Ever wondered how a fresh perspective could change your life? Meet Ruth Iren Holand, a 59-year-old Norwegian singer whose journey of personal growth and creativity has led her to create the inspirational musical piece "Land of Hope." Her story is a powerful reminder that it's never too late to chase your dreams. We'll explore Ruth's transformative experiences and how her relentless pursuit of a loving and merciful understanding of God paved the way for her musical achievements.
Our conversation takes a darker turn as we dive into the grim realities of life inside the Gloriavale cult in New Zealand. Founded by Neville Cooper, later known as Hopeful Christian, this closed community evolved from an idyllic-looking commune into a highly controlled cult. Through personal testimonies like that of Theophila Pratt, who bravely escaped in 2016, we reveal the severe psychological and physical control members endured. By juxtaposing these harrowing stories with Ruth's own experiences with negative religious groups, we provide a broader context for the impact of extreme beliefs on personal freedom.
We circle back to Ruth's uplifting journey, focusing on the creation of her album "Land of Hope." Inspired by a life-altering dream and supported by Swedish composer Carl Mikael Bergerheim, Ruth collaborated with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra to bring her vision to life. Her music, transcending cultural boundaries with translations into languages like Chinese, Arabic, and Swahili, showcases the universal power of hope and healing. Join us for this compelling episode that underscores the resilience of the human spirit and the boundless reach of a hopeful heart.
Ever wondered how a fresh perspective could change your life? Meet Ruth Iren Holand, a 59-year-old Norwegian singer whose journey of personal growth and creativity has led her to create the inspirational musical piece "Land of Hope." Her story is a powerful reminder that it's never too late to chase your dreams. We'll explore Ruth's transformative experiences and how her relentless pursuit of a loving and merciful understanding of God paved the way for her musical achievements.
Our conversation takes a darker turn as we dive into the grim realities of life inside the Gloriavale cult in New Zealand. Founded by Neville Cooper, later known as Hopeful Christian, this closed community evolved from an idyllic-looking commune into a highly controlled cult. Through personal testimonies like that of Theophila Pratt, who bravely escaped in 2016, we reveal the severe psychological and physical control members endured. By juxtaposing these harrowing stories with Ruth's own experiences with negative religious groups, we provide a broader context for the impact of extreme beliefs on personal freedom.
We circle back to Ruth's uplifting journey, focusing on the creation of her album "Land of Hope." Inspired by a life-altering dream and supported by Swedish composer Carl Mikael Bergerheim, Ruth collaborated with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra to bring her vision to life. Her music, transcending cultural boundaries with translations into languages like Chinese, Arabic, and Swahili, showcases the universal power of hope and healing. Join us for this compelling episode that underscores the resilience of the human spirit and the boundless reach of a hopeful heart.
Last year I started to wear glasses for the first time because my sighting is getting worse since I'm older, and then I needed to learn to see the world through new glasses, through a new lens sort of, and that was a fun experience and, yeah, I think it's a good image that sometimes we need to put some other glasses on and to see the world in a new and different way.
Speaker 1:
And when you meet new people you might put some new glasses on, because then the new person, the new people you get to know, opens your eyes to something new. You learn something new, and that's the glory of meeting new people. And recently I have met a really wonderful, charming and inspiring, exciting lady. Her name is Ruth inspiring, exciting lady. Her name is Rut Rut Irene Hula, and she is actually a Norwegian singer and she has composed a huge music artwork called the Land of Hope. And it's a really exciting story behind this music composition Because she had a long journey in life. She's actually 59 years old, so she's not exactly young, but she really has lots of energy even though she's not 20. But hey, isn't that cool that we can always grow and we can always learn something new. And meeting Ruth has really inspired me to just keep on living, because life will not end until we lie in our grave, you know, and if you want to be a singer and make a huge music composition in the end of the 50s, why not? You know, it's never too late to fulfill the dream. And I think it's a really interesting story to tell. To tell and fortunately she has actually told parts of her story herself because she's got a lot of good audio equipment at home, so she did that herself. So wait for that interesting story to come, because she has so much things to say. But before she starts, I want to talk to you about this episode's subject, and it's quite different from what Ruth will talk about, because that is more a message of love and light. And, yeah, Land of Hope is the name of her project, because this is the opposite of hope, because I just watched a documentary at the norwegian states channel, nrk, and it's the documentary about the cult in new zealand, gl Whale, and it's really a horrible, horrible documentary to watch to see how people can be treated in those closed communities. And so this episode will actually start with that documentary and some facts about Gloria Whale, and then I will talk something about being a part of a cult, what people actually experience and what it does to people, and then we will have Ruth's story at the end of the podcast episode. But even though Ruth's story is full of love and full of light and full of openness and not the close and hard things that you discover in a cult, it's not that far from the subject anyway, because Ruth herself did experience some bad religious groups when she was a young lady and that really made some traumas in her. Yeah, in the last years of her life she has really learned to love god and to be loved by god, because she she always struggled with this image of God as a mean person, as an authoritarian. But in the last years she has experienced the love of God and I really love to listen to her story. But at first we want to talk about the cults because then we might understand what actually Ruth has been through and her struggles and her way to healing and to understand God and her faith as full of mercy and full of love. So let's start. Tell Stories. Tell stories.
