The year was 1974. The youth of America were up in arms about the Vietnam War. At the age of 17, Diane Benscoter was one among many impressionable youngsters who desperately wanted the war to end.

Diane Benscoter’s official Unification Church ID (Photo provided by Diane Benscoter) Benscoter shares what her typical day was like when she was a member of the Unification Church

“I was young, naïve and pretty lost. I was idealistic and wanted to do something about the war because I was so against it. My friends were being drafted and killed in Vietnam and I felt helpless,” Benscoter said.

She was determined to find a community that would end “the madness”. At 17, she found out about the Walk for World Peace, a five-day walk that went from Omaha, Nebraska, to Des Moines, Iowa, which Benscoter described as a publicity stunt that was staged by the officials of the Unification Church.

“They were handing out flyers wrapped around bananas and I was handed one. I wanted to be writer or journalist and I thought this would be a good opportunity to write an interesting story,” Benscoter said.

During the walk, she was accompanied by two members of the Unification Church at all times. Both showed deep interest in Benscoter and her life. They said that God had chosen her for special purpose and that she was specially selected to stop the war and build a new world, otherwise she wouldn’t be there with them.

Little did she know that this was the first phase of her indoctrination into the Unification Church of the United States.

The Unification Church, colloquially known as the “Moonies”, a new religious movement that began in the 1950s and 1960s. Sun Myung Moon, the founder and leader of the movement, sent missionaries from Japan and South Korea to the U.S.

The Moonies has been labeled a cult by cult experts such as Steve Hassan, an ex-member and founder of The Freedom of Mind Institute, because it ticks many boxes on the cult checklist such as its messianic leadership, unconventional views on relationships and encouragement of members to abdicate self-interest to serve the collective.

Benscoter bought into the controversial doctrine when it peaked in the 1970s. She began attending lectures at night where she was gradually convinced that Moon was “the second coming of the Messiah.” Benscoter cut ties with her family and was completely immersed into the organization.

“There was a very charismatic leader in that Nebraska Center who was very influential to me. I just thought he was very intelligent, and if he was part of this group it must be legitimate because he seemed very put together and intelligent. He was also charming and well-spoken and I was kind of taken by him. I just believed every word he was saying,” Benscoter said.

Diane Benscoter now runs the Own Your Brain organization that raises awareness about cult manipulation (Photo provided by Diane Benscoter)

A typical day for a Moonie was waking up early in the morning and being assigned different tasks that centered on raising money for “God’s work.” Benscoter and her cohorts would go door-to-door selling items such as candy, flowers and grains in glass jar.

“From the time we woke up, we were sent to different regions to sell things. We would work for almost 18 hours a day and get few hours of sleep,” she said.

Even though Benscoter experienced periods when she missed her freedom and missed being like the people that she saw on the street every day, the leaders of the movement constantly reinforced that she and other members had a purpose that was higher than anyone else- and that was saving the world.

Her family made many desperate attempts to get her out. Whenever they talked to her, she tried to get them to join the cult because she believed that “Satan was using them.” After five years, her family finally deprogrammed her by getting her to a safe place where they would talk to her on a regular basis. After these talks with her family, Benscoter decided that it was time to leave her mission.

After about 20 years after leaving the Unification Church, Benscoter asked herself a burning question: How did this happen to me? How could a normal kid who grew up in a loving, middle-class, midwestern home fall prey to the extreme notions of a religious cult?

On looking back Benscoter said, “I was a victim of highly sophisticated manipulation of a power-hungry leader. I was also at a stage in my life where I was vulnerable to extremist tactics.”

She said that the only way that people can protect themselves from the psychological manipulation of those who are addicted to power and money is by understanding how they work. We have to understand our own vulnerabilities so that we can be empowered to guard our beliefs and values.

“I would like others to know that vulnerability is not a bad thing. It's part of being human. I learned that the parts of me which I consider most sacred, such as my desire to use my life to make the world a better place, are the very parts of myself that made me vulnerable to joining a cult,” Benscoter said

“Why would I hate these people?”

