Hi hello. I was born and raised in a Religious Cult. Happy to do a video interview with you about what that was like and how it's a literal tactic for leaders to be like "We aren't a Cult! We can't be! Laugh at people who tell you that!" EDIT: Thank you all for your supportive comments! I'm still hoping Amanda sees this and she's down to chat!
Same I was in a religous cult too. I was constantly taught that " 'this and that' religion is bad/a cult, but we arent!" When the 2 religous cults were almost the same, just with slightly different values.
THIS LOL. Please don't Amanda, I know you're willing to risk your life for content but WE ARE NOT willing to risk your life for content. We're just fine with videos like this, we promise lol
Yeah like, content's one thing but joining a cult is dangerous shit. Even if you do pull it off without getting found out there's always the chance they might actually sucker you in Plus that's Reckless Ben's shtick
discussion of animal abuse goes from 18:24-20:25 in case you want to skip it. screenshots of Patrick talking about it at 23:06-23:11 , keep your mental health safe yall
Does that guy genuinely think that if you went up to a cult member, within the grounds of said cult, and asked them “Are we in a cult?” they’d actually say “Yes. Thank you for noticing.” Like, really?
As someone who grew up in a cult, yeah you have no idea you’re in one until you leave it’s influence. Leaving can be terrifying if it’s all you’ve ever known, but the freedom that comes afterwards is worth the price.
Amanda talking to us like we're all kids she's babysitting and she doesn't want us to run into traffic for a goof is honestly the best. thank you amanda i promise i wont visit the cult can we please watch nightmare on elm street my mom says its ok
to be fair, i think most of us (as well as Amanda herself) are the same generation that watched people swallow cinnamon on youtube and went "huh, i wonder what would happen if i did that"
“I’ve Been Involved In A Number Of Cults, Both As A Leader And A Follower. You Have More Fun As A Follower. But You Make More Money As A Leader” Creed, the Office.
okay this is just a genuinely random and off topic question but why do you type every word being capitalized? I'm genuinely curious when I see people typing like this
a bunch of people were complaining about how tree “can’t be a cult leader” because he’s new, which i find hilarious because like. cult leaders often infiltrate existing communities, guys
Yeah. It's kind of the whole point. It's a hell of a lot easier to prey on already insularized groups than to start from scratch Edit to say: cult leaders don't want to actually have to do a ton of work. That's why they become cult leaders. They just want to run their mouth and get everyone else to do the hard work for them
Also because the owner isn’t there full time plus the come and go nature in tandem with the new influx of exposure makes this a time bomb. Tree(and Rel) are planting roots that could lead to them challenging the owner. This potential power struggle could be interesting to see play out. Will the owner take back his land and enforce some authority or have his land usurped from under him by these clowns?
mmm, not really. People don't join what they think are cults. The convincing of recruits that it's not a cult must be successful and complete well before the person joins.. not after they're members. The exception to this is people born into cults.
The whole "leave fear behind, welcome everyone" thing is such a red flag. My parents always wanted to live in community, so we had a revolving door of housemates, and even with vetting one of those people is part of the reason I have PTSD. So no, I'm not on board with this. I'm so concerned for any kids who are there.
It's very interesting that so many cults seem to be appearing on tiktok around this time. Everyone is stuck inside, most people are feeling isolated and confined. The idea of belonging and getting away from your home sounds heavenly, and people are desperate for it. This is not an accident, especially being publicized on an app like tiktok where things like this are heavily romanticized.
@@kpr4225 I think tik tok is fucking sketchy altogether but people think I’m just boring for not being hyped about it. I wish people would open their eyes and see this app is seriously into something bad
And the only appropriate response is to react with knee-jerk fear and condemnation towards anyone who is making any attempt to build a community where people can find a sense of belonging. An atomized life of dissociative alienation with little to no meaningful connection to my fellow human being is all I need, thanks!
@@redspade96 lol calm down, Janet. You don't have to be so gullible that your brains and common sense falls out. These cults prey on people who are feeling just like you: lost, misunderstood, isolated. It is actually a *good* thing to keep your wits about you, even when you are at your lowest and stay aware of these "organizations" that claim to have THE ANSWER. There are healthy ways to make community with other humans, to be desperate for anything is a recipe for disaster.
that one guy seemed like he might have been autistic. scary to think some of the people were taken advantage of. coming from someone who is autistic btw
Love the arm chair navel gazing in this comment section. When you get away from your carefully cultivated computer echo chamber you sometimes pick up on the nuances in life.
My coworker just told me one of her friends found her missing husband (of 3 years) living here thanks to tiktok, now she knows where to send their divorce papers (for the time being). guess tiktok is good for something!
This is so disappointing, I live about 10 minutes away from a local sustainable living commune. Just to be able to visit to see if you’re interested in living in it you have to go through a 2 week process where they go through everyone in the commune to make sure there’s no conflicts and they can do a back check on you. Being able to live there also requires everyone in the commune to sign off on you joining for everyones safety, especially because one of the biggest points of this community is children being able to roam free and not having the kids or the children be uncomfortable or feel unsafe. Please, if a commune does not have a proper process for checking you, do not join it.
Honestly even with background checks having children running around unattended is a frightening concept to me. The vast majority of child predators have no prior arrests and don't act like a stereotypical "creep", no one knows until it's too late IF they ever even find out. It's SOOOOO easy to abuse children if you've never been caught before, hell even if you've been caught if the victim doesn't press charges or ever tell anybody else besides their closest friends/family you could still get away with it. So the idea of letting kids run around with little to no protection sounds like a time bomb waiting to go off.
@@lilithlaney1759 i know rightttt.that sounds terrifying and so unsafe. If i had kids even if i lived in a place like that i would never let my kids run free People who abuse others dont have to look a certain way for them to be a threat.
@@lilithlaney1759 I understand this but this is Bc we’ve been conditioned to feel everyone will be bad Bc we can’t differentiate. Background checks don’t have to be legal, and after all these extensive checks they do, it’s more unlikely that someone with these tinetions would even stay. Many predators go for easy wins, and with the extent this person says the community goes, i find it a little less worrying. No, the risk isn’t 100% gone, but it never is, yenno?
@@lilithlaney1759 I mean we just drop our children off at a building full of strangers, that we definitely don't background check, from the moment they turn 5. We're just supposed to trust them .... at least those people are trying to make an effort lol
Rell seems to think she's "built different" and isn't afraid of covid. she says she doesn't even know what Jonestown was, and made a koolaid drinking joke video. Her saying gen z is just a bunch of scaredy cats is really dumb, because I'm a millennial and even I think their community is super suspicious.
@@beefar0ni Yeah. I had a friend who a couple years ago heard about Jonestown for the first time but knew the Kool-Aid stuff. So possible but eh, I would trust a word out of the mouth of someone like Rell.
@@beefar0ni School buses tend to have a much shorter operational life than what you expect and the fleets are continuously refreshed. This puts a lot of them on the secondary market, regularly, and they're specialized enough, and need enough maintenance, to be relatively cheap. Honestly, the more comments I read about things you guys are spooked by the more I'm convinced they're just hippies. Babylon girl sounds like numerous second generation "indigo children" I've known. Besides, they drank Flavor Aid, not Kool-Aid, at Jonestown.
My uncle thinks that he’s “built different” I love the man but he’s nuts and it drives me nuts. Not in a cult though. Just a lil weird the guy. He means well
I would caution people against going intentionally into a cult just for the experience, to document, etc. Everyone thinks they’re built different and won’t join, but they employ tactics that make you weak, like isolating you, keeping you sleep deprived and malnourished, emotionally manipulating you. Some people are more or less vulnerable, cults tend to prey on people who’ve experienced psychological stressors like divorce, being fired, or homelessness, but even if you’re an emotionally well person, you can be broken down under the right circumstances.
Wow you must be like one of the best licensed therapist out there. I've been in isolation many times and for quite disturbing lengths of time as well. It's actually borderline agoraphobia from my past and I didn't lose my mind or become weak. As a matter of fact I came out stronger in the end, but you wouldn't survive half way because you would have called to God and he would be gone. Everyone would send you prayers and condolences. The end. Such a special gift there isn't it?
I feel like this cannot be under-emphasized: The cat thing is a GROOMING TECHNIQUE. Get people to break a smallish but deeply ingrained taboo that requires them to identify even subconsciously in a new way--they haven't just killed a cat, they've EATEN a cat--and position it as not just no big deal, but ethically/morally called for...which then puts them in a position to identify as part of a persecuted yet righteous group when outsiders inevitably raise an alarm. Right now it's just a cat that was "obviously" threatening their way of life by killing their chickens or whatever (not, you know, a natural predator stepping up to the buffet because you haven't taken steps to protect your chickens). Next week or next month it's something closer to your new outer edge, next year it's potentially any number of things, like letting your "leaderless" leader marry your 5-year-old or killing humans who come try to shut you down. This isn't just about the squick factor or about whether meat is murder. It's an initiation.
the combined talk of genocide, babylon, and the whole cat thing makes me worry its only a matter of time before someone does something wrong and the whole farm turns into chaos
My friend and I drove from Illinois to California with the end destination being what turned out to be a cult. She was 17 and I was 19; we were NOT prepared for what was facing us. It seemed like a totally wholesome situation and the lady who owned the land always posted pictures of her beautiful plants. Luckily I realized the day we showed up that I needed to gtfo but she was not so lucky and almost died of exposure before finally leaving. This was in 2018. The moral of the story is that literally anyone can get sucked into a cult no matter how well read they are on cults and no matter what modern day year it is. So just be careful guys.
@@AlbinoAxolotl it was presented as a hippie camp where people who felt lost could come and be a part of a community. In reality it was more of a money operation for the woman who owned the land. She expected us to call her mama and would have everyone work while she sat in a chair most of the time. She lived in an air conditioned home hours south of the farm land while the rest had to pitch tents or stay in vehicles. That's how my friend nearly died of exposure; she had neither and it was about to be winter which meant she may not be able to leave due to the landscape
@@AlbinoAxolotl i will add some things because I typed that response out rather quickly; we were in northern California to the northwest of Mendocino probably by a few hours even. "Mama" (whose real name escapes me at the moment although if I think of it I will share because I'm pretty sure the farm is still active and taking members) lived in Fremont with her husband and the members of the farm considered to be the most helpful with house work. My friend was able to stay in this house for a couple of months before she came to pick me up and bring me to the farm. Personally I think they showed her the best part before the worst part so she would get new recruits blindly. Even when she was working in the house they still expected her to pay rent so she had a full time job in the city as well (I believe San Francisco but I mainly just remember her talking to me on the phone about going to the city to work at Chipotle so she could pay mama rent). As you can tell it was a big scammy mess. And mama also was considered to be a powerful witch by the rest of the people there and was not above threatening using dark magic on them as a scare tactic. She took credit for causing one ex member to fall out of a window using a spell.
There is always a leader or leaders in a community even when they say its not. You can see that the guy that nakes tik toks is kinda the most important person there maybe with rell. In every system there will be hierarchies even when nobody was elected as leaders. There are people that are more charming than others or speak up more than others and they are seen as more important
Or worse they are trying to solve everything by group consensus, meaning nothing gets decided and no one is happy with the outcome. Imagine trying to live by group project rules.
It’s clearly not leaderless when you see the videos too. Clearly there are people in charge but they won’t name names. More than likely so they don’t create too much heat focused on one person when looking into them. The scope remains as a wide angle rather than focused in.
