Three-part series will delve into the extremely online fringe spiritual sect founded by the late Amy “Mother God” Carlson
The eerie, extremely-online world of the the cult Love Has Won, and its founder Amy “Mother God” Carlson, are getting the full HBO docuseries treatment.
The new trailer for Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God starts at the only place to start with the Carlson/Love Has Won story: bodycam footage of police officers entering a house and learning, “Mother is in rest. She has rested.” There’s not much footage after that, just an officer walking towards a room filled with glowing, multicolored lights, which can only mean one thing: The cops are about to discover Carlson’s enshrined, mummified corpse.
The rest of the trailer doesn’t focus so much on Carlson’s surreal, uncanny death, but rather how a former McDonald’s manager and mother of three used the internet to build a fringe sect steeped in New Age spiritualism, conspiracy theories, and supernatural vibes (all of it bolstered by a lucrative business selling supposed health and wellness products). The clip features interviews with an array of former Love Has Won members — and still dedicated devotees — as well as Jason Castillo, who became Carlson’s last “Father God” partner.
The first episode of Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God will premiere Nov. 13, with parts two and three airing Nov. 20 and Nov. 27, respectively. The series includes footage from Love Has Won’s 2,700 live streams, plus additional interviews with Carlson’s mother, sister, and children. The docuseries was directed by Hannah Olson.
In December 2021, a coroners report revealed that Carlson died from a combination of “alcohol abuse, anorexia, and chronic colloidal silver ingestion.” (Colloidal silver was one of the “healing elixirs” regularly hocked by Love Has Won.) As Rolling Stone reported in an extensive Love Has won feature back in 2021, Castillo and six other Love Has Won members were criminally charged with abuse of a corpse and child abuse; those charges were eventually dropped.
