how could you feel so little empathy, so little compassion to these people who have poured out 10 months of their love? And I just, I felt so guilty. Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize. And then I had to readjust my thinking. No, no, no. Lying is okay. And that was where my. Where, you know, you can see how the brainwashing is happening. Like, I'm starting to really believe that lying is okay. And that's what they're telling us. If you really love someone, you'd want them to come to know the truth at no matter what the cost, even if you have to lie to them. Around the 10 month. A lot happened at 10 months, actually. I decided that I needed to leave my parents home. They made me so scared of my family. There was so much teaching going on about how the devil's gonna use your family. And you just gotta. You gotta really fear your parents. They might just find out one day and they're gonna. They're gonna bring you home and never allow you to return. And of course, the reason they won't allow you to return is because they're gonna find out it's a cult.
- [21:44]
Julian Morgans
Yeah.
- [21:44]
Matt Thomas
In my head, I thought they were gonna be used by Satan. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [21:49]
Julian Morgans
It's so interesting when you step back from what's happening here, they're just separating you from your friends and family. They're just isolating you, which is just classic cult playbook behavior. They all do it. I'm sure that they've all got a different bit of script to explain why they're doing it, but essentially the playbook every time is exactly the same.
- [22:08]
Matt Thomas
That's right. That's right.
- [22:10]
Julian Morgans
Did you have anyone during this period try talk some sense into you? Try to say, hey, Matt, what's happened? You used to, you know, you used to enjoy friendships. You used to have a social life. Now what's happening? Did anyone try to do this?
- [22:22]
Matt Thomas
I had friends reach out. Friends would reach out to me and, you know, ask to catch up. I just cut them off, make up excuses. You know, family was concerned, but I. I feared my family. And so I put the most effort into trying to. To decorate the lie to them. You know, I would come home and I would really act like everything was okay, and I would tell them, oh, guys, you know, I'm doing so well now. You know, I've. I've moved out with these great friends of mine, and I've got opportunities for internships through my university. And I've met a wonderful woman in my life, and I'd really try to make them feel comfortable so that they didn't have any suspicions at all.
- [23:06]
Julian Morgans
Yeah.
- [23:06]
Matt Thomas
So family wasn't that concerned. At least not for the first couple of years. Yeah.
- [23:13]
Julian Morgans
And at which point did the organization kind of show their cards? Because I'm Guessing for quite a long time, you were under the impression that they were just sort of this impromptu kind of fellowship thing connected to the university. At which point did you understand the scope of. Actually, this is a Korean group in Australia. And, you know, did they talk you through this?
- [23:36]
Matt Thomas
At some point there was a session. They call it the Passover event. And they only host it once everyone is indoctrinated enough, they make you sit an exam and they make you present a speech explaining what they've taught so far. And only if you are, you know, proficient in their books, they invite you to this Passover meeting. And it's at this Passover meeting is where they reveal. And this is the part where just deviates so far from what Christian faith is actually about. Because now what was once about Jesus, who is overseeing, you know, the foundation of the Bible and heaven, they bring in a new man, and they explain to us that all this teaching that you've learned up until this point, do you know where it comes from? And then they reveal their pastor, Lee Man Hee, and they show the pictures of the church. This is the Korean church, Sincheonji. He's the one that's passed on this word to all of us. And the reason why you have been able to learn the Bible this way is because of this great man. And this is the church that all of you are going to be joining now. And going forward, this is what we are going to require of you. We need you to attend our services two times a week. Boys, you have to wear white and you have to wear a blue tie because you are in the tribe. It's like the blue tribe that looks after Australia because the church is split up into tribes. And girls, you have to wear white and you have to have your hair tied up in this sort of way. And you're going to have to come to services and you're going to have to get down on your knees and you're going to have to pray like this. And you're going to listen to our pastor's word and you're going to have to give tithing. And it's going to be once a month, and it's going to be 10% of your income. And you have to give it. It's a law before God and there's no excuses. You cannot miss a service. It's two times a week. If you're not there, we're going to follow up on you. And this is where you really see the cult crack down. But of course, because we're all at a point of, you know, in completely brainwashed. We're just like sheep, just nodding our heads. Okay, all right, I'll come through. And we just gave everything away, all of the money. You know, they said even though we're asking 10%, but you have some of you that are super generous and you're going to give everything that you've got. And there I was. Take it all.
