In a podcast discussing her book, Daniella Mestyanek Young remarks that she faced two problems publishing Uncultured: most publishers will not publish books about the Children of God because readers find them too disturbing and publishers also tend to avoid books about women in the military. So, she went ahead and did a bit of both, which makes for a difficult but powerful and valuable read, though I will primarily focus on the cult aspect of the Children of God. (This is not to discount the value of her entire memoir—such as her insights into the difficulties of being a woman dealing with sexism in the military and the character of military extremist and ex-husband Jeff Poole).
Based on hints throughout the book, I say with utter certainty that Mestyanek Young's abuser Uncle Jerry was/is Jeremy Spencer.
From being a "founding member of an evil rock band" who "received royalty checks" and "famous" (48-49) and "short compared to the other Uncles" and his "usual costume of fat Elvis" (61), my suspicions are only confirmed. In another page I forgot to dog-ear, his "British accent" is mentioned. Lord Justice Ward wrote about some of the crimes Jeremy committed on—I don't even feel comfortable writing and repeating it, the sources are there and quote the court documents.
Any guesses what one of Jeremy Spencer's signature acts was during his time with Fleetwood Mac?
I'll quote Neville Marten: "Jeremy also did a wicked Elvis Presley impersonation" (Boy, that aged like curdled milk on a hot summer day before it was even published)
They've been a cult that, well, what Mestyanek Young says is accurate: finding information about them is difficult and a significant chunk of the time, even trying to do the research makes you feel queasy and like you're definitely on some kind of watch list for a suspicious search history. This is why I linked those documents above instead of direct quoting them. So for a long time, I back-bunered learning about the Children of God and relegated the cult to one I'd find out about down the line, which has been the way I've treated it since the early-to-mid-2010s, when I started getting more into Fleetwood Mac.
Then, a few weeks ago, I'm doing some of my usual oddball research, I believe this was when I was doing some digging into Synanon and trying to compare it to Scientology's practices. This video crops up about a dark show for kids and, out of morbid curiosity, I click. Wasn't familiar with Crowley at the time, so I was wary until I started to connect dots, saw reliable sources, and realized who he was talking about before the reveal, then I decided to go back and take some starting notes. The old show Crowley begins with and which allegedly may have aired on TV in the Philippines or other smaller countries was called Life with Grandpa.
But Life With Grandpa comes far down the line, as does the moniker Grandpa, so let's rewind and go back to what can be gleaned about founder David Berg and the Children of God between Uncultured, A&E's Cults and Extreme Beliefs, a podcast with Mestyanek Young about Uncultured, The Love Prophet and the Children of God, and another podcast with Faith Jones, the granddaughter of the cult's founder (I have yet to read Sex Cult Nun, but you know with a title like that, I'm gonna; god this is a tasteless, inappropriate remark even by my standards).
Just to give you a little spine-chilling, unwanted information: the Children of God are still around.
Today, you can easily find them by searching for the Family International.
Changing names in order to mask their identities and evade law enforcement, as we will go to find, is anything but foreign to cult members. Jeremy=Jerry is one such example, though this may be a false name to avoid being sued for libel rather than what he was called within the cult.
Another example of this is the founder: Moses, King David, Grandpa, Mo, Uncle, Moses David, and Dad, among others—David Brandt Berg was the cretin's real name. (Changing names like this has an intriguing similarity to the political uses of dark money: using obfuscation to avoid law enforcement or to mislead people by pretending to be someone else; see: Musk perverting the memory of the late Ruth Bader Ginsberg).
David Berg was born in Oakland in 1919 and began operating Teens for Christ out of a Huntington Beach coffeehouse called the Light Club in 1968, not long after his mother died. He picked up religion from a long family history, notably his agnostic-turned-devout mother who worked as a (fringe, depending on the source) evangelist. One of the defining events of his childhood, per adult recollection, was having someone older than him explain how to masturbate and, after being caught by his mother, being made to finish in front of the father (this one really strains credulity and sounds like something I would make up as hyperbolic snark, so I want to clarify: I am not joking, this is within the first five minutes of The Love Prophet and the Children of God).
