Financial Feminist - 67. How Cults Prey on Women and Their Finances with Dr. Janja Lalich

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

The world is obsessed with cults –– and there are more documentaries and true crime podcasts than ever on some of the most controversial organizations. But not every cult is so apparent, and there are smaller, less insidious-seeming figures that are doing harm daily, especially to women and other already marginalized communities. To better understand how these organizations operate, we sat down with Dr. Janja Lalich, who has dedicated her life to the study of cults and helping members and their families get out and recover. She vulnerably shares about her time in a cult and the ways in which cults use emotional manipulation and abuse against women. To learn more about our guests, read transcripts, and get additional resources, check out our show notes at www.financialfeministpodcast.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, financial feminists. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. We do have a very, very fascinating kind of juicy episode for you today. We hope you loved our first few episodes of the year. We have an incredible lineup over the next few months that we're currently recording. And I think you're going to be as obsessed as we are with our guests in 2023. If you're enjoying the show, a little housekeeping, you know the drill. Subscribe. Maybe leave us a review. It helps us continue to bring content like today's show to you completely for free. Okay, let's get into it. We're fucking talking about cults today. Yes, cults. So why do an episode about cults on Financial Feminist? Well, first of all, as we learned in the multi-level marketing episode we

did with Jane Marie in season one, still the most popular episode of the show we've ever done. There are so many nefarious organizations that operate within this like cultish framework, and they overwhelmingly prey on women and they prey on women's finances and really their safety and their stability. So we brought in an expert to talk about how to recognize these organizations and how to help people in your life who may fall victim to them. The best part and the most interesting part about our expert today is that they are not just studying and an expert on cults, but they were in a cult themselves. Janja Lalic, PhD, is a researcher, author, and educator specializing in cults and extremist groups with a particular focus on charismatic relationships,

political and other social movements, ideology and social control, and issues of gender and sexuality. She has been a consultant to educational, mental health, business, media, and legal professionals, as well as having worked with current members, former members, and families of members of controversial groups. This interview is incredibly fascinating, but as you may have already figured out, we're going to talk about some heavy topics today. So a quick content warning, we're going to discuss death and assault in this episode. So if you're like, nope, I'm good. We'll see you next week. Without further ado, let's go ahead and get into it. And now a word from our sponsors.

Where in the world are you? I'm in the Bay Area, across the Bay from San Francisco. You have that beautiful skylight behind you. I'm very jealous. We were talking about it. Yeah. I live in a, actually I live in a senior community and it's like, and there's like 10,000 homes and it's like a national park. Like every day I see deer and little Bambis and I mean, it's just beautiful here and so quiet. Oh dear. You got to fawn over those deer. Exactly. That's my pun for today. We're so excited to have you. If you could give us a little bit of background on you and your experience, what brought you to working in this field? What was the inspiration

or the motivation behind wanting to do this kind of work? Sure. Well, the reason I got into this field is because I myself was in a cult in the 70s and 80s. I was 30 years old when I joined. So I had already, you know, gone to college, had a Fulbright fellowship, lived in Europe for a number of years. It's not like I was some naive kid. But I ended up getting recruited into a political cult that, you know, supposedly we were going to fight for social justice and get rid of racism and sexism and all those things that sounded wonderful. Of course, I didn't know it was a cult. I didn't even really know what I was joining when I joined or that we had a leader or anything. But anyway, it ended up 10 plus years of my life, and it was very, very restrictive. I was always in top leadership, so I knew a lot of the stuff

that went on behind the scenes. And so it was not a pleasant experience. And because I was in leadership, I've heard a lot of people. And in the end, we all got out, which is really unusual. We finally had our revolution and we overthrew the leader and we dissolved the organization. So there we were, a hundred plus people free. And so I moved to New York to get away from San Francisco and I got a job in publishing because one of my jobs in the cult was to build us a publishing house. And luckily, I found a really great therapist who understood about cult trauma. And so once I felt more like a normal person again, so to speak, I started going to conferences and speaking out and doing some interviews.

