Actress and screenwriter Guinevere Turner, 57, known for her work on the film American Psycho and other movies such as Go Fish and Preaching to the Perverted, recently revealed her biggest secret—the nightmare she grew up in during her childhood: a dangerous cult.
The actress was born into the Lyman Family after her pregnant mother willingly joined the commune at age nineteen. In 1966, musician Mel Lyman, who was part of the Jim Jug Kweskin Band, founded and led the group, also known as the Fort Hill Community, in the Fort Hill section of a Boston neighborhood.
Like many cult leaders, Mel was charming, charismatic, and highly manipulative, seeing himself as the most important person on Earth, “the living embodiment of truth,” a world savior, a divine being in human form. In one of his writings titled “The Statement of Creation,” he claimed: “I’m going to reduce everything that stands to ruins and then I’m going to burn the ruins and then I’m going to scatter the ashes and then maybe someone will be able to see something as it really is—beware.”
By 1968, when Turner was born, the cult family consisted of 100 adults and sixty children. They took LSD and smoked marijuana, many of their beliefs revolved around astrology, and they had faith in a cosmic messiah. Although they shared some “hippie” approaches, the commune’s values were very traditional—women dressed conservatively and kept modest hairstyles. Mel’s followers aimed to create an environment where he could make art and music.
Like all cult leaders, Mel also had multiple sexual partners among the cult women. Couples in the commune were not given private time together, mothers lived apart from their children, and women were expected to serve men and Mel and obediently carry out household chores.
The cult was so extreme that it required at least one parent to be a member for children to remain, which is what happened when the actress was forced to leave the cult at age 11 after her mother left. In a personal essay for The New Yorker in 2019, the star described not knowing her mother well because they were often in separate locations, of which there were five—Kansas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Martha’s Vineyard.
One of the hardest aspects was the forced marriages of young girls. Guinevere recalled 13- or 14-year-old girls being “chosen” by older male family members for “marriage,” although there was no official ceremony.
She told of one thirteen-year-old girl who lived right next to cult leader Mel’s room and wrote: “It was known that she belonged to Mel, and no one else was allowed to have her or even think about having her, for the rest of her life. When we were alone, she would cry and say she didn’t want to have sex with Lyman but knew she would have to soon. She was already sleeping in his bed. If I had stayed a little longer, I probably would have been chosen by a man too.”
Mel’s followers aimed to create a suitable atmosphere for their leader to create art and music. The place was filled with a bullying atmosphere, many carried weapons, and they tried to produce the perfect environment for Mel—mainly because he claimed true creativity only came to those who were “real” or “awake.”
To “awaken” his followers, he created an environment of intense pain and fear, meaning they were often subjected to brutal discipline. Mel believed fear and cowardice kept people “asleep” and could even kill them. This was done under the reasoning that cults offer their seekers life structure, solidarity, and a form of hope.
The punishments inflicted on children were especially severe. Turner remembered the harsh penalties imposed on her and others, including violence and beatings in front of others, being locked in a closet all day, and going entire days without food. She was once punished for looking at someone “with a scorpion soul in her eyes.” Yes, a scorpion soul in the eyes was forbidden because the cult had a tendency toward astrology. Additionally, Ouija boards were a regular part of life in the commune, although children were allowed to communicate with only one spirit, “Phaedra,” who told Turner she was “a lazy girl.”
This cult is less well-known than the Manson Family, likely because the Lyman group never murdered anyone, but they still shared commonalities. Mel’s followers were desperately devoted to him, and their main goal was to create the ideal setting for Mel to be creative. The actress wrote: “It’s true, Lyman never ordered his followers to kill anyone, like Charles Manson did. But if Lyman had asked, I’m pretty sure they would have complied.”
One of the most dramatic moments came when Mel convinced his followers they were destined to live on Venus, and when the world would end on January 5, 1974, as the cult predicted, they would be taken to the planet. “As the day approached, we children were told to wear our favorite clothes and choose one toy to take on the journey,” Turner recalled. “We sat in the living room all night and listened to the buzzing of the flying saucers.”
When the prophecy failed, the cult’s faith in Mel was not shaken. He convinced his followers that the spacecraft didn’t arrive because “their souls weren’t ready.” “We didn’t do the work on ourselves that we needed to, and we ruined things for Mel, whose soul was exactly where it needed to be,” the actress said.
The result was a harsh punishment: “[After the Venus trip failed] we children were not allowed to speak for the foreseeable future. We passed notes, whispered to each other when we were sure no adult was in earshot. Meals were silent. It was a bad and uncertain time.”
Drug use was common in the commune. According to Paul Williams, a member of the Lyman cult interviewed in the early 1970s, Mel frequently drugged family members, giving them large doses of LSD or LSA, a similar compound found in morning glory seeds. Paul, who had to flee in secret after being told he wasn’t allowed to leave, said: “Everyone got high. Mel just made them swallow the seeds, not soak them or anything like we were supposed to. And all these people fell on their faces and bled and collapsed in the bathroom and later talked about how great it was.”
Medical care was almost non-existent and people were often neglected. Turner recalled how doctors were only called for serious emergencies. She said: “Only under the most dire circumstances were medical professionals called—cut fingers while we kids were chopping wood, or people who were burned by boiling water.”
Despite all the hardships, Guinevere insists that her time with the Lyman Family wasn’t all bad, as it offered community and companionship. Turner, who had to leave the commune at age 11 after her mother left, remembered some wonderful moments. The children played together, told stories, wrote plays, and slept in piles of three or four on one bed. They had a children’s house, with only a few adults supervising them, where they had all their meals, and she and the other kids would sing together for hours, gazing at the stars. Guinevere wrote: “There will always be people searching for what cults offer—structure, solidarity, a kind of hope.”
The mysterious end of Mel Lyman casts a shadow over the entire story. In the mid-1980s, community members claimed their leader Mel Lyman died in 1978 at age 40 but never showed a death certificate. There are no details about the leader’s death and it is unknown what happened to his body. Author Ryan Walsh, who researched the group, noted that there was never a legal investigation into Lyman’s alleged death. A former cult member, speaking anonymously, told Walsh that Lyman “intentionally overdosed on drugs in Los Angeles, California, sometime in 1978” after struggling with a long illness.