-This show is sponsored
by BetterHelp online therapy. Visit betterhelp.com/padilla
because sometimes existing is exhausting. My name's Anthony Padilla and today I'll be spending a day
with Calvin, an ex-cult member to learn the truth
about being born into a cult alongside his 44 siblings, the terrifying red flags
that he started noticing, and what it took
to actually escape this cult. By the end of this video, we'll find out
if it's easy to reprogram your brain after decades of severe brainwashing, or if the process of shattering
one's entire perception of the world is outright devastating or even torturous. Hello, Calvin. -Brother, so happy to be here.
Love what you've done with the place. -I feel like most people are sympathetic
for people who have been inside cults, but they feel like there is no way
I could ever find myself within a cult. Do you think that that sentiment is true? -Saying how could anybody ever join a cult
is like saying how could anyone
ever get in a toxic relationship. Nobody signed up
to be in a toxic relationship. That's something that I think
is missed a lot of times is, to me, the idea of cult is on a spectrum, and it can shift. It's not until
you can remove yourself from it just enough to look at it and be like,
"Holy shit, that's not what I want." -What was the name of the cult
that you were a part of, and what were the core
fundamental beliefs? -A lot of people have heard of Mormonism. There's also what is known as
Mormon fundamentalism. Mormonism was founded by this guy,
Joseph Smith. One of the things
that Joseph Smith was notorious for is he was a polygamist. There was a small group of people
within the Mormon church that felt that polygamy
was a divine sacred thing that they should practice
and so they continued to live it, and they lived it privately
in this underground kind of movement. That's where I come from. You have to be connected
to your priesthood head, your file leader, and be in this bubble,
and if you go into the outside world, then at the best,
you're in danger of losing your soul. -This is very literal.
This is not a metaphor. -One of the things
that made it for me personally so incredibly challenging is not wanting
to actually be damned to hell. -When you imagined living,
you pictured yourself actually burning and torture,
Potentially, yes, because the question
always would come back to like, "What if I leave
and I was wrong that I left?" Humans are storytellers and what makes a good cult
is a really good story. -With really great rewards -Fantastic rewards, damning
-and really damning punishments. -Yes, exactly. One of the rewards
is if we continue to do good, if we continue to be obedient, then we ourselves can someday be a god. -Literally, you become a god.
-Literally, how? The meaningful that can feel
when you're in that like, "I can grow and become this?
That sounds so cool." Then the other side,
because we've been given so much, you will be judged
based on what you're given. You're either going to have
the kingdom of God and be amazing or nothing or worse, and worse is eternal pain and suffering
and damnation and casting to outer darkness. One of the most sad things I heard
when my grandmother died, I heard on her deathbed she was saying, "I hope I was good enough.
I hope I was good enough." -For your entire life
to come down to that moment of just reflecting and hoping
that you did enough. -Yes. "I hope I did enough."
I have to earn this and I have to strive so much,
and I could strive so much and work so hard and not just not know,
still fall short. Seeing my grandmother get to that place
and get to the end of her life and then be feeling that way
about herself, it was sad. -How many siblings did you have? Do you have? -I have 44 siblings. I have more siblings
than there are days in the month. -[laughs] You had more siblings
than there were presidents for a while. -Holy shit. You're right.
That's another one. -When I posted to the community tab
posts for this asking for questions, most people were curious about this idea of living in a community of siblings,
45 siblings under one roof. Can you tell me a little bit
about what that life was like? -It's normal. How do we form normal? We form normal
by what we are familiar with. It's all I knew. Now, on the other side of that,
it was just fun. Typical day was getting up at 6:00 AM
and going and milking the cow and weeding your section of the garden,
playing basketball, just living life. -It looks like you're looking back fondly
about those memories. -Yes. They were amazing things. The very best thing
was how many siblings I had. When you have as many siblings as we had, it was almost like even our family
we formed clicks. -[laughs] I can imagine. There's the cool siblings.
-Yes, totally. -What was your relationship like
with your parents? -This culture particularly
is incredibly patriarchal because the dad
is your connection to priesthood. -Your dad is there
for the connection to God. -Bingo.
When you're in a culture like that, you have to be passed off by your dad. Then it became less dad-child
and way more authority follower. -Can you get into
what your dynamic was like with your moms? -I have four moms. -Four moms. -By the way, if you do some math,
my moms are freaking troop, 12, 13 kids each. You were surrounded by multiple figures
that could give you love, multiple motherly figures
that could give you love. We were very much trained and conditioned,
"These are your moms." My dad hated the concept of favoritism
or using his word, interestingly enough,
his pet word is monogamy. Monogamy is like a curse word
in that culture. "You're going to go and do something
with one of your own blood siblings? That sounds so self.
That sounds so monogamous." -You weren't trapped within a community, you could go out and eat at restaurants
and whatnot. -We did that almost zero.