Whether Sigmund Freud or Gilbert Gottfried would have more of a field day with this story is up for debate.
Prior to 1968, Berg believed he had a miraculous recovery from pneumonia after being drafted (and released) during WWII—after which he claims to "dedicate" himself to God. I find the 'playing up my WWII service' aspect here interesting, as another cult leader with a similar background here is Scientology's L. Ron Hubbard but have nothing further to add there yet. Berg marries Jane Miller and begins to work as a minister but is pushed out, likely due to sexually harassing a minor and straying from church teachings.
Though he claimed it was because he stood up against segregation and for racial diversity; can't say I buy this, but it's possible. It is also possible the next time I walk the dog, he'll have studied up on Aesop, learned how to emulate the goose, and started shitting gold nuggets so I can never worry about finances again. Anything's possible.
Anyway, a few years puttering around, scraping by, and ultimately, we get back to where we started: in the late sixties, preaching and building up a following until he starts up Teens for Christ, which would become the Children of God, later the Family of Love, and now just the Family.
In 1969, claiming to have had a vision of a catastrophic earthquake, Berg got his followers to go on the road with him, spreading the word of God and helping bind them together as a cult. It's like a really warped (but not by fun drugs), shitty version of rolling around with the Merry Pranksters in Furthur.
The reality of the reason behind Berg's decision to up and move, predictably, has more to do with fear of a law enforcement crackdown, especially with increasing concerns from parents about the cult their children were joining—and even more pointedly in the wake of Manson.
The origin of the cult's name has a few different stories. One claims that it came from a derisive remark from a journalist, which I'm paraphrasing, in an interview: "Father [David/Moses?] and the Children of God." In Bril's account, she tells a different story: a French musical group named, as the subtitles so helpfully put it, "[FRENCH DIALOGUE] which is also the Children of God and they produced a bestseller at the time," with the accompanying image: The Bible: A Rock Testament by Family of Love.
More important than that, this is also the year David will marry a woman named Mary. She will appear in Life With Grandpa, from Crowley's video (I believe as Mother Mary or Mariah?). Mary Berg, I believe her name would have been(?) is now known as Karen Elva Zerby and she remains the leader of the Family International. Her new husband, Peter Amsterdam (AKA Steven Douglas Kelly, Christopher Smith, King Peter), is also a leader in the cult—and a real smarmy creep who defends all sorts of abominations in The Love Prophet and the Children of God.
(See why their names are such a goddamn nightmare? This isn't just a light joke, it had a very, very sinister intention: it made it nearly impossible for children to find help outside the cult and be able to communicate who they were and where they had come from—they didn't even know their own last names).
That's 56 years she's been getting away with some pretty fuckin' awful shit—well, maybe not the full 56, but the abuse in this cult started early.
Spoilers for any true crime aficionados out there: if you've ever heard of one Ricky Rodriguez—well, we'll get into that whole can of worms later. He is Davidito in Life With Grandpa and he was Mary/Karen's son.
In Thurber, Texas, a "Soul Clinic" is set up with some help from cult member with (blood) family in the area and the Family begins scouting for further locations, hoping to expand. This is how Mestyanek Young's family became prominent in the cult.
Anyway, the specifics aren't the biggest thing here, I guess I just can't help but point out: to me, at least, the whole "family duped into providing land for a cult," has some heavy echoes of Charlie Manson and the Family on Spahn Ranch, though my knowledge of Manson is pretty rusty, over a decade since Guinn's biography of that cretin, and I'm pretty sure getting high and watching Tarantino doesn't count as a history refresher (though, given my family's tendency to trust Hollywood Based on a True Story, I'd imagine they're experts on the case now).
Remember that giant earthquake?
Here, I must confess some ignorance: I cannot make out the date on the New Musical Express at the start of this post. It appears Ringo did not appear on the cover of New Musical Express until the April 24, 1971 issue. Could've been some time till the news circulated, could be because I only took a cursory look and wasn't willing to spend more time doing research, but the pieces do match up.
