Untold: Opus Dei - The Retreat, Ep. 5: The Insiders

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

Since the podcast published earlier this year, Madison’s inbox has been filled with emails. Some were from former volunteers at the Goenka network who wished to speak out. In this bonus episode of The Retreat, they pull back the curtain on why they believe some people are not being supported when they come on retreats and find themselves psychologically unraveling.Translations of Sayagyi U Ba Khin’s discourses from Daniel M Stuart and Swe Swe Mon can be found in the paper: Local Cure, Global Chant: Perfomring Theravedic Awakening in the Footsteps of Ledi Sayadaw. For support or more information about adverse meditation experiences, take a look at the Cheetah House website.If you are in need of urgent mental health support, please contact your local emergency services or reach out to a mental health helpline, such as the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in the US, or Samaritans in the UK.Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode discusses suicide and mental health. Please take care while listening and seek support if you need it. And if you're just joining the retreat on this episode, you may want to go back to the start of the series. Since this series dropped earlier this year, my inbox has been inundated. One of the people who reached out to me is a man we're calling Ben. His story really stood out to me.

Ben's experience at a Guenka retreat is quite like the other stories we've told in this podcast series he'd gone into his first retreat relatively new to meditation and things went well for the first part of the course but towards the end he found he couldn't sleep for days he told his teacher but he was encouraged to continue meditating the next day he was directed to meditate alone in a cell.

In the cell, he saw an intense image of a noose. That evening, he was overcome with emotion and again turned to his teacher's support. I cried a little bit, because to the teachers, because I was like, this is, you know, quite a lot. And they were like, no, this is like, I think they're like, yeah, you're doing a sort of amazing job. Over the last two days of the retreat,

Ben began to feel immensely powerful. He is one of nearly a dozen people to have told me they had a messiah-like experience during a Guenka retreat. I was sort of like starting to feel a little bit messiahy. Although there was a couple of like short, sharp, intense experiences, the rest of it was like feeling like hugely sort of almost powerful. On his penultimate afternoon, there was an earthquake in Nepal, killing 9,000 people.

In his mania, Ben thought he had caused it. And I can remember, like, you know, the birds coming up from the trees, and, like, literally it was like, felt like it was sort of my energy that it sort of caused it. It did actually feel quite biblical. Then he started shouting strange things, disrupting the meditation sit. At one point, he jumped into a pond near the meditation hall. Ben says he was at the height of a psychological breakdown,

and it was then that he was ejected from the centre. They kind of asked me to leave, otherwise they'd call the police, so I sort of quickly got my stuff and sort of left. Ben checked into a nearby hostel and experienced one of the worst nights of his life. He said he felt suicidal. In desperation, he returned to the Gwanker Centre the next day to beg for help.

He came across the same teacher who had encouraged him to keep going. Yeah, I kind of sort of said, like, you know, what state I was in? And then I kind of said, well, like, well, should I just kill myself? Ben said the teacher simply looked back at him with an odd expression that bordered on a smile. It chilled him. And then he sort of gave me this weird smile back. And then didn't say anything. So did you leave of your own volition, or did he usher you?

And he was just like, look, the course has finished leave. Right. And then I left. Ben ended up being taken to a nearby hospital by a local, who recognised he was seriously unwell. Ben was hospitalised for several nights. Once back in the UK, he received medical treatment immediately. Two months after leaving Nepal, Ben contacted the centre. He asked why he was not offered help when he was in crisis.

They told him to just keep meditating. He wrote back, again, with concern for future participants and demanding change, but received no response. Namaste, I'm concerned that what happened to me might happen to someone else with disastrous consequences. I would like to know that you're putting procedures in place to stop someone harming themselves in the future. Can you give me any reassurance that something is being done? He tried once more and never heard back. Ben wasn't the only one who was calling for change. In the emails I received after the podcast launched,

some were from people, I would call informed insiders. These were individuals who had become formally involved in the Gwanker Network. Some had devoted decades of their lives to it. But eventually, they became disillusioned. They understood the inner workings of this organisation, and they wanted to pull back the curtain on it. These informed insiders held the keys to so many questions I had been unable to find the answers to on my reporting journey last year. Were the people running these centres genuinely ignorant of the potential risks to participants?