- [26:06]
Julian Morgans
Hey, we're going to take a quick ad break, but stick around because we'll be back with more what it was like.
- [26:22]
Matt Thomas
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- [29:47]
Julian Morgans
You handed over all your savings?
- [29:50]
Matt Thomas
I had eight grand in savings. I mean, I was in university. I had, you know, saved up throughout my teenage life. I just gave it all to them. Everything. That was where now, okay, now you're part of the church now. Things are serious. We're gonna give you a schedule. We're gonna write your day's routine and you're gonna follow. Meetings are gonna start at 5 in the morning. You're gonna be there and you're not gonna be late. Meetings are going to finish at midnight, sometimes later than midnight. You're going to be there and you're going to be obedient because this is what we're requesting of you. And sleep, man, sleep just went out the window. We did not sleep. We really did not sleep. It's interesting because when you look into cult, their tactics, you see sleep deprivation comes up because obviously when you sleep, depression deprived your ability to critically think, to analyze. It just dissipates. And so we just lived like zombies for the next four years. Just zombies. Obedient zombies.
- [30:57]
Julian Morgans
How many hours of sleep were you getting a night?
- [31:00]
Matt Thomas
It was around the first couple years. Out of sheer willpower, I was able to get down to maybe four hours of sleep. Oh, consistently, every night. But, man, I look back at that time and I. My parents have memories and stories of me coming home and I would just crumble. I'd walk through the door, I would sit on. Sit down on the couch, and they would all be having a conversation. And I would only visit them once a week on the weekend, like, matt, how are you going? And how's your week been? And literally mid sentence, I would just pass out. My brother, even just the other day, he pulled up a video on his phone. He's like, man, you know, there was a time back in 2021, you walked into my room, you told me you had to tell me something, and you sat down at the end of my bed and you just passed out. And he says, I took a video here, look. And there I am dressed in my business clothes with the lights on, and I'm falling asleep with my arms crossed on the end of my brother's bed, just, you know, absolutely exhausted. And he's just there, like, what on earth is going on with my brother? And he thought it was funny. He filmed the whole thing. The worst part was the driving. Main church building at the time was in Perth city. So we had to arrive at the building at 5am sharp, and we would leave by, you know, 12 midnight or sometimes 1 or 2am and the car accidents, like, you know, I have a few stories of my own. Falling asleep at the wheel, it was terrifying. But there are some people way worse off than I was. Like, they rode off more than one car in the time that they were in Shincheonji because of the sleep deprivation.
- [32:45]
Julian Morgans
This was just a regular thing. Like, everyone was having car accidents and it was an accepted cost of being awake all this time.
- [32:53]
Matt Thomas
They even praised it.
- [32:54]
Julian Morgans
What? Tell me about that.
- [32:56]
Matt Thomas
Wow. Look how. Look how committed this person is. They sacrificed so much sleep that they even get into a car accident. And obviously they'll show you compassion and be like, oh, no, please be careful. And we're so sorry this had to happen. But, you know, but then they would elevate them and be like, we just see how much of a heart you have. You're so devoted that you are even sacrificing all your sleep. And so we just want to commend you. You know, some of us actually felt a little bit of pride. You know what we felt pride about? We would feel pride when we started getting nosebleeds because, well, on top of the sleep diversion, we weren't eating because we couldn't. We Couldn't afford to eat. So everyone was just like, super skin and bones. And, you know, we didn't have a lot of sunlight because we just kind of. Especially during the COVID era, we were in our rooms and we were just skinny and everyone was just losing weight. And then every time we go out to drive, we're like, you know, we sleep deprived and we just. We're just laboring. And we just looked so unhealthy. We looked like zombies. And then, you know, every now and then, someone would get a nosebleed and they'll send a video. Like, look at me. Like, I'm up here at 2am and my nose is bleeding. And we're like, oh, I want to be like that. I want to sacrifice that much that, you know, I'm giving myself health problems. It literally was like that. You know, there was one time that I fell asleep at a red light, passed out on my steering wheel. And after a couple minutes went by, I assume it was a couple minutes, I get this knock on my window. And one of the guys from the cars behind me, I'd caused this massive line. He came and knocked on my window. And I woke up and I had no idea where I was. Like, imagine if I had done that while driving, you know, that's how serious it was. My life was at risk. Yeah.