Bradley Galloway asks himself this question every time he remembers the Jamaican coworker who he had once worked with and the Jewish doctor who saved his life.

The Volksfront tattoo that Brad Galloway had when he was a member (Photo provided by Brad Galloway) Galloway explains his reasons for joining Volksfront

“That’s what happens when you join an extremist movement as I did. You become delusional,” Galloway said.

It took him many years to fully understand the impact of becoming part of the Toronto skinheads, a prominent Canadian racist movement, and later Volksfront, a neo-Nazi group formed by U.S. prison inmates.

Galloway was the president of the Canadian chapter of Volksfront, known as “the most active neo-Nazi group on the West Coast,” according to the Anti-Defamation League, an anti-hate organization that fights against anti-Semitism and bigotry.

“The work week would look normal but there would be events and meetings we would have to attend on weekends. I attended meetings and recruited members, both online and offline. We would attend concerts that played white supremacist music - a huge piece of reinforcing beliefs,” Galloway said.

For 13 years, he pledged his loyalty to the pursuit of creating a separate white country. Volksfront founders Randy Krager and Richard Arden, promoted the ideal of creating an “Aryan autonomy of North America.” Krager had been convicted of threatening to slit the throats of Jews and burning their homes.

Members followed his lead by beating and intimidating minorities. Galloway referred to these incidents as opportunistic violence rather than planned and strategic violence. They formed domestic terror groups that would go around and deliberately do things in certain areas to cause trouble and confusion.

“But the group I ended up in wasn’t like that – all we wanted to do was detach from society and do our own thing. It wasn’t really about the hate. It was the power and the existence in these groups that mattered. That solidarity of a shared ideal - we even wore the same T-shirts and jackets and haircuts,” Galloway said.

Apart from his memories, the tattoo of the group’s logo on his back, which has now been inked over, is the last vestige of his allegiance to Volksfront. A time when he was angry young man with a shaved head, who sported a military-like ensemble of a bomber jacket and Dr. Martens boots.

Brad Galloway now mentors former extremist group members (Photo provided by Brad Galloway)

But before his drastic transformation, Galloway was just a regular kid.

He had a secure and loving upbringing in a middle-class home in multicultural Toronto. He had plenty of friends and went to school where he played basketball, hockey and soccer.

“I wanted to be part of the movement. I wanted to be part of something bigger,” Galloway said.

The idea of becoming a member of a brotherhood was empowering because it gave him an identity and a sense of belonging, so when he was approached by a recruiter from a white nationalist group one night at a Toronto pub, he was sold.

After over a decade of being a key figure in Canadian white-separatist scene, Galloway became disillusioned and began questioning his decision to stay in the movement.

“I began to see people differently. During my interactions with minorities, I realized that they were they were just as human as I was - many of them were kind and helpful,” Galloway admitted.

His extremism was also brewing tension is his family life. “I asked myself if I wanted to expose my daughter to this racist ideology and my answer was a strong no,” he said.

Galloway’s wife supported him in his decision and the family moved to another city to start a new chapter. Even though members of the movement took the news of his departure fairly well, they later tried to convince him to return. But Galloway’s mind was made up – he was done.

The first year after leaving the Volksfront was challenging, but he tried to fill the void of the missing ties by staying busy. He worked two jobs and spent more time parenting and eventually went back to school.

Today, he is student at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at The University of the Fraser Valley, He’s also mentor for former members and works at Life After Hate, an organization that helps people quit extremism.

He now advises the younger generation that when they sign up for these movements, they’re essentially signing away a precious portion of their life which they can never get back.

Galloway wishes that he had access to positive messages and groups beforehand:

“What’s point? Why live like that? I knew that I could be a better person than who I was - so I changed.”

Until she was 15, the cult life was all that Daniella Young ever knew. She was a third-generation member of the Children of God, an extreme modern-day religious cult that was a byproduct of the American counter-culture in the 1960s.

