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WORK TITLE: Breakaway Amish
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1990
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE: OH
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1990; married Clara; children: Esther Jane.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and construction worker.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Johnny Mast is a writer and construction worker based in Ohio. He was raised in the Bergholz sect of the Amish community in a rural area of southeastern Ohio.
In his 2016 book Breakaway Amish: Growing Up with the Bergholz Beard Cutters, Mast collaborated with Shawn Smucker to tell the story of his unconventional upbringing and of a scandal involving members of the Bergholz Amish community. The leader of the community was Samuel Mullet. Mullet is also Mast’s grandfather. Other Amish bishops shunned Mullet, suggesting that he did not adhere to the tenets of their religion. He was said to have “gone rogue.” Mast explains that he has positive memories of his childhood. He recalls the Bergholz community as being a place full of friendly people. Members of the community helped one another. However, as Mullet gained more control over the community, Bergholz began to change. Mullet forbade members of Bergholz from reading the Bible, proclaiming that the devil was using the holy words to deceive people. He also began exacting strange and harsh punishments on men he believed had misbehaved. Mullet gave the men a choice of paying him a large fine for their sins or listing their sins in writing and sleeping outside with the farm animals. Mullet would then sleep with the wives of the men who were being punished. Later, Mullet established the practice of cutting the beards of men in the community who had sinned and shaving the heads of sinful women. Eventually, Mullet was organizing bands of men to cut off the beards of Amish men outside the Bergholz community. Mast, one of Mullet’s favorite grandchildren, was part of the beard-cutting group. He recalls feeling immense guilt and shame after cutting hair from the beard of his own father. Mast cooperated with the authorities who were investigating Mullet’s actions. With a promise of immunity, Mast testified against Mullet and more than a dozen other men from the Bergholz community. He left both the community and the Amish faith, though taking this step meant parting ways with nearly every friend and family member he had.
In an interview with Charita M. Goshay, a contributor to the CantonRep.com Web site, Mast explained why he wrote the book, stating: “There were a lot of people who wanted to know what was going on. … I figured that I would put my story out there, and they can read the truth.” Mast also explained to Goshay how the members of his community came to allow Mullet to control them. He remarked: “It happened very slowly. … Sam was a very, very persuasive person. He got people to start believing in him. He predicted what was going to happen, and some things actually did. After that, some people believed he was a prophet.” Mast told Christine L. Pratt, a writer on the Holmes County Hub Shopper Web site: “The biggest thing I want people to realize and take away from this book is we have to be very careful with leadership and following people. We’re all human. Any one of us could just as well be a leader. We all have to think for ourselves and live and do what makes us happy and not live our lives to please someone else.”
Breakaway Amish received mixed reviews. A critic in Publishers Weekly suggested: “Such a fascinating topic deserves better writing and more psychological insight than this book provides.” T.K. Barger, a reviewer for the Toledo, Ohio, Blade, commented: “Mr. Mast’s story, written with Shawn Smucker, is a fast and conversational read in which he recollects the events, framed around his testimony for the prosecution in the beard cutters’ trial, and describes how far out of the norm was his grandfather’s lust for power and manipulation of all in his community.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Blade (Toledo, Ohio), T.K. Barger, July 23, 2016, review of Breakaway Amish: Growing Up with the Bergholz Beard Cutters.
Publishers Weekly, May 9, 2016, review of Breakaway Amish, p. 63.
ONLINE
CantonRep.com (Canton, Ohio), http://www.cantonrep.com/ (July 30, 2016), Charita M. Goshay, author interview.
Cleveland Plain Dealer Online (Cleveland, Ohio), http://www.cleveland.com/ (September 7, 2012), James F. McCarty, article mentioning author.
Holmes County Hub Shopper (Millersburg, Ohio), http://www.holmescountyshopper.com/ (October 22, 2016), Christine L. Pratt, author interview.
Lancaster Online, http://lancasteronline.com/ (September 26, 2016), Jon Rutter, author interview.
MennoBytes, http://mennobytes.com/ (July 6, 2016), Melodie Davis, author interview.
MennoMedia, http://store.mennomedia.org/ (February 25, 2017), author profile.