And I wrote my first book, which is Take Back Your Life. It's a recovery book. The main reason I started speaking a lot was because when I got out, which was the mid-80s, everything was just about religious cults. And so one of the first things I had to do was sort of prove to myself that I was in a cult because it wasn't religious. And then I thought it was really important to let people know there were other kinds of cults besides religious cults. Not every cult is religious. As we know now, there's many,

many, many different kinds. And then after 10 years, I finally made the decision to go to graduate school, which my mentor, Dr. Margaret Singer, encouraged me. She was sort of the preeminent cult expert at that time. She was a clinical psychologist at UC Berkeley. So I got my PhD, and then I got the professorship teaching sociology. And during that time, I was still doing cult education and working with survivors and families. But obviously, I had a very big teaching load. So I wasn't doing this full time. So that's how I got here. And then in 2019, I retired from the university. And I thought, you know, I'm retiring. And I moved to this lovely community. And then the pandemic hit. And I moved to this lovely community and then the pandemic hit and my emails exploded. And so I've been busier than ever, ever since. And I actually really love it. I feel like it's important work and I love helping people. And so here I am. about your experience of specifically being in a cult, can you talk more about the sort of

experience of, of course, getting into it, but what were the warning signs? What did you see as the red flags that were happening that got you to the point where you're like, oh, this is uncomfortable. This is not safe. You're like, oh, this is uncomfortable. This is not safe. Right. Well, you know, there were red flags all along, which I recognized, but I ignored because even in the beginning while I was being recruited and partly I ignored them because the few people I knew I had made some new friends in San Francisco, they were joining. So everybody I knew I had made some new friends in San Francisco, they were joining. So everybody I knew was joining. It was a very common thing at that time in the 70s for people on the left. And so early on when I had questions about things or I thought something was weird, I just kind of shoved

it aside. But as time went on, in particular because we were such a harsh group. And also our leader was a woman. She actually was a former sociology professor, but she was a severe alcoholic and a narcissist and very abusive. And because I was in the inner circle, I was around her a lot. And we used to have to like spend holidays with her and stuff. And it was really grim. I mean, she would get drunk and we'd have to sing House of the Rising Sun, which was her favorite song. And we'd have to make up a verse. And if she didn't like the verse, she'd hit you. And she'd threaten the men to have to go upstairs and have sex with her. And these sessions were just hideous. And finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I thought,

I thought, I don't care if I lose leadership. I don't care. I'm not going to, I'm going to make up some excuse and I'm not going to go to those anymore. And so I would say, oh, my back is out and I can't drive up there or whatever. That was, that was kind of the first thing. And then also just recognizing how, how shattered people were. I mean, we recruited many people with doctorate degrees. We had lawyers, we had doctors, we had highly skilled people, and they were just turning into zombies, so to speak. I mean, everybody was just so tamped down and there was absolutely not a shred of democracy. And that troubled me more and more. The final blow for me was my mother was back in Milwaukee and I'd always been very close with her. And I learned that she was in the hospital.

So I borrowed money and I flew there and it turned out that she had a brain tumor, a glioblastoma, which is the worst kind of brain tumor. And so they operated and they said, well, we can operate, but it'll grow right back and she'll probably have four to six months to live. So I stayed there as long as I could. And every day my cult leadership called me, when are you coming back? When are you coming back? And I was staying with my aunt, who was my mom's youngest sister. And finally, they were about to release her from the hospital and she had nowhere to go. So I called my leadership and I said, look, my mom doesn't have that long to live. I'd like to ask for a leave of absence and stay here until she passes. And she said, well,