- [34:39]
Julian Morgans
And what were you doing with all these extra hours? Just reading the Bible.
- [34:43]
Matt Thomas
So it became less of time to study the Bible and more time to study their doctrine. It's a teaching about how to become a Sincheonji person and how to worship the pastor. We had education every day where we would sit there and we'd have to take notes. And there'll be a Korean teacher just teaching, teaching, teaching how we can be strong in faith, how we can sacrifice more for the love of the church, how we can recruit people. Because keep in mind now, now we're in the church, part of our jobs is to bring people in. And a lot of the education was teaching us how to recruit. How do we bring someone else in? You know, that's not really biblical stuff. That was more psychology stuff. It was like how to analyze people, how to recruit people with certain personality types, how to make people feel comfortable in your presence. Talking about posture, it was talking about body language, love languages. It was like, okay, part of your job. If you want to recruit someone, you got to understand what their love languages are. If they're a quality time person, you got to make sure you spend a good couple hours of quality time with that person. As Often as you can. If they are a gifts person, you got to send them gifts. We use whatever little money that you have, buy them stuff, take them out, you know, do things, acts of service, physical touch, brother to brother. If he's a physical touch person, embrace him, make him feel your love, you know, anything you can to love bomb that person. It's like, how do you coerce people? That was a lot of the teaching.
- [36:17]
Julian Morgans
Oh God, it's so twisted. So you were working actively as a recruiter for a while?
- [36:23]
Matt Thomas
Yes.
- [36:24]
Julian Morgans
Off the top of your head, how many people do you think you got into the church?
- [36:28]
Matt Thomas
So you know, you start off as maybe just a recruiter. That's like the base position. Yeah, think of it like a hierarchy. You start off and you're just a, like a base level recruiter. So at that point I brought in five people. Maybe some were friends, some were random people that I met on the street or I was even reaching out to people through Instagram and I managed to bring five people. But in the churches perspective that's not a great number of people really. But if you think about it just in practical terms, that's 10 months per person at least of just full time locked in with that individual. And so yeah, that I brought in five people. But then because I was within the first batch of people that was recruited in Perth, they needed more teachers as the church grew in Perth. And so then the teachers training started and that's when I had to start memorizing the doctrine and how to teach and how to deliver. And so I became a recruiter of a more advanced position and that was a teaching recruiter. And at that point I was bringing in classes at a time of, you know, anywhere between 10, up to 30 people working together with other individual recruiters. But I was the one giving the doctrine and meeting with each fruit to make sure that they were being convinced by my teaching. And so yeah, as a teacher I brought in probably up to 50 people.
- [37:55]
Julian Morgans
Wow, you're painting the picture of this really terrifying, highly process driven organism that is just sort of like sucking in new recruits and growing all the time. Can you just paint a picture of sort of their scale around Australia at the moment?
- [38:12]
Matt Thomas
For sure, yeah. I mean Perth isn't actually that big. The church that's in Perth is sitting around 300 to 400 members currently. That's what I've heard from ex members who have recently left the cult. But then the Melbourne headquarters, that's the main church in Australia, is anywhere between a thousand and two thousand people. With Sydney second from the top. And so they have really, you know, stretched across Australia up to Townsville. They're in Adelaide, they're in Brisbane. I believe they were sending people to Darwin even. And so their goal was to take over Australia. Yeah.
- [38:59]
Julian Morgans
What does that mean?
- [39:00]
Matt Thomas
Well, that's the way I see it now. We were told at the time they were healing Australia. Their goal at the end was to heal the whole world so that everyone will come to know the teaching. And that was the promise. That was the promise to us is that because they speak a word of such great and profound truth, that eventually everyone will succumb to them, and the whole world will become the church, their church. That was our vision collectively, and obviously it's not true. And now we're getting to the part that I started to doubt in something.
