![]() In addition to lackadaisical responses from the judicial system, many of Jeffs’ followers did their best to protect him. Investigators and one of the first journalists who helped expose Jeffs explain just how difficult it was to take him down. She simply lets them tell their stories and inserts archival footage and unreleased audio to support their statements. (Ironically, Jeffs called himself a “benevolent dictator.”) Thus the importance of documentaries like this, which is not just about exploiting public interest in the bizarre - they explain how easy it is to strip away people’s freedom.Īt no point throughout the series does it feel like Dretzin is judging or exploiting her subjects. This confession is key to understanding what life under a dictatorship is truly like. ![]() As one survivor puts it, she wasn’t aware of places that could help her become independent, such as women’s shelters. But what’s truly shocking is how many families went along with it without questioning.ĭretzin’s documentary delves into a baffling question: why didn’t these cult members just get up and leave? The answer is conditioning and class: most had been raised with these beliefs since birth, and dissenters lacked the money, education, and know-how to survive in the real world. Jeffs’s successful ploy to rip apart families is devastating. It was kidnapping in the name of saving their souls. How did Jeffs populate his ranch when he needed new recruits? He deemed it to be the most holy place on earth and took children from their parents. Women and their children would be assigned new husbands. Any man who stood up to Jeffs was immediately kicked out. Jeffs “rewarded” his most subservient followers with underage brides. While women were treated as second-class citizens, not all of the men lived particularly rosy lives. ![]() He often tricked girls as young as 14 into marriage by asking them, “Do you think you know better than the Lord?” He told the members of his flock that - if they did not follow his every command - their souls would be damned, eternally. Jeffs further manipulated his followers by preying on their fears about being ‘saved.” He declared himself to be the “one true prophet,” so that his word was literally the word of God. He even dictated what hairstyles women could have (elaborate french braids). Jeffs controlled hearts and minds without interference: he decided what the cult’s children learned and what jobs they could perform. Why could this happen? Partly it was because the followers of the FLDS were isolated from the outside world. This behavior is sickening, but it’s nothing compared to the terror Warren Jeffs unleashed on the church’s members. ![]() One survivor testified that she was married off to Rulon Jeffs so that her father could take on another wife. From the beginning, FLDS was a radical version of Mormonism: men were allowed to have multiple wives, so it followed that the more wives you had, the more powerful you were. Dretzin’s documentary doesn’t begin with this insanity but goes back to 2002, when Jeffs first took over the church from his father. Many young boys were methodically kicked off the ranch and left to fend for themselves. Many viewers may have some knowledge of this incident and may remember reporting about the child brides who had been “married” off to men twice their age. In 2008, the Jeffs Texas Ranch was raided by authorities, and more than 400 children were rescued. Chronicling the patriarchal horrors of Jeffs’s cult, this drama is a disturbing yet fascinating watch thanks to the care taken by its director, Rachel Dretzin. The term “keep sweet” actually meant “to obey,” which his son and successor, Warren Jeffs, took to perverse extremes in the harrowing docu-series, Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey. He was so dedicated to the sentiment that he even had it written on the soles of his shoes. “Keep sweet” is a phrase that the now deceased prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Rulon Jeffs, told women over and over again. ![]() Woman worshiping Warren Jeffs in a scene from Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey. ![]()
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