This week I welcome Tia Levings, author and survivor of very serious abuse at the hands of not only her Christian Fundamentalist ex-husband but by the entire "purity culture" mindset she was raised in which permeated every aspect of her life. Tia describes very clearly how this is a destructive cult environment and is purposefully created to enforce extreme ideas of gender roles, sexual morality and compliance. 

Tia's website: https://tialevings.com

This week I welcome Reverend Doctor Kenneth Garrett, a Portland-based minister who not only has his own survivor story as a former cult member but who has worked to help setup a community support group for former cult members which has had great success and which anyone can do in their own area. We discuss all of this and more. Enjoy!

This week I welcome Pamela Bowen, a third-generation survivor of the 2x2s, the "cult with no name" which has been appearing in media lately, and rightfully so as it's a religious cult that has enabled a great deal of sexual abuse. This is a harrowing episode but ultimately a successful escape from a destructive cult. Enjoy!

Pamela on Twitter/X: @PamelaHuanani 

This week I welcome Christian Szurko, a cult recovery consultant who has been helping people in their post-cult life for as many decades as I've been alive! Christian and I discuss key principles of cult indoctrination and recovery in this episode. Enjoy!

Christian's website: https://dialogcentre.org.uk/

This week I am talking about how responsibility, causation and blame are used by cult leaders/predators to psychologically enslave their targets with guilt and gaslighting and how this can create not only unrealistic expectations or goals but can trap a person in a prison of belief.

This week I welcome Dr. John Hunter, a psychologist from South Africa who has done some amazing and detailed research on the neurological and psychological factors at play in Large Group Awareness Training systems (such as Est, Landmark and many others) going all the way back to the 1970s to now. We cover a lot in this podcast about how these LGATs were started, what they are doing to the participants and why this is deceptive as a practice. Enjoy!

Dr. Hunter's website: https://JohnHunterPhD.com

This week I welcome guests Rod and Linda Dubrow-Marshall, who created and run the Masters program at the University of Salford in the psychology of coercive control. We had a great deal more to discuss than just the program and dived deep into the legal and ethical problems with cults and how coercive control touches on so many aspects of our lives. Enjoy!

Salford University site: https://www.salford.ac.uk/

This week I welcome guest Annie Dawid, author and professor of creative writing here in Colorado. In this very wide-ranging episode we discuss the history, psychology and life of Jim Jones and the People's Temple as described in a historical fiction novel that Annie wrote. Enjoy!

Annie Dawid's website: https://www.anniedawid.com/

This week I welcome guest Anne L. Peterson, author of "Is This a Cult?", her experiences working in and for Landmark Forum including her multiple interactions with Werner Earhardt, the founder of Est and Landmark. Enjoy!

Anne Peterson's website: https://isthisacultbook.com

This week I offer a discussion on Carl Sagan's "baloney detection kit" and how it helped me learn a more scientific way of thinking and how to avoid manipulation, propaganda and pseudoscience before it became a huge problem. Enjoy!