Danny Rensch grew up in the Church of Immortal Consciousness, a cult he usually refers to as ‘the Collective’. Started by Steven and Trina Kamp, the group followed the teachings of a Dr Pahlvon Duran, whose spirit first visited Trina when she was 9. In trances, she would convey the teachings of Dr Duran, whose last lifetime was lived as an Englishman in the 15th century. The group lived communally dispersed across basic housing in Tonto Village, Arizona.

The Collective’s small charter school, the Shelby School, became renowned for the performance of its chess team, and Danny Rensch was its star performer. By 14 he was a US Chess Federation national master, which was an Arizona state record at that age, and at 19 he was ranked first in the United States for his age, when he also achieved his first international master norm. Today he is the Chief Chess Officer and co-founder of Chess.com. In his memoir, Dark Squares: How Chess Saved My Life, out on 6 September and available now for pre-order, Danny delves into this part of his story for the first time.

Links:

• Dark Squares: How Chess Saved My Life — by Danny Rensch, Hachette, September 2025
• Chess.com — With Danny Rensch's profile and statistics

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, you can find support with or donate to Cult Information and Family Support if you’re in Australia (via www.cifs.org.au), and you can find resources outside of Australia with the International Cultic Studies Association (via www.icsahome.com).

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From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate, to the Octopus Murders and the Waco Siege, the world is full of deception, manipulation, and destruction. Listen to Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes every Wednesday as we explore the real people at the centre of the world’s most shocking secrets and nefarious organizations. Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes is a Crime House Original powered by PAVE Studios. Follow the show now so you don’t miss a single story.

Listen and follow here: https://link.podtrac.com/c6zbxkmi

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The Logos Foundation was often described as ‘mysterious’ in media coverage, but became a part of the religious right that published full page newspaper advertisements encouraging the electorate to vote on ‘moral’ issues at Queensland state elections in the late 1980s. LTAS looked into the organisation in Season 5, and you can listen to that episode here.

'Fynn' (not their real name) was born into the Logos Foundation, and in this interview episode shares the extent to which a childhood in a group like this impacted their family and their life, even many decades later.

Links:

• Survivors of the Logos Foundation Australia — a new Facebook group set up by Fynn to help former members connect
• The Logos Foundation — LTAS episode with further research links, 16 November 2022

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, you can find support with or donate to Cult Information and Family Support if you’re in Australia (via www.cifs.org.au), and you can find resources outside of Australia with the International Cultic Studies Association (via www.icsahome.com).

If you or someone you know is in crisis or needs support right now, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia, or find your local crisis centre via the International Association for Suicide Prevention website at www.iasp.info.

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Clare Heath-McIvor is the daughter of the leader of the City Builders Church, an organisation that she and others who know it feel confident fits the definition of a cult. Her marriage was arranged within the church to Patrick McIvor, a man who had survived gay conversion therapy. Since leaving, the now-happily-separated pair have become involved in a number of social justice issues, including the current Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the recruitment methods and impacts of cults and organised fringe groups, and Patrick's work was crucial to the ban on conversion therapy practices in Victoria.

Links:

• Inquiry into the recruitment methods and impacts of cults and organised fringe groups — Parliament of Victoria, open for submissions until 31 July 2025 and due to deliver findings in September 2026
• Clare Heath-McIvor's Linktree with her Substack, TikTok, Twitter and more
• Unchurchable podcast
• Caring church or crazy cult? The extreme religion praying for power — 60 Minutes Australia, 20 November 2022
• Victorian Cult Survivors Network — Facebook group

You can support us on Patreon. Sarah Steel's book Do As I Say is available on audiobook.

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, you can find support with or donate to Cult Information and Family Support if you’re in Australia (via www.cifs.org.au), and you can find resources outside of Australia with the International Cultic Studies Association (via www.icsahome.com).

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In 2011, an 18-year-old Liz Cameron joined a Bible study group she only knew as ‘Sarang Church’. Over the coming months, she lost more and more of her life and identity to the group that eventually revealed it was part of a larger South Korean organisation called Providence or JMS – which she was told not to google. Liz managed to find her way out of her indoctrination with the help of her family, and has just released her memoir about her experiences, Cult Bride: How I was brainwashed – and how I broke free.