LC control no.: n 2016016453
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Mast, Johnny, 1990-
Birth date: 1990
Found in: Breakaway amish, 2016: ECIP t.p. (Johnny Mast) data view
screen (b. 1990; grew up in the Bergholz Amish community
in southern Ohio, known for its beard-cutting attacks on
other Amish people)
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Johnny Mast grew up in the Bergholz Amish community in southern Ohio, known for its beard-cutting attacks on other Amish people. He is the grandson of Bergholz bishop Sam Mullet, and served as his grandfather’s right-hand support for his farm and businesses. Mast left Bergholz several years ago and now works on a construction crew. He and his wife, Clara, have one young daughter and live in Ohio.
Amish defendant lured wary parents to his home, then sheared his father's beard, chopped his hair
James F. McCarty, The Plain Dealer By James F. McCarty, The Plain Dealer
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on September 07, 2012 at 12:19 PM, updated September 08, 2012 at 4:08 AM
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Photo courtesy of U.S. Attorney's OfficeMelvin Shrock protested after his son Emanuel chopped his hair and sheared his beard, and was humiliated after his grandson snapped his picture Nov. 9.
CLEVELAND, Ohio — In a frail voice, 66-year-old Anna Shrock recalled Friday how one of her adult sons lured her and her husband to the Old Order Amish settlement of Bergholz, 100 miles southeast of Cleveland, and then forcibly sheared her husband’s beard and hair.
Shrock, testifying at the hate-crime trial of Amish bishop Samuel Mullet and 15 of his followers, said she let out a scream as her son, Emanuel, and two of her grandsons carried out the attack. Emanuel’s wife, she said, silenced her by clapping a hand over her mouth.
The testimony from Shrock in U.S. District Court closed the second week of a trial that has attracted national attention by offering a rare glimpse into Ohio’s typically reclusive Amish community and because of the peculiar nature of the alleged crimes.
Federal prosecutors, employing newly enhanced powers to combat hate crimes, have accused 15 of Mullet’s followers of cutting the beards and hair of perceived enemies in neighboring Amish communities.
Mullet is accused of orchestrating the attacks, though he did not participate in them.
Previous Plain Dealer coverage
Rival Amish bishop testifies he feared 'cultlike' activities of Sam Mullet's clan (Sept. 6)
Prosecution begins 2nd week in pursuit of Samuel Mullet Sr. hate-crimes conviction (Sept. 5)
Sam Mullet's daughter-in-law describes seduction by bishop of Amish beard-cutters (Aug. 31)
Amish beard-cutting trial attracts international attention (Aug. 27)
Prosecutors say jury should hear Amish leader's sexual activities with his followers (Aug. 17)
Lawyers clash over Amish shearings case as trial looms Aug. 27 (Aug. 14)
Members of fringe Amish group request word 'cult' be banned from hate-crime trial (Aug. 13)
Trumbull County minister supporting Amish beard-cutting suspects accuses U.S. marshals of intimidation (June 1)
Amish beard-cutting suspect loses bid for release from jail (May 23)
Ex-clergyman familiar with Amish community has online petition seeking release of Sam Mullet from prison (May 17)
Amish beard-cutting defendant has taxpayer-subsidized lawyer despite millions in the bank, prosecutors say (April 27)
Samuel Mullet Sr., 15 followers appear in court to face new charges of Amish beard-cutting (April 19)
Lawyers for Amish in beard cutting case say hate crimes law unconstitutional (March 12)
Prosecutors make new allegations against 12 Ohio Amish in connection with beard cutting (Dec. 21, 2011)
Amish son cuts father's beard in new incident related to breakaway group (Nov. 11)
Beard-cutting attacks bring national attention to Ohio's Amish (Oct. 16
If convicted, Mullet and several of his followers could receive life prison terms.
Anna Shrock told jurors Friday that Emanuel, one of the defendants in the case, had attacked her husband last November after the two men argued about the ways of Mullet.
She said she and her husband had moved to Knox County in 2006, after they had been excommunicated from Mullet’s Bergholtz community. But Emanuel, and his family, remained in Bergholtz and loyal to Mullet.
Melvin Shrock died two months after the November attack of an unrelated kidney disease.
Earlier Friday, Mullet’s 22-year-old grandson, Johnny Mast, reluctantly described for jurors beard-cutting attacks on two Amish bishops in Holmes County last October.
Prosecutors compelled Mast to testify, but promised he will not be prosecuted for his participation in the raids, and for hiding a disposable camera used to document the humiliating hair-cuttings.
Mast said he remained outside in a horse trailer during the attacks, but heard what was happening.
