The third time Hoyt Richards attempted to leave Eternal Values, the group to which he had given 20 years of his life and more than $4 million, he made it out. Yet even then, Richards says he didn’t yet understand that he was fleeing a cult, only that he had to go. “I wish I could say I woke up one night and said, ‘Oh my God, I think this is dangerous, I might be in a cult, I should get the [bleep] out of here,”” Richards says.