Tory Hess - From Second Life to Wilderness Commune

Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation

Today our guest is Tory Hess, former member of a small rural group in upstate New York she calls Crazyland. She tells us about how she always loved reading and fantasy growing up, never went to public school, and didn’t connect easily with folks in real life when she was young, and how she found connection in the online gaming community Second Life, where she acted out her dream of having a family of her own... until it began to consume her life. She’ll tell us how some of the friends she made on there convinced her that she was spending too much time on the game, and that she should come live with them in upstate New York... in Crazyland. We’ll talk about how 13 people were living in one trailer, extremely uncomfortable living conditions, but how it fulfilled her desire for a family to take care of (at first). We’ll get into who the leader Ron was, the financial and sexual abuse he was committing, how he isolated her from her parents, and how she finally got out.

Email Tory to learn more about her story! [email protected]

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