I saw a vid on them from Cody Ko. It’s weird. When Tree asked the men & women there if “it’s a cult” all the men said “no” while all or most of the women were hesitant and replied “.... I don’t know” and why did most of the men look middle age while the women were more my age, 21. The women looked mid 20s - early 30s 👀👀👀
As a life long Tennessean, there are VERY dangerous areas here, small towns with corrupt government and many places heavily involved with meth and violence. Please be careful with this place.
@@CBrown86 lmao I guess you’ve never heard of Jamestown. There’s cults everywhere. What does your brother buying a car have to do with a cult tho that’s the real question
@@KacieRiley they're wondering about the sundown towns in Texas not cults (although I'm sure an argument can be made that the people in these towns following these practices follow cult-like paradigms/behavior).
Even on TikTok they are passively homophobic, hate to imagine what being there is like if that’s how they act online. It’s like, you can be gay but don’t BE gay. Tree himself said they like to keep it “family friendly”
My husband and I have known Rel for quite a while... to add to your already crazy list of Rel ideologies, she loves Hitler. She is a Jewish woman who loves and defends Hitler. If you scroll wayyyyyyyy back, I’m talking like 6 years, on her Facebook you’ll see her talking about how she respects and loves what he did. Rel frequents a lot of music festivals so just be cautious if you’re part of the ‘spiritual’ music culture.
Good advice, and generally true from what I've seen. At the least, a commune is usually involved at some point. Reference: Grew up in a weird new aged cult (still unsure if that's too harsh a term) that started as a church but turned into a pseudo commune. Really it was just a large house with 26-27 people in it. Later around 15 people lived on a slightly larger property, most of them in little shacks. There were lots of bonfires, homemade drums and guitars and lots of cringy hymns and strange bible interpretations.
The name "The Garden" and the fact that two of the members name is "Rell" and "Tree" makes this seem like a horror cult movie. Like, this is a movie in the making "ⁿᵒ ⁱᵗˢ ᵃ ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵘⁿⁱᵗʸ"
A sign of a cult is name changing actually. It’s a tactic to separate you from your old self so you eventually only become apart of the cult and nothing more.
@@youtube-kit9450 idk I just watch glass blowing and art tiktoks. I'm 34 and think its great. But I never venture out of that corner so I guess I couldn't speak on anything else. I just wanted to say the good side of having niche communities is that there are some really cool hobbies and groups of people out there. Also some really horrible ones but I find the glassblowing ones very relaxing.
Ya know I used to think those "don't drink the kool aid" jokes were funny too, until I listened to the tapes.... I literally hear Jim Jones telling parents to poison their children and the children are crying n screaming as he tries to calm everyone saying "it's painless the taste is just a little bitter that's why they cry" and ppl who objected to the mass suicide were gunned down. I get to hear all that too. It's truly the most horrific shit I've ever exposed myself to. I no longer find those "jokes" to be funny in any way. It's not a laughing matter.
They never drank Kool Aid, they drank Flavor Aid. The investigators found Flavor Aid packets all over and the survivors said it was Flavor Aid, the first news reports said a Kool Aid like knock off Flavor Aid
@@Jarblyy One was in the street with a clipboard offering to do questionnaires so you could find out how happy you were. They said I was unhappy & asked my friend if she was depressed. She wasn't but they said the test results said she was and that they could help and they offered courses (free taster session) where they could teach you techniques, kind of a self-help thing. I took a brochure as we were thinking of going and googled them. There were a lot of sites saying they'd joined & left or just tried the taster & said it was super sketchy - controlling, dehumanizing tactics & pressured people to 'donate' a lot of money & leave their families.
@@Jarblyy Second time I'd been going to a weekly meditation group which seemed fine for a few weeks but it gradually got more and more preachy/judgemental and I noticed that they only ever read from books of teachings written by one guy. All the other groups I've attended draw inspiration from a wide range of teachings and actively encourage people to explore different beliefs, question everything, see if it works for you and dispense with anything that doesn't. But this was very narrow and prescriptive. They said that anything that didn't contribute to studying the beliefs and practices they abided by should be dispensed with. Hobbies etc were just a distraction. I got a gut feeling and looked up the website that was in all the books and they had a whole page dedicated to arguing against why they weren't a cult.
Yeah, it’s easy to joke about and think it could never happen to you, but these things are usually led by sociopaths who are great at sugar coating things. It always starts as little harmless things, and they slowly introduce more. By the time it gets to the real red flags, you’re already blinded. Nobody would join a group that believes humans come from aliens and that asteroids are space ships. But a lot of ppl WOULD join a group that likes to camp or provide self help environments. Then before you know it the camping has become permanently living off the grid and you believe the next asteroid coming through is your space ship home and that you have to sacrifice your earthly body to be able to ride it. It’s something you think would only exist in movies. Lol
@@nolaray1062 Plus if you give them all your money and don't have an income, you become reliant on the cult and have no resources or support when you want to leave.
the "two week period" thing is important: after that period is over, they don't check if you're a good person or not. They check whether you are a VULNERABLE individual. Somebody they can break down and mold into a new cult member. They also check if you are a skeptical and rational person that might rat them out.
Tree is inevitably gonna leave and start a bootleg YT channel where he talks about his experience and builds an ACE/David Dobrik fanbase. That's what I feel in my cynical soul
If they're calling the outside world Babylon, that makes the name "The Garden" a lot sketchier, because in a religious context it could be referencing the supposed paradise of The Garden of Eden And y'know what, that's just all kinds of culty
To them, Babylon means capitalist society. And, yeah, gardens are so culty. Growing your own food, imagine! "Civilized" people know that food isn't grown, or harvested, or (gasp!) killed & butchered. It comes in plastic containers.
@@angeladansie4378 I never once said that gardens alone are culty, I was very specific when I said, "in a religious context" based off of what was presented in the video I do not think that sustainable living is culty, that should be obvious You are either arguing in extremely bad faith, have zero reading comprehension skills, or you are nothing but a troll So let this be a lesson to you, if you have to twist my words around to the point where they mean something completely different to make your point-you don't have a point Have a good day
In this case, you're wrong. Referring to the "outside word" as "Babylon" has it's origins in the "Rainbow Festivals" and Grateful Dead culture. it goes back to the 60's it's a term used DURING festivals to describe the. ugly capitalist, racist, unjust world outside the temporary safety of the festival "bubble" that people lament having to return to. The term is used commonly at Burning Man to mean the same thing.
@@GradyBroyles okay, well I was going off of the video where the only context presented was religious, and the name would indeed be suspicious in a religious context With the alternative explanation you've provided, I agree that the name isn't at all suspect However, I'm not sure it's completely fair to say that I was wrong when I specified that it was suspicious in a religious context with nothing in the video to indicate any other possible context Unless I've misunderstood what you think I'm wrong about Regardless, thank you for giving me more information
The thing with the cat: if it was getting to the chickens, and killing chickens.... they haven't solved the problem by getting rid of the cat. Their chickens aren't secure. A fox or coyete is just as able to get into the chickens as that cat was.
Then you shoot the fox. They only way to 100% protect against predators would be to keep them locked in doors at all times. Hippies are generally more into the free range organic, eating grasshoppers in the sunshine route than factory farming in chicken barns.
Tbh, I don't know anymore how to really feel about the cat part after reading their message about the situation. Like one side of me understand getting rid of the problem, but another side of me is against it because it's just cat, and they should have made a more secure area.
I would live there to make secret videos for the FBI. I wouldn’t want to live there forever though. Jesus it looks horrific. Like just begging to get tetanus.
The open door policy sounds so sketchy, especially if they're posing as a family friendly group. As someone who previously stayed in some fairly sketchy hostels this group scares the shit out of me! so many things you brought up had me jaw on the floor.
Hard disagree. People call, like, LGBT activists “cultists” all the time because they strongly believe in something. It’s silly to say that having to defend yourself from accusations of being something means you are that thing.
@@GypsyxDarling I have literally never heard of an LGBT activist being called a cultist. And I'm LGBT and an activist. If that even is a thing, it's a rare one, and only in ass-backwards places
Tree: "rel, do we live in a cult?" Rel: *laughs nervously and doesn't answer the question* you could've just lied and said no, Rel 💀💀 walking onto the bus and then throwing yourself under it
"The Garden" sounds like the shadiest name for a commune anyway- like in a movie it would be the place where people go because they think its safe but it ends up being a place where they make monthly sacrafices to some werid demon god
I thought this was going to be about the Guatemalan commune/cult I saw reposted on tumblr the other day... It's worrying that tiktok has more than 1 cult
What??? Please tell me more about it? Where can I find info about this place? I live in Central America, Guatemala is one of my neighbors. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there are cults like that in Costa Rica, but Guatemala? Life in our countries is no walk in the park.
the guatemalan commune literally bragged about being next to a lake that was sacred to the indigenous people like... why are they just chilling next to sacred land...
That’s what worries me about places like this. That the ACTUAL productive, safe communes are going to either get a bad rep or are going to be targeted by the dangerous types.
@@Vale-nh6ey exacly that. Some are expensive cabins or tents with big fancy beds and lights and stuff. So you camp in full comfort. Most are air b&bs(?)
A girl from my hometown ran away and joined that cult recently... effing creepy sht from what I've seen. Freaks me out. Her family has been repeatedly begging for her to come home
A group of people wishing to work together to sustain themselves and contribute to bettering the world while networking with other like-minded people sounds culty? No wonder there's a homelessness pandemic in America.
@@DivineRenegadeDeanna A cult would absolutely try to describe themselves in the most inoffensive way possible that is also remotely accurate. I hope you never run across one, since you are apparently so naïve as to not recognize that.
@@dedifiedjelly it’s used to mean a very corrupt society that needs to be destroyed like the one in the Bible. Similar to calling an immoral woman “Jezebel”, except it tends to mean the person is deep in extreme religious mindset.
@@alisaurus4224 dude it’s the logic (or lack thereof) behind the cat thing that should be a big red flag. If you didn’t want your prey animals killed, don’t allow predatory animals to be around them-it’s not rocket science. It’s willful negligence. Which sets a disturbing precedent. Combine that with the Babylon thing and yeah I think things could turn mass suicide kinda quickly if somebody wanted it to 🤔
This place is in Tennessee. I know exactly where it is. They advertise it all along the street towards it. It’s surrounded by sundown towns, not just one. There’s two a few miles away and more around it. I forgot to mention, I think they had a good intentions when they first started the commune. I believe it was meant to help people flee from the tea, world, but it was quickly taken over and changed for the worst. The people who don’t live near it (I.e Knoxville, Nashville the two biggest and safest towns for minorities) know of it and have warned many people to not go there. It’s suspicious. For real, PLEASE DO NOT GO TO IT) Firstly, they didn’t do anything to prevent COVID and thus spread it. From what I’ve heard, people who went there and left, returned and developed symptoms of COVID. They did eat a cat and honestly, it’s kinda split by people saying it was sacrificial of just for funsies. Third, there have been a few people who visited who, once left, suddenly disappeared and police don’t have any idea if there was correlated or not. They allow anyone to go there, they have let pedos in with children. They KNEW they were pedos and still let them in. DO NOT FUCKING GO THERE, PLEASE! ITS A DANGEROUS GAME IF YOU GO THERE
I live in TN but have never heard of it. It has to be in the eastern part of the state. EDIT: I just looked it up. It isn’t too far from where they have Bonaroo which would be a prime location to recruit.