Or were they in denial? And why didn't the network, when faced with meditators like Ben, respond appropriately to individuals in distress? From the Special Investigations team at the Financial Times, this is a broadest, This is a bonus episode of The Retreat, The Insiders. One morning after the podcast's release, I read through a listener's email with a lengthy document attached. It cited Gwenka's origins. And I learned that Gwengka's own meditation teacher acknowledged that extreme responses to intensive meditation were possible. Gwengka's meditation teacher in the 1960s, Ubarquim, who is considered the 20th century master of

of a Pāsana meditation, gave talks on the practice. Two academics, Daniel Stewart and Suis-Sui-Mon, have done the hard work of translating his texts into English for the first time. They found that Ubaqin himself accepted that it was, quote-unquote, very common for people at his meditation centre to run into serious difficulties in the process of meditation. In the translation, Ubarqin summarized an experience where 100,000,

Hundreds of monks came together to meditate with the Buddha. When those 500 monks meditated, the pure and peaceful force of the true Dharma met intensely with the unwholesome stuff inside their bodies. The unwholesome stuff inside became frightening. They thought that life was too much suffering, immense suffering. It was better to end such suffering. With such a desire, they thought that committing suicide by cutting their throat, they thought that committing suicide by cutting their throats was the best way to end the suffering.

It's worth noting that the meditation these monks were practicing was not the method that is taught at Gwanka Centres. But this text from Gwanka's own teacher seemed relevant. It made me wonder if Gwanka himself knew that people could have extreme adverse experiences while meditating. And whether or not other senior people within the network were aware that intensive meditation could provoke extreme mental distress among some students. If they were aware, why weren't they providing adequate support to students like Ben? To try to get an answer, I talked to three different people who worked within the Gwanka network for years. Aisha wrote to me as soon as we dropped the trailer for the retreat.

She served on around 10 courses over 17 years and worked as a course manager five times. She said that the network is reliant on servers, volunteers who have previously attended one 10-day course to keep it running. We were working. I mean, it's like you're up, you're making sure that breakfast is on tape by 6.30 a.m. You have to clean the kitchen afterwards, and then we all have to be in the hall for the 8 a.m. sit.

Then we have to go back to the kitchen and cook and make sure meal are ready by 11. That's a whole process. So it's a lot of work. We were serving around the clock. There are a few levels of people above the servers. There are the course managers who help attendees with their daily needs, fetching tampons or toothpaste.

Above them are the assistant teachers who play Gwanka's teachings and meet with students. And then there are the senior teachers. And at the very top of the pyramid, sits Gwenka himself. You're serving the mission of the Dama. That's what you're taught to believe. leave. This word, Dammer, gets used a lot, Aisha says. And it's taken to mean many things, but in the context of Guenka retreats, what we've heard is that Damma means purity of mind. And to follow Gwanka's mission is to constantly strive for a purity of mind through meditation.

On her first course, several things impressed Aisha. Let me just say, I really liked the rigor. I loved the 12 hours. I loved it. And as time went by, she became very committed to the organization. But there were some things that never sat quite right with her. And when she tried to express her concerns, she said they weren't taken seriously. And I remember I served on a course with black men, one of whom was asked to leave, just because he talked loudly. He wasn't doing anything wrong, but just from a cultural standpoint that people just were insensitive.

Aisha is black, and she says she was often subjected to racist comments from the other volunteers and teachers she worked alongside. One time, a teacher asked her whether graffiti on the wall of a centre was gang language. Other times, she heard volunteers use the N-word. But she says although there was a hierarchy to the retreats, there were no formal reporting channels to address these issues. If you report or go and tell the teacher, it's all about like, A, the first thing is observe.

The second thing is, you know, just see if negativity is arising from you. You know, but it's all, it's a form of gaslighting. Aisha felt like whenever she raised any critiques, the teachers found fault in her for being negative or unfocused, rather than addressing the issues. And throughout her decades there, She said many of her concerns would go unaddressed. Aisha felt like her desire to remain active in mainstream society,

where she directed films and was politically involved, ran counter to what other longtime insiders wanted her to do. She had wanted Gwanka retreats to be a part of her life, but not all of it. When I would say, you know, I'm an activist and I'm trying to figure out how to manage being an activist and being, you know, Dharma practitioner, they would just be like, is activism. That is the only activism you need. It is this missionary project where the most important thing is to spread dama, which means taking courses and serving courses. This focus on total devotion within the Gwanka Network was revealed to Aisha in other ways too.