In 1971, the San Fernando Earthquake struck. According to, I believe the earlier? Of Mick's two autobiographies, the earthquake spooked Jeremy Spencer.* Spencer said he was going to go out, hit a book shop, seemed really on edge.... and he never came back. That was because he was enchanted and drawn in to the Children of God.
At the time he joined, there were likely two communes and roughly three hundred members, at least according to the only time I bothered to jot down a number, I did not compare them because I'm not that thorough, I'm a dude who writes a blog in his spare time, I'm not turning this in for a college essay.
As ever, my favorite story is of the genius reflecting on the beauties of a simple life and his own debts, taking off his fuckin' Rolex, and smashing it. Maybe pawn it and settle some of that debt, or just hook up those simple villagers you were just admiring with some food. I get being simple, but there are times to be pragmatic.
In 1972, Berg starts sending out his teachings in the form of "Mo Letters." These included "orders, policies, how to read scripture," absolute control. In time, these would be given equal—or greater—weight than the Bible. Many of them are also illustrated. To indicate he was aware of the criminal nature of his acts, Berg hid his identity in these photographs by having his head removed and a lion's drawn over it. Some of the worst of them were labeled BAR, allegedly—for Burn After Reading, due to the illegal nature. The Mo Letters are also where we are first introduced to several of his more disturbing teachings.
The so-called "Law of Love" is one.
According to this "law," sex is love and anything done 'in love' is okay. As he says in one boisterous sermon included in a few videos, "What I preach is SEX, boys, and I practice what I preach!"
He demands that he and his followers start having more sex—and while they're at it, how about they start recording and sending him some videos of sex and sexy dances? What makes a woman feel more respected and admired than treating her like a stripper?
Oh, and children should be in the videos; at 12, they're adults anyway. And hey, when that time comes: why talk about the birds and the bees? Haven't we all learned that showing is better than telling? (These are among the abhorrent practices broadly defended by "Peter Amsterdam" I mentioned before).
It doesn't end there, though, as Berg continues to abuse his power to push the boundaries of what is acceptable while ignoring boundaries, and we find this is one of those cases where a slippery slope is not a logical fallacy.
A corollary of the Law of Love is another big scandal from the Children of God: Flirty Fishing.
Remember that bit in Matthew when Jesus says to a few apostles, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men"?
Well, in this case it means being one of "God's Whores" or a "Hooker For Jesus" because of course the leader of the sex cult decided pimping out women was a great way to either get followers or some cash (and he's not pimping in a fun Key and Peele way). In typical toxic fashion, any acts of violence committed against women were blamed on the victim instead of the culprit. And I guess I should clarify: while women made up the majority of Flirty Fishers, there were men too.
It should also be noted how manipulative this was when you scratch under the surface. Like many cults, the Children of God pressed you to sever ties with your past life including friends and family (for Scientology comparisons: Disconnection), give up your possessions, and join them completely. The origins, sickeningly, also come from his daughter telling Berg she had slept with a Muslim man while proselityzing and attempting to convert him. Berg's own abuse of his granddaughter, including putting her through a torturous so-called "exorcism" for refusing to engage in abhorrent acts with him speaks to just how twisted this cult was.
(Merry's life is discussed in some documentaries. The link is there, but it is too difficult to even begin being able to discuss what she endured with the grace required. She was a very strong woman who was born into a hell she never should have had to survive. When "Peter Amsterdam" defends her treatment in The Love Prophet and the Children of God, it made me want to punch a hole through the screen).
This means when members are approached, some of whom have been drawn in from around the world, by this creepy old fucker who they think is God and told to go out and sell their bodies, any resistance is usually squashed by the realization that there is no choice but to do so.
And by this point, it might be anywhere. See, cult leaders aren't always idiots and Berg saw some writing on the wall with Manson's trial and conviction and got a bit of a fear of being investigated and cracked down on.
