Seneca woman discusses cult experience, and breaking free in podcast
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SENECA, Mo. — It’s a crisp Monday morning in January, and Abigail Hobbs can be found here.
In her safe space… Surrounded by her horses… Recording a podcast.
“This is my chance. I’m going to have to do something new and different, and so, I just kind of started exploring. I started my podcast. I started biking every week. I started blogging, just for personal growth and trying to work through my own life and my own struggles,” said Abigail.
Abigail is venturing into a new life… Healing from a painful past: “I was physically in the village for 26 years.”
The village.
Abigial’s parents joined a community that rejected modern medicine and preached their own version of Christianity when she was just nine years old.
“We were always talking about, like, ‘haha, everyone thinks we’re a cult.’ that’s what the leaders would all say, but ‘they don’t know the truth and we’re really the chosen ones.”
And their chosen spot? A 100-acre cow pasture in west Tennessee… No water, no housing… Mainly just tents and busses until sturdier structures could be built.
“You had no privacy, you had no peace, and you had no say so. You do what you’re told. I mean, at one point I lived in a house with seven other women. In a little house and everyone has to have a cook schedule, a cleaning schedule, a laundry schedule. You’re raising your kids together, they’re fighting.”
Content retrieved from: https://www.fourstateshomepage.com/local-news/newton-county-news/seneca-woman-discusses-cult-experience-and-breaking-free-in-podcast/.
This former cult member’s personal account illustrates the social isolation and control mechanisms within a destructive cut. But it also gives hope for those recovering from such a experience.