- [39:34]
Julian Morgans
What was it about this vision of infinite growth that irked you?
- [39:39]
Matt Thomas
Up until that point, I hadn't done any research into what a cult was. They did a lot of teaching incorporating the idea that people will call us a cult because they are the ones who are deceived. And so it was kind of this thing like, okay, well, people who are outside of Shincheonji don't look at us in a fond way. And you came to accept that. You came to embrace it almost in a stoic style. But anyways, they would often use this word cult, but I never really knew what it was. I didn't understand where the word cult originated from. One of the people that I tried to bring into Shincheonji raised this idea to me. What if we're a cult? Like there are these other groups who are operating in a similar fashion to our church, Shinchunji. What if it's just all part of, like, this network? A name of another cult was mentioned by this person, and they said, well, have you heard of Mother God? I said, no, what is Mother God? And there I found out that there is another group who operates in a similar fashion to Shincheonji, also from South Korea, and even originated at the same time as Shincheonji back in, I think it was the 60s. Around that time, they had a congregation size that is into the millions worldwide, whereas chinchenji only had 300,000. And that confused me because we were always promised that we were going to be the fastest growing church and that we were going to take over the world. So how on earth could there be another church, also from South Korea, also with a pastor at the top who says that he's the one and only, and they've got into the millions like, what are they teaching over there? And that just stumped me. But I never. I never let the doubt grow so much as to, you know, really start questioning. I just. It just like lingered in my subconscious, probably because I was sleep deprived. I never really thought that deeply about it. But eventually, when the time came for my awakening, my realizing of what had happened to me, which I give great thanks to my parents for the efforts that they put into trying to explain what a cult actually was, and explaining the psychology of indoctrination and coercion. But I still remember it. The morning that I actually realized what had happened, it was as if a light bulb had just been turned on in my brain. For the first time in four and a half years, I realized something was off. And my first instinct was to go onto the Internet and to research testimonies of ex members, not from Shincheonji, but from Mother God. Because I was so curious, what is this place? You know, what is it that they're doing? And there I see these testimonies of these ex members. When I heard their stories, it was like copy and paste. What Shin Shinji was doing was exactly the same as Mother God. The recruitment strategies, the indoctrination, the 10 months Bible study, the lying to family, the lying to friends, the controlling of the behaviors, everything was the same. It was just a strategy. And that led me to look into another group. And then there's the Moonies, and then there's jms, then there's the Children of God and all these groups and there's like a hub of them. I'm like, oh my goodness, you know? And that was. It was really hard for me because I couldn't just let go of the doctrine. The doctrine was so ingrained inside my psyche that I couldn't just be like, okay, the doctrine is wrong. So I convinced myself because of the psychology, because I realized that there's tactics of manipulation that other groups are using to bring people in. And so I convinced myself that it doesn't matter what they're teaching. It matters that the practice is effective no matter what organization. And that was enough for me to be like, nah, that's it. It's a scam. I've been scammed. I got to get out of this place and I got to let other people know about this. I got to let them know the scam. But it was very quick for them to realize that I had turned.
- [44:00]
Julian Morgans
Before we get there, I just want to go back a step because I understand that your parents had kind of hit crisis point and I was wondering if you could walk me through that.
- [44:09]
Matt Thomas
Yeah, it was really hard on them for them to realize. I still feel guilty until this day for what they went through for those four and a half years. They knew something was wrong. They could see it. I just, I didn't look healthy and I lost so much about myself. You know, even my accent changed. Can you imagine? Like, because I was listening to so many Korean speakers, my once kind of half South African Australian accent just went out the window and I started coming home with this Malaysian Korean accent and there's just like, who is this guy? Like, it was just the strangest thing to them. So they could tell that something was going on, but they just couldn't put their finger on it. They couldn't tell what had happened to me.
