Brave survivor of Children of God sex cult where followers worshipped with mass orgies reveals abuse & trafficking hell
A BRAVE cult survivor has revealed the hell she faced at the hands of its warped sex-worshipping leaders before finally escaping.
Daniella Mestyanek Young, 36, is battling to expose the ungodly traumas she faced growing up inside the infamous Children of God cult.
In 1968, a long-haired former priest David Berg founded “Teens for Christ” – a religious movement that attracted young runaways and hippies who were convinced an apocalypse was coming.
Known to his followers as Moses David or Grandpa, he soon built it into the “Children of God” – a notorious sex cult that would quickly be disgraced with allegations of rape, child abuse, incest and religious prostitution.
In its heyday, it counted 15,000 members scattered in some 130 “colonies” across the world – including several in the UK – and drew in all kinds of rogue famous musicians and actors.
Hollywood stars Joaquin Phoenix and Rose McGowan were born into the sinister organisation – where its followers reportedly once worshipped with mass orgies.
The cult sold itself on sex, God and free love – but in reality, Daniella explained, the sex was encouraged to be with minors and “free love” included having to sacrifice your children to be trafficked.
Daniella, the daughter of high-ranking members who was shuffled between compounds in the US, Mexico and Brazil, told The Sun: “It became known as the sex cult.”
“They officially say that there’s no more of that,” she said, explaining that as the years went on, the cult “was whitewashed, changed its name, survived”.
In its prime, she estimates it was bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars, adding that her grandfather – a senior leader – “still runs the money”.
Daniella, who escaped the cult at 15, now lives in Washington and works as what she calls a “scholar of cults, extreme groups, and extremely bad leadership”.
She is the author of Uncultured – a chilling memoir that charts her abusive experiences inside the cult, her escape and long road to recovery in the outside world.
Banned from any education that wasn’t the Bible, Daniella suffered physical, sexual and psychological abuse at the hands of the cult, all masked as Christian discipline and divine love.
Two British survivors described life inside the Children of God to the BBC in 2018 as “hell on earth”. Daniella firmly agreed.
“You’re taught that the outside world is evil and so bad,” she said.
But the confined world she lived in was filled with “all different kinds of abuses, corporal punishment, parents with dual personalities, programming, medical neglect, sexual abuse, denial of education”.
Daniella’s mother, at 13, was forced to marry a 39-year-old high-ranking leader and serve as his secretary for years.
“It was all about labour and child trafficking,” she said.
If this is God’s love, I don’t want anything to do with this
Daniella Mestyanek Young
“[David] Berg was a failed, alcoholic preacher, who all of a sudden at 50-years-old got thousands of people to follow him and give up their freedom, their children, everything.”
Daniella says was trafficked as a child actress throughout Asia and Latin America – and made to sell and beg on the streets.
As far back as 1974, the New York attorney’s office defined it as a “cult” and Interpol and the FBI began hunting down Berg.
Under fire from authorities investigating child abuse allegations and waves of its younger members leaving, it virtually disappeared in the late 1970s.
But Daniella said it merely went underground and rebooted itself with force in the 1990s, newly branded as “The Family”.
“We called ourselves one big family,” she said, adding that a lot of time was spent “rehearsing answers about why we are not a cult”.
“It had been whitewashed so much that we performed in the White House twice.”
The escape
At five-years-old, Daniella had already experienced sexual abuse. By six, she was having suicidal thoughts and knew she wanted out.
“I had experienced a very bad sexual assault, and I’m like if this is God’s love like I don’t want anything to do with this,” she told The Sun.
“They watched as I was dragged [away] by a paedophile… and I was gone for 10 hours. And nobody asked any questions.”
In her memoir, Daniella revealed how a lot of children were killed as a result of beatings and other brutal punishments or medical neglect.
Kids inside the “colonies” were routinely whipped, beaten, deprived of their parents and forced to beg for donations on the streets.
Some as young as two or three-years-old were reportedly being sexually abused.
“Parents are raised on the entire concept of like you have to sacrifice your children for God,” Daniella said, and turn them into “God’s perfect soldiers”.
“I just feel like I was a critical atheist born to religious fundamentalists.”
In her early teens, she was making serious plans to leave.
“I had to get out before I was 16, because at 16 you’re expected to have sex with whoever asks you and not use birth control as of course the cult wants you pregnant,” she said.
Her mother helped her to escape before her birthday and she fled to Texas with only a passport, leaving behind everything she knew and 25 siblings.
The outside world
“I’m 15 and I don’t know anything about the world. It’s like I am from another planet,” Daniella recalled.
She turned up to a school one day without any education records to show and was told “we can’t enrol you in because you don’t exist”.
“And I think, oh I am from another planet. Got it. I think that’s what I feel to this day, really, it’s how it still feels,” she said.
It took her years to overcome the intense brainwashing she endured – but put herself through school and university, eventually graduating as valedictorian.
But Daniella has struggled to find her place in the world, always feeling like an “imposer that never fit in, never made friends”.
“I come from nowhere,” she said.
There are some things that are so terrible that human beings just don’t recover from them
Daniella Mestyanek Young
“When you grow up in a cult, you are not growing up in society, in culture… you are growing up in this completely separate thing.”
Struggling post-university in a toxic relationship, she signed up to the military and would spend six years working as an intelligence officer.
Feeling like an imposter in civilian life, she longed for a sense of belonging, camaraderie and purpose – but it almost broke her.
