Prayed Upon cults podcast: with Matthew Klein, Claire Ashman and Raphael Aron
Claire Ashman married a man twice her age and joined a cult whose leader preyed on under-age girls. She escaped fearful her daughters would be next. Listen to the new Prayed Upon podcast.
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LISTEN NOW: Matthew Klein’s baby was critically ill but leaders of a cult he joined suggested he pray rather than seek medical help.
Claire Ashman spent half her life inside two different extreme religious groups. She escaped to prevent her daughters being sexually preyed upon by a cult leader.
Raphael Aron rescues people from cults and nearly every day families call him for help to save their loves ones.
Listen below to three gripping podcast episodes below.
If you are viewing this story on the Courier-Mail app and unable to listen to the podcast episodes below, listen here or search Prayed Upon wherever you get your podcasts.
Episode 2 - Doomsday prophets
What do you do if your friend or family member joins a cult? You call Raphael Aron. He has been rescuing people from these extreme, controlling groups for more than 40 years. Since Covid, he’s busier than ever and warns the modern cult leader is not what you would expect.
Episode 3 - Cult brides
Claire Ashman married a man twice her age and joined a cult whose leader preyed on under-age girls. She escaped fearful her daughters would be next. Once she left the cult The Order of St Charbel with her eight children she had no idea about popular movies or TV, how to use an ATM or open a bank account. But she was free for the first time in her life.
Episode 4 - Escaping the tribe
Matthew Klein’s baby would have died if he had listened to leaders of a cult he joined, who suggested he could pray rather than seek medical help. Matthew knew he had to get out, but his wife wanted to stay. It tore his family apart.
Episode 1 - Stay, Pray, Obey
Why do people start cults? Why do people join them? Kate Kyriacou and Greg Stolz lift the lid on a secretive Australian cult that dictates the lives of its members with bizarre and strict rules.
For more episodes or to watch the Prayed Upon documentary visit Prayedupon.com.au or search CrimeX+ on Apple podcasts.
COERCIVE CONTROL AND CULTS
Cult survivors and experts want coercive control laws expanded to include extreme religious groups, saying the same tactics are used to control and manipulate cult members.
Survivors say isolating people from friends and family, controlling members’ finances and emotional manipulation are all tactics frequently used by cults.
A months-long investigation by The Courier-Mail into extreme religious groups has uncovered alarming practices inside some of Australia’s most shocking cults.
Queensland man Joe Dageforde grew up in Australian communes run by the notorious US-founded Children of God, now known as The Family International.
The group began as a “free love” doomsday cult but morphed into something far more sinister, with widespread physical and sexual abuse of children.
“A domestic violence relationship is a cult of one,” he said. “And this (the Children of God) is a coercive relationship of tens of thousands (worldwide).
“My hope is that with things changing recently with laws around coercive control, (those laws) can be applied on a broader spectrum to organisations.”
He said cults like the Children of God used specific tactics and methodologies to control members, including keeping them so busy they had no time to question or consider “the bigger picture”.
“You’re not allowed to see or speak to relatives … once you’re in, you’re in. There’s isolation and then there’s fear and shame, (it’s) physically harming and belittling.”
Cult Consulting Australia founder Raphael Aron, whose group rescues people from cults, also called high-demand groups, said more needed to be done by authorities, “because the damage that is being done is horrendous”.
He said there had been a rise in cults attempting to recruit members since Covid, with some groups even renting offices on university campuses to gain more access to students.
Matthew Klein was a member of an Australian cult called the Twelve Tribes.
The NSW-based group believes in the extreme discipline of children and prayer instead of medical intervention.
Mr Klein left the group over fears for the safety of his children and now dedicates a lot of his time to helping people escape similar groups.
“One-on-one cults or abusive relationships work almost identically to a cult, where you’ll meet someone and they’re really nice to you and you fall in love and then they slowly change over time,” Mr Klein said.
“And before you know it, you’re trapped in this relationship where you have no power and control and they’re dominating you and you don’t have access to money and all your friends aren’t welcome anymore.”
Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath said “any act of domestic and family violence is unacceptable”.
She said the government recently received the Legal Affairs and Safety Committee report into the state’s new coercive control laws and were in the process of reviewing the report’s recommendations.
Visit prayedupon.com.au for more podcast episodes and stories in the series.
Watch the Prayed Upon documentary above.
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