When students on the retreat struggled, servers were told to have one top priority. If students need to leave the course, you do all that you can to keep them on. on the course. And the teachers, they are also held at a spiritual level responsible for if someone didn't complete that course. Like they're, you know, that they're responsible for this person not getting the seed of Dama. Aisha says if a student could not be persuaded, if they decided they had to leave, or if their behavior became too disruptive. The course managers and teachers removed them from the sight as quickly and as quietly as possible. She recalled one incident in 2005 when a young woman started to struggle with the course.

By this point, Aisha had moved up to be a course manager and was asked to supervise the woman as she packed her things. Aisha helped the woman, who was crying, get her bags into her car. The woman started driving away, then circled back to the parking. not. And she said, I, I can't, I can't go home now. I'm not, I'm not, I can't dry? And so she was like, can I stay? I didn't even think, it, I was on automatic pilot. I was like, of course you can stay. You don't have to go. And then I called the teacher. The teacher was just like, who gave you permission? You know, this isn't a halfway house or whatever. She has to go. When the teacher

instructed Aisha to tell the woman to leave the center again. Aisha again refused. Absolutely nice. So she's upset. She can't drive. And the person was like, we don't want her spreading negativity to the other students. You know, she was like her energy has decided. She determined that she was leaving. And once you determine that you're gone, we cannot have this energy on the campus.

Perhaps the most inside look Aisha was able to get beyond her own personal experience. was when she received a copy of the text given to the teachers who run the retreats. It's a bit like a manual. I read it cover to cover on a course. It's not supposed to be shared beyond the teacher. So everything is so secretive. We obtained a copy. It's older.

A former teacher told us this version was published in 2013. But it underlines everything, Aisha observed. We had a producer read from it. Goenka's advice states, never become irritated by criticism. Whatever comes, accept it, smilingly. Always have meta for somebody who is criticizing because that person is ignorant. Have compassion so that this person can taste Dharma. There's that word again, Dharma.

In an effort to obtain purity of mind, this instructs teachers to give compassion, but not necessarily to intervene. when concerns are raised. Then there are the instructions to pressure people to keep meditating and stay on the retreat, despite any struggles that come up. Try to convince the student. Leaving would not be good for you. The difficulty you are facing is quite natural.

Quite a few students face the same situation, because this is an operation of the mind. Try to convince this person to stay one more day. One more day. And when the storm is over, the course will become easier for this person. Use all your compassion to keep them. But if they don't want to stay, let them go. Aisha told me she thinks that intensive meditation can awaken trauma.

She herself is a sexual abuse survivor. But in her experience, the teachers on Gwenka sites had no real protocols for dealing with students who had severe reactions to the retreats. I know that most of the teachers are not trauma-informed or trauma-sensitive. There's no real protocol or there wasn't a protocol for what to do if someone is having a trauma response. You're treated as like you're not a good athlete. You must not be working out properly or, you know, that kind of thing. Ultimately, what Aisha says is that from her point of view, teachers are aware that these issues can occur.

but they have no real protocols in place for dealing with them. The focus is so much on the doctrine of Dammer that individuals who struggled with the Gwanka regime were seen as disruptive rather than being properly supported. We'll be back after the break. I'm Rob Armstrong. On our show, Unhedged, my co-host Katie Martin and I talk about the big questions in finance,

like interest rates and AI and investment legends. Rob, how you going? It's too bad we don't do business. video on this show because then viewers could see my tattoo of Warren Buffett, which is on my bulging bicep. Thanks, Rob, for that horrifying

mental image. Let's crack on. Unhedged is available wherever. I think they believe that they have discovered the kind of ultimate spiritual path. Like any kind of

evangelical or every church any shul or mosque or whatever. they've discovered the truth. This truth is good for everyone and the biggest imperative is to spread it as far and wide as possible. This is Francis, who was involved in the South African Gwanka Network

from 2003 until very recently. She attended nearly two dozen courses in total and served as a course manager four times over that period. Francis wanted to remain anonymous, so we've had a producer read her transcript. She said that during her years in the organization, it was clear that growth was of utmost importance to the Gwanka Network. I think that's one problem is that they've prioritized growing over maintaining a certain level of quality.

And so they do just have to take on anyone and everyone to serve courses. Francis says first and foremost that this has created big discrepancies in the experiences at retreats. Because it's grown so quickly, there's a huge. huge spectrum. Like you can get someone amazing and very competent and very compassionate and responsible. And you can also get people who are like, frankly, horrible people.