- [44:53]
Julian Morgans
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- [46:54]
Matt Thomas
The idea of a cult manipulating me was never really in the forefront of their minds because it's not something that's widely spoken about. But yes, so I'll explain just how they came to realize, because obviously for the four and a half years that I was in there, it's like none of Perth knew. Perth didn't know that Shincheonji was operating here. The church had already grown to 300 people, so there were a lot of families who are experiencing the same thing as my family. Like their sons and daughters just went off to lululand. And so this small handful of parents, thanks to them, they came forth to the press, they came to the. To the news journalists and said, hey, I've got a story. I need to tell you what's happened to my son or daughter and I need you to spread awareness about it. And it was the first newspaper article went out in 2023, and it was something like brainwashed doomsday students, something to that effect. Anyways, my father got a hold of that newspaper and he read the testimony, and it just so perfectly correlated to what he was witnessing in my life. Like, the testimony of this dad was just like copy and paste of of my own story. On top of that, because we couldn't afford to pay for parking at the building that Shincheonji was operating out of, all of the congregation members were accumulating thousands of dollars worth of parking fines outside of the building. So the Wilson Parking Company that was operating that car park also contacted the newspaper journalist and collaborated with them. Just what they did was further reveal the building address. Because Wilson was like, well, all of a sudden, in the last two years, we've got like thousands of dollars of parking funds and we're like, we don't know where it's coming from, but the only thing we can think is it's coming from this building and we're seeing all of these people coming in and out of the building. And so the news paper journalist was able to do some digging and found out that the testimony from the dad about his son or daughter being in Chinchenji, it happened to be operating in that building. Anyways, I came home, it was a Wednesday night, and there my dad was with the newspaper in one hand and with a stack of parking fines in the other hand. So there was no going back. Now he put the two and two together and man, that night was hard.
- [49:31]
Julian Morgans
How did he open up that conversation?
- [49:33]
Matt Thomas
Oh, I remember it so vividly. I walked into the house, it was like late at night, which is typical for me. I just finished a service with the church and my dad actually texted me on WhatsApp. And he said, when you get home, we need to talk. And I knew something was wrong. I arrived home, the lights were on, and my parents are very routine. Like, they are consistently in bed by 9.30pm and this was already 11pm, so I know it was serious. I walked in and everyone was asleep except Mum and Dad. Dad greeted me in the hallway, and I saw the newspaper, and I knew the newspaper come out, but then I saw him with it, and I had this kind of fear. I didn't know what to think. And I brought him into my room and he already started to like the mix of emotions. He was super upset because obviously he's now realized that I've lied to him all this time. And he was just beside himself. And I was like, dad, dad, dad, let's go into my room. And he was just. This whole time, you know, how could it be? And I just. I didn't know what to think. So I went into shutdown mode. I just suppressed all my emotions. He was going off and he was like, don't you know what this means? Like, you've been brainwashed. And how can you not realize this? And. And you're in a cult, Matt. Like, you got to realize, like, you've been tricked. I just suppressed all my emotions, and I'm just thinking in my head, God first, God first, God first. I can't let this get to me. My faith is most important. You know, my faith to Shincheonji. And so I just said, look, Dad, I know this is a shock to you, but, like, this is where I am and I'm staying at this place. It's the truth. And my parents did not sleep that night. They did not sleep. Like, their life for the next six weeks was miserable. And it just. It consisted of a lot of heavy emotional arguments. I was trying to convince them using the doctrine. They were trying to convince me using the psychology, and I just wasn't having it. I was arrogant because I knew I had. I was a teacher. I had memorized so much of the teaching, and I was just trying to teach them almost. And like, you guys don't know what you're talking about. And, like, listen to this word of truth. And I was almost like rebuking them. And there they are just crumbling just out of, you know, so distressed.
- [51:54]
Julian Morgans
Had they got any advice on how to approach you? I mean, you know, I'm not criticizing your dad's approach here, but it sounds Pretty emotional. It sounds like he was kind of grasping at straws a bit.
- [52:04]
Matt Thomas
Yeah, yeah. Following that first night, that initial night that he confronted me, they sought help. And there happens to be an organization, cifs, Cult Information Family Services.
- [52:19]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, I know of them. I've seen them.
