Cult Insanity

by Irene Spencer

  Verlan hurried us to the horse-drawn wagon to escape our weekly gathering. He was shocked, appalled, and also questioning Joel’s sanity.

  Our five-mile ride over dirt roads only compounded our sorrow. Every time the wagon wheel hit a rut, we felt the jolt to our very bones and each bump felt like a punch in the stomach. Verlan was quiet, so I had time to think.

  My esteem of the LeBaron brothers seemed to be falling faster than the temperature ever could. The two years I had lived among the LeBaron clan had intensified feelings of great dissatisfaction in my religious life. Not only were Joel’s claims a disappointment, but so were his older brothers Wesley’s and Ben’s. Before my marriage in Salt Lake City, I’d personally seen Ben bodily thrown out of my uncle Rulon’s fundamentalist meeting because he had stood up and shouted to the crowd, announcing publicly that he was God’s anointed prophet, the long-awaited One Mighty and Strong.

  I couldn’t understand how both Ervil and Alma had been convinced of Ben’s profession to be favored by God. Both brothers grew up witnessing Ben’s recurring mental breakdowns. Throughout their childhood, they had often heard Ben claim that a voice in his head guided him. It was incomprehensible to me how two brothers had defended Ben when he claimed to be the Lion of Judah. They often heard him roaring like a lion to demonstrate how powerful he was. Thank goodness Ervil and Alma became disillusioned when none of Ben’s prophecies materialized. But then Alma had embarrassed the family two years earlier when he had paraded around the ranch nude with his cousin Owen, and then waited for flying saucers to take them into heaven.

  That Sunday evening, Alma and Ervil came to our home to discuss the disgracefulness of Joel’s claims. Ervil, taking the floor first as usual, ranted as he pounded his fists on the kitchen table. Charlotte, Lucy, Verlan, and I could see his disgust (Lucy had barely married Verlan).

  “Joel’s nuts!” Ervil stated. “He holds no special priesthood. How can he claim to be the great prophet of God? I am so crushed over this devastating news. I feel worse than if I had received word that Delfina and all my children were killed in a car wreck.”

  Alma jumped up from his chair, taking his place beside Ervil. He pounded his left hand with his right fist, bellowing, “He absolutely has no power at all! I was once deceived by Ben, and it will never happen to me again.” His smirk vanished as he announced, “A smart rat doesn’t get caught in the same trap twice.”

  Verlan agreed with his brothers. “Joel is making outlandish claims that will continue to disgrace our family. Thank God our dear father is dead. He’s probably turning over in his grave at what Joel is professing.”

  We women remained silent. We were too confused to articulate our feelings. Besides, even if we had wanted to speak, the three brothers didn’t pause between their sentences. Still, I couldn’t help remembering how even Mother Maud had said it was impossible for her husband, Dayer, to have given Joel the mantle to succeed him, because Dayer had been much too sick before his death to anoint anyone.

  Later, both Charlotte and I begged Verlan to move us back to the States, where we could live a normal life. I didn’t want any entanglement in any other priesthood authority. After generations of polygamy, I felt I could not be wrong; we had the truth. I felt the Mormon Church was God’s true church. Though it was out of order because it had given up plural marriage, I felt someday we’d all be members of it when the church was put back in order again. I would not waver from my faith. I wanted no part of Joel’s new church or his claim to be the prophet that would gather and redeem the elect from the four corners of the world.

  A FEW NIGHTS LATER, through the darkness, Verlan’s voice startled me. “Irene, you and Lucy wake up.” I turned over as he struck a match and removed the glass chimney from the oil lamp. “C’mon, girls, sit up,” he ordered. He lit the wick, turning it up a little higher so the lamp would burn more brightly, then he replaced the chimney. When my eyes adjusted to the light, I realized Charlotte and Floren had entered the room with Verlan.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, concerned. “Is something wrong?”

  I could hear the excitement in Verlan’s voice when he answered. “No, Floren just returned from the States and he wants to share something with us.” Verlan grabbed two wooden chairs from the kitchen for Charlotte and Floren to sit on. Verlan instructed Floren to position himself next to me at the head of the bed, where he could sit and see better from the lamp’s light.