"It sounded like a mad bull," Mast said.
Several of the beard-cutters were arrested a few days later. Holmes County sheriff’s deputies recorded telephone calls during which defendant Levi Miller and Sam Mullet discussed the case.
Mast helped translate to English the recordings, which are mostly in Pennsylvania Dutch, the primary language of the Amish.
During the conversation, Miller lamented that prosecutors were attempting to charge him and his fellow defendants with religious discrimination crimes.
"All we did was take a little bit of hair," Miller protested, according to a transcript of the recording. "Had we known it was going to go this way we would of got somebody else and stayed out all night cutting hair."
Miller said he suspected that rival Amish communities were in league with non-Amish law enforcement officers to destroy Mullet’s Bergholz community.
"They’re determined to tear Bergholz apart," Miller said in the recorded call to Mullet. "Not if I can help it, they won’t."
The case is the first in Ohio to apply a landmark 2009 federal law that expanded government powers to prosecute hate crimes. To obtain convictions, federal prosecutors must establish that the cutting of beard and head hair constitutes bodily harm, and that the attacks were religiously motivated.
Defense attorneys have denied that religion was behind the beard-cuttings, or that Sam Mullet played any part in the attacks.
QUOTED: "There were a lot of people who wanted to know what was going on. ... I figured that I would I put my story out there, and they can read the truth."
"It happened very slowly. ... Sam was a very, very persuasive person. He got people to start believing in him. He predicted what was going to happen, and some things actually did. After that, some people believed he was a prophet."
Grandson details life in Ohio 'beard-cutting' sect
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Posted Jul 30, 2016 at 10:00 AM
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By Charita M. Goshay
Repository staff writer
Johnny Mast's parents have not seen their first-born grandchild, nor do they ever intend to see her. They are devout acolytes of Bishop Sam Mullet, the ultra-conservative Amish church leader imprisoned for hate crimes against other Amish.
Mast's parents refuse to have any contact with him because he left their community and their faith.
Mast, 26, shares his life as a grandson of Mullet in his new book, "Break Away Amish: Growing Up With The Bergholz Beard Cutters."
"There were a lot of people who wanted to know what was going on," he said of the book. "I figured that I would I put my story out there, and they can read the truth."
In 2012, Mullet, his three sons, a daughter, and 11 of his followers were convicted in federal court of hate crime charges. Those involved the kidnapping, assault, and forcible shavings of beards of Amish men and the hair of Amish women whom he believed opposed him.
Bergholz, located in Jefferson County just east of Carroll County, is a village of about 600 residents, about 300 of whom are Amish.
In his book, Mast details how Mullet kept an iron grip on his followers and grew increasingly radical in his beliefs and in his treatment of those he determined were "sinners."
"It happened very slowly," Mast said. "Sam was a very, very persuasive person. He got people to start believing in him. He predicted what was going to happen, and some things actually did. After that, some people believed he was a prophet."
Beards: A sacred identifier
Mullet's punishments for sinners and doubters, Mast alleges, ranged from forced labor, beatings, bread-and-water diets, sleeping in barns and chicken coops, and finally cutting the beards and hair of those deemed by the bishop to be rebellious.
"I wouldn't have put up with that, but it never happened to me," Mast said. "It was no longer about serving God and doing right. It was all about control."
Mullet's followers took pictures of the attacks using disposable cameras, further infringing upon the victims' religious rights. Among Mullet's many victims was his own sister.
Mast, who was tasked with hiding the disposable cameras, testified against Mullet in court.
Beards are a sacred, central identifier for married Amish men. The tradition began when Jakob Ammann broke from the Anabaptist church in the Alsace region of Switzerland, in the 1790s, over his belief that it was becoming increasing secular. Followers of the new faith originally were called "Ammann-ish" and distinguished themselves from other men of the period by not growing a mustache, which they considered a vanity.
Amish women do not cut their hair but do keep it tucked under bonnets. To this day, the Amish eschew many modern conveniences including electricity, store-bought clothing, bright colors and motorized equipment. In addition to English, they speak Swiss-German or "Pennsylvania" Dutch, depending on the region in which they live.
Mast contends that his grandfather impregnated a niece by marriage, and seduced other women, including his own daughter-in-law, under the guise of counseling them.
As such incidents found their way to the outside, the Bergholz Amish found themselves isolated from their Amish neighbors, which made it easier for Mullett to exert control.