Speaker 1:
Gloria Whale was founded by independent preacher Neville Cooper, who later adopted the name Hopeful Christian. The community was established in the early 1960s and has remained seculed from the outside world. It actually started with some hippies that were free, so that's kind of a paradox. But I think that the founder, neville Cooper, he discovered the vulnerability in these people and he wanted to take advantage of that. And those people who take advantage of vulnerable people, I think those are one of the most dangerous people among us and he was one of them and if you see the documentary in the early stage of the cult, it looks kind of pretty and idyllic. The people look more happy and they wear normal clothes and it's looked like more a normal life out in the village, out in the farms. A typical 70break group, I would say. But yeah, that was the start of the cult and what really developed later was from a horror movie. I have never seen Handman's Tale, actually, but I've heard that people compare this cult to Handman's Tale.
Speaker 1:
So Gloria Well is a tightly controlled community today with strict rules and regulations. Birth control is not permitted and families tend to be large. Residents often have names like willing, ready and faithful and they all dress the same clothes. And the woman and the girls they have this long blue dresses and they need to have headscarves to hide their hair and they need to hide a lot of body parts, their arms, everything they are told that their bodies are. They need to protect their body because they need to protect themselves from the sexual yeah, that men are very sexual and they can't control themselves if they see parts of the woman's body. So this is kind of extreme Christianity and it is not that far apart from extreme Islam, you know, because in extreme Islam you also need to cover your hair and cover your body parts, not to give the man your temptation. That is actually the same mindset, but in two different religions, and it's all about controlling the woman, you know.
Speaker 1:
And within Glurrywell, the leaders maintain control through fear and religious doctrine and residents live in constant anxiety about salvation and damnation. You met a lot of people in the documentary who said that they were only waiting for God's return or Jesus to come back to the earth, and it was described in sort of a coping mechanism, because life in the cult is really exhausting. They are working a lot, they're told they're not going to do anything that makes them happy, they can't read newspapers, they can't listen to music outside this community, so it's really isolated and everything they look forward to is Jesus who will come back. And yeah, and it's a part of also not just a religion and not just faith, it's also about a coping mechanism that you actually accept that struggle, accept that you are exhausted because you're waiting for something bigger than you and you're waiting to rest when Jesus comes back. And the fear of God's judgment keeps individuals obedient, and even small children go to bed afraid that they won't wake up if they haven't been forgiven for their sins. And it was really sad to see how the children also was in this constant social control situation and they had no privacy and young people could not talk to one another without some of the leaders standing behind their backs and listening to everything. So to have a privacy in this cult is really hard.
Speaker 1:
One of the girls we meet in the cult is Theophila Pratt, and she's a former Glory Whale member and she left the community in 2016. She was only 18 and she really impressed me because she had, really she had short time and she needed to take the most important things she had in a suitcase. So she, just, in a hurry, she, she got a lot of photos from her family and some stuff she, she cared for and then she went to the bus station. She, she passed, um, like a bridge. It's a bridge they must pass to get away from the cult, and then the leaders tell them if they go over that they will go straight to hell. You know, because on the other side of the bridge it's the rest of the world and the world is evil and they will go straight to hell. So the last thing she experienced leaving this cult was her mother telling her that she was actually going to hell and she needed to cut off her family and it was really a hard thing for a young girl to experience. And later in the documentary she actually tries to visit her sister and she manages as well, because Gloria will also have a department in india and that's where her sister ended, because she was married away to an indian man. And when theophila is visiting her sister in ind, she experienced a worse community than Gloria Well in Australia because India is a land with a lot of poverty and the people living in the cult in India has worse conditions than people living in New Zealand and her sister had a lot of children with an Indian man and they had no birth certificate and very poor facilities. And her sister really looks exhausted and all she talks about is that Jesus will soon come back and save them from this mystery.
