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Podcast: Cults to Consciousness
Episode: My Parents Gave Me to a Cult Leader at 15 (Hidden in the Woods with Newborn)
Description: It started when Maria’s mother was kidnapped and taken to Canada before somehow convincing her parents to give marital consent. Maria would end up being one of 11 children who were moved over and over from different Amish and Mennonite settlements. Maria’s father was a wannabe cult leader and stirred up trouble wherever he went. Homemade preaching tapes sent out to the world would attract predators into Maria’s home. One of them being a Russian man named Sergey, a cult leader himself. At 15, Maria’s parents willingly gave her to Sergey to marry off to another man. At 16 sh...