The Taproot Podcast - 🎭🕯️Understanding Cult Dynamics with Dr. Janja Lalich

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

We dive deep into the world of cults, charismatic leadership, and the psychology of influence and control with renowned expert Dr. Janja Lalich. Dr. Lalich, a professor emerita of sociology and a celebrated author, shares her invaluable insights drawn from decades of research. We explore the mechanisms that cults use to attract and retain members, the impact on individuals, and the process of recovery for those who leave. Whether you're a student of psychology, a survivor of coercive control, or simply fascinated by the complexities of social groups, this episode offers profound insights into the human condition. About Our Guest: Dr. Janja Lalich is a globally recognized authority on cultic studies and high-control groups. With a rich academic background and personal experience in a high-control group, she brings a unique perspective to her research and writing. She has authored and co-authored several seminal books on cults, including Cults in Our Midst and Escaping Utopia, focusing on the structure, tactics, and psychology of coercive groups. Her work extends beyond academic circles, providing support and resources for survivors and their families. In This Episode, You'll Learn: The definition and characteristics of a cult. How charismatic leaders use psychological manipulation. The process of indoctrination and its effects on members. Strategies for recovery and support for ex-members. Dr. Lalich's journey from a cult member to a leading expert. Resources Mentioned: Dr. Janja Lalich's Official Website Dr. Lalich's Books on Amazon Recovery Resources for Ex-Cult Members Connect with Dr. Janja Lalich: Twitter: @DrJanjaLalich LinkedIn: Dr. Janja Lalich   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] Hashtags: #Cults #Psychology #Sociology #CoerciveControl #CharismaticLeadership #CultRecovery #SocialInfluence #AcademicInsight #MentalHealthAwareness #SurvivorStories #ExpertInterview #EducationalPodcast #CultDynamics #HighControlGroups #JanjaLalich

So am I erasing myself? Hope I'm not erasing myself. I guess it would be nice to give my heart to a god. But which one, which one do I? Psycho or confused? I just want to hold it in. All right, I'm here with Dr. Leilich, who's a professor emeritus. And I was like, I'm trying to catch, you know, I've seen you in every cult documentary almost, I think, that I've ever seen. And then we'll catch you on different podcasts and things.

I was a comparative religion major and, you know, do therapy now. So a lot of trauma and high control group stuff. So same kind of world uh so of my interest and your interest i've encountered you but i was trying to make sure like oh let me catch up and make sure i didn't miss anything big and it seems like you may be more busy retired than when you were teaching full time i don't know how you keep up with the schedule and i think like the cult i mean you one if people want to hear what you have to say on this stuff you've written about it for a long

time and you also are in almost any you know documentary where they might encounter that stuff so they i would my worst fear with something like this is to get a guest that said something a million times really well and then not absorb that information and be like could you just give us clip notes just tell us again you know so but you also want to give people some kind of intro into what you do so i've always kind of try and get somebody to reconsider their work from a new perspective or a bigger thing and i mean you've been going around since the 70s the weather underground which was a culty time you know the seventies economic malaise and people are attracted to this esoteric power. You know, one of my interests is like, do you feel like, I mean, there are definitely things like the internet and the fusion of self-help with multi-level marketing,

with social media, with everything that just changed the technology, make some things available that weren't there before right so that's that's happening but do you feel like we are going back to a time where the disillusionment with you know right left politics and um the kind of atomization of people not feeling like we're part of the same project anymore of being very polarized or not even polarized because even people on the same sides don't quite agree or don't speak the same language. Does it feel like the seventies again to you? You know, I was born in 87, so I missed it. You know, I'm going to fall to your perspective on this. Well, I think that a lot of what happened, I mean, a lot of this change in the

environment of cults and high control groups, you know, happened during the pandemic, the year we were sheltered in. And because everybody was pecking around on their computers and, you know, and that's the, I thought I was retiring. And then I suddenly got hundreds of emails like, you know, my uncle, I don't want to invite my uncle to Thanksgiving. I can't talk to my sister anymore, you know, conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers q anon all that stuff and so i think the internet the access to the internet has absolutely expanded the environment um so that there are more internet-based cults than ever before um which which has changed things

in a way for someone like me because because before you always, you know, you knew where the cult was, you knew where the headquarters was, you knew who the leader was, you knew maybe where their satellites were, but now it's so amorphous. So for example, with QAnon, like who was the leader of QAnon? Was it that guy and his son? Was it, you know, and, and so that, that makes it a little more difficult on one level. Well, there are multiple people claiming to be the original leader and followed as the original leader, while most scholars feel like the original guy is probably gone.

He did his fun and somebody else is playing with the internet-based cults and this past, I don't know, five years or so, is that the cults, those cults or those high control groups, whatever you want to call them, are far more polarized and because of this, what we call us versus them environment, which I believe the former president, whose name I shall not mention, did a lot to encourage that us versus them mentality. So that, you know, the anti-vaxxers, the white supremacists, whoever, you know, I think we can all remember the cases where, you know, you'd go into a store and someone would rip your mask off or, you know. And there'd be somebody next to you saying,

well, I'm wearing five masks. So look how virtuous I am where everyone was taking it to, to kind of an antagonistic extreme. Right. But the, the difference I think today is that the, a lot of these groups act outward, they act out against society, which in the past, most cults didn't do that and don't do that. We had a few cases like Aum Shinrikyo, the cult in Japan that put the sarin gas in the subway, but most cults basically ruin the lives of their own members. They don't so much have anything to do with the outside society. And so this is a real difference. They don't want to be seen. That's a threat. If you expose it, then it looks, you know, for the lack of a better word, kind of crazy. So you want to say, no, no, we just want to clap for the guy on the stage and say,

oh, we learned such great things. Thank you for all you did. Just don't say what he did, or you can't see what those are, but we just want to show you how happy we are. Right, exactly. And the the difference today is the the um the growth of the outward violence um and and that's obviously very troubling um and it seems like that's because it's a decentralized thing like it isn't like there's even if there's a q anon guy or whatever it's not like they're going into the meeting and he's saying okay stacy you do this this week then you do that someone's just reading this language on the internet they're listening to Alex Jones he says that the pizza restaurant's part of it maybe I gravitate to that this person says whatever and then I decide oh my

