Remembering Sanskrita

Sanskrita Alcyone DellErba (1988-2025)

Sanskrita DellErba in her home in Tucson, Arizona in 2019.

Photos by Daniela Dawson

I first became aware of Gabriel of Urantia (born Anthony Delevin) in 2016 when contacted by one of his former followers. His sect, the Global Community Communications Alliance (GCCA) caught my attention as a particularly troubling organization — a cult where followers surrender their possessions, work without compensation, and are subjected to psychological manipulation by a man who channels extraterrestrial beings (and the women who love him). Gabriel's community employs classic cult control tactics: isolation, fear-mongering about the end of the world, separation of families, and even a surveillance system where members report on each other's infractions.

During my investigation for what would become the book New Age Grifter, I began hearing rumors about Gabriel's daughter escaping the community. This was significant — children raised in cults rarely leave, as they haven't been equipped with the skills needed to survive outside the only world they've known. Moreover, the fact that she was the daughter of Gabriel made her departure even more remarkable.

For about a year, people kept telling me how I should meet Sanskrita, Gabriel’s daughter, and what a remarkable person she was. I also heard she wasn’t ready to talk to a journalist, that she was too busy trying to come to terms with life on the outside.

But then something changed, and Sanskrita decided that she wanted to — indeed, that she needed to — share her story with the world. This led to a series of long phone calls. And when she wasn't around, I would talk to Josh, who she was living with at the time. A friendship developed between all of us. I think Sanskrita and Josh were relieved that I turned out not to be a sleazy journalist, after all.

In April 2019, I finally sat down with Sanskrita in Tucson, Arizona. At thirty years old, what immediately struck me about Sanskrita was her remarkable lack of bitterness despite her circumstances. She spoke candidly about growing up as the daughter of a self-proclaimed prophet, describing a childhood where her and her siblings' needs were secondary (if that!) to the will of her father, an actual destructive cult leader. If she could tell her story, perhaps other children wouldn’t have to endure the abuse she and the other children of the GCCA had.

Once I asked Sanskrita, "What was it like thinking that the world was gonna end, and then it didn’t?"

"I remember being really young and truly believing I wouldn’t live to be 18," she said. "I just couldn’t imagine life after 18. There was just no way, I’m not going to live. Or there’s going to be something really big that was gonna happen, like Jesus was going to return. Then 18 came, and I was like, ‘Oh my God. Life is just normal and continuing, and nothing is happening.’"

As a child, she had been taught to believe in imminent spaceship evacuations and the end of the world. She was required to participate in hours-long meditation sessions and subjected to a surveillance system where members reported each other's infractions to the leadership. Her formative years were spent in an environment where having her own thoughts or preferences was discouraged, and where the voices in her father's head were considered infallible.

Her escape from the community had been dramatic — fleeing in the middle of the night after her father had confiscated her smartphone, isolating her from what little piece of the outside world she had access to. She left behind her parents, siblings, and the only community she had ever known.

On March 25, 2025, Sanskrita DellErba, 36 years old, perished in a house fire in Lincoln County, Wisconsin. The circumstances of the fire remain under investigation.

There's a particular cruelty to Sanskrita's fate. Having summoned the courage to leave behind the only world she knew, having taken those first tentative steps toward building an independent identity, her life was cut tragically short. She died still in the process of discovering who she truly was outside of her father's shadow.

Sanskrita's passing is emblematic of the vulnerability that former cult members face. Without proper support systems, the transition to ordinary life can be overwhelming. Her story stands as both a testament to her courage in seeking freedom and a sobering reminder of how perilous that journey can be.