{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Next Level Healing","title":"Surviving a Deadly Cult: Growing Up Without Medical Care, Losing a Brother, and Finding Healing | Michael Rix","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3142,"description":"Michael Rix didn't choose music — music chose him. Growing up in Faith Assembly, a cult in rural Indiana that forbade medical treatment, secular music, and nearly any form of outside connection, Michael found his escape in a homemade guitar string stretched across a punishment paddle. Today, he's an eight-instrument musician with over 24 million streams, a residency in Nashville, and a Grand Ole Opry performance to his name. His memoir, From Cult to Country: An Asthmatic's Journey to Find More Air, tells the full story — including watching his infant brother die of untreated meningitis, surviving years of stress-induced asthma without medical care, and the long road to healing that followed.\nIn this episode, Dr. Tara Perry sits down with Michael for a raw and remarkable conversation about what it costs to grow up without permission to be human, how trauma lives in the body long after the circumstances change, and why telling the truth about your story is one of the most powerful things you can do.\nKey Takeaways:When you're in a cult, you don't know you're in a cult (00:00:35) — Michael describes watching his father transform from a joyful, basketball-playing man into someone cold and controlled — and how noticing that contrast was one of his earliest signs that something was deeply wrong. The teachings of Hobart Freeman's Faith Assembly came in slowly, then all at once.A medical doctor who walked away from medicine (00:02:46) — Michael's father completed his residency as a heart surgeon, then quit the profession after a sermon convinced him that modern medicine was equivalent to witchcraft. Michael unpacks the twisted theology behind it — and what it cost their family when that belief was applied to their children's health.Over 300 deaths, all from treatable conditions (00:07:24) — Faith Assembly members died from dental infections, childhood illnesses, and ailments that penicillin would have resolved. Michael describes the congregation, the prosecutions that...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/9xMz9HpJXGH4dd0ntTlc530OzNpo0NJVZfIGz8mWb5I/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS82ODgz/MjQ0ZTkwMTEzY2Ri/NjlkZjYyZjEyODEy/ZjU0NC5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}