gosh I'm gonna go out and do something right you know is that a high control group and that I am internalizing all this information but it's not a top-down mafia structure of, these are the orange belt, red belt, black belt. You know, it's not an exeum. That's the difference. So this kind of, I mean, in a way, those people are under the same kind of influence that we see in the cultic groups. But, again, you can't put your hand on it. And before, you always needed personal contact to get recruited into something. But now,

as we were saying, it happens by somebody logging into something and thinking, Oh, that's really cool. And they start believing that. And so there's viral or memetic in a way. You have an idea of virus and a, you have idea viruses and real viruses sort of making each other's job

easier, which I don't know. I wish that the last season had a better writer, I guess. Yeah. So it's kind of a new world in that sense and pretty frightening. I mean, I keep saying, God, I'm sure glad I don't have kids because I wouldn't want my kid to go to school these days. You know, the atmosphere in our country is pretty volatile well but i think in the same way that i mean as someone who does have kids not that it isn't very

incredibly scary but like you do see you know the the 50s advertising doesn't work on the person from the 60s you know now i don't want the american dream i want to be the man from the future who drinks vodka and my deodorant sprays from a can and you know like you know and then the 60s advertising looks quaint the next time you do see kids that are making jokes essentially about like religion and social control and um you know the role of charismatic leaders politically and whatever at like 10 now you know that's what they're joking about and it's things that completely had their you know parents or who were older millennials or boomers totally under you know they didn't have those resistances until they were 30 40 you know because culture moving at light speed means that you know

we're looking at you know two and five years is almost like a generational gap now and cultural awareness and experience yeah yeah so it's a different world. That's for sure. I mean, I'm, yeah, I'm almost 79 years old and I'm like, wow, you know, even just tipping, I mean, you know what we went through to get me the link for this, you know, it's like, you know, you know, so. When you, when you look at like the way that you've been in all of these documentaries, you know, you don't say it, but, you know, you may agree or like certain ones of them more like how your footage is used or something. I mean, the true criming of cults, essentially in high control groups, getting them getting the true crime sensationalist treatment. I mean, I think in one way it does give people those tools like kids

are making jokes about this stuff now my wife didn't turn the nexium documentary off fast enough when my daughter was pretending to be asleep and was like you know mom what's a sex cult and we like we both looked at each other so um so like you know anyway they they have in one way it's good that you're exposing what goes on inside of this stuff and its effect on people but then it also is kind of sensationalizing and othering and there's some other risks associated with it i mean one is kind of victim blaming but another is pretending like oh look at this weird group look what they do yeah i feel like when those movies work you saying, this is the norm for human behavior.

You know, like when I was taught the Holocaust in school, I always felt like frustrated because the way that they were teaching in middle school was like, I think we were in sixth grade. And they were like, yeah, this is this crazy thing people did. They're never going to do this again. We need to learn about it because it's just so weird. And no one will ever do this. And I was like, no, no, no. You know, this is you're telling me that this is an anomaly of human nature. But what I feel is that this is the unchecked nature of empire and impulse and id and that our job is to hold and meet the moving target of managing these realities, not say, well, thank God this happened in Germany in 1940 and will never happen again. That seems like

a silly way to teach history. I mean, part of my goal has always been to basically educate the public about this. So to basically, for one reason, to de-stigmatize cult survivors, because everybody thinks, oh, it's only those stupid, crazy, lazy people who get into cults. And that's absolutely not true. But secondly, to realize that what these groups do is they use basic social psychological techniques. They don't have to give you drugs. They don't have to lock you up and hold you against your will. They just slowly change your mind until you adopt that point of view of the world. So the more we can let people, and especially young people today, know what the red flags are, to know what to look out for, what are the questions to ask, you know, when is the time to turn around and run the

other direction. And absolutely, there are documentaries that focus more on the sensational aspect or do what some people call trauma porn. But there are there are also some some good documentaries out there that are very educational and and some film teams that actually have learned over time how to work with survivors. And and because, you know, being a survivor and speaking on film is can be very triggering and so like i always advise these companies like have a mental health fund set up so if somebody gets really triggered you have somebody for them to talk to and don't just you know don't just upset them and let it go so reality tv has been incredibly bad at that and not taking responsibility for the things that it does and its participants who a lot of times they're not even paid um it's not all the kardashians

and i i think too like the documentary a lot of stuff is like well this documentary is bad because of this decision or this one's good because of this decision but i do feel for the directors when i'm watching certain things where it's like if you can do a greater good by not challenging this person who if you don't play the game a little bit walks out of the room and then you can't make the movie and then nobody knows i mean you're always trying to make ethical compromises because these are people that are difficult and you know ephemerally culpable some of them or you know a lot of the accusations that this person's just coming out because it's convenient to them and now the camera's here and there's more money ephemerally culpable, some of them, or, you know, a lot of the accusations that this person's just coming out because it's convenient to them. And now the camera's here and there's more money on

this side of it. You don't get paid to do documentaries. I can tell you, I mean, they cannot pay you because it would show bias. So if they fly you. I mean, like some of the people who have NXIVM, being ex-NXIVM members was the next career, which I'm not criticizing i'm just saying you know some people pointed that out um yeah why didn't the director challenge this more and it's like well if if they're not on camera they're not on camera you know you do have to make the guests want to participate right right so i agree well i mean so i mean to going back to the original question like you know the difference in 1970 and somebody handing you a flower and a bed sheet at the airport and now you know yes the

medium is not the same the groups do not look the same we don't have the same sort of uh projection of whatever the old new age falling apart was. But is there something that is similar or do you feel like it's just history moves forward and this is a totally different time? Well, it's certainly similar in that these groups that, that get created basically use the same techniques that were used back in the seventies. I mean, there's nothing different about that.

And most of these cult leaders are, are the 70s. I mean, there's nothing different about that. And most of these cult leaders are far from original. I mean, that's why in one of my books, I say it looks like they go to the cookie cutter Messiah school because they all act and do the same things. So that remains the same, of course. And, you know, unfortunately, there will always be con artists. There will always be people who want to take advantage of other people. This goes back to the beginning of time. So it's not like this is ever going to go away. It may change shape a little bit, but there's always power-hungry people. And the trick is not to fall under their sway.

