In 2023, a group of Orwoll’s followers decided to buy the 160-acre plot in rural Arkansas. They chose the location because Orwoll lives nearby, the property was relatively cheap, and the building regulations were lenient. The county is over 90 percent white, which was also a deciding factor, says Orwoll, who also claims to be a classically trained musician who previously played with Shen Yun, a Chinese performing arts group run by the Falun Gong, a religious movement.
Return to the Land is set up as a private members association, and those seeking to join have to go through a number of steps in order to verify their identity and heritage.
“You fill out a questionnaire that’ll give us an initial idea of where you’re coming from, your values, who you are, your background and then there is a phone interview, and we make admissions decisions on a case by case basis,” Orwoll tells WIRED.
The application form for Return to the Land asks potential members to outline their ancestry and also respond to a range of questions about their social and cultural viewpoints, including whether they support foreign immigration, “transgenderism,” Covid-19 vaccines, and segregation. It also asks: “How often do you think about the Roman empire?” with answers ranging from “every day, at least once” to “a few times a week, probably” and “never.” This initial process only gets you approved to access private group chats on Telegram. For those who decide they want to move to Arkansas and become part of the community, “vetting for that level of involvement is much more thorough,” says Orwoll, though he declined to say what that process involved beyond conducting a “background check.”
Peter Csere, the group’s secretary, tells WIRED that the association has 300 members across the country. Orwoll says they have had interest not only from Americans but also from people on other continents.
Despite being the face of the development, Orwoll does not live in the Return to the Land community. “I’ve not developed my homestead sufficiently to allow my four children to live safely there full time, so I have a house 15 minutes away, but I’m working towards moving into the community,” he says. In recent weeks, as Orwoll’s past has been closely scrutinized, researchers found videos in which Orwoll performed in online porn videos with his then wife Caitlyn, who is now a resident on the Return to the Land compound. Orwoll has condemned porn addiction, claiming that it “emasculated” young men.
“In my early twenties I did plenty of things that I am now totally against,” says Orwoll, who confirmed on X that he appeared in the videos. “I considered myself a nihilist, did psychedelics, and didn’t respect traditional sexual morality. The lack of guidance I had and the way it threw off my early adult life informed the importance I later placed on traditional values.”
To date, the community has raised approximately $330,000 from land sales, according to a financial analysis conducted by the ADL’s Center on Extremism. It is also running five separate crowdfunding campaigns on GiveSendGo, a Christian-focused crowdfunding platform. These campaigns have raised over $185,000 in donations. The latest campaign, which has a target of $100,000, was launched last month and is designed to fund rallies across the country to promote the Return to the Land model. The campaign has already raised over $88,000; one of the top donations was for $5,000, to which the donor appended the white supremacist “14 words” slogan. Orwoll says that all of this funding has allowed him to quit his job and work full time traveling around the US speaking about the project.
