Crime Seen | Episode 87: Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God

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[00:00:23] Now streaming on Max. Subscription more at microsoft.com. convicted murderer and Olympian Oscar Pistorius will be released from prison on January the 5th in a couple of days from now if you're listening to us on the first day we drop, which I'm sure you are. He's served a little more than 10 years for fatally shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. The Telegraph in the UK reported that he hasn't been pictured since his sentencing,

[00:03:03] but unconfirmed reports, they do love an unconfirmed report, the Telegraph I have to say, Yeah, now he's coming out like yeah interesting So this week we watched love has won the cult of Mother God You can find it on max in US or binge in Australia. It was directed by Hannah Olson She directed the short documentary the last cruise about the coronavirus outbreak on the diamond princess

[00:04:23] We covered that story in the documentary hell of a cruise with Emily Fox in episode 28

[00:05:23] a lot of properties under her belt. It's kind of funny that all of them are adjacent

[00:05:26] to what we've covered and not anything we've actually covered,

[00:05:29] but very, very interesting.

[00:05:31] But of course, we got to get to our mother this time.

[00:05:36] To join us in our quest, we welcome sixth timer,

[00:05:39] Matt Scott.

[00:05:40] Matt, help us kick off the year in true crime.

[00:05:44] Ah, yes. Galactic Federation of Light and 5D Full Disclosure is an American spiritual movement which was led by Amy Carlson, referred to within the group as Mother God. She described herself, among other things, as the creator of the universe. The group proclaimed that Carlson was a divine 19 billion year old being who had birthed

[00:07:02] all creation. which cost $88 per session, claiming that it could remove sickness and negative energy from the body. Good price. The group was controlled by mother and father God through the withholding of food and sleep. Alcohol and marijuana were said to be medicinal

[00:08:22] if taken correctly.

[00:08:24] Agreed.

[00:09:26] human body. The group members were reported to be facing a mix of charges of child abuse, abuse of a corpse, tampering with deceased human remains, and false imprisonment.

[00:09:31] The charges were all later dropped.

[00:09:34] I understand the child abuse was neglect rather than anything sexual. I don't know,

[00:09:42] but that's what I understand it was neglect and hints, no such thing as a silver deficiency. There is no evidence that colloidal silver treats or prevents any medical condition and it can cause serious and potential irreversible side effects.

[00:11:03] You turn blue.

[00:11:05] Yeah. Hey, why is there I want to talk about? I want to talk about. So yes, exactly. So now what drew you to this property? What made you want to talk about it? Drag me. What made me want to talk about it is that people kept bringing it up. I had two, like two friends who mentioned it at different points,

[00:12:20] including in this last week, coincidentally.

[00:12:22] And then I also just saw it say, I was going into this a little bit skeptical because it was three parts and each part was about an hour long, but it was all this original footage that they took where, I mean, I wasn't going to sit and watch a three hour long documentary. So I'm glad that they broke it up. We could talk a little bit more about how they broke it up

[00:13:41] and what could have been improved.

[00:13:43] But to me, this was actually really fascinating

[00:13:45] because let me just get back to the point who are a lot like many of the people in this film. So it hit a little bit close to home actually. And it's just fascinating to try to depict or figure out where's that line between cults and creepy, I'll say. On this group. Like, well, this group and people who are just in love

[00:15:01] with the world around them

[00:15:02] and maybe have their own unique religious views.

[00:15:04] It's fascinating.

[00:15:06] But we'll probably talk about later very, very sad. I think there are two bad actors in it and the rest of them are lost, sad, unwell, searching creatures who at first found comfort in each other and then began the abuse of the withholding of food, the withholding of sleep, the alcohol, the marijuana.

[00:16:23] And I just felt, I felt sad for Amy,. I didn't want to, I wanted to be outraged.