  Floren began. “Listen carefully, all of you, and don’t say anything until I’m finished. Joel has received a revelation from God.” Floren’s shocking words hit me like a thunderbolt. “Thus saith the Lord, unto my servant Rulon C. Allred . . .”

  Good grief, I thought. Don’t tell me Joel is actually receiving revelations from God. Why doesn’t God respect Uncle Rulon enough to give the revelation directly to him? I felt my heart falling to the floor with each word. I could see that my mother’s misgivings about the LeBarons were coming true. Floren continued:

  “I have called my servant Joel F. LeBaron out of the land of Mexico, even as I called my servant Moses, that through him I might deliver my people from bondage . . . And I call you by mine own voice out of the heavens to be a counselor to my servant Joel . . . Whereby my people may gather to the place I have appointed to be a land of Zion unto them, even the place known as Colonia LeBaron . . . The time has fully come spoken of by mine holy prophets, when I have set my hand again the second time to gather my people to Zion . . . that my people might be prepared to be caught up into the clouds while fire and brimstone are rained upon the face of the whole earth, to the utter destruction of the wicked and ungodly. Even so, amen.”

  When he finished reading, I was completely nauseous. First it’s Ben who received daily revelations, but never wrote them down. And now, here is Joel, blatantly declaring the word of God to the whole world. I cringed. What on earth will Uncle Rulon think when he hears that Joel is claiming revelation for him? Floren’s enthusiastic rendition convinced all of us that he believed every word of it. The final warning, all will be caught up in fire and brimstone, unsettled me.

  All of us were in shock except Floren. He grinned proudly. “Isn’t this wonderful? When Joel first read this revelation to me, a sense of joy went through me. After all the years of prejudice and ostracism we LeBarons have endured, this revelation proves the favor of the Lord. Father said it would be his boys who would help usher in the Kingdom of God, so Joel does have the mantle!”

  Numb with disappointment, I slid down in bed, pulling the covers over me.

  “Well, you can all sleep on this and we’ll discuss it tomorrow,” Floren said, folding the revelation and tucking it in his shirt pocket. Floren left Verlan alone with us three wives. None of us said much.

  Verlan shook his head sadly. “I am as shocked as you girls are. This will be one more strike against our family.” He fell to his knees beside the bed for prayer, and Charlotte joined him. Lucy and I lay quietly as Verlan made supplication to God, explaining that we did not understand what was taking place. He finished the prayer, saying, “We need guidance and mercy. Amen.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I’ll never forget Joel’s return to the ranch. I could see his skin was not black, but after what we had heard, his manners were suspect. I scrutinized his every move. I would focus on his facial expressions, then mentally judge every word he uttered. I’d tell myself repeatedly, “He sure doesn’t look like a prophet to me.” He really wasn’t educated or well read. How could God set up his kingdom with a guy who looked like a hayseed that had blown in from the sticks? Searching desperately in my mind to find any godly qualities I could attribute to him, I came up short. I wondered if Abraham and Moses were such common men. I tried to be open-minded, but when he ate lunch with us, I was absolutely shocked. How a prophet of God could take large gulps of milk from his glass, swish it around his mouth to clean his teeth, then swallow it was beyond me. Maybe what he lacked in social graces would be replaced by God’s holy anointing
.

  We were taken aback when Joel solemnly confided in his disbelieving family that he had stood in the presence of heavenly beings.

  When my stunned mind finally registered his claim, I asked him, “How did you know they were real?”

  “Oh, it was easy,” he said nonchalantly. “Each one of them offered me his hand and introduced himself.” He continued, hoping to enlighten me further. “If a resurrected being appears, you must give him the acid test. Joseph Smith taught his followers this secret. If the heavenly being is resurrected, you will be able to feel his hand, but if the being is from the devil, you’ll feel absolutely nothing.”

  I couldn’t believe how fast Joel’s church took shape. He soon convinced his mother, Alma, and Ervil that just before his death, Joel’s father had blessed him with the priesthood office that had come down from Joseph Smith to Benjamin F. Johnson, his adopted son, then to Alma Dayer LeBaron Sr., who had given this so-called mantle to Joel.

