[Love Family 12]

In the Love Family home in Seattle, a family member discusses the family's religious beliefs.

00:04Copy video clip URL A member of the Love Family sits indoors by a fireplace, chatting and posing for the camera with Dudley Evenson and others.

03:49Copy video clip URL He and Dudley and several young women discuss the family’s aims of achieving a “modern day utopia.” The young women express skepticism that the family’s utopian dream could be spread beyond the family, that there would be too much dissent and disagreement among the population. Dudley responds: “Do you know what the smallest number is? One. Can you find agreement in yourself. Start there, then can you connect with one other person – just even one…. Then you start, then you build, then it becomes a web. And then you know you’re all connected with everybody… There is no limit, in a way.” He discusses “popping through a little hole in your mind to actually see the possibility” of widespread utopia, even though it seems almost impossible. 

07:28Copy video clip URL A question about the Bible’s assertion that paradise on earth is impossible. He redefines paradise as an inner state. 

09:10Copy video clip URL How the family deals with disagreement and dissent within the group. Dudley: “What do you give energy to? What do you want it to be? Be a magnet for the good and the love in the group?” He discusses the group being “connected with everything.” 

14:03Copy video clip URL An explanation of the name of their church, The Church of Jesus Christ at Armageddon:  “That means that the church is the body of Jesus Christ that we’re all a part of and Armageddon is the time of gathering. Armageddon is when that body actually begins to come together…. And all these separate parts that have all been separate, that are really part of one big personality, they all actually begin to get lined up, discover how compatible we are.” 

15:51Copy video clip URL He discusses revelations from god that he’d experienced years ago, and meeting others who had similar revelations. 

17:30Copy video clip URL Shedding conventional beliefs and condition after his revelations, discarding old ways. One young woman is skeptical, as she says his approach is “totally inconsistent with any psychological theory.” He responds: “It works! We’re creating a new conditioning for each other, in a way.” Focus on positivity, rejecting negativity.

19:28Copy video clip URL The difference between the family and traditional Christianity. “Mostly just that we take it all the way to the extreme.” The “seeds” for their beliefs are there in many religions. 

23:09Copy video clip URL Discussions of resolution of problems within and for the group. He claims that the family has “already seen above the differences” and that “there really are no real differences.” “Do you believe that we can live in a perfect mind? That’s what believing in Jesus Christ means to me.” 

25:20Copy video clip URL More discussion of conflict and disagreement, with questions about difficult issues on which conflict can be productive and spur growth, or in which there can be multiple answers or paths to follow. He reiterates his focus on being positive: “We want to be a pure influence towards a positive train of thought.” 

29:50Copy video clip URL The possibility of the majority of people to “reach this mind state or conclusion that you and your family have”? “I can tell you some of the visions that we’ve had,” he responds. He tells a story about a child’s vision of a lion watching the earth on a TV screen and seeing a red dot from the Pacific Northwest expanding to encompass the rest of the world. 

33:34Copy video clip URL Gender roles in the family, which the questioner points out align to extremely conventional male/female divisions. He responds by talking about humanity as a whole as a body, and about finding one’s place within that body. He claims that there are no restrictions for the women, and that the women could serve other roles besides sewing, cooking, cleaning, and caring for the children if they chose.  He speaks more about growth and the body of humanity in abstract terms. “It’s got to be natural, or who would want to be doing it forever if it wasn’t natural.”

36:49Copy video clip URL A questioner expresses a problem with his analogy about the body of christ, because it allows no room for growth or discovery. “Well we don’t really want to limit ourselves. We just want to be open to how it really is.” He claims that one’s role is discovered through experience. 

39:56Copy video clip URL A question “about other cults” like EST and transcendental meditation. More discussion of “the revelation of one-ness” found in other religious and spiritual philosophies. Discussion of Love’s revelations to him. “I was looking at Love one day and the face of Jesus Christ appeared… He was not like any one face, he was just like all faces in one face.” Believing that Jesus Christ is in everyone. 

47:05Copy video clip URL Belief in Satan, the personification of evil and darkness. 

49:01Copy video clip URL Discussion of the Manson Family and of the possibilities for redemption and forgiveness after doing great evil. The need for “constancy on the good side of things.” 

56:39Copy video clip URL A question about the broadness of the Love Family philosophy. A response about the commonality of beliefs. 

59:15Copy video clip URL Articles published about the Love Family in the National Enquirer and elsewhere. In response to specific sensationalist accusations in the article he claims that they do not impose rules on their members regarding drug use, for example.