The Twelve Tribes grew out of an early 1970s youth Bible study group led by Elbert Eugene Spriggs and his wife Marsha in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is now an international network of several dozen religious communes that consider Spriggs, who is known as Yoneq, a modern-day apostle, and follow his teachings explicitly lest they risk being ostracized by the cult and damned to an apocalyptic lake of fire.



Twelve Tribes cult leader “Yaneq,” aka Elbert Eugene Spriggs, and his wife Marsha.

Followers who belong to “The Community,” as members refer to the Twelve Tribes, surrender their earthly possessions to the group and live communally, often working at the Tribes’ restaurants or tea shops — called The Yellow Deli and Mate Factor, respectively — or simply laboring on the communes or for one of the other cult-owned businesses. The internet is highly restricted, and secular music, books and other “worldly” influences are verboten.

Spriggs and the other leaders of the Twelve Tribes kept the bulk of the cult’s “teachings” private, and largely succeeded until Bob and Judy Pardon encountered the group in the mid-1990s.

Bob Pardon holds a Master of Divinity degree and a Master of Theology with a concentration on ethics, and with his wife Judy founded the New England Institute of Religious Research. Together they run MeadowHaven in Lakeville, Massachusetts, which Pardon says is the only long-term transitional facility in the world for former members of destructive cults and fringe religious movements.

The Pardons first came across the Twelve Tribes when a former member contacted them about what she perceived as child abuse — a young child whipped with a long, thin rod like those used to hold balloons, which left ugly marks and bruises. Though she had brought child abuse charges that were eventually dropped for lack of evidence, the Pardons were intrigued by the group, which Bob Pardon says he initially thought was being unfairly maligned. “They had a pretty low profile, and we had never heard of them before,” he says.

Because of their initial skepticism about whether Twelve Tribes was a destructive group, the Pardons were granted access to many of the communities in the Northeast, and conducted extensive research with leaders, members and ex-members. They also studied their printed materials — the “Freepapers” members distribute in order to proselytize — and any teachings they could get their hands on.

But even with access to Spriggs and other leaders, the official teachings weren’t shared with the Pardons. “They said that we wouldn’t understand,” Pardon says, “that we were not under ‘the anointed,’ which means underneath Spriggs. I have two theological degrees and I have extensive training in biblical languages and Christian history, so I was always a bit dumbfounded by that.”

Eventually, though, the Pardons met ex-members who had been at the highest levels, right underneath Spriggs, and they took all of the teachings and shared them with the Pardons.

“Once we got those teachings, we knew there was a very seedy underbelly to the group,” Pardon says. “We began to realize that this was a really heavy thought reform environment; there was a lot of behavior control over the members’ lives.”

Indeed, as Colucci recounts in his book, the group exerted control over everything from when single men should masturbate (“usually about every other day or every few days,” Colucci writes, “and you’re supposed to try not to think about anything as you’re doing it. It’s to be a ‘mechanical release.’”) to how to wipe one’s ass (“there really is a teaching about taking three to four squares of toilet paper, folding it to the size of one square, then wipe, fold, wipe, fold, and repeat until you have this tiny, poop-stained square that you flush”).

Among the teachings, the Pardons discovered the rationale behind the extensive accusations of child abuse in the Twelve Tribes. “It’s part and parcel of the theology that the child has to obey authority and if the child doesn’t obey authority, then the child needs to have that [physical discipline],” Pardon says. “It used to be that only parents did that, but early on it began to shift over so that anybody that came into the group who thought your child was disrespectful could discipline them, and that would normally happen.”

Also revealed were Spriggs’ teachings on homosexuality. “They must be put to death,” the teaching reads. “Homosexuality is a capital offense.”

Colucci would encounter these teachings during his seven years as a member of the Twelve Tribes (though he says he personally never witnessed child discipline that he considered abusive). But the teaching that would cause him the most confusion and internal struggle regarded the role of the black race, known as the Cham teaching.