  On April 3, 1956, 120 years after the supposed mantle was given to Joseph Smith, the new Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times was formally organized with: Joel the prophet, Alma the bishop, and Ervil the mission president, later becoming the patriarch. They proceeded to research every scripture and historical event that backed up Joel’s new teaching. Soon, they published a tract called Priesthood Expounded. In it, their mother, Maud, and Ervil testified that they had witnessed Joel’s receiving the mantle that made him the One Mighty and Strong, somehow forgetting that they had observed no such thing.

  The tract stated that Joel’s father called him to his bedside and gave him a very strict solemn charge. He then put all his earthly affairs in Joel’s hands. He put him under a covenant and made him promise to carry on the work his father had commenced and to build on the foundation he had laid. Dayer said to him, “When I die, my mantle will fall upon you even as the mantle of Elijah fell upon Elisha, and even as the mantle of my grandfather fell upon me; and you will have to round up your shoulders and bear it because there is no one else qualified. I have tried to qualify your older brothers, but have only met with rebellion and opposition.”

  After having said these things, Dayer told Joel that great things would be required of him, but the Lord would uphold and strengthen him and give him wisdom to solve the many problems that would come before him in carrying out his life’s work. He also gave him the promise at that time that “he would not fail.”

  I knew these claims were absolutely false because Verlan had explained his father’s last days to me, stating that at least a month before Dayer’s death, he was partially paralyzed and bedridden. Maud and her two granddaughters had spoon-fed the old man because he was completely incapable of even raising his arms. Though this was the case, and they knew it, Maud and Ervil allowed their testimonies to be published in the revised edition of Priesthood Expounded (pages 57–58).

  No one was more shocked than I was when I read their account. I blew up at Verlan as I refreshed his memory. Verlan, his mother, Maud, and I had stood by my wooden gate, where Verlan had told her Joel was in Salt Lake City, claiming he held the “scepter of power,” which his father had given him. Tears ran down her cheeks as she listened. After a moment she had said to Verlan, “He must be crazy! You’ve got to go to Salt Lake and bring him home. If he’s making these claims, then I must have another Ben in the family. You and I both know that your father was far too sick and paralyzed to give anyone anything. So, Joel’s making false claims.”

  Verlan agreed that his family was contradicting what they had first declared.

  AS SOON AS JOEL INCORPORATED THE CHURCH of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times, in Salt Lake City, he received the revelation Floren had read to us, but it was the only one he ever recorded. Joel claimed the revelation was from the Lord God himself and was directed to my uncle Rulon Allred, who had several thousand followers. It was meant to convince him and his group to follow Joel and gather in Mexico to the new ensign, a model community for the world.

  Naturally, when Uncle Rulon received the revelation, he ignored the outrageous instructions. He considered it just one more piece of evidence of insanity in the LeBaron family.

  NOEL PRATT WAS JOEL’S FIRST CONVERT outside the family. The LeBarons had been acquaintances with his father in Colonia Dublán. He helped Joel and Ervil formulate sixty tricky questions, which became Joel’s challenge to the world and backed up his priesthood claims, such as who is the promised seed of the prophet Joseph Smith, through whom the kindred of the Earth are to be blessed? He claimed that if anyone could answer his questions and prove him to be wrong, he would retract his claim to be God’s newly appointed prophet.

  Verlan was not excited about it. Charlotte, Lucy, and I just knew he couldn’t be a prophet like Moses as he claimed.

  Before long, because of arguments over religious interpretations, Noel felt he could no longer trust Ervil. He was both one of the first converts, and one of the first defectors, of Joel’s church.

  WHAT A COMMOTION BILLY WISER caused. He was the second convert to be baptized in the emerging church. Joel’s father had prophesied that God would send people from the four corners of the earth to help build up Zion and prepare people for Christ’s Second Coming.

  Accepting Billy into the new church only verified Joel’s role as a true prophet. It was actually Ervil who had converted him. While driving with Alma, he felt impressed by the Lord to stop for a hitchhiker ahead of them. With the forty-year-old disheveled stranger sandwiched between the two brothers, they learned he was a convicted forger who had served his time and was now traveling with no particular destination in mind. Ervil invited him to go to Mexico with them.

