Uncultured invites readers to reconsider what they think about the ways cults emerge and function. Religious lies, conmen and coercive control: how cults corrupt our desire for love and connection At just six years old, already questioning the legitimacy of the Bible, Mestyanek Young was locked in a room and repeatedly raped and beaten by one of the cult’s men, a distinguished uncle.ĭespite the cult’s coercion tactics, however, Mestyanek Young was able to observe its inner workings from an unusually critical perspective, haunted by a sense that “even though I was the one getting punished, somewhere deep inside I suspected the wrong thing wasn’t me”. Mestyanek Young’s father was 49 years old when she was born her mother was only 15.Įven as a young child programmed from birth, Mestyanek Young intuited that something about her world was deeply wrong. It subjected children to routine beatings and demanded they remain perpetually available to satiate the sexual impulses of the cult’s adults. The hierarchy cited the proverb, “Spare the rod, spoil the child”, to justify its exploitative treatment of children. The cult, also known as The Family, is infamous for its widespread and systematic abuse, especially of children. Mestyanek Young describes her childhood as a third-generation cult member (one of the “children of the children of the Children of God”) in chilling detail - but also striking detachment. It asks readers to look closely at the power mechanisms at work within the communities we call our own. And it’s a searing indictment of groups that continue to view those who are not men as subservient to those who are.īut at its core, Uncultured is a book about groups. It’s a story about trauma, a war memoir, a meditation on the difference between culture and cults. It’s an exposé of the abuse that can run unchecked within cults. Author providedīut this book is not simply a survival story. Daniella Mestyanek Young explores the systems of control in which toxicity can thrive, from within a cult and then the US army.

Uncultured by daniella mestyanek young