@@dtchouros When she said it was in Tennessee, i told myself "It HAS to be in East Tennessee" but when I looked it up its scarily close to where I live
I think the most dangerous thing abt this is that this might be like the only option for someone who is homeless and someone might rly be so desperate that they will go there, get brainwashed and get really hurt.. It's scary
@@anticapitalist-pig that's not what they were implying? Animals have nothing to do with their point, besides that cult behavior and indoctrination is bad for anyone so their point still stands.
That's literally the point. Most of the people involved in these places are travellers/crust punks, addicts, and mentally ill individuals. They travel around the country with the seasons, many hopping freight and doing migrant work or just panhandling. These are the people that they want to come because they are most vulnerable and easiest to manipulate.
I wanna share a secret. I would love to join a commune in an ideal world. Everyone tested, free love, gardening, living with a community sounds just wonderful. But Ive never heard of a succesful commune and its super depressing
Closest in reality I've found has been traveling as a roadie with festivals, like the renaissance fairs (but there's other options). It's not immune to the nasty stories others have shared here, but the nasty communities are more like bubbles or pockets and the whole space is not defined by them. There's a strong community vibe without people needing to give up their sense of self, pride, or independence.
@@vereenigdeoostindischecomp9932 I dont really ever plan on it, just like to daydream about it sometimes. Hence why I said in an ideal world. Ive just never really told anybody that desire before.
@@morijohnson8910 ah. Yes i also have ideal world. But idealism never works in real life and is pretty dangerous. You can try to get closer to the ideal world but it will never ever happen to be that idealistic place sadly.
@@no_peace Not really. He used tactics such as using a cast to get women to drop their guard, had a girlfriend with an actual child, and even got a woman pregnant while in jail. It was only after he was caught and it was clear he was a murderer that people felt creeped out really
@@no_peace yes but even if somebody is hurt, people don't just help a creepy person. It was just one of his tactics to make it extremely easy to kidnap the poor women. It's much easier to look back and call him creepy knowing what he had done
@@no_peace ...I’m pretty sure a lot of woman like.. thought he was hot? I remember my mom telling me that he had woman who would basically thirst over him. And say he was innocent just because they thought he was hot.
I've lived in a commune that was not a cult, but when you live closely in share space with people where everything essentially belongs to everybody, you get this weird tribe-like mentality. I think that kind of living appeals to the remnants of the animal parts of the brain. From a psychology standpoint, it's not hard to see the transition from commune to cult.
@@Dvgteeth I’ve been a part of both a commune and a cult and they were nothing alike. Yeah a lot of communes could easily slip into cult territory, but the commune I was a part of was set up very well to have outside influence to protect us from cult-land
@@aamandazittlau5505 how was it set up to have outside influences to prevent descent into cult? Can you please give some examples? I'm asking in a genuine curious way, not in a judgy-skeptical way .
I was almost a part of this before i moved to FL; i got invited by a friend who said it was a “farmers commune,” and i would be staying there permanetly. What got me was he said that i didnt need money, neccessaties, or food. I would be growing, sharing, and living with these other people, but id be staying there forever.
Wtf are you taking about? He must have been playing a joke on you. After a week or two whoever is there gets to decide if you get to stay or not. But you have to be a real asshole to get kicked out.
She skinned her dog?!?! Ok, that’s enough for me. Don’t get me wrong, my dog passed in august and I’m still sleeping with her blanket and bear, but skinning her?!?!? Wtf!!! No thank you. You’re certifiable.
And let's not even talk about how they're called The Garden, like The Garden of Eden, the perfect sanctuary on Earth in the Bible before the fall of man. Like they're actually painting themselves as this perfect place
It's actually called 'the Garden' because it started as a permaculture based community called 'shut up and grow it' and people consensed to change the name to the garden, probably because it's less violent sounding 😂
A big red flag to me is the “are we in a cult?” Cults have always often made jokes about being in a cult. Manson, Heavens gate , and many others poked fun at how others said it was a cult because it makes it harder for outsiders to pull them out of it. It’s not a serious accusation/concern anymore.
As a young woman of color, I feel like they’d probably sacrifice me to their Soil Gods for fruitful bounty. So...I’m gonna stay here in NY where I’m safe 💁🏾♀️
They shouldn't have killed the cat to begin with, it might sound obvious but atributing morals to animals and punishing them for following their natural instincts is not very hippie dippie of them
In my country people call them "hippies with premium health insurance", because usually they're super privileged kids. I've seen them before and it's infuriating how they prefer to donate money and clothes to places like Nigeria before helping the homeless that live just around the corner.
@@Nadia1989 well at least they are doing something, don't waste your energy on hating. Go do something about it yourself if it bothers you. Every people have right to do what ever they want with their money. Some may see that its more important to help local homeless people and some people may think global warming is the most important thing. So really you do you, but hating on ppl who do something to help geeez... 🤦♀️
@@Pinkpinkybear Gah, would you SHUT UP? Of course you're name is Emma, you're the type of person to hear someone say something completely true, but for some reason you don't like the truth, so you spout out "HATER HATER OMG OMG". Be quiet.
That's how Jone's Town started as well. They didn't say" We're a cult" from the start. They said that they are a communal living project. It doesn't take long for a group like this to flip and drink the Kool aid.
TBF most of them knew they were in a cult by the time the People's Temple moved to Guyana. Their reason for moving was because they were avoiding US government investigation into their organization. They just didn't realize how much DANGER they were in until a year or so into it.
The problem with "leaderless" groups is that humans literally don't function without hierarchical structure past groups of more than 2. We are literally hard-wired to create and work within competence hierarchies because the real world (without technology, amd even with it) is actually pretty harsh and unforgiving. People who have competent skills become leaders because they can do things others rely on to survive. Remove their power and the entire group dies because. Nobody competent is left to keep it safe and persisting. No "commune" or "leaderless community" will ever not be highly prone to cultist conversion or high crime. This is no different than CHAD/CHAZ/CHOP which swiftly devolved into lawlessness with several AVOIDABLE deaths. The deaths may be reducable with a strong vetting process. But exploitation will always be present. Also you can never truly prevent hierarchical structure from taking root, eventually. Its just fundamental human nature. Period. We are pretty chaotically orderly.
@@randomuserame there is no such thing as a leaderless cult even if the top leadership is more than one person. But aside from that, a "leaderless cult" isn't a cult. Cults require leadership to even be called a cult by definition. Can leaderless groups work? Of course. Anonymous is the only large-scale example I can think of, but obviously, even calling Anonymous a "group" is problematic and even within Anonymous, the various self-organizing sub-groups do, in fact, have their own quasi-leadership structures, but they're no proscribed or defined by anyone outside that sub-"group." making it somewhat complicated, but still leaderless in aggragate.
That's not quite how it went down with the People's Temple. By the time the communal living project began, they'd already been a destructive cult for some time. Jim Jones was a con-man with ulterior motives from before the group even formed.
@@randomuserame I think you're completely misunderstanding what groups like this mean by leaderless. The reason they put "leaderful" in parentheses is because the goal is for everyone to contribute knowledge/skills and lead in whatever ways they can, rather than have a single person or a small group dictate and delegate tasks to everyone else. It's a much more effective and sustainable structure _when done properly,_ mainly because it minimizes unhealthy competition and destructive power struggles... particularly following the inevitable power vacuum that occurs when a too-powerful leader leaves or dies. And based on the communities I've visited and lived in, it's seems to be _less_ prone to being hijacked by the charismatic and power-hungry. There are obviously still weak points and potential issues depending on the people involved, but to say that humans are incapable of functioning outside a strict, top-down hierarchy just isn't accurate.
"Does this sound like a cult?" *Goes on to list multiple different ideas that were the initial allure behind some of the worst cults in our modern history*
i think he said on a live he has been going by "tree" for a long time and they don't give people new names at the garden. but then in another live they mentioned someone new being immediately nicknamed turtle so...
i honestly am friends w homeless people who live and travel in busses like the ones parked at the garden... they seem sketch but i think they're just some whack travelers tbh travelers give eachother nicknames like 'tree' I've know people named Crispy! i even knew a woodsey(he was a fuckin creep!) it's not necessarily a cult thing 🤷🏻♀️ idk yet tho this is just a guess i have from personal experience.... i don't know anyone who wears their dead dog as clothes yet but it wouldnt surprise me if i met a dirty kid who DID
My god.....CHILDREN are there??? That should be f*cking illegal! Do whatever you want as a stupid adult but children should be protected by some type of laws against this type of sh*t
They get pretty much everything used off Facebook and craigslist and dumpster dive most of the food except for what is grown. Lots of 'trash' can be used for projects in the future too so it's easy to accumulate. Also these people have such care for others that many of them would rather keep the trash and try to use it on their own land than send it to fill up a landfill somewhere.
I do love how Tree's "Does this sound like a cult" is practically the bullet points of all green living type cults. Like certain eras of Jim Jones and the Buddhafield would have eaten that up.
Lmao I think my dad was about to buy some land to retire on around “the Garden”. He didn’t because there was confederate flags all around the town nearby and he didn’t feel comfortable with me (his mixed black son) visiting through that
i found their channel before the entire cat thing blew up on tiktok and was extremely interested and supportive. i think this is a great example of how easily it is to get sucked into these sorts of things, where they basically state everything is perfect.
It's super super important to realize anyone can fall victim to a cult, and that you don't blame yourself for that. Especially in this day and age of isolation and social media and wide spread falsehoods about how people live (and algorithms making you feel like a failure for not living like that) being shown a supportive community is super super appealing. A world where you're not stuck under the thumb of a corporation? Where everyone works together and is loving and accepting? Talk about a dream come true!!!
The part where people show up help out and then get kicked out in my experiences is typical of all communes and most isolated communities. It's how they keep themselves going financially. they say that they're completely self-sustaining but in reality they just trick people into contributing and then once they're used up throw them out of the community.
I visited a great commune in Spain a couple years ago, I can confirm nobody there would be crazy enough to put their address up on Tiktok and just let anyone in. Building a safe and inclusive community means watching out for potential threats to that community, and that includes people LITERALLY WANTED BY POLICE.
Breaking down society into smaller self-sufficient segments could actually help, as any outbreak would be contained in a small group. But forming cults is not the right way to go.
If they’re isolated and self sufficient (which I think they more or less are??) then it’s actually a really good idea. Well, aside from the whole cult part of things, but what can ya do
I watched this entire video not realizing where this community was until the video of the guy who left came up. This is in my hometown. I lived there nearly my entire life. There is a 100% chance this is a cult. Lafayette is home to another cult Straitway Truth who has a clearly defined leader and “community” living situation. I looked up the address and the garden isn’t where straitway is but I would not be surprised if they are linked and somehow funneling members to the actual cult. That being said I do want to defend one thing you mentioned in the video. This area of Tennessee isn’t all that dangerous. Lafayette in particular is relatively safe minus a meth problem however I will conceded that if you head east on 52 or north on 10 you will run into some areas that will probably give you the creeps. Great video.
Is this formerly The Farm? There was a commune/co OP called The Farm around there. Or is it completely different group? Edit: The Farm is a completely different group in Summerton, Tn. My mom took me there for a time when I was growing up. I have great memories of it and it would break my heart to hear it turned into a cult.