"In a normal Amish community, they have a means for removing a bishop," Mast explained. "(Other bishops) tried to step in and take control, but they couldn't."
Mast writes that when he was 17, Mullett ordered him to move into his home, which meant that any money Mast made from working in construction went to his grandfather, and not his parents, as is Amish tradition.
Mast said at one point, Mullet ordered his group to stop attending church and reading the Bible amid claims that Satan was twisting the Scriptures.
"Still in control"
Mullet, who could have received life in prison, is serving at least 10 years. Subsequent appeals for leniency have been rejected by the courts.
"He's still in control and has been the entire time," Mast said. "He makes at least 15 calls every day and writes letters" of instruction.
Several ministers under Mullet have been released from prison, including his nephew and niece-in-law.
"The last I heard from one of my cousins still living there is that both of them are in living in Sam's house," Mast said. "(Mullet's) instructed women he was sleeping with, to choose seven men to be in control."
Today, Mast lives with his girlfriend and baby in Middlefield, where he works as a full-time farrier.
He no longer attends church.
"For me, it's not about going to church," he said. "I still believe in God; I try to treat other people as I'd want to be treated."
Mast said he doesn't know if his parents are aware of his book.
"The biggest thing I want people to realize and learn is you have to be careful about listening to what someone tells you," he said. "You have to make up your own mind and live your own life."
Mast said that, in his opinion, Mullet's sect is a cult.
"At first, when it happened, I was still living there," Mast said. "I thought (the prison sentence) was pretty harsh. But after being away for three years and looking it from the other side, I think it fit. I think he got what he deserved.
"But as far as I know, he still doesn't think he did anything wrong."
New book tells insider story of Amish beard cutters
Posted on July 6, 2016 by Melodie Davis
BreakawayAmish_CMYK July 6, 2016
New book tells insider story of Amish beard cutters
Power, isolation, and manipulation were tools of cult-like leader Sam Mullet
HARRISONBURG, Va., and KITCHENER, Ont.—The strange case of the Amish beard cutters five years ago thrust a normally quiet community into the national spotlight. The bizarre attacks seemed so out of character for a Christian community whose traditions emphasize nonviolence and forgiveness.
JohnnyMast
Johnny Mast
Now, as the fifth anniversary of those attacks approaches, a new book tells the inside story: Breakaway Amish: Growing Up with the Bergholz Beard Cutters by Johnny Mast (written with Shawn Smucker, Herald Press, $15.99 paper). Mast is the grandson of Bishop Sam Mullet, who led the attacks—and who pressured his grandson to participate by cutting his own father’s beard.
The Bergholz Amish community where Johnny Mast grew up in southern Ohio became increasingly isolated from other Amish people as his grandfather Sam Mullet exerted cult-like control, ordering abusive attacks of beard and hair cutting and other punishments, including forcing men to live in chicken coops. Some of the wives of those men moved in with Sam Mullet, who sexually abused them. “Somehow I’m getting a lot of power by committing these sins,” Mullet told Mast after Mast learned of his grandfather’s activities. “I know it’s wrong, but I’m getting a lot of power.”
Members became convinced that cutting their own hair was a sign of repentance and remorse—“a cleansing humiliation and a fresh start,” Mast says. But when that conviction drove them to forcibly cut off the beards of Amish people outside their community, it was more than a strange religious ritual. It was a crime.
Recalling the disturbing events, Mast writes: “I saw images I’d rather forget: Holding my own father’s hair in my hands and cutting off pieces with a scissors. Watching six or seven men wander down toward Sam’s barn, chunks of their hair shaved off, their beards cut straight across with sharp scissors. I remember seeing those disheveled men, skinny from not having eaten, their weird hair and their hats that no longer fit quite right, and thinking they looked like demons.”
The Bergholz community was founded by Sam Mullet and attracted families who preferred the strict Amish way of life practiced there—no indoor plumbing, no tractors, no cars, no radio or television, no cell phones. Life was peaceful until Mullet began using violence and intimidation, along with strange punishments, to control the community. A teenager at the time, Mast lived and worked on his grandfather’s farm. In hindsight, he writes, “What I didn’t realize was how Sam operated: he used knowledge and emotions and sometimes lies to drive a wedge between people. Isolated people, it turns out, are very easy to control.”
