Creepy Facts and Scary Stories

How I Escaped From a Cult

Today marks the second month since I escaped from the most fucked up cult you have never heard of. Well, I guess that is how cults work. They officially referred to themselves as the Third Reincarnation of the King (TRK). The TRK lived deep in wilderness of Utah. The locals knew not to mess with them so they pretty much did whatever we wanted.

Groups like the TRK are EVERYWHERE in the United States. Some are death cults, others are far right militias while others are neo-nazi end of the world polygamy groups. The FBI is pretty much only focused on Islamic terrorist groups these days and no law enforcement agency wants another repeat of the Waco, Texas tragedy. So groups like TRK get to do pretty much whatever they want so long as they stay far away from civilization.

In a way I consider myself luckier than most of the children that were brought into the TRK. I was one of the oldest children when the cult first formed. Most of the families that established the TRK were formally part of a far right cult called Church of the Blessed. A power struggle between two of the church elders led to a schism. Those who broke away followed Charlie Stocke, a self professed prophet, who led his new congregation into the backwoods of Utah. Members of the TRK quit their jobs and sold all their possessions so that Charlie could build paradise on Earth.

Life was great at first. Charlie taught that he was the third reincarnation of Jesus Christ and that he would build a paradise on Earth for us. Under Charlie's direction we settled on a large parcel of land near the Nevada border. The compound was meant to be entirely self sufficient. We grew our own food, generated our own electricity, and set up a filtration system to provide fresh water from a nearby lake. Everyone, except for Charlie, lived together in a large communal building. Only Charlie was allowed to leave the compound. Everyone else went about their daily duties. We all believed that we were living life as God intended us to. Free from a society corrupted by man.

Well that all changed pretty quickly. The first winter was incredibly difficult. We all approached life with a, "God will provide" attitude, which really meant, "Charlie will provide." Our store of food quickly ran out and all of the livestock was quickly eaten. Charlie soon began making trips to the nearest town to buy food for all seventy-two of us. He told us that God was testing us and that only the most devoted would receive nourishment from the hand of God. A pecking order soon developed where the most fanatic members of the cult became "true believers" and received more food. More independent families received less food and were put on prayer lists and became targets during Charlie's daily sermons.

Charlie used the prayer list as a tool to beat the more independent families into submission. Families on the prayer list were broken up and no longer able to speak with one another. Each member of the family had to be supervised at all times by one of Charlie's true believers. My family made it onto the prayer list for reasons unknown to me. We all worked hard and participated in all of the activities. It is likely we just weren't fanatic enough and Charlie wanted to make examples of us.

Winter soon passed and we were able to plant crops once more. Charlie bought more livestock for the farm and declared that money was the work of the devil and that from this point on we would be completely self sufficient. I suspect that most of the money ran out and Charlie was just making excuses. There likely wasn't that much money to begin with. Most of us were lower-middle class and didn't have much to give to the cause even after selling all we owned. This is when I first started to have doubts about this whole paradise on Earth bullshit that Charlie was feeding us every day. I had to keep my thoughts to myself because my family was still on the prayer list.

The situation deteriorated further as our crops began to fail and our livestock became ill. We lived on rice and beans that was left over from the food Charlie had bought during winter. Charlie responded with seven hour sermons where he claimed that the devil was among us. He anointed a group of fanatical young men as the "King's Zealots." They were basically Charlie's henchmen. They got to eat at Charlie's table during supper and a special building was built for them to live in.