And not everybody is aware of what they're doing which is a thing that makes it messier in and out of the cult and the leaders of the cult i mean like you oh i think the leaders know what they're doing absolutely they know what they're doing well absolutely like when when you watch something like heaven's gate you know i feel sorry for them in a way that I don't feel sorry for some other modern cults you know you mean the leaders yeah yes absolutely I don't feel sorry for her I feel Marshall Applewhite yeah I mean she was he she was his cult leader she recruited him he got him into this and he was very vulnerable you know he was a gay man in the South in the 50s. You know, he had a lot of troubling incidents. And she basically swept him up. And, you know, all along the way, I don't know, I think this is in

one of the documentaries or somewhere, you know, all along the way, she was writing home to her daughter and saying, do the right thing, go to college. You know, it's like, OK, lady, you really believe this. Why wouldn't you go and recruit your daughter? You know, so, you know, there was that kind of two faced on her part. And that's what it was so sad is when she died and you'd see the footage in the car of them just basically being kind of gentle nerds hanging out and not understanding why everyone doesn't like them. And, you know, really because you've decided this person's God and they're gone trying to figure out how to reconnect with that. And he was very troubled. I mean, he, you know, when that happened,

he was like, I can't do this. I can't do this. And so the followers convinced him, oh yes, you can. And so he, in a sense, he was a bit of a pawn of some of the more fervent followers in that group. And I know I get flack for this all the time, because I do feel sorry for him. I mean, I do believe he was exploited and taken advantage of. On the other hand, they did have a lot of perks. You know, they would leave everybody behind and they would go to Las Vegas and gamble and do all this stuff. How can we be any more

Two-Face than that? That's the group I did my dissertation on when I went to grad school. I certainly know tons about it and had worked with families. Yeah. And interestingly, that cult started at the very same time as the political cult that I was in. So, again, it was that 70s environment where people were checking out all kinds of different things. Yeah, the Port Huron Statement launched a couple of interesting directions for a few decades. Well, is there something about, like, politics being more aesthetic now that you think drives that individualized? You can just project it yourself.

You don't even need the cult leader. You know, like, I think when you have somebody like a politician, like a Reagan or, you know, a Carter, like they're going up and they're saying things that are political and that like, this is my policy. This is what I will do. You know, they're going to say we're Americans and values and whatever. But I mean, they were saying articulating a vision for the direction of the country. That's what I'm going to do. You can get on board with it or not. And that's going to do. You can get on board with it or not. And that's politics to me. Now you look at someone like Trump who ran and I'm not saying it's bad or good. And I'm not

saying that this is my opinion. I'm saying statistically, huge chunks of the young left heard what he said and went and voted for him. And as a guy who most people would say is pretty right wing. And he was using language about Occupy Wall Street movement, you know, very lefty thing. Like, he kind of ran almost like a Rorschach test, where you looked at it, and you saw what you wanted. I mean, one person says, Oh, that guy's gonna lower my taxes. Another person says, he's fighting back against the corporations that I don't like, you know, another person says, like, oh, there's a culture war issue. He wants America

to look like the 50s again. And he didn't say really any of those things. He just kind of said empty aesthetic stuff that was more stylistic. And I think something about that lets the, I don't know, what do you think? I mean, do you see that changing the way that we like engage with religion and advertising and all that sphere? Well, I think that for sure the world is far more complex now. And that's part of what I think helps push people toward these groups or these leaders with the answers. Because as human beings, we all want to have some kind of framework for understanding the world. And most of us want to have some kind of framework for understanding the world. And most of us want to have some kind of purpose or some kind of meaning in our life. So if somebody comes

along and they have a message that resonates with you, whatever that might be, like I always say, I never would have joined a meditation cult. I mean, I can't sit still that long, you know, but a political group that said we were going to get rid of racism and sexism and all the isms, you know, that sounded great to me. You know, so it has to be. And I think the fact that sometimes these leaders, the political leaders speak in a way that is vague enough that just about anybody can latch on to it. I think that's what you're speaking to. I think that does happen um it's not really tied to a policy you know like it's not like there's not like a cohesive politics seems to be for lack of a better word less political and then you're currently in the case of trump because he's absolutely an idiot but i don't want to go into that in my opinion could you tell us about the political group you got into i don't

want you to repeat your story too much but something to give people some kind of history of how you kind of, because I think you almost have to be, have the capacity to be halfway in one of these things before you understand how they work enough to explain them and treat and help. You know, it's kind of like most people that work in this field have some kind of experience with that. And you've been open about yours.

Yeah. So I, you know, I was 30 years old. I had just moved back to the United States after living on an island off the coast of Spain for four years. And sometimes I wish I was still there. And I decided it was time to go back and see what was going on in America. And so I landed in San Francisco and it was just at the end of the Vietnam war. And so people on the left as like I was, you know, we're looking for something else to do, what else to get involved in. And so for me, I, I, you know, I was new in town. I was making new friends. I happened to befriend a bunch of women who were political, and that was interesting to me. And then I got asked to join. First, I was asked to join a study

group, which I didn't realize was a front group for this other organization. And I thought, sure, I'll join a study group. I'll meet new people. Was it SDS? No, no, no, it wasn't. The group was, well, the final name was the Democratic Workers' Party. Before that, it was called the Workers' Party for Proletarian Socialism. And I think we decided that was too much of a mouthful. But in the beginning, one of the appeals for a lot of people was that the leader was a woman. There were always men and women in the group, but the fact that the leader and the top leadership were women made a big difference in the 70s because most of the groups on the left were male-dominated. They were very macho. I remember going into some

office somewhere wanting to volunteer, and they go, oh, yeah, great. The ladies are here. They can make the coffee. And you're like, no, screw you. I'm not here to make the coffee. So the fact that this group was offering a women led organization, you know, that was appealing to me at that time. Right. And when I joined, I absolutely had, didn't have a clue what I was joining. I didn't even know there was a leader when I joined. So, you know, it's part of that slowly slowly slowly you get introduced to more and more and more by the time you realize what the hell's going on it's too late to get out I mean that you know that whole metaphor of the frog in the boiling water you know yes um yeah so I got a lot of sunk cost there too that you've already had some good association with it and you've spent