I'll have to ask the grand poobah. So then she called me back the next day and she said, oh, we have a great idea. Bring your mom to San Francisco. And like a good, dedicated militant, I said, okay. So here's my mom, who was a little Serbian lady, very involved in her church. I don't think maybe twice had been outside of Milwaukee. So I went back. One of my roommates moved out. I got the house all ready. I got her a walker and all that stuff. My aunt flew her out. And so there she was living with me in this house with other cult members. And of course, every day I had to go to work at six in the morning and I'd get home at 11 at night and I never saw her. And so I, again, talked to my leadership and I said, look, you told me to bring my mom, but I never saw her. And so I, again, talked to my leadership and I said, look, I never, you

told me to bring my mom, but I never see her and she isn't going to be around that long. So they said, oh, okay, you can have a half an hour every day to have dinner with her. I mean, at some point they decided that she should work for the organization. So someone would pick her up and take her to one of our front group offices. And I guess she did filing or I don't know what. Everybody loved her. She was such a sweet woman. So then I wasn't really seeing her again because I worked at a different facility. And this is hard for me to talk about still. I came home one night about 11 o'clock and I looked in her room and she was dead on the floor. And I was just torn. I was just devastated. I mean, I just got down on the floor and I just

cried and cried and cried. And I mean, she was all alone in her last moment. So I called my best friend who came over and then I called my leadership. called my best friend who came over and then I called my leadership and I said, you know, my mom just died and I'm going to have the body flown home for the funeral. And on the other end of the line, she said to me in this very stern voice, well, you're not going to the funeral, are you? And I just clicked and I thought, here I am working seven days a week, 20 hours a day, month after month, year after year, supposedly building this better world. And if this is the better world we're building, then I'm told I can't go to my own mother's funeral who just died in my house. Well, there's something wrong here. so I borrowed money again I went home I planned the whole funeral I have no memory of it afterwards we had a big dinner which is the Serbian tradition and and you know her sisters came and everybody old neighbors everybody and halfway through I got up and left to get a red eye back to San Francisco and I was just like numb. Like I said, I don't even remember anything about her

funeral or anything. I flew back and I was met at the airport and told to report the next morning to such and such a building. And the next day they've sat me up in kind of one of those director chairs and all the other leadership were in front of me, about 40 people. And I was criticized for putting my mother ahead of the revolution. And that was an absolute obliterating moment for me. I didn't think to myself, oh, this is a cult. I just thought this is really wrong. But I couldn't figure out how to leave. I was terrified to leave. I had no money. I had nowhere to go. I knew they'd come after me because they did come after people. And I knew a lot because I was in the inner circle.

And so for five more years, I lived as a numb, broken person. I went to my job every day, you know, my party job. I would get in my car and I would just wish that I would be killed in a car accident because I couldn't see how else to get out. It was just an excruciating time for me. But then, like I said, because of circumstances and so many of us who'd been there from the beginning were so burned out, we had that little revolution and we freed ourselves. But the effect on me, I mean, I was in bad shape and I still feel like I never got to grieve my mother in a way I grieve her every day.

So that's what happened. That's what got me out. You know, I got out psychologically, but I was still trapped. I didn't get out physically till we all got out psychologically, but I was still trapped. I didn't get out physically until we all got out. I don't know what to say. I am so sorry for your loss, both your loss of your mother, but it sounds, it's going to make me cry. both your loss of your mother but it sounds it's gonna make me cry but also it sounds like the loss of years of your life of of a period of grieving of your identity um thank you for being vulnerable and sharing that it's just i think that's the worst part of all of it right as you get to the point where you realize that you in your in your grappling of identity

that you've lost yourself as a person you've lost everything that means anything to you but also you've lost yourself exactly exactly because that's what cults do they attack the self so you talked about like how hard it was to get out. And even you said the phrase five years after and my heart just sank again. What about cults or these organizations? I imagine it's the threat of violence or the threat of, again, who am I beyond this organization? Probably a sunk cost fallacy of, like, I've put this much into it. Like, how do I move on? What makes it so difficult to leave? Well, you know, I have a framework and a theory and a concept to help explain that

and how I understand it. And if people are interested, it actually was my dissertation, and it's now sort of in a user-friendly version in my book, Bounded Choice. But the way I see it is, when we join these organizations, we're usually at some vulnerable point in our lives. We get convinced through initially the love bombing and then through the indoctrination however that happens and it's different in different groups it might be bible studies some kind of courses it might be you know working together whatever but through the indoctrination which is essentially as i was saying attacking the the self so that you no longer trust yourself and you learn that you can only trust the leader because people will turn each other in, people will spy