- [52:21]
Matt Thomas
Yeah, yeah, These guys are, they're trained and they, they help them with the practice of getting to gently get their son or daughter to realize a gentle approach. And it definitely gave them some wisdom on how to approach me. They also did some deep diving into research. There's a cult expert by the name of Steven Hassan who's actually written a book called Combating Cult Mind Control. And they read that book cover to cover and there was a whole lot of really useful resources in there, especially around the. The psychology of controlling another person's mind and how coercion is, is used by an organization. And so that book was a very handy resource. But one of the most effective things that they did was they took me away on a two week holiday outside of Perth without WI fi connection. So I lost connection with the group for two weeks. It was almost like a bit of a forceful extraction. Like they're like, all right, you're coming with us. Like you're living in our house now. You're going to come with us and you're going to do this two week holiday. And I'm kind of being told by my leaders, like, you know, go with them and just comfort them and when you get back we'll take you in, don't worry about it. So I'm like, okay. I went on this two week holiday and my parents filled this two weeks with all the fun stuff that I hadn't done in years. We went fishing, we played pool. I hadn't even watched a movie on Netflix in four years. Like for my own leisure, we sat and we watched all the Planet of the Ape movies. So that trip was effective, but it didn't look like that because when we arrived back, I straight away left again. I went to the, the cult. And when I came home after that evening and my parents said, did you just go to the church again after that whole great trip that we just had, you still returning there? And I said, yeah, what did you expect? That was the moment my dad just broke down and he was. I really felt his love in that moment. His love and the sheer burden and the stress that I put on my family. I just witnessed it right in front of me. My dad just broke down and he's a pretty stoic individual. He doesn't show when things are tough, usually I've always looked up to my dad and he does a lot for our family. But when I saw him break down like that, that just. It just tore me open a little bit. And I realized, this can't be right. Surely this is not worth it. Like, I thought that I was going to heal them through doing this. I thought that I was saving them through doing this. And now I'm just witnessing them just crumbling before me. And I was like, something's off. And it was probably two days after that is when I snapped out of it. And, oh, I'm just so thankful for my family, their commitment. Even during the time, the four years when I was just lying to them, they didn't give up. Like, they could see me as sleep deprived and coming home and I was even like sometimes rude to them and I wasn't giving them time of day. My mom would consistently leave me meals out at night. There would always be a bowl of dinner when I came home. And I would come home at one or two, so the meal would be cold, but I was ravenous. I would just scoff whatever it was down. And I just. Now I see it like their love for me, this, it did not fade. They never gave up on me in those four and a half years. And that really just shows the power of family love, you know?
- [56:04]
Julian Morgans
That's great. That's probably the difference between getting out and getting really stuck.
- [56:10]
Matt Thomas
Yeah.
- [56:11]
Julian Morgans
Do you remember going back to the group and just telling them that you're out?
- [56:15]
Matt Thomas
Oh, that was a tough one because I was one of the first to leave who was in a. I would say a more major position in the church, I suppose maybe one other. Yeah, there was one other teacher who had left, but almost had a silent exit. Just kind of ghosted them and vanished off. For me, I came out angry and I was. I was really, really resentful. I came out from them and. And I think that they weren't expecting it. And so their first reaction was to try to get me to meet with them. And I just started getting texts from different leaders. Come meet with me. Let's break this down. Don't worry, we know you're freaking out right now, but let's help you navigate this. And there I'm wrestling because I've just realized that they're using this tactic to manipulate me and I don't want to be manipulated by them again. And so eventually I just said, look, nah, I'm not going to meet with you guys. And instead I texted all of the students Who I had in my class at that point in time, there's maybe 30 or so people. I texted all them, I said, look, guys, I'm giving you the reality right now, and you decide for yourselves. I sent them the links, I tell them straight up. And I promise you, within two minutes of having sent that message to all of those students, the entire congregation blocked me. Like, I just, I was kicked off all the group chats. So they use a platform called Telegram because it's, it's quite a secure platform.
- [57:44]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, drug dealers use it, I've heard.
