The Taproot Podcast - Taproot Therapy Collective Podcast Promo

Episode Date: March 30, 2024

This is an clip from our Cults and Conspiracy Theories series that is only uploaded so that podcast libraries, like Spotify and iTunes, can use a clip of the podcast trailer. For more info on the podcast visit: https://gettherapybirmingham.com   Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.com/ Podcast Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.podbean.com/ Podcast Feed: https://feed.podbean.com/GetTherapyBirmingham/feed.xml   Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.com/ Podcast Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.podbean.com/ Podcast Feed: https://feed.podbean.com/GetTherapyBirmingham/feed.xml Taproot Therapy Collective 2025 Shady Crest Drive | Hoover, Alabama 35216 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Email: [e-mail]

So, first thing is, like, I want to do that too, but let me get through it. The cults tend to operate by having, sometimes through a charismatic leader, sometimes through a teaching or some sort of ritual process of trusting the process. What they do is they take you and they say, here are all of these things that you need. And then that diagnosis is usually right. If you look at somebody like a Keith Raniere, if you look at somebody like Keith Raniere's of the NXIVM cult, which the documentary The Vow and what's the other one, Seduced? There may be a third one now i don't know uh what they're doing is they're going up and they're making a diagnosis so he goes up to sarah edmondson and he says you're coughing but you're not sick and you're doing that because you think that you have to be sick to get attention who are you without that and it changes

her life because she's like i've done this my whole life my dad gave me attention when i was sick or whatever she says i don't remember her psychoanalysis of herself, but she says basically that woke her up. So then she's kind of in a vulnerable state where she feels like she doesn't know who she is, but she's ready for growth. She sees this thing that's been holding her back. And then Keith Raniere says, okay, you got to do this process. And you understand how, and I'm not going to go through the whole NXIVM indoctrination,

but the diagnosis is right. You know, charismatic leaders, cults, if it's like a text or something that people can kind of project on or sort of vague or has a process, it's going to leave room for people to do this diagnostic part in a way that is unique to them because not everyone's running from a different thing. We all have a different shadow. And so what Keith Raniere did and what most cult leaders are able to do is come up and say, oh, my gosh, you have a father wound. You have a father shaped hole.

And you've been trying to stuff that with drugs your whole life. And you've been trying to stuff that with music and this other identity and sex or whatever. And now you're trying to make me be your father and project that energy on me. But I'm not going to accept it. You need to become your own father. And the person's like, oh, wow, you know, that diagnosis is real, right? That somebody can diagnose what you're running from and you're suffering and they can still have a prescription that is complete bullshit. And sort of that is what advertising is, right? Like, and, you know, and advertising isn't necessarily a cult, but they are operating

on that same mechanism where Starbucks is saying in the nineties, hey, you think a coffee shop is like a cat and some books or whatever. That isn't. It's a new way of life, okay? If you're younger, you have no idea what I'm talking about, okay? Because you don't remember what a world was before Starbucks. But Apple Computer, if you're, you know, some of you may be too young to remember this, but it was like they came on the scene and they said, this computer is not like, and I'm specifically talking about their advertising, you know, don't send me an email and say, well, computers used to not be intuitive. And Steve Jobs wanted to say, well, the, this is a bicycle for your brain. This is supposed to work. Okay. I'm not talking about the actual

product. I'm talking about the way it was marketed. Okay. So like Apple computers said, here's an artist blowing dust off a thing they built in their studio. And they have this Apple computer and they have this thing. And here's this guy going on this long journey and the iPad's in the leather case. And he's a bespoke gentleman checking his thing. And they were trying to say these people live intentionally. They live artistically. They have a very small quantity of very nice things because those nice things cost a lot of money. Um, you

know, the computer is next to the heirloom watch or knife because it's going to be the same thing. It's going to last forever. It's not computers don't last forever. Um, but you're supposed to feel that and intuit that. Okay. And that diagnosis of like, you want to be an artist doesn't mean that you need an apple, that diagnosis of like, I want to go on this thing to have this part of my life. I want to have a new way of life. That doesn't mean that you need an apple. That diagnosis of like, I want to go on this thing to have this part of my life. I want to have a new way of life. That doesn't mean that you need a cup of Starbucks coffee. The diagnosis in a cult and a conspiracy theory in predatory therapy, in predatory religion, like you'll see the same thing in religion. They'll get that. I mean, a ton of religions, they lead with this, these basically like self-help techniques from the

seventies. Now, like I've had people tell me, well, yeah, you're just running from stuff. You know, you don't know that you have a black hole in your heart that you're trying to stop with all this other stuff. They don't even know where that line came from. You know, their pastor or something said it to them. Um, but you know, like that came from human potential type cults in the seventies and, um, synonym and things like that. So like a lot of these things make a diagnosis and then they tell you that you have to do something to feel better or you have to do something to be whole. Okay. So that's what makes it a cult is that in that spot, that person is taking away, they're, they're clocking you, making you feel like you're moving towards authenticity.