  They were both jubilant that after twelve hours of driving they had found this man who had been humbled by his sufferings in prison and was now so interested in and open to the teachings of God. Billy was especially elated when Alma revealed the law of plural marriage as a requirement for being a god.

  “I hope this principle of having to accumulate numerous wives doesn’t shatter your faith,” Alma joked.

  Billy laughed. “That won’t be too hard. I’ve lived with many different women. Of course none of my relationships panned out. I’ll commit, though—if obedience is a requirement for women also. But,” he said, shaking his head doubtfully, “no woman ever obeyed me before.”

  Upon their arrival at the ranch, Ervil asked Alma to drop Billy and him off at his mother’s.

  After introducing Billy, Ervil asked her to give him a place to stay and feed him for a couple of days so he could figure out what duties to assign him. Ervil shared his excitement with his mother about the faithfulness of God. They now had seven members in the newly formed church.

  Ervil appointed Billy to be his bodyguard. His new position gave him an exaggerated sense of importance. He was a braggart, a rough, crude character who toted a .38 pistol. I distrusted the ex-convict. As far as I could see, he didn’t have an ounce of godliness in him.

  Ervil tried to reassure me. “He may not look like a saint, but God can use him mightily.”

  It didn’t take long for Billy to resent Ervil’s cockiness and his constant lies to Delfina and Mary Lou. He began to see Ervil as the con man he really was. After a heated altercation with Ervil, he hitchhiked back to the States, and we never saw him again.

  JOEL’S EFFORTS AT PROSELYTIZING were easier than he’d imagined. In Moab, Utah, he’d stopped at a small grocery store for a few refreshments. At the counter, Joel paid and then started a conversation with a bald, rotund, sixty-five-year-old man who was also shopping. Lewis F. Ray, a single, lonely man who longed for attention, listened intently as Joel and he stood outside drinking their Cokes. Joel held nothing back. He announced to the nonpracticing Mormon that he was a prophet of God. Mr. Ray was fascinated by Joel’s sincerity, by the fact that he revealed to a total stranger that he was the long-awaited One Mighty and Strong. Mr. Ray, like many dissidents from the LDS Church, had been patiently waiting for this “One’s” a
rrival.

  So, Mr. Ray became an instant believer. He begged Joel to spend the night at his house, where the two men packed Mr. Ray’s few belongings into a small car. Mr. Ray testified that God had sent Joel to his rescue to help him make his move to Mexico. He voiced his exhilaration that he had found God’s anointed.

  Mr. Ray was filled with anticipation. He had not only met a bona fide prophet, but he was headed to Zion, where the saints would be gathered. He felt fortunate, knowing that he would escape Babylon before it all went up in smoke, destroyed with fire and brimstone.

  Brother Ray boarded with me until his one-room house was built. His wooden floor seemed such a luxury. Everyone else’s in town was either dirt or cement. He thanked God he had a Social Security check.

  The LeBaron brothers bragged they had converted three out of three strangers.

  JOEL PREACHED IN SOUTHERN UTAH, mainly in St. George and Hurricane. With his newfound confidence and his recent revelation in hand to back up his claims, he spent days upon end with a few cousins and acquaintances. He convinced them that the LDS Church had apostatized. A few of those who listened to him were fundamentalists who were considered misfits in the LDS Mormon community because they were practicing polygamy. All had one thing in common: they were awaiting the arrival of a foretold prophet who was the One Mighty and Strong.

  Joel held his audience captive for eight to ten hours at a time. He talked about his new priesthood order and the end time prophecies, instilling fear and uncertainty within the listeners. With urgency in his voice, he pleaded with them to flee immediately to Mexico to the LeBaron colony, where God had promised them safety. A determined few became converted. They were told to sell all they had and move to the new Zion.

  Shortly after Joel’s return to the ranch from the United States, he moved Magdalena from Gómez Farías to Colonia LeBaron, which would be the designated headquarters for his newly incorporated church.