- [57:48]
Matt Thomas
So you can see why they would want to use it. I was just kicked off all of, all of the chats. Like, I was just taken off. I went on my Telegram. There's like, I was not part of anything on there anymore. Like, it's just my existence just poofed, like, vanished. A few of my students reached out. So that night I was just on phone calls non stop, and I managed to help. I think it was around five, five people that night, but only five. Only five. But then gradually, over time, another student would come through and said, they used to call me teacher Matt. Teacher Matt, Is it really true what you said? Like, is this place really a cult? And then I'd jump on the phone with them and I meet with them and I'd explain and. And within a couple months, we managed to get about 15 people. That was me working collaboratively with a small group of EX members. Like, we almost kind of formed our own little army. Like, we were. We all had this resentment and we formed this little group and the EX member group, and we were just trying to help people to realize before it was too late. And so that was my exit.
- [58:50]
Julian Morgans
Wow, you're still helping to extract people to this day. Can you tell me about that?
- [58:56]
Matt Thomas
Yeah. So part of what happened after that was okay. I realized that it's really hard to convince someone who's fully indoctrinated. Like, first of all, that place despises me now because it's one thing for a person to leave. They hate that because that person, according to their doctrine, becomes possessed by an evil spirit or Satan's spirit. But the worst type of person, in their eyes, is someone who leaves and then tries to speak out. They can't stand those people and they speak so ill of them all the time. Even when I was in there, I remember they speak a word of fear into the congregation. They make everyone super scared of that person so that none of them will interact with me. They're all too scared of me. Now as if like I've got some new kind of power, like I can kind of possess them or something. And I heard reports from people as they were leaving that they were putting my face up literally on the screen in front of the congregation. Me along with a couple of the other ex members who were trying to speak out against the church. And they made a law. They said, look, if we find any of you communicating with him or him, you're all getting sacked. Like you're all getting exited and you're getting blocked by us. Like it was a whole thing.
- [60:18]
Julian Morgans
Wow.
- [60:18]
Matt Thomas
And so everyone was super fearful of me. So I realized, look, I can't reach them. So my approach was, okay, well let me try reach the people I can reach. And that's everyone who's on the outside who doesn't know what a cult is. And that's when the first TikTok video came about. It was just a, you know, it was a two minute sit down and I just recorded myself and said, hey, like I'm here to warn you about a cult called Shinchun Ji. They're based in Perth. They approach people in pairs. They take you to a Bible study course for 10 months and they worship a pastor called Lee Man. He. I just spoke what it was and man did that TikTok video just went overnight. Like the views, but not just the views, the comments. People were like, what that happened to me and that I was approached by these two people and like I was doing the Bible study somewhere, even saying, I'm in the Bible study class right now. Like I've realized that, you know, it was just, it was massive, it was huge. And so I realized holy smokes. Like this is way bigger of an issue there than I thought and I can actually do a lot more than I thought. So I made a second tick tock video and it really helped to spread awareness, especially to the younger population. And then I'm like, okay, well there's some older people I got to reach the older people too, like who don't use tick tock. Okay, well let me go to the newspapers. And then I went to newspapers and there was an article, we released another article and. And then all of a sudden, you know, because the story was almost so unique and scary for a lot of people because no one wants for that to happen to their kids. I mean the seven you started contacting me and all these people and the publicity was. It was hard for me because I was still trying to heal myself. Like, I'm like I'm two months out of this thing. I'm trying to. Trying to figure out what has happened to me for the last four and a half years. And, like, I'm still trying to digest and dissect and undo the teach. Because, you know, I'll be completely honest, for the first five months or so, having left Shincheonji, I wasn't fully convinced that the teaching was wrong. I would literally, like, wake up some days and be like, hold on. Have I just made the biggest mistake of my life? Yeah. Like, what if that place really is the truth? But, yeah, I suppose healing took time. And eventually I started gaining a bit more courage and confidence because I convinced myself that nowhere and in any circumstance is it okay for an organization to use lies and deception and manipulation to bring people in and to extract them from their families.
- [62:47]
Julian Morgans
Yeah. How's your faith in Christian theology these days, given what you went through?