on each other, people will report on each other, et cetera, et cetera. So that over time, and this doesn't happen to everybody, but over time, especially if you have any kind of long-term experience, you become so fully indoctrinated by living in this, what I call a self-sealing system, this social system that's closed in on itself, and you have no other reality checks. And you could be living, like we were living in the middle of San Francisco. It's not like we were on some compound out in Nevada or something, but you become, in a way, sort of a microcosm of the cult. And at that point, you have what Robert Lifton, who was the first person to really study thought reform and totalism, what he describes as personal closure. Just as the group and the reality you're in is closed

in on itself, you become closed in on yourself. And you're not able to entertain any other ideas that are counter to what you've been indoctrinated to believe. At that point, you're in this state of mind that I call bounded choice. So what happens then is that yes, you have decisions to make that are usually inconsequential in relation to the group, small decisions. Sure, you get to make small decisions, but any substantial decision like, dare I criticize the leader or should I question what we're doing, or should I think about leaving? You cannot entertain those thoughts, because to do so means giving up your life. It means giving up everything that you now belong to, and everything you believe in, and giving up your

whole world, which is very, very, very difficult for people to do. And so especially if you have no resources on the outside, say perhaps you were born or raised in a group, it's the only thing you know. Not only do you lose that physical world, but you also lose whatever promise of salvation you're being offered. And that's frightening, right? Because you've been led to believe in that, that this person can give you that. So that bounded reality and that bounded choice, which is an illusion of choice, is, in my opinion, what keeps us trapped there. I would love to even go back because I'm thinking to myself, like, how do I define a cult? Is it, you know, a leader?

Is it a certain because you said it's, of course, not just religious. And we know this now. There's tons of cults out there that we've heard about in recent years that have nothing to do with religion. Define a cult for us. Sure. So for me, there are four aspects that I look for. for me, there are four aspects that I look for. One is the leader, who we sometimes describe as charismatic, but who's essentially an authoritarian, usually malignant narcissist.

We grant them charisma because somehow that's sort of the social relationship we're trapped in. We think, oh, this is God, or this is some great guru or whatever, right? We thought our leader was the next Vladimir Lenin. So there's the charismatic authoritarian leader. Then there's what I call the transcendent ideology. And so this is a belief system, which, as we're saying, does not need to be religious, but it's a belief system that offers you everything. It offers you the answer to the past, the present, and the future. And it's an all or nothing belief system. When it's an all or nothing belief system, that means that the ends justify the means. And once you have an ends justify the means

philosophy, that means anything goes. And that's where the danger lies. And then third and fourth, you have what I call systems, not in a mechanical way, but social systems of influence and systems of control. Now, the systems of control, again, are going to vary in every group, but these are the overt rules and regulations, you know, maybe what you wear, what you eat, where you can live, you know, things like the obvious rules and regulations. The systems of influence are much more subtle. Those are the social psychological techniques social psychological techniques that are used that prey on your emotions to get you to break down and be rebuilt as they want you to build. So they will prey on love and shame and fear and whatever, right? They know all the buttons to push. And so those social psychological influences

are what helps to sort, I don't like to use mechanical language, but helps to, let's say, deepen the indoctrination and make it work. So those are the four aspects that I look for in a cult. How do you determine what is a cult versus like a legitimate organization? Because like, I grew up Catholic. Part of me is like, this is a legitimate organization catholic part of me is like this is a legitimate organization and part of me is like no the catholic church is a legitimate organization although it's on the lower end of the scale so for me a legitimate organization whether it's a religion, a political activist group, whatever, a business organization, first of all, you have checks and balances. You're able to challenge and question leadership. You have transparency. You know where the money comes from. You know where the money