Links:

• Cult Bride: How I was brainwashed – and how I broke free — by Liz Cameron, Hardie Grant Publishing, June 2025
• liztheformer — Liz Cameron's TikTok channel
• The Cult Next Door — 7News Spotlight episode, 2 July 2023
• In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal — Netflix documentary about Providence/JMS, 2023
• Inquiry into the recruitment methods and impacts of cults and organised fringe groups — Parliament of Victoria, open for submissions until 31 July 2025 and due to deliver findings in September 2026

You can support us on Patreon. Sarah Steel's book Do As I Say is available on audiobook.

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, you can find support with or donate to Cult Information and Family Support if you’re in Australia (via www.cifs.org.au), and you can find resources outside of Australia with the International Cultic Studies Association (via www.icsahome.com).

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The Parliament of Victoria has launched an Inquiry into the recruitment methods and impacts of cults and organised fringe groups, which is open for submissions until 31 July 2025. If you or anyone you know has been involved with a cult that has a presence in Victoria, Australia, you're highly encouraged to make a submission. There’s also an anonymous questionnaire option available for those who might not wish to make a full submission.

Ryan and Catherine Carey are two former members of the Geelong Revival Centre who – along with a working group of other cult survivors – have been at the forefront in instigating this inquiry. They secured the support of Victoria’s Labor State Member for Geelong and Parliamentary Secretary for First Peoples Christine Couzens, and Victorian Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny, who launched the Inquiry in April 2025. It's due to deliver its findings in September 2026.

Links:

• Inquiry into the recruitment methods and impacts of cults and organised fringe groups — Parliament of Victoria, open for submissions until 31 July 2025 and due to deliver findings in September 2026
• Secrets We Keep: Pray Harder podcast
• Stop Religious Coercion Australia — websitem Facebook group, TikTok and Instagram
• Victorian Cult Survivors Network — Facebook group

You can support us on Patreon. Sarah Steel's book Do As I Say is available on audiobook.

If you have been personally affected by involvement in a cult, or would like to support those who have been, you can find support with or donate to Cult Information and Family Support if you’re in Australia (via www.cifs.org.au), and you can find resources outside of Australia with the International Cultic Studies Association (via www.icsahome.com).

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Falun Gong is familiar to many as a spiritual exercise movement, and a sect that has been persecuted by the People’s Republic of China. In Sydney you'll often see practitioners demonstrating by Town Hall with flyers sharing stories of organ harvesting of wrongfully imprisoned members. But former devotees have come forward with stories of coercion and abuse, alleging that in one thing the CCP is correct: Falun Gong is a socially harmful cult.

Full research sources listed here.

Links:

• “I am the only one propagating true Dharma”: Li Hongzhi’s Self-Presentation as Buddha and Greater — by James R. Lewis, ColomboArts Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol II, Issue 2, 2017
• The life and times of Li Hongzhi: ‘Falun Gong’ and Religious Biography — by Benjamin Penny, The China Quarterly 175, 643–661, 2003
• The power of Falun Gong — By Eric Campbell and Hagar Cohen, Foreign Correspondent-Background Briefing, ABC, 21 July 2020
• Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe — The Daily, New York Times Podcasts, 3 April 2025
• Facebook bans ads from The Epoch Times after huge pro-Trump buy — by Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins, NBC News, 23 August 2019
• This Pro-Trump YouTube Network Sprang Up Just After He Lost — by Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed News, 8 January 2021
• A key source for Covid-skeptic movements, the Epoch Times yearns for a global audience — by Alessio Perrone & Darren Loucaides, coda, 10 March 2022
• DoJ accuses far-right Epoch Times of being money-laundering operation — by Richard Luscombe, The Guardian, 4 June 2024
• Behind the Pageantry of Shen Yun, Untreated Injuries and Emotional Abuse — by Nicole Hong & Michael Rothfeld, The New York Times, 15 August 2024
• Stepping Into the Uncanny, Unsettling World of Shen Yun — by Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker, 19 March 2019
• Their posters are everywhere, but behind Shen Yun lies a darker story — by Anthony Segaert, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 February 2025
• Consider supporting Decult in NZ

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In the wake of updates to Child Safety Standards emerging from Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Mirriam Francis wrote to Victoria’s Commission for Children and Young People outlining the ways in which she sees Scientology teachings and practices to be violating these standards. While concepts of religious freedom and choice can muddy the waters of certain discussions around coercive organisations, Mirriam sees the regulations and laws to protect children as a key lens through which such practices need to be viewed and pursued. She speaks from personal experience that spans three countries.