This is why April marks 'The Great Escape' and the beginning of the cult going international. By the end of 1973, there are over a hundred Children of God compounds in twenty-three countries with roughly 2300 members. The Great Escape, continuing our cult parallels, I would compare to Scientology's Sea Org: like when Hubbard took to the seas to evade law enforcement, Berg took to hitting the road. Berg being in hiding also explains the increased reliance on communication via the Mo Letters (along with obscuring his appearance within them), video recordings, and his set of changing names.
The other thing that, rightfully, probably would've flagged law enforcement to Berg was him preaching that children were adults at the age of twelve.
This would later be changed, actually—Mestyanek Young recounts it was her mom being so young when she was born that led Berg to raising the age to sixteen.
See, her mom wasn't sixteen, but by sixteen, the cult figured, doctors would be more likely to assume it was the result of a teenage love affair. The cult also had an aversion to doctors; Crowley points this out in his video, both in scenes from Life With Grandpa and in the likely ultimate fate of a cult member with a growing tumor.
Spoiler alert: apparently this also came back to bite old Berg in the ass. Two different sources state that Berg either died of shingles or syphilis, I believe.** Syphilis, if the case, is not just a goofy name for an easily preventible STD—it can be devastating and often is overlooked to serious consequence. People don't realize that after the first two stages, untreated syphilis can go dormant and stay that way for years or decades before reemerging as tertiary syphilis, with much more serious symptoms. Gummas, that tricky word that comes up in researching them, is the "corkscrew" appearance described in syphilitics by Kurt Vonnegut in one of his books, I believe.
But hey, speaking of medicine and children: in 1975, Richard P. Rodriguez is born to Karen Zerby. He was conceived from her engaging in some Flirty Fishing and was viewed by Berg as a messianic Chosen One
Rodriguez's story is one of many tragic ones from this cult and among the worst of them, like Merry's.
Berg raised him in what he claimed was the "perfect" way to raise a child, by his own teachings. He even documented it in a book that's been called "the worst cult artifact" ever produced, called The Story of Davidito. Davidito is the name given to Rodriguez in the series Life with Grandpa (Richard Peter Rodriguez was born David Moses Zerby, technically, but like Gerald Ford wouldn't want you calling him Leslie Lynch, Jr., I'm going to respect his decision to shed that name; it was probably an attempt to shed the trauma it carried).
The book itself: I've only seen the censored bits included in documentaries, wouldn't want to see uncensored and I believe that's illegal. Because it includes a lot of pictures of the abuse he watched and was brought into. Before this, after all, Berg had encouraged families to have their children join in unacceptable activities.
Now, he was giving them a how-to guide based on his "perfect" parenting method, which should be universally applied.
Sit on that for a second, apologies for any ruined meals or vomiting.
Again showing Berg's clear awareness of the criminality: while copies were distributed, his special treatment of "no head, drawn over" was applied to everyone in an attempt to prevent them from facing legal consequences.
Rodriguez departed the cult in the mid-nineties. The eighties and nineties also overlapped with raids of communes in Spain, Argentina, Australia, and France during attempts by the cult to destroy as much evidence as possible—which itself ties into Crowley's theory that the show Life With Grandpa likely had destroyed episodes that draw more heavily on the more disturbing stories in the original book series, also called Life With Grandpa. This followed a 1992 lawsuit by an escapee which ultimately resulted in the Judgment of Lord Justice Ward and, in general, a bad time for the cult, and therefore, a good time for society at large.
Unfortunately, things can't ever just get a nice, happy ending. See, Berg dies and as a result, the court decides to kinda let the case go, assuming children can be left with their parents and the cult will change its ways.
If that seems brick-humping stupid, that's because it was.
They don't change, I don't think. They get better at hiding their crimes because getting away with said crimes emboldened them. I've encountered a few predatory people in my time and in my experience: this is how they think and operate.
As discussed by Bril near the end of the episode: the Family put out a statement saying they do not tolerate actions like the stuff they've been doing for decades.
Then they sent an internal message saying, 'Of course we didn't mean that, it was a BS public statement. Business as usual!'