About your point that it seems like Tree doesn’t do anything there, there’s this one TikTok where Tree goes around asking all the people he can find what they do at the commune, things like insulating structures, cooking food, etc. Then, the video ends with Tree saying “and I play football!” and kicking a soccer ball in a field by himself.
Fundie Fridays is a channel that goes in depth on Christian Fundamentalist groups and how many actually quality as cults, if you want to learn more about what tactics(/abuses) they use to draw in and keep members
there's actually a system called the BITE model by steven hassan to help identify whether something is a cult or not, in short BITE refers to behaviour, information, thought and emotion control. its pretty interesting to look into for anyone who's interested.
Yes & this commune doesn't even come close. They don't control religious/spiritual ideology. You will find a huge range of ideologies there, from christian to Buddhist, pagan & atheist. There is no defacto leader. Nobody controls where or with whom people sleep. The religious words they use like Babylon don't even have a religious meaning. That term originated with the Rainbow Family which many of these residents are part of & is used to describe the capitalist dystopia that these folks are rejecting (live in a polluted city & work 40+ hours a week to make some corporation rich while barely surviving yourself). The Garden means exactly that...a place to grow food, not the "Garden of Eden" that so many assume it means. But, "civilized" people can't understand that, so they are suspicious. "Civilized" people know that food isn't grown, harvested, or (gasp!) killed & butchered. It comes in sterile plastic packages. Yes, there are some weird people there. There are weird people in all parts of society.
Hi hello.
I was born and raised in a Religious Cult. Happy to do a video interview with you about what that was like and how it's a literal tactic for leaders to be like "We aren't a Cult! We can't be! Laugh at people who tell you that!"
EDIT: Thank you all for your supportive comments!
I'm still hoping Amanda sees this and she's down to chat!
That would be an interesting interview!
Same I was in a religous cult too. I was constantly taught that " 'this and that' religion is bad/a cult, but we arent!" When the 2 religous cults were almost the same, just with slightly different values.
Interesting. Either way it’d be nice to see somewhere.
I have a friend who was born into a cult, if Amanda wants I can reach out to her to see if she's interested in doing an interview.
boosting this comment, hope she sees this!!
“No.....it’s a community”
Sounds like me trying to convince my mom I didn’t do anything wrong.
POV: You have been detained by the FBI for possession of loli hentai
Lmao
Mom everyone failed that test!
the "population control" and animal cruelty beliefs made me realize this is a classic eco-fascist group
It's not a phase mom, it's a CULT
Please don't join a cult for content Amanda. It's fine, we weren't going to try it
Haha lol
THIS LOL. Please don't Amanda, I know you're willing to risk your life for content but WE ARE NOT willing to risk your life for content. We're just fine with videos like this, we promise lol
Yeah like, content's one thing but joining a cult is dangerous shit. Even if you do pull it off without getting found out there's always the chance they might actually sucker you in
Plus that's Reckless Ben's shtick
I dunno. I might
I'm already in a cult about lobsters so it's too late for me anyway
discussion of animal abuse goes from 18:24-20:25 in case you want to skip it. screenshots of Patrick talking about it at 23:06-23:11 , keep your mental health safe yall
Thank you for this
I wish I saw your comment earlier, I'm so disturbed..but still thanks for this ❤🩹
Thank you for the warning. The content provider should have has this alert with time stamps as well.
Does that guy genuinely think that if you went up to a cult member, within the grounds of said cult, and asked them “Are we in a cult?” they’d actually say “Yes. Thank you for noticing.” Like, really?
yeah as a part of 2 cultural cults before you don't notice your in one.
As someone who grew up in a cult, yeah you have no idea you’re in one until you leave it’s influence. Leaving can be terrifying if it’s all you’ve ever known, but the freedom that comes afterwards is worth the price.
Even worse it seems like a couple of the people that he asked know that it is and just didn't feel able to fully admit it.
Especially if the person that asks you is one of the leaders of your 'commune'.
Amanda talking to us like we're all kids she's babysitting and she doesn't want us to run into traffic for a goof is honestly the best. thank you amanda i promise i wont visit the cult can we please watch nightmare on elm street my mom says its ok
amanda can i have a root beer? its not a school night and my mom said its ok
Amanda, can I have a cupcake before dinner? I don't have any cavities and my mom said it's okay.
Amanda, aren't these comments adorable? mom said it's okay.
to be fair, i think most of us (as well as Amanda herself) are the same generation that watched people swallow cinnamon on youtube and went "huh, i wonder what would happen if i did that"
Amanda is younger than me and I am happy to let her babysit me, I need boundaries and nap time.
Amanda's definitely the investigative journalist protagonist of a horror movie
Or the protagonist in Outlast. That's what I thought of when I read your comment
theres a kdrama called "save me" where a journalist went under cover in a cult but she isnt the protag and receives a bad ending :(
“I’ve Been Involved In A Number Of Cults, Both As A Leader And A Follower. You Have More Fun As A Follower. But You Make More Money As A Leader” Creed, the Office.
“YOU MISS 100% OF THE
SHOTS YOU DON’T
TAKE. -ʷᵃʸⁿᵉ ᵍʳᵉᵗᶻᵏʸ“
- MiCHAEL SCOTT
- Matthew W
okay this is just a genuinely random and off topic question but why do you type every word being capitalized? I'm genuinely curious when I see people typing like this
@@fauna5328 i'd also like to know. i'm guessing it's just a writing quirk
Creed is my hero.
@@fauna5328 they’re probably a homestuck lol
a bunch of people were complaining about how tree “can’t be a cult leader” because he’s new, which i find hilarious because like. cult leaders often infiltrate existing communities, guys
I'm tryna remember a prominent cult leader who did this with an existing church, was it Jim Jones?
Yeah. It's kind of the whole point. It's a hell of a lot easier to prey on already insularized groups than to start from scratch
Edit to say: cult leaders don't want to actually have to do a ton of work. That's why they become cult leaders. They just want to run their mouth and get everyone else to do the hard work for them
@@bangitybangbabang yes! it was Jim Jones
David Koresh is another prime example.
Also because the owner isn’t there full time plus the come and go nature in tandem with the new influx of exposure makes this a time bomb. Tree(and Rel) are planting roots that could lead to them challenging the owner. This potential power struggle could be interesting to see play out. Will the owner take back his land and enforce some authority or have his land usurped from under him by these clowns?
the fact that the commune is near a sundown town makes me raise some eyebrows about how “accepting” they are...
honestly im actually glad theres near to none, or even no poc if its next to a SUNDOWN TOWN omg
I've been wondering the same thing! These are the kinds of people who say "I don't see color".
@@heykaylc23 for sure
There were two people of color there but they quickly left after not being there to long.
The sundown town is their vetting process
I think cult members being convinced that they're not in a cult is a big part of cults
the thing that got me was Rell laughing & not denying them being a cult during Tree's tiktok like...
& yes if you know you are in a cult you'd probably be like 'oh shit this is bad' an try to leave so not knowing is probably very big part
they weren't even convinced LMFAOO they were like "maybe...? idk lol"
It can't be a cult, Tree told us it wasn't a cult like 50 times
mmm, not really. People don't join what they think are cults. The convincing of recruits that it's not a cult must be successful and complete well before the person joins.. not after they're members. The exception to this is people born into cults.
The whole "leave fear behind, welcome everyone" thing is such a red flag. My parents always wanted to live in community, so we had a revolving door of housemates, and even with vetting one of those people is part of the reason I have PTSD. So no, I'm not on board with this. I'm so concerned for any kids who are there.
The Garden as a name just really screams horror movie to me
I feel the same way
We'll see a horror movie/documentary/TV show about this in a few years. The name's built in already.
Spoiler: the fertilizer is made of people. Just wait for it.
@@gaelangaudette9576 If not, then it's made FROM people! 💩
@@JamesLawner well they did say they don't waste ANYTHING.
It's very interesting that so many cults seem to be appearing on tiktok around this time. Everyone is stuck inside, most people are feeling isolated and confined. The idea of belonging and getting away from your home sounds heavenly, and people are desperate for it. This is not an accident, especially being publicized on an app like tiktok where things like this are heavily romanticized.
I was reading that this time period is a lot like the 70’s and has a lot of the elements that make cults easy to grow and for many of them to develop
I think you're onto something. I think that's also why there's tiktok kids getting into the whole jumping realities trend now. Escapism.
@@kpr4225 I think tik tok is fucking sketchy altogether but people think I’m just boring for not being hyped about it. I wish people would open their eyes and see this app is seriously into something bad
And the only appropriate response is to react with knee-jerk fear and condemnation towards anyone who is making any attempt to build a community where people can find a sense of belonging. An atomized life of dissociative alienation with little to no meaningful connection to my fellow human being is all I need, thanks!
@@redspade96 lol calm down, Janet. You don't have to be so gullible that your brains and common sense falls out. These cults prey on people who are feeling just like you: lost, misunderstood, isolated. It is actually a *good* thing to keep your wits about you, even when you are at your lowest and stay aware of these "organizations" that claim to have THE ANSWER. There are healthy ways to make community with other humans, to be desperate for anything is a recipe for disaster.
"Come to the Garden" Sounds like shitty slogan for Olive Garden
And just like that....breadsticks were craved.
@@-Bellana- haha for real
To me It sounds like something you'd put on a horror movie poster
Hahaha that’s great! 😂😂😂
"Steal the breadsticks, join the family" new cult slogan for Olive Garden
“Hey, are we a cult?”
**pause** uh… noooooo. We’re a.. commuuuuunity. . . . . 👀”
that one guy seemed like he might have been autistic. scary to think some of the people were taken advantage of. coming from someone who is autistic btw
"good response.. you get din din tonight"
On the original video there was the same comment but "nooo its a community 🥺"
Love the arm chair navel gazing in this comment section. When you get away from your carefully cultivated computer echo chamber you sometimes pick up on the nuances in life.
So... They're in a cult
My coworker just told me one of her friends found her missing husband (of 3 years) living here thanks to tiktok, now she knows where to send their divorce papers (for the time being). guess tiktok is good for something!
that’s insane oh my god
belladonna. LOL!!
glad one good thing ma come of this mess!
How long was her husband missing??
holy shit
This is so disappointing, I live about 10 minutes away from a local sustainable living commune. Just to be able to visit to see if you’re interested in living in it you have to go through a 2 week process where they go through everyone in the commune to make sure there’s no conflicts and they can do a back check on you. Being able to live there also requires everyone in the commune to sign off on you joining for everyones safety, especially because one of the biggest points of this community is children being able to roam free and not having the kids or the children be uncomfortable or feel unsafe. Please, if a commune does not have a proper process for checking you, do not join it.
Honestly even with background checks having children running around unattended is a frightening concept to me. The vast majority of child predators have no prior arrests and don't act like a stereotypical "creep", no one knows until it's too late IF they ever even find out. It's SOOOOO easy to abuse children if you've never been caught before, hell even if you've been caught if the victim doesn't press charges or ever tell anybody else besides their closest friends/family you could still get away with it. So the idea of letting kids run around with little to no protection sounds like a time bomb waiting to go off.
@@lilithlaney1759 i know rightttt.that sounds terrifying and so unsafe.
If i had kids even if i lived in a place like that i would never let my kids run free
People who abuse others dont have to look a certain way for them to be a threat.
