211 - The Immanuel David Cult

The Immanuel David Cult! Not much has been written about Immanuel David compared to more notable cult leaders like Jim Jones or David Koresh - but he was just as delusional and, in his own way, just as destructive. Immanuel David was born in the late 1930s to seemingly normal parents - he had what was likely a great childhood - and then, not long after converting to Mormonism, he decided that he was the REAL prophet that should lead his new religion. After the LDS church excommunicated him, Immanuel David created his own church… and went off to live on a communal compound where a group of people, including his wife Rachel and their seven children, would worship him - not as God's prophet anymore - but as God in the flesh. In true cult leader fashion, he gave his followers biblical names and tricked them into giving him money while they all waited for the US government and the LDS faith to collapse, and for Immanuel to rise up out of the ashes and lead a new church. And then David's rein as cult leader came to end in 1978 in a very dramatic and horrifying way. This week we’ll also examine into some of the fringier aspects of Mormonism’s theological history, as some of these elements lead to the construction of David's cult. And we'll give a brief overview of a few other FLDS cults, on today's messianic edition of Timesuck.

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