time so I probably can just change the course of the ship instead of leaving right no in the there too, that you've already had some good association with it and you've spent time. So I probably can just change the course of the ship instead of leaving. Right. No, in the beginning, you know, we did do some good work politically in the area. And, you know, so that always helped you kind of rationalize the really crappy stuff that was going on. And, you know, at one point I used to say to myself, well, we're in the tradition of Stalin and at least we haven't killed anyone yet. I mean, that's how I was nationalized. So, you know, all along the way, you do see. Even better than him.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so that was it. I was very involved for about 10 years. I was almost 41 when I got out. My brain was fried. I luckily found a really good therapist who helped me. I moved to New York to get away from San Francisco. But it was a very grueling life. I mean, we worked from, you know, five in the morning to one in the

morning, sleep deprived, had no money, ate burritos, and that was about it. And I spent most of our time sitting around in circles criticizing somebody. It was a very, very emotionally and psychologically battering organization. And I was a top leader. I did all of that to others in the group. So when I got out, I had a lot of guilt and shame, and that was difficult. I mean, I was actually suicidal for a long time. I was like, how did I become that person? Like, what the hell? So, I mean, I think that's a lot what people don't understand is sort of once you leave, that's not over.

Then there's a whole other process of recovery that takes time, which is kind of falls into your area well i think that's true um and that like a lot of like i've been in consultation groups or trainings where a therapist has said you know so-and-so left this high control group maybe they didn't use that language but they left this you know religious sect or something and i think i so i would think that they wouldn't have these politics anymore i would think that they wouldn't have this you you know, outlook socially or something. And it's like, that's not how it works. They're just out. Like the base of your brain is still acting on all of these assumptions emotionally that vulnerability is bad. And when someone is being vulnerable, that is their fault because they're not taking, you know, initiative or whatever. Right. I, you know, a lot of therapists listen to this show and they're probably, you know,

you know, trauma therapists. And we know how to deal with trauma when the patient's saying this is trauma, we kind of know how to say, well, maybe you're being manipulated in a relationship or something or by a parent or a friend, but cults are kind of different. I mean, and you correct me where I'm wrong, but the people that I've had who come in who I suspect are in a high control group, or they're telling me, I think maybe I'm an occult. I mean, usually I know that that person

has heard from everyone around them for so long. This person's so bad. He's a pedophile. He did this thing and you can't do that. And he controls you. They already have heard that intellectually, you know, they don't need more of that. I mean, what I open the door with is tell me about the good experiences there and why you're there. because the goal is to teach them that they don't need that group to have that experience. And they've been told you'll never have a father's love. You'll never be understood. You'll never have the opportunity to go to work. So, I mean, that's my approach.

But do you have some tips for people who treat someone who may come in with that you know history well i think it's important first of all for therapists to be aware of what might be the presenting symptoms is so to speak in your language i mean a lot of i have a friend who left the uh the cult i was in we were both in the same cult she was also high level um she just contacted me after 35 years. We hadn't talked in 35 years. And she said she went to therapy for about 15 years and she never mentioned the cult because she still felt loyal inside of herself. So she kind of dealt with all these issues around it. And now 35 years later,

she's like exploding with emotion because she's finally realizing what the hell she was in. And so I think being able to assess if that is someone's situation and then to tread very lightly, like you cannot confront. And this is what I tell families all the time. Like the last thing you want to do is confront the person or say, oh, well, that's bad. Get out. That's only going to push them further back in. So I think your approach of saying, oh, well, what was good about it, and why did you leave, and get them to separate that, because there always is some good, otherwise no one would ever be there to begin with. Yeah, I think that nothing that is good in a cult

is original to the cult, and so if you can find the thing that's good, you know, there's a lot that's original that's bad, you know, but some you put these you know two eastern words together or something and in fact you know in all the years i've been doing this all the people i've worked with because i get asked all the time well what you know is you know as i was saying earlier is it just stupid people who join or they're so weak or they're so this you don't want a stupid person in a cult they just eat the food man you You get people who are so smart and have not been well understood and they have all this potential. And then you say the way you can actualize that potential is by doing slave labor for me.

Exactly. That's extravagant. But yeah, the, you know, the thing is that people need to realize, I think that the, if there's any common denominator of who joins cults, it's idealism, right? It's people doing a lot of some wish to have a better life, change the society, find a better religion. You know, it could be even make more money, right? If you want to look at the multiple stuff. And so it's that idealism, it's the goodness in the person. And that's what gets twisted and turned against them. And then they're, they're instilled with this fear. I mean, I was told if I left, I would die in the streets, you know, I would just die in the gutter. No one would want me. I was a dirty ex-communist, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, and so staying

sometimes seems better than the, than the fear of leaving. And, and so staying sometimes seems better than the than the fear of leaving. And and so working. I'm actually going to be starting some courses for therapists that I'll be doing through my nonprofit. Those are great to know. Send me those when you when you get them up and we'll link to them. Yeah, because I've done one before and now I'm kind of regrouping and and hope to do another one again sometime in the spring, because that's one of the hardest things for people who leave is finding a therapist who understands what these after effects are and how to help them. Yeah. Do you have, um, I don't know how much you overlap with therapy in your professional or personal life, but you find that there's a style of therapy that is more helpful or a, you know, better. Yeah. Well, I'm not a therapist, first of all, but what I,

what I advise for one is not, at least not immediately using EMDR. EMDR is kind of a fad right now. It a bit of a rage but with with culture dying out i think i think it's evolved into something that works a little bit better and especially if someone's been in any kind of meditation cult or a cult where they went into trance states a lot like emdr is just going to trigger the crap out of them so because they're very likely to be dissociative right what you're doing is uncorking a dissociative disorder and in complex trauma, which is where EMDR really messes people up. I mean, you hear the horror story where the person is going to, because I was an EMDR therapist for years, and the EMDR people don't do themselves favors in that they don't admit where it works and

why it works. And it does work for some things. Right. So that's one caution I would make. And also, I mean, the ones that people have told me have been helpful were IFS. That's been helpful to people to some degree. Frankly, just good old talk therapy. I mean, people just need to talk it out. They need to kind of debrief.

