Inside the Yellow Deli Cult: Tamara Mathieu on Life in Twelve Tribes (Part 1)

A Little Bit Culty

Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames

True Crime, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode is sponsored in part by Betterhelp.

Twelve Tribes started as a Bible study in the 1970s. Today, it’s a nationwide network of high-control communities, often hiding in plain sight behind the homespun charm of Yellow Deli cafés. The group claims to offer a simpler, more spiritual life. But behind the braided bread and “family values” lies a world of control, corporal punishment, and deep-rooted misogyny.

In Part 1 of our conversation with Tamara Mathieu, we hear what it’s like to live inside. Tammy spent 14 years in the Twelve Tribes, lured in by the promise of community and stability at a vulnerable time in her life. But what began as a warm welcome quickly turned into an authoritarian nightmare, especially for women and children. She shares how the group isolates members, enforces biblical patriarchy, and punishes dissent, and what it took to finally break free.

To learn more about Tammy’s journey, check out her memoir All Who Believed, a raw and powerful account of survival and escape.

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The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

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CREDITS:

Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames

Production Partner: Amphibian.Media

Co-Creator: Jess Tardy

Writer: Kristen Reiter

Associate producers: Amanda Zaremba and Matt Stroud of Amphibian.Media

Audio production: Red Caiman Studios

Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin

Transcript

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0:37.8	the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion
0:41.8	group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, or anything. I'm Sarah Edmondson. And I'm Anthony Nippy Ames. And this is A Little Bit Calti.
1:00.7	Cults are commonplace now. From fandums to fads, we're examining them all. We look at what happens
1:05.3	when things that seem like a great thing at first go bad. Every week we chat with survivors,
1:10.7	experts, and whistleblowers for real culty stories told
1:13.6	directly by the people who lived through them, because we want you to learn a few things
1:17.7	that we've had to learn the hard way.
1:20.1	For example, if you think you're too smart to get sucked into something culty, you might
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