Crimes, Killers, Cults and Beer: A True Crime Podcast · Dark Pass Productions

162 Insane Canadian Cult, His Rest Christian Fellowship Part 3: Interview With A Survivor

·1 hr 55 min·5 clips

An anonymous ex-member sent a “sin log” from His Rest Christian Fellowship.

1. Crimes, Killers, Cults and Beer: A True Crime Podcast focuses this CKCB Features episode on Dan’s history in His Rest Christian Fellowship and the Canada cult series. 2. Bill hosts the interview, Dan is the guest, and Desti is the previous survivor whose story set up this part of the series. 3. The episode asks how a Canadian cult built around Reema Dean shaped family life, control, and recovery after the group fell apart. 4. Bill describes Reema Dean as a woman who performed exorcisms, flogged people, beat people, and required a long membership list before anyone could join. 5. Dan explains that the cult relied on “proxy control,” where a small group of people were used to control everyone else. 6. Bill and Dan discuss Nate and Ricky as the main subjects of the original book, with Nate identified as Desti’s older brother. 7. They talk about Nate’s hospital situation and how his parents were denied access, which Bill calls a “crazy, powerful story.” 8. Dan says the cult officially folded about five years before Reema Dean died, and he dates the real collapse to when he was around 14. 9. He explains that the group tried to rebrand as “Light of Hope” after removing the tyrant at the head and ending the exorcisms. 10. Dan says the house church became more like “a Pentecostal or free Methodist home church,” but the original damage was already done. 11. Bill reads an anonymous “sin log” from someone claiming to be from His Rest Christian Fellowship, and the entries use dates, names, and labels like “pride and idolatry.” 12. Dan recognizes the importance of dreams in the cult and says dreams were what dictated “pretty much everything.” 13. The log includes references to Pastor Dean, Sharon, Evelyn, and people being put “on” for failing to repent or for not handling family issues correctly. 14. Bill and Dan puzzle over phrases like “no green clothes,” “communion dream,” and notes about being “taken off,” which Dan cannot fully decode. 15. Dan says the cult used dreams as evidence, but stress and confirmation bias could make people dream about whatever they were already worried about. 16. Bill and Dan discuss how that system could turn ordinary family tension, schooling problems, or private anxiety into a recorded spiritual offense. 17. The episode is conversational and improvised, with Bill steering the interview and Dan filling in details from memory while they interrupt each other often. 18. The tone moves between dark humor and careful explanation, especially when they compare cult control, church politics, and the absurdity of the log entries. 19. People interested in Canadian cult history and survivor testimony. 20. Listeners wanting polished, tightly structured storytelling.

As heard by us

A survivor-led cult story that stays loose, personal, and hard to shake.

Dan's account of His Rest Christian Fellowship stays rough around the edges, and that works here. The record keeping, the lists of sins and wrongs, and the family overlap around who may have written them give the control a very personal feel.

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Why you'd press play

You want a survivor story that stays raw and stubbornly human.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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