Daniella Young as a young child when she was a member of the the Children of God (Photo provided by Daniella Young) Young shares when she decided to make her plan to leave the Children of God

“My mom was born into the cult. She got pregnant with me when she was 14 with a man who was 43. It was a common practice in the cult for young girls to get pregnant with older men. We were taught that sex was pure within a marriage and between marriage, even if it was with children,” Young said.

She lived a walled off existence behind the commune walls in Philippines, then Japan and later in South America., with her mother, always surrounded by a cult community. Her father lived in a different commune in another country with his wife.

Young recalls that a typical day involved two hours of studying the Bible, followed by searching for converts and begging for money. “We lived in large dorms with a 100 to 200 people. I barely saw my parents for an hour a day. There were loads of intense physical punishment for pretty much anything,” Young said.

Even though the Children of God was criticized by the press and the anti-cult movement, a social group that opposes religious movements that they characterize as a cult, for its extremist views, the members did not accept this. In their insular existence, they were convinced that they were raising intelligent and fun-loving children who used their time well, singing, dancing and praising God.

“David Berg, who was the founder, essentially established that he was the prophet of God. In the beginning, it was very much sort of normal evangelical Christian: we’d go out and recruit people. And then he quickly got into sex as his differentiation factor. He preached the philosophy of ‘free love’ by saying that love and sex should be shared regardless of age,” Young said.

Young was homeschooled but had never set foot inside an educational institution while growing up in the cult. She and the other children were taught to read but their reading material was limited to King James Bible and the Children of God religious text. Her restricted lifestyle prevented her from doing regular things such as playing sports or even walking on a sidewalk alone.

The turning point for Young occurred on 9/11. “I was standing stunned in our commune in San Diego —witnessing the chaos and destruction that was happening on the TV screen. Many reports went in-depth into the mental states of the terrorists who were radicalized. I could see that they were no different from us – they were part of another type of religious extremism that occurred on the world stage,” Young said.

“That’s when I realized that I needed to get away from their extremism before it destroyed me. At the age of 15, I promised myself that I would find a way to escape – I knew it wouldn’t be easy,” Young said.

Young’s resolve to leave was strong, so she pushed ahead with her plans. Staying low and biding her time, she secretly planned her escape. One day while out for a walk, she confessed to her mother she wanted to leave but she was afraid of what could lie ahead.

Young asked her, “Should I stay here in Mexico, recommitting to the cult, to God, all of it? It seemed less scary than America, high school and making it on my own.” Her mother listened intently and then nodded in agreement. She said that it was time for Young to leave the commune.

Daniella Young as a U.S. Army Captain after she left the Children of God (Photo provided By Daniella Young)

“She made all the arrangements to get her to Texas. My mother was 30 years old, with seven children and seven step children and no education – she was not in a place to break away herself but she wanted to clear the road for me and give me the freedom to create the kind of life that I wanted,” Young said.

Young knew well that once the gates of the compound were closed, there was no turning back. She would lose family and her community. With zero dollars in her pocket, she found herself embarking into a country that was as foreign to her as the moon.

Even though this was a scary transition, Young was excited about the world of opportunity that was opening up to her. “The cult members called my departure an excommunication. I called it freedom.”

Integrating into society was a long and hard journey for Young. Even though it was a rough transition, she eventually found her stride. She became a U.S. army captain who was one of the first women to conduct deliberate ground combat operations with a female engagement team. Today, Young works as a chief business consultant, working with CEOs to improve their turnover and productivity.

Young worked hard to carve out a new identity and place for herself in the world. Yet, she has never forgotten her experience growing up in an extremist cult and what it taught her.

“I want people to know that they are a product of their environment. They have to make sure that they aren't closing themselves off to other ideas. Question everything - nobody should ever demand your unquestioning obedience, and if they do, that is a danger sign,” advises Young.