@@lilithlaney1759 I understand this but this is Bc we’ve been conditioned to feel everyone will be bad Bc we can’t differentiate. Background checks don’t have to be legal, and after all these extensive checks they do, it’s more unlikely that someone with these tinetions would even stay. Many predators go for easy wins, and with the extent this person says the community goes, i find it a little less worrying. No, the risk isn’t 100% gone, but it never is, yenno?
That still sounds sketchy as Hell.
@@lilithlaney1759 I mean we just drop our children off at a building full of strangers, that we definitely don't background check, from the moment they turn 5. We're just supposed to trust them .... at least those people are trying to make an effort lol
Rell seems to think she's "built different" and isn't afraid of covid. she says she doesn't even know what Jonestown was, and made a koolaid drinking joke video. Her saying gen z is just a bunch of scaredy cats is really dumb, because I'm a millennial and even I think their community is super suspicious.
@@beefar0ni Yeah. I had a friend who a couple years ago heard about Jonestown for the first time but knew the Kool-Aid stuff. So possible but eh, I would trust a word out of the mouth of someone like Rell.
@@beefar0ni School buses tend to have a much shorter operational life than what you expect and the fleets are continuously refreshed. This puts a lot of them on the secondary market, regularly, and they're specialized enough, and need enough maintenance, to be relatively cheap. Honestly, the more comments I read about things you guys are spooked by the more I'm convinced they're just hippies. Babylon girl sounds like numerous second generation "indigo children" I've known. Besides, they drank Flavor Aid, not Kool-Aid, at Jonestown.
My uncle thinks that he’s “built different”
I love the man but he’s nuts and it drives me nuts.
Not in a cult though. Just a lil weird the guy. He means well
@@Daaaanielle aye my brothers the same. Means no harm yet people like to make shit up about him. Not in a cult either.
I can't stand people who dismiss logical arguments with sweeping emotional statements
I would caution people against going intentionally into a cult just for the experience, to document, etc. Everyone thinks they’re built different and won’t join, but they employ tactics that make you weak, like isolating you, keeping you sleep deprived and malnourished, emotionally manipulating you. Some people are more or less vulnerable, cults tend to prey on people who’ve experienced psychological stressors like divorce, being fired, or homelessness, but even if you’re an emotionally well person, you can be broken down under the right circumstances.
Wow you must be like one of the best licensed therapist out there. I've been in isolation many times and for quite disturbing lengths of time as well. It's actually borderline agoraphobia from my past and I didn't lose my mind or become weak. As a matter of fact I came out stronger in the end, but you wouldn't survive half way because you would have called to God and he would be gone. Everyone would send you prayers and condolences. The end. Such a special gift there isn't it?
@@ManyLegions88 what
@@Fimpurities Maybe you need to ask God to help you understand lol.
@@ManyLegions88 gods not real so nah I’m chillin
@@Fimpurities You cannot prove that God is not real anymore than a christian can prove God is real.
I feel like this cannot be under-emphasized: The cat thing is a GROOMING TECHNIQUE. Get people to break a smallish but deeply ingrained taboo that requires them to identify even subconsciously in a new way--they haven't just killed a cat, they've EATEN a cat--and position it as not just no big deal, but ethically/morally called for...which then puts them in a position to identify as part of a persecuted yet righteous group when outsiders inevitably raise an alarm. Right now it's just a cat that was "obviously" threatening their way of life by killing their chickens or whatever (not, you know, a natural predator stepping up to the buffet because you haven't taken steps to protect your chickens). Next week or next month it's something closer to your new outer edge, next year it's potentially any number of things, like letting your "leaderless" leader marry your 5-year-old or killing humans who come try to shut you down. This isn't just about the squick factor or about whether meat is murder. It's an initiation.
That was my first thought. Like this is literally how cults train people.
Never thought of it this way but it makes a lot of sense of why this is done
Commenting on this so more people see it. Good catch
Yes! You put into words what I couldn't! Well said!💯
lol they are ''sustainable''
the combined talk of genocide, babylon, and the whole cat thing makes me worry its only a matter of time before someone does something wrong and the whole farm turns into chaos
Me waiting patiently so my favorite true crime podcast covers it... 🙃🙃🙃
I need popcorn should that happen. I meany the kiddies were warnes a lot, should they get killed there, shit ia gonna fly!
She used babylon wrong, its from jewish scriptures and it was never a ‘wicked’ city. That’s sodomon or gomorra.
Plus you know the GARDENS of babylon?
I hope this doesn't get to the point of group suicide, genocide, etc.
My friend and I drove from Illinois to California with the end destination being what turned out to be a cult. She was 17 and I was 19; we were NOT prepared for what was facing us. It seemed like a totally wholesome situation and the lady who owned the land always posted pictures of her beautiful plants. Luckily I realized the day we showed up that I needed to gtfo but she was not so lucky and almost died of exposure before finally leaving. This was in 2018. The moral of the story is that literally anyone can get sucked into a cult no matter how well read they are on cults and no matter what modern day year it is. So just be careful guys.
Whoa! Can you say a little more about what it was like there? How did your friend almost die of exposure? That sounds totally insane but I believe it!
@@AlbinoAxolotl it was presented as a hippie camp where people who felt lost could come and be a part of a community. In reality it was more of a money operation for the woman who owned the land. She expected us to call her mama and would have everyone work while she sat in a chair most of the time. She lived in an air conditioned home hours south of the farm land while the rest had to pitch tents or stay in vehicles. That's how my friend nearly died of exposure; she had neither and it was about to be winter which meant she may not be able to leave due to the landscape
@@AlbinoAxolotl i will add some things because I typed that response out rather quickly; we were in northern California to the northwest of Mendocino probably by a few hours even. "Mama" (whose real name escapes me at the moment although if I think of it I will share because I'm pretty sure the farm is still active and taking members) lived in Fremont with her husband and the members of the farm considered to be the most helpful with house work. My friend was able to stay in this house for a couple of months before she came to pick me up and bring me to the farm. Personally I think they showed her the best part before the worst part so she would get new recruits blindly. Even when she was working in the house they still expected her to pay rent so she had a full time job in the city as well (I believe San Francisco but I mainly just remember her talking to me on the phone about going to the city to work at Chipotle so she could pay mama rent). As you can tell it was a big scammy mess. And mama also was considered to be a powerful witch by the rest of the people there and was not above threatening using dark magic on them as a scare tactic. She took credit for causing one ex member to fall out of a window using a spell.
@Ana Pie what podcast if i may ask? always looking for new ones to listen to
@Ana Pie thank u! i'm gonna check it out!
"This commune is very close to a sundown town"
*screams in black*
Sundown towns are awesome.
@@satouhikou1103 If you're one of those racist people that's okay with killing minorities just because of their skin color, then I'm sure they are.
AYE yes EXACTLY THIS! I almost puked when she said Sundown towns. (I didn’t know those still existed
@@angelinavargas8511 I am a black man. I'd rather live around racist white than die because of my own. You probably never even been to a sundown town.
@@satouhikou1103 Why tf would I go to a sundown town??
When I hear "leaderless" it just makes me think "Oh, so no one is taking responsibility for the decisions and problems" usually a bit problem.
YIKE. Like sure, you can have a democracy or whatever but the responsibilities should be defined
There is always a leader or leaders in a community even when they say its not. You can see that the guy that nakes tik toks is kinda the most important person there maybe with rell. In every system there will be hierarchies even when nobody was elected as leaders. There are people that are more charming than others or speak up more than others and they are seen as more important
Or worse they are trying to solve everything by group consensus, meaning nothing gets decided and no one is happy with the outcome. Imagine trying to live by group project rules.
It’s clearly not leaderless when you see the videos too. Clearly there are people in charge but they won’t name names. More than likely so they don’t create too much heat focused on one person when looking into them. The scope remains as a wide angle rather than focused in.
offtopic but i rly like ur ai ohto pfp!! :)
I saw a vid on them from Cody Ko. It’s weird. When Tree asked the men & women there if “it’s a cult” all the men said “no” while all or most of the women were hesitant and replied “.... I don’t know” and why did most of the men look middle age while the women were more my age, 21. The women looked mid 20s - early 30s 👀👀👀
I ALSO NOTICED THIS
Yesss- also they took Cody’s video down apparently¿
@@hipsterpotato2706 really? 😱
@@ggliscor probably
@@ggliscor it was reuploaded by another channel
As a life long Tennessean, there are VERY dangerous areas here, small towns with corrupt government and many places heavily involved with meth and violence. Please be careful with this place.
It’s so sad but unfortunately true
Also from TN
Are there any places like that in Texas? My brother is flying there to buy a car and I just have a bad feeling about it
@@CBrown86 lmao I guess you’ve never heard of Jamestown. There’s cults everywhere. What does your brother buying a car have to do with a cult tho that’s the real question
@@KacieRiley they're wondering about the sundown towns in Texas not cults (although I'm sure an argument can be made that the people in these towns following these practices follow cult-like paradigms/behavior).
Even on TikTok they are passively homophobic, hate to imagine what being there is like if that’s how they act online.
It’s like, you can be gay but don’t BE gay. Tree himself said they like to keep it “family friendly”
Gross
Lol
That's crazy because tree wears skirts and extreme crop tops all the time and we go around the circle giving our pronouns 😂
This is what the lgbtq community needs to do. Get away from us regular people
My husband and I have known Rel for quite a while... to add to your already crazy list of Rel ideologies, she loves Hitler. She is a Jewish woman who loves and defends Hitler.
If you scroll wayyyyyyyy back, I’m talking like 6 years, on her Facebook you’ll see her talking about how she respects and loves what he did.
Rel frequents a lot of music festivals so just be cautious if you’re part of the ‘spiritual’ music culture.
And she lives in a place surrounded by sundown town, checks out.
Oh my god...
WHAT
Wtf? How is that not an alarm for people?
Now THAT is what I call crazy!
Tree looks exactly like the kind of person who would put himself in a cult leader position
Unless he runs a TH-cam channel where he plans on going and visiting communes 🤪
his names tree for a start
@@LoveProWrestling It's not though :')
So we're going back to judging people based on looks now? 🙃 yikes
@@wildearthling he’s trying to convince children to leave their parents and live on a commune so I don’t really give a fuck
"Pbbbt. We're not a cult. Does this sound like a cult?"
*Reads checklist of cult-like behaviors*
maga: we're the only cult on tiktok.
the garden: nah fam.
I see this is a cult but I don't really see much culty behaviors from that list in specific.
"Not every commune is a cult, but every cult has started as a commune dont try it even once kid."- My dad
Wise man.
Not necessarily. Many cults start as churches or alternative faith movements. Example: Jehovah's Witnesses.
Good advice, and generally true from what I've seen. At the least, a commune is usually involved at some point.
Reference: Grew up in a weird new aged cult (still unsure if that's too harsh a term) that started as a church but turned into a pseudo commune. Really it was just a large house with 26-27 people in it. Later around 15 people lived on a slightly larger property, most of them in little shacks. There were lots of bonfires, homemade drums and guitars and lots of cringy hymns and strange bible interpretations.
Meanwhile mine was raised in one
@@alyasfukename3355 pseudo, not sudo
The name "The Garden" and the fact that two of the members name is "Rell" and "Tree" makes this seem like a horror cult movie. Like, this is a movie in the making
"ⁿᵒ ⁱᵗˢ ᵃ ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵘⁿⁱᵗʸ"
They said that the members nicknamed a new member "Turtle" as well-
A sign of a cult is name changing actually. It’s a tactic to separate you from your old self so you eventually only become apart of the cult and nothing more.