[00:17:43] I wanted to be, you know, righteously through the screen, but she searched and wanted something and at the end of her life she asked for help and she wasn't given it. So it's sort of hard to be sarcastic annoyingly. Yeah. I'm worried about you.

[00:19:01] I agree. This documentary didn't feel like some of the other cult one. So I did evoke a different feeling, but I'm still like, oh, I'm just a cults again. And I get it. I think this one, I kind of understood the motivations. Like it wasn't like, oh, I wasn't motivated to find my partner.

[00:20:20] I'm not born into this child sex abuse cult.

[00:20:23] It's like people were motivated to find a different answer. to me and maybe the place where I feel less sorry for the folks involved. One, I really love that in this docu-series that their stories were told. Like there was this grand world building that didn't have to happen through reenactments. We didn't have any of those, but this world building through the accounts of the cult members and through everyone that was involved, through family members, through,

[00:22:47] And it's just fascinating to me that they keep going without seeing the flaws or fault in what they're doing, which to me, it just leaves me hitting my head against the wall.

[00:22:52] Well, a lot of things we've seen, we see, we talk to many people who are not labeled

[00:23:00] former member. I mean, there are two. And when the first one said former So, you know, I don't necessarily need to hear more about Faith's work as a healer in Colorado or whatever it might be. But it would be really interesting to see where their heads are. It is incredibly sad though that they are still on board with,

[00:24:20] they're still on board with the cult life and with the Love is One philosophy. Even empty, sad about him. There's something about it's like being banned from paradise. It's not like he's a former member because he left. He's a former member because he got supplanted by the next god. Yeah, the talking heads, like we said, we got so many, so much access to foreign members, current members.

[00:25:42] I do think that it gave the documentary a slight tilt as to like,

[00:25:47] in a sense of this is what we were everybody, Rob here and we're back, baby. Happy Survivor Premier Week. I'll be live after the episode. Franny Marin will join me for the first word on Survivor 46 after the two hour premiere Wednesday night.

[00:27:02] Then on Thursday, I'll have an exit interview

[00:27:03] and Survivor Know-It-All's with Steven Fishback.

[00:27:06] Plus everything we have coming up for you proves that conspiracy theories kind of like open the gateway, like gateway conspiracy theories, like how weed is gateway to drugs. Conspiracy theories are ways to- It's not smoke weed, you're fine. I know, you know what they used to say. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Once you start believing in like a hidden cabal

[00:28:22] that runs the earth,

[00:28:23] once you start looking into like ancient aliens and stuff, I did think that was fascinating. And it's kind of funny on the surface because you're like, wait, what? I thought they're all dead. They're not. Okay. We're just going to brush by the fact that Trump isn't here, but it does really point to this fascinating thing of if you want to make, if you want something to be true or to make sense or be within your realm of possibility,

[00:29:41] you'll make it happen.

[00:29:42] Trump came up a few times.

[00:29:44] That was really fascinating and random.

[00:30:45] system to us, you know what I'm saying? Like, like, I feel like they started around the actual core belief system. You know, they talked about mother God herself and you know,

[00:30:51] what drove her and the tactics and stuff like that. But I don't feel like they've told us

[00:30:56] what their, their, their core core belief system is. Maybe that's just slippery. It's

[00:31:02] very slippery. It's very, I would call it notes say they're selling merch, they're selling merch

[00:32:21] and they're clearly making shit up like they're clearly making this shit up as

[00:32:24] they go. And so I just maybe that is part of why they resonate so much with a Trump, because in my experiences, I have seen many Trump supporters do that. They're just defying the logic of like, this is the evidence that someone's presenting to you, or even with science, like they're clearly anti-science in this group.