Yeah. I would think an overly behavioral therapy or a more cognitive therapy wouldn't work because the person's goals are not really what they need. Something that was more emotion-focused or parts driven like IFS, any of the post-yungi and stuff would maybe help them contain the experience. Yeah. And you don't want to tell them what to do like oh go you know go now and do this and like don't know they've been told what to do too many times so you know it's um but you know it's hard to find good therapists so a lot you know i mean that's why i wrote my book take back your life and i hope therapists are who think they may have that kind of clientele would read the book. I always tell survivors, like if you go to a therapist, well, first of all, I have a checklist on my website, like how to find a good therapist. Like what are the kinds of questions to ask?

And I try to impress upon them like you're hiring that person, that person's working for you. And if you, you know, don't be bossed around. If you want to leave, don't tell them, Oh no, you can't leave all of that. But I think it's important to be able to find out is that therapist using any kind of gimmicks or new agey bullshit you know it's like that's not gonna help you know yeah the maybe um and i think i've heard of some styles of therapy saying kind of culty stuff to patients who called and said this was my experience It's like well, what do they say? You know if your therapist says something like well, I won't talk to that part of you

That's your trauma or something. That seems strange, you know, some of this stuff is lifted right from those documentaries Well, of course either there are plenty of therapy cults, you know cult therapists who are their own little cult around them I can't tell you how many people have come to me about that. So, yeah. Is it rebirthing is one of the big ones or, you know, some of the, I haven't ever heard you talk about what's his name. Who's the Canadian that did Michelle remembers, Satanic Panic. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, for a while I was, I was a colleague with Dr. Margaret Singer, who was a clinical psychologist at Berkeley. And she was kind of the preeminent cult expert at that time. And we wrote two books together.

And one of them is called Crazy Therapies. I haven't read it. You've read it? Yeah. I love that. I'm trying to figure out how to make sure it doesn't go out of print. So I'm actually working with her son to try to contact the publishers and see what we can do about both of the books that we did together to make sure they stay in print. Cause they're really valuable. I mean, some of these,

maybe a second draft, there's been some crazy therapy since then. It kind of needs to be updated. Like, you know, when we wrote that, one of the big phrases was UFO therapy, right? And I don't think that's so much of a thing right now anymore. I mean, UFOs were kind of a thing. You see it coming back, like Chris Bledsoe's book and some other things, because a lot of people, some people have an experience. I don't know what it is. You want to conceptualize it in a mystical way or whatever i'm not telling you i'm going to fight with you about i don't know how the universe works but what happens is that there's a lot of people who i

think have had a traumatic incident like sexual abuse and it is easier to kind of subconsciously say well you know the alien did this than it is to really admit reality and heal. And when the therapist is playing into that and not helping you weigh things, that is very dangerous because the therapist believes in UFOs and might be doing the same thing, but they're traumatic experience. Right. Right. That's where I see the therapy modalities become called. So it's where a therapist says this worked for me. It worked for everybody. And, and, and you have to do this to get better.

And if you don't do that this way, you're doing it wrong. I'm kind of like, I don't know how to get better. What do you think we should try? There's this approach. You like that on this one? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Did you, did you ever write about the rebirthing called other than that, or the psychotherapy called other than in your book the 50 crazy other than in crazy therapies um no i haven't written anything

else about that i mean i've in the i've had clients who went through that experience i have certainly haven't recently um is that still a thing no one's pretty gone. There may be some unlicensed people that kind of do something in the high hills. But usually the phases of therapy, like therapy, when it comes out, like the problem is that there are academic cults, too, because there's a lot of insecurity in academia and you get a lot of people especially in soft sciences where they're like extremely hostile to this new anything new and they don't and so they'll they'll take you know they'll be like well we can't quite turn this totally empirical or there haven't been 15 randomized controlled trials randomized controlled trials on it yet so it's complete bs it's not, which is too reactionary. And then you have private practice, which tends to move to what patients want quicker. And so

there, there's sort of cults in there where there's tension between them. I think EMDR is one of the best examples because it works miracles. If you look at the research, like it works miracles for like 25, 30% of people, certain conditions conditions dissociation is not when you want to use it for complex btsc is not when you want to use it for um and it does nothing for about 70 75 percent of people so everybody who got better that way was like this is a miracle and they're chasing that experience and they're wanting that spiritual experience with the patient they're not noticing that everyone else is leaving first or second session and then you have researchers that are like that is complete crystal healing woo-woo nonsense there's nothing about it there is a neurological thing happening so we didn't

understand what it was well something like brain spotting is way more generalizable it's way more safe i don't think it's the end of where that kind of medicine's going but you you needed EMDR to get to that one and when you have such hostility in academia like it makes new models of therapy act like cults even when they're good which I don't think is good and when I did like emotional transformation therapy with Stephen Vasquez which if I hadn't read the research and if I hadn't been to the training and felt like I wouldn't believe it worked but I was making that joke and he didn't think it was funny and I said he was't think it was funny. And I said, he was like, well, it's not a cult. We prefer to think of it like a family.

And I was like, oh, you already know your lines. And like, he didn't think that was funny at all. Cause he's a nice guy and it's not a cult, but it looks very weird from the outside. And there's a lot of new models that are kind of like that. Well, in fact, I mean, when we wrote Crazy Therapies, which I think was in 94, 95, I mean, we trashed EMDR. I mean, there's a chapter on it, but it was brand new. And it was like, oh, this woman walked in the woods and had a revelation. It's like, oh, I've heard that before. I don't disagree with you though. I use EMDR where it works, but I don't disagree with the research's take on it. I disagree with the meta analysis that say there's nothing to this. Everyone doing it's crazy.