goes, right? You're able to criticize leadership. You're able to, if you leave, you're not shunned and you're not made into some kind of monster enemy. There aren't, you know, threats to your livelihood or to your being or to your, you know, your functions in the world. I mean, so many people in cultic groups, especially the ones now that are involved in coaching, which is one of my big bugaboos right now, you know, they're in some kind of coaching cult where they build a whole clientele. And then if they leave, they lose everything. They lose that license to be a coach. They lose all the clients, their bad mouth among everybody. They lose all the clients, their bad mouth among everybody. So a legitimate organization is going to be, you know, democratic. It's going to allow you to do all those things I just mentioned. to be, you know, see the light of day, especially with religion or probably with most organizations. You know, a decent organization will give you guidelines to live by, right? Be good to your neighbor, whatever. If someone moves into the neighborhood, take them a box of cookies. I don't know, right? But they don't come and check up on you that you're actually doing that, right. So the Catholic church might tell you don't use contraception, but you know, but

the priest isn't coming into your bedroom, hopefully, and seeing if you're using contraception. So that that's the difference, that level of intrusion into your daily life. You mentioned coaching. Can we talk about that? No, sure. life. You mentioned coaching. Can we talk about that? No, sure. What kind of coaching? What are we defining? Because technically, like I do coaching, right? I'm a money coach. I help people pay off debt or I help people save money. I don't run a cult. So like, let's talk about coaching. Tell me a bit more about that. Sure. So I think because of it's a development, it's sort of a historical development that came out of the new age movement, right? If we go back and look at the new age movement of the seventies, um, where there, there was all this kind of pop psychology and these different programs

that were being offered and these, uh, self-awareness trainings and what we call the large group awareness trainings like EST and LifeSpring and these various ones, all of that whole new age phenomena was saying to people, we can offer you a quick fix. You don't need to do traditional therapy for your problems. Just come and do our workshop for $5,000, right, or whatever, and spend this long weekend with us, or whatever it might be. And so this idea of a quick fix sort of became very prevalent in our society. And people sort of claiming that they can help you and make you more self-aware or make you better in your career or help you make money or whatever. And so the multi-level marketing programs enter in at this phase as well. And so you've got these people who have absolutely no credentials

whatsoever. Maybe they know how to talk in a glib way, but they're not trained therapists or whatever. And so you're being subjected to whatever their program is. And in some cases, they're tearing you apart and they don't know how to put you back together. And so there's a lot of psychological harm. So today, because all of this seeped into the business world to a large degree. And so many companies were paying for their staff to go to these trainings, these retreats out in the desert in Nevada, wherever, right? That then evolved into the coaching world where, yes, there are legitimate coaches. I mean, I used a writing coach to start my memoir. You know, she was fantastic.

She didn't abuse me. She didn't try to own me, right? But there are so many people now, and because it's such an unregulated industry, like hypnotism in many states. I mean, anybody can hang a sign on their door and say, I'm a hypnotist. Well, today, anybody can hang a sign on their door or on the internet and say, hey, I'm a coach. I'm a marketing coach. I'm a writing coach. I'm a lifestyle coach. I'm a

career coach. I'm a money coach like you. And there's just so much room for abuse because people are wanting that quick fix and they're wanting to believe there's someone who can give them the answer. And that's where it goes awry. And people become certainly financially exploited and often exploited in other ways. And I know from our research talking about MLMs that the vast majority of people who get involved in multi-level marketing companies are marginalized members. So women, huge demographic of women, people of color. And we know from our research on cults, it's about 70% of cult members are women. Why does that happen? Like, how are women specifically targeted by cults or cult

leaders? And what maybe makes a cult more appealing to a woman? Again, how are they targeted in a way that men aren't? Well, I think even though there's been vast improvement in women's status in our society, I believe that women are still seen as inferior. And in many families, women are not as well regarded as, say, their brothers, if they have brothers. And so women grow up without having the same sort of capacity to catch on to when they're being scammed or when they're being gaslit. Right. So they become easy targets. I mean, I was a tough cookie.