So true😂 “we’re not a cult!.... but also I’m tree” who do they think they are foolin?
@@alexanderpumpkin3423 exactly
Cant wait for a documentary about all the messed up shit secretly going on to come out in 10 yrs.
tree: “do we live in a cult?”
cult members: *very hesitantly* “...no”
The girl with the dreads couldn’t even lie 😂😂 she was silent
The only proper reaction to this question is to be completely taken aback and a loud verbal "heck NO"
I died when cal (idk his name) was like noooo....we live in a...community😳😅
No. Now shut up and drink this kool-aid.
That one dude with the big smile “I don’t think so 😃”
Thanks Amanda for continuing to be the only way I get tiktok news. What the hell is happening on there
I despise tiktok. It makes me sad that this is what society is excited about.
Yeah, literally nothing I hear about tiktok makes me even remotely want to join the community.
They got everything. Even there notification is sus. Lol
@@youtube-kit9450 idk I just watch glass blowing and art tiktoks. I'm 34 and think its great. But I never venture out of that corner so I guess I couldn't speak on anything else. I just wanted to say the good side of having niche communities is that there are some really cool hobbies and groups of people out there. Also some really horrible ones but I find the glassblowing ones very relaxing.
I didn't understand why people hated it so much until I actually downloaded it. It's bad. I came for art videos; why did racists jump into the mix?
Ya know I used to think those "don't drink the kool aid" jokes were funny too, until I listened to the tapes.... I literally hear Jim Jones telling parents to poison their children and the children are crying n screaming as he tries to calm everyone saying "it's painless the taste is just a little bitter that's why they cry" and ppl who objected to the mass suicide were gunned down. I get to hear all that too. It's truly the most horrific shit I've ever exposed myself to. I no longer find those "jokes" to be funny in any way. It's not a laughing matter.
yes that background noises in those tapes especially the children crying for their parents is so so sad n terrifying
I don't see understand why you wouldn't just pretend to drink it
@@cashkitty3472 Many of them were literally forced or injected
They never drank Kool Aid, they drank Flavor Aid. The investigators found Flavor Aid packets all over and the survivors said it was Flavor Aid, the first news reports said a Kool Aid like knock off Flavor Aid
@@harryhogfart7717 and you’ve totally missed the point.
“The garden” is the most cult name I have ever heard.
Edit: omfg the animal stuff is so crazy. It’s a cult. That’s not normal
Wyatt and Fletcher Shears are shaking in their boots rn 😳
@@FrancescaS. lmfao fr😭 I just made a comment about them
the friendship is a bigger cult
Give it 3 years it's going to be like Jone's town except with some pedo shit and manipulation through current media ( tiktok, fb or whatever)
I can tell you from experience (I've nearly accidentally joined 2), if an organisation has to tell you why it's not a cult, it probably is a cult.
I’d like to know how you accidentally join two cults
@@Jarblyy One was in the street with a clipboard offering to do questionnaires so you could find out how happy you were. They said I was unhappy & asked my friend if she was depressed. She wasn't but they said the test results said she was and that they could help and they offered courses (free taster session) where they could teach you techniques, kind of a self-help thing. I took a brochure as we were thinking of going and googled them. There were a lot of sites saying they'd joined & left or just tried the taster & said it was super sketchy - controlling, dehumanizing tactics & pressured people to 'donate' a lot of money & leave their families.
@@Jarblyy Second time I'd been going to a weekly meditation group which seemed fine for a few weeks but it gradually got more and more preachy/judgemental and I noticed that they only ever read from books of teachings written by one guy. All the other groups I've attended draw inspiration from a wide range of teachings and actively encourage people to explore different beliefs, question everything, see if it works for you and dispense with anything that doesn't. But this was very narrow and prescriptive. They said that anything that didn't contribute to studying the beliefs and practices they abided by should be dispensed with. Hobbies etc were just a distraction. I got a gut feeling and looked up the website that was in all the books and they had a whole page dedicated to arguing against why they weren't a cult.
Yeah, it’s easy to joke about and think it could never happen to you, but these things are usually led by sociopaths who are great at sugar coating things. It always starts as little harmless things, and they slowly introduce more. By the time it gets to the real red flags, you’re already blinded. Nobody would join a group that believes humans come from aliens and that asteroids are space ships. But a lot of ppl WOULD join a group that likes to camp or provide self help environments. Then before you know it the camping has become permanently living off the grid and you believe the next asteroid coming through is your space ship home and that you have to sacrifice your earthly body to be able to ride it. It’s something you think would only exist in movies. Lol
@@nolaray1062 Plus if you give them all your money and don't have an income, you become reliant on the cult and have no resources or support when you want to leave.
the "two week period" thing is important: after that period is over, they don't check if you're a good person or not. They check whether you are a VULNERABLE individual. Somebody they can break down and mold into a new cult member. They also check if you are a skeptical and rational person that might rat them out.
Also, they benefit from your free labor as if you are a temporary Share Cropper.
Bro these kids are to high to understand what vulernable is.
Tree is inevitably gonna leave and start a bootleg YT channel where he talks about his experience and builds an ACE/David Dobrik fanbase. That's what I feel in my cynical soul
Oh god this is so accurate it hurts
someone please @ me if this comes true
It’s kinda almost starting, he and Julia made an apology video on their Astro Kids account
Could happen to anyone...
I genuinely think he's more likely to leave and talk about why The Garden was bad but why his OWN community, The Center, is much much better bc-
If they're calling the outside world Babylon, that makes the name "The Garden" a lot sketchier, because in a religious context it could be referencing the supposed paradise of The Garden of Eden
And y'know what, that's just all kinds of culty
hahah! i love how you summed up your point at the end 🤣
To them, Babylon means capitalist society. And, yeah, gardens are so culty. Growing your own food, imagine! "Civilized" people know that food isn't grown, or harvested, or (gasp!) killed & butchered. It comes in plastic containers.
@@angeladansie4378 I never once said that gardens alone are culty, I was very specific when I said, "in a religious context" based off of what was presented in the video
I do not think that sustainable living is culty, that should be obvious
You are either arguing in extremely bad faith, have zero reading comprehension skills, or you are nothing but a troll
So let this be a lesson to you, if you have to twist my words around to the point where they mean something completely different to make your point-you don't have a point
Have a good day
In this case, you're wrong. Referring to the "outside word" as "Babylon" has it's origins in the "Rainbow Festivals" and Grateful Dead culture. it goes back to the 60's it's a term used DURING festivals to describe the. ugly capitalist, racist, unjust world outside the temporary safety of the festival "bubble" that people lament having to return to. The term is used commonly at Burning Man to mean the same thing.
@@GradyBroyles okay, well I was going off of the video where the only context presented was religious, and the name would indeed be suspicious in a religious context
With the alternative explanation you've provided, I agree that the name isn't at all suspect
However, I'm not sure it's completely fair to say that I was wrong when I specified that it was suspicious in a religious context with nothing in the video to indicate any other possible context
Unless I've misunderstood what you think I'm wrong about
Regardless, thank you for giving me more information
The thing with the cat: if it was getting to the chickens, and killing chickens.... they haven't solved the problem by getting rid of the cat. Their chickens aren't secure. A fox or coyete is just as able to get into the chickens as that cat was.
That's a good point but from experience you def can get a sneaky predator that's smart and knows how to get into your coop.
Then you shoot the fox. They only way to 100% protect against predators would be to keep them locked in doors at all times. Hippies are generally more into the free range organic, eating grasshoppers in the sunshine route than factory farming in chicken barns.
@@austinveno6743 If you're a chicken farmer, and a fox is killing your chickens, you get the fox accused of sexual harrassment. -South Park, probably.
Tbh, I don't know anymore how to really feel about the cat part after reading their message about the situation. Like one side of me understand getting rid of the problem, but another side of me is against it because it's just cat, and they should have made a more secure area.
It's open for 12 years and the place looks absolutely uninhabitable. You'd think they would at least try to make the place look pretty 😭
Lmao it’s like they’re living in an abandoned ghost town
Well it doesn’t look that bad lmao, it seems like it’s just made by the people who work there. DIY
The concerning part is their behavior
I would live there to make secret videos for the FBI. I wouldn’t want to live there forever though. Jesus it looks horrific. Like just begging to get tetanus.
@@downhill2k013 well obviously but the way the place looks doesn't align with how they promote themselves. Not sure if that makes sense...
Oh, yeah, I've seen the pics. I was looking up hippie places and this popped up. From the pics I could tell it was a no go zone
The open door policy sounds so sketchy, especially if they're posing as a family friendly group. As someone who previously stayed in some fairly sketchy hostels this group scares the shit out of me! so many things you brought up had me jaw on the floor.
"Does this sound like a cult?" the fact that you have to make posts defending that you're not a cult makes you sound like a cult
yeah.
That’s a dumb argument. People on the internet accuse each other of bullshit all the time.
@@lifeafterfaith2618 There's a big difference between trolling and valid criticism.
Hard disagree. People call, like, LGBT activists “cultists” all the time because they strongly believe in something. It’s silly to say that having to defend yourself from accusations of being something means you are that thing.
@@GypsyxDarling I have literally never heard of an LGBT activist being called a cultist. And I'm LGBT and an activist. If that even is a thing, it's a rare one, and only in ass-backwards places
"We'll be able to use our intuition to keep bad people out :)"
you couldn't intuit how to keep your chickens from getting eaten by a cat
Maybe they just wanted an excuse to eat a cat
How many chicken coops have you built?
@@redspade96 lol ok
Couldn’t even keep criminals out 💀
"Are y'all with the cult?"
"Actually we're an egalitarian leaderless commu-"
"This is it"
Classic king of the hill
The exact opposite of a cult.
@@apersonlikeanyother6895 double speak
what series is this from again? family guy, right? :D
@@KrumpusPlunk king of the hill
Tree: "rel, do we live in a cult?"
Rel: *laughs nervously and doesn't answer the question*
you could've just lied and said no, Rel 💀💀 walking onto the bus and then throwing yourself under it
"The Garden" sounds like the shadiest name for a commune anyway- like in a movie it would be the place where people go because they think its safe but it ends up being a place where they make monthly sacrafices to some werid demon god
Like Termenis
When it’s a punk band’s name 😩🤚
All I can think about is “the farm” from riverdale haha
when you're right you're right
It sounds like the cult in japan sinks
I thought this was going to be about the Guatemalan commune/cult I saw reposted on tumblr the other day... It's worrying that tiktok has more than 1 cult
Yeah that was so infuriating. An all-white all-privileged cult in an impoverished nation using locals as their cheap labor. So gross.
What??? Please tell me more about it? Where can I find info about this place? I live in Central America, Guatemala is one of my neighbors. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there are cults like that in Costa Rica, but Guatemala? Life in our countries is no walk in the park.
@@TheCatWitch63 yeah look up TikTok user michellerusk_ and her videos of her “commune” it’s really weird
the guatemalan commune literally bragged about being next to a lake that was sacred to the indigenous people like... why are they just chilling next to sacred land...
¿Hay algún documental o solo un post?
Because of movies I thought this “commune” was gonna be living in a really nice glamping type place.
This literally looks like a crack house.....
That’s what worries me about places like this. That the ACTUAL productive, safe communes are going to either get a bad rep or are going to be targeted by the dangerous types.
Whats glamping? Glam camping?