Right. Yeah. So, okay. We can agree on that. Primal scream therapy. You had primal scream in there too, didn't you? Yeah. I'm sure we had primal scream. I got primal scream. Yeah. That's another one. Oh, I don't know, man. And I think when the, when the industry moves so cognitive and behavioral so quickly in the eighties, because healthcare got so corporatized and academia largely started to get more corporatized and less state funded, less publicly funded,

it made anyone who was kind of in the middle of, I'm going to just do cognitive behavioral therapy and i want to do some kind of depth-oriented woo-woo a little bit out there whatever it split those worlds apart you know pretty quickly and you had a lot of people that got real weird uh and a lot of people that got real cognitive in the hospital that what do you see is like the biggest way to sort of help you look at things like twin flames which looks so low like low rent compared to i mean keith renier really like he was a lazy guy but he had to work harder than you know something like twin flames university

or cult of the mother god you know oh god cult of the mother god, you know. Oh, God, Cult of the Mother God. Oh, that documentary. That was one of the most difficult documentaries about cults that I've ever watched. That was heartbreaking. It was pitiful. And I feel like it was really, really negligent of the filmmakers that they didn't have any commentary.

I mean, they basically took the footage that these believers gave them and it was like an ad for mother God with no comment whatsoever and and It was just tragic and that these people are still believers as far as I know and there's you know That was that's a sad one. Oh boy Well, you see things like that that are definitely enabled from the internet existing, definitely enabled by limitations and ability to afford health care, and definitely enabled by everything kind of being an influencer MLM racket now. Right. What does that, where does that go? I mean, NXIVM was not that long ago and I don't think you could do another NXIVM today. I don't think corporate seminars are the path to success. I think it does look more like Twin Flames or Cult of the Mother God. It's this kind of internet, social media thing. How do we protect ourselves, our kids, our, you know, healthcare from that. Well, again, I think it's trying to be aware of the red flags. It's trying to be, you know, ask critical questions. I mean, I always say to people, if you ask a

question and they don't answer it, they turn it back on you. That's a bad sign. Like if you say, well, what about blah, blah, blah. And they say, oh, just take one more course. And then you'll under, you know, then you then ask us the question. Well, you take one more course and then you'll under, you know, then you, then ask us the question. Well, you take one more course and you can't remember the question anymore. Right. And so anytime there's that duplicity, you know, and also I think people move way too fast. Like, you know, you don't buy the first car you look at. So don't jump into the first, whatever spiritual call, whatever kind of group it is like, take your time and investigate. And one of the advantages today of the internet is that there's so much information out there. There's bound to be people who left that group who will be talking about their experiences.

And so you'll, you know, it's like when you buy a car, you check the blue book or whatever that thing is called, you drive around a few cars, you know, you take your time. So people need to do the same thing when they're thinking about making that kind of personal commitment. Because like you said, then there's the sunk cost. Once you're in, once you've spent thousands of dollars, once you've given up all your friends and your family on the outside, this has become your whole reality. It's going to be just that much harder to leave. So, I mean, it took me five years to leave my group. I wanted to leave for five years and I couldn't do it. I mean, the door was there. I could not walk out the door. I was terrified and I had nothing. I had no resources. I had no money. I had a car that wouldn't make it over

the Bay bridge. I mean, it was like, and then they told me I was going to die in the street. So, you know, you just become immobilized. Well, and keeping you in poverty or keeping you in addiction or keeping you in addiction or keeping you in emotional enmeshment or ideally as many as i can do is the point you know then that way you get to pretend there is freedom by saying there's the door if anyone doesn't like it walk out it y'all staying here is supporting me by omission you know right and the twin flames i don't know i mean you know the the documentary escapingcaping Twin Flames on Netflix. I mean, if people haven't seen it, they should.

Because this guy, it's so obvious. I mean, he says right there, oh, look at my Porsche. Look at my this. Bring me more money so I can, you know, he's just bought this incredible house in this little town in Michigan. I mean, he is just, in my opinion, such a con artist. I mean, just bamboozling these young women, you know, and it's just tragic. And this young woman, Keely, who's featured in the documentary, you know, when she finally got out, she was so in debt, you know, and she had nobody. She had nothing.

She had recruited her sister and she felt so guilty about having done that. And, you know, and now the group is even worse, you know, they're coercing people into these sex changes. And so young women cutting off their breasts, they're having bottom surgery. They're growing those beards. People that are saying I'm not transgender. I don't want to be, I don't want to change. He's telling them that they have to. These are people who never in their lives dreamed of becoming the

other gender and so it's just tragic because once you do that you can't you know your breasts aren't going to grow back you know once you do it it's done and the fact that they're getting away with that is just criminal in my opinion well the energy around it was so strange because he doesn't try and hide the wealth he doesn't try and hide the agenda he doesn't try and hide the wealth. He doesn't try and hide the agenda. He doesn't try and feign wisdom. I mean, he really, he reminded me of like one of those guys.

Go ahead. He couldn't feign wisdom if he wanted to. Well, like when I was in college, there were all these like Ron Paul, like libertarians that had that kind of long hair and would take mushrooms and play ultimate Frisbee. And it was like like they were just like one joint away from realizing that they were god kind of you know and that is the energy of that guy you know that he's just like

when he's revealing it it's like you know what it's gonna be and he has this kind of stupid slimy grin and he's like guys i figured something out actually i'm Jesus. And it's just so like, who is falling for this? Yeah. And I think if people watch the documentary, it's only three episodes and it's all original footage that they have, but you see him sort of getting meaner and meaner and more angry and yelling at him. Seeing what he can get away with. Yeah. And that's what cult leaders do. Like the more they can get away with, the more they'll push the envelope and keep at that. And so, I mean, that was so obvious in the documentary, but the real concern is that baby, you know, they had a baby and baby grace. And he says right there, you know, he says, baby grace is only going to have sex with

God and he's God, he believes he's God. So what does that say about the future of that baby? I mean, that to me is one of the biggest concerns. Well, and didn't they tell everyone that they were going to buy this land and they wanted them to move there to have a commune? Is that still on the books? I was just there. I was just in Traverse City, Michigan, which is the town right next door. They brought Keely and I, and we did this big event for the National Writer Series. And that town is now ready to roll against this group because they're saying they there's already 30 people who have moved there. And now he's wanting to said this it's recorded.