Speaker 1:
And you should really look at there is a lot of documentaries about this cult out in the YouTube and other places now in the internet and you should really see those documentaries and see how horrible that situation is, because the people living in this cult they are actually like refugees when they got out of the cult. They need to get help from a local organization that actually works for them and they have no clue about the society outside this cult. So it's kind of interesting to see, because one family is moving out of the cult and it's only a few kilometers away from where they have lived their entire life, you know, and even though it's so difficult for them to adjust to a new society. So it's just like a refugee family moving to a totally different country and trying to adjust. It's pretty much the same situation because they have had so different life and they are not used to anything about the modern world and it's really interesting to see how they actually how they work hard to adjust. You know their new situation and I think you learn a lot to see this documentary.
Speaker 1:
You learn a lot about how it is to live in a cult and how hard it is to break through and how your main mindset is controlled your entire life. You have been told that there are huge consequences. The free thinking has huge consequences. The free choice, everything has huge consequences. So the fear, the constant fear, is controlling you. It's like a prison. I can't imagine how that must feel to live like that.
Speaker 1:
Okay, that was the sad story about Gloria Vale and the good part of the documentary is that the people getting out of the cult they are getting a really good life, they're actually managing well, but they struggle a lot with the trauma they're bringing with them and of course they miss all their family members and loved ones. Even though they have cut off all the contact, they haven't cut off all the feelings. So they really struggle because it's actually a choice between two evils. You know it's hard to do that choice and I think it's easy to judge when you see it from the outside. But to be inside that prison and to actually choose between your own freedom, your own voice, your own inner voice and your family, I think that must be a really hard choice in life because no matter what you choose, you will always lose. You know, and I think I would never give away the free speech. I think I would have chosen the freedom, because if your family is controlling you, then you will never be lucky. But at the same time, if you leave that family, you will always be traumatized by that choice as well. So it's a really hard decision to take and you see that in the people in the documentary that they really struggle to maintain after leaving the cult, and it really touched my heart seeing this, because you see how vulnerable they are when they experience all this. They experience all this and you see that they left something behind and it was not just evil and it was not just all the struggle and all the pain, it was also the good parts and it was also the people they loved, and I can't imagine how hard that must be. So let's leave that Gloria Vale story behind now.
Speaker 1:
The background music that I play comes from Tarion Hartbridge. I tell it every time I use it because I think it's important not to steal others' music, and I actually have paid for it, because I follow her on Patreon and I pay a monthly fee to follow her and then I can use her music because I pay for it. And in these days it's important to actually give credit to the people that makes our art and our music and our pictures. And let's just hope that artificial intelligence doesn't take away all those creative and wonderful people, because we really need them, and one of the wonderful creative souls we need today is actually Ruth, and now you are finally going to listen to her and her wonderful story.
Speaker 1:
Her and her wonderful story. And after telling you this dark and sad story about Gloria Whale, I think it's, it's, it's. I feel good when I actually now give you a good story, a story about believing in a God in a healthy and a good way, a God full of mercy. That is Ruth's message. So enjoy this tape that was made from Ruth. Bye-bye On the mountain.
Speaker 2:
I'm here On the mountain. I'm here On the mountain Getting in the view and you view, you view.
Speaker 3:
In the summer of 2019, I was visiting my childhood home north of the Arctic Circle and I was sleeping in my bed and 5.30 in the morning I woke up of a dream. There was a voice that whispered in my ear meet me on the mountain. And I was wide awake and I thought, wow, if this was a dream or if it was the voice of God, I need to go up on that mountain behind my mother's home. And so I did. My name is Rut-Iren Holand, I'm from Norway and I will tell you a story about the making of the album Land of Hope, Getting a new view, a new view, a new view.
Speaker 2:
You, you, you.
Speaker 3:
I loved Jesus since I was a child. Through experiences in life, my image of God was kind of a. It got a double engine, metaphorically speaking. One engine was love and acceptance, the image you have of Jesus when you are a child. But there was one engine that was more hidden and that was fear. And who could truly love God?