@@Vale-nh6ey exacly that. Some are expensive cabins or tents with big fancy beds and lights and stuff. So you camp in full comfort. Most are air b&bs(?)
I always hear "communes" associated with cults and hippies. Sometimes both.
@@nolaray1062 Honestly I didn’t realize there were that many communes out there. They just seemed to be legal cults?? No offense.
"We skinned and ate the cat because sustainability!" So...what happens when a person dies there?
Fertilizer
Well...I can't unthink about this now.
👀
The amount of people disconnected from their food is staggering, it was a feral pest
Oh no
There's another cult called Carbon Nation. The leader is on tiktok his name is Nature Boy. He's really weird and honestly pretty disturbing
The only Nature Boy is WCW World Champion Rick Flair.
@@jsc315
Wooo
@@jsc315 Buddy Rogers would beg to differ
That rabbit hole is crazy asf!!!!
A girl from my hometown ran away and joined that cult recently... effing creepy sht from what I've seen. Freaks me out. Her family has been repeatedly begging for her to come home
“They have vibe checks” I’m crying 😂
I don't think I'd pass their vibe check 😆
"Does this sound like a cult to you?" Then proceeds to read a mission statement that sounds pretty culty.
A group of people wishing to work together to sustain themselves and contribute to bettering the world while networking with other like-minded people sounds culty? No wonder there's a homelessness pandemic in America.
@@DivineRenegadeDeanna double speak
@@DivineRenegadeDeanna A cult would absolutely try to describe themselves in the most inoffensive way possible that is also remotely accurate. I hope you never run across one, since you are apparently so naïve as to not recognize that.
Noooo it's a community
Not to mention THEYRE the ones that came up with it! Like they could lie out their ass and no one would know
I heard, "She's been referencing 'Babylon'.." and out loud to myself went, "Ohh nnnnnno" lol
Yep. The cat thing is not so bad to me, but Babylon is a biiiig red flag
im sorry but I don’t fully understand, what is the connection with Babylon and cults? (if you don’t mind me asking)
@@dedifiedjelly it’s used to mean a very corrupt society that needs to be destroyed like the one in the Bible. Similar to calling an immoral woman “Jezebel”, except it tends to mean the person is deep in extreme religious mindset.
@@alisaurus4224 oooh alright, oof-
@@alisaurus4224 dude it’s the logic (or lack thereof) behind the cat thing that should be a big red flag. If you didn’t want your prey animals killed, don’t allow predatory animals to be around them-it’s not rocket science. It’s willful negligence.
Which sets a disturbing precedent. Combine that with the Babylon thing and yeah I think things could turn mass suicide kinda quickly if somebody wanted it to 🤔
This place is in Tennessee. I know exactly where it is. They advertise it all along the street towards it. It’s surrounded by sundown towns, not just one. There’s two a few miles away and more around it.
I forgot to mention, I think they had a good intentions when they first started the commune. I believe it was meant to help people flee from the tea, world, but it was quickly taken over and changed for the worst.
The people who don’t live near it (I.e Knoxville, Nashville the two biggest and safest towns for minorities) know of it and have warned many people to not go there. It’s suspicious. For real, PLEASE DO NOT GO TO IT)
Firstly, they didn’t do anything to prevent COVID and thus spread it. From what I’ve heard, people who went there and left, returned and developed symptoms of COVID.
They did eat a cat and honestly, it’s kinda split by people saying it was sacrificial of just for funsies.
Third, there have been a few people who visited who, once left, suddenly disappeared and police don’t have any idea if there was correlated or not.
They allow anyone to go there, they have let pedos in with children. They KNEW they were pedos and still let them in.
DO NOT FUCKING GO THERE, PLEASE! ITS A DANGEROUS GAME IF YOU GO THERE
Where did you find this information?
Yeah these places are ripe for pedos and I have no idea why someone would put their child in danger like this.
@@micnik3573 because they're desperate and vulnerable
I live in TN but have never heard of it. It has to be in the eastern part of the state. EDIT: I just looked it up. It isn’t too far from where they have Bonaroo which would be a prime location to recruit.
@@dtchouros When she said it was in Tennessee, i told myself "It HAS to be in East Tennessee" but when I looked it up its scarily close to where I live
The name 'the garden' already sounds like a horror movie title
I think the most dangerous thing abt this is that this might be like the only option for someone who is homeless and someone might rly be so desperate that they will go there, get brainwashed and get really hurt.. It's scary
Yeah the housing situation in the US has gotta get fixed! We shouldn't leave people to rot or turn to unsafe places like these.
Exactly. This is just another failure of capitalism
Get brainwashed into eating anima-oh wait... You already are...
@@anticapitalist-pig that's not what they were implying? Animals have nothing to do with their point, besides that cult behavior and indoctrination is bad for anyone so their point still stands.
That's literally the point. Most of the people involved in these places are travellers/crust punks, addicts, and mentally ill individuals. They travel around the country with the seasons, many hopping freight and doing migrant work or just panhandling. These are the people that they want to come because they are most vulnerable and easiest to manipulate.
I wanna share a secret. I would love to join a commune in an ideal world. Everyone tested, free love, gardening, living with a community sounds just wonderful. But Ive never heard of a succesful commune and its super depressing
Closest in reality I've found has been traveling as a roadie with festivals, like the renaissance fairs (but there's other options). It's not immune to the nasty stories others have shared here, but the nasty communities are more like bubbles or pockets and the whole space is not defined by them. There's a strong community vibe without people needing to give up their sense of self, pride, or independence.
Doesn't exist only ends up in cults. Be careful. Beter to go homesteading and if you ever get kids let them go to a normal school atleast.
@@vereenigdeoostindischecomp9932 I dont really ever plan on it, just like to daydream about it sometimes. Hence why I said in an ideal world. Ive just never really told anybody that desire before.
@@morijohnson8910 ah. Yes i also have ideal world. But idealism never works in real life and is pretty dangerous. You can try to get closer to the ideal world but it will never ever happen to be that idealistic place sadly.
@@vereenigdeoostindischecomp9932 Dude, I know. I have no intention of doing it, its just a stupid daydream I have. Let people have stupid daydreams
I mean Ted Bundy passed the vibe check for years and years before he ever got caught. So by their logic he never should have been in jail
He didn't pass the vibe check. Women thought he was a terrible creep. But authorities don't listen to women
@@no_peace Not really. He used tactics such as using a cast to get women to drop their guard, had a girlfriend with an actual child, and even got a woman pregnant while in jail. It was only after he was caught and it was clear he was a murderer that people felt creeped out really
@@weeblife8657 most creepy men have wives or girlfriends
He had to use a cast to get their guard down because he was a creep
@@no_peace yes but even if somebody is hurt, people don't just help a creepy person. It was just one of his tactics to make it extremely easy to kidnap the poor women. It's much easier to look back and call him creepy knowing what he had done
@@no_peace ...I’m pretty sure a lot of woman like.. thought he was hot? I remember my mom telling me that he had woman who would basically thirst over him. And say he was innocent just because they thought he was hot.
I've lived in a commune that was not a cult, but when you live closely in share space with people where everything essentially belongs to everybody, you get this weird tribe-like mentality. I think that kind of living appeals to the remnants of the animal parts of the brain. From a psychology standpoint, it's not hard to see the transition from commune to cult.
This is the correct take on this topic, not horror, concern.
Communes are inherently culty
@@Dvgteeth I’ve been a part of both a commune and a cult and they were nothing alike. Yeah a lot of communes could easily slip into cult territory, but the commune I was a part of was set up very well to have outside influence to protect us from cult-land
@@Dvgteeth _All_ groups of human beings are inherently a bit cult-ish, from neighborhoods, to cliques, to clubs, to companies, etc.
@@aamandazittlau5505 how was it set up to have outside influences to prevent descent into cult? Can you please give some examples? I'm asking in a genuine curious way, not in a judgy-skeptical way .
Ya know it's legit when you spot the shell of a school bus in the background.
Multiple school busses. Lol. And a makeshift "church".
Nothing says environmentalism like a bunch of litter
It gives me Walking Dead vibes, like hiding out from zombies in the bus. 💀
Hallmark of the first try off grid types!
I was almost a part of this before i moved to FL; i got invited by a friend who said it was a “farmers commune,” and i would be staying there permanetly. What got me was he said that i didnt need money, neccessaties, or food. I would be growing, sharing, and living with these other people, but id be staying there forever.
Did your friend get out?
Wtf are you taking about? He must have been playing a joke on you. After a week or two whoever is there gets to decide if you get to stay or not. But you have to be a real asshole to get kicked out.
Their "commune" is almost identical to the Manson Family's commune. Right down to the land owner never really being there or knowing what's going on.
She skinned her dog?!?!
Ok, that’s enough for me.
Don’t get me wrong, my dog passed in august and I’m still sleeping with her blanket and bear, but skinning her?!?!? Wtf!!!
No thank you. You’re certifiable.
Nothing wrong with you holding on to the stuff from your dog and cuddling with it. :) Sorry for your loss.
I’m sorry you lost your doge. Sleeping with their belongings seems like a normal part of the grieving process to me. 🤗
Thank you both so much, I really appreciate it. ❤️❤️
omg i'm so sorry but i thought you ment that you turned your dog into a blanket.
I'm so sorry for your loss, I'm sure they were a lovely pup
@@sofia-powers lol that gave me a good chuckle, she’s definitely not a blanket, just curling up with the one she slept on. 🤣
Rel looks like Vegan Teacher before all the life force was drained from her
Rel is to grapes as That Vegan Teacher is to raisins
Lmao life force
did she have any to begin with
Lmao
And let's not even talk about how they're called The Garden, like The Garden of Eden, the perfect sanctuary on Earth in the Bible before the fall of man. Like they're actually painting themselves as this perfect place
It's actually called 'the Garden' because it started as a permaculture based community called 'shut up and grow it' and people consensed to change the name to the garden, probably because it's less violent sounding 😂
The fact that I understand the sentence “ i’m surprise we got to the Cult stuff before we got to the bone stealing stuff “ males me so sad
I LIVE IN TENNESSEE OF COURSE THERE IS A CULT HERE LMAO
*males*
It *males* me so sad too :(
Was there ever any cults on tumblr?????
@@chloemack02 You say that like only one is here lmao I am sure there are tons all over this state
A big red flag to me is the “are we in a cult?” Cults have always often made jokes about being in a cult. Manson, Heavens gate , and many others poked fun at how others said it was a cult because it makes it harder for outsiders to pull them out of it. It’s not a serious accusation/concern anymore.
As a young woman of color, I feel like they’d probably sacrifice me to their Soil Gods for fruitful bounty. So...I’m gonna stay here in NY where I’m safe 💁🏾♀️
😂
Doesn’t help that they’re near sundown towns. Yikes.
Well safer anyway. I wouldn't call New York safe.
i live in ny, and i already wanna get out of here lmao
NOT SOIL GODS 💀💀😂
They shouldn't have killed the cat to begin with, it might sound obvious but atributing morals to animals and punishing them for following their natural instincts is not very hippie dippie of them
“It’s a white woman with dreads seems a little off”- that comment had me weak lol
In my country people call them "hippies with premium health insurance", because usually they're super privileged kids. I've seen them before and it's infuriating how they prefer to donate money and clothes to places like Nigeria before helping the homeless that live just around the corner.
