Raised with demons: How the Potter’s House church keeps its followers under control

Amy Higginson was a little girl when she was told about the demons manifesting inside her. They were growing, she heard, with each small transgression or misbehaviour.

Reinforcing this frightening reality was a belief within her small, insular church community that sinning invited the devil in and could cause physical afflictions such as headaches, asthma or even cancer. And if she failed to pray enough to repent her sins, she would be left behind when her loved ones ascended to heaven during the looming rapture.

It was a heavy burden for a small child.

“Deep down it affected me on a level of so much fear that as a teenager I slept with the light on,” she says a decade later. “I slept with a fan on so I had constant noise. I was just so scared of silence.”

It’s a feeling familiar to former members of the Potter’s House Christian Fellowship, a Pentecostal sect which former members have compared to a cult.

An investigation by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes revealed the link between The Potter’s House and the Eastern Freeway truck crash which killed four police in 2020. The truck driver, Mohinder Singh, claims he raised issues about his fatigue and delusions with his boss, Simiona Tuteru, also known as Simon, who laid hands on him and prayed before they agreed Singh would drive one last load.

Amy Higginson as a young girl.

Tuteru is a senior leader and was a missionary in Africa for the Potter’s House, a hardline church which believes in faith healing and links medical conditions to specific sins which can be “cast out” through prayer and repentance.

Over months, The Age and Herald have spoken to more than 20 former members of the Potter’s House, many of whom say the link between the church and the crash is a reminder of the potential danger of some of the church’s more extreme teachings. They want to warn others about the reality of what on the outside appears to be an ordinary Christian group.

‘I was told the end was coming’

Amy was born into the church in the late 1990s. She remembers a regime of rigid control, with church services and activities dominating her life and keeping her family in a tight social bubble.

She was constantly worried about the punishment she would receive if she confessed to the smallest of transgressions, such as buying lollies, watching TV or listening to non-Christian music. There was little freedom in what she could wear, and she was discouraged from making friends outside the church.

Amy Higginson grew up in the Potter’s House Christian Fellowship.Credit: Ross Swanborough

“My whole life pretty much just revolved around the Potter’s House,” she says. “Every aspect of my life was heavily controlled.”

From a young age, she was shown low-budget, graphic movies, many produced in the US in the 1970s, which depicted the rapture – what some Christians including devotees of the Potter’s House believe will be the end of the world, when Jesus returns and only those who are saved will make it to heaven while others will be stuck in hell on Earth.

“I was told this is a reality. I fully believed that if I was not a Christian when the rapture happened, that I would be left by myself,” Amy recalls. “I was told that the end was coming ... it could come tomorrow, or a week or a month or a year. The fear was prominent and there all the time.”

Stills from Christian evangelical films A Distant Thunder and M10:28.Credit: YouTube/Christian Movies/aprodigal

When she had severe headaches, she was brought before the congregation for prayer. When she experienced severe back pain, she was discouraged from seeing a chiropractor and told the pain was evil “magic”.

“The fear was prominent and there all the time”

Amy Higginson, a former member of Potter’s House Christian Fellowship

At 15, she fell several metres and badly shattered her leg. She was initially taken to hospital but only returned once to have the cast removed, and once to see a physio. She was in a wheelchair for months. She remembers being told to pray for her own healing, and to let the congregation pray for her, a process which involved them laying their hands all over her body and speaking in tongues.

In her experience of the church, which she left age 16 in 2012, Amy says her local pastors firmly believed they had the power to heal, and that seeking medical treatment was a secondary option after prayer and repentance.

‘Unhealthy levels of control’

The roots of the Potter’s House lie in a former gold mining town called Prescott in Arizona. In the 1970s, a man named Wayman Mitchell, disillusioned with his experience at Bible college, started his own church heavily based around evangelism. He dubbed it the Christian Fellowship Ministries, which now operates under several names, including Potter’s House Christian Fellowship (not to be confused with the US megachurch Potter’s House led by preacher T.D. Jakes).

In the late 1970s, Mitchell travelled all over the world, including Australia, where he spent almost a month preaching throughout Western Australia. The first church, and what remains the “mother church” within the religious sect in Australia, was in the Perth suburb of Beechboro.

“I distinctly remember them commanding the ‘demon of lust’ out of me. I was a kid. I was 6.”