Who has the authority to speak truth? The priesthood. Where's the priesthood? Right here. If you want truth,
why would you go outside of this? -How did you know which mom was yours
if you were never outright told? -Because the birth mom
is going to take care of her kids like the most -Just like natural human instinct? -Yes. I can remember stuff
when I was crawling. I remember getting my diaper changed.
Believe it or not. -That's a foreign concept. -I remember my mom putting me in the crib
and stuff like that. I don't remember her nursing,
thank goodness. I don't remember that, I'm glad.
-No suckling memories, that's probably good.
-I'm just so glad. I love you mom, but God, I don't have that one. [laughter] -Do you think that there's anything
intrinsically wrong with polygamy? -No. We felt persecuted
from the outside world for generations on just that one idea. If anybody wants to have
any combination of relationship, I have no view on it. Where I draw a line
when there are high stakes if you don't where you no longer have free choice, not choice like you can choose
the good path and go to heaven or you can choose the bad choice
and go to hell. The choice is yours. -[laughs] Have freedom. -You can choose. -Despite being born into a cult, do you feel like your parents
were well-intentioned? -1,000,000%. -You don't blame them
for any of the behaviors that went on. Well, sometimes humans
do really fucking, stupid things and painful things. Overall, yes, my parents
and a lot of people that come from a culture like mine,
absolutely well-intentioned. Doing it in the name of righteousness. The problem with that is
righteousness can replace love. A memory that comes to me often whenever I get to this place
is just like any little kid, [sobs] your dad is your hero. -Yes. Of course,
you don't talk if you don't feel like. -No, no, no, it's a great question.
It needs to be talked about. It was right after
one of my little siblings was born. He was in the hospital a long time
because he was premature and it was a big thing
that he's finally home and the family was so happy
and it was a Sunday morning, my mom was getting ready,
who delivered this baby a couple of months prior,
and my dad came in, gave me my little brother who was born
and I just remember thinking that this was such a beautiful moment.
I remember feeling so lucky and then I looked up and noticed
that the energy shifted between my mom and my dad. Then I watched my dad hit my mom. -What was going on through your mind
at that moment? -Confusion. Even as a young person, you're trained
to try to compartmentalize it or just don't just throw it away
and that was just so confusing. What made it even more confusing
after freezing, I started just screaming and bawling and my dad came over
and gave me a hug and said, "Hey, you're okay. You're okay," and went and took me to get ice cream
and stuff like that and life continues on. It's how it can become so toxic
because it's not always bad and that's what covers up the shit. It's just too easy that if they're a male
and they hold the priesthood forgive them
and all these bullshit statements that are ignoring the victim let this go
because it's just holding on to you. All the while silent suffering happens,
it's not fair. -Did any part of that strike you as odd
or make you question or sit in your head
in a way that made you be like, "I don't know
if I could trust any of this"? That was enough to be like,
"That can't be cool." I remember even questioning, "Hmm, I wonder what my mom
must have done to deserve that." -You're almost taught to victim blame. -If you rile somebody up
that has an authority position then it's usually
you're the one in the wrong. -Did anyone ever tell you
that you were brainwashed? -No. In fact, you're always looking
at the outside world and seeing why they're wrong. -You know the truth. -Yes, we know the truth. We're so lucky. We're so lucky.
We need to pray at night and day that we got to be born into this. -I'm assuming there are lots of people
watching right now who are thinking
that doesn't sound like a cult, that sounds like just a strict religion. -Things usually don't start out as a cult. They started out as a beautiful mission, a beautiful value system. A cult is a disintegration, a degradation of something that was once good
and as it continued on control became more centralized, the in-group out-group dynamic
got stronger, the stakes for leaving got more harsh, and the potential rewards for staying in
usually greater, and that's what can create
what we would call a cult. -Was there a key moment when you realize that you really had
to break down your entire belief system? -I asked if I could go to college. I remember the first conversation I had
with my dad that I wanted to go to college like, "If you want to continue to grow
and learn and have knowledge, why would you go to college?" "So I can learn stuff." -You just answered the question. -Yes. He would say, "Not stuff
that would help you achieve salvation." The main point as to why
it's very rare in my family is you are at risk of losing your soul. -If you go to college? -Because you will be among the others. -You could be what? Converted
and brainwashed into the outside world. -Bingo. You could lose your way. -How did you convince them? -I went to a meeting with my grandfather, and he's like,
"What do you want to go for?" I said, "Business."
He thought about it and he's like, "You know what,
that's probably a good idea because we have so many people
that are in construction and some plumbers and electricians, we don't really have anybody
that knows business." It was basically going for the community. -You were being very honest, you did want
to come back and be the business person. -Yes. You have to take general education, so one of the classes I took
was a philosophy class. -I can just see how this all goes south.
