EPISODE SHOW NOTES

Episode 101: Leaving the Unification Church after an Arranged Marriage ft. Limi Marie Bauer

Limi Marie Bauer was born into the cult where her parents met via an arranged marriage. They raised Limi in the Unification Church, known as the Moonies in popular culture, and Limi knew from a young age she would grow up and have an arranged marriage herself. As she got closer and closer to her wedding day she began to rebel and step away from church, but at 19 she married a man she’d met only three days before her wedding. It wasn’t until she heard her children talking about being in the cult that she realized she could no longer stay. In this episode Limi shares her experience of the Unification Church’s power dynamics, dogma, and how because of its many front organizations it is able to hide in plain sight. Today she’s working on a memoir about growing up in and leaving the Moonies and active in the #IGotOut movement for cult survivors.

CONNECT WITH LIMI MARIE BAUER:

Limi Marie Bauer lives in Austria but has roots in the US and Brazil. A wife and mother of three, she is a teacher and teacher-trainer of technical English at the university level. She has a Master of Science from the University of Oxford in applied linguistics and language teaching. She is currently working on a memoir about leaving the cult known as the Unification Church run by Sun Myung Moon and his family. Her writing and research focus is on cult survival, culture, power dynamics, and the psychology of language learning. “

The Champion” a short story for #igotout (high-demand group survivor stories) https://youtu.be/m1TP-ZMhfMg

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ABOUT YOUR HOST

I’m a writer, a teacher, a native New Yorker, and I love hearing about people’s lives. When I think back to my elementary school days at PS 20 in Flushing, Queens whenever we began social studies or a history lesson I wasn’t that interested in learning about battles, topography, or politics. What I wanted to know was how people lived: What their families were like, how they adapted to their circumstances, what they ate, how they celebrated, how they felt.
 
Sociology became my major at Binghamton University and in my life so far I’ve been an actress, a salesperson, a Zoo Keeper’s Aid, a volunteer animal trainer, an ELL teacher, a mother, and a wife. I’m grateful for the experiences I’ve had, all of which led me to create this podcast which is one of the most rewarding projects I’ve undertaken. I couldn’t ask for a better job than having in-depth conversations with survivors, thought leaders, authors, social justice warriors, and people who believe that we are all connected and then getting to share their stories, insight, and vulnerability with listeners.
 
I’m so glad you’ve landed on this page. I hope you find stories here which resonate with you and that you’ll tune in every week. 
 

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