Former church member Katrina Turner

From there it grew, with believers sent across the country to start their own Potter’s House congregations. According to records lodged with the Australian charity regulator, there are currently 72 Potter’s House churches registered, and they are understood to have anywhere from a few patrons to hundreds. Another 35 churches have been established over the years but have had their registration revoked.

Extensive interviews with former members paint a picture of a group which exerts unhealthy levels of control over its members. Those in leadership or who have active roles in the church cannot own a television or watch movies or drink alcohol.

Followers are strongly advised not to date anyone from outside the church, and women are expected to be subservient in marriage. Same-sex relationships are classed as “sexual sin” and “perverted behaviour”.

Commitments for followers are intense. Services are on Wednesdays and twice on Sundays, with Bible studies, prayer meetings, outreach excursions, concerts and other activities scheduled on the other days. Tithing – donating 10 per cent of a person’s gross salary to the church – is an obligation, with further generous donations called pledges also expected. Pastors don’t attend Bible college or receive any formal theological training.

Financial records lodged with the Australian charity regulator show that the smallest churches, which are referred to as pioneer or baby churches, also tithe a portion of their money to their “mother” church, as well as to the largest church in the country, located in Perth, which in the 2021 financial year brought in $3.3 million in revenue. A portion is then sent from Australia to the head church in Prescott, Arizona, creating a pyramid-like financial structure.

A large part of the church routine is aggressive street evangelism, dubbed “outreach”, which involves gathering in public places in a bid to recruit or “save” new members. In recent years, this has led to the church grabbing the headlines for extreme displays, such as graphic depictions of Jesus covered in dried blood being nailed to the cross in cities across Australia during Easter.

The Potter’s House Footscray Easter march 2019 in Bourke Street Mall, Melbourne. This is repeated across the country.Credit: Youtube/Potter’s House Footscray

The group also stages concerts, stage shows, plays and “haunted houses”, some of which involve graphic depictions of suicides and abortions.

In 2010, Potter’s House members staged a “haunted house” in Tasmania which portrayed a laughing doctor performing an abortion on a screaming woman who later dies, a simulated violent rape and simulated drug injection. A play staged in Melbourne last year, which involved children, ended with a graphic scene of a man dying by suicide before he is chained up in hell by the laughing devil.

Condemnation is swift for those who question the authority of the church or the pastor, and is even worse for those who leave. They are branded “rebels” and “backsliders”, and members are encouraged to shun them to avoid also being “infected with rebellion”. This tears families, friends and communities apart.

The church did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Incredibly dangerous’

Former members say one of the most concerning features of the church is its approach to sickness and healing. The philosophy of the founder about these issues is laid out in a booklet obtained by The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes, which was published in 2003 and updated by the church in 2021 after Mitchell’s death. It outlines a belief system in which physical ailments are “spiritual in nature”.

“It is my firm conviction that the devil is the author and perpetrator of all disease,” Mitchell wrote in the booklet. “There may or may not be germs, bacteria, parasites and deformity present but the power of disease is spiritual. Its energy, its power to make ill and eventually destroy is spiritual. If that power is destroyed, cast out or neutralised, so is the disease”.

Mitchell says tumours, cysts, growths and “abnormalities of the womb” have been healed when people repented of hate, bitterness and unforgiveness, also declaring that abortion and incest have the power to “open a life to the demonic.”

Women with scoliosis have often been sexually molested as children or young girls, he writes, while cervical cancer is linked to “promiscuous behaviour”, which in turn is linked to “anger and hatred of men”.

“Many female disorders are closely related to emotions associated with unforgiveness, bitterness and resentment,” he wrote.

“The devil exploits these women through hatred of fathers, husbands and sometimes men in general. Renouncing the hate often brings complete and instant healing from various kinds of cysts, ovarian and fallopian tube infirmities and dysfunction. Oftentimes lumps in the breast dissolve following prayers of forgiveness.”

Skin conditions such as eczema are connected to witchcraft and inherited curses, according to the church. In recent weeks, at a “miracle healing crusade” held in a Perth park, the founder’s son told those gathered that he was breaking the curse of witchcraft.

Witchcraft is referred to often in the sermons by Potter’s House pastors and used as a wide-ranging term, referring to new age practices such as séances and necromancy, and is believed to be powered by demonic forces which cause “rebellion”, manipulate people and empower curses.