Mast asks, “Why would a bunch of grown men allow another man to treat them that way? I can’t say for sure, but I think that for most of us, Bergholz was all we had. Every friend we had in the world lived there, every family member. Sam held the key to all of that.”
He adds, “I think most people stayed in Bergholz because they honestly believed that if they left, they would go to hell when they died.”
Mast’s story is one of redemption and courage. At age 22, he testified against his grandfather and 15 other defendants, many of them his aunts and uncles. They were all found guilty and are serving sentences for their crimes of up to 15 years. Mast left the community—the only world he knew.
Mast reports that Bergholz is still controlled by Sam Mullet, from his prison cell. Mast’s parents remain there, even though Mast’s father was a beard-cutting victim. When Mast left the community, his mother begged him to stay and “try to do everything Sam tells you to do.” His parents have refused to meet his family, Clara and young daughter, Esther Jane. “It would be nice to see my dad again, to be able to have a regular conversation,” Mast says. “But what happened in Bergholz ruined that.”
It did not ruin Mast’s belief in God, however, though he lost interest in belonging to a church. But since the birth of his daughter, Mast is interested in seeking out a new church home at some point. “Everything that happened led me here: to Clara and Esther Jane and a new life,” he writes. “I don’t live with regret. Actually, I have a lot of hope these days. I think it’s going to be a good life.”
Donald B. Kraybill, author of Renegade Amish, writes in the foreword: “Breakaway Amish is a story of human tragedy. It chronicles what happens when men, in the name of God, abuse positions of power to exploit, harm, and denigrate others. It’s an important, cautionary tale, and the rest of us would do well to listen carefully.”
Tom Shachtman, author of Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish, says of the book, “Seldom do outsiders get such a revealing glimpse of what happens to an isolated group when, as Johnny Mast writes, ‘You learn to ignore the voices in your head that were telling you, This isn’t right. None of this is right.’ An eyewitness account of a leader’s twisted descent into mental hell and of the havoc it can cause among people who only seek to be devout and faithful.”
Mast, 26, works on a construction crew. He and Clara and their daughter live in Ohio.
ShawnSmucker2
Shawn Smucker
Shawn Smucker is the author or coauthor of seven books. He and his wife, Maile, and their children live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
QUOTED: "The biggest thing I want people to realize and take away from this book is we have to be very careful with leadership and following people. We're all human. Any one of us could just as well be a leader. We all have to think for ourselves and live and do what makes us happy and not live our lives to please someone else."
Mullet grandson shares story: details a cult, the Bergholz community and Amish beard cutting
Book details Bergholz community and Amish beard cutting
By CHRISTINE L. PRATT Staff Writer Published: October 22, 2016 5:00 AM
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1 of 3 Photos | Breakaway Amish author Johnny Mast (seated) met with readers and signed copies of his book during a summer event at Gospel Bookstore in Berlin. Mastis the grandson of Sam Mullet, who was convicted of leading a group of followers who ventured out of their Bergholz, Ohio, community to attack and cut the hair and beards of Amish men and women, some of whom resided in Holmes County. He returns for another book signing event there on Nov. 12. (Submitted photo)
MILLERSBURG -- While the rest of the world sat captivated as a group of men and women, along with their leader, were charged with federal hate crimes for viciously cutting the hair and beards of Amish men and women, Johnny Mast was inside looking out of what he now realizes was a cult.
"Breakaway Amish: Growing Up with the Bergholz Beard Cutters" recently was released and now is available for purchase at Gospel Bookstore in Berlin.
He appeared for a book signing at the store over the summer and will return again, along with some 40 other authors, on Nov. 12, 9 a.m.-noon. He also is scheduled to be at 29th Annual Buckeye Book Fair, to be held Nov. 5, 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m., at Fisher Auditorium, on the campus of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center.
Mast, the grandson of ringleader Sam Mullet said he wrote the book in an attempt to use facts to bring clarity to a story that, because of a lack of understanding, has grown to include much speculation and rumor.
Now 26, Mast said he wrote the book because "I knew a lot of people who had people living in the community. They were all hearing a lot of stories floating around, and I wanted to put some facts out there.
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"The main thing is how it used to be a normal community and gradually went from being normal to a cult," said Mast, noting the fear of legal action prohibited him from sharing what he considers the whole story. However, he wants the public to know about Mullet and "the way he controlled people and how it got to the point where men were letting him sleep with their wives."