- [62:54]
Matt Thomas
Obviously, because Shincheonji uses the Bible alongside the false narrative, it becomes really hard to trust what is true and what's not in the Bible. But more than that, it's the fear of being manipulated again. And so for me, like, I knew that I had to go speak to people that knew the Bible. I knew that I had to go speak to theologians and pastors and hear them out. And it was. It was really hard for me to go sit with a pastor and trust what they were saying, because I'm like, I was skeptical with everyone.
- [63:26]
Julian Morgans
Yeah.
- [63:27]
Matt Thomas
I was like, are you just trying to bring me into your church now? And I was just going around all these different pastors, and eventually there were a handful of them that I started to trust. I started to realize, you know, there are some really healthy churches for me to be able to step into. And the message of Christianity, it actually is so much more simple compared to what Shincheonji made it out to be. Because the core teaching of Christianity is that you believe in Jesus and you're saved. That's what the gospel is. And it's a simple teaching. And there's multiple times throughout the Bible where it's spoken of. And if anyone speaks a word that's outside of that gospel, if anyone distorts it, they are false teachers. And there's prophecies in the Bible that talk about all these false teachers that are going to appear and mislead or everyone. And to me, that made sense, that Shincheonji looks like that. And so the healing took time. But I eventually, you know, I hold on to my faith. It's something that's very dear to me. It's something that's very precious and meaningful. And now I found myself in a loving church community where I really love the honesty and the transparency and there's no coercion and there's just, you know, it's just love. The hard part is that a lot of the people who are recruited, in fact, all people who are recruited are Christians, and they want a relationship with God. But Shinchunji uses and abuses that. And I hope that for a lot of people who go into Shincheonji, that when they leave, that they don't just lose that sense.
- [64:57]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, yeah. And would you describe yourself as kind of healed? Do you see yourself as having returned to society? Are you working? Are you dating? What are your friendships like?
- [65:09]
Matt Thomas
Yes. I'm currently married and plan to be married for the rest of my life.
- [65:12]
Felix Salmon
That's great.
- [65:13]
Matt Thomas
With a wonderful wife who's been absolutely fantastic and super supportive in every aspect, including faith. And I did have to go return to my studies because that was disrupted during my time in Chincheonji. But I completed my psychology degree and have got into. Into work now. And so I would say the healing is gone really well. Something that I'm very thankful for. It's not the case for everyone, and it is a traumatic experience, and I don't want to make it seem like it's not. In fact, it's almost like being on a high for the time that you're in there where you. You go into dreamland. The hardest part is the come down. It's the withdrawal when you leave. And you have to then refind your identity and you have to deal with the trauma, but it's. Yeah, the people who are coming out need a lot of support, and that's what we're trying to do now is just create a support group for those people.
- [66:06]
Julian Morgans
That's great.
- [66:07]
Matt Thomas
But yeah, other than that, I just. I guess I hope there's more education that goes out, perhaps in universities, high schools, churches as well. And the best kind of weapon that you can have is knowledge, so that you don't allow for yourself to be, you know, kind of tricked. Yeah, it can happen to anyone, Matt.
- [66:27]
Julian Morgans
I think that's a very good place to end. So thank you so much for talking us through this. It's been so interesting. Really depressing as well, if I'm honest. Yeah, they really absorbed a lot of your time.
- [66:41]
Matt Thomas
Yeah. Well, I'm thankful for the opportunity to be able to speak out and hope that reaches a lot of people as well.
- [66:49]
Julian Morgans
Hey, thanks for tuning in. Just a little note, before we finish, there will be no subscriber episode this week. Apologies, apologies. We had one lined up. We were actually interviewing a former member of the church that Matt had helped to rescue, but for reasons that I won't go into, we decided to not run it. So like I say, very sorry. Thanks for supporting the show and we'll be back next week with a regular episode as well as a subscriber episode episode. Until then, enjoy your weekend. What It Was like is produced by Rachel Tuffrey. This episode was edited by Ellie Dickey, who also does our research. Our cover art is by Rich Akers. Our theme music was produced by Jimmy Saunders and this whole thing has been a super real production.
- [67:52]
Matt Thomas
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- [68:00]
Nikayla Matthews Akome
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- [68:27]
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Nikayla Matthews Akome
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Matt Thomas
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- [68:55]
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- [69:17]
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