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Katrina Turner spent her childhood in the church. She struggled with her mental health as a child, having difficulty regulating her behaviour. She found it hard to stay still and silent during sermons.

She was eventually diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder – branded “absent dad disorder” by the church.

“Eventually, there was this one conclusion that I suppose the pastor thought was God’s intervention ... He got the father figures in the church to take me into the broom closet at the back of the church and beat me with a belt,” she says.

She also recounts disturbing memories of church members trying to address her issues as a young girl by “healing her” through laying on of hands, speaking in tongues and prayer.

Former member Katrina Turner is concerned about the influence the Potter’s House has on its followers. Credit: Ross Swanborough

“They all put their hands on me and would just pray really loudly and shout all manner of nonsense, speak in tongues. I distinctly remember them commanding the ‘demon of lust’ out of me. I was a kid. I was 6. And that, that stuck with me, to think something someone else did to me was because I had a demon.”

She later developed anxiety and tried anti-depressants, a choice that was frowned upon. The anxiety, she was told, was because of her lack of repentance and prayer, and because she wasn’t submitting to God’s will. When she would have a breakdown it was considered a manifestation of the devil.

“It is incredibly dangerous,” she says. “It can always be traced back to something morally wrong with you ... And it makes me wonder, how many people have long-term medical issues because they listened to this instead of getting help that could’ve legitimately fixed it?”

‘It was basically a prayer’

It’s in tragic circumstances that Stuart Schulze has become aware of the Potter’s House.

The former policeman’s life was changed irrevocably on April 22, 2020, when his wife, Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor, was killed on the Eastern Freeway.

Stuart Schulze, husband of Lynette Taylor, one of the four police officers killed in the Eastern Freeway tragedy.Credit: Darrian Traynor

He holds concerns about the possibility that Potter’s House beliefs may have played a role in the series of decisions made that night that led a drug-addled, delusional truck driver to get behind the wheel.

He misses Lynette. She was the backbone and chief organiser of the family, a lover of travel, whose favourite time of the day was sunset. She was passionate about her job in road policing.

“She believed that she was making a serious dent in road traffic trauma,” says Schulze. “But she also hated it because it was becoming more and more dangerous every day.”

Stuart and his wife Lynette.

On the day of the crash, Schulze said goodbye as she left for work. They spoke in the afternoon, and both said “I love you”. It was their last conversation. Hours later, police would arrive at his home to say his wife had been killed.

The years since have been filled with court hearings, where awful details surrounding the tragedy were aired. It was quickly discovered that a Porsche driver, who Stuart refuses to name, filmed his wife on a mobile phone in her dying moments before leaving the scene of the crash.

Simiona Tuteru, the boss of the driver in the fatal truck, was charged with four counts of manslaughter. A magistrate ruled there was sufficient evidence to proceed to trial on the manslaughter charges and other alleged breaches of the heavy vehicle law. Tuteru pleaded not guilty. However, the most serious offences — four counts of manslaughter — were later dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Tuteru declined to comment for this article.

A last-minute suppression order application was brought by Tuteru in the Supreme Court on Sunday morning and heard by Justice Jacinta Forbes. After a brief hearing with lawyers from The Age, the Herald and 60 Minutes, Forbes ordered the application be dismissed, and the story progressed unchanged.

During a committal in 2021 for Tuteru, text messages tendered to the court showed that driver Singh texted him on the morning of the crash, saying he was “going through some hard times at home and other things”.

“I need to come and speak to you about some of them, I don’t know who to tell the story to, I’m going to a doctor about it, can I come and see you?” wrote Singh.

“Talk this arvo, I will be in the office,” Tuteru responded.

“Okay, but [colleague] Steve [said] I’m not fit to drive,” wrote Singh.

“Steve is not a doctor,” said Tuteru.

Steve Harrison, another Connect Logistics employee also texted Tuteru on 1.38pm that day to say he had concerns about Singh’s mental state.

“... I don’t think he should be driving, I told him to go to the doctor straightaway,” Harrison texted.

Dressed in a prison-issued grey tracksuit during the committal, Singh told the court he went to the warehouse that evening and spoke to Tuteru, telling his boss he was seeing things and had been cursed by a witch. He says this prompted Tuteru to start praying.