@@Nadia1989 well at least they are doing something, don't waste your energy on hating. Go do something about it yourself if it bothers you. Every people have right to do what ever they want with their money. Some may see that its more important to help local homeless people and some people may think global warming is the most important thing. So really you do you, but hating on ppl who do something to help geeez... 🤦♀️
@@Pinkpinkybear Gah, would you SHUT UP? Of course you're name is Emma, you're the type of person to hear someone say something completely true, but for some reason you don't like the truth, so you spout out "HATER HATER OMG OMG". Be quiet.
@@Syncopated_ Wow 😂 are you okay? 🤔
@laura It's a basic white girl name, but there are some Emma's who are fine.
In Tennessee specifically, a “Rell” is a homie/ close friend. Her choice of name, (if she chose it to go by it) is chilling...
Oh no
Rel. Is short for Ariel durrr
@@noahideworldorder are you a cult member?
No but i did happen to get kicked out of the Garden after 10 days
Never heard of it
That's how Jone's Town started as well. They didn't say" We're a cult" from the start. They said that they are a communal living project. It doesn't take long for a group like this to flip and drink the Kool aid.
TBF most of them knew they were in a cult by the time the People's Temple moved to Guyana. Their reason for moving was because they were avoiding US government investigation into their organization. They just didn't realize how much DANGER they were in until a year or so into it.
The problem with "leaderless" groups is that humans literally don't function without hierarchical structure past groups of more than 2.
We are literally hard-wired to create and work within competence hierarchies because the real world (without technology, amd even with it) is actually pretty harsh and unforgiving. People who have competent skills become leaders because they can do things others rely on to survive. Remove their power and the entire group dies because. Nobody competent is left to keep it safe and persisting.
No "commune" or "leaderless community" will ever not be highly prone to cultist conversion or high crime. This is no different than CHAD/CHAZ/CHOP which swiftly devolved into lawlessness with several AVOIDABLE deaths.
The deaths may be reducable with a strong vetting process. But exploitation will always be present. Also you can never truly prevent hierarchical structure from taking root, eventually. Its just fundamental human nature. Period. We are pretty chaotically orderly.
@@randomuserame there is no such thing as a leaderless cult even if the top leadership is more than one person. But aside from that, a "leaderless cult" isn't a cult. Cults require leadership to even be called a cult by definition. Can leaderless groups work? Of course. Anonymous is the only large-scale example I can think of, but obviously, even calling Anonymous a "group" is problematic and even within Anonymous, the various self-organizing sub-groups do, in fact, have their own quasi-leadership structures, but they're no proscribed or defined by anyone outside that sub-"group." making it somewhat complicated, but still leaderless in aggragate.
That's not quite how it went down with the People's Temple. By the time the communal living project began, they'd already been a destructive cult for some time. Jim Jones was a con-man with ulterior motives from before the group even formed.
@@randomuserame I think you're completely misunderstanding what groups like this mean by leaderless. The reason they put "leaderful" in parentheses is because the goal is for everyone to contribute knowledge/skills and lead in whatever ways they can, rather than have a single person or a small group dictate and delegate tasks to everyone else. It's a much more effective and sustainable structure _when done properly,_ mainly because it minimizes unhealthy competition and destructive power struggles... particularly following the inevitable power vacuum that occurs when a too-powerful leader leaves or dies. And based on the communities I've visited and lived in, it's seems to be _less_ prone to being hijacked by the charismatic and power-hungry. There are obviously still weak points and potential issues depending on the people involved, but to say that humans are incapable of functioning outside a strict, top-down hierarchy just isn't accurate.
"Does this sound like a cult?"
*Goes on to list multiple different ideas that were the initial allure behind some of the worst cults in our modern history*
"We're not a cult." Your name is literally Tree.
i think he said on a live he has been going by "tree" for a long time and they don't give people new names at the garden. but then in another live they mentioned someone new being immediately nicknamed turtle so...
I've known two guys named Tree. Hell, my mailman's name is Lawn. I will say Lawn is much cooler than either Tree was. Their parents were hippies.
Point made 😂
i honestly am friends w homeless people who live and travel in busses like the ones parked at the garden... they seem sketch but i think they're just some whack travelers tbh travelers give eachother nicknames like 'tree' I've know people named Crispy! i even knew a woodsey(he was a fuckin creep!) it's not necessarily a cult thing 🤷🏻♀️ idk yet tho this is just a guess i have from personal experience.... i don't know anyone who wears their dead dog as clothes yet but it wouldnt surprise me if i met a dirty kid who DID
His name is Jack
I had a moment like, "which cult?" and not 5 seconds in I realized the crazy redhead guy and the cat eaters, yeah them, got it
"Hm..its a white woman with dreads. Seems a little off-" I AM DYING! thank you for helping to spread awareness about this topic!
Well just commentimg breifly in humour isn't actually helping nor spreading awareness.
They guy who is always in their “school” who goes by Kornbread aka Ed, is a convicted offender, and he always around the kids and the school..
My god.....CHILDREN are there??? That should be f*cking illegal! Do whatever you want as a stupid adult but children should be protected by some type of laws against this type of sh*t
@@heatherperiod6639 kids get raised in cults all the time though. It's terrifying. Edit: spelling
@@heatherperiod6639 sexual abuse is a huge thing in cults
I seriously can't wait for the inevitable Netflix documentary about this cult
Why does this legit sound like an HBO show like his name is literally tree😭😭😭 or ahs or even midsommar
Just wait...we’re watching a cult in the making. Only a matter of time before it becomes a documentary.
ahs: babylon
ahs: garden
evan peters is tree
@@rgbow_ accurate😭😭😭
american horror story is shaking rn
@@iwakeupandboomimarat 😭😭😭 season 11 :cult...oh wait I think they already did that lol😅
"Earth friendly"? Did you see how much garbage and crap is on their property? IMO, that's definitely not Earth friendly.
They get pretty much everything used off Facebook and craigslist and dumpster dive most of the food except for what is grown. Lots of 'trash' can be used for projects in the future too so it's easy to accumulate. Also these people have such care for others that many of them would rather keep the trash and try to use it on their own land than send it to fill up a landfill somewhere.
I do love how Tree's "Does this sound like a cult" is practically the bullet points of all green living type cults. Like certain eras of Jim Jones and the Buddhafield would have eaten that up.
The high guy that wasn't sure whether or not he was in a cult. 😂
Who pays their phone bill? I doubt they’re as self-sufficient as they claim.
They claim they have a fund from the town
@@noeldee9236 that town cant even afford to clean it’s self up, there is no way they are paying for their phone.
Lmao I think my dad was about to buy some land to retire on around “the Garden”. He didn’t because there was confederate flags all around the town nearby and he didn’t feel comfortable with me (his mixed black son) visiting through that
i found their channel before the entire cat thing blew up on tiktok and was extremely interested and supportive. i think this is a great example of how easily it is to get sucked into these sorts of things, where they basically state everything is perfect.
You'll make a cult leader very happy one day
It's super super important to realize anyone can fall victim to a cult, and that you don't blame yourself for that. Especially in this day and age of isolation and social media and wide spread falsehoods about how people live (and algorithms making you feel like a failure for not living like that) being shown a supportive community is super super appealing. A world where you're not stuck under the thumb of a corporation? Where everyone works together and is loving and accepting? Talk about a dream come true!!!
The part where people show up help out and then get kicked out in my experiences is typical of all communes and most isolated communities.
It's how they keep themselves going financially.
they say that they're completely self-sustaining but in reality they just trick people into contributing and then once they're used up throw them out of the community.
“Our natural intuition tells us who is good or bad” hmm interesting, ever heard of a man named Ted bundy?
As somebody who was foolish enough to get sucked in to a cult when I was young, thank you for this. I truly hope people are listening
i am not on cult tiktok. I am on lesbian, punk, 30+, garden tiktoks. I am glad that algorithm does not want me to join a cult.
the lesbian part thiugh♥️
I visited a great commune in Spain a couple years ago, I can confirm nobody there would be crazy enough to put their address up on Tiktok and just let anyone in. Building a safe and inclusive community means watching out for potential threats to that community, and that includes people LITERALLY WANTED BY POLICE.
Government: “isolate yourself”
TikTok: “communal living let’s gooo”
Breaking down society into smaller self-sufficient segments could actually help, as any outbreak would be contained in a small group. But forming cults is not the right way to go.
If they’re isolated and self sufficient (which I think they more or less are??) then it’s actually a really good idea. Well, aside from the whole cult part of things, but what can ya do
@@aamandazittlau5505 I mean they have an open door policy so not really
I've lived in a Commune, and plan to do so again. And I can confirm, that this is not normal, at least not long term.
I watched this entire video not realizing where this community was until the video of the guy who left came up. This is in my hometown. I lived there nearly my entire life. There is a 100% chance this is a cult. Lafayette is home to another cult Straitway Truth who has a clearly defined leader and “community” living situation. I looked up the address and the garden isn’t where straitway is but I would not be surprised if they are linked and somehow funneling members to the actual cult. That being said I do want to defend one thing you mentioned in the video. This area of Tennessee isn’t all that dangerous. Lafayette in particular is relatively safe minus a meth problem however I will conceded that if you head east on 52 or north on 10 you will run into some areas that will probably give you the creeps. Great video.
Is this formerly The Farm? There was a commune/co OP called The Farm around there. Or is it completely different group? Edit: The Farm is a completely different group in Summerton, Tn. My mom took me there for a time when I was growing up. I have great memories of it and it would break my heart to hear it turned into a cult.
Where is the straitway cult located I hear it’s not far from here ?
I would absolutely purchase nosy by nature merch.
I need Amanda to do this
I second this lmao, would join a cult for a shirt that says *not really but I do want a shirt*
Cleverrrrrr
Same
Hell yes, same.
About your point that it seems like Tree doesn’t do anything there, there’s this one TikTok where Tree goes around asking all the people he can find what they do at the commune, things like insulating structures, cooking food, etc. Then, the video ends with Tree saying “and I play football!” and kicking a soccer ball in a field by himself.
imagine being rejected from a cult bc of your vibes
Fundie Fridays is a channel that goes in depth on Christian Fundamentalist groups and how many actually quality as cults, if you want to learn more about what tactics(/abuses) they use to draw in and keep members
i love fundie fridays!! they deserve all the hype
there's actually a system called the BITE model by steven hassan to help identify whether something is a cult or not, in short BITE refers to behaviour, information, thought and emotion control. its pretty interesting to look into for anyone who's interested.
Yes & this commune doesn't even come close. They don't control religious/spiritual ideology. You will find a huge range of ideologies there, from christian to Buddhist, pagan & atheist. There is no defacto leader. Nobody controls where or with whom people sleep. The religious words they use like Babylon don't even have a religious meaning. That term originated with the Rainbow Family which many of these residents are part of & is used to describe the capitalist dystopia that these folks are rejecting (live in a polluted city & work 40+ hours a week to make some corporation rich while barely surviving yourself). The Garden means exactly that...a place to grow food, not the "Garden of Eden" that so many assume it means. But, "civilized" people can't understand that, so they are suspicious. "Civilized" people know that food isn't grown, harvested, or (gasp!) killed & butchered. It comes in sterile plastic packages. Yes, there are some weird people there. There are weird people in all parts of society.
@@angeladansie4378 in the BITE model, your cult had turned you against the enemy, which is "civilized people." You just admitted it dude.
@@sadyoshhours2769 nice 👍