I was like not a naive young kid. And I got bamboozled. Right. I mean, it really is something that can happen to anybody. And I think that women in particular are sort of groomed to believe that they need to improve themselves, that they're not perfect yet, whether it's physically, whether it's weight-wise, you know, whatever it might be, whether it's their skills, their presentation, their way they speak, you know, women are supposed to improve themselves, right? So that they're acceptable to some man to marry and have babies with or ultimately, right? And I think even though that sounds old fashioned, I think that's still very, very prevalent perspective in our country. And so I think that's what helps to make women vulnerable and, and cult leaders are smart. I mean, they're, they're clever, manipulative people. And so they know who to target. They

know where the, you know, where the soft money is, so to speak um and i and i i think that we also saw from our research that it's not there's this misconception that it's people who are um you know less intelligent and and it's people i mean obviously talking to you so intelligent right like the stats show that it's people of actually above average intelligence it It's, it's people who, yeah, who are very smart, who are educated, who it's, who don't have previous psychological conditions who are, yeah. And, you know, that's the, the sort of myth, I think that's still out there that it's, you know, stupid, weird, crazy people who get into cults, you know, people who want to be led around by the nose. And, and that's not who cults look for. I mean, cults, people who want to be led around by the nose. And that's not who cults look for.

I mean, cults look for high functioning individuals. As I said earlier, they're not there to take care of you. I mean, in many cases, if someone ends up in a cult and they're not functioning well, the cult gets rid of them. I mean, that's very common phenomena. So the cults want people who can run their businesses, who can bring in money, who can connect them with people that lends them legitimacy, like the Dalai Lama. You know, NXIVM paid, you know, what did they do? They paid him a million dollars or two million dollars to come and put his arm around Keith Raniere. I mean, come on. And what does that say about the Dalai Lama, to tell you the truth? So, you know, in my opinion, there are no gurus. But anyway, so, yeah, the cults look for high-functioning individuals in most cases, because that's who's going to help them do what they want to do and provide leadership and recruit and all of that. So it's a complete myth that, you know, we're, that it's just weak people who are being targeted. Not at all. I've brought up NXIVM. You've brought up NXIVM. For folks who haven't heard of NXIVM, I mean, there's so many documentaries, there's, there's been so much discussion about them. And infamously, I think

they were some of the worst, maybe not the worst, you could probably tell me, but perpetuators of sexual violence and literally physically branding women, literally taking a brand and marking their skin and burning their skin. There's that element of sexual abuse that happens in a lot of these organizations, especially to women. Why does this happen? Why is it kind of accepted at some point by members? So whatever a cult does, whatever the practices of the cult are, are going to emanate from the proclivities of the leader. And given that, now there are female leaders, no doubt about that. But given that the leaders are narcissists and they're all about power and money and sex are two ways to wield that power over other people. And so we see enormous amounts

of sexual abuse of women, of men in some cases, and certainly of children. It just boggles the mind. It's heartbreaking. And so I think that, again, it's a cult leaders see what's going to work. And by abusing someone sexually, that goes to the deepest part of that person. Once you're able to abuse someone sexually, you've pretty much got them, right? I mean, this is also reflective in human trafficking and sex trafficking. It's the same phenomena. trafficking and sex trafficking. It's the same phenomena. So you've got this person who supposedly loves you or is granting you some special enlightenment or whatever by having this sexual encounter, and it often becomes very abusive. It also, in terms of the second part of your question, it becomes normalized, right? This is what cults are

able to do. Behavior that in any other context would be unacceptable becomes acceptable because they will find some little strand of their ideology or philosophy to support it, to say this is necessary, right? That's where I think it gets very confusing for outsiders. It's like, why in the world did she go along with that? Well, she went along with that because she was indoctrinated to think that was of some value to her. Well, and from my knowledge too, it typically happens much later in a cult member's journey, right? It's not like week two they're being asked to right it's it's or they're they're being told or sexually abused right it's happening after you're so in it that it just it yeah it feels more normalized right in many cases yes that's true that's true