Philosophy? -Oh dude. This class was so cool because the entire semester
was themed off of the Matrix. -I'm sure there are lots of parallels
that you started to notice. -The Matrix was based on
actually a really old story, Plato's allegory of the cave. There are these people inside of a cave and they've been here
in their entire life, all of a sudden
on this wall in front of them these shadows appear
and they make meaning as to what these shadows are and it's everything
that they just love it. When they see the shadows on the wall
they're like, "This is heaven." They discuss it, they argue.
The shadows are their reality. One day one of the people in Plato's story
breaks loose from the chains and he noticed that there's a back wall
and so he walks to the back of the cave and looks behind the wall
and he sees that the shadows are being created by someone
holding up some shape in front of a flame. Everything in this person's life
comes into question because the shadows
that he thought were real are just a projection of something else. Then he sees a crack in the wall
and climbs out and goes out of the cave. Let's say he saw a shadow of a tree
then he goes out and he sees a real tree. His mind is blown. Literally, his entire identity
and everything just became shattered because everything he thought he knew
was not true. It scared him,
and after it scared him, he then was like, "This is awesome.
There's so much more to life, but I still have
friends and family down there. They need to know about this." He goes back to the cave. He can't see very well, he stumbles
and so people are like. "Hey, where have you been?"
He was like, "Oh, let me tell you. There's this whole outside world
that's crazy." Of course,
they have no frame of reference. What do they think? He's gone crazy. "But what could be better
than the shadows that we have?" They ask him. "Don't you understand?"
"What I'm trying to say, what I've seen, these shadows are nothing compared to what's real
and what's out there." Now, they feel threatened. "What are you saying?
Are you trying to take away our shadows?" Because they feel threatened,
they kill him. After my professor tells us that story, I thought of everything
I knew to be true, "Holy shit." There wasn't a single thing, not a single thing
that was like a core thing that I had internally discovered. It was from my dad or the other
priesthood leaders, the church. It was the first thing
that was like what I call the crack, the thing that was
so incredibly unsettling. I couldn't say for certain why what I believed
was actually worth believing in. -Did you feel like your eyes were open,
everything around you looked different? -That was the beginning point
that casted doubt. I didn't say that this is wrong.
I said, "I hope it's still true." -You hope that everything
that you built your life on is real? -I hope it's real. What it did is it put me
in an intense study mode, curiosity mode. I was like, "If it is true,
then I'll find it outside of this." Then where it really blew wide open
is when I left the bubble. I left my small town in Utah,
I went to an event. I shared in this intimate group of people I'm starting to doubt
my entire, entire reality. One of the people asked,
"What happens to people if they're wrong?" He had me describe hell to him. Then he says, "It seems like
that's what you feel like right now." He made me see that I was living, I was agonizing
almost in a hell-like way now. -You were feeling internally
what you described as an external thing. -All those pieces
is what it came together, finding things that are true so much,
and that's what led to this moment where I realized
I don't believe this anymore. -You actually have a voice memo
that you recorded that very specific moment
when you did completely deconstruct it. -The day I decided, yes. -Can you play that for us? -Sure. -Before we continue learning
about the world of escaping a cult -I don't think I am going to stay. I don't think I'm going to stay
in the work. -I just wanted to take a quick moment
to see how you're all feeling about these one-on-one interviews that I've been doing
a little bit more often that allow us
to really go way more in-depth into some of these stories that I feel
really require that extra time. The standard format
that you already love for the series is not going away though,
we'll be back next week with I spent a day with aromantics
with three guests as usual. I'm really enjoying it,
but it's not all about me. I want to know what you think.
Leave a comment below. I'd like to thank Honey
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It was a great time. Did I mention
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and if you go to joinhoney.com/padilla, you'll be directly supporting this series. Now, back to the world of escaping a cult. -As I record this, I'm here in my apartment
in Centennial Park, Arizona. What I'm doing is reflecting on what. What I really want is whether or not
I'm going to stay with the community, with the family, with the religion that I've been a part of
for the last 29-plus years. The thing that I think I'm concluding to, the thing that I haven't ever recorded
on anyway, that I think I'm going to say it here,
I don't think I am going to stay. I don't think I'm going to stay
in the work. The work is what the religion is called. When I sit with myself
and I imagine myself 5 years down the road,
10 years down the road and staying, it just doesn't feel right. I have to believe that if this place,
if this religion is the one true place, God's place, if I was removed from it,
I would be able to find that. All these people searching for truth,
how many of them have found the work? Really, really, really, really small. In fact, when I look at the work
and the religion, who's in it? Who's in it are people
that have been in it. They've been born into it.
It's a bunch of the same family. That's a red flag to me. What I'm documenting to myself and I guess just having the courage
to say to myself out loud is it's a matter of time. I'm leaving the work. -That's when you actually say it. -As awesome as [?] my arm.
