30. Dawn Smith escaped from a cult

All The Wiser

Kimi Culp

Society & Culture, Education, Health & Fitness, Self-improvement

4.9 • 652 Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2020

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Dawn Smith was born in 1978, the evangelical fundamentalist group known as The Assembly, started by her father and lead by her grandfather, was already in full swing. They were living in communes separated by gender, and given schedules to account for each minute of the day, mostly spent in prayer. Things like dating, television, science, nail polish, piercings, and dancing were all forbidden (wife-training was a thing). Meanwhile, accounts of abuse continued to go unaddressed by a sinister group of leaders hell bent on maintaining power and control; until the victims started sharing their stories, bringing Dawn closer than ever to the truth. Eventually Dawn left The Assembly with her sister, husband and new baby - introduced to things like movies, and television for the first time. and finding her footing in a new exciting world. In this episode you'll hear why Dawn says that "as hard as leaving was, the hardest day of freedom is better than the best day in a cult."

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Transcript

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0:44.0	Welcome to All the Wiser. I'm Kimmy Kulfe. All the Wiser is a one-for-one podcast. For every
0:50.7	inspiring interview you hear, we donate $2,000 to charities around the world.
0:56.7	I believe in the power of storytelling to inspire us all to think differently about the world
1:02.0	around us.
1:03.2	So I've combed the country for some of the most jaw-dropping stories you have ever heard,
1:09.6	people who have been to the brink and back, stories of
1:12.6	survival against all odds, and whose lives have been changed in unthinkable ways.
1:19.2	Today's interview is with Dawn Smith. Don grew up in an evangelical cult called the Assembly.
1:27.1	Her childhood was spent, living in a commune,
1:30.7	where women and girls were stripped of most of their rights, and assembly members were forced
1:36.2	to follow such rules as no music, dancing, nail polish, or clapping. In today's conversation, Dawn paints a vivid picture of what it means
1:48.4	to be part of a cult, and more specifically, a cult that is run by a narcissistic, charismatic,
1:56.7	abusive, and manipulative leader who happens to be her grandfather.
	...

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