[00:33:42] Like we're presenting evidence to you and you're not choosing to believe it to your

[00:33:46] own detriment. of some purpose in life so much so that they're not willing to betray that in the face of what clearly is harmful to them. It is so sad at the end of the day what happened to Amy when she started to play with the idea of even going to a doctor or a hospital and the fact that her, what's the, like her her pharic

[00:35:05] being when she turned into Robin Williams or whoever it might have been at I mean, that's just again, science 101 and that's cults like 101 as well. Yeah. Like deprivation, any sort of deprivation leads to more malleable followers. So not shocked there. And let's talk about the father gods of it all. Like I was I'm going to I'm going to give Hannah her wax later on

[00:36:22] about the sensationalism of of the docu-series.

[00:36:26] But I got to talk about the father god portion because this did throw me He he was the first man to father. Twin flames. Yeah, twin flames is said way too many times in this back. I was like, oh, my gosh. So so we get him first. And I was like, OK. And then we get a second part like I was like, oh, I did not know we were going to be shoveling through the other gods here.

[00:37:40] Yeah, I think Andrew.

[00:37:42] And yeah, yeah.

[00:37:44] Like, how do we go?

[00:37:45] Like, I thought it was really interesting that there's only one mother God,

[00:38:42] Yes, he was father of all creation. He knew that when he took up a rake and he said, this house is mine.

[00:38:46] Wow. Scary dude.

[00:38:48] Yes. I thought it was really interesting that her father

[00:38:53] God's change based on her needs within the cult.

[00:38:57] If you really truly think about it,

[00:39:00] you know, the first one served to kind of prop her up.

[00:39:04] He seemed like a great partner, but she needed followers. going on a podcast and Rob is like, you have a few too many underscores in your a lot of numbers. It's not easy to remember. Maybe you should simplify that. Like that was his role. And it's it's so fascinating to hear Andrew talk about everything that he's doing, because he is just building this up. Like he helped birth the love has one name and branding beautifully.

[00:40:23] So I have to say, also a website at the time.

[00:40:25] But was Michael, you know, we up and eat your Cheerios or leave. He left. Yeah. He left. He could have saved everybody. He could have shut this all down. I don't know how he would have done that, but. Which led to the third father. God, who was, uh, which one was this? Um, that's still something is fucky on this, but I'm ashamed to say I sort of

[00:41:41] quite liked him.

[00:41:42] He was my favorite father.

[00:41:43] God did.

[00:41:43] I did like him too.

[00:41:44] He was very charismatic.

[00:41:46] He was a pretty faced father.

[00:41:48] God, I believe sure that if, if, if Jason wasn't the last part of God, she would still be here. And she introduces a, he's the main one on the trailer where it's like, Oh, everything's going great. And then this man comes along and it gets sinister. And he, I mean, let's not, don't get me wrong. He was really slimy. We do get, he is a talking

[00:43:00] head here. We do get to talk to him. He does to say like he like like really pushed her into like doing the silver and killing herself or he he took over the cult and started like abusing people and it didn't feel like that. Am I wrong here? No, I think I agree with you. And I would just say he was aggressive and there was toxic masculinity,

[00:44:24] which I mean, you could throw a blockbuster and they said they're going to pay him a bunch of money and they never did. And so, I mean, he was being taken advantage of by society and just affected by the ills of society as much as any of them

[00:45:41] were.

[00:45:42] He was ex-military as well on the life.

[00:45:43] Yeah, it's just, it's rough because he was that very disturbing violence where you don't apprehend it as violence towards yourself. But if you see a person in the street behaving in that way,

[00:47:02] you do cross the street, unfortunately,

[00:47:04] or go around them because there's a,

[00:48:01] Jason and Jason, like are there kids in there? Like, yeah, the kids sleep.

[00:48:05] Did they call her mother?

[00:48:06] God, the police, I forget.

[00:48:08] Or Amy Carlson in here and they were like,

[00:48:10] and Jason was like, she has rested.

[00:48:13] She's a, she does rest.

[00:48:14] Yes, mother is in rest, yes.

[00:48:15] She's in rest.