When I say the abuse is extensive, I should maybe borrow Crowley's word: "Mandatory." I can't recall the story he uses to illustrate this, but I'd point to Cults and Extreme Belief, where we are introduced to Anneke and Ron Schieberl, two incredible people who help escapees from the cult. Recounting their own getaway, they discuss how Ron was ordered by Leadership to force himself upon—yeah—to "humble her" and refusing to do so, telling the other men there to "punish" her that they would not be doing so, either, and preventing it.
If not active in it, there was at least complicit coverup: I still feel sick remembering Mestyanek Young talking about how she slipped up in asking a question about the Bible: she'd been told a lot of the Bible was passed down orally before being written. This is true. Then they played Telephone one day—and seeing how muddled a single sentence going around a room got, asked how the Bible could be infallible. Frankly, that should be taken as a sign of a bright kid; unfortunately...
She was sentenced to hours alone with "Uncle Jerry," a punishment that even the Aunt who turned her in seemed to realize was a punishment far more extreme than she ever could have imagined. Speaking of that piece of shit, as of today, Spencer is still a member and, apparently, may be working on a memoir of his own—I'll be giving that a pass.
Spencer's presence, like Zerby's and many other long-timers, speaks to how empty the cult's words are when they say they have changed their ways. They haven't.
Rodriguez passed in 2005. After escaping the cult, he struggled to get his life on track, but the abuse and demons of his past were too much for him. He made a video where he went on about his intention to hunt down, torture, and kill his abusers.
He ended up luring in one of them, lost his temper, stabbed her, and slit her throat. The horror he felt at his own actions led to him committing suicide after calling his estranged wife to explain how he thought hurting his abusers would make him feel better, but everything felt worse.
Rodriguez's suicide is a tragic and all-too-common fate for survivors of the Children of God; as mentioned in Cults and Extreme Belief, death from addiction to numb the pain, a "slow suicide," should also be counted here. Crimes of this nature require a lot of help to unpack the trauma and move on to a healthy life and, as a society, we frequently let survivors down here.
Mestyanek Young reflects on this a few times in her book, most poignantly I believe when she discusses the abuser Rodriguez killed as lying in her own blood, still confused and not understanding why this was happening because from her skewed perspective, she had raised him in a loving—a "perfect"—home in a manner that everyone should be, as taught and instructed by the man she viewed as a Prophet of God.
It's a gut-wrenching contrast of perceptions.
And, unfortunately, we still have perverse thinking not so different than Berg's floating around out there—as ever, it's easy to imagine most of these monsters as being outside the community and that is the common cultural fear we have.
In the vast majority of cases: perpetrators are close to home.
—
*The Children of God, it should be noted, is not Spencer's first foray into being a disgusting creep—as I was reminded most recently in Jones' Songbird, Spencer's troublesome relationships with minors began long before he ran off to this cult. Spencer was eighteen when he picked up his later-wife, Fiona. About a year later, she gave birth to their first child, and he was nineteen.
She was fourteen when they met and fifteen when she gave birth to their first child.
The writing was on the wall when it came to old Spencer even before the Family.
**Laurence Bergreen discusses syphillis in his biography of Capone, with the hypothesis Capone suffered from it. Now, putting aside Bergreen's weird fixation on Capone wearing silk manties and the book's plodding pace, he discusses the stages of syphilis: apparently, it has three stages. If people don't see a doctor, the second stage will quite often subside—but unless treated, it can lead to incredibly nasty complications.
Anyway: one of the reasons Capone got released from Alcatraz was basically losing control of his mind and regressing to an almost childlike state. This led to him getting into a literal shit-flinging match with another inmate and I mean, who can blame the prison guards for wanting the guy out? "He was a danger when he was running guns and booze, now he's just an illicitly rich criminal dirtying up the walls, let his family foot the bill with the money he earned from all those crimes."
Lesson being, at least when it comes to Berg: apparently you can get away with all sorts of unspeakable crimes, but if you don't pay your taxes or take your STD tests seriously, retribution will club you over the head and you might go from criminal mastermind or cult leader to confusing a toilet bowl for a toy basket.
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