So there really is just this huge variability. Francis also felt strongly that the network's ultimate focus on growth led to improper vetting of the volunteers and that newcomers to Gwanker retreats need more help preparing

for the intensity of the courses. One of the risks is that the course involves a lot of sense deprivation in a way. So suddenly you're not having sex. You're not supposed to be masturbating. You're not eating after certain times of day. You're not watching TV series or listening to music or singing or dancing. So that's what Buddhists call sense restraint. And I think if you practice sense restraint for a long time before you do a course, you'll probably be fine. But I think it can be extremely dangerous if you've never been. done it before or if you're not doing it in between courses. But if you don't practice it regularly,

it can actually feel like a form of torture for most people. My observation is it definitely can produce manic states and people. I've experienced that and I've seen it as well. You know, just logically, statistically, I probably wasn't the only person that, you know, ever experienced an adverse effect at these centers. And so I really thought, you know, well, why wasn't I informed of this risk? And what does the organization know about it? This is Elisa. I heard from her about two weeks after the release of the show.

She did her first Gwenka retreat in 2022 and suffered badly afterwards. I was probably, you know, almost near psychosis. And, you know, my personal life kind of fell apart. And things just felt like it was. necessary for things to like self-destruct or something. It was this really strange feeling. After that, she wanted to learn more about the organization. First, she started Googling. I honestly, I felt a little ticked off when I realized, oh, there's like empirical, scientific,

peer-reviewed research that documents meditators having, you know, adverse effects, especially in intense meditation retreats, you know, I thought, well, this should have been something that I was informed about. Elisa was so bothered by this that she effectively decided to go undercover. She deliberately went back to work at several Gwenka retreats as a server and as a course manager to get under the skin of the organization. And so I went back really with the intent to learn more about the organization and to understand, you know, what they knew and to try to, you know, resolve my experience with it. During a course she served in late 2022, on the very first day, the teacher told her to look out for any signs of mental distress among all the students.

And then, as the course went on, to pay specific attention to one of the students. I found this interesting, and Elisa did too. It showed a tacit awareness among senior people within the network that mental distress is a possible outcome. For this particular student, the teacher, she was requiring that the student come in daily for interviews. And the student did not want to do this. This went on for a few days, but at some point Going to the interviews was

You know, causing her some distress And she told me she just wanted to be left alone to meditate And that seemed like a reasonable thing to do At a retreat Eventually, things came to her head The teachers demanded that the woman Leave the Centre altogether The Center managers would not tell her why

And so she refused to go The teachers told her she was trespassing. So they called the police. And he says, call 911, tell him she's psychotic and she's trespassing. And they did. They called 911. And the sheriff's deputies came out and they interrogated this student for probably half an hour. And eventually they took her off.

of the property and into town. Elisa was disturbed by this episode. Why did they lie to the police? The woman was coherent and making sense to Elisa. She certainly wasn't having any kind of mental breakdown. She was not psychotic by any stretch. She was fully coherent the entire course and meeting all of the schedules.

So they came up with a story that actually blamed the students, you know. Elisa had a lot of questions. Had they been trained to respond in this way? Why were the retreat leadership so harsh with this student? Why did the situation escalate so quickly? Elisa couldn't square the narrative.

She sat down with one of the teachers afterwards. What she told me was that a lot of stuff comes up for students on these retreats. And I said, by stuff, what do you mean? And she says, well, sometimes, you know, people might experience past lives or they have mental health issues that they are trying to work out. And I told her that I thought they were negligent as the center to know that this practice can bring stuff up for students and not have any way to. to help them. I said, this practice is supposed to teach us compassion, right? It's like what they preach all the time in the videos. And I said, you know, where's the compassion in this experience? You know, where is the compassion in calling 911 on somebody? And she just kept saying like, oh, you know,

we have compassion. You just don't see it or something. I mean, it's amazing how easily they blame the students for anything that, like, deviates from behavior that they are expecting, when in reality it's like they're the ones that are concealing the information about, you know, what can happen to people and having these intense practice and kind of what comes up for people. They're concealing that from students. After speaking to Ben, Aisha, Francis, and Elisa, while their experiences across the centers were varied, it seemed increasingly clear that senior people on the inside

knew that its techniques could lead to harm. When this investigation was first released, the Gwanka Network flatly denied that its retreats could trigger mental imbalances in participants, and several representatives refused to engage with my questions. But that picture seems to have shifted somewhat.

