Love Has Won: O Culto da Mãe Deusa

I love watching these crazy cult shows. It baffles my mind how someone can be completely insane and yet they find others who look to them for leadership! This cult is definitely up there on the "dumba**" scale. A brain-fried alcoholic McDonald's worker decides to proclaim she is god and, through the power of the internet, manages to gather a following of other emotionally broken, mouth-breathing layabouts to help her fund her Amazon addiction. This chick is (was) part Team Swan, part Marshall Applewhite and maybe a little part Manson. She claimed she was god, cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, and Quanon....oh, and also Robin Williams psychically guided her! You can't make up this level of bat-s**t!

Sporadically interesting but it didn't really make any effort to tell me why I should care or why this is even interesting. Its almost completely devoid of insights. The cult was only around a dozen people at most, so its hard to argue it had any wider impact. 'Heaven's Gate: Cult of Cults' made a pretty good effort to delve into the psychology of cult members and why people join cults. There's nothing of that here. Much of it was just watching a sad collective of drug and alcohol addicts getting intoxicated and talking gibberish, with a leader who's clearly suffering from a mental illness. Am I supposed to be entertained by this? Clearly the idea is that crazy automatically means interesting. But without analysis the spectacle verges on voyeurism. There definitely should have been more non-LHW voices to give a more grounded and critical perspective.

I think this documentary is well done in the sense it seems pretty unbiased and just presents the story as it went. Doesn't add too much unnecessary shock value, good production quality, and keeps your attention. Worth a watch if you heard about this story in the news and are curious. I'm glad some of their families came on to speak about her, it gave an insightful and humanizing view.

It's really easy to see why people write off the members as dumb addicts, but I think it's very important to keep in mind that in the right scenario and struggle, anyone can be indoctrinated into a cult. This documentary was really able to show the community aspect of the group, and how that in itself was such a breeding ground for substance abuse, shared delusion, and toxic relationship hierarchies.

My takeaway: I highly encourage people (and wish the education system would teach), to be careful of conspiracy theories, learn about the BITE model, and really read the physiological effects of every drug on the brain before you partake. Spiritual psychosis is very real and studied.

This was definitely a strange documentary, but it was interesting, often funny (unintentionally), and even sad at times. But when a wasted Mother God asked for Chicken Parmesan and was given meatballs, one of the funniest things I've ever seen in a documentary happened. I can't really repeat it because of all the cussing, but her delivery of "Chicken Paremsan! I love meatballs.... but that's not what I wanted! CHICKEN PARMESAN!.... and then something along the lines of "I get dumber every moment I'm around you stupid people" with much more cussing and swearing.... I mean, seriously? If this was real, who would actually think this was a God-like figure who just drank all day long and swore all the time??? If you like bizarre, this one is for you.

I've seen videos on this cult before, but once this came out I hunkered down to binge the whole thing. Love Has Won is a deep dive into the beginning of the cult and its growth, with interviews with (former?) members of the cult sharing their views and experiences.

Honestly, I think this is one of the better cult documentaries I've seen. For once, there isn't insane child abuse, but what went on is still undeniably wild! The first episode was a bit slow for my tastes, but the last two were shocking. Seeing how deep the delusions of LHW run, hearing their beliefs, and the sheer amount of substance abuse going on has me baffled as to how they functioned for so long. I think this might be a great example of spiritual psychosis leading to the exploitation of other, more vulnerable people.

Highly recommend if you have an interest in this sort of thing.