[00:48:16] And they go and they find her body and we legit,

[00:48:20] sorry, it's 40 minutes in, but caution

[00:48:24] for our people who don't like to see bodies. of showing somebody's body and not really achieving what maybe the filmmaker thought. Any quick thoughts on that body cam footage in the beginning? Was it necessary? Was it necessary? I mean, they just gave us everything.

[00:49:41] Like this docu-series gave us every,

[00:49:45] I'd be shocked if there's anything on the cutting room floor

[00:49:48] from what we got. that she's wrapped in a bag and wrapped in Christmas lights and that she's blue. So I knew that part, but I also, I like it as the beginning because it's like, then the rest of the episodes on how did we get here? And I do we get here of it. And towards the end, we get video of them playing with her body. Oh my God.

[00:51:02] That was, it's a little atrocious. I can do it.

[00:51:05] When they were saying, look, she's flexible, she's flexible. And I think she had a pit stop in or she had a whole like a whole cross-country road trip. I mean, not crossing, but she had a whole road trip hundreds of miles on her way back over the course of about 12. Yeah. Over like about 12 or so days. That was ridiculous.

[00:52:23] They were in that, that cheap motel for a was confused. I'm like, wait, they landed and people are smashing in their windows. What is going on? So as somebody who spent six years of their life in Hawaii, my formative years, knowing a lot about Hawaiian culture, being taught Hawaiian culture, Hawaiian history,

[00:53:43] more importantly, in Hawaiian religion,

[00:54:49] big being there and to talk about her name in such a way brings, you know, like bad omens and jiu-jus.

[00:54:56] So this white woman coming to this land and claiming that she's Pele, yes, the Native Hawaiians are going to have an issue with that, especially since they are currently, they are a state,

[00:55:01] but they are a colonized culture. They are colonized people. They are people who were somebody broke a window of the car and then they went to the, essentially the mayor and said, could you please get rid of these people? So there, I think it played into their feeling of persecution because that's quite good as a cult to have, have the outside world persecuting you. And then here as an actual manifestation of that persecution,

[00:56:23] but it looked quite mild. Well, mild. I'm sure they were.

[00:57:24] slowly, slowly being taken over by outsiders. But it's not like the Big Island,

[00:57:26] and it's not like Maui, and it's not like Oahu,

[00:57:28] where the native Hawaiians are quickly being outnumbered.

[00:57:33] Kauai is still pretty insular.

[00:57:36] And for them to come here,

[00:57:38] and they're not just coming themselves,

[00:57:40] they're trying to get more people to come

[00:57:42] because that's what colds are.

[00:57:43] They need more followers.

[00:57:44] So I don't see a bad thing in necessarily Dr. Phil, but then see the perceptions, not only of Amy, who after the fact, because she didn't let on to this at all on screen, that she felt betrayed by her family and by Dr. Phil and by the show, which is a surprise, surprise, a very common sentiment for folks who are on Dr. Phil. I wonder if there's something to that.

[00:59:01] Yeah.

[00:59:02] Let's, let's check these credentials. Yeah, I mean, it is funny that like we did brush by Dr. Phil. I think he was, it made sense that it was in the story, but also it was, it was really a non event. Like, I mean, maybe the implication is that obviously more folks were aware of them.

[01:00:20] They didn't connect the dots to say that folks in Hawaii were even more aware of them because

[01:00:25] of Dr. Phil.

[01:00:27] That wasn't fully anything for me. I could have done without them because it's not that I don't care how it affects you, it's that that's not the story. And the reason that Debbie, Hope's mother, was interesting was she started a website, you know, exposed,

[01:01:40] Mother God, Love Has One. But again, she she just put out that story. And I thought that between that and then also Tara watching some of the social media, it was the internet. And it does put things into perspective that this type of thing has been going on for the longest time, as you cover in many docu-series and documentaries, but this is just a very, very modern depiction of it.