“It was basically a prayer, he put his hand on top of my head and prayed in Jesus’ name, take the curse away of the witch,” Singh said. “[I told him] I am too tired to drive and haven’t slept for a while.”

In Singh’s police statement released by the court, he claimed Tuteru then accompanied him to his car and told him that “sometimes witches leave behind voodoo dolls or hair”.

“While we were searching the car he said that he had experiences with witches in Africa and this is where he learnt how witches work. After he prayed on me he then said – OK you are right to go now – I just need you to do the load to Thomastown and then you can come back – see how you are feeling and go home.”

The crash scene on April 22.Credit: Nine News

A truck driver friend of Singh’s also said in a statement tendered to court that the pair saw each other prior to the crash and Singh told him he had prayed with his boss, who had “cleaned his spirit” to rid him of a curse.

One charge against Tuteru of failing to comply with duty under national heavy vehicle laws remained, but a Supreme Court judge granted a permanent stay on the case in March, ruling that the prosecution had abused the court process by repeatedly changing its case and creating lengthy delays. This decision has been appealed by the DPP. The case will be heard in June.

Schulze is frustrated and disappointed that the manslaughter charges against Tuteru were dropped. He holds concerns about the Potter’s House and the possibility that its belief system had an influence on the tragic outcome on April 22.

“I think it’s dangerous for the community,” he says. “I think there are serious threats to people’s safety when people like that are making decisions that are affecting other people’s lives or their livelihoods or how they go about their work.”

‘A bad system with good people in it’

David Vicary holds similar concerns. He was the head of the Potter’s House in Australia for over a decade before he left 15 years ago. He joined as a young man in 1978, and believes it was a good place initially but slowly became more legalistic.

“Simple little things like banning TV, movies, wearing certain clothes to church – I just couldn’t see the Biblical foundation for it,” he says.

David Vicary was the Australian head of the Potter’s House more than 15 years ago. Credit: Trevor Collens

Vicary believes in divine healing, and points out this is not unusual among Pentecostal groups. But where the Potter’s House goes further is what he says is a hardline and formulaic stance, dictated by the founder, that connects each ailment to a different sin or moral issue.

“There’s no grey area. It’s this adamant sense that, ‘I’m right. This is witchcraft and now we’re going to pray, and you’re going to be fine’,” says Vicary.

“It’s extreme.”

He believes many pastors in the Potter’s House wouldn’t subscribe to some of the more hardline ideology but he acknowledges there are potential dangers that some pastors would feel they have the authority to dispense medical advice.

Vicary met Tuteru several times when he was a pastor in the Potter’s House, and remembers him as a warm and caring person who was very devout, but says the church has unhealthy levels of control over its members.

“I think you could summarise Potter’s House as a bad system ... but with good people in it. But the problem is the longer they’re in the system, the more they drink the Kool-Aid, the more chance there is they are going to come out with this extreme position.”

Simiona Tuteru leading the choir at Potter’s House Footscray in 2017.Credit: YouTube

“It is a cult. Maybe not doctrinally, but certainly it is a cult behaviourally … like the practice of shunning, where once you leave the church, you’re completely cut off from friendships, many times families are divided. And they refuse to speak to you or acknowledge you.”

Vicary is embarrassed about being a part of the Potter’s House, and wants to encourage those still within it to join mainstream Christianity. He is now the pastor of a small Christian church on the outskirts of Perth.

“My biggest regret would be that I didn’t leave earlier,” he says.

‘Religion done the wrong way’

Amy Higginson and Katrina Turner still grapple with the effects of their upbringing.

Katrina Turner as a child.

To this day, Turner struggles to distinguish what she believes to be true, and what is considered normal by the general community. She is oblivious when cultural touchstones like famous movie or TV quotes are brought up in conversation.

Higginson also took a long time to adjust.

“I didn’t know that dinosaurs were real,” she says. “I didn’t even question that until I was an adult and then it clicked one day, and I was like, just one more thing that I’ve been absolutely brainwashed about.

“I think the system is evil. I know lots of people that I’ve grown up and looked up to, and they’re still really beautiful people, and they have good intentions, but the teachings and ideologies that go with the Potter’s House turn out bad results.

“It’s religion done the wrong way.”

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