I received lengthy responses from several branches of the Gwanker Network for this episode. I will go into more detail on those responses later, but here are some points that stood out to me. The centre in South Africa, attended by Francis, is the first Gwenca entity to recognise to me that intensive meditation can trigger adverse psychological effects. It said that intensive meditation, quote unquote, can pose psychological challenges for some

individuals. This is an important admission. Meanwhile, Barry Lapping, a senior teacher in the US, who, declined to comment for the earlier investigation, this time also sent a lengthy response to Aisha's claims. In it, he acknowledged that trauma can arise during a course. And the centre in Washington, attended by Elisa, stated that challenging or unpleasant issues may arise during a course. Various branches of the Gwanka Network have now emphasised to me that they are upfront about their courses being challenging.

But telling prospective meditators that a course may be hard is quite different from telling them it might reawaken trauma or pose psychological difficulties. It seems like the network has come halfway towards acknowledging the extent of the difficulties

students may encounter, which feels like progress. But the general Gwenka website still states that its courses do not lead to mental imbalances. And then, I also also came across a 14-page letter from an entity called the Vipassana Trust in the UK,

in response to the Finnish podcast, detailing what they claim are false allegations. This went in the opposite direction. They claim that the basic premise of meditation-related illness is not real, and that previous students have no proof that their severe psychological reactions can be attributed to meditation or Vipassana specifically. In one second, they quote mental health statistics. Suicide is the leading cause of death for both males and females, age 20 to 34, in some Western countries.

In the USA, there's apparently a suicide every 11 minutes. Every suicide is tragic, and we feel heartfelt sympathy for the families. But Vipasna is obviously not to blame for that. Is it really newsworthy that a very small number of people who've done a Vipasna course in North America

have also suffered one of, if not the most common causes of death for their age? Could it be that the number of such deaths, and the incidence of serious mental illness, is actually much fewer than what is statistically expected? In the context of a mental health epidemic, if there is a new story to investigate here, isn't it that Vipasna is actually helping people? But what about the many people who identify as survivors?

of Guenka retreats. The scores of sources who got in touch with me in response to the series said that when the Gwanker course went wrong for them, their experience was not acknowledged as possible or even commonplace. And they thought they were alone, that they had done something wrong. Almost all of them said they felt a huge sense of shame for having failed. I'm not surprised they felt that way, but they wanted to share their experience so that if anyone else went through the same thing,

they would not blame themselves. I'm at a point now, you know, I've been out of the organization for five years, that I don't, I'm not even sure what can be salvaged, to be honest with you. I don't really want anyone to serve. I don't want anyone to sit a course because I think that the way things are so much, it would have to be a major, major overhaul. I'm not sure what can happen other than an overhaul. I'm not sure.

And almost kind of a deconditioning. Because Goenka did not believe that this practice and technique can cause adverse effects, this organization really can't admit to it because they are adhering to his teaching. And the students are the ones that are being hurt the most by that. You know, until I did a bit of research, but like afterwards, but I literally thought I was the only one it happened to, which was like even more scary.

You know, if someone is listening to this and was like, okay, this has happened to hundreds of people, that would have instantly made me feel okay. Because I think, like, the trickiest thing of the recovery was sort of like being like, oh, this has only happened to me. what does this mean? Why has this happened? So, you know, having more sort of information out there for people, I think it's a good thing. Sadly, this organization will not inform people of the risks.

They will inform their students of the risks. So that has to be done by people like you. The Lumini Centre in Nepal, where Ben did his retreat, did not respond to a request for comment. But here are the extracts from the detailed statements we got from several Gwenka representatives, in response to the allegations made in this episode. We've had producers read some of their responses. Barry Lapping, the senior US teacher who responded to Aisha's claims,

said there is no place for racism within the Gwenka network. Racism is totally against what we teach in practice, totally against our code of conduct, and totally against what we stand for. It has no place in our centres. He said that the servers on retreats are there voluntarily and can take breaks whenever they want. No one is ever forced to do anything.

It is essential that the desire to serve comes only from an individual's own volition. And that there is nothing evangelical about the network. There is no missionary or proselyting aspect to our work. We exist only to teach Vipasna meditation to anyone who, with an open mind, requests to learn it. Barry also addressed Aisha's concerns about students being pressured to finish the course, even if they were experiencing psychological difficulties. The courses are intensive and challenging. The teachers give responsible encouragement and support

so students can understand the technique and apply it to their own unique circumstances. We always take a safety-first approach and err on the side of caution. And when it came to Aisha's claims that intensive meditation can awaken trauma, he in some ways acknowledged that this is true. He also said the teachers are trained

on mental health guidelines in order to support the students. If someone has experienced cycle, trauma in the past. That trauma may arise during a course. By practicing Vipasana properly, one can begin to eradicate this trauma at the root level of the mind. If memories or emotions associated with trauma arise on a course and the student is not able to work with the technique of meditation, we are not prepared to take a risk with anyone's health. In that case, we would gently bring them out of the course. In rare cases, if a person is very unbalanced, we would

contact the student's family and or mental health care provider. He added, We don't recommend Vipassana courses for people with serious psychiatric disorders and ask people to fully and honestly disclose their mental and physical health history in the application process. Only after going through this process will we carefully assess whether the course is appropriate for them. The center in South Africa that was attended by Francis said,