- I can see the goosebumps. How does it feel hearing that back? -So freaking proud. -Can you hear everything,
the process of what you're doing? -I'm hearing the wheels turning
and stuff like that because I'm hearing myself
come to things that, based on my own life experiences, going out into the world and meeting with people
and stuff like that, coming to a belief system that is mine,
not what somebody else taught me. I might even be wrong and be okay with
I would rather choose this and go to hell if that's what it meant than believe in this other stuff that just doesn't make
any goddamn sense to me. -You can hear how long it takes you
to say it because you feel it, you know it's there,
it's on the tip of your tongue, but you're almost afraid of letting
the words come out of your mouth. -If you say it, you can't take it back.
You better be ready. It was still a couple of months
until I told people. -You really had to come to terms
with it yourself. -I had to come to terms with myself. The biggest one that I was worried
about telling was my dad. It was incredibly agonizing. I just felt
that it was going to wreck him. I went over to his house and said,
"Can we have a conversation?" I went up to his room and told him. -Did he know before you told him? -No. I just told him and, yes,
it broke him. He asked me why
and tried to talk me out of it. I was just like, "No. I'm done. I'm out." -What was the energy in the room like? -Freeing because telling my dad
was the beginning of me truly being my own independent self
that's not tied to some external source telling me how I should think,
act or behave. -Now that you've been through that and you have that entire world
to reflect on, where else do you feel
this cult-like behavior exists in everyday life? -Wherever you see community and where it can start to turn
into something not so good as if you start to say we're all amazing and you're invalidating
the groups outside of you and then where you start to elevate
some centralized authority, then it can become incredibly cult-like. -It can be applied to anything,
relationships, even on a one-on-one, it can be that way. -The whole relationship thing, especially comparing it
to a toxic relationship, it feels like
the stakes are high either way. -Yes. I feel like it exists
around us everywhere, whether it's politics
or nationalism or capitalism. -Here is another rule of cult,
you only can see it from the outside. How do you know you're not inside one? -Are you nervous at all
about showing your face on camera to potentially millions of people
knowing that members from your cult who are still there,
even your family, could see it? -I'm more comfortable in my own skin
than I've literally ever been. If somebody is offended, cool.
That's part of life, anyway. -You're going to offend someone
no matter what, right? -If I'm going to have that anyway and if it can potentially help somebody
or give somebody else empathy, whether inside or outside,
I think I used to be but I am more comfortable with that
than I've ever been. -If there is anyone from your past,
your family, your religion, your church that is watching
that stumbled upon this video, is there anything
that you want to say to them? -The one thing we know for sure
is we've got this, this one life, this is our life to live. Really, really sit with yourself
and see if this is coming from you, something that you would choose.
If you were on neutral footing, would you choose the life you have now,
or was it just given? As long as you're doing
what you want to do and you truly feel that you are happy
and it's leading to deeper happiness, do you, boo. -What do you think
is the biggest misconception about cults in general? -People that are in them
must just be brainwashed. I think it's a very
sobering and humbling thought when you really see
the psychological things at play that you're like, "Huh, maybe I could, and actually, be careful
and question and look around." -I see certain things like even people
putting a decal on their car. I'm like, "That person believes
so strongly about whatever that is." Whether it be the American flag,
the Darwin fish, whatever it is, that is the type of person that
maybe doesn't really question, think outside, they're just like,
"This is the way it is." -A mind full of conclusion
has no room for expansion. That's what you just have
to be careful with. It doesn't mean you can't have
any strong foundation or footing of things that you believe
if those beliefs are serving you, but I think what's helpful
is to be open-minded enough that it's not a full stop. -All right.You've got five seconds
to shout out or promote anything you want
directly in the camera. Go. -I just wrote my first children's book
dedicated to my daughter Belle, Mistakes Are A-Okay, Maggy Maye!
You can go pre-order it now, go to calvinwayman.com/book. Is this your first video?
Haven't you seen these videos? They're fantastic. If you're not subscribed,
what are you doing? -What are you doing with your life?
-You're missing out on so much goodness. Look at this, this stage,
there's so much you cannot see. -There you have it, I spent a day with Calvin,
an ex-cult member. I feel like I understand
the way that it feels to be on the inside of a cult,
at least a little bit better. It might seem obvious to people
on the outside of a belief system that something is very wrong, but it is not so easy for anyone
experiencing it from the inside. I think this actually applies
to way more things in all of our lives
than we might even realize. I commend Calvin's courage for reliving
these traumatizing experiences on a platform with potentially
millions of viewers so we can all learn something deeper and hopefully find a way
to apply it to ourselves in the process. -Yes, I grew up on a farm.
Small family farm. -Small family? [laughs]
-Well, touché brother. Touché. -Small family farm or small family farm? -Small farm, big family. -Sounds like a name of a hit TLC TV show.