yeah and i also think of nexium because, this is probably the cult I know the most about, is that they had what they called collateral, right? You would send naked photos of yourself to the leader. You would say nasty things about friends or family that they would then keep as their way of basically threatening you of saying, if you go out, if you leave, A, and B, if you tell anybody, we are going to expose you. And again, you were talking about control, right? It's the control aspect to the point where you don't feel like you do have an option to leave. Right. And that's what really nailed him in the court was, you know, when we talk about consent, you can hardly talk about consent when you're being blackmailed. And so that was a very powerful factor in the trial of Ranieri. is it helpful to watch a documentary about a cult, to produce a documentary about a cult? I mean, I imagine, of course, I've learned a lot in talking to you, but there is this certain, I was going to say romanticization, but that sounds so ridiculous. But there is this intrigue or voyeurism that I know I feel about something like a cult where I am so interested in learning

more. Is that helpful? Well, I think there's so many different aspects to this. So for someone like you, yes, it's helpful because you have an honest interest in it. For many viewers, it might reinforce their self-protective belief that those people are so stupid, this could never happen to me. So it really depends a lot on how the production is done. And fortunately, recently, there have been some very good documentaries and podcasts that I think really are helping educate the public.

You know, earlier it was so much of the media coverage was all about sensational, about the sex or the suicides or the this or the that, and they didn't explain anything. But a good in-depth documentary that has preferably experts explaining what the hell is going on, this is one of the criticisms of the second season of The Vow, which I just finished. I don't know if you've seen it, but this is about NXIVM, but they didn't use any experts. So you have six sessions of the second in command blathering on and on, but you don't have anybody explaining what the hell's going on. So when you look at comments people are posting on Instagram or Twitter, you know, sort of your, quote, average viewer, you see that some people are really falling for her bullshit, pardon my French,

because they're not seeing through what she's actually doing or who she actually is. And so that's, you know, not as, I think, as effective. I don't want to criticize Jahan or the team that made The Vow, but I think that has been one of the critiques of this last season, the second season. So I think it's really up to the production team that they do their homework ahead of time. And if they don't use experts in the show, that they at least consult and do their homework and know what they're doing and not abuse survivors. There have been instances where podcast teams or documentary teams have really abused survivors by getting their stories and not having, you know,

not providing the kind of resources or help that they might, because it's very triggering. It's very triggering to tell your story. I mean, when I talked earlier about my mom, I mean, I was tearing up, you know, and it's been 30 some years, right? So that stuff stays with you. And especially if you're interviewing people who are freshly out, that's dangerous territory. It's very volatile, you know, it's very hot territory to mess around in without providing help that they may need if they get too triggered. Do they have someone there ready to work with them and get them through that? So yeah, I think it's a little bit of a sticky wicket. Although I have been pleased by some of the documentaries. One of my favorites lately was Keep, Sweet, Pray, and Obey about the fundamentalist Latter-day Saints. I don't

know if you watched that one, but I thought that was an excellent documentary. Add it to the list. But mostly I don't watch them. I can tell you, I do this all day and at night. I watch British Mysteries. I mean, it's just like, I need to chill out. So if somebody listening is getting to the end of this episode and they're like, wow, sounds like I'm in a cult or someone I know is in a cult. What resources exist to help people leave? Well, that's a good question. You know, again, one of my pet peeves is that as a society, we don't have resources. We don't have community resources for cult survivors. You know, it took 25 some years of fighting to get domestic violence

shelters. And we need something like that for cult survivors, because there are thousands. And especially for those who were born and raised in cults, because that's very traumatic when they leave, especially if they leave on their own, and there's nothing out there. And sometimes they don't even know their real name, you know, and they don't know where to go, and they end on the streets and it's tragic. So obviously having national available resources is important. And I'm proud to say that I have just, I've been doing this work for 30 some years, but I've just started a nonprofit called the Lollich Center on Cults and Coercion. And we will be starting in the new year, we'll be continuing with Zoom recovery courses for survivors. We'll have discussion groups

for survivors, for people born in cults, for families, because families also need people to talk to and just share their experiences. So we have a variety of programs that we'll be starting with our nonprofit. And there's a few other people offering courses or some kinds of resources. And obviously, there's my book, Take Back Your Life, which is really kind of a classic at this point. And unfortunately, at the moment, it's out of print, and I'm revising it and updating it. So hopefully after the first of the year, it'll be available again.