Speaker 3:
The one you fear. On the mountaintop in the north of Norway with this wonderful view over ocean and islands and reefs, I just felt the tangible presence of the God of love. It was just like Jesus was sitting beside me, holding his arms around my shoulders, and I was just letting my tears out there on this mountaintop. He gave me a new view, and that was a view over his loving heart for all creation. Heal me, I'm here if you please.
Speaker 2:
When I look in your eyes I find peace. You're the hope that I carry that your face shines upon. I will rest and keep close in your love.
Speaker 3:
When I came down from that mountain I sat down by my parents' piano and I wrote the song Land of Hope. It just started something in me. It was a deep healing, you can say. There were a lot of Kleenex all around my piano and it was certainly a therapy for myself to write and sing these songs alone, in my living room, with the audience of one. Every day for half a year. I sang like it was an awakening of my own heart and soul and I sang wake me up where I died, lord, wake me up where I lost my direction.
Speaker 2:
Wake me up where I died, Lord. Wake me up where I lost my direction To myself. Tune me to those around the world. I got a mixing board.
Speaker 3:
Before I ever thought that I should make something out of these songs more than singing alone in my living room. I got a phone call. Long story short, some people got in their hearts to finance my album. I didn't even know that I should make an album. But my Swedish old composer, friend, he's an arranger, a musician friend, um, he's an arranger, a musician, karl mikhail bergerheim, from sweden, um, one of the most musical people I know. He said yes to be a part of the making of the album and he had made my songs like jewels. He arranged it for symphony orchestra and choir and are producing the album.
Speaker 3:
And it has been like you could call it some kind of a miracle story, because we didn't know where to record it. And then we got in touch with Benny Andersson's studio, riksmixningsverket. It's very difficult to say so, I say it wrong, but it's called Riksmixningsverket. It's very difficult to say so, I say it wrong, but it's called Riksmixningsverket in Stockholm. And so we recorded the ground comp there. And then we have been to Czechia and recorded with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, which is really amazing because they, you know, they did the music to Harry Potter and Tre Nötter til Askepott.
Speaker 3:
There's a very famous Christmas movie in Norway and they also are Andrea Bocelli's personal orchestra and tours with him. So this was such an amazing thing for me to have these musicians that are one of the finest in Europe and they are playing on my album. And then we have been in Norway recording soloists and my Voice, and also we had started a choir in Stockholm called the End of Hope Choir, a project choir for the album and recorded also there in Stockholm. So now in the end of August will be the release of the album, we will have a concert together with Himal Partner and Vinger of Hope, wings of Hope, and it's a charity concert for Nepal, and we will be in Verkesene in Mosse City, half an hour outside of Oslo. So what a journey. It took five years from I wrote the first song until we will have the album finished, mixed and mastered.
Speaker 2:
A short story in the end.
Speaker 3:
Carl Mikael Bergerheim and I was in the United States in 2020, presenting some of the songs in a retreat While I was sitting in the plane over to New York. I couldn't sleep, it was in the night and I was kind of sitting there daydreaming. I couldn't sleep, it was in the night and I was kind of sitting there daydreaming. So I was imagining. I have a very vivid imagination, so I thought of this Chinese woman coming to me and say and offer to translate my lyrics to Chinese, and I thought, okay, that would be cool. And I said a little prayer and I forgot it. That would be cool and I said a little prayer and I forgot it.
Speaker 3:
So in that retreat we presented some of the songs and it was so well received and I was so happy to be sharing this for the first time. And there was a lunch, so I went and grabbed a plate and then there was this Chinese woman that, or she, looked Chinese to me. She came over and asked if she could sit by me and I said yes. So this was a very interesting woman. I kind of interviewed her. She grew up in this one child policy in China and in the lunch it went by and I was so blessed by talking to her.
Speaker 3:
So then the meeting started again and we rose up, took our plates, and then she looked at me and she said I think the Holy Spirit is telling me to translate your lyrics to Chinese. And I just said yes, of course. So now I have all the lyrics in Chinese letters on my laptop and since then I had some songs translated to Arabic, some to Ukrainian and Russian and all the lyrics to Swahili. So it's very interesting how this message of hope can be communicated into different cultures, because we all need hope for our lives. So I will end with that. I will give glory to God. I didn't actually do so much other than sitting by my piano, drying my tears and singing my heart out, and on this journey I am, and I'm so thankful that I can be a part of. Maybe we could generate some hope for the Nepali women and for mental health and, yeah, human beings are so valuable. I'm here on the mountain.
Speaker 2:
I'm here on the mountain Getting a more of you, and you, of you, and you, of you, of you.