The Gwankan Network, as a decentralized, centralized and expansive organization is committed to maintaining the highest standards, while we acknowledge that challenges exist, such as the perception of pressure towards specific beliefs, concerns about screening and training practices, and the safety of intense meditation practices, we also recognize the unwavering dedication of many teachers, course managers, and servers. Their commitment to creating a secure and nurturing environment for students remain steadfast. We take all issues and complain seriously. Our approach involves seeking guidance from experienced practitioners and professionals when necessary.

Additionally, any legal infractions are promptly reported to the relevant authorities. They added. Lastly, we acknowledge that intense meditation practices can pose psychological challenges for some individuals. To address this, we prioritized robust support and resources, particularly for those with undisclosed past experiences related to substances or mental health. A representative for Dharmakunja in Washington State, where Elisa served, acknowledge that challenging or unpleasant issues may arise for meditators and discourages those with pre-existing mental health issues from attending.

It is well known that when one leaves all the external distractions of life behind, challenging or unpleasant issues may arise. We make it clear in the introductory materials that this is serious and difficult work. We discourage anyone with serious emotional or mental health issues from attending. There is clearly no attempt to keep information about the difficulty of the course from potential students. In fact, quite the contrary. We often discourage certain applicants, explaining why, and in some cases, must decline a student against their wishes. Training workshops regularly include sessions on mental health screening,

supporting students encountering difficulties during courses, and when to advise a student to leave a course. They concluded. Although it is conceivable that a person, could have a first occurrence of a mental health problem, which was latent and would have been triggered sooner or later. In our experience, that is extremely rare. We do know some people withhold information on the application form, so it's not to be refused. And that's one reason why we're so careful to check in on people during the course. And people who don't disclose their health problems might sometimes run into difficulties on the course. Finally, two senior teachers in the UK,

Kirk and Renette Brown also got in touch for this episode. They said, As each Vapasna Centre around the world is a separate independent organisation, it is not possible for us to give informed comment on any specific incidents in centres other than Dharma Deepa. We would also like to reiterate that we do not hold ourselves out to be a mental health facility, nor do we claim to treat mental or physical disease. There is no recklessness on our part in that regard whatsoever. Due to the obviously intensive nature of Vipassan courses,

we have a long practice of discouraging people with serious psychiatric disorders from applying. They also echoed what the centre in Washington State said. We acknowledge that statistically it is conceivable that a person could have a first occurrence of a mental health problem, which was latent and would have been triggered sooner or later in our setting or elsewhere. The conducting teacher is trained to recognise issues as they may be. manifest on the course and will follow established procedures to ensure the safety of their students, including requiring them to leave the course to seek medical attention where appropriate. The retreat is the first season from Untold, a new Financial Times investigative podcast.

It is produced by The Financial Times with Goat Rodeo. The series lead producers are Rebecca Seidel and Persis Love. Production on this episode by Jay Venables, reporting by me. Madison Marriage, writing by me, Madison Marriage, Megan Nodolski, Jay Venables, and Persis Love. Story editing from Ian Enright. Executive producers for the Financial Times are Tofa Forhes and Cheryl Bromley. Executive producers for Goat Rodeo are Ian Enright and Megan Nadolsky. Mixing, editing and sound design by Rebecca Seidel.

The series theme is Everyone Alive Once Answers by Kaleen. Additional music from Ian Enright, Rebecca Seidel and Blue Dot Sessions. Editorial and production assistants from Lulu Smith, Tamara Komornek, Louis Ashworth. Paul Aflalo, Joshua Gabbat Doyon, Petros Guillaume Passas, Andrew Georgiades, Siddharth Venkataramakrishna and Laura Clark. If you've been affected by anything in this series, there are some useful resources highlighted in the show notes. And if you want to share a tip in relation to this podcast, please get in touch with me, Madison, at madison. At madison.march atft.com.

Thanks to you for listening. And thanks to the many sources who shared their very personal stories with me.