So there are resources, but people have to look and just peck around until they find something or ask people. The sad thing is that there's a limited number of therapists who really understand cult after effects and really understand how to work with cult survivors. And so one of the things we do as well is offer trainings for therapists where they get CE credits and we provide them with tools and skills and resources for working with with tools and skills and resources for working with cult survivor clients or narcissistic survivors or also the troubled teen industry, which I don't know if you're aware of, but those are those awful boarding schools and wilderness programs. And there's a lot of abuse that happens

there. And we'll link both of those resources in our show notes. Yeah, that's it's unfortunate. We again, we talked to a domestic violence expert. We talked to, you know, MLMs. It's just so interesting of, you know, you often ask that question of what support is out there. It's like there's some, but of course not enough. Like always the answer is some, but not enough. My last question for you, what organizations are cult-ish or are cults that may surprise the average listener? So we talked about multi-level marketing companies. What other organizations or companies can you think of that the average person would not probably immediately recognize as a cult, but exemplifies traits of a cult? Well, there are a number of therapy cults. I've had many, a fair number of participants in the courses we did in the past year and a half who came out of therapy cults. There are certainly martial arts cults, which people may not think about that. And other kinds, and certainly the wellness industry, I think people are pretty aware of that. Really, there's every kind of cult. I mean, I keep saying, if you're into chocolate cookies, I'll find you a

chocolate chip cookie cult. You know, I mean, there's just every imaginable. I mean, I have a former participant in my courses who's kind of now a colleague of mine who was in a dog training cult. It was a dog training company. I mean, so, you know, and when she first came to me, I'm like, a what? You know, so even I get surprised at times. But there really is, you really have to look out for those red flags when you're signing over to anything. And certainly if you're being asked to sign a waiver, like if you're signing up for something and they ask you to sign a waiver saying they're not responsible if something happens to you, run the other way. the other way, because obviously something is going to happen to you or has happened to other people. Otherwise they wouldn't have the waiver. So people need to kind of be good consumers when they're out there looking for something to purchase or join or latch onto. And, you know, I always say, you know, use your good judgment like you would when you're buying a car. You never buy the first car you see, right? So look around, talk to critics, look on the end. There's a lot of information on the internet. There's a lot of

cults on the internet, but there's also a lot of really good information. So do your research before you jump in. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your vulnerability. Thank you for your work. I so respect and appreciate that unfortunately something terrible happened to you, but you took it and made it your motivation to help other people. And that is what we need. Where can people find you? Where can people consume your resources? Where should we send people to? Well, certainly there's my website, which is janyalalich.com. It's J-A-N-J-A-L-A-L-I-C-H.com, where a lot of my writing is there and some of the other things I've done, as well as other resources. I have a reading list, things like that. And then the lolichcenter.org. We just have a temporary website at this point

where people can sign into our mailing list so that they'll get our announcements. And hopefully within a month or so, we'll have our sort of full-blown website, but you know, that takes time. It'll probably be up by the time this comes out. So that'll be great for people. Oh, great. Yeah. Great. Yeah. So yeah, that's, that's, that's where I am. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your work. Great. Thank you for having me. I know it took a while to get this finally scheduled. So thank you for your work. Great. Thank you for having me. I know it took a while to get this finally scheduled. So thank you for your patience. Thank you once again to Dr. Lalich for sharing her story and her expertise. Cults are so fascinating to me. And if they are fascinating

to you too, we have more resources in our show notes as well as where you can learn more about her and her work. As always, we're grateful to have you here, Financial Feminist, week after week, month after month. If you're new to the show, welcome. Hope you stick around. And if you're an oldie but a goodie, thanks for being here as always. We hope to see you soon and we'll catch you soon. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, marketing and administration by Karina Patel, Sharice Wade, Alina Helzer,

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