Then they're taking away your authenticity and they're replacing it with something else. And that something else is this thing that usually leads to exploitation of your time, exploitation of your sexuality, exploitation of your. Sometimes it's just your attention that these some people will settle just for being an egomania. You know, a lot of these kind of cults of personality are just that. But it replaces it with something that is self-serving to a small group of people or a person or a group. And then it's going to put you in a position where you are supposed to go out and do the same thing on a smaller scale. Now, you're not going to get as much of the reward as the founder. Usually your reward is going to be ego. But you're doing the abuse and you're a

good person and you think you feel well. So what you're doing is an abuse. So that means you're not being abused. You get it? And that's why so many people who come out of these things, they have such problems because not only, if I admit that that guy damaged me enough to start the healing and change process, I have to sit with the shame and guilt that I hurt all these other people. And so vulnerability is always going to be switched and replaced in a cult. Okay. That's a cult. The difference in a cult and a conspiracy theory, or I think conspiracy movement might be a better term because there's conspiracy theories that are right, right? And I know the thing happened. I just don't agree with the thing that people are doing with it. And then there's also conspiracy theories that are wildly insane and are just not real, but the movement around them is like pretty mainstreamed so i don't know that the theory itself is the problem i'm going to say conspiracy movement right so the conspiracy conspiracy theory how that difference differs from a cult right is that

with a conspiracy theory you are feeling um a group of people is deciding that there is a course of action because that's one of the reasons I don't like theory, is people sitting around and diagnosing this thing and talking about it and writing books about it or believing it or going to church to talk about it or going to academia to talk about it or school to talk about it and just talking about it anywhere. That isn't a conspiracy theory, right? Because conspiracy theory involves action. Now, the action might be talking, right? The difference is that the conspiracy theory, you've made the leap that what you are doing is messianic, is important, is fighting back,

is empowering you against the forces of darkness in a way. Now, a cult can't really empower you the same way a conspiracy theory can, right? Because Keith Raniere, he needs you working all of the time. He needs your finances and your sexuality and your whatever. Like, you've got to be tired. You've got to be exhausted. Matthew Rimsky was talking about one of the high control groups he was in, and he was saying that the only time where he had time to realize that he was in a cult was when he was in the kitchen, because he just got to feel a little moment of joy while he made something. I mean, he was making it a slave

labor for this organization. But it was like one of the only places where he could feel himself because he was so tired of going in the process, it wears you down. You can't clock out of NXIVM and then go do QAnon and storm the Capitol. Like, there's not, you don't have time to do that. The conspiracy movement is taking something and saying, this action is actually empowering. It is good. It is going to get you to fight back, and you're making a difference. So a cult is giving you a false sense of authenticity, right? An authentic self. A conspiracy movement, and i know there's some overlap but but its main mission is is it's giving you a false sense of agency you know they're making the frogs gay they're making the kids gay the disney movies are contaminated you know no one knows that jesus

is coming back whatever the cult is doing it's saying all this stuff and then it's telling you that if you get on Facebook and you post, you're fighting back, you're in this, you may just be talking about it, like I said, but the talk becomes the action and that we have this little bubble of people and we're spreading the word and it's growing and it's on 4chan and you've got to go out and find younger kids and then co-opt their style and their culture and bring them into this thing. And people are waking up and people in other countries are even supporting us that feels like i'm doing something that is empowering to me that's less about my authentic self being replaced by a leader or group or a high control system and it more is

telling me something that's either negligibly effective or actually harmful to the world and myself is great you know that there's a secret conspiracy that on this pizza restaurant in DC that doesn't have a basement, um, there's actually a secret dungeon of kids. And I'm going to go shoot that up because Alex Jones told me to, um, that's a me feeling empowered to go act on behalf of as a conspiracy theory. So there's overlap between these things. They are technically different things. So where are they similar causationally i i think that they are very similar Thanks for watching!