He wants to buy a big plot of land and have everybody move there. They've now registered as a church. And he says right there, he's doing it so that he doesn't have to pay people, you know, and he'll get the tax write-off. And so he has no intention of, you know, shutting down or closing or slowing down. And, you know, people pay thousands for those courses.

They have 50,000 followers around the world. 50,000. So even if a tenth of those move to that town, which is an adorable little town, Sutton's Bay, it's going to be, you know. It's like the Rajneesh's, you know, you're going to have the community versus. Yeah, that's his dream. So hopefully things can happen before that takes place yeah well it's scary scary stuff and do you see um somewhere did your did your academic yeah i mean these things have gone

on since the bronze age it'll be what is the next generation and how do we prepare for it but you know do you see your academic focus you know changing over the course of of your you know work with this or do you kind of feel like you're just doing the same thing trying to figure out what it's going to look like tomorrow yeah i mean you know things have advanced like i was saying earlier like understanding the internet-based cults and things like that. Yeah, it's, you know, I mean, sometimes I get, I do do a lot of expert witness work, and that's really interesting, because I get to really dig deep into something when I'm working on a case like that in order to write my report. So, and I enjoy doing those, because I feel like at least we're getting some justice, right? We're getting someone their money back, or we're getting someone put in prison, whatever.

So the important thing, I think, is for people to, if they're going to leave, to think about what they can take with them that has evidence of the crimes. I mean, once you have evidence of the crimes, and almost all of these groups commit some crime or other. And then they get lazy because they've pushed the envelope so far. Right, they're full of themselves. But when you have labor trafficking or sex trafficking, those are federal crimes. And so that's how we brought Ranieri down. There's a couple of other cases now happening against the leader of this Mexican church, which actually is worldwide. But the leader there was for three generations of leaders, the grandfather, the father, now the son.

They call themselves the apostle and they groom the women to send their nine-year-old girls are sent into the bedroom with him. And this has been going on for decades. That guy is in prison on a very small sentence, but there's five more lawsuits against him. So gathering evidence is really important, but excuse me. Yeah. I'm sure I'll be doing this till I'm on my deathbed, which may be soon. I hope not. Well, I have a brochure about this organization if you're interested in addressing some of your existential fears. Yeah, I can talk to you about my afterlife. I think you've done enough work with courts and with victims

that you've probably seen it. But like you said, you'd never joined a meditation cult, but you did have this kind of idealistic. I want to be given the most political tools to do the most good. And y'all are talking the best game here. It seems to me like whatever your shadow is, whatever you're running from, whatever the traumatic experience that you, you know, you can't quit reliving, but also don't know how to deal with from being a kid or that, you know, the emotion that you want to avoid, you know, whatever I'm trying to throw out a couple of different therapeutic models of language there so that people can recognize their style. But that is what informs how these people approach you and what you're susceptible for. And, and, and NXxium was an interesting thing and that none of those

people thought the same and he didn't talk to any of them similarly you know to some people he was going to them and saying i'm a magician wizard and my semen actually glows blue and is magic literally he said that i'm not making it and then to other people he was like i'm a scientist this is logical you're coming from a mystical cult but we're gonna get this patented because my idea is so brain smart it's actually technology or something you know um and and you see well this person never was given attention from parents to be to have their ideas seen and then this person is really if they have kind of a trickster archetype energy they want to be able to go rabble rouse you know a bond on sheila type person like he was able to get and some of the guys that

are they're effective at this stuff especially hiding it in the wider collar areas they know how to do that i mean could you speak to that or what do you i think what's interesting is that most cult leaders are really lazy but they're all about control and they're almost always some form of narcissist. Once they're a malignant narcissist, that's when the really bad stuff happens, right? Because they have a little bit of a psychopathy. But all they need is to recruit the first few people because that's who will then go out and do the rest of the recruiting. I mean, NXIVM was built because all of those actresses and actors and whatever brought in their connections, right? Brought in their money.

He never left that tiny area. Like he left that 50 mile radius like twice in 15 years. It wasn't in Europe and on these islands. He was like laying in greasy socks on the couch, you know? Exactly. these islands he was like langing in greasy socks on the couch you know exactly he's he's so typical of that kind of lazy cult leader right so um yeah i think that i don't i'm sorry i forgot what the question was how is your you know people's individual trauma used to kind of control them when these guys are the better ones approach people differently

they can clock that thing intuitively that you're running from and get you in that well but and partly i think excuse me partly what they do is create that trauma right they'll convince you that your parents were awful to you they'll convince you that something bad happened to you that they're the ones who actually implant the trauma. I mean, they put you through, they make you feel like a piece of crap, right? I mean, when people leave, they have no sense of self. They have no self-esteem. They have no self-confidence because all of that is broken down. Because even though you've supposedly found salvation, so to speak, or somebody who's going to take you there they don't accept you as you are they then have to tear you apart and that's part of that's what

the indoctrination process is about it's like rip that person apart and they figure out what are the buttons to push right and so they you know when i got out of my cult i mean i had already been to college i was a fulbright scholar when i got out of my cult I mean I had already been to college I was a Fulbright scholar when I got out of my cult I barely could figure out how to cross the street I mean I didn't know how to open a bank account I didn't I was just mind boggled the whole time I was terrified you know and so they create that um yeah so but you know some of them of course will appeal to maybe something that happened in your past or that you had a shitty family or whatever. But.

Well, you sell the poison as the cure to the thing that the person's bringing in. But I still I still think you have to get that initial diagnosis right. Some people are kind of longing for some kind of existential or mystical experience, you know, some some sort of experience. Other people really just want tools to make the world better and they want to be the most empowered in that. Right. There's a million presentations, but. Yeah, exactly. It varies. It's like what, you know, some, sometimes people say, oh, well, those are just those seekers, you know, well, we're all seekers. I mean, we are, we're humans. We're social animals. We want family.

