"Holy Hell"

     I decided to watch the documentary “Holy Hell” for our project. A specific part of the documentary that surprised me was when multiple people started talking about how after their therapy sessions with Andreas, who was the leader of the cult, he would have sex with them. It wasn’t just a one time thing it was after every session. Some people had multiple sessions a week and he would make them pay fifty dollars each session. One of the past followers said that he told Andreas that he didn’t want to have sex. Andreas proceeded to try to put the blame of refusal on something traumatic that happened in his past. He then still went on to have sex with him.

    What surprised me was the dedication and commitment Andreas was able to inflict onto his followers. He had hundreds of people brainwashed into serving him to their fullest. When the cult first started it was about people’s spiritual upbringings. They were there to connect to their inner selves but then slowly throughout the years turned into solely serving Andreas and everyone was okay with that. In fact people were happy to do it.

    I had a constant feeling of astonishment with how Andreas was able to form and evolve his cult. He was able to completely manipulate people into worshiping him when it was actually abuse. I understand the concept of Andreas' brainwashing but I will never truly understand. There were people that stayed with him over twenty years and never saw through what Andreas was doing.