“I think I joined the military for all the same reasons that my grandfather joined a cult,” she said.
“It seemed like it’s the opposite of everything I’ve grown up with,” she recalled.
“But in fact, it’s quite the same… I already knew how to just shut down my individuality… and be in a high-control group.”
No justice
The major hunt for Berg from the 1970s onwards increased as more survivors came forward with horrific tales of what went on inside the communes.
But their investigations largely stalled when he died in 1994.
In 2004, the organisation was renamed “Family International” but by 2009, the warped organisation began to crumble, forcing thousands of its devout followers into the world.
Daniella calls them the “never-lefters” – those that never experienced a “crack in their brainwashing” as the cult “disintegrated around them”.
There have been convictions over the years of high-ranking members for all kinds of horrors included kidnapping, child abuse and incest.
But it’s been a slow and painful road for survivors searching for justice.
Fifty-six years later and the Children of God still exists under the banner of “Family International” – and defines itself as “Christian network spread across 75 countries” that is “committed to sharing the message of God’s love with others”.
Daniella estimates it now has roughly 1,500 members and brings in more than a million dollars a year.
How many chances does society want to give the paedophile cult? They should get no more chances
Daniella Mestyanek Young
She said: “Part of the genius of The Children of God was the moving all around the world and changing its name right?”
Without the identities of her abusers, “of course we can’t get justice,” she said.
She only knows the name of one abuser – a famous man who was allowed to keep his name for fundraising reasons.
Daniella said: “What I think is most agonising is that people still act like the cult can just clean up their act and be better.
“Even fellow [survivors] will be like, ‘oh, but they don’t do that stuff anymore’.
“And if you talk to anyone who joined the Children of God, they’ll be like ‘it started off so great. It was this group of young people and all about love and faith and Jesus’. And it wasn’t.
“It was an alcoholic paedophile who wanted to build a following so that he could play power games with people.”
Inside the Children of God cult
THE Children of God is one of the world's most infamous cults - dogged by accusations of rape, child abuse and incest.
It emerged in the late 1960s when David Berg created a little-known movement called Teens for Christ.
It gained notoriety under the name Children of God after its leader claimed that he’d had a revelation that California was to be struck by a major earthquake.
Initially calling themselves Teens for Christ, it soon evolved into the Children of God movement.
At its height, it is believed that Children of God had some 15,000 members.
Advocating a lifestyle of “group living”, the movement had hundreds of communes spread across the world.
They combined worship of Jesus Christ with the 1960s “free love” era whilst preaching a prophecy that the apocalypse was coming very soon.
As a result, he encouraged members to live a hand-to-mouth existence with no-one encouraged to make long-term plans.
But former members of the cult have alleged childhood abuse as they lived on the communes.
She continued: “How many chances does society want to give the paedophile cult? They should get no more chances.
“They are still awful people. I don’t believe they ever wanted to be better.
“It took them 20 years or something to admit that the prophet’s ‘beliefs’ about sex were wrong and bad and apologise for it.
“The survivors of the Children of God have a suicide rate that is close to that of Holocaust survivors.
“I think it suggests that there are some things that are so terrible that human beings just don’t recover from them. That is what we went through.”
After bravely telling her story, Daniella claims she faced a backlash from other survivors – and her own siblings were furious about her publishing her memoir.
“They’re in denial or they’re trying to protect our parents,” she said.
“But it’s not my job to protect my parents from knowing about my trauma, it was their job to protect me.”
The Family International has released letters of apology to former members and previously said it “has had a zero-tolerance policy in place for over thirty years for the protection of minors”.
Life beyond the cult
Daniella, now a mother-of-one, devotes most of her time to teaching others about cult psychology and the dynamics of group behaviour.
“We think we know all about cults and we don’t,” she said. “We think cults are this other distant, far away thing, and we would never be a part of it.”
She sees evidence of cult-like behaviour everywhere across groups and communities – and wants others to be able to recognise toxic behaviour when it takes place.
“I really try to teach people is that the only way to protect yourself from extremism is being comfortable in living in the grey and understanding that there are many valid ways to live a life,” she said.
“Because the whole cult proposition is that ‘there’s one right way to live your life, and we have it’.
“I think the best anti-cult mantra is just telling yourself all the time, there are many valid ways to live a life.”
You're Not Alone
EVERY 90 minutes in the UK a life is lost to suicide
It doesn’t discriminate, touching the lives of people in every corner of society – from the homeless and unemployed to builders and doctors, reality stars and footballers.
It’s the biggest killer of people under the age of 35, more deadly than cancer and car crashes.
And men are three times more likely to take their own life than women.
Yet it’s rarely spoken of, a taboo that threatens to continue its deadly rampage unless we all stop and take notice, now.
That is why The Sun launched the You’re Not Alone campaign.
The aim is that by sharing practical advice, raising awareness and breaking down the barriers people face when talking about their mental health, we can all do our bit to help save lives.
Let’s all vow to ask for help when we need it, and listen out for others… You’re Not Alone.
If you, or anyone you know, needs help dealing with mental health problems, the following organisations provide support:
- CALM, www.thecalmzone.net, 0800 585 858
- Heads Together,www.headstogether.org.uk
- HUMEN www.wearehumen.org
- Mind, www.mind.org.uk, 0300 123 3393
- Papyrus, www.papyrus-uk.org, 0800 068 41 41
- Samaritans,www.samaritans.org, 116 123