We want, you know, like I was saying earlier, meaning and purpose. It's not that there's some bunch of crazy seekers out there and that's who gets into these groups. Any one of us can get into one of these groups, as I did, you know. Yeah. So that's what people need to recognize and honor, you know, that this applies to all of us. Well, and I want to be respectful of your time. Is there anything that you think, you know, if somebody wants to go out, this appeals to them? What are the books to start with? We can link to your author page on Amazon or Audible. And, you know, do you have any other projects that you'd

like to let people know about and point them towards? Well, I do have a nonprofit that I started about two years ago called the Lollich Center on Cults and Coercion. So if people have some free cashling around, they can certainly go to that website, the lollichcenter.org, and make a donation um i have at least five books that i've written um like we were talking about that that i think it's helpful to have those on your shelf in case you get involved or someone in your family gets involved you know how to help um and they're fun too i mean you're you're not like a a real uh pop psychology writer that takes all the academics out of it but you're also not dry academic writer that you're just, I got to read it, do my homework.

Yeah. It's nice down to earth stuff is in my opinion. So yeah, I've got my books there. And you know, as you were saying, I've done a lot of podcasts, a lot of documentaries, people can always find me that way. And I'm trying to cut back a little bit just because I've been doing this 35 years and because of my age, it's like, okay, now, Yania, it's time to focus a little bit. But, you know, I'm still there for people and I'll carry on. And so one of my, there's two things, my main concerns. One is the children who are born and raised in cults because there's no social resources for them.

And when they get out, if they manage to leave on their own or whatever, a lot of them don't know their real name. They don't have birth certificates. They don't know if they have relatives on the outside. They end up on the streets. They're told that they broke laws, that they're a felony because they were involved in sex work, so they can't go to those cops or help. There's a massive number of suicides, which is just tragic. And my other focus right now is to get this concept of coercion understood by law enforcement and the courts, because I can't tell you how many times I'll hear from an authority, well, you know, she's an adult. If she wants to do that, that's fine. And they don't understand what it means to be under the control of someone in that way.

And the courts seem to understand it when it comes to what they call undue influence of the elderly, right? The old woman gets coerced by the evil nurse to sign over her will to her and stuff like that, that the court understands. But when it comes to this kind of situation, they don't. So I'm trying to work on that and bring together the various organizations that are working on that and get coercion finally understood, which has happened in a couple of other countries, like the UK and New Zealand, although it's still, even there, it still only applies to domestic violence. So it has to be broadened to recognize these types of organizations. Could you apply legislation, something like a RICO

law, like with RICO cases, to be used against high control groups, if somebody was an interpiring legislature? Well, yeah, there, I mean, a lot of these cases are RICO cases. The one against Ranieri was, but it's still difficult to get, you know, that's why I get hired as an expert witness to try to explain, or I work with people who, you know, I have a case where I'm going to go to the parole board and help this woman who's been in prison since she was 17 because of something she did that they told her to do. And she's now 70 and sits in her cell and knits and would never harm another human being ever. But she can never get paroled because of this incident from, you know, 60 years ago. So there's a lot of work to be done in the, in the legal field.

Well, and I just mean practically instead of just education, which is great, you know, is there a way that you could take something modeled after like a Rico, like case to actually put something on the books that would let you legally label in a high control group or, or would that, is that not really possible? Does that require too much subjectivity? I think that that would be extremely difficult. Plus every, every state is going to have its own laws. So what we've got 50 States or 52, whatever it is, you know, it's like, that's a massive, I mean, that's what the people who are fighting the troubled teen industry are working

at because those are horrible boarding schools and wilderness programs. And I mean, some of those organizations are fighting for legislation, but some of the legislation that was written only in a sense gives credibility to those organizations. So they say, we're going to regulate them. Well, no, don't regulate them. Shut them down. You can't regulate a cult. Yeah. Did, did you, have you seen any of some of the newer scholarship about how a lot of those troubled teen industries started when the Synanon fell apart?

Yeah. Synanon is the founder. Yeah. Synanon. In my book, I did in my book, take back your life, which just got reissued. I have a whole section. Yeah. I have a whole section on Yeah, I have a whole section on the troubled teen industry. And there's one article actually has a diagram that shows the map of how it grew out of Synanon, how these all grew out of Synanon, and then they branched off. But yeah, that was because it's all about attack therapy, which is what they did in Synanon. Sit in the middle and have everybody attack you. And that's what they do in these troubled teen

programs. And it's just, I mean, on top of other kinds of punishments and tortures. But yeah, Synanon has a lovely history. Yeah, and that industry is so scary because so many of these communities, they're in rural places. They're usually run by one type of religious group or people affiliated with that type of religious group. And they are usually the only tax revenue for these tiny counties.

So they're basically just incentivized to cover up murder and torture. Yeah, so I've got two cases right now in Montana. They are, they're in these way out of the way. Sometimes they would take them to islands. There've been one on little islands in the Caribbean. I didn didn't know that all the ones i knew of were american west yeah no most of them are i mean there there were also i mean look at straight which was one of the biggest that was in new york um new jersey there was a one called kids of new jersey that got shut

down but that yeah but primarily they send them to these remote areas. It makes it, and it makes it harder for them to escape, you know. Yeah. I mean, people have escaped and they're out in the middle of nowhere and then they just get caught again and brought back and then they're treated even worse. So, yeah, people need to learn. There's actually a documentary coming out March 5th on Netflix, which I happen to be in, but it's called The Program. And it'll be about the troubled teen industry. And of course, our insurance companies are paying for it. Why can you not pay for somebody who goes through sexual assault to have a therapist, but I can pay to choose to send my kid, because I found a Misfits album under their bed to the middle of Ohio to be tortured.

Can anyone want to speak to me from the insurance company on that position? One of them seems to be a little bit more evidence based to me. That's what they claim to be doing. Yeah. Well, this is great. This has been great, Joel. I really appreciate your time so much. It's so nice claim to be doing. Yeah. Well, this is great. This has been great, Joel. I really appreciate your time so much. It's so nice to talk to you.

And I will link to all of those projects in the show notes. And whenever you get the courses for therapists available through your own profit, if you'd send them to me, we'll put those out on our social media also. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. And thank you for your persistence. I think we've been trying to do this since last summer. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. And thank you for your persistence. I think we've been trying to do this since last summer. Yeah. You were supposed to kick off the cult documentary thing. We've tried to slow it down, but you weren't the tip of the spear,

but it'll still be included on there. So thank you for your time. All right. Thanks, Joel. Forget All of the beauty is wasted