It was a practice, he said, he "couldn't take while I was living there," but one he was not prepared to speak out against until he'd been gone for several years.
He said he believes the community started as a normal, albeit strict, Amish church. But, with the abolishment of mealtime prayers and other practices and promotion of infighting, moved away from normal. Mast said he saw the "red flags," but "didn't think I was old enough to say anything."
In retrospect, he said, he sees how the community evolved into a cult, with Mullet isolating the members from those outside and implementing activities that took members away from their religion, while building his own power.
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Mast said his grandfather bullied followers into doing his will by convincing them he was their way to heaven.
As one of Mullet's right-hand men, Mast said he now regrets some of his own actions. Following a trial in federal court, at which Mast was called to testify for the prosecution, Mast said he left Bergholz. Since 2014, he said he's had little to no contact with friends and family who have remained, although he was permitted a brief visit to view the body of his sister who was killed in a 2015 buggy accident.
Nevertheless, he said, he longs to speak with his parents and apologize to those he hurt.
Of the beard-cutting practice, implemented first within the Bergholz community, Mast said, Mullet told followers "it was a cleansing, a starting over."
Outside the community, he said, several of the attacks were targeted at bishops who reversed a shunning imposed by Mullet because "he, in some crazy imagination, thought it was going to get the other Amish to be scared of him and stay away."
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And, while Mast filled a role in the practice within the community, and attempted to hide a camera and physical evidence of the criminal activity outside the community, Mast said, he believes those who were charged and convicted "deserved to do time."
At the time, he said, he believed the 15-year sentence imposed on Mullet was "harsh," but changed his mind "after being out (of Bergholz), looking at the fact again and what people outside saw."
He said the others who were convicted offered to do Mullet's time for him because "they looked at him as a figure of Jesus and thought he was being crucified and they thought it would help their salvation if they did it. They definitely idolized Sam."
"I don't know if he will ever get out," said Mast, considering both Mullet's age and an appeal of the conviction and sentence are pending. Nevertheless, "I'm not scared of him."
He's fairly certain, if Mullet is released, he will attempt to take legal action against him, for allegations made in the book. "If he gets hold of it, he will try to have a lawsuit against me. I knew it could happen when I started this project, but I know he doesn't have a flying chance to win."
At the end of the day, Mast said, "The biggest thing I want people to realize and take away from this book is we have to be very careful with leadership and following people. We're all human. Any one of us could just as well be a leader. We all have to think for ourselves and live and do what makes us happy and not live our lives to please someone else."
Gospel Bookstore owner Eli Hochstetler read the book and has talked with Mast about not only its contents but the entire experience.
He said he's overwhelmed by Mast's eventual realization he was immersed in a cult and, among others in the Bergholz community, under the spell of Mullet.
"Johnny Mast was the grandson and the favorite. He was trying to do everything for him that he could," said Hochstetler, who believes the real moment of truth came when Mast caught Mullet in bed with one of his own daughters-in-law.
"Johnny understood it as a cult. It's very tough to understand and it was hard for him to get away and get out of there."
Hochstetler said many local Amish realized, based on the alienation and actions of the group and Mullet, it was a cult and "has nothing to do with the Amish."
He said many were upset at the notion, promoted by outside media, Mullet and his followers were acting in a manner representative of all Amish.
Nevertheless, he encourages all to read the book and Mast's account of how Mullet, romanced by power, sex and money, came to lead an entire group into what became a true cult.
New book details beard chopping attacks, hate crime in Amish community
JON RUTTER | LNP Correspondent Sep 26, 2016 (1)
Sam Mullet was egging his grandson on.
“C’mon, Johnny, cut off some of your dad’s hair. You’re mad at him, too, aren’t you?”
Johnny Mast stood over his father, scissors in hand. “Everyone stared at me, waiting to see what I would do.
“I reached out and took a small piece of my dad’s hair in between my fingers and cut. The sound grated down to my bones.”
—From “Breakaway Amish: Growing Up With the Bergholz Beard Cutters”
Johnny Mast passed his test that Sunday night in Bishop Mullet’s kitchen. He joined a small, strange cult that obeyed Mullet’s edicts to attack other Amish Church members and chop off their hair, supposedly to absolve them of sin.
But the teenager felt sickened. And he made plans to leave the increasingly isolated eastern Ohio settlement of Bergholz. In 2012, his testimony helped send Mullet and 15 others to prison.