Links:

• Child Safe Standards — Commission for Children and Young People Victoria (you can raise a concern here); Queensland Family & Child Commission (you can raise a concern here)
• Child Safe Scheme — NSW Office of the Children's Guardian (you can raise a concern here)
• Australian Child Safe Standards – A State By State Guide 2024 — Safe Space Legal
• Rage Against the Dark Arts — Mirriam Francis' Substack
• Thetans in Young Bodies — Season 2, Episode 1 of Leah Remini's Scientology and the Aftermath in which Mirriam Francis features
• Report of the Board of Enquiry into Scientology — by Kevin Victor Anderson, Q.C., the State of Victoria, Australia, 1965
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma — by Bessel van der Kolk, Penguin, 2015
• Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice — by Judith Lewis Herman, Basic Books, 2023
• Dianetics excerpt re: 7-year-old child responding to kiss from adult male
• A Children of God message to members mentioning their "friends in Scientology"
• Introduction to Scientology Ethics High Crimes

You can support us on Patreon. Sarah's book Do As I Say is available on audiobook.

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Maria Esguerra escaped the Children of God at the age of 22 with her two children who have disabilities. Maria’s firsthand experience drives her passion to support fellow survivors of cults and institutions, advocating for specialised understanding, interventions and access to governmental schemes such as Redress. Maria has actively engaged in media and advocacy efforts to raise awareness about the challenges faced by people escaping coercive environments. She founded a support group for second and multi-generational survivors (also referred to as SGAs or MGAs) from all cults. It addresses the devastating impacts from these groups, including abuse, denial of basic rights and forced labour. Maria is also a psychologist and the founder of Assessable.

Links:

• Maria Esguerra — Linktree
• Maria Esguerra — Director at Assessable
• Decult profile — Maria's information at the recent Decult Conference
• I lived under the so-called 'law of love' and it was terrifying – cult survivor — by Ryan Boswell, 1News, 17 October 2024
• CIFS Australia — Cult Information & Family Support
• The Olive Leaf Network
• Escaping Utopia — by Janja Lalich & Karla McLaren, Routledge, 2017
• The Strange Situation Experiment — more about Mary Ainsworth's work on attachment theory
• Erikson's stages of psychosocial development — more about Erik Erikson's work
• Make it Meaningful: How to find purpose in life and work — by Debbie Haski-Leventhal, Simon & Schuster, 2023
• Walking Free from the Trauma of Coercive, Cultic and Spiritual Abuse: A Workbook for Recovery and Growth — by Gillie Jenkinson, Routledge, 2023
• Stop Religious Coercion Australia — Advocacy group started by a former Geelong Revival Centre member
• Writing to Reckon — Gerette Buglion's workshops, retreats, journal, and more

You can support us on Patreon. Sarah Steel's book Do As I Say is available on audiobook.

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Gerette Buglion holds a B.A. in Elementary Education and Special Education, and earned her ‘Master's Degree’ in cult awareness education from the school of life. She emerged from her 18-year cult odyssey in 2014 at age 52, and asked herself, "How did I, an educated, caring mother, wife, and business owner become that lost and for that long?" Gerette then set to work studying cultic dynamics, while reclaiming her autonomy with the help of a supportive family, therapy, and countless hours immersed in nature and writing.

Gerette's memoir An Everyday Cult was published in 2021, and followed by her second book, Writing to Reckon Journal – for Survivors of Spiritual, Religious, and Cultic Abuse. She is the founder of Living Cult Free, a nonprofit supporting the creative expression of survivor stories and empowering advocacy through education.

Links:

• Gerette Buglion — Gerette's website
• An Everyday Cult — by Gerette Buglion, 2021
• Writing to Reckon Journal — by Gerette Buglion, 2023 (PDF version for US$5 here)
• Writing to Reckon — Gerette's workshops, retreats, journal, and more
• Living Cult Free — 501c3 nonprofit empowering and educating cult survivors and advocates
• Living Cult Free: the podcast
• Dr Dan Siegel — executive director of the Mindsight Institute and founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA
• Gentle Souls Revolution — Esther Friedman's website
• Faith Jones — author of I Own Me and Sex Cult Nun
• Beth Matanaer — Finding the Path Within You (or as Beth says, "You are your own expert")

You can support us on Patreon. Sarah Steel's debut book Do As I Say is available on audiobook now.

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