I spent a weekend at the cult that inspired The Handmaid’s Tale costumes
It’s not always obvious what’s going on behind closed doors
The Handmaid Tale’s series feels eerily familiar to people where I live. The series costume designer, Ane Crabtree, sought inspiration from real-life “religious and cult groups”. Her main source of inspiration? A cult called Gloriavale in the South Island of New Zealand.
“They have a very old-world culture, much like Gilead, where women are baking bread and children are dressed quite close to the women of the group,” she told The Muse.
Gloriavale is currently in a long court battle and the community’s secrets are finally being exposed.
The small town rumor mill
We’d moved to the West Coast of New Zealand for my (now ex) husband’s new head teacher position. Within a few months, he was assigned a student teacher who would spend a couple of months learning from him.
To our surprise, the student was a young woman from Gloriavale, the conservative Christian community set up in the countryside about an hour’s drive from town.
They all wear the same blue throat-to-ankle dresses, have arranged marriages, unusual names like Dove and Purity, and large families with 10 or more children.
It was years before The Handmaid’s Tale series, but there was a lot of curiosity and talk around our town about Gloriavale — they all wear the same blue throat-to-ankle dresses, have arranged marriages, unusual names like Dove and Purity, and large families with 10 or more children.
We saw them around town, shopping and collecting supplies, but they very rarely socialized with anyone outside their own community.
Occasionally, someone would leave and spark more rumors.
It was hard to know what was true.
The cult next door
Most people in my town already thought Gloriavale was a cult — that’s not a surprise to anyone —the strange costumes are a big clue, but it didn’t seem too bad.
They’d had a few serious problems in the past: the founder, Hopeful Christian, went to prison for almost a year for sexual abuse in 1995, but it seemed like the community had learnt from it and made changes. For one, there was a team of leaders in place rather than a single charismatic head.
They occasionally mixed with the general community, putting on elaborate dinner shows every two years and allowing people to visit.
Before we went to stay in the community, our friends told us things like, “They share everything. They don’t even have their own shoes.” But none of them had actually talked to anyone from Gloriavale, so we were skeptical. We knew how easy it was to spread gossip in small towns.
An opportunity to see behind closed doors
After the first student left, a second Gloriavale student was assigned to my husband’s preschool. Both of them were friendly, bright young women and very capable teachers.
As Christians ourselves, we got along well with them. When the opportunity came up for us to spend the weekend at their community with our two young children, we jumped on it.
We wanted to make our own judgments rather than listen to the gossip.
The morning arrived and I tugged at my borrowed ankle-length black skirt, wondering if it was modest enough. It was a little tight fitting, but I didn’t even own a long skirt or dress, let alone a blue one like the Gloriavale women wore, so my friend’s one would have to do.
We’d been asked to wear appropriate clothing. I packed a couple of loose-fitting tops, but wasn’t quite sure what to do with my long curly blonde hair. It’s not exactly subtle. The Gloriavale women all wear headscarves as a sign of submission to their husband or father. I wasn’t keen to go that far. In the end I tied it back in a low ponytail and hoped it was enough.
I wanted them to feel comfortable, and that we were being respectful of their culture. I’ve done the same in other countries, so it wasn’t a big deal.
A censored version of normal
When we arrived, our student friends welcomed us and introduced us to their babies and husbands. Then one of them took us on a tour of the creche, kindergarten, and primary school. We spent a few hours talking to the various teachers and playing with the children (constantly keeping a close eye on our own).
The kindergarten was exactly like any other, but with stunning murals on the walls–scenes of the lake, forests, and animals, painted by local Gloriavale artists. One of the kids asked me to read to them and handed over a bible story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den.
As I read Daniel in the Lion’s Den, I noticed several blanked out words. Why would a bible story need censorship?
I knew Gloriavale censored their media. They’d told us about movie night and how editors sliced out anything about divorce, affairs, or children disrespecting their parents.
“Some movies are lovely romantic movies if you just cut out the beginning!” they explained.
But as I read Daniel in the Lion’s Den, I noticed several blanked out words. Why would a bible story need censorship? I didn’t think it was polite to ask, but it was my first hint things were more tightly controlled than I’d expected.
Like 80s church camp, only blue
After our school tour, we were invited to visit the industrial-sized kitchen. Dozens of women worked quietly and efficiently inside, making everything from bread to homemade butter.
I found myself shushing my own girls to match the quiet atmosphere.