[01:04:21] Speaking of which, I'll just mention as a side note of sensationalizing so much of this story. I have to give it, I'm not going to give it a point, you know, like a point two five or But I think both in the time since seeing it and in this discussion now, I did know about this cult and this, not crime, but this situation going into it.

[01:08:20] I didn't take anything away from it, like, oh my on that it just didn't. And I felt like it tried to reach for more low hanging fruit and try to make it something that it isn't because honestly, this story is not like your typical true crime. It's not like your typical

[01:09:40] cult story. And honestly, I felt like if if tack on. I do give it a 3.5 for the quality of it all, but I don't think I would recommend this in part because this and you're still in this world. And I, I might have to worry about you listening to this podcast. Think about that. Well, for me, I don't even know if it's that like it, like the people still having their belief systems. Again, I'm not surprised at that. For me, this feels like a grasping of straws because, um, at cases like this,

[01:12:22] you know, as a true crime community, I think that's where I think that's where this this series loses me because there's nothing really unique about this cult. I'm pretty sure you can throw a stone and find a million hippie communes like this where they they think about the same way.

[01:13:41] The only difference is their leader didn't die turning herself blue in the process.

[01:13:45] You know what I'm saying? Yeah. of like maybe, you know, recommending the documentary. And I, you know, definitely seeing the value, you know, but not recommending it. Cause I end up me personally being so disappointed to you being like, don't watch this, don't watch this. So I appreciate that. I think that's what we, what's the value of this dialogue. I would love for our listeners to like chime in

[01:15:01] and give us our thoughts on it.

[01:15:03] To watch it and to give their thoughts on it.

[01:15:05] Don't do the best fade quiz.

[01:15:07] Are you a Mari? crime, they talk about documentaries, they talk about science and it's called the Brain Candy podcast because you get the brain and the candy. And I just want to recommend them because, you know, I think they probably also at some point talk about or watch the documentary in their documentary club, which I'm not part of.

[01:16:24] But yeah, I would just recommend that as maybe a jumping off point for perhaps a little light on of Hawaiian history, colonization, brutalization and the eradication of the native Hawaiian people. It's a very, very readable, very informative, very human history book. And if history book frightens you, then think about it as I want that for you too so I'm not going to say anything else about it. What about you, Mari? What do you have to recommend? I think I guess I have it's like a soft recommend. It's a like, let's check it out together. Curry and Sinai just dropped on Netflix. It's another, yes, it's another like Netflix India

[01:19:00] production about a well-to-do woman in India who like may have poisoned five of her family crime scene on Twitter at crime scene, RHP, that's crime S E E N R H A P or email us at crime scene, RHP at gmail.com. We're on tick tock at crime dot scene and on all the other socials at crime scene podcast. And please remember to subscribe to our feed. Rob has a website dot com slash crime feed.

[01:20:23] It makes a big sure you subscribe.

[01:21:41] Um, I'll also mention, you know, me and Mari, we talk wrestling sometimes.

[01:22:42] What do you got going on working with people find you? People can find me at Sarah Carradine on all the things

[01:22:46] over on post-show recaps.

[01:22:47] I've just finished covering the artful Dodger

[01:22:49] with Brooklyn Z and a murder at the end of the world

[01:22:53] with Jess Sterling, Grace Leader

[01:22:55] and the great Latonya Starks.

[01:22:57] Everybody's great, sorry.

[01:22:59] She just gets a great today.

[01:23:01] Latonya, love you.

[01:23:02] You deserve.

[01:23:03] You can hear my coverage of Squid Game,

[01:23:05] the challenge on silent podcasts where Mark Levy two of rap shit. Rap shit was amazing. We are telling everybody, if you haven't already, go stream, go watch rap shit. They're still trying to decide if they get a season three. And I think they're trying to base it off streaming. So let's go and let's help rap shit get a season three because season two was fantastic. And you can stream it. You

[01:24:23] can stream season two. You can then go and listen to me and should tell, talk about every