Amanda Rae and Joe Robinson, former members of a Mormon cult known as The Kingston Group or the Order, have shared details of their experience as part of the community, including the disturbing incestuous practices that took place within the group.
During a live stream titled “A product of incest,” Robinson revealed to host Rae that his parents were half-siblings, and he had to undergo a blood test when he was ten years old to know which extended family member he could marry in the future.
Privately known as the Order, the Kingston Group is a polygamist cult that operates in Salt Lake City, Utah, despite the ban of this practice by the Mormon Church in 1890.
Its leader, Paul Elden Kingston, lives by an extrapolation of the Book of Mormon called the White Horse Prophecy, which predicts a cataclysmic time when the “black race” will rise up and attempt to destroy the white man.
Amanda Rae and Joe Robinson, two former members of the Kingston Group, have opened up about their time in the cult
Image credits: Amanda Rae
According to Kingston, members of the Order are responsible for building a master race. This is why marriages are arranged within the original four families that started the cult.
Robinson’s father had 157 children with 14 wives, he revealed on the YouTube video.
Everyone in his family took blood tests so that members of the church could see who their future spouse would be.
“I was at my mom’s house. Everyone lined up, got their blood tested, and then left,” he said. “[We were] like, ‘Why are you doing this?’ [They said], ‘So we can see who you can marry.’ They were just open about it.”
Rae also recalled seeing her friends undergoing blood tests. “I remember growing up in the Order, finding out that my friends were all getting tested, and I was like, ‘There’s something going on, you guys,'” she said.
Also known as the Order, the Kingston Group is a polygamist and incestuous clan in Salt Lake City
Image credits: Mormon Stories Podcast
Whenever he questioned his family’s decisions, Robinson’s doubts were immediately shut down by his father. “My dad would [hear] rumors that we think it’s weird. But then he set up a meeting, [and he’d say], ‘This is always going to happen, you guys need to stop making fun of it.'”
He continued: “You know, he’s standing up for himself because he married a sibling. My mom has two other sisters, who he also married. They were all of the same family.”
The 28-year-old YouTube host had a similar experience. Opposing the cult’s actions wasn’t an option unless she wanted to be excluded from her community.
“Because my dad was doing it, the leader was doing it…Are you really going to question the leadership, and then you have this bad stamp on your name?” she explained.
Joe Robinson, whose parents were half-siblings, explained that members of the cult took blood tests to know which extended family members they could marry
Image credits: Amanda Rae
Growing up, he sometimes found himself having a crush on a family member. “There was one crush I had in the Order. Of course, it was my cousin,” he revealed.
Rae left the Order in 2013. She was her father Paul’s first child to do so. Meanwhile, Robinson was kicked out of the cult at the age of 20 for complaining about the lack of treatment for his mother’s cancer.
Members of the clan often avoid hospitals, as they fear that government-backed doctors may demand birth controls exposing their incestuous relationships or inject them with a disease.
Robinson’s mother passed away shortly after he broke off from the Order.
Watch the full live stream below
During the live stream, Rae also addressed whether she witnessed cases of congenital disabilities in children born of incest.
“I saw kids were born with missing ears and things like that, but it was kind of rare to really see [more severe cases],” she said, adding that the blood tests were the reason why it was uncommon for members of the Order to have health issues.
Babies born of incest are at increased risk of suffering congenital disabilities, developmental delays, and genetic disorders, such as blindness, hearing loss, neonatal diabetes, and limb malformations.
In September 2022, ten members of the Kingston Group denounced the cult in a court of law, citing forced incestuous relationships, indoctrination, subjection to physical abuse, child labor, slave-like working conditions, and schemes to defraud the State.
One of the victims, Blaklyn, was 16 years old when she was forced to marry her cousin, Travis, in 2020, and she immediately became pregnant afterward. The marriage had been arranged so that Blaklyn could perpetuate the “pure Kingston blood” and obey her husband, who is 11 years older than her.
The Kingston Group denied any wrongdoing.
“Break the silence. Break the cycle,” a social media user commented