“The teenage boys run the smaller community farm and bring us fresh milk every morning straight after milking,” an older woman explained softly, offering us a glass of warm creamy milk from a large bucket on the bench and an inch-thick slice of homemade bread spread with butter.
After dinner, our hosts led us up to the second floor of one of the community’s large white hostels.
Everything we’d encountered so far reminded me of church camp in the 80s with that back-to-basics feel, except for all the blue uniforms.
Extended families, with aunties, uncles, and grandparents all live next to each other on the same floor. Like on a family camp, parents and children share the same small space — often just two rooms, packed with bunkbeds for the children and a double-bed for the adults — there’s not a lot of privacy.
We were shown to a spare room set aside for guests on the floor where Hopeful Christian and his family lived.
Meeting the charismatic leader
Hopeful Christian addressed the topic of his year in prison very early on with us, downplaying and explaining it away as you might expect. My husband and I were both very wary of Hopeful and had heard a lot about him, but we were guests so we knew he’d want to interact and convince us to join.
There’s a solid hierarchy in Gloriavale, with women at the bottom.
He did almost all of the talking and only looked at my husband. I wasn’t expecting anything different. There’s a solid hierarchy in Gloriavale with women at the bottom, but I could tell why people followed this man. He had a powerful charisma and was clearly loved by his family.
Although, it was easy to imagine him being equally powerful if someone stepped out of line.
“You can’t be a Christian and live outside of a community,” he told my husband. “Eventually, you will struggle and fall away. It doesn’t have to be our community. There are a few others that are good. But you need to make yourself separate from the world to follow God well.”
My husband, normally a loud, charismatic, talkative man himself, nodded and listened, more out of silent curiosity than agreement.
Cults always have a charismatic leader at the top and it’s interesting now that Hopeful has passed away, the court cases have started.
Falling for the illusion of calm
While my husband talked with the community’s leaders, I spent time with some of the women and watched my two girls play in the communal living area — a large open-plan space surrounded by the family’s individual sleeping rooms. I could feel how the close family support and lack of financial stress would be a huge relief for women raising their babies.
Far away from my own family, I often struggled at home alone raising two young children on our single income. Surely, these women — surrounded all day by their sisters, aunties, and parents — would never feel lonely like I did at times.
The whole weekend we were there, no-one ever raised their voice. Children were calmly guided, and I never saw any tantrums.
The whole weekend we were there, no-one ever raised their voice. Children were calmly guided, and I never saw any tantrums.
Husbands and wives walked hand in hand and there was a lovely gentleness about the way people dealt with each other. I could see why you’d want to live in a community.
“We were there for the entire weekend. You can’t make a community of 500 fake it for that long,” I argued to a friend after our visit. “It seems like a really peaceful place to live.”
I wasn’t going to join — with its strict rules and beliefs about the outside world, it was clearly still a cult — but after spending a few days there, I could certainly see the attraction.
The side we didn’t see
Now, several years later, ongoing court cases and leavers speaking out in the media and a documentary which screened in movie theatres nationwide, have revealed more about the hidden side of Gloriavale.
It’s the side we never saw in our visit — from forced labour to harsh physical punishment, harmful fear-based control and sexual abuse.
There’s a fierce debate in court between leavers and those still living in Gloriavale, but even the leaders admit change needs to happen.
With fear and gaslighting, any of us can be made to fake it, even when there’s far more going on behind closed doors.
The quiet atmosphere I enjoyed wasn’t as much self-control as a sign of oppressive control from leadership.
The gentleness wasn’t an innate character trait, but years of training to be sweet, submissive, and obedient.
With fear and gaslighting, any of us can be made to fake it, even when there’s far more going on behind closed doors.
There’s still a human rights case to be heard against Gloriavale and far more to be discussed. Any kind of resolution is most likely years away.
I’ve met many amazing people living in Gloriavale, as well as others who have left. They’re incredibly worried and sad for their family and friends still in Gloriavale. I hope, one day, their homes will be truly peaceful and safe — the way we all deserve home to be.
Update: In the Gloriavale women’s court case in 2023, testimony was shared that “they were exploited and treated like slaves while working up to 90 hour weeks on the community’s domestic teams, preparing food, cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry.” Both the men’s and women’s court cases so far have found Gloriavale adults to be employees, rather than volunteers.
A version of this story was originally published in Mamamia.
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