Now, with the help of Lancaster writer Shawn Smucker, the 26-year-old Mast has told his searing coming-of-age story in “Breakaway Amish: Growing Up With the Bergholz Beard Cutters.” (Book signings are planned at Shady Maple Farm Market in East Earl and Pequea Valley Public Library in Intercourse on dates to be determined.)
The sensational news about the wayward Amish settlement broke nearly five years ago, after the FBI raided Mullet’s farm. The feds charged the rogue bishop and his followers with committing hate crimes.
Cautionary tale
“Breakaway Amish” looks at the settlement from an insider’s point of view.
Mast says he started considering writing a book more than a year after a wrenching split from his family.
“I had to get a weight off my shoulders,” he says. He yearned to tell a cautionary tale about a welcoming community that lost its way.
Mast says Bergholz became a weirdly oppressive place after Mullet began asking people to write down their sins. “Maybe that’s what started it all,” Mast writes. “Maybe Sam realized the power he would have if he knew everyone’s secrets.”
The violence escalated until Amish men and women in other communities started losing locks to Bergholz attackers, putting them on the cops’ radar.
But Mast had a problem trying to get it all down.
“I actually hate writing,” confesses Mast, who now shoes horses and lives with his partner, Clara, and their young daughter in Middlefield, Ohio. “I knew I had to have someone to help me.”
He traveled to Elizabethtown to consult with Donald Kraybill, the pre-eminent scholar on Amish culture, then senior fellow at Elizabethtown College’s Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. (In 2014, Kraybill published his own book about the cult, “Renegade Amish: Beard Cutting, Hate Crimes, and the Trial of the Bergholz Barbers.”)
Their meeting led him to Smucker, who collaborated with Jonas Beiler on “Think No Evil,” a first-hand account of the 2006 Nickel Mines Amish schoolhouse shootings.
“I had heard the national story about the beard cuttings,” Smucker relates by email. But when Mast, whom Smucker describes as “a kind-hearted soul,” began talking “I was shocked,” he says. “I’ve grown up here around the Amish and even have distant Amish relatives. I had never heard anything like the stories he shared.”
His Amish roots helped him grasp how the cult evolved, Smucker adds.
“Still, (it is) a bizarre and alarming tale, and hopefully one that opens up the eyes of the Plain community to what can happen when you blindly follow someone like Samuel.”
“Breakaway Amish” stops short of psychoanalyzing Mullet, the only Bergholzer still in jail. But Mast describes a “likeable and funny” patriarch with a hidden side.
Though Mullet always knew he was doing wrong, Mast reasons, the man figured God was guiding him down that strange path to help others do good.
“You and I both know that’s not the way it works,” Mast says.
QUOTED: "Such a fascinating topic deserves better writing and more psychological insight than this book provides."
Breakaway Amish: Growing Up with the Bergholz Beard Cutters
263.19 (May 9, 2016): p63.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Breakaway Amish: Growing Up with the Bergholz Beard Cutters
Johnny Mast. Herald, $15.99 trade paper (176p) ISBN 978-1-5138-0021-9
Mast, who grew up in a small Amish community in Bergholz, Ohio, under the leadership of his grandfather, tells the story of his community's spiral into spiritual abuse and violence, specifically the forcible cutting of beards and hair of other Amish who had left the community. The book is both a coming-of-age story--with Mast gradually perceiving more truth about his environment and choosing to leave--and a cautionary tale about religious and familial authority run amok as his grandfather commands increasingly abusive actions with complete autonomy. The story could be used as a template of warning signs for cults everywhere. Unfortunately, Mast chooses a flat, no-nonsense tone and avoids diving deep into his or anyone else's motivations, even as he goes from helping to cover up an attack to testifying against the attackers. Some readers will be interested in the light this shines on the Bergholz community's history and its deviance from the values the Amish are known for, but such a fascinating topic deserves better writing and more psychological insight than this book provides. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Breakaway Amish: Growing Up with the Bergholz Beard Cutters." Publishers Weekly, 9 May 2016, p. 63. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA452883378&it=r&asid=799d0b5493c3019807b4a74eec4a424c. Accessed 5 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A452883378
QUOTED: "Mr. Mast's story, written with Shawn Smucker, is a fast and conversational read in which he recollects the events, framed around his testimony for the prosecution in the beard cutters' trial, and describes how far out of the norm was his grandfather's lust for power and manipulation of all in his community."
'Breakaway Amish' a first-person account of rogue Ohio sect
(July 23, 2016): Business News:
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 The Blade
http://tribunecontentagency.com/
Byline: TK Barger
July 23--In a new book, Johnny Mast tells an insider's story of an unusual crime spree among the Amish. He was one of the "Bergholz Beard Cutters," a member of an Amish community in eastern Ohio that had been isolated from others because of the way Bergholz's bishop, Samuel Mullet -- the grandfather of Mr. Mast -- controlled his people. The Bergholz Amish were not welcome among their fellow Amish. "Those other communities considered Sam a rogue bishop doing his own thing," Mr. Mast writes in his new book, Breakaway Amish: Growing Up with the Bergholz Beard Cutters. In Bergholz, where his family had moved when he was 12, Mr. Mast wrote, "I was only an Amish kid working construction and selling horses on the side." But he was a favorite of his grandfather, and he took part in some of the rogue actions that Mullet ordered. Mr. Mast had joined the church at age 17. "I can't help but think back on how Bergholz was when it first started," Mr. Mast wrote, "how friendly everyone was and what a good place it was. Everyone joined in on everything. We were good neighbors to each other." Mullet changed that; Bergholz became a cult with him as the leader. Mullet does not fit the stereotype many have of the Amish, as deeply devoted Christians who live to honor their God. Instead, as Mr. Mast tells it, Mullet canceled all church services and banned reading the Bible: "The devil is twisting things around. He's twisting the way people are reading the words and confusing people," Mr. Mast quoted Mullet. Mullet also sent men in the community who he accused of misbehaving -- based in part on a demand that they write down all of their sins and give the list to him (alternatively, they could buy their way out of the writing by paying several thousand dollars) -- to sleep in chicken coops or the stable, and Mullet secretly slept with with the men's wives. After that practice had become common, Mullet convinced his people, most of them family members, that cutting beards would be a sign of contrition; women would have their heads shaved. "By humbling ourselves and cutting our hair, we could be cleansed of our sins," Mr. Mast recalled. Among the Amish, an Anabaptist sect that largely keep to themselves, beards are expected. Then, at Mullet's direction, Bergholz people went outside their community to attack other Amish by cutting their beards. Mullet targeted people against whom he or favored people in Bergholz held grudges, including parents who had left Bergholz, and the law got involved. Mr. Mast participated in some of the hair cutting, including of his father. But, he wrote with some remorse, he took the care to at least try to give decent haircuts and beard trims, and became the community barber. Mullet and 15 others from Bergholz were prosecuted. Mr. Mast, at age 22 in September, 2012, testified for the prosecution under a grant of immunity. The defendants were convicted of all 87 counts and imprisoned. Mullet's sentence was the longest, 15 years, and five women and one man got the shortest ones, only one year. The community then worked to stay together and provide for the families with inmates. Mr. Mast first went back to Bergholz, but he said Mullet continued to run the community from prison. Mr. Mast finally left -- left Bergholz and the Amish faith. Mr. Mast's story, written with Shawn Smucker, is a fast and conversational read in which he recollects the events, framed around his testimony for the prosecution in the beard cutters' trial, and describes how far out of the norm was his grandfather's lust for power and manipulation of all in his community. "A lot of people ask me the same question, especially about those days in particular," Mr. Mast writes. "Why would a bunch of grown men allow another man to treat them that way? I can't say for sure, but I think that for most of us, Bergholz was all we had. Every friend we had in the world lived there, every family member we cared about at the time. And Sam held the key to all of that." Breakaway Amish is published by Herald Press, an arm of the Mennonite Church. Mennonites are spiritual relatives of the Amish; some Mennonites practice ways similar to the Amish, such as not having cars or electricity and limiting children's education, but most Mennonites live as members of contemporary society with modern ways and education. Contact TK Barger @ tkbarger@theblade.com, 419-724-6278 or on Twitter @TK_Barger.
___
(c)2016 The Blade (Toledo, Ohio)
Visit The Blade (Toledo, Ohio) at www.toledoblade.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
By TK Barger
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"'Breakaway Amish' a first-person account of rogue Ohio sect." Blade [Toledo, OH], 23 July 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA459073787&it=r&asid=7746561fd73d082210472d264dc1b1f9. Accessed 5 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A459073787